Malibu

We made it to Malibu Monday, after a difficult drive out of Santa Ynez to Santa Barbara. There a two ways out of Santa Ynez, where the coach was parked. One way is US 101 south right to PCH to Malibu. The other direction was through the mountain pass, which is no problem in a car; the coach is another story. The pass is 29 miles long, many 4 to 7 mile stretches of 6 to 8%, very twisty descents. We have taken the pass many times in the car, we were not about to do it with the coach. We said goodbyes to Carolyn and George and headed out towards the 101. We soon passed a sign that we thought said ‘101 closed ahead’, can’t be! Sure enough, they were directing traffic off the freeway and towards the ‘pass’. Now we have no choice, there is no other way to Santa Barbara. I decided it would probably be better to unhook the Suzuki and drive through the pass separately. The coach handles much better on descents when there is not 4,000 extra pounds pushing on the rear end. So we disconnected and headed out. Lucky for us, everyone else was forced in that direction, its one lane in most places, so the pace was slow. Laura was behind me the whole way; she said she only smelled burning brakes once! It was on a very steep sharp turn, as I came around the corner, traffic was completely stopped. I got on the brakes pretty hard, nothing dangerous, but it takes a lot to stop 10 tons!

So, a trip that should have taken about 30 minutes was well over an hour. The remainder of the drive was pretty easy as it was mid day and the freeway was virtually empty (by Cali standards, of course). To make up for lost time, we decided to just finish off the drive separately, instead of hooking the Suzuki back up (about 120 miles). The drive along the PCH to Malibu Beach RV Park was spectacular!

The campground is cut into the hillside along the ocean, just above the PCH. Here is the view out of windshield from where we are parked in the campground.



Here another pic of the view looking back from our site at the sunset. You can see the PCH and just how high we are above it, the views are just spectacular!



We are here for the week. Yesterday, Tuesday, we ran errands and walked around Santa Monica. We stopped by Laura’s aunt Connie and uncle Terry’s to say hi. We plan on hitting the Santa Monica Farmer’s Market with them on Wednesday (We will get to see Carolyn and George again; they’ll be selling olive oil). On Thursday Connie and Terry want to come by and check out our home on wheels and we’ll probably do lunch. Friday, we’ll load up and head towards Palm Spring for a week stay.

More later,

Rich

Bikin', hikin' and hangin with the stars!

As a favor to our readers back home in Michigan, I promise to not even mention the weather in this post. It just doesn't seem to change from day to day;)

For the past few days we have been mixing it up between road, mountain biking and hiking. Nice road rides along the ocean. Hellacious Mountain bike rides in the mountains(4 miles, 1,100 Ft of elevation gain!). Hiking up in the mountains. Can you see the theme developing here? We are really falling in love with being in the mountains! Of course, when we decide to land, we won't be able to include the ocean in that equation as we are a few million short of the few millions it takes to be anywhere near the ocean! However, we don't have a problem with settling with just mountains!

On Saturday, after an early morning hike in the mountains, we went to the Santa Barbara Farmers' Market to see Laura's aunt Carolyn in action, peddling their jams and olive oils. They seem to be pretty popular among the SB locals!



unfortunately, my close-up pics turned out all blurry, this was the only one worth posting. Anyway, after the Farmers market, we took Carolyn and George over to Santa Barbara Shellfish Company (see previous postings) as a way of saying thank-you for allowing us to park our coach on their property (and saving us a TON of money in the process!)

Did we mention the food? Besides Laura's step-mom, Kum Su, being an outstanding cook. We have visited some wonderful restaurants! Friday night, we visited Arigato Sushi Bar, without question the largest assortment of sushi we have ever experienced. Among the typical tuna and salmon, they had fois gras and kobe nigiri, outstanding! Saturday night we hit a wonderful Italian restauraunt (there seems to be more Italian in SB then any other type?) Today, Sunday, we plan to hit the local Korean restaurant for some Be-Bim-Bop for lunch. Later for dinner, Laura and I will be cooking in for everyone, grilling up some salmon steaks and vegetables!

For the past few Sunday's Mike and Kum Su's neighbor has been coming up for Apple Fritters, coffee and good conversation. We joined them this morning, as we needed a break from the early morning mountain hikes. Their neighbor looked familiar, but just could not put my finger on it?



