The last leg of the journey was from Chautauqua KOA (East side of the lake) to Victor NY. The plan was to take US 20. I forgot that when we did this in 2011 I said I would never drive that stretch of US 20 through the Buffalo area again. The day started out with the usual nonsense, the road we planned to take was closed for construction. I just can’t wait for the Infrastructure Bill to pass. Since Wyoming we have been running through road construction daily. In WY and NE our Garmin insisted on rerouting us because the “Road is Closed” actually lanes were closed but the route was open, sort of, single lane often with oncoming traffic to our left. In OH the detours on US 6 had us covering half of northern Ohio and Pennsylvania to get to Napoleon PA for fuel.
The stretch from Chautauqua was particularly frustrating since we encountered weight limits of 6 tons on several routes we intended to take – our rear axle is 20,000 pounds! I was not about to take any chances so we continued on the only route with no posted weight limit until we found our way to US 20. Eventually we back tracked about 6 miles to get on I 90 and make tracks to Victor to store the coach. I still much prefer back roads to Interstates, but when I just want to get someplace already the Interstates do work, unless they are under construction with lanes closed.
Our next road trip will be in the Jeep Grand Cherokee to the Adirondacks where we will stay at the Saranac Hotel for four nights. We will see our friends from Sacramento, meet their daughter and family and visit some sights we haven’t seen in several years. In the mean time we are very busy in Rochester with dinner with Rohma and Josh and plans with friends being shaped as I write.
I will be stopping by to “visit” Geewhiz from time to time just to be sure everything is in order. For now travel will be more limited than usual.
We ventured from the high ground of Leadville and Buena Vista CO to the relative low altitude of Cheyenne WY (6,000 feet) where we spent 4 days at AB Camp Ground and did a daily trip to see the town. We added another state capitol to our list and really enjoyed the tour. The best museum was the Cow Girl Museum. It seemed like a small store front, but there was so much there that we had to tear ourselves away after 2 hours.
We finally set out for Rock Springs and the Escapade. This is a gathering of Escapees members which has of course been put off for a year. Attendance was limited because in the preparations no one knew what kind of requirements for distancing might be required. As it was over 700 units were there and I think Carol and I got to talk to well over half of the attendees. It is a great joy to be in a gathering of people who share a major lifestyle in common. Even if we all do it our own way. Carol and I worked with the other Jojobians to pull together a presence on “The Row” an area set aside for Escapees organizations to present themselves to the membership and maybe entice them to join. It is the biggest sales event we have. During the days it was HOT and even windy. The evenings did cool off some and it was dry.
After the Escapade we arranged to visit cousin Mimi in Madison WI. The only place to stay is a lovely county park and I was able to book 2 nights there when Mimi has time to get together. since making that plan we have been trekking 4 hours a day. This is our new limit to keep us fresh and safe. I have really been working our multiple camping resources to find places to stop. As I am writing we are in a Boondockers Welcome location. In this instance a local business in Raymond IA that has some land near the parking lot that is relatively level and on the other side of the building from the train tracks. They offer yet another way of camping. Here is a link to their website
We finally got to lower altitude, 2,000 feet, in Nebraska and we will continue to lose altitude as we head further East.
We also stayed in a way overpriced KOA that was only 60 from Cheyenne and the Rodeo that was happening there and using daysenddirectory.com we located a small town fairground that had a campground in Pottawattamie County IA. When we leave Madison we are looking at no less than 3 nights on the road before parking the coach in Victor NY for a couple of months. I have no idea where we will land, but I do want a full hookup campground for our last night to clear the holding tanks and do some other cleaning.
It has been a week since our one night stop in Utah. We traversed the beauty of Utah and then Colorado on I 70. This may be the most beautiful piece of interstate in the entire country, some drivers might not agree as it is also the steepest and curviest interstate we can remember. The coach caused a few heart stopping moments as it downshifted and complained about working so hard in such high temperatures, but it climbed every mountain.
