Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Arizona/Florida Trip - Day 59

It was windy when we got up this morning under clear skies and were on the road after getting gas on base by 8:00 am.

It pretty windy until we started up the hills to Tehachapi and through Tejon Pass.  The skies were clear and the road was dry however and we made pretty good time through Bakersfield.  We then headed west to I-5 and up the valley to the Bay Area and encountered rain as we travelled north.  It varied from heavy to showers to sunshine and it was also windy most of the way.

After successfully navigating our way through Bay Area traffic we arrived at the Marin RV Park in Greenbrae, about 7 miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge, about 3:00 pm. We will be staying here for 3 nights while Judy has her doctor’s appointments in San Francisco tomorrow and Friday.  We will finally head home on Friday after her last appointment.

This has been a long and enjoyable vacation but we are ready to get home and resume our regular lives and routines.  Everything went well, the RV worked great, we had no incidents on the road and we hardly knew we were towing the truck. So even though we have three more days before we get home, we are calling the adventure over and closing the blog.

Oh, and if anyone who has been following the blog would like an autographed copy of the transcript and a DVD (or two) of all the pictures that were posted, please let us know.  (Joke)

Monday, April 6, 2015

Arizona/Trip Florida - Day 58

We did get started early today, leaving the RV park in Buckeye, AZ about 7:30 am.  The winds were calm as we headed west then picked up a little as we headed north to Needles, CA where we joined I-40 and continued west towards Edwards AFB from Barstow.  The trip from there was a little hectic as the winds increased and the direction was more of a crosswind from the WSW.

We finally arrived at the Edwards AFB FAMCAMP (RV Park) about 3:00pm.  They don’t take reservations and we were lucky to find an open site when we arrived, tired and windblown.

We ate an early dinner in the RV and are planning to get another early start tomorrow for the trip to the Marin RV Park where we will be staying until Friday for Judy’s doctor’s appointments.  It looks like we might encounter some rain tomorrow after we get over Tejon Pass and through Bakersfield but it doesn’t look a major weather event, so we’ll see how it goes.

Sunday, April 5, 2015

Florida/Arizona Trip - Day 57

The forecast for the drive today was for winds from the WSW at 20-35 mph.  So, to get an early start before the winds came-up, we left the RV park at Las Cruces at 7:30 am.  As it turned out the winds weren’t all that bad and we made good time all the way to our stop for the night in Buckeye, AZ, just west of Phoenix.  We also gained an hour crossing into AZ, as they don’t recognize Daylight Savings Time and are in the same time zone as California while DST is in effect.

After we arrived at the Leaf Verde RV Resort in Buckeye, we went down the road for a late lunch, once again at the local Cracker Barrel.  You always know what you are getting at a Cracker Barrel – down-home comfort food at reasonable prices.  All the restaurants are laid out the same way, have the same food and prices, and the same gift shop with a lot of “”cute” things.  You could be in Arkansas or Arizona and couldn’t tell the difference.

After lunch, we did the laundry and had dinner in the RV tonight. The winds are predicted to be high again tomorrow on the way to Edwards AFB, our stop for the night.  We are planning to start early again tomorrow to beat the winds that usually get stronger into the afternoon.





Saturday, April 4, 2015

Arizona/Florida Trip - Day 56

We got a fairly early start this morning, leaving Fort Stockton after getting gas by 8:30 am.

We had the road virtually to ourselves, just a few trucks and hardly any cars until I-20 from Dallas met I-10 just east of Van Horn, TX.  The traffic picked-up a little after that, but really wasn’t too bad.  The skies were overcast and we had a pretty good 15 mph tailwind out of the east for the first part of the trip.  As we turned NW towards El Paso, it became a bit of a crosswind and more of a problem for the last 50 miles from El Paso north to Las Cruces.  It was a fairly short leg today (300 miles) so we arrived about 12:30 pm MST as we gained an hour along the way.

After arriving at the Hacienda RV Resort in Las Cruces, we were met by two resident baby ducks who welcomed us to New Mexico.  Momma duck was nowhere in sight, so hopefully they made it home before the coyotes, owls and/or hawks noticed them wandering around the RV park unescorted.

We then ate a late lunch at a nearby Cracker Barrel restaurant, stopped for a few supplies and retired to the RV for the evening.  We are eating in this evening and going to bed early to rest up for our next leg to Phoenix tomorrow.

