October 20, 2023 – Day 22 Today we will reach Phoenix, AZ! Goodyear, AZ actually. It’s a small city to the west that’s a suburb of Phoenix. Our home for the next 12 days will be here. As with last year, we won’t be blogging our adventures here. We’re visiting family. We’ll just enjoy our time here. November 1 is the beginning of our adventures heading back to NH. The good news is that it was particularly uneventful travel day. The road started out pretty much as expected, but the distant mountains were very hazy. We had seen haze in the sky the previous night, it made for a great…

October 19, 2023 – Day 21 We had thought we’d go to Flagstaff and explore there. On the list were the Lowell Observatory and Walnut Canyon plus anything else we could squeeze in. As the early morning unfolded we realized that we needed to go back to the Petrified Forest. The first place was back to the Blue Mesa loop since we wanted to see it fully lit. We also figured out that “road” we had previously seen was, in fact, a short 1 mile trail so we wanted to do that as well. The Blue Mesa loop is in the Petrified National Forest which includes the part of the…

October 18, 2023 – Day 20 Only half a blog today. We met up with our good friend, Jay, who drove out to meet us, tried to have lunch at the Flatbed Cafe only to find it closed, took more selfies “Standing on the Corner” then headed back to the coach for some catching up in the comfort of the AC. In the late afternoon Susan and Paul head over to the Little Painted Desert County Park. It used to be an Arizona county park but was abandoned some time ago. It was only about 20 minutes north of the campsite. We had planned to go there some morning, but…

October 17, 2023 – Day 19 Remember back to when you were a kid. It seemed that the cartoon hero was always encountering quicksand. And sometimes, years or decades later, you finally realize that quicksand really isn’t that big a hazard that you made it out to be? (Sorry if you still thought it was…) Would you look at that! The Hopi settled next to the Little Colorado River. The river is presumably the source of the quicksand which we couldn’t investigate because of the fence. Not to mention the unstable banks and the quicksand! Safely past the dangers the signage warned us about we made the short hike to…

October 16, 2023 – Day 18 Homolovi State Park is a good radio destination. Paul played radio for 1-2 hours each morning that we were there, and about an hour in the evening. He logged over 200 contacts including Japan, Australia, Indonesia and even Antartica! While we’re at Homolovi assume Paul is doing radio stuff at least once a day. Morning was beautiful. Susan captured this excellent photo. As luck would have it there would be no other opportunities as the leaves were falling off and the tree never looked that good again. We headed into Winslow AZ for brunch. Winslow AZ is a tiny town, along Route 66. It…

October 15, 2023 – Day 17 Paul wanted to title today’s blog “Clifford and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day” after the classic children book with a similar title. But the book is about a whiny kid and the day wasn’t that bad. Oh, it was probably our 2nd worse travel day ever so far (Day 1 of the Stuart trip tops this one.) The day started off so well. We woke up just before sunrise. This is more difficult than it sounds. The bedroom of the coach is purposefully dark and the mattress is better than our one at home. (Note: buy a new mattress for home once…

October 14, 2023 – Day 16 This is the big day, eclipse day! Paul probably checked the weather forecast every two hours. He’d fall asleep then wake up again, grabbing his phone. Still, 0% chance of clouds. We got up and just relaxed. Paul setup his iPhone on a tripod for a time lapse movie. He didn’t expect to see the disc of the sun, just the surroundings darken. (Fast forward, it is pretty boring, it didn’t get nearly as dark as he thought it would.) First contact between the moon and sun was a few seconds before 10:18AM. Paul first noticed a disturbance in the top of the sun…

October 13, 2023 – Day 15 This was just a driving day, and a short one at that, only 221 miles. But 221 miles south, the wrong way to Phoenix but the right way to Midland for the eclipse. The only odd thing was that we hadn’t heard back from the Harvest Host. We figured it was just a museum parking lot and they even said no need to check in, just park. So we figured we’d do just that. You’re not supposed to show up without a confirmation, but hey, we’re just common scofflaws. When you are traveling west in the western part of Texas it’s a relentless climb.…

October 12, 2023 – Day 14 After a few hours of sleep we woke up tired and groggy. Caffeinated liquids were the first business of the day. They didn’t help. We decided that we’d visit the RV museum, come back, probably catch up on the blog, maybe nap. After a bit of doing nothing we realized we should go to the museum. The winds were picking up and it would be getting even worse as the day rolled on. Driving the Jeep on what these Texans call roads could be a handful. The Jack Sizemore’s RV Museum (& Storage) was easy to find especially since we had been there yesterday.…

October 11, 2023 – Day 13 We took showers this morning. Or maybe we took them yesterday, this morning and quite possibly another one. We’re never really sure until someone stinks. Showers don’t sound like a big deal since we’re hooked up to City water, and we have our grey water valve open we can never run out of water for a shower. But it is a big deal when you’re traveling with only 70 gallons on board. Normally we’re parsimonious with water. This stop we didn’t do military showers we took luxuriously long ones where we didn’t turn off the water. At all. Until we were done, of course.…