Darrell & Donna's Adventures
FIRST DAY OF ADVENTURE ~~ May 7, 2012
Darrell relaxing after a day of driving. We were about 10 miles south of Crane, Oregon.
Had visitors within 15 minutes of setting up the camp trailer... a couple 60+ cowboy fellers in a nice new Dodge extended cab pickup.... on their way to their respective homes from their "favorite" bar. Judging from the VERY slurred speech they had apparently spent the entire afternoon there! They were friendly and introduced themselves and the dog they had with them. I left Darrell to "entertain" them and went in to rustle up some dinner!
May 8, 2012: Traveling south on Hwy 95 there is a lot of BIG country with very few houses visible. We saw a few antelope, hundreds of ground hogs (similar to prairie dogs) ~~ in fact so many around the alfalfa fields they were like fleas on a dog's back! The best thing we got to see was a small herd of wild mustangs not too far off the road. Sage brush country... you can see forever, and a tree about every 5 miles. Stopped for breakfast in McDermitt, a border town just into Nevada, then continued on to Winnemucca. This photo is what Oregon looks like north of McDermitt. Sage brush & desert. I suspect we may see a lot of that!Tried to use our Coast to Coast membership for a night in Winnemucca RV Park.... no such luck. They don't honor Coast to Coast membership AFTER March 30th. Hmmmm.... would be nice if Coast to Coast let ya know these things. We did get a 10% discount with our Good Sam membership. Again.... like parking in a parking lot. Gravel everywhere and a teensy tree at each double occupancy parking spot. The GOOD side is we have water/sewer/power/TV cable and WiFi. :-)
And for those of you who think this isn't "real" camping ... this IS roughing it .... hello!! There's no ROOM SERVICE!
May 9, 2012: Trying to set this blog thing up and not quite sure how to do that, still learning. Also, I think maybe at this time of day there are too many folks in this RV park using WiFi right now... it's being real slow. I noticed at 6:00 a.m. it worked much better!
Weather is warm (75+), sunny, and a little breeze blowing~~~ perfect!
Talked to Brother Bill awhile ago. He's anxious for us and my brother Larry & wife Donna to get to Reno on Thursday so we can all meet up. He wants to take us to the Atlantis buffet ... this is his usual treat for visiting family! Bill is my "back to nature" brother, a teeny bit eccentric, somewhat of a hermit (by his choice), and an extreme recycler. He changed his name to "BILL" and has lived the life of a recluse out in the Nevada desert for 25 years or more. He's very inventive, thinks all Big Government is pure hogwash, listens to a lot of late-night talk radio, and tends to prattle on when we can get each other on the phone. He does interesting things .... such as: he's such a regular at the back-side of some grocery stores and feed stores, that they now "save" their outdated milk and stuff for him. He has a regular "route" he runs picking up milk and other outdated stuff, like bread.... then he shares his take with several elderly people on very very limited incomes. The feed store lets him "sweep up" and take home spilled dog food and grain and hay and such so he can feed his animals. He always has dogs, sometimes goats, pigs, chickens, a cow or a mule. He hauls his water and catches water from rain or snow. Definitely one of the first "Off the Grid" people, before it became an "IN" thing and had a name. No... he was never interested in a "commune"... too many people and way too much drama!
May 10, 2012: 10:27 a.m. ~~~ Leaving the Winnemucca RV Park temperature 55-degrees.... was less than 30-degrees when we got up this morning! Brrrrr! But... nice sunny day with NO RAIN! Wow... we can tell we've left Oregon by the rough and bumpy freeway... what a ride!
11:35 pit stop for "breakfast" in Lovelock,NV... nice little GREEN town. Freeways much better now. Continuing south on I80.
1:55 p.m. ~~~ arrived at The Atlantis in Reno, Brother Bill there waiting for us. Shortly after we arrived and set up "camp" in the back of the parking lot, my brother Larry and his wife Donna arrived and parked their motor home beside us for the night. The Atlantis is Bill's "Casino of Choice", so the first order of business was to go in and get all of us new Atlantis key cards. Then Bill gave each of us a duplicate of HIS card so anything we played would add points to his card. (Our new cards got us $5 of Free Plays) We kinda "chased" Bill all over the Atlantis... he knows the way to everything in there, and goes a hundred miles an hour! Too dang many mirrors in there for me.... I got lost and turned around... several times!
May 11, 2012: Happy Birthday to my OLD brother Larry! He's 71 today ~~~ how the heck did THAT happen?? He was quite pleased that we all were together for his birthday today. Bill took us all to breakfast buffet at Atlantis with the points and credits on his Atlantis key card. He saves up points and credits so he can "treat" when family comes to visit. Then we all contributed to the Reno economy in general, and The Atlantis in particular for awhile. At 11:15 a.m. we were done contributing to the economy, so we gave hugs all around and parted ways in the parking lot. Larry and Donna heading north on 395, Darrell and I heading toward I80 and Fallon, and Bill headed back into the Atlantis. It was great fun being able to "meet on the road" with them! 66-degrees when we left.As we departed north of Sparks we saw about 25 wild mustangs and a few foals alongside the freeway ~~~ it's always kind of a thrill to see them ~~~ hard to remember that they are WILD!
As we approached Hawthorne, NV, on the drive around Walker Lake (beautiful turquoise blue) we saw 2 baby mountain sheep trying to share one pointy craggy rock right beside the road. No place to pull over or stop of course, so couldn't get a picture!
Arrived at Hawthorne, a military depot town, 2:15 p.m. It always impresses me, and makes me soooo curious, to see the thousands and thousands of "mounds" with cement doorways as far as the eye can see in all directions, where "munitions" are stored. What's out there?
Stopped about 10 miles south of Tonapah for a break and lunch at a "rest area"... nice spot, shady and very well kept. It was highly recommended by Larry and Donna, and they were right ~~~ nice place to stop for a break. While I fixed lunch Darrell checked a new "route" for us and decided we would not go to Beatty, NV, but would go down the Extraterrestrial Hwy and through Rachel, NV. This is the hot "Area 51" site for UFO sitings and such.
What a LONELY highway the Extraterrestrial Hwy is! Almost void of traffic and if we DO cross paths with anyone, they wave at us! Crossed 3 summits wide expanses of flat sage-brush land between them. Open range with hundreds of cows on thousands of acres. Saw a few ranches, cultivating hundreds of acres of alfalfa where the sage brush has been cleared. How do people decide to live out here?? At least an hour from Tonapah, which isn't much of a town, and 2 or 3 hours from Hawthorne, another smallish town. NO towns out here!
