Back to the Prairies, Warm and Sunny

All good things have to end and so did our travels for this winter.

After a great month with daughter Colleen (Tim,) their family, and many old freinds we headed out of BC at the middle of April. 

The month in B.C. couldn't have been better.  We'll leave rain and cold out of the discussion to concentrate on family and freinds.  We got to see freinds we haven't seen in far too long, spend time with family we see far too infrequently.  It was fun to look at our places of work, our old homes and have another look at Vancouver.

We were thrilled to get to see Brendan (Grandson) play in two hockey tournaments and to spend a whole bunch of time with him and his sisters.  We even got to babysit which is always a thrill for grandma and granpa.

We got to spend some time with some of our old freinds and motorcycle buds although time just didn't allow us to link up with many of them.  Maybe next year.

So off we went, headed for Calgary.  As we travelled through the majestic Canadian Rocky Mountains Bernie and I talked about how despite 8/9000 miles, 15 states, and 3 provinces, there is nothing we saw that has the splendor of our own Rocky Mountains. Pictures can never tell the whole story but these will give you an idea.
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That snow is still more than 13' and it's been melting a bit

 Yes it's still snowing up here, our RV has never been this dirty

So we made it safely through the Rockies and pulled into an RV park just N. of Calgary.  They had the elecricity hooked up but the water lines and drain lines were still frozen.  It made for an interesting week in the cold and rain but we survived.  If it doesn't kill you it makes you stronger - well a week in that park certainly makes you stronger.  I won't mention the park name here but if you're interested send me an email and I'd be happy to share it.

Daughter Amber and husband Dallas treated us royally for a week of food and fun.  Sister Jan and husband Mel did the same.  Thanks to them we left Calgary fat and happy on our way to Regina for a couple of days with Brother Rick and his wife Norma.  Again we were treated like royalty and added yet another month of dieting to our itinerary.  I think we'll be on a diet all the way to our leave date at the end of Oct.

So we're back in Manitoba for the summer.  The weather is wonderful, the sun is shining and the fields are green. 

It was huge fun to get back to the Manitoba kids and the grandchildren.  They are all doing very well and the kids all grew about 6 inches.  Boy they change fast when you're away for awhile.  We hope to see lots of them over the summer.

Bernie is back to her gym, three times and week and loves to renew her freindships down there.  She's been a regular at that gym, with that trainer, for 7 years now and has some good freinds she loves dearly.  Her routine would have me dead and buried in about an hour.  She's at it three times a week plus a vigorous "off days" plan.  Amazing.

Yours truly, well since I can't sit still, I found a guy looking for a driver and I'm having a blast driving his water truck.  He has a custom crop spraying company that requires a lot of water at the edge of the field.  That's where I come in with up to 6000 gallons of water in three tanks on a 48' step deck trailer.  The truck is an older Kenworth with a Cummins engine and a 13 speed tranny.  Just a hoot to drive the old girl and it keeps my skills sharp for fall.

So thats about all we have for now.

As usual thanks for stoppping by and please leave a comment when you can.

Neal and Bernie

Arizona to California and North to B.C.

Now that's a long drive...............

As usual our guardian angel sat in the truck with us and got us safely through an interesting (to say the least) ride from Mesa West and North.  This morning we're having coffee at a very nice resort called Eagle Wind here in  Aldergrove B.C.   http://eaglewindrv.ca/photo-gallery 

And did I mention it's snowing?  Yes it is.........

Our first day out was uneventful except for a killer headwind.  We normally get about 8.5 mpg when we're towing but I think we likely got about 5 on that leg of the trip.  :-(   By carefully planning our fuel stops the most we had to pay was $4.13 but we saw it posted as high as $4.79 in parts of California.  We had filled up in Arizona so we avoided buying any diesel in CA.

