We are Winter Texans

Well, I am almost caught up. After Carlsbad we went further east with Dave and Michele and said our goodbyes in Oklahoma City. They went on east, we went up north to Kansas to go visit our dealer to have some minor warranty repairs done and have him look over the damage we had from the deer accident. Everything went were well and we headed south on the 7th of December. It was an interesting ride through Oklahoma, since an ice storm was coming from the west towards the east and was about 2 hours southwest of us in Tulsa when we started our trip. We had some sleet and the rig had some ice on it for a while, but we made it to Texas by the early afternoon and had to turn on the air conditioning in the truck, since it was over 80 degrees outside.

So here we are again looking for a place to stay for a while. We went to Spring Branch, TX, since we wanted to look at a piece of land there to park the rig for a while and found a very nice campground on the second try and booked it for a month. I was totally happy. It was time to breakout the Christmas decorations and get comfortable. It rained for the first four days and when it did not rain the wind was hauling so bad, it knocked over our satellite dish. But at least I don't have to pack everything up every three days. The weather is very nice in the daytime, however, at night it does get close to freezing and about 5 nights so far it has gotten below freezing, so the flannel sheets are back on the bed.

Doug had heard about a new RV Resort in Mission, TX that was just about to open and the reviews were pretty good. So one day we drove the 280 miles to check it out. It was well worth the effort. It is a beautiful place with Clubhouse, swimming pool and gym for all the members. It is a gated community, which means it is looked at all times and you have a number combination to get in. Our slab is 75 x 100 feet and they build a 12 x 20 feet carriage house on it for whatever you want to do with it. The electric, water and plumbing is all provided by the builder already. We can finish of the inside of the carriage house whichever way we want to.



Our lot is #4107 and when we looked at it the carriage house was not built yet, but they are working on it right now. Tomorrow we will pack up everything again up here and move into our new place for our home.


The planting and upkeep of the plants and grass is all done by the homeowners association so that we don't have to worry about anything when we are not there. Tomorrow is inspection and closing and then we will really sit still until the spring.

Carlsbad Caverns

Doug and I have seen a lot of caverns over the years and we always like Luray Caverns in Virginia the best with its beautiful rock formations, which are also very colorful. Then we went to Carlsbad Caverns. You can do a self guided tour walking down into the caverns for one mile.


I am claustrophobic and starting to walk into this dark hole took some courage, but again, we are on an adventure and what did I have to loose, Doug is with me. It was really dark in the caverns, so most of me pictures did not come out, which is to bad.


We walked one mile pretty much straight down, which took us about 1 1/2 hours. The caverns are breathtaking and so humongous. So we get down there thinking we reached the bottom to find out that there is another 1 1/2 miles of caves to explore going pretty much lateral. We took the elevator back up to the top for lunch and then came back down for the other 1 1/2 miles. The caves were beautiful, but the sore muscles in my legs for the next four days made me wonder many times why we did the second half of the caves.

Chiricahua National Park

It is in the middle of nowhere between some beautiful mountain passes and actually our rig was to big to go into the park itself. So we stopped in the bottom parking lot and went to the park in Dave and Michele's rig.







The echo in this place was amazing. Luckily nobody was around us, so we could have some fun!! And again, back in the truck towards Carlsbad Caverns, NM.

Tombstone, AZ

We decided to go check out Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico before Dave and Michele would head east and we needed to go to our RV dealer in Kansas. We drove for the day, checking out little things along the way and started looking for a campground by late afternoon. It is now the 27th of November. Dave suggested a small town named Tombstone, which was about 20 miles of the highway. A little bit far of the route for me normally, but we are on an adventure and so we went down this little road as we saw the sun going down. We got to the campground after dark and as usual, it is an adventure in itself to park and hookup the rig in the dark. Between the two guys they got everything done and Michele and I cooked dinner.

The next morning Dave suggested we go into town before heading on and what a treat we got. You have to check out this website http://www.cityoftombstone.com/ as well as our pictures.



It was as if time had stood still! There was the cowboys, the stage coach and a main street just like in a real Western town, out of the movies. So what did we do?? The boys got themselves each a cowboy hat and I ended up with a pair of moccasins.



There was supposed to be a shootout at noon, but unfortunately, we had to keep moving. So, back into the truck and of to the next adventure. It came faster than I wanted. On our street atlas the road that we were going to travel on looked just fine, however, once we were on there we realized that it was a dirt road that had been badly washed out by the rain. I don't think I will ever forget the next 17 miles, which seems to take forever, until we reach a normal road again. Up until today I am still amazed that we did not break any dishes.



We were kicking up so much dust, that Michele and Dave had to stay back a ways to be able to see where we were going. I have learned since then to choose our route more wisely. The good part was that we discovered a beautiful National Park, which we otherwise would have not seen. There is always two sides to a coin.

