Road Trippin'

Tempus Fugit, My Friends

2009-09-27T09:41:00.016-05:00

Boy, has it been six months already? Where does the time go? It seems like only yesterday that we were sitting here catching up on old times and now it I guess it's time to do it again.

In some ways, a lot has happened this summer and in others, not so much. We left Texas in May, made our way northeast to visit LeAnna's family, and then onward to Ohio to spend the summer with my parents. We were expecting to hear good things from Social Security this summer. Well, we were half right. I did get a favorable decision, and I started getting monthly checks, but for some reason it seems there were was some kind of blockade stopping my getting the back pay.

We had a myriad of projects to keep ourselves occupied with during the summer. We made two new couches, with accompanying throw pillows, of course. I made a new dog bed, I sewed tablecloths for my dad's booth at the flea market, in fact, I think I did more sewing this summer than I have my entire life. I sewed so much. I actually wore a sewing machine out. Okay well...It was a used sewing machine when I got it, but still...

Since my machine was broke down, I put the rest of the sewing jobs on the back burner and attended to some other items on the list. I made valances for all the windows, remade a cabinet interior to better suit our needs, and made a small enclosed shelf for our DVR. One day, as I was changing oil or something, my dad comes out to tell me there was a sale on sewing machines at one of the local shops. Since he appreciated all the work I'd been doing for him, he said that we would go down and look at the machines and if we found one at a reasonable price, he'd buy it for me. In the back of my mind I was wondering if there was something not quite right about a 50-year-old heterosexual man being excited at the thought of getting a new sewing machine.

~~Sew~~ So, off to the store we went. I won't bore you with the details of looking at the various machines, just suffice it to say that I walked out the proud owner of a new Bernina model 56. NO, not a Beretta...a Bernina.

The new machine runs like a champ and I actually think I sew faster, better and can actually jump higher. Well, not as high as she's going to jump, but you get the picture. So, filled with the fervency of my foray into fabulous fabrication, I once again began to sew.

LeAnna has been ~~harping~~ mentioning that she would like to have cloth grocery bags...for quite some time now. I did already have the plans for them, so we went in search of discount material. I thought we'd never be able to make them cheaper than the quality craftsmen that Wal-Mart uses. I was pleasantly surprised to find that we actually could make them for about $1 each. And the plus side is we can make them in a variety of colors and patterns!

I decided that while we had slack time in "drydock" I would do a couple of projects I've been ~~dreading~~ putting off for a long while. One of our exhaust manifolds has been leaking for a while now, in need of a new gasket. It was coming to the top of the list now, and I could no longer put it off.

After several attempts, I finally got the part I needed. You'd think having a part number would make things easier. Apparently the only thing it does is makes the counter person work harder to come up with a reason why your part number is no good.

I got the thing fixed, though. Since we were still awaiting word on the back pay, I filled my days with routine maintenance on our rig and my nights with ~~drinking~~ other mindless activities.

After what seemed like a thousand trips to the local Social Seurity office, coaxing, pleading and basically having to do their work for them, I was finally successful in prying the check from their cold, cold hands.

So at long last we have an end to this five year travisty. I said "travesty", not missi...well I guess it was kind of a mission at that. Anyway, after the check cleared we immediately headed to the local toy store where we bought this, this, and two of these. Yes, in red. Red ATV and both scooters...red. I did go for the understated "pewter" for the trailer, however. Why be a complete show off? Besides, it goes better with our coach.

As I write, we are awaiting the delivery of the second scooter. After which, we have just 2 weeks to paint the inside of the trailer, build shelving and load all our crap up so we can hit the road. Oh, yeah...we also have to make an overnight trip to Camping World in Indy to have an overdrive unit put on our rig. That'll play a pivotal role in our ability to get that huge (20') toy box moving smoothly down the pike.

We're heading out of here on the 16th of October for Benson, AZ. We finally got the job we've been interested in for the past couple of years. It's Butterfield RV Resort. LeAnna will be playing the part of entertainment director while yours truly will be volunteering to help out in the observatory with the resident astronomer! They have a pretty large scope there and I will be in charge of it four nights a week! That's right "Large and in charge".

We're going to be making a couple of detours to see friends and family on the way down. We expect to be there on the 26th, so it should be a fairly easy trip (he says with fingers crossed).

Until me meet again....

A Life...er Phone Changing Experience

2009-04-12T22:57:00.005-05:00

Have you ever acquired something that, up until the point you got it, seemed to be a "meh" thing, only to find out after you get it that you don't know how you ever lived without it? Ladies & gentlemen, such a thing is...The BlackBerry Storm.

What, you ask, is "The BlackBerry"? (And, yes, it's mandatory that it be called "The BlackBerry", kinda like saying "Chuck Norris" or "Steve McQueen".) More than a mere cell phone, The Blackberry is a geek-link between mere mortals and the techno world that surrounds us.

Of course it's a phone, but that's just where it begins. With The Blackberry you can take & store pictures. "Big deal", you say, "My phone does that". Yes, but The Blackberry has a 3.2 megapixel camera and a 3.25" screen to look at those pix. Oh yeah...it does video, too.
I know!!

"But Mark, where does the 'geek-link' thing come in"? Ok, how about this...not only does it show pictures and video, it plays movies & it can stream videos and TV from the web, 'cause it gets internet! The Blackberry will also play live radio from 100's of stations all over the world. And you never have to worry about data charges with The Blackberry, 'cause IT'S FREE!!

Using the internet is pretty sweet too. There is an onscreen pop-up keyboard that is actually pretty functional. The BlackBerry has THE BEST picture resolution of any phone currently on the market, so not only do your videos and pix look crisp, you can actually see the web pages you are surfing.

Also, using the net and built in GPS, it can get maps, it knows where you are & can show you everything from gas (with prices) and eats to shopping and campgrounds. It even will search out things like festivals or movies and give you descriptions of the movies, the show times, directions to the theaters and ticket prices. It will not only give you a map to & from, but will talk you through a turn by turn navigation.

Hold on a minute, I gotta wipe some drool off the keyboard.

Of course you can do all the other dumb junk like record voice reminders to yourself and make To Do lists, but this thing also runs Microsoft applications like Word, Excel, and Powerpoint! gaak! *sorry I got excited again*.

What in the wide world of sports could possibly top that? Close, but no. I'll tell ya what tops that...

I get my email right off the phone, in real time. I can send and receive text, picture, and video messages. With The Blackberry, you can instant message on AOL, Yahoo, Google Talk, Windows Live, & Blackberry Messenger, all for free! It has an internet browser that allows you to see web pages in the same format that you would see them on your computer. None of that "mobile browser" chop and missing images for me.

The Blackberry has 128mb of flash memory for the operating system, and has a further 1gb for running applications. On top of that it comes with an 8gb memory card that is dedicated strictly to user junk. So I could put a couple o' thousand songs on, or almost 4000 pictures, or...well you get the idea. If there ever comes a time when 8gb isn't enough, I can get a 16gb card for about $60.

Let's put it this way...I have 195 songs, 8 full length movies, five 1hr TV shows, a few dozen pictures and some ring tones on mine, and it's just about 2/3 full. No really!

Oh yeah, did I mention you can make your own ring tones for free? Any part of any song, up to 30 seconds long. Good-bye ring tone vendors.

For those of you who are into the social networking scene, The BlackBerry comes preloaded with applications for Facebook and Flickr, and supports My Space as well, definitely a plus in LeAnna's book.

Actually The BlackBerry has so many features, if I had listed the stuff it can't do, this post would have been done a long time ago.

OK...I gotta go now. The Blackberry and I have stuff to do...

LeAnna told me to let you know she would have put her two cents in about it, but she was too busy with The Blackberry. Maybe we could get her to phone it in?

Until next time...
Dong ibedi

Let's Put This Puppy To Bed

2008-12-30T20:02:00.009-06:00

OK...I really want to get this trip finished before it's time to hit the trail again, so let's get busy people!

So day 36 finds us in the parking lot of "Americas Outdoor And RV Store", better known as Camping World. I should mention here that the trip thus far has been sans air conditioning. In one of those freak occurrences that sometimes freakishly occur, our unit went on hiatus just days before we left South Dakota. *sigh* After our generous outlay to the veterinarian and the cost of fuel to get down here...well let's put it like this, we weren't scraping it, but I could see it from here. No problem, I sez. Since it's going to be winter time, we won't need A/C until next year. That'll give us plenty of time to save up. WRONG. This part of Texas actually has decent weather right through the winter. Nice on the one hand...not so nice on the other. Here it was October for cripes sake and it's still in the 90's! I realized a major decision was at hand. While it was true we needed steps, we really needed an air conditioner. Me being the major decision maker that I am, I followed the only logical course of action.

A/C it was. Leaping from our entryway, we gained entrance to the repository of all things RV. We decided to browse a bit before biting the bullet, hoping to alleviate some of the sticker shock I knew we were headed for. There were a myriad of products that the RV'er in the know simply just couldn't do without. *ahem* Yes...well I'll try to get along without that one. SO, having meandered around the store, we could dillydally no longer. Having informed the young man behind the counter of our wants and needs, he informed us of what he wants and (k)needs. (See what I did there? Needs...knees...*sigh*). OK, so needless to say it was quite a bit more than we had planned. We took a brief time out to talk it over with one another and decided that if we cut back on what we ate...and only ate every other day, we could swing it.

To make matters worse, they couldn't get us in that day. We would have to get it done the next morning. So we took advantage of their parking lot for some of that "free camping". I figured we'd just be in a parking space along side the rigs of others waiting for work. But, lo and behold, we found a place to pull up where there was actually a picnic table...of sorts. It was the break area for the workers. But no workers tonight! So it was entirely for our perusal. And here's a secret...They have electric hookups, for a few people. I saw a 30 amp cord laying along side the building and checked it out to find it was plugged in! Hey, we were gonna have TV and microwave popcorn tonight without having to run our generator! Oh, how you learn to appreciate those little things.

That evening, while we enjoyed some postprandial libations, I studied the steps. Breaking out my large crescent wrench I began to bend them back into some semblance of what they once were. I thought if we were going to have to live with them for a while, I'd better try to make them serviceable. A couple of beverages later, I had those steps looking like ~~new~~ something that could work...for a while...maybe. Anyway, they folded down and back up again, and that's something they wouldn't do previously. So it looked like things were starting to look up.

We arose to the sweet sounds of air tools removing tire lugs. Eating a quick breakfast, we made for the check-in desk in the service area. Surrendering the keys to our portative palace, we settled in the waiting area. Five minutes later we were bored. So we decided to check out the rigs in the "used" lot. Some were big, some were small. Some were nice, others not at all. (Apologies to the Doctor.) Anywho (See what I did there?), we finally were done and it was time to leave. All kidding aside, it was a good thing our destination was within reach of the tank of gas we had on board. And arrive we did. We chose a spot that seemingly no one else wanted and have loved it here. LeAnna went to work the very next week and we lived happily ever after.

Come back next time when I think of something entirely different to ramble on about...

Toodles...

My First Visit With The Doctor

2008-12-15T20:03:00.014-06:00

No, not that doctor...this one. Yep, we stopped at "The World Famous Dr Pepper Museum" in Waco, Texas.

Dr. Pepper, aka Dr. Charles Alderton, was a Waco native working in a corner drugstore. It seems that ol' Charlie was looking to pioneer a new type of laxative and decided to try carbonating prune juice. Well, that worked very well. So well in fact, that the whole business was stolen right out from under him by a Mr. Lazenby, who later had a career as James Bond, before moving into the more lucrative field of Prince Charles impersonators. Not to outdone by this "flash-in-the-pan" Bond, our own "Big Tam" decided to have a go of his own at the "wearing of the green".

OK, OK...I was just kidding. George Lazenby really never had a "career" as Bond. After all, he only did one movie. If you're interested in the real story of how Dr Pepper got its start, look here. So, we really did go to the museum and although I have never had a Dr Pepper in my life I thought it was pretty interesting. I figured if I was to have my first taste of this singular soda, what better place to have the experience than where it all started?

Admission to the museum is $6 for adults. It was a good thing I had this valuable coupon. It was a bad thing that I left it in the motorhome and ended up having to pay full price. I guess I won't be getting that new set of golf clubs this year. As we make our way into the museum, we pass a mockup of the outside of the old corner drugstore. Inside there is a replica of the soda fountain that Charlie used to work at. Also there is a room that houses the original bottle washing machine, cappers and the like. Original old bottles and signs are everywhere.

I think the second floor was my favorite. There was a 1924 pickup truck in a scene representing a 1930’s rural general store. There was also a whole area dedicated to Schweppes products. But the best thing about the second floor was a seating area in front of a TV playing DP commercials from the past. We watched the entire loop, which lasted a good ten minutes...and laughed...and reminiscenced. (Is that a real word?)

The third floor was dedicated to Dr Pepper's top salesman, W. W. "Foots" Clements. This guy ate, drank, and breathed Dr Pepper. Talk about an ambassador. Of course he really had little choice in the matter. Ya see, Foots wanted to be an actor, but lost his bid for stardom to this man. So, he threw himself whole-heartedly into touting Dr Pepper. The guy was so good at promoting the product that he started moving up in the company, ending up as an executive. They had a replica of his office there.

One whole wing of the building was dedicated to diet soft drinks. You name it, they had a can or bottle of it. Lots I had seen as a kid and some I'd never heard of.

After browsing the obligatory gift shop, it was finally the time we had both been waiting for. No, not that...it was time for...The Tasting! This was to be a treat in more ways than one. First, it would be my pioneering foray into the taste of Dr Pepper and second, they made it the old fashioned way. Yep, no twisting a lid or popping a tab for me! The girl behind the counter pumped some syrup into the glass and, holding the glass under the fountain, she first pulled the handle back, dispensing the water, then pushed it forward, for the carbonation part. I refrained from calling her a "real jerk" as she was young enough to probably not get the reference.

The moment of truth was at hand! As a true connoisseur and pop snob, I sniffed the glass to appreciate the nose and bouquet of the potation. (hmmm...smells like pop.) Oh well, down the hatch. Strangely enough, it tasted like pop...Cherry Coke, to be exact. All these years of not drinking Dr Pepper because I'd heard it either was or tasted like, carbonated prune juice and here it tastes like Cherry Coke. Huh...Who knew? Oh yeah, I forgot...I don't like Cherry Coke. Oh well, nothing lost then, eh?
Me, trying the beverage.

After finishing our bevvies we head out to the roaming ranch. The one with the snafued steps...still. (For those of you who haven't been following along, or if you've forgotten the tragety of the treads, see this.) I've actually gotten quite adept at getting through the door and I barely have to pull LeAnna up anymore. Amazing how a hand-up by the hair gives one motivation. Still, she is giving me subtle hints about getting the steps fixed...like "Hey when are we gonna get the steps fixed?" Yeah, I like a girl that's ethereal.

Next stop..."America's RV and Outdoor Store".

Be there or be...not there, I guess.
I bid you Adéu

Where The Hell Have You Been?

2008-12-09T21:39:00.007-06:00

I know many of you have had this same question on your mind. Well, I was...around. OK, I really don't have much of an excuse for falling off the Blog Wagon, as it were, but I'm back now. So let's try to continue on as if nothing has happened.

Day ~~one hundred fourteen~~ seven(b). After leaving the Bureau Of Engraving, we ventured forth into a realm of existence that can only be described as "nirvana" (not the band, some other one...loads). I'm speaking of Pendery's World of Chiles & Spices, a paradise of pleasure, a bountiful bastion of bliss, a humble hunk of heaven, a....well, you get the idea. Pendery's is located on eighth avenue in Fort Worth, not exactly the downtown business district, but sometimes you gotta make a trek for taste, a peregrination for piquancy, a...OH OK! I'll stop with the alliteration already!.

At first I was a bit apprehensive upon seeing the business was actually run out of an old converted duplex house. Upon entering, all my solicitude disappeared into the wafting aroma of spice. While it was only seven small rooms, every one was packed to the gills with multitudinous varieties of chilies both dried and ground. There were jalapeno, habanero, serrano, even dried sweet green pepper. There were hundreds of varieties I'd never heard of, each packaged either whole or ground in a vacuum sealed pouch. If you care anything at all about spicy food, you owe it to yourself to visit the web site and download a copy of the catalog in PDF form. You will find books and recipes as well as the obligatory hot sauces in a hundred flavors. Pendery's isn't just about chilies, they have a variety of other foods such as jellys, candies, and nuts. Hell, they even have decorator items and kitchen utensils.

Finally we decided which of the several thousand items we would choose to take home with us. Not an easy decision by any means. In my mind, I kept wanting to say "I'll have one of each, my good man.", but I knew that wasn't possible. After gathering our purchases we headed back to the motor home, which I had so carefully parked long ways tacking up several parking spaces so as to not be blocked in. As our motor mansion came into view I uttered a rash of expletives that would have made any sailor proud. Parked not 10ft. from the front of our bus was an automobile. "I'm gonna do it." I said to LeAnna, "I'm gonna ventilate his side walls." You want to piss me off to no end? Park your car in front of me after my taking pains to park out of the way. You see, the thing about a motor home pulling a car on a tow bar is that you can't back it up. I'm sure at this point LeAnna was saying something rational, but I couldn't hear what it was. I shifted our bags to one hand and began reaching for my knife with the other.

That's the moment that time began to slow, kinda like it does in those horror movies. There I was, inching closer and closer, the camera following me from behind as I fumble for my knife. Just as I reach the rear bumper of the car I notice two things. One, the car had some sort of official markings on the door. And secondly, was that there was a head, lying on the seat. No, not like that...it wasn't exactly lying on the seat, it was more like resting against the head rest. Yep, it was a security guard...sleeping. Now I was really pissed. Not only was there someone parked in front of me, but I wasn't even going to get to slash his tires.

