Whoops and still a Great burger!

We've been busy as we always are in the Santa Fe area.  We really enjoy this place.  We decided at the last moment to go up to Bandelier National Monument, to primarily get my "Old Folks Pass", and to visit again although we have already been there.  Not too many good reasons to get old, but one of the best is the ability to get the National Parks Senior Pass, as they call it now.  It is quite a bargain, $10 for the rest of your life!  To put it in perspective, an annual pass is $80!  As we get nearer to the monument we start to notice signs for the "shuttle" into Bandelier, shuttle?  When we arrive in White Rock, still more than 10 miles away from the entrance we see a visitor center and the shuttle bus.  Inside we are told that since the huge fires in 2011 and the following terrible flooding that they no longer allow personal vehicles into the park.  And no I can't buy my pass there unless I go down into the park.  Now I know this is one of the perhaps many ways I get a little nuts, but I don't like shuttle buses, particularly when you have to ride that bus more than 14 miles into the park, a 20+ minute ride each way with your closest 50 friends, so we don't go.  That's okay we will just continue on the Jemez Mountain National Scenic Byway, a beautiful quiet 2 lane road that goes around the Jemez mountains.  We first passed by the Valles Caldera, a huge ancient volcano's caldera that is now a national preserve, beautiful, expansive with lots of elk.

The caldera

And more caldera

One of many groups of elk

We continue around to Jemez Pueblo, and found a pretty little trail along the way.

Turned out to be a popular climbing rock

Looking up the trail

We stopped in and took a short walk down to the 70' high Jemez Falls , and ended up having a nice picnic lunch there.

Jemez Falls

Then we planned to make another small loop before heading back by going south to see the Gilman tunnels and Rio Guadalupe Box Canyon.  Beautiful drive with gorgeous scenery.

Along the way

We turned north on 485 and after a few miles the road got very narrow as it entered the canyon.

Tunnel up ahead

Looking back

We continued on the road as it became dirt to work our way back around to Los Alamos and towards Santa Fe.  Then we did something stupid.  We knew we had to turn right as we joined Rte 4 to go back, right?  We were using a GPS, and following on a map, and I hate to admit it, but after 20 miles or so we are thinking, where the heck is Los Alamos?  A little while later when we passed the sign for 485, the same road we went up to see the tunnels we realized we had turned the wrong way!  We really don't do this too often, we usually are careful, accurate navigators, but not this time.  Oh well, only an extra 50 miles or so:-)  A good side of the story, though, we went by a National Forest Office which got me thinking whether I could buy my pass there, and sure enough, we turned around and I was able to get my coveted pass.

Yesterday, we all were going to meet in Santa Fe for lunch, Karen and Walker down from Taos, CT, but unfortunately not Nancy from Albuquerque, and us for the greatest green chili cheeseburger in the world!  You've heard me talk about Bobcat Bite, an institution here in Santa Fe.  A tiny out of the way restaurant that seated maybe 20 that had the greatest green chili cheeseburger.  Well, evidently they had a falling out with the landlord of the building.  They moved into downtown Santa Fe in an upscale location, increased size, modernized, and changed their name to Santa Fe Bite, all indications to us that they would probably not be able to produce the same awesome burger.  CT and Nancy told us that they had tried the new place and it was just as good.  Even with that we were skeptical.  Well we can now report that the Green Chili Cheeseburger at Santa Fe Bite still holds the world record as the BEST!

The burger

CT and I munching and making it plain to leave us alone
to savor our burgers

Karen will hate me for including this picture, but
"Lip smacking good!"

All gone!

Site of the Best!

Then since this post is already very long I'll add one more thing.  I told you we were having problems with our indicator light for our braking system in the truck.  I had rewired a ground, changed connectors, but it kept blowing the fuse in the truck.  We did a test when we got here by running a new wire along the side of the motorhome to see if that would work and it did.  But that required running a new wire from the rear of the motorhome, up into the console beside the driver's seat to completely bypass the original wire that obviously had a short, a job that we really weren't looking forward to.  Well, we got it done, I should say Jan, the diesel mechanic did all the hard work under the coach.

