Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Travel Tips

Several things we learned on this trip:

1. Only carry a few days’ groceries. The bottom fell out of a drawer where the canned goods were. Too much weight for the drawer.

2. Take a few extra blankets - propane does burn up quickly in cold weather and you can easily run out overnight then you not only don’t have any heat, you don’t have any refrigerator or way to cook.

3. Watch out for the idiots trying to get on the Interstate: They raced up the on-ramp going faster than we were and ahead of us, then they looked up, saw us, and slammed on their brakes when they could have easily gotten on the Interstate ahead of us. We had no place to go - we would have moved to the left lane as soon as we realized someone was trying to get on the Interstate if we could have - and they just ran out of road.

4. As much as possible, call ahead and check the places you want to visit, just in case there is a reservations-only policy. You can’t always trust to dumb luck like we did. Also make sure the place is going to be open around the time you expect to get there. Several places didn’t open until May, later in April, or in the afternoon. Or were only open on certain days.

Monday, April 9, 2007

Taking the scenic route (US 80 and Rt 66)

This trip began on February 23, 2007. We arrived at Cousin Buddy’s in Hamilton, GA, on Saturday with a side mirror riding inside the motorhome; left there on Sunday, stopping in Vicksburg, MS, for the night. I had wanted to stop in Meridian, MS, to ride the antique carousal but it doesn’t open until mid-May. The next day we visited the Louisiana Purchase Museum and Zoo. We spent Sunday night in Bossier City, MS.

We passed through Cool, TX (pop. 283) then spent a couple hours in Mineral Wells, TX, the home of Crazy Water. Supposedly this water cured a woman who was considered crazy by her family. The mineral ingredients in the water resemble Prozac! The next day we were on the road toward Hobbs, NM, when a dust storm came up forcing us to drive slowly because of the crosswinds. We parked overnight in a WalMart parking lot where the shopping carts held a square dance to the accompaniment of train horns all night long!!

The landscape didn’t seem to change that much: mostly barren land (or almost barren). Some growth was present, just brown or tan, not green. No trees, at least not the kind of trees we are use to. These look like shrubs but fairly evenly spaced as if planted by someone.

We both visited Carlsbad Caverns (usually Frank doesn't care to go into any caverns). The Big Room takes 1.5 hours to walk around the perimeter and it’s NOT level. My leg muscles ached the next day. The cafe inside the Caverns was not open but the one in the visitors’ center was with a limited menu.

The next day it was on to Roswell, NM, to see the UFO Museum. This is a fun town with lots of alien themed shops. Then on to Ruidoso where the Hubbard Museum of the American West is that has the sculptures of several galloping horses that really do look like they are in motion. There was snow on the ground.

Sunday night was spent at Rockhound State Park in Deming, NM, where they ask that you take 15 pounds of rocks home with you. We would have if we could have found the ‘clearly-marked trail to the mine pit’. We took a trail that led up over the top of a ridge where a lot of petroglyphs were thinking this was the trail to the opal mine. This was an almost 2-hour hike. We old people have to go very slowly especially in the higher elevations.

Our last stop in New Mexico was at Stein’s Ghost Town. This is a privately owned town and the owner gives the tours and explains what happened to make this town a ghost town. They are selling the business to their son so they can retire and travel like we do!

The first stop in Arizona was near Cochise to see “The Thing”. It was a ‘thing’ alright. "It" looked like a mummy to us. We had to pass up Saguaro National Park/Rincon Mountains east of Benson, AZ, because of a very bad wreck. We couldn’t get to the correct exit nor figure out an alternate route.

Kartchner Caverns was also on our list of places to visit. You need to make a reservation months ahead of your planned visit to take a tour OR you can get in line in your vehicle at 6 a.m. to receive a slip that will entitle you to purchase up to 6 tickets that day only when the Visitors’ Center opens at 9 a.m. No thank you! We didn’t want to visit another hole in the ground that badly.

