Last Day

Inky relaxing in the trailer - he's saying "hi"!

3/9/09 Monday
Well today we decided would probably be our last day of the trip and we headed out on I70 towards Columbus once again. We were quite happy with the prospect of being home this night. We really enjoyed the trip and look forward to the possibility of doing it again but adding another month to it to allow more time for exploring the southwest and western part of the country. The drive today seemed pretty easy with not too much traffic and we arrived safely home late afternoon.

Some of our conclusions and comments:

This is an amazing country made that way by the diversity of both the people and the geography. Having spent most of our lives east of the Mississippi we really enjoyed spending more than just a couple of days in the southwest and getting to be a little more "immersed" in the fauna, flora and people of the desert southwest. What we thought of as dull brown dry desert turned out to be very interesting. We just saw the beginning of the spring bloom but it was still beautiful and can only imagine what the full spring bloom is like when the desert is covered with spring wild flowers. The geography is really amazing with the highest density of National Parks of anywhere in the country with some of the most beautiful scenery.

We'll never forget Leonard Knight and his Salvation Mountain. A man really dedicated to spreading the Gospel in his own way. Google on Leonard Knight if you want to learn more about him.

We'll remember the people and pastors of the Beatitudes United Church of Christ in Phoenix. They really made us feel at home there and invited us to share in a number of activities. Picking oranges with a men's group and delivering them to a food shelf, attending Wednesday evening sessions of "Living the Questions", having weekly lunch with the men's group, etc. And of course attending Worship on Sunday mornings. Thanks for all of that.

Thanks to cousin Ruth for suggesting that we visit the Salton Sea, Slab City, and Salvation Mountain which turned out to some of the highlights of our trip. Her knowledge of the history and people of the California deserts is impressive. If you get a chance please check out her blog site for progress on her latest book publishing and some of her poetry, photography and writings on the deserts and the people of the deserts. She made us aware of the delicate balance of people and nature in the west and southwest. How much water do we really need to divert from rivers to supply people and water golf courses far from where nature took the water originally? When humans mess with Mother Nature they invariably really make a mess of things.
Her site is www.ruthnolan.blogspot.com

Thanks to cousins Beverly and Joe for their hospitality and showing us around Palm Desert and Palm Springs once again.

A few comments about our Interstate highway system. It's a great system for getting across the country but there is a lot of it that is falling apart. I would put a percentage of only around 50% of the Interstate system that we drove on as being solid good highway. There are so many places where it is rough (poor contractors or specs), approaches to bridges and bridge surface falling apart and so on. To my surprise the best Interstate that we were on was I70 once we got into Ohio, I71 up to west of Akron, but then I76 to Akron leaves a lot to be desired. I hope that some of those dollars that the government is going to spend on our infrastructure goes to fix our Interstates.

Thanks to those of you who took the time to look at this blog. It's a record for us of part of our Life's Journey but if you liked it too then that was good. Life is a Journey and you never know what's around the next corner. You might want to check back occasionally for additions if you are interested.

A Pileated What

3/9/09 Monday
We woke up to blue skies and the sound of a woodpecker working on a tree close to the trailer. We had breakfast and washed dishes to make ready to travel. Upon going outside to disconnect the water line the woodpecker was still having breakfast at the top of a tall tree with a couple dead limbs at the top of it. I got the binoculars and checked it out. It was a large pileated woodpecker really having a good time up there. After hearing him (her?) up there for quite a while I went to get Joan so that she could see it and would you believe he had left by the time she got out of the trailer.

It was a pretty nice partly sunny day but the wind was strong, gusty and out of the south. With this partial crosswind the fifth wheel still held the road well. I have found it amazing how much better the fifth wheel handles compared to a pull trailer.

We went on around Indianapolis and got to I think it was Spiceland, IN. We checked the guide for campgrounds and found one and called them. They said that there wouldn't be anyone in the office but that we could just pick a site and pay the $25 fee in the morning. There wouldn't be any water available however because they had not turned it on for the season and the possibility of freezing still existed. We pulled into the campground and decided that we wouldn't stay there as we would probably be the only transients there and everything looked pretty closed down. We decided to opt out for the nearest Walmart that Amelia (GPS) could find. We checked her database and found one just a couple miles away. We picked a quiet spot in the parking lot and called it home for the night. A free night sure beat paying $25. As you probably know Walmart is happy to have RV'ers stay overnight as it usually means a few sales.

