Category: Uncategorized

Amy and the girls make a point to read books set in whatever location we’re near. They just finished reading Holes, set in Texas, and a major plot point of that book involved eating Texas sweet onions:

Emily found a solution to her watering eyes:

We did a “dinner and movie” night with Texas Onion Soup and Kate Barlow’s Spiced Peaches, and then watched Holes the movie.

We didn’t see any tornados (as was reported in nearby Dallas), but some hail did make quite a mess. I spent a half hour hosing this off, and my white roof is now off-white with yellow stains. If I can help it, I shant be camping directly under any more trees.

The RV was due for an oil change, so we stopped at this random place:

What a find! The owner was a white-haired “man’s man” kind of guy with a thick Texas drawl. He called me “young man,” I called him “sir.” He took me underneath my RV and showed me where everything is and how easy it is to change the oil and transmission fluid (he is also an RV’er). It was nice to hear his opinion that our rig is in excellent shape, and that, in his opinion, the Allison transmission is “thee fahhh-nest” transmission ever made. The $58 I paid for the oil change was worth the RV maintenance tips alone.

Here’s Amy and the girls taking a break at the end of an afternoon later in the week:

Our camping spot was in a shady but not-so-densely-treed area near a lake:

Saturday morning, we made Easter baskets out of grocery sacks:

It was super-duper fun and Emily said my basket was the best!

After lunch, we drove in to Dallas to visit the 6th Floor Museum, located in the Texas School Book Depository where Lee Harvey Oswald shot JFK. (No photos were allowed inside the building unfortunately.)

My view from behind the fence at the “grassy knoll:”

This “X” in the road marks the spot where Kennedy took the fatal head shot. Circled is the window from which Lee Harvey Oswald was perched with his rifle.

Overlooking Dealey Plaza: The “grassy knoll” is above Amy’s head, the spot of Kennedy’s fatal shot is behind Carrie’s head, and the road leading under the bridge was the escape route after the assassination. Crazy.

I thoroughly enjoyed seeing all of this, and I thought the 6th Floor Museum was excellent. I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but there are many fishy elements with the Warren Commission’s conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. On a positive note, I learned that Jackie’s blood-stained pink outfit from that terrible day will finally go on display in the year 2103 (mark your calendars!)

For dinner, we met up with one of Amy’s friends from high school, Sarah Moseley, who lives in Dallas. We ate at a fantastic BBQ place, got free ice cream cones, and Amy enjoyed catching up with a friendly face.

Stopped at Half Price Books after dinner, and I got some DVDs for cheap. While one could argue the artistic merit of any of these cinematic works, one thing is certain: I’ma see me some man-movies:

We had a critter scratching at our front door this morning. It is impressive how fast a squirrel can shell and consume sunflower seeds.

Our Easter morning bounty (sandwich bags had to do in place of plastic Easter eggs):

Let the sugar rush begin:

Natalie wanted to color eggs, so Amy created some DIY dyes with whatever was on hand: coffee, tea, wine, boiled spinach, and cherries:

Not quite a rainbow of hues, but still a job well done:

So here we are for the next several days, camped directly under some ominous-looking trees:

I have my hose ready.

We’ve polished off a lot of Blue Bell ice cream in recent weeks, so when we discovered the Blue Bell Creamery was located in Brenham TX, we had to take a tour. Best of all, the tour included ice cream.

While at the creamery, I discovered a local Jersey farm that welcomed visitors. Natalie says Jerseys are her favorite. The other girls were not interested in milking a cow.

Natalie got to try her hand at milking. Success!

I did too. Funny, I didn’t notice that fresh pile at the time:

We came home with these farm-fresh eggs. The blue-ish ones are from a so-called “easter egg” chicken which has a gene responsible for the blue shells:

…and of course I had to get some raw milk. Jon, being the milk connoisseur of the family, thought it would taste more exotic but agreed it was just really good milk. The cream was wonderful in my coffee!

That day was also a travel day, so it was a convenient opportunity to wash the RV (one can tell it’s Spring now, unlike the bug-gut-free Winter we enjoyed.)

While we were out, Jon stopped at a tire place to use their air compressor. The air compressors at gas stations — and even truck stops, surprisingly — just can’t seem to put in the full 120psi that our RV tires take.

Since visiting Kennedy Space Center in Florida a few years ago, Houston has been on our “must see” list.

We also got to tour Johnson Space Center and saw the new Mars rover:

I intentionally picked a day when they would have an astronaut as a guest speaker. I am so glad I did, as that turned out to be the best part of the day.

