Wrapping up Tucson

CC is getting into the shop every day now.  We're getting an all new entertainment center in front.  New 43" TV, stereo amplifier, and blu-ray player.  Plus they integrated our Apple TV into the cabinet.  

They rebuilt the front cabinets for a beautiful seamless cabinet, the TV swings out for storage behind it!  Additionally we added a fan & ventilation holes to cool off the back of the cabinet. 

We had some trim loose on the slides, those are now freshly sealed & riveted in place.  Added a cell phone boosting system (Weboost) for better cell & internet connectivity and re-organized our electronic cabinet.   We decided to bite the bullet & do the same to the TV in the bedroom.  Same quality cabinet work!   It looks great.

While this was going on we visited the Pima Air Museum.

Unfortunately the airplane graveyard was not included in the tour (darn COVID), it's 150 acres holding over 300 airplanes.  From fighters to transports all being "moth balled".  It really looks cool from the road.

While we were at Olstrom's we could see the Bighorn Wildfire, 25 miles away.  During the day there was a lot of smoke.  There were planes & helicopters flying over dropping water & chemicals on it all day long.  At night we could see the flames from the parking lot.  When we left it had consumed 88,000 acres and they were close to containing it.

Wrapped up & headed to Santa Fe for the rally that wasn't.......

Our minors are miners for the day

Day 2 we headed to Bisbee, AZ.  There is a diner we wanted to eat at plus a copper mine that has tours.  Luckily we had reservations for the mine.  They are limiting the numbers of people on each tour, less than 10, instead for the normal 30 -40.

They geared us up with vests, hard hats and mining lanterns.  A quick safety brief and we headed down the shaft.

Add caption

Mica got some drilling time in

We all got a briefing on drilling patterns for loading explosives.

Then an explanation on the muck buckets.  They are so perfectly balanced that Kolton was able to tip them by himself.

This tour was awesome me. They even had a “toilet facility” available.  Not sure about the privacy......

Tucson!

We got to Olstrom's and he is a little behind schedule so we have some time to kill.  Not everything is open.  But there are a few places and with some social distancing and masks we set off.

Day 1 is Tombstone, AZ.  We drove down and wandered the streets.  We did meet some seedy looking characters.  We got so quick photos before any gun play started.

Mica found a perfect hat to keep the hot desert sun off her head.

 We wound up at the OK Corral just as a gunfight was getting ready to start.  It turns out that there is some bad feelings between Cowboys Billy Claiborne, Ike and Billy Clanton, and Tom and Frank McLaury on one side; and Town Marshal Virgil Earp, Special Policemen Morgan and Wyatt Earp, and Doc Holliday on the other side.

The outcome was Virgil and Morgan wounded, Holliday grazed by bullet; Tom and Frank McLaury and Billy Clanton killed.  Fortunately after our gun fight the participants all posed for "social distancing" pictures. 

We strolled down the street and stopped or some cooling drinks.

On a side note, I did find the coolest urinal that I ever saw.  You know beer in, beer out.....

Tomorrow we try mining!

On the road again!

So we are transitioning from a campgrounds to "parking lot surfing".  What?  We are going to Olstrom's Custom Coach in Tucson, AZ for an update to our entertainment center.  Plus some minor improvements / repairs to CC. 

So we are leaving NM and heading west to the real desert.  We stopped in Deming, NM for one night.  We stayed at an Escapee's campground.  The main purpose here was to dump & rinse the tanks and fill up with water.  I wasn't sure what kind of amenities we would get in Tucson.  We have been to service places before & we have gotten a range from full hook-ups to electric only to we need to run the generator.

The campground was clean, but basically a parking lot with hook-ups.  I know its a desert and there is limited grass.  But this was all gravel with a few trees.  We got CC all set for the next place plus did a bunch of laundry.  We took a nice walk late in the day when the temperature dropped.  Saxton even caught a Tumbleweed.  Interesting note, tumbleweeds are full of thorns & stickers, OUCH!

 

We only had a 250 mile trip to Tucson, so we slept in and slipped out after noon.  The route was going to be I-10 all the way.  So this span of I-10 is interesting.  Its hot.  Its windy. And its hilly.  No problems, it just made it memorable.  First it was the big warning signs for strong gusts of winds in the canyons.  Yes they were.  Then it was the warnings on how to drive in "dust" storms.  WTH?

We came to a big open area of mostly dirt & sand and wow!  There wasn't an all out dust storm, but there were "dust devils".  They are dust tornados that just spring up in the desert and move around.  They were everywhere!

They didn't get that close to us, whew.  But I had to battle the cross winds....

Found a cool rest stop.  We have been driving through the desert.  Think sand, gravel, cactus & bushes.  When out pops big rocks.  We stopped for a break,  kids can run around & climb a little.  You know, burn energy.

