Month: November 2018

Tripometer – 13,081 mi

Gas Gauge –  983.676 gal

Location – Rock Hound State Park, Deming, NM

Lodging – FREE

Cans of OFF – 4

We’ve noticed on the past few move days that as soon as we start packing up the trailer Ranger starts power napping. He passes out either under the table or trailer and doesn’t come out until we call him to put him in the car. Even after 4 months of travelling over 13,000 miles, Ranger still can’t sleep in the car. At his most inactive he lies in the back seat but refuses to lower his head to rest on the seat. We’re guessing that he’s figured out the signs of a long travel day ahead and knows he needs to get some sleep because he won’t be able to sleep in the car.

As we walked into the park office this afternoon to check out, we were accosted by a baby goat in an RV checking out at the same time. We’re not sure how we left without a picture.   🙁

We headed North out of the RV Park and had driven to almost the mid point between Tombstone and the next town north, 15 miles from ANYTHING when we realized the gas gauge was on dead empty. Comforting ourselves with the knowledge that we had 2 gallons of gas in the can for the generator if all else fails, we made it to town and the gas station and filled the tank with 20.48 gallons of gas. Hopefully that will be the largest fill-up of the trip.

We stopped for lunch at Adolfo’s Taco Shop in Willcox, AZ. Besides having the best tacos of the trip so far (and that’s saying something), we ran into the most amazing artwork that we’ve seen in the Southwest. The painting above was large and in charge of almost an entire wall in the restaurant. Is this the Southwest equivalent of a velvet Elvis?

We pulled into Rock Hound State Park fairly late in the evening, almost dark in fact. Predictably there were no sites left in the park for the evening but while talking to the camp host we learned that at least one person was planning on leaving in the morning. We were directed to drive back to the Visitors Center and park across the street until a site opened up. Not really happy with the campsite itself, we were ecstatic about the cost, free! We left the whole rig attached and called it an early night on the side of the road. As we fell asleep tonight and woke up the next morning, we were reminded of where we were by the sound of cars going over a cattle guard a mere 50 yards from the trailer.

Tripometer – 12,863 mi

Gas Gauge –  963.196 gal

Location – Tombstone RV Park & Campground, AZ

Lodging – $37

Cans of OFF – 4

Halloween!

After getting ahead on her work yesterday, Kelly was able to get away from work a little early today. We went back into Tombstone to hit a couple of the attractions that we missed over the first two days. We were also hoping for a spooky time given the fact that we are in a town called Tombstone on Halloween.

Tombstone was founded in 1879 by prospector Ed Schieffelin after finding what was to become the largest silver strike in Arizona’s history. According to some estimates, over the course of mining operations in Tombstone, Ed Schieffelin’s mines would bring in $40 to $80 million dollars or $1.1 to $2.3 billion dollars in today’s money. Our first stop was the ‘Good Enough Mine,’ the most accessible of the original Tombstone silver mines. We took a 30 minute tour of the silver mine with a very authentic looking miner and enjoyed hearing how hard rock mining was done 150 years ago (by hand with a lot of hard work).

On the way out of the mine, Ranger spotted his first donkey just outside of the mine’s entrance. Thinking this would be a good opportunity to introduce Ranger to farm animals, Paul allowed Ranger to get too close and the donkey took offence (immediately following the picture above). The donkey (Jenny) lowered her head and started advancing on both Paul and Ranger with obvious ill intent. If it weren’t for the quick action of Kelly and the tour guide, we think either Paul or Ranger would have received a rather nasty donkey bite.

After hitting a few different shops in town not on the main street, we topped off Halloween in Tombstone by visiting the Boot Hill Cemetery to walk amongst the gravestones as the sun set. Our first stop in the cemetery was to the graves of Tom McLaury, Frank McLaury, and Billy Clanton — the three men killed in the gunfight at the OK Corral. Much to our delight, there was a wedding ceremony going on at the back of the graveyard. We didn’t want to be obnoxious so we grabbed a shot of the happy couple, elderly officiant dressed in 1880’s top and tails and what must have been the officiant’s wife dressed as a ghostly bride. We’re not quite sure what type of people get married on Halloween in the Boot Hill cemetery, but we think they’re guaranteed to be interesting people.

