10/4/2010 On the Way to Holloman AFB

We were up early this morning and it was a good thing we were as I’ll explain later.

We continued on Route 54 through New Mexico to Alamogordo. This is a section of this state that we haven’t been to yet. There are several towns nearby that we want to explore while we’re here in addition to some National sites.

Scenery on the way was mostly farm land. Crops or cows.

Of course there were sections that didn’t seem able to support crops or cows!

We were driving into a headwind which the going slower than usual and it sure sucked down the fuel! Taking into consideration road construction, a fuel stop and throw in a pit stop or two it took us five and a half hours to travel 230 miles.

We pulled into our next stop, Holloman Air Force Base and were concerned as soon as we pulled into the FamCamp. It looked FULL! We stopped at the Camp Host site and I went in search of someone to help us. We were relieved to find out there was one space left. One. We couldn’t have handpicked one any better! This one has a view, and a yard, if you will. Had we been twenty minutes later, there wouldn't have been a space available as that's how long it took for the next RV'er to drive in and back out.

Our yard.

Our view. The clouds make it especially dramatic.

We’ve got plants to admire.

So we get all set up and I decide that I need to make a run to the Commissary. I’m out of Pepsi’s. >:>:>:> GASP <:<:<:< Of course today is Monday, commissaries are closed on Monday’s. I ran over to the BX (base exchange – department store) and found some cold ones there. All was right with my world.

After dinner the wind picked up big time and the rig was just rockin’ and rollin’. Pretty soon the thunder and lightning started and then here came the rain. I guess it just had to get it out of its system because once the storm passed all was calm again.

We’ll be here a week as there is lots to see and do in this area. I’m look forward to getting out and exploring.

10/3/2010 Tucumcari…Tucumcari…Tucumcari

We’re settled into Tucumcari. I don’t know what it is about this town’s name but I sure like saying it!

Note to Lou….you are right, we sure don’t have to be worried about the campground being crowded. We are in fact in the Cactus RV Park.



Business must be really slow in the town because the campground right before this one, oh wait, I can’t call these campgrounds, the parking lot just before this had the owner or an employee standing roadside waving RV’ers in. Like I said, its a parking lot but to its credit there were shrubs between sites.

We decided to get out and about and see what the area has to offer. Ahem. I think its been many a year since I was anywhere that the town actually shut down on Sunday. Even the restaurants! We weren’t sure if we were in a dying town or a dead town. Lo and behold, K-Mart was open!

So we took a ride and we found that murals are a big thing here. Oh by the way, did I mention that Main Street (I forget the real name of it) is also the Old Route 66. Yes, we’re back on the Mother Road again. 
 


Getting back to the murals, back in ‘02 Doug and Sharon Quarles moved to Tucumcari. Doug was a sign painter by trade but that industry was changing and they too were ready for a change, to the point that they moved from Louisiana to New Mexico. Doug and Sharon’s first love? Murals! There are now 31 around town. We didn’t find them all but we did manage to find these.





A better look at the one above.




I wish I knew how long it took to do one of these.



Three scenes in one.



Here are the scenes individually.







Yet another one.



I chuckled when I saw the name of this one. it’s called, “Have you seen my horse?” (Or something very close to that)



It’s said if you look at the one above, really look at it, you’ll find other things in it. I found a vacuum cleaner, a guitar and a leg/foot with a shoe on it and a couple of things I think i see but I’m not really positive, if that makes sense.
In our quest for more murals we found this. 
 
DUH! YA THINK?



We tired of looking for murals and after a quick stop at home we went back out again because we found the local Elks Club in our travels.

We were welcomed with open arms into Tucumcari Elks Lodge # 1172. We were kicking ourselves that we didn’t think to look if Tucumcari had a lodge or not! This lodge has 8 RV sites and its $7.50 for the first night and second night is on them! I threw away thirty one bucks because I didn’t look for this first! Lesson learned!!!



It’s an older lodge and I just don’t mean the building.



The eight or so people we met could not have been friendlier. In fact Bob got into a one on one conversation with one fellow and after an hour or so came to find out the gentleman was the town Judge.

This lodge even has its own swimming pool and this is the first time I’ve seen this. Of course its closed for the season now but we heard the Lodge members use it A LOT!



So brothers and sisters of Lodge 1172, thank you for being so welcoming to us and including Bob and I in your Sunday afternoon.


The town didn’t really have much more to offer us in the way of entertainment. Well, yeah, we could have gone to the dinosaur museum but we decided to pass on this one. Just wait and see, somebody will write in now and tell us we missed a gem!

