Thanksgiving 2023

Another gluttonous Thanksgiving at Pat and Steve's. This one might have been the best yet. We had a great time and we all made it home safe. 

Tega Cay visit

Today is the tail end of a week away from Beaufort in the MP3. We watched the twins entertain the fans at their middle school football game, we watched Aubrey's boyfriend play for Fort Mill HS. That's 2 football games in 3 days. Unprecedented! We are now in a SP in Columbia SC. This is as close as we could get to Congaree NP. All these years in SC we have never been there, until today. The park protects a swampy bottomland and the old growth forest that has never been logged. We are home tomorrow. 

Habersham, final stats of the summer trip.

Total miles 5,893. Used 6 gallons of DEF. We stopped for fuel 25 times and paid between $4.59 and $3.14. There were 5 national parks, 8 state parks and 14 commercial  campgrounds. We visited one Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and I used one complete tube of toothpaste. When we arrived home we were greeted by Seth & Courtney and 3 of our granddaughters who were enjoying the neighborhood while we were away. Our house is a home away from home for both of our kids and their families. Davejennyjournal will be taking a siesta for a while. 

Country Oaks Campground & RV Park, Kingsland, GA.

Today was just a slog. Interstate 10 all day. We are just barely in Georgia. We took exit # 1 to get here. After we got set up we drove into St Mary's and had a nice seafood dinner followed by a walk along the water front. That sign was in the park office. 

Milton Florida KOA

We did Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and a little bit of Florida. Today was the worst traffic day Jenny and I have ever experienced. It was stop and go for hours. WAZE would give us suggestions but the problem was everyone else was using WAZE too so the the detour was bumper to bumper. The pic has us on a WAZE detour, you can see I 10 in the background. We stopped 4 times to put air in the tire that was slowly leaking. I conducted some experiments trying to determine what the hell

was happening. My last experiment was to remove the Tire Pressure Monitor transmitter from the tire that was leaking. That was kind of a gamble because I wouldn't have any idea what was happening with that tire. We knew that from 70 PSI to 55 PSI took 50 minutes. I pulled over at 45 minutes and checked the Pressure. Still 70. It had stopped leaking. We did that 2 more times with the same result. Not really sure what the problem is but not knowing  is going to get us home so I'm fine with it. We will be close to home tomorrow and will be home on the 3rd. Hopefully. 

Lafayette LA KOA

Right after that picture was taken we got an alert on our  tire pressure monitor. One of the rear tires was losing air. The leak was exceedingly slow but it was definitely losing air. All I could think of was to buy a can of that 'stop leak' stuff, which I did. As I put it into the tire I noticed that it was bubbling out a little bit where the metal valve stem mated with the wheel, leading me to believe the problem was a valve stem leak and not tire puncture. The 'stop leak' didn't work so that also made me believe it wasn't a tire. We are trying to round up some help because I can't get at the valve stem. It's always something. 

Last day in New Braunfels

Not much going on today. We drove into SA and visited with Josephina,  then had lunch with Maggie and Jason and then stopped by Jim and Anne's house. We had a long visit with Jerome yesterday so all Everett bases have been covered. We are planning our escape which begins tomorrow. 

Larson's House

New Braunfels River Ranch RV Resort

The name of this place is wildly misleading. It is not a ranch nor is it a resort. It is a giant slab of concrete underneath 2 highways. Right behind the MP3 is the Guadalupe River. You can stand in the shade under the overpass and watch the river

flow by. Sweet. Jenny has a meeting with the Everett family attorney tomorrow. That's kinda the reason we are here. That bronze sculpture was at a Valero fuel stop in Bergheim. Obviously an Aggie owner. The Cadet is on the top helping everyone climb up. Pretty cool.

Enchanted Rock State Natural Area

We are still camped in Fredericksburg but we spent a good chunk of this morning at Enchanted Rock. Jenny had never been there and I visited the park maybe 35 years ago. Not much has changed. It is a big dome of pink granite that has changed little in the last 50 million years. We did the standard climb to the top and then veered off route for our return to the car. A little adventure. The temp was beginning to get brutal but there was a Snow Cone shack at the bottom. There is nothing quite like getting brain freeze when you are suffering from heat prostration. We move a little tomorrow to New Braunfels. We can't stay in Larson's drive way and the commercial campgrounds in SA looked pretty sketchy. 

