Life Is What Happens While You’re Making Other Plans

In case you haven’t noticed, quite a few months have passed since our last posting.  We were so busy “coping” that there hasn’t much time or energy left over for composing.  The RV presented us with a number of issues that needed immediate resolution.  In addition, there were  a number of non-coach-related problems that also demanded prompt attention.

Our last posting found us somewhere in the south-central U.S., decrying the heat and humidity every step of the way.  To add salt to the wound, the washer/dryer combo in the coach developed a tic (or maybe it was a tick).  The dial kept going round and round with no obvious relationship to what cycle was happening inside the device.  A phone diagnosis was made by the distributor and a part shipped to our destination in Louisiana.  Meanwhile we’d just wait ‘til we ran out of underwear and then hit a laundromat.  We made brief stops in Mt. Vernon, Illinois and Caruthersburg, Missouri and in Kensett, Arkansas which was the site of a Civil War battle known as The Battle of Whitney’s Lane by the South and The Skirmish of Whitney’s Lane by the North.  Either the North underplayed it because they lost or the South overplayed it because they won.  In either case, the Texas troops that came to the South’s rescue later evolved into the Texas Rangers.  Or so the story goes.

Much earlier in our journey, the shower door had fallen off and had to be repaired.  Remember that?  Well, then the refrigerator door fell off at 6:30 one morning.  Fortunately it did not require much in the way of repair.  And then Howie had to rebuild the shore power plug in 100 degree heat and what must have been 99.9% humidity.  And, of course, the a/c couldn’t function until the repair was made.

While we were at a Corps of Engineers park on the banks of the Arkansas River, we made the mistake of taking the advice of a total stranger regarding a “fine dining experience” in Star City.  Not only did the GPS take us cross-lots on dirt (and mud) roads but when we finally arrived the food was hugely expensive and lousy.  Both our meals arrived stone cold and the waiter had an attitude when we sent it back for re-heating.  Usually restaurants give you too much food.  Not this place.  We had itty-bitty pieces of steamed grouper topped with a heaping tablespoon of shrimp etouffee.   We both foraged for snacks when we got back to the coach. 

On our final day on the banks of the Arkansas, some severe weather was approaching so we hustled to get on the road ahead of it.  We made the longish jaunt to Monroe, Louisiana in good order and eventually got settled in.  If you ever find yourselves in Monroe with some time to kill, head on over to the Visitor and Convention Bureau and have a chat with Dorothy.  She’s a delight, y’all, and very helpful.  We were only vaguely aware of the Duck Commander phenomena and definitely didn’t realize we were at the epicenter of all the fuss.  So Dorothy pointed us in the direction of DC Headquarters where I acquired a copy of Miss Kay’s cookbook.  I was disappointed the book did not contain the recipe for banana pudding with caramel that I’d been hoping for.  But it wasn’t long before I found a cookbook which does.

For some reason I had really high hopes for Alexandria, Louisiana but it turned out to be a rather depressed and depressing city.  A military base closure caused a severe down-turn in the economy and the town fathers have not yet figured a way to replace it and get things humming again.  After just one day we were eager to hit the road for Lafayette for an extended visit with fellow RVers, Rose and John.  We indulged in some serious antiquing, drove through swamps and spotted this tall skinny house with some less-than-welcoming signage, and feasted on Rose’s Cajun cooking.  While John and Howie tackled some RV repairs, Rose and I sat around drinking coffee and solving most of the world’s problems.  The solution we came up with was to say screw it and have another glass of wine.

We left Lafayette just in time to avoid moving up a full dress size and made a stop in Beaumont, Texas to prepare ourselves for another few days of boondocking.  Not only did we discover that repairs to the washer/dryer didn’t work but the lock on the coach’s one and only door was broken beyond simple repair.  It’s just a good thing one of us was still in the coach when it happened, otherwise there’d have been some breaking-and-entering going on.  That’s the bad news.  The good news was that there was an RV tech available immediately.  But then the bad news was that he didn’t have the necessary part to repair the lock.  The good news is it was available from the factory and it could be overnighted to us for installation the very next day.  So now we have a new door lock, the cost of which would make the Pentagon proud.  And UPS got most of it.

Remember back to the incident in Rapid City when our cell phone number was hijacked by some unknown creep but Verizon was able to retrieve the number and put it back on our industrial strength flip phone.  We were in Beaumont when those chickens came home to roost.  Verizon had so totally screwed up our bills and payments and were threatening to shut off our phone service if we didn’t pay up immediately if not sooner.  They were even threatening to shut off a phone we didn’t have.  This all came to a head while we were sitting on the shores of Lake Conroe on a campsite that had only a nodding acquaintance with “level” and enjoying some good ol’ Texas humidity.

