Chillin (Chilled) in Winchester, Virginia

We did have a few snow showers to deal with on Saturday morning - but nothing significant. Now the wind and the cold -- that was another matter! It was around 24* with a brisk breeze in the morning and that turned into a 20 mph blustery day as we drove further north into VA. 

I managed to keep Winne between the white lines for the next 250 miles and we pulled in for the evening in Winchester, VA around 1 PM. We were joined within the next hour by those NJ Evringhams Brian, Nicole, Alyssa, and Emily who left NJ for a Saturday morning drive an ended up 4 states away here in northern VA!

We visited for a few hours, played games at the campground Arcade for awhile, and then had a nice dinner at the local Carrabba's before heading back to Winne where we all found a place to crash for the evening. 

We have slept four in Winne before - but sleeping 6 was a new experience. Winnebago was right! You can sleep 2 on the transformed dinette, 2 more on the convertible sofa, and 2 on the Queen bed in the back!

After a good night's sleep on a really cold night (got down to about 20* last night) we were treated to a pancake and sausage breakfast by Miss Peggy. We all headed out late morning to check out historic downtown Winchester. We found our way to the walking mall downtown and although it was still pretty darn chilly on a Sunday morning in late March -- we found a few fun shops to visit. 

We may need to re-visit Winchester later in the year sometime. The historic downtown area is really very well done and looks like it would be fun to visit in a warmer season. In spite of the cold - we enjoyed our quick visit.

We warmed our bones with a nice lunch at the local Red Lobster and walked it off a bit at local mall before the NJ Gang had to start their trek back home and we returned to Winne for the afternoon. It was a short visit but we were really glad to have the opportunity to visit with our NJ kids/grandkids once again!!

But now it's time to finish our last few days of the 2015 Maineiacs In Motion Winter Getaway.

Tomorrow we plan on heading up into PA where we will stay at one of the furthest northeast RV Parks that is open this time of year in Jonestown.

Our plan is then to drive to CT and Dry Camp at the Exit 2 Rest Area Tuesday night before making the final drive to Maine on Wednesday.

We just went over 8,000 miles for this trip the other day and we are now on day 90. I figure we have another 650 miles to go over the next few days and we are both more than ready to be home.

We may be "early" by die-hard snowbird standards ... but we're ready nonetheless!

Warm up the house Stacy - we are on our way!

Eastern Time and Spring Snow

OK ... time to get caught up again.

We left Nashville at oh-dark-30 on Wednesday morning. Our goal was to make it to Crossville, TN by 9 AM so that Peggy could attend Bible Study with Judy Patterson. We left our campground in Nashville shortly after 6 AM and were making a good start heading East on I-40 when all of a sudden we found out that I-40 Eastbound was closed due to an accident and we had to re-route ourselves south towards Chattanooga and then back northeast to I-40 around Lebanon, TN. That cost us about a half hour ... but with some "strategic" driving ... we made it to Darrell and Judy's driveway with 1 minute to spare.

After Bible Study was over we helped Judy celebrate her birthday with a nice lunch at Forte's in downtown Crossville ... followed by some yummy cheesecake at D&J place.

Thursday was laundry day at D&Js along with a great spaghetti dinner with D&J and their friends Dave and Tara. Dave and Tara are planning to travel to Maine with D&J this summer so we look forward to seeing them again this August.

We hit the road early this morning and headed east along I-40 and then northeast along I-81. The weather was mostly cloudy with temps hovering in the low 40s pretty much all day. We have stopped for the night in Wytheville, VA where it supposed to get down to around 24 degrees tonight with snow showers tonight and in the early morning.

Yup -- you heard me right -SNOW showers!!

Our goal is to head further north tomorrow to Winchester, VA where we hope to meet up with the NJ Gang.

Isn't Springtime just wonderful!?!

"Back East"

These Maineiacs have definitely remained in motion these past few days - arriving here in Nashville, TN around 1 PM today. We drove through most of the rest of Oklahoma on Friday, about half of Arkansas on Saturday, finished up Arkansas and about a hundred miles of TN on Sunday, and then made the short drive to Nashville this morning. We are now east of the Mississippi River-- so we are officially "Back East."

We drove about 800 miles over these past 4 days and we are ready to rest for a day or so. I really have very little to report in the way of excitement over the past few days. 

• We had some pretty good BBQ in Little Rock, 
• saw a lot of clouds, 
• and drove in a bunch of rain yesterday. 

• I-40 through OK and AR is pretty rough ... and doesn't get any better in TN until you get East of Memphis. 

