Southwest America - 2009

05/12/09:

We left the motel in Williams at ~0830 and drove I-5 to its junction with CA 41. This highway would soon intersect CA 46 and take us to Paso Robles. We left the lushly irrigated fields on the sides of the tireless freeway and were now slowly winding our way west over the coastal range of south central California. There was little traffic and the comfortable pace took us past rolling hillsides covered with the browned green grasses of spring.

Once we peaked and began the decent on the seaward side of the mountains the landscape quickly changed. First it was lightly wooded and then it morphed to densely forested, lush flora. Homesteads seemed more frequent on this side of the hills. Open rolling hills were banded with wind-rows of freshly cut hay. From Paso Robles we turned north on CA 1, the Pacific Coast Highway, for the short trip to San Simeon.



San Simeon is a small town which celebrates its value as a community by having a wonderful rugged coast; and being the ranching home of William Randolph Hearst, the newspaper giant of the mid-20th century.

Hearst built the home to serve as the headquarters for his local ranching operation, and as the command post for his paper and movie entertainment empires. As a young boy, Hearst visited Europe with his mother and he had the opportunity to tour many noble homes and art galleries. Impressions from those visits stuck with Hearst and he constructed and furnished his new digs with those memories in mind.

The construction of the home, atop a 1,500 foot hill overlooking the San Simeon bay and all of his neighboring ranch-land took 28 years to complete. This wasn’t a simple villa. It became known as the Hearst Castle. Hearst lived and entertained from his San Simeon home until his death in the 1950s. At his death, Hearst’s net worth was ~1/4 billion dollars.

I had heard stories about the opulence which was the Hearst Castle, but I had never seen a picture of it. We arrived at the lower visitor’s center just in time for the 3 o’clock tour. We boarded the bus that would take this afternoon’s small group to the top of the hill. The climb took several minutes and we were entertained with breathless views of the rugged San Simeon beach as it began to fade into the lower distance. From the bus speakers played an audio tape which highlighted some of the history of the passing ranch land and of Hearst’s lifetime wildlife hobbies.

White marble statues, carved and tiled stairways, tapestries from the 1400’s, ancient Roman columns, richly colored paintings by ancient masters, and a fountain-stone piece which was discovered in King Tut’s tomb and dates over 3,500 years; these are just some of the trinkets which made this home a living museum. The Hearst estate has given all but the working ranch to the state of California’s Historical Society. It has been well looked after and is endeared by those who work here.

05/13/09:
Anne and I enjoyed a comfortable stay at a coast-side motel in the town of Cabrillo, a couple of miles south of San Simeon. We rose early to begin the drive to Palm Springs. It was important that we did not arrive in the Los Angeles vicinity during a rush hour period. We canceled our return to I-5 and headed south via US 101, along the coast. This was a good decision. The route was very scenic, easy to navigate, and it took us past all of the cities we grew up with in songs and movies.

Our only stop along the 101 freeway was for fuel at Ventura. While in Ventura, we parked and ate a packed lunch on a sidewalk bench. A woman stopped to admire the Stag. She told us of a Stag she had bought her husband. He loved the car, until one day, about a month after she had purchased it, she was hit sideways by a garbage truck. This totaled his new treasure and put her in the hospital for a spell. She said she has always looked for a replacement Stag for him. I resisted suggesting that this one was for sale.

Another man stopped to admire the car. He was large and had a friendly, short bearded face. He sat beside us dressed in what had to be overly warm Oskosh bib overalls. He told us what he did for a living. The man was a tour bus driver from Michigan. On this trip he was driving a Hispanic band on a multi-city engagement tour. His next trip was going to be a 6-week tour of the SW with a few select Verison executives. You can meet the nicest folks while enjoying a lunch on a sidewalk bench in Ventura.

We cruised into the Northern LA traffic around 1130. The highway grew from two lanes into six. I stayed in the middle lanes to avoid continuous speed changes caused from merging traffic. The engine is still too new to be run hard. During the entire trip I kept the engine speed at ~3,000rpm. This gave us a driving speed of ~65mph. At this speed we passed several cars and trucks, but we were passed by the majority on the freeway.

