Tuesday dawned sunny but smoggy in El Paso. The local geography causes air pressure inversions that trap pollution from cars, trucks, trains, etc. along with emissions from local industries.
As we pointed ourselves northeast, we noticed a drastic improvement in Mike’s performance. We spent the day driving through west Texas, dominated by oil and gas fields. Sarah read that the Texas Department of Highway spreads 30,000 pounds (!) of wildflower seeds each year along the ditches. The Texas state flower, bluebonnet, is a regional species of spring-flowering lupin. There are a few different legends about how this blue-purple wildflower got to Texas. One 18th century story claims a Spanish nun appeared to indigenous people to teach them about Jesus. She was wearing a blue cloak over her brown habit and appeared several times to two different groups. On the morning after her last appearance, the fields were covered in a new flower the same color as the nun’s cloak. Even more miraculous is that the nun in this story never actually left her convent in Spain. It is said that she projected herself to North America through deep contemplation and prayer.
We spent the night in Seymour, Texas at the HH Creek Inn. We split a delicious 16 oz ribeye dinner at the Rusty Spur Saloon and thoroughly enjoyed watching the Breakaway Roping competition from the Lazy E Arena on the newly launched Cowgirl channel.
We bade farewell to sunny Yuma on Saturday and struck east for Deming, New Mexico. Crossing the Continental Divide at more than 4, 000 feet, Mike was struggling with the winds and the long, slow inclines. We made it into town at 7:57 pm local time; Si Senor (highly recommended to us by friends) closes at 8:00 pm, so we tried Cactus Cafe, instead. Delicious tacos, a homemade mushroom swiss burger and cold beer filled us up!
On Sunday morning, Mike just did not want to start. We were stuck until garages would open on Monday. There is not much to do in Deming, New Mexico. Joe made two trips to Walmart on foot and we settled in for an afternoon of Netflix and naps. PBJ for dinner!
No one in Deming could work on Mike, but the VanAlert app pointed us to Fox Land Auto in El Paso, Texas – 82 miles away. Gerry from AAA re-arranged his morning plans and safely towed us to Rico’s garage. Journey was a champ riding alone in the van being towed backwards for an hour and a half, while we sat in the tow truck cab with Gerry. it was about this time last year that Mike broke down on our way to Vegas. I think he’s trying to tell us he wants to stay in Yuma.
Rico conferred with our Vegas mechanic who rebuilt the engine last summer. After running some compression tests, we all agreed a leaky valve was probably the culprit. Rico also installed an electrical starter component, giving us more power and reliability.
We took an Uber to the Travelodge and checked in for the afternoon. Rico and his father had Mike fixed by the end of the day!
Rico, Sr. trained in Germany – worked on VWs for his whole career!
We celebrated with dinner at Carlos & Mickey’s Cantina. Sarah reacquainted herself with melon margaritas!
This winter we were kept busy with puppy training, in addition to our usual schedule of fun in the sun with our snowbird pals. Most days, we would head to the pool around lunchtime for a floating visit with friends. Stories were spun and jokes were shared and we all had a good time not shoveling snow.
Joe golfed on a few occasions and thought about joining the pickleball craze, but they start playing at 8:00 a.m. which is way too early to be bouncing around competitively!
Sarah quilted, joined a crafty card-making group, and painted a bit. We both read a lot of books and on colder evenings, watched Arizona PBS Check, Please and Finding Your Roots.
We flew back east for a long weekend visit with our grandchild to watch the Super Bowl. A quick road trip to Newport Beach for Joe to attend his Football Dinner gave Journey a chance to stick her paws in the Pacific Ocean.
We are grateful for another winter in the southwest desert. Thanks to all who came to visit us this season!
Adopting another dog, after Molly, was not a sure thing for us. In our marriage, we have been blessed with three extraordinary dogs, all adopted as adults/seniors. Shasta taught us the benefits of living with a retired service dog and Molly eventually completed training to work as Sarah’s service dog. When we started to look for a new dog, we were daunted by how the rescue/foster system has devolved into a money-making cottage industry. Folks are adopting the best-behaved dogs from the shelters and then re-packaging them as available for adoption for huge “re-homing” fees, rivaling the cost of purchasing a pure-bred puppy.
We continued our research and met several candidates in shelters in different states. None of them passed all of the tests we had set; a potential service dog must be calm and relaxed, responsive when approached, and accept boundaries and training readily. A dog that is clearly frustrated, reactive to people or other dogs, has issues with resource guarding, or is overly sensitive to touch cannot easily be trained to work as a service companion. Hip health is also important. It has been more than thirty years since Sarah last raised a puppy and Joe has only lived with adult dogs. Puppies are a big commitment and require a huge investment of time and patience. But as our search for an adult rescue dog with potential for service training continued with no definite results, we started to consider the benefits of puppy-raising.
This youngster was born in Indiana last June at Foxwood K-9. This extraordinary kennel is powered by solar and geothermal systems and the dogs are raised with love. She was ready to come home to us at the end of November. Because we were getting ready to leave Cape Cod for the winter, it was tricky to figure out the best way for our new pup to get to us. Delivery options were compromised by airline restrictions so we landed on the idea of picking her up directly from the kennel in Shipshewana.
We flew to Detroit on a Tuesday morning, picked up a one-way rental car, and drove to Indiana. We picked up puppy supplies and the puppy and headed out west. Thank goodness she adapted to car travel without incident! Mornings were spent bonding with Sarah in the front seat and the rest of the afternoon was spent sleeping in her crate. The three nights in hotels were relatively easy as she slept in her crate without complaint.