Friday, April 3, 2015

Arizona/Florida Trip - Day 55

We departed the Travelers World RV Park about 9:00 am under cloudy skies and a light mist in the air.  The traffic wasn’t too bad getting out of town, despite it being the tail end of the morning rush hour.
 
We then headed west on I-10.  It took almost an hour to clear all the San Antonio suburbs before reaching the rolling hill country northwest of town. The car and truck traffic was down significantly after that, perhaps since it is the start of the Easter weekend. The light mist and cloudy skies continued into the early afternoon then cleared somewhat. When the skies finally cleared the wind came-up and we fought a crosswind from the north for the rest of the trip.

We arrived at the Fort Stockton RV Park about 3:30 pm under clear skies.  We have stayed here at least three other times as it is a convenient half-way stop between El Paso and San Antonio. After resting for a while, we had an early dinner at the attached Roadrunner Cafe and enjoyed another excellent BBQ country ribs dinner with all the ‘fixins”.

We are done sightseeing for the trip and now are just cranking out the miles to get home.  We will head for Las Cruces, NM tomorrow, then on to Phoenix on Sunday.



Arizona/Florida Trip - Day 54

Thursday, April 2nd

The tour company picked us up at the RV park at 8:30 am this morning and took us to their ticket office just across the street from the Alamo.  After purchasing our tickets we visited the Alamo when it opened at 9:00 am.  We had an hour to visit before the bus took us to our next stop on the tour.

The Alamo was established in 1718 as a Spanish Mission and was the first of five built along the San Antonio River. It is sacred ground for Texans and a significant site in Texas and American History.  The complex was solely managed for over 106 years by the Daughters of the Republic of Texas but is now managed by them under the Texas General Land Office. The primary mission building has been heavily restored and is the only remaining part of the Alamo complex as it existed in 1836. And of course, it is now surrounded by city buildings instead of open prairie land as it was then. They have done a nice job with the building restoration and there are attractive gardens behind and along the sides of the building.  All of the gardens lie behind a replica of a wall that surrounded the original complex.  Inside, there are numerous historical displays explaining the history of the Alamo and the men that died there fighting the Mexican Army in the Texas War of Independence.  We even noticed, on the roll of the 186 people who died in the battle, there was a William Ward from Ireland.  Not much else is known about him other than he arrived in Texas from New Orleans. There were also plenty of docents providing information as well as real Texas Rangers providing security.  The Alamo is one of the most visited tourist attractions in the country as well as a popular destination for groups and school age children on class field trips.  Even though the Alamo might be considered a tourist trap to some, we enjoyed our visit and were surprised on how well the restored building, in an impacted urban setting, has been preserved as a significant historical site.

We then travelled by bus to Mission San Jose, just south of the RV park where we are staying.  All of the four remaining missions have been designated as a National Historic Park and are managed by the National Park Service.  Mission San Jose is the park headquarters and home to the park visitor’s center.  The buildings and grounds have been extensively restored, and it is the best known of the Texas missions (except perhaps for the Alamo that is not really known as a mission).  San Jose, built in 1720, was the main mission in the area and a major social center surrounded by rich pastures and fields with plenty of water available in the nearby San Antonio River.

We then visited another smaller mission, Concepcion, about 4 miles away, also an active Catholic Church as are the other mission churches in the park.  This mission and adjoining grounds are also very well restored and fit well into its present urban setting.

Our next stop was the El Mercado, a large market place featuring just about every type of Mexican souvenir and decorative furnishing, clothing and assorted knick-knacks you might ever want to own.  There were also several restaurants and street vendors throughout the market area.  It was definitely tourist-oriented and felt like something like you might experience getting off of a cruise ship in Mexico.

It was then time for lunch and we visited the Buckhorn Saloon and Texas Museum.  It was another tourist-oriented venue, in a downtown building built in 1881.  It features a large bar and restaurant and has over 33,000 square feet of artifacts from Texas history.  There are also world record wildlife exhibits with African, Asian, Alaskan, and North American themes with over 520 different species of stuffed and mounted animals from all over the world.  After lunch, we walked through most of the exhibits but primarily focused on the Texas history displays.  The Texas Ranger exhibit was especially interesting.  They had a car riddled with bullet holes on display, reportedly Bonnie and Clyde’s car in which they were killed in a police ambush.