I know what your thinking, and no, not the guy on the right! Anthony Zerbe, the actor on the left, played Councillor Hamann in all the 'Matrix' movies! He also had parts in Cool Hand Luke and Papillon, plus a bunch of other movies, primarily in the late 70's to mid 80's(he always seems to be cast as the bad guy, that's cool!). Anthony was a wonderful, down to earth guy. He was very interested in our adventure. Many of the places he said he would consider living, other then SB of course(Everyone that lives here believes it is the greatest place in the US!), are on our short list of places we are considering; Asheville, Santa FE, Flagstaff, Durango and Portland!

Besides Anthony, apparently Chistopher Lloyd (Dr. Emmit Brown, Back to Future, Jim on Taxi!) lives near by. However, he was out of town for the holiday! Too bad, it would have been interesting to meet him! Also, Oprah does a Friday hike on the same trails we have been hiking on; but she appears to have spent the holiday in Chicago. Which is OK with locals. It appears the big O is not their favorite local celeb?

So, now we get ready to head south. Monday, we will pick-up the coach from its resting spot (it was a treat to sleep in a real bed, with a real shower for the past week) and head towards Malibu. We will be there for the coming week and visit with another one of Laura's aunts who lives in Santa Monica. We will then start heading towards Las Vegas to prepare for the trip home to Michigan for the holidays! We are looking forward to seeing everyone back home! However, not so sure we looking forward to weather, based on what we have seen on the internet!

Look for post from Malibu, coming soon!

Rich

Life in Santa Barbara

So here we are in Santa Barbara...70 and sunny most every day. Lots of celebreties, beautiful people, and big houses for big money. Also some little houses for big money. We got our moho parked at my aunt's. She lives on a BIG hill. Fortunately the property is divided into layers, so we were able to get our moho onto the 1st layer and even get it plugged in to keep our fridge cold. We chilled with my dad and step-mom that first night. On Wednesday we realized we forgot a whole bunch of stuff at the moho, so we drove back. It's about 45 minutes if you take the mountain pass, or more if you take the 101 freeway (which we took in the RV). She lives just outside of Los Olivos, the scene of the movie, "Sideways". After we got our stuff, we went into the town of Los Olivos to the tasting room for a glass of wine and appetizers.

Later we went back to Santa Barbara where we had lunch at the Santa Barbara Shellfish Company. We knew of this place because just 2 mos. ago, we'd seen an episode of "Rachael Ray's $40 a day" show that she did in Santa Barbara. But of course, she orders stuff that's not on the menu. I remembered and found out it was the 1/2 lobster cesear salad for $14.95. Rich had lobster tacos and was in heaven. The rest of the day was spent chilling and getting ready for Thanksgiving.

On Thanksgiving we decided we needed to burn off some calories before we gorged ourselves on turkey. We drove into town and rode our bikes along the ocean, but the path was too crowded, so we hit the street with all the other bikers, of which there were TONS. We basically rode along the water until the street tuned inland and went up. Then we turned around and went down. Then we went past our car and went up, then Rich decided he wanted to ride back to the house and kept going up. I went back to the car, a total of almost 16 miles of up & down. That night we had dinner with some of my dad and Kum-Su's friends, a total of 8 of us. A good time was had by all. Later as Rich & I were chilling & watching TV, my stomach started not to feel so good. It just seemed to get worse and worse as the night went on, so I didn't sleep very well. By this morning, I was fine after breakfast. Rich went off for a short mtn. bike ride, but I wasn't up for that. After he gets back, we're going to my aunt's to play for the day. I'll put pics in when Rich gets back with the camera.

Laura

Happy Thanksgiving!

Wishing all of our family, friends and faithful readers a Happy Thanksgiving!!

Rich & Laura

Traveling to Santa Barbara

Last night we stayed about 15 miles east of Kingman, AZ at the Blake Ranch RV park. It was a decent place, but kinda in the middle of nowhere. We rented the movie "The Interpreter", starring Nicole Kidman from the office. It was a very good movie, considering it was the only DVD they had other than "Legally Blonde".

Today we were going to stay at a Wal-Mart in Barstow, CA, but within 5 minutes of parking, some drug addict hit us up for money and food. That, in addition to the skanky people milling about, convinced us to check out the nearby campground. It was even skankier, and limited to RV's under 36' (ours is 38'). So....we decided to trust our guts and moved on. We traveled about 40 miles south to Victorville where we found a very nice (and gated) RV park that was a bit pricey at $30, but better than some sceary Wal-mart parking lot.

