Swim anyone?

Hey everyone, the water's fine & there's room for all of us! Come on down Devyn! I really like all the green grass & trees here at the Summerdale Escapee Park plus the nice big empty pool. We have been spending time with Jody and puttering around doing odds and ends on our rig. It's been quite warm (90s) and humid. It usually rains in the afternoon but today it's been raining off & on all day. I am enjoying the lightening and rolling thunder, been missing that. We went to a very small and old Lutheran church 8 miles away this morning. Jody is here and I'm watching the Indy 500 while the ladies are off running around. We have come to the conclusion that we miss the western desert after a year or more but we just gotta have the green grass & trees of the east.

Patches has been getting lots of outside time and is enjoying it even if she's on a leash.

Moving moving moving, keep that trailer moving.....

We have been busy since our last post, we have travelled from Albuquerque, NM to St Augustine, FL and are now in Summerdale, AL. This is the most traveling we have done at one time since we hit the road in February 2007. I do not want to do it again. We decided to wander back to AL for Jody's residency graduation in June. Well, due to one reason or another we changed routes 4 times. On 5/17 we left Albuquerque & traveled to Carlsbad, NM. On 5/18 we went to Ft Stockton, TX & stopped in Pecos, TX at the West of the Pecos Museum. Barny Riggs had a bad day on 10/3/1896 as the shot & killed two guys in the bar where Judy is standing. Guess the others guys had a worse day. We then learned that Judy's sister Margaret had died. Although we knew this was coming Judy was still quite upset so we decided to head straight back. On 5/19 we were in Luling, TX and had a tire problem that we had repaired. On 5/20 we were in Duson, LA and spent 3 hours and 50 minutes when the LA bubba's closed I12 with no detour directions. It was everyone for themselves and after all that time we advanced 9 miles! On 5/21 we arrived in Summerdale, AL at the Escapee Rainbow Plantation and set up home. We are tired. Jody came over 5/22 and the three of us went to St Augustine. Bruce stayed home to work and watch their pooches. There was a short sibling memorial for Margaret at the grave site on Sunday 5/23 with Jim, Clayton & Judy plus their families. Mark, Clayton's son, came down from Atlanta and Jody was with us. Margaret is now at peace with Dick and Greg, I think that's where she wanted to be. We all then had dinner together with Trisha. Kim wasn't able to make it but we did go to see Kim & Tom before we returned to Summerdale today 5/24.

After we returned home Judy & Jody spent some time at the Gulf beach and the CGs pool. We plan on being at this site for 3 weeks, here's some pictures of the Escapee Plantation campsite. We like it here, it's dark at night, no traffic to speak of, everything is green, we have our own bed, lots of birds for Patches, not crowded and it's peaceful.

TinkerTown

Sunday we went to church, had lunch at Burger Boy & then spent a couple hours at Tinker Town Museum. The museum was started in the 1960s by a guy who liked to whittle figures out of wood. It grew from there over the years. There are hundreds & hundreds of figures in all sorts of settings; circus, boot hill, side show, blacksmiths, saloons, etc. Several are animated & move. The creator wasted nothing, anything he collected (junk or not) was somehow incorporated into his museum constructed from many shacks in very hilly terrain. We visited a similar museum in Anita Springs, LA so I asked about it and was told that it's builder had visited Tinker Town 20+ years ago and wanted to start his own in LA.

The weather was very pleasant and we spent some time getting ready to leave in the morning. One other very special event happened......Devyn called and we both had a wonderful talk with her, a very special event indeed.

Bye Clayton & Pat; visited the Nuclear Museum

On Thursday morning Clayton & Pat pulled out for Amarillo, TX. We have been with them since Hurricane, UT for the last couple weeks and really enjoyed their company, we spent several nights playing cards, it was like old times. BUT.....we'll see them again when we both get to FL & AL.

Friday we rested & never left the RV, we have been with Dave & Trish & Bill then Clayton & Pat since mid March. This is the longest we have travelled with anyone.

