Addendum and a change of plans
roger October 8th, 2009
Sorry about the lack of a post yesterday, it will be explained further down.
I forgot to mention lunch Tuesday. We looked online for a restaurant in Gallup, NM since we were heading through there at lunch time. We had two choices, Earl’s and Genaro’s. Earl’s was a bit like a Route 66 cafe so we opted for Genaro’s. Might as well have one last meal that represented New Mexico. We found out again how California Mexican food differs from New Mexico Mexican food. I feel the difference is in the chile’s used. I have not been a real fan of chile in general but I have liked what I have been tasting here. One reviewer of Genaro’s raved about the Green Chile Cheese Fries so we thought we would try those.
I wasn’t so thrilled with them but they were OK. Roxie had a burrito with Green Chile sauce on top. I had a shredded beef taco. They both were good. The salsa with the chips was the hottest we have ever had, I believe. Roxie found out the hard way. I have learned NOT to dip into the salsa before I get my drink if I have never had the salsa before. Roxie didn’t wait, she dug right in and took a big dip. She was VERY glad when her drink came.
The real topper was the sopapilla. We have had variations of them, even two days previously. A puffy pastry that you eat with honey. It did not prepare us for the biggest sopapilla we have ever seen:
This thing was the size of someone HEAD! It was huge! It was pretty good but it would have been nicer to have a few smaller ones instead of a big one. All in all we did like Genaro’s and would seek it out again.
This brings us to Wednesday. As you may remember we had made it to the KOA at Holbrook. That morning (Wed) we found out that we had to get home and cut our trip short. The reason was not due to health reasons but something that we could not take care of on the road. We decided to get on the road and get to at least Kingman that night. We were sad that we could not continue on but we did accomplish our main goal, the Balloon Fiesta. We can get to Arizona with only one night of travel so we can, and will, hit the locations we want to see.
So we got into some rain and cloudy weather in Flagstaff. On a truck related note, the passenger door switch used to think it was closed all the time. Now it is thinking that the door is open when it is closed and closed when it is open. Another thing is there is a check engine light that came on again. This is the ‘generic’ check engine light. While refueling I remembered there was an auto parts store nearby. I was able to rent a OBDII code diagnosis tool. What it told me was the computer had not relearned some sequence. I think this may have happened during the transmission service. I read on the internet that I was supposed to clear the code and let the truck idle at operating temperature for 5 minutes. I did so and the light is gone. Yea!
We made it to Kingman but it was about 3pm and we thought that was a bit too early to stop. We know that the more we travel this day, the less we travel the next. We pushed on to Needles, but we wanted some more variety so we took Route 66 through Oatman, AZ. The first part of the road was standard desert road wide, straight, bumpy. However it did change to a more Route 66′ish road but narrower. Right when it changed we came across these two in the road.
We had read about their friendly wild burros. I read that as an oxymoron.
This road is very interesting. Even moreso when towing a trailer. Very narrow, curvy, a lot of up then a lot of down. The truck handled it with aplomb and we eventually came to Oatman. We were there just before 5pm and things were closing up so it is somewhere we need to come back and see again. We did see some more of those burros.
These were being fed from a store owner in town.
We made it to Needles and stayed at the Desert View RV Park. The price was good and they said their WiFi was very good. Well it was not, we had to sit outside at the end of the trailer by the road to get service. But it was a bit too cold (yes, we remember it being 100 degrees the week before) to be outside so no WiFi. I think they need a few more antennas in the park. I tried my 3G card but it was only Edge and it cut in and out. Hence no blog last night.
On to Thursday. Left Needles and traveled the boring I40 W to CA58 W. Yawn! Down the Tehachapi’s, the hill that started our truck fun. No problems. We made it home about 5pm.
Would we go back to the Balloon Fiesta? Sure, probably not next year though.
Will we get to Northern Arizona? We want to, this was the second attempt.
Do we want to east New Mexico cuisine again? Definitely.
Did we meet many new interesting friends? We always do.
Will we take another trip? Come on!!!
Back on the road
roger October 6th, 2009
Today the Balloon Fiesta is over for us. I am sure there will be more coming in for this weekend but it is time to hook up and head on out. However, before we left we were treated to another show. We rolled out of bed at an earlyish time but not too bad. We saw balloons floating over our trailer like the previous morning. They were taking off from the field and heading south with the wind. Many went directly over our trailer.