And for a Labor Day gift we got the good news that a neighbor back in Geezer Gulch had spotted water coming out from under our garage door and had shut off the water to the house.  Bless his heart.  His quick action and notification of The Posse saved us from a true disaster.  Oh, yes, there was some damage done and some items were lost to water damage but it was nowhere near as bad as it might have been.  We overnighted a key to our former neighbor and there was a clean-up crew in the house the very same afternoon.  Everything was so under control that we were able to continue our trip in the knowledge that things weren’t going to get any worse. 

Next on our itinerary was a stop in Beeville, Texas.  A seriously inattentive clerk at a fuel station handed Howie’s credit card to someone else and then denied doing it.  We had to drop everything and make a quick call to the bank to cancel the credit card and make arrangements for new ones.  The good news was we’d be in one spot long enough to get new cards sent immediately.  It’s hardly worth mentioning that a big rock leapt out of the landscaping and gouged a rear tire – that make and model tire will not have replacements available until the end of the year.  After all the stress and strain of the past few weeks, it was a delight to join Jack and Sally on their ark for some peaceful country living.  They have two dogs, two donkeys and a yard full of birds – green jays, Altamira orioles, cardinals, swarms (I do not exaggerate) of hummingbirds and a family of roadrunners.

While there we made a pilgrimage to Goliad to check out Market Days, then off to McMillan’s BBQ for a selection of brisket, ribs and sausage.  Sally had filled the back of the truck with potted plants so we drove for miles and miles surrounded by foliage and the tantalizing smell of Texas BBQ.  Suffice it to say we fell upon it as soon as we walked in the door.

We had the scuffed tire checked by an expert in San Antonio who pronounced it okay and we we continued on to Kerrville for a visit with former full-timers Bill and Jeanne.  RVers are so easy to get along with.  They are pretty much willing to try anything and are always on the look-out for new experiences.  The four of us trolled around Trade Days in Fredericksburg for hours until our feet were screaming and sweat was flowing.  Bill had a commitment to attend a Navy get-together so Jeanne joined us for a trek to Comfort and it’s art tour.  What a charming little town.  There are plenty of old stone houses, some converted to shops and the newly remodeled Faust Hotel.  I wish there’d been time to sit on the porch, drink a sweet tea and watch the world go by.  And to wrap up our visit we attended a wine tasting.  Only in Texas could you be drinking chardonnay and listening to old-timey country music.

Ordinarily we try to avoid crossing West Texas, which has to be one of the ugliest places on earth.  But by now we were in a hurry to get home and assess the water damage ourselves.  We decided to drive a bit further each day and stay just two days at each stop.  Which is how we came to find ourselves in Fort Stockton (again), Las Cruces (again) and Willcox (again).  This time Willcox was having a birthday party for Marty Robbins at a museum devoted to the Arizona native.  We had some birthday cake, listened to some local singers and pickers.  On the same block is the Rex Allen Museum, Rex’s horse is buried across the street in a little park by the railroad tracks and Rex’s ashes are a-blowin’ in the wind around Willcox. 

It must be that West Texas and New Mexico enjoyed more of the monsoon season than normal so we were able to traverse through shades of green rather than shades of brown.  It helped to shorten the trip significantly.

When we arrived home in Geezer Gulch we checked in at a nearby RV resort and beat a hasty path to check out the damage done to our house by leaking plumbing.  It wasn’t anywhere near the disaster we were anticipating.  After coping with one mini-crisis after another all summer long, this was just one more situation to be dealt with.  Being back on solid ground seems a little sweeter this time.

Rallying And Other Such Activities

After driving up and out of the hole-in-the-ground campground, we headed east toward the Wisconsin Dells and our first RV rally of the season.  It wasn’t long before we were made aware of the fact that Wisconsin must purchase their roads, second-hand, from Minnesota.  We’d just barely crossed the Mississippi River when we hit a stretch of Interstate that shook, rattled and rolled us all the way to our campground in Lake Delton.  Rough roads seemed to be the norm all over the north central states and the states with the highest tax rates seemed to have to the worst roads. 

This was the first time we’ve attended a tri-chapter rally and the wagonmaster had selected a dandy campground for headquarters.  Unfortunately the weather was so hot and humid that we were warned to be careful using the air conditioners.  We could either run both air conditioners and run the refrigerator and water heater on propane or we could use one a/c and use shore power for the water heater and fridge.  So we “coped” as so often happens when you’re camping out.  Having only one air conditioner is our current benchmark for “roughing it”.  It still rankled, however, that we were paying for 50 amp service and wi-fi but getting neither. 

