July 30, 2016. I am writing this section in 2019 because I have been going back through my Daily Journal and trying to link the places we have been to my journal. Well, I stopped writing at the end of June and did not write anything throughout the whole month of July, and we did quite a bit of sightseeing during the month.
The first place we stopped was in Clovis, New Mexico at at campground we have stayed at a few times on our way to and from New Mexico. It happens to be a rock-n-roll city from the 1950s. We visited the Norman & Vi Petty Museum which is in the basement of the Chamber of Commerce.
Next stop on our way west was in Santa Rosa, New Mexico area where we spent the night and stopped at the Route 66 Auto Museum. I wanted to go to Angel Fire, New Mexico which was up a winding road to about 8,000 feet elevation. We were there around the middle of July. Our campground was next door to a large field full of prairie dogs. So every morning I would take the dogs out into this field and the prairie dogs would start to walk up around sunrise; the dogs would have a blast running all over the place trying to catch the prairie dogs. While in Angel Fire we visited a Vietnam Veterans Memorial, which one man built in honor of his son. We also took a side trip to Taos, which proved to be too busy and touristy for us. We did visit the home of Kit Carson, and also drove to the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge.
After leaving Angel Fire we drove to the NRA Whittington Center for a week of shooting. We really enjoy staying there; the scenery is fantastic. It is also where the Santa Fe Trail went through. We also took a side trip to Stonewall, Colorado.
Around the last week of July we started heading west again, this time to Albuquerque, New Mexico. We did not stay very long at this Coast to Coast park, but stayed long enough to visit the Tinkertown Museum in Sandia Park. We were quite amazed when we walked into this museum as it reminded us of the Mystery Museum in Abita Springs, Louisiana. Turns out that the Mystery Museum was formed because of Tinkertown, and the people at Tinkertown know the man who started the Mystery Museum. We also visited the Petroglyph National Monument.
From Albuquerque we drove to Grants, New Mexico to an Escapees RV Park. It's not the greatest park but I like it because right next door is huge spread where I walk through a gate and let the dogs loose to run and run. Don't know who it belongs to, but there are no signs (yet) saying No Trespassing. But while in Grants we visited the New Mexico Mining Museum, the Wild Wolf Sanctuary, and a couple national monuments ~~ El Malpais and El Moro.
August 15, 2016. It’s been a while since I have written. I told myself I should write a bit every day, just to log what we did. Well, that’s not working! As we traveled west into Arizona we visited the Petrified Forest National Park and then the famous Winslow, Arizona where we had to get our picture taken (of course).
Monday we did our normal grocery shopping then went back to the trailer for lunch. Jim called about getting the propane tanks recertified and we went out to make sure we knew where the place was as we are going to stop there on Friday on our way out. Then we went to try to sight in my 10/22 as we just bought a new scope for it. Went to a place on the forest land we were told about by a guy at Hamilton Firearms. Took the dirt road out and kept driving on an old rocky bumpy road until we found a place to turn around. We stopped at a gate and decided to do our shooting there. I did not do very well getting the rifle sighted in in. The cross hairs just did not line up good enough to hit the targets. Will have to try again.
Last night we looked at the tongue jack as it keeps flowing fuses. Jim took it apart and tried to weld the connections. That did not work so he tried to connect them with a connector wire. That blew the fuse and shorted the whole thing out. Decided we needed to buy a new hitch, which I ordered from Amazon, to be delivered on Thursday.
In the meantime, we drove around the area, which is very close to Sedona, Arizona and the red rocks it is famous for. We visited Montezuma Castle National Monument and Well, which are in two different areas. The Well is beautiful but I was told has thousands of leeches in it. Then we visited the Sedona Red Rocks area -- very beautiful. Also saw Tuzigoot National Monument, and Jerome, a small city up a steep hill, which is considered a ghost town, but is also a tourist place. We could have continued on the road to Prescott, Arizona, but did not take that route this trip.
This Thousand Trails we are staying at is not one of the nicest places we have stayed. It's Verde Valley in Cottonwood, Arizona. The people who have full time leases are not very nice and there are signs all over the place where there is grass “No Pets on Grass.” They are quite adamant that this is adhered to. I got scolded once when Lucy pooped on some grass, even though I picked it up. I do have a place to get the dogs off lease though. There is a Forest area down by the river, also the wash, that we walk and they can run. I also let them loose on the upper trails that run on the mountain side.
