Get Your Kicks On Route 66

Day 33 Touring Albuquerque

Saturday, May 30, 2009

We are still having ‘Stair Wars’ with the unruly automatic stairs on the RV. Finally, Jim decided to disable the motor and work them manually. What the heck took so long to figure that out? So we ran down to Home Depot to get some Velcro straps to secure them in place when we are moving. Looks like Cousin Eddie’s family’s RV…but it works!

Stair Wars out of the way, we drove to the other side of the city to a big ol’ mountain. We then boarded the Sandia Peak Tramway, the longest aerial tram in the world, 2.7 miles long. It goes up to the top of the mountain to 10,378 feet.

It was clear, cool and breezy. What great views! I kept feeling like I should be hearing a pilot telling me that we were on our final approach.

There was a restaurant up on top, so we had lunch and watched from our table while two young men jumped off a perfectly good mountain on hang gliders...Holy Crap! Imagine you are on a cliff that is about 5,000 feet above the base of the mountain and you step off with nothing more than a BIG KITE! Um….when I’m at 10,000 + feet I want jet engines, a pilot, co-pilot and a sturdy aircraft all around me…NOT a kite!
Later we went to the old town section of the city. It’s a busy place on the weekend. We toured their museum for a couple of hours. We especially liked the section on the Spanish explorers and their armor and weapons. Oh my lord, some of the swords and daggers were scary indeed! I stood there trying to imagine actually having to fight someone with these things. Shudder.

The Museum is in the old town area so we walked a half block to the old mission and park. A group of black motorcycle club members from Denver drove up and parked. I’ve never seen such ‘bling’ on motorcycles! The bikes were so colorful, I took a picture of them.

The skies turned dark and we began the 10 mile or so drive back to the RV park. We only got a brief shower with some gusty winds whipping up the sand. Yeah, there’s LOTS of sand here!

Tomorrow we are taking the RV for an oil change early in the morning, then hitting the road heading east.

Raise Your Hand If You Can Spell Albuquerque!

Day 32 Gallup NM to Albuquerque NM 140 Miles

It's nice and cool in the higher elevations here in New Mexico. We had a pleasant drive to Albuquerque, sunny with not too much wind. Pretty red sandstone cliffs that got more colorful as we approached Albuquerque.

Just as we accepted the fact that the electric stairs were going to cost us a bit at a RV service center, they started to work! We happily motored the 140 miles to Albuquerque giddy that when the RV was started and moved a few feet they worked.

We're at a lovely place just a few miles west of downtown, American RV Park. We are under a BIG tree...a rare thing out here.

Of course, when we parked and tried to get out the damn stairs wouldn't work! Everyone knows how uncooperative mechanical devises drive men insane, don't we? So far Jim has traced every wire, fuse and connection to no avail. He and another man tested the wires, looked at the schematics and we even bought two new batteries for the RV. Nothing. So we 'fixed' it by buying a step stool! The dogs are very confused.

Later, because most of the day was shot with the damn stairs and shopping for batteries, then returning the old ones...we went out for Mexican. The man helping Jim with the damn stairs recommended a place near the old town section of downtown.

Note to self: Mexican food in New Mexico is WAY, WAY hotter than anything on the east coast! Damn, I knew this from a previous disaster in New Mexico on an earlier trip and I still screwed up. I tried, I really, really tried to eat it. But half way through I felt like a dragon. Certainly, I thought, if I blew hard enough flames would shoot out across the restaurant. My New England palate is much too wimpy for the real southwestern fare.

Not only was the food too spicy, it was just mediocre at best. The service was even worse. In fact, it was so bad that I emailed the restaurant. Here is a copy of the email:

Your Mountain Rd. location was recommended to us, so we tried it tonight (May 29th @ around 6:30pm)
We had a unique experience...the waiter introduced himself,and took our drink and appetizer order. Soon he came back with our chips and salsa and a coke for my husband. My margarita was nowhere in sight. Ten minutes go by then the SAME waiter appears at our table and says, "Hi, my name is Jeremy and I'll be your server this evening, can I get you something to drink?" My husband and I just looked at each other....huh? Is this a joke or deja vu? We must have been very forgettable.

We looked surprised and Jeremy looked confused. We kindly explained to Jeremy that we'd already gone through that part of our dining experience (he had said exactly the same thing to us ten minutes ago) and we were now waiting for the other drink and our appetizer. Suddenly Jeremy seemed to 'come to'. He apologized. We got the drink and appetizer promptly. We finished the chips and salsa and put our dishes to the side of the table...where they stayed, and stayed. They were still there when we left.

