Friday May 18, to Provo UT

10am start, sunny and 22C.  More lovely scenic roadways with stunning buttes and mesas.  Pretty good road conditions today too.

Lovely blue sky, arid land

Road north leaving Green River

We climbed up a lovely winding road up in to the clouds to the summit at 7,477' then meandered our way down again. 

Lovely drive

Spectacular landscape

Down the other side the weather is looking decidedly dodgy, dark rain clouds on the horizon.  It is the first cloud we have seen since we arrived on 8 May, therefore worthy of a mention.

Good chance of rain perhaps!

Wellington is just down the road, prefer our Wellington!

Stopped at Price for diesel ($3.299/G) and to top up the groceries. 

Arrived at Lakeside RV CG, on Utah Lakes, Provo, just south of Salt Lake City.  We are on site H4, a FHU pull-thru but we can only stay one night, they are full for the weekend.  I think schools are closing for their long summer break around now so we might have to start pre-booking campsites.

No wonder its cooler here, snow on those mountains

Thursday 17 May to Green River, Utah, via Moab

Had an indian dog visit the camp this morning, they run wild here, this little one had a sore paw, aww!  Driving through Chinle horses roam through town. 

Horse should have gone to Denny's

Made a plan about where to head today and started with the scenic South Rim Drive of the Canyon de Chelly.  First stop Tunnel Overlook, followed by Tsegi Overlook a couple of miles on - showing Navajo farmlands on the canyon floor and then Junction Overlook about 3 miles later with views of Chinle Valley, all were mini Grand Canyons – stupendous!

Canyon de Chelly AZ

Junction Overlook

Tsegi Overlook

Tsegi Overlook

We supported a Navajo family buying some local jewellery made of malachite, Juniper (for good health and to chase off bad dreams) and the silver feathers are for good luck.

Leaving Chinle on the main road came across a farmers type market, they were selling green hay! Along the road we saw a few herds of sheep and they seem to have a dog living with them minding them.  There are lots of horses, but we don’t see an being ridden.  A lot of the horses have foals with them, so cute with their long legs.

The landscape is amazing, you never get tired of looking at the colours and rock formations.

Lovely scenery

Can see for miles and miles

Incredible rock formation

Flat Rock

I bet the village of Round Rock had this as inspiration

Cross the state line into Utah, got the welcome to photo.

Utah, Life Elevated. It is high here! 

Pull into to Moab where we stayed on our Harley ride in 2006, we thought we might stay here however the place was teaming with people and off road 4wd vehicles.  It turns out Moab is hosting the ‘Rally on the Rocks’ (ATVs) and the place was booked out and there is a lot of accommodation here, so we mosied on another 35 miles to Green River State Park and got the last site available - the group booking site which we are sharing with another motorhome.

This State Park borders a golf course, they are watering the area backing on to our site this afternoon.  Although it was quite nice being sprayed with cool water, but I didn’t want it on my kindle so came inside to do the blog instead.  We are shaded by big cottonwood trees.  Just for the record the river isn’t green. It’s all pretty though.

May 16, to Monument Park Chenle, AZ

Cold last night but OMG there were a lot of stars!

On the road by 9.40 am, narrowly missing a mama roadrunner with about six chicks darting across the road in front of us. We morphed from cactus to pine trees as we got into high country, 5,000 then 6,000 feet, it snows here, there was a pullout for fixing your chains.  Got as high as 6,800 and although we saw signs to watch out for the elk, we didn’t see any.  The road was pretty rough.

We travelled along the I17 north to Flagstaff, then I40 east toWinslow.....

"Well, I'm a standing on a corner, In Winslow, Arizona and Such a fine sight to see, it’s Walmart my lord……"  Thought we should top up with diesel too as we are going places today where there might not be any stations.  Surprisingly she took 33 gallons but it was way over full thanks to the slope of the forecourt.

Along I40/Route 66 not far from Flagstaff in northern AZ we come across Meteor Crater, we went here on our Harley trip in 2006 and it was amazing then, so didn't revisit again.

The actual meteor crater, pretty amazing!

