Sunday December 20th, 2009

Hello Family and Friends!

We’re behind on posting obviously, so I’m not going to try and recreate each day since Saturday, but will share the second day of driving.

On Sunday the 20th we set out on the road about 6:30 in the morning. We made very few stops and made it Show Low, Arizona, about 5 p.m. That’s when the fun began. Paul follows a blog from an RVer that grew up in Show Low and wanted to dine there and maybe take a picture or two. I looked up some restaurants on the Blackberry and we found several right on the highway.

Nearing the restaurant with a pirate-sounding bar, we dove into an unknown dealer new car lot to park for the meal. Issue 1: the car lot didn’t offer the ability to drive around. Instead, we got to practice unhooking the tow car and re-hooking so he could turn around in the available space. Issue 2: The restaurant did not serve beer. Issue 3: The pirate bar was upstairs from the restaurant and after making our way up all those stairs it was closed for a private party. We opted to leave the family restaurant and went across the street to a New York themed sports bar/restaurant. Food was marginal, but service was good. A couple coffees and some food and we were ready to keep on. We lost a good hour and a half from our excursion in Show Low. I don’t believe we’ll be visiting there again. Sorry Nick the blogger.

We continued on the route well after dark and found only a couple nice things about what was to come. I cannot write succinctly enough to describe to you our trek through the mountains. In the moonless dark, watching for moose, deer, cows, general animals, falling rocks, ice on the bridge, vehicles passing the center line, at least 500 35-mph hairpin turns. The bright spots are that the motor home features a grade brake and the road surface was good. It required every ounce of the coffee-fueled energy we both could muster. The Co-Pilot software Paul’s daughter bought us a couple years came in very handy. I could zoom in to the extent to see the really really bad turns as opposed to normal curves in the road. Should u ever travel this route and use GPS, the blob that appears is actually the 12-or-so back-to-back hairpin turns. I don’t believe we’ll return that way.

There’s a town whose name escapes me most of the way down that trek. Driving through town my mother called needing computer help. I was busy talking to her when Paul noticed cars were flashing lights, honking and pointing to the tow car. One of the straps from re-securing the car in Show Low had come loose. We didn’t do an interim check like he usually does. He got smart after the strap loss in Casey though, and puts a safety chain around the car’s axle. We stopped at a wide spot on the side of the road and a helpful police officer parked behind us providing extra light and safety. Thank you to that officer, whoever you are.

Needless to say we were pretty wiped after having survived that mountain drive in the dark. We got through the town and SURPRISE we weren’t done with the sharp turns and rise/falls of the mountain roads. Either they were less intense or we were immune because I don’t think I stomped my imaginary brake once.

At some point earlier in the day I realized that we hadn’t secured a place to stay that night. I got out the handy Woodall's campground directory and found a park on the southeast side where we’d be coming in. My criteria were decent Woodall’s rating and advertised wifi. We reached Shiprock RV Park in Apache Junction about 11 p.m. at night.

We pulled into the park and didn’t know where our spot was. Captain Obvious was quick to greet us and share that he knew where our spot was, but that the park didn’t like people arriving at night. Thank you Captain Obvious, I’m glad you got to share your thoughts.

We reached our spot and had to unhook. The spots here are not pull through. We’re getting pretty good at hooking and un-hooking the car so that went pretty quickly. A new neighbor helped him get backed into the spot and was very welcoming. We still had to level the unit and hook up before we could think about sleeping. The last of our hasty packing at home netted us extra copy paper boxes and laundry baskets all over the bed. Once the electricity and water were hooked up and the slides out, we had to dig out the bed. I did my best to stay out of Paul’s way. He was exhausted, I was exhausted and I had to work at 7 a.m.

I’ll close this post and create a new one about our encounters for this week. Just to pique your interest, I’ll tell you that it involves smuggling.

