Spring Training Trip - Day 70

We left Edwards about 7:30 am under clear skies, cool temperatures and a moderate cross wind.  As we headed west over Tehachapi Pass we had our last dose of wind; when we descended into Bakersfield in the San Joaquin Valley and headed north, the winds died down and the skies darkened.  The rain started just south of Fresno and we had a pretty good thunderstorm before it cleared somewhat as we continued up the valley.  We hit rain again in Modesto, and then it was partly cloudy until we reached Nevada City about 4:30 pm.  It was raining hard as we unloaded the RV and consequently, we left it parked in the street by the driveway.

It started raining hard when we went to bed and we awoke in the morning there was about an inch or so of snow on the ground.  It melted quickly, however, and we spent the day unpacking, putting stuff away and unwinding from a long and enjoyable trip.  We had a lot of fun, drove a lot of miles, used a lot of overpriced gas and avoided any major weather issues or mechanical problems with the RV.

It was an outstanding trip but is great to be home!

Day 70 Pictures

Spring Training Trip - Day 69

We are at Edwards AFB after a long and difficult drive from the RV Park in Phoenix where we stayed last night.  We got an early start, leaving about 7:15 am under clear skies. 

The weather forecast for the trip was for increasing winds and the passage of a cold front that might bring isolated thunderstorms as it passed by.  Sure enough, as we headed west the winds began to increase.  They were forecast to be in the 15-25 mph range out of the WSW and that’s about what they seemed to be.  And, as we were heading generally west, we had a significant crosswind that required two hands on the steering wheel and almost constant corrections to keep the RV on the road.  We had a short respite as we headed NW to travel up towards I-40 but as we turned west again towards Edwards AFB, the winds were still coming from the WSW but had increased in velocity and by the time we arrived at the FAMCAMP at Edwards AFB the winds were in the 20-35 mph range with increasing clouds and much lower temperatures. 

It was 85 degrees when we left Phoenix this morning and it is 55 degrees at Edwards this evening.  The terrain between Phoenix and Edwards is pretty bleak, mostly desert and nothing much to stop the wind from blowing unimpeded. The highlight of the trip was a gourmet lunch at the (very crowded) Dairy Queen in Ludlow, CA, halfway between Needles, CA and Barstow, CA.  The lunch was enlivened by a fuel stop by the Oscar Meyer Hotdog vehicle.  Truck drivers were posing for pictures by it and even the DQ help came out and took pictures.  (There were no other choices for lunch in Ludlow, a very small town, other than the DQ.)

We will have another early departure tomorrow morning as we head for home.  The weather forecast is for more wind and rain en-route.  We will take our time however and should be home by late afternoon if all goes well. 


Day 69 Pictures

Spring Training Trip - Day 68

We left Las Cruces at 7:15 am this morning under clear skies and drove west on I-10 to Phoenix, AZ.  The traffic wasn’t bad, except for Tucson at lunchtime and Phoenix in the early afternoon.  There were the usual “weavers-in-and-out” who don’t believe in using turn signals and the “non-yielders” who enter the freeway at a high rate of speed and head straight for the space you are in at the moment.  Pat avoided them all expertly and we arrived at the Phoenix Destiny RV Resort around 1:30 pm local time.

We did not take any pictures on I-10 today, because we have taken pictures on that route a couple of times on previous trips to the southeast.  It is mostly desert with a few scenic spots along the way.  We went by some places we would like to stop and see some day (Bowie and Tombstone, AZ, and Cochise’s last stand in the lava beds of southern AZ).  Next time, maybe, or as Pat would say “We will get it on the way back”.  He did take a few pictures of the RV resort.

Spring Training Trip - Day 67

Pat was feeling much better this morning as the antibiotic treating his sinus infection kicked-in.  So, we decided to carry on with our plan to visit White Sands National Monument.  We left the RV Park about 9:30 am and travelled to the National Monument visitor’s center about 50 miles NE of Las Cruces.  The road ascends out of the Masilla Basin where Las Cruces is located and crosses a 5700 ft mountain summit before descending again through the White Sands Missile Range to the National Monument which is co-located in and adjacent to the Missile Range.