I talked to my aunt Caroline tonight who offered a space on her property in Santa Ynez for our RV. I called the RV park where we were going to stash our RV in Santa Barbara (at a whopping $50/night) and cancelled our reservation. I'm sure we'll have to pay a one night cancellation fee, but it's still better than the $300 it would have cost us to stay there for 6 nights. Even though it's a bit further, we still only have about 180 miles to travel tomorrow. We're hoping to get an early start.

Good bye Sedona :(

Today is our last full day in Sedona, and we are both really sad about it. The weather has been incredible, sunny and 70's during the day and mid 40's at night. It has been like that everyday, for the past eight days, just awesome! But, its time to move on. We need to be in Santa Barbara for Thanksgiving.

Of course, we had to finish off our visit with more biking. We headed over to this rock formation called Submarine Rock. Its this huge formation that, well, looks like a submarine, surrounded by evergreens. Its huge! Here is a pic of Laura riding to one end, while I stood at the top the other end. She is the little spec in the middle of the picture.



Here is pic of me, doing my 'holding my bike over my head' victory pose (not sure why?) at the same end of submarine rock that I snapped the pic of Laura from. You can click on the pics to enlarge them!



We headed back towards the parking lot. Laura decided she had enough for the day. I decided it was going to be an epic day for me, squeeze in everything I can before we leave! I proceeded to do the Mystic trail, Cathedral Pass, Little Horse Trail and Bell Rock Pathway to mix up 22 miles and almost 2,500 feet of climbing! During my ride, I found a bike computer laying in the trail. Not unusal, someone must have crashed, it popped off the bike, they did not notice it and rode off. However, the strangest thing happened when I got back to the capmpsite!



When I returned to show Laura my 'trail booty', she thought I had her computer in my hand. You see, she has the same computer, and she had the exact same mileage on hers as the one I found! The one on the left is the computer I found on the trail, the right one is Laura's. Now, Sedona is all about Vortexs, crystals and all that other goofy stuff I really don't beleive, but this was just too weird! Maybe we should play 538 in the lottery?

So, Sunday morning we head out. This will the last post until we hit Santa Barbara, unless we can scam an unsecured internet signal. Tomorrow we drive to Kingman Arizona where we'll spend the night in a Passport America campground (1/2 price club members!). Monday we'll drive to Barstow, CA where we will utilize the free Wal-MArt parking lot option. Tuesday, its the drive to Santa Barbara. Looking forward to pushing my through the LA freeways with my 48' of vehicles, not!

Check back Tuesday or Wednesday!

Rich

More Sedona..................

Riding, Eating and (Gasp!) Working

If you can't tell by now, we REALLY like the Sedona/Flagstaff area! It is definitely an area we could consider living in. From what we can tell, there are two major issues; house prices and job market. Decent housing in Sedona starts at around $600,00(ouch). Of course, we are going to need to go back to work once we decide to land somewhere. The only industry in Sedona is tourism, not sure we want to get into catrering to the tourist! Luckily, we don't have to worry about finding jobs and housing now, we still have most of the country to explore!

Speaking of working, I had the opportunity to do a marketing event for Maverick Ranch. New frontiers is a natural food store with locations in Sedona, Flagstaff and Prescott. On Thursday, I made the drive down to the Prescott store to sample and talk chicken with the customers and meat dept staff. I went through a quick training with the staff on 'organic' vs. 'natural' and our 'air chilled' chicken vs. Commodity chicken. Between the events I'm doing on the road and maintaining the business have developed back home in Michigan, we are doing a pretty good job of covering monthly expenses.


After putting in a tough 4 hours of working, it's back to as much riding as possible! On Friday, I went out and did a six mile, fairly technical ride that involved almost 1,000 of climbing. The views were incredible. I was able to take a dirt road back down to the campground. I hit 34 miles an hour on the way down!



Later in day, we took the Suzuki back up the road for some easy off-roadig. We had the bikes with us; so, Laura decided she was going to ride down and beat my speed. Well, she hit 39 mph on the downhill, I had to confirm it on her bike computer! That little section is only about 1.5 miles long, so it is a pretty steep decent! We then went out and did some additional miles in the canyons in the Northwest part of town(Deadman's Pass trail). It was a little flatter and less technical then earlier in the day, but has amazing views and rock formations!



