Camp Life

Greetings from Arizona, where the sun is shining and spring has well and truly arrived! Hard to believe it's been two weeks since our last update! We traveled from Dallas through west Texas, & spent a few nights in Odessa. To all you Texans out there, no offense, but west Texas is SO flat and brown and blah! We traveled through the huge city of El Paso (crazy, nutty drivers there!) and back into New Mexico where we spent a few nights in Deming. We have spent the last week and a half or so in Arizona, first in Benson and most recently in Casa Grande.  Both RV parks were lovely, but there was one really awful thing about Benson - the trains.  I am not exaggerating one bit when I say that they are extremely LOUD and frequent. One night I was awakened (for the umpteenth time) at 3 am by the train blowing it's horn while passing by.  Between 3 and 4 am I kid you not, I counted 5 trains go through town. I realize they HAVE to blow their horns, but oh my word.  We truly do not understand how people can live there.  Then it was on to the Casa Grande RV resort.  Really enjoyed it there, even though it (like all the southwest parks) was all gravel.  Jinx enjoyed "dove-watching" every day at this park.  Hubby played golf one day, we did a little sight seeing, shopping, and caught up on motor home cleaning as well as laundry. Very laid back on our way back west. One afternoon we drove the 35 miles north to Chandler Arizona where we lived exactly 10 years ago.  It was fun to drive past both the golf course where John worked and the hospital where I worked.  We had lunch at a Greek restaurant, and I finally got to buy a few small items from a store called "Lush" that I'd only heard about, but had never been to.  

For the rest of this post, I thought I'd show a few photos of our everyday "camp life" in the motor home.  I haven't taken that many inside snapshots, but will post a few that I have.  Hope you'll enjoy.

Okay, so this first one is not an inside photo... just a shot of our Winnebago Journey and our junky little car (which is I'm afraid, on it's last legs) in a pull-through site.  This photo was taken on our way south, back in October - somewhere in Oregon. Pull-through sites are ever so convenient when you only plan to stay one night and not unhook your car (also known as a "toad").

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Here's Jinx in the living room area on his kitty blanket.  You can see the kitchen sink, stove area, and spice rack in the background.

The bedroom.  I hate this bed.  Hate may be too strong of a word, as I'm able to sleep on it every single night, but it does "cave towards the middle" and I despise that.  Dear hubby denies that there is any "caving" going on.  There is.    This shot was taken back in January.  I can tell because I see the flannel sheets are still on the bed.  Love flannel sheets in the cold weather!

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A side view of the bedroom, showing the closets, drawers, and mirror.  They are all part of the "slide out" section of the bedroom.  In the mirror you can see the window on the other side of the room.  Looks like it was just about dusk when I snapped this one.

The bathroom sink area.  Yes, there are two glasses on the counter.  One for the humans, and one for the feline. He prefers to drink out of a glass on the counter.  I know it's crazy, but that's how it is.  The shower is just to the left. I didn't take a pic of the separate toilet area. Heck, it's a toilet in a small room, not photo-worthy, in my humble opinion.

Easily my FAVORITE feature in our motor home is this.... the washer/dryer. Uh huh, I love this thing.... and it works slick as a whistle!  I use one Tide "Pod" per load.  Once the clothes are washed, this magical machine goes directly into DRY mode.  This has saved me countless hours just sitting around a laundromat (or as they say in other places, "launderette").

Since we were speaking of toilets earlier, here's Jinx the RV cat in front of his kitty "crapper".  He is a master at slipping in and out of that little swinging door above his head.  The mat on the floor is an ingenious invention that catches any little bits of litter that come off his paws on his trip out the swinging door.  Thank you, WalMart!

A view from the "navigators seat" on the road.  You can see I need some tools for the trade.  I have the ever-unreliable "Maggie Magellan" on my lap.  On the dash are the camera and both cell phones, what looks like a bag of kitty treats, and my notebook.  My dear daughter in law will vouch that I cannot leave home without a spiral notebook.  It's full of dinner menus, grocery lists, and these days, explicit directions to the next RV park!  I do check the Google Maps app on my cell phone a LOT.  It has saved our behinds more than once when "Maggie" has steered us wrong - or tried to.

Our last photo shows where Jinx loves to ride.  Used to be, he'd get all worried and need to be locked in his crate for the drive.  Not any more. He hears his Daddy start up that big ol' diesel engine, and Jinxie knows we're going bye-bye again. He hops right onto the dinette seat and has a snooze, till we pull in to the first rest area. Then he jumps down and demands a snack! 

