Sunday, April 29, 2012

Karma’s Travelling Anxiety – Winnemucca, NV

Karma is not having as much fun on our travel days as we are. She is doing a lot of pacing/panting and rarely lying down to rest between potty stops (every 60-90 minutes). We learned on our trip out of Alaska back in 2008, that Ginger capsules for her tummy were helpful and Benadryl seemed to help her nap during the trip.

Now we have a “Thunder Shirt”. It’s a snug fitting cloth that goes around her middle and is secured at her chest (below) collar position. They are supposedly ”magic” for anxieties like thunder, travelling, etc. etc. etc. Since she isn’t much of a foo foo dog (even though she is half poodle) it is taking time for her to get used to the “shirt”. Today was the first time she really wanted it on. That could be because she is treated well – cheese!

We are also trying an anti-anxiety drug (2mg Alprazolam). We are working on the timing of the drug because when she comes off the drug she has been a little more frantic than is typical for her at the end of our day of travel. Today we gave her the medication about 3 hours before we shirted her and took off. This time she was a bit frantic while we were preparing to leave (you know - slides in, electric pulled and stored, etc.). Now that we are in camp (about 8 or 9 hours after getting the pill), she is her normal self. We would like to get away from the medication and use just the shirt but we aren’t sure it works by itself with her. Some more driving days will tell.

Weather Report - Provo, UT

We got a lot of rain during the night. Much of the tree right next to the rig sent little branches down on the roof. We woke up to FRESH snow on the mountain peaks around the greater Salt Lake City area. From hot, dry, windy Moab to cool, wet, still windy SLC.

It seems when we are in hot areas, there are no trees in RV parks to hold off some of the sun. Then when we are in cooler places, there are all sorts of trees to keep the sun from warming the rig. Ah, the life of the homeless travelling America.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Dead Horse Point State Park – North West of Moab, UT

Being close to the headwaters of the Colorado River, this area reflects a smaller canyon with the same vastness and beauty of the Grand Canyon in Arizona. We drove about 25 miles off the main highway across mostly flat high desert mesas to get to the “edge”. The viewing turn offs and platforms provided enough acrophobia impetus for Ruthi to pretty much watch the bottom of the truck cab floor.

Monday, April 23, 2012

Cameras – Moab, UT

We have smart phones which continue to outsmart us at every turn. While we no longer want to turn them in for our old phones (like we did at first), we still need to learn how to operate a few of the functions. For example, the camera worked well as a still for the old RVs we posted in a previous blog entry. When we tried to do a panorama of the Moab formations with the video we ran into many technical challenges besides trying to do this in the full sun of the desert.

What we ended up with was a fine narration of the walk to and from the scenic view of the formations. So, if you really want to see Boots’ feet tromping along the pathway, let us know and we’ll post it. :) :) :)

Arches National Park – North East of Moab, UT

From Arches National Park handout “THE STORY GEOLOGISTS TELL . . . The park lies atop an underground salt bed that is responsible for the arches, spires, balanced rocks, sandstone fins, and eroded monoliths of this mecca for sightseers. Thousands of feet thick in places, this salt bed was deposited across the Colorado Plateau 300 million years ago when a sea flowed in the region and eventually evaporated. Over millions of years, residue form floods, winds, and the oceans that came and went blanketed the salt bed. The debris was compressed as rock at one time possibly a mile thick. . .”

We are only a month into the season so traffic was easy up and down the road into/up to Arches National Park with only a few (less than a dozen) bicycles making the climb. They have labeled a number of rock formations like the “Balanced Rock” (don’t know if it’s fair but it is indeed balanced). We were able to identify a number of our own – Sphinx look alike, turtle head coming out of it’s shell, some male body parts that have had heavy doses of Viagra, a Walrus head, a group of monkeys doing the “hear no eveil see no evil, speak no evil” routine, one particular close copy of the Easter Island God statutes, and a hang down dog face to name a few.

