The Family Tour 2022

Still recovering from my fall from my truck bed, read the last post, another vacation loomed up. This one could not be cancelled as the last one was. We had airline tickets purchased, family waiting for us, and their vacation time had been taken. There would be none of the sort. Just before we were to leave……..I caught a cold!! I just had to tough it out and hoped I wouldn’t be contagious when we got there. By the time we got there, I just had a nagging cough and all was fine!

Phase One – The first part of the trip was to visit my remaining family in my home town of Alamogordo, NM! I was born and raised there until the early seventies when we left and never returned to live there again. I still miss it as it is my roots, but not sure I’d ever live there again or if I wanted to, convince my lovely wife to take up stakes there! My Aunt Sharon and Uncle Butch still live there in the same location since I was a child. My cousin Lorie lives just across the way from them. Some apples never fall far from the tree! It was nice visiting with them, telling stories of the past, and driving around looking at the old homes and schools we all attended. Much of the town hasn’t changed too much after all these years, but it has grown a bit! As I relived my childhood reminiscing, I admit to being a bit homesick, but the reality of living there again does not fall into the realm of reality. We just have to revisit more often for as long as the reasons remain there!

Phase Two – The next leg of the trip took us to the Dallas suburb of Lantana, Texas to visit Debbie’s sister and husband, Donna and Chris. While Debbie had visited them before, I had never been there. They showed us a great time, taking us around visiting very cool places. We headed down to Grapevine for a day and walked around. The weather was warm and beautiful. We went to Grapevine Main and had some drinks and then dinner at the 1845 Bar! Every place we went to had the aroma of burning wood for their BBQ meats! It was a carnivore’s heaven. We also spent a day in Fort Worth cruising around the Stockyard District shopping, drinking, eating, and riding bulls(real and fake) on the street and in Billy Bob’s 81 Club!! See the pictures in our album here! Another day we went down to Dallas to Deep Elum. That was quite an experience walking around down there. It is a very historic area of Dallas and has a very colorful vibe to it. It seems to get a little sketchy after dark, but it was a fun time visiting all the cool places they took us to and we had a fun time. It ended with a collision of families. Our next visit was to be in Oklahoma visiting my brother and his wife. He texted me that their oldest son and his newish wife (Matthew and Katie) lived down there and if we had a chance, we should hook up. I did and low and behold, they lived down the road and on the other side of the freeway from Donna and Chris just minutes away. We all met up at Marty B’s for dinner and drinks and closed that place and headed to another bar and closed that place too!! It was a great time!!

Phase Three – Our next stop was in Oklahoma City to raid my brother Scott and wife Dana’s place. Oklahoma area was another place neither of us had spent any time in. They have a beautiful home and both worked while trying to also entertain us. We really appreciated the time they spent showing us around and having a good time. Dana took us to a couple of museums while Scott attended work functions. One was the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. It was a very interesting place and I wish we had more time there. We were kind of rushed and missed quite a bit. I could spend hours in museums. She also took us to the First Americans Museum, which was an Indian museum and was a very interesting and somewhat sad place to learn of how there land was taken(stolen) from them! We all went to the Oklahoma City National Memorial Museum. If any of you On April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh parked a Ryder rental truck filled with explosives in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. The resulting explosion killed 168 people and destroyed the entire north face of the building. We spent hours there and it was a very sobering experience. If you are ever in the OKC area, don’t miss it! They also took us down to the Bricktown River Walk and we had dinner down there at Charleston’s. We made a trip to Tulsa to have dinner with their other son and wife Josh and Bailey. It was our first time meeting her as it was meeting Katie! Both of these girls are fun, gorgeous, and a wonderful addition to the family! It was finally time to leave for the final leg of the journey!

Final Phase – The end of our journey had us spending some solo time at the Inn Of The Mountain Gods in Ruidoso, NM. This was my favorite place to visit when I was young. It is nestled up in the mountains, off the desert floor and heat of the summer. As a matter of fact, we hit some snow on the way there. It had all melted by the next day. We only had a full day there and walked the town window shopping, bought some southwest art to hang at home, spent some time in the Hatch Chili Store, and enjoyed the mountain air. We had dinner and drinks in the resort restaurant, Wendell’s and it was very good. Our flight back was in El Paso and we made one more stop at the family to spend a couple of hours before we flew back. It was nice to get back in touch with family away from here and was also nice to get back home. A few days later we had a visit with this little “bean” sporting our New Mexico shirts we brought back. Again, to see all the pictures CLICK HERE! It was a wonderful trip!!!