We setup at the Grand Junction Elks Lodge with 50 amp power and no water or sewer available. We planned ahead for 5 nights and water conservation left us with a surplus even after cooking dinner for four onboard the last night. We go together with Simonne and Steve each day we were there. Simonne is our son Dan’s sister-in-law. They were in the midst of selling there house and moving into another house they own so the daytimes were mostly devoted to letting them work and then gathering for dinner and celebration after the closing. It was thrilling for us to be able to be there as family to offer support and even to carry a few things. Although we have known them for over 20 years and have visited in past years this was the first time we got to spend real time together. Carol and I cherish the time, the visit and seeing them move onto another stage of their lives.
We moved on to Buena Vista at over 8,000 feet to visit with our friends the Kelenbachs from our trip to Thailand and Vietnam in 2013. We have visited them most every year as we cross though Tucson, Arizona where they winter. Upon arrival the water heater decided to take a vacation. We had dinner at their fifth wheel which is their summer home, the first night. It was a lovely afternoon of conversation and then dinner. I awoke determined to fix the water heater, a call to Girard support yielded little help. Clearly we were not getting sufficient water through the heater to turn it on. It dawned on me that the filter might be a problem even though it was just 2 months old. When I pulled it I could see it had been used. Replacing it did not help. After dinner in town with our friends at a fun restaurant we setout in the morning for a 2 hour drive to Florence CO, only Google knows where it is. We are in a lovely new campground – it opened January 2021! They are still building it. Our site is huge 40×70 with brand new utilities and high quality plastic turf. Our view out the windshield is Pikes Peak in the middle distance.
The water heater has returned to working, Carol is finding more O2 in the air at this lower altitude and it is back to HOT!. We went into town to find a new filter and bread. Got the filter. Tomorrow we will drive around the Royal Gorge area. Carol wants to find a zip line she can ride since the one she looked at has a 100 pound minimum. I will report on the outcome in another post. It is cooling off, down to 88 so I can get the grill out soon.
In the midst of all this goldberg-online.net was hacked, it became the source of a phishing operation. This lead Blue Host to shut it down. I called Dan in some panic and within a couple of days, between his horseback riding, celebrating with friends and work got it restored, which is how come you can read this. Carol’s site http://cgstudio.net was collateral damage and it too is restored. Next we will secure them.
We stopped in a small campground behind a Subway in a commercial district of Salina Creek Utah, this is the outskirts of Salina Utah which extends about 4 block North, South, East and West of the intersection of US 50 and 89. Using our internet resources we determined that unless we were into offroading in a quad or fishing there was not much to do. The campground itself offers next to nothing other than good water pressure and a sewer connection as well as 50 amp electrical service. This was all we wanted as our next stop will be 5 days with no water or sewer (dry camping) and it is nice to have laundry done and tanks empty and full as appropriate for the stay. We will visit with Simonne and Steve while in Grand Junction . We are staying at the local Elks Lodge.
With nothing particular to do after finishing the laundry and cleaning we decided to take a tour. Main St reached an end at the edge of town – four blocks East of the intersection. There, after noting the rodeo stands and atv track we saw this sign
We are familiar with Civilian Conservation Corp sites and have stayed at a couple that are now active campgrounds. We decided to explore further and found
So here we have a CCC site and a POW site and a mass murder all in one place. In brief July 8 1945 a guard who had a lengthy discipline history decided to kill some Germans, he did, 9 in all and 20 injured. Note the date, the war was over. The following pictures were taken through windows that have not seen any cleaning in some time and the sun is over my shoulder to prevent photography, however:
This is the camp layout and below is a WWII Jeep.
We did return when the museum was scheduled to be open but nobody showed and we went on our way.
Please read Carol’s post at http://cgstudio.net/ for story of the day’s travel. We have set out in the past to drive The Lincoln Highway It is part of our personal collection of highways. Many RVers will have a map on their coach showing the states they have been in on their travels. There are many different “rules” that people use to consider a state for inclusion on the map. Some consider a drive through a corner as sufficient others have requirements of various lengths of stay or activity to include a state on the map. We filled our state map many years ago. It turned out the toughest to get was Connecticut. It is small, not as small as RI, but it has a limited number of campgrounds we would stay in and few places we wanted to see.