Back on the road on Hwy87 for 30 miles then 264 which was supposed to be the scenic route east to join 191 north to Chinle and the Canyon de Chelly National Monument where we hoped to camp for the night.  We wondered if we would every see civilisation again as we traversed through Hopi land (arid farmland with old houses) then Apache (better road, a brand new care facility/hospital in the idle of nowhere) but also some rough dwellings with piled up rubbish and finally Navajo land.

Scenic Route

Stunning!

How did all this get here?

We pass by towns called inspiration names like Twin Arrows, then Twin Guns so we carry on the theme with twin everything for the rest of the today’s roadie.

When we got to Chinle found it was actually a small town and we easily found out way to the Cottonwood Camp ground and slotted ourselves into site 80 for the night. Minimal services here but what can you expect for $14 a night.  We have a grill and a picnic table, there are toilets but no showers.  We choose a shady site, we will need to run the generator if we need AC but it only got around 24C all of today and there is a nice breeze blowing.  A couple of women across the way stopped to talk as I was taking a photo of the wild pig tootling through the campsite.

Hope this pig doesn't end up on a camp fire anytime soon.

We also crossed back into mountain time so we lost an hour today, so when we arrived at 3.15pm it was already 4.15pm.  Once set up poured Kim and beer and me a sneaky little drink as alcohol is prohibited in the park.

Cooked out on the grill and followed up with toasting marshmallows over the still hot coals.

Sorry no blog tonight, no cell coverage and no internet.

Tuesday 15 May, to Camp Verde via Phoenix AZ

Woke early again to another clear, blue sky.  By 8.30am it’s 29C and we are already on the road heading towards Phoenix – Valley of the Sun.  Phoenix has more land designated for parks than any other major city in the US and more than 20 cities and towns make up Phoenix, America's fifth most populated city - just behind Houston in fourth place.

Enroute we stop at the Blue Beacon Truck Wash in Eloy AZ and give our ‘girl’ a birthday - $48, including $12 worth of Rain-Ex. was a great deal (the staff did it all) and all three of us are happy : )

Next stop for diesel, expensive here around $3.50 but thanks Gas Buddy we found a place selling at $3.12, bonus!

Back on the I 10, we see off to the left what appears to be a aeroplane graveyard.  Pinal Airpark is in fact a boneyard where out of service civilian and commercial aircraft are stored.  The low humidity of the Sonoran desert provides an ideal storage environment.  The last Boeing 747 from Delta Air Lines arrived there earlier this year, with much fanfare.

Pinal Airpark, just north of Tucson

Driving though Phoenix wasn’t too stressful, many lanes wide, good signage and the traffic was relatively light. 

There are palm trees in Arizona

Phoenix doesn't look to complicated to get through!!

Found some great radio stations, one was all Queen music and the other was Oldies 92.7, will definitely try and find that station again.

Nice drive!!

Love that these cacti grow wild on the mesas

We climbed up to an altitude of over 4,500 feet and then down the other side, seems like such a waste of effort, they should make a tunnel for trucks and us - the poor trucks turn on their hazard lights and grunt up the incline nose to tail in the right lane.  Just as well there is at least one other lane.

Driving down the 6% decline with a run-off for the trucks etc with brake failure

We arrive up at Camp Verde and we choose Krazy K RV Park, a different park to where we stayed last time, just for a change of scenery.  The park was actually booked out but we were offered the overflow site and that works well for us. 

There are a couple of mansions overlooking the RV Park, wouldn't that rock your socks?  I guess they can easily escape by using their private airstrip!

Spend the afternoon in and around the pool, it is hot but a dry heat so much easier to deal with.  The night sneaks up on us, very dark and the stars are super bright, just slightly marred by the headlights we can see travelling along the highway.  All in all another good day!!

Monday 14 May, to Tucson AZ

Woke to a very colourful sunrise around 6am, it feels like 7am to us as we gained an hour yesterday, so we are ready and raring to go by 8am.  It was too hot to hang around here anyway.  As we left camp it was already 28C but it settled around 23C as we drove the I10 west.  We’ve had blue skies every day so far!

Not far into today’s roadie and still in NM, we crossed the Continental Divide, 4,585 feet above sea level.   The North American Continental Divide goes south from Alaska through the Canadian Rockies and in the US it follows the Rocky Mountains through Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado ending in New Mexico. It separates all the water that runs toward the Pacific Ocean from the water that runs toward the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans and the Gulf of Mexico.  Fascinating huh!

