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Yet more RZR riding in southern Utah

It was a nice day on the trails. We left before 9:00, and we got back a bit after 2:00 – 67 miles. We first drove south to Koosharem, then up a trail along the west side of Mormon Mountain. We crossed UT 24 and headed east along the Paiute Trail. We did take some interesting side loops here and there, but the day was glorious. I am having trouble with the Go Pro battery, so these were all on the iPhone. Be prepared for picture overload!

Not gray rock but a hillside of purple flowers

We saw 8 deer, the first big mammals we have noticed. The RZR is noisy, so we don’t sneak up on things very easily. Besides these three, we also saw a doe and two spotted fawns plus two other solitary deer.

A d lots and lots of flowers. The best were around 7500’.

The center of these reminds me of a shooting star

A lot of clearing cedar trees had been done to the hillsides. It isn’t done by cutting the trees, but by dragging these huge chains between two tracts/bulldozers. It looks pretty horrid right after, but the work will open up the lane for more native vegetation. The fact that it will increase cattle grazing space is also factored in.

There were some old favorites that showed up.

At 7000’, the landscape was mostly sage and cedars.

There were a few surprises like this amazing flower. This was the only one like it I noticed.

We had lunch at Rex Reservoir. Those trees across the lake? Their trunks are 2-3 feet deep in water!

When we got up to 7500’, the scenery changed significantly. Lots of scrub oaks started showing up, and the Mountain View’s improved. If you blow up the picture below and look carefully,there is still snow!

More of the white crepe-like flowers, this time in a clump around Rex Reservoir.

It was the first cloudy day we have had. Ignore the rutted road and look at the lovely sky.

I found only one of this beauty too. An odd cup-like shape.

More sky drama. It wouldn’t be of as much note but the skies have been pristine blue until late afternoon since we arrived.

It was a fabulous trip, but processing this many pictures is time consuming! Just a short drive tomorrow to check out a specific trail, then it will be time to drive into town to get gas.

Southern Utah for a while

We stayed in St. George, Utah just one night on Saturday 24 June. We always stay at the Temple View RV Park, but it is hard to get around their building with the toad. It just isn’t set up for big rigs. The sites are fine though, so we keep coming back. We needed to run the generator for AC pretty much the entire trip since it was still so hot. I was so glad to leave the heat and move to the mountains!

We are staying at the Water Clover RV Park in Burrville, UT, pretty much in the middle of nowhere. The campground is owned by the Koosharem band of Paiutes, and it is on their reservation. Definitely a very basic place that has gravel sites and needs mowing, but it is only $150 for the week with full hookups! Can’t beat that deal. It also is right on a big OHV trail system and near Fish Lake, a big recreation spot. There is one other rig here, but I think they a seasonal since no one has been there since we arrived. Nice view over a small irrigation reservoir.

We took Monday to wander around the area and get information. I had to go to the ER on Sunday when my reaction to the gnat bites I got more than a week before got really concerning. I was afraid I had an infection, but it was just a terrible immune response. I got some super duty cortisone cream that is making me feel much better. We also went to the Richfield Visitor Center. What a nice pair of women staffing it! One was a UTVer herself, and both knew a lot about the trails and history of the area. We picked up some guide books and maps.

We then took off on a ride with the RZR. We are in a sagebrush meadow area at the start, but there were lots of flowers.

These orange ones are probably the most prevalent at the lower elevations (7000’)

Not many cactus, but this pink one was showy

Our trip was on the east side of UT 24. We headed up the mountains and crossed into the valley where Fish Lake is located.

Looking across the sagebrush to the west valley

Some of the trails we took were part of the Paiute Trail, a network of roads and trails widely advertised.

A lot of the trail was decent Forest Service roads

We finally got up to the aspens and lusher meadows. This was over the mountain southeast of our Campgroun.

As we continued higher, we got into the evergreens and skinny trees. They get that way due to the harsh winter conditions. Even this far south, the snow is intense.

We finally encountered a snowball we didn’t want to cross. We are much more cautious when riding by ourselves.

We had some dead ends trying to get back to our campsite, but it was an enjoyable day of about 60 miles.

