Archive for Uncategorized
February 17, 2006 at 7:34 am · Filed under Uncategorized
We’re leaving today. Emma is still sleeping, but Eleanor and I are prepping to go to our next stop, which is Del Rio, Texas.
We’re all a bit wiped out from the hiking. Yesterday I worked all morning at the local coffee shop (where I could get online) and after lunch we drove back into the park for a pair of hikes, 3.8 miles and 1.6 miles. The day before we did the same thing, taking Bert with us up to the Chisos Mountains for a hike until sunset. The weather has been spectacular (80 degrees and unlimited sunshine) and there hasn’t been much wind, which is essential in this dusty environment. We consume a LOT of water these days to combat the dryness, because if you get behind you’ll feel even more tired.
Emma the leader gives instructions to her troops on a Chisos Basin hike
The lack of telephone service and questionable Internet has been troublesome for me, and we need to get going if we are to make our scheduled dinner at the Salt Lick in Austin next Wednesday. Between then and now we want to visit Del Rio and San Antonio, and there’s 500 miles to cover along the way.
Sometimes people think that our lives on the road are without the usual challenges of day-to-day life. In fact, we’ve just substituted new challenges for the ordinary ones. For example, consider the fiasco that ensued when a component on the bike rack snapped last Sunday, forcing us to carry one bike in the trailer until a new part could be shipped in.
We called for a spare part (from a payphone) and asked for it to be shipped overnight. But FedEx doesn’t deliver here. USPS offered “Express Mail” service to the Panther Junction post office but failed to meet the delivery promise of Wednesday. By then, we were in Study Butte, 30 miles away.
It was hard to track the part because the Internet service at the campground went down daily. The wifi signal was borrowed from a nearby liquor store, apparently by some agreement. First the problem was the phone company, then somebody tripped over the power cable on the wifi router. Each time it went down I ended up on my hands and knees in the dusty back room of the liquor store, trying to diagnose the problem for the owner, who wasn’t too happy at my presence.
Finally I gave up on the campground wifi and started driving to the one other place in town where people can get online: the coffee shop. There, things were more reliable (I’m there now). The bike rack part has arrived now, so we’ll get it one the way through the park on our way north to Marathon. Then we can re-assemble the rack (in the parking lot of the post office) and proceed to Del Rio.
UPDATE Feb 2006: Carol McNair, general manager of the Big Bend Motor Inn and RV Park, informs me the entire campground will have wi-fi Internet next year!
But I am not happy with this Yakima roof rack. The “universal” connection method they use for the Nissan Armada results in a very wobbly rack, which is why the part broke in the first place. It’s also very hard to get a bike on the roof of this tall vehicle without (a) scratching the car; (b) killing one’s self. We need a better solution for carrying bikes with the Airstream in tow. I’m researching that now, and will report on it later.
Met this guy on a trail yesterday and he tried to sell us car insurance
February 15, 2006 at 6:29 am · Filed under Uncategorized
Are Texans extra friendly or are we just becoming notorious? We spent part of the afternoon visiting Terlingua, where we met a fellow named David, who runs a ghost town. It consists of the remains of a handful of dry-laid stone buildings and a few slowly melting adobe huts. On behalf of the owner of the land, David leases the buildings to artists and entrepreneurs and other such people, who are slowly rebuilding them into a new sort of community.
David and his wife also run an art gallery from one of the refurbished buildings, featuring local art. Their home is a 37-foot school bus. They have unreliable electricity, unremitting heat in the summer, little water, and few local amenities. For seven years, they have lived in the dusty surroundings of Terlingua Ghost Town, with the other quirky inhabitants, and they have loved it.
We immediately hit it off. When Eleanor mentioned that she lives in an Airstream, David did a double-take and said, “I think I’ve read your blog!” Since we hadn’t mentioned we have a blog, this was a shock. Keep in mind we were standing in a ghost town that is sort of a suburb of a tiny village that is literally the end of the line in southwest Texas. I can only get online by driving down to the Terlingua Springs Market and borrowing their wi-fi. Many people here don’t have telephones. And yet, this guy knows us!
But that’s how it is going now. People are writing to us from other parts of the country, saying basically, “I’ve read your blog. Come to our town and we’ll give you courtesy parking.” We love that. I expect we will meet a lot of people by courtesy parking in their driveways, and it sounds like a great way to spend the summer.
Today we are going to take most of the day to go hiking in the park. I’ll hopefully have my camera back tonight (still no appearance by Bert & Janie), and if so I’ll try to post as many pictures as I can. In the meantime, I can use Emma’s camera to document today’s trip.
February 13, 2006 at 3:42 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
We are back in the Internet zone this afternoon. Big Bend has been amazing, as usual. I will be posting huge blog entries all about it as soon as I get my thoughts together, my 105 emails squared away, and my photos downloaded. Look for more on that on Tuesday.
Just a random thought for you today: We have been on the road for 135 days at this point, and it seems like absolutely no time at all. Eleanor and I were talking about this a couple of days ago. We have no sensation of time passing. Life “on the road” is so full, so exciting, and busy that we have to remind ourselves we’ve been at this for four months.
