Last Day in the Sun

Today was laundry day, leftovers, and finish off the beer Paul and Shirley don't like. Do this to keep their RV clear of stuff they don't need. Tomorrow Diane and I head back home in a late morning flight. The weather forecasters are having cardiac arrest down here with multiple days of rain in the forecast. It's been raining the last couple of evenings, but we've been lucky during the day to get some sun and temps in the low to mid 60's. North in Flagstaff and higher elevations they have been getting socked with feet of snow, but right now here the sky's are 90% sun and really very nice. More rain is coming tomorrow, but hopefully I'll be on a plane heading home before it really hits. In fact, it's time to head back to the RV and have one of those cold beers and enjoy the afternoon sun. Anyway, it's Wednesday coffee, I can hear the band firing up the music.. bye bye.

Another party with the Elders

Monday night we headed to Paul and Shirley's friends house to watch a funny DVD and have some beers, wine and food. These are some of the same people we were partying with before so the conversations weren't about who was sick, dead, health insurance etc, since these topics were covered already. Diane was with me this time, so I wasn't the youngest one anymore. These meetings are always fun and entertaining, because you just never know what to expect out of these people. I could write a wild blog entry telling you the details, but I won't. I have a tendency to exaggerate, and you just couldn't post it on a blog. So I'll just throw out some key highlights--------Tea sampling, pillows, knives and knife sharpeners, money changing hands, leading men's magazine, Hostess's niece is Jerri from the TV show Survivor (second season). That's all I can post, but if you think older people are sitting around waiting to die....you should be so lucky!

Actually, in all seriousness, I've set you up for you to take a ride with your imagination on this one. But in the blog world, it's all about page hits and ranking in the search engines, so I need to keep it spiced up!

On the Way Back to Mesa

Sunday after watching the Vikes pound Dallas we headed to the Tucson Botanical gardens to brush up on our cacti identification abilities. The gardens weren't that big, but they did have plenty of cactus to study. Since it was in the afternoon, we got in for half price, which is what we thought it was worth. While I was watching the game in the hotel bar, Diane was visiting with the hotel staff and found out there was a local brewery that we needed to check out. This is where GPS technology really shines. The brewery was buried in a Tucson industrial park, and even with the GPS we ended up circling a little to find it. Looking at the picture, you'd think it was easy to pinpoint wouldn't you? Of course the beer was good...they had an oatmeal stout that really hit the spot. I could only have one though since we had to make our way back to Mesa.

More travel, more towns

Well, just for a complete picture of our travels, I must tell you on our way to Bisbee, we had to travel through Tombstone once again. It seemed like a very good location to take a break, and we just so happen to remember Big Nose Kate's had fresh beer on tap. Since we only wanted to stop for one, I ordered their 'Big Ass Beer' frozen mug for Diane and myself. It was a nice cold 32 ounce mug of Fat Tire. Tasty mighty tasty.

Before we left Bisbee, Diane checked into a gift store that specialized in ghost tools. These are devices to find or ward off ghosts. The two people working in the store had tattoos on their foreheads of some type of Gaelic symbol. Of course Diane is asking them all sorts of questions, I waited outside and made sure we always had an open escape route for a quick departure if needed. After that inspiring visit, and after we left Douglas, we decided we should see if we could drive through one of the many ghost towns that exist in this part of the country. We don't like to follow the same roads, so this seemed like a good idea to run a different route. Well, the maps and travel books were lacking some details, and many of the roads lack effective signage so we headed in what we thought was the right direction. Well, over an hour later we ended up in Tombstone without seeing anything that could possibly be interpreted as a ghost town. But maybe Diane should of bought some ghost tools in Bisbee. Maybe we traveled through them without seeing them. Maybe needed special glasses or something. Kind of like when I was still at work, many used rose colored glasses to hide the nitty gritty details no one wanted to deal with :-)
On to Tucson Saturday afternoon to watch the playoff game, but mostly have a few Tilted Kilt beers in the hotel bar. We stayed in Tucson Saturday night and checked out just in time to head to the hotel bar for some more play off action. Wanted to watch Brett prance around in that ugly purple colored uniform.

