Traveling 600 miles of nothing I- 10 east from ElPaso

Finally we got the new tire and got it put on the RV. The tire it replaced had been damaged when the hubcap,which Mike broke, finally flew off the RV somewhere in Iowa. The whole time driving I worried that this tire would go flat or blow out, so a new tire made me feel alittle more secure. We left Truth or Consequences on a clear but chilly day. We drove south to Las Cruses to pick up I-10. I wanted to get through El Paso before rush hour, which we did.

We stopped for gas in Fabens, TX. and continued to drive to Van Horn. Van Horn is a small town, named after some military guy. The post was captured by Confederate soldiers during Civil war. We stayed at the Pilot Truck stop, which Mike didn't like, but I didn't care I didn't want to drive anymore. He said the truck motors vibrated him too much to sleep, the sound made me sleep. We were next to 2 RV trailers and an oil truck so all in all it was pretty quiet, and we could eat at the Wendy's. This was also a bus stop for the ElPaso San Antonio bus. There were lots of people going to visit family for holidays.

Driving on I 10, there are lots of trucks and alot of desert with mountains in the distance. There are no houses, no humans, no cows, just dirt and brush. It is 600 miles from El Paso to San Antonio. I don't know how people did this in wagons. It would have driven me crazy, It almost did and I was driving.

The second day, my oil gage was acting weird. It was jumping all over. We checked the oil levels, everything was fine, but I decided to stop at Fort Stockton to have it checked out. We found an RV shop right on the main road. Charles, who had worked on Chevy's for 25 years, knew exactly what was wrong. He fixed that, and our step, which fell apart right in his parking lot. A clip or something fell off. We decided to stay at the Walmart down the street. We got there and the step fell apart again. Charles came over and rigged it together, which has been working ever since. Thanks Charles. Charles was a shop teacher in Odessa and said it was so bad there, one kid was stabbed, guns and knives were all over. The kids even shot one of the teachers. This is a sad state for our country and something needs to be done to protect the teachers.

Fort Stockton was a frontier fort which housed mostly Buffalo Soldiers who were commissioned to "get them ingins".

Walmarts are usually ok to stay, but you get alot of car sounds, and usually a hotrod or two cruising the parking lot. We didn't get started too early, but found a donut place for coffee and donuts, of course.

SANTA GETS STOPPED BY SMOKEY

Mike wanted to go to McDonalds, which was a couple blocks from the Walmart Ft Stockton. One his way, wearing his Santa hat, a state police stopped him for not wearing his seatbelt. I won't tell you how many times I had to ask him to put them on.. Anyway they searched his whole car, taking apart his packs and bags, etc. There was a lot of stuff in his car, thankfully nothing illegal. The best part was people passing by yelled at the cops for arresting Santa, they finally told him to take the hat off. End result ticket for $150 bucks...

Next stop Junction Texas. After driving about 225 miles, I am done, so we got off at Junction Texas. There was a truck stop there, but tucked away in the corner was this local little restaurant. We parked in their lot, after asking. We had a great dinner, and breakfast there.We talked with the locals and talked about schools, kids, health care, smoking and veterans. We stayed there several hours. Nice place. called Junction Restaurant, right by I-1o.

We are only 117 miles from San Antonio. The landscape was changing.There were more trees and more bushes. This area definitely gets more rain. Compared to near El Paso, this was lush, with rolling hills. They call this the hill country , but some of the hills are more mountains in my book.

We stopped for breaks and got these pix. At one stop we went to see if there were long horn, since we could see some cows. Mike comes running back pulling off his pant, "Red Fire ants , fire ants" They got on his ankles and bit him, I was lucky I look were I'm walking heheh

Like any big city San Antonio driving a big ol bus rv is never fun. Lane changes, cars pushing in line and accidents are all the fun. But all in all we made it to the San Antonio KOA with no added grey hairs.

tomorrow the Alamo and Riverwalk

Winter time here on the Desert

By now everyone is having a taste of Ol' Man Winter. We have to collectively send that Jet stream back north. Here there have been record breaking low temperatures and snow. It even snowed in Houston Tex, first time in 90 years!!.