As I approached his window I was thinking to myself "WWBD?". DAMN RIGHT!! He'd get that bullet out and show this guy who's boss. I judiciously decide that the more prudent thing to do would be to just ~~scare the shit outta him~~ tap on the glass and get him to move. *sigh*
ME: "Uh, sir...would you mind moving for me so I can get out?"
HIM: "What? Oh sure...no problem *cough cough* pussy *cough*."
In my mind I'm giving this guy the famous Fife karate chop...yep, muh whole body's a weapon.

(On a side note here, I looked for over 20 minutes for an image of Barney Fife doing his Karate chop and couldn't find anything. If you have this or a link to it, please let me know.)

So we throw our stuff in the house and motor out of Ft. Worth towards our stay-over at the Flying J in Waco, TX.

When we catchup with each other again, (hopefully soon), I'll tell you about my first visit to the doctor - in my life...honest!

Y'all come back now, ya hear?

A Day With The Bureau

2008-11-19T23:37:00.003-06:00

No, not that bureau...this one. Yeah, I know...when I mentioned the "bureau" last time, you were probably thinking of this...and this, but it was nothing of the kind (thank God). Nope, we were scheduled to visit one of the only two places in the country to print our paper currency. I had always wanted to visit the B of E and our route was going to take us right through Ft. Worth~~less~~, so why not? Besides, the admission fell right into the parameters...IT WAS FREE!!

There were a few catches though. We had to arrive 30 minutes before the tour to "clear security". No problem. We arrived in plenty of time and parked out in the bus lot so we were nice and level with plenty of room. As we milled around inside the coach, readying for our final approach, I heard a recorded announcement telling us "The Bureau of Engraving and Printing is a secured facility. All visitors, including children, are subject to a security screening prior to entering the Tour and Visitor Center. Cell phones or any electronic equipment, back packs, cameras, weapons, food, and drinks are prohibited." We couldn't bring any weapons into the facility? DAMN! I unholstered the 9mm and put it back in the lockbox. Just kidding, I never wear a holster, I just stick it in my waistband. But what really pissed me off was the fact that they allowed children. I contemplated trying to get the pistol in anyway, just in case.

In the end ~~LeAnna talks me down~~ wiser heads prevail and we leave the coach devoid of any unauthorized contraband. We enter the tour bus pickup area and immediately I see that although this is a tourist attraction, there's no doubt it's a Federal facility. Something about the two armed beefy guys, just a hunch. (Well, they looked big to me.) We pass through a metal detector and are directed over to a holding area to await the bus. Everyone was standing in a group, the cops staring a hole through ya. Even though there's air conditioning, yer sweatin' bullets... a silly voice pops into your head and starts yelling "RUN!! They're on to you!!", even though you haven't done anything. Well, I haven't! Really! That thing with the scissors was expunged from my record years ago.

So...we get on the bus and take a short ride to the main building. After checking in, we are directed to a small auditorium to watch a short movie about ~~buses~~ money. After the film we gather in the foyer and wait for our guide. She greets us and tells everyone that we have to stay together as a group, there will be a head count, and this is the last chance for a bathroom break for the duration of the tour. Guess where LeAnna went?

We got under way with a head count as we passed through the door. For a second I contemplate asking for the time or discussing the route numbers we had taken to get there, but I really didn't want to get kicked off the tour before it even started. It was pretty cool...for about the first five minutes, then it was like I was in Charlie Brown's classroom and she was the teacher. I got wrapped up in looking at the equipment and what they were actually doing. The talking was quickly fading into background noise.

A lot of what was going on in the plant was shielded from prying eyes be green tarps. The guide explained that they were working on the new $100 bill and it was still hush-hush. I wonder if they had some inside info about the election outcome? hmmm. Most of the other rooms were vacant. Not much was going on. It was a week day and it wasn't lunch time. Man, did I choose the wrong career! About the only time we saw anything going on was when some machines were running or when we saw a robot stacking the cash bricks onto a pallet. Boy, If I could get my hands on just one of those bricks...yeah, I know...I'd go to prison. But I can dream, can't I?

We finished the tour and were left to browse the displays in the lobby. I think I learned as much or more in the lobby as I did on the tour. Then it was our turn to head into the breach. By this I mean the dreaded gift shop. Oh there were the expected tchochkes...key chains, funny money and the like, but what really caught my eye were these. The sheets came in ones, twos, fives, tens, what ever denomination you wanted. The even cooler thing was, since money is printed in a sheet of 32 bills (and you thought you'd never learn anything here!), you could get any sort of block you wanted. I was thinking "Hey, how much could sixteen one dollar bills go for?" I mean I was actually saving them the work of cutting them apart, right?

Wrong. Turns out that a 16 block was $33.00. Hmmm...I'm no mathematician, but I'm sure that was more than I wanted to pay. So, basing the value of an uncut dollar at just over two bucks, I thought I could probably swing a four block set. Wrong again. Turns out a sheet of four ones was valued at nearly $4 each. WTF? Wasn't this the same money I'd be using to buy the money with? How could their money be worth more than my money? After all, they printed my bills here too. *sigh* Somehow the thought of framing four ones scotch-taped together really didn't give you that same feeling of "uniquity".(A "Bush-ism" just for this blog...my gift to you.)

Leaving the Bureau gift shop empty-handed, we head for the bus. A short ride back to the land of not-as-plenty later, we are walking towards our coach to the ~~droning~~ merry tune of the recorded announcement. But the day was not over! We were just a scant twenty minutes away from Nirvana...not the band the other thing.

And I'll tell you all about it mahn-yahn-ah...or there abouts...

Cheerio!

Oklahoma Is OK With Me....sorta

2008-11-08T22:58:00.015-06:00

OK. It's day six and...what? Where is the "Years supply" I promised you, just for showing up for this chapter? *sigh* Alright,maybe I did say something like that, so here. Hey, I didn't say what it would be a years supply of. I'm sure that's more than even our new President can sling in his first ninety days.
(I hope.)

Alright....settle down....let's get back to the ~~lie~~ story at hand.

When last we left our intrepid couple, they had just finished the pizza to end all pizzas and bedded down for a comfy night in the local W-M.

So, it's day six and we have on the agenda a visit to the Oklahoma City National Memorial. This is the memorial park that is dedicated to everyone lost or otherwise affected by the bombing of the Federal Building. I have to say, it was a very sobering thing. When you walk through the site and get a feel for the enormity...
There is a lawn full of these small markers with people's names indicating where they were in the building when the bomb went off.

We spent an hour or so there. Since we had to park on the street,(at two parking meters, no less), we had to get back. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that when we were parking, we overheated and blew out a bunch of coolant on the street.

Seems that the wires for the electric cooling fans had come unplugged. Yep...nothing like having to water yer horse before you can hit the trail. Fortunately, we had a tank full of H2O, so it was just a matter of hauling it from sink to radiator. While we're on the subject of fun things that happened, let's jump back a bit to another laugh we had earlier in the day. On the way to the monument, we ~~got lost~~ decided to tour the city. It was during this tour that I thought I would test the integrity of the city's storm drain grates. They may be able to fool their city inspectors, but not me. I knew there would be a loose fitting grate and I found it! Not only did I find it, but at the same time I demonstrated just how dangerous something like this could be by popping it up out of its frame and slamming it with my steps. I guess I showed them.

We stayed at a truck stop just outside Oklahoma City that night and spent the evening seeing how many times we could hop in and out of the coach not using the stairs. (No honey, the steps are fine....really! I just think we could use the exercise.)

Day seven dawns...and sometime later, we arise as well. I know we are going to another one of those shrines to outdoor activities today and am rearing to get going. I'm talking about....that's right....Outdoor World! No, wait...Pro Bass Shops! I know many of you are saying "But Mark, you just went to Cabela's). Pish-Posh Cabela's-Schmabela's. PBS (The store, not the television thingy)has it all over Cabela's. It's much larger, has way more stuff, and they carry these. Man, we want one of these so bad we can taste it. OK......let's forget about that tasting thing....but we do want one. Think about it, cruising out in comfort to those rock areas less hunted, in seats! AND it has a bed on the back (the truck kind, not the sleeping kind) to haul all our junk. But I digress. Who was it that said digression is the better part of...wait, maybe that was something else..

Anyway, on with the show.

We wander through the acreage of PBS for what seems like days. Twice I have to go outside to change shirts due to drooling. And this just from LeAnna. Making a mental list of all that has become important to me, I try to figure a way to talk LeAnna into working 4 jobs. Maybe if I temper it by saying she wouldn't have to work overtime... :-/ ...Yeah....probably not.

After a cold shower and a fresh change of clothes, we head to Flying J for the night. The thing is that it's about 100 miles away...with nothing planned between here and there. I contemplate a rendition of "99 bottles of beer on the wall", then remember the court order about my singing and decide not to chance it. We were cruising down the highway admiring the scenery, when we come upon a sign touting one of THE most desirable roadside attractions of this or any other generation. I'm talking about none other than The Toy And Action Figure Museum. OMG!! We had to go. A short detour to Paul's Valley, OK and we were there.

There were action figures of every description. Some I'd never heard of. There was a Batman room, a Superman room, a Spiderman room, and on and on. There were G.I. Joe displays that brought back childhood memories. Everywhere you looked, Star Trek (old and new), Star Wars, and Barbie, who I never considered an action figure...(unless you were G.I. Joe). I even saw a Charles Dickens, Edgar Allen Poe and a Sigmund Freud action figure...go figure (see what I did there? Freud was a psych...oh never mind!). There were plenty of movie props and miniatures as well as comic book original art. And no, it wasn't free, but the guy did give us a 30% discount. Probably felt sorry for me....having to drag my 'ol lady in with me.

We spent the better part of an hour and a half there, but finally he wanted to close and we still had to get to our 18 wheeler paradise. So back on to the highway and on down the road.

When we all meet again, I'll tell ya how we came to be the guests of the Fed's for an afternoon.

Until then...guten tog

Starsky And Hutch-inson

2008-10-27T23:40:00.011-05:00

Man, I used to watch that show all the time. Even weirder, I had a red Gran Torino as a kid, although it was a '73, not a '75...and mine was a fastback. I know, it's kinda like that joke about having a shirt just like that one, only mine was short sleeve...and blue...and (well you know the rest).

Well, enough reminiscing. Day five dawned with a well rested crew departing the Hutchinson Mall parking lot. A short drive later we arrived at our much anticipated destination, the Kansas Underground Salt Museum. This was a really cool tour and one of the best things about it was ~~It's FREE!~~, OK it wasn't free, but children under the age of 4 weren't allowed! So I got that going for me.

The $13.50 admission was well worth it. We happened to get there in time to get the last two spots on the morning tour. So far, my Karma was holding. Our guide, Linda, begins her talk with "If ever there was a mine tour designed for Mr. and Mrs. Armchair American, this is it." I'm liking it already. After we watch a safety film, we're given hard hats and rescue breathing apparatus's. (RESCUE BREATHING APPARATUS? What happened to the Armchair American thing?). From there we're herded in the service elevator. The 90 second ride down is a pitch-black descent, clanging, banging, and rattling inside a bare metal box that sounds at times as if it's being whacked with a sledgehammer.

The door opens and we find ourselves 650 feet below the surface. However, this is unlike any cave or cavern I've ever been in. For one thing, it's clean...and well lit...and the floors are paved! All the floors are made of a concrete and salt mixture and are so flat and smooth you could play tennis on them. (You could play tennis on them, I might manage ping pong.

We turn the corner and there I see something that is going to make this tour very doable for me.

No, not Linda...The tram. There were these golf cart-like things pulling trailers which everyone rode. Nice. LeAnna and I got in the front seat of the front cart, and I only had to push one old guy down. Just kidding, I didn't have to push him down, I just did it for fun. The mine is one, endless room, with a floor and ceiling as flat as a Kansas prairie, broken into identical squares by columns of un-mined salt that support the roof. There are no twisty tunnels or deadly floor shafts. You could drive a truck down here for miles and never hit anything. Well, not this truck.

Actually, this truck was used to ferry miners around. They stripped it and converted it to run on electric. It's over 70 years old. Linda told us that the salt preserves it, but at a price. "Everything that comes down here, stays down here." "You can never take it back up or it starts to instantly corrode." Not really like the "What happens in Vegas" thing, but you get the idea.

A company called Underground Vaults and Storage occupies part of the mine and provides storage for things like medical records, government files, even Hollywood props and costumes.

Master prints of Gone With the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, and thousands of other Hollywood films are here as well. I wonder if any parts of Hoffa are down here? Here is a link to a short video that gives you a good idea of what it was really like there.
Did I mention that this mine is the only one open to the public in the western hemisphere?

We left Hutchinson and ended up in Wichita by late afternoon. If you ever find yourself in Wichita, Kansas, you gotta do two things. One, ask yourself what the Hell you're doing there, and two, you've gotta go to this place. Three words...OH - MY - GOD! It was, arguably, the best pizza I've ever had. The flavor, the aroma, even the service was great. This isn't your fathers pizza parlor. The place is also a micro brewery, although it seemed to me they pushed the vino more than the brew. We both had 21 ozers and a pie. Since I can't say enough about it, I won't. We left well sated and headed towards our stop for the night, (say it with me) Wal-Mart.

Today went against my declaration of war on spending, but it was well worth it. We'd been doing ~~well~~ not too badly up until now, so we deserved it.

Anybody who shows up for the next chapter of our saga gets a years supply, absolutely free. Promise.

I bid you Adéu

The Duke Of York

2008-10-22T21:04:00.016-05:00

When last we were together I guess I kinda led you to believe we overnighted in Aurora, Nebraska. The woman who feeds, clothes, and shelters me informed me that this was not so. After she refreshed my memory it comes to mind that we didn't stay there, owing to the fact that the truck stop had nothing but back in spaces. For those of you not in the know, when we are on the road pulling the ~~shitbox~~ pickup truck, we can't back up. Something about bending the towbar and destroying the pickups front end...I don't know, but anyway the fact of the matter is that we drove another 20 or so miles to the little town of York, Nebraska.

York is a virtual Metropolis, compared to Aurora. You can see from the picture that they are no mere "one horse town". Nope, they have two of them. *snicker*. Seriously though, we knew York had a larger truck stop and we hoped some of the spots would be pull-throughs...and vacant. Upon our arrival, we were pleased to see that the stop had an Iron Skillet Restaurant. What we weren't pleased to see is that the Truckers area was one of those full service types and all "head in". Again, for the "uninitiated", these truck stops have these, which are hookups for the trucker to have A/C, TV, Internet, etc.

So, we opted for a gravel lot across the street which had one other truck parked in it. "Look at it this way" I said "It'll be quieter." We went across the way and pulled in where we were pretty well level and things were looking pretty good, from a boondockers point of view. The lot backed up to a farmers field, so it was fairly private. There was only one other truck in here, so it was fairly quiet. And we hadn't eaten since the early lunch at L&C State park, so I was fairly hungry.

Rather than taking time and trouble to fix a dinner (since we were feeling ~~lazy~~ weak from hunger), we opted to dine at the restaurant...the one across the street. I say "across the street", but what I really mean was this.

After running this scenario through my head, I opted to drive over. We had a really huge meal. OK, maybe not that huge, but it was a lot. (Can anybody even tell what the Hell that is?) When we finally ~~were able to get my bloated belly out the door~~ left, I noticed the pickup seemed to be listing to port a bit. As we drew closer I had "that sinking feeling". Yep, seems that the air that was on the inside of the tire, was now on the outside of the tire. Just what you want to do after a big meal, fix a flat. And speaking of which, I had none.

So I was down to old school. We fired up the generator, plugged in a light and started feeling for the intruder. I didn't get very far before I found it; a small piece of glass. I guess we picked it up in the gravel lot "across the street". Looking at it, I didn't think it was big enough to puncture a tire...til I looked at the "tread" on the tire. You know how you kinda shove some things to the back of yer mind sometimes? I guess I kinda pushed this maybe a bit further...say to Venus! Yeah, we've had this truck going on six years now and had never put rear tires on it.

On this thin-skinned tire, that piece of glass was pretty much like Darth's light saber on Luke's hand. No, not that Luke.... this one. Well, you know. And speaking of light sabers...if we could get such a thing, you see guys doing this or this with them...you know you would. And do you think if Darth had Stormtroopers that looked like this, maybe he would have been to busy to cause trouble?

But I digress.

After pulling that "ginormous" hunk of glass out of the tire, I fell back on the only technology I had...I'm talking about that great Armenian innovation, the tire plug. If any of you have ever tried to use this "invention", and I use that term loosely, it's like trying to drive a railroad spike up a cats ass with yer bare fist. (And you are one sick puppy if you clicked that link.)I finally got the tire plugged and aired up. We opted to spend the night in the Wal-Mart parking lot so we could get a tire put on in the morning. The next morning I head for the auto center only to find that not only do they not have a tire of the size I need, the only other tire shop in town doesn't either. Now these aren't some bastard size tire. It should have been easy to get...if you're in a town of more than 4000 people.

Epic story shorter, I end up having to buy two new tires for the rear and we are finally able to get back on the road. "But Mark,that wasn't free!!" I hear you say. NO SHIT! That, my friends was a tune I call the $135 boogie. A sour little number that you can't dance to. Fortunately, all we had planned for the rest of the day was to leave the state and make our way to Hutchinson, Kansas. And we did.

We end up spending the night at the mall in Hutchinson. I was looking forward to day five of our trip, and I'll tell you why...when we meet again.

Arrivederci

And Now...On With The Show

2008-10-19T21:18:00.004-05:00

Ok, when last we saw our intrepid adventurers, (before all that carpet crap), we had just settled down for a good nights rest in the parking lot of that mecca of all things outdoors, Cabelas, in Mitchell, South Dakota. I dropped a teaser on ya just as I was folding up my tent last time. You wanna know what the other major big-time attraction is in Mitchell?

