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!

Meteor Crater

We drove about 80 miles from Cameron to a little east of Winslow Saturday. We arrived at Meteor Crater RV Park about 11am after lots of fun huffing & puffing up and down the mountains getting here. Before we left Cameron we said our good bye's to Dave, Trish & Bill; they are headed south to the Sedona area for a good long break & rest. I tried to take Tank but Trish would have none of it. We have been with them for 2 months since meeting up in Casa Grande before the B&B II rally.

Clayton & Pat pulled in just as we were finishing setting up. After we all had a short rest we drove 5 miles to the Meteor Crater to check it out. It is a very windy day. We had Subway at the crater's visitor center, a first (and probably last) experience for Pat & Clayton. The crater was interesting, there was a very good short movie and the museum was very professional. We didn't take the crater rim walk due to the wind but did scamper up some of the viewing areas.

We are in the middle of nowhere as you can see in one of the pictures. The crater was made 50,ooo years ago when an asteroid traveling 26,000 miles an hour hit and created the crater which is 3/4 mile across and 700 feet deep. The asteroid was 150 feet across & weighted several hundred thousand tons. Now, how do they know all this? I found this all to be very interesting.

Cameron, AZ & the Grand Canyon

Thursday we traveled to Cameron, AZ through the Utah mountains. here's a picture of our RV then Dave & Trish's and Bills. Clayton & Pat are in the row behind us. We are in the desert across from the Cameron Trading Post; this is as close to the grand Canyon as we can get. This is one of the bridges we crossed getting here. We had a good supper at the Trading Post this evening. Trish has been under the weather since our dining out a couple days ago and is slowly getting better.

We spent Friday with Clayton & Pat at the Grand Canyon. We did bump into Dave, Trish &Bill there too. We started at 10am and returned home about 9pm. We passed all the Navajo jewelry & pottery places without stopping, and there are LOTS of these cobbled together wooden displays along the way. We took the parks bus along the canyon rim and stopped at many of the vantage points & had a nice lunch in one of the restaurants in the park. It was busy but I can't imagine how crowded it will be in the summer.

We spent Friday at the Grand Canyon.

A little rest in Hurricane before leaving Utah

Here's a pic of Clayton's motorhome at the St George CG. We got together with a few more HitchHiker friends in the area for lunch one afternoon. We also went with Clayton & Pat to the Hurricane Museum to see the 107 year old fruit cake. The first 2 layers were eaten a century ago, it must have been pretty bad as the top 2 layers have never been eaten. Out time in Utah is coming to an end.