But I digress. Once the map was full we didn’t even bother putting it up on GeeWhiz. We tripped into a new collection, highways. Many people start the collection with Route 66 because of its fame from the song and the TV show. We have driven parts of it, but it isn’t exciting for us since it no longer exists as an official US or state route. It is a collection of pieces from various alignments with no way to drive it as a unit. Our first collected highway was US 1 from Calais Maine to Key West FL. We have driven all of it over a period of decades starting from Providence RI when I was an undergraduate at Brown. The next highway we sought to collect was US 20 Newport OR to the Boston Commons, we will not drive the section in Chicago that is a surface street. US 90 runs from Jacksonville Florida to Van Horn Texas where it merges on to I 10.
I included the map of US 50 the Lincoln Highway to show what a challenge it can be as alignments shift over time. We have driven it from Sacramento to Pueblo on I 25. We diverted there to visit friends in Kansas and never got back to it. This trip we will divert in Grand Junction and will continue north. I guess we will have to pick it up another time.
Two of the best Parkways in the country are Blue Ridge and Natchez Trace. Both are worth the drive. Even a car trip with motels would be well worth it. Our first time on the Blue Ridge we were in a car with a tent. great fun.
Years ago I learned to never chose shortest route unless I was prepared for an “interesting” drive. Today I forgot that lesson. As we were leaving Desert Rose RV Park in Fernley NV to go to Virginia City NV in the Jeep, I was not happy with the fastest route which was largely Interstates. I chose “Shortest” and within a couple of miles I was taking a turn on to a nice gravel road which shortly joined a paved residential road. I looked at the overall route and it seemed we were cutting a corner from 95A to 50A saving several miles so we continued, on gravel.
I became a bit disconcerted when one of the “turns” was on to a not yet existent road. The GPS gamely recalculated and the next turn took us up and over the hill ( I use that word rather than mountain because out here it was a hill, in the East it would be a mountain) to US 50A eventually to US 50 eventually to “No Name Road” which ultimately became 6 Mile Canyon Road which ends in Virginia City after 6 miles. 6 Mile Canyon Road is clearly marked “Steep, Narrow, Tight Turns NO TRUCKS” It was just fine in the Jeep.
Virginia City sits on top of hundreds of miles of mining tunnels driven in search of silver and gold which was found in large quantities. If any city in the US can claim to have roads paved with silver and gold it is this one since the miners were busy discarding blue muck to get to the ore, they even used it to build roads until it was pointed out that the assay on the material was as high as on the ore.
We took a tour of one of the mines, that started by walking through an early bank building through the space where the vault was originally situated directly into the mountain behind the building about 300 feet. After that tour we had lunch in a deli behind an ice cream and candy store just down the street from the mine tour. We took a trolley tour of the town that provided much more history. Much is closed in particular the Mark Twain Museum and the Silver Queen Hotel. We did enjoy one further stop back at the place we had lunch to buy some peanut brittle and a single ice cream scoop for each of us.
To return to the coach I let the GPS choose the fastest route which had us swing through the edge of Reno on two Interstates. It was fast, it was boring.
As planned we drove to Redlands Truck and RV early on the 10th, arriving before lunch. We met the Hazeltons who are stranded for an unknown length of time due to a fire in a rats nest on top of their engine. We enjoyed lunch at The Corner Deli and chatted for a couple of hours. Later in the day I noted a circle of chairs in front of another rig in “The Grove” and brought a chair over to sit with Pat and Pete Benoy also from Jojoba Hills and company. We had a lovely Happy Hour before dinner. Then an early dinner and preparation for departure.