August 19, 2016. Our tongue jack finally bit the dust and we ordered a new one from Amazon which arrived yesterday. Today we are leaving the Thousand Trails for Williams where we will head to the Grand Canyon. As we hitched up this morning we took off the old tongue jack and installed the new one. It was not too bad doing it, and it did not take us very long.
Met a couple that sells a drink enhancer called X20 which makes water alkaline, saying that it’s better for the body. They came down to the trailer while we were installing the jack and gave Jim a bottle of water with the X20 and a flavor enhancer called Fusion. He drank the bottle while they were there. Since one packet of the X20 was for two bottles, I put in another bottle of water. They are saying that we should drink four bottles of the X20 every day. They ordered us a sample box of the stuff and had it sent to Tres Rios, so I guess when we get there I’ll fix it for Jim to drink.
August 24, 2016. Williams, Arizona is a nice little down about an hour south of the Grand Canyon. The campground was right on the Forest boundary so I was able to take the dogs into the forest for their walks. While we were at this park we started noticing more that the jack would not fit in between the tires on one side of the trailer. Then I noticed that one tire was wearing on the inside. This was disturbing to us, and a fellow RVer even came over and looked at the axle and tire, as we were thinking that something happened to the axle. We decided to have an RV mobile service person come and look at the tire and axle and see if he could figure out what was going on.
On Tuesday the RV guy came out and looked and looked, shaking his head as he could not figure it out either. Then he decided to measure the tires and discovered one was bigger than the other one. He said that the only thing that could cause this was tire separation. If we had a tire separating, that means we needed new tires – immediately.
We called JJ auto & tire across the street from the campground and they just so happened to have four new Cooper trailer tires in stock. So we unhooked the trailer and drove over there to have the new ones put on. It was a real good thing that we did that; when Jim called the owner the next day he said that there was another one that was starting to separate that had been on the other side of the trailer.
We took a drive up the road leading to the Grand Canyon, but stopped at the Flintstone's Bedrock place, and the Planes of Fame Museum. We also visited Williams and witnessed the "Shootout on Route 66."
While we were waiting on Monday for the RV guy to call us back we got some other items fixed that needed to be done. The rear fan above the bed had the pin slip out again, causing it not to work. So we took the fan apart and put the pin back in. We also had to put a mud flap back on that Jim tore off when we were in Jerome, Arizona and he backed up a drive way ripping the mud flap off.
We finally made it to the Grand Canyon. That was a full day trip.
August 28, 2016. Stopped for a few days at a Coast to Coast RV Park in Needles, California. Came in on I-40 from Arizona into California and immediately the speed limit changed and limited us to 55. Then we had an “agriculture stop” where they diverted the interstate to stop everyone coming in to ask then where they were coming from and what they had been doing.
The countryside around here is bleak, dry and desert. The only thing nice is the Colorado River, which is a beautiful blue. The campground even has a “Pet Beach” which the girls love as they can run in the water and swim to cool off.
There is a nice pool and Jacuzzi here, game room and recreation area. Across the street is some vacant land where I took the dogs to walk. I let them loose a little bit but for most of the walk I put then on the leash as we are close to I-40. We went to Oatman, Arizona where the donkeys run free. Years ago the donkeys were used in the mines, but when the mines closed the donkeys were left, and they stayed and multiplied. We also took a day trip to Lake Havasu City where Jim's parents once had two lots. It is also where the London Bridge now sits.
Sept. 1, 2015. Arrived in Las Vegas for our two week stay at the Thousand Trails park. Found out after getting here that the Rec Center and Pool were out of commission due to a tree falling on it in February – and it won’t be fixed until the end of October.
Sept. 5, 2016. John & Rebecca took us downtown to view the Bellagio Conservatory Gardens and then the light show they put on in the fountain outside the hotel. The gardens are pretty elaborate with thousands of flowers making some beautiful displays. The gardens are changed periodically throughout the year, depending on the season and upcoming holiday.
We also went to see the Automobile Collection in the Linq Hotel. Another day John & Rebecca took us down to the Hoover Dam. Unfortunately, we did not take a tour of the dam as we had to go through security and too must stuff on us to get through security.
