And back to Texas

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We were at our son’s in Visalia for a bit. We did some dog sitting for them while they took a short trip. We were going to get back on the road shortly after their return but Roxie got Covid, or at least that is what the test said. She was pretty much down for about 2 weeks with it. I think I got it also during that time, but I didn’t test. I was affected for about 2 days.

When we did our cross-country with the Chen’s we went through the upper panhandle of Texas. We usually look at house prices whenever we go through a town. We are, after all, still looking for a place to ‘settle’ down in. One place we went through was Amarillo and the prices there are very affordable. So we headed there to look around a bit and to get a breather from California.

We high-tailed it back east again on I40, doing one-night stops along the way. Adelanto CA, Kingman AZ, Winslow AZ, Paraje NM, Santa Rosa NM before Amarillo, and we only had to disconnect once. We stayed at a favorite stop of ours in Winslow, Homolovi State Park. Then in Santa Rosa, we discovered Santa Rosa Lake State Park (a nice place off the beaten path and only $18 for water and electricity):

We spent a week in Amarillo to get the vibe of the town and to look around at what properties there are. Amarillo is an OK town, it has more run-down areas and some nice ones. We concluded that we are more interested in being outside of the major city but still close enough. We also want space for the trailer to park by our house and you can’t really get that frequently in the cities. There was one house that interested us and was going to be an open house that weekend. We went to it but no open house, we contacted the realtor and there was an offer on it already. Oh well, off to Lubbock.

Lubbock is less than 200 miles south of Amarillo and is a college town. I like it better than Amarillo but it is a bit more expensive. We didn’t find anything that was a good match but there were some possibilities. One thought was to wait until we sold the house in California before really looking in earnest. Actually, this was my thought, not so much Roxie’s. Ironically, the house in Amarillo that supposedly had an open house was back on the market but we moved on further south to Midland/Odessa.

As we headed south, it wasn’t quite so nice. The scenery changed to a less lush look also this is where the oil wells really started in spades. It kind of reminded us of Bakersfield/Oildale but without the mountains. A benefit is that they don’t have as big of issues with bad weather (read tornados).

We found some interesting properties and actually enlisted the help of a realtor this time. We found locales outside the main cities and found that there were possibilities here if we wanted to live here. We were looking at one property in our price range and the realtor found out that there was one that just fell through that she really wanted to show us.

It appears the owners, children of the parents that owned this property, accepted a contingent offer for $100K less than the asking price. However, the contingency had fallen through. We went to see it. This property was 5 acres and part of it was kind of an ‘oasis’ in the area. The previous owners used it as a venue for weddings, photographs, etc. It, sadly, had fallen into disrepair. The house was old and very unique. The property was huge with many outbuildings but lots of yard work. But we put in an offer on it, the same offer that had fallen through but ours was not contingent so that was a positive. We had to wait now.

We had to wait a few days to find out if we were going to be homeowners in Odessa but it was not to be. Someone came in and offered them full price for the property which was $100K more than ours. It was a disappointment to not get it and it was a crazy 3 weeks of looking in Texas so we decided to head back to CA for the holidays. We would be tourists for change on the way back.

We next headed to Carlsbad, NM, for one primary purpose, the caverns! We tried to do it about 2 years ago but the elevator down was not functioning and that would not work for us. The first day we tried something different and went to the Living Desert State Park. They had a nice little pathway to walk around and see various indigenous animals:

The next day was the Caverns visit. The cavern tour cost is only $1, not including park admission. You can enter the caverns either via the elevator or the natural entrance. The natural entrance is pretty strenuous so we opted for the elevator. Roxie had been here before but she was so young she stayed in daycare at the top of the caverns. I had been here before also and remember eating a box lunch down in the caverns. This was essentially our first visit. Here are some shots:

It was very moist and a bit cool in the caverns. There are numerous loops you can take to see all the sights. Most of it was wheelchair accessible but there are some inclines to navigate. It was definitely fun.

My parents came here before, I think it was in the early ’50s on a west coast trip they took. Here are some comparative photos:

Time to keep heading back west. Trying to get through New Mexico as soon as we could. It was much more restrictive on lockdowns, etc. Going to Arizona!

We stopped for a few days in Tucson to visit some friends there. It was good to see them. We also looked at Tucson as a place to find a home and of course did our laundry!

The next stop was somewhere I have wanted to go for a bit, the White Tank Mountains State Park west of the Phoenix basin. Since Thanksgiving was very close, I could only get 2 nights. We enjoyed the two nights. They have some nice hiking trails and good views of the lights of the city.

