Wrap-Up of 2011 Trip

Thursday, August 18 - Well, we've had a few days at home - busy, busy, days, so I thought I better do my final blog and get on with life in the desert.  Our second "retirement trip" was wonderful, ran a very close second to last year's trip to Alaska.  We just didn't see any bears this year!


As with last year, when we left (March 29), we had no definite return date set, but I really expected we would be home sometime in July.  Wrong.  This year's trip was 139 days, 2 days longer than last year!  That was a surprise, although it felt like we had been gone forever.   This year's trip took us through 16 states--(Arizona, New Mexico, Texas (3 times), Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana (2 times), Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and Oklahoma.  We saw severe storms, severe flooding, followed by severe heat and severe drought.

We drove 9,695, only 595 less than last year.  We didn't keep track of the mileage on the Explorer, but we're guessing around 6,000 driven (in addition to the 9,695 it was towed).  Our biggest unexpected expense was repair on the Explorer in Florida -- and that was a chunk.  Unfortunately, we need to take it in now for another noise it has developed. Joe fought the whistles around his window the entire trip, so that is definitely something we need to track down during our "off season."  But the RV served us very well, and we love traveling in it.

We saw lots of deer, and turtles, and alligators, a few dolphins and a few antelope.  Our most exciting sighting was probably the armadillo in Louisiana, although those alligators were pretty cool.  We saw lots of exotic birds, especially in Florida, and especially Bridgette's favorite, the sandhill cranes which we saw frequently.

We didn't wear our rain jackets very many times, although we did wear complete mosquito netting coverage in the Everglades, and we got to enjoy the beach and get in the water (more than just a toe) in both the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean.


Our most exciting "event" was getting to see the last shuttle launch at Cape Canaveral.  We had not planned on that one, but were delighted that it worked out so that we could witness that awesome event.  That is certainly a highlight of a lifetime.  However, maybe even more of a highlight was watching Bridgette get hooded as she received her Ph.D. in May.  Congratulations again to Bridgette.

We toured the Daytona 500 Racetrack, as well as the one in Homestead, Florida.  And we got to attend the Brickyard 400 in Indianapolis (thank you, Cathy and Joe), another totally unexpected opportunity.  We also toured the Kennedy Space Center a month before the launch, and got to see the shuttle sitting on the launch pad.  We went to our first horse race.  We got to see Indiana harvesting the melon crops, which was fun to see after so many years away from that (and we were so glad we were not out in the fields picking those melons.)  We toured the Oklahoma City Memorial, which was very emotional, but well worth a stop.  We also got to spend a couple days in Branson, Missouri, which was totally entertaining except for the heat there.  We went snorkeling at Key West, toured several museums and old forts, and explored two National Parks -- Big Bend, Texas, and the Everglades in Florida.  We drove by Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas, but didn't have time to explore it.  Another trip, I guess. 

We spent a lot of time with family this year, in Indiana with all our relatives there, and in Florida with John and Bridgette for 5 weeks.  Since we were in Vincennes to celebrate Lucille's 95th birthday, we got to see almost everyone in the immediate family, and some of the extended family as well, cousins that we hadn't seen for several years.  However, in addition to our Indiana family, our trip included visits to a nephew and his family in Florida, a niece and her husband in Tennessee, a cousin and his family in Tennessee, and we made new friends with Dave and Mazie's nephew and his family in Ruidoso, New Mexico, where we also hooked up with a couple of our friends.  So last year's trip was all about travel; this year's trip was a lot, but not all, about visiting. South Carolina was the only state we visited this year that I had not been to before, but Joe had even been there, although we took different highways and byways than we had ever taken before, in almost all the states we crossed.

The trip certainly counts as a success.  And there are some of the places we went that we know we want to go back to.   There's a canyon near Amarillo, Texas (Palo Duro Canyon) which is the second largest canyon in the U.S. that sounds very interesting.  They put on a show in July and August out there, so we hope to catch it sometime.  Also, we would like to go back to Branson more "in season," maybe in the fall some year.  And Ruidoso is definitely someplace we will probably return to, maybe every year in August. 