Lady Bird Johnson Municipal Park, Fredericksburg Tx.

OK, for those Grandkids that might be reading this, Lady Bird Johnson was the wife of one of our Presidents, Lyndon Johnson. She is responsible for those small signs on Interstates that tell you what services are coming up at the next exit. There would have normally been an ugly billboard advertising what was coming up. She liked wildflowers and had them planted along our Interstates. She and her husband were responsible for a lot of things that most young people are unaware of. A high-school report might be worth doing. Today's drive took us through Eden, Texas. The welcome sign at the edge of town claimed that Eden was the center of Texas. I'm somewhat skeptical. Could someone confirm that? We drove through a virtual forest of wind turbines near Roscoe. It is supposedly the 3rd largest wind farm on earth. Over 100,000 acres, 627 turbines that can power 234,000 homes. Put that in your trivia library, you might be able to use it some day. We are here for 2 nights.

Lubbock Texas KOA

Pretty uneventful drive. Lubbock is near the bottom of the panhandle. When we woke up this morning in Santa Fe we needed to run the heater for a few minutes. It was 70°. We watched the temp go up as we got deeper into Texas. A major attraction on the drive was Billy the Kids Grave. Jenny really wanted to stop, she's a huge fan of Billy. I exercised my privilege as the driver. We didn't stop. The temp on the pic is the highest we saw. The humidity was 5%. It was a dry heat. Tomorrow is Fredericksburg. 

Last day in Santa Fe

I think this is our 3rd Everett Mini reunion. Maybe the 4th. It's always a fun get together. Jenny and I have to be on our way tomorrow. Unfortunately we need to spend some time in Texas which is having a very uncomfortable period of record high temperatures. We are taking a different route to San Antonio. Our first stop will be Lubbock tomorrow. Lubbock is having some severe weather right now but it should be better, hot, but better tomorrow.

Scenes from downtown Santa Fe

Jim & Anne's Santa Fe home

Things are kinda smoky on the back porch. 

These 2 are Mike and Jim Everett

Abiquiu (Ghost Ranch)

The primary reason we are here this year is because when we visited last year we didn't have time to explore Ghost Ranch. There is a long story explaining the name that I won't cover but you can be assured that there a bunch of ghosts on the property. Ghost Ranch is where Georgia O'Keefe lived and did a lot of her landscape art. It's obvious where she was standing, or sitting, when she painted some of her landscapes. Her inspiration was all around the Ranch. Jenny and I did a hike that was pleasantly brutal. The climb was arduous but the views and the scenery was sublime. Maybe the best hike of the trip. There are several more hikes on the Ranch property so we might have to come back again. We are in Santa Fe tomorrow. Our goal is to be at Jim and Anne's house by noon. They are having Lasagna for lunch.

Abiquiu NM

We are camped at a COE campground on Abiquiu lake. We were here last year and the lake was very low. This year it is full. The Chama river flows into it and looks like the wet snowy winter last season stretched into NM. I said yesterday that I would post about The Painted Desert today. You say you don't remember that? Well, hit the back button and read it again. It was very informative. The painted desert is not a park unto itself. It is part of The Petrified Forest park. There are some scenic pull-outs along the road and a few hikes. The colorful sediment was deposited in the same body of water that waterlogged the Petrified trees. We are here to visit a place near here called Ghost Ranch. It was a source of inspiration for Georgia O'keeffe whose studio and home is in Abiquiu. 

Homolovi day 2

Today was Pertified Forest and Painted Desert. I'll do Pertified Forest today and Painted Desert tomorrow. This part of our country was where Costa Rica is now, 280 million years ago. On the equator. The trees fell into a river or lake, became waterlogged and sank. They were buried in mud and volcanic ash. Volcanic ash has a silica component that somehow replaced the organic cell structure in the waterlogged trees. This took many, many millions of years. It actually started before Biden was born. Continental uplift occurred as did erosion. The petrified trees were exposed. Some of the trees were over 200 feet tall. All of the species of trees in the park are now extinct but some are distantly related to trees we have now. We have a long day tomorrow and will be in New Mexico.

Homolovi SP Winslow AZ.