Today we are getting chores done and relaxing. Our bodies feel that many miles in a RZR! Kevin checked a bunch of things on the RZR. He topped off the oil and radiator fluid and just generally checked things out. We have 49 more operational hours before it needs a major service, so this was just checking and cleaning things. I sewed some more. I cut out a bunch of 4” Drunkard’s Path pieces that I really needed to get to, so I did a bunch of those. Well, “bunch” is probably the wrong phrase. These are picky little devils, and they take a LOT of concentration. I did get about 20 done though. It is a good way to spend a lot of time and not get a lot done! They are awfully cute though.

We took a drive into Koosharem to have dinner. Nice little cafes that totally surprised me in such a tiny place! And there were pretty places along a trail head we checked out. It will be on our list of trips while we are here. And of course there were flowers!

Tomorrow we are taking a ride, so expect more pictures.

Lake Havasu part deux

We are back at DJ’s RV Park, a nice older park that is very quiet. Site sizes are decent, and the pool (which we never use) looks nice. It is also $15 less a night than the new place next door! I would not stay here for a season because I would want activities and such, but for a week or so, I prefer a nice quiet place like this.

Kevin got his dentistry done, so that was good. We also got all the basic necessities of laundry and shopping done too. We even got to eat out some! Cha’Bones is our favorite. Upscale, but really good food in a casual atmosphere. We did get some sightseeing done though. We originally planned on Joshua Tree, but they are still recovering from recent fires. We decided to visit the brand new Avi Kwa Ame National Monument. It means “Spirit Mountain”, and is a large swath of BLM land surrounding the town of Searchlight, NV. We visited Nelson, NV, an old mining town that is mostly a privately owned ghost town. Fun place!

The place is full of stuff. While the mill is pretty decrepit, it was obviously really something in its day. The area sent millions of dollars of precious metals out. The owner’s daughter was staffing the cash register, and she described her parents as hoarders who only became respectable after the TV show “American Pickers” became popular! There is a mine tour I wasn’t interested in (claustrophobia), but I bet it would be interesting. There were old workings ranging from small glory holes to more extensive workings all through the area. I would love to come back in a cooler season with the RZR and explore.

On our way back, we decided to explore a part of the Mojave Preserve we hadn’t traveled before. We took the Nipton Road (NV 164) to the Walkng Box Ranch. It was owned by famous silent movie stars Rex Bell and Clara Bow, and they lived there with their family from 1931 until the mid 40s. It was owned by a variety of people before receiving. Atonal Historic Preservation designation. Sadly it is closed right now, though a number of volunteers and seasonal staff have RVs on the property. I did get some pictures.

The ranch house is a long way from the fence

The barn cladding hides railroad tie construction, seen a bit on the far left side

There is a modern visitor center, but closed

The creosote plants had the coolest seed pods like little puff balls

We continued on the Nipton Road to Ivanpah Road then Lanfair Road and then into Goff. Some hard surface road, some gravel, but very little “bad”road, just some minor washboard. We stopped at the Goff Schoolhouse Museum and wandered around a bit. The Schoolhouse itself is impressive, but the surrounding open air mining museum is truly fabulous. They have a walking tour guide you can take, but we just kind of wandered around because it was so hot!

A two stamp mill showing clearly the pistons. I tried to take this in portrait mode. Obviously I failed.

The pride of the museum – a working 10 stamp mill brought from Montana

The have special public days when they operate the stamp mill, and I would love to attend some time. I better bring my ear protection though; the mills were deafening.

I did get some sewing done. My tumbler quilt is completely bound and in the wash. I also got all the Accuquilt cutting done for the next Hunter Star. I decided on a 3×4 layout to make it a bit bigger and more rectangular. I also made some pizza with dough from the bread maker, so I am feeling quite accomplished! We even did some real house cleaning, something g we were desperately in need of.

Tomorrow we head to Saint George, UT on our way to Koosharen, UT up near Fish Lake in the mountains. Lots of trails to ride there. I am definitely tired of the heat here, though I have been pleasantly surprised at how well our two ACs have kept the inside of the motorhome.

