Into Arizona

 Feeling that we have a new lease on our trip, we motor across the New Mexico border toward Arizona and discover the El Malpais National Monument, along NM state road 117, south of I40, one of the two scenic state highways through this rugged landscape.  We noticed several backpackers beside this long stretch of road.  This is an area of previous volcanic activity as parts of the road are lined with chunks of black basalt that we identified and recognized based on our previous experiences in Lava Lands National Park in Bend, Oregon.  Unlike Oregon, in El Malpais huge sandstone rock formations on our left face the open grazing land across the road.

While those are interesting, the El Malpais Monument is not our destination, but Debbie points out that discovering things like this along the way makes our travel fun.  We ultimately head for the town of Show Low, Arizona, and a state park that also has an interesting name: Fool Hollow Lake State Park.  But not before The B!tch --our often untrusty RV navigator-- leads our 61-foot long coach'n'car combination astray one more time.  Following her directions, we turn onto a street that looks definitely neighborhood-like; the roads are narrow, edged with houses, driveways and mailboxes, and each side street is signed Dead End.  With increasing queasiness, we are dumb enough to trust her (although John's brain niggles at him, We didn't see a sign!) until she takes us to the end of that neighborhood on a dead end road, with a lake and RVs visible behind a meadow dead ahead, while proclaiming proudly triumphant, “You Have Arrived!”  The occupants of the ten private residences crowding around us may disagree.  So we unhook the car to allow the RV to back up and maneuver.  John enjoys the newly air conditioned Honda heaven to scout for a wide enough space to turn around.  Google Map on our phones appears to indicate that Garmin missed the entrance by a mile or more.  When we finally arrive there, we plainly see the Park's internal roadway wanders toward those houses on the other side of the meadow, but never connects.

Fool Hollow may have been named for the naïvely trusting Brys, but actually is the moniker applied to the farmer in the last century who insisted that he could prosper in a lowland that flooded seasonally.   His farm may be long gone, but his poor choice remains in the area's name.

The RV park at FH Lake is very nice, with concrete parking pads on well-tended sites, water, electricity, picnic tables, a fire pit and a charcoal grill at each.  Debbie likes our own gas grill.  We want to stay three nights, but our reservations ran into their busy time, so we had to settle for one night in “Red Head 2” (How appropriate! remarks Debbie) then relocate the coach to their “Red Head 26” site. OK, that's doable.  

The reason we appear to be drifting aimlessly is our number one son.  John tells us he's to attend a corporate conference in Nevada along with some others of his company's managers from Alaska.  He has plans to get away one evening to have dinner with us, therefore as we did three years ago in trying to synch our schedule with Debbie's brother Ken, we must be in Las Vegas on May 31^st.  Ah hah!  A goal! Since we're only wandering anyway, we'll circle the Southwest and see things we missed the first time through the area.

We had gone to Show Low in hopes of finding something interesting to do, but the only real attraction at 6,000 feet above sea level is a daily high temperature 20^o cooler than folks have in the low desert of Phoenix.  Of course, we're not from Phoenix, so we did food shopping and Debbie hiked a lot and John a little.  Debbie decides we'll reprise Cave Creek (north of Phoenix) for three days to hit an Amazon Locker (John didn't pack enough shorts!)  Afterward, we expect to spend several gorgeous sightseeing days based in Cottonwood next Friday at another cutely named Arizona state park.

For now, we fire up the computer to start writing this blog series and drive around the town on this weekend, reading every word in the local brochures to learn that Show Low was named for a guy in 1876 who won the property from another man, neither of whom could stand to be near each other. Near apparently was measured by many, many miles.  They resolved their interpersonal conflict by cutting a deck of cards → low card would stay in the area.  The winner turned up the lowest card possible and took possession of a huge farm which, over time, became an even huger farm –at one point half a million acres more huge.  The town took the Show Low name, then called its main thoroughfare  

“Deuce of Clubs.”  It's true.  We have proof:

However, the 13th day of our trip is not a lucky one for us.  On May 8th, we arrive in Cave Creek, several miles north of Phoenix.  We'd been here before and have the highlighted memory of that trip three years ago – May 2019.  This time the “alien scenery” we anticipated so much was not as alien, although the saguaro cacti are a welcome sight.  Our newest Adventure wrinkle, however, is the starter system in the RV.  Sometimes it works; at one point we needed to try to half-a-frustrated-hour before the engine turned over.