How Time Flies

Can't believe it's been since Wednesday since I posted. Well, yes I can, Diane, my wife, flew down on Thursday and we rented a car and headed further south to Tucson and Bisbee. Diane booked us in a very old small motel on the outskirts of Bisbee Friday night, and of course, there wasn't any Internet access. Bisbee is about 100 miles south southeast of Tucson, getting close to the Mexican border. When I say small, I'm not exaggerating like I normally do. The motel is built about 12 inches from the road, is one story and has 7 units to rent. How did she ever find this place and what was the attraction? Two criteria, one it was cheaper than the old hotels downtown Bisbee; that makes me happy. Two, it was the linens that excited Diane. The room was tiny, but the linens and spread were top notch. I have to admit, those sheets were silky smooth, way better than these dry scaly feet deserve. For breakfast you received a coupon for free coffee and a muffin a block down the hill at a cafe and market. We upgraded it to spinach quiche for a couple bucks and had a nice meal before heading down the hill to the downtown area. I was too lazy to take pictures, so here's the motel's web site for anyone interested:
http://www.thejonquil.com/

One of the more interesting sites was the statue across from our breakfast location. Now again, didn't have my camera with me, but I did find another blog that had a picture of it. Take a look:
http://www.brightwingrv.com/blogger/uploaded_images/Copper%20Man.jpg-742625.JPG
Now they refer to this statue as the Stalinist virile miner statue, and several other descriptions of this somewhat strange looking thing. The politically incorrect description would be 'The result of hiring a frustrated horny gay male artist to create a statue for the town."

Since I don't want to be accused of just stealing some one's photo, here is the rest of the blog entry where I found the picture. It has other photos and a nice description of Bisbee.
http://www.brightwingrv.com/blogger/2006/04/bisbee-arizona.html

A little Odd

Ok, I'm in the main lobby, just next to the meeting hall. Like all good RV parks there is a calendar of activities for residents. Today they have coffee served at 3 in the afternoon. This is about 3 hours past the time I would drink coffee. Afternoon is beer time for me. But here, they have coffee time in the afternoon. They have dancing in the morning, but I don't know who would do that without coffee first. It's a little before 3 and I here the accordion playing in the hall. Warming up the crowd before they start pounding the coffee I guess. It sounds a little like waltzes now. But I have the sneaky suspicion that once the old folks are hyped up on coffee they are going to bring the percussion out and turn loose on polkas. Maybe a good coffee pot polka....'roll out the bean pot'....Think it's time for me to escape from here before the music brain washes me.

Put it off long enough

Yup, even retired travelers come to the day when they are out of clean clothes. It was a nice run, but today it is time to introduce myself to the park laundromat. I head over and check it out. Cost a buck a load and all the washers are open. But there aren't any change machines. It's time to make my move. I go back grab my laundry and head to the front desk to get some change for the machines. Front desk informs me they don't have any change and if I need some there is a car wash a half mile down the road next to the tire store that has a change machine. Oh wow. No change machine, no change at the office. Well, Ok, need to regroup. Haul my clothes back to the RV and set out on a walk. I find the change machine, get some change, then as long as I'm walking I head out for a hike. It's much better exercise when you fill your pockets with quarters anyway. I return an hour later, grab my laundry and set out once again for the laundromat. And that is the end of the excitement. I could tell you I had two loads and I forgot to wash my towel, but my goodness, you must have something better than reading that kinda crap in this blog!

Weather started cloudy, but by 1 pm we are back to clear, calm and 70 degrees. Same old, same old.

Computer time

Today Shirley scheduled me to work on a friend's computer while they went to some park for live music. So I spent a few hours updating a machine with patches and antivirus software at their friend's house. It's not hard work, and the advantage is they had a refrigerator in the garage full of beer. That's something I couldn't do when I was working for a living. Otherwise it's been just a lot of relaxing outside and a couple of long walks in the morning around the neighborhood before it gets to warm out. I've walked in two different directions for miles the last couple of days and haven't found any snow. That sun sure gets warm though, guess there is nothing I can tell you that would make you feel that your better off where you are. But I'm sure smiling as I walk down the street in a T shirt!!

