Before turning in on Saturday night we pulled in the living room slide because the wind was tearing at the topper awning (there is an awning that extends over the top of the slide out room to keep dirt and wet off of it). It is fixed to the slide out so the only way to retract the awning is to pull in the room. This makes the interior even more cozy than normal while camped. Sunday morning was bright windy and cool. We drove the 16 miles to Mitchell Caverns and bought our tickets for the 10 AM tour. This entails a mile and half hike, including the caverns and the views as we climbed to the cave entrance were wonderful. The entrance is called the eyes of the mountain. Both Carol and I thought it looked more like the nostrils.

We returned to Gee 2 for lunch and to decide what to do with the rest of the day. There was no vote for sitting still and listening to the wind. We had heard about a lava tube that it was possible to climb into and explore so that became our objective. This lava tube was formed when the lava flows from the volcano stopped and the remaining hot lava flowed out of the tube leaving behind an empty shell of cooler solidified lava (this is NOT a scientific explanation which would take a textbook). This area of the Mojave has 34 cinder cones the most recent of which is a very young 10,000 years old. The area is not an “improved” visitor site and thus there are no signs. The directions, in part, are after you find the unmarked turnoff from the highway proceed 4.8 miles up an unmaintained dirt track past the corral with the water tank. At the second corral bear left then look for a wide spot to park and follow the beaten path (over cinders) to a hole in the ground, actually the second hole is the entrance. Amazingly we found the way to the entrance and climbed down into the tube to marvel once again at the power of nature. To see pictures click here.

By this point we had done a lot of driving and the gas gage was getting below half. In the desert this is not a good idea and we were “only” 25 miles from the nearest gas station in Baker, CA. Baker is primarily a line of gas stations and road food joints off I 15. We bought gasoline at an exorbitant $3.799. The next day we filled the motorhome tank at $4.179, now I know how to spell gouge. The price was less further from the highway, but still over $4.00. Returning to Gee 2 cost almost ¼ of that new tank of gas.

The forecast was not improving. We were expecting snow above 4,500 feet (campground is at 4,200) and high winds to continue or get worse. For a third night we pulled in the living room slide and turned in to the sound of howling winds and the coach rocking as the gusts battered us. In the morning the ground was covered with something white! We are 3,000 miles from Rochester and the snow has found us! Since we had nothing loose outside, getting ready to leave was a simple as putting the bikes back on the car and stowing the rug under our entrance (held in place with a large rock). Instead of two more nights in in the high desert we headed for Needles, CA and a civilized campground with water, sewer and electric hookups and maybe as important access to NPR for news. The Needles KOA was actually no more pricey than its neighbors and it offered shaded sites. Here we are.

We have already driven to Oatman, AZ which is on the historic alignment of Route 66 and is a line up of more tourist trap shops than even Gruen, TX. It also features many wild burros wandering the streets looking for handouts. The burros are descendants of the miner’s burros from the gold fever days. This town was the center of the Gold Highway and was a movie site in How the West was Won. Now it is a large tourist shop that closes up at 5 PM. There is no place to stay and the food options are road food lunch at best.

Tomorrow we move to Boulder City, NV another short road day, so I can fly to Rochester on Wednesday and return on Friday night.

We actually stayed on in LA until the morning of the 13th. We reached
the point that the air traffic faded into the distance and the only
noise that disturbed our sleep was an unmuffled (broken muffler?)
motorhome starting up at 4:30 AM to get an early start on the freeways
two slots over from us. We had planned to go to Santa Barbara and then
swing east to get to Las Vegas where I am catching a flight to
Rochester next week. Plans do require planning and as a RVer I have
failed planning several times. There is no space on the beaches near
Santa Barbara that will hold our not so gigantic 36 foot motorhome this
week. It appears that Californians plan months in advance for these
beach sites. We are not interested in a large, expensive inland RV park
with too many amenities and not enough easy access to the sites we want
to see.

This brings us to our present location, Hole-in-the-Wall Campground in
the Mojave National Preserve. This also brings us to our next set of
adventures. Having determined the destination we selected a route.
This route too in three Freeways in LA; the 105, the 605, and the 210
and finally on to the 15 (note as usual in California the use of the
definite article THE to describe these freeways). I had failed to read
the directions for access to Hole-in-the-Wall Campground carefully. WE
knew we did not want the Midhills Campground because the website said
that the road was not suitable for RVs. The route I chose went past
Midhills Campground, the long and hard way. Instead of paved road all
the way from I 40 we found ourselves on poorly paved road for 30 miles
or more from I 15 and the pavement stopped with 16 miles to go. Unpaved
roads are not necessarily bad, these were. The washboard in places was
six inches deep. Try to drive a 22,000 pound coach over this washboard
with the entire suspension floating. We drifted back and forth over the
road while taking and merciless pounding. In the end we had a yogurt
shake in the refrigerator, which was a miracle since we had dumped the
pickle juice in there at the previous stop, I hate to think of a pickle
juice and yogurt shake. One piece of molding came adrift in the rear
lavatory which was easily fixed with an application of glue. Our nerves
required some soothing too which was a applied at Happy Hour at new
found friend Bob and Nita Harvey’s fifth wheel just across from us.