Our mission, should we not fail, was to merge peacefully onto I-10. This freeway would take us to the Palm Springs’ exit. We had been advised during a breakfast visit to get off of I-210 and make the transition to I-10 via CA 66. This was a stop lighted mistake, which we eventually corrected and got back onto I-210. While on CA 66, however, we got to pass through La Verne and Palmdale. La Verne was once the home town of friends Mike and Jane Heverly. That section of CA 66 was actually quite pleasant.

Anne was the navigator and she directed me to all of the correct turn-off junctions. The final leg of our trip brought us down from the hills into the Palm desert. At this time of the day the temperature was 100F. The car’s temperature gauge was reading in the upper quarter. The bald hills approaching the desert were planted with hundreds of white wind power generators, thier large pointy blades swept slowly through the hot air. Anne had programmed the address of the Oasis Resort into the GPS. What a blessing this technology is. We were instructed by the GPS to the resort’s front gate.

Whoops, there is a problem at the gate. An elderly woman was unable to get the gate to open. The Stag didn’t like sitting at idle and its temperature approached the red zone. I pulled over to the shade, stopped the engine, and went back to the check-in post to assist the woman. In a few moments we had the gate open.

The car was not happy about restarting. It made resistive noises about running once it did start. I pulled to a shady parking spot and opened the hood to vent the engine while Anne checked us into unit 74. A few minutes later the car reluctantly pulled away to find our new driveway for the next couple of days.

This evening we drove to a Vans supermarket and stocked up with what we would use while in Palm Springs; naturally included was a chilled bottle of wine and a 6-pack of cold ale. Back at the condo we read for a while and Anne made a wonderful ham omelet. We watched a couple of NCIS programs and then hit the sack.

05/14/09:
Up at 0700 the first thing I did was inspect the car for fluid levels- all ok. One of the things I had done before our trip was to get the two carburetors properly adjusted. The tuning method presented in the Stag maintenance manual left the car running too rich. The mechanic I found in Medford cut his teeth working on Triumphs for British Leyland during the 70s. He used a CO monitor and had the car running it’s smoothest.

This carburetor adjustment was fantastic. However, it created a new problem for me. I had learned how to start the engine with maladjusted carburetors, now it was different. On top of that, it idled so slow and quietly that I couldn’t feel if it was even running. This morning I fixed that problem by turning the idle adjustment up to 1,000 rpm. Now I can hear the engine.

Today’s mission is to lather ourselves up with sun screen and to lounge beside one of the eight pools at the resort. We are both eager to begin our vacation.

A couple of hour’s pool side was very refreshing. We walked back to the condo for a read, lunch, and a rest. The noon-time temperature is 97F. It was nice to be out in the morning when it was just 74F.

05/15/09:
Today was to the pool by 0830, where we read and relaxed for a couple of hours. We lounged at the condo most of the afternoon, and then it was off to Palm Desert to visit the areas only Barnes & Noble. Ah! It’s nice to feel at home, even if it is just at a store. Anne came away with a couple of books, and I found a Complete Idiot’s Guide to Drawing. Oh. I also purchased a map of Arizona.

After the B&N stop, we cruised back to Rancho Mirage where we found Thai Smiles restaurant at the junction of Bob Hope Road. We both enjoyed a Pad Thai, while I sipped a Singha beer. Jim and I enjoyed a lot of Singha while we were in Thailand. The bottle brought back memories. The beer, however, tasted a lot like Bud; a bit disappointing.

The car was happy to be in a shady spot while we ate dinner. I had brought along a quart bottle of water, in case we needed it. The car had been running pretty hot today. I checked the radiator level and saw that it was low. It took the whole quart. We were next to a Long’s pharmacy, so I went in and bought a gallon of water. It cost $1.39, not too bad.