This wave of balloons cleared our parking area and we noticed another wave from the north coming in. They would descend by the field, drop their marker (like the previous morning), then pop back up and continue on. The vast majority of them continued to the south but a few actually set down behind the motorhomes about 3 rows back from us. This was pretty impressive to see that maneuvering. We turned to look at another coming in, lower, lower, lower, boom. He landed right next to one of the Airstream rows and right behind our traveling buddies, Bob and Phyllis. The pilot asked the group around the basket to help hold the balloon in place until his chase crew could get there. Naturally, he got full compliance. In this picture you can see Bob and Phyllis having a great time (they are the ones looking at the camera and beaming from ear to ear and their trailer is in the background).
Roxie was right there also helping out.
The crew got the bag deflated and down to the ground. Again they asked for help to get the air out of the bag and there went everyone again.
Everyone involved really enjoyed it and I enjoyed watching them. There were enough hands already.
We got back on I40 W and backtracked a LOT today. We made it to Holbrook, AZ and are at the KOA tonight. We both had nice long hot showers in their restrooms. We dumped both our tanks and now we are somewhat back to normal. We will head to Cottonwood and the Dead Horse Ranch State Park tomorrow.
The most famous corner in the US?
roger October 1st, 2009
Flagstaff got to 24 degrees overnight but we stayed pretty toasty inside. I was pretty beat and slept until about 9am. I then remembered about getting that sticker for the transmission that would show what temperatures it was reaching. I popped up then Bob and I went down and got one. It doesn’t exactly work like a mood ring where it changes colors based upon heat. This one has dots that change turn a color when it reaches each temp level but do not change color back. It will show what the max was. Fine with me.
Some other Airstreamers were going to have breakfast in Flagstaff then stop for lunch in Winslow. Now Winslow is only 50 miles away from Flagstaff so we thought that is awfully close to have breakfast and then lunch. We decided to leave a bit closer to lunch so we would be in Winslow at lunch. The planned location was the La Posada hotel. A former railway hotel that fell into disrepair but now is being restored to its full glory. We pulled up and found 3 Airstreams already there. The hotel is beautiful. We headed straight to the dining room and got a table. Bob went over to the only table that had more that 4 people at it and found those were the Airstreamers. We talked a bit with them but they were already finished eating and were preparing to leave. Not a problem. We went and sat down to check the menu.
The waitress had a suggestion of the tacos made with Filet Mignon. 3 of us chose those. Roxie chose red corn tortilla taquitos. None of us were disappointed and the prices were very reasonable. Roxie also tried their Black Bean/Creamed Corn soup which she loved. The chance for dessert came, Bob and Phyllis ordered a bread pudding with many types of nuts and fruits in it (terrible description). We had creme brule. Both of them were very good but the bread pudding was the best.
There is another thing Winslow is famous for. Do you know it? The Eagles made this town very popular with their song “Take it Easy”. There is a reference to ’standing on the corner in Winslow Arizona” (sing it if you know it). Well we had to go to THE corner. We had to take some pictures. I had to play the song for Roxie afterward on the iPod. It was a weekday so it wasn’t busy at all. We did the photo exchanges (all these will be on Flickr when I return). Here is one of the corner that the city has setup.
When we looked at the clock we realized that we had spent 2 1/2 hours in Winslow. Wow! We still had 180 miles to go. Time to get on the road. We left Arizona, eventually and entered New Mexico. We got to the Grants KOA around 7pm (their time). We were the last two RV’s in the campground as they were full! I am glad I made that reservation 5 months ago. There are approximately 20 Airstreams here and we are heading to Camping World to join up with the rest and all go en masse. Should be fun!
Oh and about my sticker? Not even the first dot has shown up (190 degrees). I am not sure if that is good or bad now…
Hot then cold
roger September 30th, 2009
So Needles ended the first day on a hot note. High 90’s and lots of wind. We used the A/C all evening. In the morning the temperature was very temperate. We were able to see how beautiful the river was right behind our trailers. Here is Bob and Phyllis:
We hooked everything up and headed on to a relatively short day (200 miles). We crossed over into Arizona and immediately became the slowest vehicles on the road. The speed limit in AZ is 75mph regardless of vehicle type. Well I still stay at 60-65 but even the big rigs were zooming right by us. Except on the hills where we could pass the loaded ones.
We made a fuel stop in Kingman, AZ and noticed that the old Route 66 took off there. We had been on this stretch before about 7 years ago on our Grand Canyon trip but don’t remember too much about it. We thought we might as well do this stretch while we were there. Great decision. There was more traffic on this stretch but it was more scenic and more populous. We were kind of looking for a quaint, Route 66′ish place to eat. We thought at least one of the towns on the stretch between Kingman and Seligman would have something. Phyllis produced a printout of a place in Seligman that looked very appealing. Continuing to enjoy the scenery and nostalgia (even the Burma Shave signs) we headed to Seligman. We found just the place:
Delgadillo’s Snow Cap drive in. It was a very fun place and the Delgadillo’s are a very famous part of Seligman. There were various other shops to purchase touristy stuff, which we obligingly did. It was odd that for a period of time we were the only primary English speaking people there. A tour bus dropped of a group of Europeans (I think German) and they milled around. Later there was a Japanese group. It was fun to listen to all the languages.