Don’t think it ever rains in these here parts, not much is green and both the San Simon River (NM) and the later San Pedro River (AZ) were just dry gulches.

Dust storm warnings, you can see why it could be a problem - flat and arid both left and right!

This is what a dust storm looks like (copied off the web)

New Mexico is only about 162 miles wide at this latitude, doesn’t take long to pass through it.  I was a little disappointed to not see more adobe dwellings though.

As we are coming up to the state line we can see green in the distance, a nice change. Got a photo of the ‘Welcome to Arizona’ sign and almost immediately it did become greener.  Pecan and also pistachio trees lined the interstate. Pecan trees are extremely thirsty and we saw a lot of irrigation too.  Pecan growers can only get new growing stock from Arizona or California as states to the east have been devastated by the pecan weevil.

Pecan Tree Nursery

Look at these amazing rock formations, definitely a nice change in scenery from wide, flat and arid. How did these rocks get here and how do they remain poised so perfectly?

Beautiful blue sky backdrop too!

Multiple trains were thundering their way east, only 10-15 minutes separating each one (double tracks). Union Pacific Railroad seems to own the freight business here, mostly pulling freight from the west coast to the interior. Last year, after a downturn in manufacturing they had 300 locomotives stored on the tracks near Benson, AZ, we drove by there today.  The climate is ideal, no rain therefore nor rust, perfect to store engines. I don’t think UPR is in trouble, they have been operating for 155 years after all.

We thought about detouring into Tombstone, it only about 8 miles south of the I10 but Kim didn’t think it was the real Tombstone - “that’s in South Dakota”.   I googled it and found the ‘town too tough to die’ is in fact, in Arizona!  It does create images of gunfights, dusty streets, whiskey and Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday and lots of old western movie scenes, like Gunfight at the OK Corral etc. Silver mining is probably a thing of the past.

Driving into Tucson we see palm trees, now that’s what I am talking about, an oasis in the desert!

We rock up to the Sentinal Park RV Park, right in the heart of downtown Tucson and book in for the night.  It is only 11.30am so we have all day to take the complimentary shuttle van six blocks down to the Sun Link tram stop for an all day travel pass to explore Tucson.  It is hot, 30C but it is a lovely dry heat and it doesn’t feel draining, although we did stop at Diary Queen, on the famed 4th avenue for some cold refreshments - of the icecream sort!

Front yards seem to be mostly gravel with cactus adornments, very few have grass!

Tucson seems to be a bit of a foodie paradise, dotted with micro breweries, lots of theatres and a thriving University culture, a brand new 131 miles bicycle trail and of course, great weather.

Bike Library

Sculpture made of alphabet letters, at the AZ Uni

'Keep Tucson Pretty' 

Lock my Heart, Tucson style

We are back to base in time for a laze by the little pool, in the sun, what more could one want!

Sunday, 13 May to Deming, New Mexico

Happy Mothers Day!!

Thanks for having us Southern Star RV Park, Van Horn, TX

By 9 am we are on the road and very soon we are into Mountain Time, yay - we have an extra hour today!

By the time we drive past Sierra Blanco, the last town before El Paso, we are noticing a definite Mexican  influence in the building style.

We stop at a Walmart in El Paso to buy another can of AC refrigerant, the other one didn’t work so well. Also we need another tank of diesel – $2.859/gallon here.

Hill Houses El Paso

Once through El Paso on the I10 we come across a detour, so we get a closer look at a suburban town in NM.  Not much different to any other.  The road need some work however, I swear all six wheels of our motorhome actually left the road after hitting a mean bump.  All our coat hangers were tossed off the rail in the wardrobe, our clothes now resting peacefully on the floor.

Just a small sample of the 700 miles of wall along the 2,000 mile border between the US and Mexico

The "X", just shy of 200 feet high, on the banks of the Rio Grande

The X or “La Equis” is actually in Mexico, on the south bank of the Rio Grande. The two towers intersecting in an “X” shape represents the merging of the indigenous Aztecs and the Spanish cultures. The red symbolises the blood spilled during the Juarez drug wars.