To us the southern parts of New Mexico and Arizona seem to be very poverty stricken. The houses are very small, built of native flat rocks stacked on top of each other, the yards are strewn with debris, rusted vehicles, and farming equipment. It looks like the equipment was just left where it stopped working. The only grass we saw was on the golf courses - and very little there! No trees.

On Monday we finished a roundtrip from the Caverns down to Tumacachori National Historical Park, then on to Bisbee and the Copper Queen Copper Mine, Benson, and Tombstone. We rode four or five people to a ‘car’ on tracks, straddling a ‘seat’ with an overhead rail to hold onto down into the mine. The tour of the mine was led by a former miner who explained how the tunnels were made and some of the jokes the old timers played on new miners.

Heading back toward Benson, we were too late arriving in Tombstone to see much of anything except the Boot Hill Cemetery and the Visitors’ Center. All during this trip we both seemed to fall asleep around 8 or 9 p.m. (whatever time zone we were in made no difference!) and wake up around 7 or 8 a.m. Just plain worn out each day with all the different things to see and all the walking we did.

The next day was spent at Old Tucson Studios located in the Saquaro National Park/Tucson Mountains west of Tucson. It was a very interesting place, full of memorabilia of the old western films made there as well as scenes for other movies which were all listed in a hefty book in the museum. They put on a couple gunfights in the streets several times a day, had a movie set being used to make a “film“ with several people from the audience as ‘helpers‘ and extras; a medicine show; and several features in the ‘saloon’. This was an all-day place.

Gila Bend is near the Painted Rocks Petroglyph site. The town had a very, very small visitors’ center run by the local Chamber of Commerce. Seems the State of Arizona no longer operates Welcome Centers on the Interstates and has turned over some of the monies to local communities to operate a Welcome Center/Visitors’ Center.

We took a side trip to Brenda, AZ, just to see what was there...what is there are two RV parks and a general store! Seems most of the people in the area are snowbirds who are also rockhounds. The air was very, very dry. My lips were so chapped they cracked and throbbed. Blistex doesn’t work! Chapstick is the only remedy that did.

Yuma, AZ, was our next stop even though we were not 16 days on the road just 13! Yuma Territorial Prison was not what we expected. Those prisoners were treated very humanely - they were allowed to hire out as day laborers and kept the money, they had health care, etc. We also visited the Yuma Crossing State Park where the history of the area was displayed. We also visited the Saihati Camel Farm.

Not far west of Yuma is Felicity, CA (pop. 287), which is the self-proclaimed “Center of the World”. There is a post office in the gift shop and a tour guide on duty to explain the reasoning behind the “Center of the World” designation and what is on site: a section of spiral stairs from the Eiffel Tower, the arm from some statue being used as the marker of a sun dial; large, long walls dedicated to the wars and veterans.

On Saturday, March 10, we arrived at the San Diego Train Museum to find out we could get tickets for the train’s day trip to Tecate, MX. This was a place that required advance reservations, too, but as it happened (lucky, lucky us!) a man wanted to get two tickets refunded which we bought. The Mexican government only allows one train with a limited number of passengers once a month. The residents of Tecate set up stalls right outside their front doors to sell food and the customers stop their vehicles in the middle of the street to order and sometimes eat the food. The town square was alive - some sort of band competition was going on and it was full of families having a good time. We were told about a ‘world famous’ bakery so we found it and I got some of the most delicious bread and pastries. Then it was time to find lunch, which turned out to be a Chinese restaurant! The day was very enjoyable.

After several confusing missed turns on and off I-15, we finally figured out that the signs saying “Hwy 15” really meant Interstate 15 which was what we were looking for!

We stopped outside Pala, CA, to mine for tourmalines. After finding out we needed a reservation for one of the two times a day and one bucket per customer sluicing events, it turns out there is an opening for (lucky, lucky) me. I found a very small gem quality stone and several very small chips, which I saved anyway.