We got our food, which was okay. Jeremy came by close to the end of our meal, asking if I wanted another margarita. I didn't but requested a coke, which never showed up in the 10 minutes or so that it took to finish our meal.

Now, we just wanted to get out of there so I could go somewhere for a coke, I was thirsty! No Jeremy to be found. Fortunately, the manager was visiting with his family in the booth behind us. When he got up we asked if he could help us to get our check so we could leave. It took a bit, but HE brought us our check...I think even he couldn't find Jeremy.

As we were leaving the parking lot, WE found Jeremy! He was walking outside smoking a cigarette (I HOPE it was only a cigarette) even with all the tables he had on a busy Friday evening, he had time for a ciggy.

I guess he wasn't in the weeds, after all!

We took a ride around the block (probably a few blocks, couldn't find our way out) to see what the 'old town' area was all about. We decided we will come back tomorrow in the daylight to explore the museum and shops. Also tomorrow, we want to ride up the mountain Sandia Peak Tramway.

Oh yes, 'In the weeds' is restaurant speak for overwhelmed.

We will stay here tomorrow and most probably leave Sunday morning. We are still trying to decide our route towards the New England area.

Now, I'm going to sit back and watch the final Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

Forgettable Drives

Day 31 Las Vegas NV to Gallup NM 446 Miles

Today was one of those days that takes the glamour out of traveling. The ride was long, bumpy and boring. I was already tired when we left Las Vegas, early in the morning. We drove over the Hoover Dam and took US93 toward Laughlin and Kingman Az where we picked up I40 east.

I wish I could say something nice about the drive. Oh yes, I can....Flagstaff was pretty, but we only passed through and stopped for gas. Most of the ride looked out over abandoned businesses and and tourist traps.

And to make matters worse, Rookie wanted to ride on my lap. He's so not a lap dog, but in the RV he wants to be. It gets hot... and confining.

Then we finally stopped in Gallup New Mexico, which is NOT one of the must-see cities of the world. Tried to get out of the RV with the dogs and discovered the automatic stairs are NOT working! Oh joy, that means we'll be taking a trip to an RV center for a repair...cha-ching! Oh yeah, and we're on a glide path for a small airport that is RIGHT AT THE END OF THE CAMPGROUND...we keep getting buzzed!

Can you tell I'm way tired and cranky?

No pictures, I can't even imagine what I could possibly take a shot of that would interest anyone.

We did have an enjoyable dinner of grilled salmon, a steamfresh rice dish that I jazzed up with some leftover veggies, and we split a sweet potato. Afterward we went for a short walk, Jim got a headache and my heart started doing its funny beating thing when I'm at a high altitude. We didn't realize it, but we're around 6,400 feet elevation here. No wonder!

Oh well, every day can't be great, can it?

Tomorrow, heading toward Albuquerque and hopefully we can get the stairs fixed there.

Viva Las Vegas

Day 30 Las Vegas

Fountains at the Bellagio

Very Cool!

Frog made from flowers at the Bellagio

The beach on Lake Mead keeps getting farther and farther from the road

Who needs to go all the way to Paris?

Dirty Beach at Lake Mead

Norman wanted to experience Lake Mead

Lake Mead at Hoover Dam

Norman marvels at the new bridge at Hoover Dam!

Daughter Lori and me at Hoover Dam

Norman likes the Oasis

Norman at the Oasis Pool


This is our last day in Las Vegas. Of course, the weather has been beautiful...it IS the desert, after all. Hot, but not uncomfortable. Great place in small doses. I'm not a desert person, I need more green in my surroundings. Although...I seriously could get used to LOW humidity!

I took a little little break from blogging. My daughter flew in and stayed with us for a few days and I didn't want to take the time away from our visit.

She arrived here on Sunday and left this morning. It was wonderful to see her again and have some girl time. She wasn't too fond of this city. She's more of a small town girl and this place is so larger than life, that she felt a little uneasy on the strip.

We had a fun time, these five days at Las Vegas. During our stay we visited, Mandalay Bay, Luxor, New York New York, Palazzo, Wynn, Paris, The Venetian, Treasure Island and maybe a few more...and left 'donations' at most of them.

