Arizona

Images of Arizona have always been brilliant sunshine, super hot days and beautiful cacti filled landscape. I guess that was because they only made the western movies in the summer time.

We woke to the sound of coyotes howling in the hills, chilly temperatures and rain. We got on the road and headed to the Petrified Forest. By the time we arrived here the rain had turned to snow and it was cold. The wind chill factor was very low. Woolly hats, gloves and jackets had to be worn – and that was in the camper!!

The Petrified Forest national park was having its 101st birthday the day we arrived so we got to sign the birthday card and received two free posters but no birthday cake or hot toddy.

We were stunned by the beauty of the Petrified Forest. The colours of the logs were amazing as was the size of some of them. We did a couple of the walking trails before the rain/snow put paid to that. The last little stop we made was to have a look at the Agate Bridge. This is a huge petrified log that water had washed the sandstone out from underneath, forming a bridge over a small canyon. In the early 1900’s they tried to preserve it by giving it some extra support by putting a concrete beam underneath it which seems to have worked.

The national Park is very concerned with the amount of wood being stolen from the park and random vehicle searches are done as you leave. They estimate that over one ton of stone disappears each month.

Just when you think you can’t possibly see anything more spectacular you arrive in the Painted Desert. By now the snow was really starting to fall and the wind was icy cold so Marty decided he would look from the van but I ventured out at each viewpoint. The last viewpoint did see Marty get out and take in the full beauty of the landscape. Words (well not mine anyway) can’t begin to describe the beauty of it. If anyone ever comes to Arizona this has to be a destination.

We carried on up the I40 and parked up in Wal Mart in Flagstaff and the snow was really starting to fall. I thought it was great and was really enjoying prancing around outside with the snowflakes falling all over me. Marty didn’t share my enthusiasm one little bit. What a party pooper.

The temperature in the van dropped overnight to the very low 20’s. (That is F not C). Marty was freezing and not a happy camper at all. My menopausal hot flushes were doing their job nicely and I wasn’t suffering near as much. It was very lucky that I had put water in the kettle the night before as our water tank had frozen solid. No way that we were getting anything out of there. We had breaky and made a start for the Grand Canyon. The van started first pop and we were off. About 5 minutes later we were stopped on the side of the road and not going anywhere. While Marty was on the phone to AAA (thank goodness we had joined) a police car, lights flashing pulled up behind us. When I told him we had broken down and were on the phone to AAA he said he would just sit behind and wait till the tow truck came. Nothing like having a police escort I guess. When I told him a few minutes later that the AAA was an hour away he decided he’d only stay a few m ore minutes and then be off. An hour later another police car arrives so we have to explain everything again. He told us to put our hazards on and if the AAA hadn’t arrived within the next hour he would try and arrange for some other tow firm to remove us from the roadside. The AAA had been having a very busy night. It was a comforting sight to see the rear view of the truck in front of us. Luckily it turned out to be nothing serious. Turns out the old girl doesn’t like this cold weather any more than her driver and decided she would put in a protest by upsetting the delicate balance of her choke and air cleaner. At least no major mechanical work was required and we were eventually on our way.

A decision had to be made re our venture up into the Grand Canyon, and a couple of the other national parks in the area. The weather forecast was not good with warnings of at least three more snow storms due to hit. It was a hard decision on my part but common sense had to prevail and I would have found it rather hard to sit and watch Marty trying to mend broken water pipes without feeling a twinge of guilt, so we decided to call it quits and head back to California. Beaten by the weather our big trip had come to an end. It seemed such an anti climax but we have already decided we will come back and spend a couple of months finishing of the trip maybe next August/September.

We spent the night in a little camp just out of Needles and then made the 400 mile trip to Creston the next day. No mean feat at an average speed of about 40mph. It took is just under 9hrs only stopping for gas. Traveling through the Mojave Desert, which took quite a few hours, was quite something with the terrain changing depending on the altitude. It was never boring and quite beautiful. We of course had more time to enjoy it than the other motorists as they were all traveling at or above the 75mph speed limit and had no time whatsoever to enjoy it.

We stayed in Creston (snow on the road in) a couple ofdays with our friend Marty D, tidying up the camper and trailer then headed up to Salinas to spend a couple of days with my sister and her family. We rode up the Big Sur. What a great ride that is. Came home the same way stopping at Hearst castle to see what money can buy. Pretty impressive sort of place. As you can see I was quite taken with the pools.
We spent another couple of days with Marty as the weather had turned to custard and I was too whimpy to ride the bike down to LA in the rain. We celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary by going out to dinner with Marty D. The waitress was got so excited when she saw the two Marty's that she tipped Marty D's salmon dinner all over my Marty's trou. We got very good service after that plus free dessert. There was so much food that we took doggy bags home and Marty D was able to have a celebratory "Got rid of the kiwi's"dinner after we left.

