Travels with Gunther and Kara

We had a good time with Neil’s sister Mary Jane and her daughter Lauren today. They drove over from Knoxville and got here shortly after 1130. We sat outside in the sun, drank some bees, Neil grilled some burgers and made up some baked beans, and we had this salted caramel gooey frozen thing afterwards. MJ and L headed home about 1700 or so and we’re just watching TV this evening. Might have something for dinner…but neither of us are really that hungry so we might just graze instead.

Connie got some pictures…I’ll get them off her phone tomorrow and put them up.

Cyas.

We got up yesterday and hit the road from Poplar Bluff; arriving some 250 miles later here in Nashville TN where we pulled into site P-10 here at the Nashville KOA campground. We ran into a bit of rush hour traffic the last 30 miles or so as it was almost 1600 when we arrived at the campground. After getting setup we went back down the road a mile or so and ran into the Santa Fe Cattle Company for dinner. There was a line of 20 or 25 people in the lobby waiting for restaurant seats…but we scored two empty bar stools at the bar so we had a beer each and ordered some steaks. Neil had a NY Strip and ate all of it along with his Santa Fe rice side dish…keeping his baked sweet ‘tater to have tonight with our scheduled pork dinner. Connie had a sirloin with Tennessee Whiskey glaze and potatoes and gravy. She saved a bit of her steak which we mixed into our scrambled eggs for breakfast this morning. Both steaks were great, the beer was cold and frosty, and we had some good conversations with our bar mates while eating. We  came home and watched TV until bedtime. Here’s a shot of our site P-10; pretty nice campground. We’re right on the end of the row and have a decent sized site with a nice concrete patio and picnic table.

This morning we had some scrambled eggs with leftover steak and cheese in them and then sat around vegetating until lunchtime since it was raining. About 1130 we had some left over pizza from our travel day on Thursday for lunch then since it was done raining we headed off for a 3 mile hike at the Bells Bend Outdoor Center about 15 miles from here. This is a nice state park and we wandered through the meadows, some woodlands, and along the river. Along the way we spotted some goldenrod

and some little purple flower things

and this Wooly Bear caterpillar.

Not too much flora or fauna today…we heard a few birds and spotted a Red Headed Woodpecker but he was just a dot up in the tree (and a silhouetted dot at that) so Neil didn’t bother with a photo.

We headed home and will watch the Alabama game here in a bit along with having dinner. Tomorrow morning it’s Mass in the morning then we’re stopping by Walmart for some groceries. Neil’s sister Mary Jane who lives over in Knoxville is driving over with her daughter Lauren and we’ll grill some burgers for lunch since it’s supposed to be a nice day. We haven’t seen Mary Jane since about a year ago…it will be good to visit with family.

Neil reconfirmed our stop starting on Friday in Cedar Key FL at the Low Key Hideaway…we’re really looking forward to a very slow week there…we’ll go on some hikes and drink beer at the Tiki Bar…and then well continue on down to Fort Myers for the winter. We’re also looking forward to some more warm weather…it’s been pretty cool the past 3 weeks or so as well as seeing some herons and gators.

Cyas.…

We had a pretty good last day in Branson…Connie worked in the morning as she has some students going out on rotation soon and needed to finish up the paperwork, qualifications, and forms for them. Once that was done we had a nice salad for lunch then hopped in the car and drove down to Old Branson; we scored a 2 hours free parking place at 1530 that became totally free at 1600 so we wuz good for the duration. We wandered through the open air mall area near the water front and watched the fountain show; then wandered through the mall a bit more before stopping back at Waxy O’Shea’s Irish Pub for dinner. Neil had Guinness and Connie had Smithwicks (that’s pronounced Schmiddicks for our readers who aren’t Irish or haven’t been across the pond and know the correct pronunciation). Connie’s dinner was a 1 pound loaded baked ‘tater and Neil had a dozen Drunken Shrimp (a fancy shrimp cocktail that was soaked in Pepper Vodka…how could that be a bad thing) and a bowl of Irish soup named Dublin Coddle…this was a soup with bacon, sausage slices, onions, shredded ‘taters, herbs and some non creamy sauce…this was really, really good. In fact, for bar food it was pretty outstanding…decently low calorie, tasty, and not deep fried. We came home and had some French Silk Ice Cream for dessert then hit the sack. We watched the fountain show…it had flame throwers, water jets, and even featured a rainbow in the water droplets falling from the water jets. I’ll post a pic later when Neil has the file server running…I only have the lo resolution file right now.