We traveled again on Saturday, stopping at this state park for a picnic lunch. There were more bugs! Jon and Carrie were driven inside because of the gnats at this site. They weren’t bothering Emily, Natalie and me as much, maybe we needed a shower?!

We stopped in here too for a little more Texas history:

When we arrived at our campground, we found this little spot across the street. We walked there after dinner:

The girls wanted to take a dip, but the pool was unfortunately not quite ready for summer. (That green water was not a festive nod to St. Patrick.)

This is a pretty large campground, so the girls and I are examining the map to figure out the best way to get around:

The sign was promising, but we haven’t seen any yet:

But the wildflowers are plentiful:

And there are lots of butterflies:

Since the girls preferred activity wasn’t open, we dug out the basketballs from the storage compartments. It was fun to do something new.  There isn’t much in this area in the way of field trips, so I am looking forward to a slower week, catching up on our school work and maybe a little more basketball.

We really have some catching up to do! We left Austin mid-week and headed to San Antonio with my mom and dad. My mom loves a picnic, so I was glad we were able to share one with her.

We spent a day checking out the San Antonio missions while Jon got caught up on work after SXSW.

These Spanish missional communities date back to the early 1700’s. They are beautiful buildings, carefully maintained and still used by active parishes.

Afterwards, we thought we would just grab some dinner down on the River Walk. It turns out that most of Texas lets out the same week for Spring Break; this was that week. The sidewalks were bursting and we did our best not to fall into the river. We struck out finding an authentic Tex-Mex restaurant that could seat us in a reasonable amount of time, so we settled for a nice Italian place. They did have a mariachi band, though.

The next day, we took in more of the San Antonio sites, including the Market Square and another Mexican restaurant we had been eagerly anticipating. This place was packed and with a street festival going on outside, we decided to just grab some treats from the bakery. Strike two.

On Saturday, Jon joined us for a trip to the Alamo. The girls and I had just finished reading “A Line in the Sand: The Alamo Diaries of Lucinda Lawrence” (Jon and my parents even enjoyed listening in as we read.) That book helped bring the history of Texas “alive” for us, so we were eager to see this historic site.

It turned out that this was one of those places where photography isn’t allowed inside. Maybe it was the atmosphere, but Jon just about took on his own battle with the docents over the independence of the photographer!

While it still wasn’t authentic Tex-Mex, we did find a great place to eat. I loved the made-at-your-table fresh guacamole! Thanks again, mom and dad, for a great lunch.

Between the traffic in Austin and the crowds in San Antonio, we couldn’t wait to get out of the city. We took my mom and dad to the campground we stayed at just before getting to Austin. The girls were excited to show them the deer, and they had tiny cabins so we could be just across the way from my parents. It was refreshingly quiet!

Jon and my dad even worked on a “house project.” They were able to replace a bad electrical part, so that the house batteries are finally being charged up while we drive. It is great to have that working.

The recent rains have made the Texas landscape colorful. The wildflowers, including these beautiful, fragrant Texas Bluebonnets are in bloom!

We moved the RV to Stonewall, TX to visit the quaint, little towns of the Texas Hill Country, and my mom and dad moved in with us for a few days. They were great sports and we enjoyed sharing our routines with them. They even got to experience a Texas-sized storm, complete with torrential rain, hail and howling winds!

We visited a great state park called Enchanted Rock. It is a dome of beautiful pink granite.

Natalie even made it to the top in her cowgirl boots!

Back at the RV for several rounds of our favorite game “Spot It”:

This place was just down the street from our campground:

It was a charming farm, functioning just as a Texas farm did in the early 1900’s.

They produce all of their own food and provide meals for the volunteers and park staff throughout the year. It was inspiring to see how everything in their house had a purpose and nothing went to waste.

We also got to see the famous Texas longhorns:

Adjacent to the farm was the LBJ Ranch, which is now a National Park site. Natalie’s affection for bison has now migrated to its more common bovine relative; Natalie loves cows. Hereford cattle were LBJ’s favorite:

And this is what he called Air Force 1/2, which often carried him to and from his ranch. Cows and planes together; Natalie and Emily were happy! We also got to tour his house (another place we weren’t allowed to take pictures; good thing Jon was working!) and learned a lot of presidential history in the process.

We circled back to Austin because my parents would be flying home from there. Here we are the evening before they would leave, wondering how our time together goes by so fast.

We met my parents the next morning to say good-bye until we return in August:

We found the “family viewing area” at Austin’s airport to wave good-bye and let Emily watch the planes.

I am getting a little work done before heading toward our next destination. I love working outside!