Yesterday weather conditions had improved so we set off. This was my first long ride on the bike since we have been her. The 101 wasn't too bad and the 405 was only hairy the two miles either side of LAX so only a coffee and a nice hot bath were needed when we arrived back at Westminster. Now the fun starts. Unpacking, cleaning and selling the old girl who has done us proud for the last 9 month's and over 16,000 miles. (we did 12,000 miles on the bike)





This will be our last blog so we hope you have enjoyed following our travels. We have meet some lovely people seen some amazing things and stunning scenery. It has been a wonderful journey but now we must go home and start planning the return visit.

We wish you all a very merry Christmas and we will see you all when we return back to a lovely warm NZ climate in early January.

New Mexico

We arrived at Carlsbad Caverns too late to make the ¾ mile steep windy descent into the natural cave entrance so we had to take the more leisurely 1 minute descent in the elevator. These caves are huge. I read somewhere that the main cave is big enough to fit the Golden Gate. You take a self guided tour through the cave with an audio option. It does a loop around the perimeter of the cave which takes about 1½ hours to stroll around. There are many limestone formations of all shapes and sizes which are amazing. One small part looks just like a scene out of the old TV program Stingray. Only thing missing was the water, Troy Tempest, and of course Marina swimming by.
The sun was starting to set as we returned to ground level. Walking back to the camper Marty started making as few muttering sounds and when he reached the trailer he gave the wheel a kick and said “I don’t bloody believe it”. The tyre gremlin hadn’t finished with us. Another tyre change was made in the fading light of day.

We spent the next morning searching for a tyre shop that had the necessary camper tyres. Success at the last one we tried in Carlsbad, so while the tyre replacing was going on I shot across the road to the launderette and did the weekly wash. I think it was more exciting than hanging around the tyre shop for an hour.

We made it to Roswell by 3pm so that gave us time to check out the UFO museum. Roswell was the scene of an alleged alien spacecraft crash landing in 1947. It was made especially notable because of the Air Forces extreme lengths to cover it up. The museum consists of mainly newspaper and eye witness reports of the event. You are left to decide for yourself. We both had our doubts but these were completely removed the next day when we saw an alien in Roswell. It was disguised as a woman on a bicycle but one look at her face and it was instantly recognizable as alien from the pictures taken of the 1947 crash. So Roswell does deserve its title as the Alien centre of the world because they are alive and well there today.

We headed west on Billy the Kid Scenic Byway. At times this looked very similar to the landscape in Otago. The camper was made to work hard in a few places as it was quite mountainous – and wet. We parked up in the Oliver Lee Memorial State Park which gave us awesome views over the Tularosa Basin and access to a hike into Dog Canyon over the trail used by people for thousands of years to get from the Tularosa basin into the Sacramento Mountains. It was also the site of several skirmishes between the US Calvary and the Apache Indians. We only did part of the trail but the views were spectacular. The next day we did another small hike to Oliver Lees’ ranch house. He owned over 1 million acres before going bankrupt in the great depression. . He was quite a legend in the area, even being tried for the murder of a political opponent and his young son. He was acquitted but the mystery remains……

From the lofty heights of Dog Canyon we moved onto the White Sands Monument also in the Tularosa Basin. These are massive sand dunes covering about 275sq miles. The thing that makes them unique is that the sand is made of gypsum. They are quite a sight.

A little further up the road is the White Sands Missile Museum. As you would expect this is a museum dedicated to displaying the US’s missile history. There is an outside area filled with missiles dating back to the 50’s. This is the only area you can take photos and then only if you are facing the Organ Mountains. I didn’t bother. One building had a restored V 2 rocket in it from WW 2. The Americans took all the German V2 parts after the war as the rocket factory was in the Russian sector and the bits arrived in the US in record time. The main museum building had all sorts of missile info but also a section on the pioneer families that lived in the area before the government took the land for military purposes after WW2. That was much more interesting to me than a bunch of missiles that all looked pretty much the same.

We spent the next couple of days in the little town of La Mesilla, on the outskirts of Las Cruces with Dick and Linda Casey, friends we had met through the AJS and Matchless Club. Dick took us on a great ride around the local area. We went over the San Augustin Pass to Aguire Springs Reserve which gave us a view over the missile base we had visited the day before and an up close look at the Organ Mountains. It was a nice windy road into the park. We then rode through another canyon on the other side of the mountains to Dripping Water National Forest. The guy in the info centre told us the history of the area and of a couple of great hikes but unfortunately we didn’t have the time, nor did the guys have the inclination.

