Day 29: Home again, outhouses?

We made it home.... but it was a horrible drive in "high gusting winds". We took the southern mountain route, not the flatter safer roads Charlie took us on the way out.
Note to self: Listen to Charlie B!


Another border patrol security check:

I do love all the giant rocks on the mountains on the pass towards San Diego:

And the miles of desert:

Then the storm through the pass:


It is good to be home.



Another story from our travels:

Here is one of the funniest things we saw on this trip. You know how Chicago started the "cows on parade" thing around the city? What, 15 years ago? Artists creatively painted them different ways, the cows were placed all around the city, then auctioned for charity. Many US cities since have copied the idea with subjects of their own. Rochester Hills did sheep didn't they? I know it was the year or two before we moved. When we visited my Dad in Lakeland, Florida, he showed us the "swans of Lakeland".

Well one of the last small Texas towns we stayed in did OUTHOUSES!!!! They call them "Thunderboxes"
Check this out here: http://thunderboxroad.com/

Rick's "last supper" on the RV: the rest of the stuffed shells and some red wine!

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Day 28 - almost home: Arizona

Above: Sunrise this morning at our campground in Las Cruces, New Mexico

We left New Mexico and drove through Arizona today. We have stopped in Yuma, Arizona, just 3 hours from home!

Finally: HOT weather again! It's sunny and 90 degrees. More long stretches of highway and desert until Tucson when the Saguaro cactus came back into view. I wrote about these and their sad shape back on day 1 of this trip. It appears these extremely slow growing cacti are rotting. (It can take 75 years for one of those "arms" to sprout!) I have not found out why they look so awful -- maybe bugs? I do know that night-time desert temperatures in this area have gone up 20 degrees in 20 years, and humidity has also increased 20%. All the roadways absorb the heat and release it slower at night than the desert does on its own. Hundreds of golf courses and thousands of swimming pools have affected the humidity.

The southern USA scenery has been fun to watch from the beaches of the Pacific, the rocky covered mountains in California, long stretches of highway in extreme dryness in deserts in Arizona, New Mexico & Texas, through the waterlogged bayous of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, to the Atlantic Ocean, and down to the tropics in the Florida Keys! ...and back again!


I can't wait to "produce" a slideshow of the photos! Come back later and check again!

ps reminder: the best way to view each photo is to "click" on it and it will become full screen. Then click the back arrow.
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Days 26 & 27: Fort Stockton (Texas) and Las Cruces (New Mexico)

We are moving along.... Rick is tiring earlier each day.

The long ride through Texas can be really boring once we leave the bigger cities. I tried to take a bunch of photos to show the "nothing-ness" but unless they are in a slide show where we can see them one after another, they don't show it. Here are a couple though. I'll make some YouTube slide shows after we are home.


Here's something fun -- these Tee-Pees are a rest stop!


Driving through El Paso is always interesting. The freeway is just a few yards from the Mexican border. There is so much crime -- horrible drug wars -- going on the other side in Juarez, Mexico. Tijuana too, which is just across the border near San Diego where we live. Some of that crime is now coming into the USA in ways never imagined before. . . but that's for another day.
(or read: USA Today )
El Paso:

But, ah, La Posta for dinner tonight! (Pattie & Charlie, where are you??)


Big parrot cage with lots of birds!

Gift shop:


anxious to get home now.... Sunday we think.

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Half way home: San Antonio

It's a beautiful afternoon in San Antonio! We are about 1/2 way back to California.

We have left the muggy Gulf Coast states and are now moving back into warm and dry.
Left moss-covered trees and alligators, and should start seeing cactus and armadillos!

Don't think I'll get to visit my friend Jackie, and don't think Jane and Joe are here visiting their grandchildren.

More later....

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Houston, we have a problem!

As if things haven't been exciting enough, last night during the pouring rain in Lousiana, we started to get a few leaks in the roof of the RV! A couple of towels (finally got to use the beach towels!) a bowl or two, and a waste basket took care of most of it. It wasn't too bad. This started just a few hours after we had walked around the 5th wheel saying it looked good and had no apparent leaks!