We moved toward Houston, but are camping in a nice, quiet rural area next to the Colorado River. It can get a little warm in the RV by the afternoon, so it is nice to have pools at some of these campgrounds.

A little sunset walk n’ ride. I really do feel like I have been given an incredible gift, to be on this journey with my family.

Nearly every morning here we have woken to misty, foggy weather:

While grocery shopping at the small, local store, Jon found this toxic toy that he remembered from his childhood. I guess you will have to see if we survive for another week…

[It was a different kind of week, so this is a different kind of blog entry: a conversation between Jon and Amy.]

Jon: Wow, week 30. Can you believe that?

Amy: No, I can’t. Are you sure you’re counting right?

Jon: I have a blog to prove it. Ok so, if we do this conversation thing, I think it would be easier to read if we have different colors. What color do you want?

Amy: Blue.

Jon: I wanted blue, but ok. I’ll be green. So last week was a short week at Lakehills TX. Quiet place. I liked it.

Amy: Yeah after being in several cities, it was great to get back out in the open. Our campground was a nice spread of 260 acres right next to this lake:

Jon: Nice lake.

Amy: For the last two years Texas has been experiencing a drought. This “lake” is also controlled by farmers for irrigation purposes. It made for an interesting walk.

Jon: Oh right, the point of the walk that morning was to see some deer. Good thing we saw some on the way back. That was a real crowd-pleaser.

Amy: Yeah my reputation was on the line having promised that we’d see lots of deer if you all came on a morning walk with me.

Jon: By the way, it totally cracks me up when you refer to us as “you all” and especially “you people”…that’s how I know when you’re frustrated. 🙂

Amy: You’ve got the signals down.

Jon: So yeah, fun quiet place, but I was eager to get to Austin for SXSW. When did we leave? Wednesday?

Amy: Thursday.

Jon: Right, because Thursday was registration, and sessions started on Friday.

Amy: For me it was fun to see the place that you talked about so much after last year.

Jon: I like this photo you took of the girls with me, but you really need to clean your iPhone lens.

Amy: Sorry.

Jon: Ugh…the rain. It rained and rained and rained and rained. We had not seen rain for MONTHS and the one week I actually need to leave the RV, it rains.

Amy: Remember that “lake”?…the Texans were glad to see that stuff.

Jon: It was really nice to see Josh and have him over for dinner. Everyone, that’s Josh…we work together, and he too was in town for SXSW.

Amy: Yeah it was really fun to have a dinner guest from “back home.”

Jon: This was one of the many sessions I was in. I just wanted to capture some random experiences throughout the week so I could show you a little bit what SXSW is like.

Amy: All I got to see was the traffic on the outside when I dropped you off!

Jon: This was the tumbleweed house guy I was telling you about:

Jon: He designs and sells plans for houses that are between 100 and 800 square feet. Thought you’d like that.

Amy: I’d love that. I’ve enjoyed our smaller, simpler space and am having hard time imagining going back to a normal house.

Jon: This is just some of the hustle and bustle of SXSW.

Jon: So when did you go to the LBJ library??

Amy: That was Saturday afternoon. It was a small museum that we could catch before picking up my mom and dad from the airport.

Jon: So was this all his stuff from his oval office?

Amy: I believe so. We watched a Troy McClure video about LBJ and all the events of his presidency. It was really good and very interesting because it tied in to all that Cold War stuff that we’ve been seeing. And we really liked Lady Bird Johnson…she reminded us of my grandmother.

Jon: I wish I could have seen that, mostly due to the Cold War tie that you mentioned.

Amy: So we made it to the airport early because Emily wanted to watch the planes. But with low cloud cover and security, she didn’t get to see a single plane. But we were all very happy to see my mom and dad!

Jon: I’ll second that.

Jon: This is from that Lytro session I was telling you about.

Amy: Oh yeah, I heard about that on NPR, about that new type of camera that uses light waves to capture the image?

Jon: Light fields. Basically, instead of focusing and taking a photo like you do with a normal camera, this captures a whole mess of “light data” that lets you focus on whatever you want after you’ve taken the photo. I’ve never seen anything like it. It was funny to see all the other photographer enthusiasts completely geeking out over it.

Jon: This was from another session about business, and figuring out what you’re supposed to be doing, and I found this Venn diagram particularly meaningful. I think I’ve been in just about every part of that diagram, wouldn’t you say? 😉

Amy: I’m afraid so.

Jon: Glad the sun finally came out on Sunday.

Jon: I stopped in where all the new games were being featured early in the week. Think we could fit something like this in the RV? It was quite cool.

Amy: uh…no. Another reason I like my small space.