One of the perks of the rally was a lumberjack show at Paul Bunyan’s Restaurant where we watched four strapping young men ply the skills of the timbermen who once populated this area of Wisconsin.  They chopped and sawed, climbed and leapt about in a frenzy of activity and their antics kept us laughing and gasping for breath on their behalf.  Most of the audience was of such an age that such vim and vigor was only a distant memory. 

While a number of attendees at the rally went off to view The Dells from boats of various sorts, we took the opportunity to make the run to Baraboo to visit the International Crane Foundation.  The Foundation was originally established by some Cornell University graduates to save the Whooping Crane from extinction.  Their display facility on Shady Lane has every species of crane on exhibit.  Away from the prying eyes of tourists, the Foundation continues to work hard to save the several species which are still endangered.  We found the blue cranes to be almost ghostly in their appearance and the two species of crowned cranes absolutely regal with their golden spiked hair-dos.  The 120-acre facility has been seeded with wildflowers and native grasses and was a-bloom with flowers and a-buzz with bees.  The researchers at the Foundation have to do a great deal of manipulating in order to keep some of the species viable.  We were surprised to learn that cranes don’t reach breeding age until they are six or seven years old and can live on well into  their 60’s and 70’s.  However, a high percentage of the eggs laid are infertile and good parenting skills do not come naturally so there is a great deal of egg-swapping  involved in maintaining the population of several crane species.  And those pairs who exhibit good parenting skills are often called upon as surrogates for abandoned fledglings.  

Our next stop was Menominee Falls, a suburb of Milwaukee, where we visited with Cousin Judy and her husband Dave.  There being no affordable campgrounds available nearby, we spent two days (with permission, of course) in a church parking lot.  Judy and Dave squired us around to all the thrift stores and antique shops in a 50 mile radius and we acquired several new items of interest, not to mention a stack of irresistible books.  I find nearly all books irresistible, especially when they are in perfect condition and cost less than a dollar.  On our last evening in town, Judy and Dave took us to a restaurant ‘way out in the country.  The portions were so large that we had enough left-overs for two more evenings!  As we left the restaurant, Judy mentioned that we were close to Holy Hill which she wanted us to see.  Somehow, a wrong turn was made and we ended up laughing ourselves silly as we shot up hills and down dales in search of the illusive basilica which caps Holy Hill. 

It was necessary to have a full-service campground just prior to heading to the FMCA convention in Madison.  The tanks that should  be empty need to be empty and the tanks that should be full need to be full.  So we headed northward to the town of Two Rivers on Lake Michigan to a small campground with the necessary facilities but not much else in the way of amenities.  However, it  gave us an opportunity to visit our old friends, Harold and Ruthann, whom we met on our very first visit to Apache Junction some ten years ago.  Ruthann was slated to baby-sit for her great-grandbaby and so we headed off to see the sights on our own and returned in time for a pizza binge on Saturday night.  One of the most attractive spots we visited was the West of the Lake Gardens perched on the shores of Lake Michigan about midway between Two Rivers and Manitowoc.  This privately-funded garden is open to the public at no charge and was at the peak of its summer glory during our visit.  The allee of Queen Elizabeth roses looked and smelled delicious while off in the distance we caught a glimpse of the ferry, Badger, starting her cruise across the lake to a port in Michigan.  This wonderful garden is supported by funds provided by its founders, Ruth and John West, and it continues to flourish as a living memorial to their commitment to that neighborhood.              

On Sunday we hit a few antique shops in Manitowoc and wrapped up our visit with a stop at the Rahr West Art Museum.  Yes, the same Wests as the garden.  The Victorian style mansion was donated to the city of Manitowoc in 1941 for use as a museum and civic center.  In 1975 a modern wing was added to house the permanent collection with both permanent and rotating exhibits.  The mansion itself is open to the public and filled with art and artifacts, the upstairs rooms being given over to various collections, including the Simon Schwartz Chinese Ivories.  It was a pleasure to wander around the rooms of the mansion and inspect those displays which most interested us.            

We learned that Two Rivers lays claim to the invention of the ice cream sundae.  Unfortunately we got too busy doing other things and never got back to the visitors center to try the root beer float made with root beer ice cream.  They were dubbed sundaes because they were originally only served on Sundays – or so proclaimed the sign in the town square.

 

The weather had been borderline uncomfortable with heat and humidity and it only seemed to get worse as we made our way to Madison for the FMCA Family Reunion.  We learned our lesson some years back and sprang for the extra fee for an electrical hook-up.  Those big green generators may have been noisy but they did an excellent job of providing a steady supply of amperage, enough to keep one a/c going nearly constantly.  The convention was a flurry of meetings, happy hours, seminars and meeting and greeting friends and acquaintances we haven’t seen since the last convention.  It was so good to see folks again, especially those who’ve had serious illnesses recently and who have made wonderful recoveries.