Yep, just the "Worlds Only Corn Palace"! Every year since 1892, South Dakotans have gathered thousands of bushels of corn, grain, grasses, wild oats, rye, straw and wheat and instead of eating it, they decided to nail it all to the side of a building! What a concept!

So, we do the Corn Palace thing. Inside they not only have more murals, but they also have pictures of the murals that adorned this building since 1921. They also have something far more important...

That's right...a gift shop. After all, the Corn Palace admission was (say it with me) FREE! So it's only right they try to ~~sucker~~ entice the masses into buying a memento of their trip. I'm usually pretty memento-proof. Oh I graze the aisles casting my eyes here and there, usually with a modicum of disapproval, but on this day I was smitten. Smitten, I tell you. There I was, following LeAnna around through the hodge-podge of what-not, when suddenly she turned to me and raised her hand to display the one device that could well be described as the boon to modern corn-on-the-cob eaters everywhere. What am I talking about you ask? Only the Acme Little Giant Corn On The Cob Butter Dispenser.

That's right! This little gem would change the way butter was dispensed in our home forever. Oh, I know we had something similar already. But the "Mach One" model had a little flimsy handle, which you couldn't really use. Also, it would only hold about 2 tablespoons of butter. Hell, I eat more than that on a slice of toast! Well, maybe not, but I definitely need more than that for a couple of ears of corn.

So, with our new purchase in sack, we hit the streets in search of entertainment. Not a bad idea, but no. A bit early, even for us. No, what we had in mind was something a bit more touristy, slightly kitschy even. There was nothing else for it but this.

Right across the street. It was not only full of dolls, but also housed a large collection of miniatures. And we all know how I feel about miniatures. Much to my "chagrin", upon walking into the lobby of the Museum, we found it to be closed. Not just for the day or week, but permanently. Seems that they had a few remnants left to sell in their gift shop.

This disappointment was too much for us to bear. I was completely disenchanted with Mitchell now, and I felt it was my duty to move my family to safety immediately. Besides, my back was killing me, not to mention I wanted to get to Lewis and Clark State Park by lunch time. Yep, that's LeAnna and me on a bike built for two. (If you believe that, I have something to sell you.)

We ate our lunch while watching some anglers fish from the dock. They looked like pro's to me...not. But what do I know from fishing? Afterward we continued on to our overnight destination, Loves Travel Stop #309, located in beautiful downtown Aurora, Nebraska. *sniff sniff*...smell that? That's sarcasm. Aurora is not quite a one horse town. It'll have to work up to that.

Anyway, we had some fun in Aurora, by gum!
And I'll tell ya all about it....next time!

Sayonara

Funeral For A Friend

2008-10-18T20:18:00.006-05:00

When you're wrong, you're wrong...and I was...mistaken. OK, I know I said I thought I could save our carpet, since it was only drenched with tap water, but NoooOOOooo, that would be too easy. The evening of "The Great Spill", I pulled up half the carpet and took it outside to dry. The next day I noticed it had a hellacious water stain on it. Not only that, it had an odor I can only describe as...horse. An unclean equine, a fragrant filly, a pungent pinto. I think you get the drift. (See what I did there?)

On top of that, it was evident that 5 years of traffic on 45 sq. ft. of carpet had taken it's toll on the pad. I decided this would be a great time for new carpet. (Yeah, I'm a genius that way!) Visions of a dark tan stain-resistant berber danced in my head. Alas, it was not to be. I was jerked back to reality by the lady in charge, who I lovingly refer to as "She That Must Be Obeyed". Anyway, she's been ~~harping~~ telling me for some time now how she'd love to have hardwood flooring in the house. I'd been resisting the change with every excuse I could think of. I mean, why cast out completely comfortable carpeting in order to fulfill a female flooring fancy. But she knew she had me cold. There was no getting around it this time. The carpet was ruined and had to come out. It was like coming home to find your favorite house slippers had been thoroughly chewed by the family hound and were on their way to the curb.

It had to happen sometime, I suppose. I bucked up and pulled out the remaining carpet. Together we cut it up into manageable pieces. I sneaked some looks at her from time to time out of the corner of my eye, watching for any sign of a smirk or the victory dance, but saw only an earnest expression. Man, she was gooood. After disposing of the carpet and pad, we situated the fan to blow across the swamp that was once our floor. A few hours later, it looked as though it was going to survive.

During our trip to Man Land, we found ~~how expensive hardwood flooring is~~ some very nice flooring. After a lot of whining and some shedding of tears, we both decided on an Oak finish. She helped me up off the floor and dried my eyes, saying something about a shoe sale at Payless as she dragged me towards the door. Somewhere, from deep within me, I heard a tiny voice screaming "NOOOOOOOOoooooo".

Tune in next time for "I Am Eaten By A Shark".

-Aloha-

We Interupt This Broadcast

2008-10-13T19:11:00.003-05:00

I know most of you are foamin' at the mouth to get on with the exploits of ~~Lucy & Ricky~~ LeAnna & Mark, but I have to cut in here to give you this late breaking news story.

A tidal flood has hit parts of Texas...and yes, we were in it. Well that's not quite true...we were the cause of it.

As we had invited another couple over for lunch this week, we decided we would head out to the local ~~extortionist~~ grocery store to replenish the grub locker. Having spent every hour here at the campground since LeAnna started working, I was looking forward to this furlough, brief as it may be.

The store is only about 1 1/2 miles down the road, so we were only gone about an hour, at the most. Upon our arrival back at the ranch, we were greeted by the sound of running water...from the bottom of our coach. How much water, you ask? Here's a clue...

Keeping her head about her, LeAnna quickly ran inside the coach. I waited for a wall of water to wash her back into the parking area as she opened the door. Not seeing this event was a good sign. I really didn't understand what she was rushing inside for. After all, we had taken Pepper with us. I decided the best course of action might be to stem the flow of water at it's source. So I turned off the hose.

As I entered what I was sure was going to become the new local aquarium, I was surprised to see I was wrong, it wasn't an aquarium at all...it was a trout stream! Yep, it was our motorhome and A River Runs Through It.

"Of course, now I am too old to be much of a fisherman, and now of course I usually fish the big waters alone, although some friends think I shouldn't. Like many fly fishermen in western Montana where the summer days are almost Arctic in length, I often do not start fishing until the cool of the evening. Then in the Arctic half-light of the canyon, all existence fades to a being with my soul and memories and the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River and a four-count rhythm and the hope that a fish will rise. Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of those rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by"...OH JUST SHUT UP!!!

This is my HOME we're talking about! I stood there shaking my head. Somewhere in the back of my mind I was trying to think of a way to turn this into my insurance & get some cash out of it. I sighed "The Deep Sigh" and started formulating a plan of attack. I decided to see if I could borrow a wet vac from the park manager. I probably haven't said anything about this yet, but he is deaf. He reads lips really well and his spoken words are really quite legible. However, I was in such a funk, I was probably mumbling when I asked for a wet vac, so our conversation went something like this:

Me: Do you have a wet vac?
Him: Yes, it's in the office.
Me: Great! Can I use it?
Him: No problem. There's no password.
Me: For what?
Him: The WiFi, there's no password on it.
Me: (mentally smacking myself in the forehead)No, a shop vac. (Now pantomiming running a sweeper).
Him: OH! A wet vac!
Me: Yeah.
Him: Yeah, I have one.
Me: Can I borrow it?
Him: No problem. (His favorite saying) My brother has it. I'll drive over and get it...right after I eat.

On the way back home, I came to realize how Charlie Brown must have felt when Lucy pulled the football away. All we could do was watch the water continue to drain away through various seams and joins in our coach. If only it had just drained away it wouldn't have been so bad, but it also spread. There was a 6" strip of carpet along the left couch that was still dry, but I knew that by the time help arrived, it, too would be consumed by the widening reservoir in what was once our living room.

While we waited for ~~FEMA~~ the shop vac to arrive, I decided to put this time to use by tracking down the culprit. I had a sneaking suspicion as to where to start. I knew the trip down here was on some of the bumpiest stretches of road we'd ever been on, this side of Arkansas. How bumpy, you ask? Well, maybe not that rough, but it was enough that it actually caused our DVR to lose some of the shows we had recorded on it's hard drive. With that knowledge in hand, I went to the most likely spot, the DC water pump connection. Opening up the service hatch under the cabinet, I donned scuba gear and went in. Submerging to the very limits of sport diving, there lay the culprit, big as...well big as a 1/2" pipe, really.

The high pressure plastic hose had slipped off the copper water line. I figure, this being the main feed into the house, it should have been putting around 6 gallon/minute. Let's just say, for arguments sake, that it had only been open for about 20 minutes, that's around ~~3.5 million~~ 180 gallons of pure, fresh DESTRUCTION!!

I sucked all the water I could from the carpet, using the shop vac of course. Then I squished through the lounge and gave it a good sucking again, this time using a dead weasel. Just kidding...it was still alive. We surveyed the damages and, surprisingly, we got away fairly lucky. I had sealed all the wood that touched the floor with 2 coats of polyurethane when we built it, so there was no rising damp evident there. I pulled the carpet & pad in the affected area and hung the carpet over the fence. Since it was clean water, I think we'll be able to save the carpet, with some cleaning. Of course the pad is toast, but pad is cheap. I put the fan on the floor today and got the wood dried out. All in all, for the disaster it could have been, I think we dodged a bullet here.

So, we'll be Road Trippin' to Man Land tomorrow for some padding and etc. I think a couple of days drying time are in order to make sure everything is up to snuff before I recover it. Wouldn't want to get premature and end up with a mold or mildew problem.

So, give me a few days here, & we'll continue our saga...
Until then, Hasta la Winnebago...

Mystery Tour part 2

2008-10-10T22:29:00.005-05:00

Alright, as we last departed I promised skeletons and cars did I not? Well then, skeletons and cars you shall have! After our stint at the fabulous Wall truck stop, we continue east towards the happy little village of ~~Mayberry~~ Murdo. En route, we discover this little guy walking his dinosaur along the side of the road. It appears he & his pet have, alas, succumbed to the ravages of the Bush administration and are nothing but bones. Can you say "Dead man walking"?

Pulling into Murdo we are at once impressed with the sheer size of the town. Well, we were impressed with the size of the museum. OK, I was impressed that we didn't have to pay to park. The "World Famous Pioneer Auto Show" is normally $9.00 for adults. I know what you're thinking..."But Mark, how can you afford this and still stay on budget?" Oh ye of little faith. When we were ~~trapped~~ working at the Happy Holiday, we were given something called a "VIP Pass" which got us into various area attractions...FOR FREE! Although we were many miles from Rapid City, guess what? This was one of the attractions listed!! I KNOW! FREE!!

We spent the better part of 2 hours at the museum checking out the various cars, bikes, rocks and toys. Yep, this place isn't just a car museum, it's a dumping ground for all manner of junk. The lapidary collection wasn't bad, though. The further you got into the place, the more you could tell no great pains had been taken to display the items. By the time we made it to the very back, the cars were up on blocks with flat tires and a lot of them had seen their fair share of bird traffic, if you know what I mean. I got the feeling that some of the cars back here had been abandoned in their parking lot. There was a '73 Pinto, an Olds Cutlass...station wagon, and I even saw a Mustang II. All that was missing was some TP. (Get it, they're all turds...oh never mind.)

We depart the small burg of Murdo and continue our trek eastward, bound for Mitchell. While Mitchell is somewhat larger than Murdo, it still doesn't qualify as the big city. But it does have a couple of things going for it. One of which is that it has a Cabela's, where we stay the night. Not in the store...in the parking lot. This was the nicest parking area I think we've ever stayed in. It was a secluded lot around back just for RVers. It also had something I've never found at any other retail store parking lot...a dump station. I KNOW! We took showers that night and were able to empty our tanks there...FOR FREE!! Does it get any better? Not without some politician tryin' to tax it.

We kill the rest of the evening browsing the myriad of products, devices and displays offered in this temple of all things hunting and camping, then retire to our abode on wheels for a nice meal and some well deserved rest. I said Mitchell had a couple of things going for it. "What's the other?", you may well ask.

Well, I'll tell ya....next time.

C-YA!

Magical Mystery Tour...part 1

2008-10-08T20:14:00.011-05:00

OK, so now I was moving on the plan. Yessir, I was determined to do everything we could on this trip....as long as it was low budget. I know, right now you're saying "But Mark, how could that be any fun?" But let me tell ya something, can any of you say you've been to the worlds biggest ball of twine? Neither can we, we decided not to go...but thats not the point, we could have! Cawker City, Kansas was definitely within reach this trip.

No, instead we started closer to home, with something we had put off doing since we arrived in Rapid...the South Dakota Air and Space Museum! I know! How cool is that? And the best part? IT'S FREE!! It was only about 10 miles north of town and on the way out, so how could we not stop?

OK, OK settle down...take your seats. As we pulled into the ~~parking~~ Staging Area (that's Air Force talk), I laid eyes on a dozen or so of the biggest and fastest birds this country has ever flown in wartime...and about a 1/2 dozen other assorted turkeys. Don't get me wrong, I love a good Air Force Museum...Dayton, Ohio has one of the best. But this wasn't one of them. The planes I saw from the "Staging Area" were, in fact, 95% of what they had.

None-the-less, we walked the lot, kicked a few tires and then went inside to ~~talk to a salesman~~ check out the displays. We did get to see a realistic mock up of an ICBM (& if you do, clean it up! ewww!) silo. Also, I was able to get into the cockpit of a jet trainer.

If you click the image, you can witness my utter confusion of being at the controls. Now I understand why chimps look so confused during test flights. Come to think of it, I look like a confused chimp during a test flight.

Finishing our tour of the museum, it was time we head towards our first camp spot, boondocking in the Buffalo Gap National Grassland. For those of you unfamiliar, boondocking is the art of camping without hookups, or sometimes without the property owners permission, or sometimes illegally on public or private land. But, I digress. We actually were allowed by law to boondock in the grasslands, but we actually were not able to find a suitable spot, as all the access ways were extremely uneven and rutted. LeAnna has some aversion to dishes flying from cupboard to floor, so we came to a consensus that perhaps the wiser move was to go back to Wall, (the town, not the Pink Floyd thing), home of the famous Wall Drug, and park in a truck stop.

Having secured permission, (I said it was sometimes without the property owners permission), We proceeded to fix some much needed chow and catch a little tube before calling it a night.

What could possibly top this day? I'll tell ya...how 'bout walking skeletons & fun with cars!

Keep It Here!

Chao.

What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been Going To Be.

2008-10-05T00:15:00.016-05:00

If there's one thing I've learned in life, it's that nothing worth doing is ever easy. Well, that & the clean underwear thing. (Thanks Mom!). And so it was with our latest foray into
The Undiscovered Country.

We knew right off we were bound for Yuma, Arizona. Yep, no doubt about it, Yuma. We have never been to AZ before & thought it was high time. Burning several midnight candles, I relentlessly attack the monumental task of finding our next work camping job. OK, so I looked on the Workamper web site, big deal. Still, I must of looked through tens of ads, maybe as many as 20! Little did we realize, though it seems like a "Duh" moment in hindsight, that most of the population living on wheels in this country were also trying to go to Arizona for the winter.

No matter. Undaunted, I carried on the search. I found 2, count 'em, 2 jobs in AZ that seemed suitable for our needs. After a lengthy discussion with the park owner, he assured me we had a job. All we had to do was fill out the paperwork & provide him with a copy of my drivers license, a credit card and my social security card...Not the numbers....copies of the documents.

I asked him why he needed copies, to wit he replied "In case you don't stay for the entire length of the contract, so I can charge you for your site." I was, needless to say, a bit puzzled by his reply. Again, I asked why he would need a copy of my social security card for this. At this point he instantly pulled the Jekyll & Hyde routine, screaming into the phone, "Why don't you want to give it to me? Are you one of those deadbeat dads? You don't pay your taxes or what?" At this point I decided to tell him to have a nice day. Actually I advised him to make travel plans for warmer regions.

Having fared so well with the first employment opportunity, I went for broke and contacted the second park. Long story short...guess who the owner of park #2 was? Yep. Lovely.

OK, so we had no job. No biggie. We have enough cash to just go down & pay for a spot for the winter. Or I should say we had enough. Enter a phase of life I refer to as Canis Interuptus, otherwise known as "my dog needs an operation".

This was a wonderful set of circumstances wherein our prized pooch purloined a princely portion of our pyramidal purse. In other words, the dog drained a dollop of dollars. But, ya gotta do what ya gotta do, and we did, to the tune of a thousand bucks. That's a funny tune. Always sounds better coming in than going out.

Arizona, the land of legends. Wyatt Earp, the Apache leader Cochise, and the famous Buffalo Soldiers all made history there. All I wanted to do was to go camping there, anywhere. Yuma and the like faded from our view screen. After our Cocker conniption, we realized we not only couldn't afford the camping, but it was starting to look iffy about affording the gas as well.

Texas! Yep, no doubt about it, Texas. We hadn't been back to TX since our first workcamping ~~debacle~~ 'er experience. Ah Texas, the land of...cows, I guess. Don't get me wrong, plenty of famous people have come from Texas. Sam Houston, Buddy Holly, and don't forget two Presidents named Bush...*ahem* errr...did I mention that Mary Kay was from Texas?

I'd plan a magnificent trip! A trip to end all trips! This would be the saga on the lips of the masses for years to come! Well, it would be the best trip we'd taken in over 18 months. I knew where we were starting & finishing, now all I had to do was come up with an unforgettable experience...on a budget *groan*. So, back to burning the midnight candle thing.

Stay Tuned.....

And Now For This Segue Segway...