We made it to Olstrom's ok.  At OCC we got 50 amp.  It's a good start.  Plus they have water and we can drive around the building to a dump station.  So it will work.

The bad news was OCC has been having issues getting parts so they were behind schedule and we weren't going to be a Monday start.  But it's free camping so we can make it work.  Looks like we get in Thursday or Friday...

How high can we go?

For fun we decide to go to Sandia Crest.  It is a mountain near where we have been hiking.  Its a full fledged recreation area & National Forest.  It has numerous hiking & biking trails.  Plus a ski slope & sledding area, closed of course.

We decided to drive to the top & see what we can see then try and find a trail to hike on.  After the 14 mile winding / switchback road to the top we got out at over 10,000 feet.  Temperature was 20 degrees cooler than the campground.

We got out to go to the observation area I noticed the thin air right away.  Rita wasn't handling the altitude well and opted to stay sitting in the car.  The kids?  Whole different story they were balls of energy.  I even convinced them they needed to run up the path to the top two or three times.... 

On an interesting note the top of the observation area was covered by a swarm "lady bugs" thousands of them.  We had an in depth discussion on how hard it was them to fly in the thin cool air.  Plus just above us was a cluster of cell and radio towers.  FYI we had a great signal!

After we took in all the views we started the descent to a better altitude for Rita.  We made some poor attempts at geocaching and then found a walking trail.

The trail weaved through the woods and was pretty easy.  Rita joined us and the kids went scampering off the trail and into the woods a number of times.  We had a great day.

Headed back to CC and rest.  Well me & Rita rested.  The kids got the bikes out and walked up the hill in the campground then raced down the hill so they can "drift" stop at the bottom.  Then repeat over and over again.  I was more exhausted just watching them.

We're New to New Mexico!

So the sad news is that New Mexico is slowly opening up.  Meaning the grocery stores are open & restaurant dine-in is limited to 25% capacity.  So the pools, museums and sightseeing stuff is closed.  Bummer.

But the outdoors is unlimited.  So let me explain, Tijeras, NM is about 6,000 feet above sea level.  There is limited grass but unlimited sand, rock, cactus and fun.  Our campground is limited to 50% capacity.  Its that gravel sand combination and in a valley. 

There are numerous mountains, trails and paths all over so we decided to do the the walking trails.  I used an app on my phone, AllTrails, to find one.  It was listed as "easy" and only about 6 miles away.  We were concerned about the terrain & temperature so Rita decided to stay back in CC and do some computer work.

Good thing she did.  We attempted to walk the Arroyo Trail.  Is started off semi flat but after we walked through the arroyo we came to a "Y" in the trail.  I seemed to have lost my map reading skills and we took of on the trail to the right.  It was a pretty interesting trail.  Super rocky, winding all over the place and most importantly, UP hill.  Kids scampered up with no problem, this old guy was sucking wind.  Granted the trail started a 6,000 feet above sea level but when we popped out onto another trail entry point we were at: 

Great view for these folks that live here, but the dogs didn't care for our intrusion, lots of barking.  The kicker was we were on the wrong trail. 

 So we "sauntered" back down the trail (way easier) and took the left fork and walked that for awhile.  Guess what still the wrong trail again, still not the Arroyo Trail.  But it had great views, not quite as hilly and we had a great time.  Stopped along the trail for a snack and a drink.  

And some blooming cactus.

When we got to the car we decided to try geocacheing.  Jackie had asked me to make sure Kolton gets some finds in states that she hasn't been to.  After a rocky start using his iPad for locating and struggling through one search we switched to my iphone at a different cache and found one!

By then we were ready to return to CC.  Me for a cocktail & the kids to their bikes.

Double day of driving!

OK so the last post I mentioned the 300 miles a day.  Maybe I should have said 300ish..... We are heading west.  We have an appointment in Tucson for some improvements to CC.  We don't have to rush so we decided to drive two days.  Spend a couple of nights at a resort, then drive two days.

So we left Grove, OK and are going to a campground on the Oklahoma / Texas border.  It's about 348 miles which isn't bad.  We planned on a picnic stop to break it up then fill on diesel near our campground.  Not surprisingly lunch plans changed.

So some background.   Everytime we (Bill, Rita, Brandi & Jackie) see a buffalo, we call them buffalo not bison, one of us we undoubtedly say, "look at the head on that one."  That's because when the girls were little 7th or 8th grade we took them snow skiing in New Mexico.  We stopped at a roadside restaurant, Cherokee Restaurant, and discovered they had buffalo burgers.  Since we never had that before we all had one.  Delicious.  The server mentioned that they had some actual buffalo in a corral outside.  Being that the girls never saw a buffalo in person we went over for a look.  When we walked around the building there was a monstrous buffalo standing right at the fence.  With it that close I couldn't help myself and I said "look at the head on that one."  That phrase has now been a constant in our lives.  EVERYTIME we see one, "look at the head on that one."

