.

The other interesting thing was all the curious signs displayed by some people and businesses around the northern Amarillo neighborhoods.  If anyone knows the history of these signs please email me.  They were very entertaining to look for and read.  I'd love to know how they got started, and what their purpose is.  And what does the chicken head mean?! 

UPDATE:  A reader emailed me and told me the story of the signs.  Seems the artist behind the Cadillac Ranch, Stanley Marsh, is also responsible for the signs. 

Click on this link to see photos of several signs:  http://our-adventure.smugmug.com/gallery/670553

More info about the signs: http://www.legendsofamerica.com/TX-CadillacRanch2.html

Monday, May 9:

Today we went to the Panhandle Plains Historical Museum in Canyon.  It’s the largest history museum in Texas.  It has a lot of great stuff to see.  We were there about 3 hours.  It was only $7.00 each, a good value for all the interesting things we saw.  Here’s a link to their website.  http://www.panhandleplains.org/

I took a bunch of photos, but none of them did justice to the museum's art or exhibits.  Take a look at the web link that Chris provided above.  This place is a "must see" if you enjoy museums, or you're into western history and culture.

Tuesday, May 10:

We had an appointment this morning to finally get our windshield repaired (large rock chip).  After it was repaired it still is noticeable and distracting to the driver.  Mac called the insurance company and they’ve ordered a new windshield for us.  We’ll get it done in Albuquerque.

It got very warm today, high 80’s close to 90, but we were comfortable in our RV with the windows open.  There was a good breeze and the trees make nice shade.  This evening though there was a storm with small hail.  I was pretty nervous but we were fine.  This incident made us realize that our pet carrier should be inside the RV not outside.  That way if we need to evacuate we can put the cat in the carrier and run to shelter quickly.

Wednesday, May 11:

We’re heading out today.  We’re going to head down Highway 60 heading for New Mexico.  The last town in Texas is named Farewell.  I thought that was a cute name.  We had decided to stop in Vaughn New Mexico for the night, a good half way point on the way to Albuquerque.  But when we got to Vaughn neither cell phone could get a signal.  So we continued on down the road.  We can’t get any work done if we can’t use the phone. 

The landscape has changed greatly.  It’s more wide open spaces and hills to climb.  It is actually pretty to me.  I love seeing all the mountains in the distance.  I saw some prong horn antelope and they were cool to see.  We stopped at a picnic area on the side of the road for a coffee break.  While we were there another RV pulled in.  They were a very nice couple who are heading for California to workcamp in two different places there.  We stopped in Clines Corners at a gift shop and looked around.  At Clines Corners we get on I-40 heading on to Albuquerque.

We arrived in Albuquerque and drove to Kirtland AFB to stay in the RV Park there.  We’ve decided to dry camp for our stay.  It’s only $6.00 per night to dry camp.  We might as well take advantage of all our solar energy and save some money.

Our site at Kirtland AFB.  Nice view of Sandia mountains.

Thursday, May 12:

We drove around Albuquerque today sightseeing.  Old Route 66 is Central Avenue here and the downtown section is very attractive.  There is a lot to see here in Albuquerque.  Albuquerque is 300 years old so there is a lot of history here. We’ve ordered various items so we’ll be here until we receive everything.  We’ll probably head out next Thursday.

Chris mentioned several items on order.  Two of these are for out electrical system.  Our Iota 55 amp charger suddenly quit working about 2 weeks ago.  I called the company yesterday and they're sending out a new one in exchange.  I'm also replacing and upgrading our inverter.  The inexpensive AIMS inverter we bought in December is malfunctioning and I don't want to take a chance on another one, so we're swapping it out for a 1500W Samlex.  I'll write more in the Tech section when I receive and install the equipment, and I'll post a link *here*.

Friday, May 13:

We’re very tired today for some reason.  I guess it’s the altitude; we’re still adjusting to it.  We just stay around the base today and rest up.  We plan on going to the flea market tomorrow.  There’s a huge flea market every weekend here at the fairgrounds.  This evening the wind starts picking up.  It starts blowing and gusting strong enough that we stow the Datastorm and put in all the awnings.  The weather report says gust of 30-40 MPH.

