Heading Back West

We ended up spending a little more than 4 weeks in Nashville. 

Family Photo

We started out with a private memorial at my father’s gravesite.  He passed away last March and is now situated in a plot next to my mother near Huntsville, Alabama.  We had an opportunity to visit with my sister Debbie several times and also to have dinner with my brother, Jerry and his wife Sandra.  I have Debbie to thank for pointing us to some of the more interesting sides of Nashville. 

I have to admit that my expectation of music on lower Broadway was a disappointment.  There were more honky tonks that you can visit in one night.  We chose to go early in the evening on one night and the places were already hopping.  My disappointment came in the lack of original songs that were played.  Basically everyone sounded the same. 

Corey Jackson at Tootsies

 

We did manage to go “The Listening Room” where we heard 4 song writers play/sing their songs.  The night we were there, it was four guys playing and singing their original songs.  No country here… more pop, rock and blues.  The most enjoyable part was hearing the writers talk about how they came to write their song.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ryman Auditorium Back Stage

We also visited the Ryman Auditorium and took the back stage tour.  The original use of the building was as a church.  Interestingly, this church was built with pews set up in a circle around the preacher who stood at center stage.  When the building was converted to be used for entertainment, they halved the building.  In essence, the back half began to be used for the back stage and dressing rooms were added.  Also, there was a second tier of seats added that the original church didn’t have.  I would highly recommend this tour if ever in Nashville.  It’s much more that just about country music.

 

 

Statue of Athena inside the Parthenon

We visited The Parthenon.  This is a full-scale replica of the one in Athens, Greece.  It was originally erected for the 1897 Tennessee Centennial and International Exposition.  It was only supposed to be a temporary structure for the exhibit, so it was made of wood lath, brick and plaster.  It eventually became an eyesore.  In 1920, the city authorized that it be reconstructed but with permanent materials and was reopened in 1931.  It is quite something to see.  I was most impressed with the structure of Athena inside on the upper level (the lower level is fine art).  The gold gilding contains 8 pounds of 23.75 carat gold.  This was also well worth the visit.

 

 

 

 

 

 



Historic House, Franklin, TN

Historic House, Franklin, TN

The town of Franklin will take you back in time.  We took a walking tour to see and read about the historic homes in the town.  I’m sharing just a couple that we found most interesting.  Plus the downtown was very quaint with a lot of shops and restaurants.  It reminded me a little of Bend except it had a town square in the middle, a very traditional Southern “thing”.

Before leaving Nashville KOA North, we got a rock chip in our new windshield we had just replaced.  Because of the heat, it immediately split and was not repairable. We had two replacements in less than a month, a very costly but unavoidable expense.

On July 20^th we uprooted and started heading west.  Our first stop was Paducah, KY.  Why Paducah?  Just across the board north of Paducah is a scenic byway in Illinois, Shawnee National Forest.  There we made stops at Garden of the Gods, Cave-in-Rock State Park that we could access due to the flooding of the Ohio River, and the Illinois Iron Furnace.

Garden of the Gods, Shawnee NF



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cave-in-Rock Path into the Swollen Ohio River

 

Illinois Iron Furnace, Shawnee NF

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Downtown Paducah

The downtown area is very active.  It has a great history museum and a number of good restaurant and pubs.  The town touts 3 breweries. We were surprised that most eateries had musicians play in the evening.  Most of what we heard was blues. On the last day we were there we visited Paducah Beer Werks and talked to the bar tender.  When we mentioned the blues he said that he writes and plays music when not tending the bar.  He told us that Paducah has quite a plethora of songwriters and musicians for a town of 25,000 people.

 

 

As of two days ago, we landed in Mountain View, MO at Ozarks RV Park.  But we’ll save this visit for a later date.

Until then, we wish all our friends well.

Katherine and Mike

 

Natchez to Nashville

Wow!  It’s hard to believe that it’s been over 2 months since the last blog.  We ended up in Livingston, TX for over a month but we successfully passed our motor home driving test. 