Also, we went to The Lion King at Mandalay Bay and the exhibition 'Bodies' at the Luxor. It creeps some people out, but unless you are a surgeon, you'll never have an opportunity to understand the human body any better. Super exhibition!

Took my daughter out to Hoover Dam and Lake Mead. I think it's something everyone should see when staying in Las Vegas. Really a tribute to American engineering, and the new bridge spanning the gorge is nothing to sneeze at either....should be completed next year. Those bridge workers have got to have big ba....uh, I mean, they must have NO fear of heights!

Time to wrap this up because we are going to have a long travel day tomorrow. As usual we have thoroughly enjoyed our stay at the Oasis RV Resort. Very highly recommended, easily the nicest place we have stayed in ALL of our trips around the United States.

Now, it's almost 'Midnight at the Oasis' so I need to get to bed.

Bigger than Life Las Vegas

Day 26 Leeds UT to Las Vegas NV 137 Miles

We were advised that a little diner in the tiny town had a great breakfast so we went for our first breakfast out while on this trip.

We picked up I15 south toward Las Vegas. Not long after leaving St. George in the southwest corner of Utah, we began to descend through canyons and the Virgin River Gorge. I remembered it from an earlier trip, it's very impressive and a LOT easier going down than up with a large vehicle. Then, the canyons abruptly end and you emerge into a flat desert landscape...just like that!

The temperatures go up as you go down. We traveled through a small slice of Arizona , which surprised me for a minute and had me checking the map...I expected to see a 'Welcome to Nevada' sign not Arizona. The Nevada sign showed up less than a half hour later.

There is a massive highway project in progress coming in from the north on I15, it's nice to see a state that keeps up with population growth. South Carolina fails miserably in that respect. By the time our officials get around to improving a highway, it's already outdated.

We are at the Oasis RV Resort, just a few minutes from the airport end of 'The Strip', the Mandalay Bay end. The resort has a great pool, it was in the mid 90's so it was easy for me to get into the water. This girl has been 'southernized' and refuses to put more than a big toe into water less than 80 degrees.

Had a light dinner and headed down to the strip. We parked at the Palazzo, way below the Palazzo...level 3. The car thermometer was reading 96 in the garage. As usual the people watching was amazing. When did micro mini's come back? I've been living in Podunk too long....

Gambled a little, which for me, means slots. I won some, but Jim wanted me to keep playing so, of course, I gave it all back. He won, of course, (has a lucky horseshoe up his ass) and covered my loss and doubled what he had put in....which wasn't much anyway. When we walk through the lobbies and see what SOME people are betting...YIKES!

When we got into the car to return to the RV, and looked at the clock it seemed later than we thought. Darn, we didn't know what time it was again! We didn't know until we got back to the resort and asked the guard at the gate what time zone we were in. Pacific Time! When did that happen? We usually see a sign on the interstates telling us when the time zones change...missed that one!

Good thing we realize it now...my daughter is arriving at the Las

Vegas airport tomorrow at 3:00pm ! I'm thrilled.

The Colorful Canyons of ZION

Can you find the deer in this picture?

It was really this close

Day 25 Zion National Park

Here we are in a place where it hardly rains and the sun always shines. So of course, today was very cloudy and showery.

The good news was that it made for cool weather, I really didn't need to be climbing up trails in 100 degree weather. The bad news was that canyons, especially these red ones don't really show their beauty with the sun lighting them up. The absolute bluest sky that I have ever seen or photographed was sever years ago at Bryce Canyon, not far from here.

First we went north of here to a separate sections of Zion called Kolob Canyons. This is a section that is cut off from the main park. It's about a five mile drive up and down a spectacular canyon area. Of course, I dressed for the heat, with shorts and short sleeve top and it was 59 windy degrees up on top. I didn't spend much time out of the car taking pictures.

Kolob Canyon at Zion NP

Then we drove for about 40 minutes to the town of Springdale UT to the main gate of Zion National Park. The park provides shuttle buses into one section of the park. This is the lower area, it has lush vegetation on the bottom of the canyon. The shuttles stop at various sites of interest and people can get off for as long as they want, another shuttle comes along in six minutes. If you didn't want to get off the shuttle at any stop, the tour would last 90 minutes. Great system, really.

We spent most of the day. One interpretive center has a 30 minute movie about the park, the geology, nature and its wildlife. Another stop has a restaurant, snack bar and gift shop. We were hungry and cold (didn't take our jackets) so the stop was much appreciated. Got some good sandwiches and two new jackets, that we didn't expect to buy, there.