Fortunately Rick got up in the middle of the night to check (no surprise!) and found the leak had moved. That may have been due to us moving into the bedroom, who knows. Anyway, it was the FIRST time I have left my laptop ON overnight, AND opened on the kitchen table as I was sending a webmail request to my 2,100 volunteers on my "Aunt Nancy's Adopt-a-Soldier" website, asking for goodies for an Easter egg hunt for some troops. Dripping water was hitting the table and splashing (just a little) on the laptop! He moved it, but didn't get much sleep after that!
Towels and bowls collecting a little water:


We have made it to Houston, and plan to visit the Johnson Space Center tomorrow. We were sorry to not be able to stay and watch last night's beautiful space shuttle launch from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Pattie and Charlie did! And there are only 10 more shuttle missions left over the next two years before the shuttles are retired.

TUESDAY: At Johnson Space Center, we toured the training center which houses a replica Space Shuttle:


Apollo, Mercury, and other space flights were handled here in "Houston" Mission Control:

The newer Mission Control Center is now right below it and they were talking with the Space Shuttle astronauts while we were in the building.
Below, Rick is standing by the GIANT Saturn V Rocket:

Actual-size drawing of the Saturn V on the outside of the building it is in. MAYBE it will help you appreciate the size:



A few drips in the RV is nothing compared to damage done to the Houston/Galveston, Texas area last year by Hurricane IKE. We all remember Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, but IKE was no little storm. The media here was showing and celebrating all the "Spring Breakers" coming back to Galveston, right on the Gulf of Mexico. It's great to get business back into these towns that need the help! I did not realize until now that IKE was the 3rd most destructive hurricane to hit the USA ever: Hurricane_ike And it was only one of several to make landfall last year.

On the other hand, as I may have mentioned on the way though Houston on our way to Florida, something good is happening here. Construction is everywhere! Giant freeway interchanges going up all over. Wide roads! New roads! The economy is supposed to be OK in Texas, and is sure looks like it is in Houston!

It is warm and sunny here and the RV is dry.

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Trouble on the road

The trip was going so well. Today we started the drive back to California. Then, this afternoon, bad news, good news, bad news, good news, bad news....

• Flat tire on the RV - bad news
• Another traveler notices it and points it out to us before it does too much damage to the 5th wheel - good news
• Progressive Insurance gets us road service quite quickly (one hour) - good news
• We have to buy a new spare - bad news ($90)
• There is a tire store at the next exit who has one - good news
• We get to our campsite an hour later (60 miles) and the brand new spare is GONE!!! fell off. not installed correctly. Rick is back on the road here at 6:30 hoping to find it (that should take two hours, and he probably won't find it.)

Update:

GREAT NEWS: after 2 hours and over 100 miles of driving, Rick DID find that new spare tire lying on the side of the road about 20 from where it was improperly stored on our RV!! Don't know how he spotted it, in the dark AND with the rain, but, he did! whoo hoo!

More good news is that the RV was only slightly damaged by the blown tire. Most times the tires damage the underside of the RV. The white wheel itself was barely damaged, which is also amazing. We'll know more when we get home and can take a better look.Insurance should pay for it.

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Lakeland, Florida, and Theresa!!

Today, Wednesday, we came to our last planned stop of the trip -- Lakeland. This is where my father spends the winter rather than Michigan. And not too far away lives my grade school friend Theresa who drove over to visit me. We have not seen each other since 1966! Whoa -- 43 years! How can that be!? We met online a few years ago when her sister-in-law signed up to adopt-a-soldier on my "AuntNancyUSA.com" project! I LOVE the internet!!! What fun it has been to chat online, but today, to finally get to meet again! Thanks for coming Theresa!! It was a great treat to see you in person.

Above: Theresa and I at the Detroit Tigers Spring Training stadium in Lakeland, and, our camper.