Jon: I wanted to make sure I got a shot of our camping spot.

Amy: I loved that we were only a mile and a half from downtown and a quarter of a mile from a very cool running trail.

Jon: I LOVED riding my bike around Austin once the weather cleared.

Amy: First time I’ve heard you say you liked your bike.

Jon: Well, I still regret bringing those darned bikes, but it was the ideal vehicle for this past week, that’s for sure.

Jon: One of my favorite sessions: Adobe demoing their new Edge app (for animation) and unveiling a not-yet-released app, Shadow (for mobile web developers). I love feeling like I’m at the center of the tech universe for a week and being the first to see this stuff.

Jon: Ray Kurzweil: amazing scientist, inventor and futurist. Pretty much all of his tech predictions have come true over the last 30 years. He predicts sentient computers by 2029.

Jon: Al Gore and Sean Parker were great.

Amy: How so?

Jon: Sean Parker was the co-founder of Napster, so he’s sort of internet-famous for bringing down the music industry (he was portrayed by Justin Timberlake in The Social Network), and I guess I just had low expectations of Al Gore. I’ve only known him as the rather wooden politician. But he was engaging and just…real. Changed my opinion of him.

Here’s lunch with Josh at Iron Works BBQ:

Jon: So where was this?

Amy: It was near the RV park. Austin has great green spaces. The whole city feels great.

Jon: And then we ended our time in Austin with the bats, which apparently are quite the tourist attraction.

Amy: It’s amazing: an urban colony of millions of Mexican bats living under a bridge.

Jon: And around 7:30 pm, they leave the bridge en masse. They eat 10,000 to 30,000 pounds of bugs per night. Yum.

Amy: They were really fun to watch.

Jon: Agreed. It was a great time in Austin. Looking forward to next year.

Amy: Should we bring the RV again?

Jon: Definitely. I LOVED having my family here with me this year. It was exotic tech stuff by day, comforts of home by night. Loved it.

 

We were able to snag a cheap hook-up site at the casino for the week. It came with some pretty cool morning entertainment:

We were a little unsure about camping all week in a parking lot, but since the girls and I had plans to visit with our friends Jake and Melissa all week, we decided it would be ok.

On Tuesday, the wind came in and blew the dust around so that the sky turned grey and the scenic views disappeared. I was glad we weren’t driving the RV.

Jake ended up on Army duty all week and Jon had an extra busy work week as well. So, this became the girls’ week! We did some errands and shopping with Melissa and Kaine. Natalie got a fresh new ‘do:

Melissa and Kaine joined us in the RV a few times so the girls could hang out.

We took a picnic lunch and field trip to Hueco Tanks State Park.

There were great climbing rocks:

My girls loved helping Kaine climb and hike.

Afterwards, we stopped here for some treats and found a great source for homemade tortillas and chips.

The girls couldn’t resist the pretty cookies.

We also took a field trip to Chamizal National Monument and learned about a 100 year border dispute between the US and Mexico that was finally resolved by Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. Here are the girls at a border marker from the 1860’s. The current border is further south at the Rio Grande River. It is a little more heavily fortified these days.

I often check for running clubs wherever we are, but many meet in the evenings or weekends (which is when we typically travel). I was excited to find this group of early risers. It was wonderful to have company during a long run and to get the local scoop on the good things do in Texas. Thanks so much El Paso Runners!

All week, Jon had been looking longingly up at Mount Cristo Rey from the casino parking lot, so that is what he wanted to do on Saturday. It was a 2 mile climb up to the top, but it didn’t look nearly that far.

The trail zig-zagged up the mountain, making it an easier climb:

…but a longer hike:

We took a few shortcuts:

At the top we found this large, Rio-like monument. Ah, perspective…it didn’t look nearly this big from the bottom.

At the top you could see Texas, New Mexico, and Juarez, Mexico. Left of the long fence is Mexico and on the right is the US. You could see the Border Patrol SUVs stationed at various places along the fence. We noticed, however, that the fence stops at the hills and the hills didn’t appear that challenging to cross.

Jon wanted to see the fence up close. We were quickly approached and questioned by Border Patrol, but they were friendly and helpful. They warned us about the kids who come to the fence asking for money or worse, hurling rocks. These kids were interested in dollars and candy. I wished we had some candy for them.

Natalie wanted to do a little cowgirl shopping:

On Friday, Jake and Melissa gave us a tour of Ft. Bliss, the base where Jake is currently stationed:

We got to see the stryker vehicles that Jake works with:

Inside a stryker, the girls check out the safety equipment.