Thanksgiving would put us in Kingman AZ. We had a small turkey breast in the oven with the requisite sides. It was a nice little meal but odd to be just us two on Thanksgiving. We keep getting drawn back to the Kingman/Golden Valley/Bullhead City area in house hunting. It has a good central location, 400 miles to our son, a bit more to our daughter, 90 miles to Vegas (for shopping), the desert life doesn’t scare us (we will be gone in the summer). The local towns have enough shopping, the taxes are not too restrictive and the prices are pretty affordable. We also know at least one person in town, Doug. He and I went through some grade school, JR high, and some high school together:

We contacted a realtor about some houses that we wanted to see. There were a couple that were interesting and one had just fallen through (sounds familiar).

We put in an offer on the one that fell through and it was accepted. We are currently in escrow on this house (in Golden Valley) and it is going on right through the holidays! Stay tuned about the status and eventual move.

Heading back west

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Yes, we were happy to get to the monument at the end of the boardwalk, but remember we weren’t going to be happy in a little bit? As we were driving back to Wynne on a 2-lane Arkansas road, just minding our business. The next thing I see a red truck drifting into our lane! I did not have any time to react as the red truck hit my driver’s side rearview mirror. It made a terrible sound and I immediately pulled over.

A car that was following us also pulled over and gave us their info as witnesses to the incident. I did a u-turn and exchanged information. A passenger in their vehicle started questioning their fault, saying we just clipped mirrors and no one was at fault. I told them I had a dashcam that shows otherwise. Here is the footage:

https://youtu.be/gwT9XGSY3kg

We picked up all the remnants of our mirror and headed back to Wynne, stopping for a bite at a Waffle House. The mirror was pretty much unusable:

I got in touch with the local Ford dealer (thankfully they had one there) and ordered a new mirror assembly, knowing the insurance would reimburse me. It was only about $2100! However, it did not arrive until the day we were leaving so we delayed a bit to get it installed. In the interim we did a jury-rig on it:

We said goodbye to our traveling companions, the Chens, as they were continuing east but we were heading back west to get to our grandson’s birthday. We were also trying to get away from this oppressive, humid heat so we were taking a northerly track.

We started heading NW and ended up in Mansfield MO for the first night. We stayed at the Laura Ingalls Wilder RV Park, which is across the street from the Laura Ingalls Wilder house. We will visit that another time. Our next stop was supposed to be a bit further north and west but Roxie saw something about Branson MO and it was pretty close, so we decided to go see it. We stayed at an Escapee’s park there. We got to see a town full of touristy attractions. We saw the water display on the waterfront (including flames!):

We also went to the butterfly palace and got to make some new friends.

We got back on our path after leaving Branson, cutting through a corner of Kansas and into Nebraska. We stopped in Wamego KS. They have a museum dedicated to the Wizard of Oz and have OztoberFest every year, but we were too early.

After we left Wamego, I noticed a vibration in the truck. Stopping and looking at the tires, I found a bulge starting on one of the truck tires. I was able to find a tire store in the next town that was still open and had the old guy (older than me!) put on our spare.

Bulge on tire
Nice looking spare!

I have noticed in Nebraska that many of the small towns will have city RV parks for travelers. We stayed in Diller, NE that was $14 normally but they also took Passport America which brought it to $7 for full hookups! Amazing, but why else would we have stopped in Diller?

After leaving Diller it was a short drive to Fairbury. We stopped to see Roxie’s brother’s ex-wife and she was very surprised to see Roxie but it was a good visit. We headed on to our next night’s stay, eating at a Runza on the way. The overnight stay was in a good RV park for the night, but only one night. We did get a nice thunder and lightning display that night though.

We continued our western path, stopping in Ogallala for a night and taking 4 nights in Cheyenne. Cheyenne doesn’t seem to have very many nice RV parks and we found one not-so-nice one, the Restaway Travel Park. We didn’t get full hookups there (no sewer) and there were many long-termers there. Oh well, we were just there for a break and to get trailer tires. We had almost 48K miles on the current tires and could have gone more but it is hard to put a dollar amount on safety. Now we needed a truck tire. Since the tires were originals and we were very close to 50K on those, we got a new set on the truck also. We only had to pay for 3 since the one with the bulge was covered under the extended coverage I had.

Cheyenne is not somewhere I would like to live but they did have a nice locomotive on display:

My father was a very big train fan, and it rubbed off on me to a degree. It is always nice to see the old iron!

Keep heading west! We stopped for a night in Rawlins WY and then a night at Lyman WY. The Lyman stop was a KOA that reminded me a lot of my parent’s KOA in Redding when I lived/worked there. This one was a family operation also and it was fun talking to them.

A few nights in Brigham City UT, then 2 stops in NV before a week just past Reno. We were still looking around for places to move. However, in the Reno area, we fought very bad smoke from wildfires, something the take into consideration.

One thing we found in the Reno area, that I found interesting was this:

What I find interesting are the names. These names are my last name and my sister’s last name after marriage (or both the last names she has used in her life).

We made it to our westerly destination (San Francisco) in time to celebrate our grandson’s 5th birthday. We then returned to our son’s house before we take off again.