April 4, 2013

It was cold and damp this morning.  Bill turned on our cataleptic heater which Natalia dubbed our fireplace although there are not actual flames. 

I was very careful as I warmed myself in front of it.  Not so about a month ago.  I was wearing pajamas with loose legs.  Bill said he could smell something burning.  My pjs weren’t on fire, but they were melting!  Yikes!  So if you hear of a fashion revival of hot pants, it was me that started it!

We celebrated Louisiana with a honk, honk, and a loud “yahoo!”  The wildflowers on both sides of the state line were beautiful...huge patches of yellow or orange or white or red.

Our stopping place for today was Monroe, at a Sam’s Club.  We went in for Pizza.  It was colder and misting when we came back home.

Hopefully, tomorrow we will get to Brent’s.

Mileage today...164.

April 3, 2013

It was cold and damp this morning when we left Stephenville.  Betty came by on her break from work and brought a big box of pecans she had picked up at a friend’s pecan orchard.  They are really good.

Our first destination was the In-N-Out in the Fort Worth area.  It will be our last opportunity for our favorite “cult” burgers for a long, long, time.  That’s sad, but we’ll just have to suffer!  (Insert a sigh here, please.)

One way to know for sure that you are in Texas is to count the pickups in a high school parking lot.  If there are more pickups than cars...yup, y’all are in Texas.

We got as far as the Walmart in Longview.  The clouds were thick, but we didn’t have any moisture.  The drive through the Fort Worth-Dallas area was uneventful.  Traffic was moderately lite.  That was great.

Driving through East Texas was pleasant.  The new grass and the leaves coming out were a pretty contrast to to the dark green of the pine trees.

Mileage for today...228.

April 2, 2013

April 2, 2013

Yesterday it was quite warm in Sweetwater. This morning it was 45°, with a mist in the air.  In Oregon we might have called it “mizzle”  (between mist and drizzle).  Or we might have called it “sea dust.”  Whatever it’s called here, it’s cold.

The blue bonnets are blooming by the side of the road.  The Texas state flower is always pretty at this time of year.  They grow wild in lots of places.  Now is their special time!

Part of our trip to Stephenville was through rain with very dark clouds and lightening.  By the time we parked at Walmart the rain had stopped, but the clouds were still dark and menacing looking.

Betty, Bill’s niece, came for a visit.  Her husband, Billy was sick with a bad cold, a cough, and fever so we didn’t get to see him.  We took Betty out to dinner.  It was good to have some time to visit with her.  She has been counting the time until they can “hit the road” like Bill and I are doing.  She and Billy are making all sorts of plans.

It was cold and windy when we came home after dinner.

Today’s Totals:  Mileage, 147

April 1, 2013

April 1, 2013

Another month has rolled around and that’s not an April Fool’s joke.  There’s nothing funny about how quickly the months and years are flying by.

Just a few minutes after leaving Hobbs we crossed into Texas.  I was talking to Meredith and she heard our state line celebration.  She “yahooed” right along with me, but not as loudly as I did.  The people in her office might not have understood.

This part of Texas is very flat, and mostly used for farming and cattle, with an occasional oil well now and then. According to some of the signs around, they are growing cotton, peanuts, and winter wheat.

Michelle flew to San Jose yesterday.  There is a trade show in San Francisco and she will represent the company she works for.  When she got off the plane, the first place she went was to In-N-Out (It runs in the family)...and they were closed for Easter!!  She said that’s just about the worse thing that’s happened to her in a long, long time.  The thought of what she must have gone through is beyond description.

At Snyder, we turned toward Sweetwater.  This is farm country, with hundreds and hundreds of wind generators.  They were all turning.  Ever once in awhile there would be an oil well among them.

Sweetwater is the home of the world’s largest rattlesnake roundup.  It was two weeks ago.  Shucks, we missed it.  Bill doesn’t want to eat rattlesnake.  He just wants to catch one!  I have a king sized picture of that one!  How about you?