Our grandkids grew while we were gone.  Cody is just 6 weeks away from getting his driver's license.  He just started his Sophomore year, and Kaylee just started 5th grade.  We miss them so much when we are traveling, and that's the driving force that gets us home.

Of course, we have a "to do" list now.  The first thing we had to take care of was getting the license plates for the truck.  It has to have emissions every year so we could not renew that while we were on the road.  But, alas, the batteries died on it while we were gone.  After leaving it on the charger overnight, Joe decided there was no life left in them, so we replaced them yesterday, then Joe drove it down and ran it through emissions.  So we are now just waiting for the new tag to arrive in the mail.  The TV didn't work right when we got home, and we found out the  Direct TV box was bad, so we are waiting for the new box to arrive in the mail (we had error code 14-200, which was apparently fatal).  The shower nozzle in our shower was plugged up with calcium, sand, or something, so when I went to take a shower Tuesday morning, no water would come out.  So Joe changed that out, soaked it in vinegar, and we are back in business on that front.  And our box trailer has a flat tire, as does the little trailer we pull behind the quad.   And at the top of our "to does" is to lose the 10 pounds we gained on this trip, then work on the next 40-50 pounds we need to lose.  That, of course, is the toughest "to do" of them all.

On the horizon, Joe has to have surgery on his other foot as soon as we can get that scheduled.  We hope to do a little fishing this fall.  I've joined the bowling team from my ex-work, so I'm looking forward to that.  And we are going to Big Lake (Arizona) over Labor Day Weekend with Jeff and Brenda.  We are not making plans any further out until we find out about the foot surgery.

We have no big trip planned for next year at this point -- we're leaving all our options open at this time, but we will be going to visit Lucille sometime so we always know Indiana is an annual event (I am trying to skip April in Indiana, though, since that seems to be the height of Indiana Tornado Season).   And probably Florida will be an annual trip as well, although that is a very long drive from here!

I'm sure I've forgotten some important events and visits, so please forgive me for that -- it is not intentional, but early senility has certainly set in.  We loved the trip, and we are very happy to be home now.  For a while.

Heading Home

Monday, August 15 -- We did get an early start this morning (8:15), not knowing where we would end up tonight.  Ruidoso is full of Texans, but traffic was light this morning in town, so we assume they must have all gone home last night.  My sister-in-law from Indiana (Judy) left me a message Saturday night that Lucille's storm warning radio was going off again -- it was Severe Storm Warning Number 775.  See, I wasn't kidding about those Indiana storms!

I am sure hoping we can make it into Arizona today.  Shortly after we left Ruidoso, which we loved, by the way, we drove through a volcanic area named the Valley of Fire.  The lava rock was very dramatic -- reminded me of one of the Hawaiian Islands we toured a few years ago.

As we continued on through New Mexico, we saw three antelope, and later on we came upon a buck just before we crossed into Arizona, so those 4 antelope are the only ones we saw this whole trip.  We crossed the Rio Grande River again, hadn't seen it since Texas.  But it was not much more than a mud puddle here.  And as we came on into the next town, (San Antonio, New Mexico) we could see why.  They do a lot of irrigating here, and we're sure they pull the water off the Rio Grande.  We picked up I-25 here for about 11 miles, then headed west again through Socorro (we missed a turn in this town, so we got to drive right down Main Street).

Near Socorro, we came upon some weird-looking towers, looked like flying saucers.  It was the National Radio Astrology Observatory.

There were two rows of these dishes, going in different directions.  As we drove across this state, we saw the wide variety of terrain this state offers.  Here are some of the many faces of New Mexico (barren desert, green mountains, rocks).  This drive across 380, then US 60 was absolutely beautiful.  We drove in the mountains all day, at elevations mostly in the 6000-7000 ft. range, in and out of rain showers, with temperatures fluctuating between the 60s to the mid-80s.  At 1:00 p.m., we were at 7800 ft., with a temperature of 64 degrees as we drove through part of the Cibola Forest.