2008-08-17T21:26:00.015-05:00

Recently, we had the opportunity to test ride a pair of Segways on a tour of Deadwood. Being the up & coming, cutting edge geekster that I am, I jumped at the chance. No matter what you think, having the owner of the business give us a "buy one, get one" pass didn't sway me in the least.

We were informed there was to be a short talk about the do's & don't's (is there such a word?) of riding, followed by a short "acclimation" period. During the talking portion, it was mentioned that riding the Segway was akin to skiing. I thought back to the one & only time I was ~~suckered~~ talked into going snow skiing. I think my knee began to throb sympathetically.

After the talk, we were invited to get on the Segway (they kept referring to it as "The Segway", as if it were a sentient mechanical being or something). Me being the gentleman that I am, I volunteered LeAnna to go first. Within one minute she was tooling around the parking lot like she'd been born on one.

Now I was beginning to worry. It was my turn. In my youth, I was fair on a skateboard, but have never been able to skate or ski, no matter what the medium. Brazenly, I proceeded to "mount up". After just a few seconds of wobbling, I was amazed to find that "The Segway" was actually balancing me for me (if that makes sense). I just stood there and it did all the work of staying under me!

I have to tell ya...these damn things are cool! They are so easy to ride and it really is like skiing, or how you'd think skiing ought to be. Just lean a bit forward and you go forward. A bit back and you stop, then go in reverse. The handlebar that you hang on to leans left or right and lets you actually levitate the thing right off the ground. Well, not really. It mostly makes it go left or right.

Within minutes of taking off on the tour we were all like old Segway pros. I really liked the freedom it gave me personally. I can't walk very far without stopping to rest & I definitely can't walk as fast as The Segway rolls. In fact, most people couldn't. A very moderate 5mph pace on The Segway would soon tire even the most ardent walker after an hour or two. I felt The Segway empowered me! It gave me back mobility! I was a whole human again! Well, it gave me mobility, anyway.

The tour lasted an entirely too short 45 minutes. And in those 45 minutes, The Segway had done a better sales job on me than a gold chain wearin', smooth talkin', southern boy sellin' all purpose spot cleaner. I HAD TO HAVE ONE! No, two! What fun would it be gliding by my fellow man on the walkways of America without my woman by my side? Besides, it would be embarrassing for me to have her trotting after me everywhere I go.

When we got home, I fired up the internet to find out how many bananas two of these marvels of modern technology was gonna set me back.

Here's a clue....

Oh yeah. The Segway retails for around $4500.00. Each. IF you are a member of Sam's Club.

The dream of breezing down the bikeways and paved hiking trails of America vanished faster than David Copperfield doing the Statue Of Liberty. Well, who really needs something like that anyway? I mean isn't it really just a big toy? Yeah, like I really need some overpriced flashy excuse for an electric scooter.....

Man, I miss The Segway.....

Now Is The Winter Of Our Discount Tent

2008-04-27T01:10:00.000-05:00

Winter has settled on South Dakota....HARD! As I look out one of our two windows across the wilderness that is known as the RV park, I think back to a happier time...one when I ~~wore knee length pants~~ traveled the country in search of someone new to drink beer with.

My hearing date has come and gone, still no resolution. "One more test" they said. Geeze, you'd think they could go by any of the 5 other tests I've had. But that's our government. We look forward to September 15th, when we finally are ~~paroled from this prison~~ able to leave here. Having only been "on the road" for little more than 4 years, it's hard to imagine how difficult it is to set in one place for this long. It's amazing how the rambling bug gets under yer skin in so short a time. We plan to head to Arizona next winter. Neither of us have ever been. Should be a very welcome change!

Just to show ya how lax I am in posting here, the weather has broke and it looks like we are headed into spring. Looking out one of our windows, I can see little Robins...FAT little Robins kicking the rocks out back. One of them looked up and made eye contact with me & I swear it was trying to tell me about how I should be getting some seed out there. I've never flipped off a bird before....it felt gooood! Now I know I've been cooped up in here too long. (See what I did there?..."cooped up". See I was talking about bir....oh never mind).

We are scarcely a week away from the start of the season. I've been cutting the last of our rocks, trying to stockpile a bunch of rough shapes for us to grind this summer. The grinding isn't very noisy, so hopefully we can continue to do this during the season. Now comes a fairly big job, converting our rock shop back into a motel office.

After the transformation, I'll be putting my shoulder to the RV wheel and finishing our interior renovations. We have decided to change the motif from nautical to somewhat of a Mediterranean/Tuscan design. One thing we have agreed that we DON'T want is any of those little fat chefs or loads of tacky plastic grapes.Both of the last bastions of original parts of this coach have bit the dust. Around the time we got here last year, I was noticing a small hairline crack traveling across the ceiling, coming from behind the convection/microwave. I drilled a small hole in it's path and put a rivet in it, thinking that would stop it. BUT NooOOooo...It jumped around the rivet and kept traveling. It was only about 4" long, but I knew it would soon make it's way towards the door faster than fart in a phone booth. (For all you youngsters, there was a time before we all had celly's when telephones were in these little boxes...Oh, just Google it!)

Anyway, with the decision to redo the decor, I decided that this would be a good a time as any for a ceiling overhaul. We found some sheets of panel with a nice beige/green/lattice/vine type of pattern. We cut these sheets and got them installed before winter came in and I thought they really made a big difference in the overall looks of the coach. I finished the ceiling out in both rooms with a very small oak trim I found at Lowes. I'll take some pix in the near future.

The other holdout was the bath tub. LeAnna really hated it. Not on the same level as the old propane oven mind you, but with equal fervor. I was at a loss as to what to do about the tub, as it was a built in fiberglass model that was part of the walls, floor, and sink cabinet. I got rid of the sink bit when I did the first bathroom overhaul. I was looking on eBay for possible solutions when I ran across a shower pan that was the exact same dimensions as the old tub! And a really great thing about it was that it was only $100. Sooo, after it arrived I began to de-tub the coach.

I ran out of weather before I got the old tub completely cut out, so I have that to look forward to this year. I'll be redoing the plumbing in the tub and adding a new shower faucet and head as well. Getting the bathroom back up to snuff is the most major job remaining, but there are a few others lurking in the wings that I'd really like to cross off the list before we leave here.

We are really in a holding pattern (STILL!) until this S.S. thing is decided. If I get approved, we will be putting a fairly large chunk of the back pay into some bells and whistles for the coach. If I'm denied, then we will just have to work a bit longer and pick & choose what gets done when. At least after a decision is made, it will be over! I'm so sick of holding my breath waiting for this whole thing. (See that? That's irony! Ya see I can't really hold my breath an......ok ok, I'll stop).

So, I guess that gets this sorry excuse for a blog up to date for now. I'm hoping the next post interval won't be measured in months!

Until we meet again, I'll leave you with these words of wisdom from my good pal Mark Twain...

Few things are harder to put up with than a good example.

The Long Long Trailer Motorhome

2007-10-31T01:08:00.000-05:00

Lucy....You got sum 'splainin' to do! Anyone familiar with this movie should have an idea of what I'm about to say. No, it's not collecting rocks, per se...

We are picking up rocks...& turning them into jewelry. We were brainstorming ways to make a little extra gas money and after seeing pieces like this:

selling for $20 and more, I knew we had found something we could do. We figured we kinda had an edge on most people doing it...We travel. We can pick up rocks native to one part of the country and take them elsewhere to sell. A good example of this are stones like prairie agates & rose quartz. We spent a couple of afternoons walking around in the Buffalo Grasslands & picked up over 60 agates.

One I found was almost as big as my head (& we all know how big that is)! So we bring all these "found in the rough gems" back to our makeshift lapidary shop (formerly the motel office), and put them through the magic process that takes this;

Cut it into slabs like this;

Then, through the magic of ~~television~~ er, grinding and polishing, we end up with a work of art like this;

Then we can either wrap with wire or glue a metal piece to it & put it on a necklace. Add some other beads and trinkets, ~~bake in a 425° oven~~ and VIOLA!
We're thinking of marketing direct to the public through gem and rock shows as well as hitting the flea markets and various festivals. Doing the festivals kinda fits in with one of the road trips we were wanting to do anyway. Eating and drinking your way cross country sounds like a great way to kill a year or two to me.

Cheers!!

Fawlty Towers USA

2007-10-24T00:00:00.000-05:00

Basil & Sybil are alive & well and living in South Dakota! Well, not quite, but I can't help but think of that show as I work through the daily events at this motel. We don't have quite the same temperament as they do, but we do have some of the silliness going on.

We've been asked to come back to Happy Holiday RV Resort in Rapid City to manage the motel for the season. We hadn't planned to return this year, in fact we were going to stay in Carlsbad for the summer, as we had been informed that my S.S. hearing was scheduled for January or so, 2008. Fritz called to tell us that the job came with the free use of an apartment for the winter, should we care to stay. I saw a way to kill two birds with one stone here. I wasn't looking forward to trying to travel through Denver in mid winter! So here we are.

It's been one Hell of a season! We've been on the desk 15 hrs a day for 4 1/2 days a week & jeeze, did we get burnt out! Its a small motel of 31 rooms, 4 of which are kitchenettes. Additionally we are responsible for 12 sleeping cabins.

When the season got underway, we had no staff...just us. We cleaned rooms, check guests in & out & did laundry as well. I was sure this wasn't the job description I had reviewed. Fritz, the resort manager, assured us that he had an ad in the newspaper and just as soon as school was out we'd be inundated with applications.

The end of the school year came & went...still no apps. We ~~desperately~~ wisely decide to go through the files of last years employees in hopes of coaxing them back for a second season. Looking at these files left us further deflated. Most of the previous years employees consisted of transients, alcoholics, and Springer show rejects. Some were Native Americans. We thumbed through the files of Mabel Big Crow, Jamie Iron Thunder, Joe Lends His Horse & Linda Hunts Horse. (Linda may want to talk to Joe to see if he actually owned the horse he lent). All of these folders had notations citing reasons why these individuals should not be considered for rehire. Reasons ranging from undependable to drunk and disorderly at work. One of them even told the story of a fist fight breaking out in the parking lot between mother & daughter...probably over who's horse it really was.

As we returned the folders to their drawer, we rethought our options & decided that an 18 hour day really wasn't that bad. All we really had to do was answer the phone, make reservations, check guests in & out, clean rooms, do laundry, clean cabins, and handle all complaints. Yeah, that's all...At least we didn't have to cook!

Continental Breakfast

Just a couple of weeks into our new job, Fritz started to make noises about how the owners wanted to serve continental breakfast. I tell him I really don't mind if they want to do it...just as long as they don't want us to do it. About instantly I can tell by the look on his face that I am deeply mistaken. Not only do they want us to serve it, they think LeAnna would have time to bake all the muffins herself. *right* I break the news to LeAnna. It only takes 15 minutes for my ears to stop ringing. After we do some rough calculation, we determine that during an average day in July or August, she'd have to bake around, oh...TEN HOURS A DAY!

We confronted Fritz & told him that since we NEVER agreed to any cooking, let alone serving foodstuffs to the masses each day, that this would be a deal breaker. After hashing back & forth a short time, we finally came to the agreement that he would buy the muffins and juice from Sams club & we would put the ~~crap~~ food out every morning.

We FINALLY started to get some applicants trickle in. The only thing was they were between 14 & 16 years old. So we decided that there was little difference in working 2 women for 6 hours a day or working 6 girls for 2 hours a day. We opted for this schedule for two reasons. 1) We figured with six girls they would only have to do between 2 and 4 rooms each on any given day, so they would work faster. And 2) most of them really only wanted to work around 15 hours a week.

So, there we went. Our housekeeping staff of six teenage girls, two of their moms, along with two workcamper ladies. Covering the office on our 2 1/2 days off were two other workcamper ladies, with their husbands acting as maintenance staff. Life was starting to take a turn towards the rosy side...or so we thought.

Continental Breakfast. Two words you never, never, ever want to say to a guest. It's akin to putting blood in a shark tank. When you mention to a guest you have "continental breakfast", somehow you commit yourself to the unspoken promise of "all you can eat". We actually had guests pissed off about our "only having juice, coffee & muffins". One lady had the ~~balls~~ gall to say to LeAnna "You call this continental breakfast?", to wit LeAnna replied "No, I call this orange juice & muffins". -priceless-

After a week or so of that I instructed everyone to NEVER, but NEVER say the words contental breakfast to ANYONE! If asked, simply say that we have coffee, juice & muffins in the lobby each morning. After making this change, all was well. For some reason, when you just casually mention that there will be coffee, juice & muffins in the morning, everyone is completely placated.

Something else I have come to realize about motel guests... even though this motel is in an RV park, the people who come here aren't the same type of people as RVers. If something is amiss at an RV site, most people are content to work around it. Not so with motel guests. If there is so much as 3 plastic cups in the room instead of 4, you will hear about it. And not just in passing or in a "could I please have an extra cup" kind of way, but it's suddenly tantamount to their expecting a refund.

I'm not kidding. It's like a sport to these people, trying to find some reason for which they either shouldn't have to pay full price or are due a complete refund. LeAnna & I would check every room behind housekeeping so that we wouldn't have to hear any ~~bullshit~~ complaints from any guest.

The Sturgis Rally

Ah yes... The Rally. Now here's a treat everyone should ~~have to endure~~ experience. Imagine a town of about 65,000 suddenly swelling to around 165,000. This whole end of the state grows to a population of around 600,000 people during these two weeks in August...all of them riding Harley's. Loud Harley's. All Day. Every Day. Oh the first day or two, you're wrapped up in the nice paint jobs and cool looking bikes, but slowly over the course of the next few days you start to become sensory overloaded, to the point of where I would have gladly tied a screaming baby to the back of my head if they would all just ride those damn bikes over the nearest cliff.

During these 2 weeks, everyone in the state is busy capping off their summer earnings, trying to make enough to get them through the winter. If you're smart you get all your groceries and gas before Rally time, cause prices skyrocket. Not to mention that trying to navigate through the biker traffic is a frickin' nightmare. Every year there are between 10 & 15 deaths here in those two weeks. But there are people coming here to ride every year, like they've never been here before. And I guess it's a good thing overall, cause it's really a shot in the arm to the local communities. Without it, towns like Sturgis itself would probably just dry up and blow away.

So that gets everyone up to speed. Here we'll stay, awaiting my hearing date, looking for the first snowfall, and trying to hold on until spring. This is the first year we will see snow of any amount since we went on the road. We definitely aren't looking forward to it. While the motor home is in "dry dock", I'm taking the opportunity to make some changes. We've decided to change our decor from nautical to a Tuscan feel. Towards that effort, I've put up a new ceiling, recovered the wall behind the kitchen sink, and have changed our light fixtures. We've also added a few bells and whistles in the form of

a power dump gate, so we don't have to go outside to dump the tank (as it's invariably either raining or a dust storm when this chore needs done), some Tot Locks, to stop some of the drawers and doors from coming open at inopportune times on the road, and last but certainly not least, LeAnna has finally broken me down & I've agreed to another redo of the bathroom. This time we're losing the bathtub (all 40" of it) and putting in a shower! I found one on Ebay for about $100, and it fits the same footprint as the bathtub. Hopefully this will make for an easy conversion.

We've got until September 15 or so of 2008 to get everything up to snuff. I don't plan to be out there on Sept 1 trying to finish! I'll be hacking away for as long as the weather holds this year, then I'll hit it again early next spring. We'll post new pix on the website as things progress.

Till next time...

Don't Come Around Here No More

2007-04-14T22:27:00.000-05:00

Just when you think there is no God...Deliverance! Fearing we were ~~eternally damned~~ relegated to stay in Carlsbad for the duration, I emailed Fritz. You may remember him as the guy we worked for last summer at Happy Holiday RV Resort in Rapid City. I let him know we were not going to be able to return this summer due to budget concerns. I couldn't justify going north for the summer and having to come back south next winter, only to return north when my court date came in from Social Security. He said he understood & wished us good luck.

Lo & behold, on Tuesday the 10th we got another call from him. He wants us to return to Rapid City & manage his motel for the season! Besides the fact that we get to leave this ~~God forsaken place~~ little corner of paradise, the position is very lucrative. In addition to making good pay, we'll get an apartment to stay in for a year, along with a place to park our rig & truck, for free. We also get the usual perks of workcamping, free laundry, propane, wireless internet, and a store discount!

Why would we want to stay in an apartment, you ask? Well the answer to that is threefold. One, I was afraid that the call to court would come in the middle of winter & I didn't relish the thought of trudging up through the great white north to meet this obligation. Secondly, this hiatus from living in our coach will allow me time to make some changes to the interior that we have talked about, without the hassle of trying to do it while maintaining a livable environment. There is a fairly decent shop on the premises I can use to make what I need. And thirdly, we will make more money there than LeAnna can make here in the same period of time.

Here's the kicker, after Sept. 15th we don't have to do anything with the motel, not even answer the phone! LeAnna will likely find another job for the winter. If all goes well, we may even stay on for another season, leaving in September '08. Hopefully we will be leaving there with not only a replenished bank account, but 2 scooters in a box trailer as well!

More on this story as it develops...

Mark

Things Are Going South In The Southwest

2007-03-08T23:08:00.000-06:00

Carlsbad, New Mexico.
For some, these three words conjure up visions of a big hole in the ground. For others, it’s the scene of a multitude of swarming bats. For me, it’s my home for the next (insert number here) months.

As readers of this blog no doubt realize, we spent the winter of 2005 / 2006 in this same town, same campground as a matter of fact. As summer came to a close last year, we were stuck without a good workcamping position to go to, so we opted to come back here. It was a simple matter of a phone call & we were invited to return.