There is a Freightliner facility in a Phoenix suburb, on the southwest side of town.  We're somewhat north and east and would much rather have stayed in this very nicely appointed state park RV camp (see that link above for the spacious “camp” ground description). After the first night, we relocated to the Freightliner parking lot while they diagnosed the problem and scheduled repair for the next morning. In a nineteen year old vehicle from Michigan, problems appear in the darnedest places, this time in corroded cable ends where the starter draws its power from the “chassis batteries.” It's a relatively simple fix, although inconvenient, but it allows John to breakfast at a Waffle House for the first time in what had to be more than forty years and the two of us to wander the land south of Phoenix.

There we find the desert being consumed by invading new subdivisions, which led to the need for signs reminding us all that there's a water shortage. That doesn't seem to have stopped the seemingly irrational desire of people who insist on living in that dry environment to mist their patios to keep their skins supple. We had mentioned in a previous trip how the Colorado River used to run to the sea. Our understanding has been enhanced on this trip. The Colorado River's remains trickle into several small streams that evaporate somewhere in Mexico.  NationalGeographic.com reports the River “peters out of existence miles short of the sea.”

Our waiting-on-the-repairs wandering takes us into a parkland.  That word means acres of green grass to us, of course, but there's nothing like that in the 20,000 acres of the Estrella Mountain Regional Park, in Goodyear, AZ, south of Phoenix.  We pay 7-bucks for a windshield tour, hoping to get the phone call from Freightliner and, indeed, that comes after short time in Estrella's visitor center cum museum. However, not before we meet a real live diamond-back rattlesnake in a glass display case.  Then we see a real live mama quail defend her brood from a real live roadrunner (which doesn't look too terribly much like the WB cartoon version of our childhoods) and none of them are restrained behind glass.  We also meet a man who relocated to Arizona from the Muskegon area.  While he reminisces about Michigan, he obviously doesn't miss the winters.

We take the RV from the shop, leaving several dollars behind, and head back to Cave Creek for one more night among the cacti and desert flowers.  Other than a visit to the Care Free Botanical Gardens for Debbie, there's not much else of interest here. 

Reviewing her notes from No Rain, whom we met in Oklahoma as you recall, Debbie has us booked into another Arizona Park in Cottonwood. There's a train ride through red rock valleys involved. Also a Wild West dinner and show. And a ghost town. Whoo...

Amarillo where the Adventure REALLY begins

We finally get to Texas.  If we were the types of RVers who paste a map of States Achieved on the outside of their units, we would be looking for a colored marker now.  Instead, Debbie confirms it's true when John sees a billboard promoting a 72 ounce steak dinner for free!  TANSTAAFL has been a foundational truism since he'd run across it in his young teen reading even though politicians refuse to let you believe There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch and the ruling Party these days actively lies about “free lunches” that we all pay for and demean the needy.  Anyway, John now learns from Debbie, that you have to eat the entire 4 1/2 pound hunk of cow –with a baked potato, a salad, shrimp cocktail, and a roll with butter.  And do it inside 60-minutes.  If you fail, free becomes $75.  Still not a bad deal, says Debbie, considering you get to take home the leftovers ...and eat more sensibly for the rest of the week.

But we don't need a meal now.   Instead, we head to an area southeast of Amarillo where the largest canyon in The Large State of Texas is Palo Duro, actually is named for its trees: “hard stick.”  With evident Texas pride, one local tells us that it's better than the Grand Canyon, because you can drive several hundred feet to the bottom of it and look up.

