We are home

We arrived yesterday. We have weeds. We really have weeds. While we were gone there was a big storm that knocked out power for 3 days. As a precaution we decided to throw out the stuff in the freezer. First thing on the agenda is buying a new washing machine. Our old one broke the day before we left last May. Next week we have 2 campsites reserved at Hunting Island St. Park. The grandkids are coming. Should be fun? The MP has a few issues.
They will have to wait. Our trip was 7000 miles long. We were on the road a few days over 2 months. This blog is going to take a rest. If we do anything that's blog worthy I'll post it maybe, or maybe not. Summer epic MP trip is over.

Florida Caverns State Park

This morning we drove across the Atchafalaya basin on the 4th longest bridge in the U.S. (18 miles) The pilings for the bridge were 124 feet long. They had to drive them through 93 feet of muck until they hit a sand layer. They drove them 6 feet into the sand and that left the roadway 25 feet above the swamp. The swamp is the largest in the US. Just past the bridge is the town of Grosse Tete. Today it would probably have been called Voluptuous Bosom. The pic is 'the blue hole' it's a 30 foot deep sink hole in this park. We will be home tomorrow.

Breaux Bridge LA.

Today the 3 day slog home has begun. The fun hasn't stopped however.  When we got here we discovered we had lost a hubcap off of the MP. Interstate 10 in Louisiana is a washboard so I guess we are lucky that's all we lost. The cream on top of our day was that the car's battery went dead during the drive. I decided to chill with a cool drink.

John Begnaud, fashion icon

Mini Aggie Reunion Jun 22-25

John and Jean Begnaud hosted our yearly mini-reunion at their lake house near Llano. We all ate too much and some of us drank too much. Jenny and I head toward home tomorrow. We are 3, maybe 4, days from home.

San Antonio

We are here for maybe 24 hours. We always like to stop here because of the splendid hospitality. We use Larson's water and electricity and then leave without paying. That is not your typical campsite. The La Fonda Mexican restaurant in Alamo Heights was a frequent lunch destination when the Williams family lived in SA back in the 60s. That particular location is no longer a restaurant. Where we ate today isn't in Alamo Heights. Jenny took this pic so that I could harass my poor sisters who I'm sure are insanely jealous that I'm in Texas eating Mexican food.

Junction Texas

Long drive today. Something like 7 hours. Our route took us through the "oil patch". There were tons of trucks, all of them in a hurry. We drove hard today so that we could spend most of tomorrow in San Antonio. We will park in Jenny's dad's driveway. We are in route to Lake LBJ to visit with a couple of my Aggie Buddies starting day after tomorrow. I'll try to post this using the campground wifi. Apparently Verizon hasn't discovered Junction yet. I took this pic as we were leaving Dog Canyon. The park begins at the New Mexico \ Texas border.

2nd day at Dog Canyon

Not much going on today. All the hiking out of here is pretty serious. There are no loop hikes that wouldn't have taken all day so we did a 2 hour out and back. When we left, the winds were pretty light but they suddenly increased when we were as far from the MP as we were going to get. Winds on a hike aren't generally much of a problem but I had left the awning out. That IS a problem. That is one of the cardinal rules of RVing. Never walk away with the awning out. It was screwed up a little. I fiddled with it for awhile and we finally got it retracted but I'm still not sure what was wrong or how I fixed it. That's what happens when you fix something by fiddling with it. There are 3 pics below. The first one shows why the fire burned so well, the second one shows what the aftermath looks like. (Burned is on the right, not burned is on the left) the last pic shows the crowded conditions at the Dog Canyon campground. We move tomorrow.

The other side of nowhere

We are in Dog Canyon campground. One of only 2 in the Guadalupe Mountains NP. The main campground is out of the way, this one is way, way, out of the way. A 60 mile dead end road. The fire that closed the backcountry is evident all around the campground. The fire fighters made a concerted effort to save the facilities. Most of the trees were saved as the fire burned close to the ground. Grass and other low plants were incinerated but I just got back from climbing the hill behind the MP and it looks like everything is coming back. The fire might have been a good thing. The NPS has wifi. I'll see if it will work for me.

Albuquerque NM

We are at a commercial campground a few miles west of the city on route 66. I wonder if the millennial generation even knows the significance of route 66. Probably not. We have stayed here, we think, 6 times. It's easy, it's convenient, and there is a "Camping World" store real close. We normally go to The Guadalupe  Mountains from here. We are going to do that tomorrow, however, we are going to go to the other side of the park. The (Dog Canyon) campground. Jenny and I have backpacked there  (her first backpack trip) but we have never driven to it. An interesting side note is that there has been a large fire in The Guadalupe  Mountains and the backcountry has been closed for quite a while. In fact, it's first day of being open is tomorrow. I consider this serendipity so we are going to stay there 2 nights. It's another boondock and I would be absolutely amazed if we have any connectivity. The Dog Canyon ranger station has a phone. There are only 4 RV sites so the ranger can probably find us if need be. I will send a SPOT in lieu of a blog post. In this pic just imagine me sitting in that chair drinking bourbon.