We honestly expected that Tombstone would have bloomed a bit on Halloween. We thought we’d see a lot more people in town celebrating the day. Sadly, the town was just as dead on Halloween as on any other weekday. Maybe last weekend was crazy busy? Or maybe we’re just weird, thinking this makes a neat destination for Halloween.

 

Special Note: Where are all of the old horse-drawn wagons and carriages on the East Coast? In the west we see pre-automobile wagons, coaches, and other equipment constantly. Frequently we’ve seen these types of vehicles decaying in fields and behind houses rather than being used for whatever purpose. We can recall being excited as kids to see something so old at home. Perhaps the weather preserves them better than the tropical jungle-like weather that we have in Maryland?

Tripometer – 12,857 mi

Gas Gauge –  963.196 gal

Location – Tombstone RV Park & Campground, AZ

Lodging – $37

Cans of OFF – 4

We have been enjoying the sound of coyotes in the night at this RV park. The property immediately behind the RV park is a large open hillside that we are sure is full of rodents and rabbits that the coyotes hunt in the dark. We hear them carrying on assumedly every time they get a kill, which is sometimes several times a night. It’s almost enjoyable waking up to a dozen yapping howling critters seemingly surrounding the camper. Ranger doesn’t agree.

Today was largely a work day. Kelly pounded away at social media from the front porch of the RV park recreation center while Paul dove into some reading that he’s been putting off.

We went into town tonight after dark to find some food and a drink at one of the saloons in town. We chose Big Nose Kate’s Saloon that is located in the old Grand Hotel on Main Street in Tombstone. Big Nose Kate was Doc Holliday’s girlfriend and features large in the OK Corral story. Tombstone struggled to exist for so long between the historic gun fight and when Hollywood picked up the story making the area an attraction, that most of the original history in these old buildings is gone. Either way, we enjoyed a couple ‘Big Ass Beers,’ a nice dinner (the food was pretty good!), and returned to the trailer for the night.

Falling asleep this evening we kept hearing what could only be a baby goat somewhere in the RV park. The RV park has several campsites set up for people travelling with livestock. The sites on the far side of the park all have large pens and shelters for horses, cattle, or in this case goats? We’re going to have to take a walk down there tomorrow to see the little guy. It certainly sounds adorable from our side of the park. A baby goat’s bleat is a wonderful sound to fall asleep to… if you’re far enough away.

Special Note: Ranger has a new favorite food. He has never been especially food-driven, even going so far as skipping meals because he doesn’t like what he’s been served. At several times during this trip we have had to take detours to specialty pet food stores to find the dog food that we know he’ll eat. Lately we have been buying Oreos for our dessert in the evening. Dessert foods are always a treat that he enjoys, but neither of us expected him to have such a reaction to Oreos. We can’t touch the package at any time during the day or night without him dropping whatever he’s doing (including other treats, toy, naps, or other dogs) to come investigate the sound. Tonight he almost sprained himself and Paul trying to get out of the upper bunk where he was napping when Kelly went for the Oreos. Dog knows you can’t expect us to remember to give him a quarter of an Oreo if he’s not front and center begging for it.

 Tripometer – 12,850 mi

Gas Gauge –  963.196 gal

Location – Tombstone RV Park & Campground, AZ

Lodging – $37

Cans of OFF – 4

Cell signal at this park is awful. Kelly tried working at the campsite but very quickly abandoned the picnic table for a table outside of the RV park rec room. Over the next few hours Kelly was joined by several other similarly disgruntled remote workers forming an impromptu work club on the front veranda of the Tombstone RV park. You can’t make this stuff up!