Lake Havasu then dispersed camping near Flagstaff then back to Lake Havasu

Odd title I know. We went to DJ’s RV Resort in Lake Havasu to get the RZR set up to carry in the F-150 bed. Kevin had some additions to make to it too like adding a winch, a cargo rack, and some new mirrors. Knowing it might get complicated, a friend in town let him work in his air conditioned garage and use a few big tools he owned that Kevin didn’t bring with us. It took 5-6 days of 3 hours or so a day since they are both retired and worked slowly. He got it all done though! The picture makes the truck seem bigger than it is, but that is just the perspective.

While Kevin and Bill were working on the truck and RZR, I went to the local quilt guild “Staycation,” a 3 day retreat in a local community building, 8-4. I didn’t stay that long, but I did get a lot done. I finished the piecing for the scrappy tumbler the night before, and I got it quilted. Still need the binding though.

I got 6 blocks completed of the 9 needed for my Hunter’s Star top at the retreat. Here is the completed top with borders I finished yesterday. I give the credit to Accuquilt for those almost perfect corners and joins! Aren’t they lovely? I felt I was a walking advertisement for Accuquilt since I had so many people come over to see it.

While we were here, we took a drive to Quartzsite where we always stay some in the winter. Lots of changes, but I won’t detail them here. However I saw this adorable line up of little “people”. They really stood out because there were so very few real people in the huge area. It was almost spooky to see it so empty.

We left LHC on Thursday, 15 June, to find a dispersed site in the Coconino National Forest west of Flagstaff. We wanted to do some riding! We found a great place off Forest Road 171, and enjoyed gorgeous weather and some nice riding. I experimented with my new Go Pro, and I got some great videos. This post was later than I intended because I can’t figure out how to post them to Facebook or YouTube! I keep getting errors. But I decided I wouldn’t wait any longer, so you will get no videos until I can figure out how to get them on YouTube. Loading them here is just too resource intensive, and the uploads over a few seconds long always fail. The forest was lovely. It reminds me a lot of the Black Hills with open forests alternating with prairie meadows. We were at 7200’, so it was in the 30s each morning, warming up to the 70s. We took one long day or 60+ miles, and a couple of days of shorter trips.

We would have stayed longer on the forest, but Kevin had another dental issue from his recent tooth implant. He saw an emergency dentist in Lake Havasu the first time we came through, and it happened again when we were in the forest. He couldn’t find a dentist or oral surgeon within 100 miles that could get him in quickly except back in LHC with the same emergency dental clinic he used the first time. This time the oral surgeon back in Iowa coordinated the care with the dentist here, and we are crossing our fingers it worked. We decided to stay around here for 4 nights and do some more sightseeing plus cleaning and laundry. The dirt from UTV riding is no joke! Plus I need some more fabric!

Salt Lake City to Lake Havasu

We got to Salt Lake City on Saturday, 3 June. Easy drive, so we got in before 2:00. We stayed at the KOA on North Temple as we usually do. We thought about Antelope Island, but the biting gnats were out, and those things love to take bites out of me! We connected with a good friend on Saturday, and I made my first pizza crust in the bread maker. It came out pretty well, but I don’t know how to stretch the dough well enough! It was a bit smaller and thicker than I like. Wish I had taken a picture, because it tasted great. The recipe for my 1 pound bread maker makes 2 crusts, so I froze on for later use.

Sunday we went to a fabulous concert held at my old church, First Presbyterian in SLC. They did the Rutter Requiem, and it was fabulous. It is one of my favorite choral pieces. If I had brought concert black attire I would have sung with them, but my black polo with worn blue jeans just didn’t fit the vibe LOL! Even better than the choral music was the first piece, an incredible organ piece performed by Larry Blackburn, my favorite organist. The church is a big city church with a gothic style, and it takes a big pipe organ to fill the space. Luckily they have one, and Larry makes good use of it. I don’t know if this link to the amateur recording will work, but here it is. You might need to copy it and place it in your browser.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NeT4rr9IgR15XZv_B_asjfbsmQ0MLysY/view?usp=sharing

Monday we had dinner with more old friends, and we repeated the joy with different friends on Tuesday. So nice to see so many of the people I enjoyed in Utah. I am not sad we moved, but I do miss the people. We also took the mandatory trip to Trader Joe’s and stocked up on freezer meals and treats. We also had the meeting with our financial advisor that was the official purpose for the trip.