When we got our lunch and took it outside all the tables were filled. We ended up sitting on a stone wall with our tray between us. Three feet away was a strange couple eating ice cream cones. The man (about our age) was already down to the cone part when we got there. Certainly,we thought, he would be finished in a minute and we would have a table. Well, this couple was strange. He ate that cone in pea- sized bites that he chipped off the cone at a rate of about three chips per minute. Of course, Jim was staring at him all the while. Jim ate a hot dog, turkey/Swiss sandwich, a bag of Fritos and a large drink BEFORE Mr. Mini Bites finished his cone! And yeah, the guy was skinny. They say to eat slowly to lose weight - it works!

When we are in a place such as Disney World where tables are at a premium, we always eat and leave as soon as we are done. If we want to sit and talk or rest we can do that somewhere else. When people are waiting to eat, it is the courteous thing to do. We were trying to balance our tray between us on the stone wall, it was obvious we would have been more comfortable sitting at a table on CHAIRS. They could have sat at any bench and had that ice cream...what's wrong with people?

Next stop we took a 'short' .6 mile walk on a trail, in rain showers, to see an emerald pool. The bad news was that it really wasn't worth it and it was mostly all up a steep climb. The good news was that we literally bumped into two deer on the trail, and a couple of squirrels. The 'wildlife' should be renamed 'tamelife'. It was almost funny how accustomed to humans these animals are. We walked RIGHT up to the squirrels and deer.

There were many Europeans there, mostly German. My dad always said, "Those Germans are SMART, you know." I think he may have been right, these people were easy to pick out even before they opened their mouth. They just looked smart....like you could give them all the stuff in your junk drawer and they could make a nuclear power plant out of it. I was almost spreken ze Deutch by the time I got off the shuttle....does wiener schnitzel count? ( I can see Babette wincing here)

Of course, just as we were leaving the park the sun finally came out. So we took the car and drove several miles UP the canyon (some scary curves) and through a tunnel, 1 mile long, made in 1930 through the mountain. The area on the up side of the canyon is totally different from the lower, but just as spectacular in its own way. And I got some good photos because it was sunny!

Anyway, we had a fun and informative day. It's getting more and more difficult to find a place that we haven't been!

Came back to three very happy to see us dogs. Made a strange dinner by combining some leftover rotisserie chicken, drained and rinsed black beans, Spanish rice, black olives and a can of Mexican corn...it was good! I'm going to use what's leftover for a cold rice salad. I'll add some chopped avocado and tomato, maybe onion? Yeah, improvise!

Tomorrow: VEGAS BABY!

A Long Ride and a Little Nail

Day 24 Brigham City UT to Leeds UT 360 Miles

It was a picture perfect morning leaving Brigham City. Knowing how much traffic the area gets and the aggressiveness of the locals, we opted to not join in with the nice people rushing to get to work. We left at 9:00 am, still a little nutty, but not too bad.

The ride south on I15 is quite scenic for a populated area. Well, with the Wasatch mountains looming above all, it would be hard NOT to be scenic. The area has grown a great deal in the last five years, we were noticing all the new homes and businesses in this area. Can't blame anyone for wanting to live here, it is probably the CLEANEST large city in the country. Charleston is lovely, but we have a huge litter problem. Jim and I joked that it would be a nice place to move to....but then, we'd be the only two people in Utah who are not Mormon.

We were having a good day until mile marker 167 on I15, a tiny town named Filmore. We pulled into a gas station and five seconds later an older man in a golf cart motioned to roll the window down. He told us that we had a nail sticking out of the right, rear Jeep tire. And....what do you know! The gas station across the street (where he worked) had a Cooper Tire right next to it! What were the chances? There, the tire guys were so nice, they really, really wanted to sell us 4 tires, for a LOT of money, that we didn't even want. By now they'd pulled the nail out of the sidewall so we had to replace the tire lest we wouldn't have a spare. We were so far out in the middle of nowhere, and I DO mean nowhere, that we were forced to buy a used tire for a premium price. We will probably replace the tires with Michelins when we get to Las Vegas. I'm still not so sure that the old guy didn't have a nail gun on him. We can NOT see the Jeep behind us while we're towing it. Could be a profitable racket...