Arrived at Rachel, NV, at the little Al'e Inn at 6:50 p.m. The Al'e Inn is a very small restaurant, bar and motel. It's the only thing there except for several houses scattered around. Still in sage brush country surrounded by barren rocky mountains. the guy pointed us to the "Hot Spot" for UFO watching and after purchasing a couple souvenir T-shirts, we found our "spot" and dry camped. Sat our lawn chairs up and proceeded to watch the skies for UFO activity. We spotted 17 satellites and several shooting stars, but no UFOs. Must have arrived at the wrong time. Another vehicle showed up and parked withing spitting distance of our rig.... DUHHHH.... the entire desert to choose from and they had to park 3-feet from us?? We were a teeny bit "nervous" (?) or just not real "trusting".... so Darrell got the gun and kept it on him, and I "armed" myself with the flash camera. (To BLIND them with ya know! I DO watch TV!!) Anyway.... they turned out to be harmless of course and they were still there when we gave up and went to bed about midnight.
May 12, 2012: Up at 6:00 a.m. to get the coffee on. 30-degrees outside. Dry camping means no Internet, so couldn't update the Blog (again!). Saw my first "critter" this morning... a 2-inch scorpion moseying along between the Toyota and the camp trailer! I've never seen one "in the wild" before. I'm hoping to NOT see any slithering crawling things.... like snakes.
Back on the road at 7:35 a.m. 57-degrees outside.10 minutes out of "camp" we are in a Joshua Tree forest. Vegetation changes quickly out here.... sage brush, then Joshua trees. A little further down the road we were suddenly OUT of Joshua trees, then just as suddenly we were into a Yucca forest. The desert is an interesting place!
After some very straight roads for miles and miles, we went down a grade and around a corner and we were in Ash Springs for a break and gas. Ash Springs is at one end of a valley, about 20 miles long and a 1/2-mile wide. It has springs all over the place and is beautiful and green the entire length, and totally surrounded by desert rock, sand, and sage brush. This little narrow valley has huge trees and grass, alfalfa fields, lots of horses and nice ranches. At the end of the valley is Pahranagat Lake with a dirt road all around the highway side of it, picnic spots and pull outs and camping spots and a few campers fishing from banks. Like an oasis all surrounded by desert! We stopped for breakfast overlooking the lake at about 8:45 a.m. 73-degrees.At 10:15 a.m. we turned south on I15, and at 10:30 were in Las Vegas! (90-degrees outside now!) We did NOT stop in Las Vegas.... towing a camp trailer into downtown would have been a nightmare. Just towing it across and around all the freeway overpasses and such in Las Vegas traffic was tricky. So glad Darrell was driving and not me!
Crossed the new bridge at Hoover Dam that is nearly 1000-feet high. Fortunately it has high cement side rails and we couldn't see a thing. And that was okay with us!
11:15 ~~~ welcome to Arizona!
1:15 p.m. ~~~ arrived at Sunrise RV Park in Kingman, AZ. By the time we got the camp trailer all set up and plugged in and leveled and had lunch we were beat! Relaxing, enjoying being OFF the road for a few days. Will get together with Curt and his wife Jeanne and our 2 Arizona grandchildren (Tyler, age 7 and Amanda, age 4) tomorrow!
May 13, 2012 ~~~ Mother's Day and our beautiful granddaughter Katie is NINE years old today. Time goes by way too fast. I miss her being "little". :-(
Curt took all of us out for a great lunch today at Joe's Crab Shack at The Nugget in Laughlin... great food! Joe's Crab Shack sits right on the Colorado River, so we sat out on the patio and watched the blue blue water and boats and especially the jet skiers while we ate. The patio is covered (for SHADE) and has fans going that spray misty water non-stop through the patio dining area. We realized why when we got back to our car and realized it was 102-degrees! Tyler rode with us on the trip to and from Laughlin and was quite entertaining.... he talked almost the entire way to and from! Thank God it was only 90-degrees when we got back to Kingman! Kingman is more than 3000-feet higher elevation than Laughlin/Bullhead City, so it's a little cooler AND it cools off a little more at night!
Spent the rest of the day at Curt and Jeanne's house making plans for tomorrow. Jeanne has to work (she's a school teacher) and Tyler has to go to school. Curt is off tomorrow and he will have Amanda with him. So... the plan is for Darrell to spend the day with Curt and Amanda and I will track down Ruth Ganta and spend the day with her.
People here talk about "when summer gets here"... I'm not sure how they KNOW when "summer" gets here.... ??
Okay... 11:00 p.m. and blog-thing all caught up, Darrell is snoozing. It's quiet, and it's a COOLER 56-degrees now, so I think I'll read a book, then lights out for tonight!
No photos for now. Stupid cell phone won't "send" the pictures. May be a Verizon problem?
May 14, 2012 ~~~ We both had a great final day in Kingman. Darrell went with Curt and Amanda (age 4) on a little road trip to Oatman to see where Grandpa Darrell worked in a gold mine when he was a teenager, AND fed the burros that roam the streets of Oatman. They had a fun day and Darrell says Amanda is a great kid. That is a HIGH compliment from Grandpa!
I spent most of the day with my old friend Ruth Ganta-Deal in Bullhead City catching up with family gossip and other important life details, toured the wonderful home she and her husband and her daughter Julie and HER husband all share. Lots of spacious living, lots of decks, lots of short fat palm trees and other flowering and non-flowering landscaping and cactus, AND an in-ground pool! Watched the wildlife enjoying their backyard from an upper deck, and from the kitchen table! Cottontail rabbits, an assortment of flying birds at the feeders, some quail and a roadrunner that ran past the kitchen window a couple times. Went to lunch at a teeny out of the way place in Bullhead City that made excellent calazone. In the 90's... but getting more or less used to it. AC and lots of iced tea with lots of ice helps! See the roadrunner? Right outside their kitchen window!
Later I hurried back to Kingman just in time to grab Darrell and head off to meet Curt and the kids for dinner at a Mexican restaurant. After hugging everyone good bye, we took a little "tour" around the old part of town, some of which Darrell was still familiar with from his high school days... then spotted a little league team (looked like 13-year old boys) playing a night game, so we stopped to admire their plays and watched till the game ended. Back at the camp trailer now buttoning everything up tonight to get ready to roll tomorrow morning. Next overnight will probably be in Williams... at least that is the plan!
May 15, 2012 ~~~ Left Kingman behind at 9:23 a.m., and already 88-degrees! Got gas at the Flying J for $3.69 a gal., next to it a Chevron selling gas for $3.99 a gallon!
About half-way between Seligman and Williams we finally got into REAL trees! Mostly pine, lodge pole and ponderosa forest, and "Watch for Elk" signs. Arrived in Williams about 12:30, 77-balmy degrees, at elevation at 6760 feet. Uh-oh.... elevation making us pant a little! Scio is only 350 foot elevation!