This morning we hitched up, packed up and hit the road about 0920 or so…we took the alternate route back to highway 65 and skipped going through downtown Branson with the extremely tight turns. Two hundred and twenty miles later we pulled into the Bullwinkle Rustic Campground and Resort…here’s a pic of Connie and Bullwinkle.

After getting parked…the lady at the office gave us strict instructions not to park on the grass…but it turned out the sites were pretty narrow so we had to drive across the grass to get parked…but we didn’t park on it so technically we met her request; anyway; we had a beer and then headed over to Bullwinkle’s Lounge on the property for another beer…they didn’t have draft at all but they did have Newcastle Brown Ale so we were good. After a beer we headed back home and Neil put Connie in jail temporarily…luckily Rocky was there to help save her.

Here’s a shot of our site 5 here at the park…it’s a little cramped and we don’t know exactly how we’ll get out of it tomorrow morning without running over the grass again…but hey, every plan has at least one flaw.

It’s actually a pretty decent little park; small and we are not sure we would want to stay here for an extended stay but it’s great for over night…only about a quarter mile from the  highway. Tomorrow we’ll head out for another 240 mile trip to the Nashville KOA…Neil’s sister Mary Jane is coming over on Sunday with her daughter Lauren. We’ll stay in Nashville through Tuesday then head out early Wednesday morning…310 miles to Auburn AL for an overnight stop and dinner at Country’s BBQ, another 175 miles to Tifton Georgia for a second overnight stop then 195 miles to Cedar Key FL where we are booked at the Low Key Hideaway for a week starting Friday the 25th. On Nov 1 we arrive at Seminole Campground in Fort Myers FL where we’ll be in one spot until Mar 15 next year. We’re really looking forward to some warm weather, eating and drinking at our favorite haunts, getting in some great bike rides, and seeing the herons, egrets, hawks, and ‘gators of southern FL again.

I’ll report in again in a day or two from Nashville. Cyas.……

Or Los Angeles or Las Vegas or any of those other coastal cities. Yeppers; Branson is definitely different. We’ve been to a couple of shows now and in several pubs and places and they do things here in Branson that just would not be tolerated in those other places. Yup; they salute veterans and thank them for their service, they say Yes Mam and No Mam, they say words like God and Jesus without any protesting and they actually appreciate and celebrate being Americans and are proud of that fact instead of being ashamed and apologetic about it.

Sunday as I said the other day we went to see Larry Gatlin and the Gatlin Brothers band…they were pretty good although I didn’t recognize many of their songs since we don’t listen to much country music. 

Today was a little more contemporary group…the name of the group is Six and it’s composed of 6 (out of 10 total, no sisters) brothers who were born and raised here in Branson and still live here. I gotta tell you…these guys are pretty good. They don’t sing songs of their own mostly but recreate the sound and lyrics of other groups from Motown to the Beach Boys to several other 60’s and 70’s groups. Best of all is there is absolutely no music…everything from the lyrics to the percussion beats to the trumpet and sax sounds is created completely by them using just their voices. Quite extraordinary.

Here is a link to one of their performances…http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tb4DOJ5-WXw. Check them out and see for yourself.

They sing everything from late 50s stuff to late 90s…and actually sound eerily similar to the original artists that did the song rather than like another group singing the song. So Beach Boys songs sound like the Beach boys…Elvis sounds like Elvis…outstanding performance. We really enjoyed it.

Afterwards we stopped by the ticket place and cashed in our vouchers from last night’s cancelled performance of Shepard of the Hills…guess we won’t get to see that one.

Here are a couple shots I got at our shows…the first one is in the lobby of the Starlight Theater where we saw the Gatlin Brothers and the second is Connie waiting on the Six show to start…checking her twitter feed.

Tomorrow is our last day here…Connie has some work in the morning then we’ll head downtown to wander around, see the sights, and have dinner. Neil will pickup and put away a bit while Connie works then we head out early Thursday for a two day transit to Nashville TN with an overnight stop in Poplar Bluff MO. 