Now I love snow when I am in my cozy house baking up some chocolate chip cookies, but living in a tin can- no offense Agatha- it is not that pleasant. We had the water line freeze a bit and also the waste water lines. The cure was my handy dandy hair dryer. The wind was whipping around here so hard that it was rocking the rv like a baby cradle. We have 2 space heaters, which have kept us warm enough, almost. It is great during the day, when the sun shines about 50 degrees, but as soon as the sun sets, all the warm goes away and the temperatures quickly plummet. There have been nights when I have had 2 comforters, a horse blanket, my hat, socks , flannel PJ and a dog, and still be cold. But we survive.

This cold gave us motivation to move south. We finished at Desert Haven and are waiting for a new tire. We moved to an RV park in Truth or Consequences for a week. Mike is happy he has cable and his Sci-fi channel. I am happy to have a hot shower!! Dakota is happy to have a place where we can walk around the block. We have not decided where in Texas yet.

We met a couple from Alberta Canada here, who said it was minus 25 degrees back there. They are like us, on a new adventure, living on the road.

Our Daily Life at Desert Haven Animal Rescue- Truth or Consequences NM

I thought I would give you an idea of what an average day is like, here at the Desert Haven Animal Rescue. We work 3 days a week.

Morning starts way to early for Mikey, around 6:30 am. Grandfather Sun is coming up over the Caballo Mts. I hesitate to get out of my warm blankets, since it is cold in these high desert mountains. I can here a few birds, time to make coffee. It is the smell of fresh perking coffee that finally gets Mikey moving. Meanwhile I feed Dakota and take her for a walk. Mike makes his famous fried eggs. By 7:30 am, we make our way up the hill to the animal area. As soon as the dogs hear the crunch crunch of my boots on the gravel road, they start barking. They are so glad to see us. As we pass the bird sanctuary, I can hear the doves cooing, and of course Chicken Soup, the big rooster, is waking up the neighborhood.

I start by fixing the dog food, and then go to the cat's playhouse and fix their food. We have about 30 dogs, and 30 cats. Then I go to Birdland, where guinea pigs, doves, chickens, peacocks and a rabbit live. We chop up fruits and veggies, and throw seed around. Meanwhile the others are cleaning the Dog runs. If we could sell poop , we'd be rich... The dogs are taken in 3's up to Old West , which is a large fenced yard, where they can run and be free. They like to nibble on the chapparel leaves and branches.

All the cleaning, feeding and walking take about 2 hours. At 3:30 pm, we do the whole thing over. By 5:30 it is dark.

We have met some wonderful people here. Carmen, who is from Buffalo, NY, has now moved on to Florida. We immediately liked him, since we had lived in the same area of Buffalo, it was like old times. Connecticut Donna, who lived with 4 dogs and a cat, was a big help. We could not figure how she managed with a Great Dane and 3 dogs about Dakota's size. Donna has also moved on to CA. We miss them. Then there is Indiana Tom and Donna. they are very cool people. Tom is Mr Fix-it and fixed Mike's car. Donna is a Balloon Twister and made Mike a Hobo Mike Balloon and me a monkey in a tree. We sit outside in the evening and have a beer and laugh.

On the days we are not working , we drive into town, buy food, window shop, sometimes go rock hunting. I work on my creative projects, Mike watches TV. somethings never change....

So that is our fun filled days.

El Paso Roadtrip

We have been here about a month. The days we work with the animals are fun and some work. We are becoming friends with lots of the dogs, and a few of the cats. It is hard to buddy up with doves, chickens and peacocks, but they are all very glad to see me with the food.

We have the RV in pretty good condition. The days are pleasant , in the 70's, but the nights can be chilly, down to the 40's. We are in high desert mountains, 4245 ft above sea level, so it gets chilly. We bought a little space heater which does a good job of taking the chill out of the air. We have a stove and for breakfast we have either eggs or oatmeal, for lunch soup and sand, for dinner usually cup of soup and a treat, which is mostly pop tarts, but tonight it is mini pies. Every once in awhile I crave some meat and salad and fruit. I am on a grapefruit kick right now.

The one thing different from home is the potty and shower. It is a manual flush, which we have to dump once a week...hope your not eating... sorry. and the shower. We have to turn on the hot water heater, which gets hot, but not much pressure, plus it is only 5 gallons, so no long shower. It is impossible to wash my hair well..