At the car, I had difficulty positioning the mouth of the jug over the spout of the radiator. Very carefully, I added the whole gallon. Not believing it had been that low, I looked under the engine for a leak. None found. I carried the jug back into the Long’s and asked the front clerk where the restroom was. Oh, oh. The men’s was closed for repair. The women’s was open, though, so in I went. The jug was too big to fit under the sink tap. Looking around I saw my only option was to get water from the toilet. I removed the back cover and shoved the jug as deep as I could. Good thing it was a plastic jug, I had to also bend the neck over to get it under water. In a moment I had retrieved about ½ gallon. If it wasn’t enough, I could always come back.

The radiator took almost the whole ½ gallon. That meant it drank about 1 ¾ gallon of water. I think the whole thing only holds about 3 gallons. I did notice, however, that on the drive back to Palm Springs, the Stag seemed to be a lot happier.

05/16/09:

It was going to get up to 107F in the desert today. We had to hit the road towards Sedona as early as we could. We were packed and checked out by 0800. Way to go, Rob and Anne.




We refueled at the top of Gene Autry Road, where it meets I-10E. The car had gas and other essential liquids, and we were ready to hit the road. Yawn. Four hours of nothing but 2-lanes of burning pavement that cut pretty much straight across a blistering and boring desert. We crossed the Colorado River into Arizona somewhere around noon. About 30 miles in-state we turned north, off of I-10, towards Prescott.
This road seemed to be more entertaining. It took us through scorched valleys and gently up and over small, mountain passes. The climb to Prescott was a 10 mile assent to over 5,200 feet. To this point we had been on Hwy 89. About 7 miles north of Prescott we were to link up with Hwy 89A, which would take us on to our home at Sedona Pines Resort.

Somewhere in Prescott a right hand turn was missed. We ended up in Skull Valley, some 15 miles to the west of where we were supposed to be. Some tribulation later, we found our way onto Hwy 89A; only about 50 more miles to go.

As a driver and I think also as a navigator, there is a considerable peace which comes over you when you know you are on the right course. All went smoothly until we came to the base of Mingus Mountain. The climb to the pass of this cactus covered rock was 12-miles. During the trek, we would wind around 15mph corners and finally peak out at over 7,000 feet. Go Stag, Go.

The trip to the top, and down again, was done mostly in 2nd gear because of the frequent sharp corners. We came around a bend and noticed a sign welcoming us to Jerome. Looking to the left we both saw a cliff. Looking to the right we saw a very severe drop to the Mingus Valley, many miles away. In a flash, though, we were in downtown Jerome.

Jerome, AZ is an amazing little town, which has somehow remained stuck to the edges of the Mingus cliffs since sometime in the mid 1800s. The 15mph drive through Jerome took us around several descending S-turns. The town had busy sidewalks and lots of traffic. This would be a fun place to return for a visit.

We arrived at the Sedona Pines Resort around 5 o’clock. Check in was straight forward and we were assigned to one-bedroom unit #704. Unit 704 is just to the left on Coyote drive. There it is; the brown stucco mobile home on the left.
Actually, Unit 704 was quite nice inside. And what the heck, the neighbor’s places looked just the same on the outside.

Unpacked and cooled off, we headed into Sedona to do some shopping and grab a bite to eat. It is 5 miles to the nearest store from the resort. Even Sunriver has a couple of stores. This seems to be a lesson on how to capture your audience, once they get here.

We toured the strip and found a café. The eatery was called the “Red Planet”. Food was served by aliens to we humanoids. Our alien serviceoid was a very visiting sort. We don’t think he had all of the stones from his planet present. The fare was a non-repeater.

On the way out of town we made a Safeway stop for some essentials. Let’s see: milk, beer, and wine. Was there anything I missed?



05/17/09:

We decided we should see some of the environs while the temperature was still pleasant. The entrance to Red Rock State Park is a mile away. A $7/auto entry fare was money well spent. We saw most of the park’s features while near the visitor’s center.

A 45 minute movie, which displayed the entire Sedona region by air, was just starting. The film also acquainted us with local trails, and it visited ancient Indian home and farming sites. This had been a good flick.

Anne checked out sundries inside the center’s main lobby. I was packing my Canon and I walked about looking for shots of native flora. We later linked up and toured the center’s displays.

The Red Rock road is a loop which takes you through the park and back to Hwy 89A. Half way around the loop, the pavement gave way to dirt road; time to turn the Stag around.