Silver City was our next port of call. Silver was discovered in the area in the 1870’s and thus the town was born. A devastating flood washed away the city’s main street in 1906. Only one building survived. What used to be Main Street is now known as the Big Ditch. It lies some 55 feet below street level. We spent a quiet afternoon browsing through the numerous second hand shops and numerous craft shops that now line the main shopping area. There are 31 small art galleries in town. According to the camp host where we were staying, San Francisco is moving here and did we see any of them. By that he meant artistic gays and lesbians now living in town and he wasn’t that happy about it.

From Silver City it was a 2hr ride up to the Gila Cliff Dwellings so we packed lunch and set off. The first part of the road was quite slippery with ice, loose gravel and clumps of damp pine needles. A couple of times I thought we were going to be horizontal again. Marty said that he could feel me trying to steer the bike from the pillion seat but I have to disagree. I was just bracing myself in case. Not necessary as we made it to the car park without incident.

There is a half mile hike up to the caves which we managed without any effort at all. Views for Africa. The caves were built by the Mogollon’s (Moggy-on) around 1276. By luck we timed our arrival at the caves in time to go on a ranger guided tour. It was excellent. Very informative and interesting. We walked down with the ranger and he introduced us to Sam the local lizard and continued to tell us interesting facts about the area. We stopped at another site on the road out and hiked into a smaller cave dwelling and onto see some rock paintings. We also got to see two more lizards happily sunning themselves and more than happy to be observed until Marty let rip and they scurried for cover. We also got to see a tarantula on the path.

We took a slightly different route home at the suggestion of our camp hosts. She had said it wasn’t any further and we would get to see Lake Roberts and the copper mine at Santa Clara. The copper mine was huge and has been in operation since the 1800’s. It is over a mile wide and just as deep. We didn’t linger too long here as the sun was setting and the temperature dropping. It turned out that it was an extra 42 miles coming back the way we did but the scenery was great and the road a little better than the morning’s route.

Since we had become such enthusiastic hikers our next stop, after leaving Silver City, was The Catwalk. This is a 3 mile round trip following the old pipeline route built in the late 1890’s to bring water from 3 miles up in the canyon down to the silver mill at Whitewater. There were remnants of the old pipeline still visible along the way from steel bars in the cliffs to broken pipe in the riverbed. It was a picturesque walk and despite the information board saying it was a moderately difficult trail with some steep inclines we found it a piece of cake. Are we getting fit?? Somehow I don’t think so.

From here we pressed on towards Arizona. It wasn’t a quick trip as the last 40 odd miles seemed to be all uphill. The highest altitude we reached was 8500 feet.

By the time we reached Arizona it was raining and cold. Maybe this was the start of the storm we had been warned about. Looks like the thermals we had bought a few days ago are going to be handy after all.

Texas

Despite a last minute feeble attempt by Wendell to trap us and a lengthy photo session by the others we managed to escape the ever so friendly clutches of Louisiana by 12.30 and by 3pm we had crossed the state line into Texas. We did have second thoughts about leaving a few miles down the road but we stuck to our plans and kept going west. We spent our first night in Texas in a Wal Mart car park in Baytown.

We got on the road in good time and had an easy drive through Houston. Thank goodness as I think that freeway would be horrid at peak times. We decided to spend a couple of days at Palmetto State Park. We could fish here but Marty had no luck and eventually the cold drove him indoors.

We spent Thanksgiving Day in San Antonio. It was a breeze getting into the city and finding a park as the roads were practically deserted. We strolled along the River walk which was really lovely. Most of the shops were shut but the restaurants were doing a roaring trade. One even provided ponchos so you didn’t freeze to death while outside eating. I thought Marty would look cute in one but he declined my offer to wine and dine him. We then wandered our way to the Alamo. I had to ask a Deputy Sheriff which way to go because the signposts just seemed to lead us around in circles. It was quite interesting to hear the history of the Alamo and we did get to see one of Davy Crockett’s muskets. We had a wee bit of trouble finding where we left the camper as we couldn’t agree on where we each thought it was. I ended up asking a couple of blokes at another car park if they knew where we were parked. Was a bit like 40 questions as all I could give them was a few landmarks that I remembered but eventually they worked it out and sent us off in the direction I had been pushing for all along. Poor Marty, he doesn’t do being lost at all well. You would think he would have got used to it by now!!

When we left Abbeville I had jokingly said that we would spend Thanksgiving in a Wal Mart car park and that is exactly what we did but I did cook us a hot chicken dinner to mark the occasion which was rather nice as the temperature had dropped quite considerably.

Next day saw us heading towards Fredericksburg. We stopped at a little town called Comfort to check out a wrecker’s yard as we are still searching for a replacement cover for the air con unit. No luck but the guy had a collection of old bikes, mainly BMW’s but a couple of other weird things as well. One, being a 250cc Simpson with a sidecar. We spent quite a while there yakking and looking at all the bikes. He was a bit of a character.