About thirty miles later we pulled off the road again, for lunch. No state rest areas for many miles here, and the ones that are there are closed. So we pulled into a truck stop and there was another Cooper Tire store there too. Shortly after we came to a stop one of the Cooper Tire guys came flying out on a golf cart and circled our RV inspecting at our tires! See a pattern here? Thankfully, he didn't knock on the door to tell us we needed new tires on the RV, or stick a nail in the Jeep's tires.

Stay away from Cooper Tire Stores in Utah!

Fortunately, the rest of the journey today was uneventful. We are in a cute little camping area in a teeny little town called Leeds. It's near Zion NP in the southwestern corner of Utah. We went down the street to a little grocery for milk and had to wait for a guy walking two HUGH bulls down the middle of the street where we were turning. That's how small this town is...

Tomorrow Zion NP and maybe more.

Touring Salt Lake

Day 23 Brigham City UT Salt Lake Area

Today we needed NOT to travel, so we did a little sight-seeing. We headed toward Salt Lake, not too far from the airport, for our first stop.

Jim wanted to return to a copper mine that we visited in an earlier trip (2003 or 2004) reportedly the largest open-pit copper mine in the world.

The Kennecott Copper Mine certainly is worth the trip up the hill. Its massiveness is hard to absorb at first. Standing at the edge of the pit makes a person feel very small indeed.

The mine is 2 3/4 miles across and 3/4 miles deep, TWO of the Sear’s Towers stacked one on top of the other would still not reach the top. All of the roads in the mine, if stretched out would be over 500 miles.

And those trucks (that look like little Tonka toys in the picture) …

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  The trucks that haul the ore are larger than many houses and weigh more than a jumbo jet.

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  They stand over 23 feet tall and can carry from 255 to 360 tons of rock.


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  The truck driver rides about 18 feet above the ground -- nearly two stories high.



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  Each tire on these big trucks costs from $18,000 to $26,000 and lasts just 9 months.

Later, after a stop at the bottom of the mountain that the mine is located at, we had lunch. There is a huge shopping plaza with ust about every store a person could want. Even SAMS, or as we see it…CHEAP hot dog combo/hot dog combo/pizza (Jim) lunch!

Fully sated we headed back in the direction of Brigham City, where we left the RV and the dogs to a state park on an island in The Great Salt Lake. We’ve been here several times, but have never actually got near the lake.

Antelope Island State Park is different and interesting. It is a 17 mile long island accessible by a causeway. Salt Lake is so salty that only brine shrimp can live in its waters. There they do VERY well because there are no fish to prey upon them. It smalled really funky on the causeway…like an Oriental grocery, if you’ve ever had the pleasure.

The other thing that flourishes are the brine flies.
While still on the causeway Jim was wondering if some small bushes between the road and the shore of the lake were on fire. It certainly looked like smoke was rising from them. No, not a ‘burning bush’, the black undulating masses above the bushes were brine flies! Yuk.

Fortunately, as we climbed higher on the hills on the island the flies vanished. At one point there is a turn out to drive up on a hill to get a panoramic view of the lake. Really is a spectacular lake, but so inhospitable. All it needs is a few palm trees and a person would swear they were on a Caribbean island.Fortunately, we were in the Jeep because the trip down the hill had a 23% downgrade…a large vehicle nightmare!

One end of the island has the original farm of the people who once called it home, still a working farm, now run by the state. Apparently there are antelope (duh, it’s ANTELOPE Island) here, but we didn’t see any. They have a buffalo herd (park literature states 600) roaming the island and we saw ONE. Don’t know where the others roamed.

After a stop at Wal-Mart for a rotisserie chicken for supper, we drove a harrowing, rush-hour ride back to Brigham City/ RV/dogs.
Jim did some laundry (I could really get used to that!) while I threw some dinner together. Can’t really say I ‘cooked’ dinner…rotisserie chicken courtesy of Wal-Mart, rice a roni, and a can of green beans.


We settled in for the American Idol Finale and thoroughly enjoyed all the big name stars performing. We would have been happy with either Kris or Adam winning. Adam is an incredible talent, but is guaranteed stardom. American Idol was founded on giving a brand new talent a stepping stone to a career. I think Kris was more in that category. He seems like a sweet guy. I hope he stays well grounded, and doesn't’ let sudden fame go to his head.

Tomorrow we are heading off in a southerly direction (still) on I15 toward the Zion Canyon area, southern Utah.