Santa Fe Area 2014

As you can see in the map below, we had a detour of about 175 miles in our trip. We wanted to visit this area in Northern Central New Mexico Mountains, it is unique in culture and history. Los Alamos a sleepy tiny town, was the home of a private boy’s school in the 1930’s. That all changed when our government seized the desolate land and placed the labs, shop and test facilities of The Manhattan Project there. The rest is history.

The Las Alamos Laboratory has been repurposed with 2 missions.

1. To continue reseach and development in the area of nuclear weapons. While we do not build new weapons (Our stockpile is shrunk about 90%), we do have to maintain and update our arsenal. Remember these are 50 years old.
   
2. Our trip to The Bradbury Museum was most enlightening as to the history of atomic power and its future. They do a great deal of in medical and commercial uses.
   

   
   

General Groves and Dr. Robert Openheimer.

 

We are camped at Bandelier in the Juniper Campground. We are at 7,000 feet, temperatures at night dive into the 40s. Having no hook-ups is slightly compromised as the only site we could get our rig on has about 50% tree cover.

The $6/nite rate for Experienced Citizens is very nice, I would happily pay a little more it they would make RV sites a bit larger.

As you can see, there is plenty of room. I cannot move back any further least my transmission’s oil pan will hit the parking stop. Most of these sites are designed for tent folks or 18′ tag-a-long trailers. We are 38′.

This area is a hiker’s paradise. It has very well marked trails and access points.

I will be posting this blog from the Las Alamos Library. Anne-Marie discovered the statuary below, it is titled, Overdue.

 

 

Santa Fe Area 2014

As you can see in the map below, we had a detour of about 175 miles in our trip. We wanted to visit this area in Northern Central New Mexico Mountains, it is unique in culture and history. Los Alamos a sleepy tiny town, was the home of a private boy’s school in the 1930’s. That all changed when our government seized the desolate land and placed the labs, shop and test facilities of The Manhattan Project there. The rest is history.

The Las Alamos Laboratory has been repurposed with 2 missions.

1. To continue reseach and development in the area of nuclear weapons. While we do not build new weapons (Our stockpile is shrunk about 90%), we do have to maintain and update our arsenal. Remember these are 50 years old.
   
2. Our trip to The Bradbury Museum was most enlightening as to the history of atomic power and its future. They do a great deal of in medical and commercial uses.
   

   
   

General Groves and Dr. Robert Openheimer.

 

We are camped at Bandelier in the Juniper Campground. We are at 7,000 feet, temperatures at night dive into the 40s. Having no hook-ups is slightly compromised as the only site we could get our rig on has about 50% tree cover.

The $6/nite rate for Experienced Citizens is very nice, I would happily pay a little more it they would make RV sites a bit larger.

As you can see, there is plenty of room. I cannot move back any further least my transmission’s oil pan will hit the parking stop. Most of these sites are designed for tent folks or 18′ tag-a-long trailers. We are 38′.

This area is a hiker’s paradise. It has very well marked trails and access points.

I will be posting this blog from the Las Alamos Library. Anne-Marie discovered the statuary below, it is titled, Overdue.

 

 

The Big Texan 2014

You can’t miss it. Approaching Amarillo on I-40 from the east the bill boards start about 150 away. The theme? “Free 72 ounce Sirloin Steak at The Big Texan Steak Ranch”. Who does it? Several people a week, Joey Chestnut ate his in 3 min and 52 seconds. Other notables were; a 69 year old Grandmother, a Professional Wrestler ate 2 dinners, the youngest was an 11 year old boy. Mind you that this is a well-balanced meal consisting of: 4 ½ Pounds of Steak, French Fries, Salad and of course Bread.

Did we eat there? Of Course! I had a very nice smallish Rib Eye, a loaded spud and a glass of one of their craft beers, ok 2 glasses. Nobody was taking the 72 oz. challenge while we were there. More info at: www.bigtexan.com

 

Tomorrow we will run about 250 miles to Santa Fe area of New Mexico. We plane to stop for a few days in the area of Los Almos where there is a National Park we can dry camp at for $6/nite.

POST Script: I am posting this from Los Alamo Library, about 10 miles from our campsite. More news to follow.