Branson is actually a pretty cool little town. After watching the Alabama-Kentucky game Saturday evening we hit the sack early. Yesterday we went to Mass in the morning, lazed around in the afternoon, had some Ahi Tuna and rice for dinner then headed off to our first show…Larry Gatlin and the Gatlin Brothers Band. They were pretty good although none of us recognized many of the songs they sang…a couple of Roger Miller tunes and a Johnny Cash song were about it. Still; the show was nice and we came home and were tired so went to bed again. We slept all the way until almost 0800 this morning then after breakfast and coffee Connie did some work and Neil did some computer stuff. After that we had some chicken and noodles for dinner and headed off to our second of three scheduled shows…this one was the Shepard of the Hills. This is an outdoor play very similar in concept to the Lost Colony show down in the North Carolina Outer Banks and deals with this history of the early settlers in this region. The show is closing permanently after next Saturday’s show after a 30something year run. Unfortunately we got to the show in the rain and discovered it was cancelled for today. The good news is that we get a refund…the bad news is that we will miss the show as we already have something scheduled for tomorrow and staying out Wednesday night before leaving early Thursday doesn’t sound like a smart idea to us.

Tomorrow we’re going to hear a group named Six…it’s composed of six brothers who sing a cappella (no instruments) but make instrument noises in addition to the sung lyrics so it sounds like they have an entire orchestra behind them. We’re looking forward to hearing their artistry.

Since the show was rained out we stopped by Waxy’s Irish Pub downtown and had a beer and split a fried bread pudding desert. Yum, whiskey sauce and caramel sauce ss well.

Cyas.

With all of our work done on the house and Connie’s work relating meetings finished on Thursday we were ready for the road Friday morning. After breakfast, coffee, reading the paper and a leisurely pack and hitch session we pulled around the back of the factory to dump our holding tanks (good thing, the gray was at 96%) then hit the road. We had programmed the GPS to avoid the toll going into Kansas City as the toll for the house is pretty steep so after about 60 miles or so we got off the freeway and got onto us-40 which was really one of those over the river and through the woods kind of roads. Lots of curves and some small hills but not too bad. Our first stop was the Home Depot in Olathe, KS…not that we needed anything from Home Depot but it was a good place to stop and leave the house while we got lunch. We did run in and purchased a couple things we needed so we could say that we were shopping and then headed over to our lunch destination…Oklahoma Joe’s BBQ. We ate at this place when we were first looking at the New Horizons rigs although last time it was at the original location in the old gas station. We were going to go there again but Neil noticed that they had Joe’s #2 and Joe’s #3 and it turned out that #2 was actually across from where we had planned to park. Score!! We got there about 1230 and there were maybe 50 people in line for lunch…but a 10 minute wait and we were at the counter to order.  

Lunch was outstanding just as it was last time. We had a couple of pulled pork sandwiches…tender, smoky, lots of bark and pink smoke markings in the meat…delicious. We also got half a smoked chicken and a pint of potato salad for dinner after our arrival in Branson. After lunch we hit the road again and had a pretty decent drive on down to Arrowhead RV Park in Osceola MO. Bill the owner was a really friendly character and as advertised when we talked to him on the phone Thursday had plenty of available spaces. Cost us a whole 20 bucks for the night…we had a nice full hookup pull through so didn’t even unhitch…dropped the front jacks and hooked up water and power and we were done. Dinner was a pizza we had gotten from Walmart a couple days beforehand just for that purpose. Watched a little TV and then went to bed.

It rained some overnight…we woke up to a pretty serious rain shower about 0300 or 0400 but by the time we got up about 0630 it was clear. Bagels and coffee for breakfast and then we got ready and hit the road about 1000 for our leisurely 110 mile drive (gotta like those short travel days). The first 10 miles or so were another curvy country road, the middle 80 were pretty flat and on four lane highways or interstates, and the last 10 were on the interstate but it was getting pretty hilly as we were getting into the Ozarks. Once we were off the highway it was only a couple of miles to our site at the Turkey Creek RV Park which is an Escapees park…but we had to make a really serious right hand turn in downtown Branson…very little room between the road and a power pole, lots of traffic, it looked pretty ugly. Neil just drove over into the wrong lane and turn lane a bit and then we were clear. A half mile later we crossed the river then pulled into the park. Got registered and parked in site 6D for the next 5 nights…scheduled to leave Thursday morning.

We’ll have a nice rest this afternoon and then dinner will be the smoked chicken we picked up yesterday…good thinking we had. We have a couple shows this week to go see and might get the kayak into the water tomorrow if the weather is nice.