We left on Wednesday, 7 June, and spent the night at the Eureka Casino parking lot in Mesquite, NV, just over the border from Utah. We have stayed there before in January heading to the southwest, and it always had 7-10 rigs of various types parked overnight. This time there was just 3 of us. It was pretty hot when we arrived, so we ran the generator for AC until about 9:00 pm when it cooled off enough to open the windows and turn on the fans. Kevin hates heat, but even he was comfortable with the temps that night.

We decided to take the slower route from Mesquite to Lake Havasu by driving NV 169, the Northshore Road that is mostly in Lake Mead National Recreation Area. Lovely drive. Here are a few pictures.

Lots of little islands in the lake at this low water level

The bathtub line is >100’ above current lake levels

We arrived in Lake Havasu City to a reserved site at DJ’s Campground on the north side of town. It is a well-kept, older, very quiet place, but handy and priced well. It is HOT here, so boondocking wasn’t an option; we both wanted AC. We picked up the RZR from the Needles storage lot where it had been living since we left the SW, and Kevin is off today with a friend in town doing updates and modifications to it and the truck for transporting it without the trailer. The friend has an air conditioned garage, and all the tools known to mankind. I am sure they will have a blast.

I intend on starting a donation quite out of scraps cuts with my tumbler die. It is nice, mindless seeing, but the result is cute and for a good cause. However I never seem to get the scrap pile lowered!

Summer 2023 trip is begun!

There was a lot of prep work to get this trip started. First we had to get the motorhome repaired. We found a guy who does upscale fiberglass boats, and he did a great job with a quick turnaround. He said we were lucky it was before Memorial Day, because he gets busy as soon as people put their boats in the water! Then Kevin ordered the new solar panels, and my lovely son in law Nick helped him put them on the motorhome. They were luckily able to McGyver an approach to use the old mounting hardware on the new panels which saved him having to drill new holes in the roof, always a good thing.

I finished up the quilt I started at the quilt retreat too. It was cut with an Accuquilt Hunter’s Star die. I planned for it to go into my stash of baby quilts for future needs, but a friend I have been camping with for 8 years was diagnosed with cancer, so I sent it to her instead. It is PINK, way more PINK than I anticipated when I bought the fabric. I tried to tone it down with a dark quilting thread, but it didn’t do much for the PINK. I did experiment with my rulers on this quilt, and I like the result.

One thing I did differently on this little quilt was to sandwich it using pool noodles and basting spray. Why did I wait to long? It was so much easier to keep things straight and wrinkle free. I made Kevin buy me an extra set of pool noodles to I can do the bigger quilts I have too.

I also finished quilting 3 quilts for my quilt guild donation program. It is enjoyable, and I get good practice. I am still learning about my quilt regulator table, so practice is needed. I also had time to make a sample block from a new die I bought from Blue Wren, a circle in a square. It is basically a Drunkard’s Path variation where the circles adjoin each other. The fabric is not my favorite! I grabbed two fat quarters I didn’t like, and here is the result. I never would have tried this without the cutter, but I love it!

In preparation for the summer, I cut bunches and bunches of tumblers for a scrap quilt. I also cut 20+ bowl cozy sets out of a variety of fabrics for a class I am going to teach at the FMCA convention in Gillette, WY this August. The class size is 12, but there always seem to be a few extras, and I wanted some variety for the students to choose from.

Another preparation step was to buy a small bread maker. This makes a 1 pound loaf, just the right size for Kevin and me. It is quite easy to use, and we are taking it with us on the trip.

Really nice garlic butter rolls (we ate the others)

We tried to leave on Tuesday, 30 May, but we had to wait for an Amazon package that was late. We did get out on Wednesday, and decided to make it a long day. We drove all the way to Kearney, NE, about 450 miles, in order to sneak through a nasty wind storm forecast. We spent the night in the Cabela’s parking lot there, a place we have stayed in before. Lots of trains coming close by, but I put in foam ear plugs and crashed.

Thursday night we stayed in a fabulous National Forest Service dispersed campsite at Vedauwoo Recreation Area about 20 miles west of Cheyenne, WY. What a fabulous place! It is a popular climbing destination with a small campground but lots of dispersed but designated campsites. The rocks are amazing. We will definitely be coming back with the RZR to ride some of the trails. Absolutely no cell service, but the Starlink was ok with downloads of 8-15MB.