Sept. 8, 2016. Today was clean the trailer and wash dog bedding day. As that did not take much time, we then headed to John & Rebecca’s house for another outing. John took us to Mt. Charleston, a little community high up in the mountains northwest of Las Vegas. Some of the folks live there year round, but I think it’s mostly summer residents who build houses on the cliff side, just for the view. We climbed up to about 8,000 feet elevation and wound our way up to the ski area and then back down Hwy 95 into Las Vegas.
Back to their house it was time for a small snack and then into the hot tub to help with sore muscles. I did have a mishap while trying to close the fence in the backyard where the dogs have chewed the post. I got my hand too close and racked it over the post and got a nice splinter into the fleshy part at the base of my thumb. We did not have any success getting it out yet so I have drawing salve on it now, and hope that helps.
Sept. 12, 2016. Today is our last day in Las Vegas. We met John at the Greek Orthodox Church as they are getting ready for the Greek Festival next weekend. Their son Michael came into town to help with the set up. Mike owns a business in the Bay area of San Francisco called Bay Area Lights. Their business sets up light displays for weddings, christenings, Christmas, and the like. Mike is here in Las Vegas to set up the lights for the Greek Festival. John took us around the church to show us around the set up and what it took to get the festival going.
Sept. 13, 2016. We were supposed to leave Las Vegas today but there was a wind advisory and since we had to drive down I-15 into California through the desert, Jim decided on the side of caution and we stayed an extra day. Plus, after talking to both of our neighbors here, they both advised against driving today. We did see some people leave early this morning, and wish them luck, but we decided to err on the side of caution.
Sept. 16, 2016. Arrived in California and staying at Fisherman's Retreat in Redlands. This park is OK, with three lakes for fishing (except the permit to fish cost $13 and it only lasts 12 hours. The walk around the lake is nice and I also found a huge dog park so I was happy about that. We also walked around the back of the campground where the full time residents live and I found a road up into the hills that we will check out later. We are staying here because it is a Coast to Coast and cost us $20 for five days.
We are about 2 hours from the coast of Las Angeles, so don't know if we will be going to the coast from here. Today we are going to have lunch with Charley, Jim's cousin, an aunt and a couple of Charley's daughters.
The weather here is quite pleasant. Very cool at night to the degree that I have to turn the heat on in the trailer. This morning it was 51 when I took the girls out for a walk. The high today in the in 80s - heaven compared to the 90s and 100s we had in Nevada, but it is supposed to warm up over the weekend. If California weren't such a liberal, controlling state, it would be a nice state to live in.
Sept. 18, 2016. On Friday we had lunch with Jim’s cousins and his Aunt Carol. We drove toward Los Angeles, and had to battle traffic in the middle of the afternoon. Lunch was great and I enjoyed meeting his other cousins and Aunt Carol. I had met Charley before when she came to Atlanta with her mom, Aunt Mary.
Saturday we drove to Joshua Tree National Park, which was just another aspect of the desert of the southwest. The trees and rock formations were quite spectacular and I did enjoy seeing another part of this great country. It is not a place that we would want to live in permanently, but visiting is OK.
Sunday we drove up to Oak Glen, apple country. It was really crowded, people all over the place coming to pick apples. We did not stay at the crowded places but kept driving down the mountain to the other end and ended up at Parrish Ranch as it was not very crowded. We walked around, bought candy and Danish, and watched a pirate show, and then had pictures taken with the pirates. It was fun seeing the pirate show. Tried to bring the dogs but after one gunshot Lucy was shaking so badly I had to take them back to the truck.
Sept. 20, 2016. Arrived in Jamul, California at the Pio Pico Thousand Trails resort. Internet is real sketchy even tho they do have it throughout the park, but not very accessible. This morning the clouds were rolling in but we did not have any rain at Fisherman’s Retreat in Redlands, California. As we traveled south on I-15 the rain started and continued as we set up in Jamul. It is still raining into the night. I found it funny that the news people interviewed people about what they thought about the rain. Jim said that it rains so seldom here that I figure it must be a major phenomenon that people have to be interviewed about what they are doing in the rain.