On to Springfield, MO

3/7/09 Saturday
We continued our trek on I40 until we got to Oklahoma City and then changed to I44 to take a more northeast route. Old Route 66 does the same and parallels I44 on to St. Louis. We continued on to Springfield, MO where we stayed overnight at a KOA. It was pretty much an uneventful day.

3/8/09 Sunday
In the morning on the way out of Springfield we stopped at a Grizzley woodworking tools store. It is pretty much a candy store for woodworkers and they have about any type of power woodworking tool made. Their headquarters are in the state of Washington but Springfield must be a central warehousing and shipping point for the middle of the country.

Oklahoma Wind

After Glenrio we got back on I40 and headed across the Texas panhandle passing by Amarillo. Just before Amarillo on the south side of the highway is the Cadillac Ranch which we looked at in passing. In retrospect I wish that we would have stopped and taken a closer look and taken some pictures. The display is a group of Cadillacs partially buried in the ground. Is it art or junk? I guess it is in the eye of the beholder. There is more information and pictures at the following websites:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/cadillac_ranch
http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/2220

We made it all the way across the panhandle and into Oklahoma. It's sure a lot shorter across the panhandle of Texas than across the wider part on I20 that we took on the way out.

We decided to stop overnight at Weatherford, Oklahoma. We looked in our handy campground guide and saw that there was an RV park on old Rte 66 at Weatherford so we programmed Amelia (our GPS) to take us there. The park was owned and operated by a nice lady who took some time to talk with us about living on Rte 66. She said that her and her husband had raised their family there and lived there during the hayday of Rte 66 before I40 was completed. Her place was on Rte 66 and looking out from the front of her property not real far away was I40 and in between was a large Kodak plant. She had run the park for the last 60 years.

She related that her husband worked for the railroad and when the children were small she wanted to buy a movie camera to record the children. So while her husband was away she and the kids would go across the highway and pick cotton for the farmer there. She said that it was hard work but she eventually bought the camera. It would have been nice to spend some time with her and learn more about when Route 66 was the main road through town and the subsequent changes that I40 brought about. Maybe next time!

Weatherford had a complex of 98 wind generators over a 66 acre area close to town. Most of these are installed and I think owned by Florida Power and Light which seems odd at first but I guess it doesn't matter if it's a long way from Florida as long as there's a power grid nearby to insert the power.

Each generator generates 1.5 megawatts of power. The town has an information display in a park across the the town hall that explains the operation of the windmills. They have one of the blades on display there.

The blades for the windmill are 122 feet long and as you can see below the bolt circle to attach it to the generator is almost as tall as I am.

The blade is quite wide. It's 262 feet from the ground to the center of the hub on the generator, with the blades installed the propellers are 252 feet in diameter. I think this adds up to about 390 feet from the ground to the top of the propeller. These things are big!

A Ghost Town

After staying last night in the KOA in Tucumcari, NM we continued east on I40 and into the panhandle of Texas. I had done a little reading on the internet about Route 66 and had read that there was a ghost town just off of I40 at exit 0. It didn't give any information about the town and I pictured it as a southwest cowboy type ghost town and thought that would be neat to see.

We got to exit 0 and took it. It didn't say which way to go off the exit so when we got to the stop sign we looked to the north which was open country and didn't see anything that way so we turned south. In a short distance we were surprised to come to a section of old Route 66 and looking to the right we could see an abandoned small town. My minds eye picture of a ghost town suddenly changed from an old west ghost town to what was a late 50's ghost town. How times do change: stagecoaches and horses giving way to hardpacked, graveled dirt roads traveled by early autos giving way to a paved national highway (Rte 66), giving way to Interstate superslabs. Each time bypassing the old and creating new opportunities. Now there are McDonald's and Cracker Barrels and giant gas depots replacing the family cafes and small but full service gas stations with large overhangs supported by a couple of posts and a couple of as pumps underneath. Do you think that someday the superslab and Cracker Barrels will be abandoned? Quite possibly and history does repeat itself!

Back to the ghost town. There appeared to be maybe 5 miles or so of old Rte 66 that has been maintained but has become an integral part of an access road that runs parallel to some distance to I40, probably on the same roadbed as Rte 66. There appeared to be a relatively new town sign identifying the ghost town as Glenrio, Texas. There were a few houses off to the south which I suspect still have a Glenrio address. In front of one of the smaller abandoned buildings was a set of about six or eight mailboxes. I suspect that the building may have been the Glenrio post office at one time.