We cross the state line to New Mexico.

Land of Enchantment

Just inside NM alongside the I10 we see those confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs)), where large herds live in feedlots awaiting their 3 x day trip to the milking barn.   I google it and find there are 30,000 cows, living this way! As you would guess they produce a lot of sewage, especially as the dairies are clustered together in such a small foot print and the sewage is contaminating the ground water.  As in NZ, it is the dairy industry's biggest environmental challenge here too.

On a greener note, on the other side of the I10 are Pecan Orchards.

We come to an US Border patrol inspection station and all traffic is herded into the drive-through lanes. There are two of these located alongside the Mexican border, we passed one about 30 miles back in Texas but it was on the eastbound lanes.

The stated purpose of these inspection stations is to deter illegal immigration and smuggling. After 9/11 they took on the additional role of terrorism deterrence.  It has been reported that “More than 705,000 total Border Patrol apprehensions occurred along the southwest border in 2008. The Border Patrol also encountered 530 aliens from special interest countries, those which may represent a potential terrorist threat to the United States. There were also over 3,500 drug seizures at these southwest border checkpoints combined in 2008".  Who knows how many they apprehend these days.  Happily we are waved on through, as are the three trucks in front of us.  We went in the truck lane, cars had a separate lane.  Glad we didn’t have to stop at the station back in Texas, there were probably 40 trucks lined up waiting to get through.

US Border Inspection Station, NM

Next excitement, we come across ‘Dust Storm Warnings’ for the next 30 miles, pretty much all the way to Deming.  The word signs suggest you pull over, turn off your engine and lights and keep your foot off the brake and wait it out.  We did see some dust swirls, one right beside the interstate and we had a couple of really good gusts but nothing really to worry about.  Eastern NM is known for its wind generation, makes us feel as home!

We drive on uneventfully to the little town of Deming where we were check into the Deming Roadrunner (which is the State Bird) RV Park.  We have full hook-up, 50 amp, free WIFI and a picnic table – but it is just a dusty gravel lot with no ambience at all and it is too hot, windy and dusty to sit outside.   I guess we are in the desert, so shouldn’t expect lush!

However Deming does have three wineries and is the largest wine bottler in New Mexico.  You can also buy hard liquor (read Vodka) at the supermarket here in NM and it’s cheap - can’t be all bad!

Saturday, 12 May – Southern Star RV Park, Van Horn, TX79855

An early start this morning, we want to get a bunch of miles under our belt today.  So we are on the road just after 9am and the first stop is for diesel just up the road in Junction.  We notice a huge jump in the gas prices this year, today we paid $3.059/gal and that is after shopping around on Gas Buddy.  Last year we paid an average of $2.34/gal and never more than $2.56.  US Oil production has grown to more than 10.5 million barrels per day, the highest on record. And energy firms keep putting more drilling rigs to work, so why is it so expensive at source?  Export is the cause it seems.

We hop back on the I10 west and travel for miles and miles and miles, 364 to be exact, much more than yesterday’s effort of a measly 150 miles.  The speed limit is 80 mph, we sit around 70 or just below.  The drivers are very well behaved, no one sits out in the fast lane ever, but they don’t need to, traffic is so light they can do their 80+ mph in the 'right' lane. 

I10 literally goes for miles and miles across south Texas, but there are hills in the distance!

The scenery starts off flat and not much of anything apart from spindly trees, dust and road signs.  We did see sheep though!  Most of the time our entertainment was trying to ID the various roadkill. Skunks are easy, you can smell them before you see the trademark white streak on black.  Sadly a lot were baby deer. We did see a bit of action, a ute had driven through the Armco barrier east bound and was being winched onto a tow trailer.  It would be so easy to fall asleep when driving long distances along this monotonous interstate.

Scrub, dust and rocking horses!

Around 2pm we took a break at Loves, Fort Stockton where we bought some more refrigerant - just in case.  Happily the AC has not missed a beat today and it was on max most of the time as the outside temps soared to 31C.  Fort Stockton is not very big, mostly truck stops, nary a McDonalds in sight so K had to make do with Carls’ Jnr.  Although he enjoyed it, he is holding back on switching his unfaltering allegiance from the Golden Arches. “ If Carls is as good in NZ as here, I might be swayed” - watch this space!

