May 2014

Sounds like a song title, oh wait, it is a song title! Yes, we hit the road for our summer 2014 travels and headed north. We are going to a club in McDade, Texas to visit some friends for Memorial Day Weekend.

It has been 14 years since we have not lived in the RV and had to move from the house to the RV. Sure is a lot to remember. When we put the house in, we had emptied the RV out. I mean emptied it of everything from silverware to toothpicks. Over the winter, we made decisions and purchases for the things that we wanted in the house and those same things to be kept in the RV and tried to get everything ready but you know how those things go. When it came time to pack, we realized the many things that we had overlooked and the many things that we just did not want to duplicate but did not want to travel without. It was a good thing we gave ourselves a month to do the packing. Of course the last minute packing was still maniac!

We did it! Friday Morning we were on the road again and we think there were only a few minor things that we had forgotten, time will tell. Our route north was interesting. We decided to avoid San Antonio and the wonderful traffic that the city could offer us. For those of you unfamiliar, you have to understand, Texas has a wonderful road system. With all of the farm to market driving necessary, those roads are fairly well maintained. However, the further north we got, it seemed the less macadam they seemed to use, for the shoulders became narrower and narrower to the point of becoming non-existent. By the time we were within the last mile of our destination, if a vehicle saw us coming, they stopped in a wider spot in the road to let us pass. Well here we are, no worse for wear. 

Downtown McDade

McDade downtown is a bit slow these days.

Pat and I did take off and go to a quilt museum over in LaGrange, Texas. You have just got to love the county seats in Texas. There was a small farmers market next to the courthouse and it was really nice to see folks coming up to the tables and visiting with their neighbors, while perusing their merchandise. And oh my, aren’t the courthouses a sight to see?

LaGrange Courthouse

Oh yes, the quilt museum, well I’ll leave that to Pat to tell you about on her blog at www.bajorlane.blogspot.com but I will tell you that I did enjoy it.

Memorial Day turned into a very rainy day, but started to clear late afternoon and we hoped it would dry out and allow us to exit the campground easily the next morning.

May 27 – 30 On Our Way To Denver

Well the rain returned early Tuesday morn and we got away a bit later than planned and much wetter than planned but, with careful maneuvering we did not get stuck. We like to get an early start and get off the road early to rest up, however, this day we did not get off the road until later, we were quite tired. We did make it as far as Abilene where we were looking for the prettiest girl we’ve ever seen. Cranked up the A/C, cause it was mighty hot and dried out.

As we drive along, we cannot help but notice all of the effort being put into ENERGY! A lot of fracking going on in this country. We see areas where “man camps” are advertised for the workers, are there no women working in that industry? 

Texas Windfarm

Not only oil drilling, but wind farms. This one is on the Texas Panhandle and stretches for miles and it is just one of the many we passed on our trip to Denver.

After a stop in Abilene there was an overnight in Amarillo and then we pulled into the Elks Lodge in Lamar, CO where they had 50amp hookups. Well that’s not the best part. We were in and set up by 11am (mountain time) and after a quick lunch, I walked to the pro shop behind the lodge checked out a golf cart, came back to the rig for my clubs and went and played 2 rounds of nine holes on a sweet little course. Now that’s taking camping to an all new high. After golf, I called the campground I expected to stay at in Denver and found it to be full, no room for us (oy vey!). We checked around not finding anything in the Denver area available, but some were closed, so we figured we would call in the morning.

Up and away, we’ll fuel in Limon and make some calls from the Flying J. Well there is an Elks Lodge up in Westminster that might have a space. We called around from the flying J and found nothing but we left a message at a small park that only allowed old folks with no pets (we qualify). Half way to Denver the park called us and lo and behold, they had one spot they could fit us in, yeah! So, here we are, but the truck is giving us trouble, Monday we go to Chevrolet, keep your fingers crossed.

Back To The Lone Star State

I hope you don’t mind, I have put the whole trip together before releasing it to the blog. It seems to be more cohesive this way, hence why I’m so tardy with its delivery.

9/9 After a summer spent welcoming our new granddaughter into this world and enjoying family in the wilds of Watsonville, CA we departed for Texas with a few stops along the road which I will now regale you with. Our trip here was 2,412 miles of meandering and of course our return trip will be more of the same but a bit shorter, only 2,245 miles.

We pushed through the Mohave desert where we stopped overnight and then through the city of sin, Las Vegas until we hit Hurricane, UT. Our thinking was, how can you name a town Hurricane when they could never possibly have one, this far from the coast. Well some Mormon farmer had his wagon blown off the side of a hill by a strong wind while overlooking the valley below where he had settled, hence the name.  Anyway, the motorhome was not blown over, we just parked it in the valley and used this place to kick off our exploration of Zion and Bryce Canyon.

