June 24, 2010 Trip Wrap

Today I finished the book described on Day 22 by Robert Frimtzis, “From Tajikistan to the Moon”. It was very interesting and well written. On this trip I discovered the Weather Channel’s reports by Interstate. These let you plan your route to avoid snow. I also learned that without special Route 66 maps it is hopeless to find Route 66. Forget about using Rand McNally books. Finally the Trailer Life Directory Campground Navigator 2010 CD works well for finding camp sites. I also recommend the iPhone app RV Parks. It is the first directory that shows street addresses needed for Garmin GPS. Our Garmin Street Pilot won’t accept Lat/Long.

 41 days total

5,828 miles total

336 gal diesel

$966 fuel cost

$2.87 avg cost/gal

$2.66 – $3.40 price range per gal

Highest price was at Baker, CA

 $0.166 avg diesel cost per mile

Filled up with propane twice

8.6 gal on 2/9/2010

10.9 gal @ $3.25/gal on 3/2/2010 (20 days)

0.545 gallons avg per day

$1.77 cost per day for propane

Propane was used almost daily for heat

Generator was only used for a couple of hours

March 20, Day 41 Saturday, Wappapello State Park, MO to Kenlake State Park, KY

We had a really quiet night at Wappapello State Park since there was no one else around. The most exciting moment on the drive to Kenlake was crossing the Mississippi River on a very narrow old bridge and watching a transport truck coming at us and wondering if we would lose at a minimum our mirrors. However, I guess the bridge is wider than it looks. Arriving at Kenlake Marina we dry camped in the parking lot. I worked on sumerizing the boat which means filling the water tank, draining the antifreeze, opening up the A/C seacock, and the worst job is hooking up the aft head. I was done at about 5:45pm just in time to attend the opening of the boating season party at the Grand Lakes Yacht Club. It was nice end to our trip, catching up with boating friends and having a good dinner and entertainment (see photo).  On Sunday we unpacked the View, took it to its storage shed in Murray KY and picked up the car. We’re spending the night on the boat and will drive to Nashville in the morning. In a few days I will make one more post with the trip statistics.

March 19, Day 40 Friday, Joplin, MO to Wappapello State Park, MO

Wappapello State Park is a few miles north of Poplar Bluff in the Southeast part of the state. Tonight we have virtually the entire park to ourselves. There is one other couple in a tent down the hill. The lake is a large reservoir with low water. We were impressed with the Missouri Roads. Coming east on US60 it is almost new and soon will be four lanes all the way. We stopped at Mansfield to take a break. I spotted a sign advertising an historic home tour. Soon we were touring the two homes, Rocky Ridge Farm (see photo) and the Rock House, of Laura Ingalls Wilder and her daughter Rose Wilder. Laura wrote the Little House books. The museum had a ¾ scale model of the covered wagon she and her husband used in 1895 to go from De Smet, SD to Mansfield, MO. It took about 35 days to go 700 miles. Laura didn’t write books until 1932 at age 65.  Her last book appears to be written in 1943. One of her homes, the Rock House, was a 1928 Sears Catalog house similar to our 1928 Nashville home. It was given to Laura and her husband as a retirement present. However, they preferred the home they had built by hand and only lived in the Rock House for a few years.

March 18, Day 39 Thursday, Clinton, OK to Joplin, MO

Today we learned a lot more about Route 66 at the Museum in Clinton. The road was built over a twelve year period starting in 1926 to connect Chicago to Los Angeles. As the car began to be the major mode of transportation, roads were needed. In the 30s with the depression and the dust bowl, people packed up their stuff and moved east or west. By the 50s with the Eisenhower plan that bypassed the towns with the interstates the glory days of Route 66 were all over. The guide at the museum recommended a book rather than the map set as it was written by a friend of hers and has a lot more information than the maps. (EZ66 Guide for Travelers by Jerry McClanahan). We tried it out twice on our way to Joplin. The book does make it easy to find your way. The photo shows the round barn at Arcadia, just northeast of Oklahoma City. The barn was built in 1898 and was restored in 1995. It got a new roof in 2009. It contains a gift shop and a dance hall on the second story. Route 66 covers 8 states, but only 13 miles out of over 2,000 are in Kansas. We visited this section at Galena and as result we were in 3 states, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Missouri today.

March 17, Day 38 Wednesday, Tucumcari, NM to Clinton, OK

This was not one of the most exciting days on the trip. We had to wait 4 hours in Amarillo to get the 40,000 mile oil change done. I had called the Dodge Sprinter dealer, but he couldn’t handle such a high vehicle, but said the Chevrolet dealer could do it. We made an appointment for 11 but when we arrived at 10:30 he couldn’t do the job until 1:00pm. It was a huge Chev Truck parts and service operation, but seemed to have very little business. We were underway at 3:15 with 150 miles to go. Near Groom Texas in the Panhandle we passed the tallest cross (190 feet) in the Western Hemisphere (see photo). It could be seen for 5 miles on I-40. Checking on the web, it is now the second tallest as a new cross in Illinois tops out at 198 feet. Did you know that Elk City Oklahoma was the home of Miss America 1981?  That’s what the sign says. It turns out that Clinton is the location of the Route 66 Museum. We’ll visit there first thing in the morning and hopefully buy a copy of the Route 66 map you need to follow that road.