On the 29^th of May we drove from Livingston to Sulphur, Louisiana, just outside Lake Charles.  The Hidden Ponds where we ended up staying was a very basic RV Park.  We found out that the park only had about 4 spots where the residents were permanent.  We also learned that most of the people residing there worked at either the nearby factories or oil wells off the coast.  Every weekday morning at around 6 am, trucks (mostly noisy, older diesels) started their engines to go to work.  And, since we were right at the entrance, we had the pleasure of having them all drive by very closely to our rig. 

But all was not bad during our stay there.  It turned out that we were within a reasonable driving distance to the Gulf of Mexico and the beaches in Louisiana are both dog and vehicle friendly.  We enjoyed time with Bear wearing him out chasing the ball.

Pick your spot on the beach!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Two happy guys!



Met a man who was "crabbing"



Happy Dog!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our stop in this particular spot was chosen because it was near a Freightliner repair shop.  I mentioned in a previous blog that we discovered that our odometer wasn’t working and was permanently stuck at 42,162 miles.  In the end, Freightliner had to replace the computer board that operates the odometer and other readouts on the dash.  We also found out that our rig had about 18,000 more miles that what was quoted to us at the time of purchase.  Ouch! 

Our next goal was to make it to the Natchez Trace starting in Nachez, Mississippi.  We stayed one more night near Lake Charles then headed to Livingston, LA to stay 2 nights at Lakeside RV Park.  As a pleasant surprise, this is one of the nicer parks that we’ve stayed in.

From there we made it all the way to Natchez, Mississippi.  Here we had our first stab at a state park.  We chose Nachez State Park which had water and 50 amp electric. However we had to conserve water somewhat since we needed to use the dump station at the end of our stay. 

Nachez is an incredibly colorful area with a rich history.  It is the oldest continuous settlement on the Mississippi River.  Prior to the Louisiana Purchase, Natchez was the southernmost settlement in the Americas.  Spanish, French, English, and Scottish used the town as a global trade center.  Around 1850, the town had ½ the population of all the millionaires in the United States and they built many beautiful, stately mansions.  The town will celebrate its 300^th anniversary next year. 

 

Monmouth Historic Inn, circa 1818

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rosalie, Circa 1823

Magnolia Hall, Circa 1858

Originally used as a trade route for American Natives, as well as a migration route for bison, the Natchez Trace was established as a path between the southern part of the Mississippi to as far as Ohio valley.  After the American Revolutionary War ended, Americans constructed flat-boats from logs and carried burdens of trade items via the Mississippi to sell at ports such as Natchez.  Once the items sold (including the logs used to carry them), the peddlers would then use the trace as a means back to their originating points and start the process over again.  Many of these rugged people traveled their return journey by foot.

 

During our short stay, we lost our mail.  I requested our mail to be sent to a UPS Store in Nachez that I found online.  It turned out it was actually a drop spot in an office supply store.  We still had not received it by the time we had to leave and asked them to have it returned to our P.O. box in Livingston, TX.  To date, they still haven’t received the missing mail back.  Fortunately, this particular mail delivery didn’t have our permanent Texas driver’s license in it!

We continued on our journey up the Natchez trace and stopped at as many of the roadside historical markers that allowed big rigs.  On the June 12^th we were at Spring Ridge RV Park in Clinton MS for 3 nights. On the 15^th we were at Campground at Barnes Crossing in Tupelo for 4 nights.  On the 19^th we check into our current location at KOA North of Nashville.

So here we are at our “bucket list” destination.  So far we’ve spent a week adjusting to our surroundings and taking care of things like a very costly rock chip on the Jeep requiring a total replacement of the windshield, doctor’s appointments, etc.  (We do have ordinary lives at times.) 

For fun, Wednesday we took a short trip downtown to music row to get our bearings.  Hopefully, next week we can take in some of the music!

Tomorrow will be our 17^th wedding anniversary.  If anyone had asked us only a few short years ago if we would be retired and living on the road, we would have not have believed it.  We are still appreciative of every day we have to travel this beautiful, free country of ours.

So for now, we hope all our friends are well!

 

Katherine, Mike and Bear

Hung up in Texas

May 4, 2015

It's been almost a month since the last blog.