Playoff Sunday

Invited to Paul and Shirley's friends place a few miles south of the RV park. They are renting a house for the winter so there is room for a football party. It's been a little different watching the news all week with the hype all around the Cardinals instead of the Packers, but it does make it interesting. Set up a pool among the 7 of us. Since there aren't many people I make an exception to no gambling and throw in a buck. Start the party at 2 pm, 40 minutes before game time with hor d orves and alcoholic beverages along side talk of everyone's health and trips down to Arizona. After kickoff, we continue with the food and drink, with a little less talk until we determine the game is lost, about 5 minutes later. Then talk shifts to whether we should move the party outside where the weather is fantastic. Of course the Pack get back into the game with the incredible display of both teams defenses. Well, the Pack lost, saving possible embarrassment next week when the competition moves up a notch. But not all was lost, I took the old timers for 5 bucks in the second half. After the game, the eating got serious with a full meal of ribs, asparagus, corn, and parsley potatoes with a bottomless glass of wine. Then once everyone was primed up, the conversation turned to politics and health insurance. Luckily it didn't stay on those subjects to long before it switched to less controversial topics such as hospital stays, Mexican dentists and great grandchildren. Wild night that didn't end till well after dark. It had to be almost 9 before we finally pulled out to head back. And that is great, I was the youngest there, but not at my age wanting to stay up all night and suffer with a hangover for 2 days. I'm purposely leaving out the after dinner drinks of Rooster poop and Hot Sex, along with the appearance of muscle ointment, there are standards of communication senior citizens adhere to that just can't be broken, even by this young apprentice.

The weather here has been perfect the last few days. Calm winds, temps in low 70's with the sun shining. So why in heaven's name did they have the roof closed on the stadium yesterday?? I think football should be played outside myself. It would at least give the kickers an excuse for missing easy kicks.

Back in the Groove

Up around dawn again this morning. It's Saturday and there is a breakfast at the other end of the park. Grab your plate fork and coffee cup and march down to the other end for pancakes, bacon, eggs over easy with plenty of coffee. They serve from 7:30 till 9. So if you remember what I reported last year, that means people will be in line by 7:15 and it will be done by 8:30. Sure enough, we are walking over around 8 and a dozen people are headed the other way finished already. We get in line, get our meal and start enjoying it at the tables. By 8:20 the line is gone and no one is coming in anymore. Now this is a different park altogether from last year, so it must be pervasive down here. Is it just me that sees this as strange? It's amazing how some people will go park to park for these meals. You can sit at the table and listen to different people critiquing the meals and prices at different parks.

The weather is calm, cloudless skies and 70 degrees today. It feels great. It should be in the 70's for the next few days. Then possibly dip into the upper 60's. I think I'll be able to handle the cool down this time. We've had plenty of training for cool weather on the way down here.

Crazy news this week: Arizona has cameras used to catch speeders at several intersections. Well, one man decided to open his sun roof and stand up in his car to drive down the city streets at 80 miles an hour. So they have footage from several intersections with his head sticking out of the sun roof racing down the road. Well, of course they caught him and he is going to get 14 speeding tickets and some other reckless charges. Sometimes I think the winter weather in the north suppresses some of this goofiness. I know if he had done that up north he would of been unconscious from the cold after a block and plowed into a tree. Would of saved him 13 speeding tickets though.

Cold in Deming-Day 7

We're back at the familiar busy WalMart at Deming. This is where forces attract aluminum and fiberglass and the town draws RV's like a magnet to a refrigirator. There are several RV parks in town and of course the WalMart is full of RV's in transit.

This morning we made a run to a winery outside of town and started our day tasting wine. It didn't take to long to make a selection and head back to the RV. Shirley had them create a custom blend of their bulk table wines to come up with one that she likes. So now we have an entirely new wine that needs a catchy name. Any suggestions?

Late morning we moved from WalMart to an RV park with electricity, cable, showers and WiFi. This is the town that acts as home base for the Mexico cheap booze and margarita run. Since I experienced this last year, I passed on it this time around and sent Paul and Shirley to Mexico by themselves. I stayed back and spent quality time with my laptop. They reported the town wasn't very busy, except for the Mexican soldiers roaming around the border. I guess they got a free margarita while they shopped at the Pink Store. Maybe I should of gone down there. Naw, that's ok.

Tomorrow, Friday we might finish the last leg of this trip by blasting through to Mesa, AZ. Sounds like it will be in the lower 70's tomorrow....man will that feel good. Guess you people back home won't be seeing anymore of those snow pictures I've been taking. We'll be parking at a different RV park this year in Mesa. Hopefully their Internet access is good.