March 16, Day 37 Tuesday, Grants, NM to Tucumcari, NM

The volcano field at Grants extended for several miles along I-40. In places there were small craters so it must have been pretty exciting 3,000 years ago. I learned a lot more about Route 66 today. Just because you see a sign for Historic Route 66 don’t take it. About 32 miles on I-40 from Albuquerque I decided to try Route 66. We headed south and wound up in Los Lunas, 32 miles from Alburquerque. Route 66 then went through Alburquerque and all the way up to Santa Fe before returning to today’s I-40. I checked out a Route 66 website which had a map of the remaining parts of the Route. The first one I wanted to take wound up a dead end with no access to I-40. Another stretch had 17 miles of gravel. It is safe, however, to take it through the towns. We are staying in Tucumcari because it was the inspiration for the movie Cars and I thought it was neat on our 1987 trip. It is very sad to see all the gas stations, motels and restaurants closed down along the main street, Route 66. The Blue Swallow Motel with its Refrigerated Air at least had a sense of humor with the painted wall on the back of the rooms. (see photo). The street was very wide and at times there was no traffic at all. The Economic Developers have a real challenge at Tucumcari. The name comes from a legend about the old Apache Chief whose daughter, Kari, had two suitors. One she loved, Tocom the other she hated. The Chief told the two braves they would have to fight to the death for her hand. The daughter entered the frey and killed the winner with her knife. When the Chief learned the outcome he grabbed Kari’s knife and killed himself crying in agony Tocom-Kari (which evolved to Tucumcari. I thought we had seen the last of the snow at Flagstaff, but for 20 miles after Albuquerque the fields were covered in snow.

March 15, Day 36 Monday, Sedona, AZ to Grants, NM

We got an early start by Sedona time but 7:15 by New Mexico time. I decided to take the I-17 interstate route rather than face climbing the Oak Creek Canyon to get to I-40. Although this route is 27 miles longer, the narrow winding SR89 and construction can easily take longer. It’s a long hill up to Flagstaff on I-17 but there are no switchbacks. We stopped at Gallup for lunch and a visit to the Wal-Mart Superstore for groceries. We got to Grants, New Mexico around 4:00PM and stayed at the KOA. This RV Park is in the Zuni-Bandera Volcanic Field. The RV Park is surrounded by collapsed volcanic bubbles (see black lumps in today’s photo). The snow covered mountain is about 7,100 feet high. There is no snow on the ground here but the temperature is going down to 20 degrees tonight. The coldest ever for us in the View. A friend told me about the La Ventana Restaurant in Grants and we were not disappointed. They serve a mix of steak, roast beef, seafood and Mexican food. In business for over 40 years they are surviving the recession in Grants where many stores and other restaurants have closed along Route 66.

March 14, Day 35 Sunday, Sedona, AZ

After setting all the clocks ahead last night, we found out that Arizona stays on standard time all year. Tomorrow we’ll be in New Mexico so the clocks will be right again. We walked to the nearby Tlaquepaque (ta-lockey-pockey) upscale area of art shops and restaurants. After lunch I hiked up Schnebly Hill Road to the the Munds Mountain Wilderness. The trail encircles Sedona. The views of the various mountains are spectacular (see photo).

March 13, Day 34 Saturday, Kingman, AZ to Sedona, AZ

Snow was the word for today. We climbed to 7,000 feet near Flagstaff before heading south to Sedona. It was great to see the snow but not have to worry about the roads. On our last trip in 1987 we got to Flagstaff at night and had to go down 2,000 foot steep, winding Oak Creek Canyon Road in the dark. It was frightening. Today after 23 years we saw what we had missed. It was beautiful but probably the wildest corkscrewing main road in the country. As in 1987 when we couldn’t fint the hotel we had lots of trouble finding the campsite. The GPS kept taking us up wrong roads. However, we did get to the Rancho Sedona RV Park (formerly the Rancho Sedona Mobilodge) which is the only RV Park anywhere near Sedona.

March 12, Day 33 Friday, Valley of Fire State Park to Kingman, AZ

We retraced the Northshore Road as the scenery looks different when you go the other way and with almost no traffic it was much more relaxing than going through Las Vegas.  I had a chance to check out 2 more marinas whose boat ramps were high and dry with the water down about 100 feet from the more normal water level. Boating on Lake Mead would be a challenge with such fluctuations. At Hoover Dam I learned the spillways have only been used once in 1983 when the water level was reaching the top of the dam. The photo shows how low the water is above the Dam. Security is tight with every bin and the inside inspected. The traffic jams crossing the dam are huge, because of the inspections, the narrow road with pedestrians crossing at will, and this is the only road that crosses the Colorado River and heads east to Arizona for many miles. We had lunch at the dam, toured the Power House and watched a 1931 presentation using a very large model of the Colorado River basin on why the dam was built. Tomorrow we will go to Sedona.