Slipping Southwards

So Friday morning we headed southwards starting out on Parker Road and going somewhat south of town before swinging over to I-25. It's a pretty drive with a lot of scenery but even that acquires a sort of sameness after a while.

We stopped at a rest area at El Moro which had a good view eastwards out towards the plains of Colorado with the mountains behind us to the west. We stopped at the next exit to fuel up where the stupid Shell station made us swipe and fill twice instead of doing it all at once.

At that same exit, trying to avoid the same old same old of chain fast foods we went to Tequila's Family Style Mexican Restaurant at Exit 11 which is technically Starkville but pretty much part of Trinidad. South of Raton, New Mexico, at the Thaxton Rest Area, we stopped for a bit of leg stretching and a good thing too! Before Geoff could even get out of the coach, a storm swept in with rough winds and pounding rain mixed with hail! A couple of cars already there decided not to leave yet and several more including a couple of campers and a pickup pulling a boat pulled in shortly to wait out the storm.

There were lots of RV's, campers of all sorts, boats and so forth in several combinations out on the highways and clogging the truck stops but then it's 4th of July weekend so not a bit surprising. We made the switch to I-40 at Albuquerque and shortly past the city we stopped overnight at a Flying J truck stop rather than try to find an RV park.

What's the difference? At an RV Park you generally can get water, sewer, and electric hookups and they mostly have rules about being quiet past a certain time of night. This means you an run your air conditioning and get a better night's sleep in the cool and quiet. At a truck stop, you're parked in a row with other RV's and sometimes trucks and they come and go ALL night. You can't put a side slide out for more room either BUT it's free.

Early in the morning we snarfed up breakfast at the Denny's that was part of the truck stop and headed on west, changing to I-17 at Flagstaff and pushing through to Camp Verde for the night. Starting way back in Ohio I had begun to have trouble with my foot and ankle swelling badly. See the next blog for detail about this digression.

After dealing with this issue we headed on further south to Cave Creek, Arizona, and my oldest son Mark's home. He and his wife Natalie have a lovely house there with all sorts of ins and outs and nooks and crannies that are part of some large airy rooms. Even outside the house has several charming sitting areas. We got to watch the fire works from their house looking out over the valley.

This whole RV thing is mostly his fault. He has been promising me to come visit in Florida for years now but since he and his wife each have their own small businesses as well as trying to bring their home to be like they want it to be, they never seem to be able to get away long enough. So this year when he had to back off from coming to Florida I decided it was time we came to see him and that started the whole thing with the RV!