Hard at work

Still smiling!

I only had to do the little stuff, so when we leave today to go to Pagosa Springs, CO, we will find out absolutely if we fixed it.  Since we have replaced virtually the entire wiring harness I expect it will.

No, we still haven't paid for the tires.

Santa Fe

We had a grueling 38 mile trip up to Santa Fe yesterday:-)  The skies had cleared and it was the normal clear blue skies with almost unlimited visibility that makes us smile.  Can't forget the pleasant 15-20 mph gentle breezes though.  We had salad for dinner to make up, hardly, for our incredible dining of the previous few days.  Settled in at perhaps the best site in Santa Fe Skies RV Park with unencumbered views of the city in the distance, and of course the mountains behind, still frosted with snow.  The sunset was awesome, and we went to bed with the glittering of the city lights in the distance, and most importantly NO lights in the campground.  Oh yeah!

Then we launched off first thing in the morning

at 0700am for the Pantry, one of our favorite little dining spots for a fantastic breakfast, Huevos Rancheros with green chili for me, and Bread pudding french toast for Jan.  Completely satisfied we went to find a hike, and settled on a nice little 1.8 mile loop in the Sangre de Cristo foothills north of Santa Fe.  It was great. Our 1.8 mile hike morphed into a 3.77 mile delight.  It was so peaceful and beautiful, and I guess all our walking paid off, cause even the altitude of 7000' or so didn't bother us.  But I will admit by the end, these Florida flat walkers could feel a bit of the hills in our legs:-)  

Off we go

Pretty with flowers

A picture of a yeti

Don't know what these wildflowers are, but
they were everywhere

We came back, got cleaned up and went back into town for a few errands, and of course a quick bite at El Parasol, basically a walk up and order all cash kind of joint with really good tacos.  So after a chicken taco and a chicken tamale we were on our way.  

No the tires are still not paid for.

Happy Memorial Day

A couple things.  Kelly and Todd are moving to Kentucky!  So no more Longview, TX visits.  They will be fairly close to Cincinnati in Florence, KY.  He got an excellent new job there. Congrats Todd!

After the work on running a dedicated ground to the indicator light for the braking system I am sorry to report it still blows the fuse.  So I guess next is running a new wire from the rear of the motorhome to the light, must be a short there somewhere.  

Having a great time here visiting with Nancy and CT, and Vivian, Jan's 92 year old mom.  Of course it also involves really great food, including a smoked brisket CT did that was to die for!

We've had unusual weather for Albuquerque, it has rained every day we've been here!  Although we'd just as soon not have it while we are here it is very welcome.  Now only if the wind would stop blowing.

We talked to our insurance company, and an adjuster came out and spent an hour inspecting the hail damage on the truck.  It's going to be fine and repairable in his estimation, and the best part we'll be able to take care of it later this fall, maybe even in Florida this winter.  No rush so it won't mess up our Alaska plans.

We head up to Santa Fe tomorrow, and Karen heads for Taos, then we will meet up again in Pagosa Springs later in the week.

Enjoy the holiday and think of our heroes that gave their lives defending our freedom.

And no, we still haven't paid for the tires!

Oh no, no, no

What a day!  We left late from Amarillo for Albuquerque.  It's a fairly short trip and we were gaining an hour.  Karen has put some serious mileage in over the last few days, so it was a bit of a break for her and it gave Jan and I time to walk.  Beautiful morning, with a slight chance of thunderstorms for our easy trip to Albuquerque.  Nice, huh?

Well after we got into New Mexico, the sky ahead was starting to look a little ominous.  Black and we could see bits of lightning.  We pulled into a rest area to take a look at the radar and saw a small line, one storm really sitting right across our route.  We commented that it looked like we were in store for some heavy rain, but it would be short lived as it was quite narrow. No big deal.