Williams is a really pretty town... a lot like Sisters, OR, but funkier! The people here obviously have a sense of humor. It's all dressed up in it's "Old Days" decor for businesses and signage, but much more so than Sisters, OR. Kinda like "Hippy meets Wild West Cowboy". Amazingly found gas at $3.99 a gallon.
We didn't stop in Williams except for gas... wanted to continue on to the Grand Canyon. Stopped enroute and pulled off into the pines for a break, a stretch, and lunch for an hour... then back on the road to Grand Canyon! Still seeing "Watch for Elk" signs.... but no signs of any elk!
We stopped for the night at Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument, which has free dry camping spots off the road and into the trees. Nice spot. Great day!
May 16, 2012 ~~~ Up and on the road at 7:00 a.m. -- 61-degrees, nice! We slid on past Flagstaff and onto I40-East, and at this time of day there was still LOTS of traffic on I40.... and lots and lots of truck traffic! Stopped for gas at a 76 station and got gas again for $3.89 a gallon. Not bad considering back in Sweet Home gas is $4.16 a gallon. Doesn't it seem like Sweet Home should be cheaper? It is closer to the SOURCE isn't it? Why the heck would it be cheaper all over Arizona when it all has to be trucked here from far away places??
May 17, 2012 ~~~ up at 6:00 a.m. - 50-degrees and NO WIND! Yay! Saw my first OLIVE tree ... it's right at our camp spot for a shade tree, as well as a lot more of them and other trees scattered around this RV park. The olive tree is so covered with olives (green and hard!) they almost look like clusters of grapes, except they don't grow in clusters. Yippee!! Finally found "the slot" in my laptop to insert the memory card from my camera! NOW can get photos on here!
Off to the Petrified Forest, 31 miles away.I did NOT expect what we saw! Beautiful beautiful multi-colored full logs petrified. These trees lay down before the dinasaurs were here, and before "North America" was even split off into it's own continent! Was so impressed with the quantity and quality of logs and huge chunks of logs, all petrified, crystalized or beautifully colored centers lying around all over the place, and some partially sticking out of the ground. No way to describe it, but we did spend several hours there marveling at the sites we saw.
Darrell observing the cliff edge.... beyond the sign of course!
The Painted Desert was a disappointment. We were probably not there at the right time of day, plus the smoky haze didn't do a thing for the colors. We were there in the brightest part of the day, 1:30-2:00 p.m., should plan to be there first thing in the morning or late in the afternoon for better color definition! The best part of the Painted Desert was the VISTAS from certain points, and the hyrogliphics (or petrogliphs ?) we could see with the aid of spotting scopes set up at a viewpoint called "Newspaper Rock". Hundreds of drawings put there by native people hundreds of years ago.
We continued on from there to downtown Holbrook, which has quite the colorful history! We took in the Navajo County Courthouse-Jail-Museum which was built in the 1800s and used until recent times.
The jail was used until 1976. Oh my! And what a jail... like a dungeon. The cells were about 6' x 8' and each had 4 steel bunks, 2 upper, 2 lower, and each bunk about 2' wide x 6' long. Yep, pretty dang small bunks, considering you have to have an aisle between them! No sink, no toilet. Guess they must have used a "pot" in the cells that would have to be emptied in the mornings. There was a tiny "day room" and off to one side was a narrow dark closet like place with no door, and no light of any kind. The toilet and sink were "one piece" and were very small. It looked like something that would have been installed for a kindergarten size child! There was no outside light at all into the jail. Need I say that I was fascinated with the jail??
Lovely toilet facility don't you think?? YUK! The following are some jail art that adorned the walls in the day room and/or cells.
Hard to believe they actually housed people there until 1976! Remember that first Holbrook sheriff I mentioned? He then went on to administer his own brand of justice, shooting and killing people that he figured deserved it ... apparently he thought "trials" were a tad bit too slow!
The rest of the museum and couthouse was not all that well marked, or easy to view. There were a lot of displays and photos and that were interesting, including a late 1800s chuck wagon and accouterments ... and there is supposed to be a resident ghost or two, which we did not see.
When we left the museum it was 99-degrees! We drove around and found the old Bucket of Blood Saloon (boarded up and unused), then took some photos of an interesting nearby old (1800's) building, completely derelict now, that the outside walls were all made of chunks of petrified wood, crystals, and chunks of turquoise. Here's a photo of the "petrified wood and turquoise" exterior walls:
Dinner at Taco Bell then back to the RV Park. Cooled off nicely this evening to 60-degrees.
Tomorrow we break camp and head for Farmington and Aztec, New Mexico.
May 18, 2012 ~~~ Up at 6:30 and 50-degrees outside. Left Holbrook on I40 East about 9:00 a.m. -- now 73-degrees and wind is blowing HARD.
Turned off I40 north onto 191 and the wind has been blowing hard, 45-50 mph with higher gusts, steadily since we left Holbrook. Dust is really showing up now... can't see much of the horizon because of dust.
About 12 miles south of Chinle visibility was down to about 5 car lengths and dust is drifting and blowing across the road... wind still blowing hard. We can see giant pillars of dust boiling up from the flats on either side of the road. These are NOT whirlwinds ... it just billows up rapidly like smoke straight up out of the canyons and from alongside the mesas.
Stopped at Chinle at 11:35 a.m. for gas. The Shell station had 12 pumps. There were 12 cars parked at the pumps. No one was INSIDE the cars. We waited for 20 minutes for the cars in our pump lane to come out and move. Finally a lady come out to the car in front of us, but then stood there talking to a guy for another 15 minutes! She finally moved so we could pull up to a pump and get gas. Apparently no one in Chinle is in a hurry... everyone else was doing the same thing! They would pull up to a pump and go inside the deli-store and just leave their cars at the pump while they did their weekly shopping or something!
Finally got on down the road only to discover we were in WORSE dust! Visibility went to ZERO a couple times when we could not see past the hood of our rig.... and many times we couldn't see more than a car length or two in front of us. It was scary! Lots of cars on a narrow two-lane highway and we would see a set of headlights suddenly pop out of the dust.
It was ghastly and we both were white knuckled. We eventually got out of the most dangerous part of the dust, but never did get out of it or the wind completely, all the way to Farmington.
Arrived in Aztec... just past Farmington 3:45 p.m. We are staying at Darrell's cousin Shyla's house, in their driveway. She and her hubby Tom are very accomodating, their little granddaughters are adorable, and Shyla cooked us delicious chicken fajitas for dinner.... all is well! Tomorrow we're off to Cortez, Colorado. We'll be here in Aztec for a few days.