This park is huge and I did not walk all that much because of the rain, but did walk the dogs up this hill and was able to let them loose. There is a road blocked off near our trailer which I will take them on for their walks.
Back to Daily Journal 2016
The first place we stopped was in Clovis, New Mexico at at campground we have stayed at a few times on our way to and from New Mexico. It happens to be a rock-n-roll city from the 1950s. We visited the Norman & Vi Petty Museum which is in the basement of the Chamber of Commerce.
Next stop on our way west was in Santa Rosa, New Mexico area where we spent the night and stopped at the Route 66 Auto Museum. I wanted to go to Angel Fire, New Mexico which was up a winding road to about 8,000 feet elevation. We were there around the middle of July. Our campground was next door to a large field full of prairie dogs. So every morning I would take the dogs out into this field and the prairie dogs would start to walk up around sunrise; the dogs would have a blast running all over the place trying to catch the prairie dogs. While in Angel Fire we visited a Vietnam Veterans Memorial, which one man built in honor of his son. We also took a side trip to Taos, which proved to be too busy and touristy for us. We did visit the home of Kit Carson, and also drove to the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge.
After leaving Angel Fire we drove to the NRA Whittington Center for a week of shooting. We really enjoy staying there; the scenery is fantastic. It is also where the Santa Fe Trail went through. We also took a side trip to Stonewall, Colorado.
Around the last week of July we started heading west again, this time to Albuquerque, New Mexico. We did not stay very long at this Coast to Coast park, but stayed long enough to visit the Tinkertown Museum in Sandia Park. We were quite amazed when we walked into this museum as it reminded us of the Mystery Museum in Abita Springs, Louisiana. Turns out that the Mystery Museum was formed because of Tinkertown, and the people at Tinkertown know the man who started the Mystery Museum. We also visited the Petroglyph National Monument.
From Albuquerque we drove to Grants, New Mexico to an Escapees RV Park. It's not the greatest park but I like it because right next door is huge spread where I walk through a gate and let the dogs loose to run and run. Don't know who it belongs to, but there are no signs (yet) saying No Trespassing. But while in Grants we visited the New Mexico Mining Museum, the Wild Wolf Sanctuary, and a couple national monuments ~~ El Malpais and El Moro.
August 15, 2016. It’s been a while since I have written. I told myself I should write a bit every day, just to log what we did. Well, that’s not working! As we traveled west into Arizona we visited the Petrified Forest National Park and then the famous Winslow, Arizona where we had to get our picture taken (of course).
Monday we did our normal grocery shopping then went back to the trailer for lunch. Jim called about getting the propane tanks recertified and we went out to make sure we knew where the place was as we are going to stop there on Friday on our way out. Then we went to try to sight in my 10/22 as we just bought a new scope for it. Went to a place on the forest land we were told about by a guy at Hamilton Firearms. Took the dirt road out and kept driving on an old rocky bumpy road until we found a place to turn around. We stopped at a gate and decided to do our shooting there. I did not do very well getting the rifle sighted in in. The cross hairs just did not line up good enough to hit the targets. Will have to try again.
Last night we looked at the tongue jack as it keeps flowing fuses. Jim took it apart and tried to weld the connections. That did not work so he tried to connect them with a connector wire. That blew the fuse and shorted the whole thing out. Decided we needed to buy a new hitch, which I ordered from Amazon, to be delivered on Thursday.
In the meantime, we drove around the area, which is very close to Sedona, Arizona and the red rocks it is famous for. We visited Montezuma Castle National Monument and Well, which are in two different areas. The Well is beautiful but I was told has thousands of leeches in it. Then we visited the Sedona Red Rocks area -- very beautiful. Also saw Tuzigoot National Monument, and Jerome, a small city up a steep hill, which is considered a ghost town, but is also a tourist place. We could have continued on the road to Prescott, Arizona, but did not take that route this trip.
This Thousand Trails we are staying at is not one of the nicest places we have stayed. It's Verde Valley in Cottonwood, Arizona. The people who have full time leases are not very nice and there are signs all over the place where there is grass “No Pets on Grass.” They are quite adamant that this is adhered to. I got scolded once when Lucy pooped on some grass, even though I picked it up. I do have a place to get the dogs off lease though. There is a Forest area down by the river, also the wash, that we walk and they can run. I also let them loose on the upper trails that run on the mountain side.