First stop was at a place called Quartzsite Arizona.  This was something I was really looking forward to.  One of the RV organizations we belong to is called Escapees http://www.escapees.com  where I spend far too much time on the forum seeing what others are up to.  Quartzsite is a small town on the Arizona California border where people spend days/weeks or more camped in their RVs in the open desert.  Many have solar panels, others have generators, others just use a bonfire.  Trucks come out from town to bring you water and pump out your waste tanks.  It was fun to see but we quickly decided we'd stick to RV parks.  We spent the night just West of Palm Springs in Banning California.

 Quartzsite isn't a very big place

Out in the desert - no services.

There are RV's out there. 

From Quartzsite we were both looking forward to seeing the Palm Springs/Palm Desert area although we didn't have plans to stop or stay.  Neither of us had ever been there so all of our opinions were based on what others have told us and what we had learned from the movie theatre.  You could say we were anxious to see what all the fuss was about.  Now - I know one can't make decisions based on what they see from the freeway but about all we saw driving through there was the biggest wind farm I've ever seen.  Imagine the Bob Hope Boulevard sign framed by windmills.  I guess we'll have to go back but I certainly don't feel any particular urgency to do so.

Now the fun began.  We were travelling on I-10 West and wanted to connect to Hwy I-215 Northand then on to I-210 West to go across the top of Los Angeles through San Bernadino, Pasadena, and Burbank so we could catch I-5 North to B.C.  Well that's just what we did, no mistakes, no wrong roads, perfect drive, EXCEPT nobody told me how bad California roads are.  I thought we had some bad roads back home in Manitoba but they're smooth as glass when compared to this.

California has a law that requires all vehicles towing something, anything, including the heavy duty trucks, to use the right lane only and at 55 mph.  The result is unbelievable congestion in the right lane and all those heavy trucks have beat the right lane all to _____.  Sorry to be so blunt but it's the truth.  It's was brutal to have to tow our rig almost 1000 miles on roads this rough.  We talked to one fellow, from California, who said he was ashamed of the roads in his state.  I understand his opinion.  Our other option was to go further East which meant we had to deal with higher elevations, snow, and ice.  Note to self (again) "don't go North until you can stay East of California."

So now that I have that off my chest back to the trip.

We were now coming North out of L.A. and into the hills patting ourselves on the back for surviving the madness unscathed.  We stopped for our daily (when travelling) cup of coffee from McDonald's and "life was good."  Oops, oh no, we didn't know about the Tejon pass.  I still had half of cup of java when I started having to downshift hard and fast.  We were into a serious climb, some places at a rate of 6%.  This chunk of I-5 goes climbs from L.A., and close to sea level, to 4144 feet at the top.  We were down to 20 mph in places and at that I was passing semi's most of the way.  If you're Canadian this road reminded us of a super size Coquihalla Highway in B.C.  It's a road built on top of the mountains with dramatic climbs and descents.  If you interested this 10 minute video takes you through the whole road.  www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrSGw7Mosic  It was fun and we're really glad to have had the opportunity to drive it.

After the Tejon pass and descending "The Grapevine" we were into hundreds and hundreds of miles of agricultural heaven.  There was a big sign at one point that said "California feeds America."  That probably is an exaggeration but they sure do grow allot of stuff down there.  Many of the trees were blooming as we drove through and in places it was a sea of white or mauve, and always mixed with that beautiful green.

A few oranges on their way to ?

Trees in bloom

Mile after mile of perfectly trimmed orchards

We knew we were headed into some tough weather so we decided to spend an extra day in Red Bluff CA, at the Durango RV Resort.  The sun was shining, and a day off is never a "bad" thing. www.durangorvresorts.com/  If you find yourself in the I-5 on N. California this is a place we would highly recommend.  The place is very nice but the staff are fantastic.  They did everything they could to make our two days there a pleasant experience.

That was the end of our nice weather, from here to Vancouver it was wet, extremely windy, and thankfully, uneventful.  Beautiful country and much better roads.

Snowing in Weed California

We did get above the snow line for awhile but it wasn't snowing at the time :-)

From there we were into Oregon, Washington, and the Canadian border.  The Canada Customs officer was really good to us.  He asked a few questions and let us go without any search at all making it one of our best crossings ever.