Thanks for hanging out with us,
Ann

Saturday, December 19th
Tucumcari or bust
A Long, long, long day in the RV. Fortunately the seats and cockpit system are designed fairly well so when we did finally stop, Paul wasn’t all kinked up.
We left the house about 8 a.m., a little later than we wanted, but as usual we underestimated the time it would take to get things out to the RV and clean up the house a bit. The driveway is still obscured by snow, so Paul filled the RV at Casey’s and then drove to the grocery store parking lot to load the car.
We made a quick stop in Casey to check the tow straps as a safety precaution, and it was a good thing we did because one of the straps was gone. Paul prefers the straps that we had for the old car hauler because he modified them slightly to feature a security pin to keep the hook on. He found it odd that the entire strap was gone. He didn’t have to dig far to find one of the straps that came with the American Car Dolly. They don’t actually fit as well around the tire and the securing mechanism doesn’t seem as secure. The straps are a thinner compound than the old ones, however, so as it wraps around the ratchet-bar-thing (technical term), it actually wraps more times.
Paul had planned, let me repeat this: had planned, to go south down 29 to Nebraska City and then south on 75 which was a fast way to get to Topeka. The road was in fairly good shape for Nebraska and was a really good road as soon as we crossed into Kansas.
We stopped in Auburn, NE at an ancient and well-attended diner named The Darling Café. It looks like a turn of the 20th century multi-purpose building that may have contained a hotel, gas station and restaurant. We didn’t have the camera when we went in to eat, so I’ll not try and depict the restaurant through words, you would be here for days and I don’t get paid by the adjective. Paul did take a picture of the outside as we were preparing to leave.
We hit the Kansas border just a little after noon, which we felt was good time considering all the snow still on the roads. A perfect non-descript winter-gray weather day for traveling.
We blew by Topeka and didn’t stop again until Abilene where we had to get gas. There was no feeling of comfort that we could make the next 20 miles to a truck stop in Salina. There was no truck stop in Abilene so we crammed into a gas station and double-swiped. We got out of there as fast as possible and continued west to 156 on the other side of Salina. We started our south-westernly descent on 156, which continues on as 56. The roads continued to be in good shape. Although there was less snow on the ground, it was still overcast and uninspiring.
If you didn’t know, Kansas the state has the most significant elevation change between borders. That was readily apparent as we hit significant hills which used all available engine resources. Paul did well to get a running start at big hills whenever possible. It reminded me a lot of driving my mom’s worn out ’96 Mustang from De Soto to Winterset many moons ago. That car couldn’t get out of its own way, so you really had to use the hills to maintain any sort of momentum. Excuse my digression. 
Just south of Great Bend, the weather finally cleared. Warm sunshine filled the RV and blinded our eyes as the afternoon went on. We put the shades down, sunglasses on and remained happily blinded. No complaining about the sun today. It was a balmy 40 degrees and we felt rejuvenated. The snow was melting off the roof of the RV and running water down the sides and showering those behind us. It felt glorious.
We pressed on from Great Bend finally stopped again in Dodge City at the Flying J for dinner at 6 p.m. We still had quite a distance to go and had been on the road for 10 hours. As a passenger I cat napped frequently except when navigation was needed. Paul, thankfully, did not. A cup of coffee with dinner and he was still in “Go” mode.
Even though we weren’t there long, we were a little discombobulated when we left. The Flying J wasn’t where we thought we were so we had to make a little scenic route through town and significant road construction, but we made it back to the correct road.
There was very little moon last night, and I expect the combination of dark, unfamiliar roads and the long day slowed us down some. At times the road was only two lanes so it required extra concentration from Paul to avoid bouncing off oncoming traffic or barrels and cones. He didn’t hit anything though; I was very nervous but quiet.
We drove through Meade, Kansas, about 8 p.m. and I must tell you they did a superb job decorating for Christmas. All several blocks of Main Street were canopied in strings of lights, it was a pleasure to drive under them.
About 9 p.m. we reached Liberal. The next major town after Liberal (Guymon, Ok) was another 35 miles away, so although we were still a few hours shy of the Tucumcari goal, I insist it was not a bust. Bust is a relative notion when you do not really have to get anywhere within the time you have available.
The drive tomorrow will be very long as well. We still aren’t sure of the best way to get to Phoenix once we cross the border. There’s a stinking mountain range all over the state.
We are pleased to be back on the road and thanks for reading along to follow our resumed journey.
Ann

12/19 and 12/20 Interim

I created this lengthy and enjoyable post for 12/19 on Paul's laptop and the power supply has died. Grrrr!  We have arrived (albeit 11 p.m. local time) and will catch you up on the action-packed weekend hopefully today.