We parted ways with Seligman after almost 2 hours of leisure (sadly missing from our previous day) and stayed on the ‘mother road’ as far as we could. We were eventually funneled back to I40. We came across a sign on the freeway before Williams that stated slow trucks next 18 miles. Usually slow trucks mean a grade but I could not think of an 18 mile grade that I have ever been on. Well it was a grade and it was almost 18 miles long. The transmission continued its’ light show but the truck performed just fine. We made it to the Flagstaff KOA at any astonishingly early time of 4:15pm. I called a transmission shop and discussed the problem. I also conversed with my boss, who likes to rebuild vehicles also and every concurred that there was something probably bad with the sensor. I am going to the transmission shop in the AM to get a type of temperature gauge for the outside of the pan.
We setup the trailers and decided to try another discovery from Phyllis, the spot this time: Miz Zip’s. Very good food. Chicken Fried steak with mashed potatoes was highly rated by the girls. The guys liked the Roast Beef dinner. We ALL loved the Peach pie with ice cream, even me and I don’t care too much for fruit pies. We made a few more house keeping stops and came back to the trailers. So what is the cold part regarded in the title? The temperature tonight is supposed to be 32. What a difference a day makes.
Arizona Part VII
roger September 25th, 2009
Last installment for the Arizona trip so it might be a bit long. I will make up for the previous no photo post also.
We are westward bound since home is calling. However the only real paths out of Green Valley are north to Tucson or south to Mexico. So north we go to do a bit of backtracking (not too much). We weren’t sure if we wanted to head back toward Phoenix maybe with stop at Picacho Peak State Park. We didn’t do that. I remembered a place that I went to as a child and it was pretty much on the way. Organ Pipe Cactus National Park.
So we go up to Tucson and then head west on AZ86 from there. The vast majority of the drive until the Why cutoff were in the Tohono O’odham nation. It was pretty barren with one or two minor population areas. Along the way we drove past Kitt Peak observatory which is one place I would like to go to, without the trailer. The drive was enjoyable and we stopped for lunch at Why (yes that is the name of the town). From there we headed south to the park.
This was one of the locales my father loved coming to. Of course pretty much anything in the desert was where he liked. He loved the smell of sagebrush, the dark nights with the stars. It is good to be able to take my wife to these places that she has never been. Organ Pipe is right on the Mexico border and there are some trails and roads that are closed to the public due to illegal activities. We were only there for one night so we did not do much exploring, just resting.
Above is our spot in the campground. As usual I like to see what other Airstreams are in the campground. There were about 4 but no one was out so I couldn’t converse with anyone <sigh>. However when I was sitting there an Airstream motorhome drove through, we waved at each other but that was the extent of the contact. That evening after a steak dinner we went to the evening ranger program and then came back to the total darkness.
The next AM we went to the visitors center and I got a pin for my hat. We walked around their cactus garden and I took two of what I feel are my favorite shots of the trip. Both are cactus shots.
The above is an Ocotillo cactus. What is odd about this one is there are leaves on it. Leaves only happen once or twice a year at best.
This one is an Organ Pipe cactus I do believe. I love the pattern that the spines create.
As I was talking to the rangers at the visitors center I mentioned that it was over 40 years since I had been to the park but I had some photos of my parents trailer in the campground. I wondered if they might be interested in copies of them for research (I had them on my thumbdrive). They agreed and I gave them the electronic versions. Here they are:
and
The first one was probably around 1967 and the second around 1963.
We left Organ Pipe and headed north to join I-8 and head to our next stop for the evening, Yuma. However on the way we stopped to visit some relatives of my mother’s boyfriend who happened to be in Ajo and had an Airstream motorhome. We contacted them, found out where they were staying and stopped. As we met them and I started thinking about it, this was the same motorhome that I saw in the park! I had no clue until now. It seems they have a favorite spot but it was unavailable so they did not stay at Organ Pipe that night. We visited for a bit and then continued one.
We stopped in Gila Bend for lunch and Roxie shopped around to add to her collection of metal fence art. We trucked on down to Yuma to spend the night. The next day we headed back to Sam’s Spa in Desert Hot Springs and finished at home the next day.
We thoroughly enjoyed our trips through southern Arizona and look forward to a trip through the northern part soon.