Cyas.…

Yea!! All our work is done (well, at least all that we can get done this trip, we’ll be back in the spring for another fix  that I’ll talk about in a minute). All of the issues that we had on our list when we arrived last Sunday have been taken care of so we’re headed out tomorrow morning…we’ll overnight in Osceola MO and then get to Branson MO Saturday afternoon for a 4 day stop. We’ve gotten tickets to a couple of the shows in town (Branson is sort of like the Las Vegas of the midwest). We’re heading back over to the Elks Lodge for beer and dinner this evening after Connie finishes her presentation with her students.

When I was reloading the basement after they finished working on our tank sensors Tuesday evening I noticed a slight cracking in the outside fiberglass under our bedroom slide. So far it’s only about an inch long and isn’t all the way through the fiberglass. I got Ken to take a look at it and there’s good news and bad news. The bad (well, not so good I guess is more precise) news is that New Horizons has been seeing this on a lot of rigs; particularly those that were stretched a bit over one of their standard designs. What happens is that the frame underneath the basement door on the driver side flexes a little more than the wall does; this puts extra stress on the fiberglass and you get stress cracking.

The fix is to pull the underbelly down, weld in some square steel tubing along with the existing angle iron portion of the frame to stiffen it up, then patch the fiberglass. Unfortunately, this is about a 3-4 day process since they need to disassemble some stuff, weld, paint the frame, wait on it to dry, fix the fiberglass, and put everything back together and Ken didn’t have time to get to it this week. We talked to him about possibly staying another week…but unfortunately the Heavy Duty Truck Rally is a couple hundred miles from here this week and he’s got more repairs scheduled for next week than he did for this one…lots of people coming by because they’re in the neighborhood. He could have fit us in the week after but that would impact getting to our scheduled stop in Cedar Key on Oct 25. So we’re just going to come back in the spring for that repair. 

Our plans for March are to go to a concert in Charleston, up to VA to see the human kids, then back down to Knoxville TN for a rally in early May. Our original idea was to make a counter clockwise sweep through OH, IN, MI, the upper peninsula of MI, MN, and WY before heading back down to western Indiana for the New Horizons rally in September. We’ll just reverse that circle starting from Knoxville and come out to Kansas then north through MN/WY, east through the upper peninsula, back down through OH/IL and then slightly west to the rally site at the Amana Colonies. 

Our current plans after the rally which ends Sep 19 next year are to hit the Mississippi River just south of St. Louis and bumble down the back roads to just north of New Orleans, then head east back to Fort Myers for Winter 2015. If you ever watched Alton Brown’s Feasting on Asphalt series on the Food Network…think of it as a recreation of his journey in the opposite direction. That’s all still tentative though; at this point the only things we’re sure we’ll be doing in the spring are the Rally in Knoxville in May, repairs at Camp Horizons in late May, and the rally at the Amana Colonies in September…the jello for the rest of the trip hasn’t even been mixed yet so we don’t need to shake it up.

Cyas.

We’ve safely arrived at Camp Horizons in Junction CIty KS where we are parked in front of Service Bay #2. We left Amarillo yesterday morning and had a really bad day transiting. We needed fuel before we left and had to get this E19 diesel which is 19% alcohol. After doing this we discovered that this stuff really kills the fuel mileage and also hoses up the computer in BAT so that the miles remaining is all screwed up. We were going 10 miles by odometer and miles remaining would go down by 14 or 15. Then our steps blew open not once, not twice, but three times in the wind…that never happened before. Luckily they don’t blow open enough to drag and Neil bungee corded them up for the duration of the day.

245 miles later we arrived in Dodge City KS and pulled into the Gunsmoke Trav-l RV Park. Our initial impression on pulling in to the check in area was “yuck, what a dive…but we’re only going to be here one night so no worries”. Luckily it turned out  that the 8 or10 sites right up by the office were divey but around the back, past the trees and through the woods a bit was the nicer section of the park and it was very nice. We had a nice pull through so didn’t unhitch…in fact Neil didn’t even let the air out of the bags on the air hitch…we just put the jacks down. Usually we only put down the front ones if we’re remaining hitched but it was so windy the house was rocking so we stuck the rear ones down to stabilize us.

 We headed out to the Central Station Bar and Grill for dinner…this turned out to be a restaurant where you could eat in the bar rather than a bar with a little bar food. Neil had a Central Station steak with their signature sauce and Connie had the best tacos we’ve ever had…Neil wishes he had ordered them as well as it was his other idea besides the steak…first because it actually tasted better and second because we would have had room for the Triple Chocolate Cake for dessert in that case. He had a loaded baked tater too but only had a couple bites and we brought the rest home with us…it’s going to get cut up and mixed with a can of Golden Mushroom soup for dinner tonight along with some Garlic Bread made out of an Artisian loaf we got this afternoon from the Dillons. Talk about a yummy dinner…that was the best we’ve had in a while and we had a great time talking to the two young lady bartenders and the Marine sitting next to us.