May 19, 2012 ~~~ Still in Aztec at Shyla & Tom's house. They took us on a great "road trip" today to Mancos, Cortez, and Durango. Beautiful ride. We found the place where Darrell's mom lived before she died in 1997 in Dolores, CO... near Cortez. Was a nostalgic trip through that area for Darrell and Shyla both as they located places where their parents, aunts, uncles, and grandma lived. Anyone who thinks New Mexico and this part of Colorado is "all desert" hasn't been to Aztec - Mancos - Cortez - or Durango! It's truly beautiful, with rivers and lakes to fish, and lots of places to go hunting! Not to mention the history of the area and the Anasazi and other ancient ruins to explore.
May 20, 2012 ~~~ Darrell's cousin Shyla and her little granddaughters Madison and Emily took us out to the Aztec Ruins on the edge of town and we got to spend a couple hours out there exploring in and through them. LOVE DOING THAT! They have a little museum there too with a good collection of artifacts.
Shyla's sister Kathy then joined us for dinner at a Chinese restaurant. Darrell hadn't seen Kathy in years either, so we all had a nice visit with her.
This evening we sat in Shyla and Tom's backyard and watched the solar eclipse through Tom's welding helmets. Because of our great Oregon weather and cloud cover, we have never actually seen one, so that was exciting to be able to watch the whole thing!
Made contact with a Thompson niece, Cathy Faber, in Santa Fe.... and she gave us directions to meet her in Santa Fe tomorrow.
We're looking forward to getting back on the road, but it has been really nice being here with Shyla and Tom. Such good people and we hope they make the trip sometime to Oregon so we can show THEM around!
May 21, 2012 ~~~
Went to breakfast with Shyla, then back on the road to Santa Fe. Driving through high desert (7000 foot elevation) seeing lots of oil wells and natural gas rigs scattered around everywhere. Almost NO WIND (YAY!) and good roads. A little bit of road construction, but no real hold ups.
Crossed the Continental Divide at 1:05 pm, and crossed the Rio Grande at 2:30 pm in Bernalillo, NM. Gas is much cheaper in these parts -- $3.52 a gallon!
Arrived about 3:45 and all set up in Rancheros de Santa Fe RV Park, while listening to another camper's 2 dogs barking non-stop for 2 hours! Why do people travel with their pets, then go off and leave them locked up in the RV?? Aark! Aaarrk! Aaark! Aark! SO annoying to have to listen to that for hours at a time! Cathy drove out to the RV park to meet us, but we gave up and went to dinner so we could talk without the barking in the background!
This is also a nice area... high desert, really pretty terrain. Had a nice visit with Cathy, then came back to our camp trailer and sat out and watched the lightning and the LOUD thunder! It did drown out the barking dogs! LOL
Here's ONE of the giant stink bugs we saw:
May 22, 2012 ~~~ Up early this morning to the melody of next door dogs barking, lovely. Now trying to decide which route to take.... Kansas? Texas? Hmmmm..... note to self: find park that does not allow stupid people with their dogs. (Nice people with dogs are okay!)
The area around Santa Fe is really pretty... rolling hills, no sage brush, small Juniper trees and lots of horses. With no sage brush, and this time of year there is short grasses growing, the rolling hills look like a park freshly mowed.
A little further down the road the millions of barren acres (with a few sightings of cows and an antelope or two) rolling off to horizon had sparse grasses, no sage brush, no cactus, and not even any Junipers! The one redeeming quality was a very small short purple flower that blanketed the landscape and gave every rolling hill a mottled purple color!
Gas just keeps getting cheaper and cheaper! We were astounded with $3.52 a gallon. As we roll south into New Mexico and to the Texas border it kept getting cheaper. As we crossed into Texas at Texico and all the way into Lubbock it was $3.21 a gallon! Amazing!
Found those ugly spiny armed cactus (Chola?) with big beautiful dark pink flowers on them! Photos to follow!
I had a whole different mental image of Lubbock, TX. We arrived at the Lubbock RV Park at about 8:00 pm... nice "Good Sam" park, but no TV cable. We DO have WiFi though, so it's okay. I expected wild and wooly "Old West" town.... with cattle and horse ranches everywhere. Hmmm.. not so far! It appears as we entered Texas to be more farms than ranches. And Lubbock is a LOT bigger than we expected. Gas $3.21!! Weather not bad... 88-degrees with a slight breeze. Pretty nice and the RV park has lots of big trees. Having an icy cold beer and left over Chinese food for dinner. We're pretty close to the airport, so we will be entertained by airplanes taking off tonight instead of lightning, thunder, and barking dogs. :-)
Approaching Lubbock, we went through several little towns that were practically dried up and blown away... businesses all boarded up and buildings falling apart. The worst was Encino. The only "business" still in operation was the post office... grocery stores, gas stations, motels... all boarded up. Looks like it was a pretty thriving little town until the economy closed it up.
May 23, 2012 ~~~ Left Lubbock behind... the area out of Lubbock is flat as a pancake. We could see horizon to horizon.... HUGE farms and looking out across the landscape there were sometimes no houses to be seen, no sage brush, no trees, just farmland. If we DID see a "clump" of trees now and then off in the distance, we knew there was a house there!
Past Crosbyton we dropped into a beautiful canyon and mesa country with trees and canyons visible all around. We stopped in a rest area and saw that it was also a "tornado shelter".... hmmm. THAT was food for thought! The rest area had several picnic areas with trails between them and the following sign. I took the photo because I knew Tuffy & Marla would appreciate it as much as I did. We did NOT have a picnic outside the camp trailer.
As we passed through Loving, TX we saw our first "We Buy Wild Hogs" sign... saw more of those, or "We Process Wild Hogs", as we drove through other small towns.
Saw my first Armadillo in the wild! It was a road kill and I didn't have time to get a picture of it... but it still counts! This is Darrell at a little "rest stop" along the road.
As we got nearer to Dallas/Ft Worth area, we saw the biggest lake we've ever seen! It looked like Puget Sound, or an inland sea! The wind was blowing and it had white caps everywhere... and not a single boat was on the lake.
We arrived in Denton, TX (a suburb of Dallas/Ft Worth) about 5:10 pm at Destiny RV Park. Nice park... lots of BIG trees and nice and clean.... BUT no internet connection and no cable TV so we couldn't check the news!
Spent the evening until about 11:30 with Patsy (Walker) Shockey-Hufford and her hubby Steve Hufford. Went out to dinner, then back to their house, then back to our camp trailer. Great visit! Steve says there are lakes everywhere in the Dallas/Ft Worth area, but the winds blows so much it's dangerous to take a regular fishing boat or sail boat out on them.
Patsy and Steve are planning on coming to the All-School Reunion this summer in Sweet Home.... Steve is class of '64, Patsy is class of '62.