After dinner we see settled in for another weekly episode of Amazing Race.
Tomorrow we move on.

10/2/2010 Train Whistles ALL Night Long

First it was one of those days and it turned into one of those nights! I couldn’t find a talk radio show which I like to listen to before I fall off to sleep. Well, there was one but I don’t understand Spanish so it didn’t do me any good. I finally found one that was half talk and half music. It was a Christian radio program and the listener call-in part of the show was insightful and interesting. However, I don’t know who picks out the music they played but from the sound of it I’m thinking they were demo tapes from Christian garage bands! Now I can’t carry a tune in a bucket so I certainly have no room to talk but whoever helped these groups make their records had to be tone deaf. Of course once I got in bed I was suddenly wide awake so I had to listen to this for awhile.

We weren’t completely set up since we were just staying overnight. We didn’t even put the back jacks down and while I’m laying in bed trying so hard to go to sleep Bob was doing something in the living room that had him moving around quite a bit and the trailer just rocked back and forth.

So Bob settles down, the 5th wheel stood still, the radio program changed to a discussion panel type show now and I’m just about to fall off to sleep and the trains started! Now I could deal with the sound of the train on the tracks, in fact that sound is rhythmic and could certainly aid in one getting to sleep. However, there must be a train crossing over a busy road nearby because the train whistles started. Three short blasts and one LONG and I mean LONG! Oh great, awake again.

This went on all night long. I would estimate a train passed every forty minutes or so. All. Night. Long. I was so glad when the sun came up and a new day was starting.

I took these pictures just before we pulled out of our space. There were a lot more overnight guests but they all left very early this morning, they were probably up all night too. Somehow, some way, Bob was able to sleep through all the noise.

So we started out in Kansas on the border with Oklahoma. We weren’t going to be in Oklahoma long as we were crossing that narrow little strip that sticks out from the rest of the state. See that diagonal line that is running through the upper left corner of the pic below? That’s the route we took,,,Route 54.

We passed this building and we noticed the huge yellow ribbon on the front. I wish I had been able to get the camera up fast enough so i could have had a clear shot without the tree.

I’ve posted many pictures on here of the huge windmills we’ve seen as we travel.

There is absolutely no doubt these things are huge but things were really put into perspective for us today. We passed two trucsk hauling one of the blades for a windmill.

Again, trains came into play today. We saw a train carrying car after car of this type.

And inside each one? Cars! Small cars, nine to a carrier, three levels of three each. I could see the sun shining off the hubcaps or something shiny on each car. If positioned just right with the sun I could see the outline of the cars.

This is what Oklahoma looks like.

I’d like to know what’s in these containers. Just curious.

If you have to come up with a name for your town and it sits right on the border between Oklahoma and Texas what do you call it? How about this?

It didn’t take long and we were in another state.

This is what Texas looks like.

Actually, Texas didn’t look like that for long because we soon came upon acres and acres, if not square miles and square miles of corn fields ready to be harvested like pictured below.

Feed corn, don’t expect to find this under a Green Giant or Del Monte label.

A going down the road picture.

Since we were only going across the corner of the Texas it wasn’t long before we crossed into New Mexico.

Not a bad day, four states, nice scenery, very little traffic and with the time change we gained another hour.

We’re in Tucumcari and we’ll be here a minimum of two nights. Depending what it is in the area to see, maybe a third.

I’m really looking forward to our next stop but that’s all I’m going to say for now.

LaVon, wish you were here to eat with us! SPAM, it’s whats for dinner! Hmmm…frIed Spam, parsley potatoes, garlic green beans and stewed tomatoes! Hmmmm, Hmmmm, GOOD!

10/1/2010 Mom Said There’d Be Days Like This!

Did you ever just have one of THOSE days? Where nothing went right, anything that could go wrong did and your best friend seemed to named Murphy? That was our day! Right from the git go.

Today we’re leaving McConnell AFB. We’re movin’ on. Bob got moving first and went in to take his shower. I puttered around, putting stuff away, checkin’ email, all normal stuff just waiting for him to get done so I can go in and get mine. Fifteen minutes later he’s done, all dressed and looks at me and says, “The holding tanks are full, you can’t take a shower”. Oh great! I ran to the mirror to see if I was dealing with a major case of bed head or not and surprisingly it was doable. I can deal. Well, I guess that’s one thing that went ok.