As soon as Kelly completed her work for the day, we climbed in the car and drove into Tombstone. Tombstone is listed on the National Register of Historic Places but we discovered online and in person that they are being threated with de-listing due to questionable historic practices in the town. What exists in Tombstone today is a weird mix of truly authentic old west history with carnival, side show icing on top. The number of tourists in town was incredibly small even though it is mid-week during the school year. There were no waits in any store or attraction and we enjoyed a relatively leisurely walk up and down main street with the dog, loving the lack of tourists. Again, we were stunned to find that Tombstone is extremely pet friendly. As we were walking from the car to the downtown district we got hawked for several attractions and asked to bring our dog. Many of the shops on main street have signs permitting dogs in the stores and many stores without signs invited the dog in personally.

To get a proper lay of the land, we hopped on a tourist trolley for the official 20 min tour of town. Ranger joined us in the back row. Prior to this trip we have both seen several movies featuring the story of Tombstone and through some internet searches on the drive here we pieced together the true story versus what we’d seen in the movies. The tour of town didn’t reveal any new information on the gunfight at the OK Corral, but it did yield a few pieces of trivia about the town of Tombstone that don’t appear in the histories that we had read. Firstly, Tombstone is home to the Guinness Book of World Records’ largest rose bush. The rose bush was brought to Tombstone in 1885 from Scotland and has been lovingly tended to ever since. It covers over 9,000 square feet and its gnarly truck is roughly 12 feet around! Secondly, Tombstone was the long time home of Emmitt Kelly Jr., also known as Willey the Clown or the most famous clown ever. Lastly, the image of the side yard above is the Tombstone courthouse. If you look carefully behind the building you can see the (reconstructed) gallows from the first hangings to occur in Tombstone in 1884. How’s that for morbid tourism?

We had an option to see a 30 minute comedy gunfight for 5 more dollars when we bought our trolley tour tickets. Of course we opted in. Again, dogs were invited but we were warned ahead of time that there would be lots of shooting during the show if our pup was frightened by gunfire. We were fairly sure Ranger would be fine, as he’s been around gunfire and fireworks and has never shown distress. As the show started and the gunfire commenced, Ranger started showing ever-increasing signs of being uncomfortable, culminating in Kelly having to take him out of the show. We think it was the gunfire combined with the actors behaving rather erratically. With the distraction that Ranger caused we didn’t get any good photos of the show itself, but we got a nice shot of the show’s set!

On our way to Tombstone yesterday we were looking forward to watching the 1993 ‘Tombstone’ movie starring Kurt Russell, Val Kilmer, Bill Paxton, and Sam Elliott before we toured the town. When we arrived at the RV park and didn’t have sufficient cell signal to download the movie, we were all but heartbroken. In town today our #1 goal was to find a copy of the movie so that we could watch it tonight. Surprisingly, we found the movie on sale at only one store on our first day in town. Even at $22 we decided that we had to watch the movie while in town. We grabbed a copy and ran back to the trailer for movie night.

Tripometer – 12,843 mi

Gas Gauge –  963.196 gal

Location – Tombstone RV Park & Campground, AZ

Lodging – $37

Cans of OFF – 4

We woke early this morning with the intention of getting a head start on today’s drive. By our usual driving pace we need to be in Globe, AZ tonight, but if we can make especially good time we could make it all the way through to Tombstone, AZ where we want to spend a couple of days. As a treat for waking at a reasonable time, we ate a great breakfast at the KOA concession for about $10.

The gardener left the hose running on the new plants next to our trailer all night long. By morning the mud was at least 6” deep on the entire back side of the trailer. With no other option Paul slogged through the mud the entire time we packed up the trailer swearing up a storm. By the time we were packed away and ready to leave, there was mud everywhere. Kelly, who manages the interior of the trailer as we pack up, was spared most of the mud… until she went to get into the car. One foot sunk into the mud at least 4” deep right next to the driver’s side car door. Needing to vent her frustration in a productive manner before hitting the road angry, we stopped by the front desk and gave them a precious piece of our mind.