By the end of the convention, all the tanks that should be full were empty and those that should be empty were full so we made our way back to the full-service campground in Lake Delton to remedy the situation and to attend another brief rally for the purpose of dumping holding tanks, doing laundry and resting.  We decided to extend our stay an extra day so we could make the 40 mile run to Spring Green for a visit to the House on the Rock.  Others who’ve visited have raved about the place and so we felt we’d be missing something if we by-passed it again.  To my mind, the admission fee would have been better spent elsewhere.  There was a lot of walking involved and by days’ end I was just about played out.  Many of the display cases were so poorly lit that we could barely see what they held, others weren’t labeled at all so we were left wondering what we were looking at.  And, in spite of the hefty admission fee, almost all of the animated musical displays required a token or two (four for a dollar) to activate them.  I  admit to being disappointed. 

We were advised to stop at a scenic overlook on the highway north of the House for a long-range look at the Infinity Room and the Rock after which the house was named.  It was another long trek on a hot and humid day.  The view was partially obscured by trees and by then I was singularly disinterested in the House on the Rock and anything connected to it.

Having barely rested from all that hiking, we hitched up the car and headed due south for a brief stop-over in Rockford, Illinois.  For as frenetic as the rallies had been, the campground on the banks of the Kishwaukee River was peaceful and serene.  Jackie and Roy were also stopped there, along with their friends Ramona and Gary, so we had a potluck feast Wednesday evening, featuring the trout that Jackie had caught on an outing at Two Rivers.  They went geocaching and we went antiquing and we all met again the second night for an instant replay of the previous potluck, this time with fish tacos. 

Our paths diverged on Thursday when we headed south to Bloomington/Normal and they headed east toward Fort Wayne.  The only reason we were stopping in Bloomington/Normal was so I could buy a t-shirt and/or coffee mug declaring we had visited Normal.  It turns out the residents thereof have absolutely no sense of humor about the name of their city.  The only commemorative t-shirts and mugs we could find touted Illinois State University and the ISU Redbirds without ever mentioning that the campus is located in Normal, Illinois.  But we did get in some antiquing, scoring a number of eggcups and other little treasures including an iron Boston terrier doorstop, one of the items on my “need to acquire” list.

And now begins our journey further south, following our noses to Louisiana and some of Rose’s good gumbo.

Wandering Around in Flyover Country

When last heard from we were heading northward toward our home base of Rapid City, South Dakota to spend ten days of “housekeeping”, a visit with our lawyer, renewal of drivers licenses, catching up on miscellaneous other chores.  Rapid City is just the right size, big enough to have at least one of everything you might want and small enough to be non-threatening to those of us with urban phobia.  It also has Prairie Edge, the most fabulous store we’ve seen to date.  You can find more about it in a previous report from Rapid City. 

Somewhere along the line I became intrigued with the city of Belle Fourche and insisted on a visit there.  No particular reason except it tickles my tongue to say “bell foosh” and I’m fond of telling people it means “beautiful foosh” in French.  In fact it means beautiful fork and refers to an area where the river, also called Belle Fourche, forks.  It is also the more convenient geographical center of the United States, the actual center being some 18 miles out of town on private property.  This only became the geographical center after Alaska and Hawaii were admitted to the Union; before that, the center was in Kansas where it should be.  At the time of our visit, Belle Fourche was gearing up for their big rodeo extravaganza over the July 4th weekend.  Luckily we heard someone mention the cattle drive that was due to go right past the antique shop where we were trolling about and so we hastily returned to the car and escaped before the traffic got too bad.  Or we got cow stuff on our tires.  How can the running of the bulls at Pamplona compare with the running of the cows in Belle Fourche?

Our visit to Rapid City ended on a rather sour note when we learned that our long-held phone number had been stolen by someone wishing to take advantage of an upgrade in equipment at our expense.  After two 20-mile round trips into Rapid and two hours on the phone with Customer Service and the Fraud Department, plus postponement of our departure date, we were reunited with our original phone number and our old phone.  Being able to have the same number on the same phone was important to us inasmuch as the phone company no longer offers heavy-duty devices that can survive being stepped on, sat on or having several sacks of groceries piled atop. 

All this nonsense made us a day late arriving in Murdo, South Dakota.  It was a blessing in disguise since there is nothing to see or do in Murdo beyond what we saw and did.  The premier attraction in Murdo is the Pioneer Auto Show and Antique Town.  The entry fee was substantial but the promotion promised an endless array of classic cars.  Unfortunately, there are so many of them crammed together in low-light barns that it was difficult to appreciate what we were seeing.  Most of the cars have not be been restored, at least not recently, and were perched on wooden blocks and/or flat tires.  Only two vehicles were enclosed in glass showcases, a motorcycle belonging to Elvis Presley and a Cord owned by the old-time movie cowboy, Tom Mix. 