There was a Garden of Eden Viewpoint that we stopped for. If this reflects Eden, I can see why they ate the apple. And, further on down the road there was the Devils Garden Trailhead. The views were as magnificent going up as going down. There were sections that looked like city streets amoung all the sky scrapers. We talked with a lot of foreign tourists mostly from Germany and Japan

Friday, April 20, 2012

Noisy Neighbors – Moab, UT

For some reason, we always seem to get the site next to the RV Park partiers. This is probably the 5th or 6th time it’s happened. Starting at 4pm, they begin to gather (right outside our living/bedroom slides) with their chairs, dogs, and drinks in hand. They are very happy, loud people and totally crash our nap time. Lucky for us, that they are much more mature than us and break up around 7pm for their bedtime.

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Rocks - Maob, UT

The roads from Albuquerque to Moab (via the SouthWest corner of Colorado) had some of the most beautiful geological formations, colors and shapes. As we neared Shiprock, NM, we saw out on the desert what could have been the masts for a very large ship as we got closer and our perspective changed it looked more like a cathedral than a ship. There is a church rock nearer here that was also magnificent!

The formations are really amazing to look at. Similar the scenery along Route 395 in California. We think these roads (US64, US491, US191) are in competition with the Redwood Forest Trail (Highway 101 in Northern California and southern Oregon) for the most beautiful scenry we have traversed in our 4 years on the road.

Here in the valley surrounding Moab are snow covered mountain peaks. This is a really beautiful place. We wondered why the beautiful places are in the middle of nowhere (Moab, Alaska, etc.). Probably cause otherwise, we’d develop them into ugliness.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Historic / Vintage RVs – Albuquerque, NM

Here are some pictures of the old RVs they have on display at the RV Park (Enchanted Trails). None of them are pulled anywhere now but the park does rent out a few of them for guests to the park.

Monday, April 16, 2012

Snow?? - Santa Fe, NM

Santa Fe for the day temperatures dropped 15 degrees and elevation rose by 2,000 ft. We got some snow flakes – in April in Santa Fe!!! Had great tour of the city. Ruthi is beginning to think Albuquerque could be the city except for the average winter temperatures. Also, we are having some breathing challenges at this elevation and the wind has wrecked havoc on Ruthi’s contacts.

Friday, April 13, 2012

Tim’s Place - Abuquerque, NM

Today, we needed to do some annual medical testing (blood work and mammograms) so that the results would be at our doctors in Reno when we go thru there in May. So, we fasted the night before thinking we’d do the lab first then find a breakfast place before going for the scans. We like to eat locally. That’s half the benefit of seeing America – eating regional foods. While waiting for the blood to be drawn, we used our smart phones to seek out a nearby restaurant. There’s a local NM restaurant called Wecks but we passed on that. Tim’s Place sounded even more local so we headed there.

We were warmly greeted and seated. Our waiter took our beverages order. Then a young man (mid-20’s we guessed) came over and introduced himself as Tim and welcomed us to HIS place. He saw the band-aid on my arm and asked about it. After I told him I has just had a blood test, he told me about a time he had been hospitalized and had had an IV in his arm. This might seem out of place or strange but Tim is a highly functional and capable restaurateur who also has Downs Syndrome. To learn more about this amazing young man – check out his web page - http://timsplaceabq.com/

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Tornado Update - Albuquerque, NM

Ruthi's sister has suggested that when we are in our truck secured with seatbelts and air bags we should also have on helmets. She thought motorcycle helmets would work best but we have decided on using our bike helmets. Now we just need to get one for Karma.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

"Westward Ho" - Albuquerque, NM

Travelling these last few days had us thinking about the “Westward Ho” pioneers and the desolate conditions they drove their wagons and families West. Without even concerning the water issue – though there were more opportunities/options back then before civilization came this way – women walking behind or alongside the wagons must have suffered sun stroke. Can you imagine – they had on long sleeve floor length dresses over petticoats (also long) and snug full body underwear. If that wasn’t enough then they had on thick hose/stockings inside highheel/hightop shoes.