Meteor Crater AZ. (Near Winslow)

Our stop here was one of those spur of the moment things. It fit in with the theme of this trip. That being: 1. Visiting places we haven't been and 2. Visiting places I have seen from the air. We have driven past here many times, it's on I 40, but never stopped, and CLT to PHX almost always took us over the crater. I can still recite the PA announcement. Something we didn't know is that the crater is on private property. It's on a 300,000 acre cattle ranch. There is so little grass that it takes 250 acres\cow. The impact that caused the hole occurred 50,000 years ago. It was a hunk of iron traveling 30,000 MPH. There was a movie, a short guided walking tour on the rim, a museum and a gift shop. Of all the places we have ever been, this is one of them. Hopefully, New Mexico tomorrow.

Antelope Canyon

We are still in Kanab. There was nothing available in Page so we did a day trip from here to Antelope Canyon which is near Page AZ. The MP needed an oil change so we left it at a garage to be serviced as we left this morning. We were early for our Canyon tour so we stopped by Lake Powell to see if things have changed any. It is currently 103 feet low. It's pretty sad. Lake Mead  (downstream of Powell) is in worse shape, so Powell will surely drop all summer. Antelope Canyon is a world famous destination. It's a very narrow slot canyon, maybe 100 feet deep, that slithers its way beneath the Navajo Indian reservation for a couple of miles. At one point the bottom was as wide as my shoe.  I'm fairly certain everyone has seen photos taken from inside the canyon. Jenny and I took too many. The pics in this post are unmodified, taken with our phones. Tomorrow we're in New Mexico. 

Best Friends Animal Santuary

Our tour began at 10 and lasted 2 hours. The sanctuary owns 3000 acres of a beautiful red rock canyon with a creek running through it. There are different sections for different animals. There are some illnesses, especially among cats, that require that there be several different areas for cats. There is plenty of space for all the animals and every place we visited was very clean and aroma free. The whole purpose of the facility is to find homes for all these animals. Most of their horses are not rideable so they become pasture buddies to other horses. All the dogs are put through a training routine to make them more adoptable. As an example, the dogs are currently being trained to bark at any male with a ridiculous comb over. We gave a generous donation (tax deductible) and became members. I suggest that any animal lovers in my family NOT come here because if you do you might not leave. I just had to include a pic of my coconut cream pie dessert.

Kanab Utah

We are here to visit "Best Friends Animal Santuary". If you are interested in that sort of thing I'm sure you have heard of this place. I have known about it for a long time and we have been to Kanab several times but we have never visited. We have a 2 hour tour tomorrow morning. WE WILL NOT LEAVE THE TOUR WITH A DOG! The drive here took us over a 10,000 foot pass. We have been able to avoid major highways for quite awhile. I can drive for 6 hours pretty easily if it's not on an interstate.

Ely Nevada

Not much to report today. Our drive on Hwy 50 took over 6 hours. I washed the car for the first time on this trip yesterday, so of course it rained all day today. The car looks like a maroon mud ball. We went over several relatively high passes that the MP didn't appreciate, however, there was very little traffic on "The loneliest road in America" so our anemic pace didn't upset too many people. We kept expecting WAZE to announce "slow motor home ahead".  Don't know where we'll stop tomorrow. There are a few places I'd like to visit in Utah.

Tahoe day 4 (Emerald Bay)

There was inclement weather forecast for this afternoon so we got an early start. We drove to the beach that was nearest to Emerald Bay and got on the water around 9. It was a mile and a half to the mouth of the bay. This bay was at one time a lake of its own. The last ice age glaciers dug a channel into Lake Tahoe so the lake became a cove\bay. It is for the most part sheltered from the wind. It has  beautiful Sandy beaches and a historical residence. It is maybe the most visited part of the lake. Our tour yesterday went there. Today was a weekend and the weather was decent so Emerald Bay was heavily visited. We were a very small part of the crowd. We hit all the highlights, including a tour of the home at the top of the bay. We only paddled 7 miles but we were away from the MP for 7 hours. Our visit to the Eastern Sierra is over. Tomorrow we make the turn back to the east. Ely Nevada is our goal. We will be on highway 50 which is nick named "the loneliest highway".

Tahoe day 3

Today we explored the lake shore on our bikes. There is a paved bike trail that follows the shoreline for at least 7 miles. I wanted to see our put-in possibilities for our paddle tomorrow and this trail goes by a few of them. There are some historic estates that the Forest Service now owns that have been restored and are open for viewing. We walked through them. We went for a hike on a side trail and ate lunch at a resort. We were out for nearly 6 hours and covered 17 miles. Now some lake fun facts. It's 22 miles X 12 miles. The water is 99 percent pure and a white dinner plate can be seen to a depth of 70 feet. 63 streams flow into it and only 1 river drains it. (The Truckee River). The lake is 1645 feet deep. If the lake were drained and dumped on the state of California, it would cover the state with 14 inches of water. If that unlikely event were to occur it would take 700 years with typical rain and snow fall to refill it. Tahoe gets 8 inches of rain and 80 inches of snow per year. That's all I've got. Tomorrow we paddle.