Our first stop this morning was Jim Gray’s Petrified Wood. Having slept on the decision, we opted for a fairly large chunk (20 lb?) of partially polished petrified wood with beautiful coloring. What will it cost us in gas to bring this beast home with us?

Leaving Rt 66 for the last time, we headed south on small two lane roads into an increasingly flat and dry landscape. When you think of the town of Tombstone and your mind brings forward an image of what the countryside around town looks like, the reality of the landscape is exactly what you would expect. The only item missing from the scene was the two vultures arguing over a carcass.

It was on today’s drive that we finally put to rest any notion of going to Saguaro National Park near Tuscon, AZ. We have highlighted many of the national parks as ‘To Do’ if we’re in the area or find ourselves driving by. Saguaro is just too far out of the way and, let’s face it, not a huge draw for either of us anyway. Kelly was delighted when we passed the hillside pictured above that was covered in saguaro cacti from top to bottom. Now that we’ve seen them in their natural habitat we feel we can move on down the road without regret.

Driving through Pima, AZ today (Kelly points out that this town/area is the origin of the Pima Cotton brand) we spotted a wild pig running into the brush on the side of the road. These things are of appreciable size(!), we’d guess somewhere in the 30-50lb range. We don’t think we’d like to get into a fight over a garbage can with one of these little piggies.

On the drive into Tombstone our cell signal was strong, 4 bars of LTE signal for most of the trip. Standing at the check-in desk to the RV park we noted 2 bars of LTE, that’s fine. By the time we got to our site and halfway set up for the night we noticed that we had ‘no service’.    &%@#    A quick walk around the RV park showed that signal was sketchy at best in most of the park. The 2 bars of LTE that we got at the check-in desk was coming and going as if blown by the wind. Driving up and down the highway showed that this little RV park was located in a small depression and that the cell signal is great anywhere except here. Figures. The only thing we can do now is see how it goes in the morning and make a change as needed.

This RV park has rattlesnake warning signs everywhere…

Special Note: Arizona Sunsets. Anyone who lives in Joppatowne will tell you we have some of the most beautiful sunsets going, due in no small part to the smog coming from Baltimore. The Arizona sunsets that we have experienced are legendary and have made us question the superiority of our local evening show. We have been simply thrilled night after night by the sunsets here. The skies light up into an absolute rainbow of color that whirls overhead to meet, in many cases, a simply stunning horizon silhouette of mountains and mesas. This is a part of Arizona we will never forget.

Tripometer – 12,518 mi

Gas Gauge –  948.996 gal

Location – Holbrook / Petrified Forest KOA, AZ

Lodging – $34

Cans of OFF – 4

We woke this morning and ran out of the trailer in full tourist mode, grabbed a breakfast sandwich and coffee at McDonald’s and were in Petrified Forest National Park in no time flat. We had heard from several people (you know who you are) that this park wasn’t as interesting as most and could be skipped. Not deterred, and following two days of rock hunting in the Arizona hills, we were ready to view some rocks that other people have found for us.

 

We found to our delight that Petrified Forest National Park prides themselves on being dog friendly. Not only are dogs allowed anywhere in the park except buildings, the visitor center has a “Bark Ranger” program (A ‘personalized certificate’, a couple of treats and a poop bag). We were prepared to have Ranger spend most of the day in the car as per the usual in National Parks. This was a pleasant surprise. Ranger responded to this tremendous freedom by giving us a heart attack by deciding to poop within a foot or two from a tremendous canyon drop-off. Do you really need a great view to do your business?

The national park is comprised mainly of a 22 mile North/South road with a dozen different pull offs for trails, overlooks, and interesting sites. Aside from petrified wood, the National Park has a wide variety of canyons, Native American Indian petroglyphs and a memorial to old Rt 66 which ran through the park until the 80’s.

