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

Many more residents arrived and more activities have started in the park this month. We hike with 2 hiking groups each week. On Tuesdays we go with the “Stop and Smell the Roses” group which takes easier hikes with plenty of time to look at the surrounding area. On Friday’s we go with the “Friday Hike” group which does a little harder and longer hikes. Rex gets to go on some of the hikes depending on his work schedule. On days we are not hiking, Nancy does a floor exercise class at 8 am followed by a water aerobics class at 9 am. We are still taking Bailey with us on our daily walks with Camille and Cody. We also went on a 4-wheel drive trip with our Jeep group to Mt. Lemmon by Tucson. We drove up the back side of Mt. Lemmon and stopped at Summerhaven for a picnic lunch. Summerhaven is a small resort town by the ski area. We then took the highway back to Apache Junction. We keep forgetting to take our camera with us so we don’t have any hiking or 4-wheeling pictures yet. The park hos

The first week we were in Arizona it was 104-107 F every day. We had a storm on Tuesday evening, the 5th, with high wind, heavy rain and some hail. We survived the storm OK but one RV here lost an awning and a few carports were damaged. One of our neighbors lost their Saguaro cactus. There was a lot of damage in the Mesa and Tempe area with power poles and trees lying on roofs. On Wednesday morning, there were 8 tornados around the Flagstaff area. One small town, Bellemont, lost 30 homes and a large number of RVs. The local news showed a picture of a Mobile Suites on its side. The door was against the ground so they had to rescue the couple through the back window. Was really sad to see a 5th wheel like ours destroyed. Luckily there was no one seriously injured in these storms. The storms brought some cooler weather and the forecast is for no more triple digit temperatures until next spring – Yeah! We bought a storage shed from another resident of the park. We were not sure how w

We left Midland Monday morning and the truck is running great. We drove to El Paso and then up to Deming, NM where we spent the night at the Low-Hi RV Park. The park is nice and is the headquarters for Loners on Wheels, a singles camping organization. We were walking the dogs and got to view this spectacular New Mexico Sunset. Tuesday morning we had a good time watching this Roadrunner running around behind our 5 th wheel. We drove down I-10 to Lordsburg, NM and then headed North on Highway 70 through Globe and Superior, AZ. We arrived in Apache Junction early Tuesday afternoon and boy is it hot here - it was 104o F when we arrived. The forecast is for triple digits the rest of the week and then in the high 90’s next week. It is about 10o warmer here than normal. It seems like it has been 10o warmer than normal everywhere we have been this fall. We got settled into our site at Golden Sun RV Resort and are the only ones on our street. The park is really empty this time

Shortly after noon on Wednesday we noticed that the truck was losing power on the small hills of west Texas. It kept getting worse and black smoke starting coming out of the tailpipe. We stopped at a roadside picnic area about 30 miles east of Midland where the truck died and wouldn’t start again. Thank goodness for Good Sam Emergency Road Service! They found a towing company that had a truck big enough to tow the truck & 5th wheel.   They towed the truck & 5th wheel to the Ford dealership in Midland and we followed in the Jeep. We got there at 6 pm just as the dealership was closing. The tow truck driver parked the truck & 5th wheel on a side street beside the dealership and that’s where we spent the night. We couldn’t open the slide outs all the way so ate out at a great Mongolian grill with Jen, Rex’s daughter. After dinner we visited with Jen at her apartment until it was time to call it a night. Luckily the street the 5th wheel was parked on was a dead-end street a

We took off Monday morning and didn’t even make it to the interstate before we had another blow out! We were able to pull into the driveway of the local Pepsi distributor where Rex took off the tire and went to the tire store where we bought the tire last week. They didn’t have one in stock and it would take a couple of days to get one. Rex came back to the 5th wheel and we were discussing that we really didn’t want to travel very far without a spare when a very nice man stopped and asked us if we needed help. He called a tire store close by and they had a tire. Instead of just giving Rex directions to the tire shop, he had Rex follow him in the Jeep to the store. Unfortunately we did not get his name but appreciated his help. With a 2nd new tire we were on our way. It was too hot to camp without electricity to run the air conditioner so we stopped at a very nice RV park in Hot Springs, AR called Cloud Nine RV Park. It was in a heavily wooded area and had a nice trail through the woo

The brake caliper parts for the 5th wheel did not come in yesterday but are suppose to be in by noon today. Rex had called the company that manufactures the brakes and they told him how to bypass that wheel so that the rest of the brakes would work. After making that fix and bleeding the brakes we headed to Trailer World in Bowling Green and got there just before noon. Wouldn’t you know it, UPS was late today and we didn’t get the part until 2:00 pm. We then headed to Sikeston, MO where we arrived at Nancy’s brother’s house around 6:30 pm. Nancy’s nephew, Christopher, and his wife, Madison, have a house on 5 acres and we are parked on their property. We had a nice visit with Nancy’s brother, Bob, and his fiancée, Audrey.   We also enjoyed visiting with Christopher and Madison.   Bob’s two younger sons, Mike and Jason stopped by for a visit on Sunday.   Madison was babysitting her cousin’s little girl, Leyla and we got a cute picture of her riding Lilly, the Great Dane.   Christop

We drove to Georgetown, KY where we spent the night in the Wal-Mart parking lot. It was a busy area with lots of truck noise but we managed to get a good night’s sleep. Tuesday morning we headed towards mammoth Cave National Park. After about two hours we were on I-65 and a pickup pulled next to us, honked and motioned toward the rear of the 5th wheel. We pulled over and discovered that we had blown a tire. The tire was torn completely off the wheel and had wrapped around the axel and broke our brake line. The shoulder of the road was narrow and there was not a lot of room to change the tire. There were a lot of semi trucks going by and many of them couldn’t or wouldn’t change lanes. It took Rex a while to get the shredded tire unwrapped from the axel but after about an hour we were on our way again. We didn’t have brakes on the 5th wheel so we slowly drove the 30 miles to the campground. After getting set up in Diamond Caverns Resort & Golf Course, Rex went in search of parts to