The 11th found us halfway to Sacramento in an Elks Lodge parking lot in Wasco CA. it is Central Valley between I5 and US 99. They had water and 30 amp electric. I added a small amount of water to the radiator tank since it seemed a bit low and we had had a STOP ENGINE light with Low Coolant warning during a long climb. Upon restart after a few minutes on the shoulder the warnings had cleared and we continued on.
We continued on to Sacramento where we stayed in Sac West RV park. Nice park, I’ve posted a review. I will refrain from describing the traffic in detail. Suffice it to say that US 99 is a major route in the area and they closed it entirely for 5 days! All of the traffic was rerouted onto I 5. Oy! We had a lovely visit with the Braunsteins that evening and the next morning they picked us up for brunch at Shady Lady in Old Town Sac and we found our way into G Willikers Toy store, you really need to see it to believe it. Then we went wine tasting and late afternoon we collapsed in the coach to prepare to get back on the road.
We had a brief under two hour drive to Olema CA where it turns out the campground pretty much is the town. It is right on CA 1. It is a nice campground, not a five star, too expensive for limited amenities (30 amp that produced only 100 volts in the heat of the day, no sewer). We drove out to the Point Reyes Lighthouse which not only was closed, but so fogged in we couldn’t see it. Then the reason for this trip to the coast we got to get together with Minda Will, Oscar and Leo. It was delightful visit, Carol got pictures, I didn’t. The boys are definitely young boys, I am glad I can’t remember living through the endless tumult of two boys.
When we left the coast we had no plan beyond a specific fuel stop where the outrageous price of diesel was somewhat less than other nearby truck stops. It does get old buying 60 gallons plus for about $4/gallon. Even if that takes us 550 miles, it still is a reminder of how bad it is in other countries that would consider it a bargain. As we pulled out of the stop heading east on US 50 that was all we knew. I figured in two hours we should be able to find a place to spend the night. I was at the wheel and Carol tried a couple of places on the route to see if they had room. I don’t think they laughed, but the answer was no. Just about two hours into the drive with Lake Tahoe about 30 minutes ahead I spotted a Federal campground sign on the side of the road. I slowed to take a look and noticed what appeared to be a motorhome so I turned 120 degrees down a very steep narrow entry road. Another guest and the camp host greeted us and assured me that if we disconnected the car we could indeed drive through and find a suitable place to spend the night, away from the road and backed up to The American River. We immediately booked two nights and are now talking about making it four. It is a lovely place and our neighbor and camp host are lovely people and we really are not in a hurry. Our only limit is water and grey tank capacity. There is a dump and fresh water available so we may stay a while.
This is looking up from the river. Two more pictures will follow when I can get them to upload. and HERE THEY ARE!
Our picnic table overlooking the “river” In Rochester we would call that a creek.
The reason for our return to jojoba Hills was a call Carol had with a doctor, strongly suggesting she return for a test. It has been done and nothing was found so we are heading back out to play. Joy and happiness here!
It looks like a replay with a preliminary stop at Redlands Truck and RV to be sure our new brake system for the Jeep is working as designed. Then because Anna Lee and Jerry had to return to Sacramento early, we plan to visit with them after all and maybe even seen niece Minda and family as well. Then the crystal ball is blank. We do not have a distinct plan other than Escapade in WY in late July.
I suspect we will know what we have done when I post it here. We have done this in the past, but I can’t remember the last time we just took off with no firm plan, or even a semblance of an idea of a plan. With all the warnings about over crowded campgrounds it could be interesting. We will stay away from most major destinations and out of the Pacific North West (PNW) since the combination of drought and overcrowding are not enticing.
This morning we woke up in Benson AZ after a lovely visit with Ellen and Lon, lunch at a mediocre restaurant in Benson, I’m being kind, but it had the benefit of being open, and a long time over ice cream and on our coach. Catching up is always good. We figured we were two four hour days out from Jojoba Hills, but decided to stretch to to about 6 hours, because as Carol said, “our rule is made to be broken on occasion.”