Lots of these rocks looking like giant building blocks

We are in Rock Springs tonight at the Walmart. As usual a bit noisy, but very convenient. Tonight’s dinner is salsa chicken in the Instant Pot and frozen Trader Joe’s Mexican corn. I better get going on it!

Maybe getting my blogging mojo back?

This has been a long dry spell. I have been doing things, but I just haven’t been posting them. Oops! I think I will provide just a short (hah!) month by month summary.

January\February:

We continued hanging around in Quartzsite through January. We went on a few more side by side rides with the Quartzsite club. We learned a lot, and had a great time. I ended up not going to the quilt group there this year. We just had too much going on. We always meet a group of people from RVForum.net for a rally during the RV show, so that took some time.

We finished up at Quartzsite on Feb 5 when we headed to Death Valley for their Dark Skies Festival. We stopped off at the Needles KOA for a night to store the RZR across the road. Can’t ride them in National Parks, and we were getting ready for a lot of other activities. The festival was great fun, as usual. This one had a big astrophysics theme which I found fascinating. Leaving Death Valley on 13 Feb, we again stayed at the Needles KOA, just because it was a reasonable distance. We were attending an Escapees Hangout in Lake Havasu for the Western Pyrotechnics Association from 14 Feb to 23 Feb. Quite a difference from the very organized FMCA events we had attended, but fun. The fireworks each night were fabulous! If you haven’t ever gone, you should try to make it. It is dry camping in the rodeo ground parking lot. We picked up the RZR in Needles on the way back to Quartzsite.

We stayed at Holiday Palms for 3 nights (full hook ups!) drove the SxS a bit, then headed out to the Diesel RV Club rally in Perry, GA, dropping off the SxS in Needles again along the way. We spent on night in Willcox at the Escapees park there.

March:

1 March found us at the Tired Traveler RV Park, quite nice for the price. We headed through the DFW metroplex on I-20, and I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was as compared to I-30. We made it the next day to the Ameristar Casino in Vicksburg, MS. If you are there, make sure you visit the National Battlefield! It was very interesting. We had to stay two nights due to a big storm coming through. We then got to Americus, GA and the KOA there. I did a lot of frantic sewing to get ready for donations for the FMCA convention.

Result of an appliqué class at the FMCA convention

The DRVC rally was interesting as usual, and it preceded the big FMCA Convention in nearby Perry, GA. It was great fun, as usual. After all that commotion, I needed some peace and quiet, and we found it on Eufaula Lake on the Chattahoochee River at the White Oak Campground. We stayed on the Alabama side, and we enjoyed a few days of quiet. We then headed to Red Bay, AL again for somemore work on our problematic slide. Sigh. We have an appointment for September to get the mechanism replaced with a Vroom mechanism. We left Red Bay on 27 March to head home, spending the night at Hinton RV Park in Sikeston, MO and Crossroads RV Park in Mt. Pleasant, IA. On 29 March we made it home! We left the rig a few days at a local campground (George Wyth State Park) until we could get it winterized and ready for bed. It was COLD in Iowa.

April:

Now that we are home, it is time for exciting things like choir rehearsal, doctors appointments, and haircuts! Easter season is always big for church musicians, and this was not an exception. We did a Palm Sunday service, Good Friday service, and an Easter service, all of which were very satisfying. I even was part of a trio that sang at the end of the Good Friday service – “Were You There (when they crucified my Lord)”. We had a big family gathering at our place on Sunday evening where the entree was one of the fabulous Amana smoked hams. My, but that is lovely!

We also picked up a new truck that will hold the RZR and tow four-down behind the motorhome. F-150 Ecoboost four door, four wheel drive. We ended up taking it to RV One in Des Moines to get the braking system (an Air Force 1] installed. Ouch, that’s expensive! I finished one big quilt this month that was part of a Mystery Quilt class by Inspired to Sew. They run their Monday evening Mystery Quilt classes on Zoom, and I got most of the blocks done before we left for Arizona. I did a few in AZ, and I finished the remaining few in early April before putting it all together.