So last weekend we felt like we needed to get away. We decided to go to El Paso, where Hobo Mike had spent many of his winters at the Hobo jungle there. The idea was to find the jungle, see if we could find any of his buddies. El Paso is only about 130 miles away.

El Paso is a big city, which sits on the Rio Grande River at the western corner of TX and Mexico. You can see Boarder Patrols and huge fences that separate El Paso from Juarez, Mexico. Interstate 10 , a very busy road, runs through the city. I Would not like to travel this at rush hour. We got a motel room right off the interstate. We were going to check things out, but the luxury of a big bed, cable tv and a hot shower won out. We went across the street got a fabulous Mexican meal, and vegged. I took an hour hot shower..it was great.

The next day we went to search out the old Hobo jungle. It took Mike a while to get his barrings, since he only walked or took the bus, or train. After driving around, we found the spot, but it had been walled off, because it was too close to the border. The jungle was gone.. what a drag.

We went back to the old town where a flea market and shops were open. It was one block from the port of entry., which may explain the shops. They were only selling clothes and shoes. I never saw so many used and new shoes in the life...so there was nothing I could buy, and I was in the mood to buy. We were going to go to the boot outlet, but that was closed on Sunday, so we decided to drive back.

Back in New Mexico north of Las Cruses is one of the many old frontier forts. This one was Fort Selden. Fort Selden was a post on the Rio Grande River in now what is Radium Springs. It was built to protect white people in 1863. It played a role during the Apache Indian wars, with Cochise and Geronimo's people trying to survive.

One of the first troops after the Civil war, were the Buffalo soldiers, who gained metals of honor for there attacks on the Apache people. Also Arthur MacArthur was commander in 1884, father to Douglas MacArthur, WWII Brigadier General. Young Douglas learned to shoot a gun and ride a horse here.

The adobe wall fort is in ruins, but it is an interesting place. It was also interesting that only officers could bring their wives. Most of the time that was 4 or 5 women to 200 men. The women complained that it was a very dull place. I can imagine it was.

It was a good weekend away.

TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES- I guess we will find out!!!

The last night on the road was at Kiva RV park, right off the Interstate 25. We were not too sure of things because...there was cattle grates and a dirt road. We have now found out most of New Mexico rural roads are dirt! This RV Park was no frills, but still pretty nice. We met a great lady there, Val, who is like a sister of another mother. We are now friends. Since the sewer thing was broken, we were literally pissing in a pot...I sure hope things get better. We did have the last long hot shower there, and we picked up more rocks. This area is interesting. The Large Array Telescope is located here, as well as one of the nations best wild life preserves. They are waiting for the cranes to return here, thousands of birds winter here. It is reported to bean amazing sight.

The next day we headed for Truth or Consequences. Well let me say the brochures are a bit nicer than the town. It is really a pretty small town. We drove out to our campsite, which is 2 miles south of Williamsburg, which is 4 miles south of T or C. We are parked on the side of a "hill". There are 6 RV's and 2 permanent trailers. This is Desert Haven Animal Rescue. When we saw it, we thought gee, what did we get ourselves into.It is pretty rough. Rock and dirt roads, no frills, no shower house, no pool, no cable just 6 RV's.

OK we can deal with this. first we had to get the sewer thing fixed, for obvious reasons. We had the part, which is very tricky to put in. Of course, we put it in wrong. Mike insisted in doing it, so every day we heard cussing coming from under the RV, where Mike worked on the sewer line. Well it still leaked, so we are still pissing in the pot. Mike siliconed the whole damn thing, ,still leaked.. It cost Mike $1.87 to use the convenience store bathroom. (He had to buy something.) OK so that is the bathroom issue...

Now inside the RV is a converter box, which changes AC to DC and charges the batteries which run the lights. The thing was running very hot, and then suddenly stopped. I asked our friend, and co-workamper, Donna, about it, and she saw the fan had burnt out. Donna, a most intelligent person, rigged the converter box with a new fan. The fan worked but the converter box was not sending out a charge to the batteries..so you may now guess..that besides no toilet, I have no lights...

All is not horrible, we do have candles and flashlights.