Below is an old abandoned gas station. Can't you just imagine busy highway 66 in front and cars pulling in for service or a bag of ice and making sure that they had enough gas to get to Tucumcari heading west.

Another gas station maybe!

The section of old 66 through town.

Maybe an overnight stay below-

How about a sandwich or cup of coffee? People probably took the time to sit down and talk while they ate. No cup holders in cars then.

My guess is this was the "Finest in Texas" motel and cafe.

The "Mother Road", Route 66.

On To Tucumcari

From Holbrook, AZ we headed east on I40 crossing over into New Mexico. I had one more picture from the Painted Desert that I wanted to share. It shows petroglyphs on a rock that had been carved there by Native Americans around 1300 and later. The National Park sign posted this site as the Newspaper Rocks. As I stood there looking at them I wondered if these could have been political messages of the day. More likely they were crop reports, family comments, where to find water, etc.
You will probably have to click on the picture to enlarge it enough to see the petroglyphs.



















Below is a monument to Route 66 in the Painted Desert close to I40. The road was actually a little to the left where the telephone poles remain with the wires stripped off long ago. The remnants of the road bed still remains also.
















As we were heading into Albuquerque, NM we were looking for a place to make a rest stop when we noticed a sign for the Petroglyph National Monument. This National Monument is only about 6 miles north of I40 about in the center of town. The welcome center there is very nice and the rangers there are helpful in directing you to hiking trails that will take you to the petroglyph locations. You have to drive to get to some of the trails. We didn't take time to hike in to see the petroglyphs as we wanted to get a few more miles in before the end of the day. Below is the headquarters for the national monument welcome center.

















As we headed east to Tucumcari Joan began telling about a trip that her family made by train to Arizona when she was 12 or 13 years old. As they were heading west the air conditioning broke down in the train car that they were riding in. It was in the summer and very hot so the train stopped in Tucumcari to try and make some repairs and give everyone a short break. They got off the train for a while and Joan and her cousin went and found some ice cream. We decided to try and find the station and see if it was still there.

We looked over a small town map that we had picked up somewhere and pinpointed where we thought the station should be and sure enough it was still there. Below is a photo of how it looks now. We concluded that the town was keeping it in enough repair to keep it from degrading but that's about it. It would seem that it would be a good setting for some type of business but it may be a little too far off the main highway to draw people. The architecture is beautiful and it would be a real shame to be torn down.




































Joan trying to hitch a ride on the platform below.
















Looking down the main line.




















A business close to the train station. The "Dead End" sign to the left of the building may expain the future there.

"Hit The Road Jack" - I think that was a song, wasn't it?

On Monday March 2rd we started the trip back home to Ohio. I wanted to be back for a meeting at church on the evening of March 11th and thought that would give us time for a relaxed trip back and some time to stop and smell the flowers along the way if we found some. We had picked up the fifth wheel from storage on Saturday as we had to have it out on the last day of the month or we would have to pay for another whole month. We stretched the rules slightly by letting it sit on the street in front of Tracey and Anjan's house for two nights. The HOA rules say only one night but hey - we have Ohio plates and they wouldn't want to treat out of towner's too bad.

We decided to come back via I40 and keep our fingers crossed a late winter storm did not catch us in route. Tracey and Anjan live on the northwest corner of Phoenix in Peoria and just a couple of blocks from Rte. 101 which circles the city. We got on 101 heading east over to I17 and took the ramp north towards Flagstaff.

Phoenix is at an elevation of about 1,100 above sea level and Flagstaff is up in the so-called high desert area at 6,900 ft. It's pretty much a steady climb although at times it gets a little steep and made the diesel growl quite a bit. The geography changes quite a bit from the brown, flat and low plant growth of Phoenix to the rolling forested area around Flagstaff. In Flagstaff we turned onto I40 and headed east. Flagstaff is on the old historic Route 66 also known as the "Mother Road". Route 66 was the first major highway across the country connecting Chicago with Los Angeles. I40 replaced Route 66 but remnants remain that many people try to retrace.

We made a stop at the Meteor Crater which is just a few miles south of I40 and close to Winslow, AZ. The meteor that created the crater hit the earth an estimated 50,000 years ago traveling at over 28,000 miles per hour and weighing over 300 tons. It made quite an impact and crater.

In line with our philosophy of relaxed travel we had targeted Holbrook, AZ as a stopping point for the day. The next morning we went through the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest.




A friendly raven that we thought was going to get in the truck when we left the door open. He was just begging for a handout.

Some of the painted desert.

End of a petrified log.