  

We expected petrified wood and lots of it, but what we didn’t expect was the tremendous variety and the stunning beauty of the petrified wood. This area of Arizona is known for their spectacular rainbow petrified wood. The incredibly wide variety of colors that can be found within one piece of petrified wood is amazing. On the other hand, there were many specimens that appeared to have little to no change from their original coloring, making them look like they fell only a few years ago. We’ve included a few pictures to give a flavor for what we saw.

On our way back to the trailer in the evening we stopped by the largest rock shop in Holbrook, AZ, Jim Gray’s Petrified Wood. The scale of this shop is beyond anything we’ve ever seen. There was probably close to an acre of petrified wood next to the shop, all of it too large to be picked up by hand. Inside the shop there was a collection of petrified wood that was clearly generations old and thrilling to look at. We want to find a beautiful piece of petrified wood for our house and spent well over an hour digging through literally piles of petrified wood behind this shop. They had many pieces inside that had been selected and worked, but we were looking for something a bit more natural looking than the cut and polished pieces selling for hundreds of dollars. After an exhaustive search that turned up a half dozen possible pieces, we decided to sleep on it and left empty handed.

Returning to camp we were surprised to see a dozen freshly planted trees in a bed right next to our trailer. Less than a foot from the trailer to be exact. The gardener had clearly been busy today. With a big day behind us and a long drive ahead of us tomorrow we went to bed early.

Special Note: Mosquitos! Climbing on top of petrified wood piles this evening we were set upon by mosquitos. We haven’t run across a mosquito since Montana over 2 months ago. We’re not so happy to run into these little blood suckers again.

 Tripometer – 12,446 mi

Gas Gauge –  939.577 gal

Location – Holbrook / Petrified Forest KOA, AZ

Lodging – $34

Cans of OFF – 4

Waving goodbye to Distant Drums, we headed out this afternoon on our way to Petrified Forest National Park. There is no camping in the National Park. The only camp sites in the immediate area are RV Parks. Based on google reviews of the local RV parks we begrudgingly made reservations at the Holbrook, AZ KOA for the night.

Today’s drive took us back through Flagstaff and we took the opportunity to visit a local dog wash. The filthy beast needs a scrubbing’. With a refreshed and fluffed golden we continued East along Rt 40 following the old Rt 66.

Kelly stopped more than a few times today at various roadside shops and stands to peer at the local wares. We both got a kick out of various locations along the old Rt 66. including the ‘Standin’ on a Corner’ monument in Winslow, AZ. If this reference doesn’t hit you right between the eyes, Google the song ‘Take it Easy’ by the Eagles. They even have a flatbed Ford parked right out front for photos. We’re not sure it’s possible for someone from our generation to pass through Winslow on Rt 40 without stopping for a picture here.

We passed through a couple of mountain passes outside of Flagstaff today that had our poor truck really struggling. One pass in particular stands out. The truck reached a low speed of about 38mph and we got passed by a Jeep Wrangler. Being Jeep owners, we can confidently say that if you get passed by a Wrangler on the highway you’re going REALLY slow.

Pulling into the KOA this evening we found the little park to be better than our expectations. It looked relatively well taken care of and many improvements were new. There was a staffed onsite concession advertising all-you-can-eat pancakes for $2.99. We might have to check that out! Of course, on an evening when we’re not worried about our cell signal for Kelly’s work the next day we find ourselves with one of the strongest signals we’ve seen on this trip this evening. C’est la vie.

Tripometer – 12,275 mi

Gas Gauge –  923.963 gal

Location – Distant Drums RV Resort, Camp Verde, AZ

Lodging – $28

Cans of OFF – 4

When Kelly finished work this afternoon we headed about an hour and a half East to investigate another rock collecting site from our rock hounding book. Today we’re on the hunt for fossils. The region we are headed towards is called the Mongollan Rim. 330-410 million years ago this area was at the bottom of a huge inland sea inhabited by ancient sea life. The specimens we are after are encased in the local limestone and can only be accessed by breaking open limestone rock with a hammer or similar instrument.

