Rex and Nancy's Travels - "ALL WHO WANDER ARE NOT LOST" - JRR Tolkein

We have been keeping busy here in Arizona. Rex continues to enjoy working at the Dolly Steamboat. He is a crew member for the cruises and is training as a Captain. He also does maintenance on the boat and upkeep on the grounds. Nancy attends water exercise classes 4 mornings a week and hikes on Tuesdays with a hiking group in the park. Rex and Camille went desert 4-wheeling with a Jeep group and had a great time (Cody is a wimp and doesn’t like to go). We have attended a couple of dinners and breakfasts in the park clubhouse. On the 15th we drove to Wickenburg, AZ about 89 miles west of here to attend the 30th Annual Four Corners States Bluegrass Festival and Fiddle Championship. We had a great time listening to good bluegrass music and enjoying some good food. The junior and senior fiddle contest and the mandolin championship were really good – there was some amazing talent competing, especially the kids! Nancy’s parents arrived in Apache Junction on the 15th after spendi

It has been a while since we have posted anything on the blog and thought it was time to get it updated. September 14-19 – Loveland, CO We stayed at Loveland RV Village and enjoyed visiting with family and friends in the Ft. Collins/Loveland area. September 20-October 17 – Chama, NM We spent 4 weeks in Chama, NM where Rex volunteers as a Docent on the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad. The Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad is a living history museum operated by the states of Colorado and New Mexico. This year the railroad is operating 4 Baldwin steam engines on the 64 mile trip between Chama, NM and Antonito, CO. Ken & Michelle and Ken's parents along with Doug & Ruth, friends from our Colorado camping group, the RV Rascals, came to Chama and rode the train with us. We then all headed to Albuquerque to meet up with more frinds from the RV Rascals and to take in the first weekend of the Balloon Fiesta. We had a great time at the Fiesta and got to see the mass ascension

END OF TRIP TO ALASKA We left Cody and headed south towards Colorado. We stopped in Douglas, WY and spent Sunday night at their city park – a nice little park where you can dry camp overnight for free. Monday we headed to Loveland and are staying at Loveland RV Resort. We have traveled 12,314 miles in 3 months and 3 weeks – what a great trip!! Now that our Alaska trip is over we will update this blog periodically to keep our family and friends informed of where we are and what we are doing. We plan to stay in Loveland for a week and then head to Chama, NM where Rex will volunteer on the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad for about a month.

We drove to Cody where we are staying at Ponderosa Campground. We visited with friends, Dave & Joyce. Rex worked with Dave at CREA for many years. We have been to Cody before so we didn’t go to the museums but mainly enjoyed visiting with Dave and Joyce. They took us for a drive on Saturday to an archeological site near Greybull. We stopped at a airplane museum but, unfortunately , it was not open. We had a great visit and they were very gracious hosts, even letting us use their washer and dryer – it was great not to have to use a laundromat. If the economy doesn’t improve soon, this will be our new home!!!

We left Virginia City and headed south to West Yellowstone where we are staying at Rainbow Point Campground, a National Forest Campground North of West Yellowstone on Hebgen Lake. We had to wait alongside the road for a cattle drive to clear the road. We drove to Earthquake Lake a few miles North of Hebgen Lake and stopped at the Madison River Canyon Earthquake Area Visitor Center. On August 17, 1959 one of the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded on the North American continent struck the Madison River Canyon. The quake measured 7.5 and triggered a massive landslide sending over 80 million tons of rock down into the canyon totally blocking the Madison River. The water backed up behind the slide forming Earthquake Lake. Twenty-eight people were killed in this earthquake, mostly campers and individuals in resort cabins. The Army Corps of Engineers dug a spillway across the slide area so the Madison River could continue flowing and to keep the lakes from flooding more. We followed an

We left Missoula Sunday morning and drove to Virginia City, MT. We are staying in the Virginia City RV Park about a half mile outside of town. We will stay here for a few days and tour Virginia City and Nevada City. It rained most of the night and Monday morning was cool and cloudy. We drove into Virginia City and spent the day walking around and looking at the shops. Virginia City was a mining camp in the 1860’s and is now considered a ghost town even though it has 150 residents. The town is managed by the Montana Heritage Preservation and Development Commission and preservation projects are ongoing. They have moved a lot of original buildings from area mining towns to recreate Virginia City as it was in the late 1800’s. Many of the buildings have displays such as a general store, a clothing store, a blacksmith shop and a newspaper from that era. Many of the buildings had ongoing tourist type businesses in them. We even found Bob’s Place! Bob was a miner who was disabled in a mine ex