If you follow this blog you may remember we stalled at the border last year.  It took seven hours and a bunch of aggravation to get out of there.  When our truck started this time Bernie and I were VERY relieved.

So we're here in B.C. looking forward to a month with our family and visiting some friends we haven't seen in far too long.

Thanks for stopping by and please do leave a comment when you can.

Neal and Bernie

A week in Mesa

Like all good things our week in the Phoenix area is winding down.  We now understand why so many snow birds spend their time here instead of further South in the Rio Grande Valley.  Like them, we have really enjoyed it here.

After leaving the Tucson area we headed North and found a great place to overnight in Casa Grande at the Buena Tierra. http://www.campgroundbuenatierra.com/  Set well out in the country this RV Resort may not be for everyone but we enjoyed our night there.  It sits on 1200 acres of land with lots of open space.  For anyone with a HD truck or extra length this place can handle us with ease.  It's only a couple of miles down the road to all kinds of shopping and services.

The next day we headed into the Phoenix area to find a place to hang out for a week to explore a little and rest a lot.  Unfortunately we didn't realize this was a Nascar weekend and spring break all rolled into one.  There were still openings, but not as many as normally available.  We found a place and have enjoyed  our week here.

The sightseeing highlight of the week was a day trip to Canyon Lake and lunch at Tortilla Flats.  The lake was created when they built a dam back in the late 1920's and it's beautiful.  Driving up and back is through country and scenery one can't capture with an ordinary camera and a photographer with a questionable skill set. The following few feeble attempts will hopefully give you the idea.

That sort of a green tinge you see is from a sort of moss that grows all over these stones at this time of year.  It gives everything that green look when in reality it's just plain old, cold, hard, stone

This is a big lake

I climbed way up to get this one.  Up was easy.  Down, well, it was pretty scary.

One of several single lane bridges you have to cross (carefully).

You just don't expect to find a good size marina in the mountains above Mesa, but there it was.

Lunch At Tortilla Flats

Then of course we had to have lunch in Tortilla Flats.  Everyone here asks if you've been to Canyon Lake and did you have lunch at Tortilla Flats?  Now we can say, "yes we did."  It was fun, the food was good, and the service was excellent.

Check out those seats.

Taliesin West

Then we were of to spend an afternoon in awe at Frank Lloyd Wright's summer home, Taliesin West.  This place is unbelievable.  By today's standards it seems just very nice, with some very forward thinking involved, but when you consider he figured this out 70 or more years ago it blows you away.  We took a tour of everything.  It gets you into their private quarters, the outside, the inside, the theatre, everything except the architectural school.  The tour guide we had knew just about everything there is to know about Mr Wright, Taliesin West, his other architectural designs, and his personal life.  It was just huge for me.  Having been a fan of his for my whole life this was a dream come true.

I did take pictures but this link will do a far better job than I every could.

https://www.google.com/search?q=frank+lloyd+wright+taliesin+west&hl=en&rls=com.microsoft:en-ca:IE-SearchBox&prmd=imvnso&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=ySRWT9n7MPPoiAKOlLHcBw&ved=0CJcBELAE&biw=1366&bih=563

I sure hope our travels take us close to another one of his projects so we can tour it and learn more.  If I could every get to his "Falling Water", it would be another dream come true.

Saturday we had a chance to connect with a good friend that we haven't seen in about 30 years. They invited us to their home and then took us to an impressive spot in Scottsdale for dinner. It was fun to share the "good old days" for a few hours. It was a treat to see them, their home, and enjoy their company for an evening. Funny thing about good friends, three hours or thirty years, they don't seem to change, they just are.  J and D, if you read this, thanks again, it was really nice.

So this ends our time in Arizona for this year.  We had planned to leave today but have decided, because of wind warnings, to stay an extra day.  Tomorrow we'll go straight West to L.A. and then North toward Vancouver.  Plans are to spend a week or so on the trip seeing what we can.