From the park we drove to Sedona to look at the city’s visitor center, and to find a bite to eat for lunch. We collected some good maps and trip information at the center. Lunch was a turkey sandwich for Anne and a roast beef for Rob. We dined at a small ice-cream shop.

On a couple of occasions the Stag has been hard to restart. It has taken a full pedal and lots of cranking to get it to fire. Then, once it grabs on, it runs with a flutter, like it was firing on only 6 out of its 8. If the rpm is kept up, the fluttering stops and the engine smoothes out. I wonder if this is related to the carb’s floats in any way? The car only acts this way when it is hot.

05/18/09:

This morning we drove south on Hwy 87A to the city of Cottonwood. The Verde River skirts the edge of Cottonwood and forms the main attraction on the river;the Tavasci Marsh. We accessed the march through Dead Horse Ranch State Park.

Trails led us from the parking area to the river’s edge. The river is protected on the banks with dense reeds. The trail stays on dry ground at the base of a sedimentary cliff wall which edges the mesa above. The space between the river and cliff is densely grown over with grasses, bushes, and small trees. This is the marsh.

The walk in the shade of the cliff was very refreshing, when compared to the high 80’s full-sun of the mesa above. We spent a leisurely hour getting reacquainted with a wonderful part of nature.

The afternoon was casual, with at trip to the pool with books and sketch pads. We ate an early dinner at the Sedona Pines Bistro and rented a DVD to watch this evening.

05/19/09:

The drive from Sedona to Pinetop would only take a few hours. This would leave plenty of time to visit Montezuma Castle National Monument, which is located a few miles north of Camp Verde. The most direct route was to drive into Sedona and take Hwy 179 south to I-17. From I-17 it is just 13 miles to the Camp Verde exit on Hwy 260.

Montezuma Castle was named such by the early settlers who thought that the cliff-side dwelling was remnants of the past Aztec civilization. This home was built by the Sinagua Indians. The Sinagua farmers started construction of the five-story, 20-room dwelling in the 12th century. The natives had a reliable source of water from a nearby creek, and the neighboring land was very fertile. The cliff recess sits about 100 feet above the valley floor.

The Sinagua had farmed the Verde River valley since around A.D. 600. They were resident in the area until the early 1400s. It is not know why they left, but they were probably absorbed into pueblos to the north.

We followed Hwy 260 all of the way. We would climb to above 6,000 feet, descend, and then do it over again. The scenery had changed from red rock to gray, boring sandstone, to stubby pine tree forests. We had just driven through Strawberry and were coming into Pine. It was lunchtime so we pulled into café which looked like it should be good, judging from the cars parked out front.

We both enjoyed BLT sandwiches and ice water with lemon. The café had a long family history which began in the 1950’s when it opened as a Mobile station. From food for cars to food for the drivers; seems about right.

We arrived at the WorldMark Resort in Pinetop-Lakeside at half past three. We were assigned to building #1, unit 103. This is a very spacious one-bedroom with kitchen, dining, and living rooms. Luggage has been hauled in and we settled down for a rest before heading out in search of groceries.

05/20/09:
I waited until 0730 to call Dean, at John’s Auto Service in Medford. Dean is the Medford area’s only mechanic who is widely experienced with British autos. He had recently tuned the two carburetors on the Stag. I needed to try to find the reason the car was so hard to start when the engine was hot.

Dean had the probable answer right away. The float bowls on the carburetors sit just above the engine’s hot intake manifold. The gasoline which sits in the idle float bowl is heated to boiling by radiation from the hot manifold. The gas vapors find their way through the needle valves of the carburetors into the intake manifold. This creates a flooded starting condition, which requires cranking the engine with the pedal all the way to the floor. Once started, the engine runs rough until the excess fuel is burned off.

Dean explained that this difficulty was not unusual with these British engine designs. The answer is to cool the engine off as quickly as possible, or find a way to keep the fuel in the float bowls cool. Ideas ranged from: opening the hood to vent the engine; sticking frozen ice bags under the carburetors; or, inserting a piece of thermal blanket between the manifold and carburetors. I may try each of them.