Saturday, May 14:

I woke up early this morning.  Out the front window of the RV I can see the mountains in the east.  There are lots of clouds up there, it is so pretty to see.  Parts of the mountains can’t be seen because of the clouds.  The wind is still blowing strong.  We won’t be going to the flea market today.  There probably won’t be too many vendors.  We decide to go to Old Town later on today.  So since we’re not going anywhere this morning I do the laundry.

We went to Old Town late in the afternoon.  There are lots of shops to look in, a plaza in the center and a church.  We walked around and looked at a lot of beautiful stuff that’s for sell.  Mac looked at several hats but finally decided not to get one.  Of course, we bought some souvenirs to send to the family.  We really enjoyed walking around Old Town.

We went back home for dinner.  On the way home we see rain in the distance.  You can see a long way off here.  It was cool seeing the rain falling off in the distance and you could smell the rain but it wasn’t raining where we were.  When we got home we watched the clouds and rain.  It finally rained on us but it wasn’t for very long at all.

Again the winds have picked up so we’ve decided to stow the Datastorm tonight.  The winds aren’t as bad as last night but it’s better to be safe than sorry.

Talking about stowing the Datastorm due to winds -- it's designed to handle winds up to 60mph.  However, the weak link is the mounting to the RV roof.  Our roof is thin plywood covered with a rubber membrane, so I don't trust it to hold when gusts are expected over 35mph.

Sunday, May 15:

Today we went to the flea market and it was fun. I think there are probably more vendors on Saturday than Sunday but there were still quite a few there. We bought some nice turquoise pieces. The most fun though was walking around looking and admiring all the jewelry and rugs. Of course, there are lots of other items for sale but that was what we looked at. After spending 2 or 3 hours at the flea market we went back to the RV.

Monday, May 16:

Today we stayed around the RV and worked most of the day.  Later in the day Mac went to UPS and picked up our mail that we had sent to us here in Albuquerque.

We’ve been having trouble with our inverter recently.  The company is sending us a replacement here in Albuquerque. Right now we are using a tiny inverter and I can’t use the vacuum cleaner until we get the new one installed.

Tuesday, May 17:

Albuquerque has the world’s longest tram that takes you up to the top of the Sandia Mountains.  We had dinner reservations at the restaurant on the top.  It was nice and warm down at the bottom so we dressed accordingly, not thinking the temperature at top could be such a drastic difference.  We didn’t take any jackets with us.  The temperature at the bottom was in the 80’s and at the top when we got there it was 47.  The tram ride to the top was very fun and interesting.  In some instances you’re over a crevice that’s around 900 feet to the bottom.  The winds weren’t too bad, only 30-35 MPH.  They don’t run the tram if the winds are 50 MPH.

After getting to the top the wind was really blowing us and it was cold!  There were patches of snow around.  We looked around the different scenic areas; you can see around 1,000 miles of New Mexico from the top.  It was lots of fun but very cold; while up on top the temperature had dropped to 40 degrees. BRRRRRR!

We had dinner in the restaurant, which is named High Finance.  It was good, and we enjoyed it.  After dinner we rode the tram back down and it was almost dark.  The sunset in the distance was beautiful and looking down was very pretty to see.  We enjoyed it a lot.

Wednesday, May 18:

Today we had an appointment to take the RV in and have the windshield replaced.  We dropped off the RV and went to run some errands.  Albuquerque has a Cummins Onan Service Center and Mac had called them and verified they had some carburetor and combustion chamber cleaner in stock, so we went there and picked some up.

After running errands we still had over 2 hours till the RV would be done so we decided to go up to Sandia Crest.  To get there we followed the Turquoise Trail on the east side of the pass through the mountains on I40.  We drove up to the top and the road is windy with lots of hairpin turns.  It was fun driving up.  We saw lots of snow still not melted on the way up. It is a very pretty drive up there.  There are lots of picnic areas and hiking trails on the way up the mountain.  After getting to the top we looked at all the vistas.  Of course, we hadn’t planned on going up so we were both dressed in shorts and sandals and it was chilly up there.