As usual thanks for stopping by and please do leave a comment when you can.

Neal and Bernie

Sonora Desert Museum

Just outside of Tucson in a beautiful valley sits the Sonora Desert Museum. If you decide to visit plan to spend a day, its well worth the price of admission. Bernie and I truly enjoyed it, the reptile display, the desert walks, the prairie dogs, the aviary, and especially the Hummingbird walk. Where else can you walk through an aviary and have dozens of Hummingbirds buzzing past your ears.

This is a disaplay they have that shows the extent of the Sonoran Dessert.  You can see from this that it covers a huge area including the Baja Peninsula, a large part of Mexico, Arizona, New Mexico and more.  The size really is quite amazing.

We started the day in the reptile display. Since snakes of any kind drive me crazy, we decided to get it out of the way first. The display was great; I can handle it when they’re on the other side of a piece of glass. Here are a few pictures, Jan (sister) you may want to skip this part. These two bad boys and a bunch of others, some extremely venomous, can all be found in this part of the USA.  They also had tarantulas and scorpions in case the snakes didn't make your skin crawl.

From here we apply a bunch of sun screen and headed out to walk around. This is a picture I took early in the day trying to show the views from up there. Of course my favourite subject is featured here.  In case you didn't know I like taking her picture.

Now it was a “walk about” to see all they had to show us. There wasn’t enough time to do the longest part but these pictures will show you a bit of what we saw.

This little fellow was checking us out, fortunately it was from the other side of a thick glass.

The prairie dogs have it too good.  There was a whole bunch of them and they were having a great time.  Interesting note here.  They had a display of one of their dens that shows how they share it with scorpions, snakes, etc and they live together in peace down there. Beats me, but that's what they said.  Maybe we could learn something from them?

Then we had a nice walk around a part of the museum they call the Agave garden.  There were lots of special pl;ants and things to see there but we really enjoyed the flowering plants.  The pictures will show the giant shoots these plants end up as they flower.  These flowers can reach to 8 or 10 feet and are very impressive.  The problem is that poor plant which could be 50, 60 or more years old only gets to flower once.  Over a course of two to three weeks they grow these giant flowers, the flowers open and then the plant dies. 

Bernie was standing at least 10 feet in front of this one but it gives you an idea of how tall they grow.

Then we went to the aviary to walk among a whole bunch of exotic and non exotic birds.  We finally ended the day in the aviary dedicated to Hummingbirds.  That was a once in a lifetime kind of thing.  There were dozens of then flying around in there and they were quite accustomed to people.  I was with about 6 inched of one but no amount of quiet chatter could convince him/her to land on my hand.  There were a few nests with babies and we were watching the moms feed them.  The babies were no more than the size of a thimble with no feathers, fuzz, or anything else.  They go from that state to flying in three weeks.

This fellow greeted us with a friendly "hello."

Hummingbirds are hard to get pictures of but I did get this one having a drink.

I caught these two watching us watching them.

So the day ended with us wishing as usual we had "more time."  This is an all day place and we had only budgeted for an afternoon.

Tomorrow move on to the Phoenix area where I hope to have some really nice things to get on here.

Thanks for stopping by and please do leave a comment when you.

Neal and Bernie



Tombstone, The Town Too Tough To Die

Wow, what a day it was. This is a really fun place to visit.

To actually walk where Wyatt Earp and Doc Holiday walked a hundred years ago is neat. To actually be on the same piece of dirt they fought that famous “OK Corral” gun battle on is weird. To stand on the very street and block where men stood face to face for a gunfight blew me away. We’ve all seen it on TV a hundred times but people actually fought those gun fights and died right there. Died, on the very spots where we now walk in peace, from air conditioned store to air conditioned store.