Zion, Looking for Peace

9/12 I know this has taken me while to put this together, but there are so many photos and I want to pick the ones that came out giving the best impression of what we saw. We started our tour of Zion by taking a bus tour into the canyon (no private vehicles allowed). This tour included a 20 minute film with a discussion of the founding of the park and some geological facts. I highly recommend viewing this.

The first impressive formation was the Court of the Patriarchs as seen below.




Court of the Patriarchs - Zion National Park



There are many bus stops through the canyon and you can get on or off as many times as you like. The longest wait seems to be about 9 minutes between buses. Each of the stops feature a hiking trail off to somewhere. Sure wish we had the capability to do some of those hikes. We settled for taking some snaps from the nearby vista points.

The end of the bus trail is at the Temple of Sinawava where the Virgin River comes out of the canyon and of course there is a hiking trail up along the river. We just took this picture looking up the canyon along the trail. What you cannot see is that the Virgin River is flowing along to our left.



We then drove around to Kolob Canyon which is a 50 mile drive out and around onto the I15 where the views were just as spectacular. This part of the trip was done in our truck, no buses in this part of the park.

 I will include a photo that we took on our way through Zion on our way to Bryce Canyon a couple of days later, but it was in Zion so here is Checker Board Mesa.

Checkerboard Mesa - Zion National Park

A Golf Day

9/13 I took some time to play golf at Sky Mountain Golf Course in Hurricane. Although the course was challenging, the views sure played havoc with my concentration.



Sky Mountain Golf Course - Hurricane, UT



Bryce Canyon

9/14 We are up bright and early eager to start our next leg to explore Bryce Canyon. Our route will again take us through Zion National Park and through the one mile tunnel that was cut through the mountain during the depression as part of the WPA. Past Checkerboard Mesa and on into Bryce Canyon.

Here there is much more of the red rocks prevalent and it sure shows up in the photos.

Again as in Zion, there is a shuttle bus, however it is not compulsory so we bypassed and took the truck on our own tour. We started with Sunrise Point where they had a good sized lodge. Normally we try and visit these lodges, but opted to bypass and just enjoy the views.



Sunrise Point - Bryce National Park



We had to walk up a bit of a hill an all of a sudden this appeared through the trees, it was breathtaking. We did wander around and took many more photos, but knew we had more ground to cover and off we went with our next stop at Bryce Point.



Bryce Point

This was even more breathtaking and I really can’t tell you how many photos we took here, but it was quite a few. As many as we took there just isn’t enough to do the view justice. Again we could have stood there for hours just soaking it in. We stopped at almost every view point there was along the roadway and I’m not going to overwhelm you with a photo from each, however I will give you a few more that we really enjoyed, like the natural bridge.



Natural Bridge - Bryce National Park

The last photo I’ll leave you with from Bryce is Rainbow Point which is the end of the road at an elevation of 9,115 ft.

 

Rainbow Point - Bryce National Park

Back on the Road

9/15 Our intention was to stop at Jacob Lake and go down and view the Grand Canyon from the north rim but with recent heavy rains and possibility of snow in the higher elevations, we decided to backtrack and go back through Las Vegas and down through Kingman where we would pickup I40 and head for Albuquerque our next destination. Along the way, we spotted signs for the Grand Canyon Skywalk, so you can guess where we next stopped. 

Grand Canyon Skywalk

9/16 I will tell you that the Grand Canyon Skywalk is very expensive and I’ve read many comments that it is not worth the price but that said “it’s a once in a lifetime type of thing.” Once you have been there you would not want to go back. After getting off highway 93 at Dolan Springs, there is another 50 miles to drive to the Canyon of which 9 miles are unpaved. If you do plan on going there it might be paved, they were working on it. Anyway you have to take a bus to the two view points and a ranch (no private vehicles) and you have to pay for the bus. If you want to go out on the walk, you have to pay for that also and if you buy the full package, it includes lunch as well as a drive down into the canyon (we went as far as the lunch). You can’t carry anything out on the skywalk (no cameras, phones, etc.) so of course if you want a photo you have to buy one of theirs.

Hangin' out over the Grand Canyon

This one only cost us a mere $30. Notice the booties we had to wear. And yes, that is the Colorado River behind us. You can see that there is an opaque border but the center is clear glass.

Grand Canyon West Skywalk

It is an interesting structure and after watching a special on TV on the construction, I was staggered by the cost and amazed that they were able to get the materials out to the location over that dirt road.

Colorado River Grand Canyon West

This is located on a side canyon but it is still quite stunning. Yes, It was worth the stop and no, we will probably bypass the next time through.

Painted Desert / Petrified Desert

9/17 We got an early start the on our way so when we stopped at Root 66 RV Park which is touted as the closest park to the Petrified Forrest, we decided it was worth a return trip to this wonderful park for some more pictures. We had stopped here back in 2001 and had really enjoyed it. Our last go through was with the RV, so we knew it could be done as an easy drive.