Two days later, another former workkamper, Deb, came to see if she could help. She said she thought the converter box was dead. Oh good said I!! Deb, a wonderful person, lent us her battery charger, so we could have lights until the repair man could come. Deb also helped me get a PT job.

The repairman came Thursday and said "Yep It's dead...cost about $500 to get a new one. Have to order it, will be in Tuesday". Okay doakie what else can I do. You need these things. The best part was he had another part for the sewer thing, and I asked him the trick to putting it in. and you know what he said Vasoline...unbeleivable..

So Mike put it in with vasoline, and YEA we have a toilet. Tuesday O'Neill put in the converter box and YEA we have lights.

Now we had to figure out the propane thing. We had help from Reba and Gene long time workampers. We had our first shower in 10 days..YEA. we were pretty ripe., working with the dogs and sweating.. The only thing about showers is the are "Navy" showers. get wet, turn off water, soap up, turn on water. I miss a long hot shower.

But we have all systems on, even the TV, no cable, and I hooked up the DVD. so Life is still rough, but livable...alot better than the settlers.

Finally New Mexico

Driving into New Mexico was like driving into a wind tunnel. There were gusts up to 50mph. Windy enough to push you along as you walk down the path to the visitor center. Imagine driving this bus. Mike who is driving behind me, said I looked like I was drunk. Usually I don't like when big trucks pass me, due to the wind turbulence they make, but here I was glad, since they acted as a wind block. So for a moment I wasn't being tossed around like a top.

There were many RV's on the road, all headed for the Balloon Festival. We continued west on RT 40, thru Tucumcari, which Mike says means between a woman's breast....but I'm not sure...he likes those big busted women...

We finally camped at Santa Rosa Campground. We knew we were now in the desert, as only scrub brush and a few cedar or maybe hemlock trees were there. We found that the blowout had done more damage than we thought. The force of the blowout had pushed up the metal of the wheel well and had broken the compartment which houses the dump station. The sewer hoses were ripped to shreds and the sewer release handle was broken. I had to buy a new hose, but the handle caused a smelly drip. I washed it all down the next day.. don't want our DNA all over the place.

It was a beautiful sunset, but still windy. This area is prone to high winds, being so flat. Santa Rosa is an old town, part of the RT 66 revival towns. Everything is RT 66. We drove on it..I didn't get any kicks....

At the campground, our neighbor had one of those $250,000 deluxe RV's. They were from Texas headed for the Balloons. OK, maybe I have a hidden dislike for really rich people showing off, but how do you go camping and have perfectly coiffed hair??? I could see it, here was the rich kid who married the head cheerleader. Or maybe this was one of those Enron execs who paid themselves with our money.

We didn't check out the town, but this was the town my friend Margaret and I stayed in when we were moving her back to PA. We stayed in this cheap motel on RT 66, went to get something to eat, only to find the motel manager was coming out of our room....spooky. We didn't find anything missing, but we barricaded the door that night. We did have a great Mexican meal and a well deserved beer for me.

The next morning we got up early, had a McD's senior coffee and hit the road. The wind had died down some, thank goodness. We were only about 100 miles to Albuquerque.

We stopped for lunch at a Cline Corner roadside tourist place. They advertised all over. We had a great Mexican platter, but the bathrooms were terrible. smelly dirty gross. And for me to say that, you know they were bad, a construction site Porto-potty was nicer.

We at an RV dealership in Albuquerque to buy the new dump station handle, which was $20, but it would cost $105 or more to put it in.. yea right we can do it.....the saga of the dump station handle is coming soon ....

Driving around Albuquerque was not too bad, but we hit rush hour traffic and of course construction, so we pretty much inched our way south onto I25. Meanwhile Mike is driving me crazy, every 5 minutes he get on the walkie talkie "where are we going", which I say "south".

My plan was to stay at the La Mirage RV park in Belen, NM for the night. The GPS put us in the wrong place. If I followed the GPS,, we would have ended up at a Nursing Home....Then we stopped at a Mobile Home park to ask directions, which no one there could speak English. We finally found a man who directed us up the hill. Once there, we were told they were all full, due to the Balloon festival...I should have called..but the lady was nice and called the campground down the road-20 miles- and got us registered there, so off we went- headed for Kiva RV Park.