Ann

Back on the Road!

We are so excited to report that the family medical circumstances have improved to the extent we are able to return to the road.  The medical conclusion was favorable, so we will travel free of fear, God willing.

A flurry of activity this morning to finish re-loading items to the motorhome. We intend to make it to Tucumcary (sp?), New Mexico today which will be a very long drive. Paul expects 13 hours.

More later,
Ann

Back Home.

Well, somethings are meant to be, others not.  Our RVing Adventure is one of those things that was just not meant to be.  We received a call about noon on Tuesday of  family emergency back home that required us to return home immediately, and will require us to be home for quite some time.

So  we want to thank all of you who followed our blog, but since we no longer will be traveling, we dont see any reason to continue this blog.

Thanks again, and best wishes to all of you who have read our blog.

Ann's First Day of Work on the Road

Today was Ann's first day of work on the road.  Because she didnt have the forty-five minute drive to work, she was able to sleep in a for about an extra hour this morning. Right at 8:00AM CST she logged on to her work website, and with her cell phone at her side, and papers scattered around, she began doing what she does as a business analyst.

Here is a before she started working, and an after she started working pic.

 

If you notice she has the same sweatshirt on she was wearing the pic in front of the sign at the BBQ place in Guthrie, OK.  We are calling it laundry conservation.

The weather here is nice today, so at lunch time we ate outside at our picnic table, and took a walk around the park.  Most of the people here are working in the area, therefore have prepared for the winter by using heat tape and insulation on there fresh water hoses.

Here is what a couple of others have done.

In the top picture, they wrapped the hose and hydrant with heat tape, then some kind of yellow tape, followed by some gray tape, and then placed the PVC over the whole thing, and then placed a garbage can over the hydrant.  I hope it doesnt get so cold as to need that much insulation, at least not while we are here!

The other picture shows that they just wrapped their hose and hydrant in foam insulation, and then taped it.  They have also used PVC to cover their sewer pipe.  Just shows how ingenious people can be.  I am planning on filling our onboard water tank, and disconnecting and draining our water hose.  We have not yet hooked up our sewer hose, so it wont  shouldnt be a problem.

When Ann gets done working about 4:30PM we are planning to make a trip to Camping World to get a few things we need, and didnt have, and a few things we need, and left at home.  Then it will be a trip to Joann's Fabric to buy some fleece with the Indianapolis Colts logo, as Ann is going to make her daughter Ali a snuggy.

Not sure what the rest of the evening will hold, but we are still having fun!

Paul

You Can Run, but You Can't Hide

That is one of the late Paul Harvey's favorite sayings.  The idea of snowbirding  is to go south where it is warm for the winter.  However, with the limitations of time that we had, we thought Oklahoma City would be a nice intermediary stop on our way to Arizona.  Even though it may not be as cool as Iowa, it is not as nice here as we hoped.  It looks like it will be in the high forties or low fifties most of the week.  It looks like this cold weather covers a good part of the country, and I am not sure we could go far enough south to avoid it, but we will live with it.

Today is really the first day we have had just to relax and begin to establish a routine.  We didnt get a very early start to the day, but that is ok.  Ann did take the time today to set up her "office" in the bedroom, and install her new HP 1005 Laserjet Printer on both our computers. Here is a pic of Ann's "office".

We had coffee, made a couple of shopping lists, and then headed off to Wally World to get some groceries.  Right across from the Wally World was an IHOP, so we decided it may cut down on our grocery bill if we ate before we went to buy groceries, and since it was almost noon, it was time to eat any way.

Although, we didnt really have to many things on our list, by the time we wandered around looking for things  we wanted to get  we ended up being there over an hour.  Back at the rig we stashed the groceries away, and then sat back to enjoy the rest of the afternoon; Ann playing Tibia(an online game), and I did some net surfing,  football watching, in between looking at the inside of my eye lids.

The adventure continues.

Paul

Oklahoma is OK!

Another interesting day on the road.  We left K-R Rv Park in Wichita, after enjoying a night of being serenaded by fire trucks and air planes, but you hardly heard the air planes because of the train whistles that seemed to go about every 20 minutes all night long.  We need to put more effort into finding RV parks that are a bit quieter.

