New Mexico

We've been pretty lucky up until now with the campgrounds we had chosen, sight unseen, over the internet. That is, until we reached Albuquerque, New Mexico. We had a reservation here for 2 nights as we wanted to do some sightseeing, but upon pulling into the RV park, both the husband and I were afraid to get out of the RV. I have never seen so much barbed wire in my life, everywhere, around every structure you could see. I finally sucked it up, went into the lobby of the office, scooped up some free wifi, and found another campground an hour away in Santa Fe. Now, I'm sure parts of Albuquerque are quite lovely, but this part wasn't, and the campground in Santa Fe had a pool, a movie showing every night and lots of other family friendly activities.

I really loved Santa Fe! Our campground was not far from town and nestled in the Sangre de Christo mountains, and did not disappoint. It had a great pool and playground, a little movie theater where the boys got to enjoy the movie War Horse, and a ¾ mile hiking trail through the woods. The mountains were beautiful, and so different from the mountains we are used to. With very little vegetation growing on them, the layers of rock are mostly exposed. But what made them so beautiful was the colors in the different rock layers. There were pinks, purples, browns and greens and the colors changed during the day as the sun moved across the mountains.

The city of Santa Fe is one of the oldest cities in the United States. We spent the day in old town Santa Fe, where we had lunch overlooking the Barrio de Analco, a residential section of town first settled in 1620. Right around the corner is the “Oldest House” built around 1612 and the San Miguel Mission, the country's oldest church which was built from 1600 to 1646 on the site of an abandoned Pueblo dating back to 1100. Parts of the Pueblo still in existence when the mission was built were incorporated into the structure.

Just down the street from the State Capitol, we visited the Loretto Chapel, built in the 1870's and believed to be the first Gothic structure west of the Mississippi.

It has a beautiful, round staircase that is said to be miraculous. It seems that the Chapel was built with a choir loft that was extremely high off the ground. Several carpenters had been consulted, but none could construct a staircase up to the loft that would fit in the space. So, the Sisters of Loretto prayed to Saint Joseph, the patron saint of carpenters (who knew there was a patron saint of carpenters!) and on the ninth day a mysterious carpenter arrived to design and build a circular staircase to the choir loft, his only tools being a saw, his carpenters square, a hammer and tubs to soak the wood. Upon completing the staircase, this mysterious carpenter disappeared without asking to be paid. The staircase has 33 stairs, makes two full 360 degree turns and has no center supports. It also had no railings, they were added later at the request of the Sisters.

While in the Chapel the boys decided they wanted to light some candles for friends and family that could use some prayers right about now. I thought it was a really nice idea, so they each picked someone and lit a candle.

North of Santa Fe near the Colorado border lies the Aztec Ruins, operated by the National Park Service. These ruins were actually built by ancestral Pueblo people many years before Aztec culture flourished in central Mexico, but were misnamed by European settlers who believed they were part of the Aztec civilization. Built from the late 1000's to the late 1200's along the Animas River, this community built 2 three story buildings each containing over 500 rooms and several kivas, circular ceremonial chambers, that were used for community events. We had an awesome tour guide take us through the ruins and the boys asked some great questions. The museum had pottery, baskets, woven cloth and several tools that were found in the ruins when the Park Service took them over in the 1920's.

We all really enjoyed Santa Fe and were sad to leave. It's a beautiful city and I really hope we are able to get back to this area for another visit someday.

Get Your Kicks on Route 66

While we have been sticking to the Interstate, we have been following pretty closely along historic Route 66 through Oklahoma and Texas. A small, two lane, seldom traveled road these days, there are still some interesting touristy stops and places not far off the highway. We spent a day in Elk City, Oklahoma at the National Route 66 Museum Complex. A museum with classic cars and motorcycles and other Route 66 memorabilia, like the Burma Shave signs that once lined the road. It was a fun place to while away a hot summer afternoon. The boys loved the old cars and the drive in screen showing trailers of The Blob and The Creature from the Black Lagoon.

They also had buildings collected from various stops along Route 66 assembled into a town square. You can't go in most of them, but the old fashioned soda shop is opened and serves candy and cold sodas. There's a table with checkers all set up and ready to play and the coolest juke box I've ever seen. You can only choose one song at a time, but they have records (yes, actual 45's!) of Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Little Richard, and many others. You can only push 1 button and select 1 song at a time, and I was able to take this video of the juke box in action, but the internet won't let me upload it.  Here's a picture instead.