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Road Trip 2021 – Part 2

THE ROAD TRIP CONTINUES!

Arizona Prices!!!

CA Prices!!!

Well as all trips do, we had a hitch in the get along before leaving Newport Dunes. We sprung a leak in the plumbing around the hot water heater. It has proven to be very difficult to fix. I gave it a solid try before we left, but no bueno. We had a great drive up to Fort Mohave, Az. Took about 5ish hours on the bumpiest interstate yet! We definitely noticed the price of fuel dramatically drop when we crossed over into AZ from California! We arrived and were greeted with hugs and kisses from our friends Jeff and Jaime Simon and Mike and Cathy Richards. We haven’t seen any of these guys since last year (breakout of Covid-19) in Mexico. The guys put the trailer away (worked on the plumbing issue to no avail) and the drinks were flowing. We ordered pizza and spent the evening around the little gas fire in the driveway. The next day was mostly spent on buying parts and tools and calling around to find a mobile RV mechanic. Well despite calling multiple people…. that was a big fail, Mike and Cathy went house hunting and Jeff and I tried everything to fix the leak. After hours of working on it, we thought we had someone lined up to come out. Nope…. We decided to throw in the towel and go to Cocktails to have cocktails. Then on to a steakhouse for a yummy dinner. The next day was boating day! We headed out about noon (after another trip to Lowe’s). We put in the Colorado River and headed to Lake Havasu. Jeff and Jaime have an awesome boat and the sun was out! It was a beautiful day, just a little bit windy. The lake was rough as we crossed but so glad we went. We saw the London Bridge and stopped on a little beach for a light lunch. Debbie friended some ducks that hung around for treats. We stopped on our way back for a bit and had snacks and drinks on the lake. We decided it was time to head back and it seemed the lake was a bit rougher in the way back. But our skilled captain got us across safe and sound! It was such a great day! Thank you Jeff Simon and Jaime for your hospitality, we are so grateful to get to spend time with you. And thanks to Mike and Cathy Richards for driving up and making time to see us, we enjoyed spending time with you two also. We are now limping along with no hot water for now, showering in the RV Park showers and boiling water for dishes. We have a mechanic scheduled to meet up with us in Alamogordo. We headed out Thursday morning (after half expecting the repair guy to come by early that morning… nope) for Prescott Arizona.

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After a great visit in Fort Mohave we headed out for Prescott Arizona. We had visited Prescott several years ago while doing research on places we wanted to consider for retirement. We loved it then, but we chose to stay in Washington. Still love it, such a beautiful place with such a cool vibe. We stayed at a nice RV Park (Point of Rocks)with lots of trees and big beautiful rocks all around. We did some shopping in the many shops on Whiskey Row and found some cool earrings for me. They ended up being my birthday present. We had dinner and drinks at The Palace Saloon which claims to be the oldest bar in Arizona. All of the staff wear period clothing also! We stayed only two nights in Prescott then off we went to Goodyear AZ to see our friends Tori and Kevin Hillstrom and Keith and Laurie Helker. We have known these people for many years and we all met each other in local Packer bars in the Seattle area. Just a few hours of driving and we arrived at Destiny RV in Goodyear which was just 15 min from where our friends live. The RV park was nice (each site has a citrus tree complete with oranges or lemons) with a surprisingly well outfitted gym! We spent the first afternoon getting set up and checking out the amenities. Our friends threw an amazing pool party at their beautiful home in our honor that night. We met some new people and really loved seeing some old friends we hadn’t seen in a while. We are so grateful to be able to spend time with everyone! We started the next day with doing laundry (yuck, but you gotta do the dull stuff every now and then too) and getting a great workout in! We met Tori and Kevin for dinner at a great restaurant (The Red Dog) right on the golf course. Then back to their house for a cocktail or two. Our stay was short, but we enjoyed every minute of catching up with friends and are so grateful for the time they spent with us. We packed up and left Arizona the next morning heading for New Mexico.