So off we went, got darker and darker, and the drops started to hit the windshield.  Then harder and harder as the hail started.  But just small hail, only a 1/4 inch maybe, slowed down a little, no big deal it will be over in just a couple miles.  Then the hail came in ernest, bigger and bigger until quite a few were approaching golf ball size!  It was like we were under attack!  We pulled over and stopped along with tons of other cars and trucks. We actually felt if we kept going it would come through the windshield.  It was scary and deafening, sounded like some one was on the roof with a hammer just wailing away!  We cringed at every impact, Karen even said she wanted to crawl under the bed!  We had never experienced anything like it.

It finally started to let up, so we got back on the road and in just a few miles, we were back in sunlight.  We had to go about 30 miles to get to a rest area, and Karen in the back said she didn't see any pieces falling off our motorhome so we pressed on.  Pulled into the rest area to see what we would see.  Our new truck had several big dents in the hood, but the canoe on the roof protected it for the most part, but oh no, not Karen's new truck.  It was peppered with dents!  Everywhere, hood, roof, even side panels!  We were crying by now.  Walked around the motorhomes and didn't see any damage, but until we got to the campground we weren't going on the roofs.

We get to Albuquerque, work ourselves into pigeonhole sites and up we go expecting the worst.  We each have clear acrylic domes over our showers, expensive, hard to find, and difficult to repair or install, along with plastic covers on our AC units, and plastic covers on our fans to say nothing about the fiberglass roof itself.  So it was with much trepidation that we peered over the edge.  Again we lucked out, as you know we have all 3 new AC units with a much tougher covers, and amazingly we could not find anything amiss on our roof!  But, oh man, looking over at Karen's it was apparent that at least 2 of her 3 AC's had taken a lot of damage!  She crawled up and sure enough all 3 of her AC covers were destroyed!  But even with that, we really lucked out that the domes were unscathed.  So we have both been in contact with our insurance companies and are awaiting information to see where we go from here.  As we were outside talking in front of our coach, Karen noticed that inside one of our headlight recesses, we had taken a damaging blow and had a hole where one chunk of hail must have caught the fiberglass just right.  We'll try to patch that up ourselves until we have an opportunity to really fix it this winter.

So we are here now visiting family, eating great food, and trying to forget this little adventure.  The fact we are on the move with a tight schedule and a hard ferry date is going to be challenging to see what we will do.  At least other than looking horrible, our trucks run fine, and I think both of us would rather just wait until we get back from Alaska to get the trucks fixed or whatever they are going to do.  WOW, huh?

And no we still haven't paid for the tires.

Rendezvous completed

We rolled into the Oasis RV Resort yesterday afternoon after a late departure from Wichita Falls, and Karen rolled in about 30 minutes later!  We had a real interesting time that was a bit out of character for us, but a blast nonetheless.  We parked next to a beautiful coach and stacker trailer in Wichita Falls.  Hit up a conversation with the owner of the rig, Mark, and after an hour or so and a cup of coffee agreed to meet for dinner in Amarillo.  After we met Karen and toasted our upcoming travels with an incredible potent potable, we tidied up and headed over to the The Big Texan, a landmark restaurant in Amarillo famous for their "free" 72 oz steak dinner.  You can get the 72 oz steak, that costs $72 by the way, for free if you eat it, a baked potato, a roll, a salad, shrimp cocktail, and a roll in under 1 hour!  This deal was started in 1962 and about 10% of those who try are successful.  Well, when we were almost done our dinner, these 5 kids from Australia came in to give it a try.

We think the guy in the middle drinking some water
was going to do it!