The National Monument includes 275 miles of white sand dunes and is the largest gypsum dune field in the world.  The dunes lie in a mountain-ringed valley, the Tularosa Basin, in the northern end of the Chihuahuan Desert and are truly one of the world’s natural wonders.

The dunes were formed in a unique geological process that began millions of years ago and continues today.  The gypsum that forms the white sand was deposited at the bottom of a shallow sea that covered the area 250 million years ago.  Eventually turning to stone, the gypsum-bearing marine deposits were uplifted into a giant dome 70 million years ago when the Rocky Mountains were formed.  Ten Million years ago the dome started to collapse, creating the Tularosa Basin.  The remaining sides of the original dome form the San Andres and Sacramento mountain ranges that now ring the Tularosa Basin.

The common mineral gypsum is rarely found as sand because it is soluble in water.  Rain and snow in the surrounding mountains dissolve gypsum from the mountain rocks and carry into the Tularosa Basin.  Since the basin has no outlet to the sea, the water with its dissolved gypsum is trapped in the basin. In wet periods, water evaporating on the basin floor (playa) causes the gypsum to be deposited in crystalline form as selenite.  The crystals often measure 3 ft or more and are spread across ancient lake beds in the basin.  Freezing and thawing and wetting and drying eventually break down the crystals as sand-size particles light enough to be moved by the wind.  Strong winds blowing across the playa pick up the gypsum particles and then carry them downwind.  The sand grains then accumulate as dunes that build and shift as the wind moves them along.

In the extremely harsh environment of the dune field, a few plants and animals have adapted to the desert conditions and struggle to survive.  Only a few species of plants grow rapidly enough to avoid burial by the rapidly shifting dunes. Several types of small animals have also evolved white colorations to camouflage themselves in the gypsum sand.

The visitor’s center is very well done and contains a number of interesting exhibits and an excellent film explaining the history and geology of the white sands and the surrounding area.  We also took the eight mile “dune drive” and a one mile hike through the dunes along a nature trail.  There are numerous picnic areas along the drive as well as an amphitheater for ranger programs that are held frequently.  Additional hiking trails of various degrees of difficulty are also accessible from the drive.  A highlight of the area for visitors is the opportunity to sled down the dunes in saucer-like sleds.  Since the sand is so fine, it is almost like sledding on snow.  In fact, you can buy or rent the sleds at the visitor’s center.

After returning to Las Cruces in mid afternoon, we had a late lunch at another Mexican restaurant, did a little grocery shopping for the rest of the trip and came back to the RV.  After one more load of laundry to get us home, we had dinner in the RV and plan to go to bed early.

All the fun stuff for the trip is now over; we have three long days of driving to get home.  It is Phoenix tomorrow, Edwards AFB on Wednesday, and home on Thursday.

Day 67 Pictures

Spring Training Trip - Day 66

We left Ft. Stockton, TX about 7:45 am for a relatively short ride to our next stop at Las Cruces, NM.  It was essentially “us and the truckers” heading west on an empty highway across west Texas on Easter Sunday morning.  The speed limit is 80 mph on this part of the highway and there was plenty of room to maintain separation.  There were clear skies, no wind to speak of, and the roads were dry.  We also gained an hour as we crossed into the Mountain Standard Time Zone, so we arrived in Las Cruces, NM about 12:00 pm local time. We are staying at the Hacienda RV resort, right off of I-10.  It is a great RV Park and we have stayed there on each of our previous trips east.

After hooking-up, we decided to eat lunch at a Mexican restaurant in a nearby section of town called “Old Masilla”, a restored old Spanish community with shops and restaurants.  While eating, we were serenaded by a mariachi band in full regalia that was making the rounds of all the Mexican restaurants in the neighborhood.

After lunch, Pat was not feeling much better so we decided to find an urgent care center to get an antibiotic prescription for what has developed into a sinus infection.  There was supposed to be an urgent care center nearby open on Sunday, but when we went there it was closed, on account of the Easter Holiday I suppose.  So, the only other option was the local hospital ER.

