Category Archives: Fulltiming

Eastbound leg #2

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Leaving our camp spot in Texola, OK, I noticed there was a minor attraction in this itty-bitty town. Marcia found it also so we had to go by it! We drove down a road like this to get there:

We ended up at the one-room jail:

We continued eastbound but this time on some actual Route 66 road top. We had not been able to divert too much from running on I-40 until now! My trip routing took us on primarily state and county highways, bypassing the bulk of Oklahoma City. Out on these roads, you get to see small towns and all kinds of things traveling along:

Courthouses in the middle of the road!
A farm implement that you need to give a WIDE berth.
And wind turbine blades.

We spent that night in Henryetta OK at one of the worst RV parks I have ever stayed in. Almost worse than the one in Fort Stockton, TX.

Leaving the next day would get us to Arkansas. A state we have not been to with this trailer before so we can put another sticker on our map. We again got on a back highway, saw some great scenery, and ended up in…..Toad Suck!

This is just outside of Conway AR and it was an Army Corps of Engineers campground that was put in next to the dam and locks on the Arkansas River.

A closer view of the locks. You can see the bridge of a barge near the red signs.

This campground is tremendous, with lots of grassy areas, with full hookups but it was SOOO humid! If anyone happens to go there and finds a pair of binoculars, let me know because I think I lost them there.

Conway is close to Little Rock and we were here for 2 nights so we took a day trip down to look around. We first headed to the Capitol Building:

To the north of the capital is a memorial to the “Little Rock Nine“. This was the group of nine black students that were enrolled in the all-white Central High School in Little Rock. It was very controversial. After our capitol visit, we went to the National Historical Site regarding Central High School and learned all about this incident.

As we were looking around we talked to a man that actually went to Central High about 10 years after the ‘nine’ did. He said it wasn’t any better then, which is too bad. In light of all that is going on in this country, I found a plaque and statement that I think sums up how it should be:

Exactly!

The next stop in Little Rock (North) was Marcia’s recommendation for a stop at the Old Mill. This building was used in the opening shots of Gone with the Wind. You can walk all through it and around the grounds. It was a great find, way to go Marcia!

The next day was the short leg to Wynne AR. This is where Roxie’s mom was born so we were going to do some research and it was where we would part ways with the Chens. They would continue on to the east coast and we would return back west. We hit Wynne right around lunch so we had to eat and found a southern food restaurant (Johnson’s Fish House and Diner). We parked in the back:

We stayed at Village Creek State Park near Wynne. A wonderful park with great amenities and scenery. We saw deer and fox from our site in a grassy area across from us.

We were there for multiple days and we did a bit of research about Roxie’s mom but there weren’t too many records, at least we got a feel for the area. We all did go around and investigate the area. One day we went to Memphis to go to the National Civil Rights Museum. We had to get tickets for an afternoon visit so decided to eat somewhere. We ended up at Gus’ World Famous Fried Chicken. Not sure how world-famous it is but it was pretty good.

The National Civil Rights Museum is on the site of the Lorraine Motel. This is where Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated. It was very informative as I am not old enough to remember the happenings.

The room where MLK was standing.
The view from the building where the shooter was.

Another day we took a day trip to another location of historical significance. However, on the way I found some curious train tracks that crossed each other:

The place we were heading to was the Louisiana Purchase State Park. This park marks “the initial point from which all surveys of property acquired through the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 originated”. It was all swampy with an elevated boardwalk to the marker:

The happy group at the marker:

We were happy to get there but the sweating was real! And we wouldn’t be very happy soon after this picture. More about that in the next installment…

Go east, old man!

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We set up a plan to meet the Chen’s(George and Marcia) in Kingman, AZ about a week after we were to leave Redding. We drove down to Sparks NV and stayed at the Sparks Marina RV Park. It was a nice place to stay but it was HOT! We stayed in a back-in space around the perimeter and ended up with a bad black ant infestation! After a few cans of ant spray and not having any part of the trailer touch the dirt, we recovered. We headed toward Vegas but stopped overnight in Tonopah, NV. Not much there but more than I thought!

We planned to stay in Vegas and found a different place to stay there. The Clark County Shooting Complex! It is in North Las Vegas, very north, up an incline with a great view of the entire basin. This is a pretty amazing setup. They have different shooting areas for pistols, rifles, shotguns, and archery. They have a campground (think tents) and a very stark RV park. It is gravel parking with full hookups for $30/night. We needed the 50amp because it was hot there also! It was good to stop as we had to sign some papers for refinancing our home. The mobile notary came to our trailer and we signed away. She said it was the first time she ever signed in an RV.

We did an overnight in Kingman to break up the drive to Flagstaff. The morning we left Kingman we stopped by the Discount Tire store. When I had them put in the TPMS senders in the trailer in Visalia, I had always had issues with one specific tire slowly losing air pressure. I had stopped previously about this in Redding and Medford with no great resolution. We had to wait at least 2 hours for them to look at but they DID fix it!

