Leaving Amarillo (Mon.)

After Lauren and Clint left, we got ready to go out to the Palo Duro Canyon State Park musical show.  We stopped off for dinner and headed out, arriving just about sunset at the Canyon.  The sides of the canyon were beautiful with the setting sun shining on them.

 The first parking lot was full, but we got lucky and Mazie, and the rest of us, got to ride in the wagon from the second parking lot.  There wasn't any hay in it, but it was a nice ride.

 Joe thinks I need to take a picture of all these pretty Texas girls.

This show, which is in its 48th year, is billed as "a musical romance of Panhandle History."  We actually knew very little about it, and we were just blown away.  It was absolutely wonderful, and the second half was even better than the first.  It had lots of cowboy and cowgirl singing and dancing, drama, special effects, horses, and fireworks.  Everything was amazing, and I would encourage anyone traveling through Amarillo in the summer time to make time to take it in.  The cast numbered close to 50, and there were lots of different sets.  It was all very well done, and they used the beautiful canyon walls behind the pavilion as a backdrop, with lights highlighting different colors during the show.  It ended with a beautiful patriotic tribute and a water show with fireworks.  We loved the whole thing.

However, it kept us out past our bedtime.  It didn't start until 8:30, and ended about 10:45, so it was almost 11:30 by the time we got back to our RVs.  But an early phone call (6:50 a.m. Texas time) got me out of bed this morning, and  I gently persuaded Joe that he might as well get up so we could get on the move, and we were on the road at 8:00 a.m.  Dave and Mazie were moving around but they were not ready to go yet, and we were heading out different ways, although our routes would eventually intersect, so we didn't wait on them.  It was a little windy, about 69 degrees when we started out, and we ran into light rain pretty quick.  It rained on us off and on all day, and the temperature ranged from 59 to about 76, depending on our elevation and the clouds.  We took I-40 across to Santa Rosa, NM, and hit the New Mexico state line just after 9:00 a.m..  Then we dropped down on US 54 to Vaughn, and picked up US 60 and took that all the way to ARIZONA!  Yes, we made it to Springerville; Joe drove 486 miles today - a real marathon.  About 9 hours in the saddle.  We saw a couple antelope just after we turned off I-40 at Santa Rosa, but that was all of today's wildlife.  We crossed 2 time zones, and hit the Arizona state line at 4:40 Texas time (2:40 AZ time). The mountains in this part of western New Mexico and eastern Arizona are really green.

We found a campground in Springerville and finally got parked -- the host had left suddenly because they had lost power right before we got here, so we had to wait around for a while to find someone to take care of us.  And by this time, we were ready to be taken care of and get settled.  We drove into town for dinner, then settled in for the night.
Meanwhile, our buddies, Dave and Mazie, didn't fare so well today.  They had problems with their Dodge just before they got to Vaughn, and had to wait for a tow out of Roswell.  I think that was about a 5 hour wait, and when the guy showed up, he thought he figured out what was wrong (the wire connection behind the fuel filter was loose), so he didn't think he was going to have to tow them afterall.  He was going to follow them into the next town (Vaughn, NM).  We were a couple hours ahead of them when they called us and said they had not made it to Vaughn, but they didn't want us to turn around and come back, so we continued on.  We will check on them again tomorrow.

So the plan for us now that we are in Arizona is to leave our RV in Springerville in the morning, and drive home in the car (about 4 hours).  We will load the quads into our box trailer, hook it up to the truck, leave the car at home, and drive back up to Springerville on Wed. morning probably, if all goes well and no disasters await us at home.  We will then pick up the RV and go find a place out in the Apache Forest to dry camp and ride quads for several days, then move over to the campground at Big Lake on the 21st and spend another 5 days camping there (maybe do a little trout fishing).  Our friends Jeff and Brenda, Collins and Marilyn and Danny and Sherry are all going to meet us later this week for the dry camping/quad riding, and then Big Lake.  Assuming all goes well with everyone.

So this will probably be my last blog of this trip, because we don't expect to have an internet signal for the rest of our stay.  I'll probably do a recap of the trip sometime after we finally get home at the end of the month, mostly for my own records.  This has been a great trip; we've seen and done a lot of wonderful things, but it's been a lot of days (117) and miles (6,518) since we left on April 18, and we are ready to be home.