Another view

Forgive me for the quality of the pictures.  The restaurant is huge and busy, anyone doing this challenge has to sit at this table raised up in the middle of the main dining room, therefore they are surrounded by spectators cheering them on and taking pictures, so this was about as good as I could do with my phone.  We left before they were done, so we don't know the outcome, but approximately 12 folks had already done it this month!  It made all of us almost sick just contemplating it, but maybe we're just too old:-)  Anyway, we had a very enjoyable evening visiting with an interesting new friend.  Now on to Albuquerque for the holiday weekend.
No, still haven't paid for the tires!

Ouch, the CRS is really setting in!

We left Longview yesterday to go up to Amarillo, but decided we weren't going to go over 500 miles in one day.  We searched the Trailer Life guide and RV Park Reviews, our two go to campground guides and find a campground with decent ratings about halfway, in Wichita Falls, TX.  Good, we take off on a very windy, 30+ mph gusts right abeam us, and when we stop for lunch, Jan calls and makes a reservation, our normal traveling SOP.  We get off the highway, work our way through downtown Wichita Falls, and as we near the campground we start looking at each other, and out loud start questioning, have we been here before?  And as we pull in, it dawns on us that, yes, we sure have!  But even worse neither of us can even remember when?!?  After checking in I go into my records and sure enough we stayed here in 2011 on our way from Pagosa Springs to Longview.  I guess we do deserve some kind of break though, since we have literally stayed at hundreds of different campgrounds over 20 years.  Sounds good, huh?

A great and filling visit!

As I hinted before we left, we knew our visit with Larry and Mary Ellen was going to involve food, vast quantities of excellent food, and it surely did!  We were reminded right away that Texas is a big ass state, it looked like just a hop, skip, and a jump from Longview to Georgetown, but it was 5+ hours and over 250 miles, we even got so far out there that we saw the Starship Pegasus had landed.

Beam me up Scotty

We were welcomed into their beautiful home, and enjoyed a catch up visit before we headed out for amazing burgers at Hardtails Bar and Grill.  When I say amazing, I say that with the utmost respect, as these are right up there with Bobcat Bite's incredible green chili cheeseburgers, the absolute best we have ever had.  So we, of course, stuffed ourselves with deliciousness amid the rain showers and headed back.  Yeah, forgot to take a picture:-(

The rain persisted all night, and they really need it so a good thing.  Then off the next day for lunch at what is considered one of the best BBQ's period, not just in Texas, Louie Meuller Barbecue.  It has been in operation since 1949 and at this site in Taylor, TX since 1959.

The grand entrance

Inside, and what an aroma!

Chowing down!

It was fantastic, we all shared brisket, sausage, and beef ribs that were the size of dinosaur ribs!  You can see one of them in the left foreground in the picture.  It was juicy, peppery, and awesome, especially dipped in their "special" dipping sauce.  It's not like barbecue sauce, more like a broth with drippings, hint of tomato and onions, and very peppery.  What a treat!  Then we took a nice ride around, and went back for a supercilious dinner of pork ribs, a la Mary Ellen, who should get her own James Beard award for them.  Then later we were treated to a fantastic bottle of wine they brought back with them from France, way, way higher on the wine tree than we normally or should I say have ever had.  Wow!

Oh yeah, I definitely want some!

It was a short visit with our time constraints, but the weather cleared up, so with a crispness in the air and blue skies, we headed into downtown Austin for a stroll around the Zilker Botanical Garden, and happened upon the Faerie Trail display which was pretty cool and inventive, although we did get the impression that some of the faerie's homes may have taken a blow from mother nature's rainstorms.

It was a peaceful beautiful place only marred by a bit of traffic noise.  Well worth a visit. But then as it was lunchtime, off we went to another bit of culinary delight.  Man vs Food did a review and a contest here at the 30 year old Juan in a Million.  It was busy, busy with the lunch crowd.

Busy!

Yum, yum!

We all had a great lunch, very hot salsa, and boy was it bustling and noisy inside.  A neat Austin institution.  So after a short visit back at the hacienda, we headed, or better yet rolled back up to Longview.  What a great time, thanks, Larry and Mary Ellen, and Mitch!