Today, Saturday, we did Curves, Subway, the Nuclear Museum, Home Depot, Walgreens, and fueled the truck. The museum was interesting, so much that I have ordered a couple books about the Manhattan Project. We saw replicas of Little Boy & Fat Man and an atomic cannon (first one I have seen) and a couple other small tactical nuclear weapons plus much more. We like history and this was a good museum.

Santa Fe, NM

Today we went with Clayton & Pat up Sandia Mountain overlooking Albuquerque then continued up the Turquoise Trail to Santa Fe. Here's Judy trying to stay warm in the cold wind on top of Sandia; 10,600 feet up. You can't see downtown Albuquerque which is about 20 miles west behind Judy but I did zoom in on it for the next pic. We took a trolley ride through Old Santa Fe to see the sites, as you can see it was chilly at 7000 feet up. All the buildings are adobe which was interesting. Here's a couple pics of Santa Fe which had over 200 art studios, if you are into art this is the place for you! All the stairs in one pic lead to the NM state capitol building. We visited the famous Loretto spiral staircase you can see inside the chapel. (It is not the larger church which is pictured from the outside.) The story goes that in 1872 the chapel was built for the Sisters of Loretto but the builder died before it was completed and they discovered there was no way to get to the choir loft 20 feet up. The sisters were told the chapel was small and there was no way to construct any kind of stairs to the choir loft. Needing a way to get up to the choir loft the nuns prayed for St. Joseph's intercession for nine straight days. On the day after their novena ended a shabby looking stranger appeared at their door. He told the nuns he would build them a staircase but that he needed total privacy and locked himself in the chapel for three months. He used a small number of primitive tools including a square, a saw and some warm water and constructed a spiral staircase entirely of non-native wood. The identity of the carpenter is not known for as soon as the staircase was finally finished he was gone. Many witnesses, upon seeing the staircase, feel it was a miraculous occurrence.

The resulting staircase is an impressive work of carpentry. It ascends twenty feet, making two complete revolutions up to the choir loft without the use of nails or apparent center support. It has been surmised that the central spiral of the staircase is narrow enough to serve as a central beam. Nonetheless there was no attachment unto any wall or pole in the original stairway, although in 1887 -- 10 years after it was built -- a railing was added and the outer spiral was fastened to an adjacent pillar. Instead of metal nails, the staircase was constructed using dowels or wooden pegs. The wood for the staircase cannot be found anywhere in the region. The stairs had 33 steps, the age of Jesus when he died.
The mystery had never been satisfactorily solved as to who the carpenter was or where he got his lumber, since there were no reports of anyone seeing lumber delivered or even seeing the man come and go while the construction was being done. Since he left before the Mother Superior could pay him, the Sisters of Lorett0 offered a reward for the identity of the man, but it was never claimed.

Tijeras, New Mexico

Monday we got a record start, 7:30am to avoid the predicted winds. We didn't want to wait another day because the winds were forecast to be even stronger, 50mph Tuesday and the CG in Meteor Crater is in the sandy desert. When we stopped in New Mexico for a short break we were quite surprised how strong they were because we didn't notice them while driving. We had a strong tail wind that pushed us east, great. We arrived at Hidden Valley RV Park 20 miles east of Albuquerque, NW and got 10.4 mpg towing.....a record! Here's a couple pics of our campsite, Patches at rest and Judy & Pat with a lilac bush at the park.

Winslow, AZ

Sunday we went to Winslow, 20 miles east. We are spending another day here due to lots of strong winds. This place is in the desert sands and they are blowing all over. Anyway, Winslow was a big disappointment. We did see the statue of the dude standing on the corner being checked out by the girl in the flatbed Ford. Winslow has a 911 memorial with some of the steel beams from the World Trade Center; they made a nice memorial but it on the corner of nowhere & nowhere. Why didn't they place it downtown in the park with a totem pole, the grass & gazebo? We did have a nice Mother's Day meal....at the only place we could find open. If you ever have the opportunity to move to Winslow....DON'T!