Preparation for Spelunking

Here's me outfitted up for our tour. Paul helped Shirley get ready before he suited up. These suits are really great, once you have them on your a lot smaller than normal. It's so you can climb through the small openings down in the cave. Paul could of really used one of these outfits for working under the dashboard earlier in the week.

The technology for these suits was first discovered on an alien spaceship that landed just up the road in Roswell. (Sorry, I just can't leave it alone.) Or is this just "Ranger Bob''s uniform from Shirley's Grizzly Park movie.

Carlsbad Caverns and Beyond-Day 6

This morning we toured the Carlsbad Caverns National Park. Took the self directed tour through the Big Room. This was an impressive cave. The tour we took was a mile walk through the specially lit cavern. There are about 3 outer tours besides this one to different areas of the Caverns. One could easily spend all day or even a week at this park touring the caverns or walking the numerous trails on the hills above the caverns. Our tour took about an hour and a half as it was and we wanted to get 385 miles down the road to Deming, NM. by dark. We've been watching the weather, and today was going to be the last decent day for awhile. That cold arctic blast was going to lower the temperature about 30 degrees and the winds were going to be gusting over 40 miles an hour by tomorrow. We decided it would be good to get over the Guadalupe mountains today. RV was running well so we hopefully put those concerns to bed.

We headed down through El Paso, TX. and caught I-10 to Deming. El Paso was bigger than I thought it would be, and of course it's spread out like every other town down here. One word of advice if you head to downtown El Paso; leave your gun at home. The exit for the downtown is clearly marked with a no gun symbol so you won't have any excuse if your down there with it. Another observation coming in from the east on HYW. 180. Both sides of the road alternate between auto junk yards and strip joints for the first few miles of town. Sort of like a redneck Las Vegas. Later down the road it became a normal over crowded heavy traffic city.

Enjoying the weather in Brownfield TX

Here's where we spent part of the day while Paul replaced a switch under the dashboard. There where about 5 trips to the Hardware store across the street, glad it was close. The Autozone where we found a replacement switch was a little under a half mile away. Glad I only had to make one trip. Hey, they don't have sidewalks in Brownfield, and a couple of those dogs have a mean bark.

Here's a good pic of how Paul decided to enjoy the warmer weather.

Day 5 - Oh My

Slept in and didn't get on the road until 8:30. We don't have to far to go today, plan on ending the day in Carlsbad New Mexico. Had a little trouble starting the RV, but got it fired up and running after a couple of minutes. This was fine until we bought gas in Brownfield TX. After filling up the ignition switch didn't switch anything and certainly didn't ignite anything either. Paul poked at some wires and it started after sitting at the gas station for 20 minutes blocking a couple of pumps. We moved it down the block to a church parking lot and enjoyed the slightly warmer weather without spotting any snow. Well, it took until 2 in the afternoon to replace a switch under the dash, but we still made it to Carlsbad NM by sunset. The weather forecast indicates tomorrow afternoon the cold weather is going to catch up with us once again and plunge us below freezing for high temps once again. The destination by the end of tomorrow is Deming, NM. We will tour the Carlsbad caverns in the morning and head west by noon. Will let you know if we beat the cold!

Not to crowded at this site

Of course everything is bigger in Texas. Here's the view of our campsite Monday night. Of course there is snow way down here...still working that homey thing for the people back in Wisconsin.

Tuesday Morning Heading West From Tulsa

Watching the local television in the evening gives us a good perspective of the culture in the area. Just an example, a news show reported a man running from police in Tennessee dragging a stolen Coca Cola machine behind his car at speeds of 80 miles an hour. They had good video footage from the pursuing police car showing the coke machine sparking and swaying back and forth behind the car as they raced down the highway. It finally broke away and slid into a ditch. WoW....WoW.

I think it's about 15 degrees this morning in Tulsa. The ice is encrusted on the windows, ground still covered with snow. Coffee is made by 7:30, windows are scraped, RV engine warmed up, breakfast eaten, power disconnected, side pullouts run in and we're on the road by 8:30. Day 3 powering across the frozen tundra called the lower 48 states. This is getting a little tedious considering I don't think we have gained even a degree in temperature. It gets a little warmer, than overnight drops back down to what we left the day before.