Put on your Cowboy Hat-we're in Texas

Driving west on I-40, it is warm, there is a bit of a wind, and you can tell you are in Texas. Where in OK, there were some trees, now it is just dry grasslands. Yep the panhandle of Texas is pretty harsh. There are rusted silos and some small towns that have lost their luster. You do see cattle and ranches. Most of these ranches are huge. there was a sign that said Johnson Ranch- North branch, and it was hundreds of acres. This is one place I would not live, even if you paid me. But I wore my cowboy hat, cause that's what you do in Texas.

So about 30 miles from Amarillo, where we were going to stay at a Walmart parking lot , I hear this BIG BANG. I pull over and there is another blow-out on the same side, same wheel, different tire. The last one was the inside, rear duel, this was the outside tire, and it was a big one. Caused some damage to the wheel well.

Well we learned our lesson with Good Sam, so Mike went 7 miles to the truck stop, where he found someone to come change the tire, still another $300. This was not getting any fun...

He was there in less than an hour , and was a real nice man. He got us on our way.

Summer time is construction time on the roads, and it was a mess coming into Amarillo. I didn't realize how big this city was. Since there is nothing around for miles, I guess those Texans found a good watering hole and stayed there. I 40 goes right through Amarillo and we found the Walmart, but the GPS was wrong..

The parking lot of the Walmart was like a mini RV camp. There were 27 campers that I counted, maybe more on the other side, and 3 trucks. It was crazy. Many were headed to Albuquerque for the Hot Air Balloon Festival. We stayed there and talked to alot of people.

Not too early we left , back on I 40 west.

Now I have to backtrack a bit for the next part of the story. When we were staying at PRO Diesel in Kansas waiting for Agatha to get better, we helped clean out a truck. The Pickup truck had been abandoned for lack of repair money and Cory was going to have it auctioned off. I had been poking around the truck, because I saw there was a feather and an eagle claw hanging from the rear view mirror. So I knew that the owner was native and had probably danced in a Sun Dance. There was sage and some other things. So I helped clean the truck out and took the sacred things, a ring on a chain, and some CDs.

The night at the Amarillo Walmart, I had a terrible time sleeping, something was making me feel very uneasy. I knew there was something not right with my bag of items, maybe that was why we were having so many troubles, maybe there was some really negative energy that had been attached to them.

So right out of Amarillo, we stopped at a truck rest area, which was dirt, and had a ceremony for those items. We buried them, put tobacco on them, and had a pipe ceremony. We sent healing energy to the man who owned these things, and smudged ourselves and Agatha. It felt much better after that. There was only 40 miles to the New Mexico border...

Oklahoma was hot and dry

After leaving the wonderful folks at Augusta, Kansas, we were behind on our driving schedule. I had wanted to stop at Ponca City, OK where there was going to be a big Pow Wow, but we decided to drive through to OK City area. We were doing fine, driving down I35 and about 15 mikes north of OK City when I heard a loud POP. I figured maybe a flat, but it was a blowout tire. I called Good Sam, which is like AAA for RV's. They would send out a repair man, and needed to charge me for the tire and repair...like$400. Damn man. Well what could I do, so we waited and waited for this guy to come. Imagine the scene It is 94 degrees out, we are on the side of a very busy interstate and the grass on the berm was all sticker grass, which got all over poor Dakota and my socks. We waited almost 3 hours for the guy. We were not happy campers. But he fixed the tire and off we went.

Going around OK City in the dark on a toll road which had not clerks, you needed exact change, was not so fun. We finally got to the KOA at 8pm. Luckily the lady was just coming out of the office and put us in a spot. We were exhausted from the tire fun and went to sleep only hooking up the electricity and of course the TV.

The next morning I was not ready to get driving again, so we stayed another day and explored the area. Right next to the KOA, which was on I 40, was a pen a buffaloes, and a Cherokee Trading Post, a diner restaurant, and an antique shop. We talked to the Buffaloes for awhile, we restrained ourselves from buying Indian crafts, we checked out the antique store and we had a nice dinner, where I flirted with the 2 policeman who were next to us. I made a grown man blush and laugh. We had fun. We also had a great hot shower.