We spent April 8 and 9th at Fort Stockton, TX.  Our intent was to spend a week there, but once we arrived we realized that there wouldn't be a week's worth of things to explore there, so we decided to move on to our next destination.



The Alamo

April 10 through 21 we spent at a place called Hidden Valley about 6 miles southwest of San Antonio.  All I can say about the park is "hmmm".  The 1/4 mile road to get to the park was sandy dirt that was horrendously rutted.  On our arrival with Big Mama Gypsy, we could travel no more than 2 miles an hour so we wouldn't dislodge everything inside our moving home.  The place wasn't worth posting a picture.



Mission Conception

Overall, San Antonio is a nice city, albeit big.  We did visit the Alamo, which yours truly didn't realize was right in the middle of the city.  We also visited the other 4 mission in the area and found them very educational. 

We also took the river walk boat tour in the heart of the city and it was well worth it because our driver told us the significant history behind many of the buildings. 

Mike on the River Boad

The hardest part of our stay was all the rain.  We were constantly tromping mud and dirt into the motor home and there were days that we didn't travel out at all due to downpours. We, well actually Mike, saw his first coral snake.  Yikes!  We realized we would need to keep Bear on a tight leash to avoid any encounters.  The cactus blooms were pretty incredible though.



Prickly Pear Cactus in Bloom

We arrived at Livingston, TX on April 22nd.  Our intent in being here is to establish our Texas residency.  After we moved our care and motor home insurance to Texas, we were able to get our titles and registrations transferred.

We did find a little hitch.  When we went to read the digital odometer (don't' ask why we hadn't done this before now) we found it hadn't changed since we purchased the vehicle from Camping World back in October of 2013.  Rut roh.  After we finish things here in Livingston, we'll need to head to Beaumont, TX to have Freightliner hook a computer up to see what the actual mileage is.  We bought the big rig based on the 42,000 miles it had on it so we may have some more "communicating" to do with Camping World if the number is vastly off.   I'll keep you posted.

So the next thing we needed to do was get our driver's license.  We headed  to the DMV last Thursday, April 30th.  Our rig s over 26,000 lbs. so we knew we would need to have a Class B license.  In order to get a Class B license you have to take both a written test and driving test.  We didn't realize that we should have been studying the "Texas Commercial Motor Vehicle Drivers Handbook".  Both Mike and I failed the test that day.  But, the state allows three tries, so we got one of the manuals and began vigorously studying.  It meant memorizing a lot of weight, height, length and specifications on different kinds of rigs and trailers.  So today, both of us nervously headed to the DMV to re-take the test.  And the results were??  Yeah!  We both passed.  Now we only need to take the driving test to finish things up.  The earliest they could fit us in is May 27th because of the number of driving test that already have slated from this tiny office.  We had hoped to be out of Livingston was before this, but alas, you have to do what you have to do.  Thus the title, "Hung up in Texas".

So, you may wonder, why try to do all this in Livingston?  Livingston is the headquarters of the Escapees Club to which we belong.  It's also where we have our residency established through a P.O. box.  Plus, the good folks at the DMV here (all two of them) really understand the ins and outs of what we need to do in order to accomplish our goals.  And, by the way, I have to say that for the log of work these two people have they are very accommodating and have a good sense of humor.

Livingston doesn't have a whole lot to do, so we will probably venture out to explore as many outlying areas as we can during our extended stay here.  If anyone is familiar with the area and has some suggestions, we are certainly open!

So now all is currently with our exploring.  I hope to have more interesting news and pictures once we head through Louisiana and finally as we explore the Natchez Trace on our way to Nashville.

Best wishes from Katherine, Mike and Bear (of course)!

Time to Leave Las Cruces

April 7, 2015

We will be pulling out of Las Cruces tomorrow and heading for Ft. Stockton, TX.  We originally planned to spend a week in Ft. Stockton, but came to a decision that we would rather spend more time closer to San Antonio where it is so rich with history.  We'll only be in Ft. Stockton for 2 nights then will spend 12 days at Hidden Valley near San Antonio.