August 19, 2016. Our tongue jack finally bit the dust and we ordered a new one from Amazon which arrived yesterday. Today we are leaving the Thousand Trails for Williams where we will head to the Grand Canyon. As we hitched up this morning we took off the old tongue jack and installed the new one. It was not too bad doing it, and it did not take us very long.
Met a couple that sells a drink enhancer called X20 which makes water alkaline, saying that it’s better for the body. They came down to the trailer while we were installing the jack and gave Jim a bottle of water with the X20 and a flavor enhancer called Fusion. He drank the bottle while they were there. Since one packet of the X20 was for two bottles, I put in another bottle of water. They are saying that we should drink four bottles of the X20 every day. They ordered us a sample box of the stuff and had it sent to Tres Rios, so I guess when we get there I’ll fix it for Jim to drink.
August 24, 2016. Williams, Arizona is a nice little down about an hour south of the Grand Canyon. The campground was right on the Forest boundary so I was able to take the dogs into the forest for their walks. While we were at this park we started noticing more that the jack would not fit in between the tires on one side of the trailer. Then I noticed that one tire was wearing on the inside. This was disturbing to us, and a fellow RVer even came over and looked at the axle and tire, as we were thinking that something happened to the axle. We decided to have an RV mobile service person come and look at the tire and axle and see if he could figure out what was going on.
On Tuesday the RV guy came out and looked and looked, shaking his head as he could not figure it out either. Then he decided to measure the tires and discovered one was bigger than the other one. He said that the only thing that could cause this was tire separation. If we had a tire separating, that means we needed new tires – immediately.
We called JJ auto & tire across the street from the campground and they just so happened to have four new Cooper trailer tires in stock. So we unhooked the trailer and drove over there to have the new ones put on. It was a real good thing that we did that; when Jim called the owner the next day he said that there was another one that was starting to separate that had been on the other side of the trailer.
We took a drive up the road leading to the Grand Canyon, but stopped at the Flintstone's Bedrock place, and the Planes of Fame Museum. We also visited Williams and witnessed the "Shootout on Route 66."
While we were waiting on Monday for the RV guy to call us back we got some other items fixed that needed to be done. The rear fan above the bed had the pin slip out again, causing it not to work. So we took the fan apart and put the pin back in. We also had to put a mud flap back on that Jim tore off when we were in Jerome, Arizona and he backed up a drive way ripping the mud flap off.
We finally made it to the Grand Canyon. That was a full day trip.
August 28, 2016. Stopped for a few days at a Coast to Coast RV Park in Needles, California. Came in on I-40 from Arizona into California and immediately the speed limit changed and limited us to 55. Then we had an “agriculture stop” where they diverted the interstate to stop everyone coming in to ask then where they were coming from and what they had been doing.
The countryside around here is bleak, dry and desert. The only thing nice is the Colorado River, which is a beautiful blue. The campground even has a “Pet Beach” which the girls love as they can run in the water and swim to cool off.
There is a nice pool and Jacuzzi here, game room and recreation area. Across the street is some vacant land where I took the dogs to walk. I let them loose a little bit but for most of the walk I put then on the leash as we are close to I-40. We went to Oatman, Arizona where the donkeys run free. Years ago the donkeys were used in the mines, but when the mines closed the donkeys were left, and they stayed and multiplied. We also took a day trip to Lake Havasu City where Jim's parents once had two lots. It is also where the London Bridge now sits.
Sept. 1, 2015. Arrived in Las Vegas for our two week stay at the Thousand Trails park. Found out after getting here that the Rec Center and Pool were out of commission due to a tree falling on it in February – and it won’t be fixed until the end of October.
Sept. 5, 2016. John & Rebecca took us downtown to view the Bellagio Conservatory Gardens and then the light show they put on in the fountain outside the hotel. The gardens are pretty elaborate with thousands of flowers making some beautiful displays. The gardens are changed periodically throughout the year, depending on the season and upcoming holiday.
We also went to see the Automobile Collection in the Linq Hotel. Another day John & Rebecca took us down to the Hoover Dam. Unfortunately, we did not take a tour of the dam as we had to go through security and too must stuff on us to get through security.