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After such a short , but wonderful visit with friends, we left Goodyear Arizona a little later than planned (the RV office didn’t open until 9:00! Grrr… we had to wait to get a “key” refund, so dumb) to get on the road to New Mexico. We had a longer drive, nearly 7 hours, to get to Alamogordo. Boy, the drive felt so long and the landscape was ever changing! We had to wrangle with strong winds at times, I even caught some pictures of sizable dust devils along the way. We were so anxious to get to Alamogordo as this leg of the trip was all about family. I grew up in Alamogordo and some very special family still lives there. We haven’t been back for over 5 years and I was definitely feeling the pull of my heart strings as we crossed the border into NM. We drove through Las Cruces which is a beautiful city and then just over an hour to the RV Park. We stayed at the KOA, which was awesome. Super friendly staff, locally owned and very nice spaces. We got set up fairly late and had to take care of chores but made plans for breakfast at my Aunt Sharon and Uncle Butch’s house. We spent the day hanging out with them, reminiscing, driving around and catching up. We were joined by my cousin Lori when she got off work at her pool supply store. We could have talked all night, and almost did. The next day, my other cousin Laura, who recently moved back to Alamogordo, was so gracious to host a Cinco de Mayo dinner at her beautiful home. It was so special spending time with her and it was so important to reconnect as she recently and unexpectedly lost her husband. While our time was short in Alamogordo, it was full of love and tons of belly laughs! Debbie now knows where I get my sense of humor. Aunt Sharon and Uncle Butch stopped by the next morning to say goodbye with lots of hugs! We were sad to say goodbye so soon, but plan to come back sooner than later. We headed off for a much shorter drive up to Santa Fe. The drive to Santa Fe was beautiful as the high desert emerged with vibrant colors and commanding views. We checked into the RV Park which was the perfect location for buzzing around town. We loved Santa Fe! We had been there just for the day several years ago so we enjoyed having a few days to really explore. Due to COVID restrictions, some of the sights were closed or limited but we still had a great time. We shopped, went wine tasting and at the recommendation of some people we met had the BEST dinner at Tomasitas. Three days seemed to fly by! Next stop Colorado!!

See pictures of Santa Fe
and family pictures here!

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Colorado! We departed from Santa Fe for the relatively short drive to Durango Colorado (4ish hours). The drive to Colorado was full of beautiful landscapes as the desert gave way to the more typical mountains of Colorado. We arrived at the Oasis RV Park and were thinking about our plans for the next few days. We had planned to stay 4 days to get in the sights we were absolutely wanting to see. As we were setting up in our site, we decided we really needed to stay 5 days to fit it all in. So we extended our stay, ordered dinner ( the RV Park offered handmade pizza delivered to our site!) and settled in with a couple of cocktails. We highly recommend Oasis RV Park of you’re ever in the Durango area. We had an early call to catch the train to Silverton the next morning and we’re delighted to find out the RV Park also offered made to order breakfast and coffee! We took advantage of breakfast and off we went to catch the train in old town Durango. The train was awesome, with sights you just can’t see any other way. The trip is somewhat shorter (4 hours round trip) in the spring with the terminus at Cascade versus Silverton due to snow still present in the mountains. We had lunch at the terminus before heading back to Durango. It was a gorgeous day and we decided to drive up to Silverton on our own to check it out. Silverton is an old silver mining town where it feels like time has stood still. It is quite a climb to get there where it’s nestled in the mountains at over 9,000 feet. The drive there and back was breathtaking! We headed back to old town Durango for a dinner out to celebrate Mother’s Day. It was fabulous. The next day was totally dedicated to touring Mesa Verde National Park. What an incredible site! It is huge and holds magnificent views. The Pueblo Indians settled there and lived in the area for over 700 years. The ancient ruins of their cliff houses and other dwellings still exist. We took sooo many pictures that I had to create yet another album here! We decided to include a challenging hike into the cliff to see the petroglyphs. It was rocky and steep, climbing over and down rocks with open cliffs on one side. But.. it was so worth it to see the amazing drawings in the cliff wall. It was a full day even though we couldn’t do any up close tours (covid closed all the up close tours of the cliff dwellings) but we had great views of them from a distance. Day four was reserved for driving up to Williams Creek Campground and Lake. It was really the primary reason we chose Durango as a stop. Williams Creek was a childhood camping destination for me and my family! The drive up was quite a distance with most of it on dirt roads. I couldn’t wait to get up there and see it again. It had been some 50 years since my grandparents took me and the family there. We packed a picnic and explored the beautiful spots with bubbling creeks, crystal blue skies and a beautiful reservoir. Even though it has been so many years since I had been there, not much has changed! I did find it sad to see our absolutely favorite spot to camp by the river was no longer there. It looked as thought at some point the river had altered course and the spot had to be closed. Still it brought back many cherished memories of days gone by with family members who are no longer with us. We drove from Williams Creek to Pagosa Springs to check it out. It’s a cute town, but has grown way too much and like all the towns we have visited on this trip, has been ruined by outsiders fleeing their states to come and drive up prices everywhere out here. It is very sad to see! We made our umpteenth trip to Wally World for supplies (we never seem to be able to get everything we need in one trip). The next day began our 3 day trek toward home. We drove through Colorado to Utah and stopped for the night in Brigham City. We were suffering a bit from trailer fatigue so decided to hotel it for the night. On to Idaho and Oregon the next day with an overnight stop in Pendleton, also at a hotel. We looked forward to our big bed, long showers, and just being home finally but are sad it’s coming to an end. We have seen so much and enjoyed seeing so many friends and family. We are so very grateful to everyone who took time to spend with us. We love you all! This trip has been epic- 28 days, 8 states, 5,127 miles and full of love, hugs and countless laughs! We are truly blessed. Can’t wait for the next adventure!