So back to today.  As we we were driving down I-40, low and behold I see Cherokee Restaurant and the corral with a couple of buffalo inside.  We made a quick, but safe exit.  Luckily they offered inside dining so we did what we needed to do, Buffalo burgers!  Well except for Mica, she went for the Cherokee chicken.  We all agreed that the burgers were still delicious.  After lunch we went to the corral.

He just sat there & grunted at us.

 Back on the road after talking to our girls and reminiscing about that first visit.  We finished the day pulling into a small 16 site campground just off the interstate.  We were the first ones there & picked a nice shady spot for the night.  We had plenty of time for dinner and then we sat outside until it got dark.  There was a pretty good breeze, so no bugs.  We introduced the kids to Bocce Ball.  They played it all evening.  What a great stop.

Next morning we took our time & had a hardy breakfast & hit the road.  Now we are heading to Tijeras, NM, about 360 miles.  We crossed into Texas a mile later and kept going west to New Mexico.  We crossed the border & into Mountain time right at lunch.  So a picnic at the rest stop.

Where as Texas was pretty flat.  New Mexico was not.  It was beautiful, hills, plateaus, mesas & buttes.  A very nice drive.  We arrived in Tijeras, New Mexico around 3:30.  We're in Hidden Valley Mountain Resort.  This was one of the few times we couldn't get CC to level.  The sites are built into the valley wall and not quite made for long rigs.  But after using some levelling pads we got her set
up.

Kids burned up some energy running around and Rita declared we were going out for pizza, yea!  We drove down Old Route 66 to the next town and ate at Pizza Barn.  Great pizza and 22 different draught beers.  Of course I went local.

We did time it right, a thunderstorm hit while we were eating, but was done when we walked out.  We swung by the grocery store for a couple of things then back to CC.  Kids did another energy burn.  Then reading & bedtime.

Oklahoma is OK?

As you may know it is our goal to only drive 300 miles a day.  That way we don't have to get going super fast in the morning.  But mostly so we can take our time and stop along the way and to mostly make sure we arrive at our next stop well before dark.  Plus we're not exhausted, we can take advantage of the overnight stop and enjoy dinner.

So our first trip was about 305 miles.  We stopped for lunch and had a picnic.  Took a walk around the rest stop.  We fueled up at the last Missouri station and arrived in Grove, OK for the week.  It was raining when we got here, but we got hooked up ok.

The kids were disappointed that they couldn't jump in the pool.  But we had dinner and settled in.  Then came the fire truck.  It drove around the campground with the lights & siren going. We thought maybe a fire?  Maybe someones COVID birthday celebration?  It was raining pretty hard.  Soon the gate attendant knocked on the door.  "Tornado coming".  Holy crap!  We grabbed shoes, jackets & flashlights and ran to the designated tornado shelter.  It was a beat-up old gas station.  It was made of concrete so it must be safer than CC.  Everyone from our section of the park was there.  They had plenty of chairs, but the place was poorly maintained and the roof leaked.  But it was safe.

Me & my tornado buddy!

The rainy weather pattern kind of hung around.  No more tornado issues, but LOTS of rain.  I'm beginning to think that Oklahoma is an Indian word for rain. Tuesday & Wednesday were mostly rain.  But there were some breaks & the kids got in the pool.  The chilly pool, but they didn't seem to mind.  They were swimming and happy.

Wednesday was Mica's 10th Birthday so she wanted Mexican food so luckily restaurants are open here so we had a nice lunch.  Mica got the Birthday treatment, which includes a sneaky pie in the face.  Kolton got caught in collateral damage....

Kolton didn't seem impressed

Outside it was still raining so we went to the grocery store...

Thursday the weather finally changed.  A quick check of "tourist"attractions showed that although things were starting to opening up, the Cherokee village and other sites weren't opening until next week.  So we had to settle with just the pool.  The kids took advantage of that!  Maybe to exhaustion.  Look what washed up on shore.

We settled for the pool everyday.  At least three hours a day.  We really went through the sunscreen and avoided any real sunburn. 

We got to try our new propane fire pit.  I know, what are we thinking, propane????  But with us moving a lot and restrictions on carrying firewood across state lines this solved the problem.  When we get to a new campground we would normally have to buy firewood.  Usually $5 a bundle and it's not that big of a bundle.  With propane we can s'more every night, anywhere!  Which makes the kids happy.  We were at Camping World and found one on sale.  It was a nice size and it was the last one there, it was a display model.  Rita negotiated 20% more off the sale price.  So we bought it.  It works great!

We are leaving here Monday on our journey to the desert.  The desert in June?  Are we nuts?  Yeah, probably.  But we are going to Olstrom's Custom Coach for some upgrades to CC.  We'll survive.  I hope....