Then we were off to Barstow and Calico Ghost Town. This was the halfway point in our trip. Now we were headed east roughly following old Rt. 66 and I-40. We passed many miles of lava flows from Pisgah Crater and the desert. The trip to Lake Havasu City to see the London Bridge was pretty much a waste of time. The place was very tacky and had run-down shops. We backtracked to Oatman, AZ, to the ghost town (pop. 9) with the wild burros. These burros are such beggars! They will follow you all over the street until they figure out you’re not going to feed them. There are three very rare white (not albino!) burros currently in town. The town has a one-person post office where every item of mail is hand stamped.

We headed further east mostly following old Rt. 66 to get to the Grand Canyon’s south rim. After spending several hours riding the trams to the overlooks and taking a lot of pictures, we headed toward Tuba City in order to see the dinosaur tracks. It was getting very late in the day, so we looked for a RV park. The only one we saw was not in the book. The area looked ok, so we got a place for the night. Turns out the place was a parking space with electric hookup behind the grocery store owned by the same guy who owned the gas station and was in his front yard! He had a total of 6 spaces. The next day when we headed on up the road we discovered another much nicer RV park

The Pioneer Historical Museum in Flagstaff was next on our list - but we couldn’t find the entrance so we went on up the same road to the Museum of Northern Arizona. These museums are beginning to all look alike inside! We couldn’t get up the dirt road at Walnut Canyon but we did visit Meteor Crater. The crater was made centuries ago and is eroding. No one is allowed to go down into the bottom of the crater any more and only guided tours are allowed on the rim.

Winslow, AZ, was the next stopping place and of course we had our picture taken as we were standing on the corner. Then it was on to Joseph City and the Jack Rabbit Trading Post, an old Rt. 66 standby. Holbrook was where we saw an old Rt. 66 relic, the Wig Wam Village Motel. It now has a more modern 2-story building behind it but the individual wig wams are still rented. The Petrified Forest/Painted Desert was next. We were told that it’s best to view the Desert late in the evening or early in the morning when the sun is shining directly on the sides of the mountains to get the best color.

Someone recommended that we take a side trip to Canyon de Chelly (shay) after we visited the still active Hubbell Trading Post National Historical Site. It was more beautiful than the Grand Canyon but because it’s on the Navajo reservation, there were many peddlers at each overlook. Most of the overlooks had no guard rails of any kind and we had to walk out over a large rock to see down into the canyon. As in the Grand Canyon, Frank had to hold on to me whenever we were near any drop off as I seem to have developed vertigo in my old age. The natives still farm in the canyon which had a river running through it.

We stopped in Window Rock (a reservation town) and visited the city park which is dedicated to the Wind Talkers and other Navajo war veterans. We went on to Gallup, NM, and visited the little museum there as well as the Richardson’s Cash Pawn & Trading Post where I bought too many pieces of native jewelry. I got them for such a great price!!

By Tuesday, we were at Acoma Pueblo. If you want to take photos, you must pay a $10 fee. Our guide was Orlando who still lives on the Pueblo. He explained the history of the area - somewhat colorfully - and the traditions that are still alive with that group of natives. They still live without most modern conveniences. Each family has its own Port-A-John. The women rule and the youngest daughter inherits everything from the parents as she is expected to take care of them in their old age. Also no building is allowed unless the council of women approve it. The men do have their kivas. We were told by Orlando that they especially like to go there when it’s Super Bowl Sunday. They watch the game on the big screen TV and enjoy refreshments from the refridge and use the microwave.

We didn’t stop in Albuquerque. This was the only city we went through that had visable smog. Clines Corner and the Truck Stop Gift Shop was another tourist stopping place and photo op. We stopped at the Rt. 66 Auto Museum in Santa Rosa. Tucumcari (tonight) has the Tee Pee Trading Post on Rt. 66 and the Historical Museum. We ate breakfast at a Rt. 66 diner...service was very slow as the regular cook had called in sick. Tucumcari was our last stop in New Mexico. The Rt. 66 sculpture in front of the Convention Center was beautiful as were the numerous wall murals on businesses. The museum was fun...lots of interesting things to see.