This road was not very busy, and I guess it must not get much traffic, because Joe hit two birds today.  They apparently don't know they are supposed to go a little higher when they see us coming.  During one rain shower, the temperature got down to 60 degrees, but as we drove out of it, it was back up to 77 in about 30 minutes.

At 2:10, we hit the Arizona border!!!  Things are looking good for us to get home today.  We are a little over halfway -- 250 miles from Ruidoso.

And Arizona is looking GOOD!  They must be getting plenty of rain up here in this White Mountains area, because it is green, green, green.  We thought we might see some of the damage from the Monument Fire earlier this summer, but everything we saw was very green.

We fueled early this morning in Carrizozo ($3.579), and our second fuel stop was in Show Low, Az ($3.539).  We were making good time, so I think this is about where Joe decided to drive all the way home today.  We hit Payson about 4:15 (Arizona time zone now) and decided to stop for an hour or so at the casino, and eat dinner there so we didn't get home right in the heat of the day.  So as we left there a little after 6:00 p.m, (we are now only about 2 hours from home), it started sprinkling and we had to run clear across the parking lot to the RV -- not a pretty sight.  Just after we got out of town, we came upon stopped traffic due to an accident.  We had to wait about 10 minutes, but then they started letting traffic through.  A Penske truck had apparently lost control coming down the curvy mountain and landed on its side.

We didn't see any ambulances or helicopters, so we hope no one was seriously injured.  We came into Mesa just as it was getting dark -- who knew it gets dark here at 7:30?? -- and we were reminded once again of the beauty of our home state.  We got to enjoy a beautiful sunset.

And the drive past Saguaro Lake never gets old.

We made our third fuel stop of the day just 2 miles from home ($3.299) and got home just about 8:00 p.m.  I think this was our one and only 3-fuel stop day ($335.05, 95.65 gallons).  Joe drove 465 miles today, so his homing instinct is pretty strong, too.

We were expecting to walk into a hothouse, but, bless Eric who had walked over this afternoon and turned on the air conditioner and the water, we came into a cool house.  We walked over to see our babies before they went to bed, and surprised them -- they didn't expect us for at least one more day, and maybe two.  They were happy to see us, and we were thrilled to see them!  We have a lot of work to do tomorrow to get unloaded, by we are finally home.  YEAH!

I have one more blog to do -- a wrap up of this year's trip, then I'm done blogging.  Maybe forever.

Sunday in Ruidoso

Sunday, August 14 - Dave and Mazie were driving over to Carrizozo to visit friends, so Joe and I went off on our own.  I suggested shopping, Joe suggested going for a drive.  Guess who won.  So we drove up to Ski Apache , which was a 12-mile, uphill drive, but on a good road.  The scenery all the way up was beautiful.

When we got to the top, which was about 11,400, we were surprised to find out they had a gondola running to the top of the ski lift, so we took a ride.

We crossed over a little creek, and the view all the way up and down was breath-taking.

At the top, we could see for miles.  In fact, we could even see the White Sands in the far distance.  The elevation at the top was 11,400, and the temperature was a crisp, breezy 53 -- we figure that's just about half of Phoenix's temperature today.   Fortunately, I had a sweater in the car, and it felt pretty good up here!  The gondola ride itself was about 15 minutes each way, so it was a nice, easy ride, with a great view both coming and going.  Interestingly, there was a "lightning meter" up here, which told how far away the lightning was.  Fortunately, today it was not registering anything (yet), but I didn't even know such a thing existed.

In the car we reached an elevation of just over 10,000 ft. 

From the top, we could see a couple of campgrounds and lakes, so we decided to check them out.  At the first one, which was part of the National Forest, we came upon two turkeys (who had a little bit to say about our interrupting their lunch).