Driving home the point that you just got in deep, every bridge crossing the dry creek bed along the canyon floor has warning signs and a gauge indicating that sudden high water can be expected at 5 feet above the road!

This state park lies at the end of a miles long stretch of 75mph two lane road, cut by just one crossroad on the lone prairie.   There's a stop sign.  Debbie's driving.  The stop is routine, but as we pull out a car starts honking.   John looks out his passenger window to see another driver pacing us on the shoulder and gesticulating behind.  Debbie is mystified and we don't have a back window, of course.  John finally thinks to look at the back-up camera which has displayed our faithful Honda C-RV following in lock step for thousands of miles over the past few years, but suddenly it skews to the side of the screen.  John tells Debbie to stop and pull over.   This, too, was not a panic stop.

Thankfully.   

As much as we wanted to think our “toad” was imitating a dog sniffing another's butt, the truth of it seems to be that the not-insubstantial safety pin that secured the hefty clevis pin between the empty arms of that prong under the bumper had jiggled loose ...allowing the clevis pin to fall out somewhere before that stop sign ...allowing the entire right tow-arm to disconnect ...allowing the remaining left tow-arm to twist out of shape ...not allowing it to stop the car's momentum.  In subsequent detail pictures you can see both emergency tow cables remained attached, and even the emergency breakaway brake cable never activated and is intact.

Only the right
arm detached.

"How will anyone
know it's a Honda?"
--Simpsons'
       Principal 
    Skinner

Front body
parts damage

Miles from anywhere on a Texas prairie 1,200+ miles from home –on a Saturday afternoon, yet!– we cautiously test that the car is drivable, then proceed to tonight's campground, creeping up to 50.   Park Adventure is its actual name; it is a commercial private enterprise right next to the state park and features a zipline across a portion of the canyon.  We went there when the State Park (next door) was full.  All we want to do is camp and find some zippy repair places.  We go to sleep worrying about the future, but the sun did rise the next morning.

On Sunday, a helpful guy named Aiden at an O'Reilly parts store in the town of Canyon helps us get the munched hood up, re-latched properly tight and, assuring us that he is a certified mechanic, finds nothing that would interfere with driving the car at Texas speeds.  John buys a few useful auto related gadgets, but feels guilty that we got the best end of that deal.  Major relief!  We go back to the State Park, wondering how long we'll be in Amarillo before getting on the road again.

Aiden had suggested a couple places for the tow bar problem, but nobody's open on Sunday.  Debbie's Monday morning phone calling finds another man who also recommends F/X Motorsports in Amarillo as a great resource.  There, on Monday, F/X's Conrad orders an entire new tow bar and even has it shipped overnight!   It's a simple plug'n'play into the current coach receiver and car's baseplate prongs.  The tow bar is the newest model and includes upgraded clevis pins with integrated locking pins so that our type of incident should not happen again.

But car's the air conditioner, which had been intermittently hinky for the past two years, refuses to work and the outside air temperature is 88 under horizon-to-horizon bright sun and climbing.  We decide: dealer would be the best bet, even though we generally locate smaller, independent shops at home who do us right.  Debbie's phoning finds Brown Honda and, on Monday, she pleads with the Service Department which decides that it can diagnose our problem that day –no promises on repairs.   It turns out the impact caused a hole in the A/C's condenser (similar to the engine's radiator), letting the Freon leak away.  They have the spare parts on hand, which includes a new clutch for the air conditioner and ancillary parts and will schedule it the next morning.  John deduces that fixing air conditioning is routine in this part of the country where summer high temperatures are almost always over 100^oF.  They also have a loaner car, so we go on our much merrier way back to the campground, to await both the repair and the new tow bar.  In the morning, we will re-locate to another RV park inside Amarillo called A OK, reflecting our inner hopes for all the repairs.