Then...........we got back and all looked fine, until morning when Jan went out in her bare feet and noticed the rug was wet?????????  Seems with the torrential rain they had, our new AC unit needed a bit more tightening.  The only seal with the roof for the AC units is just the compression of the foam pads to keep the water out.  After installing them you snug it down, then you are supposed to go back in a few weeks and snug it again, whoops, forgot that.  So we tore down the soaked ceiling panel, took it apart to let it dry, snugged the AC's, all of them, cleaned the filters which we needed to do anyway, and now we are all set.  Didn't have anything else to do right?

Ceiling panel dropped.

And, no, we still haven't paid for the tires!

Road Trip!

We've had a nice couple of days with the kids.  Even got them in the pool here at the campground yesterday.  Todd sacrificed and went in with them, as the water was cold, cold, seeing they just opened the pool.  As you know kids are impervious to the temp.  Todd is waiting to hear some news this week as to whether they may be moving.  We have our fingers crossed for them.

On the motorhome front, I completely rewired the ground for the brake system indicator light.  The light is in a small console just to the left of the driver's seat, and down below that, in fact, below the floor, is the front run panel.  This is where many of the coach's 12 volt fuses are, so obviously an abundance of 12 volt power, and in this case just what I needed, several grounding bars.  It was a bit of a struggle to fish a wire up from the front run panel to the console as it is absolutely a rabbit warren of wires, connectors, and modules, but I managed it.  Now the light has a dedicated ground wire, so hopefully it will work without blowing out the fuse in the truck.  Where we are parked, I can't get the truck into the rear of the motorhome to conduct a thorough test, so we will have to trust that it works for our departure.

So kids are back in school, Todd and Kelly are waiting for news, and as for us, we are leaving on a road trip in a couple hours!  We are heading south to Georgetown in the Austin area to visit old friends, and knowing them, going to eat some great food!  We haven't seen Larry and Mary Ellen for about a year, as our planned visit last spring had to be postponed while we were with my mom.  So Austin, here we come.

And no, we still haven't paid for the tires??

Texas

We had an uneventful trip to Longview, and that's absolutely the best kind.  Diesel fuel has moderated a little bit which is good news with so many miles to go this year.  In fact in Mississippi, where of course we didn't need fuel, it was down to $3.63, but it was still only $3.79 when we filled up in Shreveport, LA.  That will get us all the way to Amarillo easily.

It will be nice spending some time with our grandkids and Kelly and Todd.  As we get more experienced, read older, we learn that the one constant in life is change.  Todd and Kelly are going through some now.  They had an unexpected event in their lives that they are working through, and who knows, may cause them to move.  Time will tell.  

And no, we still haven't paid for the tires!

Surprise, change of destination!

We took off after doing our walks at about 9am.  Walked a little earlier than usual, and what a beautiful morning!

HDR photo from my phone
Good Morning Lake Allatoona!

We had planned to stop in Meridian, MS at a campground we have stayed at many times before.  It is an easy in and out with all pull through sites, and figured we wouldn't need a reservation as it was a Tuesday and we would be arriving fairly early.  Wrong!  Full house.  Seems the owner has opted to turn his mostly transient campground into a long term stay place!  That doesn't happen very often to us, we usually make a reservation around lunchtime if it's just an overnight stop.  No big deal we continued on to Florence, MS, about another 100 miles and stayed the night at Wendy Oaks RV Park.  It's fine for an overnight, big pull through, full hook up, and on a nice little pond.  Quite a bit of road noise, but the AC drowns it out.  And man are we in the middle of Mississippi:-)

I'm having a little trouble with an aspect of our new braking system on the truck.  We have an indicator light next to the driver's seat in the coach that lights whenever the truck's brakes are applied.  It worked when we first got it installed, but unfortunately, the tech used a ground off another system and it caused some erroneous readings on our dash.  I switched it over to another ground twice, but it keeps blowing an inline fuse in the truck, so I either created a short all by myself or coincidentally we have a short somewhere in the wire that goes from the rear of the coach to the light.  The braking system works great, it is just the indicator light.  So we will pursue this further when we get to Longview.

