New home; a work in progress

We got to Sherman RV about 10:00 this morning, did our paperwork and started moving into the new coach. I took this picture as it was getting dark (about 4 p.m.) We moved everything over and then from about 5 - 6:30 put stuff away! We had a lot of stuff in that small RV!

I can't wait to get Christmas decorations up, then I'll take pictures again so you can see the finished product.

We are staying in Sherman tonight and will start our journey back to
Phoenix tomorrow. Hopefully the return trip will go as well as the trip here.

Hope everyone is having a really good weekend and getting all your Christmas shopping done. This has been a different holiday year, but it's always like that when you move around Christmas time.

This is the kitchen (please notice the full-size refrigerator) I love it!!!!!!!!!

Waiting in Tupelo

What do you do while waiting for your coach in Tupelo, MS? Visit the house Elvis was born in (already did that); drive the Natchez Trace (already did that, too); go to the Tupelo Battlefield with marker, maps, and cannon (very interesting and actually 3 battles fought here); visit the Oren Dunn City Museum and Veterans Museum (we always enjoy area museums and this one was interesting); visit the Tupelo Automobile Museum with over a 100 cars dating from 1899 to 1994 (that was really fun too!)

I only got a few pictures of the Tupelo Battlefield, but it was interesting to
stop there to see the area, especially the map that showed all the skirmishes that were in the area.

The museum told not only the history of Tupelo, but the area. Tupelo was a capital of the Chickasaw Nation and wasn't settled until just before the Civil War. Union soldiers blew up tressels and bridges on either side of the settlement and set up some sort of headquarters here. Interesting history.

The Automobile Museum had several cars from the 1800s and quite a few from 1900 through about 1920. They were sure different! The '60s cars we liked were the Vet and the Tbird right next to each other. There was one car that had 14 made 0 sold and of course there was an Edsel.

I took a picture of the hard top convertible because I remember the television commercials. There was also the car from "The Great Race" and LOTS of other neat cars.

We also made a trip to Sherman RV yesterday ... and ... WE SAW OUR NEW COACH!!!!!! They have to go through it to make sure everything is good to go today, but they said we should be there tomorrow morning so we can do the paperwork and move in! YEAH!!! Then we get to drive 1700 miles to Phoenix again.

I promise to take pictures as soon as I can and get them on the blog. The coach was in a garage when we saw it with all the slides closed so I wouldn't have been able to get a good shot.

Hi, from Tupelo

I only took two picture all during our trip. This is the bridge over the Mississippi at Vicksburg, MS. The next picture is of the Mississippi River.

We left Phoenix Thursday at 1 p.m. We arrived at Tupelo tonight at 5 p.m. THAT'S A FAST TRIP!!!!! We don't like traveling this way. We will now crash for a few days.

Our coach should be ready this week. As soon as it is ready, we will head back to Phoenix. We're hoping to get back before Christmas and if all goes as scheduled, there should be no problem.

Hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas and a less hectic one than our 1700 mile drive -- TWICE!

Arizona

"We're in our roost."We got to Phoenix early (the last week of October) and have had fun helping Brian with projects and playing with Grayson. We have started walking every morning again and spotted this bush not far from our RV. There are lots of these around this time of year and they are really pretty. It has cooled down a bit here, only in the 70s, perfect weather! We love it. We will be having Thanksgiving at Brian's house this year, should be fun. I'll try to remember to take pictures to post.

I had my appointment with an endocrinologist in Glendale and will be going on thyroid probably next week. She did a scan and another blood test to see where my thyroid is now. I get to start on samples to see which one works. She also gave me information to help me start the weight loss process. (That should be fun?!)

It's nice to be settled for a bit again. I've started lots of projects: skirt, purse, blouse, and craft bag. And I'm crocheting blocks for an afghan to give away.

Hoover Dam

This is the new bridge over the Colorado at Hoover Dam. After seeing it, we decided we were NOT going to be the first ones across the bridge!

Lake Mead is REALLY low! We haven't ever seen it this low. This was taken while driving across Hoover Dam. The white all the way around is the high water mark!!

We drove under a portion of the new bridge. It is WA-A-A-Y up there.

We drove full circle: Kingman to Las Vegas to Laughlin back to Kingman. This picture was taken after we left Laughlin on our way to Kingman. We are now in Phoenix for the Winter. We brought cooler weather with us, highs have only been in the 60s since we got here. We're looking forward to good visits with Brian and Grayson while we're here.

Painted Desert & Petrified Forest

The Painted Desert is really pretty with changing colors of grays, pinks and reds! At one point you can see 120 miles across the desert to the San Francisco Mountains north of Flagstaff. That distance doesn't show on a photograph, so I didn't even try!

This is Pilot Peak, also in the Painted Desert. This park is worth the trip. We are loving National Parks/ Monuments since we got our Senior Pass. The pass cost $10 and we get into all parks and monuments for $0.00, we just show the pass!!!! We recommend it to anyone over 62.