We visited the Bird Cage Theatre, the most famous Honky Tonk in America in 1881 and the site of 16 gun battles. This saloon is preserved in its original state. This is the actual bar where the men drank and played cards downstairs while the ladies of the night worked upstairs. It’s where Wyatt Earp met the love of his life, married her, and stayed with her until he died. They drank, smoked, played cards, fought and died in there. The floor is still original as is the bar. The bar was made of wood brought in from Africa, which would still be a big deal today. This wood shipped from Africa around the tip of S. America and up to San Francisco. Then it had to be shipped from San Francisco down to Arizona. It’s a priceless piece of America’s history.

As we were driving up there we chatted about how tough the people had to be back then. This country is brutal; I can’t imagine what it was like to be here without air conditioning, paved roads, or even a regular water supply. All they had was their horse and/or a wagon, a gun or two, and an amazing will to survive. I can understand why Wyatt Earp retired to Oregon and chose to be buried there. Who wants to be buried under a big old cactus?

This is a special place with tons of history, nice shops, things to see and do, lots of people in period costumes, and a couple of eating establishments. It was interesting to note that there was no McDonalds, no Wendy’s, and no fast food of any kind. We found a couple of nice art galleries and a Native American Jewellery store that was fabulous. They stocked only Native American Creations and the sales person was a young Native American guy that did a great job. His product knowledge was outstanding. It was far and away the best shop we found.

On the way back down to Benson, where we’re parked we toured a few RV parks in case we ever get back this way. At this point it appears we just might do that. So far Arizona is pretty nice.

Down in the Rio Grande Valley whenever Arizona comes up it’s always followed with some comment about how cold the nights are. It’s true. The daytime temperatures have been in the 70’s but the evenings have been down to the mid 50’s. So – that’s Arizona, I can handle it.

Yes - this is where it happened

This sign made my day.

So tomorrow we’re off to Tucson to see what we can find.

Hope you enjoy the pictures, thanks for stopping by and please so leave a comment when you.

Neal and Bernie

San Antonio to Tucson

People told us this was going to seem like a long, long trip and they certainly weren’t exaggerating. It is a long trip but it sure is an interesting one.

Bernie and I always think of Texas as flat, REALLY big and flat. It was quite a surprise when we got into West Texas. There are some extremely interesting spots out there. I think San Antonio to Tucson is around 550 miles. 550 miles of desolation. Last night we stayed in Van Horn Texas. The RV park manager was telling me about his cable TV. I explained that we were tired and I would just use our antenna and whatever was on the air. He laughed as he told me “there was no over the air out there” and in fact they could only get one radio station, intermittently. Ahh – the lights went on, we understood, until then we had been thinking our truck radio was fried.

That’s Texas. Despite being the second most populous state in the union (behind California) it’s so big there are places that radio and TV signals still don’t reach. It sounds unbelievable, we were just off of I-10, this is the US, we’re traveling an interstate highway, there has to be TV and radio. But he was right - nothing, 0, nada. It really served to point out the size of Texas.

It's no wonder nothing grows out here, there's no soil, it's all rock

We used to think the |Canadian Prairies were long and straight

We had an interesting drive through El Paso. It’s quite a sight to see. From I-10 you see it spread out in a shallow valley to the South. I’d love to see it at night. We didn’t even stop for coffee so we really didn’t see much, except Juarez Mexico. As we drove through Bernie commented “that must be a poor part of town.” Then we saw the border fence and we knew we were looking at Juarez. Yes Juarez, where drug lord’s and smugglers rule and everyone else has moved out. I had read that Juarez was practically deserted and in our brief encounter it sure did look like a ghost town. I wouldn’t cross the border there for anything.

I can’t believe we covered 500 miles since our last posting and I only having a couple of paragraphs to post. As you may know I can be much more verbose than this but there just wasn’t anything out there to write about.

This really is a long and desolate stretch of road but it's one we're really glad we had an opportunity to travel.  Would we do it again?  You bet.

So here we are in Arizona, just East of Tucson in Benson. It seems like a nice little place to hang out for the weekend. Tomorrow we’ll unload the Smart car and head for Tombstone.

More from Tombstone's "OK Corral" later.

Thanks for stopping by and please do leave a comment when you can.

Neal and Bernie