May 24, 2012 ~~~ left Denton, TX at about 11:00 a.m. -- stayed up too late last night and both of us were very slow moving this morning! 81 degrees and kinda overcast or hazy and a breeze blowing. Saw my first Cardinal (the bird) ... it was in the RV car wash this morning.
I realize it may have been dead awhile, and was probably washed off the front of one of those big rigs like my brother drives... but dang! Who knows when I'll get a chance to see another one?? Might be like that Armadillo and this is my last chance!
Anyway... on down the road. Saw MAJOR "subdivisions" outside of Dallas/Ft Worth that had $1-million dollar-and-up houses on 1 to 5 acre parcels... built with either rock or brick siding, many were 3-story. We saw a few that appeared to be FOUR-story houses! Very lavish and looked VERY expensive. They were on both sides of a freeway, and as far as we could see in all directions, and new ones were being built as we passed by. Huge billboarda advertising them with prices starting at "$1.5-million" !! Someone is obviously making money in this economy! Those home ownes can't ALL be lottery winners!
As we rolled on into East Texas, it is beautiful... more lakes (BIG ONES), rivers (small and muddy), streams (ugly ... look all stagnant), but with very large trees lining both sides of the highway. 40-foot trees... recognized pines and lots of oak trees, and others I didn't recognize. So thick we could only see beyond them on occasion. Made for a very pretty drive for miles and miles!
Crossed into Arkansas in Texarkana about 4:40 pm and found an RV Park on the outskirts, Sunrise RV Park. Nice and clean, has a pool, laundry room, teeny grocery store, internet and TV cable.... but it is just a big gravel parking lot! Not a tree in sight! Oh well.... night night. More tomorrow as we head off in the direction of Fountain Hill, AR and maybe into Oak Grove, LA. 91 degrees... ugh!
May 25, 2012 ~~~ Left Texarkana at 10:30 a.m. and it was already 82 degrees with a slight breeze. Darrell says he will be very happy when he can drive without the wind trying to blow him off the road!
Reached Lafayette Co., Arkansas and crossed the Red River... see Kudzu vine everywhere (I think that's what it's called!), and also seeing oil/gas well pumps out here. They look like grasshopper heads to me, and that's what we call them.
In Lewisville, Arkansas we saw a farm with a couple single-hump camels and a HERD fo zebras! Went by too fast to get a photo! Dang!
4:30 p.m. ---- not only made it to Fountain Hill, Arkansas, but in driving around a l-o-n-g loop we found my Kinney cousin's house! (We did not have an address, not even a street name!).... just driving down the road and saw "KINNEY" on a mail box. Stopped and knocked on the door, but no one was home. :-( I know I was at the right house because they have a daughter named "Sheena" and there was a little name tag on a swing that said "Sheena" on it. Darn.... will probably never get to meet them now. Left her a note on the door to let her know we stopped by.
At 5:30 p.m. we crossed the Mississippi River and into Greenville, Mississippi! WOW... I have seen the Mississippi before (at St.Louis) but it still amazes me how BIG it is! It is very warm 91 degrees .... and HUMID!!
We're staying in the Warfield Point County Park right across the bridge in Greenville. Darrell says the county employee who "checked us in" was as about as sharp as the "ass end of a row boat"... not sure what happened, but we did find a nice spot in amongst very LARGE trees with a view of the Mississippi River. Had WiFi briefly through Verizon, then no service at all.
Walked to the river bank and sat watching the barges go by, one slowly upstream and one downstream.
And saw a LIVE Cardinal... but he was too quick to get a picture of.
May 26, 2012 ~~~ 7:20 a.m. and 60 degrees on the Mississippi River bank... humidity feels like 90%. Broke camp and took off at 9:15 a.m.--- now 81 degrees!
Decided NOT to got to Memphis, TN and Graceland because of the Memorial Day weekend.... figured there would be way too many people there to make it fun.
Decided to take the Natchez Trace Parkway instead, and got on at Eupora, MS. It's a perfectly LOVELY highway... tall trees on both sides, no commercial vehicles allowed (so no 18-wheelers blowing you off the highway!), and 50 mph speed limit! Stopped at several historical sites and markers. Saw several pieces of the old original Nathez Trace trail and stopped at one spot where 13 Confederate soldiers were buried beside the trail. All in all, well worth the drive! Very little traffic and it took us the rest of the way across Mississippi, through the NW corner of Alabama and into Tennessee.
Saw 8 road killed Armadillos today and 1 dead snake on the road... no chance to take a photo though.... shoulders too narrow to pull off the road.
6:00 p.m. arrived and all set up at Powderhorn RV Park in Lawrenceburg, TN. 86 degrees and much less humidity! It's not much of an RV Park.... but they do have WiFi, so we're happy with it! Tomorrow we will head for Knoxville/Maryville, Tennessee area and will spend several days there. Will be great to get off the road and be in ONE spot for awhile!
May 27,2012 ~~~ 10:00 a.m. temp 81 degrees. Tennessee is beautiful. Lots and lots of trees and rolling hills... kinda reminds us of Oregon actually. Also in Lawrenceburg, TN there is a community of about 350 Old Order Amish, saw one man in his buggy yesterday.
We knew for sure we were in Tennessee when we heard a young lady make a 2-syllable word out of the word "six". Can you say "see-ucks" ?? If you can, you speak Tennessee!!
We made a lunch stop at Monteagle, TN (now 91-degrees) at a place called The Smoke House... interesting place! They had a little of everything in there for tourists AND locals to buy... fudge of ALL kinds (with generous free samples!), "fried" pie (we bought a piece of fried peach pie to try later)... every kind of BBQ sauce you could EVER want from pint size up to gallon size jugs. Darrell had an omelet with grits and biscuits (potatoes/hash browns not offered) and I had a BLT made with fried green tomatoes. There was no jam or jelly on the table, but there was a jug of "biscuit syrup". I feel a little like I'm in a foreign country! No HASH BROWNS?? Oh yes.... and they offer gravy with everything. LOL
Entered Eastern Time Zone at 1:55 pm (now 2:55 pm) and entered Georgia! But only for a few minutes.... exited Georgia and back in Tennessee at 3:05 pm... and welcome to Chatanooga! Still 91-degrees, but not as humid. We are now 3 hours ahead of Oregon.
At 4:10 pm got our first sight of the Appalachian Mountains! Pretty impressive. The Tennessee River is HUGE and winds around all over the place out here. All the rivers and creeks we've seen have been nice and blue. Unlike Mississippi where every river or stream we saw was muddy and stagnant looking, and not inviting at all!
Stopped for gas at a BP station and got gas for $3.21 a gallon! About 100 miles further and we saw gas for $3.18 a gallon.