We plan on staying put here in Nashville until Wednesday morning when we will travel further east on I-40 to Crossville, TN where we are looking forward to visiting with Darrell and Judy Patterson. When we left D&J - 70 some days ago in January it was barely above 0 degrees. As I write this in Nashville it is presently around 70 degrees as the sun is starting to set. I am hoping for some more of the same - at least on Wednesday ... I see we are in for more rain and cooler temps on Thursday.

Since we are in Nashville ... and since tomorrow is Tuesday ... that means it's time for another visit to the Grand Ole Opry! We have tickets for tomorrow night's performance with Brad Paisley scheduled as the headliner. We are looking forward to another fun and entertaining night at the Opry.

After our time off here in Nashville and a few days of visiting in Crossville we will be finishing up our 2015 Winter Get-A-Way by heading northeast along I-81 up to PA where we will then hang a right through a bit of New York and then dash across CT, MA, NH into Maine.

It looks like we will spend an extra day in Northern Virginia as those NJ Evringhams are planning a weekend trip to join us! Now that could be an interesting time. Winnebago says this rig will sleep 6 -- we may have to find out!

Some would argue that we are crazy snowbirds to head back that far north this early. Some of us might agree ... the forecast high on our day of arrival is 42* with a low that evening of 25*!! 

It looks like it may be almost time to put those short pants back in the drawer for a few more months.

Almost ...

King of the Road

So what do you do while spending a "Zero Day" in western Oklahoma on a misty/rainy Thursday? 

First you sleep in 'till around 10AM.

Once you finally get up and decide to face the day - you find an interesting Museum to walk around.

The more we travel around this country the more we realize that there is a museum in just about every hamlet and burg from Houlton to San Diego and Seattle to Key West. When driving into Oklahoma yesterday I noticed that there is a Roger Miller Museum in Erick, OK - right across the border at Exit 7 on I-40. Well now - I've always been a Roger Miller fan and Peggy knows the words to King of the Road - so why not!

Roger Miller was born in Fort Worth, TX but was raised by an Aunt/Uncle from an early age near Erick, OK. I'm not sure what else the very small town of Erick has to celebrate - but they have built a small Museum to one of their favorite sons right in the middle of "downtown" Erick. The Museum was small but they had lots of Roger Miller's stuff including his vintage early Honda 150 Dream.

The story is that Roger was stopped at a stoplight on his Honda in Hollywood one day when Elvis' limo pulled up next to him and the driver told him that Elvis would like to meet him and get his autograph. Well how about that!

Now -- for you younger readers who have no idea who Roger Miller was ... he was the writer/performer of such great songs as "King of the Road", "Chug-A-Lug", "Dang Me", "Do Wacka Do", and "You Can't Roller Skate in a Buffalo Herd." And if you haven't heard these classics - come on over ... we now have a couple of CDs.

See - you can find something interesting to see/do in just about every whistle stop across America -- you may just have to look harder in some places.

Flipping Coins in Amarillo - Again

There must be something in-the-air near Amarillo, TX. 

We left Lubbock this morning with cloudy skies ... but most importantly ... only light winds and those breezes were from the south as we headed north towards Amarillo. As we approached Amarillo I mentioned to Peggy that last time we were here we were headed for Branson, MO and then Judy Patterson flipped that coin and we ended up in Alabama. In response she said something like "well maybe I should flip a coin this time." So I says ... "does that mean you don't want to go to Branson?" And one thing leads to another and the next thing you know .. we have a new plan!

So ... here we are traveling along I-40 (Old Route 66) in Sayre, Oklahoma at a very nice city park. Since we have been traveling for 4 days in a row and even though we really didn't travel all that far in those 4 days -- we are going to take a Zero Day tomorrow. Because we can.

The next part of the plan has us continuing along I-40, through Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Tennessee. 

Now ... at some point - if we are going to get back home we have to head north of I-40. We have already noticed some cooler temperatures as we made our way this far north so I'm in no hurry to get much norther right now. As I look at the long range forecast for our planned trek along I-40 things don't look too bad. At least I don't see any lows near freezing. But then there's good ol' Topsham, Maine. I see it will be in the single digits tonight and that you Maineiacs are looking forward to more snow this weekend!! You folks are going to have to do a lot better than that .... and SOON!

Blowin' Across New Mexico

So ... there we were ... traveling through New Mexico seeing the sights on the "red roads." While we're here we might as well make the trip over to Roswell to see what's up with all the hype about the UFO "incident" back in 1947. So we did.

First - let me tell you that the drive over the mountains from Alamogordo to Roswell was really quite pretty -- in a high desert - climb to over 7,000 feet - and back down sorta way. We had a nice day for the short 100 or so mile trip and pulled into Roswell around noon.