Painted Desert - Petrified National Forrest Arizona

I guess after Bryce Canyon it seems a little subdued, but we still think it to be beautiful. This is the top half of the park while the lower half contain the Petrified Forrest, it too has some beauty.

And of course we can’t leave out a chunk of wood, can we?

This would wreck a chain saw for sure!

9/18 And we are on the way into Albuquerque for a few days with our good friends Bill & Pat and of course some golf. We are chuggin’ along and

Who said Granny don't drive?

Our arrival in Albuquerque was more for visiting friends than sightseeing but we did get to do a bit of that . Our first surprise was in our choice of campgrounds. We stayed at the Enchanted Trails RV park and Trading Post. Have you ever heard of it? Well it was featured on a TV show about unusual RV’s in that they had a section of the park where they had several restored RV’s that they rent out for you to stay in like renting a cabin. We did not realize it until we pulled into the park and drove past the section and I remarked “that looks awfully familiar.”

9/21 We had to take a trip up to Santa Fe and how can you go from Albuquerque without taking the Turquoise Trail (Hwy 14) with a stop in Madrid to see the latest in jewelry etc. Our friends who returned to Albuquerque to settle had never gone this route to Santa Fe and really enjoyed it.

And yes, a cup of coffee is always welcome along the trail.

9/22 -25 we continued on our way through Clovis, NM into the panhandle of Texas and headed towards Bandera where we connected with Alan. Our plans were to play some golf and visit with old friends Charlie & Loretta, as well as Ken & Willie that had settled over by Lake Medina.

Al and I took some time and drove out to see the lake. The powers that be had taken advantage of the drought to do some repair work on the dam and had drained the lake in 2011. Well the work was completed but the drought continued and as you can see by the picture I took of Al standing in front of the lake…..

Directly behind Al is the boat ramp down into the lake and the road you see off in the distance is completely under water? I guess it will be a few years (they hope) before the lake returns.

9/28  After some wonderful golf and dinners with our friends we (Al included) headed off to Johnson City to visit with some more friends, Dave and Nan. Here, we did not stop at a campground, we just pulled into their Ranch and parked near their house for a couple of days. We thought it would be nice to bring them a nice little bit of rain since they had been suffering from the drought also. I sure hope they appreciated it.

Sure was nice to sit atop a hill and look out and enjoy the view with the old goats. Oops, sorry, Dave I wasn’t talkin’ about you. They do have a herd of goats that are guarded by a donkey?

 

Who keeps those coyotes and other pesky critters away.

Pat was fascinated by the enormous live oak trees, of which there were several and they were majestic to say the least.

10/1 We said goodbye to the goats and a thank you to Dave and Nan. Alan headed off to visit his son and would return to his home near us in the Pharr and we turned south to return to our home park in Edcouch. It was a long summer and we had a wonderful time but here is the best of the best.

Our Granddaughter Anouk is 4 months old, we have been gone a month and miss her terribly already.

So that is our travel blog and we hope that you have enjoyed it.

Pat & Tom

A Bike Tour

8/19 Yes, a bike tour! We have not been on a bike ride in years so, you can imagine that even a short four and a half mile ride is a major triumph for us.

We parked the truck along business route 1 across from the Naval Postgraduate School and started peddling towards Cannery row. Along the way we passed a parking lot that was loaded with old time cars that had been through an auction presented by Russo and Steele. Any of you car nuts have seen this on TV with collector automobiles going for very high prices.

After admiring the hundreds of cars, we continued on our way along the bay towards Canary Row only to come another spot we had to stop and take some more pictures.

Here we found some naked sunbathers out on the rocks enjoying the beautiful day. Many were frolicking in the water while others just lay about on the rocks and in the background were some wonderful buildings built up on the docks.

So many distractions, it’s amazing that we did make it all the way to the end of Cannery Row. We had some pizza down by the aquarium and took some snaps looking up along Cannery Row to prove that we had been there, also because we liked the view.

Did you notice that bit of brown building on the left? Well that’s where Doc lived and worked.

Don’t know Doc? Guess you are going to have to read some of Steinbeck’s work. Doc was his best friend and appears in the novels “Cannery Row” and “Sweet Thursday.”

That was mile 2.25 and the return trip was much the same as we saw on the way out so I’m closing with saying that we got home and realized it’s been years since we did that much biking and we knew it. Also, before I close I have to tell you about the camera we used for the photos. It’s our new phones. We just got the Galaxy S4 and they come with a 13megapixel camera. For general pictures, they sure fit the bill.

