As we mentioned before our adventure began, one goal was to “eat our way across the country.” (Well, not literally…..) However, here is a short recap of our gastronomic exploits: Lip-smacking BBQ in Tennessee; blackberry preserves from the Great Smoky Mountains; fine wine from the Biltmore Estate in North Carolina; splendid summer sweet corn and tomatoes in Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Indiana; local honey at the Indiana State Fair; homemade bread and butter pickles and apple butter from an Amish home in Missouri; more wine in Western Colorado; fresh dates, grapefruit and [View Full Entry]

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Merry Christmas to family and friends! We hope everyone has a happy, healthy and prosperous 2006. The Palm Springs area has been lovely with warm days and cool nights in the desert. Today will reach 82, hottest day we’ve had so far. We are listening to Christmas music and remembering good times with family and friends during past holidays. We even have a little Christmas tree on the bus. We do miss everyone! But, somehow, we’re managing to enjoy ourselves and our surroundings. On the recommendation of friends, we bought tickets to the Palm Springs Follies - WOW, wha [View Full Entry]

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We’ve been remiss in our correspondence. After leaving “Elvis” in Shiprock, NM, we traveled to Sedona, AZ for a few days, then onto Tucson to visit Alan’s dad. Our next stop was Silver City, NM, where we visited the local art galleries and took a side trip to Gila National Monument. We then headed across southern New Mexico, through El Paso and across vast West Texas back to Dallas where we had service done on Coco and ourselves (in the form of medical appointments). In November, we headed to Austin just in time to attend the last Univ. of TX home [View Full Entry]

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Driving into Mesa Verde National Park on 09/30, we saw evidence of the prior day’s hailstorm. It looked like snow on the sides of the road and on the hillsides, but most of it melted during the day. The first lookout point was over 8,000 feet in elevation and afforded a 360-degree view of snow-capped mountains to the north, the valley below to the west, and Shiprock, NM to the south. Mesa Verde is famous for the ruins of the cliff-dwelling Ancient Puebloans. There is evidence of their settlement as early as 500 A.D. to 1300 A.D., when their homes evolved [View Full Entry]

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On 09/28 we arrived in Monument Valley. After lunch, we returned to find a group of French tourists looking at our coaches. They asked a lot of questions, but were pretty nice about it. We also spoke with a couple from Germany who have a 26-year old German RV with 180,000 miles on it. They shipped the RV by boat to Halifax, Nova Scotia and drove all across Canada into the Yukon and down to the US and will end up in Tampa, where they’ll store their rig and fly back to Germany. We’ve met so many people who are RVing! [View Full Entry]

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After camping for two days near Grand Canyon’s North Rim, we headed northeast toward Lake Powell, which straddles Arizona and Utah. We stopped to view the Navajo Bridge which crosses Marble Canyon. The bridge was originally built in the early 1900s and is now for pedestrians only (too narrow for today’s traffic). During construction, workmen dangled from ropes to prepare the canyon walls. Because there was no other way across the Colorado River canyons, they had to drive a 700-mile round trip through Needles, CA to get supplies and equipment to the other side. The current brid [View Full Entry]

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We’ve been without internet access for almost 2 weeks, so we apologize for keeping you in the dark concerning our whereabouts. Anyway, we’ve been visiting national parks and monuments like crazy. After leaving Colorado, we headed into Moab, Utah, on 09/19 to visit Canyonlands and Arches National Parks. The beauty of the canyons and monuments are just amazing, with the effects of water and wind over millions of years. The pictures tell the story here. If you get the chance to visit these places, do it! Next, we headed down to just outside Zion National Park in southwest U [View Full Entry]

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Breckenridge cooled down before we left - lows were in the mid-30s one night and it snowed a little one afternoon. Jim and Chris drove out from Denver on 09/16 and we caravanned west to Grand Junction. The drive was quite spectacular on I-70 as we passed through Glenwood Canyon and Grand Mesa. We attended the Colorado Wine Festival in Palisade - lots of wineries and fruit orchards there. Tasted lots of different wines from many different local Colorado wineries and ate grilled Colorado lamb chops for lunch. We had a pot luck dinner with two of their other friends and [View Full Entry]

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This day we decided to take a hike, a real hike. The weather was clear, although a little cool, but it would warm up in the afternoon. We started with an easy walk around Sapphire Point, with views of Lake Dillon to the west and mountain views to the east. Alan laughed uncontrollably at my “hiking pants” and had to take a picture…..Hey, they were clean and I was comfortable, I really didn’t care how they looked! After our little ½ mile stroll around the Point, we drove up to Frisco for the real hike. We parked at the trailhead and [View Full Entry]

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Both got haircuts today - boy, there’s a leap of faith! Just never know what a new hair stylist will do. Good news, if you don’t like the haircut, just wait until it grows out and you can try it all over again! Eric, the hair stylist, told us he lived in Fairplay - also the home of South Park. So, after our haircuts, we thought we’d drive down there for lunch. We were going to go to South Park, which is the setting for the totally irreverent TV show “South Park” on Comedy Central - you know, Kyle, Cartman, Stan, [View Full Entry]

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