I will not try to describe this Preserve in detail. The campground is
at 4,100 feet. We are on a plain surrounded by ridges and mountains.
The winds have been gusting to 60 mph and the temps have dropped from
the 80’s when we arrived to the 50’s. This is the desert, sun warmed by
day and chilly as soon as the sun descends. The sky is clear and the
only light pollution is from our few coaches in this small campground.
Oh it is QUIET. The only sound is the wind. I woke up several times
last night wondering where the planes were. There is no traffic, the
nearest highway is 30 miles away over the mountains. Amazingly there is
cell phone service and internet connection via cell phone is fine. I
will post some pictures soon to give you an idea of what we see out our
windows.

Today we took a hike and a drive. The hike is called “The R ings”. It
is a mile circle around the butte that is near the campground. Going
clockwise it ends in a canyon with an ascent up a slot to reach the
picnic area for return to the visitor center or the campground. This
ascent is so steep and forbidding without technical equipment that the
rangers have set large pitons with 6 inch diameter rings in them to
enable the those of us who lack technical ability and equipment to
complete the hike. These rings make the ascent merely difficult as
opposed to life threatening. We felt entitled to lunch after completing
the circuit. The drive was less challenging. We went looking for
Desert Turtles, we are still looking. Then we went to Kelso Depot,
still in the Preserve. If there is a train buff reading this Kelso
should ring a bell for you. It is at the base of the longest 2 ½
percent grade on the Union Pacific line. In the days of steam it served
as a base for the helper engines that would connect to freight trains
east bound up the grade to Cima 20 miles and 2,000 feet higher. It was
a company town and was almost completely dismantled in the late forties
with the switch to diesel electric. The depot was saved and as been
restored as a museum. It is a wonderful building and an excellent museum.

Tomorrow we expect to go to Mitchell Caverns and then take it easy until
the ranger talk in the early evening. The wind storm continues to blow
around us and there are advisories that suggest we are best off staying
put for another day or two.

After ten days on strict water conservation and limited use of electric
(batteries and four to five hours a day of generator time) in the desert
we set out for Indian Waters RV Resort in Indio, CA. We were looking
forward to spending time with the Hoggs who are members of the Western
Horizon Club which owns the resort. Our price for the four nights was
to sit in on a ninety minute sales pitch to join the system. Things
were not quite as we expected. The resort is very nice, but has some
limitations. After our time in the desert we did not want to be on a
site with no sewer connection, free flowing use of water is a primary
luxury, it was not to be. A third of their sites have no sewer, Indio
wanted too much money. I want a sewer! The sales pitch was over
bearing and the presumed close was a bit over the top. When we finally
said NO! The response was "you can't even ask to join for four years!"
Right, and they won't take my money if I decide to buy next month, which
I won't! And they forgot that their own documents say two years. Stuff
and nonsense!

OTOH (internet speak for On the other hand) the pool was delightful the
showers in the restrooms were clean and pleasant and the rest of the
people were very friendly. We had happy hour with Pat and Bob and Bob's
nephew Drew and his wife Carol a couple of times and went out to dinner
with them as well. We also went together to the Living Desert Museum
which is well worth the trip. We went expecting to spend a couple of
hours and were there almost five hours.

The four days flew by and we were soon on our way into the inferno of
Los Angeles traffic. Fortunately it was mid day on a Sunday so traffic
was only just a bit greater than Rochester at its worst. We drove
directly to Dockweiler RV Park just off the departure end of the LAX
runways. The din of the planes is so regular that it has already
subsided into the background. Miriam, Yechiel and the boys arrived
about an hour after we got here and we played together in the coach and
on the beach most of the afternoon. Yechiel and I took bike rides with
Avtalyon and by ourselves. What a delight. After that I got out one of
my kites and took it on to the beach with Miriam and the boys to have a
kite fly for a few minutes. The breeze was strong and steady and the
kite leapt into the air. Unfortunately this was beyond the capability
of the boys to hold, so I kept the reel and let them tug on the line.
They also assisted when it was time to go, by walking the kite down to
the ground (I held the reel and they went hand-over-hand up the line to
pull the kite down out of the air). It did not want to land. After
dinner in their neighborhood and bedtime activities, we returned to the
coach and got a good nights sleep despite the air traffic, which neither
of us heard.

Enough details of our visit. We will be here at least until the 10th
and I will not provide any more hour by hour descriptions unless
something of importance or humor happens.