No camp site here anymore!!!

Road Trip 2021 – Part 1

AWAY WE GO!!!

So here we are, both retired and living quietly in a world constrained by the COVID “plandemic” for close to a year and a half. We have our routine from day to day, get up, spend some time on the computer, go to the gym, back home, do stuff around the house, make dinner or maybe go out, watch some tube and bed, get up and do it all over again. Every once in awhile we head back to Snoqualmie for appointments and see old friends. Now and then we have family or friends up for a visit or we visit them. Then one day, we looked at each other and said, “Let’s go on a road trip!” Thus began the planning months in advance. We had to decide where we were going to go, the route, booking RV spots, telling people we might want to see that we were coming, etc. We decided that this would be a friends and family visit/sightseeing trip. Debbie did a great job scouting out RV places, carefully checking reviews to make sure we were staying in decent places and it was awesome the job she did. The drive began with the first stop in Newport, Oregon and then on to Eureka, California. These two days are just stop overs on our way to Monterey, California where we will stay for a couple of days. Newport Oregon is a lovely place on the Oregon Coast and we have been there several times, so no need to sight see this time. We stayed at a nice RV park that is just a short walk to the Rogue Ales brewery and restaurant. We had to wait forever to get a table, but it was worth the wait ( we were so hangry! ). We packed up fairly early and headed out for our next stop Eureka, California. The drive was beautiful, with so many beautiful beach views and driving through the Redwoods is spectacular. The RV Park in Eureka was a little sketchy, nice people and super nice RV’s here but there is some sketchy stuff going on here so everything is locked up tight for the night and we will head out as early as possible for Monterey!

We left Eureka as early as possible and headed out for Monterey. Actually we are staying in Moss Landing which was “supposed” to be in the heart of Monterey, well not quite but it’s just fine. We took Hwy 101 which took us on a beautiful route. Through many Redwood forests and small towns. We ended up driving through wine country. Debbie wanted to stop and wine taste at the many wineries, but we had to stay on schedule to try to beat traffic. Next trip we are stopping and drinking. We thought we were going to go through Oakland, but Waze ended up rerouting us through San Francisco instead which afforded some beautiful views of the city but some dicey traffic for me. The drive, while a little hairy, was so gorgeous and we ended up arriving on time at the RV Park. We set up and headed out for a beach walk, it was beautiful. The next we lazed a bit and then headed for the gym for a workout and then on to Carmel for lunch and some window shopping . We fell head over heals in love with it and if we ever win the lottery we’ll be moving there! One ridiculous thing we had to endure while walking about in Carmel was the stupid mandatory mask wearing while OUTSIDE!!! Signs were posted everywhere that if you failed to do so, you would be fined $100. There are more sheep living in the town than there are on Clint’s ranch! We made our way to the Mission Ranch to have a glass of wine with Clint Eastwood (he owns it), haha we were told we just missed him. The rest of the day we spent on the 17 mile drive through Pebble Beach back to Monterey and Cannery Row. Had a light bite then back to the RV Park for the night. Such a fun couple of days here and then we headed for Santa Barbara!