After a long day of riding its time to refuel. These cactus can be a real pain in the butt (literally, if you fall!) out on the trail, However....



...We find they are absolutely delicious when sliced, battered, fried and served with a red pepper chipoltle sauce! I would highly recommend pairing with a prickly pear juice margarita as well!



We had this as an appetizer at one our favorite places here, the Cowboy Club, located in uptown Sedona! For entrees, Laura had a bone-in filet and I had prime rib! Broke the budget on this meal, but it was well worth it!

For Saturday, we have to change sites at our campground. We decided to add-on a day and they had our site reserved to someone else. Later in the day we plan on visiting the Bike and Bean (great local bike shop!)customer appreciation BBQ and hitting Broken arrow and Submarine rock trails.

More later,

Rich

Driving Oak Creek Canyon to Flagstaff

Today I must have been tired because I slept in until 9am! So we didn't get going anywhere until around 11. We went to get the car washed, which took a lot longer than we'd expected, but our car is clean. By then we were both hungry, so we stopped for a quick lunch. Then we drove up 89A to Flagstaff. There were signs saying "no trucks over 50 ft. in 12 miles". We'd also heard this was not the way to take our moho from Flagstaff to Sedona, so we'd opted to take I-17 instead. Once we got to that point in the road, we could see why. There were several 180 degree turns where the speed limit was 15mph, and most of that section was uphill. Click this pic to enlarge and you can see the three layers of roads we switched backed down.



Once in Flagstaff we did the "tour de grocery". We stopped at Wal-Mart where we picked up some rolling duffle bags for when we're at my dad's next week and when we go back to Michigan for Christmas. After that we went to the local Basha's for Apple Cinnamon Cheerios. I LOVE apple cinnamon cheerios and haven't been able to find them for a couple of weeks. We found some, on sale, so I loaded up with 4 boxes. After that we stopped at a local organic food store called, "New Frontiers". They had Maverick chicken thighs on sale for 99 cents a pound. After that we headed back, again along 89A because it's so scenic. We stopped at a scenic turnoff along the way and caught the above pictures.

Once we got back, Rich started working on bikes, and Snuggles was working on zip ties. I put up a picture that I call "the workers". Tonight we're going to the Sedona Wine Basket for their wine tasting. We go every time we come to Sedona. They do a great job of offering 6 wines for tasting, along with some appetizers for $10. Yum!



Ok...so we're back after a little wine tasting, followed by a little sushi. Earlier our neighbor came over to ask Rich to look at his bike because the tires were flat. They had a couple of those fold-up bikes, usually found at Camping World. Rich suggested he go up to the closest bike shop, Mountain Bike Heaven for a replacement tube & offered to change it out for him, so he jumped in his car and zoomed off. When we got back to our moho tonight, there was a bottle of wine on the step along with a note from our neighbor saying the bike shop didn't have their size bike tube, but they'd check at their next stop and thanks for the offer to help. I thought that was soooo nice! Maybe we can hire out Rich's skills at bike maintenance at campgrounds with a sign, "will work for wine." LOL!

Mountain Biking in Sedona and more...

This morning Rich went to the bike shop....alone. This is always a dangerous situation because he never just comes home with what he went to buy. Today was no exception. He went to get a bottle of Stan's tube sealer, and came home with the Stan's and a new set of tires because "we need beefier tires out here, there's rocks." *sigh* (OK, in my defense, I got a flat on the Hutchinson Python Air Lites, when I told the guys at the shop what I was using, they just laughed! It sucks being laughed at as a Michigan flatlander using racer boy tires?! So off with the Hutchinsons, on with new Maxxis Ignitor 2.35's, big, wide, knobby treads, these things rock. I'm not in Michigan anymore, Toto!! Oh yeah, I swapped out Laura's Pythons for Panaracer Trail Blaster 2.1's, before she got any flats. - Rich)

Our neighbors here also have a Georgie Boy motorhome, but it's real short, it is only 24'. We've nicknamed them, "the stubby people" because they're also short. LOL! Anyway, they took off this morning, and we thought they were gone. Turns out they went somewhere and came back using their moho since they don't have a car. We can't imagine having to disconnect and store everything, everytime you wanted to go somewhere! I've also heard them talking spanish to eachother. We should take Snug and meet them.