We are sitting in this delightful spot on our ever pulsing lake. It is fluctuating like a Bay of Fundy tide. The difference is the lack of correlation with the sun and the moon. Last night is was lapping about a foot from our carpet. Today it receded 10 or more feet during the day only to turn around by late afternoon and start to return to last night’s high. I had hoped to generate a close in Google Map to show where we are, but level of detail necessary to give you an idea is not available. I suspect three possible reasons. First the area is not populated. Second it is adjacent to the Yuma Proving Grounds and US Army installation where systems of all types and tested and the Golden Knights Army Parachute Team is based in the winter, third is is next to a dam which might be considered a National Security item. Here is a clip from the DeLorme Street Atlas which I use for route information

I may have a better map from Google soon. I have things to learn.

Yesterday, Saturday, Carol and I set out to find an abandoned turquoise mine we had heard about. Using the old GPS with its very detailed topographic maps I located “Old Senator Mine” not more than a 1.4 miles from G2 as the crow flies. Unfortunately the terrain was a bit more bumpy than would accommodate a straight line route. We set out using a straight line route which took us up onto a ridge line with magnificent views. As we worked toward the mine it became very clear that we would have to find a way off the ridge line into the valley. In fact we would have to find a safe decent in any event as neither of us felt that the route we had taken up would be a wonderful route down. Eventually we came to a point where the ridge line veered off to the east and out destination was due south. We found a sort of reasonable route down although it was clear that other hikers had not used this particular decent route. We made it unscathed and continue our cross country traverse until we came to a road (kind term) that went in the direction we were headed. As we climbed toward the mine we became aware of a fence and signs that seemed to indicate we were venturing onto private property the one I remember best read “ bad dog, shotguns, KEEP OUT” We ignored these and ducked under the wire that crossed the road and proceeded up to the mine area. No dogs at all, no shot guns no people, abandoned.

We wandered around the various shafts and picked over the detritus looking for something the color of turquoise to no avail. Of course we are not rock hounds with picks and buckets so we might very well have passed over decent specimens without even knowing it. We sat on the walls of the abandoned building and ate our lunch enjoying the view before turning our path back to G 2 by way of the road we had found.

The neighborhood keeps changing as new made friends move on and new people arrive and set up camp near us. Most recently Dora and Don arrived with their friends Ken and Ellie and a third unit with Dan, a single. They set up next to us in their three units and we have had a couple of happy hours with them. . . . just came from Happy Hour and I will try to get this uploaded.

My repair achievement for the day was to buy a fiberglass repair kit and repair the crack in the left front by bonding the edges from behind. Also called a mobile welding outfit and they will be here tomorrow to solidify the repair to the rock guard. The quick fix on the road in Virginia let go when we arrived here. I hope we are done for a while.

This morning, Saturday the 16^th of February we slept in until 7 AM then puttered around getting breakfast and preparing to get underway. We could not see going hiking or even serious birding in the cold and predicted precipitation. I know 40 may not seem cold to those of you in the northeast facing sub teen temperatures and wind chills below zero, but it is cold when you expect to be out in shorts and a T shirt. Anyhow we made all the preparations to get going and at the last minute our neighbor came out off his Casita and I had to greet him with my usual big hello. We talked for a bit and then I excused myself and went in to pull in the slides and stow the leveling jacks. Usually I take a moment to take in all the obstructions around the coach before moving it. This morning I had decided to go straight back and then swing wide to align with the exit before hooking up the car. Somehow I did not have a complete image of my surroundings, but it seemed so clear as there was no RV near me and there were no trees or poles that I could see to my rear where Carol was sitting in the car waiting for me to get in position. As I moved back I immediately swung the wheel hard right to speed up the alignment process. My motion was impeded and as my foot went to the gas to overcome the rock I must be trying to roll over it came to me that there was another obstruction, the water spigot standing a couple of feet out of the ground. I had hit it with my left front tire and bent it over to a 45 degree angle and water was spouting from it. I then looked at the coach and saw a neat crack in the fiberglass just in front of and above the wheel. I spoke to the campground owner and she turned off the water and I left her my card to assure her I would pay for the repair. I applied gray tape (otherwise known as high speed tape) to the crack in the quarter panel and we were off, trying to figure out how we could avoid being distracted in the future. I think the answer is that some distractions are just inevitable and stuff happens.

I expect I will get a fiberglass repair kit and apply a patch from the inside of the cracked panel that will just leave a surface mark on the exterior to go with the many other stone chips and marks we have suffered over the 47,500 miles we have driven Gee 2 in almost four years.

Eventually we decided that we would continue on to Benson AZ a drive of about 320 miles. We have stopped there many times, but this year as new Escapee members, we chose to stay at the Saguaro SKP Coop on the edge of town. There was no room for hookups, but we decided to stay in the boondock area, a sort of level asphalt parking area with no water, electric or sewer. It cost $5 more than staying at the Wal Mart four miles away on the main drag with trains going by every few minute. Worth it.

I’ll save this and add to it in a day or two once we know where we are going. It appears that our next stop will be at the extreme west of Arizona, maybe just over the border into California near the Imperial Dam adjacent to the Yuma Proving Ground.

