Walnut Hills VA

We have managed to get as far as Stauton VA today and have taken a spot at the Walnut Hills KOA - a very pretty but older private campground (42 years old to be exact). 

We drove up to Pigeon Forge yesterday hoping to spend some time in the Great Smokies region but after an hour on the road our "check engine" light came on.  We checked the engine oil and transmission fluid, filled the gas tank but the light remained on and we had no chance of finding a mechanic on Easter Sunday so we made out way slowly up through Smoky Mountain National Park to Pigeon Forge and took a spot in the KOA there.  Driving up reminded us of how beautiful that area is and now many neat things there are to do there.  

The campground was a little expensive but in a great location - next to a nice city park, trolley stops that take you to almost anywhere in the area and 200 yards from the Old Mill restaurant and shopping complex.   We had our Easter supper at the Old Mill - traditional southern cooking with LOTS of food (we are reheating it for supper tonight) and we still haven't opened the dessert which our server put directly into containers for us.  

Anyway this morning was devoted to getting the check engine problem seen to (3 stops, no real problem - back on the road by 9AM).   Since we were up and moving we decided to start home rather than trying to re setup.  A beautiful driving day so we made it half way through Virginia.   We really like the spot we're in and were thinking of staying a second day but a quick review of the weather forecast convinced us that we should try to get as far north as we can tomorrow morning before the rain starts because its moving in this direction and will continue for days.   

Tallulah Gorge State Park, GA

Well Georgia has us bouncing from hot and humid (our first use of our air conditioner – if only for short spells to reduce the heat in the RV) to cool rainy weather her in the mountains – we may have overdone it running from the heat!  After Pensacola Beach we drove into southern Georgia and ended up at the Georgia Veterans Memorial State Park, and they had an opening for one night only (being Easter Thursday – they are booked solid for the weekend).  It’s a lovely state park on a lake with a swamp at one end and warnings to watch out for alligators (we never saw any).  The park has a golf course and a big resort along with a museum and a collection of planes, armor and artillery from around the second WW, Korea and Vietnam eras. 

And the park has bugs!  And Heat. And Humidity.   After an hour’s brisk walk (to keep ahead of the bugs) we decided that it was just as well that they were booked for the weekend.   

Easter Friday we drove north and east heading for the mountains where we hoped it was cooler.  We started looking for a campground after we cleared Atlanta (we had taken secondary roads so we never actually drove through Atlanta but had gotten north and east of it by early afternoon).  After some frustrating false starts we found Tallulah Falls and space in the state park campground.  Tallulah Falls advertises itself as the Little Grand Canyon of the East and has a lovely canyon running through it with great rim walks and a suspension bridge across.   The campground is run by Georgia Power so its not part of the state park system and is well run with a nice small laundry.   Yesterday we did the rim walk hikes after setting up and crossed the suspension bridge.  We also visited the nature center, which is well done with displays explaining the various canyon eco systems.   

There is a free music festival in town this evening and some nice places nearby to visit so we are going to stay a day or so.  We hear that there is cold rain north of us so we are not anxious to start heading north too quickly.   Apparently the town hall has wifi so we might even be able to get messages and update our blog.   

Fort Pickins, Gulf Islands National Sea Shore

At the suggestion of the lady in the Florida Welcome Center we headed to Fort Perkins, just west of Pensacola Beach in the Florida section of the Gulf Islands National Sea Shore.   We’ve been here for the last 4 days enjoying the magnificent beaches (white sand everywhere you look!).   We’ve toured the historic Fort Pickens (which has been a part of the US Coastal Defense since before the Civil War (the first fort was built in 1834) until after the second world war.   This is the only place where defense structures from the Civil War, Spanish American War, and the First and Second World Wars can be seen all in one spot.   Our tour guide showed us around the original fort (made with over 21 million bricks) and explained how the military had changed the structure over the years (both on purpose and by misadventure – a fire that exploded a powder room destroying one corner of the fort).   We also got to see a Blue Angles (the US Navy version of our Snow Birds) do a dress rehearsal show (their base is just across the bay from the fort so we rode up to the fort to watch from the walls.   Very nice show.   The jets are painted navy blue with gold markings on the top which makes it easier to see when they are inverted in flight.  