I drove to the Wal-Mart store in Show Low to look for a side-window shade for Anne and a thermal blanket for the engine. Both items turned up on the same isle. Instead of a thermal blanket, I saw windshield screens which advertised, “44F lower temperatures inside”. With outer silvered foil and inner bubble, this material may work fine.

I used scissors to cut a small square piece for each carburetor. I discovered there was barely enough space to slide the material between the float bowl and the valve covers. They fit snugly. Today is overcast and will be much cooler. None the less, our sightseeing venture should provide a good test of the thermal blankets.

Pinetop-Lakeside is a forested plateau. It is a business and residential strip of Hwy 260 which sits at a mile high elevation. At one end of the strip is the city of Show Low and about 12 miles to the west you arrive at the other end of the developed area. The western end is represented by entrance onto the Whiteriver Apache Indian Reservation, with the cornerstone presence of a very large casino, hotel, and business facility.

We were off today to have a look at the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest, both conveniently located off exit 311 on I-40. Entrance to the park cost $10/vehicle. The park consists of a 5 mile loop to the north of I-40, which offers you several viewing pullouts to look over the Painted Desert, and 20 some miles to the south of I-40, presenting opportunities to see the Petrified Forest.

The entire region was once lush, river-laced, and highly vegetated. The dinosaurs came and they went. The tectonic plates shifted and this part of the state of Arizona rose to over 6,000 feet. Wind and rain eroded the softer cover soils and stones leaving the desert to the north and the forest to the south. This whole process seems fairly straight forward, but it took nature over 225 million years to complete.

The Painted Desert is a vista of eroded mesas which present the multi-layered shades and colors of the original crust formation. At the top of the jagged ridges and the stand-alone tee-pee-like formations is a layer of gray clay. Below the clay is a broader band of white sandstone. And beneath the sandstone is a broad dark layer which is rich in ancient carbon-based remnants of the areas flora and fauna. In fact several archeological digs have found dinosaur skeletons preserved in the darkest layer.

It is interesting that within a couple of miles north and south, the same geologic processes created both the desert and the forest. The desert was once the out-lying rolling planes adjacent to the forested river-land further to the south. Floods washed fallen trees downstream and deposited them in jams along the river’s broad banks. Soon the logs were covered with mud and silt. This meant that decay encouraging oxygen was kept away from the timbers. Water containing silica seeped through the wood and eventually crystallized into quartz. Various minerals dissolved in the soil’s dampness were deposited along with the silica. The result created the ringed, multicolored stone which is fossilized wood.

At road side pull-outs you can see large deposits of broken, fossilized logs which have tumbled to the bases of the eroded mesa gorges. At some spots you can see whole logs lying exposed; displaying a burnt orange/brown hue, which distinguishes it from the rock and soil that claims a tenuous and temporary grip on the log’s final destiny. At the bases of mesas were large fields strewn with what looked like the stumped remains of a clear cut section of land. They weren’t stumps. They were large sections of logs that had broken apart as they tumbled down and away from the once enveloping mesa.

Can you imagine being the one drop of rain that hit the soil next to the 6-foot diameter, 90-foot long, 255 ton petrified log, and caused that log to be released from the grip that had held it firm for the past millions and millions of years? Wow! What a rush. And no one even knew your name.

A comfortable couple of hundred miles later, we arrived back at the Pinetop-Lakeside resort. It was interesting to reflect that, with all of the hills and valleys we drove over and through, we never dropped below a mile high in elevation.

05/21/09:
This morning we will repack and drive the few hundred miles to Albuquerque. While here we will stay with Patti and John (Stan) Stanalonis. We will also be able to visit Jack and Margie Mortley, from whom we bought the Stag in 2006. It will be fun to receive their reactions to the transformation the Stag has made in its restoration.