First up on our agenda was to find a spot for lunch so we drove the Fusion into town to Peppers Bar and Grill on the recommendation of the owner of the RV Park. Well that was a good start to our visit! The Chips and Salsa were excellent, my BLT and Southwestern Beef Soup was pretty good, and Peggy's Diablo Turkey sandwich was --- well a bit too Diablo for her but I liked the green chiles she removed to cool it down a bit! Oh - and the margaritas on Margarita Monday were pretty good as well!

After finishing that second margarita we down Main Street to check out the free (although they do accept donations) Roswell Museum and Art Center. Although I didn't check out too much of the art -- I found the museum portion fairly interesting. They had a nice section of Robert Goddard's "stuff" - you know Robert Goddard - the father of rocketry in America. He was experimenting with rockets back in the 20s and 30s in Massachusetts before he decided to move to New Mexico where his experiments gone wrong wouldn't hurt anybody(except perhaps himself). Anyway -- a lot of his early rockets and workshop "stuff" was on display and I found it pretty interesting. I also liked the Old West stuff ... native American stuff, cowboy stuff, ranching stuff -- I'm a sucker for old west "stuff."

But we were in Roswell, NM --- so we made the trip back down Maine Street to check out the International UFO Museum and Research Center. After paying our $3 each (a veterans discount off the normal $5 charge) we entered the facility and checked out the exhibits.

Now I understand that some folks really get in to this UFO stuff, and I also understand the desire to get into all kinds of conspiracy theories ... but I just couldn't get into it. I read the basic info about the "incident" in the desert near here in 1947 -- but I really didn't get what created the need to build this facility here downtown (built by a non-profit organization I might add). Who knows how much $$ they have collected in all these years? Fortunately it wasn't all that much $$ and who am I to keep some local entrepreneurs from making a few $$ from tourists. Afterall - why would anybody come to Roswell, NM otherwise?

So ... after our bit of tourism we enjoyed a beautiful New Mexico sunset (maybe that's why one would travel to Roswell?) and called it a day.

The forecast for today called for lots of wind from the northeast. Since our travel plans called for driving northeast we changed those plans and decided to head due east instead. Although we got an early start to try and avoid some of the wind - it really didn't work and we fought the wind all the way here to Lubbock, TX where we called it a day sorta early around noon Central Time.

It looks like we may get a bit of rain this evening but the wind and rain are forecast to subside for tomorrow so we plan on heading north to Amarillo, TX and then east into Oklahoma.

Winne continues to perform well as we continue our eastward journey ... but I think we are getting ready for a few days off. Our short term destination is Branson, MO for this weekend but I think we will need a "Zero" day pretty soon. We really haven't driven very many miles in any one day as we have trekked across New Mexico - but a day with no miles will be welcome.

Has all that snow melted in Maine yet?

A Day Sledding at the Beach

With our larder full, our clothes clean, and our waste tanks empty - we set out again this morning for points east and a bit north. We drove east on I-10 to Las Cruces, NM and then turned northeast on Highway 70 crossing through the White Sands Missile Range and made it to the White Sands National Monument around noon Mountain Daylight Time.

The White Sands National Monument is located in the Tularosa Basin - a mountain-ringed valley at the northern end of the Chihuahuan Desert. Over the last 10,000 years or so huge wave-like dunes of gypsum sand have engulfed about 275 square miles of desert in the basin here. The gypsum "sand" is the result of water washing the calcium sulfate from the mountains and then drying in the basin forming crystals which are then eroded away by the wind. The resultant sand is bright white and like talcum powder in consistency.

After visiting the National Monument Visitor's Center we drove Winne off onto the 16 mile loop road. I was surprised by the number of folks visiting this area on this Sunday - considering it is some 15 or so miles out in the middle of nowhere from the town of Alamogordo. But I guess this is where the locals bring their kids to either 1) Enjoy a sunny day at the beach or 2) Have fun sledding down the sand dunes on plastic sleds -- or possibly both! Imagine that ... a day at the beach or fun in the snow -- all in the middle of New Mexico with hardly a drop of moisture to be seen.

I also noted that the Trinity Site is located some 20 or 30 miles from here. You may recall that the Trinity Site was where the first nuclear weapon was detonated back on July 16, 1945. The site is located within the White Sands Missile Range and you can't just drive out there ... but they do have an "Open House" twice a year - on the first Saturday in April and October. Unfortunately (at least for me) the April date is a few weeks away so I'll have to miss that opportunity!

Having had our fill of this extremely interesting spot of the American landscape we left the sand behind and continued on to Alamogordo where we found a spot to park Winne for the night.