Emily aiming the big guns (at my head!):

We had a great week visiting with the Jake, Melissa and Kaine, and seeing El Paso. A big thank you to them for showing us around, sharing their home and laundry facilities. Sunday we made the long trek to be near Austin, where Jon will be attending SXSW on Friday.

It was the longest drive we have made since the beginning of the trip: 545 miles in 11 hours, stopping only once for gas. We have much to look forward to this coming week, as my parents are flying into Austin on Saturday. I can’t wait to see them!

 

 

We spent last week camped at the Pima County Fairground in Tucson AZ. It was pretty modest accommodations, but it was quiet and friendly. And they had a sweet sign.

Amy and the girls attended the Tucson Rodeo Parade, the “largest non-motorized parade in the country.” I unfortunately had to stay back at the RV and work.  The Rodeo is such a big deal in Tucson, the kids get out of school for a “Rodeo break.”

On Thursday afternoon, I risked financial ruin by blowing off work to join Amy and the girls at the Pima Air and Space Museum:

It was a very cool place, with more hangers of planes than we had time to see:

…and a very large outside lot of various aircraft from the past 60 years or so.

The big draw for us with this museum however was the “boneyard tour” of the Airforce Material Command just down the road:

This place is basically the US military’s storage lot for unused aircraft. Over 4000 planes and helicopters sit on about 2000 acres awaiting their next phase of service.

Some will be put back into service, others will be sold to allied countries, and the rest will be harvested for parts or scrap metal.

I was particularly excited to see this Boeing EC-135, which was one of the Looking Glass “doomsday” planes used throughout the Cold War:

Here’s why that fascinates me: from the time I was born until I was a young adult in college, one of these planes was up in the air for the sole purpose of maintaining continuity of government and control of the US nuclear arsenal if a nuclear attack took out command centers on the ground.

The only down side to this tour was that we had to experience it from within a crowded bus, but I still loved it and found it fascinating.

If you’ve been following us on this blog, you know we hike a lot. But on Friday we did something new: a night hike at the Saguaro National Park.

Here we are getting a briefing from Ranger Jamie on what all we’d be doing and seeing on our night hike:

I was unsuccessful at getting any good night shots, but I tried:

Another poor shot, but this is still interesting: under a black light, scorpions are bright green:

On Saturday we visited the Titan II Missile Museum in Green Valley, AZ. This was sort of a big deal for me, as it was one of the first destinations we listed out when we first thought up this trip almost 2 years ago. And ever since we visited the Minuteman missile silos in South Dakota back in June, I’ve been eager for more Cold War action.

If you’re interested, this explains the Titan II missile — and the Cold War in general — better than I can:

This has been de-nuked and emptied of its rocket propellant of course, but it’s otherwise how it was left when it was taken offline in the early 80’s:

Steps leading down into the control center:

At the bottom of the stairs, looking at the first blast door:

Jim was a fantastic tour guide. He was a fast-talking, no-nonsense guy with a thick New York accent.

Here’s Jim explaining the ins and outs of the control room. There was no shortage of processes and procedures for handling a nuclear weapon.

I was struck by the carpet, worn from countless steps spanning 20 years by people checking dials and readings, waiting for a call that fortunately never came:

One of my biggest fears growing up in the 80’s was World War III, so to see all this stuff was pretty sobering, almost sickening. To be in a place whose sole purpose was to launch a nuclear weapon, which would forever change life as we knew it, is simply chilling. (Btw, these missiles were about 650 times more destructive than the bombs dropped on Japan near the end of WWII.)

This is the underground hallway leading from the control room to the actual missile silo. Note the shock absorbers that line both walls:

Top side, it’s rather plain. Just antennas and such. And visions of mushroom clouds out there in the distance.

Crazy:

Later that afternoon, we hit the road and found a verrrrry remote campground (if you could even call it that) out in the Arizona grasslands. It took some work to get there — 4 miles down a rough unpaved road isn’t easy in an RV — but we made it just after sunset.

This was the most remote camping we’ve done so far on this trip, but having 2 or 3 other campers within eyesight kept it from being creepy.

Conserving our energy, we had dinner by a single light:

The sky was clear and the stars were out, so we did some stargazing with Emily’s telescope. Here’s my attempt at a long exposure photo. (That glow you see in the lower left is light pollution from Tucson over 30 miles away)

This morning, Amy, Em and I got up for a sunrise walk:

On our way back after the sun was up:

Just wanted to show how rough these “roads” were. Yes, we do off-road RV’ing!