We hope you've enjoyed our little tour around the RV.  Next stop: 

"CALIFORNIA, here we come..... right back where we started from........."

 :-)

Week Eight: A Review

Hello from Texas!  Hard to believe we've been on the road eight weeks already! Time to recap last week's RV travels and adventures.  We started last week in Arkansas- Hot Springs Arkansas to be exact. Unfortunately we didn't take many photos at all in Hot Springs.  The weather was cold and dreary for the most part, and we had a sick cat.  Jinx was unwell on Saturday and Sunday.  We never did figure out just what the problem was, but since he wasn't "deathly ill" we waited it out a bit before rushing him to the Vet. Luckily, after two days, he was his yowling furball self again.  For that we were so thankful!  Do you think it's crazy to say prayers for your ill pet? Well, I don't - so quite a few were sent up on his behalf.  On Monday, he was feeling better, so we did go out for a bit of sight seeing.  We drove to Hot Springs National Park. It was in a rather odd setting... the visitors center is located in a former bath house, with other bath houses surrounding it. I think we probably should have taken the time to take a dip into the hot springs...oh well.  Did you know Hot Springs was the boyhood home of our President Bill Clinton?!  He was born in Hope, Arkansas, but moved quite early on, to Hot Springs.

We stayed at a real nice RV park there called Catherine's Landing.  It was beside Lake Catherine, and if the weather had been nice, we would have done some kayaking.  Alas, the weather did not cooperate.  We also noticed some liquid leaking from our junky little car.  The hubs determined it was a radiator leak, so off to WalMart we went.  WalMart has everything an RV'er needs, right?  After purchasing more DexCool and a "stop radiator leak" preparation, we returned to the RV and attempted a fix.  Since I am writing this several days later, I can say "so far so good" for the radiator fix. 

On Tuesday morning we left Arkansas with our next destination set for Terrell Texas.  Terrell is about 35 miles East of Dallas, and we made that our home base for four nights while we explored a bit of Dallas. We stayed at Bluebonnet Ridge RV Park which is a very nice place.  Too bad the Bluebonnets are not yet in bloom. 

There was one place that we HAD TO SEE while in Dallas....  The Texas School Book Depository, which is now a museum.  We really enjoyed the museum, which helped us relive that fateful day when President Kennedy was assassinated.  They did not allow ANY photos at all to be taken inside, a bit disappointing.  Once we were done, we walked outside and John ran into the street where the motorcade went. There, they have marked with an "X", both spots on the street where the President was shot.  John took the next photo from where the 2nd shot hit President Kennedy.  I wasn't at all happy that he'd gone into a very busy street, but sometimes men run wild, I guess!  You can see moi` in the left corner of the photo, in the blue coat. The window that the fateful shot came from is not on the top row, but the next one down, on the far right.

The next photo is a much less "risky" one, taken by me of J on the "grassy knoll" which is right nearby. 

It was a lovely, sunny day in Dallas.  A bit nippy with the wind, but not bad. The next day was sunny as well.... and we headed back into the "Big D". This time we decided to check out the George W Bush Presidential Library.

We'd visited the Reagan Library back in October, so might as well check this one out too.  It was brand new, interesting, and very high tech. We were given iPods with which we could listen to extra commentary, take photos, or videos.  We still preferred the Reagan Library, and highly recommend it to anybody, no matter what your political persuasion.  The GW Bush Library was worth the visit too.  Glad we went.  Here's a shot I took of one of the dresses that our First Lady Laura Bush wore.  

We took lots of other photos inside, but they are on our email accounts and the internet here doesn't allow much downloading, so I gave up.  

Yesterday (Saturday) we left the Dallas area.  It was one heck of a gorgeous sunny day, with temps reaching 83 stunning degrees.  We even had to turn on the A/C for a while.  We reached our present location about 3 pm and after setting up, sat outside with a beverage taking in the lovely weather.  We knew it was coming --- but can you say "denial"???  This morning it was a whopping 18 degrees.  By mid morning, tiny white flakes accompanied by wind were drifting past our window.  Here's the view:

Yes, just above is the picnic table where the three of us sat and lounged in our shorts, just yesterday. No wait, just TWO of us were in shorts! Anyway, today we are hunkered down, bundled up, & trying to keep this tin can warm while not using up all our propane in the process!  Tonight we'll be watching the Academy Awards and sipping on some sort of soup to warm our insides.  

Our last photo shows Jinx the RV Cat - taken this morning. We are SO happy he's feeling fine again.  He sends a big Texas HOWDY to everybody who reads our blog :)

See y'all next time!