The Petrified Forest was really cool! I've wanted to go for a long time, ever since I collected rocks as a little girl (that's a long time!) There were full logs and lots of pieces. This picture is of a log bridge. The log is suspended over a small gully and is about 15 feet long! It's a bit hard to see the log in the picture, because it's the same color as the rock around it, but it was impressive.

This picture shows the wood grain in one of the logs. The petrified rocks in Arizona have lots of red in them. They're really pretty. We went to a film at the visitor's center before we started our tour. We learned that the trees started out in a huge swamp and were submerged in water and eventually covered with silt (and then dirt, rocks, etc. when the swamp dried up). All the debris covering them preserved them for us to see now!

This is a log field! Lots of really big logs that we got to walk through. It was really neat to walk through so many rock logs! This was a neat place to visit.

I

New Mexico

It has been way too long since I updated this blog! After Durango, CO we drove to Santa Fe, NM. It was a beautiful drive through high desert valleys and some really pretty valleys. Santa Fe is an artist community, listed only behind New York and San Francisco in number of Art Galleries! It isn't a really big town and the building codes say everything must be built according to a specific southwest architectural code. Lots of buildings are the pueblo style. It makes for a really neat community. While in Santa Fe, we also drove on the Turquoise Trail. It is quite a drive going all the way from Santa Fe to I-40 east of Albuquerque. There are lots of galleries along this
drive also and it is really pretty just east of the Sandia Mountains. After leaving Santa Fe we drove to Roswell, NM. That's where Howard went to school and where Loriann was born. The area had really changed since Howard was there, but we were able to go out to Eastern New Mexico University-Roswell campus where we got a really good tour of the department by the head of the department. She was so enthusiastic about the program and the students it was really cool to visit with her. We also went to the UFO Museum while we were in Roswell -- that was interesting! We learned lots of new things! From Roswell we drove to Carlsbad where we went through the
Caverns. That was REALLY cool. The big room took well over an hour to walk around (over 6000 square feet big!) After touring the big room, we stayed and watched the bats come out at dusk -- we watched for about 35 minutes as they swarmed out of the natural entrance to the cave. They were still coming by the droves with seemingly no end in sight, so we left! That was really something worth seeing!!!!!!!! From Carlsbad we drove to Alamogordo, NM so I could get my new military ID card. Mine expires this birthday so we drove to the White Sands Missile Range and got me legal. We toured the museum while there and learned a lot of the history of the Missile Range. Then on the way we went to the White Sands National Monument and drove through the park. Lots of white sand!!!! They actually plow it like snow where it has drifted across the roads. Pretty cool! We are now in Albuquerque for about a week. We were here two years ago and we really like the area.

More Colorado

Howard and I have enjoyed listening to "Wolf Creek Pass" for quite some time (it's a fun, silly song.) It talks about two idiots with a load of chickens going really fast down Wolf Creek Pass, through the tunnel (which takes off the top layer of chickens) and around the switch backs. The refrain goes:
Wolf Crick Pass way up on the great divide
Truckin' on down, the other side




We felt a little like the song going down the pass with a 15,000 fifth wheel behind us! Well, not really. It was a beautiful drive though and it did have a tunnel and two switch backs at the bottom of the hill. We also noticed that as we got closer to the bottom, there were not one or two, but several run-a-way spots for trucks! The first picture is of course construction at the bottom of the hill. The second is from the top of Wolf Creek Pass at 10, 850 feet. That was beautiful! The third picture is coming down into the valley where Pagosa Springs is located. (Right about the center of the picture is the road after the first switch back.) The fourth picture is mostly off the hill going into the valley. Colorado is a beautiful state!

We camped in Durango and while we were there, we went to Mesa Verde National Park and went down into the biggest cliff dwelling, the Cliff House.

On our drive to the Cliff House I took a picture of

Montezuma Valley from the highest point on the Mesa. I don't know if you can actually see Utah and Arizona, but they are in this direction.

This is a shot of the Cliff House or Cliff Palace from the View Point on top. We hiked down rock stairs and wooden ladders to get into the village. AND to leave we went straight up through a crevasse on rock stairs and a ladder to the rock above the village on the other side! It was quite a trip and really an awesome area!

Our main reason for going to Durango was to go on the Durango to Silverton Railway. The trip is 3 1/2 hours ONE WAY! We went over the highway and under the highway.

We went by beautiful lakes and followed the Animas River all the way to Silverton.

We went through a very narrow gorge with the rock cliffs REALLY close to the train sometimes and

sometimes just space on our side of the train with the river WA A A AY down there! It was fun to go around the curves so we could see the engine and the steam and smoke from the engine.

This is the gorge and the Animus River way down there.

At this point we crossed the Animus River at 7200 feet.

We asked for a vintage car. This car was actually built in the 1880s and the ride was really relatively smooth! It really rode a lot smoother than the open car in front of us.