We’ve broken our unwritten rule about not going to the same place twice. We figure that there is so much to do & see in this great country that we’ll be lucky to get in even half of it during the time we have left on this big blue planet. We had planned to head to Arizona this winter, however, upon doing a little homework on the Yuma area, I found out about a thing called "Valley Fever". VF is a respiratory ailment brought on by fungus spores found in the dirt there. I guess this really wasn’t much of a problem in the past, but a couple of things have changed. One is the proliferation of toy haulers, which allow people the freedom to take their quad runners with them. Unfortunately, these “quads” kick up a tremendous amount of dust, which bears the fungal spores. The fungus spores are carried by the wind & people inhale the dust. One of the affected groups is people with compromised immune systems or respiratory conditions, of which I have both. So we decided to avoid that area.

Something I have come to notice about the people in this park, they’re different, & for the longest time I couldn’t put my finger on what exactly it was. When you walk through the park, hardly anyone waves. Actually, there’s hardly ever anyone outside! It occurred to me that almost half of this park is rented to “monthly’s”. These people live here. They go to work everyday, come home, watch TV & go to bed. It’s the mindset of most people that live in what I call “stick homes”. (Don’t get offended…I said “most people”). They have problems of their own & really don’t want to know you. This is one of the things that I hated about living in a stick house. You really can’t classify these people as RV’ers, because they don’t travel. Hell, looking at the rigs here, most of them haven’t been licensed in years! I think true RV’ers are a bit of a different class. That’s not to say we’re any better or worse, just different. We travel, experience life from a different perspective and generally enjoy our lives. There’s a common bond there and a general camaraderie that’s commonly found in groups like sailors or divers.

As I mentioned at the outset, I’m not sure how long we’ll be here. I thought we were going back to Rapid City this summer to make a court appearance for my Social Security claim, but when I called my attorney, I was informed that it could take anywhere from 8 to 12 months to get a court date. Try as I might, I can’t come up with a good reason to leave here, just to travel again to someplace warm next winter. A real waste of fuel. This is going to be the longest time we’ve ever spent in one place since we hit the road. I’m generally ready to hit the road after about 3 months. I’m not sure what I’ll be like after spending a year here. I would love to be in financial shape to be able to stay just one month at any given place before moving on.

At least when you stay in one place like this you have plenty of time to devote to your hobbies. I received some new accessories for my telescope and this will give me the opportunity to get them installed. I’m looking forward to going out in the desert some night to get away from the city lights. I’m hoping it will give us a nice dark sky to view.

I also travel with a homemade dartboard stand, so I can throw outside, when conditions allow. I started fabricating this thing when we were in Rapid City & finally finished it up when we arrived here last fall. It works really well & breaks down to fit in one of those folding camp chair bags.

Living in an RV really doesn’t give you much wall space inside for a dartboard. Besides, “She That Must Be Obeyed” gets pissed if I miss the board & stick one in her dinner plate. (Hey, I didn’t tell her to sit there!) It’s nice to be able to throw at yer own house without having to go to a pub. Besides, most bars are going to electronic dartboards now. I guess you really can’t charge someone to play a game of steel darts. And there’s the whole liability thing…jeeze, drinking a little beer & throwing sharp objects, what two activities go hand in hand better?

By the time (insert month here) rolls around, I will certainly be ready to hit the road! Knowing we are going back to Rapid City is kind of a double-edged sword. I know we’re going back to a great job at a good park, but I definitely hanker to go some place I’ve yet to see. Perhaps this trip, I’ll finally get this Social Security thing resolved. We desperately want to sell the pickup truck and get a box trailer and scooters & the back pay from this claim would make this possible.

If you’re still with me at this point, a gold star for you.

I guess I should take some space to mention something about our trip from Rapid City to here. We stayed in SD until nearly the end of September. I learned an important lesson…when the birds fly, so should I. All the other workcampers left at the end of August. We thought it would be good to hang around a couple of weeks, besides I had some medical tests to wrap up. Let me tell ya something, the seasons there change faster than Britney Spears' hairstyle. In just a few days it went from sunny 70’s to rainy 50’s. So, we ~~loaded the ark with all animals~~ ~~gathered all our junk~~ collected all our valuables and headed towards warmer latitudes. On our way through Denver we stopped at a scooter dealership to look at some choices for future scoots. Naturally we found just what we were looking for at a reasonable price. Unfortunately, if we had bought them at that time, we would’ve had to sleep in the pickup truck, ‘cause the scooters would’ve had to be stored on our bed.

RULE OF THUMB: You only find what you’re looking for when you’re not ready to acquire it.

After innumerable promises of our return (made to LeAnna, not the sales people), we resumed our voyage south. Most of the trip was uneventful, that is until we reach the outskirts of Roswell. About 15 miles outside of town, I looked in the mirror & saw ~~a silver flying disc~~ what is commonly referred to as a “road gator”. For the uninitiated, a road gator is the tread of a tire, which has jumped mercilessly onto the pavement, sacrificing itself so that it might rip the muffler from the car of an unsuspecting traveler. After uttering the appropriate “magic phrases”, I ease the rig to the side of the road. Upon inspection, I discover that the tire is actually still holding air. It appears that “all that’s happened” is the tread has peeled off the tire…and dented the fender…and tore out part of the inner fender well…and ripped out all the wires going to the power window, and the power door lock and the speaker of the passenger door. --That’s all--. So, we decide to limp down the highway a short piece to a wide, flat spot off the shoulder. Fortunately, we have Triple A with RV coverage. Unfortunately, we’re not sure where we are. Oh we know what highway we’re on, but we don’t know what mile marker we’re near. We can see two marker posts, one about a half mile up, the other about a half mile back. Wisely, we decide to break out the binoculars to get a look-see. It’s at this moment I realize I should have spent the extra $20 for the bit more powerful set. After 20 or so minutes of “is that a 6 or an 8?” and “it’s either 187 or 263”, we decide that the only thing to do is to unhitch and drive the motorhome ahead to see what it really says. Not wanting to leave the truck unguarded on the side of the road with all our ~~junk~~ prized possessions, I volunteer LeAnna to stay with the truck while I take the RV to reconnoiter.

As I near the milepost, I can see it says neither 187 nor 263, so much for modern optics. It’s at this point that the thought crosses my mind about “just driving on”. But I regain my senses when I realize ~~she would just hunt me down & kill me~~ ~~I have a lot of good junk in that truck~~ how much I love & need her & how my life means nothing without her. So I make my famous ubee and return to the scene of the crime. Amazingly, we have cell phone service without having to stand on top of the rig & make the call to AAA. We are assured by Deborah, the Triple A agent, that help is on the way. I pass the time by making up new cuss words to call the truck. LeAnna reads. Forty-two phrases later, a flatbed truck pulls onto the side of the road behind us. As he loads the pickup, I casually ask what it might take for him to “forget” to chain my truck down, “accidentally” losing it on the highway to be totaled. I can tell by the look on his face that we really aren’t speaking the same language. After watching the driver waste valuable minutes chaining my truck down, we are on our way to Roswell. Traveling at ~~warp speed~~ better than 75mph, we arrived at Wal-Mart tire shop.
I guess he really wanted to get back to Sunday football before the nachos were all gone. So, $115 & a new tire later, we’re hooked back up & on our merry way towards Carlsbad.

As it’s only about 60 miles from Roswell to Carlsbad, the rest of the trip was satisfyingly uneventful. We arrived at the park near dusk & were greeted by the owner with ”Boy, am I glad to see you”. I thought it kind of curious at the time, but shrugged it off, figuring she’d somehow “channeled” the trouble we had gone through & was happy we had made it. We signed our paperwork, found a spot & hooked up our rig. The following day I found out the cause of her elation. It seems she had a fish on the hook that was interested in buying the park. * Groan * She had not done the books or any of the pertinent paperwork since I had left six months ago!!

Her “files” left a great deal to be desired, needless to say. So, I spent the next 65 hours with my head buried in paper. Not all at once, mind you, but I trudged through my 20 hours / week deciphering, going through unopened mail, and generally trying to sort out the mountain of ephemera. Finally, I finished and recorded all the information on floppy discs for her & made reports in the relative areas for the new owner.

After everything’s said & done, the new owner has honored the workcamping agreement I had with the former owner, & even though there have been many changes to the park, some of them have actually been good. We can stay here for free as long as we wish & LeAnna has a decent job at Wal-Mart. It’s not a perfect world, but it’s as close as we can get from here…

Until Next Time…

Mark

Time to Leave the Black Hills

2006-09-25T23:53:00.000-05:00

It's about time for us to pack up the grill, the cooler, and the lawn chairs and move on down the road. In my opinion, the Black Hills area of South Dakota is one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. But winter is coming, and this is not a place we want to be when it starts to get really cold.

We are already making plans to come back here for next summer. There is just so much to do and see here. Mark has been sick much of the time we've been here this year. I think he'll enjoy coming back here when he may feel more like getting out and going places.

Now that we have declared South Dakota as our legal residence, we'll have to come back here at least once every five years to take care of business. Hopefully, next year we'll be making the trip back to take our motorcycle license exams. We've been wanting to buy a couple of small scooters (250cc), and it looks like next year might be THE YEAR. At least we hope so!

Our next stop is Carlsbad, New Mexico. I know...been there, done that. But this year we have to stay settled (somewhat) while we complete some medical business. And we both liked Carlsbad quite a bit. So, if we have to be in one place for months, at least we can pick somewhere we know we like and where Mark can tolerate the climate. I'm already looking forward to seeing some of the people I made friends with while we were there last winter. I am even hoping to go back to work at the same job, while we are there this winter.

We'll be hitting the road the day after tomorrow. So this last group of updates will have to suffice until we get settled in our new home, which shouldn't take more than a week or two.

I want to leave y'all with some final pictures of the black hills of South Dakota. If you ever want to visit a place with lots of natural beauty and plenty of things to do, I highly recommend Rapid City, South Dakota.

And a final thank you to Sonya and Terry, who once again provided these lovely pictures.

Crazy Horse-ing Around

2006-09-25T23:30:00.000-05:00

Ok, so when I came to South Dakota, visiting The Crazy Horse Memorial was pretty high on my priority list. But to be honest, they haven't done much to it that you can see from a distance. I DID visit, but only in passing, and I didn't even take a picture. (I don't know why.)

I found out later, that in June there is a hike up to the top of Crazy Horse. It only happens once a year, and I missed that opportunity. Besides, if I remember correctly it's a really long hike! But fortunately, my friend, Sonya, did go and she took tons of pictures. They were so cool, I just had to share them with y'all. It's not often you get a bird's eye view like this one.

A Note About Links

2006-09-25T23:27:00.000-05:00

I just wanted to mention to anyone who may not have noticed, that I have begun to add links to the places I write about. If you click on the title of most of my posts, you will now find a direct link to the websites of those places.

Happy Surfing!

Bear Country U.S.A.

2006-09-25T22:54:00.000-05:00

One of our final outings here in Rapid City, was to Bear Country. We went with Gina, who is a fellow workcamper and also our neighbor. When we arrived, we ran into Terry and Sonya, also fellow workcampers, and continued the tour as a group.

Bear Country was wonderful. It's one of those parks where the animals are free and you drive through in your vehicle. And afterward you can take a walking tour of the area where they keep the babies. Seeing the adult animals was cool, but watching the bear cubs play was the highlight of the day for me.

This little guy laying in the grass was having so much fun. Everytime he grabbed the end of that big limb, it caused the entire thing to rock and all the other bears couldn't seem to figure out what was going on.

After we finished looking at the animals, we HAD to make the obligatory stop by the gift shop. I was really proud of myself for not buying anything at this stop, but Sonya was not so lucky (depending on your point of view, of course!). Sonya loves caps and she couldn't resist one from Bear Country. Here she shows off her newest addition, but can't seem to bring herself to decide between the new cap and the one she was currently wearing. No problem, just wear them both!

Oh! Did I mention that Mark has once again cut all his hair off? Yep, and he's going with his natural color, which is a very distinguished graying shade of brown. I think I like this look on him. Or it could be those cool new Bono-ish sunshades!

So This is the Mystery of the Cosmos!

2006-09-25T22:40:00.000-05:00

John expressed a desire to visit a tourist attraction nearby called The Mystery of the Cosmos. Since this was high up on our list of "must-do things", we were all excited to be going there. Maybe not giddy, but definitely excited.

For anyone who has ever visited a place like this, you probably have heard of the concept of forced perspective. This occurs when something is built so that you truly feel things are one way, when, in fact, they are exactly the opposite. For example, the rooms were built on a slope, the floors were actually sloped, but the items in the rooms were level. And since you are standing on the side of the hill, everything in the rooms seemed to be off-balance rather than the reality which was YOU were off-balance. (If this made no sense at all to you, perhaps the photographs will make it more clear.)

Close Encounters of the Devil's Tower Kind

2006-09-25T00:44:00.000-05:00

Not long after John and Sandy arrived, we decided to make the drive into Wyoming to visit Devil's Tower. It was something we all wanted to see while we were in this part of the country. It wasn't nearly as irrisistible an urge as the folks in the movie, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, experienced, but we really did want to go.

I think I could have sat for hours and watched crazy folks climb this mountain. But watching someone climb a mountain is a little bit like watching snow melt...you know it's going to happen, but it never seems quite fast enough.

Fortunately, one of my friends took some photos of some other folks climbing the Tower and shared them with me. So, I'll share them with all of you. If you look closely at the third photo, you will notice a small speck in the middle of the Tower. The next photo is a close-up of that same photo and you can just make out that it is a climber. Compare that to the first photo of the Tower and you can see what a long climb it is to the top. And speaking of the summit, it is said that the top of the Tower is an area the size of three football fields.

This first photo tells the myth and history of the Tower. It is still considered a sacred place for the Native Americans and many of the trees have colored prayer cloths tied to them.

Here's a photo of us enjoying the view. That John sure seems camera shy, doesn't he? Or maybe he was just mesmerized by the view.

Old Home Week

2006-09-25T00:22:00.000-05:00

John and Sandy are coming!
John and Sandy are coming!
Don't get me wrong, all the workcampers here are wonderful people and we have made some fine new friends. But we were so excited to know that our friends from Moab were going to be spending a week with us on their way back east.

I made all kinds of plans for things we could do and places we could go while they were here. But then I remembered they are at least as laid back as Mark and me, so my over-ambitious plans had to be scaled back to something more closely resembling reality. There were some things we just had to do, such as visit Mt. Rushmore and Devil's Tower. But mostly we were happy just to have another opportunity to sit around and visit.

Here are just a few of the pictures we took at Mt. Rushmore.

Sandy gives a wave; we're off to see something else!

Reptile Garden (of Eden)

2006-09-23T01:28:00.000-05:00

There is a place across the street from the Happy Holiday Campground called Reptile Gardens. One day early in our stay, we decided to go over and check the place out. It turned out to be one of the most fun things we've done here.

Reptile Gardens has a HUGE glass dome in one part of the park. Inside this dome is one of the biggest hibiscus trees I've ever seen. It's also home to all kinds of birds and snakes and other kinds of reptiles.

Reptile Gardens is home to the largest crocodile in captivity, which is 15 feet long. Imagine you are walking along and as you round a corner...BAM! there it is! It's name is Maniac, and it's bigger than you can really comprehend without seeing it in person. Just think of it like this...from snout to tail you could fit two six foot tall men...with room to spare! Or consider this, the crocodile is only 10 feet shorter than our entire motorhome! I didn't get any pictures of this crocodile as I was too busy staring in fascination!

I did manage to get some pictures of the young man who wrestles alligators. He seemed so young that my first thought when I saw him was to wonder if his Mom knew what he did for a living. However, he seemed to know what he was doing, and he was very entertaining....probably nuts, but very entertaining.

Even though the alligator wrestling was fun to watch, I think I liked the giant tortioses and the birds at least as well. The area under the dome, was like an indoor mini tropical jungle. And the tortioses, which had their own seperate habitat, seemed so old and wise. It's amazing to think that both the birds and the tortioses have an average life span that is often much longer than our own.

This fellow does not seem to be very amused by all the attention. If looks could kill, huh? I think this was my cue to move along!

The Badlands....and now I know why!

2006-09-23T01:01:00.000-05:00

After spending an hour or so walking and gawking at Wall Drug, we headed into the Badlands. If anyone ever wondered why it's called the badlands, they will understand within minutes of entering this area.

I can't imagine what it must have been like for the pioneers who found themselves faced with having to pass through this landscape. But I'm sure it must have played a role in Rapid City's very existence. I can just picture some hardy pioneer woman putting her foot down and refusing to travel another mile after getting out of the badlands and finding herself in the beauty of the Black Hills.

For this trip we spent the day with Jake and Bonnie, who were also workcampers here at the park. On a side note, it was nice to find out that even though they live in Florida for part of the year, they are originally from the same area in Ohio as Mark. Some times you just have those "small world moments".

Anyway, here are some photos of the four of us in The Badlands National Park. As you can see, Jack and Mark were much more adventurous than Bonnie and me. No way was I going to get that close to the edge!

The Badlands should be desolate. It's definitely a harsh, rugged landscape. But it also very beautiful. The day we visited the sun was bright and hot, and the sky seemed enormous. I wish I could explain how it felt to be there, but words just don't capture the spirit of many of the places we've seen. Pictures only begin to do so. That said, here's my humble photographic attempt at showing you what I saw.

Wall Drug

2006-09-23T00:46:00.000-05:00

For what seemed like hundreds of miles before we got to Rapid City, we saw signs along the road advertising Wall Drug. Shoot! When visiting their website you'll find that they have store signs as far away as Moscow and the South Pole!

Needless to say, by the time we arrived we knew it was one place (besides Mt. Rushmore and the badlands) that had to be added to our must-see list. And since Wall Drug was on the way to visit the badlands, it quickly became our first stop.

Wall Drug has been around since the 1930's. It's claim to fame in the early days was that it offered free ice water to travelers who stopped into the store. This may sound hokey now, but I'm sure in the days before air-conditioned vehicles, this was quite a draw after driving through the badlands.

