Coming on home!

Once we'd visited the UP it was time to head back south and west.  On the last day of September we made the fairly long trek down to a campground near Grand Rapids, MI.  My wife almost always picks our campground from the various clubs we belong to:  Good Sam, Escapees or Passport America.  I don't know what was going on but we kept finding these places that were intended for locals rather than visitors.  This one was on a beautiful river and it was a nice enough site but there were no other visitors and most of the rigs were permanent.  Even though the park was closing on October 15; the rigs would just spend the winter there.  Interesting.

Anyway, the next day (a Sunday) we hopped up and drove down to Grand Rapids to see the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum.  It turns out that we were in the middle of a Art Prize celebration and traffic downtown was AWFUL!  Of course the fact that we are driving a 4x4 extended cab pickup with an 8 foot bed doesn't make things easier.  The Art Prize thing had taken over all parking for the museum.  We found a parking garage a couple blocks away that claimed to have empty spaces and headed into it.  At the last possible moment I decided we wouldn't fit and stopped in the middle of the sidewalk.  I was afraid that there wasn't enough headroom for us.  I get out of the cab and sure enough, we were at least 4 inches too tall.  So my wife grabbed her walkie talkie and walked out into the street and stopped the two lanes of traffic so I could back out.  Now that is something!  She managed it and I backed into the street, she hopped in and we took off.  Now all we wanted to do was to get out of Grand Rapids!

In the end we found an excellent pizza place called Mitten Pizza and Brewing Co.  Had a lovely pizza for lunch (and beer!) and went back to the rig.  I found someone from the office and told them we would be staying another night.  We met a local guy and he suggested we might also like to visit the Maijer Gardens so we added that to the itinary for the next day. The next morning we hopped up and flipped on the tv to learn that the previous night a very strange man had opened fire on a bunch of concert goers in Las Vegas.  My God!  It is beyond strange.  I want to talk about all that in another post so for now I'll only say we were just shocked.

We went into the city and this time found some off street parking that was at least tall enough for our truck.  We were sticking out in front of all the cars but there was room enough.  The Ford museum was interesting as they all are.  I'm getting the distinct impression that we don't know much about the people we elect President.  For example, Ford is the name of his mother's second husband; the President's real father was named King.  Part of the Art show was inside the museum so there was no charge to visit the museum on this day.  A certain number of people were there simply for the art but the museum was more crowded than many that we have visited.

After the museum we headed off for the Maijer Gardens and were very happy that we did.  It turns out there are several conservatories full of plants and a huge outdoor area in which larger sculptures are shown.  We took a tram tour of the outside which we later decided was kind of a waste.  They wanted to tell us way more about some of the pieces that we wanted to know!  We did enjoy the experience however. 

This horse was tall enough that I could walk under his belly!

They also have a large Japanese garden which we enjoyed touring.


Having sampled Grand Rapids we were intent on heading south.  Since we were thinking of driving home on I-40 we had decided to go almost directly south and stop in Little Rock, AR to see the Clinton Museum!  We'd been finding places claiming wifi but then they either didn't have it or it wasn't working.  We are both addicts so not having internet was putting a dent in our fun!  I talked my wife into trying a KOA.  At least they had wifi!  We were happy enough with the KOA experience to go to another one in Little Rock.

The Clinton Museum is part of a complex that includes the library, museum and educational activities that are of interest to the Clintons.  They claim there are more exhibits than in any other Presidential library.  I wouldn't be surprised because there was a huge amount of detail:  like the President's plan for every day!  I mean you could look up what the President was supposed to be doing at 10:00 on July 29, 1995.  There was a reasonable discussion of his impeachment proceedings but oddly Monica Lewinski was pretty much invisible.  My wife used the word 'slick' to describe the museum and I cannot think of a better one.  About a third of the floor-space was devoted to a biography of Nelson Mandela.  Apparently he and the President became quite good friends.  The displays showed quite a lot about his younger days; his long years in jail and finally his freedom.  It was pretty good if totally unexpected. 

As an aside, the Clinton Museum was the only place we've seen since the Las Vegas tragedy that wasn't flying the flag at half staff. 

Downtown Little Rock has quite a bit of park area on both sides of the river.  They converted this old railway bridge into a pedestrian bridge.  As an aside, on the day of our visit there was an Autism Walk so all the parking was taken just as in Grand Rapids!  Happily we were able to find a place to park just a few blocks away.


After leaving Little Rock we were headed for Oklahoma City.  My wife had never set foot in Oklahoma so it was kind of fun that driving across on I-40 is actually very pretty.  Once we get well started on our way home sometimes we get in a state where all we want to do is get home.  For example, when returning from Florida in 2016 we didn't unhook the trailer from the truck for 6 days.  That's our record; I'm not proud of it but we have been known to take off home like that. 

