Day 5. AM. June 4th.

Day 5. Morning. June 4th.

Danger. Lake Ahead. Slow Down. Huh? Put signs like that in Minnesota, everybody would be slowing down all the time

Today we’re heading south to Chaco Culture NHP for 2-3 nights after a stop in Aztec, NM for groceries and email. Took a wrong turn to get to Aztec, meant to go through Bloomfield but it worked out well, Safeway and McDonalds with wifi in the same parking lot.

Chaco is one of the largest complexes of cliff dwellings and petroglyphs in the SW. It’s not as well known as Mesa Verde because it’s so remote and relatively undeveloped; for starters you have to drive 20+ miles of unpaved road to get there. There is potable water at the visitor center, and rest rooms, fire pits and picnic tables at the campground, and that’s all we need. More than we need, actually.

Comes right down to it, we don’t need a darn thing cuz we pretty much got it all on board. We carry enough food for a week, just need to get water and empty the holding tanks every 4-5 days.

Day 4. Morning. June 3rd.

This is a no-travel kick back, smell the flowers day and it feels great after 3 days on the road, preceded by several days of house shut down/trip prep busy work.

Had bacon-wrapped beef filets cooked over the campfire last night, along with hash browns, fresh salad and a glass of Chateau La Boxe cabernet sauvignon. We eat healthfully but well on the road, don’t have red meat very often. Trish is a marshmallowchocolaholic so she roasted a few before we buttoned up for the night. Tonight, it’s chicky boobs over the campfire.

Discovered a leak in the fresh water holding tank supply line this AM. Tightening the hose clamp didn’t help, could be it got hit by a rock and the 90 elbow is cracked. It’s only a slow drip but still need to get if fixed, maybe in Durango, next stop after Chaco (see day 5).

Our campground is on the San Juan River, which flows out of Navajo Lake, a huge reservoir. Trophy trout are caught here, browns, maybe others. Many of the folks camped here are fisherman but we are not. I posed as one for many years and caught the odd fish here and there, but finally admitted that I lacked the necessary dedication and patience. You catch it, I’ll cook it and help eat it.

Day 3. Trip mile 676. Evening. June 2nd. New Mexico.

Got gas in Gallup at $2.55 per gallon, likely the cheapest we’ll see on our trip. The remote places in Canada and Alaska will be maybe 3X that rate.

We went through Shiprock, NM today. Shiprock itself is a monolithic mountain standing all alone in the desert – impressive but we were unable to see the ship resemblance. Either we weren’t viewing it from the right angle or whoever named it was heavy into peyote.

Stopped at ACE in Bloomfield and got the stuff to fix the door latch I was whining about. It took longer to find the stuff than it did to do the fix. I didn’t find an appropriate metal backing plate so went with a 4” round flat plastic doorknob bang plate. Works fine and looks better than the metal plate would have.

Cottonwood Campground at Navajo Lake SP is our home for the next 2 nights, pretty spot on river below large reservoir; no wifi.

Day 3, morning.

I'm delinquent in my crew introductions. From the pix you've already figured out I'm sure, that Trish is the shapely female that fills the position of navigator/copilot - and main squeeze of pilot/engineer. Ranger (PR manager/security chief) is that red miniature poodle in the pix, affectionately know as Furball - and main squeeze of navigator/copilot.

2010 is the first model year for the EDGE and many smart buyers avoid buying vehicles in the first model year. Obviously that description does not include us. Overall it's a great rig, state of the art in super light weight compact trailers with full electrical/plumbing amenities. It weighs in about 500 pounds less than anything comparable. But - and I realize there's always a but cuz no vehicle is perfect - there are several design flaws and weaknesses, things that looked good on the drawing board but didn't get adequate field testing. We've already rebuilt, upgraded, replaced or enhanced most of the stuff we didn't like and it's a fairly long list.