That night we drive the loaner to Big Texan Steak Ranch, the company behind the free-meat billboard.

It's definitely a tourist trap –kinda reminiscent of walking into Wall Drug: a shooting gallery, a cute “life size” animatronic country bear, brewery, motel, big gift shop, and more. But it's a fun one where locals eat, too.  Debbie thinks it more classy.

Center stage among the restaurant tables is a raised platform with six place settings and six countdown clocks.  As in a boxing ring, an announcer introduces the contestants, makes a lot of enthusiastic noise, and has them dig in while the clock starts to run.  These two guys had decided to try for the free meal as we leave.

The next day is Tuesday. Conrad calls from F/X to announce that he has the new tow bar.   Brown Honda says to come get our C-RV with its new Freon cooler thanks to the accident and a much more reliable air conditioner thanks to it being a part of the accident, although not a result of it.  (We'll make sure the insurance company understands we're not out to screw them.)  The new tow bar slips into place simply and locks firmly.  We are told that the insurance claim may include all that sheet metal and vinyl on the front of our car.  Maybe even a new H to ease Principal Skinner's concern!  We are told to wait until we're home to file the claim and they know to expect it.  Best of all, the coach seems to have no more than a white paint smear from the car's hood.  We never felt the low speed impact in the 15-ton Bry RV.

So, Wednesday morning we pull up stakes in Amarillo, deciding that Palo Duro is an enticing canyon, but it's not so grand that we would find much to do there after one day.  Next stop is Moriarty, New Mexico, that we never would have detected excepting it's on Debbie's Harvest Host list.

Our toad where it belongs!

We spend that night free of camping fees in the parking lot of Sierra Blanca Brewing.  Of course, it was not free (TANSTAAFL again) but our payment was to buy two beers, taste a couple more, and –we guess it's only fair– talk up the place as one that impressed us.  On the wall high above the tables is half a flying saucer embedded in the plaster with a gray-skinned, bug-eyed alien driving it.  John immediately recognizes that Roswell (NM) reference and discovers that Alien is the name of one of their popular brands.

Deb has a Whiskey Stout; John has a peanut butter porter and likes it(!) ...unlike the Pecan Porter he ordered at the Big Texan that he found so off-puttingly in-your-face with a strong smell and taste!  John samples Sierra Blanca's "Alien Milk Stout” which would have been the better choice and tries to buy a six-pack, but they don't bottle it!!  They do bottle the Whiskey Stout –"I loved the Whiskey Stout.  Oh my goodness, it was so good!"– but despite all that exuberance, Debbie didn't want to carry any back home.  At least John had a few good sips to decide the Alien Milk was the better stout for him, but both were great.

Tomorrow, we plan to test Bugs Bunny's directions at Albuquerque, keeping in mind we're coming at it from the opposite direction of the Warner Bros. Studios in L.A.

1-- 2022 Spring Trip -- Starting West by Going South

You'd think we would be wiser by now, but we woke up and got going around 9 this morning of April 26, telling each other we only have to throw clothes in the camper and John's tool boxes and hit the road by 10.  Eleven latest.

So at 2:30 that afternoon, tired of schlepping all kinds of stuff, the clothing and tools --and food and sundries and even more stuff-- we finally leave home knowing only that we would go south, along the lakeshore. Debbie's computer search yields a Harvest Host location just north of Michigan's border. Recall that's one of Debbie's ideal “glamping” locations: one night free in the parking lot if you're self-contained (water, sewage, electric) and perhaps are nice enough to buy something.  We're the kind of nice people who consider that something of a contract, but as it turned out, the North Pier Brewing Company in Benton Harbor is closed on Tuesdays...

https://www.northpierbrewing.com/

(did we mention today is Tuesday?  Not by any sort of planning!  So, hoping to make up for the lack, here's their logo.) 

....but their parking lot is open and we can't buy a thing! 

