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Adventures in the Villa

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July 2021

2021-07-26 – Heading to Missouri for the Oregon Trail caravan… Day 4 – Tucumcari, NM to Liberal, KS

The RV park in Tucumcari (a KOA) is mostly for overnight stays – it’s not exactly a vacation resort. By the time we poked our heads out of the Villa at about 9:00 am all the other RVs were gone… It’s a strange feeling, and an odd sight to see…

So we headed out at about 9:15 and we pointed the truck roughly Northeast. Today we will drive though portions of four states!

We soon left New Mexico and entered the Texas Panhandle. Lynda almost shot a photo of the Welcome to Texas sign…

Around 10:30 am we arrived the cute little town of Dalhart, TX, population 8,400. We have driven through many small towns on our various trips, and most of them are decrepit and derelict. Not Dalhart! It is a thriving town with many nice residential neighborhoods

It also has train tracks right through the center of town…

So we stopped and waited. And waited… Finally we pulled off the road and parked. There was a very nice Family Dollar store here, so we went in a bought a few trinket’s

Finally the train moved on. (It had been moving slowly, back and forth – adding or subtracting cars somewhere along the line…)

We continued on, and soon entered the panhandle of Oklahoma. We spent about 100 miles in Texas and about 50 miles in Oklahoma.

Oklahoma looks a lot like Texas around here…

And it looks a lot like this, too…

Yhe GPS on the dash was pretty accurate…

We see signs of civilization now and then…

We see these everywhere… Anyone know what the small yellow pipes are doing connecting with the yellow tower in the background?

We finally arrived in Kansas – our fourth State of the day… We turned off onto the old highway…

We found our RV park for the night…

This is on the outskirts of Liberal, Kansas, in the far southwest corner of the State. The park is Very primitive, but they have good 50 amp power hookups. We were set for the night. Did we mention it is HOT here? We quickly turned on both ACs and enjoyable time was had by all…

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2021-07-25 – Heading to Missouri for the Oregon Trail caravan… Day 3 – Grants, NM to Tucumcari, NM

We awoke in the Villa in the early morning, we quickly readied ourselves to depart, and we pulled out of the alley onto Main Street. We stopped briefly for coffee and breakfast sandwiches, and we were on the freeway again. These cross country trips are quite utilitarian, and we don’t do much sight-seeing.

We had an uneventful trip. We had more rain – enough to wash off all the mud we picked up whilst parking in the alley behind the winery. We stopped for fuel, as we do each day. We also stopped at a Rest Stop to eat lunch in the Airstream, and to walk around a bit to get our exercise…

At a little before noon we arrived way too early to check-in to the KOA RV Park in Tucumcari.

But we spent some time walking and we were finally shown to a very nice parking spot…

We spent the afternoon relaxing and enjoying the AC – it’s 90 degrees here – the warmest day so far, but we anticipate our next two stops in Kansas will be hotter…

Dinner was our massive quantities of left-over pasta from Moscato on Friday evening. And some nice California Pinot Noir…Always good movies on TCM, and good books to read. I finally finished David Rockefeller’s “Memoir”, and I have started Hemingway’s “The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories”… Lynda is reading an eclectic mix of novels she picks up at used bookstores and thrift shops. We enjoyed a pleasant evening and an enjoyable time was had by all…

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2021-07-24 – Heading to Missouri for the Oregon Trail caravan… Day 2 – Camp Verde, AZ to Grants, NM

We had a fairly leisurely morning. We enjoyed a walk around the RV park, and eventually got around to packing up and heading out. We drove north towards Flagstaff. About 20 minutes into the trip I realized that I had failed to attach the electrical umbilical cord. We stopped as soon as it was safe. Indeed, it was dangling off the tongue , and dragging on the pavement. It was a bit worn…

But I was able to reconnect it and everything (lights, brakes, etc.) were all working again. And we were off again.

At Flagstaff we turned east and proceeded across more desert. We entered New Mexico…

We had more rain around Gallup, and lots of traffic after that. The roads in Arizona are abysmal, even though they are constantly under reconstruction. Today we came to a “detour” without any warning, and without posting an alternate route. We lost about an hour of time, poking along at about 5 mph. But we had plenty of time.