Arizona Part VI
roger September 23rd, 2009
As I may have mentioned previously this trip was a bit different for us. Normally I will plan out things to the day and any variation is verbotten! This trip was vastly different for me and us. We would pretty much just plan out the next stop and not any further. So one of the things we were thinking about while at Kartchner Caverns was where next? We had heard from Rich Luhr about some southern Arizona things to do. But the weather was clearing up so should we head back north? Unfortunately we did not have unlimited time (not yet) so we could not do a north detour so it was stay south. So we decided on Green Valley.
We had to head north on AZ90, west on I10 (ugh, backtracking), south on AZ83 then take the cut off to Sahuarita. On the way there we were trying to find out where we were going to stay. Little did we know that Green Valley is a HUGE retirement area for Snowbirds. There weren’t may RV parks. One that was listed was actually in a mobile home park. There was one slight drawback, it was 55 and older park. We called and I explained that we were planning on staying only one night but we had not reached their minimum age yet, just 7 more years! They were willing to let us stay, so this was a double first for us, a mobile home park and a 55 and older park. We dropped the trailer and immediately took off to see what we came there for.
The Titan Missile Museum. This is the only remaining missile silo left over from the cold war, all the others were destroyed as part of arms agreements. It was impressive to see the level of technology (or lack of it) that protected our country during that time. It shows how paranoid the world was and also how thoroughly all the aspects of the defense were thought out. Things like when the replacement shift came in, they had 30 seconds to get from one point to another or the site would lock down. The fact that it required two people to fire the missile, each turning a key that were so far apart that you could not do it with one person. Certain areas required two people at all times to avoid sabotage. Wow! Everything was still looked like it did then, some things were even still functional. If you ever get near Green Valley, by all means take the tour!! I even bought some canned emergency ration water from the late ’50s. I have not, and probably will not open it. I am not sure how close to water it really is.
Our trip is winding down now since we unfortunately do have to get back home is some semblance of the future. So we will continue heading west (homeward) but we are still going to have to stop some more. Part VII coming next (sorry about the lack of photos in this post).
Arizona Part V
roger September 20th, 2009
So Bisbee is now a memory and we are off to our next stop. We had heard great things about Kartchner Caverns State Park and decided to give it a go. We had no idea how popular this spot turned out to be. In keeping with my aversion/distaste/displeasure of retracing my route, we headed south then west on AZ 92. This took us back to Sierra Vista/Ft. Huachuca and AZ 90. I know I had to do some backtracking (about 10 miles). We continued north to the caverns. We knew they had camping but did not know if we were going to stay there or not.
We pulled into the park and went to the visitor’s center to see when the next tour was. They had two different tours, one where you can walk up and get tickets and the other where you had to have reservations. We got tickets for the walk up tour (Throne Room) but it was the last tour of the day. So we decided to see if there was room in the campground for the night and there was. We only had electricity and water but that was fine:
As you can see the weather was changing. The stormy cloudy weather was clearing and blue skies being revealed. Unfortunately this meant it was going to warm up also. We parked the trailer, waited a bit and went to the tour.
These caverns are amazing. They were not discovered until the ’70s. Then they were not publicized in any way. Eventually the family that found them turned them over to the state of Arizona. They took many years to get them ready for the public. Since they were unknown until recently they have not been ransacked like most caverns we have been to. No broken formations, with the exception of natural acts. The state made the entire tour handicapped accessible, all ramps. They have airlocks for entry and exit so there is not a continually open door to allow the moisture to escape to the desert. The cave is surprisingly warm and moist, something we rarely feel in other caverns. They don’t allow cameras as this could slow down the tour and flashes can be disruptive to the formations. Coats must be rolled up tight and tied around your waist to keep the lint problems down.
The formations are pristine. The historical story about the caverns is intriguing. The engineering put in for the public’s enjoyment is impressive. We thoroughly enjoyed the tour. We wanted to see the other tour also, the Big Room. We asked the ticket counter about getting tickets since they were sold out for the next day. They told us we could come down the next AM and wait for any cancellations. We went back to the trailer for a welcome rest.
The next day we went right down to the ticket booth. Nothing initially. We waited about 30 minutes and two tickets opened up! But they were different times. Sigh. We weren’t going to split up like that. We waited about 30 more minutes and finally two showed for the 11:15 tour. We took them. We had about 2 hours now and decided not to spend another night. We hooked up and parked in the visitors parking lot and took the tour.
The Big Room tour was just as impressive but in a different way. It was not the same as the previous but that was a good thing. We felt very fortunate that we were able to just show up and see both tours. But it was time to go. Where to next? See part VI.
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