Several days later: We are “on the beach” at Senator Wash just a mile or so from the Imperial Dam on the Colorado River. The wash is an interesting body of water. It is totally artificial. It is dammed at one end and the authority fills it and drains it on a rhythm of their own devising. The area is a desert community of RVers. On the floor of the desert is a BLM (Bureau of Land Management, Department of the Interior) LTVA (Long Term Visitor Area). Anyone can stay there indefinitely for a semiannual fee of $180. The only facilities are a dump area, water supply and scattered washrooms. A slightly more desirable are near the water is a STVA (yup, Short Term Visitor Area) limited to 14 days in any 28 days for an annual fee of $75. The fee structure could only have been devised by a government agency and the daily rates are enough to make me confused. Suffice it to say we are in the STVA on the edge of the water,

There are two agreed reasons for the movement of the water level, one relates to the need for water for irrigation and the other to the need to generate electricity in periods of high demand and to store it in periods of low demand, so called pumped storage. Anyhow when we arrived he water was lower than we had seen in any of our past visits. Most of the lake bed was dry and exposed. We parked above the ridge line that indicates the general high water mark which left us walk of a couple of hundred feet to the water. This morning the water was within 15 feet of our outdoor carpet.

We are among a large group of people living a very water conservative life style. We arrived with 100 gallons of freshwater in our tank and an empty 60 gallon gray water tank. We still have about 25 to 30 gallons of freshwater and room for another 10 or 15 gallons in our gray tank after five days. When the gray is full or the fresh empty we will have to secure everything in the coach and drive up to the dumps to empty the tanks and pick up fresh water. This is an annoyance more than anything else. It does mean showers are brief and meal preparation is guided by limiting what will need to be washed. Dining out is not a real option as it is a longish drive on desert roads to get to a place that offers every fast food alternative and few decent restaurants. Carol is great at preparing wonderful meals from the supplies we have on board while dirtying the minimum of cookware. The grill helps on occasion.

Damages and fixes: The weld we had done back in Virginia has broken and I have made a repair with the guidance of a handy mechanical type with tools that should hold using angle iron and C Clamp. We drove 60 miles each way to Quartzite in the car to save a couple of bucks on a replacement interior light ($4.75) some replacement entry stair wraps and a couple of sundries. The lunch and the shopping made it worth the drive. I have not had much else to do on the coach unless you count cleaning and thinking about improvements.

We have met people we would never meet in our Rochester life and had some interesting conversations with people whose backgrounds don’t even begin to relate to what we usually know. Ken, a former waterworks maintenance supervisor has more tools on his coach than your normal auto mechanic has in his garage. The guy next to us, pulled out his TV and remade the cabinet to hold a lighter LCD TV on its front while preserving the cabinet for storage. Charlene, in front of us, is a loner in a converted van who lives in a dirt floored hogan with no plumbing when she is at home. And the beat goes on. No two are alike.

Our next stop from here in a week, will be an RV Resort that is part of a chain (Western Horizons for the RVers among you). They have sales people at busy fuel stops handing out coupons for 5 days four nights FREE in exchange for a 90 minute sales pitch. I have pitched uncounted numbers of these coupons over the years. When I looked at this one I realized that out friends the Hoggs will be staying at the Indian Wells Resort in Indio, CA which is between here and LA and is part of the chain. We have arranged to stay there starting on the 27^th. This will give us a chance to visit and to get our laundry done before going on to LA to visit with Miriam, Yechiel and the kids. We have no plans for what we will do between now and the 27^th but I am sure we will fill the days.

Stay tuned

The most frequent question we heard as we prepared for our seventh annual crossing of the United States was, “Are you going to take a different route this year?” If you have been following, you know that we departed from our usual route when we left Virginia. We had not gone to Florida since 2005 and this time we went south of Okeechobee and spent time in Boynton Beach. As we passed through New Orleans we went way south to Grand Isle. Finally when we left Austin we turned north out of Ft Stockton headed for Carlsbad then on to Bosque Del Apache NWR (National Wildlife Refuge) where we have settled in to Bosque Bird Watchers RV Park. I expect that, weather permitting, we will continue across the high plain of New Mexico to Arizona where the choice will be north to I 40 (very unlikely) or south to I 10 and on into Tuscon. That all remains to be seen. The forecast for tonight is snow and freezing rain in this area which may cause some different thoughts in the morning. Our plan now is to decide what we are doing tomorrow. So what else is new?

Today’s forecast (February 15, 2008) was for difficult driving conditions and snow and rain and fog, etc along our route. We had clouds followed by sun with temperatures ranging from the 30’s into the mid 60’s depending on altitude. We had decided to head for this campground as it overlooks the overnight roost of the Sandhill Cranes that are migrating through Bosque Del Apache. When we were here several years ago, we were searching for the cranes and after arriving late in the evening we were stunned to be awakened by the large birds flying out of their roosting pools with the sunrise. After we got here this time, we set up quickly and took the car to tour the NWR to see as many birds as we could. I will spare you the entire list. We did see a Bald Eagle and many Sandhill Cranes and Snow Geese. The ducks were too numerous to even determine how many species we saw. The last addition to the list were several Killdeer and of course we saw a Great Blue Heron.