We like to think of this little home-made beauty as the Lemon Pledgemobile.  You can’t very well take it to a car wash lest it warp so you would just have to keep it dusted.  Wonder what’s under the hood?  Not one but two 500 ci Cadillac engines.  There was a list of components nearby; by far the most interesting was the 5 gallons of Elmer’s Glue that it took to produce this beast.  The rest of us do-it-yourselfers just use duct tape.

But cars aren’t the only attraction.  There are plenty of old buildings to wander in and out of, including a general store, a church, a train depot and a one-room school house.  Everything smelled musty.

A quick drive around town led us to the four corners which sported a hand-made sign indicating a four-way stop and a farmers market that was to open at 5:00 p.m.  So shortly after 5:00 we went back to town to see what sort of produce might be had.  Nobody else showed up, including the farmers.  We went home to an early supper.

Our next stop was Tea, South Dakota which is a suburb of Sioux Falls.  That’s where Roger and Cathy spend their summers getting their grandkid fix and we were able to score a campsite fairly nearby so we could hang out for a few days and enjoy their company.  One muggy afternoon they took us in to pay homage to the falls on the Big Sioux River.  Due to plenty of rain, the falls were running fast and hard, making them about twice as wide as is usual for this time of year.  For some reason, I remember the water flowing the opposite direction the last time we visited but Cathy assured me that was faulty thinking.

Tea is home to a pair of nifty antique shops so we did a very thorough job of scouring through them in search of treasures.  Suffice it to say that I now have more eggcups to find shelving for and Howie seems to be starting a collection of glass shoes, chickens and hats.  We’ll have to shop for curio cabinets as soon as we get back to Geezer Gulch. 

Roger and Cathy had commitments to attend a family reunion out of town so we said our goodbyes and all went our separate ways.  Our way took us 50+ miles south to the town of Vermillion, home to the University of South Dakota.  What a pretty campus!  The main hall has been recreated to retain the character of the original but the East Hall is the original and a very substantial original at that.  A wide variety of trees shade the campus and line the residential streets nearby.  It’s fairly certain that Tom Brokaw is the most famous alumnus.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The purpose of our visit to Vermillion was to tour the National Music Museum which we had learned about only recently.  Housed in a handsome Carnegie Library, the museum was founded in 1973 and owns a jaw-dropping number of historical instruments.  We were given iPods with a pre-recorded tour so that we could hear how the instruments we were looking at sounded in the hands (or lips) of talented musicians.  One can only wonder how the Stradivarius guitar would sound when played by a virtuoso like Willy Nelson.  Words cannot begin to describe all the treasures and low-light areas precluded decent photos but we urge you to check out the website and take the virtual tour if you find yourself with some spare time.

       

So so we bid adios to Siouxland, which our GPS likes to refer to as “Sigh-you-ex land”, not “soo-land”.  It’s such fun to take her places – she’s such good company and always good for a laugh.

We are on our way to some RV rallies in Wisconsin, which means we have to go across Minnesota.  That entails driving on what must surely be the worst roads in the United States.  I don’t know what they do with their tax money but they sure don’t spend it on infrastructure.  I’m not saying I-90 was a complete washboard but my pedometer did think I walked 8.5 miles on the short trip from Sioux Falls to Albert Lea.  And I was sitting down the whole time. 

And so now we are taking a brief respite at a fairly isolated campground near Spring Grove, Minnesota.  It feels a bit like living at the bottom of a quarry surrounded by hardwood forests, Amish farms, a babbling brook and a thousand screaming children who think playing miniature golf in a steady rain is good fun.  Broadcast television is spotty but PBS comes in loud and clear so we have endless cooking shows to watch, the phone signal is so weak we can’t even get phone calls from Verizon and the nearest grocery store is miles away.  This situation is due to change tomorrow when we pack up and head for civilization and The Dells.

Pueblo–Cheyenne–Lusk

Very rarely do we stay at KOA (one wag said it stands for Keep On Adding)  facilities.  For the most part, they are over-priced and crawling with children but sometimes we just have to bite the bullet and accept what’s convenient, safe and offers the amenities we require at any given time.  And that’s why we opted to stay at a KOA south of Pueblo – further south than we originally figured but at least it was handy to an easy-access fuel stop with good prices on diesel fuel.  On our first trip in to the city of Pueblo, we visited The Rosemount House, a late 19th-century mansion built by businessman John Thatcher for his wife Margaret and their four children.  Margaret had a thing for pink roses, hence the name of the estate.  Roses feature prominently in many of the furnishings and on the painted ceilings.  Photos are not permitted in the house so you’ll have to go to the website to admire the décor.  Unlike most similar museums, Rosemount is not decorated “in the style of the period”; nearly all the furnishings are original to the house when it was inhabited by the Thatcher family, including ceiling frescos, drapes and other such perishables.  The woodwork is nothing short of spectacular and includes some species of wood that simply aren’t available now.   It was one of the best museums of its type that we’ve seen.