At the second campground, which was on the reservation, we could see wild horses grazing up on the side of the mountain in the distance.  This photo is really fuzzy because they were so far away, but there were 7 of them on the mountainside.

There were also lots of bluejays in this campground, for some reason.  Their colors were very bright in the sunshine. 

This campground had some great views, and we were told they see a lot of wildlife here -- deer, elk, bear, and the wild horses even come through sometimes.  There was a small fishing lake here, as well, so this place definitely has some possibilities for future visits -- although a little manual labor could go a long way to making this a really nice campground.

We drove down a few side roads (dirt) checking out other spots to camp.  As we neared civilization, we came upon some deer - 5 in all.

We drove into town for lunch, then we came back out to the road to check out the Eagle Creek RV Resort, which was a nice campground, also for future reference.  We stopped at the casino for an hour, waiting for Dave and Mazie to get back in town.  They called us from Jim and Rita's, so we went back to their cabin to say our goodbyes.  They are a really nice, fun group, and we are fortunate they included us in all their activities this weekend.  I told Lauren about Bridgette's power shoes, so she modeled hers for us.

We visited for a while, then Mazie and I made our final visit to the casino -- this time, we went to a different one which is only about a mile from our campground.  Someone had told Mazie it paid better than the other one, but I could not verify that.  At all! 

Monday morning is our departure day.  Dave had hoped to be on the road about 7:00, so we got up early to tell them goodbye.  It was 54 degrees at 6:30 when I got up, and Joe even got up 10 minutes later.  But we didn't see the Johnsons until after 7:00, so they are running a little behind this morning.  Ar'gent had a rough night -- broke out in pink welts, so they are all a little tired this morning.  As I write (7:15 a.m.), Joe is outside washing our windows, then we will de-camp and hit the road -- heading to Arizona's heat (and our grandchildren!). 

Saturday

Saturday, August 13 - Happy Birthday, Fred.  We had a pretty full day today.  We had to do a little housecleaning since we were expecting company.  Our friends from Alamagorda, NM drove up to visit (Ken and Grace), so we had a nice time with them.  They took us to lunch at the casino champagne brunch (none of us got champagne, though), and we all sat there outside the lodge enjoying the view.  It was fun to catch up with them.  Dave and Mazie met the others out at the casino, but we didn't see them.  Rita has been winning big on the tables, and Mazie wanted to show Lauren the slot machine she has been playing all week.

Shortly after Grace and Ken left, we went back to Jim and Rita's for a cookout, and to meet Rita's daughter (Lauren) and son-in-law (Clint).  Except for about setting the patio on fire, it was a good time (the hamburger grease got the grill flaming pretty good).  We see at least one deer about every time we go over there, but we didn't see the babies today.  We had a fun evening with them (and a great dinner). 

When I got up this morning (Sunday), it was 55 degrees (inside and out, since we left the windows up front open).  Our time here is winding down -- today is our last full day here, then we should be somewhere in Arizona tomorrow.  This is a place we hope to come back to -- maybe every year in August.   

Horse Race at Ruidoso Downs

Friday, August 12 - I decided I was going to have to do laundry one more time before we get home, so this morning I took on that chore first thing.  Joe went to McDonald's and got us breakfast sandwiches and brought them back to the campground, so we sat at their outside tables and ate while my laundry dried.  After that, Mazie and I did a little shopping, then it was time to go to the horse race.  Although this was a first for us, we have been to lots of dog races, which are very similar, except the animals are bigger, and they have riders.  So they paraded out the horses in the first race, and we made our bets.  Someone at the casino had told me about a bet called the "10 cent superfecta box," where you pick 4 horses to come in first, in any order, but all four have to be the first four horses.  It's a $2.40 bet.  So that's what I did.  And I won the first race ($22.53).  Joe bet his 3-horse quinella box, where he picks 3 horses, 2 of which have to come in first and second.  He won the third race.