This is not high season here! There are six or seven campers in the campground. The nearest town is San Antonio, NM and there is nothing there but a bar and grill. Socorro counts as the big city and it is not big enough for a Wal Mart and it is 50 miles away. 60 miles north of that is Albuquerque. As many or more miles to the south is Las Cruces. I expect we will see neither of them this trip.

To go back briefly. We had a great stay at the Carlsbad KOA. Although we seldom stay at KOA’s because they offer many amenities that are not of interest to us and are priced accordingly, this place is very special. We have never seen such nice facilities in ANY campground. I had the smoked brisket dinner, delivered to the coach for $10.00 and really enjoyed it. That is a treat I do not remember being offered in any campground we have stayed in. Susan and Scott are working very hard to make an enjoyable stay. They even arranged for me to have a local mechanic come to the site and change the oil in Gee 2. This is a change in their basic policy which forbids such work being done on premises. Dave, who did the work, was very concerned to keep the site clean and prevent any spillage of oil. His price was very fair as well, especially as he had a 15 mile drive to get to us. Thank you to the Bachers. If you are going that way, I can certainly recommend a stay there.

As I have noted before, we are inclined to short days on the road if there is a place we feel like stopping and there is no schedule to force a long day. Crossing Texas will result in at least one long day, if not two. The I 10 mile post at the Texas Welcome Center just west of Louisiana reads 880. But I get ahead of myself.

After leaving Grand Isle we were enchanted with the low prices and high welcome of Louisiana State Parks and decided to stop at Sam Houston Jones SP north of Lake Charles, LA. Because we arrived with no reservation on Thursday before Mardi Gras weekend we were able to get into an end site in the older section of the park for only two nights. It was plenty! I could not find the sewer connector as it was under debris under several inches of water. We could not use the back half of the site as that was where the mud and water was. And two feet beyond our picnic table was the exit road for the dump and the units near us. There was just room for the bigger coaches to squeeze past our car which we refused to park in the mud. That being said the park is lovely and worth a visit for anyone who is passing. It is in the midst of wetland and on the bank of the Calcasieu River (don’t ask me to pronounce that). Our big adventures were a drive around the scenic loop on LA 27 which took us through Holly Beach yet again. We were impressed with the amount of rebuilding that we saw this year.. After our drive though last year we were convinced that Holly Beach would not be making any kind of a come back. We stopped at a Cameron National Wildlife Reserve and took an hours bird walk during which we saw very little other than a Golden Eagle and the usual Great Blue Heron and Great Egret and assorted little birds we could not identify. On our return to G2 we freshened up and went out to a local Cajun restaurant. Carol made do with asparagus salad and sauteed mushrooms while I ate stuff I don’t normally eat.

The next day we headed for Texas. We did not go very far, stopping at the Escapee community in Livingston, TX, about an hour north of Houston. While we were there we did many things, some that we seldom do, such as watching the entire Super Bowl. I am not much of sports fan, but the Giants have been my favorite since my college days when Y A Tittle was QB so we went into the club house and joined a bunch of others who shared finger food while we watched the game on a big screen TV. We also took a couple of hikes in the Big Thicket National Park.

One of the things that Escapees offers in Livingston is Care Center. We had heard about this before and were intrigued so we took the offered tour. Care provides Adult Day Care services for Escapees whose health has declined so that they can no longer travel or those who need to recover from surgery or injury but are not willing to give up the RVing lifestyle. There is a separate camping area where the sites include ramps fitted as necessary to provide access to the RV and help is available to deal with the physical needs such as changing propane tanks or emptying the holding tanks. Three meals a day are provided for the person needing care and for the caregiver (there must be a care giver living on the RV) . The adult daycare provides respite for the caregiver five days a week. Much of the work is done by volunteers and all of the construction costs were contributed. Nothing was built until the money was in hand. There are many other features and the cost is remarkably low. It is a wonderful facility and many of the people we know in Escapee consider it very important for their future.

We left Livingston and turned our wheels toward Austin and the the Rainwaters. We pulled into Austin Lone Star RV, where we have stayed before to find that it is operating under new management. The most immediate impact was that our frequent camper cards had become worthless. The good news was they had lowered the price dramatically and had not improved much of the facility that affects us – the roadways while putting money into stuff we have no use for, washrooms. Our visits with Leigh and Pat were fun as always, too much to eat and plenty of touring. Our first night there we had been promised “boot scooting” Texas for dancing. After dinner at the East End Cafe we went to “The Broken Spoke” a classic Texas Dance Hall. The entrance is though a bar into a long hall with a dance floor in the middle and tables around the edges, separated from the floor by a low wall. The dance floor is for dancing only as signs make very clear. It is filled with every number performed by Dale Watson and his group of rockabilly performers. We danced until we were exhausted and then drove Leigh and Pat home and returned to Gee2 for a good nights sleep in preparation for more activities they had planned.