Pueblo is situated on the Arkansas River (pronounced Ar-can-saw just like the state) and boasts a very handsome river walk.  Paddleboats are available for the hale and hearty while the less athletic among us can hire boats with pilots that don’t require a great deal of effort.  It was a blazing hot day so we opted to wander in and out of a few antique shops instead.  We tended to select the ones that were air-conditioned. 

We thought about driving to the town of Florence to sample their antique shops but decided against it and, for our second day, returned instead to Pueblo to scope out the library, the Goodwill and the remaining antique shops.  The Friends of the Pueblo Library used book store is a free-standing building that is bigger than a lot of libraries we’ve seen.  This book shop is so good that we actually made two visits and came away with a big stack of books.  I’m devoting this summer to reading Pulitzer Prize-winning novels and the Friends’ shop had many of them all conveniently arranged in one case so I snatched as many as the pocketbook would allow, concentrating on those I’m unlikely to find elsewhere.

While trolling through a crammed-to-the-rafters antique shop we bumped into Marcia, a friend from back in Geezer Gulch who is also a member of my Questers group and on the Friends’ board.  Small world, huh?  Happens all the time to RVers.  Actually, we knew we’d all be in Pueblo because I’d e-mailed her to suggest she visit Las Vegas on her way home and casually mentioned we’d be stopping in Pueblo.  Long story short, we made arrangements to meet in Pueblo for lunch on Sunday at a venerable Pueblo eatery called Gray’s Coors Tavern.  Somewhere along the line we’d heard that the restaurant has been featured on Guy Fieri’s show on the Food Network where presumably he sampled the restaurant’s most famous dish, The Slopper, but we could find no proof of this on the Internet.  Too bad – he’s really missing something.  The ambiance is nothing fancy but, my friends, The Slopper is just plain good food.  It’s hard to describe so perhaps you’d better check it out on the Web.  Recipes abound but the secret ingredient is the green chili.  Get that right and you are on your way to hog heaven.  While The Slopper may sound dangerous to the digestive tract, it isn’t, but you might want to take along your own side of Alka-Seltzer just in case.

It was overcast when we departed Pueblo but we didn’t encounter any rain.  Our route took us right smack through Denver, right past Mile High Stadium, and then along the Rocky Mountain Front and into the prairie lands of eastern Wyoming, our next stop being Cheyenne.  This was our third or fourth visit to Wyoming’s largest city and so we concentrated on hitting as many antique shops as we could.  We scored a goodly number of eggcups, leaving several lovelies behind which were seriously over-priced.  And the others that got left behind were ugly.  The clouds continued for a lot of our stay but we were spared any heavy T-storms or downpours which unfortunately hasn’t been the case for many areas just ahead of us.

Our next stop was Lusk, Wyoming which is in the eastern half of the state about halfway between Cheyenne and Rapid City.  It had been devastated with a serious flood just a few weeks ago.  Shops and homes near the railroad tracks were badly damaged and the bridge on Highway 18 which crosses the tracks had been washed out.  And that’s exactly the way we needed to go.  Fortunately a brief detour had been devised and we were well under the weight limit allowed so we didn’t have to go a long way out of our way.

There isn’t much to see or do in Lusk but the town does boast some pretty flamboyant characters from the past.  There was the good bad guy (or was he a bad good guy?) Tom Horn who was immortalized in a film of the same name starring Steve McQueen.  And of course Butch and Sundance spent some time in the neighborhood.  And then there was the more recent celebrity, Dell Burke, who operated a pleasure palace across the street from the railroad station.  The Yellow Hotel was demolished not long ago but Dell’s  reputation lingers.  Her feather boa decorates the Ladies’ Room at a local campground. 

We paid a visit to the Stagecoach Museum.  The Cheyenne-Black Hills Stage featured here in front of the museum is a replica but there’s a real one inside.  We were told the only other surviving stage from that route is in the Smithsonian.  Aside from the stagecoach, the museum features a two-head calf, a one-room school house, a general store and a very faded shirt commemorating the first Air Mail Service in the United States.  Niobrara County received the first Air Mail back in 1938.  We were fortunate enough to meet up with one of the museum’s directors who filled us in on all sorts of wonderful tidbits of information.  We were all stumped with the question of who starred in the Tom Horn movie but fortunately a pair of computer savvy volunteers was able to Google the answer for us.  Now if we had a smart phone…..