Our next stop was Amarillo Texas, where the boys cooled off in the pool and we enjoyed dinner at The Big Texan Steak Ranch, a Route 66 staple. Offering free limo service from our RV park, we sampled some locally handcrafted beer and enjoyed a lovely steak dinner. The Big Texan is famous for its 72 ounce steak meal. They have a special section in the restaurant for those who dare order it, and if you can finish the whole 72 ounce steak, salad and roll within an hour dinner is free! Their menu claims that the current world hot dog eating champ, Joey Chestnut, ate the entire meal in 8 minutes and 52 seconds in 2008. We did not even attempt it, choosing instead to share the steak dinner for 2. The little dude had a fabulous hamburger, the middle son enjoyed a plate of yummy chicken quesadillas and the teenage vegetarian had...a side of mac and cheese. After dinner we walked through the kitchy Route 66 scenes and took some pictures.

Route 66 was a fun way to break up a few long days of driving. We're heading into the mountains and looking forward to enjoying a change of scenery and some cooler temperatures in the coming days!

Guest appearance: The Pilot

            I thought it about time to do a guest appearance in this chronicle of our adventure. I might have a different perspective.  My lovely and talented spouse is the brains behind this thing.  I play the role of engineer/problem solver and so far…sole pilot.  

            A few observations in no specific order.  This machine, though old and a little tired is still performing as originally intended.  Originally intended means 55mph.  The venerable Chevy heavy duty 350 coupled with the Turbo Hydramatic 350 transmission has been a mainstay in muscle cars for decades. That combination will move a 4000 lb car off the line right quick.  In a 12000 lb motorhome however, nothing happens quickly and we often find ourselves 10 to 20 mph under the speed limit.  It also means I have to watch the temperature gauge closely on a hot day.  Which brings me to my next observation:

            Being the pilot of an old motorhome like this is a much more participatory and sensory experience than driving a normal car.  Sharon’s cousin likened it to starting up an old piston driven airplane.  Pump, pump, pump, pull out the manual choke, pump a couple of times while cranking it over, after it starts, listen for when everything evens out, push choke in, tap the gas pedal to get it into low idle. You have to take a little time, coax it back to life, talk nice and give a little pat on the dash. Every time it moves there are creaks and groans (the rv as well as me), pans clanking, empty bottles clink together.  There is a pattern to the sounds that becomes familiar and a little comforting.  Every time there is an unfamiliar smell that comes into the cab I have to process it; is the smell coming from the RV Or some other vehicle? If it’s from the RV, is it bad or not? There specific smells associated with antifreeze boiling, brakes overheating, belts slipping.  Filling up the tank requires estimating the amount that needs to go in and listening for the slightly higher pitch when it’s about full.  If I wait until the automatic shutoff on the pump trips, I get a squirt of gas on my toes.  The steering works just fine but is a little loose so the crosswinds in the mountains require a bit of anticipation and correction or I end up all over the road. 

Most of the time in a modern car you check the speedometer and maybe pay attention if there is a trouble light.  Driving this machine requires constant checks of the temperature, oil pressure, voltage.  The temperature tells me how hard the engine is working. If the air temperature is less than 90F the engine temp goes up when climbing a hill, stabilizes and goes back to normal on the down side.  In Oklahoma when the air temp was in the 105F range we came dangerously close to overheating so I watch it very carefully now.  I find I need to add a quart of oil about every 750 to 1000 miles.  The oil pressure gauge tells me to check when the running pressure drops just a little.  The voltage pretty much stays right where it should at 14.8 volts or so but I check it often for reassurance after all the alternator problems we had when we first got it.  I’ve also noticed that it seems to run really nicely above 6000 ft of elevation.  Maybe because the air is cooler, maybe the carburetor was adjusted for elevation and one time and never returned to their low level settings.  I don’t know, carb adjusting can be more art than science and I haven’t done it enough to be confident.