We did some awesome mountain biking today. I rode for about an hour, doing a measly 5 miles of up & down, over some rocky terrain. After I was worn out, Rich went to do a "boy" ride, while I took off, planning to meet him 1.5 hrs. later. (I put in just over 2 hours of riding, only covered 14 miles, but, boy was it great. I did the Courthouse Butte loop and part of the Templeton loop. Both loops follow a creek bed, in and out, over slick rock, steep, rocky climbs and scary fast decents with numerous 1 to 2' drops! I did lose the trail once, in an open expanse of slick rock, and spent some time trying to figure out where I was. I loved every minute of it! Once again, I'm not in Michigan anymore. So, off with the Fox 80mm Stable platform front shock. Now going to Manitou Black Fork with adjustable travel, 80mm to 100mm, which I had in the motorhome as a spare. The guys back at the bike shop just shook their heads when I told them what fork I was using!? I'm going out with these guys on Wednesday morning for a group ride. They understand I'm a Michigan flatlander and have promised to bring me back in one piece! However, they keep mentioning 4' drop-offs, I'm a little worried! These people also go out with full-face helmets(luckily I have one), shin, knee and elbow pads on(those I don't have), now I'm really getting worried! Hopefully, I'll have some great pics to share, providing I survive the ride! - Rich)

I went over to the wine store to confirm our RSVP for the Wednesday wine tasting. I picked up 5 stuffed grape leaves. Actually I bought 4, but the owner threw in one. Good thing because they are small for the $1/each he charges, but they are good. I ate 2 1/2 and saved the other 1/2 for Rich, but it took all my willpower not to eat them all. (The grape leaves were a great after ride treat! - Rich)

Attempting the tram....three times

The world's longest tramway is the Sandia Peak Tram which climbs over 2.7 miles to an elevation of 10,300 feet. We tried to go up it yesterday, but were told it had been closed for maintenance for the past 2 weeks, but would be open on Friday. So, we decided to stay in Albuquerque another day. The bonus was that our RV park has a speical, "buy 4 nights, 5th is free". That meant our extra night was free! On Friday, after we took Snug. to get her nails trimmed, we tried around 11:30 to go up the tram. It was on standby because of the winds. We didn't think it would open anytime after that because a front was coming through, so the winds were only going to get worse. We spent the afternoon taking care of laundry, & cleaning the RV. Around 5pm. I called and found out the tram was back open. Even though it was going to be dark by the time we went up, we really wanted to do this. We dressed in cold weather clothes, since we heard it was around 30 degrees at the top. By the time we got to the top, it was 29 degrees and very windy! The only thing to do was to eat at the restaurant, so we split a main dish and had a glass of wine.

Today was a driving day, going from Albuquerque to Metor Crater RV park, about 30 miles east of Flagstaff. It's a Passport America park, so we get 1/2 off. It's quite a bargain to get water/electric plus FREE wi-fi for $10/night. One wierd fluke to mention is that after we stopped to get gas, about 10 miles west of Albq., our speedometer, cruise control,and auto overdrive didn't work. Everything else did, so we kept driving. The next stop was 140 miles later for lunch, just inside the AZ state line. When we got going again, everything worked. Go figure. So now there's 140 miles more on the odometer than shows. We rolled into our stop for the night around 3:30. Apparently the only thing to do/see for 20 miles is see the largest meteor crater in the world. We may go over there tomorrow. Not sure if we want to pay the $12 admission fee (for each).

Horseback riding, & Santa Fe

Yesterday we had an excellent horseback ride at Stables on the Mesa, about 30 miles south of Albuquerque. All of their horses were rescued from the Alpo factory, meaning they were as close to becoming dog food as a horse can get. Since Rich told them he's only ridden 3 times, he got a 28 yr. old horse that wouldn't have gone beyone a trot if Rich wanted him to (he didn't). My horse, Lakota was EXCELLENT! She did whatever I wanted her to, including a nice canter (cantor?). We rode for 2 hours, which was just enough, as my seat bones were getting a bit tender, and my face got quite red from the sun, even though it was only 73, the sun was powerful.

