Home Again

Well, we are back home and all in one piece. As rough as the roads were at times, "all in one piece" was not a certain outcome. As best I can tell we have fixed most of the mechanical problems we encountered on the way. The major item that I will need to address is the large crack in the windshield. When we first noticed it, it was just a straight vertical crack about four inches long and about two inches in from the center post. It stayed that way for some time, but as we entered Colorado Springs it crept up a few more inches. It eventually did a ninety-degree turn and added another six inches or so by the time we got home. Definitely time to call the insurance company.

We celebrated our return with a Papa Murphy’s pizza. For those that have not tried these, they are a “take and bake” pizza. Papa Murphy’s helpers build the pizza and you take it home and cook it yourself. They are pretty good pizza’s! Jim and Phyllis Kaiserski treated us to our first Papa Murphy's pizza on our first night of this trip, and we were happy to find one just minutes away from us when we got home. Thanks Jim and Phyllis for turning us on to these great pies!

This trip clocked in at around 5,100 miles for the coach and God knows how many miles in the Honda driving to the various National Parks and other destinations we explored.We camped in seventeen different locations. We stayed with family and friends, four military installations, a manufacturer's parking lot, and numerous commercial RV parks. The best? Places where we got to spend time with family and friends.

Click on map to enlarge

We traveled through fifteen states, some more than once. Since we only count states on our states-visited map if we actually spend at least one night, we only added five new states to the map. Those were Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Indiana, and Tennessee. The astute observer will notice we still have a few holes in the middle of the map that are caused by that “sleepover” rule.

It is nice to be home, but it will not be long before we start itching again. We like life on the road, especially the southwest.

Huntsville, AL Day Two

The agenda for today centered on the Space Museum here in Huntsville. They have an impressive array of missiles and rockets displayed outside, and a considerable amount of space memorabilia inside.  An IMAX theater offers a film on the Hubble Space Telescope and another on Space Junk. We elected to see the one on the Hubble and started our afternoon in the theater. Unfortunately, so did a couple hundred pre-teens. The kids were everywhere and pumped up on sugar and the freedom of being out of the classroom. Think of it as a couple hundred Ferris Buellers.

The noise was less outside, so we wandered among the rockets, starting with the space shuttle mockup. You just don’t appreciate the size of this thing until you are up close.

In the new (at least since I was last here) Davidson Center is a complete Saturn V rocket, which you recall, is the vehicle used to send men to the moon. It is over 360 feet long, so it was hard to get a decent photo. Even the 1/10^th scale model was too big to easily fit in the frame.

I was impressed by the power of the engines. There were five in the first stage. Each one burned over a ton of fuel per second! Sort of like our motorhome.

Speaking of motorhomes, the museum even has the astronaut's RV! They used an Airstream trailer as quarantine quarters once they returned to earth. There were six bunks and a table with six airline style seats. There was no room to exercise or move around much. I think they were kept in there for several days and I can only imagine that it felt very confining.

Hey, they even had a moon rock!

Barbara even found time to try on some new clothes!

We topped off the day with dinner at friends Bryan and Jackie Butler whom we originally met while working at Lockheed Martin. They have a beautiful home in Huntsville, and Jackie prepared a magnificent  meal. It was a wonderful ending to our trip.

Thanks Bryan and Jackie.

Huntsville, AL

Moving day again. This time it was a short drive to Huntsville , AL. We are staying in the campground on Redstone Arsenal. It was a trick finding it since the GPS was not matching the written instructions we had, but we found it and are very happy with the nice large site.

 

It is also very convenient to the PX and commissary, too. We needed a few groceries so headed for the commissary, but found it closed on Mondays. Bummer! Looks like Burger King tonight.

 














We had a line of thunderstorms come through this evening that has knocked out the power. We are running the generator to watch the DWTS finale. Couldn’t miss that! At about three quarters of a gallon of diesel fuel per hour to run the generator that puts a new twist in “pay TV”.

Nashville, TN Day Two

I know Nashville is the music city and has quite a history, but honestly we are not interested in the touristy stuff. We came here to meet up with friends Tom and Ann Meeks and we finally got together Saturday morning. We heard of their trip to The Grand Old Opry the night before. It was just down the street a few blocks after all. They were with a group dinner tour and thought it was to be a dinner theater experience, but the bus dropped them off at a buffet restaurant at the mall adjacent to the Old Opry. They were told to go on in and have dinner and feel free to shop the mall until show time. The whole operation is geared to getting as much money out of the tourists as possible it seems. They found the music nice, but as a live radio show, they were disappointed to get one song, then a commercial, another song, then a commercial. They were expecting more of a concert. After hearing that we did not feel so guilty for not wanting to get out and see stuff while they were attending the remaining activities of the reunion they were here for.

