Day 63 Fri, Nov 29

Fri, Nov 29

Drive home!

Days 61-62 Weds, Nov 27-Thurs, Nov 28

Weds, Nov 27-Thurs, Nov 28

Visiting with family in Pennsylvania.

Day 60 Tues, Nov 26

Tues, Nov 26

We were parked right next to a busy route 81….so road sounds but that did not keep me from sleeping or wake me….a peaceful night despite. We have about a 4-5 hour drive today to spend time with David’s family and outlet stores and goodwill before that. Then done driving until Friday when we arrive home.

Day 59 Mon, Nov 25

Mon, Nov 25

Yeah, the train whistles started at 4:30am; I had just woken and was trying to go back to sleep…not happening. David slept through it all….not fair! Another long day of driving from Chattanooga Walmart to Woodstock Virginia Walmart. Note to self…do not plan the commute home during the week before Thanksgiving….route 81 was pretty heavy with out of state travellers. Glad to get another day under our belts.

Day 58 Sun, Nov 24

Sun, Nov 24

The night was fairly quiet but 5:30 am or so Mali decided to play watch dog and bark (a few) at the voices outside. We needed to get moving as we had almost 600 miles to drive today (actually that would be David and not me). Stops for gas, Denny’s (we have coupons) in Pearl Mississippi...yes mam! Sunday is a good day to drive…way less people on the road. Arrived at Chattanooga Walmart around 7pm after a LONG day of driving. Chattanooga choo choo! Trains blowing whistles!

Day 57 Sat, Nov 23

Sat, Nov 23

In the end two more campers arrived (local) so there was only one space left…hey it’s the weekend. A quiet night and everyone was nice. The hunters had four dogs and Mali behaved perfectly…was much more interested in my pizza and playing ball with me. We left early to end up east of Dallas. Our drive took us past MANY oil fields (and resulting water solutions….) cottonfields, windmill farms, and back to civilization after almost two months….and real trees. I-20 will get us most of the way east. We ended the day’s drive with an overnight at the Walmart in Linsdale, TX (home town of Miranda Lambert…lol). Dallas was rather congested and we had to reroute to get to the Columbia outlet (not a good one) due to an accident on I-20. Next time we need to pick when we are going through Dallas….Saturday night was not it. The outlet mall had people waiting for parking spots and we had to park pretty darn far away to fit.

Day 56 Fri, Nov 22

 Fri, Nov 22

Quick shopping and we left for another free spot. Eunice Recreation Area in Eunice, NM and a little over an hour away. A nice duck pond with portapotties, picnic areas, free electric and water…about 5 sites and they were close together. Just us and one other person. Mali liked the ducks but was well behaved sniffing up a storm. We spent most of the day here as we got here early on this cloudy day (first in a long time) and night here, of course. Enough to keep us busy enough for the day while we are making our way home. I would stay here again. The trees surrounding the pond/lake are pecan/pecons so we picked a few an ate them…delicious.

Day 55 Thurs, Nov 21

Thurs, Nov 21

Today in our slow move home…we left Oliver Lee State park (NM) and headed for Guadalupe National Park. Hours later we arrived to be disappointed by a parking lot for a campground. REALLY…just parking spaces. I think they can do a LOT better. We did some quick research and headed for Carlsbad Caverns. David went on the tour and I decided to keep Mali company…not much of a subterranean girl. And I made dinner rather than wait until I was hangry. Nice views from the parking lot. I selected our back up over night parking spot just north of Carlsbad Caverns…BLM lands….free. However, we got there and decided that it was not going to work for us. Plan C was the Walmart in Carlsbad…key word “bad”. We stayed there but you get what you pay for (small parking lot for the amount of traffic, busy, trucks and their noise. We slept well but it was a last resort for the day. This is why I usually always plan and research where we are going to stay (and I did this time except it didn’t work out) so we don’t have to go to auxillary plans.