I have to say my piloting role is kind of cool.  I like the participation.  I’m not just the driver, more like a steam train engineer.  We aren’t the fastest or most powerful or best looking on the road, far from it.  I have the feeling though, that if the machine and I pay attention to each other, are willing to compromise and take care of each other, we’ll get through this adventure in fine shape.

West of the Mississippi

I really enjoyed our drive through Missouri and the Ozarks. Very pretty, hilly and green with lots of interesting stops. Since we are ending our trip by meeting up with the boy scout troop in Gettysburg PA we decided it would be a good idea to work in some Civil War history along the way. Missouri and Oklahoma have many National Battlefields open to the public, and since we were driving right past and needed a break we stopped at Wilson's Creek National Battlefield.

Wilson's Creek was the first Civil War battle fought west of the Mississippi and also where the first General for the Northern Army to loose his life died. Nathaniel Lyon lost his life on Bloody Hill on August 10, 1861. The battle was fought on the Ray family farm, destroying the families corn field and crops. Their house was then used as a Confederate hospital, further depleting any supplies and food they had stored for the coming winter season. The Ray family, prosperous farmers and the town postmaster, went from wealthy to broke in only 6 hours that day, and never recovered. While the Confederacy won this battle, in the end Missouri remained under Union control.

The National Park Service does a great job of keeping places like this as natural and historically accurate as possible. The Ray house has been preserved and is open to the public, with a Park Service employee there to give tours and answer questions. We also spent a lot of time just walking around the grounds and the battlefield. Committed to conservation, I loved this drinking fountain in the interpretative center.

A place just to refill a water bottle!! We are trying very hard to conserve and not create more trash as we take this trip and are finding that many campgrounds out this way have no recycling available, so it was nice to be able to refill our reusable water bottles along the way. I'm really hoping as we move further west we are able to stay at some greener campgrounds.

St. Louis

When we started planning this trip a couple of years ago and were looking at places we wanted to visit St. Louis wasn't even on our radar. This city was picked by the boys as they had learned in school that St. Louis is “The Gateway to the West” and they decided that our journey really should begin here. They were right, it was an excellent place to start. Driving through the cornfields of Indiana and Illinois the land is flat and you can see for miles. The boys spotted the Gateway Arch when we were still several miles away on the highway and were thrilled to find that it really does lead you right into the city of St. Louis.

We had reservations at the Casino QueenRV Park in East St. Louis Illinois, directly across the Mississippi River from the Gateway Arch. While the park itself was not much more than a giant asphalt parking lot with a small playground, the view of the arch from almost every spot was spectacular. This park was also located within a short walk to a Metro Link station and the arch was just one stop away, which allowed us to leave the King parked and use public transportation to get around.

The Jefferson National ExpansionMemorial is home not only to the Gateway Arch, but also to the Museum of Westward Expansion which contains artifacts from the Louisiana Purchase and the Lewis and Clark expedition, through the Dred Scott Case. There are also a number of Native American artifacts including a life sized tipi. It's a nice museum, but the boys went through it fairly quickly.

After the museum we headed into one of the theaters to watch “Monument to the Dream,” a short film about how the monument was made. Designed by Eero Saarinen, the same architect who designed Kleinhans Music Hall in our hometown, it is the tallest man made monument (at 630 feet) in the country. Construction took 2 ½ years to complete and the arch opened to the public June 10, 1967.

Next, we headed for the tram to take a ride to the top! Luckily, each tram car holds 5 people, so we were all able to ride up together. The cars are pretty small, kinda noisy, and clank from side to side as you ascend through the legs of the arch. There are several observation windows at the top and the view is spectacular! On a clear day you can see for miles in any direction and the boys loved picking out the various buildings and trying to find the King in the RV park across the river. We took our time, looking out all the windows in each direction, taking tons of pictures.

The tram ride down from the top of the arch seemed to go much faster. We had time for a quick snack before heading into another movie, this one about Lewis and Clark and their expedition into the new territory acquired through the Louisiana Purchase. A very well made movie, it's hard to imagine such a journey across the Rocky Mountains and all the way to the Pacific Ocean without maps or roads to help guide you there.