The highlight of the day was a stop in Boern TX where we ate in an old Inn and in this out of the way old German town the menu was very interesting and the food was excellent. On our way back we stopped in Gruen (pronounced Green) to see some more small town Texas life and lots of tourists, mostly Texans, filling the eating places and buying the items offered for sale. The last stop of the day was Iron Works BBQ back in Austin where I finally got my teeth into some great beef ribs Texas style (too big and too good to describe). Sunday was some more touring, dinner at their home and then farewells until next year. There was only one little problem, Carol and I had not agreed on where we were going, nor had we planned a route.

We knew that Dan and BeverlyArmstrong whom we had last seen two years ago at Dockweilers in LA were traveling I 10 from Houston toward Gila Bend. For us to continue west it would be best to travel on I 10 because to get to our preferred route, US 90, would take us far more southerly than we intend this trip. We called the Armstrongs once we were on the road and confirmed that they were indeed westbound on I 10 about 100 miles ahead of us and they were willing to hold up in Ft Stockton, at the Wal Mart, to wait for us. Thus we found ourselves pulling into the smallest Wal Mart parking lot we had seen with the most RVs we had seen in a Wal Mart at about 4 in the afternoon. We managed to park along side the Armstrongs and we had happy hour until we broke for dinner and then we reconvened for after dinner conversation.

The choice of Ft Stockton is easy. If you are crossing Texas on I 10 and are not so insane as to commit to a 12 hour drive, you will stop there, because there is no other choice along I 10 that makes sense. This still left us with a question about the next day. Continue west, or turn north? We had been talking about Monahans Sand Dune State Park which we stayed at our first trip across and decided to include it in the itinerary. This opened up the idea of returning to Carlsbad NM which we also stopped at that first year. We stopped at Monahans for a couple of hours to take a hike in the dunes and have lunch. Then we pressed on to Carlsbad and the KOA north of town owned by former Rochestarians who are friends of Carol and Tim Kolb (Carol works in the office I have in Rochester). This is a very lux campground with the nicest club house facilities and bathroom facilities I can remember seeing. I won’t be using them since our on board facilities are very comfortable for us. We will tour tomorrow and Thursday we will move on to avoid a storm that is headed this way. I expect we will have to drive through the front again as we did last year.

Next post you (and I) will find out what our route decision was.

The Hanks, who we met in Topsail Hill Preserve, mentioned that they were planning on going to Grand Isle, LA. If you look at a map of Louisiana and follow the Mississippi River to its end in the Gulf then go northwest across the water, you will see a spit of land with LA 1 that is an island. Going east on that island, eventually you run out of road (and land). That is Grand Isle State Park. The town of Grand Isle has little to offer in the way of entertainment, shopping, or places of interest. There is a small supermarket which includes a hardware store. There are two major oil operations, Shell and Exxon Mobil. There is a lot of shrimping, more on that in a bit.

Given its location at the end of the road, you would think it would be hard to miss the State Park, wrong! By ignoring Germaine (the GPS) and misreading a road sign in the belief that a barely improved thread of asphalt could not possibly be the entrance to a state park, we drove on into a residential area. Fortunately, the road ended in large parking lot for the sport and commercial fishing area which enabled me to turn around and, with the help of locals, find the entrance to the park. As we had figured from the reservation web site there are plenty of open sites. Louisiana is one of the few states that provides a 50% discount for those of us carrying the Golden Age Passport. Compared to $38 plus tax in Florida the net of $9 and NO TAX becomes a real bargain. We are situated in a row of sites with our back to a dune line with the Gulf of Mexico just on the other side with a beach that stretches as far as we want to walk in both directions.

We have been asked what we do in a place like this with no access to the internet since Verizon service dropped off about 20 miles up the road. Our contact with the outside world is pretty good between satellite TV (ugh), local off the air TV (double ugh), NPR radio out of N.O. and the phone. We have many unread books, some of which will be ready to trade by the time we move on and there are people to sit and chat with. Our best entertainment is the sea and bird life. Dolphins feed just off the beach, herding redfish in toward the shore then feeding on them. This takes place 10 to 20 feet off the beach in as little as three feet of water.

The birding has also been pretty good. Here is a list of the identified species we saw yesterday, January 29^th, as we walked the beach and lake trail: Willet, Least Sandpiper, American Oyster Catcher, Tree Swallow, Royal Tern, Least Tern, Brown Pelican, White Pelican, Great Blue Heron (on almost every daily birding list I can remember) Great Egret, Double Crested Cormorant and Gulls. I am sure of my identification of Herring Gull and Ring Bill Gull I am sure there were others, but I have not paid enough attention to even think of sorting them out.

We also witnessed the merciless nature of life in the wild. We came across a Cormorant and a Pelican with broken wings on the beach in the space of four hours. In both cases this was the result of the bird misjudging the waves in a dive for fish and hitting the water at a wrong angle. We have sat and watched these birds diving for fish whenever we are near the water and I cannot remember ever seeing this before, but it is more common than we realize. When it happens far out from shore there is no way to see the result. We spoke to the ranger about these injured birds and she said that unless they were banded there was nothing that could be done to help them or to put them out of their misery. Nature will be permitted to take its course.