If you ever decide to RV near Las Cruces, I would recommend Sunny Acres.  The location is very near to town so it makes getting to places a lot less time-consuming.  Also, despite the fact that there are busy roads on either side, it's very quiet.  Our favorite place near Las Cruces is the small town of Mesilla that is only 2 miles from our location.  It still has the old-world western feeling to it but with a lot of quaint shops.  It is also very dog friendly. 

We wished we had taken more pictures.

Our friends, Momi and Bob recommended that we take a hike called "Dripping Springs" located in the Organ Mountains about 14 miles outside the city limits.  We drove most of the way there when we got stopped by a ranger who told us that Dripping Springs is the only location in the area that doesn't allow dogs.  Boo.  He did tell us about some other trails in the area that did so we ended up at Sierra Vista Trail.  We had the trail all to ourselves and Bear got to run freely.  There were a lot of wild flowers in bloom.  I've already posted some of these on Facebook.


Cactus bloom

Wild Flowers

Happy Dog!

On our drive back to town after the hike, we came across a resident with an incredible commitment to our country and our troops.  I wish I could have captured the setting better.  It was very moving.  In the center of the sand it says "Freedom is not Free".  The plaque on the right says "Patriots Welcome".  The sign on the left with the kneeling soldier says "God Bless Our Troops".  In the background is a huge Bald Eagle.  There were other metal sculptures of soldiers around the property.  It was a very moving experience just to be able to take a picture and appreciate this person's commitment.  The flags that are flying:  American Flag, New Mexico flag and an MIA flag.



So, our time has come to move on for new ventures ahead.

God bless America!





 

Time to Move On

March 20, 2015

Wow!  I can't believe how long it's been since the last blog.  We've had a really busy month and a half!

We attended the Escapees Rally in Tucson this year and made some really awesome friends that we intend to keep in contact with while we travel down the road. 

New friends!!

We also graduate from the Escapees Boot Camp.  This was an intense 3 days of courses for newbies on the road.  Some of the content we had found out by the school of hard knocks in our travels since we left Bend last October.  The classes I found really helpful were:  understanding your refrigerator (believe it or not, this is really important), how to escape in case of a fire and making sure your emergency exit works, tire inflation and what is required for an individual rig.  We were able to also get weighed with "Smart Weigh".  The two biggest concerns in driving a rig as big as ours is fire or tire blowout.  We had our rig weighed with Smart Weigh which checks the weight over each tire.  We were really encouraged to find out that we were underweight by 4,500 pounds.  (No that doesn't mean going on a buying spree.)  And, we were also able to look up the manufacture's recommended weight load and how much air we should have in our tires.  I know I'm starting to sound geeky here, but you don't want to have a blowout on the road (hint, if you do... speed up!)  We also discovered that it doesn't matter if your tires "look good" after 7 years.  There is a limited life for tires on big rigs and that is 5 to 7 years.  The term "use them or lose them" came up a lot.  So, depending on how much you can afford to travel, it's better to burn miles on the road.

We ended up back at Desert Trails after the Escapees event and decided to take time to plan our next moves.  Our intent is to make it to Nashville this summer and spend time with family.  My dad passed away this last month and the sibs will be getting together to have a private celebration of life for him. 

Starting on April 1st we will start on our journey eastward.  This will be a first for Mike and he's intent to work on his southern accent.  We need to make it to Livingston, TX so we can establish our Texas residency.  On our way we will spend a week each in Las Cruces, NM, Fort Stockton, TX, San Antonio, TX then finally at Rainbow's End RV Park in Livingston, TX where we have two weeks planned.  The stay there will depend on how quickly (or not) we are able to establish residency.  We also realize that since it's Spring, our travel may depend on the weather we encounter.  No tornados!

Our plan for post Texas is to make to the Natchez Trace Parkway starting in southern Mississippi and ending in Nashville.  Again, our travels will depend on the weather.  This trail has come highly recommended by a number of people, so we are really looking forward to it.

We are feeling the urge to move on from here even though we've reserved a spot here at Desert Trails for next year starting in November.  Spring has sprung here and so has the heat.  It's been in the 90's the last three days.  Time to move on to new stories and new friends!

Until later!