May to today:

I went to an RV Quilter’s retreat from 4-7 May. I finished one quilt, and got a few blocks completed on a second.

The exciting part of the trip was the night after the retreat ended when we got blasted by a massive hailstorm. The pretty new pickup on which I have not made even one payment, got a bunch of tiny dents and one big one. The motorhome lost two solar panels with huge broken areas on them, and one fist sized hole punched in the fiberglass. Ouch! There are a few scratches too, but those weren’t significant. Thank goodness for fiberglass! A metal rig would have likely been totaled. It turns out the solar panels protected us a lot, and replacing them is much less expensive than patching holes in an upscale motorhome roof. Much of the last two weeks have been taken up with getting estimates and temporary repairs.

Not the biggest hail stones, but you get the idea!

Fist sized hole in the back fiberglass cap of the motorhome

An even bigger hail stone made this damage

My newest toy is a small bread maker by Zojirushi. I love it so far, and we intend on taking it with us on our trips. I also will post pictures of the other two quilts I finished when I have them completed. I think I am mostly caught up, and I am telling myself I have to keep this more up to date. I do it mostly for myself to keep track of what we have done and where we stay, but I will forget it I don’t post.

First week in Quartzsite

It has been busy, so that is my excuse for not posting sooner. Be prepared for loads of pictures!

We arrived on Saturday, 14 January. We basically got settled in to our site, and Kevin spread out all the outdoor paraphernalia we don’t often pull out. he has a new kitchen set up for the Blackstone grill, plus the rug and chairs all got pulled out. On Sunday we took our first ride with a local Side by Side (UTV) club called “Arizona Sunriders.” We had been following along their Facebook page, and they welcomed us on their ride. Here are some shots from the trip. We started out at the somewhat still active marble mine. I didn’t take any pictures because we did that last year.

We also visited a local landmark called Deer Run B&B. To put it mildly, it isn’t a real B&B. Instead it is a quirky spot at the end of a VERY rough trail filled with a hodgepodge of chairs, tables, and cute signs.

Part of the group at one of our stops. That’s Kevin at the back of our little RZR.

While on FB the trip had been identified as a relatively short, easy ride, it turned out into something that really stretched our skills and comfort! Luckily they later said it was probably the third hardest tour they do! We made it, so we feel accomplished.

On Monday we took a trip to Yuma and Algodones, Mexico. Kevin wanted to get new glasses, and he took his prescription from our ophthalmologist in Iowa to Western Optical there. He is quite happy with the new glasses, and they only cost $160 for frames, bifocal lenses, and coatings, about half the price back home. We ate Mexican food (of course!), and on the way back we saw three groups of feral donkeys along US 95 through the Yuma Proving Grounds. We only stopped to get pictures of this small group.

The weather has been wet and cold, both unusual for this time of year. On Wednesday it finally cleared up.

We spent some time just driving the RZR around the local area too. The top of a nearby hill shows part of the Long Term Visitor Area (LTVAs) near Quartzsite. Yes, it really is that crowded near town! However it gets a lot less crowded a mile or two away from town. Note this was middle of last week, before even more crowds came for the big rock show and the RV show (“The Bog Tent”).

We also took a trip to Parker, both to pick up the sticker that allows us to ride the RZR on Indian land, but also to grab some fabulous donuts at the little bakery there and to have lunch. We found a fabulous Indian place called Dee’s Cafe that I would recommend to anyone.

Yesterday we took another trip with the Sunriders to Swansea ghost town. It was a very active place with up to 750 people and multiple mines. Surprisingly most of the ore was originally transported to Los Angeles where it was shipped across the Atlantic to Swansea, West Wales, for refining and steel making. Eventually the mills were added to the town, and the town took its name from the former milling location. These are big ruins in remarkably good shape considering they are over 100 years old.

Rows of mountains from the site. Note the saguaros.

So far today we have driven the RZR some pictographs that are quite near our camp.

I have also been sewing. I now have all the rows done for a donation quilt that needs to be finished by the FMCA convention in March. Shouldn’t be a problem at all, which is reassuring.