On Sunday we spent more time with Tom and Ann, and actually got out and about. Ever watch American Pickers? It has two guys searching America for antiques to resell to collectors and dealers. It is a fun show, and as it turns out they have an antique store here in Nashville to augment their operation in LeClaire, IA. The four of us decided to drive over since they enjoy the show, too. The shop is in a neat old building that housed the Marathon Automobile Co. from 1907 to 1914. As we pulled up we were surprised to see a long line of people waiting to get in! Cool, must be great!

Well, as it turns out it is a very small shop with some items you might have seen them acquire in their travels, but the focus was on selling T-shirts and mugs promoting the show. Bummer. It was just another “Wallet Vac”.

The iconic van they drive in the show drove up and we got a little excited, but it turned out to be another load of T-shirts.

We returned to camp, grilled some jalapeño poppers, and had a beer (or two). Yeah, it was a good day!

Nashville, TN

Today was a blast! Almost. Literally!

The last two days we were staying at Camp Atterbury, the Indiana National Guard training facility near Edinburgh, IN. It was a very nice little park and we enjoyed our stay. Unfortunately, it was in the Bermuda Triangle of internet connectivity and I could not keep up the blog. The highpoint of the stay was several hours in the local antique mall. Lots of cool stuff, but nothing we couldn’t do without.

We were on the road a little after ten this morning. Traffic was heavy but moving along. The roads were very rough and shaking us pretty good. After a while we thought we smelled propane so I got up to see if the jarring had bumped open a valve on the oven. All looked fine so we kept going. The smell persisted, so we pulled in at the next rest area. As I got out of the coach I could hear the hissing over the idling semi three spaces over. I opened the propane tank compartment and it was obvious there was a major leak. One spark...and...BOOM. I quickly turned off the main valve and waited for the fumes to dissipate before repairing the loose fitting. That seemed to fix the problem, but as it turned out, only temporarily. I finally had to turn the propane off at our next stop. The only problem that created was the refrigerator would not run while we were on the road.

We got to the Two Rivers Campground, checked in, and set up.

Once settled in I removed the offending fitting on the propane tank and returned the plumbing to its original configuration. For now the leak seems to be stopped.

Tomorrow we meet up with friends Tom and Ann.

Edinburgh, IN

We managed to get our coach issues resolved at HWH yesterday and spent the night on their property. As we started to leave this morning we found an issue with the slide that had been worked on yesterday. A technician came out to the coach and spent about a half hour adjusting the slide mechanism, and it appears he resolved the alignment issue.

We ended up leaving a little later than we wanted to and, since we also ran into a traffic backup due to an accident, we hit Indianapolis at rush hour.   Thanks to a quick map review by Barbara we managed to miss the worst part by ignoring the GPS guidance and taking an alternate highway south.

We are staying in an Indiana Army National Guard training facility campground near the town of Edinburgh, IN. It is really nice with friendly staff.

We will explore the area tomorrow, but we originally stopped here to break up the trip to Nashville to meet up with Tom and Ann Meeks as they work their way back to Seattle from Florida.

Moscow, IA

Circle the wagons! Where is Ward Bond when you need him?

Not much to report this evening. We spent the day on the road. We headed east to Kansas City and hung a left to Des Moines. At Des Moines it was a hard right and straight ahead on I-80 to the small town of Moscow, IA. I say small town, but we have not seen it yet to be certain. We are parked with two other coaches on the property of HWH Corporation. More accurately, we are across the street in the parking area of their electronics affiliate.

We arrived at the same time as another coach, so the two of us chatted with the driver of the coach that was already here and worked out a parking plan that did not impede anyone’s early morning departure or send generator fumes into another coach.

It will be an early morning for us. The service department opens at 7:00 and we need to vacate the parking area so the working folks can get to work.

We are here to have the passenger side slide repaired and all slides checked over closely. Also, the two slow leveling jacks will be checked. We will let you know how that goes.

Great Bend, KS

We drove to Great Bend this morning and picked up a plant to place at the gravesite of my grandparents. We found Great Bend to be a nice small town. The downtown area is still vital. The old movie theater is now a community playhouse, and the marquee has been restored. It must be a sight at night with all the lights on.

Very few shops were closed down, which has not been the case in many of the small towns we have visited. It is the county seat, which likely helps.

There were enough things to do in the area we decided that a return trip would be in the cards. They actually have a nice zoo with tigers and lions!.

We found the family plot and placed the flowers. It is sad that there is no longer family in the area to visit, but we are spread, literally, across the globe.