We’ve also visited Pensacola Beach – a typical beach tourist town but fun.   We had a really good lunch at Hemmingway’s – crab cakes and shrimp served with black beans and Spanish rice done to perfection.   

Our campground is on a barrier island – really a big sand dune stretching parallel to the shore.  Where the campground is there is a small forest of sand pines and most of the older pines are dead so their tops stick out and have heron and osprey nests up where they are visible.   So we are able to watch the osprey’s – we’ve twice seen them eating large fish that they have caught.  There are heron nests there too and we have marveled that they are so close – do the osprey not threaten the heron young?   

We’ve had some lovely walks on the beach.  The water is remarkable warm and there are people swimming, although mostly nearer Pensacola Beach, about 10 kilometers east of the campground.  On one trip into town we encountered an emergency response to one part of the beach – an ambulance, a fire truck, and two rescue trucks pulling skidoo’s.  Lots of responders.  Good sunsets. 

We are now on our way home and hope to make it back before the end of the week/month.   Not too sure we will be able to find spots to camp on Easter Weekend but are going to try.  

Florida I10 Visitors Center

Just a quick note to let everyone know that we are well and still on the road.   Had a great visit with our friends Rod and Ann and Pat and Rick in New Orleans.  We spent four nights in Mississippi enjoying the sea shore and getting a taste of the damage done by Katrina and the continuing re-building efforts here.  We are currently looking for a campground in this area and will try to put together another entry when we are settled.   Beautiful weather - a little cool last night but beautiful sunny days.   Yesterday we got a bit of a scare listening to the weather forecast and hearing about tornadoes in several counties in southern Mississippi.   Turned out that the closest was 2 counties over, but that seemed awfully close to us - especially when you hear of the damage done.   
We were glad to hear that none of us were trying to move north through Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia or North Carolina as the storm system passed through all of those states and all had damage. 

Bryan TX

Well after a frustrating drive we found a place for the night in Bryan Texas.   Not our objective for the day but a combination of things guided us here: first high winds made the driving uncomfortable, second the state parks have filled up due to the hot weather and the fact that today is Saturday and third our GPS led us to our preferred park but road building had closed the only exits the GPS knew and we couldn't find another way in.  So we turned to a recommendation from the GPS and ended up in a truly awful RV park which we didn't even bother to stop at and then finally found this one.   Fortunately beautiful drives (with the exception of the speedway through Austin) with great hill country views: peach orchards, horse ranches and low rolling hills and forests.

We had a great time in Fredericksburg.   There was an air show at the airport just behind the municipal park where we were staying and we saw a B-24 Liberator, a B-17Flying Fortress and a P-41 Mustang taking off, circling and landing.  There were other aircraft and helicopters too.   All from the comfort of our campsite and without paying an entry fee. I spend some time visiting the Pacific Combat Zone of the National Museum of the Pacific War - its a series of scenes that they've recreated around salvaged tanks, planes, boats showing parts of the war.   They had an Avenger torpedo bomber set up in a recreation of a air craft carrier hanger, a PT boat being readied for a night time raid, Japanese equipment set up facing an American LCT (landing craft Tracked), and a Quonset hut set up as a field hospital.   Very well done.  

We also did the park nature walk and visited their bird blind and saw a good range of birds.

Our neighbors at the park were from Newfoundland and had until April 24th to cross back into Canada.  They calculate the six months to the day.    They spend their winters in a trailer park home in a little town called Donna which is on the Mexican border about as far south in Texas as you can go (west of Brownsville).  They obviously love it there and are not looking forward to getting home (yesterday was 28 F at home).  For their trips back and forth they have one of the little light trailers in the shape of a half of an ellipse.  They have a tent add a room which they really like (they have an 8 month old lab who takes up about a quarter of the trailer so the add a room is necessary).  We also met a couple with an identical Chalet to ours (bought second hand from a rental company).  This couple actually lives in Mexico and uses the camper to tour in the US.  