After Oklahoma City we headed for Amarillo.  It was nice country but this was one of the windy days.  The wind came out of the north at 28 mph (45 kph) with gusts to 40 mph (65 kph).  That makes for a tough day of driving.  And in both Oklahoma and Texas there were road repairs; mostly to bridges.  Traffic was funneled into one lane and slowed to 55 mph (88 kph) which still seemed awfully fast to me.  Still, it worked.  It was going to be cold so we didn't deploy the slideout.  Keeping it in reduces our square footage by probably 40 sq ft (9 sq. m) so the rig is much easier to heat. 

After Amarillo the large city is Albuquerque however the Balloon Fiesta is on so places to park are non-existent - not just expensive but not there!  So we went on to the small town of Grants, New Mexico.  We found a park called Lavaland in Grants.  It had received some poor ratings but sounded like it might be ok.   As a matter of fact, it was just fine.  The office and common rooms are being re-modeled but is seems to be in turn-around mode.  There were people living in their rigs there but everyone was friendly and helpful.  The site wasn't quite level but we can deal with that.  As a bonus, the wifi was excellent! 

We needed one more stop and decided to check out Meteor Crater, AZ.  The crater is on privately owned land and these folks opened an RV park right next to I-40.  So you are renting from the owners of the crater; to see the crater you have to pay more.  But, what the heck, we went to check it out.  There were actually quite a few people there.  It is just one of those things.  If you want to see it, you have to pay.  If you don't care, well, it is just a big hole in the desert floor.  We liked it but it is BIG!  My 18mm lens on my DSLR doesn't open enough to get the entire crater in one photo. 

Down in the bottom there are remains from early explorations.  People thought there was a meteor down there somewhere so dug down looking for it.  Now we know the meteor just turned into tiny fragments that rained all over the place. 

So after that excitement, all that was left was to go along I-40 to Kingman and cut up US 93 to Las Vegas.  It is funny country, you see a bunch of ramshackle buildings off in the distance then come to a road with half a dozen mailboxes for those buildings.  I've no idea how those folks live.  We stopped for a night in Las Vegas to see our daughter and empty the tanks.  It was a good stop but we were sure glad to get home. 

Thanks for stopping by.  I'll be working on my rant about Charlottesville, Las Vegas, Weinstein and, of course, our Twitter-in-Chief.  Fair warning; you may want to avoid it!  Have a good one.

Home again and it's not quite so hot!

Arrived home yesterday just after lunch.  We started the trip thinking we would go "see the Upper Peninsula of Michigan" and we managed that but it was somewhat different than we had expected.  We thought we would go one way and ended up doing something quite different.  It just adds a bit to the stress making changes on-the-fly but I guess we can manage it.  The original plan was to go from Las Vegas up to Colorado Springs then take I-70 east until we passed Chicago.  We would then go north up to the Upper Peninsula area of Michigan coming back south through Wisconsin until we reached Little Rock, AR.  In Little Rock we would pick up I-40 and come on back to Vegas.  In the end we went up through Wisconsin then down through Michigan.  It doesn't sound like much of a change but it felt like it!  In the end we drove 6,182.2 miles; of those miles 4,938.2 were towing the trailer.  And we did it in 30 days.  That means not a lot of sitting around! 

We started out from Las Vegas on September 10.  Stopped in Utah for a night then went on to Colorado Springs where we visited friends.  Colorado Springs was lovely except for some little showers that seemed to know when we wanted to be out on the deck.  Two days, two afternoons on the deck and two showers; it was uncanny. 

After our stay in Colorado we headed off for Kansas; specifically Abilene.  It was quite a drive but we managed it.  We wanted to stay in Abilene because it is the home of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Museum and Library.  They have the house where Ike grew up and a museum that had a lot of information about the 20 years that were Ike's heyday:  1940-1960.  When you think about it he was pretty influential in those years from commanding the invasion of Europe and ending with eight years as President.  We really enjoyed seeing it.

Leaving Abilene we headed for Columbia, MO.  It wasn't a lovely day:  rain, rain and more rain.  Happily we showed up on a weekday.  Columbia is a college town and it's football season!  Anyway, we'd heard that the Budweiser Clydesdales are born and bred at Warm Springs Ranch and  we wanted to see them.  They have an hour tour showing you basically the barn and a few of the horses in residence.  They are very careful about the coloring of the horses they breed wanting the colts to all look the same.  They have about 30 colts born every year.  They are certainly beautiful  animals and BIG! 

Next stop was West Branch, Iowa at the Herbert Hoover Museum.  Again we liked the museum and learned some things we hadn't known.  Unfortunately I didn't take a single photo!  Hoover became a mining engineer and worked all around the world earning himself quite a nice fortune.  After the devastation of WWI he became interested in trying to help feed the starving people in Europe.  He demanded that it be done voluntarily by people; not by the government.  This got him a great reputation and he was urged to run for President.  He won but almost immediately the Great Depression came along and he got all the blame so he turned out to be a one term President.  WWII comes along and again he is urging relief missions for the starving in Europe.  He ended up being quite the statesman. 