The next rebuild item is the latch that holds the door open. Due to the location of the awning support, the door can't be opened so it's flat against the side of the trailer, which is the ideal. Instead, the latch holds the door open at a 35 degree angle to the exterior sidewall, and thus is subject to being buffeted by wind, any wind. Long story short, the buffeting is causing the latch screws to pull loose from the door. Gotta anchor the darn thing by drilling right through the door and attaching a metal backing plate to the inside of the door with bolts and locknuts. That will be a challenge given the limited tools we have along. But I'm gonna 'git r done.'

"Half Broke Horses" by Jeanette Walls is my current read. It's what they call a 'true life novel' about a woman who lived in the NW corner of AZ in the early/mid 1900's. The main character lived near Seligman when they were first paving Route 66. It's a true story and includes pictures of the main characters. It's a good read in itself but more enjoyable since we just traveled through the subject territory. Add it to your reading list if you have an interest in southwest US history.

Day 2; end of day. Trip mile 491.

' I'm standin' on the corner in Winslow, Arizona. I'm such a fine sight to see.' Eagles song. So, they put a bronze statue of a guy standing on the corner. Never heard of it before good friends John and Mollie informed me of same; they did the whole Route 66 bit and I think they even stayed in the teepee motel in Holbrook.

We were going to stay at the Navajo campground north of Window Rock but too bleak: no wifi, picnic tables or fire rings. Just ratty looking grass and a place to park. We can get that at a rest stop. Piss on it. Drove to Gallup and pulled into the KOA.

We're headed to Navajo Lake SP, NM for the next 2 nights.

Day 2, morning. Trip mile 211.

Brrrrrrrrr. At 5 AM it was 42 degrees at out Fort Tuthill campground. We were exhausted last night, hit the sack about 7:30, hence the early wake up. The campground has lots of pine trees,is next door to the fairgrounds, used to be a large national guard training center estalished in 1929.

Drove thru Seligman and Williams, both steeped in Route 66 lore, pix of James Dean and Marilyn Monroe, vintage gas pumps, 50s cars and so on. Was tempted to stop at the famous Roadkill Cafe in Seligman but didn't.

Last night's entree was to be spaghetti, a frozen leftover, turned out to be pumpkin, gave some to Ranger, tossed the rest, had sauteed shrimp instead. We were too tired to build a campfire - and that's pretty darn tired. I prefer to cook over the campfire and will do so tonight, chicken breasts.

Slept well our first night on our rebuilt bed. Original mattress was too hard so added 3" memory foam pad - great but too high, ceiling head banger, stepladder required for entry/exit. So, sold original mattress and got 2 pieces of top quality 1/2" carpet pad to put under the memory foam, works great, toss the stepladder.

Wifi really slow here so no pix this time.

Day one. Trip mile 0.

Launch day. May 31, 2010. Trip mile 0.

In a few hours we’ll head north on hiway 95, hang a right at I-40, and continue on to Flagstaff where we’ll be spending the night at Fort Tuthill Community Park.
En route we go through the town of Williams, named after Bill Williams. There’s lots of stuff around here named after good ol Bill: a river, a mountain, a town, and who knows what else. It bothers me that Bill’s folks couldn’t come up with a different first name. Not much imagination there, reminds me of that one-time UN secretary Boutros Boutros-Ghaly.

“Well, Martha, what should we name our baby boy? Let’s see, our last name is Dip: let’s keep it simple and stay with that. We’ll call him Dip Dip, aka Double Dip. Now, how about a middle name? Hey, I got it: Dip. We’ll nickname him ‘3D.’ If he’s slim of stature, we can call him Dipstick. Hope he doesn’t stutter.”

Sorry, readers, I do get carried away at times. Stupid-ass names are one of my pet peeves and that’s because I myself have one of those ambivalent first names, one that’s more often used on the fairer sex than not. I’ve always hated it and don’t use it. So, I can empathize with Bill and a boy named Sue and whoever else has been saddled with names that guarantee them endless taunts and harassment in the early school years.

So, who was Bill Williams anyway? I Googled him: well known trapper and scout in the mid 1800s. Care to guess what his folks gave him for a middle name? Would you believe Sherley? Good grief! Double Bill-ing wasn’t bad enough? Okay, here’s the scenario: I’m a judge and Bill Sherley Bill is in my courtroom, charged with two counts of murder one. He finally took a shotgun to his folks in retribution for the lousy names. My verdict: justifiable homicide.