Tomorrow we head east into Louisianan - not sure of our actual destination but both Rod and Ann and Pat and Rick are supposed to be in New Orleans tomorrow night and all three of us are heading to Georgia or Florida before going home so we will be criss-crossing or leap frogging each other for the next two weeks or so. 

Fredericksburg TX, (2)

As Corinne mentioned in our earlier blog we have arrived in Fredericksburg, Texas in the Texas Hill country.  When we left Albuquerque, there were predictions of high winds, gusting to 70 mph in the afternoon so we wanted to be off the road by noon.  We picked Fort Sumner in eastern New Mexico just south of the I40 and arrived by about 1 and had the problem with the bike rack.   We stayed at Sumner Lake State Park that day and the wind did blow – we had to turn the camper 90 degrees because the wind was hitting us on the side and rocking us.    

Fort Sumner Visitors Center

After getting the bike rack fixed, we visited the Fort Sumner State Historic Park.  This is a monument to the Bosque-Rodondo Reservation built during the Civil War to imprison the Navajo and Mescalero Apache rounded up by Kit Carson.  The government wanted to remove the Indians from their homelands – they had taken to the war path when the soldiers were removed to fight the Civil War, and turn them into farmers.   That was a total disaster as the land was poor and the Pecos River alkaline.  In the end the government had to feed the Indians and the reservation, instead of being self sufficient , cost the government $1.5 million a year.   The park is an excellent memorial to that event with a beautiful visitors center, an informative self guided audio tour and a great film recounting the first visit by Navajo’s to the area in the 1990’s (a group of teachers and historians – when the Navajo left in the late 1860’s they promised that no Navajo would ever return – over 20% of the Navajo nation had died either on the forced march to the reservation or of starvation at the reservation).   

We then moved on to Oasis State Park which is near Clovis and  Blackwater Dig where archaeologists first figured out the native pre history that is accepted today with the Clovis peoples living among the Mastodons being followed by the Folsome peoples who lived with the first buffalo.  Unfortunately neither the sight nor the museum was open.   

So we’ve moved on to Texas.  The drive down was very nice, except for the police blitz.  We came through miles of windmills (we were in sight of windmills for over 35 miles) and cotton fields from horizon to horizon for a half day of driving.    There was irrigation for the cotton fields otherwise I doubt there would be anything there.  Texas is suffering through a bad drought and there has been little rain this winter – none in some places.   

We spent 2 nights in San Angelo, which turned out to be a lovely little city, with a river walk, an historic down town and the best surviving western indian fort (from the war against the Comanches).   

Bopa - a picture for Anna

We visited Fredericksburg yesterday, Corinne did some window shopping and I  visited the National Museum of the Pacific War (an exceptional museum).  Planning on a small hike and another visit to town today before heading east once again.  

Fredricksburg, TX

Notes from the road.

I have decided to leave the descriptions of our last stops to Graham and concentrate on the joys and tribulations of the life on the road – literally.  

We are now heading east for the first time, a start on the long journey home.  We’re in Central Texas and although 4 nights ago we had , here it is in the 30’s, while our inside thermometer hit 40 degrees yesterday, in the closed up RV.  The ever present warm winds do cool things down, and as we know this is a dry heat and much more manageable.  

One thinks of the south east as cotton country, but we have driven for a least 5 hours south and east through Texas cotton fields stretching from horizon to horizon.  In spite of the ever-present irrigation canals and machines, we saw dust blowing from the tractors as they plowed the ground and USA Today, today noted that Texas was suffering one of the worst droughts of the past 100 years. 

The roads hear have a 70 mph (or 120 Kph speed limit) even on the secondary highways.  Which is why I was surprised to be stopped by Texas police within an hour or entering the state (and 15 minutes of taking the wheel) – a courtesy stop to tell us that our headlight was out (actually it was our day time light so it was no problem in the end.   Once my heart rate returned to normal, I headed off again and within 10 minutes was pulled over by a second patrol car.  This guy said that he had trouble reading our license plate and just wanted to make sure that we had one.  Graham proceeded to state that we had 4 long trips to the US and had never been stopped until today, and then got stopped twice in 10 minutes.  Luckily this cop had a sense of humor and we all laughed and were on the road again, me keeping my eyes peeled for flashing lights, things always happen in 3 don’t they. 