Another camper parks in the North Pier lot. The weather is Michigan cool and John is tired and Debbie is cooking, so we didn't say Hi.  Dinner is Debbie's chili and we add another cork to our growing collection that began about four years ago.

We're still putting stuff away and trying to remember how to run the TV's Rube Goldberg setup.  Recall from previous reports that we tossed out the old lo-tech two-ton box a few years back and replaced it with a flatscreen smart TV and a Bluetooth Bose soundbar, all kludged into the existing system with the original Panasonic DVD Home Theater's AM/FM/Disc player's 5.1 surround sound and a subwoofer under the couch.  Oh, yeah, we stuck on a BluRay player a year later. Four remotes. Six AAA cell batteries to install –and two AA's.

Also, John's still looking for his wallet that he lost about ten days ago.  Nobody nefarious has found it because nobody has tried to make big credit card charges.  It's gotta be in the house somewhere and he's gone through all his clothing and patted down every pocket.  Also his coats by the back door.  And the shirt-jackets he likes in cooler weather.  And under his desk, behind the cabinets, etc. etc. et cetera. At least ten times, resulting in Nope, Uh-uh, Not Here, Where Could It Possibly–, followed by at least half a dozen other increasingly angry and louder words and phrases that don't bear repeating.

Our National Parks get in free pass is in that wallet along with a diesel debit card that has about a 2-fillup balance (pre current Administration; less than 1 now) and memberships to the half dozen travel organizations that Debbie had joined to save money.  Senior Citizen Medicare card, too.  Also little things ––like a Driver's License and Health Insurance cards. Those were easily replaced as (a) John still has his passport from an Alaskan cruise that put into Vancouver five years ago and (b) the medical industry has changed from using our Social Security Numbers as “secure identification” to asking secret questions like Date of Birth, Address and other publicly published data nobody else could possibly know and sticking them into a huge nationwide electronic database that nobody unauthorized could possibly access. Which is why a Wyoming state drugstore's computer 1,600 miles from home keeps emailing John reminders that the one prescription they filled once in 2020 on his doctor's electronic say-so  is due again. And again. And....

Recall also that Debbie didn't experience her Kentucky horsey butts she had so looked toward last fall. Apparently the equines at the Assateague National Lakeshore in Maryland last September didn't count, so we'll spend a night at The Legendary Mustang Sanctuary north of St. Louis tomorrow which will put us about 10 hours into the 27 we need to get to Sedona, AZ.

Why Sedona?  Ask Debbie, who answers, "I don't know.  We'll just wing it as we go."  Swell.  But in asking, John (a frustrated Planner who is even more frustratingly light one wallet) learns we might not even end up in Sedona!  Maybe the Grand Canyon?  A Moab, Utah reprise?  Monument Valley?  Lake Meade?

Whatever.

As he used to say, Stay Tuned....

2-- Mustangs, Hard Rock, & Mother Trucker

 

2^nd night on the road, 4/27 

We park our coach for the overnight in the barnyard among the corrals filled with horsey butts, and the rest of their anatomies in Alhambra Illinois, somewhere north of St Louis.

Debbie is excited at the Legendary Mustang Sanctuary even thought it's north of St. Louis and nowhere near what you think of as West.  When we arrived, Kathy and Sean were very accommodating and spent about an hour introducing us to all the horses they currently have and the history of the work that they do!  It started 23 years ago when the owners received their first 2 wild mustangs from out west where the government rounds the horses up.   As we learned on a previous trip, the  BryRV blog from October of 2020, the BLM (no –not those political anarchists, rather the bureaucrats) told us the wild horses are ruining the environment with their unrestricted breeding, so they are herded together and disposed of. The lucky ones find loving families while the others end up in places like glue factories.

Kathy tells us that's only The Government Version –and far from accurate in her worldview.  She says Mother Nature is very good at controlling any species' population.  When the resources run insufficient, critters will die.  Even us humans.