Once on the road we passed over possibly one of the offending trains on our way south on Interstate 35.

Of course since the weather is still pretty nice here, there still is road construction.

Other than a couple of construction zones, the trip was pretty uneventful, and we found a local B-B-Q place in Guthrie Oklahoma so we stopped for lunch about 2:30PM, and I took a few pics of the place.

 

The front had some nice art work on it.

And here is Ann in front of a sign advertising the place.

The big line of traffic on the left is people trying to get into the only lane that goes to Interstate 35 south.  It appears to be poor planning to have a five lane road, and only one going to Interstate 35 South.

 

We arrived at Road Runner RV Park  on the south side of Oklahoma City about 4:00PM, got checked in, and got set up without incident.  Here are a couple of pics of our home for the next week.

 

This seems like a pretty nice park, with good wi-fi, and a few good TV stations.  Right now we are watching the remake of Godzilla.  Not necesarily a great movie, but sounds good with our built in surround sound.  Tomorrow we plan on doing some site seeing before Ann has to work on Monday.

Our plan right now is to stay here until next Saturday, and then head west, and maybe be in Arizona by Sunday, December 6, but as they say in the RV business;  our plans are chiseled in jello.

Looking forward to tomorrow.

Paul

Interesting Day!

Here it is about 5:00PM and we are at K-R Rv Park in Wichita, KS.

It has been an interesting and patience testing day. When we got ready to leave the Beto  Travel Center, we decided to weigh the rig, which is one thing every RVer should do.  When we went to pull on the scale, the transmission jerked a little, like it wasnt in gear, but then popped into gear.  We didnt think to much of it and pulled onto the scale and got weighed.  When we tried to pull off the scale; nothing!  You could shift the transmission into gear, but it wouldnt move.  Then the dash started lighting up like a Christmas tree, with mostly yellow and red lights; first the transmission warning light, the parking brake warning light, and then the transmission shifter warning light!  Things were not looking good.  No panic, relax, it is a nice day, and we are not on any schedule.  The first thought I had was that I was glad we signed up for Coach Net Roadside Service, at least they would pay for towing us to the closest repair facility.  Then I checked the transmission fluid level.  It was about a half quart low.  Shouldnt be the cause of the problem.  I tried to think of other possibilities, and was stumped, as the transmission had performed flawlessly to this point.  I couldnt imagine it just quitting.  We got the trouble book out for the Allison transmission, and the trouble book out for the Workhorse chassis, trying to find out what the lights actually meant, and if there was any troubleshooting that could be done.  Ann found the meaning of the transmission warning light.  It said if this light comes on, have your transmission looked at at the nearest Allison transmission dealer.  MMMMMMM this should be interesting, and again I was thankful we had the Coach-Net Service.  Then the thought occurred to me that since this transmission was computer controlled, maybe a reboot would be something to try.  Sure enough!  I shut the engine down, and when I restarted it the transmission, and shifter warning lights went out, but the parking brake one persisted.  That didnt bother me too much as parking was not near as much of a problem as going!   So Whew, we were on the road again!  But before we left we stopped to get gas, and got hear The BGs on the intercom, does it get any better than that?  While filling with gas, I added some transmission fluid, didnt want the funnel to drip on the ground, so I put the funnel away, shut the bay door, finished filling the tank, and then we got on the road headed toward Wichita.  About 5 miles down the road I wondered out loud;" did I put the dipstick back in, and did I shut the hood"?  So at the next exit we pulled off, and sure enough, the hood was still open and the dipstick was about to fall out on the ground.  Lucked out again!  The remaining trip to Wichita was pretty uneventful.  Good thing!  The only other problem was when we were setting up, I forgot to tell Ann, you need to have the side door closed when opening up the slide on that side, because if you dont, it will knock the trim bar off the door.  Remember Brian, how we know that?  It will not be hard to repair.  Probably do that tomorrow before we leave.

OK, time for dinner here.

Later

Paul

Adjusting to the Road

It is about 11:00 AM and we are at the Beto Junction Travel Center in Lebo Kansas. We arrived here about 9:00 AM after a short drive from the rest area we stayed at last night. We had a nice buffet breakfast and a few cups of coffee, then returned to the motorhome to get organized for the day. We put away a few more things that were in boxes or just laying on the floor, and are now online with our mifi to post the blog and see what is going on in the world today.