We decide we have another couple of hours driving in us so carry on along the I10 towards Van Horn.  There are very few exits or towns along this stretch.  We have been out of the flatlands for a while and find we are steadily climbing, up to a lofty 4,470 feet at last count, as we traverse the Guadalupe Mountains.  The boost has been on pretty much constantly and we are keeping a close eye on the temp in case it increases.  Texas is mostly at sea level but Guadalupe Peak (also known as Signal Peak) is the highest natural point in Texas with an elevation of 8,751 feet above sea level.

At about 4pm we arrive at Van Horn and although it is a Saturday, it looks a bit like a ghost town, nobody around.

Main Street on a Saturday afternoon in Van Horn TX - where is everybody?

Our first RV Park option looks decidedly dodgy, a tired looking plot of dust and even though we could use our Passport America 50% discount here we decide to try the next option – Southern Star RV Park.  It is better, not much to offer as a destination though, but we do have full hook up, 50 amp power, free WIFI and a tree, oh and dust.  Nobody in the office so we pick a site and go back and fill in the paperwork, pop a check in the envelope, and here we are for the night.  There is a State Trooper vehicle next to a travel van the next row over, so we can assume an employee of Mr Trump’s is staying here - nothing but the best!

Friday May 11, By The River Campground, Kerville, TX 78028

Another good sleep, just the haunting call of an nocturnal Owl and the sparkle of fireflies during the night.  This morning we saw this squirrel just across the road from our site, cheeky little thing, holding it's nuts in it's cute little hands!  We also heard woodpeckers.

Hungry squirrel!

We get on the road by 9.30am with an urgent stop at Walmart to buy some refrigerant to try and fix the AC, you can buy that stuff here and it was successful – for an hour or so, then it enveloped us in stiffling hot air.  So we drive with the windows open for a bit and then try the AC again, it worked, phew!  Then it didn’t work, then it did! Hopefully it is just a bubble or something in the pipes but we will get some more refrigerant tomorrow to top it up and hope for the best. It wasn't so hot today, just 28C.

All along  I10 West it was flat, not very inspiring but after a couple of hours we were in Texas hill country which was much more scenic.  The only excitement was the burning out cab of an 18 wheeler - hope the driver got out OK.  We saw the black smoke a ways back and it was pretty obvious what it was once we got closer.

The cab was fully alight and not much of it left by the time was passed.

We had a mass suicide of bugs on the windscreen today, check this out! The worst of it is on my side of the brand new windscreen.

Bugs galore!

The main culprit seemed to be the lovebugs, which look like double bodied critters, they're also known as the honeymoon fly or double-headed bug.

Love Bug - Push Me Pull Me??

We arrive at The River Campground on the banks of the Guadalupe River and hook up to a 50amp pull thru site.  After settling in and cleaning the bugs off the front of the coach go for a wander around the hiking trails to see what is to see – a huge turtle sunning itself on a rock, a dead frog and a very porky squirrel feasting on a nut of some sort.

Turtle on a rock - it had disappeared by the time I reframed for a better photo!

Right next door to the camp is the WildAss Hey Barn, a bar/restaurant and Friday is Catfish Friday with an Open Mike music session.  Of course we are into that so head down there about 6.30pm for a cold drink and check it out.  Kim chose the catfish and I the BBQ - Ribs and Brisket which was awesome.  The aroma of the smoky BBQ had meandered its way through the camp. I thought Kim would help me out but he didn’t make much of an effort so it was up to me!!  Gave it a good shot and it was pretty darn good! 

BBQ Two Meats - that's a lot of protein!!

The various musicians were surprisingly good and we thought of our musically inclined friends at home who would be toe tapping (and more) the whole night, as we were. When I learn the Harmonica (air or otherwise) I am going to have a range of instruments to choose from too ( his belt doesn't really show all the Harmonicas this artist had).  The restaurant closed at 9pm so it wasn't a late night for us and I think we might have almost kicked the jetlag!

Photo doesn't quite show the range of harmonicas in the waistband