The huge Big Tent RV show began yesterday, but opening day is a madhouse. We might go in the middle of next week, maybe at 9:00 am or 3:00 pm. Too crazy for me to be interested in prime time viewing. Besides, they always have good state fair type of food vendors – fry bread, funnel cakes, turkey legs, Asian bowls, all kinds of stuff! I do love my fry bread.

On the way west

We are finally in Arizona. As I noted in the last post, we spent Sunday night at a Walmart in Arkansas, then Monday night in the parking lot of the Grand Casino in McLoud, OK (near Shawnee, OK). We were able to have dinner with my sister and nephew in Oklahoma City which was nice. We saw high winds and red flag warnings were getting posted, so we left a few minutes before 7:00 am to try to make it to Amarillo, TX before the storm got bad. We barely made it. The last 30 miles or so were pretty white knuckled driving, but we got to our reserved spot at the Big Texan Ranch RV Park. We ended up leaving all but one of the slides pulled in. The winds were steady at 30+, and the gusts were 60-65+. Definitely not the time to leave the slides out. For anyone not familiar with the big slides on a big motorhome, they all have some type of vinyl covering over the top of the slide. Ours are made out of Sunbrella, and they fit pretty snuggly. But the noise they make when they start flapping in heavy winds can drive you crazy, so we bring them in. It isn’t a safety thing.

The wind warning went through Wednesday night, so we decided to just stay put in Amarillo for two nights. We went to Palo Duro State Park, just a short distance from Amarillo. Kevin and I had taken Alan and Mark here the first year we owned a pop up camper. Mark was a toddler, and Alan was 5 or 6. We hadn’t been back since, so it was time. It was cold and the wind whipped right through us, so we definitely just drove through the park. Pretty nice scenery though.

From the visitor center looking into the sun and wind.

This is lush compared to the surrounding land

They had “glamping” available for $75/night

We made it to the Seligman, AZ KOA for tonight. Both days were more driving than I like, but there is snow coming in behind us in Flagstaff. This KOA must have gotten drenching rains recently, probably leftovers from the California deluges. There are puddles everywhere. But we are able to finish up laundry, fill up propane, take on fresh water and dump gray water, and generally get ready to dry camp for the next few weeks,

And just a hint of how lovely Arizona sunsets can be. No editing; these really were the colors.

Out of Alabama on the way west

We had a good trip in the Red Bay Area. Ricky McGee at Pro-Finishes touched up a bunch of dings and scratches, a few fairly big. Great paint match, and the guys were super interested at making us happy with the outcome. We also had good work at Precision RV where they found a broken slide slider, a fairly common problem, and one I have been surprised we hadn’t had yet. We are not gentle on this MH! They not only replaced the broken one, but let us buy a spare since it might happen on the other side of the slide in the future. We could find someone to fix it, but getting parts is what always takes a long time. They also discovered and fixed a leaky hydraulic line for the same slide, adjusted all the bay doors so they shut easily and evenly, installed a propane furnace igniter that Kevin had bought but didn’t want to install (the current one was only working intermittently), and re-tensioned the slide toppers. Hopefully the slide toppers won’t hold as much water after rains now. Then we had Rocky Johnson do a complete detail on the motorhome – wash, wax, put 303 on the roof for UV protection, inspect the roof while he was up there (everything is still good), and polished the wheels. The coach just gleamed, but of course it had to rain later that day. Sigh. At least the wax is a good protection.

As usual we stayed in Red Bay RV Park which is like all but one of the Red Bay area spots – a gravel parking lot with full hook ups. This time we had a particularly outgoing group, and we met some nice folks.

We ate at all the standard places – Stark’s for breakfast, Cole’s for the absolute best smoked chicken I have ever had (and fabulous white sauce!), Home Town Pizza for great great pizza, and Big Star Grocery for some of their specialty snacks. I even bought extra of their fruit cake cookies, and I froze them in sets of twos for future consumption. Each cookie is the equivalent of a big slice of fruitcake, so two is plenty for the pair of us.

We left Red Bay this morning a little after 8:00, and we are now in Morrilton, AR a bit west of Little Rock. We are spending the night at the Walmart here. It started out pretty noisy, but it gradually got nice and quiet. Monday is Shawnee, Oklahoma at a casino. I went to college in Shawnee, so it will be interesting to see how it has changed.