We then traveled to an old cement quarry that had been converted into a Japanese tea garden in the 1920s by a Japanese family.  After their internment in relocation camps during WW II, the family chose not to return to the area and abandoned the site.  It then became a Chinese tea garden, was sold again and has now been restored once more as a Japanese tea garden managed by a non-profit foundation.  It is now primarily used as a wedding reception venue and tourist attraction and includes a small restaurant and tea house.  I guess we have been spoiled as we have seen many beautiful Japanese gardens.  This one didn’t quite live up to its name.  It needs a lot of work and modification to truly become a Japanese garden, but of course, we are in Texas and a long way from Japan.

Our last stop was a 30-minute boat tour on the San Antonio River along the River Walk in the center of the downtown area. Each boat holds about 30 people and floats past numerous outdoor shops, restaurants, hotels and other businesses along the River Walk.  The boat we were in was very crowded but the narration and sights along the river were interesting.  The boat ride is another tourist attraction with lots of people from the many hotels in the area visiting the River Walk attractions, including the boat ride.

We were then driven back to the RV park after a long day of sightseeing.  Admittedly, just about everything we did was tourist oriented (and actually we are tourists) but it was a good way to get an overview of the area and a taste of San Antonio.  The last time I spent any time in San Antonio was going through Air Force basic training and flight school in 1959/60 and things have changed quite a bit since then.  San Antonio is now the third largest city in Texas with a population of over 2.3 million people and is rapidly expanding north towards Austin and south towards Corpus Christi.


Dinner was at a small Mexican restaurant across the street from the RV park.  The clientele was all local and our waitress didn’t speak or understand English very well.  As a result, we didn’t get exactly what we ordered, but was pretty good nevertheless.  Tomorrow, we leave for Fort Stockton, TX on the way home. The weather ahead still looks OK, so we are keeping our fingers crossed for dry roads and a tail wind the rest of the way.

Day 54 Pictures

Wednesday, April 1, 2015

Arizona/Florida Trip - Day 53

We left Bayou Wilderness RV Park this morning with a little fog in the air.  After filling up with gas nearby ($2.01 per gallon), we got on the road heading west on I-10 about 8:45 am.  We had a number of fairly large cities to go through today: Lake Charles, LA, Beaumont TX, and Houston, TX. Houston was really special as it stretches out into several suburbs without specific definition in all directions.  A two-lane closure in the middle of town due to a truck fire in addition to the normal big city lunchtime traffic slowed us down for quite a while, and extended our time going through town.  When we finally made it through Houston it was a straight shot to San Antonio although it was a “two-hands-on the wheel” trip due to a south crosswind.  We finally arrived at Traveller’s RV Park in San Antonio about 5:30 pm.

The park is very nice and very close to the downtown tourist attractions.  We decided to take a guided tour tomorrow for an overview of eight major tourist attractions (Alamo, River Boat Ride, missions, etc.).  It should be fun and a nice break for the road trip home.

No pictures today, we’ll post some of the RV park and the tour attractions tomorrow.

Arizona/Florida Trip - Day 52

Tuesday, March 31st


We had a fairly easy drive today to our next stop, Lafayette, LA.  We departed Avalon Landing RV Park in Florida about 9:30 am under sunny skies and headed west on I-10.  Traffic was heavy going through Baton Rouge but other than that, it wasn’t too bad and it wasn’t too windy.

We stopped at a very nice rest stop and Louisiana tourist information center in the Atchafalaya National Heritage Area, just east of Lafayette.  The area surrounds the river drainage for the Atchafalaya River that parallels the Mississippi River and flows from central Louisiana into the Gulf of Mexico. It is very close to the Mississippi River at one point and is connected with the river by a canal and locks to handle high water flows if needed.  In fact, the Mississippi River might redirect itself into the Atchafalaya someday despite any attempt by the Corps of Engineers to prevent it from doing so.

We arrived at Bayou Wilderness RV Park in the early afternoon, where we stayed on the way east as well as several other times on our travels. We relaxed awhile, talked to our next door neighbor from Texas, then went to dinner at Prejean’s again, our favorite Cajun restaurant, here, or anywhere else where we have eaten Cajun food.

We went back to the RV after a quick stop for a few groceries and early to bed.  We have a longer trip tomorrow to San Antonio, so we hope to get an early start.  The extended weather forecast for the road ahead looks pretty good, so we are planning to spend an extra day in San Antonio and maybe see the Alamo on this trip after all. 

Day 52 Pictures