Freeway travel offered us no extra convenience, since we were cruising at 65mph and below. Hwy 60 took us to the New Mexico border where we linked up with I-25, north to Albuquerque. Hwy 60 took us to heights of 8,152 feet and then back down to comfortable mile high scenery. We cruised through towns such as: Strawberry, Pie Town, and Pine. We reached Pine at noon and pulled into an active café. BLT’s were just right. The café was originally built in the `50’s as a Mobile station. Over the years the family modified the property until it is now the best place in Pine to eat.
The I-25 leg was only about 80 miles long. We drove up to the Stanalonis’ home at 3:30pm. Patti and Stan were expecting us. Wow, what a nice feeling to have arrived.

Albuquerque decided it was time for a cool spell. Anne and I had seen a lot of hot and sunny weather during this 2,100 mile trip. Cloudy with a few sprinkles was ok. The afternoon and evening were spent relaxing and reacquainting personal histories.

05/22/09:

Anne and Patti were off early to visit a SW fabric store, which specialized in quilting fabrics with regional motifs; then to the Utility Shack, fashioned off the spirit of the old Indian trading posts; and they topped the day with a visit to a quilt show. Stan and I didn’t have quite as much excitement. We analyzed the rear patio’s need for surface cement repair and we weighed up covering it with a garage floor tinted epoxy. The patio ideas took us to Lowe’s where we found several products which might be used.

When we returned home we tackled what may be wrong with Stan’s S10 pickup. It didn’t pass the re-registration emissions inspection test because the truck’s computer was telling the inspector that one of the transmission’s shifting solenoids was faulty. Stan had saved the inspection report and we Googled the trouble codes to find out what they meant. Basically, the codes told Stan that the transmission wasn’t: shifting from stopped into 1st gear; or, wasn’t shifting from 1st gear to 2nd gear. We decided we needed to take it for a test drive to find out which problem it was.

What we discovered was that once moving, the truck didn’t recognize the difference between being put into 1st gear, or 2nd. We did discover, however, that whatever gear it was starting out in, it shifted comfortably into 3rd and then 4th gears. We held the transmission in the below 3rd gear position and accelerated to beyond 40mph. The engine rpm didn’t seem to be too high. This suggested that the transmission was starting in 2nd gear and not seeing 1st at all.

Stan now knows that a new solenoid costs ~$13He would have to drain the transmission oil and remove the pan to replace the solenoid. To do this, he will also need to buy a new gasket and several quarts of transmission oil. This would be a comfortable.
Saturday task. In New Mexico, you can’t sell a vehicle until it passes the registration testing.

To wrap up Rob and Stan’s day, we drove to a shopping center which had welded sculpture art scattered throughout the off-road areas of the parking lots. The artist, now deceased, did not hold back on the amount of steel he committed to his pieces. Most of the sculptures were very well presented, as either land or sea animals, or as abstract pieces. Ah, if only the price of metal were not so high. I can imagine using my MIG welder to glue a few pieces of steel artfully together. Now, where will we put this rusty, ugly, damn thing?

Stan barbequed a wonderful batch of pork chops for dinner. Patti did up a refreshing salad and a plate of stir-fried vegetables. A choice of either a nice red wine, or a drier white was optioned for our glasses. After dinner we visited, and finally gathered in the living room for a look at the Iron Man movie. This is an entertaining Sci-Fi flick which centers on a young, genius arms manufacturer and his current trials and tribulations.

After the movie Anne and Pattie said ado, when Stan and I sat beside his Bose radio and tuned in the Michael Savage show. We caught about an hour of tonight’s program and then turned in. It had been a full and fun day.

05/23/09:

This afternoon, Margie and Jack Mortley are joining us for a Barbie. Jack hasn’t seen the Stag yet, and Margie and Pattie spent several minutes on the phone contriving a way to surprise Jack with its arrival back in Albuquerque. Our job will be to follow their leads.

The last time we visited, Stan had taken Anne and Patti on a “Casino Crawl.” Anne roped Stan into a repeat crawl on this visit. This morning they cheerily drove off in search of their first one-armed bandit. While they were off testing their metal against the odds makers, Patti slaved over preparations for tonight’s festivities, and Rob labored over washing the Stag to offer the best first impression for Jack’s surprise viewing.

Around 3:30, home they came. Anne cheered that she had arrived with about $50 more than she left with. Stan didn’t seem to want to discuss the ups and downs of the day very much.