So we do all we can to get ready to hit the road but we can’t hook up yet. We’re waiting for an overnite package from UPS and our mail from Livingston, Texas and we have to go to the base hotel to get them. We arrive at the time that the hotel people said to and the UPS package is there but the snail mail hasn’t arrived yet, hence, living up to its name! We go back and hang out a bit longer.

I had made some brownies and wanted to leave some for the guy next door that we had met. He’s a young guy, recently separated from his wife and I just thought that maybe he wasn’t getting all that many homemade treats. So I double wrapped them in tin foil, added a note and put them in a plastic grocery bag and tied it up good. I looked out the window and shade was on his side of the trailer where his steps were so I knew he’d see them if I set them there when we left if, in fact, we didn’t see him beforehand.

At eleven we headed back to the hotel to see if the mail had arrived yet. Nope, not there. I explained that we were leaving and that I had checked the tracking number on it and I know that it was on the base. The lady behind the desk directed me to the mail distribution center. We went there and the mail truck was just arriving. Judy, the very nice lady who works there explained that it was probably scanned prior to the truck actually arriving and that’s why I read that it was on base. Ok, makes sense to me. When she found out that we were in the FamCamp she said it was a good thing that we were there for it because they aren’t allowed to accept personal mail for FamCamp or hotel guests. Air Force rules for this base ever since 9/11.

I waited patiently for the truck to get unloaded and three mail personnel went through every plastic mail carrying box and our package wasn’t there. She asked me for the tracking number and of course it was in an email on my laptop back at the house. She gave me her number so that I could call her with it. We returned to the 5th wheel once again, I called her, gave her the number and she said to call back in a half hour. Before we hung up I found out that the mail had actually arrived yesterday, here I was thinking TODAY was September 30th, the date indicated it arrived. She said to call her back in a half hour and she would let me know if they had found it or not.

In the meantime, we hooked up to the rig so that we could get the dump station duty out of the way and of course nothing about that went easy.

It’s getting later and later into the day and we have to drive 230 miles yet.

Oh yeah, the brownies. Our neighbors steps were shaded by our rig! Of course as soon as we pulled it out the blaring sun was beating down on those steps. There was shade made by the steps themselves so I put the bag there and pulled the top of the bag onto the bottom step in hopes he would see it. He’s been home everyday for lunch since we’ve been here, I hope he comes home today or there is going to be one mass of melted chocolate brownies doubled wrapped in tin foil.

Enough time had passed to call Judy and when I did she had found our mail! The only reason it was still there is because the truck that does the pick up had broken down. Finally, one thing that is going right today! Judy, thanks for all you did!

Mail in hand we were on our way. Destination Liberal, Kansas, right on the border between Kansas and Oklahoma.

We’ve never gotten on the road this late before, this is not going to be a pleasant trip,,,,,trust me. A certain someone’s stress level is already through the roof.

On the way, we took notice that we were back in long train territory. This one is so long that it takes three engines to pull it.

I’ve mentioned before when we’ve traveled out this way that we just can’t get over how long the trains are! Dozen and dozens and dozens of train cars.

Still the same train!

Easily 125+ cars! We just don’t see that in the east.

We saw some wild horses running along side the road. At least we think they were wild as there was no fencing around to keep them inside anyone’s property.

In the very late afternoon we finally stayed in the campground where we were spending the night. For the life of me I can’t remember the name of it and I have no desire to run out to the truck to get the campground book. It’s a fairly new campground and strictly a stopover place and that’s all its intended to be according to the lady who owns it. However she’s making it a very nice stopover place for those who do.

The first thing we saw was this.

A walking track for RV’ers to get some exercise on after driving/riding all day. Since the whole place is gravel this gives a very nice level, smooth area for walking. What a great idea. We didn’t see anyone using it.

The building you see houses a laundry, shower room, hot tub, pool table and lending library.

There’s a sign when you pull in that says, “Pick your site, we’ll be around between 5 – 9 to collect”. She was there when we arrived and she explained the leeway she gave herself in case she doesn’t get out of the fields in time. You see, she and her husband own a ranch and they farm the land and have 400 head of cattle. I asked her why in the world did she open an RV park on top of running a ranch too. Her answer was that she needed people to talk with, that she was going crazy riding a tractor all day and only having the cows to talk to. She was very personable and you could tell that she truly enjoyed talking with her customers. If anyone is driving down Rt 54 through Liberal, KS,,,,nice place to stop.

We were very tired when we finally got set up and got dinner out of the way. We sat down to watch TV and we realized where we were…close to those railroad tracks that we were so fascinated with earlier. We hoping they don’t run all night long,,,of course we do have that friend named Murphy!