They have a gift shop, a food area, and a ranger station on the crest.  The gift shop was very interesting to go through. We had lunch in the food area and it was good too.  Mac talked with the rangers and found out that there had been 20 feet of snow this past winter in the mountains.  On Sandia Crest there is also a trail that you can walk that’s about 2 miles which takes you over to the tram area.  We enjoyed our visit to Sandia Crest very much.  Mac drove down the mountain; he said so that I could enjoy the view.  I think it was because of all the hairpin curves and going down hill with a steep grade, he didn’t trust my driving.  I told him to just let the car go and don’t put on any brakes and let’s try to take the curves at 50 but of course he was a party pooper and drove very safely down the mountain.

There is a lot to see and do on the Turquoise Trail but we don’t have time today.  We will definitely visit this area again, it is very beautiful and lots to do.  On the way back we saw a thrift store and stopped in.  While there they called and told us the RV was ready to pick up.

After picking up the RV we headed back to the base. They seem to have done a really good job installing the windshield. The rest of the day was spent working. Mac went to dinner with one of his contract employees. I could have gone but I was very tired and just wanted to rest. They ate dinner at Sadie’s and Mac said it was great food. We’ll have to go there when we come through again.

Albuquerque has an altitude ranging from 4.900 to 6,500.  At the airport, which we are near the elevation is 5,352 feet above sea level.  Cooking at high altitude is different than at lower levels.  So it’s been interesting learning to cook using high altitude cooking times and temperatures.

Photos from Sandia Peak and Sandia Crest.  Six photos in all, scroll right to see final one.

Here we are atop Sandia Peak

You can see the wind is blowing a lot, look behind Chris at the tiny dot -- that's the tram coming up!

Tram car reaches the top of the peak

On the road to Sandia Crest we see S*** (you know, the white stuff -- not supposed to say the S word!)

View of Albuquerque from Sandia Crest

Another view of Albuquerque

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Here we are atop Sandia Peak

 

Thursday, May 19:

We’re leaving Albuquerque today. The weather forecast is for increasing temperatures so it’s going to be too hot for us. We want to go to places where we won’t have to use air conditioning or heating.  We actually got a later start today than we had intended.  We had worked some this morning and then we had to fill up the RV with gas.  We had to also go to UPS and pick up our new inverter.  So by the time we left town it was close to noon and getting hot.

We head west on I40.  There are plenty of hills to climb and the engine temperature keeps rising close to the red zone. We drove to Red Rock State Park close to Gallup New Mexico.  It’s pretty at the park.  There are red rock cliffs, they are very beautiful.  The park had gone up on their prices recently and we paid $15 a night to dry camp!  We’re staying 2 nights here.  The elevation here is from 6,600 to 7,000 feet.

After dinner we sit outside and enjoy the beauty of the cliffs.  We see lots of swallows around the cliffs and can see some of the nest using our binoculars.  We also saw a Bullock’s Oriole; it’s a very beautiful bird.  There were also a lot of purple finches with very red heads.

Beautiful view from front of our campsite -- no idea why they call this "Red Rock" State Park :-)

Click this link for more photos:  http://our-adventure.smugmug.com/gallery/670598

Friday, May 20:

Today Mac is working hard.  After lunch a fifth wheeler pulled in and parked near us.  I noticed they had an Escapee sticker on their rig so we struck up a conversation.  We had a very good visit with them.  Lynn and Sue have been traveling for about 9 years so they had some great stories to share.  We had a great time visiting with them.

After our visiting till dark Mac and I decided it was too hot to cook in the RV so we drove to Gallup for dinner.  We had planned on having a nice dinner in a restaurant, but when we were leaving the park there were several teenagers around. So we changed our minds and decided to just grab some fast food take out and go back to the RV.  That is the main thing I don’t like about this park.  There is no security around like at most state parks.  This park is run by private contractors.  There is a lot of local traffic into the park because the park has a post office and a store.  There are teenagers coming and going and also dogs that aren’t on leash that are from somewhere local.  We just don’t feel as safe here as we should in a state park.