Roads are good and the RV seems to be running well. The roads stayed good, but the RV started acting up again 25 miles down the road. Ugly noise man, all I can say ugly noise from that engine.
We blast down I-40 from Tulsa toward Amarillo Texas in spite of the ugly noise. We added gas to the tank twice until finally the engine settled down, approx. 200 plus miles from when we took on the load of whatever semi flammable liquid they sold us under the name of gasoline. By the second half of the day the RV was running like a fine tuned highly mobile self contained house. We fly into Amarillo looking for I-26 south toward Lubbock TX but were only partially successful. So we continued down I-40 while we fumbled with maps and the finally turned on the GPS to figure out where we actually were. Twenty minutes later we were back tracking and heading to our day's destination of Plainefield TX. Which we made right at sunset.

Savior in Coveralls

Here's our mechanic from Macy's Mobile Service. We were told he goes by the name of Pumpkin, and that's the name painted on the front of his work van. He was very friendly considering he had to drive 20 miles on snow covered back roads to get to us on a Sunday. He suspected we had a tank of bum gas, and the older plugs didn't help the matter. New spark plugs, plug wires, and a special cocktail in the gas tank got us back on the road by the middle of the afternoon. Everything was fine until we were almost to Tulsa, OK., then some pinging started up again, although not as severe as earlier. At dusk we found a spot in an RV/Mobile home park in Tulsa. We'll start out in the morning and pick up some gas to see if that takes care of the problem.

Down (and out) in Missouri

We found a mechanic to come out in the snow on Sunday to help us out. Here we sit at a gas station waiting for the mechanic to get parts for the RV. I thought the snow bank adds a nice homey touch to the photo for everyone left at home. It's sort of like we're just down the block without leaving home yet. Enjoy these now, I'm really hoping I soon won't find any snow to take a picture of...really really hoping.

Snow, Looks Like Home

About 3 inches fell overnight. We decide to try the Interstate and head out around 10 am. We make it past Joplin to within 4 miles of the Misssouri and Oklahoma border. This is where the missing in the engine started up. We back track to a Petro Truck stop and here is where we sit waiting for a mechanic to take a look. Pretty sure there isn't going to be much progress made today. Word is the road sucks through Tulsa anyway. Glad I've got plenty of reading material.

Paul making friends? Or thinking of survival.

Didn't take Paul long after parking the RV to interact with the wildlife. Not quite sure if he's making friends or thinking about what we should have for supper.

Paul did mention he thought his 'friend' was a little thin. I'm thinking there won't be enough for three of us. Anyway, if we get snowed in tonight how are we ever going to find him against the snow. It will be tough searching for that little orange beak moving across the snow.

Few hundred miles and 16 more degrees

We had to scrape the ice off the windows this morning before we could get under way. Not the outside like you would think, no the inside of all the windows had a thick layer of ice. If I wasn't inside all night huddled under 5 blankets sleeping I'd wonder what the heck was going on in there! Hey it came from cooking up a storm. It took a lot of extra stove time to thaw our food we were having for supper. That and one of the water jugs sprung a leak and soaked the floor in the RV bathroom. At least that is what Shirley is claiming happened.

It was 4 or 5 degrees this morning when we left Southern Illinois. We are now near Joplin MO at a campsite and it's already up to 21 degrees. It's not going to drop to much tonight because of the snow moving in around midnight. So it will be warmer when we wake up tomorrow, we just don't know what the roads are going to look like. Tomorrow could get dicey. Of course I'll let you know since you are enjoying our struggle to reach some warmer weather.

Happy Freezing Fricking New Year!!

Today we began our trek south to warmer weather, or so we thought. We are now at the same campsite we were last year after the first day of driving south. Only difference this year is I still see snow on the ground and it's about the same temperature as when we left Wisconsin. The drive so far has been nicely uneventful. While driving the RV this year I did a lot better of a job keeping the beast between the lines on the road. It's like riding a bike, it comes back to you quickly. At least I think so, I never really rode a bike this damn big and heavy before.

The most interesting thing so far has been Shirley describing a movie she watched on cable a few weeks ago. It sounded like a slasher movie to me and I was surprised she watched the entire movie. It involved delinquents, grizzly bears, and Ranger Bob. These characters where involved growling, blood, decapitation, severed limbs and other macabre action. I don't think I could sit through it. Now knowing what Shirley's taste in movies is, I wonder what I'm getting into on this trip.