Trip03

Friday. Got our twelve. Now that felt about right. We were up and about and washed and off by eleven. Rolled down the highway, across the Great Divide (all 7,200 feet of it), and out of New Mexico. Drove through Gallup, Holbrook, Winslow, and Flagstaff. Got to Oak Creek Canyon early Friday afternoon. Oak Creek Canyon is so beautiful, and they have several campgrounds there, but still, we got shut out. We wanted to stop for the night at the one closest to the top of the canyon. Then we kept checking each campground as we went farther down the canyon. By the time we got down to Sedona, Sedona was so crazy with traffic and people, we just wanted to get out. Come to think of it, we had the same reaction the other time we drove through Sedona. We drove on, and found a nice quiet RV Park outside Camp Verde Arizona: Zane Gray RV Park. Down at that low an altitude, 4,000 feet, we really needed to plug in for the night so we could run the air conditioner. This RV Park is a place Dad would have admired. It was the neatest place we’ve ever seen. Every site was perfectly level with freshly laid gravel. The freshly laid gravel in every site was freshly raked. There are only fifty sites, but there must have been six people raking, trimming, spraying, and picking up, all day long. Saw several nice birds: western kingbirds, black-chinned hummers, a hooded oriole, a peregrine falcon, and a hepatic tanager. We hadn’t ever seen the hooded oriole or the hepatic tanager before this. Oreo cookies. Has anyone else noticed how much of a pain the packages are for Oreo cookies? They are really hard to open. And once you do get them open, can you close them to protect the rest of the cookies from getting stale? Have you ever been able to? Well, finally, Oreo has improved their packaging. Now there is lots more plastic to protect the cookies from getting broken. But was that the biggest problem in the first place? But have they figured out how to make the package open without ripping to shreds? Did they figure out how to make it resealable? I can buy flour tortillas in a resealable bag. I can buy shredded cheese in a resealable package. Oreos? No way. I know what it is. It’s a conspiracy to get me to eat the entire package all in one sitting because the rest will just go stale anyway.

Trip02

Thursday. Right in the middle of the rainstorm, I looked at the humidity gauge and it only read 35%. I can understand how it would be less than 100% humidity. The air outside the motorhome is full of water, but there is some space between the water drops, so maybe it could be 99 or 98 or even 95%. But 35% inside? That just doesn’t seem right. Got ten hours of sleep. That’s a good start. Drove off into more rain. I had my oatmeal for breakfast. Judy nuked an egg mcmuffin kind of thing, put her feet up on the dash, leaned her seat back, and went back to sleep. Drove south out of Colorado and over Raton Pass. By the time we got to the town of Raton, we could see out underneath the clouds to the south. We drove the rest of the day, just flirting with the south side of the storm. Intermittent showers. We don’t have to drive very far each day. We left ourselves three days to cover the nine hundred miles to Phoenix. We kept driving and driving, trying to figure out where we wanted to stop today, until we realized we were in danger of driving a 500 mile day. We didn’t want to drive that far, so we pulled over at a rest stop picked a level spot, settled down, and cooked a nice dinner. We didn’t really want to stop there for the night, so we drove on to complete our 500 mile day at a nice State Park Campground, Bluewater Lake, west of Grants New Mexico. I got a picture of Judy air-drying her hair the next morning. The legs felt better today, but I’ve been good about taking my blood pressure medicine, so I couldn’t get much of a heart rate going.

Trip01

Wednesday. We’re off again. We drove off in a light rain. We decided to leave the night before. We got all of a hundred miles before we stopped for the night. Not wanting to be left out of the adventures of our brothers, we stopped for the night at a Wal-Mart. Now we’ve racked up that cultural experience. There were several other motorhomes there, but nobody came out to play or talk with us. I had a nice big loop for my evening run. Patrolled by security. I’ve played hard at racquetball lately, and my legs are pretty dead. We got to listen to rain on the roof all night long. We got a new bed. In the process, we figured out that the guy who had this rig before us had substituted a full queen mattress for the short queen mattress the platform was designed for. I’m not that big a guy, so the short queen length ought to be just fine. It’s as long as a double bed. Since we got the new mattress in, it is remarkable how much more walk-around room we have around the bed. It really is a walk around. I have a question. How can it be 35% humididy while it’s raining?

Weekend

Not a very ambitious weekend. Did get the north garden shoveled and the tomatoes planted though. Water teepees around them. Got the back garden shoveled for the corn too. Didn’t plant the corn. Just weeded and shoveled, and admired the freshly turned dirt.

Got my work done on four different jobs without going in to the office too. Brought the work home. Just a few more weeks to go in busy season.

Drove the Jeep.

Watched a movie.

Sat outside in the fading light, drank coffee, and talked about retirement.


Tow cars

Exploring tow car options.

We’re not happy with the Windstar. It still works, but we’d like to move on. We have been considering the Honda Odyssey. It has walk-through room to the porta-potty, but that doesn’t get us four-wheel drive. We think the ultimate tow car should have four-wheel drive.

We’re looking at the Jeep Liberty. Access to the porta-potty would be from the outside rear, but we would love the improved access to the back country once we park the mother ship.