Eventually made it to Fredericksburg and had a wander around the shops. We found one shop that sold pickles, salsas, sauces etc and had about 7 little tasting rooms. Needless to say we spent quite a bit of time in there and didn’t require lunch when we came out.

We booked ourselves into South Llano St Park for a couple of days as we could fish, hike and bike there. All those plans were scuttled when the weather changed and it became wet and very cold. The temperature dropped to about 39°F and it was about then when Marty went to light our gas heater that he discovered one of the pipes had split so that was the end of that. We had to instigate other means of keeping warm.
Two days of bad weather and no improvement in sight so we hit the road again. I miscalculated the mileage to Fort Stockton so we had to stop at a little no horse town to get some gas. It was $3.45 a gallon. Boy did that hurt so we only put enough in to get us there. A few miles up the road I commented to Marty that it looked like snow clouds up ahead and sure enough we were soon driving in snow. By the time we arrived in Fort Stockton it was a lovely shade of white and bitterly cold. We heard later that this was the heaviest snow fall they have had in years. I thought it was great but Marty didn’t share my enthusiasm and almost went and bought a heater.

Sixty odd miles up the road we were out of the snow and safely installed at Balmorhea State Park. I wanted to stay here because it has the world’s largest spring-fed swimming pool. It has a constant temperature year round of about 74°F so quite swim able year round. The pool was built by the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) in about 1938. It is a V shaped pool all lined with limestone ‘with the depth ranging from 3 foot to 25 foot and the water is crystal clear so with goggles on you can see the fish, turtles and odd snake that you are sharing the water with. It was gorgeous but Marty declined to swim with me, so I had the pool all to myself.

We went for a little ride into town to see what there was to see. Nothing as it turned out so we went on out to Lake Balmorhea. We turned off onto a dirt/mud road that led to the lakeside resort. I think an error of judgment was made on the part of the rider as one minute we were upright doing 5 mph, the next the front wheeled had skewed off course and we and the bike were all in a very muddy puddle. No damage done to us or the bike although we all needed a good hosing down when we got back to camp. We have got to stop using the bike as an off road vehicle. It really isn’t designed for it. For the record that is the first time Marty has dropped the bike when I have been pillion in the 32 years we have been together. Maybe he is telling me it’s time for me to get back on my own bike!

About 70 miles south of Balmorhea is a little town called Marfa which had its 30 seconds of fame back in the 1950’s when the movie Giant starring Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson and James Dean was filmed there. A must go destination we thought. The busiest place in town was a little pie cart called the Food Shark so naturally we stopped and checked it out. Not bad. Fortified we left to explore the town. Had a look in the Hotel which houses a few of the film props and even more expensive arty farty type shops. Picked up a couple of books in the second hand shop before we decided we’d done all there was to do and headed back to camp making a stop at the snake and reptile museum at Fort Davis on the way.

This is run by a guy struggling to come out of the 60’s. Dressed in a superman camo shirt, bandana and camo pants he really looked the part. The museum itself is a scruffy room filled with cages containing many different species of rattlesnakes, some scorpions, tarantulas and a couple of venomous lizards. I could tell from the moment we set foot in it that Marty didn’t want to pay the $4 entry fee (he hadn’t even wanted to stop but was humoring me again). Too late I’d paid and he was in. Strange how things work out. The guy really knew his onions – or snakes in this case and as we were the only visitors we got a guided tour and we learned heaps about the lifestyles of snakes. One rattler didn’t really like us and whenever we went near his cage he gave us a really good rattle. Didn’t make any attempt to strike though despite my best efforts to make him do so.

It was a good outing, and the roads and scenery were beautiful Nice to have a few hills and corners after days of flat straight motoring.

Another neat thing about Balmorhea St Park is that at night and early in the morning you can hear the coyotes howling. Really makes you feel like you are in cowboy country.

As we continued on our travels we were forced to make a stop in a small town called Pecos as one of the camper’s tyres was about ready to give up the ghost. The size we require is quite hard to come by so we had to visit all three tyre shops before we were able to get a good second hand one. We had them put the spare on the other dual as we thought that was in better nick than the one already on. Ten miles up the road we hear this loud bang and look behind to see pieces of black and a metal object fly across the road. Pulled over and discovered that the tread on the spare had parted company with the tyre taking part of the exhaust system with it and bending a few panels underneath. Marty had to reshuffle the tyres again. Not an easy task on the side of the road with trucks roaring past at over 70mph. We had no further problems and crossed the State Line into New Mexico about 2pm to find that we were now in Mountain Time and had gained an hour so we were still on schedule to visit the Carlsbad Caverns.

So Texas is now behind us. I was disappointed not to have seen a Long Tall Texan. Marty said he saw one and she looked pretty damn good………………..