After fueling in Yuma we decided to make a stop along the road in Anza Borrego State Park, or any other open space not marked “no camping” along S 2. Somehow six hours became almost eight before we settled into a lovely spot with a sign “Jojoba Wash” Really! we didn’t even know it existed until after we started to set up. We are about 90 minutes out from Jojoba Hills, so we will take our time getting underway in the morning.
The drive was totally uneventful, a wonderful thing, and Obama’s book “A Promised Land” continues to carry us down the road. I am not sure I could sit and listen for the many hours it takes, nor am I sure I could read it, but for hours on the road it is a wonderful companion.
After leaving 395 we drove to Shiprock NM. The place name is a reflection of the huge “rock” that stands above the plain, visible for miles. Here is our new Jeep in its first introduction to back roads.
In Shiprock we stayed with a Boondockers Welcome host whose name and location we have promised not to disclose. It was a church parking lot and on our arrival John greeted us and told us we would be there for a local food distribution the following day.
First thing we did the next day was drive out to Shiprock to see it up close for ourselves. We were back in time to help unload the truck and set up the distribution which started promptly at 2. By 3 Pm over 100 families had received staples and fresh product to help them eat for the coming week and there was not a morsel left on the driveway. We were tired, but glad to have been able to pitch in, we also made a gift to the church.
To any member of Boondockers Welcome heading into the 4 Corners area consider a stop in Shiprock and say “Hi” to John for us.
From Shiprock we headed down to I 40 and a turn East to find our way to American RV in Albuquerque. Once we set up we relaxed for a bit until it was time to go to the airport to pick up Erica.
After a night’s rest we took a long drive heading for Santa Fe via the Turquoise Highway. Our first stop was at Tinkertown Museum where we spent almost 2 hours admiring the work and the effort to create this museum.
We continued up the Sandia Crest Highway to the peak where we paused to look out over the plains and the “sky islands”.
Erica
From there we descended back to the trail and made our way to Madrid where where are galleries, restaurants and entertainment. We had lunch in the Mine Shaft Tavern before touring several of the galleries and shops. We proceeded up to Santa Fe where the traffic was dense and Erica expressed little interest in fighting the crowds and the wind so we returned to the coach for a light supper and continued talking.
The next day we set out for Basque del Apache National Wildlife Reserve. The visitor center was closed and traffic was minimal since the main attraction, the migratory Sand Hill Cranes and Snow Geese had already passed through on their way north. We did see many water fowl and a coyote and a Road Runner as well as many unidentified birds. We stopped in Socorro at the Owl Bar and Grill which has been in business at the same location for many years. The Green Chili Bowl with extra meat was delicious and brought tears to my eyes – as well as getting my nose running. Back to the coach and then out the next day to Petroglyph National Monument and some scrambling among the boulders – staying on the trail – to see many petroglyphs, actually just a few of 23,000 recorded.
Sunday night we had taken a Ghost Walk Tour with tour leader Charlie. It was a pleasant evening and his story telling as we stopped at various sites in old Town, even the name of Old Town, was wonderful. we really enjoyed the tour and Charlie made a point of mentioning Carol as he discussed various small women in his stories.
After the Petroglyph tour and a break we drove back to Old Town for ice cream or lunch or ice cream or. . . as we searched for an open restaurant we came across Charlie resting after having done two Historical Old Town Tours. As we chatted he suggested we ought to take the tour, we initially demurred since Erica would be leaving the next day. He offered to give us a private tour on the spot. We agreed! Although we did not cover a lot of geographic territory we got a thorough tour of the history of Old Town and how it came to be. By the time we finished it was time for ice cream! We decided “life is uncertain, eat dessert first”. Steve’s was serving mostly Blue Belle ice cream from Texas. It is wonderful even if not locally made.
Back at the coach we eventually had some snacks and turned in knowing that Erica would be leaving the next day.
After taking her to the airport, we returned to the coach to clean up and put things in travel mode to head for our next stop, Las Cruces NM where I am now finishing this post.