Saturday, May 21:

We’re leaving today so we are up early to get going.  After coffee we went outside and we saw that there were several hot air balloons down by the cliffs.  We went down there and watched them getting ready.  It was so cool to watch the balloons rising as they were filled.  Then they were going up in the air and it was beautiful to watch.  What a nice surprise this was today.

Great thing about RVing, the view keeps changing! Sometimes you get a surprise when you walk out the door.

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Great thing about RVing, the view keeps changing! Sometimes you get a surprise when you walk out the door.

 

Watching the balloons has put us behind schedule.  We have reservations in Flagstaff Arizona today and we also want to see the Petrified Forest on the way.  If we have time we also want to see the Meteor Crater.  We forgot that Arizona does not observe day light savings time so we have actually gained time this morning when we drive across the state line. Yea!

The Petrified Forest and the Painted Desert were so beautiful!  We really enjoyed it.  It’s amazingly beautiful; words cannot describe it and pictures don’t do it justice.  It must be seen in person to appreciate the beauty.  We loved it so much.  I wish they allowed camping there but they don’t.  I would have loved to just sit for hours admiring the beauty of it.

Four pictures of the Painted Desert

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Photos of the Petrified Forest

Ten more photos -- click on this link: http://our-adventure.smugmug.com/gallery/670628

Links to more information

Petrified Forest

http://www.petrified.forest.national-park.com/

http://www.nps.gov/pefo/

http://www.petrifiedforest.org/

 

Painted Desert

http://www.amwest-travel.com/awt_painted.html

 

May 21st was a day FULL of photo opportunities!  Love that little Nikon digital camera!  I always wanted a Nikon, but couldn't make myself spend the money.  Now their low-end digitals are under $150.  Check out this cool motel from the 60's:

 

Wigwam Hotel - Route 66 Check out all the vintage cars & trucks too. The sign says "Sleep in a Wigwam"

I took both photos while driving the RV at 35mph out the side window. Chris said they wouldn't come out :-)

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Wigwam Hotel - Route 66 Check out all the vintage cars & trucks too. The sign says "Sleep in a Wigwam"

 

On our drive to Flagstaff about 50 miles out we see Humphreys Peak of the San Francisco Peaks.  It’s about 12,633 and is the highest peak in Arizona.  We get to Flagstaff and drive over to Fort Tuthill, Luke AFB Recreation Area where we have reservations for 2 nights.  Mac has done a great job planning our trip according to the weather.  Flagstaff is about the coolest city in Arizona this week.  Other cities are in the 90’s and 100’s but Flagstaff is in the 80’s.  It’s at an elevation of 6,905.  The RV Park is very pretty with lots of pine trees.  Unfortunately, the spot we have has so many pine trees we can’t get any satellite signal at all, not even a TV signal.  Our neighbor also has a Datastorm and they are in a spot that has an opening so they can get a satellite signal.  We’re down to using the air card.  I hate to use it because it’s so slow! We can’t cancel our reservation without paying the full amount so we’re going to stay the 2 nights.

We went to dinner at a local restaurant that was recommended to us.  We were told it was great food and reasonably priced.  We really weren’t impressed with the food.  It was supposed to be authentic Mexican food but we’ve had better.

In one of the pine trees at our campsite is a blue bird house.  There’s a pair of blue birds that are raising their babies in the bird house.  It was neat to see them flying back and forth throughout the day bringing food to the babies.