We have been keeping busy our last couple of weeks here. Rex cut down some dead trees for Arnie in the woods behind their house. They rented a log splitter and split the wood so now Arnie and Sheryl will have wood to burn for a few winters. He also built a set of cornhole boards for his mom. We went to a flea market in Kidron, OH where there were selling a lot of old tools and junk. Many Amish go to the flea market so we got to see lots of horse buggies.               We visited the grave site where Rex’s father and baby sister are buried. We trimmed the trees and cleaned up around the markers. Rex’s sister died at 8 days old in 1964 and his father was killed in an oil field accident in 1965.       We have been getting together with a lot of Rex’s relatives. We had dinner with his cousin Peg and her husband Fred a couple of times. Rex’s mother gets together every Saturday night with family at McDonalds. We joined her and her brother, Ike, and her sister, Margaret and h

We left Cheyenne on Monday morning and drove to Lincoln, NB where we spent the night in a Wal-Mart parking lot. Tuesday we drove to Princeton, IL where we again stayed in a Wal-Mart parking lot. It rained hard all day Tuesday and when we stopped at a rest area somewhere in Iowa for lunch Rex noticed one of the tires of the 5th wheel was low. When he was airing it up he found that the wheel rim had split- so he had to change the tire in the pouring rain! We called DRV, the company that manufactured our 5th wheel and they had one wheel rim left that we could have. They are located in Howe, IN, which will only be about 100 miles out of our way. We figured we would have a hard time finding a wheel to match any place else and we knew we were not going to make it to Ohio in time for Rex’s stepfather’s funeral, so we decided to take the time to go get the wheel. We got to Howe at 4 pm on Wednesday, just in time to get the wheel before the plant closed for the day. We spent the night at Grand

We camped with our old FCRV camping group, The RV Rascals, at the AB Campground in Cheyenne, WY. It was great to see all our camping friends for the weekend. Our granddaughter, Mariah, came with us and was happy to see a couple of the kids she grew up camping with. The campground has a BBQ restaurant that serves the best ribs we have had in a long time. We went to the Farmer’s Market in downtown Cheyenne and got some great Colorado peaches and some tomatoes. Kind of funny that we went to Wyoming to get Colorado peaches! Rex’s mother called Sunday afternoon to tell us that his stepfather had passed away. Consequently, we are changing our plans and instead of heading to South Dakota we are leaving Monday morning for Shreve, Ohio. We are not sure we are going to make it for the funeral but will try.

We are staying at Loveland RV Resort and yes it is hot here – makes us wish we were back in the cool mountains! We have had a very enjoyable time visiting with family and friends. We took our granddaughter, Mariah, to Longmont where Nancy’s parents are camped in her sister Susan’s driveway. Nancy’s mother is regaining her strength after her bout with pneumonia but it is a long slow process. We had a number of enjoyable visits and dinners with family and friends and got to eat at our favorite restaurants again. We also bought a Garmin GPS unit and are learning how to use it. We think we will name her “Mabel”.

We drove to Buena Vista and stayed at the Mt. Princeton RV Park for 2 nights. Sunday afternoon we spent doing laundry. On Monday we drove to St. Elmo which is much more commercial since we were there last. From St. Elmo we took a really rough 4WD road over Tin Cup Pass. It started raining just as we got to the pass so we left the dogs in the Jeep and got a quick picture.                   We drove down the other side of Tin Cup Pass to Mirror Lake.                           We then drove through the old mining town of Tin Cup which now has a lot of summer homes.                           We liked this sign – which was on our way out of town.                           From Tin Cup we drove to Taylor Park Reservoir and then on a 2WD road over Cottonwood Pass.                     This is looking down the other side of Cottonwood Pass.   It rained both days we were in Buena Vista which kept the temperature cool.  We

Rex has been busy working on the train at least 3 or 4 days a week so that has not left us a lot of time for other activities. We did take a hike in the Rio Grande National Forest North of Chama. Our plan was to hike to this waterfall across the valley, but we couldn’t find the trail that cuts off to the waterfall. We still had a great hike in a beautiful area.               We celebrated Nancy’s birthday on the 14th with friends from Mississippi, Billy & Arlene. We had a great dinner and enjoyed catching up with Billy & Arlene.   Nancy enjoyed a great ride on the train on the 16th while Rex was working as a Docent. We rode the bus to Antonito where we got on the train and rode to Osier, CO where we had a great lunch. After lunch we boarded the train and rode to Cumbres Pass where we met the bus for the ride back to Chama. It was hot but a very enjoyable day.               One of the perks of being a Docent is getting to hold hands with the

We drove to Chama, NM and are staying at the Rio Chama RV Park. We have been staying in this park for about 8 years and have gotten to know the owners and some of the work campers. A few of Rex’s fellow docents with the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad also stay here. It is nice to see our friends again. The site we are in is a new site they just put in this spring and we are the first rig to use it. The pad that they built up to park on was narrow and not packed down; consequently, we had a hard time getting in the spot as our tires kept sinking. Once we got parked and settled it is a really nice site. Our site backs up to the Rio Chama River – what a great view out our back window! The tracks for the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad are in the trees on the other side of the river.                   We also can see this from the door of the 5th wheel   Yes, that is one of the two bear traps in the park – they currently have a bear problem. A large black bear