Now part of it is an Aquarium

6/23 You’ve heard about Cannery Row, well that has been turned into a tourist attraction which contains a lot of restaurants and gift shops and at the end of it all there is one of the finest aquariums that we have ever visited. It cost a pretty penny to get in, so instead of paying the entry fee, we joined and now we can visit anytime. After all, it’s only about 25 miles from us. They do change the exhibits occasionally and the current big attraction are “Exotic Jellies” which are Jelly Fish from all over the world.

 



Watching these Jelly Fish swim through the water is mesmerizing and we could just stand there all day watching the dance. These were just a few of the many species throughout the exhibit. This was just the start of an amazing day.

Another of the favorite spots for folks to sit and watch were the otters. It seems they never run out of time to play. Do you think it’s because they know they have an audience? To be honest, I’ve seen them out in the bay far enough away that I’m sure they don’t know they have people watching and they seem to do the same antics as they do in the tank at the aquarium. I wonder if they ever grow up.

We continued on through the Aquarium and enjoyed many more of the exhibits including Kelp Beds, Penguins, many schools of fish of which I would love to show some pictures, but alas I put the camera in my pocket and just enjoyed the views so I have none to show you. It looks like we have to go back, now that we are members, and take some more pictures to share. Oh yes, before I put the camera away I did capture some species that had escaped and were running loose. They happened to be trapped on one of the outside balconies and I did capture these photos. I believe they are referred to  as Homo Sapiens Aged.

 

A "Grand" Father's Day

6/14 It has been 3 weeks and a few days since the arrival of our granddaughter Anouk Grace Cooper, born May 22. She came into this world at a whopping 8 lbs. 2ozs. and continues to grow. She and mother  were treated for an infection with antibiotics keeping them in the hospital for an extended period after birth, so it was a bit of a traumatic experience to say the least. They are home and things are going along well and of course she is the most beautiful baby ever born, just ask me. Grandma is having a blast and is doing all the grandma stuff. Me, I’m just sitting back taking it all in and yes, enjoying this wonderful bundle of joy.

Anouk Grace Cooper

We had the family over to the campground for Father’s Day and had a nice quite dinner and of course Anouk did demand her bit of feast, which her mother was able to supply. Afterwards, we stepped outside for some family photos.

The Proud New Parents Jim & Cory

We plan on being here for a few more weeks but we're not looking forward to leaving, I know grandma sure isn’t going to want to leave. Of course you know grandpa can leave anytime (yeah, right).



"Yeah kid, that's your grandpa!"

Ok, I’m going to explain her name just because I get asked a lot. Anouk is a French and Dutch diminutive of the female given name Anna. It is fairly popular in the Netherlands, used but not as popular in Belgium and France.

Yes, I had a GRAND Father’s Day!

A Visit From the Past

6/13 We had a visit from some remaining members of the Ohlone Native Tribe to our little campground here at Pinto Lake in Watsonville. I’ll bet most of you have never heard of them and for good reason. They have not been recognized by our government as a native tribe, however, they are recognized by many and even have their own website http://ohlonecostanoanesselennation.org/ which is kind of cool. Of course their decline is blamed on the Spanish Missions, which destroyed their way of life. Anyway, we had a visit from some of their tribal folks who demonstrated the construction of one of their canoes. I guess it’s one of those boats you just sit atop and paddle.

Guess Where We Had Lunch?

6/12 Here we sit in the front parlor of the boyhood home of John Steinbeck waiting for our lunch to arrive. While we are waiting, we look around and see many items that would have adorned the old home including portraits of his parents. The home has been restored to its former glory (assuming that it did have a former glory) and I have to say it was very well done. As you can see.

This restaurant and gift shop are run by volunteers with only 3 paid positions (Manager, Chef & dishwasher). All of the dishes are made from locally grown produce. The house is just a few blocks from the National Steinbeck Center located in the center of Historic Salinas. As for the lunch, it was delicious and the ambiance made the price seem “worth it.”

The Center was very well laid out and we thoroughly  enjoyed it. Basically, the exhibits were laid out in the time line of Mr. Steinbeck’s life. He was quite the literary giant, and his writing drew from his life in and around the Salinas Valley. I’m throwing in the photo of the Model T because it reminds of a story often told by my father who was but a year older than John Steinbeck.

My father’s story tells of his trip in a similar car from Michigan to California, but I’ll save that for another time. As you walk through the exhibits, you get a feel for what Mr. Steinbeck experienced and what brought about the stories that he wrote. You could feel the grit in those tales and understand how the local folks could actually go out and burn copies of the “Grapes of Wrath” when it was released. There is an exhibit for each of his literary works, with bits playing from a screen play or just someone reading from a story. A visit to that center certainly opened my eyes to more insight into the man, John Steinbeck than any discussion in any of my English classes back in my school days. I do remember that I disliked reading his works in school, perhaps because they were so gritty or not whimsical. I’m not sure if I now want to go back and re-read some of his books or just try to bring my writing up to his level (nice to have a dream).