The hospital is a very large trauma center and really busy.  The emergency room experience is never any fun no matter where or when you go and this time was no exception.  Everyone is thrown into the same “pot” and you wait your turn according to the need to treat the more serious cases first, even if they come in after you get on the list.  In my case, it was a simple diagnosis of a sinus infection and a single antibiotic prescription.  Nevertheless, I waited for over three hours for a two minute diagnosis.  The next adventure was finding a pharmacy open on late Easter Sunday afternoon.  We finally found one open at an Albertson’s market and got the prescription filled.

We had dinner at the RV and an early-to-bed for Pat.  The plan tomorrow is a day trip to White Sands National Monument, about 50 miles away. We had stopped there on a previous trip but couldn't spend much time exploring and wanted to go back.

Day 66 Pictures

Spring Training Trip - Day 65

We left the Columbus RV Park at 7:30 am this morning and drove under partly or mostly overcast skies to the Ft. Stockton RV Park.  It was misty for most of the morning, but we did not have any rain.  It looks like rain right now and a possible thundershower has been forecast for this evening.  We are here for the night, however, and won’t have to drive in the rain today.

There were lots of beautiful wildflowers beside the road; we took some pictures of them and the large rock formations which had been cut through to construct the road.  The terrain was hilly most of the way, and the small trees were green from the spring rains.  There wasn’t much else to look at, but what there was to look at was pretty.  Tomorrow we get into flatter country and desert.

Pat is fighting a cold/allergy with the same symptoms I had a month ago.  We are hoping that he will get over it soon.


Day 65 Pictures

Spring Training Trip - Day 64

We left the RV Park in New Orleans about 7:45 am this morning and headed west.  We were on I-10 the whole way to Columbus, Texas, our stop for the night.

The trip was long but uneventful.  The roads were dry, we had a slight tailwind, and the traffic wasn’t too bad.  We did go through a lot of cities along the way, starting with New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Lafayette, Lake Charles, Beaumont, and Houston.

Columbus, Texas is a small town about 50 miles west of Houston on the Colorado River.  The first settlers arrived in 1832 and the town since then has a storied history, including the site of a battle in the Mexican American War in 1848.  Today, the town appears to be fairly prosperous with an economy based on rice farming, oil & gas, cattle, and sand and gravel extraction. 

The RV Park where we are staying is a relatively small mom & pop operation and is not really a destination RV park (except for a few permanent residents in a variety of travel trailer combinations). It has everything we need for an overnight stay however and is far enough off of the highway to minimize any vehicle traffic noise on I-10.

We didn’t bother to unhook the VW and after dinner we are both planning to retire early.  It is another long travel day tomorrow to Ft. Stockton, TX.  There are no cities to drive through, as we are approaching the more “expansive” section of Texas between here and El Paso.  It is a long drive across Texas with 880 miles between the eastern Texas Border and El Paso along I-10.

Date 64 Pictures

Spring Training Trip - Day 63

We got an early start this morning; we were eating beignets and drinking coffee at Café Du Monde in the French Quarter by 9:00 am.  We had reservations for a tour at 10:30 am just a few blocks away, a house that was visited by the French Impressionist artist Edgar Degas in 1872 - 1873.  His mother had been an American and some of his American cousins lived there.  He spent about 5 months in New Orleans, doing many sketches and several paintings in oils and pastels depicting members of his family.  He went back to France, taking most of his paintings with him, and became one of the leaders of the Impressionist movement in Paris.

The house has been changed a great deal since his visit; it has been divided in half and moved from its original site.  Also, most of the surrounding land has been sold and developed.  Copies of many of Degas’ paintings are displayed in the house, which has been renovated and redecorated in the style of the 1870’s.

After the house tour, we went to the grocery store to stock up for our trip home, which we will resume tomorrow.  After the food was put away, we left the VW with the RV and walked back into the Quarter.  We had a late lunch, gumbo and salad at the Café Royal Oyster Bar – great food and great service.  After that, we walked to the Old Mint to attend a demonstration of some of the roots of jazz; African, Creole and Cajun music and instruments.   It was done by two very talented National Historic Park rangers, both of whom played more than one instrument and sang.  The demonstration was very well attended - many high school students were there, as well as a large group of tourists.  We really enjoyed it, as did everyone else there.