It feels more like a series of adventures. We don’t miss our house. We don’t feel “cut off” from friends or family. We don’t feel claustrophobic. If anything, the experience has been better than we ever expected it to be. I’m not sure if this is a symptom of our personalities, or simply the road speaking to us.
Sign of the week:
Says who?
February 8, 2006 at 5:29 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
West Texas is so vast that it would probably be its own state if anyone lived here.
We decided not to push hard on the drive to Big Bend, so we came as far as this little state park. It’s the kind of place that defines “middle of nowhere”. The centerpiece of this park is a large natural spring, which forms a giant swimming pool that is 72 to 76 degrees year-round.
While I’m catching up on work for two days, Eleanor and Emma may gather their courage and go for a little swim, or even some snorkeling. Snorkeling in Texas? Yes, and if the water is clear enough we may even see some fish.
Bert & Janie arrived a few hours before us, but they are going to head to Marathon tomorrow to meet another friend. (That may be only an excuse, so they don’t have to go swimming!) We’ll all rendezvous in Big Bend over the weekend, probably in Rio Grande Village. Tomorrow I’ll take some photos of this Balmorhea State Park and give you a report.
February 7, 2006 at 6:17 am · Filed under Uncategorized
We are on the move again. According to Dr C., we have “done” Tucson and with his blessing we pulled up stakes and headed east on I-10 toward new and colder frontiers.
Sunday, as planned, was a day to catch up on a million little things. It’s important to have those times in the schedule or you start feeling overloaded. We got all the errands done, laundry, cleaning, re-arranging, etc., so we were ready to hit the road today.
We talked to Bert and agreed to meet up at a state park near White Sands National Monument. He and Janie were further north in New Mexico photographing bird migrations. For them it was only three or four hours drive time, but we ended up blowing the whole day between driving and stops.
One stop was to get the Airstream washed again. This time I tried a “self-service” wash designed specifically for RVs. Not great. I got the trailer clean “¦ mostly “¦ but I wouldn’t recommend it. The real truck wash service is still better, even at $40 versus $10.
We pulled into Oliver Lee Memorial State Park after dark, so we couldn’t get a photo for this blog entry. But tomorrow we are planning to spend the day out with Bert & Janie at White Sands and perhaps the New Mexico Museum of Space History, so I expect to come back with a pile of pictures.
From here on for at least a week, we’ll be caravanning with Bert and Janie. They have an Airstream too, a Safari 28 slide-out. (It’s sweet. Great space inside.) We are going to spend two nights here in Alamogordo, then head to Big Bend National Park in Texas for a few days. Then we’ll probably caravan together over to San Antonio. There may be some other stops as well. It should be great fun!
February 3, 2006 at 8:04 am · Filed under Uncategorized
What a great day for visitors! Around noon, I was cycling around the park and dropping off copies of Airstream Life on the steps of every Airstream I found (we have four here now). When I got back, I found a fellow in a bright aloha shirt looking at our trailer. It turned out to be blog reader Mike Birch, who had deduced what park we were in from the clues I gave in the blog!
Mike and his wife Tracy were just stopping in to say Hi, but we couldn’t let them go that easily, so we ended up having a tour through the interior and then sitting out under the awning on a glorious Arizona day. They are heading west from Texas in their Airstream right now, and just happened to be crossing paths with us here in Tucson. They’ve offered us courtesy parking at their place in Colorado, which we may be able to accept when we come back west in May.
Unfortunately we had to cut our visit short because we needed to get over to the airport to pick up our friend Andy. He’s escaping the cold damp weather of Boston for a few days. Poor guy showed up wearing a fleece and blue jeans (we were wearing sandals and shorts). We took him over to a couple of gem show venues and then headed back to the trailer for dinner.
It’s very unusual to have a guest in our Airstream, but it is fun. Since we have the only Airstream floorplan with two bedrooms, we are actually quite comfortable. And the weather is great so we aren’t spending much time inside anyway.
January 31, 2006 at 3:26 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
Marc (a blog reader) chastized me for implying that there was something wrong with the Big RV Resort. He made some good points about the necessity of full-hookup sites for vintage trailer owners who don’t have gray tanks, and the ease of taking kids to places where there are swimming pools and entertainment.
I agree, especially about the full hookups. Our 77 Argosy only had a 10 gallon gray tank, and that just didn’t cut the mustard for more than a day. But on the other hand, there are nice places with full hookups and not-so-nice places.
Our parking spot
The place we are in is nice in the sense that it is loaded with amenities. It’s clean, comfortable, and well run. It caters to a crowd of Class A and big fifth wheel owners who want all the comforts of home. But there’s nothing here other than the pool and the restaurant. It’s sort of the RV equivalent of a Holiday Inn. The reason to be here is to have a home base to go somewhere else.
For Airstream spotters, there’s not much to see. I only found one Airstream, a late-model Safari Bambi 19. The owners were out. But there are a few very impressive Class A motorhomes, including a few Prevost buses which have to cost about a million each.
For $33 a night (Good Sam discount rate), I think we are getting a decent deal. If the pool is warm, I might even say we are getting a great deal. (We’ll check that tomorrow if it’s a bit warmer than today.) Normally, we seek out state and national parks that are in themselves destinations, but when visiting a city such as Tucson, the “motel” is a good way to go.
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