We headed to the Flagstaff KOA to meet our friends. We have been trying to stay in this campground for years! It always seems to be booked when we want to go there. The story with this KOA is that the owner (before he passed) was my mother’s boyfriend for many years. A few years after my father died in 2002 my mother moved to Arizona and started the relationship. The KOA has since been sold to the owners of the Chula Vista KOA and time moves on!

Then Chen’s arrived about 2 hours after us (they drove from the LA Basin that day) and we knew they would be tired. We went out to get a bite to eat. The weather was so nice and cool in Flagstaff! On the drive to Flagstaff, we hit some monsoon-like torrential downpours which dirtied up our nice clean trailer.

The next morning we all headed off, caravanning east! The weather started to heat up a bit and we started doing touristy stuff. We stopped off in Winslow AZ to stand on the corner:

We had stopped here before in 2009 on our way to the Balloon Fiesta with Bob & Phyllis:

A new addition is the Route 66 sign at the intersection:

We had lunch at La Posada hotel and continued down the road. Heading to Gallup NM for the next one-night stop.

We figured out a great way to travel together that was easy for both of us. We both don’t mind using our cruise controls when traveling. However, no two vehicles have cruise controls that will be perfectly synced. One will be either too slow or too fast compared to the other one. My truck has a feature called adaptive cruise control. It uses a radar system to keep a specific distance between you and the vehicle in front of you up to the speed you set. So George would travel in front at a specific speed set on his cruise control. I would follow with mine set also and it would keep us just the right distance apart.

Day 2 of our travels had us destined for Santa Fe NM. George had a friend he wanted to visit just outside of town so we stayed 3 nights there. We stayed at The Trailer Ranch RV Resort. It is a great little RV park in town but not downtown. I recommended a stay there if you can.

We had two incidents with the trailer while staying there. We had to disconnect the trailer to get in the spot, which we would do anyway. We had to put the orange lego blocks under the tires to level and we used the lego wheel chock to keep the tires on there. Ever since the trailer rolled off the blocks in Desert Hot Springs, I have been gun shy. We disconnected and moved the truck away and the trailer rolled off the blocks again! The chock was not attached correctly. This time we jacked up the trailer and put it on the ball and set it up right this time!

George and Marcia went to visit their friends a bit and we met all of them later in the afternoon. We went to Bandelier National Monument which is a site of some ancient dwellings. There are a lot of these locations throughout this area. We went on a hike and saw the sites.

The next day we got to do laundry but in the evening we went to downtown Santa Fe and walked around the old church there:

We were preparing to leave Santa Fe and I was dumping the holding tanks. Then the second incident happened. I have started a procedure where I block off the sewer hose with an attachable valve, I then backfill the tank (grey or black) with a hose. This works best when you DON’T block off BOTH tanks with their valves. This is what I did. I filled it with the hose but there is only limited space in between all three closed valves and something has to give. What gave was a rubber connector between two pieces of hard pipe. It appears that the pressure built up and relieved it right there. However, I did not know that when it actually happened. I thought the worst. I had just repaired/rebuilt the entire valve setup under the tanks. I thought I had broken a piece. George was nice enough to crawl under the trailer, take off the metal plate covering the valves and investigate. We found nothing wrong. I felt much better but still thought about it numerous times.

Off to our next stop near the eastern border of New Mexico. It was here that we were able to find alternate routes to travel instead of sticking on the Interstates. We continued east from Santa Fe to Las Vegas (NM), and then started on New Mexico route 104. The road takes us to Tucumcari over 110 miles of a lot of nothing. It was wonderful. We started up at a higher altitude and dropped down over the course of the route.

We had some lunch in Tucumcari at Del’s:

A few other sights in Tucumcari. The Blue Swallow Hotel:

The Route 66 Memorial:

We ended up the night at Ute Lake State Park for a whopping $18/night.

The next day was a big day. We had a lot of stops to make on our journey east. We were heading into our state. Texas! The first stop was in Adrian, the mid-point of Route 66:

Our next stop was Amarillo TX. We were going to have lunch at Longhorn Steakhouse as it was my birthday and I love to go to Longhorn. We needed to stop at Sam’s Club for fuel and Walmart for supplies. However, as we drove into Amarillo from the west we noticed a bunch of people on the frontage road. It was Cadillac Ranch!

Obviously we want back to see it. After lunch we stopped at Conway to see an alternative to the Cadillac Ranch. The Slug Bug Ranch:

The next roadside attraction was The Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ in Groom TX. A 40 story high cross with the stations of the crosses around it. A replica of the tomb and much more:

And at the other end of Groom was the Leaning Tower of Texas:

We ended up the night just over the Oklahoma border at the Double D RV Park, a Passport America park for $14/night:

So, this old man, his wife and friends are still going east!