The weather is gorgeous and we were both looking forward to spending time in the pine forest where the fossil bed is located. It has been quite a while since we have seen full size trees and we’re both rather excited by the concept of hanging around outside in the shade instead of in the Arizona sun. We followed the dirt road avoiding the large, possibly deep, puddles and parked the car on the side of the side road to start our search. The fossil grounds were easily 2 miles from the nearest paved road, so we decided to let Ranger roam free for the first time in almost a month outside of a dog park. He lost his mind and spent the next 20 minutes doing nothing but running back and forth by us in the forest as we pounded rocks.

We found some fossils almost immediately. The limestone was, in many cases, easy to open along existing cracks in the rock. We found more than a few species of shellfish, but sadly most of it was fragmentary and certainly not something that warranted spending more time on. After looking for a couple of hours or so we were prowling around the side of a hill when Paul found a spherical rock that turned out to be a beautiful fossilized clam. What we found most amazing was the fact that it was not encased in rock but just lying on the ground like an Easter egg. We assumed for the time that another fossil hunter had left it behind. Returning to the car while patting our backs for the score, we stumbled across two more in the road bed. Some additional searching turned up the collection on the left (by this time we were being relatively selective about quality). Some research on the Googles tells us that these particular guys are from the genus Atrypa and likely from the Devonian period and over 300 million years old… Then we drove the car over 300 million year old fossils all the way out of the fossil beds.

Ranger was a tired boy on the way home tonight. It was really nice to let him free for a while. No puppy should stay this restrained for this long.

Special Note: There’s something to be said for settling into a location. We have settled into Distant Drums. We are taking electricity for granted, the water isn’t sputtering when you turn it on from air in the lines, and we know where the important things like showers and the dog park are without getting out a map or finding an access code for a door lock. Living on the road, it seems like a huge amount of daily energy goes into where the basics are going to come from. When the basics are taken care of, the mind can relax and think about something other than water, shelter, and warmth.

Tripometer – 12,190 mi

Gas Gauge –  923.963 gal

Location – Distant Drums RV Resort, Camp Verde, AZ

Lodging – $28

Cans of OFF – 4

One of the things that we like to do when in the Southwest is rock hounding. We haven’t had a chance to do much digging so far in this trip, but we hope to change that over the next few weeks. In Washington we stopped at a rock shop and bought two books on rock hounding the Arizona and New Mexico areas. This area is known for its gem and mineral deposits. We’ve identified a couple of areas within an hour or so of a drive that we want to check out before we leave. The first place we’re going to go to is more about its proximity to our RV park than for the type of mineral we are going to find. The Camp Verde Salt Mines are located about 10 miles from our campsite.

 

Taking Ranger, we investigated the salt mines with intent to find some of the minerals that our book suggests we might find here. The prettiest specimens we found today were of Glauberite or Sodium Calcium Sulfate. The two pictures above are of one perfect glauberite crystal and several amalgams of crystals that we found in the hills surrounding the salt mine. We both enjoy looking for rocks mostly because it gives us something to do while we hike amongst these beautiful hills. It’s like a distraction from a distraction.

Leaving with our crystal specimens we decided to find a hike in the Red Rock Canyon area just south of Sedona. Red Rock State Park was highly recommended to us by several people and we know the area to be pet friendly. Arriving at Red Rock Canyon State Park before dusk we were upset to learn that the park was NOT pet friendly AND they were charging a $10 fee per person even though we were less than an hour before close. Disgusted we travelled on to another nearby State Park recommended by the ranger at Red Rocks, only to find that they too wanted an entrance fee mere moments before closing. Apparently the park is a favorite with photographers looking to get night shots of the landscape under a full moon. The park doesn’t kick anyone out at closing, they just don’t admit anyone after closing. Not wanting to spend $20 for a 30min hike, we decided to go back into Sedona to stop by a couple of shops in the area and get dinner at a local Sushi restaurant. We did leave with a few photos of the canyons in the area.