I also saw 2 squirrels that I’d never seen before.  They had tufted ears and white fur on their tails.  I had been reading our book regarding free and low cost campgrounds and had read that the Kaibab National Forest had the unique Kaibab squirrel.  We looked it up online and these squirrels seem to be the same.  They are really interesting looking but we couldn’t get a picture of them.  Here's another link to some good photos.  Very odd looking animal! http://www.lynxview.com/kaibab-squirrel-encounter.html

I like this photo a lot!  Humphries Peak in the distance, and beautiful wildflowers all along the roadside --Mac

Sunday, May 22:

Today I woke up in a cleaning mood.  I cleaned and cleaned inside the RV.  I would have cleaned the outside too but it’s not allowed to wash the RV on the campsite.  One of our computers has been giving us trouble for several weeks and it completely quit last night.  So today Mac has been working on getting everything off that computer so that he can wipe the hard drive and reinstall all the programs.  I guess it was a blessing in disguise that we couldn’t get a satellite signal since we wouldn’t have been using it anyway.

In the afternoon we headed out to check out campgrounds that we could move to tomorrow.  We headed south on 89A into Coconino National Forest.  We didn’t know that the road down to Oak Creek Canyon would have a 7% grade for 3 miles with lots of hairpin curves.  It was very pretty driving down to the bottom.  We went to the campground there but we could see that we wouldn’t fit in the campground and we couldn’t get any cell phone service.  So back up to the top we drove.  We stopped at the scenic overlook and admired the view.  There were Indian vendors at the scenic overlook with tables of jewelry and other crafted items.  I love to look at the jewelry, it is so beautiful.  I couldn’t make up my mind to buy one item so I didn’t buy anything today.

After we ate dinner I washed the dishes and discovered that our coffee carafe had cracked.  We went to Wal-Mart to see about getting a replacement carafe.  We wound up buying a Black & Decker Spacemaker that has an insulated stainless steel carafe.  Now we’ll never have a broken one again.

After shopping we drove around looking for a campsite for tomorrow.  Campsites are too expensive around here.  You can tell this is a tourist area.  We found a few places that we are going to day camp at tomorrow.  We had our mail sent to us in Flagstaff and hopefully it will be here tomorrow.  If it comes tomorrow we’ll leave afterwards.  Mac made us reservations at Nellis AFB in Las Vegas for 5 days starting Thursday.  So we now have someplace to stay for Memorial Day Weekend.  I guess we can find something to do in Las Vegas for 5 days :-)

Monday, May 23:

We leave the park this morning and drive over to where we’ve decided to make a day camp.  Mac called to get the UPS tracking number for our ordered mail.  Mac found out that the package was delayed in Alabama for 3 days and isn’t expected in Flagstaff until the 26th.  We aren’t going to wait around here for it.  We’ll have it forwarded to Las Vegas.

I'm almost two weeks behind on putting photos into the blog, and having my computer down all weekend didn't help!  I have most of the programs reloaded.  I started with the ones needed for the business (including FrontPage, which I also use to do the blog).  Tonight I'll load the photo editing program and retrieve the backups of photos from Chris' machine.  I'll try to get them loaded tomorrow or the next day.

NOTE:  Photos posted now through 5/21.

After a few hours at our day camp Mac had called the regional office of the forest service regarding the size of RV rigs that could go into the parks.  The forest service told him that he should just check with each park because some had the sites enlarged to take bigger rigs.  So we decided to drive on over to Kaibib Lake Campground in the Kaibib National Forest.  It’s real close to Williams Arizona and not too far from Flagstaff. The campground there has several enlarged sites, some even being a pull-through.  The campground is all dry camping with no hook-ups at all.  We decided to stay there anyway.  We decided not to have our mail forwarded to Las Vegas since Memorial Day holiday is this coming weekend.  We will stay here and drive back to Flagstaff and pick it up when it arrives.

After setting up camp we decided to drive over to Williams and check it out. It is a really nice small town. It’s called the gateway to the Grand Canyon. You can take a train to the Grand Canyon from there. There are several shops and restaurants along the main street which is old Route 66.

Tuesday, May 24 – Wednesday, May 25:

We stay at Kaibab Lake and visit Williams every day. We had stopped and got a few snacks at the Circle K convenience store and we found out the hard way that the state sales tax in Arizona is 9.5%! That’s a lot of tax! That’s just sales tax, doesn’t include all the other taxes that a resident would get hit with like income tax, etc.