Next Springs Trip to Kino Bay 2014

Greeting from your Wagon Master Team,

 

We hope you summer went as well as ours. We spent most of it in Connecticut where Anne-Marie had successful bi-lateral cataract surgery. Though she wasn’t ‘out of service for more than a few days, the drill was that she had to wait 6 weeks for the Doctor’s release.

Our son-in-law had very serious heart issues with arterial fibrillation. This disease causes you heart to beat very fast causing weakness, strokes and sudden death. The treatment is to go in and ‘short circuit’ some of the nerves. We are happy to say that after 3 long procedures, he seems to be on the road to much better health.

We took side trips to Vermont and Pennsylvania where we attended rallies with our Masonic friends in the National Camping Travelers Club. We enjoyed our times with our New England friends, wishing them happy snow shoveling when we departed on September 1^st.

I am writing this from Amarillo, Texas as we travel to The Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta where we will be with The Boondockers, hoping to work on a crew as we did last year.

Rally reservations are coming in, each one of them reminds us of our obligation to you, the members of Chapter #8.

It is important to thank all of the Wagon Masters that have gone before us, The Billers specifically for their input and notes from their rally. Thanks for The Schaffers, The Boles and The Waites for pre-running last spring while we ran to Texas for Anne-Maries date with Dr. SawBones. Remember, we are a volunteer group. Our Officers serve at you pleasure. We need your input and we need you to step up and volunteer for some of the workload as you skill and ability allow.

We are going to pre-run the rally to Kino Bay soon after the Balloon Fiesta. Our schedule {cast in jello!} is to start at Pima County fairground on October 18^th. We will spend as much time as necessary to set our itinerary so as to maximize your rally experience.

We would invite you to follow our blog as we continue to wander and experience our country. You can find us at: https://arnoldsserendepity.wordpress.com/

 

. .

Team Arnold: Kinobaywagonmaster@gmail.com

Leading the Way,

To Kino Bay.

9/21/2014

Central Oklahoma 2014

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Easy day yesterday, we followed our mantra of 200 miles or 2:00. This found us in a very pleasant little town of Weatherford, OK. Its main claim to fame is a major intersection of I-40 and RT# 66.

What first caught my eye was a billboard advertising the Hartland of America Museum. A long name for a space functional (think small) museum which has an amazing large amount of cast offs from the previous 8 generations. What could easily be a pile of junk was very well displayed in an organized manor by a group in volunteers who also served as tour guides.

One of the gentlemen was a self made expert in the local wind power. He offered a $35 tour but suggested I buy the $10 DVD which would answer all my questions. We bought it and will report later on it’s contents.

 

 

We have here a full size replica that was built on site, typical of very small restaurants that you might find on Route #66.

 

We stayed at a small campground in town, not much of a spot as its clientele are mostly oil rig workers, cowboys of the new age I guess. Here we are trying to call our parents, they didn’t answer!

After I wrote this we hit the road, no I-net so I couldn’t post it. We are traveling about 200 miles to Amarillo, Texas. I have my eyes on one of those 72 ounce Sirloin Steaks they give you FREE if you eat it.

The 1^st exit after you cross the I-40 Texas border is the tiny town of Britten, can figure out what their main attraction is?

You are right if you guessed waiting for the water tower to fall!

Now, too see about that steak….

 

 

 

 

A Day at the Zoo 2014

We are about ¾ of the way to our appointment with destiny at the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta. WE just found out that the Durango sponsored balloon will not fly this year as they lost their funding. This is sad, the pilot’s family are great people, willing to be happy with our best efforts given our various health & back problems. There is plenty of work to do for volunteers, we will help where needed.

We spent a day at the Tulsa Zoo. My walking is not good, jumping off the ladder didn’t help it much. Anne-Marie is not good at taking pictures, notice how great she looks and I appear to be fat?

How about this Gator-Turtle? Makes me wonder about swimming in the lake, how about you?

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Branson, MO last week 2014

I had some wonderful news this morning when I opened my mail. Dave and Janet Kincman have been friends for 40+ years. Dave and I were coworkers at the now defunct Chandler Evans in West Hartford, they were instrumental in us getting started camping. On Saturday evening, their son David received a successful Liver & Kidney transplant.