Bidding farewell to Lusk after only one full day, we headed north and then east toward Rapid City.  The sky was clear, the road lightly trafficked and there was plenty of pretty scenery to see.  This section of Wyoming and South Dakota is grassland, undulating like waves on an ocean, broken up with streams and gullies, stands of trees here and there and enormous vistas so that you can watch the cloud shadows develop and fade  And then, off in the distance to the left, lurk the Black Hills.  And they’ll be featured in our next report.

Eastbound And Down–In Slow Motion

After a lengthy hiatus in Geezer Gulch, we are now back on the road heading northeast-ward toward (we hope) cooler weather and a series of RV rallies in the upper Midwest.  Severe weather has already plagued many of the areas through which we’ll be traveling so we have high hopes that Mother Nature will be a bit more relaxed as we wander along.  Our days in Geezer Gulch were consumed with doctor and dentist appointments, trading in one house for another and with our usual array of activities and entertainments.  Howie continued with his lawn bowling, often participating twice a day, while I kept involved with book clubs and Questers.  Together we took up pickleball rather late in our Gulch stay so that we weren’t able to make much progress beyond buying paddles and making use of the magnificent new courts at the northern-most rec center.  We were even able to get in a few games with John and Rose when they sped up from a campsite in Casa Grande.

It took us three days to get the coach loaded and we still managed to forget several important items.  But at least this time we packed all the right meds.  Just in case we forgot something vital, we only went 88 miles the first day to an RV resort in Camp Verde.  If need be, we could run back to The Gulch to retrieve whatever was left behind.  Our dear friend Pat was off visiting kinfolk in tornado territory so we weren’t able to get together with her but John and Rose were at the same resort so we got to hang out with them for a few extra days.  We spent one fine (not so much) afternoon trying to play pickleball in a stiff cross wind.  A volley of two or three hits was considered “fine playing” inasmuch as the whiffle-type ball had no chance against the wind gusts.  Smacked as hard as possible, the ball would often go two feet and drop straight down.  If the point of the game was to see how often we could put the ball through the net rather than over it, we’d have all been big winners.  A large hole in the net helped enormously.  And after the rigorous game, we had Happy Hour and a delicious smothered chicken dinner prepared by Rose.

After Rose and John  headed off to the Rockies, we had a few more days to potter around in Clarkdale and Cottonwood, hitting some thrift and antique shops in search of whatever struck our fancy.  Not much did, although we did find a couple of eggcups.

Our next stop was Holbrook, Arizona located not far from the Petrified Forest.  Like so many towns along Route 66, Holbrook has dried up to some degree with the coming of the Interstate.  They do have a town museum located in the old courthouse building but both the courthouse and the contents of the museum are in need of renovation and restoration.  The best thing about it was that it is open from 8:00 a.m to 5:00 p.m. daily and there is no cover charge.  There were a number of interesting items on display but the history of the area never came alive for us until we had a long chat with the proprietor of an antique shop on Bucket of Blood Street.  The street was named for an infamous saloon that once graced the neighborhood, a place right out of a bad old Western movie with fistfights and gun battles and other sorts of mayhem.

Holbrook was once a stop-over hotspot for those traveling old Route 66 and many of the Mother Road’s icon roadside attractions are still visible.  One of the most famous is The Wigwam Motel, pictured here with it’s collection of vintage cars to “decorate” the parking lot.  The teepees have squinty little windows and it seems anyone with a tendency toward claustrophobia might have some difficulty relaxing here after a hard day’s drive.

Picking our way along I-40 in short hops, we next landed in Gallup so that I could hit one of my favorite bead shops and “stock up” on goodies.  We also did a slow crawl through Richardson’s emporium of fine Native American arts and crafts, mostly silver and turquoise jewelry.  Some bracelets and belts were made of slabs of turquoise, so large that it would take a very muscular person to wear them.  I’d been wanting a pair of turquoise earrings and so selected  plain (and lightweight) small drops.  During our stay in Gallup, we learned that the citizens thereof are known as Gallupians, a word right out of “Gulliver’s Travels”, don’t you think?

Our stop in Albuquerque was made specifically to shop at another of my favorite bead stores.  Only open one and a half days a week, we timed it so I’d have the half-day to shop there.  Maybe shoulda called first.  Instead of shelves of beads, we found a roomful of gaily decorated tables and some sort of Mexican festival underway.  Oops.  However, while in Albuquerque we took a day to drive north to Rio Rancho to visit the J&R Vintage Auto Museum.  This is an impressive collection, many of the restorations having been done by the J&R team on the premises.  Competing in the Great American Road Races seems to have been a family hobby for the owners and so many of the display cars were surrounded by trophies and other signs of Road Race success. 