After stopping for a drink and a short rest at the Bistreaux Lounge at the Hotel Depuy, we walked back to the RV, got a pizza for dinner and started to prepare to leave early tomorrow for the rest of our trip home.


Day 63 Pictures

Spring Training Trip - Day 62

We had a major league rainstorm last night and this morning.  After we got back to the RV last night a deep line of large thunderstorms came through the area.  There was heavy rain, lots of thunder and lightning, and even a little bit of hail.  It continued all night virtually without let-up and into the mid-morning.  We thought we might be subject to some flooding, but the RV Park remained free of any accumulation of water.  The TV weatherman said the area received over 1½ inches of rain per hour through most of the night, and I can believe it most likely did.

We cancelled our morning plans due to the weather and didn’t start out until almost noon.  Our first stop was for lunch at the Central Grocery, home of the Muffaletta sandwich, consisting essentially of lunch meat, cheese, and olive spread on a roll.  It is a special New Orleans creation and very good.

After lunch, we visited the Old Mint, a beautiful old building that started out as an U.S. Army fort and was later converted to a U.S. Mint that operated until 1909.  The building is now run by the Louisiana State Museum in conjunction with the National Park Service.  There is presently an excellent exhibit celebrating 50 years of operation of Preservation Hall, the traditional jazz club venue we visited last night.  When the hall was opened in 1962, it became the hub for many of the old time New Orleans musicians, giving them a central place to gather, teach, and perform traditional New Orleans jazz.  Over the subsequent years most of the old timers have passed on but their heritage still lives on.  A new generation of musicians is performing the traditional music with their own interpretations yet maintaining the essence of a truly American music form.

While there, we also had the opportunity to listen to a piano player named Jim Hession play a variety of traditional jazz songs.  The performance was part of an almost daily series of programs dealing with the history of jazz by the National Park Service’s New Orleans Jazz National Historic Park.  The highlight of his performance was having people from the audience shout out the names of any song they wanted him to play. He wrote down the names of the songs as people called them out.  After awhile, he started playing a continuous medley of portions of each of the songs.  It was an amazing performance and very well done.  He called this his “musical gumbo” portion of the show.  We bought one of the CDs of his work that he had available for sale.  Both he and his wife are retired Disney World performers.

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After listening to the performance and visiting the Preservation Hall exhibit, we went to have a drink at Check Point Charlie’s, a bar/grill/laundromat/game room near the Old Mint.  The place is a classic “dive” that also features a wide variety of live music 7 days a week.  On our New Orleans Mardi Gras trip in 2009, we were intrigued by the military name of the place, especially after seeing someone outside the bar in a hand grenade costume waving to people as they drove by.

We then decided to take a trolley ride along the waterfront.  This trolley line is set up to carry people between the hotel district, business district, cruise ship terminal and the French Quarter.  We walked back from the far end of the waterfront area near the cruise ship terminal through a riverfront shopping mall (Riverwalk) then took the trolley back to the French Quarter where we started, east of Jackson Square. 

We had some time before our dinner reservation at 7:00 pm so we relaxed awhile in a restaurant/bar near Jackson Square where the usual mix of street people, musicians, fortune tellers, tourists, and others who just appeared to be “hanging around” made for an eclectic mix of urban activity that can almost always be found in this area of New Orleans.

Dinner was at The Palm Court, a famous New Orleans jazz club/restaurant that features traditional New Orleans Jazz.  The food was excellent as was the music.  The club features different local musicians each night usually backed up by house musicians (The Palm Court Jazz Band).  We stayed through two long sets of music and were back at the RV by 10:00 pm. Even with a late start today we got a lot done.

The weather has cleared nicely and the forecast looks good.  We haven’t fully decided what to do tomorrow, but we are gradually working our way through the list of things we wanted to do in New Orleans this trip.