Sitting on a petrified log. Would be very hard on a chain saw. Picture was taken by George, a visitor from Germany. He said it was his 10th trip there, it was only our second.

Wigwam Motel in Holbrook on an old piece of Route 66. Check the vintage autos.
"Have you Slept in a Wigwam Lately?"

More teepees.
By the way - Do you know where a bee goes when he has to go to the bathroom?
Ans. - a BP of course.
Sorry Bill I know that's your joke!

I took a look inside one and they're a nice room.

The visitor center at the meteor crater and road leading up to it. Extreme visibility!

The meteor crater. More Information at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteor_Crater

A Trip on the New Metro

On February 28th we all went and took a ride on the new Metro in Phoenix. It has only been in operation for about two months. We rode the entire length and it's a great ride. We got on around Glendale Rd. and rode it out to the east end which gave us a nice tour of Phoenix especially the downtown area. The ride is really smooth and for the most part the announcements of stations were good. The only downside that I feel is that it is installed in the median area of the roads that it travels on. Basically the engineer driving the trains has to follow the same traffic signals that the auto traffic follows. It's still a nice ride and quicker to get downtown if you happen to live close to a terminal.

Left - looking down the track.

The Bank of America building downtown with the setting setting sun illuminating the side. Maybe they can keep the doors open with the bailout.

Didn't check to see who this building belongs to. Interesting architecture but seems to be missing windows. Maybe there are no corner offices with windows!

Hanging Out in Phoenix

Once back to Phoenix we hung out at Tracey and Anjan's again.

Anjan spent the month while we were there on a surgical rotation as part of his medical internship training. It was interesting to listen to his day's activities. Tracey was pretty busy with her veterinarian work but she had a number of days off that we enjoyed doing things together or just hanging out at the house.

I did a little work around the house and mowed the yard as below. Getting in practice for May back home.

I read about a local car show and went out to that and saw some fine specimens.

A Ford GT.

With the weather so nice and having read about the great fishing at Lake Pleasant just north of Phoenix I bought a 5 day license and spent a few days trying my luck. All I can say is that those were expensive fish that I didn't catch.

The side benefit of going to Lake Pleasant to fish was that it gave us time to enjoy the emerging spring around the mountains. The mountains had gone from brown to green while were in Arizona and the wildflowers and cactus were just beginning to bloom. Someone said that we should hang around for another month to enjoy it more. Maybe next year.

Picture on right shows tips of the octitillo cactus arms on left.

My favorite on left but don't know the name !

Heading Back to Phoenix

After a great long weekend in Palm Desert it was time to head back to Phoenix. We spent a while picking some citrus fruit and then hit I10 to head back.

Click image to enlarge!

In the condo area that Joe and Bev live there are numerous orange, mandarin, lemon, and grapefruit trees. If no one picks the fruit they go to waste so we did what we could to help prevent that by picking about a bushel of fruit.

Bev and I with a prize grapefruit.

On the way back we were a little hungry so decided to stop at a crossroads on I10 call Desert Center. It is about halfway between Indio and Blythe in the middle of the desert. I had always been a little curious about the town (?) that has a population of 125. We found about a half dozen buildings close to I10 including a post office, the cafe above, and a small store. From the outside it's one of those places that you hesitat for a moment wondering if you really want to go in but knowing that it was a long ways to anything we went in. We were welcomed by a friendly waitress and opted for cheeseburgers. We sat at the bar one stool away from an interesting individual dressed in bicycle gear and then I remembered the bicycle we saw outside with the small two wheeled trailer loaded with gear. Keeping in mind that this place was in the middle of no where and in a desert I became curious and asked him where he was from and where he was going. He was a little indefinite in his answer just that he was riding around in the desert seeing what he could see. Apparently another "desert rat".

I went to Wikipedia to see what they had to say about the town and found a number of interesting things. The town was founded in 1921 by a man named Stephen Ragsdale and nicknamed "Desert Steve" - another "desert rat". He started pumping gas to people traveling through from a 55 gallon drum. He also made a tow truck from a Model T and eventually started the cafe that we ate in. Hard to imagine!

There is an interesting history that unfolds over the years surrounding the town. It involves the founding of Kaiser Permanente there and probably the first prepaid health care program. General Patton being there to train for the invasion of Rommel in Africa.

For a short read that will probably leave you amazed click the link below.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_Center,_California

We stopped at a roadside rest area in the desert and the above sign gives an omnious warning.

We kinda watched where we stepped.