Sedona is an interesting place. There is a huge new age movement in Sedona centered around what are called the Sedona Vortices. Neither of us know much in specific about the vortices, but we did notice a huge number of new age focused businesses in town. From salt rooms, essential oils, and incense to meditation, yoga, and spiritual enlightenment, this area is filled with people looking for more meaning in life. We were especially thrilled today when standing taking pictures at an overlook we heard a tour guide explaining to her two tourists how the tree they were standing next to had ‘male energies moving in a clockwise direction and female energies moving in a counterclockwise direction around the tree trunk’. Needless to say both tourists hugged the tree for a long while. We would have grabbed a picture but we couldn’t find a clandestine way, and we may have been inwardly laughing too hardily to take a photo anyhow.

Special Note: We have been hearing very odd animal calls at night around the RV park. Not sure what we were listening to, we asked the front desk and they confirmed that we were hearing wild pigs. That would explain the ‘Javelina Cantina’ restaurant in downtown Sedona.

Tripometer – 12,065 mi

Gas Gauge –  908.875 gal

Location – Distant Drums RV Resort, Camp Verde, AZ

Lodging – $28

Cans of OFF – 4

We awoke this morning to a cold and rainy day outside. Thankfully we stocked up and cleaned the trailer yesterday giving us a nice area to work in during the day. Kelly has been in a groove with work over the past couple of days and has gotten on top of her regular work as well as pounded out her yearly performance appraisal. Paul has started to turn around the 3 week backlog of blog posts on Lessintents. During one period of rain in the morning, the National Weather Service issued a flash flood warning for the area. It was an interesting demonstration of the power of the emergency broadcast system to hear 100+ cell phones across the RV park all scream the emergency alert sound at the same time.

Our RV park this week has a nice dog park located about 50 feet from our trailer. We have been using the dog park as a tool to help work on Ranger’s aggressive behavior towards other dogs. Whenever we hear other dogs at the dog park we have been taking Ranger over to play. Sometimes he is so wound up going into the park that he has to take a breather at the fence to calm down a bit, nosing the other dogs within the park through the fence. So far we have been very pleased that he seems to only be aggressive when on a leash and not when in the dog park and off leash. Specifically, Ranger has been enjoying the company of a black lab named Cricket. Cricket’s owner, we call him ‘Sarge’, is a retired military man who wakes up at crazy early hours and always has a cigar, lit or otherwise, sticking out of his mouth. By day three or so Ranger had learned that Sarge brings Cricket to the dog park at 6-7ish every morning. For the past couple of days we have been woken up by Ranger running from one end of the trailer to the other (running over our sleeping forms in the process) whining to go play with Cricket in the dog park. He sure does need his canine companionship. Kelly, on the other hand, needs her coffee in the morning before social activities. This week she has been learning how to have casual conversation with Sarge before her morning caffeine. On the upside, having Ranger fully exercised at 8am has its benefits too!

In the evening today we sat down and had a proper discussion about the next few weeks. We have decided to target the end of the year to be home in Maryland. With that being determined, we have two major stops that we are trying to cover before we head home; New Orleans & the Florida shore. On our way east we want to hit a few smaller destinations; Petrified Forest National Park, Tombstone, AZ, Rock Hound State Park, and El Paso, TX. The current plan has us hitting those destinations in that order. Paul will be working over the next few days to see if we can find a good campsite in or around New Orleans for our visit. Our experiences in LA and Las Vegas have shown us that having a campsite close to town really helps to ensure we have a good time. So many of the tourist destinations in cities aren’t dog friendly. We need to find a place where we can leave the dog relatively safely while we tour museums and galleries in the area. Oh, and the best restaurants in NOLA aren’t going to welcome Ranger either, though the doggy bags will certainly be welcome when we get back to the trailer.