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My Old Buddy Rob Miotti and son

Salt

We really enjoyed our stay in Monterey and headed out around noon thinking we could avoid the commute traffic in the Santa Barbara area, we did hit some traffic but not as awful as we anticipated. Our drive was really nice with lots of beautiful scenery. Our route was down 101 which took us through lots of agricultural lands and by San Louis Obispo, Pismo Beach, Buellton which claims to be the home of split pea soup! Who knew!! We arrived at Ocean Mesa RV Resort (highly recommend this RV Park) in the early afternoon with sun and clear skies we quickly set up and headed out on a long walk in search of the laundry room and to explore the area. This park has a lot to offer including a pool and hot tub, very well stocked store, large sites and a restaurant within walking distance. We loved it. The next day we headed to Santa Barbara to visit the Santa Barbara Mission and later meet up with a good friend of Joe’s from many years ago. The Mission was beautiful and full of history. We took a lot of pictures at the mission and I created an album that you can go see here! Santa Barbara is a very nice city with a vibrant downtown full of shops and restaurants. Out of necessity with Covid everywhere has outside seating! Since it was Friday junior, it was pretty hoppin once it got dark. We were blessed to meet up with Rob Miotti and his son Robbie for the rest of the day. We stopped in to take a look at Salt Cave(a salt spa) and then in to Joe’s Cafe for a drink and light bite. We walked all over the downtown area and ended up at the best Mexican restaurant right across from the beach for dinner. Thank you Rob and Robbie for driving up to spend the day and evening with us! We really appreciate it and loved seeing you. After that adventure we departed for Newport Beach, California where we stayed at Newport Dunes Resort spend a few days visiting friends! So excited to see everyone

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We left Santa Barbara around noon and headed down 101. The drive was mostly good with so many beautiful beach views. There are so many RV’s just parallel parked along the beach frontage roads, camping and surfing! It was incredible how many we saw! As we neared the LA area the traffic got thicker and much more crazy the closer we got. Thankfully I know the area from living in So Cal for many years in the 80’s. It’s unbelievable how many lanes the freeway’s have! Maybe almost as many as the Texas freeways, but far more congested. We arrived at the RV resort and were really pleased with the amenities and location, right in the heart of Newport Beach. This made it much easier to connect up with friends. We had dinner at SOL Mexican Cocina with our good friends Jeff and Jamie Simon the first night, super yummy Mexican food! We will be spending time with them again in Arizona. The next day we met up with a group of friends at my favorite Long Beach breakfast place, Schooner or Later. Back in my salesman days, this was one of my first accounts and made many early morning calls there selling them supplies. Sadly, the owners Denise and Denny weren’t there for me to surprise them. It was so great to spend time catching up! We spent the rest of the day with our friends Debbie and Tom Neforos hanging out in Long Beach grabbing beers at Murphy’s and later dinner at Simmzy’s . Many many beers were drank over the years at Murphy’s and the place hasn’t changed one bit since I left. Second street in Long Beach is definitely the place to be if you are young and single! Lots of bars, shops and restaurants. Another day we met up for brunch at The Tavern House with Debbie and Tom; and Maria and Jan; where spent time visiting and sadly said our goodbyes to our friends. We so much appreciated spending time with them and love them all dearly. We toured around Huntington Beach, Seal Beach and Long Beach for the rest of the day. We drove to many of my old haunts and a few old places where I used to live and did a lot of reminiscing and showing Debbie lots of memorable places. We were then on to our next destination to Fort Mohave, AZ to spend a few days with Jeff and Jamie! Stay tuned for the update coming in part two!

A Family Affair

In early October we took our last vacation of 2013. It was a combination of family get togethers on both sides. The first part of it involved Debbie’s side of the family and the wedding of her niece Jennifer. It took place in Texas near Dallas, so we flew into the Dallas-Ft Worth airport. I had driven through the area years ago mainly speeding by on the interstate, but had never spent any time in Dallas. This time was no different as the wedding was held in a town called Whitewright which was north. What did strike us was the size of the airport. It was huge and we got lost just trying to leave, driving in circles for a while before we finally managed to escape the madness. Then as we drove toward the location of the ranch, the sprawl that is the DFW metro area was just crazy. The place is way too big for me and Texans drive insanely! The wedding and reception were held at a beautiful place called the Bethel Ranch. Most of the wedding party, family, and many guests stayed right there as the place was huge. Debbie’s sister, Donna(mother of the bride) and her husband Chris did a lot to make all of who stayed comfortable. Austin’s, the groom, Mom and sisters did a lot of cooking and feeding of the guests. There was quite a bit of organized chaos, but the event went off without a hitch and even the weather held off until the outdoor ceremony was over. Much fun!!!