Yesterday, when we did the birding, was glorious with temperatures in the high 60’s to low 70’s and plenty of sun. We expect that will not happen again for a while. Last night a front came through with a slashing rainstorm followed by high winds. At 5:00 AM we heard a crash as the grill, which I lash to a table, blew over with the table. The winds were so high that we were rocking so we pulled in the slides to preserve the topper awnings and reduce the surface exposed to the wind. This morning we discovered that the doormat we have used for seven years is no place to be found. It is “Gone with the Wind”. [written later] After a brisk morning walk, keeping my eyes open looking for the doormat, I found it tucked up against the street side rear wheels.

I did promise more on shrimping. There are many boats lining the bayous and rivers that are setup for shrimping. This is a major industry in these parts. Although I do not ordinarily eat shellfish, it seemed foolish to pass up the opportunity to have them as fresh as they can be. We set out after lunch, by car, to see what was available on Grand Isle. The supermarket had no seafood at all, just meat. The produce section was better than Carol expected and not outrageously expensive. We bought very little. We stopped in another small shop to ask about seafood and they pointed us to Dean and Blanchard as the only place in the area still open. We found the turn off of LA 1 that they described and realized we had already been that way, but we persisted and this time turned right on a road that seemed to be a private drive. We wended our way toward the shore where we found a large packing plant. In what looked like a breezeway were two large containers with a very large scale. There was a workman there who spoke in a language or accent that was not particularly intelligible to us. We did figure out that he did have whole fresh shrimp in the containers and they were two different prices (presumably different sizes. I bought a pound of the more expensive ($3.75 a pound) and figured I would have them for two meals. After cleaning and grilling in olive oil, garlic, lemon juice and some pepper, I had a very nice portion for one meal. I enjoyed myself, but I doubt I will repeat the experience, certainly not in hurry.

Although the people we gathered for Happy Hour on Wednesday evening asked us to stay on, we decided to move on on Thursday with a deteriorating weather forecast and a desire to get to Texas someday. Thursday we were on the road by 8:45.

Can’t seem to get out of this state. Sunday night found us in Topsail Hill Preserve State Park, still in Florida. Getting into the site was an exercise in patience and finesse. Whoever had deemed this site suitable for a 36 foot motorhome was a sadist. With Carol watching a low post by the right (curbside) rear wheel I got that wheel within a couple of inches of the post while missing a tree with the front left (street side) corner by a similar couple of inches. I still had to cope with a tree three feet behind me once I got clear of the front tree. I pivoted neatly into place wondering how I would ever get out when the time came. A short time later as we completed setting up we met Al Hanks, who with his wife Nancy, was on the site one away from ours. I have no idea how anything bigger than our car would negotiate the entrance to that intermediate site. We agreed to meet for Happy Hour at 5:30 and Carol and I set off by car to explore the Panhandle beach area. We drove along 30 A and were suitable impressed with the many fancy large homes that line the beach blocking almost all access to the hoi poloi that do not own the beach front property. Certainly the view is blocked. We drove through Watercolor and Seaside and it is clear that these are very nice places and very PLANNED.

On our return to the campground we made the coach neat for visitors and shortly the Hanks arrived bringing additional goodies to our small gathering. Somehow, before we knew it, three hours (and a couple bottles of wine) had passed. Al is retired from Consumers Union where, among other jobs, he built and then managed the automotive test facility. His wife, Nancy is a retired school teacher. She and Carol had a great time and Al and I had many things to talk about including improvements to our motorhomes and experiences with buying and maintaining them, his is a 2004 Allegro Bay on the same chassis with the same drive line as Gee2. Nancy was particularly taken with the many hooks we have mounted in strategic locations, like the ones on either side of the entry door where wet coats can be hung to drip into the stairwell rather run through the coach to the shower to hang them up. These never seemed like a big deal to me, although I do remember that we discussed what kind of hooks and whether we would like their appearance for several days before mounting. Such is life when the two of us have many hours and days together with limited other company.

The weather continued to be cold and wet. The second day we drove out to the west to explore and found more large beach houses and too many repeats of the same stores you can see everyplace else in this country. Also there was too much traffic. We turned back and got on our bikes to ride around the park, out of the traffic. At 6 we joined a group that Al had put together for a social hour in the clubhouse. Then we went back t their coach and finally to ours for a snack and some sleep.

When we awoke it was Thursday and we knew two things; we were leaving the very expensive (by our standards) Topsail Hill Preserve and we were going west. We had not put together a more serious plan and it seemed more sensible to depart and figure out what we would do as we rolled. We had been in touch with some organizations in Louisiana about volunteering some time, but Mardi Gras is coming and all the volunteer programs are closed down as all accommodations are booked for revelers and everyone takes part in Mardi Gras. There is no place we want to hang around for two weeks in lousy weather so we are moving on a bit aimlessly.