Travel Totals:  Mileage, 181---Geocaches, 2---Critter sightings, 8 little donkeys.

March 31, 2013

Happy Easter!  I hope your blessings are many!  If you are into the colored egg thing, I hope you found a lot of ‘em.  

At Bill’s “advanced age” he hides the eggs, can’t remember where he hid them, and then goes to find them.  That’s known as a “one man geezer Easter egg hunt.”  Joey, Meredith and Dwaine’s biggest dog, has a different version of “hide and find.”  He hides his tennis balls in a bunched up blanket or a snow drift, and then has fun finding them. It is a game he invented himself.

We left Alamogordo and took Hwy. 82 through Lincoln National Forest.  We passed through the ski resort of Cloudcroft, elevation 8600 feet.  We went from desert terrain to pine covered mountains to scrubby covered hills to ranch land.  It was an interesting travel day.

We stopped at a Rest Area, east of Hope, to eat lunch and nap.  When we went through the tiny town we couldn’t see many signs of hope, or Hope.  But you never know! 

East of Artesia we drove through large oil fields, with hundreds and hundreds of oil rigs.  Usually, when we pass rigs, only about 10% of them are pumping.  Not today!  It looked as if 40-50& were going up and down.  And lots of tank trucks were picking up oil from the storage tanks.

We parked for the night at the Walmart in Hobbs, New Mexico, not far from the Texas border.  After resting for a few minutes, we went out to find some geocaches.  We had a much better day than yesterday.  We found seven, with no DNFs.

Today’s Totals:  Mileage, 188---Critter sightings, a small herd of Shetland ponies---Geocaches, 7.

March 30, 2013

March 30, 2013

We didn’t leave Flying J until 10:00, after fueling with diesel.  Our first momentous occasion for the day was crossing the Continental Divide. 

The variety of cactus plants in Arizona have been replaced by yucca plants.  Their tall bloom spikes are very impressive.  In some places a yucca plant is called soap weed because Indians used parts of the plants as soap.  In Mexico, the blooms are used like a vegetable.

Before we got to Las Cruces, we got off of I-10 because of construction.  Our destination was Sam’s Club for lunch.  It turned out to be a harder thing to accomplish that we thought it would be.  First we missed the turn off of Hwy. 70.  Then the entrance to Sam’s had changed since we were here last.  We went over a bump and “cleaned out” several cabinets.  A restaurant now takes up the space where we were able to park the MH before.  Sam’s parking lot was very crowded, so parking the coach was more difficult, but we made it, ate a quick lunch, decided not to shop because of the crowd, and got back on the road again.

There was a down side and a up side to our “bump” incident.  The down side was that the doors on my bead cabinet came open and most of the contents flew out.  We no longer have a clear path to the bedroom.  The up side is that I have needed to clean all of that out for awhile.  Today is the day!!!!!

We drove past White Sands Missile range and the National Monument and were soon in Alamogordo.  We parked at Walmart for the night.

I had loaded several caches into our Garmins so we set out to find a few.  What we didn’t find were the first four we looked for.  We were able to find the next three before darkness overtook us.

Travel Totals:  Mileage, 190...Caches found, 3

March 29, 2013

We had an electrical hookup here at Premier Motor Coach so we had the air conditioner on for most of the night.  That was great because it was still warm and a little muggy when we got up.

The motorhome was ready to roll at 1:00, so after eating Arby’s sandwiches for lunch, we did a Willie Nelson and got on the road again.  We’ll see if we can get to New Mexico before it is time to stop for the day.

We passed a llama and alpaca ranch with huge herds.  Between Phoenix and Tucson there is also a large herd with visitor parking.  Maybe we should put that on our “someday list.”  It would be an interesting place to visit.

We crossed into New Mexico with much fanfare...honking and yahooing.  Bill said I did a good job on my part.  As for him, he is very fond of honking the air horns and always does a great job.

We stopped at the Flying J in Lordsburg for the night.  We have parked here before.

Travel Totals:  Mileage, 150--Critter sightings, a whole bunch of llamas and alpacas