Sept. 8, 2016. Today was clean the trailer and wash dog bedding day. As that did not take much time, we then headed to John & Rebecca’s house for another outing. John took us to Mt. Charleston, a little community high up in the mountains northwest of Las Vegas. Some of the folks live there year round, but I think it’s mostly summer residents who build houses on the cliff side, just for the view. We climbed up to about 8,000 feet elevation and wound our way up to the ski area and then back down Hwy 95 into Las Vegas.
Back to their house it was time for a small snack and then into the hot tub to help with sore muscles. I did have a mishap while trying to close the fence in the backyard where the dogs have chewed the post. I got my hand too close and racked it over the post and got a nice splinter into the fleshy part at the base of my thumb. We did not have any success getting it out yet so I have drawing salve on it now, and hope that helps.
Sept. 12, 2016. Today is our last day in Las Vegas. We met John at the Greek Orthodox Church as they are getting ready for the Greek Festival next weekend. Their son Michael came into town to help with the set up. Mike owns a business in the Bay area of San Francisco called Bay Area Lights. Their business sets up light displays for weddings, christenings, Christmas, and the like. Mike is here in Las Vegas to set up the lights for the Greek Festival. John took us around the church to show us around the set up and what it took to get the festival going.
Sept. 13, 2016. We were supposed to leave Las Vegas today but there was a wind advisory and since we had to drive down I-15 into California through the desert, Jim decided on the side of caution and we stayed an extra day. Plus, after talking to both of our neighbors here, they both advised against driving today. We did see some people leave early this morning, and wish them luck, but we decided to err on the side of caution.
Sept. 16, 2016. Arrived in California and staying at Fisherman's Retreat in Redlands. This park is OK, with three lakes for fishing (except the permit to fish cost $13 and it only lasts 12 hours. The walk around the lake is nice and I also found a huge dog park so I was happy about that. We also walked around the back of the campground where the full time residents live and I found a road up into the hills that we will check out later. We are staying here because it is a Coast to Coast and cost us $20 for five days.
We are about 2 hours from the coast of Las Angeles, so don't know if we will be going to the coast from here. Today we are going to have lunch with Charley, Jim's cousin, an aunt and a couple of Charley's daughters.
The weather here is quite pleasant. Very cool at night to the degree that I have to turn the heat on in the trailer. This morning it was 51 when I took the girls out for a walk. The high today in the in 80s - heaven compared to the 90s and 100s we had in Nevada, but it is supposed to warm up over the weekend. If California weren't such a liberal, controlling state, it would be a nice state to live in.
Sept. 18, 2016. On Friday we had lunch with Jim’s cousins and his Aunt Carol. We drove toward Los Angeles, and had to battle traffic in the middle of the afternoon. Lunch was great and I enjoyed meeting his other cousins and Aunt Carol. I had met Charley before when she came to Atlanta with her mom, Aunt Mary.
Saturday we drove to Joshua Tree National Park, which was just another aspect of the desert of the southwest. The trees and rock formations were quite spectacular and I did enjoy seeing another part of this great country. It is not a place that we would want to live in permanently, but visiting is OK.
Sunday we drove up to Oak Glen, apple country. It was really crowded, people all over the place coming to pick apples. We did not stay at the crowded places but kept driving down the mountain to the other end and ended up at Parrish Ranch as it was not very crowded. We walked around, bought candy and Danish, and watched a pirate show, and then had pictures taken with the pirates. It was fun seeing the pirate show. Tried to bring the dogs but after one gunshot Lucy was shaking so badly I had to take them back to the truck.
Sept. 20, 2016. Arrived in Jamul, California at the Pio Pico Thousand Trails resort. Internet is real sketchy even tho they do have it throughout the park, but not very accessible. This morning the clouds were rolling in but we did not have any rain at Fisherman’s Retreat in Redlands, California. As we traveled south on I-15 the rain started and continued as we set up in Jamul. It is still raining into the night. I found it funny that the news people interviewed people about what they thought about the rain. Jim said that it rains so seldom here that I figure it must be a major phenomenon that people have to be interviewed about what they are doing in the rain.
This park is huge and I did not walk all that much because of the rain, but did walk the dogs up this hill and was able to let them loose. There is a road blocked off near our trailer which I will take them on for their walks.
Back to Daily Journal 2016