Tomorrow: visit with my Dad and his friend Marie. We had planned to visit my Aunt Gert, Uncle Larry, their son Larry, and his wife. But darn, Uncle Larry, (now 91 years old?), fell today and they all spent the day in ER and are not up to visitors.

Below: Marie, Dad, & Rick at some beautiful Lakeland gardens:

Thursday there is supposed to be a night launch of the space shuttle from Kennedy Space Center that we might be able to see!

Friday we plan to head back to Walt Disney World and take my Dad to see Epcot........
UPDATED: We did take Dad and Marie to Epcot, and Roger and Jill met us. Since I did not have my camera, I have to wait for them to email me some.... so, I'll post more later.

Oh, and we spoke with our neighbors Pattie and Charlie today. Their RV is all repaired (I think an oil leak was found when they had the starter problem). I'm hoping they can use some of their remaining Disney tickets to hang out with us again Friday.

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Naples, Florida

After 3 days in Key West, we started back to the mainland. It's a 2 and a half drive just to get back to solid land. It's a long but beautiful drive as we hop along dozens of tiny islands surrounded by shimmering turquoise waters.

If that was not cool enough, we then crossed the state of Florida from Miami on the east to Naples on the west coast. We traveled through the everglades (still not so "solid" land!) on a road sometimes called "Alligator Alley". We saw somewhere between 50 to 70 'gators along the canal beside the road through the Everglades National Park*! Some were very large! I tried snapping some photos as we drove. There were also hundreds of turtles and beautiful birds everywhere!

Naples: We spent a couple of nights and one full day with Rick's Ford buddy Jim J. and his wife Chris. We pigged out on burgers and fries at a diner one night and then had them back over to our camper for a few games of "Apples to Apples". Tuesday we spent on the beach as we finally have bright sun and temps in the mid 80's. Chris and I decided to walk south to the Naples pier, not knowing it would take us over 2 hours! Good thing I put some sun tan lotion on before we left. It sure is a treat to walk on flat land again!

Meanwhile Chris and Jim are in the process of trying to purchase a winter home in Naples and were getting frustrated by the restrictions of the bank loans these days -- it's no wonder the economy is stuck when people with money and good credit can't even get a regular loan!

Jim BBQ's steaks for us back at their house and we were introduced to a card game they enjoy: Golf! Ever played it? I won twice, but mostly, like the night before, we laughed a lot!

*for more info on the Everglades National Park: click here
"Everglades National Park, largest subtropical wilderness in the United States, boasts rare and endangered species."
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Jupiter to Key West!

We made it to Key West today (Friday)!

But first, on Thursday evening we visited with our Michigan next door neighbors, Doug and Marg (above), in Jupiter, Florida. It was fun to hang out with them once again -- even if they did make us drink too much! (look at Rick's face above!) haha. The area they live in in is beautiful and makes us question why we didn't just do the Michigan/Florida thing instead of California! We should have stayed here one more night with them.

Instead, this morning we hit the road again, arriving in Key West this afternoon. Ah, the turquoise waters remind us of the Virgin Islands and the Caribbean!

We are here: Florida Keys

Our Key West Campground:

Our red Ford truck with our RV behind it above.

Some people stay awhile and really fix up their campsites!
Like this one -- (click on pics to show details). They even have a firepit! (on the right).

We started our evening at Alonzo's for dinner, walked around a few streets and Mallory Square, then stopped for a few drinks and listened to the live band at "Hogs Breath".

It's been over-cast but warm so it's better than the cold temperatures earlier this week!

The "Hogfish Bar & Grill" for lunch on Saturday. It's right at the shrimp & lobster marina on Stock Island where we are camped. It's Oceanside Marina!

A sign at the bar for Jim White:

(it's an "oldie but a goodie").

The "Hard Rock Cafe" is really cool here:

Not everything in "paradise" is beautiful. Like many island towns, this one also has blocks of run-down houses and mobile home parks like this one:

There were many empty homes, and a couple burnt like the one above.

Trip map link: MAP
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