On our second day, we passed a sign that said we were 90 degrees west of Greenwich – one-quarter of the way around the world! An hour later we saw Mark Twain’s boyhood home before crossing the Mississippi River into Missouri. Chillicothe, MO is the Home of Sliced Bread and Sarah was stoked to stop at Missouri Star Quilts. After lunch, we passed by the birthplace of Jesse James. And in Kansas City, we met Boon and his human who works at Bar K Dog Park. We slept in Hays, KS.
Thursday’s adventures included meeting a flock of chickadees in a pre-dawn cold walk before loading up the car and heading into Colorado where we gained another hour due to entering Mountain Standard Time. The temperature was a bit warmer (56 F) as we cruised through Denver and headed up into the Rocky Mountains. When Journey woke up after lunch we were at ten thousand feet elevation in Vail and found Bighorn Park to introduce her to the snow. We stopped in Green River, UT (pop. 847) for the night – known for watermelons and its annual Melon Fest.
Friday morning was a bit tense as we got caught in a blizzard coming over the summit to Salina, UT. While Journey slept blissfully unaware, Joe did a great job navigating the un-plowed road and we made it to Mom’s Cafe for breakfast by mid-morning. We time-traveled to Mesquite Dog Park (Pacific Time Zone) before steering into the megalopolis called Vegas.
Massachusetts, New York, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Arizona
We saw a lot of sights and experienced a range of weather conditions (sun, rain, sleet, snow, winds, hail) on our journey cross-country. We returned the rental car in Las Vegas, picked up Mike (with his refurbished engine!) and after visiting our friends Friday night, we turned south to Yuma on Saturday morning.
We will be staying here in Arizona for the winter and plan to drive cross-country back home to Cape Cod in March. In these first weeks living together, we have set new routines, started training classes, and adapted to sharing our RV with our growing four-legged goofball. Her antics as she explores and learns about the world are keeping us smiling and we made more friends at the RV park in one week than the entire winter season last year. Everyone wants to pet the white, friendly puppy.
Joe proposed registering her as “Journey” because it was a journey to find her, we trekked cross-country on a literal road trip to pick her up, and we look forward to sharing many travel adventures together. She has the perfect name!
We day-tripped from Verona by train to visit Lake Garda, Italy’s largest lake. The weather was insanely gorgeous and the beaches were still full with sun-worshiping vacationers.
Peschiera del Garda is surrounded by defensive canals and wallsGatto del lagoSarah made friends wading with the ducks!Our first Italian gelato since 2013! Yum!Sculpture at random cafe!Captain JoeVenetian channel markersThe Ugly DucklingFirst Little Free Library we have seen in Europe!Lots of campgrounds were still full!
The day began early with a hearty pancake breakfast curbside to North America’s second largest parade. The Calgary Stampede Parade dates back to 1912 and that first parade was led by 1800 First Nations people in full regalia. This year boasted about 700 horses and over 4000 participants in its 130 entries. Joe marveled at the politeness of Canadians leaving space along the sidewalk for pedestrians, as opposed to jamming in as many chairs as possible for parade viewing! Canadians are so nice!
Our friend William Shatner was the Grand Marshal eschewing the traditional parade marshal horse in favour of a sweet baby blue Chevy Bel Air convertible! He gave us a big thumbs up when Joe hollered, “Denny Crane!”
At the opening ceremonies for the Calgary Stampede Rodeo, we were treated to both of our household’s anthems, in honour of so many Americans competing and supporting the Stampede on Independence Day. Other than hockey games, we don’t often get to sing both anthems back to back!
GEOQUIZ: Where and when is North America’s largest parade?
Do you know how to identify grizzly scat? We learned all about it at our park’s visitor centre…and then we started seeing it at the side of roads and trails! Two women came in to the visitor centre this morning to report a grizzly sighting (with photos!) and more than one campground had a “Bear in Area” sign posted. While we were excited to possibly see another bear on this trip, we all agreed that it would be best to be in the car when it happens!
Last night, Taylor proved her wilderness skills by winning the S’Mores Competition. She innovated a new chocolate to marshmallow ratio in addition to perfecting her chocolate pre-melt technique on the edge of the grill. Papa Gill didn’t stand a chance in this cook-off!
We took the scenic route to Calgary this morning and saw an abundance of Rocky Mountain Sheep!
The road crews have been busy this spring:
GEOQUIZ: Despite McLeod Meadows’ host’s invitation, we continued our search for grizzly bear by heading to a provincial park re-dedicated in the late 1980’s to honour a distant relative of Sarah’s. Which park did we stay at?
Our campground host invited us to spend a second night in his park because the government was re-launching the Evening Program tonight. “It was a great show in the old days with real good costumes, acting, and music. Not sure about tonight’s show – I haven’t seen it, yet. Could be amateur hour, but it’ll be fun and I hope to see you there!” He then awarded us each with a set of pins including one from his hometown in Saskatchewan and one of the provincial bird of Alberta.
Taylor had the best hammock spot on the edge of the river by our campsite. The opalescent blue-grey colour of the river water (known as glacial milk) is mesmerizing to watch as logs and rocks are tumbled downstream. The power of water is evident in the size of the uprooted trees and boulders that have been washed down from the mountains.
GEOQUIZ: Joe and Taylor hiked to a lake that Shasta would have loved. Name the lake.
Where in the world are the Gills? 