While driving for hours and hours, Darrell got to "thinking" and spent about 10 minutes expounding on his theory of where "boogers" come from or "how they form". Need I say this was not my favorite topic. Note to self: Keep Darrell more entertained on the trip so he does not have time to think of how other things in our bodies are "formed" or explain it to me.
We ran all over the Maryville area out of Knoxville looking for RV Parks... all packed! Drove through Maryville 3 times. Hmmm... maybe a bad weekend to be looking for an RV Park, especially since there are rivers and lakes all over the place and everyone seems to be fishing, swimming, or boating. Those swimmers don't seem to be too concerned about water moccasins, so maybe those are more likely in Mississippi??
Finally gave up about 8:00 pm in Townsend, TN (near the entrance to the Great Smokey Mountains National Park) and got a room at a Best Western! Yay! Shower is much bigger than ours! AND they want to feed us a free breakfast in the morning! AND there is a really nice steak house across the road and THEY wanted to feed me a nice grilled steak (and a nice grilled pork chop for Darrell). Much nicer than a ham sandwich. :-)
We sat outside for awhile and watched let the fireflies entertain us. I also saw a lot of cockroaches creeping around outside on the cement. Do cockroaches do that?? They sure look like cockroaches. I also checked in - under - around our bed and mattress in the motel for bed bugs. Did NOT find anything... Thank God.
May 28, 2012 ~~~ FINALLY found a great RV Park in Pigeon Forge! Oh yes ... and learned Lesson #1 in setting up the camp trailer: Put tire stoppers behind the tires BEFORE you unhitch from the ball. Our trailer "jumped" off the ball and started rolling backwards (downhill!!). We both made a grab for it and hung on ... yep, like we could have stopped it! There's about an 8-feet drop off directly behind the trailer. Yikes! For some reason it stopped on it's own.
WOW.... Pigeon Forge is a "destination" all by itself. Think Sisters, OR mixed with Las Vegas strip, without the gambling. Family fun stuff everywhere you look.... big wide streets and LOTS of people and kids. It's a place you would want to bring MONEY! And Dollywood is 2 miles up the road. We took a drive up there, but there are 6 lanes going into and out of there.... into about a thousand acres of parking lot... can't see anything of Dollywood because there are shuttle buses to pick you up in the parking lot, and Dollywood is somewhere off through the forest.
So... we also took a trip out of town to find an old cemetery with some Thurman family and found them in the Stafford Cemetery, right across a dirt lane from Walnut Grove Cemetery.
And this is Darrell getting his chores done. :-)
May 29, 2012 ~~~ We watched the fireflies light up the woodsy area behind us last night. Looked like tiny Christmas lights twinkling all over in the trees! Today we're off to see the historical sights in and around Maryville and check out some of Darrell's family history in these parts!
We were all over Knoxville and Maryville and spent some time in the East Tennessee Historical Center. We found the property Darrell's GGGgrandfather owned and lived in the 1890's in Knoxville. It appears to have been "re-done" with cement block for exterior walls, but the old house may be under the cement blocks.
We were all over Knoxville and Maryville and spent some time in the East Tennessee Historical Center. We found the property Darrell's GGGgrandfather owned and lived in the 1890's in Knoxville. It appears to have been "re-done" with cement block for exterior walls, but the old house may be under the cement blocks.
Okay... so we went BACK by the little white house that Darrell's GGGgrandpa owned back in the late 1800's and THIS time we found Darrell's cousin David there, so we stopped to visit and spent nearly the entire afternoon! David is Darrell's 4th cousin, once removed. Those of you who do genealogy will know what that is.... it means that Darrell's GGgrandfather and David's GGgrandfather were brothers.
Anyway.... David seemed reasonably nice and was quite enthusiastic to talk to us and share family information. His is one of 6 brothers, and was raised by his grandma and grandpa (James Berry Thurman). He was thrilled to take us on a tour and show us the whole 2800 acres (more or less) that GGGgrandpa received as a land grant before Tennessee was a real state.
However.... in David's enthusiasm, some of his stories got a little confusing, and at times, contradictory. For example, as he discussed his own life and children... it got a teeny bit bizarre. He professed to having 11 children (an hour later he said 14), by 9 different women, and his first one was born when he was 15. He "confessed" that he wasn't married to all of them. Later he said 10 different women ... but also confessed that he didn't actually keep track of all of them, but he knew there were 9 or 10.
Another example, he also said he never had anything to do with his father and that his father had "died in prison". Hmmm ... Darrell found David's father's obituary this evening, which says David's father, age 84, died "surrounded by his friends and family." So.... unless David's father's friends and family were all in prison WITH him, it seems unlikey that he died in prison. Not that we care .... we just think David likes to talk, and maybe "makes up" some portion of the stories he tells!
David is unemployed and lives in the little white house pictured above, which is in an absolutely deplorable condition inside and filthy to boot! I asked to use the bathroom at one point (and ONLY because I didn't think I could hold it much longer!) and he told me I would have to use the one in the camper in the driveway because he was in the middle of "remodeling" the one in the house. I decided to "hold" !! Apparently the entire house is in a state of "remodel".... possibly since about 1950. And the cleaning lady hasn't been there since then either. This is David (age 44) ....
So... all in all it was an entertaining day well spent. David and one of his brothers do have family photos and (maybe) a copy of the original land grant, and maybe someday when he gets around to it we might be able to get some copies of those! I think his heart was in the right place ... but is a bit of a "blow hard" (like he was trying to impress us??) and a bit of a "n'er do well" and if he didn't have this old broken down house to live in he would probably be homeless. We wish him well, and thanked him for his time and for giving us a tour of the area and for pointing out historical features and old homes that his grandpa had shown him. Here is a photo of an old original log house that belonged to the Tipton's (2 of GGGgrandpa Jabez Thurman's wives were Tiptons) not too far from GGGgrandpa Jabez Thurman's old place. It has been somewhat "restored" so that it doesn't deteriorate, and is located on Tipton Station Rd in Knoxville.
We ARE planning to make it to the museum tomorrow, and to Cade's Cove on Friday. In the meanwhile, it was a bright and sunny day today and only 85 degrees here in Tennessee!
May 31, 2012 ~~~ Didn't make it to any museums today, just roamed about Knoxville looking up records for Darrell's family. We did locate another of his cousins though (another 4th cousin, once removed) that seems a bit more normal! He's a couple years older than us, and his wife, daughter, son-in-law, and granddaugter and grandson. His name is Wallace Thurman, this is a photo we took today of him and his wife and granddaughter Brittany. Very nice people.
Wallace isn't real interested in genealogy unfortunately, but he and his family were quite gracious about sitting and chatting with us and letting Darrell copy some of their family photos. I believe Wallace and the aforementioned David are 1st cousins, and live about 1/4-mile apart on the same road.