Happy Day!

The Cake

Beautiful Bride!

Bride and Groom

Austin and Jennifer

Mister and Missis Hoy!

After the wedding fun, we departed the Dallas area and flew to the glorious city of El Paso. We got our rental and drove up to my hometown of Alamogordo, NM! The closer I got, memories of childhood and growing up came streaming in. It seems like such a long time ago that I roamed these streets and many loved ones who were part of my young life are now long departed. It is bittersweet returning here sometimes. What helped was our somewhat mini reunion of my brothers Scott and his wife Dana and Garth, sister Monica, and seeing my aunt Sharon and Uncle Butch and cousin Lorie. Due to my half assed organizational skills, we had forgotten to let my other cousin, JoAnn know we were coming and she wasn’t able to be around. Next time I will do better! Boy did we have fun! Along with running around town looking at old homes we haunted and schools we went to, we did road trips around the State together! We took a drive up to Santa Fe where Debbie had always wanted to go and I hadn’t been in years. We had a great time going to the plaza and eating tamales and visiting the shops and old churches. On the way back we stopped in a very small town called Duran and parked in front of this building! It was dark by then and very spooky and no matter how we tried, we could not get a decent photo of it at night! We also stopped on the highway near Carrizozo where, when were young,  we saw a woman in a wedding dress come walking out of an arroyo and tried waving us down. We later heard the story of her ghost!!!! We weren’t sure of the exact location though, and didn’t see her again!

Other journeys took us to the ghost town of White Oaks, the old Fort Stanton, Lincoln, and Ruidoso. Deb and I love Ruidoso and here we go again thinking we might like to live here when we retire. It is a very cool town and we saw some very nice homes nestled up in the hills. There is the yearly worry of fires when the season hits and the last one saw some pretty intense fires come very close to the town. We have thought about New Mexico before, but we have thoughts about going to many different places to live once we have removed the shackles of employment. We may just get an RV and just drive and hang out in all these places. We took a drive to Las Cruces and went to the old town of Mesilla. The town has a lot of history and home of one hell of a Mexican restaurant called La Posta where we had an awesome lunch! Our final trip was up the hill with my Aunt to Cloudcroft. It is an old lumber town which is just up from my hometown. It was a cool place to go in the heat of the New Mexico summers. We visited the Lodge at Cloudcroft and looked around at the old hotel. We went into the tower and the Governor’s Suite. The place is supposed to be haunted by many different ghosts and one in particular, a girl called Rebecca! My Aunt had a strange experience coming down the stairs from the tower. One of her earrings was knocked out of her ear! She just took it in stride and put it back in. Then it got knocked out a second time. I was walking behind her at that point watching it and saw it just fly out of her ear. Was it Rebecca???? It was a great time and for once, time did not fly by! It was great seeing all of both families and sharing some great memories!! Check out our the New Mexico pictures here!

Our Southwest Vacation

We have enjoyed a wonderful 10 day vacation to the Southwest and it was packed full of adventure, travel, sights, enjoyment, fulfillment, and reconnection. We started by flying to Las Vegas where we rented a car and headed out. Las Vegas was just a starting point and did not spend any time there. Renting a car in Vegas looks like it should be an easy organized task but it wasn’t for us. First you take a bus to the rental car building where all the rental companies are all together. I thought this was going to be a good idea! We went in and found our company Thrifty and saw the line of people waiting. It looked like the screening line into the gates at the airport. After that 45 minute wait, we were given our paper work and headed up to the garage where we stood in yet another line. What a mess! Don’t you just get your car assignment when you get your paper work and just head out to the space where the car is??? Well not here. We waited and waited because they didn’t have any cars. Finally they brought up a bunch and started the line. We were supposed to get an economy car like a Chevy Aleo or similar. When it was our turn, the guy asked us what we had and I couldn’t remember, so he just pointed to a 2008 red Mustang and asked if we wanted that! Well hell yes we did and were finally off in a nice ride!