These are called the Needles or San Juan Mountains. There are 14 peaks over 14,000 feet in San Juan County, the highest county in the United States. The only city, Silverton, is the county seat. The year-round population of Silverton is 350, but in the summer it swells to 800 people!

This was just a pretty shot of the train by the Animus River. We had a lot of this on our ride to Silverton.

We also had a lot of this as we got close to Silverton. It's Fall at that elevation. Silverton sits at an elevation of 9, 318 feet so it gets pretty cold. The driver said they have a 14 day growing season in the Silverton valley!!!

This is the Silverton valley with the town of Silverton in the background. This was a trip of a lifetime and well worth the time and effort! Would we do it again? IN A HEARTBEAT!

Colorado

Our next stop in Colorado was Colorado Springs. Our primary reason for stopping in Colorado Springs was to ride to the top of Pike's Peak on the Cog Railway. We really enjoyed our week long stay in Colorado Springs. It's a beautiful area with lots to do and see. This picture of Pike's Peak was taken while driving through the Garden of the Gods. That's a beautiful area too.

This view of the Garden of the Gods with Pike's Peak in the background was taken from the visitor's center for the Garden of the Gods. On Sunday they had the Breast Cancer Run for Life through the park. Last count, 7000 people ran through the park Sunday morning. That would have been a beautiful run (pant, pant!!!!!)

We did get to take the Cog Train to the top of Pike's Peak. This is Howard going "WOW!" It really was beautiful. The driver pointed out where we could see Oklahoma!

This is the view at the end of the Cog line. (We didn't go this far!)

This is the Cog Train. It takes about one hour and fifteen minutes to get to the top riding the Cog Train. It's really a beautiful ride!

Our shot at the top! Yes, it was cold! It's usually 30 degrees colder at the top than at the base of the mountain.

The Air Force Academy Chapel was really beautiful. Lots bigger than I had expected.

After spending a week in Colorado Springs, we drove to Alamosa, Colorado today. My Dad had an older sister who only lived for about 8 days and died in October 1913 here in Alamosa. We went to the Cemetery to see if we could find her grave and found where she is buried although there is no marker at this time. One of my sisters has the same name as my aunt who is buried here.

This was taken from the back of our 5th wheel. The light area at the base of the San Juan Mountains is the Great Sand Dunes. Talk about an awesome view! Tomorrow we will drive to Durango where we hope to go on the narrow gage train.

On The Road Again

We had a good visit with Jenn & Jason and their family for about a week. We left Burley on 31 August. After leaving town, we decided to detour our trip to Colorado and go through Pocatello and along US 30 over into Wyoming. We stopped at the Oregon/California Trail Center in Montpelier. That was definitely worth the visit! We drove all the way to Fort Bridger and camped next to the fort. We had a good visit to the Fort and we took a day trip the next day and drove over to Flaming Gorge. We drove along the western side of the reservoir. It was a pretty drive and we saw several herds of
pronghorns (one had at least 50 in the herd!) After driving all morning, we ended up in Green River for lunch. This hill sits above Green River and really dominates the Green River valley. Its a pretty area of Wyoming, both Ft Bridger Valley and Green River Valley are green with trees (not usual for southern Wyoming.) When we left Fort Bridger on Wednesday, we drove I-80 to US 191 and drove along the eastern side of Flaming Gorge reservoir. Driving this way we even got to drive across the dam. The road wasn't as good, but there was a lot more color in the rock along the
road. When we got to Vernal, we decided to go to the Utah Museum of Natural History so we could see all the disasour statues and rocks with leaves and insects imprinted in the rock. It was a good visit and a beautiful drive into Vernal. The drive from Vernal into Price was really pretty too (the last time we went on this drive we not only had Jenn and Loriann with us we had snow on the road! No snow this time, but the leaves were beginning to turn already! Price to Fruita, Colorado was not really what we would

call pretty, very remote and not a lot of change in scenery. We
didn't know when we made reservations that we would be so close to a national monument, but found out fast! We got to drive through the Colorado Mesa National Monument and it was really beautiful. This shot is an aerial shot of part of the mesa (if you look really close you can see the road, it runs right along the edge of the mesa!) It was only 23 miles, but a very slow drive with lots of stops. Yes, we'd do it again.

This is an artsy shot of the Mesa.

Howard won't pose, so I take candid shots!

After driving the Mesa we drove over to Paonia. That's where my Grandmother Horton's family was from. It's a very pretty valley and a beautiful drive.

On Monday we left for Colorado Springs on I-70. These are pictures of the stacked freeway along the Colorado River. Beautiful!

Our first glimps of the Colorado Rockies. We drove up to the summit at 11,992, through the really long Eisenhower tunnel and down the eastern side of the Rockies to Colorado Springs. We'll be here for about a week. Hoping to visit lots of stuff while we're here. There's lots to see!