Tahoe day 2

Our big event today was a paddle boat trip across the lake. We crossed the lake to Emerald Bay and cruised around there for awhile. It was a 2 hour round trip so there was plenty of time for us to get educated. I will pass along all I can remember tomorrow. I had a good single track bike ride this afternoon and I decided to return home a different way. Low and behold I stumbled upon a disk golf course. We are going to play in a few minutes. Jenny is watching a TV show. There is a tiny hole in the trees and Directv was kind enough to put a satellite in that hole. We have to run the generator because this campground has nada. We are getting used to boondocking.

S. Lake Tahoe CA.

We had a fairly short drive today. The final 10 miles involved a steep climb. We could see the road - cut climbing up the side of a mountain from miles away. We pulled over at the start of the ascent and disconnected. After lunch we did the 70 mile drive around the lake. There are small communities scattered along the shore. Tomorrow we are going to get on a tour boat and cruise around for a couple of hours. We'd like to get the yaks wet but we need to watch the weather.

Mono Lake

A few lake statistics: size is 14 miles X 9 miles, average depth 60 feet, it's 40 miles around, covering 77 square miles. Its 3 times as salty as the ocean and 1000 times more alkaline than fresh water. Only 3 things can live in it, algae, brine shrimp and a fly that lays it's eggs under water. 80 percent of California's sea gulls nest here. We had a neat morning paddle and then a hike around the rim of a dormant volcano that provided expansive views of the entire lake. Tomorrow is Lake Tahoe.

Lee Vining CA (Mono Lake)

I used to fly over Mono Lake every time I flew into SFO. We have been here once before when we visited Yosemite with the kids, but we were just passing through. Mono Lake has no outlet. It's a Great Basin lake like the Great Salt Lake. In the 40s the city of LA began diverting most of the water that flowed into it, south, to water their lawns. The lake began to recede dramatically and the salt content began to rise. It took many years of litigation but there has been some progress made in saving the lake. The weird outcroppings were formed under water (at one time the lake was 600 feet deep) They are composed of calcium carbonate that bubbled up from springs beneath the lake.

Mammoth day 4 (last day)

Today was hiking. Jenny realized we hadn't done any of that here. We went to a couple of craters that were the result of magma coming in contact with a pocket of water and causing a steam explosion. Both craters are full of water, one of them was a peculiar color. Next we hiked around Convict Lake. It's the deepest lake in the Sierra at just under 200 feet. We did some preparing for our departure tomorrow by going to Von's grocery store. The fruit and vegetable department is breathtaking. We are sick that our refrigerator is so small. Tomorrow is Mono Lake. It's less than one hour north.

Mammoth day 3

We have decided to stay here another day. We are planning ahead to next weekend when we will be in Lake Tahoe. We (Jenny) have been looking for some place near the lake that we could get into and it wasn't easy. It is apparently a popular place that people make reservations for well in advance of their stay. She found a place so all is well. I did a bike ride this morning on a forest service trail behind our campsite. If I am going to have a heart attack I should have had it on that ride. There isn't enough air up here and all the trails start with a killer climb. We did a scenic drive to a restaurant and had lunch. After that we loaded  the bikes on the car and did a high altitude ride on a mostly paved path. That was it for day 3.

Day 2 at Mammoth Lakes

I am looking for some bike rides. Mammoth Mountain is a ski area a little up the road and during the summer you can buy a lift pass and ride the trails on a bike. Unfortunately they are still skiing and will be until July. There are some lower trails serviced by a shuttle bus but that's only on weekends. I'll have to wing it. I did take my bike to a bike shop this morning and had it tuned up. After lunch we paddled our yaks on Twin Lakes. The lakes are fed by a magnificent waterfall. I rode back from the lake on a paved bike path. All downhill.

Mammoth Lakes CA.

We are in a dense Ponderosa pine forest at 8000 feet in a forest service campground with no hookups. On the drive here we visited one of the WW II Japanese internment camps that housed some of the 100s of thousands of Japanese Americans that were wrongfully removed from their homes after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. It's a very sad chapter in our history that was fueled by fear, racism, and war hysteria. This camp housed 10,000 Japanese Americans for over 2 years. They did their best to make the place livable. They built gardens and playing fields. Not one of those people was ever suspected or convicted of any crime against this country. When Reagan was president he apologized on our behalf and signed a bill giving $20,000 in reparations to any survivors.

John Muir Wilderness

We drove uphill for several thousand feet and then walked uphill for 2 hours. Our turn around point was Lone Pine Lake. John Muir's High Sierra is a really special place. We hiked on the Mt. Whitney approach trail. The pics don't do justice to the scenery. Here are some.