More border patrol:

We covered some ground today: we left Arizona, drove through New Mexico and made it to El Paso TX. Along the way we saw a few little dust devils kick up. Looks like those can get pretty bad:

We made it to El Paso and got to spend time with Jake and Melissa Pryor who used to live in Indy. We’re looking forward to spending more time with them and their little girl Kaine this week.

We don’t make reservations (keeps us flexible) and that has never been a problem. Today, however, our luck ran out. We’ve got our eye on a spot that should be opening up tomorrow, but for tonight, we’re boon-docking in a casino parking lot next to a horse track within eyesight of the Mexican border.

This trip never stops being interesting.

We started our second week in Phoenix with a trip to a local dentist to get our semi-annual teeth cleaning. (Hard to believe we’ve been on the road that long already!)

3 hours, and countless xrays and oral probings later, we got a detailed punch list of what Amy, Carrie and I “need” in the way of dental work (they were unable to fit in Em and Nat). The estimated cost? A mere $15,000 for the 3 of us! They tried to sell us on the whole fix-it-before-it’s-a-problem philosophy, but they’ll simply have to find another – how shall I say – “insured” set of mouths in which to construct their monuments to dental perfection.

Carrie does have a pretty nice cavity festering, so I’ll either bone up on DIY dental procedures or we’ll find a more reasonably priced dentist. Probably the latter.

Valentines day was a mixed bag of festivities. All the ladies in the RV got a rose for V-day, and then we celebrated Christmas with my mom:

…and then we celebrated Amy’s half birthday. Amy didn’t really get a birthday this year since it was so shortly after my dad died. My girls make a big deal about their half birthdays, so hey, why not Amy too?

One of the pluses of this RV trip is all of the time we get to spend together as a family, but the downside is that Amy and I don’t exactly get very many “date nights.” So being with relatives, we made darn sure to exploit them: my girls had a little sleep-over with Grandma at my Aunt Bonnie’s and Uncle Bob’s house, and Amy and I had an eerily quiet RV to ourselves.

We got up early the next morning for a rugged sunrise hike:

At Piestewa Peak in the Phoenix Mountains overlooking the city. Great hike and an amazing view:

The mountain air was great, which is more than I can say for downtown Phoenix. Check out the yellowish haze:

After our hike we grabbed some breakfast. Weird name; great pancakes!

During our stay in Phoenix, my girls got to meet and spend time with their younger cousins. It sure brought back memories of when my girls were that little!

On Saturday we stopped in to see my grandma one last time before leaving town:

She enjoyed looking at old photos and could remember some names and faces from way back. Unfortunately, most of the memories from the last 10 or 15 years seem to be gone. I don’t think she knew exactly who I was, but she seemed to know that I was a vaguely familiar and friendly face. It was great to spend time with her and very hard to say goodbye.

We spent the rest of the day working on the RV. Cleaned ‘er top to bottom. I even got rid of the ugly yellow haze baked onto my headlight covers. Check it out:

Before:

Sand off the jive:

Buff in the shine. My headlights seriously look brand new now.

That night we hung out one last time at my Aunt Bonnie’s and Uncle Bob’s house. It was so nice to spend time with them the last couple of weeks. Bob & Bonnie: Thank you both for your kind hospitality and letting our girls run wild in your house and annoy your grumpy geriatric cat.

This afternoon we had a nice sunny drive to Tuscon. Here’s our camping spot at the Pima County Fairgrounds:

It’s a dry, windy place — noticeably cooler than Phoenix — but I like it.

We’ve got lots planned this week: Titan Missile Museum, Pima Air and Space Museum, and Saguaro National Park.

Welp, it’s been a busy last couple of weeks, hence the delayed updates. And if it wasn’t for Amy doing the last few blog entries, we’d be even more behind. (Thank you, my dear!)

It feels great to be out of California. Nothing against CA — loved it — but moving on to AZ feels like progress. Here’s the sunrise from our first morning in Quartzsite, AZ. (It seems the town of Quartzsite is comprised almost entirely of RV parks and retirees. Seriously. It’s striking.)

During the week, Amy and the girls found a nearby remote-control airstrip. I’ll let Amy describe it:

Amy: We found a Remote Control Airfield near Quartzsite’s park. We pulled in to see what was going on and met a new friend, Art Hastings. He invited us to come back in the morning when the place would be hopping. Emily and Natalie were really excited about this idea, so we went back. Art and his friends showed us the many cool RC planes and how they work. Then they let us try out flying them! They made it look so easy, but we had to consider the direction, wind and speed to get the plane to go where we needed it to go. It took a lot of concentration and they were very patient with us. We had a blast! Even better, we made some new friends.