Kathy had wanted to offer a Mustang sanctuary for a long while, but Sean doubted they would be able to get the horses able to be ridden.  To their surprise, they were able to gentle the horses and ride them with a saddle within 30 days, each one.  Sean uses an approach as seen in the movie, The Horse Whisperer, not the bronco busting as in the old westerns.  Over the years, they have been able to save many of these horses and get them adopted, and they have connections all over this country for adoption.

We move on to the Tulsa, Oklahoma area, for the third night.   The moment Debbie uses the O-word, the words and music that John's mother listened to frequently decades ago filled his head: where the wind comes sweeping down the plains and the waving wheat, it sure smells sweet... Yeah, like that.  As unforgettable as She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah and other tunes from his generation.

The Hard Rock Café casino hotel is in Catoosa, OK.  No wheat, but lots of concrete and asphalt where we set up for free in the parking lot.  Then we pay for a buffet dinner in a very loud ambient setting.  Rock music from a live dance floor, from the ceiling speakers, and from– everywhere and all at once. For $24 a plate, the food is... food. The only take away for us is that the place is operated by the Little River Band –far off the reservation we had believed was in Michigan. We are in a well lit parking lot near a main road, not far from City Life.  The night is a far cry from the quiet, rural farm of the previous night.  Debbie decides we're going to Amarillo tomorrow night, which is a 51/2 hour trip, unless we want to make it shorter and stop somewhat earlier.  Either way is a campground, electricity and sewer and probably a shower.  And John has been wanting to see Texas anyway.

On the fourth night, Debbie and John meet neighboring campers No Rain & Shawn at the Double D RV Park just off I40.  It's a pull-in park in Texola, OK.  Fifteen seconds of this gives you an idea how the park appeared four years ago: https://youtu.be/3kTeQidAMl0?t=35 [and the video drone pilot. Bonus!].  2022 is much more dusty at the end of April and the adjacent restaurant is closed and posted for sale.   But it is a nice price for the overnight with enough power for the necessary air conditioners and other mobile house accessories.

No Rain is a Cherokee from Arizona, but they hail from in Pennsylvania and are headed eastward for the summer, hoping to dodge Southwest America's scorching heat in New England.  To be more accurate, they live On The Road now –fulltime RVers, checking in with family members in their wanderings.  No Rain also is a grandmother trucker. They visit for half an hour or so of nice conversation and email address trading and Debbie takes notes where to go in Arizona.  No Rain gives us some excellent suggestions about places around and near Cottonwood, AZ.  She touts the Verde Valley Railroad ride, a 20-mile long tourist trap (something like the Coopersville-Marne Railway in West Michigan, but with red rock canyons!).  She also advises that we visit the the old mining town of Jerome, as well as Red Rock State Park in Sedona.  Sure!  We're just wandering anyway and, now, Debbie has a reason to go to Sedona!  Stay tuned, it's only a couple doors away, almost.

––

When No Rain and Shawn knocked on the door, John scooped his fleece-lined shirt-jac off the floor where he stores it frequently (much to  Debbie's dismay) and hung it on the driver's chair which is still handy (and annoys Debbie somewhat less).  When they leave, Debbie "suggests" the closet would be better as this night's low was not jacket weather.  So, keeping peace in the family, John lifts it from the chair only to find it suddenly heavier than he remembers.

Now, keep in mind he's worn this for three days/evenings on the road and Debbie even threw it at him while he pumped diesel in Tulsa because a bitter wind was blowing.  John even jammed his hands in the pockets in lieu of gloves.  This is the same garment that hangs by the back door at home and was included in the wallet search several times over the past two weeks.  But tonight– it is heavier– and there's a lump in the pocket– and the lump is the wayward wallet!  Glory be!  John's happy to have all his cards again, except that he was self-embarrassed over not finding it and had to spend $24 for a replacement driver's license.  

Oh, well... Onward & Westward.