Scenic Drive

February 19, 2015

Thanks to my good friend Kim Plummer for giving me the book “The Most Scenic Drives in America” by Reader’s Digest as a birthday gift.  This is and will be a very good book for our upcoming journeys.  While in Casa Grande, we found a loop near us and decided to take a day for this 145 mile drive.  Well, we actually took it backwards.

We started at Apache Junction where we headed northeast instead of northwest.   Due to the length of the drive and the fact that there were school busloads of kids unloading, we decided to forgo the first stop… Boyce Thompson Arboretum. 

Tunnel for the old road

Beautiful Striations

On the trip between Apache Junction and Globe, we found an old road that had once been the original highway through Queen Creek Canyon.  We love exploring old roads and highways because they give a different perspective from the new and straightened out ones.  We found a pull off and a way to hike down to the old road.  From this picture, you can see the new highway and the following the old tunnel through rock.   The striations of rock created a really full 3-D effect.  We even found some wild flowers starting to bloom out of the rocks and a century plant growing from the vertical side of a rock.  It felt like a trip back in time even with the modern highway buzzing over our heads.

Century Plant growing out of the rock

Wild Flowers

Copper Mine

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back on the road as we arrived near Globe, we came across this rather ugly landscape.  Copper mines seem to be everywhere in Arizona.  I recognize their importance in the economy and providing jobs; however, they forever change the landscape of the area and that’s a hard pill to swallow in such a beautiful environment.

Original Roof Structure

View from Below

 

 

Our next stop was at Tonto National Monument.  I have never seen actual adobe ruins so this stop was very exciting for me.  The climb to this cave dwelling was rather steep with exposed edges, so I had to keep my eye on the trail to avoid vertigo.  But when I reached the destination… what an awesome site!  I took some photos of the inside but because of the closeness, it was hard to present a good perspective.  The guide at the top gave some insight to the lives of the people who lived here. The Salados Indians used the natural structure of caves in this area to build their homes.  This one was east facing, so it had the benefit of the warm sun in the mornings and then was cool in the afternoons as the sun headed westward.  The cave also provided good protection from the spring rains.  They typically built two story structures and the guide told me that they spent a lot of time on the roofs during the summer because of the heat.  I found the structure interesting because they had to find sturdy structures such as trees to create the beams for the roofs.  Trees are not that numerous in this area and transporting them up to cave had to be some small feat.  They used the nature holes the caves as the rear support for these beams.  The roofs and second floor beams were first topped with dead Saguaro.  (When a Saguaro dies, it leaves behind rather spindly fronds.)  Then it was topped with a type of mud that dried to form a sturdy floor or roof.  I was amazed that one room still had the original structure intact.  All in all it was a really cool visit.

Mike in front of the Dam

Next we stopped at the Theodore Roosevelt Dam.  According to the book, this dam was dedicated in 1911 and is the world’s largest masonry dam.  It felt funny to see such a large body of water in the desert.

Back side of Dam

 

 

 

Scenic Drive

Between the dam and Fish Creek Hill is a 22 mile one-lane dirt road.  It is well graded with a few washboard areas but is a very slow ride.  The views, however were really worth it.  Around every corner there was a new and different perspective from massive vertical rock walls to caves and vertical drop offs.  Of course, the drop-offs were on the passenger side.  (Don’t look down, Katherine.)

 

 

 

 

Massive Rock Walls and a Cave

We stopped at Canyon Lake so that Bear could take a swim.  He was in his element since he hadn’t seen a body of swimmable water in months.  And, Mike and I enjoyed a respite from the ride. 

Scenic Drive

After this 22 mile dirt road, we realized it was starting to get late and we were starting to get hungry.  So we headed back “home”.  I would highly recommend this scenic drive to anyone visiting in the Phoenix area, but don’t forget to pack a lunch!  It is a long drive.

Our next destination is back to the Tucson area to get some work done on our rig.  Then, we’ll be participating in our first “club” adventures.  We are members of the Escapees and their annual event in mid-March happens to be at the Tucson Pima County Fairgrounds.  It will be fund to make new friends.  Who knows… you may come together again!

Until later, friends!!