It’s pretty common for Em and Nat and to create entire worlds in the dirt and gravel of our campsites. This was a campground airport I believe:

If you smelled something delicious on the evening of February 3, this was it:

The campground had free RV-washing equipment, so we put the whole crew to work:

Careful where you walk. (We kept seeing these signs on the side of the road and had to inspect.)

Amy is a sucker for local fruit. Fresh, local, delicious fruit. (As an aside, that’s broccoli growing in that field. Broccoli!)

We drove to Yuma to check out the Yuma Territorial Prison. Not a place you wanted to be in the summer. It was sort of the Alcatraz of the late 1800’s.

Some prison guests got special accommodations in the “dark cell.” Again, not a place you want to be unless being locked naked in a 5-foot tall cage with a dozen other people for 21 days straight is your thing.

Being so close to Mexico, Border Patrol is out in full force:

There’s a lot of land in Arizona controlled by the BLM (Bureau of Land Management), where you can basically just pull off the road and camp in the desert. For free. It’s like a Wal-mart parking lot, but without the noise and lights of a city. There are zero amenities of course, but it felt great to get away and “rough it” in such a remote setting:

It was a great place for another rare campfire:

Letting the morning sunshine in through the big windows helps wake the girls:

A Sunday morning stroll through BLM land:

A shot out the window as we rolled out of Quartzsite. It is simply RV stuff everywhere in that town:

We arrived at our campground in Phoenix last weekend, but ran into (literally) a few problems. I pushed one of the slide-outs right into the electrical box, scratching the RV and cracking the cement pad. Ugh…it made me sick. To top it off, the sewer connection leaked everywhere. We later moved to a different spot, but I still have that scrape in the RV to take care of. I guess I’ll try to paint it.

My Aunt Bonnie and Uncle Bob live in Phoenix (just a couple miles away from our campground). It was so good to finally see them:

We spent Super Bowl Sunday at my Aunt and Uncle’s house along with my cousins Alyssa and Derek, Derek’s wife Jen and their kids. It was weird seeing all the shots of Indy during the game.

The next day we visited my grandma at the nursing home. She lived next door to us in Indy during the summers until just a couple years ago. It was good to see her, but also very sad — she has no memory of me, Amy, or my girls.

Despite her memory loss, she still has her pleasant personality and seemed happy to have visitors.

If you smelled something delicious on the morning of February 7, this was it:

Amy helping Nat with school:

My mom flew in from Indy mid-week, so we went to the airport to get her. Ever since we toured the Boeing plant, Em has been fascinated by airplanes:

My mom being greeted by my other girls back at my Aunt and Uncle’s house:

Finally did some hiking this weekend, sort of. I’m seeing a lot of this though:

We eventually found a better location. It still wasn’t a rugged hike, but it was at least away from the crowds and the signs. And it just felt good to be outside!

There are a lot of cacti out here, but let me tell you about one lil’ guy in particular: Cylindropuntia fulgida. Also known as the “jumping” cholla cactus. Looks fuzzy and cute, right?

They’re not. They drop these little grenades on the ground that latch on to one’s shoe at the slightest touch:

They also latch on to one’s middle daughter’s shoe:

…and one’s oldest daughter’s shoe.

I had to get out the pliers to remove these needles — they were long enough and strong enough to go all the way through the sole.

I still love the desert though:

…even if every saguaro cactus looks like it’s flipping me the bird:

DANG IT!…

I just like this photo of Amy:

That night Amy and I helped my mom with a long overdue and daunting task: sending thank-you notes to all of the kind folks that brought meals, sent flowers, made charity donations or in some other way supported us during the extremely difficult days following my dad’s death back in August. It was hard trudging through all that again, but it was a good reminder of how many great friend we have.

Today we visited Montezuma’s Castle (it was mistakenly assumed by early explorers to have been built by the Aztecs, and the catchy name stuck). Oh to have been able to visit in 1951, the last year that visitors were allowed to actually go UP to the ruins:

Hey Arizona, here’s what the Arnolds think of your signs:

It was a little chilly (only by AZ standards); good enough for a picnic:

We stopped by this place called Arcosanti, a community/compound out in the middle of the dessert that aims to be a prototype for sustainable, eco-friendly cities and communities.

It sounded interesting, but it frankly…wasn’t.

McSnack time: (For the record, this is the first time we have set foot in a fast food restaurant since we began this trip 8 months ago.)

I’ll end with this: I just got the owners manual for our RV (it didn’t come with one; we had to order it.) I just thought this paragraph was funny.  I guess Fleetwood RV and I will just have to agree to disagree.