The wind, sun and/or rain was beating down on them day after day and the landscape didn’t seem to change much from scrub high dessert to rocking high dessert. The bravery or desperation of these families drove them to new lives out here in the South West. Then there were the outraged original residents of this country (Indians) that were less than pleased to see another wagon train headed towards them.

For us being exhausted, dirty, with grit in our eyes seems simple in comparison. We pulled into a campground hooked up to clean cool water and electricity turned on the air conditioner, took showers, and crashed for a couple of hours before hitting the local cuisine options for dinner. Well there was one problem, the winds are driving grit into Ruthi’s contacted eyes making it very difficult for her to see. We ended up buying another pair of sunglasses with a wrap-around feature that seem to help.

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Tornado Warning – Pecos, TX

Around Pecos, TX and up to the New Mexico border, West Texas flattens to the prairie for as far as the eye can see. This lends itself to big thunderstorms and the occasional tornado. With our new “smart” phones we are able to track the radar and severe weather warnings from The Weather Channel. Once we were settled into our spot last night, we did note a few clouds in the North East moving South East. So it looked like we were on the outer Western edge of the system.

As the evening progressed, the storm clouds were closing in on our location (out near the airport in Pecos). The severe weather warning now began to talk about tornados and the camp host knocked on our door. He wanted to make sure we were aware of the warning about tornados and that the toilet rooms would be used as the emergency shelter for the RV park residents. We mentioned that we had Karma, he said he didn’t think that it would be possible to bring her. He was worried about his cat as well.

We brought the slides (living room and bedroom) in to better stabilize our rig; which was still connected to the truck (which also helped in stabilization), as this was only an overnight. So, we debated and decided that the 3 of us would hunker down in the bedroom and wait it out. So, we are on the bed talking and enjoying the rain, occasional thunder, rare lightening and very little wind. Then the Pecos’ siren went off to warn all citizens of the possibility of tornados. So, now we are a little more worried about the situation. Karma listened to the siren for a while and then stretches out and falls a sleep. (As an aside, in the past 4 years of our travels thunder, lightening, strong rain pelting the rig have not seemed to faze her.)

The siren went on for about 15 minutes. There was little wind during that time. So, we were past the tornado warning from NOAA and the Weather Channel. Then the rain began – torrential downpours on and off for the next 4 hours. But we all were able to sleep through it. Whew!!!!

After some more consideration today, we think that next time we will hunker down in the truck. With our seat belts and harness restraint for Karma, we at least could be contained and the air bags might deploy further cushioning us if we were air borne like those semi trailers in Dallas last week. And, we could watch the weather happening around us!!!

Monday, April 9, 2012

Wild Flowers – Texas

We keep forgetting to mention the really colorful and varied wild flowers that were blooming in April/May across Texas. They are really nice to see as we speed by and when we walk Karma. She’s particular upon which color she will pee.

Tra RV Park - Pecos, TX

We had heard that this was the worst SKP Park; even so “worst SKP” is many steps above some of the other WORST RV Parks out there. We arrived before the afternoon office hours and had some challenges figuring out where to pull-thru for the night. Neighbors to the 2 open spots offered strange directions as to how we should park our 2 slider. We did it their way but are still confused as to the whole point. We and they tried in vain to explain to each other the why of the parking directions. We are still mystified. It’s sort of like jigsaw puzzles in fitting the rigs all together.

High Desert - West Texas

We have spent the past 2 days in the high desert and rolling hills of West Texas. Ruthi loves it and would stop right here except for the lack of city lights or town main streets for that matter. We are truly in the middle of nowhere. We had spotty cell phone coverage and didn’t even see many cattle or ranchers on the range. But it is pretty green with rolling landscapes – like the old western movies.