Day 54 Weds, Nov 20

Weds, Nov 20

Rain last night late, today hard. Only the second rain while out here (some coming out though). When the rain quit and the radar map showed no more (it was windy also), we took off (after dump and water refill) for White Sands National Monument. We spent a nice day there and left at 4pm to spend the night at the Walmart in Alamagordo, NM. We arrived there to find: a busy parking lot with no where for us to have a quiet night, two different panhandlers, and no other rv’s. It was decided that since I didn’t want to cook we would have dinner at Chili’s; fajitas for both of us! We then, in the dark, headed for Oliver Lee State Park (less than 10 miles south) my plan B. Lucky there was a space. A quiet night. $10 = no electric, water in campground, dump, nice enough showers…perfect!

Day 53 Tues, Nov 19

Tues, Nov 19

Sob…we left Graham & Melissa’s this morning at 8am….Concho, AZ. Our days travel (route 60 to 380 in NM) had very few vehicles and a pleasant drive through the golden hills of eastern AZ. I DROVE for about one hour…a first. I even went as fast as 60mph. I was done after an hour…my hands were sweaty and I needed a break from the death grip on the wheel….. We ended the day in Valley of Fire BLM campground ($6 old guy pass and it has showers, trash, dump, water = perfect). We took a walk on their nature trail through the lava beds (pretty darn neat!) and around the campground. We arrived just in time to get a pull through site (so that we didn’t have to disconnect the Jeep) and after us came more than a few that would have happily had our pull through site.

Day 43-52 Sat, Nov 9 – Mon, Nov 18

Sat, Nov 9 – Mon, Nov 18

David and Graham went for supplies to cement the wind turbine tower.

I worked on burning the pile of juniper debris from his home site. Working on turbine and blocks to support turbine.

Backfilling the big blocks to hold guy lines for turbine.

Doing anything needing to get done! Setting up the wind turbine and all that involved…Graham climbing the tower.

Days 38-42 Mon, Nov 4 – Fri, Nov 8

Mon, Nov 4 – Fri, Nov 8

Graham is off training this week but we knew that so we are hanging out at his place and I am burning…carefully…juniper tree/bush scraps that they removed for housing site, etc. Walking. This week will also be spent getting some things done on the rv (David) and me cooking/baking some things for the eventualy ride home….more burning of piles of juniper and other things that can BURN/BURN/BURN when dry season is here.

Day 37 Sun, Nov 3

Sun, Nov 3

A decision was made that we would book it to Graham’s house near Concho, AZ. It took us way longer than expected with stops at walmart and for gas…we bailed on doing laundry until later this week and ditto on dumping tanks. We arrived just at dark and made our way successfully and separately (me in jeep and david in rv) with neither of us getting lost on the dark gravel roads. Visit with Graham a bit and off to bed.

Day 36 Sat, Nov 2

Sat, Nov 2

Dump tanks and head off to Bonelli Bay…hoping for less people and a beach for Mali. She is not really a swimmer but throw a stick and she will every so gently swim (spazzily) to get it and you cannot throw it far or she won’t get it.

Well Bonelli Bay was bust for us. I scouted the gravel road first and David followed slowly in the rv. I hit two long soft gravel spots (30-40 feet) that just would have bogged the rv down…so it was a no…too bad looked gorgeous. Back I went to tell him to turn around as he would soon hit the soft.



WELL, the road was not very conducive to a 25 foot rv turning around as they had plowed it so many times (pushing dirt up and over the sides that the only place we could find to turn around was a wash that I dug out a bit..tossing rocks out of the way. A many point turn and we were heading off to Temple bar and to stay in the campground ($10 with old guy pass/no showers but dump and trash). This campground is at the end of a paved road and holds 153 rv’s or tents but there were only 3 rv’s here including us. My best guess is that it is the furthest from Las Vegas; it is a Saturday too

Day 35 Fri, Nov 1

Fri, Nov 1

A relaxing day at Lake Mead. Graham turned us on to another place on Lake Mead that might have less people so we will head there tomorrow.