After the cemetery we dropped by the small home my grandparents lived in from the early 40’s until my grandmother’s death in 1973. It still stands, but has not been updated like many of the homes in the area. In fact, the old residential area of Great Bend has held up very well and is a very inviting place.

We returned to Russell, checked out of the campground, and headed to Topeka. The rolling countryside was green with spring foliage and it was a pleasant drive. Somewhere along the line a vehicle sprayed us with tar. At first I thought it was a lot of small bugs when I tried to wash the front of the coach. It turned out to be a real pain in the neck to get off. Once that chore was complete we had a moment to sit and enjoy the nice campground for a few minutes.

This campground seems new and has to be the cleanest one we have ever been in. Like most parks near the interstates there is considerable traffic noise, but it is still a nice place. Too bad we are only here one night.

Tomorrow we continue to Moscow, IA for our Monday appointment at the HWH Corporation to have the slides and jacks worked on.

Russell, KS

Yesterday was a preparation day. We washed the coach and in general just did normal maintenance to prepare for today’s drive to Russell, KS. The drive today was rather straight forward, but the north winds were brutal. The norm was a 15-20 degree correction in the steering wheel for hours on end.

We have stopped in Russell, KS on I-70 to allow us to drive south to Great Bend in the morning. Great Bend is my father’s parents home of many years. This was my dad’s home when he left for college and subsequently the Navy during WWII. We plan to drive down in the morning and visit his parent’s final resting place and get a picture of their home as it stands today.

We are camped at Triple J Campground in Russell. It is a simple campground, but well cared for. It makes a nice stop over point.

Waiting for the Kansas sunset.

We will drive to Great Bend in the Honda, then return here to get the coach and head further east to Topeka. This short drive will get us closer to Moscow, IA and make the drive Sunday a bit easier.

Manitou Springs, CO

We continue to be blessed with fantastic weather. Clear skies and mild temperatures continued today as we headed out to Manitou Springs. Manitou Springs is a nice artsy suburb of Colorado Springs today, but many years ago it was its own destination location based on the springs and as a gateway to Pikes Peak.

There are numerous restaurants and art shops. There are many Native American art shops and they all had great stuff. We had lunch at a nice outdoor café called the Townhouse Lounge. It was great for lunch, but I bet it is a busy watering hole in the evening.

 The rapidly rising terrain that enfolds Manitou Springs leaves little room to spread out, so the residential areas start only a block off the main avenue. Most homes are small and quite old. In general it is a nice place to walk and window shop. As for living here, I would defer since the tourist crowd gets too hectic in the warm months and the steep roads make it difficult in the icy colder months. Besides, we like our solitude.

We are really starting to like the area west of Colorado Springs up around Woodland Park and Divide. That is where we headed after lunch. We had a four o’clock appointment at the Wolf and Wild Life Sanctuary, so we first went to the Florissant Fossil Bed National Monument. Originally on the property of a mid-1800’s homestead, it became a tourist destination in the 20’s when fossils were found here. Volcanic dust trapped all sorts of small creatures that are now revealed in thin sand stone shale. We do not get to see these specimens here other than a few samples in the visitor center, but on the hiking trails you can see some impressive petrified redwood tree stumps.

The original homestead still exists, and is impressive. Adeline Hornbeck was a single mother of four when she became one of the fist women to secure a homestead in Colorado. It was a 160-acre plot, and within four years she had built a substantial home and outbuildings and accumulated $4,000 worth of livestock. Besides working the homestead and raising the four kids she also worked at the Florissant General Store.

The highlight of the day however came towards the end. Barbara made reservations for the feeding tour at the Wolf and Wildlife Sanctuary in Divide. This facility receives and cares for wolves, mostly, that otherwise would be destroyed. It is a nice facility and the owners seem to really understand wolves and how to care for those that they have in their care. This is not a rescue facility that rehabilitates and releases injured animals. They take in animals and allow them to live out their lives in a stress free environment. They are currently at max capacity and cannot accept more animals. They pair compatible animals in large fenced areas. These holding areas are about an acre each, so the wolves have lots of room to run. We got to join the staff as they fed the wolves at the end of the day. I say wolves, but they also have coyote and fox. Did you know that fox have the same scent glands as the skunk? Yep, and it was evident.

At the end of the tour/feeding the staff member lead us in a “pack” howl to see if the wolves would respond in kind. She let out a long howl, and after an appropriate delay we (the four tourists) responded. What a wonderful result! All the wolves, plus the coyotes, started a response howl. Actually, it went on for quite a while. Eerie! But, really cool! What a great way to end the day!

Tomorrow we will wash the coach of the dust from the Albuquerque’s dust storms and otherwise get ready to depart Friday. In the afternoon we should tour the Academy itself since we have been here so long we should at least see the campus.