The Mortleys showed up around 4:30. We all visited around the snack table in the dining room. Patti had everything finalized for dinner within an hour. Patti and Stan are going to watch over one of Mortley’s dogs while they caravan to Iowa for a class reunion. In exchange for this gesture of neighborly love, Margie and Jack secured a couple of cases of Stan’s favorite beer. After a few minutes of rewarding catch-up visiting, Margie told Jack they needed to go to the car and bring Stan’s beer into the garage. Stan would meet them out front, by way of the garage.

When the garage door went up, Jack’s mouth dropped open. He was truly taken back by the transformation he saw in his old vehicle. Margie hadn’t seen the Stag either, and she was also full of compliments. To solidify old memories, Jack and I took the car for a short drive. It was very fun to listen to Jack’s recollections as we rode and later visited through the evening.

The Mexican meal Patti and Margie had put together was better than anticipated. We feasted on chilis rellenos, enchiladas, tamales, and posole. These entrées were colored with guacamole, chili con queso, green and red chili sauces, and beans. Cervesa, wines, and margaritas mellowed the diners and abated the rising throat temperatures.

This had been a grand evening. It was sad to say good night to Margie and Jack.

05/24/09:
Anne and Patti whipped up a wonderful omelet breakfast, which featured some left over’s from last night’s dinner. Today they were off to Explora. Explora is a gift shop inside the museum. It features many discovery-based toys. Both came home with wonderful gifts for the grand children, and maybe for a couple of dads, too.

Stan and I filled the day with visiting and a little sketching. I had noticed that the Stag had made a new sort of noise when Jack and I took it for a ride yesterday. Stan provided a second set of ears while I drove. I tried to duplicate the condition which had created the noise. Alas, it wasn’t going to happen.

Back at the Stanalonis’ garage we noticed that the fuel and temperature gauges weren’t registering. This had happened a couple of times earlier on the trip. I knew the symptom was related to something awry with the ignition relay; the relay which provides power for the gauges, blinkers and brake lights when the key is turned to the on position. We checked the related fuse and I tapped the associated relay. No change. After I restocked the tools in the trunk, I once again turned the key to on. The problem was gone. So, I guess the answer is: keep things tidy in the trunk.

For dinner we were treated to a visit to the favorite local pub. This establishment offered a wide variety of ales on tap. The juices were good and the meals were generous. At the house Anne and Patti immersed themselves in a scrabble game of some variety. Stan and I enjoyed the backyard birds and watching the changing view, as gradual darkness came over the Sandia Mountains to the east.

05/25/09:
Early up, Patti and Anne fixed a wonderful going-away breakfast. The car was soon packed. We saluted our friends with a two-toned toot as we drove away. This leg was going to be fairly long. We were aiming to exit New Mexico, drive across Arizona, and pull up at the Nevada border town of Laughlin.

We reached Kingman, AZ around 4pm. It was downhill from there to the Colorado River cities of Bullhead City and Laughlin. And I mean downhill. East of Kingman the road slowly rose, we were already a mile high. From that new summit the trail was all down. I have never experienced such a long section of road that just went down. We crossed the Colorado at around 500 feet of elevation. Boy, the Stag and I are sure happy we were headed west.

Anne negotiated a $27, 1st floor, double queen room for us at The Golden Nugget. Anne headed for the machines, while I reclined with a tinny. When Anne came back to the room, victorious, I might add, we went to Joe’s Crab Shack for dinner.
Joe’s was located on the river level of the Nugget. We selected an outdoor, rail-side table beneath a wonderful water mister and watched speed boats roar up and down the river past us. At the bank of the river we saw a lot of very large carp. The fish were scouting for rubbish along the sandy edge. The Colorado flows quite fast through the two cities and the water temperature is said to be around 55F. The cool water didn’t deter skiers who enjoyed their dashes past the palm tree covered banks. The temperature in Laughlin today had been around 100F.

After dinner we enjoyed a window lit stroll along the river boardwalk that linked the numerous river edged casinos. Back inside the Nugget, we tried a bit of gaming. Both of us ended up giving away the $20 we each started with and we gave this busy day ado.