These days Wall Drug has grown into a huge establishment with what seems like dozens of buildings. The decor is early Americana and the store deals in mainly tourist kitsch. Ok, it's just a big, huge tourist mecca! But it WAS fun and I'm glad we went. I even had some of that free ice water!

While I was there I made friends with an old cowboy. He wasn't real talkative, but he seemed happy enough!

Happy Holiday....Park, that is!

2006-09-23T00:05:00.000-05:00

Well, it looks like I've been lazy on this blog again. Someone really needs to give me a good talkin' to! Here we are getting ready to leave South Dakota, and I have yet to post anything about all the wonderful things we've done and seen while we've been here this summer.

We have been here at The Happy Holiday RV Resort in Rapid City for a little more than three months. And Mark and I both agree that this is one of the best experiences we've had since we began fulltiming. The manager and his family are really good people, the park is excellent and the workcamping has been a dream. So much so that I think we'll actually plan on coming back here next summer....maybe.

Here are a some pictures of the campground and one of Fritz and Susan, who manage the campground and motel.

There were over 20 workcampers at the park this summer, and they were all truly wonderful people. We got together for breakfasts at the park and also at a local Elk's Lodge. And on several occasions Mark and I joined some of them for dinners, and other outings. I'll post pictures of those in later posts.

Here are some pictures from one of workcamper breakfasts, which was held right after the big Sturgis Bike Rally Week. Boy! Were we all tired and ready for a little down time. It was really nice of the manager and his family to treat us to breakfast, which they cooked for us.

Wyoming...Yippee!

2006-08-22T17:14:00.000-05:00

Wyoming is a truly awesome place. Talk about wide open spaces! The landscape in the southwest part of the state is so barren of anything but grass, that they actually place cut-outs of horses and buffalo on the hills so you have something to look at!

Cheyenne, Wyoming was like an oasis in the middle of a desert of grass. Suddenly you come upon civilization, water, trees, billboards, and lots and lots of people. I have to say that I had mixed emotions; the city girl in me was happy to see civilization, but the adventurer in me was kind of diggin' the solitude of the prairie.

But the one thing that Cheyenne, Wyoming has that I am very interested in is The Big Horn RV Center, where we will have our new generator installed. We will once again be able to have air conditioning, television, and the use of our microwave and hot water. Ahhhhh...all the modern conveniences. Prairies are all fine and good, but they are a lot nicer when you're clean and can have a hot meal.

That said, we are once again traveling in comfort. Which is good news because it feels as though we are heading back into the prairie. It is just unbelievable how much space there is out here. Not a tree or house or anything in sight for miles at a time. Just grass, fences and highway. And then we came across this sign for the small town of Lost Springs. Notice the population?

A little further on we came across this old homestead. Maybe they were former residents of Lost Springs?

Over the Hills and Through the Woods

2006-08-22T16:24:00.000-05:00

So, it's been a while; two months to be exact. We are now in Rapid City, South Dakota, where we've been for all of the time we've been missing. Until recently, the wifi connection here was less than adequate and I could not get any of my photos loaded. I know!...I could have at least continued with the blog, but it just ain't the same without being able to share my pictures. At least, it's not to me. Excuses made, let me try to get caught up with where we've been and what we've been up to.

First stop was colorful Colorado.

We spent the first night in a WalMart in Rifle, Colorado. I don't think I mentioned it, but our RV generator died on us while we were in Moab. You just don't realize how much you like something until it's gone. Especially things like generators...in metal motorhomes...in the summer. By the time we got to Rifle it was late afternoon and it was all of 105 degrees in the motorhome. We spent all afternoon and evening sitting in the shade of the building trying to catch a breeze. Thank goodness we had an appointment to get a new generator in Wyoming. Too bad that was two days away.

The next day we drove higher into the mountains and the temperature was much cooler. We even saw some snow on the mountain peaks and a lot of water rushing down the sides of the mountain from melting snow. We drove through Vail, Colorado, which is truly a beautiful place. I didn't get any pictures of the town, but I did get a picture of what was left of the ski slopes and the melting snow.

The mountains are so incredibly beautiful. But they sure put a strain on the motorhome's engine. I'll leave this post with a picture of Mark putting the radiator hose back on after it blew off while we tried to chug up the final big grade. Notice how cheerful he looks? Of course, he has yet to see the downward grade of this mountain crossing! Oooooweeeee baby!! We kept seeing signs that said things like "Don't think it's over yet!". I'll admit that I did not have the presence of mind to take pictures of these signs...I was too busy hanging on and praying...but I found this picture of one of them on the web.

Step One, Two, Three, FOUR

2006-06-18T23:05:00.000-05:00

Mesa Verde and Four Corners

It was our last sight-seeing excursion with John and Sandy we decided to make it a biggie. We decided to try to visit four states in one day. Yep, and we did it too!

Our first stop was at the Four Corners Monument, which is in Colorado..no..it's in Utah...no wait...is it New Mexico or Arizona?? Oh yeah...it's in all of them! We drove for what seemed like hours (2 of 'em), and I think we were all a little bit surprised when we got there. I'm thinking it's going to be something huge; maybe even monolithic. (I tend to get carried away like that.)

But when we arrived we found it to be a small two lane road on the Ute Indian Reservation leading up to what, at first, appeared to be a market, with little stalls all connected in a row and circling the monument. By the way, the prices for the Native American jewelry and pottery was really reasonable compared to what they charge in any of the towns we've visited. But I digress....

To take photos of the monument, there is a scaffold that is eerily similar to the ones you see on old westerns that are used for hanging the horse thieves. But since there were no ropes in sight, I climbed up for a photo op of John and Sandy, who obliged by doing their Super Hero impersonations.

Next, it was Mark and my turn to have our photos taken, but I just could not pick a state to stand in, so I opted to try to stand on the dividing line. I just happen to think it's best not to show favoritism and to cover all my bases! Yeah, that's it...I'm not wishy-washy...really.

That done, we were in the car and off to see Mesa Verde, which is ancient cliff dwellings of the Anasazi Indians. These were incredible structures; and it's difficult to imagine people living their daily lives on the sides of a mountain. The guide there explained that, in the time of the Anasazi, the land was much greener and the Indians were farmers. They farmed the land above their dwellings and lived in the cliff dwellings as a way to escape the harsh summer heat, winter cold and high mountain winds.

Below is one of Mark's soon to be infamous panoramic views of the cliff dwellings. Notice the ladders and carved staircases? And the round structures are called kivas, which were sacred rooms used for religious ceremonies. They sure seem to have needed a lot of kivas back then.

Also, I couldn't resist adding this photo of another tourist visiting the cliff dwellings. He was such a happy, cheerful guy. And talk about style!! I've been assured that plaid "goes" with plaid, so perhaps I'm just not as style conscious as I should be. Whatever the case may be, I could not help but appreciate this gentleman's complete disregard for color coordination and ANY sytle rules ever known to man in favor of what made him happy! Go Mister!!

Day Trippin' With the Neighbors

2006-05-20T00:36:00.000-05:00

The other day we got together with our neighbors and fellow workcampers, John and Sandy, and took a drive out to The Arches National Park. This is a picture of John and Sandy taken at Balanced Rock. Even though we've only known these two for a very short time, they just have that good-friend-feel about them. They've really made our stay here in Moab much nicer.

I know I repeat myself a lot, but I can't help but say again, "What an awesome place this is!". The arches themselves are amazing, but I am equally impressed by the other rock formations.

We found this space between some huge rock formations where we could get out of the sun for a little while. It was so nice to be in the shade and the rocks there helped lower the temperature by what seemed like 20 degrees. None of us were in a hurry to get back out in the sunshine.

Mark found a really shady place...too bad he can't stretch out and relax for a while!

I am constantly surprised by the plants and trees that grow in this climate. The wind and sun are so harsh that many of the trees don't have bark on them. They are just dried-out twisted limbs with no leaves, but right next to them will be a delicate blossoms that seem more suited to gentler climates or these vibrant yellow wildflowers that seem to thrive in the desert sunshine.

We visited an old ranch in the park called Wolfe Ranch. It was named after what I can only assume was a crazy-as-a-loon man who moved his family from Ohio out into the back of beyond after the Civil War. The term ranch is used loosely here as the house is actually only one small room with a tiny detached root cellar. I can't imagine how hard life must have been for these people.

Now, in case any of you noticed something odd about the quality of these photos let me confess. It is NOT my lame attempt at using the soft-focus option. It is because I screwed up and grabbed my camera by the lens without noticing it! Yes, I did it! It may be that the earlier post from the jeep safari where I thought the dog had nosed my camera lens may have just been another instance of me not paying attention to how I treat my equipment! But now I know! I will do better!!

A Visit With The Pope

2006-05-19T15:31:00.000-05:00

Actually it was a visit with the Popes...all five of them. Our friends George and Donna, along with their three daughters, stopped by to visit us in Moab, Utah, while vacationing from Canada.

We had such a good time, and it was wonderful to finally get to meet them in person. Mark and George met online several years ago at a bulletin board for people who own and/or are fans of Barth motorhomes. George and Donna own a motorhome just like ours. Mark and George struck up a friendship and have corresponded about all things Barth...and many things unBarth...over the years.

We spent the day together taking a drive into the canyons and having a cookout here at the motorhome. We took two vehicles; the guys in our truck and I rode with Donna and the girls, which was cool since it gave us all a better chance to get to know each other. I have to say they have truly wonderful kids...the kind you like to be around and enjoy conversing with.

While taking a walk, Emily (their youngest) pointed out this little lizard sunning on a rock. Thanks to Emily, I am now always on the lookout for more lizards to photograph when we are out in the canyons, like this chubby little guy we spotted later that same day.

One of my favorite photos was this one of George and Donna taken way back in the canyon. What a photo op!

I took this picture while walking through a nearly dry creek bed. But Donna was really good about pulling the van over and allowing me to also take photos along the way. I am forever amazed at the way the most delicate looking flowers can grown right out of the rock and sand here.

George was so impressed by the views in the canyon that Mark used our photo program to put together this panoramic view for him. This is better viewed if you click on the photograph and view the larger version. Ain't that something?!!

In no time at all the Popes felt like old friends. We were sorry to see them go, and we're looking forward to future opportunities to meet during our travels.

That's a Hole Lotta Rock

2006-05-19T14:45:00.000-05:00

Mark and I did a little day trippin' a little while back to check out a local tourist trap. There is a place right outside Moab called Hole N'The Rock, which we'd seen on television and had to see for ourselves. While it was every bit as cheesy as you might expect, it was fun and very unusual.

Hole N'The Rock (http://www.moab-utah.com/holeintherock/ and also, http://www.roadsideamerica.com/attract/UTMOAhole.html), was built by Al and Gladys Christensen, who began working on the cave-style home in 1940 and continued for 12 years before moving into the one completed room. Over the next five years, they added quite a few more rooms before Al died. Gladys lived in the home another 17 years, during which time she made additions and improvements. Both Al and Gladys are buried in a small grotto-like spot at Hole N The Rock. On either of the above websites you can read a more complete history of these two adventurous souls and their unique home. I say we just look at some pictures, yeah?

This is a picture of the entrance. You can see the signs where the souvenier store is located. This was originally smaller and was part of a diner. The first room built was a small dining room and kitchen which was used as a business. Note the little frontage walls to the right of the store; these are some of the rooms added when the building was extended and turned into a residence.

I suppose Al must have been a huge FDR fan. He spent quite some time sculpting his image into the rock wall above his home. Al was a very talented ..if somewhat eccentric...artist and one of the rooms facing the exterior of the rock was his studio.

There are quite a few metal and wooden sculptures on the premises, though I don't think they were done by Al or Gladys.

This one was called Alotabull, and it is! I couldn't begin to identify all the metal pieces that make up this sculpture, but it was pretty cool.

I don't remember seeing a name for this sculpture, but it was a wonderful homage to the importance of jeeps to many of the folks who love Moab. It is constructed entirely from tools and license plates.

And then there was the Cowboy and Indian...what self-respecting tourist stop in this part of the world would be complete without them?

To finish up the tour of Hole N'The Rock there is a petting zoo. Most of the amimals were sleeping so I didn't bother them, but this one guy caught my eye. In fact, he and I paced back and forth giving each other the one-eyed stare for quite some time before I took this photo. With the background and the because the scale of the photo seems all wrong, I think he came out looking kind of jurrasic.

We're On Safari

2006-04-15T12:45:00.000-05:00

Jeep Safari that is!

Recently, Mark and I got an opportunity to ride along on a local jeep tour. This was an appreciation tour given by the Moab4Wheelers group for the people who work in the local businesses that help support them. Because we are workcamping here in Moab, we were invited to join them. Honestly, I think anyone who showed up was encouraged to join in...these folks just really love to get out and climb rocks in their jeeps and 4 wheel drive vehicles.

Our tour guides were a brother and sister, Sherry and David. David is a professional tour guide and he was teaching his sister to driver jeeps off road. I thought I might be a little nervous being her first passengers, but she was good at driving and we had a great time. This a picture of Sherry, which was taken when we stopped for lunch. You'll have to overlook the slight smudge in some of these pictures...I was holding Sherry's little dog during part of the ride and his nose and my camera lens must have made contact at some point!

One of the things I thought was really great was this tour company that had gone to the local retirement home and offered free rides to any of the senior citizens who were willing and able to go. Surprisingly, there were quite a lot of them who came along and they all seemed to have such a good time. I counted at least three huge Humvees filled with mostly senior citizens.

I mentioned we stopped for lunch, which was provided by the Moab4Wheeler's group. Here's a picture that shows just how many folks showed up to go on this tour. The four people on the extreme right are the couple who are staying next to us and are also workcampers (Jim and Yevette) and then Mark and me. Even though it was a pretty cool day, it was beautiful and we all had a great time.

The following pictures are just some others I took while on the tour and wanted to share.

On to Moab...Wagons Ho!!

2006-03-14T22:43:00.000-06:00

We had planned to make several more stops on our way to Moab, beginning with two or three days in Farmington, NM. From there we had planned to visit the Four Corners Area. This is the only place in the US where you can actually be in four states in one time, as it is the junction of New Mexico, Utah, Arizona and Colorado.

After that the plan was that we would go into Colorado to visit The Canyon of the Ancients. You'll have to Google this place...it's awsome! But anyway...that WAS the plan...it is not what happened.

We left Farmington for the short drive through the Navajo Nation to the Four Corners Area. After what seemed a very long drive, we began to wonder why we weren't seeing any signs for Four Corners....or at least crossed the state line. I got out my trusty map only to find that we were driving in the wrong direction! By the time we figured out where we were there was nothing else to do but to drive on to Gallup, NM and head back.

Thankfully, we were able to deduce that by skipping over into Arizona and heading North we would be able to make the state line by dark. Not being sure whether we would be welcome to state overnight on the Reservation, we opted for making it into Utah and off the Reservation before nightfall. This meant that we were not going to be able to go to the Four Corners Area, but we figured we could catch it on our way out of Utah in the summer.

By the time we got to the state line it was again beginning to snow. We had decided to try to drive into Blanding, Utah, where we hoped to find a place to camp for the night and make the last 70 or 80 miles into Moab the following day.

But the closer we got to Blanding the more it snowed. The weather reports were predicting even more snow and freezing rain over night, and since we were unsure of the road leading into Moab, we decided to go for broke and make the entire trip that day. This meant that what was originally intended to be a 2 or 3 hour drive ended up being a drive of nearly 9 hours!

We made it into Moab about 30 minutes before nightfall. We only took enough time to hook up the necessities, before calling it a night. I think we were so road weary by then that we didn't really take in much of our surroundings.

But that made it all the more magical the next day. Even with the snow...and there was plenty of snow in the first few days we've been here...it's so beautiful. Here are a few pictures I've taken in the few days we've been here. I don't think pictures can really do this place justice. The way the rocks look at different times of the day...with the sunlight changing the way everything looks..is just awe inspiring. I can't wait until we have more time to explore this area.

This is called Church Rock; pretty cool, huh? It's actually several miles away from Moab, but I had to have a picture...I thought y'all might like it, too.

We also passed this ridge on the way into Moab and I couldn't resist taking a picture of the snow accumulating on the rocks. You can notice by the blur of tumbleweeds beside the road that Mark was really hurrying along toward our campsite!

This group of rocks is called The Portal, hence Portal RV Park, where we are staying, which is right in front of this view! I can't wait to see what it's a portal to!

These are the LaSal Mountains, which you can see just by stepping outside our front door. I love this!!

Just another lovely view from the campground! Utah..or at least Moab...is incredibly beautiful.

This is a picture of the cabins at our campground. They are really rustic and kind of wonderful and of course there's that view!

Alburquerque, New Mexico...And Not a Moment Too Soon!

2006-03-14T22:22:00.000-06:00

By the time we got into Alburquerque we were so stressed! And by "we" I mean, Mark, Pepper, me, AND the motorhome!

The first thing we did was find a place to get new tires on the motorhome. A couple hours (and several hundred dollars) later, we found a comfy WalMart and made ourselves comfortable for the night.

The next morning we drove out to The Enchanted Trails RV Park where we had a reservation for the next couple of nights. Once we got there we found out that a new Camping World would be opening up right next door to the campground on Monday, so we extended our reservation for one more night. This gave us 3 days to laze around and catch up on our rest. Yeah right!

We did spend the first day at the campground just lazing around. Mark had a doctor's appointment in town that afternoon, but that is about the most strenuous thing attempted that day.

The next day we went to The Fiery Foods Festival, where we had hoped to try some fiery foods. Unfortunately, this festival is more about sauces than food so there was very little in the way of actual food being offered. I did find a salsa mix and a BBQ sauce that I had been looking for, but other than that we simply tasted a few of the hot sauces and called it a day.