Since it was only about 2 PM we decided to unhook the car and go visit our next stop on today's itinerary - The New Mexico Museum of Space History.

What? you say -- Space History in New Mexico?! Absolutely!!

This is where they brought those German V-2 Rockets we captured after WWII to test them. This is where we brought Werner Von Braun after we "liberated" (arrested) him from Germany. This is where all those early (and present day) rocket/missile engines were tested ... and this is where the Space Shuttle Columbia (STS-3) landed back in 1982 when the original planned landing spot at Edwards AFB in California was flooded.

Saturn V Engine - 1 of many

What's left of one of those V-2s captured after WWII

The Museum focused on the area's contribution to the space program and includes a "Hall of Fame" honoring both American and Russian Astronauts - and others of note important to the exploration of space. Although it has four floors of displays - it's really not all that big and could be easily toured in 1-2 hours.

Whew -- that was just about enough for one day.

We plan on continuing our northeast trek through New Mexico tomorrow - next stop -- Roswell -- home to UFOs and all things Extraterrestrial!

Full Hookups and Blazing Fast Internet Once Again!

We finished up our activities at the 55th Escapee Escapade at the going away party last night. It was a fun time with some good music and it was great to be able to spend some time with Jim and Ellie Meacham and Mark and Dortha Hall for a few hours. They spent most of the week in their volunteer staff positions helping to keep things running smoothly so it was good to see them have some time to kick back and have some fun as well.

Peggy and I left the Fairgrounds around 9 AM this morning, drove the short distance to I-10, and continued the eastward leg of our 2015 Winter Getaway. 

We stopped for fuel in Lordsburg, NM and then finished our trip for the day here in Deming, NM where we immediately dumped waste tanks, hooked up to an unlimited fresh water supply, and plugged in to some 50 Amp Power. Not only that .... we have 4 bars of really fast 4G internet service! Ahhh the little things in life that we find important!

We plan on spending tomorrow here in Deming getting some laundry and grocery shopping chores done before continuing east. I think we have settled on a route -- at least for the next several hundred miles. I think we will head northeast from Las Cruces and drive towards Amarillo, TX -- passing through Alamogordo, Ruidoso, and Roswell, NM on our way. Mmmm that brings us right by the White Sands National Monument, Ruidoso Downs, and who knows what we might see near Roswell?!

Ought to be an interesting few days!

Oh yeah --- and I added some pictures to yesterday's Blog entry now that we have some blazing fast internet!!

Can You Hear Me Now!

Yes – I know – it has been over a week since my last confession … I mean blog entry. When I last posted we were in Congress, AZ getting ready to head south to Tucson. So let me take care of our travels first.

We drove from Congress to just west of Tucson last Friday and stayed two nights back at Justin’s Diamond J RV Park. While at Justin’s we took care of a few things we needed to take care of before our Escapade boondocking experience … like laundry, emptying waste tanks, and filling the fresh water tank. We also had to take care of one very important item we didn't do last month when we were here – visit Daisy Mae’s Steakhouse for some wonderful mesquite smoked ribs and beefsteak … probably our favorite Steakhouse!

We made the 30 mile drive from West of Tucson to here East of Tucson at the Pima County Fairgrounds on Sunday where we joined a few thousand of our best friends - in right around 900 other RVs for a week of fun-in-the-sun. This facility only had “hookups” for around 400 rigs, and they went fast with the early registrations last summer – so we joined the other 500 or so rigs out in the huge parking lot with no external facilities.

Actually we have done quite well with what we had on-board. Our new batteries have held up very well powering most of our “stuff” throughout the day and getting recharged via our generator a few hours per day. Our 100 gallons of fresh water is down now to about 40 gallons left after 4 days of use so we will have plenty to finish up our last day. We hedged our bet a little and did have our waste tanks pumped out on Tuesday – so that won’t be a problem either.

So what have we been doing at this gathering? Well - we have attended a few seminars on the various aspects of RVing, Peggy has been learning the basics of line dancing each day, 

I have spent too much time in the Vendor area purchasing stuff, we have been treated to some very good entertainment shows in the evenings, we have visited with a bunch of folks … you know … rally stuff!

One of the major draws of these “rallys” is the vendor area. This is where a bunch of enterprising small businesses bring their wares to show off to the purchasing public in between teaching “seminars” where they explain why you need such gadgets and gizmos in the first place. It must work because I observed lots of folks spending their Social Security checks on everything from nail files to new RV hot water heaters and concealed carry permits to LED lights.