We got up this morning, had some oatmeal and hit the road shortly before 0900…210 miles later we pulled into Camp Horizons are are parked in front of the service bays. We’ll go and see Ken Ulmer in the morning and figure out when our work will get started. Neil has to run up to the Army base and see if he can get a final X-ray on his broken foot, Tuesday we’ve got an appointment to get BAT serviced (oil, etc) and we’ll hit the road as soon as our work is finished. Our next firm stop is in Cedar Key FL on the 25th; but that’s 19 days from now and while we’ve got our route plotted out we have to sort out days at each place…but we can’t do that until we know when we’re leaving. Here’s a shot of the views from Camp Horizons.

The main office and factory is out of view to the left of the service building…we’ve got water and power but no sewer…so if we need dumping we’ll have to hitch up and pull around to the dump station behind the service building…but we should be OK without dumping as long as we’re out of here by the end of the week…and we’ll dump on the way out.

Here’s a 360 degree panorama that I shot a couple weeks back when we were in Arches National Park; this was taken about halfway out to the long arch named Landscape Arch. I can’t figure out how to make it show directly on the post so just right click the link to open in a new window. Click and rotate in the image to make it spin around; if you use the little direction icon in the upper left to look northwest where you can see the trail and the bush to the right of the trail Landscape Arch is visible just to the left of the tree next to the trail. I meant to post this from my phone (it’s a phone app that takes the picture) back when we were in Moab but forgot. Sorry about that. It will give you something a little cooler to look at than pictures of service bay.

http://360.io/SfYYnM

Cyas.

Just a short post today as not much is going on. Yesterday morning we got up about 0530, got all hitched up and ready to leave, stopped by the breakfast nook at American RV Campground for breakfast then hit the road for our 298 mile trip (297 of them on I-40) to Amarillo TX. We stopped for some fuel and gas and then again for lunch at a Subway and then just drove and drove across a whole bunch of nuttin’. I gotta tell you; eastern NM and western TX are pretty bleak. We ran into a dust storm for awhile just into TX and then discovered that the old saying about everything being bigger in TX is true…including the A-holes. There we are going down the road once we were into Amarillo…Connie in front of BAT and we’re driving in the middle lane of 3 to keep away from the exiting and entering traffic…traveling about 59 in a 60 zone so we weren’t poking along. This jerk in a Corvette going at least 20 miles over the limit passes me on the left, cuts into the center lane ahead of me then cuts to the far right hand lane around Connie…missing her bumper by less than 10 feet; scared the heck out of her. 

We overcame and continued on to Amarillo Ranch RV park right of off I-40. Got all set up in site 137 which is huge. Take a look at the amount of space we have on our passenger side and we’re at least 5 feet away from the power pedestal on the drivers side whereas we’re usually about 2 or 3. They’re pull in sites on gravel but it’s really hard to guess where to park as it looks more like a field of gravel with a bunch of RV hookup pedestals sticking up in it. We ain’t complainin’ though…easy in and easy out.

For dinner we went out to the Great Texan Steakhouse about a mile or so down the road and had beers and a couple of pretty decent steaks. We passed up on their 72 oz steak which is free if you eat it and all the side fixin’s in an hour…the record is 8 minutes and 52 seconds by Joey Chestnut who is the guy that’s won the Nathan’s Hotdog Eating contest at Coney Island on the Fourth of July the past couple of years. We did meet a nice couple that were headed for Albuquerque and then Los Vegas and another nice couple that we swapped tips with…they were headed for Albuquerque as well so we sent them to the Effing Bar and Grill we ate at the other night and they recommended the Sly Mongoose Bar in Maui Hawaii for our eventual trip out that way again. We ate all of our steaks but brought Neil’s baked sweet tater and half of Connie’s baked tater home to go with some sautéed pork tenderloin for tonight’s dinner.

Tomorrow we’re off to Dodge City KS for the night then on to Junction City. Once our work is done we’ve changed our minds based on talking to a fellow New Horizons owner in Albuquerque the day before yesterday and are going to Branson MO instead of St. Louis…we’ll take in a show or two there before heading on to Nashville, Auburn (gotta eat at Country’s BBQ on the way through) and then down to Cedar Key. Exact days and plan are TBD until we know when we’re leaving Junction City.

