March 20, 2023 – Day 33 Today was a rest day so we headed off to Carlsbad Caverns National Park. The ride into the park through Walnut Canyon was spectacular, words cannot really describe it, but we’ll give a single photo. Ok, two photos… Once you are inside the Caverns words really fail you, pictures also fail you, but take a whole lot of them. and just spent about an hour winnowing them down to about 40 from roughly 400 photos that we took. But before you get to the pictures, check your calendars, make plans, come see this place. It is amazing. You’ll probably want to get tickets in…

March 19, 2023 — Day 32 We work up in a new time zone, so it was a slow start. But I kept on hearing a bird I didn’t recognize. There were lots of crows, but there was another one in there. So I got up, got dressed and went outside. I’m not sure if I was more surprised by the birds or the water, you see, the field wasn’t flooded when we went to sleep! We got two new life birds, the Long Billed Curlew and the Cattle Egret, so that was nice. Oh there was also about 1,000 other birds. We headed out with the GPS to “Avoid…

March 18, 2023 — Day 31 Last night we pulled into a dark, fenced in parking lot with 2 other rigs and we woke up to an empty parking lot with lots of sky and quiet. Susan was first to rise, I had a bad night’s sleep, and she yelled, “A coyote!” So I jumped out of bed and we watched the little guy for a few minutes until he trotted off out of sight. (Before I went to bed I had gone outside to look at the stars, it both seemed overcast and the loneliness really freaked me out so I quickly jumped back into the trailer.) Now I…

March 17, 2020 – Day 30 On the trip to Phoenix we had a deadline, we just saw what miles we could make and we made those. Going home was going to be different. (Ominous Music Here) Going back without a deadline means we can go wherever we want and whenever we want, right? Right? Old Man Winter is in no hurry to leave. Although this season has been a milder winter for the eastern two-thirds of the United States, the final days before spring officially begins on Monday, March 20, will be marked by harsh cold from the Arctic that will make its presence felt as far south as…

March 10, 2023 — Day 23 We’ve left Phoenix and headed north on 87 for a short ride to Star Valley AZ, just outside Payson AZ. It is a short drive, but a beautiful one. The recent rains in Phoenix must have hit north of the city also because the desert yellow flowers were in bloom everywhere. As we left Phoenix went entered the Tonto National Forest, which is a beautiful place. It seemed that a better vista was around each bend, but I suspect the same is true driving southwards also! So why the blog title, The Rim Shot? Star Valley, and many other places here, are within sight…

March 2, 2023 Thank you all for following along in our journey out west. It has been wonderful reading all your emails and texts back to us. It has kept us connected with our home and our families. Now that we’re in Phoenix we’ll not be updating on a daily basis, probably not updating at all. We’re also undecided about blogging on the way back. We do know we’ll be taking a slower pace back. If you just count travel days were averaging about 350/miles day for 11 days. Of course there will be rest days in there, so if we travel and then stay one day we’ll take 22…

March 1, 2023 — Day 14 We slept in nice and late, maybe 7AM, who knows if this is early or late. We had an easy ride ahead so we started off with a lazy morning. Then I checked the weather. Wilcox AZ was getting snow that night and a high wind advisory was in effect that afternoon. So I launched the Windy app. It seemed like we needed to be there by 1PM or we’d be seeing gusts to 45mph. So we had a mad scramble instead of a lazy morning. I did check out the bathhouse. Given the dive bar nature of the place I expected something horrifying.…

February 28, 2023 — Day 13 Next morning I added the emergency 2 gallons of water to the tank. This gave us some water, but more importantly, it let us know that we had just been out of water, we had worried that something else had gone wrong with the plumbing, like a clogged line. After breakfast and some phone calls we found a NM state park in Radium Springs that for just the day use fee would let us dump and take on water for only $5. This was a good deal. It was slightly out of our way but it also meant we got to see parts of…

February 27, 2023 — Day 12 We woke early, very early by the clock, and earlier still by our body clocks. We’re still on East Coast time. Loaded up, closed up and headed west. Today was going to be the big miles day. We wanted to make El Paso. The winds were a concern, overnight the weather forecast was for 45mph with gusts to 85mph north of where we were traveling. I was thinking we should pull out before dawn, before the sun’s heat would make more wind. But overnight the forecast for Monday got ever so slightly better so we headed out early, but not 4AM early. The terrain…

February 26, 2023 — Day 11 We both got up pretty early, I think our bodies are still on East Coast Time, but that’s ok, we need to move. We’re pretty good at packing up and moving out, but it still takes too much time. Much of that is caused by trying to manage weights. I drained 6 gallons out of the fresh water tank and moved 2 gallon to the front. As you might imagine, this is not exciting work or work that either of us want to spend the time on. Then I couldn’t find my 3/4″ socket to raise the stabilizers. Eventually we were ready to go…