The first leg of our trip will take 3 weeks, destination Minnesota. We’ll be visiting several national parks and monuments along the way, the first of which will be Petrified Forest NP in northeast AZ. From there we head to Window Rock to see the famous rock itself and to visit Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn of the Navajo Tribal Police.

If you’ve read Tony Hillerman you’ll realize, of course, that we won’t actually see Jim and Joe, they being fictional characters. Tony was (he died in 2008) a prolific best-selling author who wrote 18 mysteries featuring Chee and Leaphorn. I’ve read most of them and so has Trish. It’ll be kinda neat to be at the scene of the crime – so to speak.

Gotta hit the sack now so I’m ready to shut down the house and put the pedal to the metal later this AM.

Launch day + 1

Launch day + 1.
It’s Memorial Day weekend and LHC is a major holiday destination for lovers of sun and boating. By 9 AM there were already thousands of boats on the lake, many vying for the prime parking spots along both sides of the channel. The channel was dug so London Bridge would have something to bridge; it’s about a mile long and has nice parks, hotels, restaurants and sidewalks on both sides. The boats, many of them ‘cigarette’ style boats boasting 750+ horsepower, park side by side along both sides of the channel where they can access the onshore services, rest rooms, shade trees, and where they can see and be seen.

Trish and I speculate that the main reason for having one of these loud overpowered expensive boats is to offset having a diminutive penis. Of course, there are plenty of practical reasons, ya gotta have something to haul your beer cooler, lawn chairs and barbie to the park for cripes sakes. So, hundreds of boats are parked shoulder to shoulder, radios blaring, motors revving, young studs in swim trunks and women in bikinis posturing. Now, add a constant stream of boats through the channel and two constant streams of people strolling back and forth on the bordering sidewalks, and you got the picture. It’s draggin’ Broadway, LHC style.

It’s not entirely a mating ritual though; there are plenty of families in the mix. And there are many folks who just stop by for awhile to enjoy the spectacle and hoist a brewski. That includes Trish and me occasionally - cheap entertainment and some of the passing scenery is quite spectacular. “Holy crap, look at the ____on that one!” Insert word of choice in the blank, it’s all there: tattoos, muscles, and paint jobs, boobs, butts and beer bellies.

It’s our last day of trip prep, still much to do and I better get to it.

Launch day + 2

Hooked up the RV to shore power yesterday AM, turned on the fridge and set the A/C. For you landlubbers and non-RVers shore power is AC electricity, as in houses and campground hookups. The fridge needs 24 hours of chill time before you put the food in. And, I turned on the A/C to a low setting; it's forecast to be 100 degrees or so in LHC the next couple days, don't want things melting before we even hit the road.

Today we move stuff from patio to garage: Pancho, Grunt, Barbie, patio furniture, Trish's exercise bike (Q: What's Irish and lives outside, near your back door? A: Paddy O'Furniture). Also, it's RV loading time. My clothes are mostly loaded but Trish's aren't, also gotta load food and all the misc crap we'll need for the next 4 months. Well...not all the crap we'll need but enough to hold us a few days. It's not like we're going to Lower Slobbovia with no grocery stores.

Gotta empty out the home fridge since it will be turned off. Been systematically using up dribs and drabs of condiments, reducing frozen goodies to quantities that will fit in the RV fridge. May end up giving a few items to our 2 elderly widow neighbors - both neat people, by the way.

Most people who leave AZ for the summer seal up their drains and toilets before leaving. Otherwise the water evaporates from the p-traps, allowing sewer gas to come up; yucko! They also leave large containers of water in the tubs and showers to keep things from drying out too much. We'll be leaving the containers of water, but won't need to do the seal up thing cuz we've got a home services outfit coming in twice monthly to flush toilets, run water in all the sinks and drains, and check on things. Adds a little peace of mind.

I've included pix of Pancho, Grunt and Barbie for those who've not met them. You'll be able to figure out who's who I think.