Finally, some thoughts on the city of St. Louis itself. It was totally not what I expected, but did remind me in many ways of home. I was surprised to find a waterfront city, in it's heyday a boom town, with no recreational boating and very little public waterfront access. When asked, we were told that this section of the Mississippi is too narrow for recreational watercraft and is also a commercially busy shipping lane. All day long we noticed one barge after another being pushed up or down the river. Apparently, recreational boating is available several miles north, in a wider section of the river that has been dammed up. Also, as you can see from the pictures, while the city of St. Louis is prominent on one side of the river, with it's shops, museums, restaurants and attractions, the Illinois side of the river is devoid of things to do, save for the one casino where we were staying. It's filled with open fields and heavy industry and brought to mind the US and Canada, separated by Niagara Falls and the Niagara River.  While Buffalo's waterfront does offer several recreational opportunities, there's still room for so much more improvement, and St. Louis seems to be in the same boat.

Ironic

I took this picture at the Metro Link station this morning...

Really, whomever is pushing this button needs to just knock it off.  It was 102 degres today, and it's going to stay over 100 all week as we head through Oklahoma.  Did I mention it was in the low 80's at home today.  Blissfull...

The extreme heat is messing with the AC and the fridge in the King.  The AC unit on the roof did take a hit from a sizeable branch during that thunderstorm in Columbus, but was working when we got to St. Louis.  By this morning however, it was clearly no longer capeable of producing cool air and when we got back tonight after a day of sightseeing in the hot sun the King felt like an oven.  We turned it off and gave it a rest and now it does seem to be cooling again!!  Hurrah!!  We are going to see if we can have someone take a look at it this week, just to make sure that it can keep us cool in the desert.

We really enjoyed the Arch and the National Park here in St. Louis.  I have a lot of thoughts about this city, and found it to be similar to our own hometown in many ways, but tonight we were busy packing up as we want to get on the road early, before it gets super hot.  For now, here's one of my favorite pictures from today, a cool picture of the shadow of the arch I took while we were at the top.

Columbus, Ohio

It's been an absolutely crazy busy couple of days since we left Buffalo Wednesday morning, pretty much on schedule. We were fixing and tweaking and packing things right up through Tuesday afternoon, when we finally called it quits and decided that if we didn't have it, we would do without it. I took some pictures of the inside of the King before we left:

We also had some friends and neighbors stop by for a visit and to see us off. We have great neighbors!!

Our first days drive went pretty well. The boys were great and we got to Columbus, Ohio in one piece. It was great to see some of my cousins and their kids and my Aunt and Uncle. We had a wonderful visit and packed a lot of fun into a couple of days. We spent a whole day at COSI, an awesome science museum in downtown Columbus. Once inside, we shoved all 4 cousins into the hurricane simulator:

They loved it. Then it was back outside where they had to work together to use a giant lever to lift a car. They did a pretty good job:

We saw lots of other exhibits too, but one of their favorites was the space exhibit, where they each got to land a lunar exploration vehicle in the simulator.

I really enjoyed the Water exhibit, which had this giant statue of Poseidon and lots of neat things you do, like float plastic balls in the fountain and watch sound waves move through the water in these neat bronze bowls:

Friday we spent the day at the ColumbusZoo and Aquarium. We had a great day and saw lots of interesting animals, some that were even native to the zoo...

But, it was hot. Really, really hot. Like 103 degrees hot. And the older kids and cousins wanted to go through

 “justonemoreexhibitcanweseethegorillasinthecongoplease!!”

 But the little dude was just done, so the husband headed for the front gate with him for ice cream while I went trekking through the Congo with the tweens and teens. Just as we were finishing up the husband shoots me a text that says there's a huge thunderstorm about 30 minutes away and could we please move it because we need to get going. Sure enough, huge storm, tree limbs down, power outages, perhaps you heard about on the news. Luckily, we had left the King back at my Aunt and Uncles house, and weathered much of it in their Subaru on Route 315. We had left a couple of windows open, and the cushions were a little wet. Luckily there was no other damage and everything was dried out by the next morning. My Aunt and Uncle never lost power, but my cousin was still without late this morning when we left. Hope it's back on by now.

So today we headed further west, stopping at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base to see the NationalMuseum of the US Air Force. It was very interesting and had lots of planes to look at.

It was also a great way to break up the drive. We're all hooked up at our first official campground of the trip, just west of Indianapolis and will be heading for St. Louis in the morning. Please hope for clear roads and sunny skies!!