We’re going to be hanging out in Phoenix for another week and spending as much time as we can with my mom, aunt, uncle, cousins and grandma.

 

When we were deciding what we wanted to do or see around San Diego, I was the only one interested in a whale watching tour. So, I was prepared to go by myself.

Natalie kindly decided to come along so I wouldn’t have to be alone.

It was a beautiful day, but there had been a “winter storm” the day before and it was rough sailing once we left the harbor. Natalie was beginning to regret her choice, until…

Our guide spotted a group of five gray whales (just after mentioning that they tend to travel alone)! We never saw them jump magnificently out of the water, but it was wonderful to watch them as they slowly migrated south. They have a pattern to their swimming, making it easy to observe these amazing creatures.

And if that wasn’t exciting enough, we were treated to a bonus sighting of a mola mola, or sun fish. Natalie can now tell you all about the parasites that live on the sun fish and the barnacles and lice that live on the grey whales. She also likes to tell how the gray whales have come back from near extinction, twice! We had a great morning; I was really glad she joined me.

We moved a little north, toward our exit of California, to Menifee, CA. These were our neighbors for the rest of the week and unfortunately we were downwind.

Our campsite neighbors were a family from Florida. Their daughter, Alli, made quick friends with Natalie and both of them enjoyed having a new playmate.

Emily got word that Alli’s grandfather was a pilot and she had to meet him. They enjoyed talking about airplanes and flying. His advice to Emily: study math and stay healthy!

Our last stop in California was Joshua Tree National Park. We came better prepared, finally, for a nice campfire under the bright stars.

This national park boasts a panoramic view of the Coachella Valley and the San Andreas fault. The fault line runs right in front of the ridge of hills in the middle of the valley. There was a noticeable gap in some places.

And impressive rock formations that are great for climbing and scampering about.

The rocks are the result of lava pushing up from under the ground and then erosion, resulting in their unique rectangular shapes.

Another rewarding view:

These rocks were coarse, making for great traction and easy climbing. It was a lot of fun!

I simply love the National Parks. I am proud that our country has done so much to preserve these amazing landscapes. The rangers we have met are happy, helpful people. I am so appreciative for the time they take to encourage the girls and answer our questions.

And of course, the Joshua Trees. Their name is fabled to have come from the Mormons, thinking the tree looked like the biblical Joshua with his arms outstretched in prayer.

We have enjoyed “living” in California, but it is time to move on…on to Arizona!

We learned an important climate lesson this week; elevation matters. Even though we moved south, we also climbed 4000 feet up and encountered freezing temps at night. Fortunately, when the sun came up the lines thawed quickly and we enjoyed sunny, warm days.

I bribed my family (with Julian CA’s famous apple pie) to take a sunrise hike.  It was tough getting everyone moving, but it made my day to have company during an early morning outing.

We discovered some cool ice formations under the mud:

After we finished our lessons for the day, the girls and I drove into Julian to get our pie. This quaint California town is also home to some old gold mines, so we took a tour. Our knowledgeable tour guide filled our heads with mining processes and jargon. Suffice it to say that it is a lot of hard, dark work to mine gold, especially in the late 1800’s.

Here we are enjoying our Julian apple pie. It lived up to its reputation, “the best pie ever”!

We moved further south at the end of the week to be near San Diego for the weekend. The girls and I took a field trip on Friday to the Birch Aquarium, part of UCSD’s Scripps Institute of Oceanography.  I am afraid that as cool as these places are, they are starting to look the same.

We experienced a typical San Diego winter day on Saturday, cool and rainy.  It was a good time to give the RV a good cleaning. Window washing is the preferred chore.

It cleared up enough later that day to head to the San Diego harbor where we toured the USS Midway:

Natalie playing the “gator” or navigator. I love military titles; I am working on a title for everyone in our family.

It was fascinating to see the planes and understand how they are able to take off and land on a ship.

We were reminded of the hard work and dedication it takes to run a military vessel like this one. It was another notch of respect added for those who serve (thank you).

By Sunday the “winter weather” had moved on and we enjoyed a nice afternoon in La Jolla.

But it smelled a little fishy….

We were also educated on the controversy surrounding San Diego’s Children’s Beach. This seawall was built in the 70’s to provide a protected beach for kids to play, but the sea lions took over and they have resided here ever since. The sidewalks were filled with those who thought both people and sea lions could use the beach together and others that feel the beach should be closed to people. The sea lions didn’t have much to say about it.

But we found another beach that was less controversial to enjoy our afternoon.

Next week should be our last week in California, so we are going to be taking in all our favorite things before we move on.