Here is where we stayed last night:

And here is where we are now:

 

That is about it for now.

Look for another post later today.

Paul

Day One - 11/26/09 Ann's Summary

Today was the day of reckoning. Hope you had a great Thanksgiving and had time to reflect upon what was important in your life.

We got up about 7 and started right away into preparations to leave, albeit a bit tired. Our favorite watering hole had spontaneous karaoke last night and we managed to stay till the end. 

Our two cats, June and Fat Cat, were delivered to my Mom this morning. They’ve known for awhile that we were leaving; watching us pack, move piles toward the door, and change our daily habits.  June is about 12 and Fat Cat around 13, this move will not be appreciated I’m sure. My mom has a 19 year old cat of her own as well as two dogs. Hopefully, through the sequestering process, the animals will be able to cohabitate. I will admit I am concerned.

Lots of choices made today around what to bring; there’s not much room for all the partially full jars and bottles of sauces and dressings typically found in your refrigerator.  We didn’t really have much else in the fridge since we had already started paring back.  We moved freezer stuff down to the deep freeze in the basement.  Hopefully the kids or Mom will stop by and help themselves to whatever’s left in the pantry.  There is definitely no frozen pizza in our foreseeable traveling future, the freezer in the RV is just too small. We did, however, bring some good cuts of meat from the deep freeze and left the hamburger. It’s the cheapest to replace.

I brought the sewing machine and 3 bags of material for projects I never did. I hope to pick up sewing again and a few other good habits. Again, time will tell.

In the haste to make it to the family dinner, Paul parked the motorhome on the street of the family member’s suburban neighborhood. That was great except there was a cul-de-sac at the end and the motorhome + car = 50 feet. When we got ready to leave Paul and his son-in-law unhooked the Toyota and managed to get it turned around in the cul-de-sac with a 75-point turn. The tow straps that came with the American Tow Dolly aren’t intuitive so Paul brought the old ones. That will be one of his projects to figure out once we park for awhile.

We left the family event about 6:30 and headed south to Kansas City. The KOA in Kansas City that’s open all year round is on the east side of the city, and out of the way as far as Paul was concerned. He wanted to get through Kansas City so we wouldn’t have to deal with city traffic. This motorhome is fairly wide, so you have to pay close attention and stay in your lane. It scares me when a car is alongside of us, but he does just fine so I try to close my eyes or use other diversionary tactics.

Paul did a fine job of driving. I basically fell asleep as soon as we crossed the Missouri border and slept all the way to Kansas City. Between packing, eating and about 5 hours sleep the night before, I was exhausted.

The Co-pilot software we have for Paul’s laptop is ok, but isn’t the most user friendly. Had trouble identifying travel centers or rest areas where we could sleep for the night. South of Olathe, Paul saw a billboard for a big travel center so we intended to stop there. We encountered the rest area by Ottawa, Kansas first, and decided to sleep there.

We traveled 301 miles today.

Rainy Day Preparations

Two days to takeoff!  Hope we remember the important things, at least most of them.  Sometimes it is easy to forget that we are not going off into the outback for years.  There will be stores most of the places we go, in case we forget something.

Today it has rained most of the day.  A check of the Panorama School site on KCCI's Schoolnet Website shows we have received almost three fourths of an inch. I hope it doesnt rain so much we cant get the motorhome out it's parking place behind the garage.

Some of the things we thought we should get before we leave were some new racks for the Sharp combination microwave/convection oven. They arrived today, along with the last part I needed for our cell phone/air card wireless amplifier system. I bought the parts on ebay, but they are made by Wilson Electronics.  One of the issues we have deal with with Ann working remotely, is to make sure she has cell phone and computer connectivity. Ann decided to upgrade her cell phone to a Blackberry Tour, and to get a Verizon mi-fi wireless router. To extend cell phone, and mi-fi coverage I purchased a wireless amplifier system, which includes a Wireless Dual-Band SOHO Cellular/PCS Amplifier (801245),  a RV / Trucker Spring-Mount Cellular Antenna (301133) a, Dual-Band Panel Antenna (301135), some cable, a bracket, and a couple of connectors.  I havent got it all assembled yet, but it should extend our range by quite a bit.