As for me – Well I couldn’t live without a new LED light bulb for my porch light, a 25 foot flag pole to fly Old Glory, 

a new Escapees Sign for my ladder to replace the old faded one we had, and last but not least - a new cellular signal booster/amplifier to help my smartphone establish an internet connection.

Now that last purchase was probably done more out of frustration than pure sensible thought. Our smartphones have worked pretty well as our internet connection over these past few years of traveling – and even offer a “hotspot” feature allowing our other gadgets to connect via the phone to the internet. There have only been a very few places where we have had a tough time finding a decent connection – but the Pima County Fairgrounds is one of them! When you start with a weak service area and then add a few thousand folks with all kinds of electronic gadgets trying to access the limited service – you end up with frustration. I’m not addicted to my internet connection – now am I!

The new booster/amplifier I purchased did improve the available signal – but only improved my connection from “nearly impossible” to “frustratingly slow” … but I suppose any connection is better than none!

Peggy and I took a few hours off yesterday afternoon to go visit the Eastern District of the Saguaro National Park. Although this portion of the park is pretty huge – we simply drove the loop road and took in the sights available without a hike in the desert. You won’t find many tall trees, nor many shore lined vistas out here … but some gorgeous scenery nonetheless.

Today is the last day of the 2015 Escapade here in Tucson. We don’t have much planned for today other than Peggy at line dancing and then closing ceremonies and the farewell party later this evening. So tomorrow we plan on hitting the road once again – heading east.

We still don’t have the route back home nailed down. If the weather cooperates we may make it up to Branson, Mo for a few days to take in a few shows – but how we get there is sorta up-in-the-air. Then I think we will head back to I-40 and visit Nashville and then maybe stop in Crossville, TN again to see if it has warmed up any since our visit in mid January! From there we will probably retrace our route back up I-81 to the north country. We may see if we can hookup with the New Jersey gang somewhere up near their neck of the woods before making the last leg back to the Pine Tree State.

But first things first - We need at least one day – probably two – with full hookups, a laundry facility, and probably a nearby grocery store. So tomorrow it looks like the Escapee “Dream Catcher” RV Park in Deming, NM will be our destination once again.

As I recall they even have a pretty good internet connection there!

Wild Horses and Short Pants

Well the Maineiacs In Motion are in motion once again!

We said our teary goodbyes in Minden on Sunday morning, cleaned a bit of ice/snow off the slideout covers, and set sail north. Yup that's right -- we had to head north to go south!

It had been snowing a bit on and off around the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada range and the Nevada DOT was calling for chains or snow tires in a few passes along our southern travel route -- so we decided to head north into Carson City and then east to Silver Springs along US 50 before heading south on Alternate 95. That route got us far enough east of the Sierras that snowy passes weren't an issue. We did see some snow along our route and the mountains to our west had a new snow cover - but the roads were nice and dry -- well -- except for a few rain/snow showers along our path.

We did see a first for us as we pulled in to Silver Springs. A herd of wild horses crossing the highway ... sorta being herded by a county sheriff in a SUV. I reckon the sheriff wanted the horses to keep going - far from the highway. Unfortunately we weren't ready with the camera so that picture got away. When you travel through Nevada you realize that the days of the "Wild" West were really not that long ago. Cowboy hats, wild horses, gold/silver mines, and six guns can still be seen - if you know where to look -- and sometimes even when you aren't expecting it! 

We continued our trip south - pretty much following the reverse of the route we took coming north. Winne ran great all day and we pulled in to the Beatty RV Park right around 3:30 PST.

It rained on and off all night Sunday night but was fairly dry as we took off Monday morning - continuing our trip south through the high desert of Nevada - through all the traffic in Las Vegas - and into Arizona as we crossed over the Colorado River near Hoover Dam. Or is it Boulder Dam? Regardless - we crossed the new bridge and entered Mountain Time once again. We finished our Monday trip after pulling in to the Blake Ranch RV Park and Horse Motel just east of Kingman. We have stayed at Blake Ranch before - nice place - nice folks - and a nice Escapee Discount!

We had a very leisurely morning yesterday getting ourselves ready for our short (100 miles) drive here to North Ranch near Congress, AZ. After a nice chat with a couple of Nubee RVers parked next to us (in a Winnebago very similar to ours) we finally pulled out around 11 AM ... and arrived here at North Ranch around noon MST.

We plan on goofing off here for a few days before heading for Tucson on Friday. `

Ready for the really good news??!!

The high today here in Congress will be in the low 60s and in the high 60s tomorrow. We are looking at a day in the 70s for our travel day to Tucson on Friday --- and then several days in the 80s while at the Escapade.

Looking forward to Short Pants once again!