The next morning I was totally refreshed and ready to hit the road again. West on I 40, which runs next to old RT66, we saw cows and ranches and drilling rigs, some working, some rusted and dead. They look alien. We noticed many people were taking RT66, mostly motorcycles and some bikes. The road dies out in some places only to reappear again. It was a warm sunny day and we were headed to Amarillo TEXAS.

KANSAS CITY HERE I COME

After all that Jesse James history, I realized that I had never been to Kansas. I also didn't know how Kansas was such a wild place. Kansas City was the starting place of the Oregon Trail and the Santa FeTrail. Towns are Dodge City, Medicine Lodge, Wichita. There were many fort here. There were Indian wars, Civil war battles, and Wild Bill Hickock. We didn't stop in Kansas City due to time, but my friend Pier says it has great shopping. It is known as a cattle city, larges stockyards....we saw hundreds of cattle in one of them. Can you say steak for dinner??

We drove south on I35 and said hello to Courtney's hometown of Emporium, (Sean's girlfriend). Then we drove through the Flint Hills. They are rolling hills that look like desert. Nothing there for miles, the soil is alluvial deposits. It is plains with grass growing and occasionally some wildflowers. Way off in the distance black dots, which are cattle, graze. There is no town for miles. It was a beautiful place though. It felt like I could touch the clouds.

Our goal was to was originally to camp in El Dorado, but the campground had very bad reviews so we ended up in the Walmart parking lot there. I noticed that Agatha was backfiring, and I knew that wasn't good, so we called around to see if someone could look at it. Interestingly most RV dealers don't service them, or you have to wait a week or so to get in. So we were referred to PRO DIESEL, AND Cory said we could come the next morning. so we did.

LIFE AT PRO DIESEL

When we pulled into the Pro Diesel yard, we were met by Cory, the owner and his little helper, a small rambunctious girl of about 2 years old, Reese. Cory started exploring the problems of the RV and I played with Reese. Her Mom, Kellie, works in the office. Cory tried several things and we were still backfiring. So we stayed in the yard that night. They hooked us up to electric and we read until it was dark.

The next morning, Cory worked on some gaskets and valve cover. He and his number one man, Jeff, brain stormed trying to figure it out. Still nothing stopped the problems. So we stayed another night in the yard. I spent my day playing with the kids, Reese and Ty, a Kindergarten age boy who likes rocks. And I met Cory's son, Garrett, who could be a future geologist. He is collecting rocks and wanted to know all about them. We gave him a quartz crystal and some others. He has a tumbler machine and was very curious about all the rocks we had collected along this trip. We found fossils, mostly shells and coral, right by the garage. We are collecting more rocks and will send him a bunch from New Mexico.

The next day Cory is stumped. No seems to know why this RV is backfiring and running rough. I felt so bad because clearly he was frustrated by Agatha. We were all frustrated. We took it on a night ride and he said there was fireworks-sparks everywhere. I was scared shitless. Cory called everyone in the area to pick their brains, and looked on line.. so it looked like another night in the yard.

This is how nice Kansas people are, particularly Cory and Kellie. They asked us to come over to their house so we could have a shower,(best shower ever) wash our clothes, have a real dinner, and sleep on their couches. Mike also was happy to see the 50" TV too!!! It was great fun, like a pajama party.

Saturday, Cory and Mike went to the shop, while I hung out with Kelly and the kids. Dakota, the dog, also had a buddy to play with, a young catahoula, named Diesel. They ran all over the yard, wagging tails and playing. Cory put a new set of spark plug wires and and something separate them and a new muffler. This seemed to work. Was it true, Agatha was fixed. Yes.

To celebrate Cory and Kellie bought pizzas for everyone. It was good, hadn't had a pizza for months.

Since it was Saturday and pretty late, we decided to stay and again we were invited back to the house. We had a great time, campfire and all and enjoyed talking. We watched a movie, as everyone, except Mike drifted off to sleep.

Sunday Mike and I made pancakes and eggs for everyone. We all enjoyed them and we said our goodbyes. Down the road we were missing those kids...

So if you are near Wichita go 8 miles east to Augusta, KA and say hello to our new friends. The nicest people in Kansas- Cory and Kellie at PRO DIESEL.