On Sunday we headed for Old Town, which is not to be missed should you ever find yourself in ABQ. I cannot believe I opted not to bring my camera as this was one of the most scenic places we visited.

We saw re-enactments of gunfights in the streets, a group of Civil War re-enactors who put on a show in the town square. The church, which was closed for renovations, was beautiful and we were able to walk through the grounds.

We had an excellent lunch at The High Noon Cafe, which is located in Old Town. After visiting a few more of the local stores where we were told by one very nice store clerk to beware of buying turquoise from anyone who is not either a jewler or a Native craftmen, as there were many fake turquoise stones out there. To be honest, at the prices asked for the real stuff (which was not unreasonable), I'd still have to be madly in love with a piece to pay that kind of "jack" for it!

I will be forever sorry that I did not have photos to share from our time in ABQ. It's a lovely city and well worth another visit at some time in the future.

The Road Less Traveled

2006-03-13T18:57:00.000-06:00

This morning finds your intrepid travelers camped at Fenton Lake SP. We are in a hurry to get started on the final leg of our trip which will take us away from Jemez Springs and back to the main route...mostly because we woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of freezing rain and snow on the roof. Mark wasn't too concerned, although I'd begun to have a small melt-down due to the steep grades and the amount of snow and ice I'd seen on the way to the state park.

Besides, it was only 17 more miles of gravel road until we got back to the paved route....how bad could it be? Well, it could be so bad that it took us 3 1/2 hours to drive the 17 miles of paved road. Thankfully, the grades on this portion of the road were not very bad at all. And the scenery was magnificent! Here are a few snapshots of the road we were traveling and some of the surrounding scenery.

After this, we had one more portion of very steep grades where we were once again forced to make numerous stops in order for our brakes and tires and transmission to cool down. We have reached the expensive conclusion that when we get to Albuquerque we are going to have to replace the tires on the motorhome. And it won't be much longer until we will need new brake linings, but that is something we may do ourselves since every place we've called wants hundreds of dollars to do it.

Jemez Springs, New Mexico with The Chosen One

2006-03-13T18:04:00.000-06:00

This is pronounced hay-mus...kind of like, Hey! Mus we go here? *g*

Again, this was a gray road. But we really wanted to visit the hot springs at Jemez Springs; maybe have a soak and perhaps even a massage. Then, we thought we'd have an early dinner at Los Ojos (which means The Springs), and retire for a relaxing night at Fenton Lake State Park. This plan went awry before it ever got off the ground. But that's why they call it an adventure, right? *s*

First, we stopped by the visitor center at Jemez Pueblo, and find out that the gray road we had planned to travel was 20 miles of paved road..."twisty, but not steep", and 20 miles of unpaved road. Depending on who you asked the unpaved part of the road was either "washboard rough" or "not too bad at all". We decide what the hell, we're gonna go for it...'cause that's just the kind of thing you do when you don't know any better.

Our first stop was the Bath House at Jemez Springs. We were expecting this huge natural hot spring that we could soak in together...even if we might have to share it with a few other folks. But what we got was two huge, deep bathtubs in a room together!? Ok..the water was really hot and relaxing. But I wasn't expecting to pay someone $20 for a bath! And since we weren't able to get a massage, so we opted for a short soak and trip across the street to Los Ojos for a burger and beer.

Los Ojos was really cool. It looked as though it had been there for ages. We chose seats at a booth next to the fireplace, rather than at the bar where the so-cool barstools looked as though they'd been rough-hewn from tree trunks. The burgers were excellent and the beer was so cold...just perfect.

I have to mention that during our meal we were joined by a very (and I mean VERY) inebriated Native American, whose name was Francesco...yep...Francesco. He stared into Mark's eyes for a moment and pronounced him "The Chosen One". Then he stared into mine and mumbled something I couldn't understand and he wouldn't repeat. Then he wobbled back to his own table for more tequilla shots.

We decided to drive on to Fenton Lake State Park for the night and finish up our Jemez Springs trip (the unpaved section) in the morning. Fenton Lake was small but beautiful; very wooded and secluded. And it was on the way to Fenton Lake that we began to see snow and ice-covered creeks for the first time along this trip.

What's a GRAY ROAD?

2006-03-13T16:48:00.000-06:00

By definition, the Atlas says that gray roads are: Other roads, conditions may vary; local inquiry suggested. Oddly enough this is the same definition used for unpaved roads!! This is also a very important piece of information we did not possess when leaving Riudoso.

The gray road leaving Riudoso in the general direction of Albuquerque is beautiful; the views are spectacular. Unfortunatly, we were offered this view while going downhill on an 8% grade towing our pickup truck and hauling all our worldly belongings. Not a pretty sight!

By the second big downhill grade, we were forced to pull over and give our smoking brakes, transmission, and tires and chance to cool down. By the third and last set of grades and curves (on THIS road), our brakes gave out completely and we were fortunate enough to be able to pull into the grass in order to get ourselves stopped. I will forever be impressed with Mark's skill and stoic cool-headedness as I squealed all the way down the mountain!

Here is a picture of us setting on the side of an 8% grade while we cool our wheels. Notice how close we came to the end of the berm before running into the mountain? That was how long it took our brakes to get us stopped. I did not have the presence of mind to take a picture at the bottom of the mountain when our brakes quit working and we were forced to hit the grass in order to come to stop. I was too busy being glad we survived!

Long before we reached Moab, we had learned to dread the appearance of the following sign.

On to Riudoso...Charge!

2006-03-13T16:12:00.000-06:00

After we made plans to visit Riudoso, we were really unable to quite decide WHY we wanted to go there. I had heard that the area around there was beautiful, so I know that was one of my reasons. And it's true...Riudoso is a beautiful town. Very quaint and scenic, it's a ski town as well as boasting a casino and horse racing. But we don't ski nor are we huge fans of horse racing, and we were being very careful about visiting casinos. We'd also read online that there was a cafe in Riudoso that made truly amazing pizzas, but again...was that a reason to detour? Well, frankly, yes...yes, it is!

That said, we did find this awesome set of sculptures entitled Free Spirits in Noisy Water. The exhibit consists of eight massive bronze horses. The sculptor's name is Dave McGary, and these beautiful sculptures, were well-worth the short detour to see them first-hand. (And of course, there was the pizza.)

Mark couldn't resist trying to pick up one of the smaller ponies, which ended up making the other horses angry and one trampled him! Let that be a lesson!! *g*

The pizza we'd heard so much about was at Cafe Rio, which is a small, eclectic little cafe on the town's main tourist route. It's one of those places where you can entertain yourself for quite a while just trying to take in all the things hanging on the walls and from the ceiling.

From the front window you can watch the dough being tossed by hand. It truly was one of the best pizzas we'd ever eaten. The man who tended bar and took our order was very friendly and knowledgeable. Thanks to him we now have two new beers to add to our list of favorites!

Roswell is Out of This World!

2006-03-13T15:46:00.000-06:00

Okay, the truth is Roswell is incredibly cheesy, but it's a good kind of cheesy.

The town seems pretty divided into camps of folks who love the whole alien theme (and of these there are the pro and anti aliens), and the folks who seem to be fed completely up with all the ET bruhaha and refuse to even discuss it. I was surprised to find that the town's sign proclaimed it to be the dairy capital of the world and made no mention at all of UFOs or aliens. (Note the sign to the left of the city sign...seems to be advocating that we should BEGIN speeding?!)

We spent a day walking up and down the main street in Roswell and visiting some of the stores and the UFO Museum. I think things are a lot more lively here during the time of the Alien Festivals...things really had the feel of being "off season" while we were there. I did, however, run into this one alien on the street, and we were able to exchange the universal sign for Peace! Other than that, we had very little success at communicating!

We also visited The Nut House Pecan Company, where they were nice enough to show us how pecans are shelled....we'd wondered how that happened. It was noisy with the all the machinery that cracked and strained the nuts. Then the shelled pecans were sent by conveyor belt to these ladies whose job it was to hand-pick all the small pieces of shells out of the pecans! The ladies there were so nice, but I sure wouldn't want to have their jobs. Next time you wonder why shelled pecans cost so much, just think about all the labor that goes into processing them.

And We're Off!

2006-03-13T15:26:00.000-06:00

It's time to hit the road again. This time we'll be going from Carlsbad to our new workcamping job in Moab, Utah. This position is only a 3 month committment, but we have the option to extend it if we choose. Chances are we'll be ready to go again by the end of these 3 months. What can we say? It's just the way we are!

But first, we'll be taking an extended trip from Carlsbad to Moab. We have three weeks until we are expected in Moab, and we are going to visit Riudoso, New Mexico, Roswell, Albuquerque and several other places along the way.

Until I get the travel posts done, here are a couple of pictures of Mark, me and my good friend (and "seester"), Doreen, taken at the campground in Carlsbad a day or two before we left.

So, This is Sitting Bull Falls

2006-02-19T12:22:00.000-06:00

Last week we spent a day taking a ride through the desert to reach Sitting Bull Falls. Being from the heartland of America, the desert is pretty amazing to us. And as much as we sometimes miss the green grass and big trees, there is no denying the desert is uniquely beautiful.

The little dark spot in the center of this photo is actually a ranch. I can't imagine what it's like to live so far from any modern conveniences or even miles from any neighbors.

Sitting Bull Falls is located in a canyon, and has a wonderful area for picnics.

When we visited, New Mexico was in the midst of a drought, and there was not much to see in the way of majestic waterfalls, but we are told that during the rainy season, the falls are much larger. Still, the waterfall was beautiful, and we arrived in the afternoon when the desert sun served to enhance the view.

Here is a picture of Mark standing in what, in wetter times, would be the rush of water from the falls. Notice the ledge over his head? That is the overhang created by the water rushing through and eating away at the mountain.

Here's a photo of Pepper and me sitting in the mostly-dry creek bed. Pepper loves to go with us, but she wasn't so sure about climbing around in the creek bed, and several times she insisted that she be carried to a more comfortable spot. I think this one was a particular favorite of hers.

We decided to walk up a trail that supposedly led to the top of the waterfall. We weren't able to see the waterfall very well from the top, but we did get a great picture of the picnic area.

I also got a chance to work on my fear of heights. Woohoo! Here I am looking all smug and proud of myself. It doesn't take much to make me happy (or smug) and conquering unreasonable fears is right at the top of my list!

Holy Smokin' Guano, Batman!

2006-02-19T12:07:00.000-06:00

Recently, Mark and I took a trip to visit the Carlsbad Caverns, here in New Mexico.

This was an awesome place to visit, but no one ever mentioned just how smelly it was at the very beginning of the walk! Man!...or should I say Batman! That guano was something else! Of course, after several yards into the cave, you get past the bats bathroom and into the depths of the cave itself.

We did all but one section of the cave tour and it was 2 1/2 miles long! I believe at the end we were about 750 feet under ground, and we were both glad there was an elevator back to the top!

There are various length tours offered, and any of them are going to offer some truly amazing sites. In our opinion, at $6/person, it was more than worth the money.

Until next time, I'll leave you with this picture of me having a great time back at the surface. The buildings in the background are the offices and housing for some of the staff at the Caverns.

Bye for now!

And Just Where the Heck Have We Been Anyway?

2006-02-10T13:40:00.000-06:00

I cannot believe I let this blog languish as I've done...for shame!

At my last post, your intrepid travelers were still in Ohio at their first campground. God! But that seems like ages ago, and so much has happened since then. I once heard someone say that if you wanted to make God laugh, then tell him your plans. I'm thinking maybe I should have played my cards a little closer to the vest, 'cause I seem to have truly amused The Omnipotent One.

There were two major changes to The Plan, and they went as follows:

1) Turned out Mark's lung problems were worse than we had originally imagined. I am not going to go into a long-winded detail about his condition, but he has recently been placed on permanent disability. This means that we had to make some changes to our travel schedule. Most importantly, we have to plan our travels so that he avoids extreme temperatures, but especially very humid or cold weather.

2) I took a withdrawl from the Union. This means if I decide at some point I want to go back, I can. But with Mark's condition, we needed to be free to travel and find places that are more suited to his needs. If at some point I decide to relist with the Union, I can do so as a Permit Journeyman at any Union Hall, which is ok with me. For now, I'm just not wanting to do that. But the major change to The Plan is that we will no longer be required to return to Ohio every summer to work our Union jobs.

That said, let me return to what we've been doing and where we've been doing it.

After leaving Ohio in November of 2004, we went to Brenham, Texas, where we had accepted a workcamping job for the winter. It was in Brenham that we realized Mark's condition was not going to be one that improved. We only had to work a couple days a week in exchange for our expense (not including gas or groceries), so we decided to try to get a job in town. The plan was for both of us to apply for positions and whichever one went to work, the other would pick up their hours at the campground.

Well, Mark got a job at O'Reilly's Auto Parts, so I was the one who was supposed to work the campground hours. This had been cleared with the campground beforehand, but after a couple of weeks, the owner wasn't happy with the arrangement...mostly because he wanted Mark to do an ungodly amount of heavy labor and "he didn't want a woman". Pig's Ass!

Anyway, we opted to pay lot rent for the last couple months at the campground and Mark kept his job at O'Reilly's. And that's when we found out how easily he caught colds and how sick he got when he did. It was soon obvious that he was not going to be able to continue working for much longer, without taking some seriously stupid risks with his health.

One note, Brenham is a small little burg, but it is such a lovely place in the springtime when the wildflowers bloom. I took some lovely photos of bluebells and Indian Blankets and many other flowers I can't identify, but fell in love with.

In the spring we came back to Ohio, but we took the scenic route. Our first stop was in Galveston, where we spent a couple of days at the ocean (uh...I mean..Gulf).

While in Galveston, we met my friend Mare and her husband, David. We had a lovely day with them in Galveston, and had lunch at Fisherman's Wharf. I am so glad now that we took the time for this visit. David...You are missed by many! Mare, I love you. (biggest of hugs)

Back on the road, we stopped for a couple days in Lafayette, Louisiana and went to The International Festival, which is held there annually. It's a wonderful experience...great fun...and I recommend it to everyone. Especially since we don't know when or what we'll get in New Orleans when it is rebuilt. I only wish we had taken the time to go to New Oleans, but we decided to go another year, and now it'll never be the same place. :-(

While there we drove out to Avery Island, and toured the Tabasco Factory, where I promptly bought several hot lil' goodies. Avery Island is an odd place, nearly every bit of it is private property. Mark and I missed that sign and went sightseeing, but soon found ourselves being asked to return the area around the factory. Ooops!

We also visited Vicksburg, Mississippi on the way back, where we visited the Battlefield and I was held at gunpoint by a large Green Yankee and Mark wrestled a bronze horse and rider to the ground...barehanded no less!!

Vicksburg is a lovely town and I'd like to have spent more time there as well. The Riverfront Murals depicting life in Vicksburg in the past are amazing. (I'd post more photos, but there are so many!)

On the way to Vicksburg, we passed Mammy's Cupboard, which is an actual restaurant/gift shop. I wish it had been open when we passed as I'd love to have seen what Mammy had in her apron! I just have to share this photo with y'all...it's one of my favorites from the road.

We made a quick stop to visit with my family for a week, and I got to see my niece, Tammy, who is in the military and home for a visit. I hadn't seen her in years, and it was wonderful. She is such a great person and I'd missed her more than I thought. Visiting her probably won't happen since she's in Alaska and it can be pretty cold there (from what I hear). ;-)

Ok, I know I'm getting long-winded and posting lots of photos, but damn! it's been over a year! We stopped for a night or two in Mammoth Caves, Kentucky on the way to Ohio. We did one of the cave tours and visited the local wax museum, where these were just two of the icons we spotted.

Once we were back in Ohio, we stayed on his parent's property instead of going to a campground in order to save money. This was a very trying time for both of us, but I will be forever grateful for the hospitality and kindness of Mark's family. Not only did they offer us this financial help, but they were such good people to be around. It allowed us time to get to know each other, that I had not had previously, and I am glad about that.

Mark immediately got busy trying to get his disability established, and I took a job with a cleaning company near the house. I worked as a companion/driver/maid for a couple of elderly ladies and, while it was hard work at times, it was so rewarding. It was rather sad to leave them and Mark's parents when autumn came. But the upside was that we were once again Road Trip'n!

We left Ohio in November 2005 and took another scenic route to get to Carlsbad, New Mexico. We stopped to visit a Route 66 Museum in Oklahoma along the way and we also drove along part of old Route 66 on the way.

We have been at The Windmill RV Park in Carlsbad, New Mexico since November; Mark works a few hours a week here at the park and I got a job at the local WalMart. Mark also happened into a job with WiFiRV while we were here. Because he is technically inclined, and the camp was having difficulties with their WiFi service, Mark fixed it. The owner of the wifi service provider was impressed and offered Mark a consulting job. It's only a few hours here and there (and the possibility for residuals if he gets other parks to sign up in places we visit in the future), but at least Mark is getting paid for something he'd do anyway.

While in Carlsbad, we've been joined by another of our friends, Doreen, who recently sold her house and bought an RV to go see what she could see. Although I've been working so many hours that Doreen and I have not a had a lot of time to visit, we have managed a couple of lunch dates and we regualarly go shopping together. As soon as I can, I'll post some photos of us for those of you know and love us.

To be honest, there haven't been a lot of opportunities for sightseeing...working at a WalMart during Christmas time is an experience in itself! But we did drive to nearby Sitting Bull Falls recently. Again...I'll post some photos. And sometime in the next week or so, we'll be visiting Carlsbad Caverns, which are supposed to be awesome.

Then we'll be leaving in a few weeks to go to our next workcamping job in Moab, Utah. We've accepted a job there for three months, but with an option to stay longer. The RV park is right outside The Arches National Park, which is a place on our short list of places we HAVE to see. And it should be nice to be in a cooler climate for the summer months.