There are 2 indian ruins here. We haven't seen them yet. We will maybe go look at them tomorrow. I wanted to stop here because we are not too awfully far from The petrified Forest and The Painted Desert. That's the plan for tomorrow. We drove through Page AZ on the way here and got a look at Lake Powell. It's risen over 40 feet in the last few weeks but there is still not much Lake to look at. Jenny and I both agreed the word "Sad" describes it. Winslow is mentioned in the Eagles song "Take it Easy". There is a guy standing on the corner and a girl in a flat bed Ford taking a look at him. We had to stand in line to get a picture. 

 

Dark Sky day 3

The sky is definitely dark at the moment, it's thunderstorming overhead right now. We did a hike today to a place called 'Sand Caves'. Some climbing was required. We were told, and we don't know if this is true, the caves were dug, and the sand harvested, because NASA wanted that particular type of sand to make the glass that was used in the windows of the Space Shuttle. I'm skeptical but that's the story. We got in 15 holes of disc golf before the thunder and lightning started to get uncomfortably close. We almost made it back to the car. Almost. We move further south into Arizona tomorrow.

Dark Sky day 2

Not too much excitement today. We we're inundated in laundry. This campground uses the honor system to pay for stuff. There was a little box where you were supposed to put $2 to use the machines. There is a canteen with beer and snacks using the same system. We ran our AC a little this afternoon and it kept quitting about every 30 seconds. It would start up and then quit. My surge protector was telling me via Bluetooth that the voltage was dropping to 104 volts when the compressor came on. I talked to the owner and he moved us. That was a pain but we now have good power. That dog collar was on a dog in the barbershop where I had my haircut. He wasn't packing.

I was getting pretty shaggy. We have one more day here. Not sure what we'll do.

Dark Sky RV campground

This place is a few miles outside of Kanab. Kanab is in Utah but it sits very close to the Arizona border. Dark Sky has won a bunch of awards including "the best campground in Utah". We have heard about it on our RV propaganda sheets and it has been mentioned on Good Morning America. Not sure what all the hoopla is about. They are expanding and we are in a brand new spot. No water and no sewer. We are in a gravel pull through that isn't level. The scenery is fantastic and the 2 showers are very nice. There are 2 washer/dryers and the owners make dinner for everyone, for free, on Thursday. We are here for 3 nights so we might get blown away by this place before we leave. We have some admin stuff to do tomorrow. 

Otter Creek day 2

I'm posting this early because the State Park has zero cellphone reception and we have driven into Circleville to eat lunch and see the sights. We met the County Attorney and the County Sheriff in the restaurant. The Attorney was wearing a gun on his hip and the Sheriff wasn't. Figure that one out. This area is a big ATV destination and I rode on a gravel road this morning that connected some of their trails. It has been frigging cold here since about 11. Cloudy, rainy and windy. Low 50s. The Butch Cassidy deal was a little out of town. We move tomorrow to a well regarded commercial campground near Kanab.

Otter Creek SP Utah

We are halfway between Circleville and Antimony. Good luck finding those places. Our campsite is a few feet from Otter Creek Reservoir. By a few feet I'm not exaggerating, if the lake was 6" deeper we would be in the water. The Aggie Group split up after breakfast in Moab. They are in Albuquerque tonight. We are here for 2 nights. The get together was really fun. We were busy but still had time to gab. Already thinking about next year.

Red Cliffs day 4

Today's event was a raft trip on the Colorado River. We were transported up river a few miles above the Lodge. Our first stop on the trip was here, where we had lunch. There was a class 3 right after we left our lunch break that got all of us pretty wet. It was mostly a fairly docile float but we had a knowledgeable and enthusiastic guide who kept us entertained. This is our last night here. Tomorrow we split up and we, continue our trip, and the Texans head home. We are scheduled to be in a Utah State Park tomorrow that is about 200 miles away. 

Red Cliffs day 3

Today was Canyonlands. It's nearly an hours drive away. We hit some of the view points, did a few hikes and took a lot of pictures. There is no timed entry program into Canyonlands but the crowds seemed manageable. We had the Lodge make up some box lunches for us so we had a picnic. John caught that image of a Raven flying through the frame yesterday at Delicate Arch. A one in a million shot. We have a raft trip scheduled tomorrow.