 Back to the speed limit.  Everybody drives the speed limit including those trucks hauling houses and they have no support trucks with them like at home.  Twice I have looked back in the mirror to see houses speeding toward me (probably mot exceeding the 70 mph speed limit).  They take up 1 and a quarter lanes so the only way they can pass, and believe me they want to pass, is to wait for a devided way, or wait for the slower driver, ie. Me, to pull over to the edge of the highway.

One last driving incident.  When we left Albuquerque, after our enjoyable visit with Pat and Rick, we decided to only do a mornings drive, given heavy wind predictions (gusts to 70 mph in the afternoon).  We had arrived at our chosen park and were slowly making our way to a site, driving about 5 mph when we heard a crash and a scraping sound.  The bike support had broken and the bike was on the road but still in the rack and miraculously unscathed.  Luckily two young guys with a pickup truck were right behind us and they helped Graham remove the bike and the rack.  We were directed by the Ranger to Fort Sumner, only 15 miles away, and to a Windmill building company that did welding.  Two Hispanic welders, who came highly recommended, put our rack back together within two hours and we were back on the road.  That makes two thirds of the rack repaired, leaving only one third un repaired, that being the part the bike actually rests on. I try not to think about it.  

Such are the joys of the road, but what the heck – we still love it.

Corinne

Benalillo, AZ

Just saw Pat and Rick off on their trip to the Grand Canyon via Holbrook and Flagstaff.  We spent yesterday with them visiting Santa Fe – there is a train that runs from a station just down the road to downtown Santa Fe for $7 return – a real bargain. And a real bonus there was a free shuttle that linked the train station to the plaza and several other tourist spots.   We had a beautiful day and wandered through the downtown core visiting the plaza and the beautiful churches.  There was a volunteer in the cathedral who gave us a great overview of the history of the church, which was also the history of Santa Fe since a church has stood on this spot for almost 500 years.   The museums were all free after 5 so we visited the New Mexico History Museum and the Governor’s Palace which was occupied by governors of New Mexico from 1610 to 1910 with only one exception – the 19 years of the Pueblo Indian Uprising when the Indians turned it into a pueblo.  We took Pat and Rick to the State Capital to see the art – which was as awesome as we remembered it.  We were once again impressed with the public art and the architecture of Sante Fe – one of the most beautiful cities on the continent.  

Corinne and Pat with St. Francis Dancing on Water

We had supper in Tamasito’s at the train station (recommended by two different locals we met on the train) and had good, substantial Mexican meals – Pat and Corinne especially enjoyed the margaritas.   

Providing superfluous assistance before departure

Since our last blog we have visited the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert National Park, and spent 3 nights in Canyon de Chelly National Monument,  which we enjoyed immensely.  Camping is free in the National Monument (until May when the Navajo Council is taking over the campground and charging a fee)with great access to the visitor center and the two rim drives.   This canyon is unique among the canyons we have visited so far, since there are Navajo farms on the canyon floor and the whole canyon and the hogans, sheds and farm fields give it a very different feel.  Since it is home to some Navajo families access is restricted to one trail or going with a Navajo guide.   We visited most of the outlooks on the bike and walked the 3 mile trail down to White House, one of the pueblo ruins.  We saw the places where the Spanish clashed with the Navajo’s .  The canyon was apparently empty when the Navajos arrived 600 years ago and they adopted it as the center of their homeland and would retreat there when invaded (by Apache’s, Spanish, Mexicans and finally the Americas under Kit Carson).  

White House Trail, Canyon de Chelly NM

We met an Fredrick T. Henry,  artist in residence in the visitors center who told us that Amsel Adams took a picture of his mother holding his baby brother in 1942.  The picture was published in a book about Adams and the family found the picture in the book in 1992 (not having been aware of its existence).  So the family took a picture of their 80 year old mother in the same spot, holding the book open to that page.   The artist had made some pendants using an engraving of the mother holding the baby and we got one for Corinne to remember the moment.