We have tentatively planned to go to Arizona next winter, but as of yet, we have not chosen a work camping position. For now, we are simply looking forward to our next bit of Road Trippin'.

By the way, Mark says, "Hi, How the f**k are ya?" *lol*

Honey, I'm Home!

2004-09-14T16:12:00.000-05:00

Hey again!

Well, we are finally out of the house and settled into our first campground...Yippee!!! We pulled into the Frontier Campground in Waynesville, Ohio on the 31st of July 2004, which made our first road trip a grand total of less than 25 miles!

As I'd mentioned before, since Mark was called for a job in nearby Cincinnati we have decided to remain in Ohio throughout this year's work season. It is now September 14th, and we have been here about a month and a half. Mark has been working 4 10-hour shifts per week so we've had 3 day weekends free to get out and do things and see places. I think I've seen more of Ohio in the past month than I saw in the first 6 years I lived here!

We finally got a phone line hooked up at the campground so I could keep up with my blog and I've managed to drag myself away from the sunshine and the pool to get my blog caught up. Life is hard sometimes, ain't it? *g*

In the time we've been here we've met some really nice people...a few have been fulltimers and some are just 'regular folks'. We've taken a canoe trip down the Little Miami River with Scott and Sherry, two of our new friends here in the camp. They are not a couple but rather two friends who happen to live here in the campground in a section of trailers and apartments for fulltime residents. We had a great time and Mark and I have discovered that we really enjoy canoeing together; we plan to add that to our list of future activities.

We've also struck up a friendship with an older couple who are workcamping here in the park. Jean and Frank Luneack (probably misspelled) are a retired couple who travel fulltime in their Challenger motorhome. Frank is 72 and Jean is "somewhat younger", but they are such energetic, happy people to be around that I don't think any of us pay attention to the age difference. Mark and I hope to meet more people like Jean and Frank as we travel.

A couple weeks ago Jean and Frank invited us to go to King's Island Amusement Park with them and we had a blast! They weren't sure how long they'd want to stay so we drove separate vehicles, but it turned out that they have as much...or more...stamina than we do! We stayed from open til nearly closing time...13 hours! Frank rode all the roller coasters with us and he had such a great time! We all did! Jean preferred to sit out the coasters, but she did have a blast in the bumper cars and I think she even enjoyed the white-water rafting ride.

This past weekend Mark and I joined some old friends, Mark Camden and his girlfriend, Sue, for an outing to the Ohio Renaissance Faire. I love the RenFests and we had a good time. This was the first time I'd watched them play the Queen's Chess Match and that was amazing...more so to think royalty in the Renaissance period might have actually had this type of sport at their fairs where the "chessmen" actually fought out the moves. I also enjoyed the "Theater in the Mud", which recreated what it might have been like for traveling actors of that period. We did miss the show on swordsmen and the recreated pirate attack, which was a shame...I'm sure we would have enjoyed it.

Now we have decided to slow down our going and spending and start saving some money for our winter travels. We have also decided that this first year we will have to go somewhere and work since I haven't been able to go to work with the Union at all this year. I missed the one call I've had since moving into the motorhome. And at this point it might not pay for me to go to work as we'd have to buy a vehicle for me to drive and sell it when we leave in a few months. I'm undecided on that one...if the Union calls I may have to consider taking the call. We'll see....

To help in deciding where to travel we have joined the Workampers group and are awaiting our first issue so we can see what kind of jobs are going to be available. We are both looking forward to the time we can really take our first real road trip.

2004-09-14T16:04:00.000-05:00

Pepper likes to join us when we visit Frank and Jean at their campsite.

2004-09-14T16:02:00.000-05:00

Our campsite...lit up like Little Las Vegas!

2004-09-14T16:00:00.000-05:00

Frank, Jean, me and Mark enjoyed ourselves at King's Island Amusement Park in Cincinnati, Ohio.

2004-09-14T15:58:00.000-05:00

Mark and I paddle our way down the Little Miami River.

The Furbabies Find a Home

2004-07-07T22:04:00.000-05:00

Guess what? The cable company has stood me up!! Yep...hard to imagine, but true! I scheduled the cut off for the 30th of June. I removed the computer modem so they could pick it up and no one showed up! I called again, and they seemed pretty lacksadaisical about it, but said they WOULD be out. After a few days, of guilty pleasure watching cable I shouldn't have, I said "What the hell, I'm putting the modem back on, too!" *g* So, they could pull the plug at any moment...I'm sure they will after they realize they have my pro-rated check for cable service up to the end of June!

Today Mark and I drove to Michigan to meet Laura and her daughter Kelly. Laura is a good friend that I met online and her daughter, Kelly, is the wonderful young lady who offered to adopt my two cats.

While, I am sad to have to find homes for my cats after having them for 8 years, it was something that had to be done. After the troubles Mark has developed with his lungs, we were told my the lung specialist that they HAD to go or we'd risk further damage to Mark's lungs. Fortunately, Laura and Kelly rescued them...and me...in our hour of need. If I can influence anyone reading this...please...if you have room in your home and in your heart...adopt a mature cat or dog. They have much less chance of finding homes, and they deserve an opportunity to live in a home and to give and receive love and companionship.

As for the moving...we are moving right along! *g* We are about half finished with our final woodworking project and should be done with it by the end of this week. That will give us nearly two weeks to finish cleaning and packing up the shop. The house is all but finished, as we have only the dishes we use daily left in the cupboards, a few towels, and our clothes, which will be transferred to the RV within the next week.

Then, it's just a matter of waiting til the auction date of the 21st, making sure people removed all the items they paid for...and getting the hell out of town!

I'll post more as time...and the cable company...allows.

Temporary Sporadic Internet & Other Challenges

2004-06-28T18:52:00.000-05:00

Just wanted to post an update for any of my friends or family who may be checking the blog. We are having our internet cut off here at the house on the 30th of June...2 days from now!! Yikes!! It will be my first time without the internet in the house in nearly 8 years!! I may feel 'nekid'!! *lol*

As soon as we get set up at the campground we'll be having a phone line installed since we'll be in one place for several months. I won't have my fast cable connection, but at least I will have a phone modem so I can stay in touch and update my blog.

On to happier news...I've found a home for my two house cats!! Yippee!! I was beginning to panic and be seriously depressed about this as I've been turned down by just about every no-kill shelter in Ohio! One of my friends, Laura, who lives in Michigan said she would take them if I could get them to her! It's about a a 6-hour drive one way, but if it means finding them a good and loving home, then I have no problem with delivering them! I am ecstatic!!

Mark and I have been working diligently on the wood trim in the motorhome. All that is left is the entry door and some decorative trim in the cab section. We should be able to knock that out with one more day of good hard labor. We've also made some inroads into the chaos that is our woodshop. That's going to take more work than either of us imagined, but it's the last biggest job we have left.

Now we just have to figure out HOW to get the things we are taking packed into the storage boxes in the most efficient way and have them ready to store when we get the cap put on the pickup. Some days it seems we feel we have to take all kinds of things and the next day we feel we barely need more than a toothbrush! Condensing two lives into a space as small as our motorhome and truck bed (with an eye to weight considerations) is a challenge!

I love a challenge!

How Time Flies

2004-06-25T17:47:00.000-05:00

Only a few weeks left until the auction! July 21st is the revised date for our household auction. Some days I think it can't get here soon enough and other days I'm worried sick that we can never be ready by then!

But we will be ready! Or we'll deal with it as best we can...July 21st it will be! We have the remaining pieces of wood trim cut out; as well as a new laptop table we decided at the last minute to add to the Navigator (Passenger) Seat side of the Cab. We still have to cut out and build the box which will hold our CB and radio as well as our office supplies. But that's the jobs left that we need the woodworking shop to complete. We think we can get them all done this coming week, which will leave the remaining time for clearing junk out of the shop and cleaning up the tools and machinery for the sale.

We have already picked out and paid a deposit on the campsite where we will move when we leave here. Before Mark got called to go back to work, we were planning to try to leave Ohio by the end of August and start our travels early with a trip to Tennessee to visit my family. This plan called for several month-long stops rather than going wherever the spirit took us, but it was necessary because we were planning on traveling on severely limited funds.

Now that Mark is back at work (and hopefully I will be soon), we can stick with our original plan. We will stay in a local campground as long as the work lasts, which should be late autumn. Then we will be able to travel at least until the following May and our resources won't be so seriously limited.

Meanwhile, all we have to do is try to keep our noses to the grindstone in preparing for this sale! This shouldn't be so hard as we are both "chomping at the bit" to get out of here and into our new lifestyle.

What A Difference A Day Makes

2004-06-17T21:11:00.001-05:00

We've had a wonderful turn of good fortune at a time when we needed it most desperately! Today Mark received a call from the company he worked with last year and they are starting up a new job on Monday. He'll be operating a loader for them and the job should last until it is too cold to dig and lay pipe! Yes!! Yippee!!

For over three years Mark and I have planned on the day we would sell our extraneous belongings and move into the motorhome fulltime. Never in our wildest dreams did we think we would both have medical setbacks at the same time which would require us to be off work for several months...and then for bad weather and a poor job market to leave us unemployed for a couple months beyond our normal winter "down time".

But this is exactly what happened to us! We both made it nearly to the end of last year's work season, but Mark was so sick with lung problems (for a while there we were both very worried about his condition!), and I ended up having a complete hysterectomy. We are both much better now, but for a while there it was looking pretty bleak.

But one day has made the difference. We've reached a turn-around point. Mark is going back to work, and I should be getting a call from the Union any day now to go back to work myself. Hopefully, we will both be able to work until early winter and earn enough to replace our lost savings, and buy a few "goodies" we wanted for the motorhome and our travels.

We have already starting planning to have an auction rather than dragging on with yard sales....yard sales will wear you out in a hurry!! So, on July 20th, we will have an auction here and no matter what the outcome financially, we will be well and truly done with all these belongings that just feel like boat anchors to us now. All the proceeds from the auction will go toward replacing our savings.

And less than two weeks after the auction we will be moving the motorhome to a campground as convenient to our jobs as possible. So, all told...we have just 5 weeks until we are free of the house and all the work we've had to do leading up to becoming fulltimers. It's hard to believe that after all the planning, working and waiting we are about to embark on what promises to be a big adventure!

Disrobing

2004-06-12T23:21:00.000-05:00

Whew!! Getting rid of 4 closets and two dressers full of clothes turned out to be a bigger chore than I thought!! After two days....and a dozen lawn-sized garbage bags...we've done it! We now own 45 pounds of clothing for each of us, not counting coats and work boots, which will be put into Space Bags and stored in the "toad".

It is very liberating to realize we've taken this big step toward getting free of our belongings. Realizing I'd become a person who felt attached to a closet full of dress clothes was disturbing and I feel much better having them out of my life! If I'm going to be attached to anything, I sure as hell hope it ain't silk shirts and high heels! That is not the life I envisioned for myself when I was growing up! I WILL be an intrepid adventurer...damn it!!

At the rate we are moving along, we will be living out of the motorhome while parked at the side of the house long before the July 17th auction! Mark and I are both so excited, we just want to get it all done and be on our way! Even with the stress of all the things we have to get done with the upcoming move into the motorhome, Mark and I are feeling a bit like conspirators with a big secret! We are both excited at this new phase in our lives...our first big move together as a couple. And it's shaping up to be an excellent adventure!

Hunt & Pack

2004-06-11T19:24:00.000-05:00

What a crazy time this is for us! We have an appointment for an Auctioneer to come to the house on Monday morning to look at our stuff. I'm not sure why exactly...perhaps to give us some idea of how much money we can hope to make off the remainder of our belongings...perhaps to tell us all the rest of our stuff is crap and we don't stand a snowball's chance in Hades of making money on it! *g*

Anyway, we have been trying to sort our belongings into piles based on whether they're items to be sold, stored at Mark's parent's house, or carried out to the motorhome and put away. Already I can see that we are going to have to really keep an eye on the weight we are wanting to carry.

We plan to be out of here by the end of July, but we plan to have all our extraneous belongings sold on the auction date, which has been set for July 17th. Only 35 days left until the auction and 51 until we are completely out of the house and into a local campground for a while so we can catch our breath and regroup.

I am so excited I can barely sleep. Our house is a mess of boxes and piles of "things" everywhere! I really hope things go well for us; we could use a run of good luck!

Another Big Sale...& Plan "B"

2004-05-30T20:51:00.000-05:00

After a very short discussion, Mark and I decided not to try the flea market again. We'll have as many yardsales as we can between now and the last few weeks we're in our house. Then we'll call in an auctioneer to finish off the furniture and anything else we haven't sold.

This past week we had another huge yardsale. And in true Ohio fashion we managed to get rained on two of the three days of the sale! But we did manage to sell off a huge amount of the smaller stuff we've accummulated, plus most of the things donated to the sale by friends and family.

I'll be graduating from the apprenticeship on June 19th...Yay!! Ater 4 years, I'll be a full-fledged journeyman heavy equipment operator. We've decided to move out of our rental house by the end of July if at all possible. We'll use the rest of the time after that to finish our sales and to do some remaining wood trim in the RV. Plus, Mark wants to build wooden boxes to store his RC plane and the telescope.

Since we still haven't had any calls from the Union on jobs, we figure it's best to move out of the house and into a campground as soon as possible so we can stop spending our savings for rent and utilities. We can live for hundreds of dollars cheaper in an RV park. If the Union doesn't come through with some jobs soon, we'll probably take other jobs for the remainder of this summer and fall to augment our travel money and avoid spending our savings.

And then we'll be off on the road following Plan B, which is that we'll have to do some workcamping or find other places to work for few months to finance our travel plans. Either way, we're ready to get out of Ohio...and the rain...and the lack of work. We talked to a man the other day who lives in Las Vegas and he told us that Union heavy equipment operators have no trouble getting work in Vegas. Since it's someplace we've both wanted to visit, and we're heading Southwest anyway, we may just mosey on out there and see what we can see.

We are still excited about our plans to give up our stick-n-brick existence for a fulltime RV'ing lifestyle. We are a little bit bummed that after three years of planning, the bottom seems to have fallen out of the job market, but that would happen no matter what kind of house we lived in. At least with a motorhome, we can travel to places where there is more work and stay in the comfort of our own home at the same time!

Friends & Family

2004-05-13T18:05:00.000-05:00

It looks as though some of our friends and family are getting into the spirit of our travel preparations. Knowing that we're planning to have as many sales as we can before we leave, some of our friends and family have started going through their basements, attics and garages and contributing items for our sale! How cool is that??

In the beginning I was worried that many of our friends and family didn't understand what we were planning to do. I think some of the older ones think we're having 60's flashbacks and are wanting to "tune in and drop out" (isn't that what they called it in the 60's?)! I know quite a few people worried how we'd live and if we'd be ok. And of course, some people simply didn't want us to go away from them, which is so sweet.

But we feel we're doing something we really want to do at a time in our life when it feels right to be doing it. With our plans to come back to Ohio each summer and fall to work our construction jobs, we'll still have time to visit our friends, so it's not a complete abandonment!! We'll be back to visit!

And this way will actually give us more chance to visit all our family. Mark's family is in Ohio and mine are in Tennessee so we can spend time seeing both families. Maybe even drive up to Boston and visit my cousins there, and stop in to meet some of the wonderful friends we've made over the internet. Won't they all be surprised! *g*

Our Day At The Flea Market

2004-05-12T21:56:00.000-05:00

Today Mark and I spent some time cleaning up some of our belongings which we plan to sell. We've been having a few yard sales when the weather is nice, and last week we even tried setting up a booth at the flea market...that was tough! I'll never view them the same again; that's a lot of work! We haven't decided if we'll try the market again or stick to the yard sales. I think when it's closer to our departure date, we'll call in an auctioneer to get rid of any of the things that are left and to sell our furniture so we don't have to worry with it.

We still have to buy the wood to make the remainder of the trim for the motorhome; I suppose we'll do that soon. We'd better...it shouldn't be much longer before we get called for jobs and then we won't have time to do much of anything until the work season is over!

Here's a picture of the motorhome we'll soon be calling home, sweet home.

And here is a picture of our new license plate. We wanted one that said RD TRPN, but we found out that there is a law against having the letters 'trpn' on your license. It's assumed to be a drug reference!!? Anyway, we are still Road Trippin', even if our plates say we are simply a RD TRP!

The Future is Wide Open

2004-05-11T21:10:00.000-05:00

My s/o, Mark, and I are planning a major life change this year. We are selling most of our belongings and moving into a 25' motorhome full time! I wanted to have this blog as a way to document the processes we go as well as to follow our adventures after moving out of our stick-n-brick home.

Mark and I both work in the heavy equipment operating field as members of Union Local 18 here in Southern Ohio. We generally don't work during the cold, wet winter and spring months. A few years ago it occured to us that if we owned an RV we would be able to pack up and leave this place after the work season ended and not return until late spring every year.

At first, we didn't think beyond living in the RV temporarily as we traveled; much like retired people who are referred to as "snowbirds". Then it occured to us that we could actually move into the RV fulltime; give up the house and all the "stuff" and live in a local campground here when we returned to work during the summer and fall. And who knows? We might find someplace during our travels that we like just as well and won't want to return here every year. As the song says, "The future is wide open"!

We have begun the process of selling off some of our belongings; mostly things from the attic and books, old jewelry, things we will no longer need during the remaining few months of being "house-bound".

The remodel on the RV is nearly complete. We still need to install some new wood trim around the doors and a few of the cabinets. And we want to install a larger fridge and a new awning. But some of those bigger items will have to wait until we are back at work and bringing in the weekly checks again. Work is slow going back this year, and that is starting to bother us...we hadn't figured on less than a full work season and may have to re-evaluate our plan if we dont' get calls from the Union soon. We could be workcamping somewhere instead of sitting here spending our savings while we wait on a phone call!