Quartzsite, AZ

I am starting to realize that there are quite a few people that read our blog, since I am starting to get e-mails requesting to be a little bit more up to date with our blog. I promise I will try to do better. Therefore, I am sitting in the campground laundromat doing laundry and writing another article.

As some of you know Doug's and Dave's mother passed away in January after a very sudden and brief illness. We had planned on going out to California to have a memorial service with her old RV group, but do to our accident on Route 10 we decided not to go that far west. Dave and Michele suggested Quartzsite, since they had been RVing with mom there a few years earlier. So from Laughlin, NV we headed south to Quartzsite.

Now, Quartzsite is a very small town, know for its huge rock and mineral stone show in January every year and RVers come from everywhere to attend and mingle. There is a few campgrounds, but to do it right you should be boondocking, which means no electric, water or sewer. The government has provided a big area of land were you can park for free for up to two weeks. So we decided to do that. Doug and I really had not done any boondocking before, other then spending a night in a Walmart parking lot when it was getting to late to drive anymore. Dave and Michele have a generator built into their rig, we don't. It is amazing how many appliances frun only on 110V, starting with my coffee maker in the morning, the microwave, the TV and so on. I should have paid more attention in school when they were teaching about electricity. I am getting a very fast lesson now, every time I wonder why something will not work (including my computer, since the battery does not last that long). We do have two small generators that we use when really needed, but they are not attached to the rig and don't last that long.



Within about two hours of being parked in the middle of nowhere, we began to realize that our rig apparently had a problem with the battery. Our fridge started beeping, the water pump would not run anymore and so the guys started looking into it. It is a good thing that we were able to plug into Dave and Michele's rig for power or we would have had to leave, since our heat at night also needs electricity to run.

As hot as the desert is in the daytime, as soon as the sun sets, it gets really cold. We stayed for three days, watching beautiful sunrises, breathtaking sunsets and I got a great lesson about the stars and night, while we were sitting at the campfire.





We said our goodbyes to mom and started heading east, since Dave and Michele needed to get back to New Jersey.

Thanksgiving

Since the campground at the Grand Canyon was full for Thanksgiving, we decided to head to a bigger city to assure that we would be able to get a real Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings. We ended up in Laughlin, NV. It is supposed to be a gambling town, but there is no comparison to Las Vegas. Laughlin has a very small strip of about seven casinos, just enough to make a good choice which Thanksgiving buffet to choose from. It was nice to celebrate Thanksgiving with family. While in Laughlin, Doug and I decided to see Lake Havasu City. It has a unique little story.

"In 1962, London Bridge was falling down. Built in 1831, the bridge couldn't handle the ever-increasing flow of traffic across the Thames River. The British government decided to put the bridge up for sale, and Robert McCulloch, Founder of Lake Havasu City, Arizona, and Chairman of McCulloch Oil Corporation, submitted the winning bid of $2,460,000.

The bridge was dismantled, and each stone was numbered. Everything was shipped 10,000 miles to Long Beach, California, and then trucked to Lake Havasu City. Reconstruction began on September 23, 1968, with a ceremony including the Lord Mayor of London, who laid the cornerstone. On October 10, 1971, the bridge was dedicated."

We were just in time for their Christmas Special Lighting Ceremony with lights wrapped around pretty much every tree and railing.

The South Rim of the Grand Canyon

I have been at the north rim of the Grand Canyon and there is no comparison to the south rim. It is so huge and magnificent that I really can't explain it in words. The view is so beautiful, the pictures will not do it justice. Between David's , Michele's, Doug's and my pictures, I have 267 pictures to choose from. Here are a few of them.


The Canyon is so deep that it took us a while to find the Colorado River all the way down there. We saw a couple of eagles soaring in the canyon and a tour group on donkeys have way down. It was an experience of a lifetime.



I was surprised to see how busy the campground was right before Thanksgiving. We almost did not get a spot and it really got cold at night.



We had a great time at the Grand Canyon and started traveling again on Wednesday before Thanksgiving.

On the way to the Grand Canyon

It has been a while since I have posted anything, but it has been a whirlwind tour with Dave and Michele. We started our little caravan at Amarillo, TX and headed towards the south rim of the Grand Canyon. After two days of traveling, we arrived near the south rim on Sunday evening and found a very unique campground (also the only one around in about 30 miles). Since it was dark when we arrived, I really did not notice just how unique it was until the next morning. Take a look at the pictures.



Everybody has heard of the Flintstones, right? Apparently, there used to be a children's amusement park behind the colored wall, which closed a long time ago and only the RV park has survived. Finding unique places like this have been a big reason why I was looking forward to this adventure.



After taking a whole bunch of pictures, we went on to the Grand Canyon.