It took us two days to get from the middle of Iowa to upper Wisconsin but we did finally make it.  We wanted to see the Apostle Islands but the weather, which had been much warmer than average, became rain and you couldn't see a thing.  We drove around the Pictured Rocks area in Michigan as well but the weather was just awful.  The visitor centers are fine but don't make up  for the real thing!  They do make some nice beer in this part of the world but it's not the reason for our visit.

Following the Upper Peninsula we were headed for Mackinac Island.  More precisely we stayed in St. Ignace on the north side of the bridge.  This time we got the weather right!  We took one of the ferries out to the island that took a little side trip under the bridge so you could get a sense of it's size.  Pretty cool even if they are working on it!

Then we spent the remainder of the day on the island.  There are no cars allowed (except emergency vehicles) so you get to walk, bicycle or deal with horses.  There are lots of bikes to rent if you would like.  Horses are used to pull the taxis as well as the delivery wagons.  It was fun.  We walked about a fourth of the way around the island.  It is all very pretty and there are some great views.  There were mansions built on the island it the early days and these have been converted to B&Bs; some with huge extensions.  It was a beautiful and and a lot of fun.

I'll get us back home next time.  Thanks for stopping by!

Jeez, it's been a while!

No I didn't get run over by my own truck or anything.  We did have to buy two new batteries for the trailer; the old ones wouldn't hold a charge.  I was stupid and let them get discharged down to nothing one too many times.  Then after cleaning the posts & charging the truck batteries I had to go buy new batteries for it because they wouldn't hold a charge either.  I can't really complain; it is a 2008 truck so five years service isn't bad.  The guy at the store claimed the average life of a battery out here in the desert is only about 27 months.  It sounds really short to me but what do I know. So now I'm just waiting for the Toyota to need a new battery.  I mean it's the only one left!

My wife was on jury duty last week and the trial has been extended until tomorrow.  We are hopeful that they will be able to finish but not really optomistic.  It is a civil case, not criminal, so there is lots to quibble about.  She can't talk about it of course but it sounds like it is both boring and facinating at the same time.  I'm looking forward to the end so I can hear all about it.

As you can see, it's still pretty warm around here.  This display is for Las Vegas but it's pretty close to our weather.  Walking is definitely done in the morning or not at all.  The folks behind us are having some work done to their yard.  I sure feel sorry for those poor guys working in the mid-day heat.

Obviously there isn't a whole lot going on around here these days.  Hopefully I'll have more to say another time.  Till then, thanks for stopping by.  Have a good one.

Stuff & nonsense

We have been having a pretty quiet time lately.  Our big excitement over the weekend was a visit with blogger Ed and his dog Patches.  Ed has a medical appointment in Las Vegas on Wednesday and I volunteered to keep Patches while he is gone.  We thought we would get together ahead of time so Patches would have a chance to know me and my wife; not to mention our dog and cat.  As it turned out, everything is pretty cool.  Patches is really good with people; pretty good with the other dog and really amazed by the cat!  It was actually pretty funny.  Scotchie, the cat, is 17 and has been around a lot of dogs and he isn't taking any guff from them.  Patches would sneak up behind Scotchie and take a good sniff and Scotchie would turn around and whack Patches in the nose and Patches would run off.  LOL  Scotchie has no front claws so isn't going to do any harm but it sure surprised Patches.  So anyway we had lunch and everyone got to know everyone else.  Wednesday should be a piece of cake.

Late breaking news:  Ed is getting picked up for the trip to Vegas at 05:50 a.m.!  Hell, it will still be dark!  But I guess we'll live through the experience. 

I went over to pick up Ed and Patches in our truck which has hardly been out of the garage since we got home from San Diego.  Somehow it has developed a pull to the left and a shaking like something is out of round.  Took it down to a local tire place and sure enough, there is a bulge in the tread of the right front tire.  We had one tire grow a bulge in the sidewall on our trip to Washington in 2011 (approx. 20k miles); we had another grow a bulge in the tread while in San Diego (30k miles); and now at least one of the remaining tires has a bulge.  Hmmm.  I guess I can't really recommend the Continental tires that Ford put on the truck!  I think we'll just have the local guy replace both front tires (the old ones) with another brand.  We could chase around getting warranty work from Continental but that entails a trip to Las Vegas plus tying us to them for any future problems.  I think having a guy right here is the way to go.  The Continentals have been replaced under warranty pro-rated for the service we've received but that is still $120 + tax; new tires will probably run me $220 each but they won't carry the Continental name and if I have a problem the seller is about 4 miles away.

We are finally in our few moments of fall-like weather.  That means mid 90F days (35C) and mid 60F (18C) at night.  It's a big improvement over summer.  Of course it means other things:  Walmart has their Christmas stuff out!  The rest of the stores are focusing on shorter-term goals like Halloween and Thanksgiving.  Maybe it makes me sound old and grumpy but I think I prefer waiting just a bit longer for the attack of the Christmas sale. Ok, so I'm old and grumpy; but you knew that already!

Have a good one anyway!