Entering Texas we stopped to take pictures at the Cadillac Ranch which unfortunately is now a graffiti spot. As we were leaving the fenced in area which is a cow pasture, a man with several children, all of them shaking spray cans of paint, was telling them to be sure to spray paint something on each of the ten Cadillacs.

We stopped at the Rt. 66 Museum in Elk City and in Clinton. We camped for the night in Red Rock Canyon State Park which is down a winding steep road into a canyon. This park offers fishing and rappelling. Beautiful park.

By now we were getting a little jaded with the Rt. 66 museums, trading posts, and ‘authentic’ diners, etc. So we just stayed mostly on I-40 and bypassed some recommended stopping places. One place that was huge was the National Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City. There were many examples of Native dress including children’s and many artifacts. Early the next morning we found the Round Barn just east of Edmond on Rt. 66 but it wasn’t going to open for several hours so we took a couple photos and went on down the road.

We somehow missed the Blue Whale in Catoosa just east of Tulsa and had to backtrack some. This was another photo op. The park was built as a gift with a swimming pond and picnic area. The whale has a diving platform and sluice for the swimmers. It’s no longer open for swimming. Still following old US 66, we continued up the road to Foyil and located the Ed Galloway Totem Poles and Museum. He made thousands of violins out of various woods as well as the numerous totem poles. There is where I met Christine Greene who lives on Hilltop in Front Royal. She knows my niece, Kara.

We were going to go on to Vinita to the Eastern Trails Museum but found out it wasn’t going to be open until 1:30 p.m. the next day so we just headed on south toward I-40. The Five Civilized Tribes Museum in Muskogee was really interesting. It was originally the Union Trade building then something else then the museum. It sits right next to a very large VA hospital.

On the way toward I-40, we took a detour to Moseley, OK. The only two buildings there were the Moseley Elementary School and the Mosley Baptist Church. Nobody knows why it’s called Moseley nor why two different spellings when the two sit side by side!

From there we took the scenic route to Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas. I found absolutely nothing worth bringing home! Only 3 diamonds were found that day. We then headed on down the road southward to see Cousin Ray and his wife, Lil, in Prattville, AL. We stayed two days and had a wonderful visit. We had dinner with their daughter, Pattie and husband Dan, sons, and their son, John with his two really adorable little boys. Andrew was a quite a talker for a 4 year old! Then it was time to head for home. We got back on Wednesday, April 4th.

One day we may make another trip like this one just to see more of Arizona and New Mexico. The desert was beautiful. We saw very few trees, mostly small bushes. Only White Sands was what we expected. Still there are plants there that manage to survive on very little water. It was disturbing to us though to see so many people with children disobey the posted signs warning not to stray off the boardwalks as this would destroy the existing plant life. They seemed to believe the signs didn’t apply to them as they were determined to use the dunes for sand sledding even though there was an area of white sand that was set aside for doing this activity just down the road.

We like to stay in the state parks if at all possible. The sites usually are very level and have water and electric. Plus they usually cost half what a privately owned park costs. The only drawbacks are the weird showers. One place had a lever (like the one on a public toilet) that you had to push in then down - I couldn’t get the water to stay on so I had to hold it with one hand while I tried to wash with the other. Several other showers had a button to push that got you about 15 seconds of water at a time. The shower heads were very small, non-adjustable, pointed almost straight down, and close to the wall so that you were forced to hug the wall or squat to get your hair wet/rinsed. Most of the other showers were made to be handicap accessible so the water got anything on the floor wet. Too few hooks was another problem as well as no bench or seat in the ‘dry’ area to set your stuff on. Ever try to shave your legs in the shower with no where to put your foot so you could reach your leg without standing on your head?

Whenever we could, we also parked overnight in either WalMart parking lots or in the casino parking lots. These cost nothing, of course. Just have to remember we are parking, NOT camping in those lots. We did see others put out their awnings and/or use their levelers/lifters which can damage asphalt. And, yes, sometimes you sleep with 18-wheelers running all night but then that’s just white noise.