And no, the tires are still not paid for!!

Small change and a couple other things

It's Monday, and we are still here.  Nothing bad, just a small change of plans.  We had intended to head for Kelly's in Texas through Biloxi, MS where we were going to meet with a gentleman that was going to back up our Multiplex system and change the programming on a few of our switches.  Multiplex, what's that?  I stole this description which is fairly straightforward>>>>>Traditional wiring systems utilize a central fuse panel with independent leads, switches and multiple ground wires formed into an octopus of a wiring harness. The latest trend is multiplex wiring. Multiplex wiring provides power to a common distribution center that can be controlled by various switch panels that connect to the control center via cat5 network wiring. Various switch banks can then be programmed to control each light, fan , or other electrical device via software.<<<<

We have this system on our coach, and since Monaco is basically out of business, there is some discussion that having a backup of your own unique software is a bit of insurance.  If something should go badly wrong with one of the computer modules, they are replaceable, but the software is unique.  It can be written from scratch, but it is very time consuming and expensive.  You say so what, do away with it, well not so easy.  Everything electrical is wired through this system, lights, fans, heating, water pump, TV lift, inverter, generator, etc.  We aren't feeling too anxious about it as the systems rarely fail, but it is something we want to get done.  At the same time we were going to have a few of our switches reprogrammed to have them operate where we want them, not where Monaco put them.  A big advantage to this system.  Well, we are going to have to put this off until fall when we head back to the southeast.

After I picked Jan up from the airport we went over to Jason's to visit and he made us an excellent dinner.  We won't be seeing him for a long while now, not until Thanksgiving time unless he is able to fly out and visit with us somewhere in our travels.  We sure hope so!

We are all set to go, everything is packed up, canoe's loaded, so we are ready for an early departure tomorrow.

And, no, the tires are still not paid for!?!

Atlanta winding down

Not too much to report.  We have been busy though.  Second dentist appointment is done.  We met with Jason for lunch at one of our must go places in Atlanta, Nori Nori.  It is an incredible sushi buffet along with other salads, hot dishes, and dessert.  Even though it is a buffet, a veritable cadre of chefs keep fresh items coming out constantly.  Now I will admit if you don't like sushi, it probably wouldn't be a pick for you:-)

A sample of deliciousness

We also had a nice "sleepover" at our friends' John and Diane's beautiful home nearby, actually not all that nearby, hence the sleepover.  Had a great time and found out they are coming to Alaska at the same time we will still be there.  We are coordinating a meet combined with a tour of Denali, with a flight out from Kantishna to the entrance.  Not only will it be an amazing flight it will save a 6 hour bus trip back.  Should be a hoot with all five of us doing it together, it will be "our" airplane.  We are also working on another trip with John and Diane, but I will keep that a secret right now as we are still working on details.  That won't be until late September.  

I am batching it this weekend, Jason felt sorry for me and came up to have dinner with me last night.  I am going to try and track down an errant short on our indicator light for our braking system on the truck today.  We have an indicator light that is supposed to come on right beside the driver's seat in the coach whenever the brakes in the truck come on, but it works once then the inline fuse in the truck blows.  So I think there must be a short where it is hooked up in the coach at the light.  Jan is in Pennsylvania at a quasi family reunion which includes a 60th wedding anniversary for her Uncle Larry and Aunt Laura, and 80th birthday celebrations.  Also having a great time visiting with her mother and sisters with the Greenville "crew".  I am also getting a few other things done before our departure for Texas first thing Monday morning.

Oh yeah, tires are still not paid for!?!?