Today we headed out to Santa Fe on the scenic back road, and found some nice scenery & construction. It took us 1 1/2 hours to get there, and 1 hour to get back on the major freeway. We spent the afternoon wandering around, looking at galleries, which wasn't too exciting. Then we stopped by a bird store where Rich took pics of some of the cuter birds we were allowed to play with. On the way back to Albuquerque, we tried to stop at the Sandia Peak Tramway, but unfortunately, it was closed for maintenance. We were really bummed, but then we remembered that our RV park has a deal, "stay for 4 nights, get the 5th free." So....since it was free to stay another night, we decided to. This way we can get Snug's feet trimmed in the a.m. and ride the tram in the afternoon. So...our next stop will be Holbrook, AZ for 1 night before arriving in Sedona on Sunday. We'll have internet in Sedona, so we should be able to keeup the blog.

The Road Runner, Coyote and the Rio Grande

There is a nice bike path along the Rio Grande. Alongside the paved section is a gravel rail bed. Laura took her road bike and I rode my MTB. In the process of doing 15 easy paced miles, we ran across the Road Runner and Wiley Coyote. Unfortunately, the Road runner was too fast, and ultimately escaped my lens. However the Coyote was left looking dazed and confused and I was able to capture him on film. During our trek, there was no sign of the ACME bomb factory!!

We both thought this was pretty funny and it brought back memories of those old cartoons. How true they were, as the road runner sped off, the coyote looked lost and was more afraid of me then I of him.

Rich

Albuquerque!

Yesterday we finally got out on bikes. We rode road bikes from our campground into town, and onto a recreation trail we found. Unfortunately, it only went for about 2 miles. So we wandered around residential streets on our bikes, exploring neighborhoods. Not all of them were so nice. But the whole town was deliciously flat.  We were able to put together a 10 mile ride with hardly breaking a sweat. The weather was a beautiful 73 with very intense sun. We should have put on suntan lotion. After lunch we cruised over to the Alien Research Center and UFO museum. It had some very internesting exhibits that really caused me to think. Did a UFO crash in Roswell back in 1947? And how did anyone know, considering we drove through 100 miles of absolutely nothing to get there? We also did some grocery shopping that afternoon and did some surfing in visitors’ center parking lot, taking advantage of their wi-fi connection.

Today we did a 230 mile drive from Roswell to Albuquerque. Ahhh….it’s good to be back in civilization. Our drive was easy but included a lot of gradual climbing. At our lunch stop we were at 5900’, but once we started going west on I-40, we started going downhill….a lot. Since we climbed a lot after our lunch stop, I’m guessing we’re at about 4500-5000’ above sea level. Tomorrow we’re going to explore downtown Albuquerque. On Wednesday we’re going horseback riding, then we’re possibly leaving Thursday or Friday, we’re not sure yet. I could easily stay a week here, it seems like a very cool and scenic city. I think we’ll probably stay until at least Friday so we have a day to go up to Santa Fe, about an hour away.

Whole Lotta Nothing!

Today’s title reflects what we’ve been seeing as we’ve been driving across the country ever since we hit Oklahoma. Oklahoma was flat and windy, sometimes the winds were as much as 30mph. We stopped one night in Elk City (see previous post), the next night we were in Tucumcari, NM. Above is a pic as we entered New Mexico (came out small) and as we entered Texas. In Amarillo, Texas we stopped at a huge travel center to get gas. The winds were soooo strong that they were rocking the moho while we were standing still. The next day we drove to Roswell, NM because Rich wanted to see the aliens. Because he wanted to take a driving break and stay 2 nights in Roswell, I was worried that we’d be stuck in some god forsaken town in the middle of the desert. Turns out it’s quite a big town with some definite road biking potential. I have pics, but I can't get them to upload, so I'll try again tomorrow.

The State of the Tour
(Our First 30 Days)

We’ve been on the road for a month now, boy it went by fast. I have to say; right now I’m not missing our stick built house one bit. The new locations, new people we meet and adventures are keeping things pretty interesting. We have been moving around a lot more then I would like but that’s due to staying on schedule to be in Santa Barbara, CA by November 22nd. Once we get out west and through the holidays, the pace and mileage will slow down. We plan on spending longer periods of time in places we are actually considering moving too.

Some misc stats from our first 30 days:

•Miles traveled so far, 3,420. Current location Roswell, New Mexico.

•Gallons of gas used in Coach, 488.5. Giving us a solid 7 mpg, not bad for a house! We can get as high as 8.1 on the flats with the air off. A measly 6.1, struggling up the mountains.