On the way back to Pigeon Forge and our RV Park, we noticed gas has taken another dip here... and about 2 minutes after I took this photo we saw gas for $3.09 a gallon! (Going too fast to take a photo.)
That's it for tonight.... it was 86 degrees today, and it just started raining a few minutes ago, so the humidity feels like nearly 100% !! Tomorrow we PLAN to meet up with some other relatives of Darrell's and take a drive up into the Smokey Mountains.
June 1, 2012 ~~~ Met up with Darrell's friends, Eddie and Velda who have lived in this area forever, then went for a ride into the Smokey Mountains, to a place called Cade's Cove. Darrell's GGGgrandpa owned property there in the early 1800s. Here's the first cool thing we saw!
We drove all over the area on a narrow twisty road and saw old homesites, deer and turkeys. I didn't get too much opportunity to take any video because it was pouring a torrential downpour nearly the whole time we were there, EXCEPT for the time we spent looking at this bear. Her 3 cubs were up a TALL tree behind her, too small and far up to get a photo.
Eddie didn't advise going up the steep little stairs to the upstairs room... he didn't want to go up to look for snakes that might be up there, and he didn't want us to go up either! When we went to the old Baptist Church and cemetery, he went ahead of us to watch for copperheads and rattlesnakes. Ohhhhh yes. I'm so glad he did, and fortunately he did NOT see any!
This is Darrell and Eddie.
After our ride they took us to their favorite BBQ place for lunch. We had a really fun day with them despite the monsoon rains! They have hiked all over this part of the mountains for years and had lots of stories to tell. Great day. :-)
June 2, 2012 ~~~ Went to visit yet another of Darrell's relatives, Don and Kathy Root.. also nice gracious people, who visited with us for a couple hours. Don is retired and he and Kathy do "Prison Ministries" and volunteer in a prison half-way house.
We then went to the public library searching for more old records, only found one litte tidit that Darrell didn't already have. So... we gave up that search and went to look around some OLD cemeteries and headstones, and eventually made our way to an old "pioneer house" that is also now a museum.
And here are some flowers we found around the Knoxville area. The BIG white one is a magnolia, which is as big as my hand, counting all my fingers! And they smell really good!
The last photo reminds me of a honeysuckle, but it grows on a bush or tree. On the other hand it almost looks like the shape of an orchid. Not sure what it is, but we found it growing alongside the road.
June 3, 2012 ~~~ Just kicking back today and cleaning house to get ready to roll on out of here tomorrow morning toward Virginia for a few days. We're hoping to go on across Virginia and take a look at the Atlantic Ocean, but we'll see. I'm getting anxious to turn around and start moseying our way WEST! Temperatures here have dropped to a comfortable 70-75 degrees. :-)
I've been watching this guy off and on for days... but he only gives me fleeting glimpses and he is very quick. He posed in the greenery in a tree near our campsite this morning, and just one lucky shot was all he gave me!
June 4, 2012 ~~~ Today was a traveling day to get to Wise Co., VA, so I can take a turn at doing a little research. We wanted to travel the back roads, which we did, with a few missed turns here and there and arrived in Big Stone Gap, VA at 4:00 pm. Nice Good Sam RV Park with all the amenities, plus it's right on a creek. Lovely setting! Got dinner at KFC.. YAY! No ham sandwiches for dinner tonight! We traveled up the Cumberland Gap... very historical. Not much to see except lots of hills and ridges and valleys and trees and green grass. We're liking that after quite a few days in Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas! AND it was raining on us when we got here. :-)
June 5, 2012 ~~~ Up and on the road this morning to go find the Wise Co. and Dickenson Co., VA courthouses so we can search for Lawrence and Mitchell family records. These are Grandma Goldie's parents and grandparents.
Grandma Goldie was born in (or near) Norton, Wise Co., Virginia and her family lived here for some time. Her father, Archie Lawrence worked in the coal mines. The other photos are Kudzu vine, which I have been blathering on about for the last 3 states. It grows and grows and grows and covers everything! Even power poles.
These pictures are of a working coal chute (HUGE) that crosses over the road. In one photo you can see how big it is by the car on the road under it. We could have driven through that chute! The coal mine is on the left and down over the steep embankment. The conveyor takes the coal across the road to be processed and later loaded onto railcars.
And so we continued on to the city of Wise to the courthouse, where we found 11 marriage certificates to copy! Some are leads on Goldie's mother's family, which I know almost nothing about. Several are her mother's siblings marriages and clearly show Goldie's grandparent's names... Samuel Preston Mitchell and Cynthia Robinson... although at times the names are misspelled or otherwise messed up. Samuel Preston Mitchell is shown as "S.P. Mitchell" as well as "Press Mitchell" and Cynthia is also shown as "Cinthia Robertson" on one document. I have copies of all of them to share!
The road to Wise is a twisty turny twisty turny narrow road with no painted stripes or fog lines. Very slow going, as it is rock hillsides on one side and drop off embankments on the other as we wound our way up and down ridges and ravines. VERY picturesque, and also slightly nauseating! No way a photo could do any of that justice... and if I did see something to photograph there was no place to pull over! All the houses are built on these slopes, with one side of the house on stilts, and even their gardens are planted on the slopes, with about a 30% or more incline.
Drove on to Clintwood (county seat) in Dickenson Co., VA, as Dickenson County is where the Archie and Fannie Lawrence family lived after living in Norton in Wise Co., and where Archie died in 1935.
Found a court record for Arch Lawrence showing that on September 24, 1929, he was tried, but NOT convicted of " ... unlawfully manufacture, transport, sell, offer, keep, and expose for sale, give away, dispense, solicite, advertise, and receive orders for ardent spirits". Hmmm... in other words he was arrested for makin' some MOONSHINE liquor. But, since he was found NOT GUILTY at trial, we will assume that he was innocent. :-)
In June 1931, Arch Lawrence was tried for ... "maliciously, feloniously, and with malice aforethought, with a certain gun... did shoot one Carl Taylor in the back, arms, face, neck and sides ... with leaden bullets ... of which one mortal wound he did then and there die." The people who testified against him in Grand Jury were Cary Neal, Virgie Taylor, Clay Taylor, Charles Skeen, Beldon Perrigin, Dr. G.W. Snead and Sallie Neal. Arch's wife Fannie, as well as others, testified for him at the trial.
Arch was found NOT GUILTY by a jury. We couldn't find any more details of the event at the courthouse. A newspaper in the area would have the story in full.... but we didn't have time for a search for that. That will be something I will try to do when I get home.
Tomorrow we pull out again and head for Bedford County so Darrell can continue his quest for more Thurman research. Will try to stop at this big museum just down the road from us on the way out of town!