Cyas.

Tuesday was a pretty easy travel day. We got up and had breakfast and coffee and headed off from Durango about 0900 on our 250 or so mile drive to Albuquerque. We ended up being on a 4 lane highway most of the way and there were only a few hills. One pretty steep one about a mile or so long getting out of the Durango Valley then it was just rolling hills mostly all the way into NM and down to Albuquerque. We pulled into American RV Park on the southwest side of the city about 1600 and got setup in a nice full hookup 50 amp pull though site. After unhitching BAT we back him right up to the kingpin to get him out of the road and parked the car in the back. Dinner was leftover pizza from the night before in Durango and we split a can of cream of mushroom soup. 

Here’s a shot of our site 204 here at American RV. The sites are spaced pretty nicely and it’s open so we have good satellite visibility.

This morning Connie worked until almost noontime…she got her assignment of students to affiliates approved and sent out the assignment letters for those who have completed all of their paperwork for the clinical rotation. Sure enough…within an hour she got a call from one of the students complaining about the location she was being sent to…Connie patiently explained to her that an hours commute to the site was within the guidelines and essentially said tough, you’re going there.

Once that was done we had a short chat with the folks directly behind us who are in a New Horizons Summit model; we met them at the rally in May and there have actually been 3 other New Horizons in and out of the park in the past couple of days…quite surprising to see that many in one location since there are only about 1,100 New Horizons total. We then headed off to Santa Fe to have lunch and tour around a bit. It’s about a 70 mile drive but pretty empty on the freeway on the way up. We arrived and parked and headed for our first stop…the Five and Dime store on the plaza for their famous Frito Pie.

Frito Pie is a bag of Frito’s Corn Chips cut open with scissors then filled with home made NM chili and cheese. 4.75 and it was an outstanding lunch. We saw this on Anthony Bourdain’s show Parts Unknown. His comment on it was that it felt in his hand like a full colostomy bag…but that it was really delicious. Ya know…he’s right, it’s squishy in the bag but tasted really good. 

After lunch we wandered around for awhile so Connie could buy some bargoons and then wandered up to the Basilica of St Francis of Assisi. This is the oldest cathedral in the US (construction started in the 1700s but the oldest part is the original church which dates from the early 1600s) and has the oldest Madonna statue in the New World…she arrived in 1625. The wooden beam ceiling is the only remnant of the original church…the cathedral nave was built around it in the 1700s…it’s a way old building.

It was a really beautiful church…we talked to Jose (one of the docents) for a few minutes and he gave us a nice history of the Madonna seen above as well as the Cathedral and Santa Fe itself.

After our tour…we decided against staying in Santa Fe for dinner…we ate lunch late and were still full so we drove home, had a short nap, went down to the hot tub for awhile then got dressed and headed out to find something for dinner.

Connie found a place locally named “The Effing Bar and Grill” and we agreed that it seemed like our kinda place from the description and reviews so we went there. Had a couple pints of Guinness for Neil and Sam Adams Oktoberfest for Connie. We split a Combo basket appetizer of fried mozzarella sticks, fried mushrooms, and fried zucchini sticks…had a nice conversation with a retired local couple we met at the bar, then headed home.

On the way back…we skipped the freeway and noticed that we were on Historic Route 66…

It’s sort of a lousy picture but Connie took it through the windshield with her iPhone. Route 66 is probably the most famous highway in America…it was the first cross country highway and back in the day was the main route from east to west…populated by motels, roadside cafes, and the like. It’s since been largely overcome by the Interstate Highway system and relegated to largely backwater status but it was nice to be on a piece of it and get a memorable (if somewhat blurry) photo.

Tomorrow we’re up early to break camp and hitch. Once that’s done we’ll get breakfast here at the park (there’s complimentary continental breakfast)…then we’re off 298 miles to Amarillo TX. We have one pass to get through just east of Albuquerque; about a 1500 foot total climb and then it’s a pretty easy drive over into western Texas. We’re really glad that we’ll be down below 3,500 feet tomorrow; Albuquerque is 5,200 and it’s lower than either Moab or Durango…we’re really looking forward to being at a lower altitude so that breathing is easier. We’ve also been in extremely dry conditions in Moab through Albuquerque so getting a little lower and farther east should give us a little more humidity in the air making us feel a little less like a piece of human jerky.

Cyas.