We even stopped to be tourists for a few minutes. We stopped at The Petrified Forest National Park; but we didn’t go in – we just stopped at the gift shop. We bought some representative sample of petrified wood for the Grandchildren. They really are interested in gems and minerals these days; we think petrified wood will interest them.

We finally arrived in Grants, NM. As we were exiting the freeway we received a telephone call from our host for the evening – The Uranium City Winery. She talked us in, and we parked around the back. The Uranium City Winery is a member of Harvest Hosts, as are we. We can “camp” at the various business members locations – wineries, orchards, museums, and the like. The Uranium City Winery isn’t much to look at, and the town is not exactly a bustling metropolis, but we had fun!

We were directed to park around the back, about six feet from the winery’s back door. Did I mention that it was still raining?

We went inside to enjoy some wine tasting. Some of the wines were even made with grapes! Unfortunately, their best seller, Cabernet Sauvignon, has sold out. But we tasted a muscat (pretty good), a mead (not a fan), a plum wine (quite good), a cherry wine (not so good) and a sangria (very good). We had a great time chatting with the owner, who grew up in Grants in the 1950s and 1960s, when it was a boom town, supporting the booming uranium mining industry. But in 1975 the federal government stopped subsidizing uranium mining and started to allow the importation of uranium. Within a few years Grants was a ghost town, and it is pretty much unchanged since then. The family moved to Moab, Utah, which continued prospering for a few more years. Then she moved to Texas, finally coming home to Grants 30 years later. With the wine and great conversation, we had a great time. We returned to the Villa, ate some leftovers from Moscato for a simple supper, and turned in early. (Boondocking like this we don’t have TV, internet, or a microwave oven, and we skimp on the lights…)

But an enjoyable time was still had by all…

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2021-07-23 – Leaving Home, heading to Missouri for the Oregon Trail caravan… Day 1 – Redlands, CA to Camp Verde, AZ

We’re off again! This time we are going to retrace the path of the Oregon Trail, from Missouri to Oregon. To do this we must, again, drive through the California desert, drive through the Arizona desert, through the New Mexico desert, and on through a corner of the Texas desert, through a corner of the Oklahoma desert, then on into Kansas, and finally into Missouri. We will be retracing some of the same roads and places that we have been through before…

But first, here is an update of our grandchildren…

Roisin got to ride the big school bus to go off to beach and surf camp…

Ian visited The La Brea Tar Pits and stuck his finger into the tar…

George got a little dirty when he had a minor fall during a family hike…

Evelyn has found her calling as “Super Woman”…

They have enjoyed their summer, doing the many things that have been off limits over the past 15 months…

But back to out trip…

We had an uneventful day driving across California and Arizona…

Not the first time we have been in Arizona, but it is always fun to take a photo of the sign…

Arizona looks like this along this route…

We had a little rain, but nothing that delayed our trip. We headed north at Phoenix, and continuing to Camp Verde, located about one hour south of Sedona. Camp Verde is a sleepy little town that has the best restaurant in this part of Arizona. People drive the hour from Sedona because it is better than anything there…

Camp Verde looks like this… We are at about 3,200′ elevation…

We found the RV park. We are in, connected, and paid for…

So, after checking in to the RV park, we freshened up and headed to Moscato Italian Restaurant. We had a fabulous meal, with courses that were way too large – we brought home over half the food. (We drank all the wine…)

Next to our table was a group of six men, about our age, who were celebrating a birthday. They were having a great time, and on occasion we could hear someone mention their Airstream. Several times. We were not sure which man it was, so as we were leaving we stopped at their table and asked, “Which one owns an Airstream?” It turns out that four of them own Airstreams! They were all from Sedona, and, like I said, they drive the hour to Camp Verde to eat at Moscato. We had a fine discussion about Airstreams, diesel trucks, and the finer things of life, and we then left them to continue their celebrations.

We returned to The Villa. An enjoyable time was had by all…

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