Our first stop was Kanab, Utah! We were going to spend the first three days there visiting and volunteering at Best Friends Animal Society. Now if you have watched the TV show Dogtown on the National Geographic Channel, then you are familiar with Best Friends. What a wonderful place it is and it was better than either of ever expected. Best Friends is a no kill animal rescue/sanctuary that cares for around 2000 animals at any given time. They care for dogs, cats, pigs, birds, horses, and goats and employ 400 staff members and host many many volunteers. It is run mainly from the donations of the 250,000 members and it is run very well from what we saw. Our volunteering stint had us cleaning dog runs, walking dogs, feeding and socializing with pigs, and spending time with many cats! We loved it!! We even had two dogs come to our motel on two different nights for a doggie sleep over! They allowed to take two dogs with us for an overnight visit with us which helps the animal get used to being out with people and other dogs. It also helps them get used to the noises of everyday life like TV’s, cars, traffic, phones, kids, etc. Many of these animals are abandoned, abused, hoarded, and rescued from disasters. Some of their stories will just break your heart, but it was nice to see that they are now very well taken cared of and deserve the pampering they are getting at Best Friends. Most of these animals are being prepared for adoption, but if they are not or have issues that will not allow them to be adopted, then they will live out their lives at the sanctuary!!! If you are wondering….. we did not leave with any animal, but we will definitely be returning for more volunteer vacations!!!

Our next stop was at Bryce Canyon National Park on the way to Cedar City, UT. Now I have been to Bryce Canyon before, many years ago, but Deb had never seen it. It was a beautiful as I remembered and we did quite a hike while we were there. We then visited one of Debbie’s former co workers that has retired in Cedar City, Alan and Travis Hoppes. We stayed at their very lovely home and enjoyed a fantastic restaurant. Deb and I really liked Cedar City and it will be a future destination when we come back. It might not be a place to retire to when we are ready, but that’s way down the road. We then left and made a journey to Zion National Park which was different from Bryce Canyon but just as beautiful. There we did another hike and enjoyed the scenery. If you haven’t visited southern Utah, you must take a visit. The countryside and views will astound you. It is gorgeous down there!!!

We headed into Arizona for an overnight in Flagstaff. We drove right by the Grand Canyon, but it was dark and our itinerary didn’t allow for any time to be spent there so it will have to be on the list for our next visit. From Flagstaff we headed into western New Mexico. We made a stop in Mogollon which is an old mining town that no longer exists as a vital town although there are people that live there and we met a few. I don’t know how they do it as they are far off the beaten path. They probably like it that way that’s probably why they live there. It is kind of a spooky place and we were there in the day time. From there we stopped in Silver City, NM and visited my uncle Herbie and aunt Brenda. I hadn’t seen them in over 15 years! We had a nice visit and dinner with them. They are full time RV people and live in it! They had it parked at their son’s (Tyson) place. We went out and saw it and visited with him and his family. It had been even longer since I had seen him. It was great to see them all and know that they are doing good and are healthy!

The final leg of the journey took us to my home town of Alamogordo, NM. I was born and raised here and still have family left there. Allot of the family is there but reside in the town cemetery!! We visited my uncle Butch and aunt Sharon and cousin Lorie. My other cousin Jo Ann and friend Lisa drove over from Carlsbad and met us in Mayhill, NM for lunch and a great visit! We also drove by houses, schools, different points of meaning in my past and it was very poignant to revisit what was my childhood. Finishing off our vacation took us down to the hell hole of Van Horn, Tx. Sorry to any of you that have a connection to the town, but it really is a hell hole! Most of the town looks like it had died on the vine as many buildings that had housed former businesses were abandoned and crumbling. Even former gas stations were closed. Most of what was left were motels and there is a golf course nearby, but not much else. What took us down there was some land we hold that has been handed down to me from family. Since we were in the area and had one last day to kill, we decided to go down and have a look! We did learn allot about it and even found the location of where it was and even drove there to have a look. We weren’t able to get to the exact property as it was not accessible by car, as far as we could tell, but we did get a general idea where it was…… basically in the middle of nowhere! Our last stop was El Paso where we dropped off the car and flew home! It was a jam packed vacation and was allot of fun! You can check out our pictures by clicking here and soon I will have podcasts posted at my newest podcast Just Joe Podcast, so go and check both out!!! That’s it for now, finally!!!