Thursday, May 26:

We had made arrangements with the Flagstaff UPS that when our package arrived they would give us a call and they did this morning.  We drove over to Flagstaff and picked up our package.  It contains a refill medication that we had ordered sent to us for our cat so we are real happy to see that arrive finally.  We had run out of his medicine because of the 3 day delay.  We’ve learned now to have our packages sent faster than ground to us while we are actually on the road.  In Key West since we were staying there a small delay was O.K. (It only takes 2 days for UPS Ground to Key West from Pensacola, FL where our mail forwarder is. -- Mac)

After picking up our package of mail we had lunch at Casa Bonita Restaurant.  It was very good. It was very flavorful and tasted like real Mexican food.  After lunch we drove back to the RV and decided to hit the road and head for Las Vegas. Mac had made us reservations for today at Nellis AFB FamCamp.

We hit the road around 2:00.  We know that the temperature in Vegas is in the low 100’s, and we’ll have to use the air conditioner but we’re going there anyway.

We took Interstate 40 and headed towards Kingman Arizona. After we came down from the higher elevation the temperature started to rise.  When we hit Kingman it was about 100 degrees.  But at least it’s a dry heat (ha ha).

From Kingman we head north on Highway 93 heading for Hoover Dam.  The temperature gauge in the RV keeps rising from all the stress of climbing hills and from the extreme heat of the day.  When it reaches the red zone we turn on the heater to lower the temperature.

They are building a highway to go around Hoover Dam instead of over it but at this time you can still drive across it.  All vehicles are inspected before reaching the dam.  They inspected all the outside compartments and also came into the RV and looked around.  Then we got to drive over the dam.  It has that look of things that were built back in the 1930’s, stylish and impressive.  The water is beautiful too, very blue.

We drove on to Las Vegas and arrive at the Nellis AFB FamCamp late in the afternoon and get a site.  We get the air conditioner going real quick too!  It’s very warm here.  After setting up and taking showers we decide to head out for dinner and some playtime at a casino.

Friday, May 27:

We went to the office of the Las Vegas Advisor to buy a coupon book.  We’ve used it before and it’s filled with some great coupons.  There are a lot of coupons for buy one get one free meals, match play coupons, coupons for discount show tickets, etc.

We've been visiting Las Vegas for many years now, and we really enjoy saving money!  Las Vegas is the coupon, discount, and freebee capital of the world.  Casinos give away a lot of free stuff so you'll come there and gamble.  Information, and knowing "the system" is the key to a great, inexpensive vacation.  In the past, when we had only 3 or 4 days to vacation planning was critical to a successful trip.  Now, even with more time to play, planning is still important.

If you're planning a Vegas vacation, the LVA, Las Vegas Advisor, is the best single place on the web to start your research.  For $37/year you can have full access to the web site, plus the coupon book that Chris is talking about above.  One of the coupons alone (there are over 150) is worth more than the $37 you pay for membership.  The web site itself will save you hundreds too, because you'll learn what's happening before you arrive and you can plan to take advantage of promotions, give-aways, etc.  Be sure you join the forums!  Hundreds of other gamblers there talking about comps, hotels, casinos, transportation, shows, dining, etc.

Whole books have been written on the subject of getting the most out of Las Vegas, so I won't try to write another one here :-).   I'll just recommend a few that, combined with the LVA will save you hundreds, and maybe thousands, on your trip.  We took one trip to Las Vegas about 6 years ago and spent less than $500 for round trip 1st class air, $0.00 for 4 nights hotel (2 at Belagio, 2 at Mirage), $0.00 for most meals, including steak dinners, buffets, breakfast, etc. $0.00 for show tickets, and 1/2 price to others.  The whole vacation cost under $1000, including a small gambling loss.

The Frugal Gambler  by Jean Scott. This is the book that started it all!  The link here is to the updated version.  Same text but with updates and technical corrections.  Jean has been called the "Queen of Comps" and featured on various national news shows and in Travel Channel specials.  More Frugal Gambling  also by Jean Scott.  New information since the earlier book, but not a replacement, read the original too!

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