05/26/09:
The task today is to have a comfortable trip to Reno, in the north. Comfortable is relative to the trek of yesterday, from Albuquerque. Stan had suggested we take the more western route north to Las Vegas. This road would avoid the delays and inspections encountered when you drove the eastern route over Hoover Dam. We weren’t in any race, and all of the non-freeway roads have been excellent.

We did have one delay, however, and that was somewhere in the Nevada outback when we were pulled to a 20 minute stop for an ambulance to attend to a sickened driver, or passenger. Both northbound lanes of Hwy 93 were held to a halt by a flagger next to two fire rescue vans. Not much seemed to be happening until a very large medical evacuation helicopter “woop, wooped” in and landed on the highway near the vans. The rotors turned slowly for several minutes. Finally, the chopper lifted off and slowly flew over the leading edge of the stopped traffic. Windows were quickly rolled up in attempts to keep dust and bits of sagebrush from joining the occupants.

We stopped for lunch at Tonapah and timed our arrival at Las Vegas during a minimal traffic time on I-515. The GPS faithfully helped us skirt the city and got us headed north on Hwy 95. I observed that this city’s freeway system was no different than that of other metropolises. It never fails for a newbie to the area, the critical highway junctions always occur while one is traveling under bridges, in 4 lanes of rapid traffic, and while motoring over a knoll and around a right-hand turn. This is how I found Hwy 95N to Reno.

With the spirit of avoiding morning rush hour traffic jams when leaving Reno tomorrow, Anne suggested we look for a motel just to the north of town. I liked the Reno traffic environment much better than Las Vegas’. As we drove north of Reno, we soon realized that we could have been looking for a needle in a hay stack. The GPS only showed motels which were located on a widening radius behind us. Well, let’s just motor on. Something will crop up.

Lucky for us that Susanville, CA was still open for business when we drove to its outskirts. We chose the very first lodging place we came to. It was at a junction south of town we had stopped at in the past for lunch. We got a nice double queen room. I was bushed. It had been an over 600 mile leg, and we had been on the road for nearly 12 hours.

“Sorry dear. I’m just not hungry. But, yes. I’ll drive over to the Safeway store to get some beer.” That was about all I could come up with. Back at the Inn I left the hood up to help cool the overheated motor. I’ll come back in a bit and secure it for the night.

05/27/09:
When I took the bags out this morning I noticed right away that I had forgotten to close the hood last night. Two beers and a little tellie, along with crackers and some Trader Joe’s special green dip, had served up a good night for Rob and Anne. Wow. What a nice neighborhood. Everything about the car looked ok.

We walked to the eatery associated with the Inn. Both of us had worked up good appetites, having skipped dinner last night. We were fortified and ready to greet Medford, and home. This final leg was going to be a breeze. No way were we, or the GPS, going to screw up this 200 some miles of driving.

We had seen a lot of different terrain on our trip to the South West. In Arizona and New Mexico the craggy mesas and peaks had been predictably banded with layers of whitish-gray, rusty red, and hearthstone gray. While driving north in Nevada, there were less mesas. The still roughly eroded hills became dulled to a monotonous dirty white. When there were no hills near the roadside, there were miles upon miles of vast expanses littered with sagebrush which seemed to be surviving despite the desert’s early springtime drought condition.

I did not see a “Welcome to California” sign beside the highway. I didn’t know we had left Nevada until I started to see some irrigated farmland. The Truckee River brings freshness to the flatlands south of Susanville. What a stimulating sight to see large fields growing brilliant green with alfalfa grass. The air was cooler, and it smelled fresh. Rural farm houses had trees and bushes around them for shade. Cacti were a plant of the miles past.

Driving NW from Susanville, we soon started crossing the Mt. Lassen foothills. Lush marshes opened to our view through the trees along the gently rolling road. We loved the scenic change the desert country had brought to us, but this scenery must definitely be more representative of God’s country.

Home, unpacked, showered and changed. This had been a wonderful couple of weeks. There are many places Anne and I would like to leisurely revisit. We haven’t started making plans, yet. But we have made some notes.