June 6, 2012 ~~~ We did stop at the big museum... very nicely done, and watched a short video on the Melungeons in the area. Peeked my curiosity, so I bought the guy's book. Hmmm... will be doing some more research on this, very interesting.
Drove on and on and on, through the ridges and ravines and rolling hills of beautiful Virginia. Photos cannot do it justice.
We ended up in Bedford, which apparently has NO RV Parks, so we spent our first night in a Walmart parking lot. May not do that again unless it's an EMERERGENCY! Traffic in and out of the parking lot all night long... noisy! Left Bedford after doing some Thurman research, with some succss, at the Bedford courthouse. Darrell decided we need to go to Pittsylvania county (Danville) to check out some Thurman history there.
June 7, 2012 ~~~ No internet service at Walmart, so no blogging last night!
We drove the backroads.... and could hear the banjoes in the background in some places! We stopped at a little country store WAY out in the backwoods for cold drinks and saw photos all over the place of Tim and JT from the History channel reality show "Moonshiners" !! They live in the area and the store owners and clerks had their photos (taken with Tim & JT) displayed all around the door and cash register area.
Arrived in Martinsville and got all set up in a nice wooded RV Park on the Smith River... we will be here for 3 nights. Internet service was a little spotty and kicked me off, but it is NICE to be off the road for a few days! Will post a few photos later. Weather has been nice too... in the 70's, but we hear it's going back up into the 80-90's later in the week.
June 8, 2012 ~~~ So we drove and drove all over the hills of Danville through some gorgeous old old streets with gorgeous houses, and some streets that were, ummm, decideldly "unsavory", and finally found the courthouse! All good, except the county seat is in Chatham, not Danville! So off we went to Chatham. Darrell found some excciting genealogy records there that he did not have before on his family, which I won't go into here because for some people it would bore them into a coma. Did not find anything related to my family, which was as I expected.
We then drove BACK through Danville because we were both impressed and fascinated with some of those beautiful old homes.. some were 4 stories tall, most of them some sort of brick. "OLD" here means "built in 1700's"... unlike Oregon, where "OLD" means built in the 1800's!
This is an "old home" we found enroute to Chatham from Danville. Now and then some property owners apparently realized the uniqueness of these and have left them standing. No commercial enterprise, we just have spotted them in the sideyard of a residence along the road.
The following are the 1700's + homes we saw in Danville.
Keeping in mind of course, that these are family homes, and are still in use. Not old homes turned into apartments or to house businesses. And this is only a small sampling... many others were wood structures, but the lighting was wrong to get a good photo.
Here's another interesting photo:
And that is tobacco growing alongside the road. The plants are about 14-16 inches tall and the leaves are about 4-6 inches wide. First time we've ever seen them.
June 9, 2012 ~~~ Today we went to a Historical and Genealogy Library in Bassett a short drive from where we're camped, to search for Darrell's relatives, and some of the Thompson/Lawrence family. Didn't find much, so we did our laundry at a laundromat.... been a long time since I've done that and someone in there had to show me how it works! Duhhh!
Came "home" and broke out the grill and Darrell BBQ'd us some tasty ribeye steaks and we had a fine time eating outside at our little break-down picnic table in the 75 degree sunset!
Ummmm... well, until flames started shooting out the side of our little grill ... and then black smoke started rising .... ??
After dousing it with baking soda and examining the remains, what appeared at first glance to be the charred body of a very hairy creature turned out to be a brass bristled cleaning brush with a large plastic handle. The handle was no longer visible as it was melted into a puddle in the bottom of the grill, so just a pile of bristles is all that remains.
Apparently the last time we used the grill we stashed the cleaning brush inside so we wouldn't lose track of it. :-) Fortunately it didn't start flaming until the steaks were off the grill and on our plates!
Tomorrow we ARE going exploring out into the wilds and woods again to look for Darrell's GGGgrandpa's land. Monday we leave here and head to Williamsburg to camp for a few days and play "tourist", and hopefully to have lunch or dinner with our friend Melissa Sellers in Richmond on Tuesday!
June 10, 2012 ~~~ Relax day! Went for a ride out and around the hills north of Martinsville and Danville in effort to locate the property that Darrell's GGGgrandpa owned in the 1700's. We found it, as close as possible. Again.... beautiful country. High rolling hills with streams and trees. Not the "ravines" of Wise & Dickenson counties, but more rolling type hills. Here he is at Strawberry Creek.
We wonder why these pioneer types kept moving on?? Not sure how a man with a family could find any better places to settle down, but they seem to arrive, spend 5 or 10 years, then move on west again.
A good day with only church traffic. There is a Baptist Church (Primitive, Free Will, or Missionary) it seems like every 2 miles in the country, and every other block in the city! Went OUT to lunch and had our first pizza of the trip...yummy... WITH salad bar, then back to camp for a nap. :-)
Tomorrow we leave for Williamsburg ... and hopefully to see some historical sites in and around that area. Darrell does NOT like driving in "city" traffic, so we'll see.
June 11, 2012 ~~~ Left Martinsburg about 10:00 a.m. headed toward Williamsburg 235 miles away... all freeway driving. First stop was at a teeny little diner along the freeway for breakfast (at lunch time). We were the only customers there! My biscuit with homemade gravy was $2.00. A side of bacon with it was $1.35! Wow!! We scored on THAT breakfast!
Drove through pouring drenching rain for miles and miles. About a half hour before we got to our RV Park, the sun came out and it zipped back up to 86 degrees from 70! Think "steamy"!!
As we got closer to the "big city", the traffic got a little worse, but not too bad except for that ONE guy. The one who almost made us get onto a freeway going in the wrong direction because he wouldn't move over, even though he had plenty of room! We had our blinker on trying to merge OUT of the "right lane must turn right" lane, but he just hung onto our left rear quarter panel and wouldn't move. He finally did, then glared at us ... so Darrell flipped him off. Eeeewww.... apparently people here take that sort of thing REAL serious! The guy jumped in front of us, then hit his brakes about a dozen times... THEN he pulled over on the side of the freeway! Like he thought we might pull over too! Duhhh... our mommies didn't raise THAT big of dummies! Fortunately the turn we DID want came up at about the same time, so we lost him. I told Darrell to quit screwing with the locals before he gets us shot ... we are definitely NOT in Kansas anymore!
Anywat... arrived at our KOA campground and got a whopping discount because Darrell is retired police! This RV Park is even better than the last one... lots of forest, parking spots are NOT all slammed up against each other, huge trees, and all the amenities.
Meeting up with Melissa Sellers tomorrow for lunch, then looking for the State Library in Richmond. AND decided to spend 4 nights in Williamsburg instead of 3. Too much to go see!
June 12, 2012 ~~~
posted by Oregon Donna @ 11:13 PM
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