 

 

 

 

 

Whoever expected that Albuquerque would be considered tornado country?  But, sure enough, as we were returning from Rio Rancho we began to hear NOAA warnings on the radio.  The sky had turned that sickly green-black that you never like to see and thunder rumbled in the distance.  Soon lightening started to sparkle and a big fat downpour hit just as we were approaching I-40 for the last leg of the trip back to the coach.  The rain let up just enough that we were able to get inside without getting too wet.  Plans to grill steaks outside were cancelled immediately and the scramble  began to find something else suitable for an evening meal.

Ordinarily when we visit Albuquerque we stay on the east side in Tijeras but this time, in order to be closer to the bead-store-that-isn’t-anymore, we stayed on the west side at a campground on a hill overlooking the entire city.  In addition to campsites, Enchanted Trails RV Park also offers rental units of vintage campers and vintage Hudson cars.  These are arranged around a little garden filled with lilac bushes which would be very pleasant at blossom time.  Campers range from tiny pull-behinds to a very long one that conjured images of Lucy and Desi cavorting beside it.

It’s such a pretty drive from Albuquerque, past Santa Fe and in to Las Vegas (not the one in Nevada, the one in New Mexico).  The highway runs along the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains on their east flank.  Firs and pines dot the hillsides and recent rains have kept everything green and growing.  Little did we expect that the rain would continue.  Storms begin building up steam in the late afternoon and by dinner time we had several spectacular thunder ‘n lightning shows.  Because the views here are so enormous, we could see where the storm was and where it wasn’t.  It made for some interesting cloud and light patterns but nearby lightning kept us from going outside to try for photos.

Las Vegas is a fascinating little city.  Once a hub on the Santa Fe Trail and then again on the AT&SF Railroad, it boasts over 900 buildings on the National Register of Historic Places.  Architectural styles run the gamut from Spanish-influenced adobes to Victorian to Gothic.  Many homes are, sadly, in disrepair and the town is not wealthy enough to do much more than stall the decay.  An Arizona entrepreneur has purchased both the Plaza Hotel on the town plaza (where else would you expect the Plaza to be?) and the La Castaneda Hotel near the railroad tracks.  The Plaza is open for business and has been getting rave reviews both for its hotel accommodations and its restaurant.  La Castaneda, on the other hand, is a work barely in progress but we expect in time that it will also be a dazzler.  It was once the gathering place for the first (and for subsequent) reunion of The Rough Riders.  Teddy Roosevelt stayed here when he rejoined his troops in 1899 for the reunion.  As you can see, this restoration is going to be A Very Big Project.

Until 1970 Las Vegas was two cities, separated by the Gallinas River.  The west side, with its Spanish influence, has streets which radiate from the Plaza.  The east side development was influenced by the Easterners who came to town along with the railroad and is laid out in a more traditional grid pattern.  The two different cultures explains the wide variety of architectural styles.  We visited the City Museum, housed in a WPA project building on Grand Avenue and got to see a very nice collection of items belonging to the Rough Riders and to Teddy Roosevelt himself.  The Carnegie Library, vaguely resembling Jefferson’s Monticello, is still in use as the city library.

We were very surprised to learn that Las Vegas has been the location of a number of movies dating back to the silents, through the iconic “Easy Rider”, up to today.  On a second visit to The Plaza we were detoured around to prevent our interfering with filming of an upcoming episode of the television serial “Longmire”.

 

Nobody in Las Vegas seems to be in much of a hurry anyhow, so it didn’t matter much that we all, including the actors, stood around waiting patiently for whatever came next.  Finally things cleared enough that we were able to get into position to nab a picture of this folk art carving of the Madonna.  And when the new season of “Longmire” begins, we’ll have to be sure to watch so we can learn how they manage to morph Las Vegas, New Mexico into Durant, Wyoming.

The tourist brochures we were given all mentioned Montezuma Castle and we wanted to get a good look at it but the GPS didn’t have a clue where it was.  Nor did it appear on any of the town maps we had.  It was originally built as a destination resort by the Santa Fe Railroad to take advantage of nearby hot springs.  Having gone through a number of incarnations since it closed as a hotel in 1903, it has recently been renovated and serves as the hub for the Armand Hammer United World College, the only United World College in the U.S.  Unfortunately it is closed to visitors except by appointment and so we weren’t able to get close enough to check it out thoroughly.  By the time we located it, in Montezuma not Las Vegas, the clouds had begun to gather for the daily afternoon thunderstorm and so we cut short our exploration and headed home to enjoy Mother Nature’s fireworks display out over The Meadows.

And so we wrapped up our visit to New Mexico, heading up the big hill over Raton Pass and into Colorado.  Our next report will be from Pueblo and points beyond.