Casa Grande, AZ

We’ve now been in Casa Grande since the 13^th of January.  This park is much different than our last one.  It’s not as hippy, funky and the people are a bit harder to get to know.  It’s nice however that we are much closer to a grocery store and can go a bit more spontaneously.  They also have lots of activities here.

Places Visited:

 

Casa Grande:

 

In our early explorations of the area, we found out why the town is called Casa Grande (Spanish for “large house.”)  There are ruins about 30 minutes outside town of an ancient village built by Native American in about 1300.  The people are considered remarkable for the time because they cultivated the desert.  They did this by hand-digging canals with only rough hewn tools (made out of local bushes or trees) to create irrigation canals from the once thriving Gila and Salt rivers.  They grew crops like corn, beans, squash, tobacco, cotton and agave to add to the natural plant foods available such as saguaro, cholla, hedgehog and prickly pear cacti.  They also hunted rabbits, mule deer and big-horned sheep.  During the time the village was occupied, they built the great house of Casa Grande.  No one knows its exact purpose.  Its sheer size and amount of effort and manpower suggested it was a very important building.  An interesting feature of this building are the small holes in the exterior walls.  One of these holes was perfectly positioned so that people gathering inside the building during summer solstice could see the setting of the sun indicating the end of a season.

It isn’t known why the people abandoned the once flourishing village.  During a lecture, we were told that a supposed reason for abandonment could have been years of flash flooding so that the canals could not be maintained.  Another was that the saline in the water may have eventually sterilized the ground so that crops would no longer grow.  Other considered reasons for their disappearance could have been draught, disease, internal strife or earth quakes. 

The site was discovered in 1694 when the first Spanish missionaries arrived and named it Casa Grande.  Unfortunately, for two centuries after Casa Grande’s discovery, visitors and souvenir hunters pillaged the area.  It took scientists until 1892 to have Casa Grande became the nation’s first archeological reserve.

For more information visit http://www.nps.gov/cagr/historyculture/the-ancient-sonoran-desert-people.htm .

Japanese Internment Camp;

 

Memorial on top the Butte

A layout of the camp

We also went exploring for a WWII Japanese Internment Camp.  We became interested in finding this site when we found it on an Arizona map.  There were no road signs.  We tried finding it by driving on canal roads.  We finally saw a truck coming from the opposite direction and Mike asked if he could point us in the right direction.  We were close but would never have found it without his help.  It’s a shame because kids have been partying in the area and leaving cans and broken glass everywhere.  From the top of a small butte there was a memorial plaque.  It was hard to image people being displaced in a place like this.

Motor Home Living:

 

Now for the motor home living update.  It isn’t always glamorous.  When we left Desert Trails we had a hard time getting our all-electronic jacks to retract.  We kept having to reset the panel because an alarm would sound and indicated that our jacks weren’t all the way down or all the way up.  With the help of our neighbor, Bill, who was more persistent than we were, we finally got them up through constantly resetting the panel.  However, when we got to Casa Grande, we had no success with lowering or raising the jacks. 

We called Good Sam to the rescue and they sent Whitfield Auto out to look at our situation.  According to the repair person, the cotter pin holding the movable part of the back jack on the driver’s side had snapped.  They duct-taped it up “literally” so that we could take it down to their shop about 1 mile away.  They were able to fix that one jack in one day (which required removing both back tires on that side) but were still not able to get the entire jack system working again.  By the end of the day they had determined that one of the front jack’s motors had burned out.  Okay, now what?  They told us we could take the motor home back to our spot at Casa Grande where they could fix it at the site. 

About a week ago, they called us when the new engine had arrived and that they would repair the jack on Wednesday (yesterday) or Thursday (today).  I called yesterday morning and they told me that they could possibly do it Wednesday afternoon.  No show on Wednesday.  This morning, I called again.  It turns out the person they had working on our repair was in the hospital because he had been experiencing shortness of breath, etc.  So our new expected repair date is tomorrow.  I’m crossing my fingers on this one.  Thank goodness a three-year warranty was included in the price of our motor home!  I’m also glad that, unlike some other motor homes, we can put our slides out without the jack levelers down.

Well that’s all the news we have for now!