Well I am going to post this, so I can get to the Post Office and mail off some winter stuff to Adam.

More Later,

Paul

Another Day of Preparation

This is Paul posting today.  Well, Ann showed the new blog.  Looked pretty cool, but I had to spend some time today adding a few widgets to it; including a "site meter", "a "recent comments" section, a pic of the motorhome, and a list of some of the blogs I read on a regular basis.  I tried adding a "weather" widget, but it didnt work.  Maybe I will work on it some more tomorrow.

Also, today I did a little more preparation; including making sure the new American Car Tow Dolly would work with Ann's Toyota, and measuring the trunk of the Toyota to see how much stuff we can get in it, packing my golf clubs in a storage compartment, preparing other items to load into the motorhome.  Hopefully we will be ready to go on Thursday.

Tomorrow I plan on taking some pics and adding them to the blog.

It is getting down to the wire!

Until tomorrow,

Paul

First Blog Post

Well, this is our attempt at blogging. Paul doesn't know it yet, but I'll show it to him when I post. Many people have shown interest in following our travels, so hopefully this will work out. I'm sure the writing and organization will improve as we become more experienced, but I hope you will enjoy it just the same.

As of today, I'm still wandering through the house digging in cupboards and cabinets. It seems everywhere I look I find stashed cardboard: boxes from the cell phone 4 phones ago, the digital camera from 5 years ago, and much, much more.

Paul looked at the weather today and determined it really isn't nice anywhere in the general direction we're going after Thanksgiving. We'd like to avoid 40 and precipitation if at all possible. After some searching we found one bright spot; Oklahoma City. Seems there it's only going to be occasional showers and a better temperature than Denver and New Mexico. Tentatively, for today, we're thinking of going to Oklahoma City for a week while the weather system passes. Then we'll head to Phoenix.

One bright spot of cleaning, I found a really old version of Visio on CD (version 5) that I can use on my laptop for work. It has the shapes and exports to a .jpg, which is all I'm really worried about.

We had an early Thanksgiving at my folks' place. Mom has developed a cold, but still managed to create an excellent meal. Ali was nice and went to pick up Andy after work so that they both could participate in what is likely our last family meal for awhile. She has coordinated to bring him back down to the house on Tuesday so maybe we can have some more family time before going. We'll see what happens. Mom and Paul presented Paul and I with their Christmas gifts for us tonight; a pair of fabulous heavy-duty super cool reclining lounge chairs from Cabelas. We will definitely put them to good use.

We took out a lot of kitchen supplies to the motorhome, so other than food, we're on track to not short ourselves of anything major. Bathroom stuff has been loaded in the motorhome already except for a few bath towels.

We decided to take the electric couch out of the motorhome since it's not that comfortable and we don't need it for sleeping arrangements. There is one recliner already in there and our plan was to take Paul's current chair with us in place of the couch. Unfortunately, it will not be back from repair by the time we need to leave. So this past Friday, November 20th, 2009, Paul went shopping for a new chair.

Paul's daughter, Shanda, met us for lunch and shopping for furniture. She is a pro at fit, function, and feasibility when it comes to shopping. The first stop was to Homemakers where we have purchased all of our past furniture. For a gargantuan store, they sure don't have any chair stock. The few Paul found that he liked they didn't have in stock. Paul went on to American by himself and was re-met by Shanda after she ran some errands. Luckily he found a very suitable recliner and Shanda was most generous and provided it as a past/future birthday/Christmas/birthday gift.

Taking out the couch freed up space in the living room, and we'll bring an end table from home to put in between the chairs. While the couch is safely removed, the seat belts for the couch are not. Paul could crawl under the motorhome and remove them, but I don't want to run the risk of losing them, so I need to sew up some handy little drawstring bags or such to disguise them. Fortunately I have lots of neutral colored fabric scraps which will work just fine for this occasion. The problem, of course, is time. We'll see if I get them done. Right now, they're banded up with wire ties so at least they're out of the way.

That's all I can think of for now. Going to close this post for the night, and I'm sure I'll think of more things to say tomorrow.

Until then,
Ann