And here they come!  There were 9 races today, and between 6 and 9 horses in each race.

 We got the first two races in, and the clouds just kept building.  All of a sudden, it let loose, and just poured!  They delayed the next race for a while, and we took cover back inside.

It finally slacked off, and back to racing.  But the track was now considered "sloppy," and it was!  But they resumed, and now we got to watch them racing in the rain, on a very muddy track.

It rained off and on for most of the rest of the races.  We found some seats in the very back row that were not too wet, so we dried them off and sat down.  About the time the race was over, it cleared back off.  Overall, I came out 90 cents ahead, Joe cleared $6.00, and Dave thought he won $20+.  Mazie won a couple of races but I don't think she came out ahead overall, and I'm not sure how Jim's winnings stacked up.  I do know he won $3.00 on a $6.00 bet once.

So we went back to camp, and Rita and Catherine (who had gone shopping) came by to visit for a while and pick up Jim.  We had a quick sandwich, then Mazie and I went back, again, to the gambling hall.  But alas, her luck had run out, so she donated to the casino.  I came up a little bit short, but not too much. 

We are so enjoying this cool weather here -- what a nice respite before we hit the heat next week.  This is a very pretty little mountain town, one I hope we can come back to in future years.

Wednesday and Thursday in Ruidoso

Wednesday-Thursday, August 10-11 - I really wondered what we were going to do for a whole week here in Ruidoso, but there seems to be more things to do than there is time to do them.  Wednesday, Joe, Mazie and I went to Walmart to pick up a few groceries, and Joe greased the RV.  As we were driving through town, this huge RV, towing a huge truck (like a Budget truck) passed us.  Made our little old Explorer look like a toy behind our rig.

Then Mazie and I went back to the casino to try our luck again.  She has found a machine that is very good to her, so she is addicted.  Then it was time to pick up the guys and go out to Jim and Rita's for the steak barbeque.  They have a beautiful cabin, in a beautiful setting with a high deck overlooking the distant mountains.

While Dave and Jim were grilling the steaks, we heard a dog that sounded like he was in distress.  Rita raced out the front door -- at first she thought it was her dog, but it wasn't -- and that mamma deer we saw yesterday was stomping a dog with her hooves.  The dog finally was able to get up and run off, but the deer stood across the road for a long time, while Rita checked out the dog.

We sat down to our wonderful steak dinner, and I could see across the street where that same mamma deer was grazing and her two fawns were nursing.  So she must have them bedded down pretty close to Jim and Rita's house, and that's why she was so protective when the dog showed up.    It certainly added some excitement to the evening.

Thursday morning, we all got together for breakfast at a local restaurant, then Dave took us, Mazie, and his sister, out on another tour.  We stopped at the Merchant Marine Cemetery, which has lots of military graves, and even some graves of prisoners of war from WWII.  We could see forever out here, and the scenery was beautiful.

Then we went to the Ft. Stanton Museum, which dates back to the Indian wars.  We could not enter most of the buildings, but we did see the museum and a short video of its history.

They hold reenactments out here every year in August -- we missed that by one weekend.  We finished the tour here and drove back to the cabin, where we visited for a while.  Dave and Catherine seem to be enjoying each other's company.

We visited for a while in their very comfortable cabin, then went back to the campground.  Jim and Rita were planning on going golfing, but a thunderstorm came through so they had to cancel.  It rained pretty hard as we drove through town, and sprinkled off and on most of the afternoon.

After a short rest, Mazie and I went back to our favorite casino, but she was never able to play her machine.  Then we came back to pick up the guys because we were meeting Jim, Rita and Catherine for dinner (we are not going hungry here!).  When we came back from that, Joe decided he would go to the casino with us for a while, so off we went again.  Mazie had a good night -- she got back on her machine, but Joe and I didn't do so well.  The temperature stayed in the 70s today, and even though it rained, it was a beautiful day out of the heat.