As we crossed out of Florida into Alabama we stopped at the Welcome Center to have lunch and maybe figure out where we would spend the night. We recently joined yet another RV organization, Escapees, and they have several facilities in the south and southwest. We had never seen one, much less stayed in one so we found there is one in the Gulf Shores area, not too far from the Joy and Shaul Antar as it happens. Escapees is an organization for full and extended part times RVers who have SKPed the grid and gone off to live on their rigs. The defining bumper sticker is “Home is where we park it”. Is this too convoluted? I have several threads running here and I am losing track. The campground is fantastic. It is an RV park designed by people who have been is a lot of RV parks. Access is easy, there is plenty of space and when they asked if I had a satellite dish for TV my affirmative answer resulted in some shuffling to be sure I would be able to see the satellite with my dish. All the people we have met here are really friendly and pleasant. Tomorrow we will do some shopping, I forgot my dress shoes among other things and there are plenty of shops and then we will meet the Antars at Temple in Mobile for Shabbat Service. Who knows what Sunday will bring.

If you are looking for pictures, I have not taken many and most of them are of the coach in a campground, boring!

We have done it. We are in Florida. Our first night here we took a chance and tried to get into Payne Prairie Preserve in Micanopy (see posting from January 2005 for details and pronunciation). Upon arrival we were informed that all the sites were reserved and there was no room for us. The ranger suggested that we consider Sportsmens Cove Resort, just a few miles south in McIntosh, FL. We called and then drove there to a welcoming reception. The place looked a bit like a dump at the end of F Ave right on Orange Lake, but it was pleasant enough sitting on a berm with water on three sides. We wandered down to the shore, drawn by noisy bird calls. They turned out to be many Sandhill Cranes just off the beach. They are a resident population here, unlike the migratory Sandhills we finally caught up with in Bosque Del Apache NWR several years ago. In the morning we awoke to their cries and a walk down the water’s edge yielded a Wood Stork to add to my birding list. It was a great start to our Florida visit.

We breakfasted and set out for Ft Desoto County Park campground where we had paid for four nights back in late November when we were just planing this trip. Other than starting out in a slashing thunder storm with buckets of water falling on us, the drive was uneventful. We arrived before 1 PM and began to set up camp. As I walked to bedroom, after opening the slide I noticed that a trim board had fallen off the closet. This is turning out to be the trip of minor and not so minor mishaps. So far none has been terribly serious, just annoying. With a bit of persuasion the trim board has been restored to it position and ought to stay there. For good measure I played with the window shade over the bed. The guide string has jumped the track a couple of days ago and I had not gotten around to looking at it. It too 30 seconds to put it right. What Next????

Writing a week later: We had very nice visit with Art and Natalie (Carol’s brother and sister-in-law) in St Petersburg. Their daughter Erica came in for the day on Monday and brought along Yonatan, their grandson, who was visiting them and his girl friend for the week. Our time was spent mostly visiting and just a bit shopping for some needed replacement parts for the bike rack – another casualty. Oh yes on Wednesday morning, the 16^th, as I walked around the car I noticed that the wear bars on one of the tires was showing, groan, another replacement required. Although the car has only been driven 21,000 miles those tires have been dragged another 30,000 or more behind the coach. Time to find a tire store and get them replaced before something bad happens.

On Thursday we pulled out to head even further south. It is past time to see my Aunt Evelyn in Boynton Beach. The best arrangement we could make for camping was in Clewiston, FL at the Okeechobee Landings RV Park. This is 1 ¼ hours drive from my aunt each way. The campsite was nice, right on a small lake with plenty of birds, mostly White Ibis and one Anhinga. Our visit with Aunt Evelyn was very good and she took us to tour the assisted living facility she plans to move into in the coming weeks. Newport House appears to be a very nice place where she already has many friends. I hope she has an easy transition. It being Friday we had dinner and went to Temple with her. It is clear she is well known and liked there and many people were already congratulating her on her move, although she says she had told no one and the move has not even happened yet.

We left for Okeechobee Landings RV at a bit before 10 PM and arrived quite tired at 11:15. We fell into bed and left the departure mode until the morning. We rolled out about 10:15 and made 13 miles before stopping for fuel and grocery shopping. We finally started moving at noon. The only problem was where to go. I had set our destination as Alabama, but had no intent or desire to get there in one day. As we scanned the map while committing to drive up the center of the state on US 27 we realized we would be passing directly by Deer Creek which the Topfs and other people we know call their winter home. We called ahead to find that they had no plans and the site directly across the street from them was temporarily available. They made arrangements for us to stay and we made our stop at about 3 PM with the Topfs and many other CHAI members. While we were at dinner it began to pour. Once again we were in the midst of torrential rains. This time we had traveled in golf carts from the campsites to the restaurant and there was no way to get four of us under cover in the golf cart. We waited while Norm and Shelley went back and got a car to pick us up. We spent a pleasant couple of hours in their coach and them came back to Gee2 to write and rest.

No idea what we will do tomorrow, Sunday the 20^th.