•Highest price paid for gas, $3.09 in Atlanta Georgia. Lowest price $1.99 in Sallisaw, OK.

•Number of states past through so far 16.

•Number of free overnight Wal-Mart stays, 3. I can’t believe I’m actually becoming a Wal-Mart fan, the traveling RVer’s best friend.

•Worst roads encountered (since leaving Michigan, of course), Mississippi. Best roads, Georgia.

•Coolest town we have visited and would consider living, if we wanted to move east (we don’t), Asheville, North Carolina. The town is laid back, friendly, clean, surrounded by mountains, and has some the best biking, both road and mountain in the country! Imagine a smaller Ann Arbor, surrounded by mountains and you got it!

•Best adventure to date. Riding an off road tandem with Laura in Georgia. Bei ng part of a four tandem train thundering down some pretty technical single track to stares of the people on singles!

•Worst adventure. 4 days of cold, solid rain in a campground, in a valley in Wellsboro, PA. The valley kept us from getting cell, TV, or internet signals of any kind. The grand canyon of the east was pretty cool on the one day it stopped raining for us to check it out.

•Mechanical issues dealt with. Routine oil change, loss of tire pressure from bad valve core (had them replace cores in all 6 tires). Slide-out, became misaligned and would not come back in, able to repair myself. Wind in Okalahoma ripped awning over slide-out, currently repaired with duct tape, the wonder material (this will probably need to be replaced by first of year). Knocking on wood veneer, that has been it so far.

•When your house is in for service, you are homeless. On the 2 occasions it was in the shop, Laura, Snuggles and I were left to fend for ourselves for a couple of hours in the Suzuki.

•The stops for the remainder of 2005:

1. Albuquerque, NM (205 miles)
2. Winslow, AZ (255 miles)
3. Sedona, AZ (98 miles)
4. Kingman, AZ (190 miles)
5. Barstow, CA (208 miles)
6. Santa Barbara, CA (200 miles)
7. Las Vegas, NV (380 miles)
8. Home for the holidays (December 22 through Jan 3rd)

Without question, the absolute best part of the adventure so far, has been the variety of people we have met. There is an amazing diversity of people out there doing the very same thing. From the former business owner, in the big conversion bus, pulling a Hummer, who just got tired of the rat race. To ‘Earl’, who looks like he’s lived a very hard life, walks around the campground barefoot in the evening with a Coors in hand, willing to share a story with anyone who will listen. And every economic situation in-between. (It just proves, no matter what your economic situation is, they only thing required to do this is desire and guts!) We all have a common denominator, boredom with the 9-5 rat race, sense of adventure, and desire to see what’s down the road. In ‘regular’ life, these people of very different economic status would never even exchange glances. On the road, they share stories, have a brew together and help each other with RV repairs(the RV, the great common denominator!!) and just getting through life, I find that very cool!

For now we’re going to keep on Truckin’

Rich

A long & windy driving day

Today we drove from Sallisaw, Oklahoma to Elk City, OK, about 250 miles. There were strong winds whipping through the plains to the tune of about 30mph. Rich said his arms and shoulders were tired after driving because of trying to keep the RV on the road in the strong winds. I've included some pics above of the RV in our campsite, the creek in the campground, the smokey sky, and the sign we saw when we entered Oklahoma. The smokey sky pic is because the sky is smokey here, not sure what's burning, maybe a brush fire? You can faintly smell it. We were originally going to stay at a Wal Mart tonight, but this place is a pretty good deal with full hookups (although sites are close together), cable TV and wi-fi for $22/night. We were excited to fill up our tanke for $2.01/gallon today. I'm not sure if gas is coming down all over the country, but we seem to find cheaper places, the further west we go. I'm sure it'll change once we hit California.

We did stop and have a pretty good mexican lunch....somewhere in Oklahoma. Rich was excited to see "real" cowboys, complete with hats & wearing spurs.

A funny thing about Snuggles, is that when she's on top of her cage, which is sometimes on the kitchen table, she likes to "spy" on people outside the RV. Above is a pic of her "spying" on a lady outside sleeping. Spaces are close here, so they are only about 5-10' from us.

I'm not sure when we'll have internet again, so I wanted to make a blog post, even though there's not much to report other than we're driving, driving, driving.