When visiting Branson, the thing to do is go to a few of the local shows. We went to 3, the first being Jonah. It was a huge product, about 100 cast members, about 20 farm animals, massive movable sets and special effects.

The next day we went to a Hits of the 60’s review. Live music (not common), they did snippets of about 200 songs. A good afternoon.

Last evening show was The Haygoods, we saved the best for last! This 6 member Ozark family has been in concert for 11 years. Using all the typical instruments, humor and stage effects, the were great. My favorite was when Catherine (the only sister) played the Hawaiian version of Over the Rainbow on a classical harp.

It was not all music. We went to the well-known & famous Lambert’s Diner where we feasted on great food and ‘Throwed Rolls’. This young fellow throw about 500 rolls per day. I had Southern Fried Chicken. Big? I thought it was a small turkey!

 

Next time, maybe I’ll tell you about flying lesson(s) I took while replacing one of my toppers. I should have read this!

September 11th 2014

In the great scope of modern history, the attack on our country on 9/11 will be entitled to a small foot note. In comparisons to the other atrocities committed in the last 100 years, it is of a minor nature. The fire bombings in Dresden, Pearl Harbor, The Siege of Stalingrad, sadly the list could go on.

But, this is ‘our’ travesty! I do not remember the horror of events 65 years ago, I do remember the heart break of the attack on our country 14 years ago.

We were reminded of the date when we drove past the College of The Ozarks on our way into town. As usual my picture doesn’t do justice to the subject. If I had altitude you would see that the 3,000 flags spell out ‘911’ with a huge cross at the top.

We will be in the Branson area for 3 days, waiting for our mail to catch up. Lots to do here, stay tuned!

Verizon Rant 2014

Remember those commercials for Verizon that showed a mob of about a bazzilion technical folks backing the customer up in the event that they had trouble with their equipment?

Let’s bury that idea right her in Terre Haute, Indiana, right now!

We’ve been Verizon customers since my 1^st bag phone bought in East Windsor, CT in the 90’s. Our multi-phone and date use cost approaches $200/month. One of our larger expenses, we need it. Maybe?

Our 3 year old ‘hot spot’ died 2 months ago. I was ‘lucky’, we were near our store.

According to the Verizon store in beautiful Terre Haute when our new unit went belly up. A reboot nets about 1 minute of usage, it’s FUBAR. {Fouled Up Beyond All Repair} They cannot replace it, they will not sell me a new one, allowing me to ship the dead one back for reimbursement. They did give me dumb looks which of course are free.

A logical route would be to sue in small claims court to get out of the contact(s). That’s not an option to vagabonds like us.

Verizon is like to old ATT in that they seem to have a strangle hold on the market of coast to coast wide coverage.

I’m not sure when I will post this, we will use a McDonalds or public library as possible.

We camped at Camp Walmart last evening. It was quiet, we ate the large Rib Eye that we bought 2 days ago at Zerns. It was wonderful!

Late update. I contacted Ron at East Windsor Verizon, he was not impressed with the service I received. He gave me a secret phone number for The Grand Lodge of Verizon. Real quiock action, they are Fed Exing me a new widget. Thank Ron if you are a customer there. Thank McDonalds if you are reading this.

On the road west 2014

It’s about 7:00am here, we’re getting ready to depart. I’ve got all our outside gear stowed. Once moving we will have about 20 miles of back roads before we hit the super slab. From there it is about 1,100 miles to Branson, MO where we will settle down for 3 days. We need to intercept our mail for pharmaceuticals and reservations for the Kino Bay Rally.

Me, scowling? It’s 93° with 90% humidity. Ok, it was air conditioned inside the Lodge on Friday evening. Saturday afternoon brought us all the water in the world along with thunder and lightning. Good news was that our coach was 100% dry after the Noah Test.

 

Our fimal destination is The Annual Balloon Fiesta at Albuquerque, New Mexico. We will be dry camping there with several of our close friends. We will again work launch & recover crew to ‘pay our dues’.

 

Stay Tuned!