Day 62 Pictures

Spring Training Trip - Day 61

We left the Maxwell-Gunter Recreation Campground around 8:30 am and drove for about 5 hours to New Orleans under partly sunny skies. We arrived at the French Quarter RV Resort around 1:30 pm, had lunch, a short nap (Judy) and planned the next 3 days in and around the city (Pat).

Around 5:30 pm we walked into the main part of the Quarter, only a few blocks away from the RV resort, to check on the 8:15 pm jazz show at Preservation Hall. We had attended the show in 1983 (it was excellent), but of course, those performers had all passed away. There was no one in line for the show at 6:00 pm, so we ate dinner at Pat O’Brien’s restaurant next door. Pat had one of their famous drinks, a Hurricane, before dinner, which consisted of delicious shrimp dishes for both of us.

We got in line for the jazz show after dinner and waited almost an hour for the doors to open. The show was good, but not great like the last one almost 30 years ago. However, the rest of the crowd seemed to enjoy it very much. I think another reason we found the show not up to par was because we had attended the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival last year, and the traditional jazz groups we heard there were all excellent. On the advice of the front office staff of the RV resort, we took a taxi back to the RV, even though it was only a few blocks away.

We have many interesting activities planned for tomorrow and the next day, some of which involve more good New Orleans food.

Day 62 Pictures

Spring Training Trip - Day 60

After a pancake breakfast in the RV this morning we drove over to Destin on the other side of the bay, about a 4 mile drive over the Mid Bay Bridge causeway.  Destin is still very busy as it is a major spring break destination for college kids and families with children who are also out of school for the spring break.  After buying a $7.95 beach umbrella on sale at the spring break price of $9.95, we had lunch at a seafood restaurant on the Destin harbor on the gulf side of the island.

We then headed to the beach at Henderson Beach State Park.  We had stayed there overnight on the trip east and the beach is very nice.  Almost every inch of beachfront on both sides of the state park has been developed with condos, hotels, and supporting businesses.  It is nice that the park area has been preserved with an open beach, dunes, and natural vegetation.  The park is virtually full all year, testifying to the public’s desire to come to a location like this and enjoy the natural beach setting that seems to be getting harder and harder to find (at least in Florida).

We walked along the beach for about a mile and sat in the shade under our new umbrella, enjoying the sun, sand, and water.  The temperature was a near record high of 85 degrees with only a few clouds inland.  We spent about two hours at the beach until the wind picked up and turned our new umbrella inside-out. It really wasn’t a very sturdy umbrella anyway, but it should work in the future in a gentle breeze.

After washing the sand off of our feet and getting changed we decided to have an early dinner at McGuire’s Irish Pub where we ate on the way to Clearwater and on our previous trip in 2009.  The food was again excellent.

After returning to the RV, Judy decided to do the laundry.  We leave in the morning for New Orleans and will spend three nights there before heading west across Texas and points west..

Day 60 Pictures

Spring Training Trip - Day 59

We left the Bay Bayou RV Resort about 7:30 am under clear skies.  The drive went well and we arrived at Mid-Bay Shores, the Maxwell-Gunter AFB recreation area in Niceville, FL about 3:00 pm local time.  We actually gained an hour along the way as we are now in the Central Time Zone.

The recreation area includes 26 RV sites with full hook-ups, 25 rental cabins, 5 mobile homes, boat storage, boat launch, fishing pier, laundry, beach fitness center, etc.  The facility is run by Maxwell-Gunter AFB which is the joint Air Force base located in Montgomery, AL about 3 ½ hours north of here.  The recreation area is right on the water on the north side of Choctawhatchee Bay just across from Destin where we stayed on the way to Clearwater.  We did a quick look around the facility and our first impression is that the place needs a little sprucing-up.  I am sure money for things like deferred maintenance and basic improvements at places like this throughout the military are getting harder and harder to come by.  The prices they are charging to stay here could probably be increased somewhat to help pay for needed improvements and the place would still be heavily used.  An RV spot here only costs $20 per night.  This is about half, or maybe even a third, of what a comparable waterfront RV site would cost in the more upscale Florida coastal areas.


We are not sure what we are going to do here tomorrow, but it could be more beach time.  We leave for New Orleans on Tuesday.

Day 59 Pictures