Some of you know I lived in Arizona as a toddler. (Were the stagecoaches running then? Ymmmmmmm?) I feel at peace in this climate and so does Tom. We stayed at The Voyager in Tuscon (friend Joannie's growing-up town.) While in Tuscon we toured the Airforce Museum. We saw an old version of Airforce One, Columbine, which served President Turman. Also, the Airforce One that returned the Hostages from Iran in the early 80's was on display. We saw a SR71 Blackbird with Leigh Vandenbergs' famous silver tire. (This is inside information that Tom's aircraft tire buddies will appreciate.) We looked down the business end of an A10 (Dave Wagner will recognize this view.) And Karen prepared for her performance with the Blue Angels. (Ha!) We then moved further South to Benson, Arizona. To our surprise ... read more

We stopped in Colorado Springs to get some service work done on the motorcoach. While there, Tom found a new hobby...smoking! No, not that smoking. We found a portable smoker on the internet. It would take too long to have it shipped so we found a very helpful owner of a local store who drove to Denver, picked it up and sold it to us. Day 1 we smoked salmon. Tom took the ipad outside and read the Wall Street Journal while the smoker smoked! Well, we threw most of the salmon out but Princess insisted on tasting it too. She had the burpees all night after drinking gallons of water to wash down the "salt cured fish." Day 2 was football-Sunday. So I could blame my poor football picks on preoccupation with smoking ribs. But ... read more

Our original plan was to go into Canada. After second and third thoughts we decided to help the economy in the U.S. We headed SW into Cody, Wyoming. There are no membership parks here. Close to Yellowstone National Park, we try to blend in with tourists. Many of them are speaking another language, which tells you how much this country has to offer. The Buffalo Bill Cody Museum sells 2-day tickets as it takes that long to go through it. Tom kept wishing our friends Sandy and Bruce could have been with us as I had no appreciation of the mega gun collection on display....one whole wing of the museum Bruce! We also spent one afternoon at Old Trail Town. This town had a saloon used by the "Hole in the Wall Gang." It also had ... read more

We didn't know much about our country's history in this part of the West . After a month of exploring we better understand the great western trails of Wyoming. Heading North from Cheyenne, we stopped in Casper. We camped at Fort Casper, named after Casper Collins who had been killed by Indians while defending the fort. Casper gets its name from Casper Collins, son of John Collins, the namesake of Fort Collins, Colorado....Ohio natives both. Fort Casper was flooding from the North Platte River but our site was dry. Tom is truly in love with the West and would have made a good rancher as he loves the vast, wide-open range with the Rockie Mountains in the backdrop. We spent Father's Day in the middle of God's country looking at the Oregon Ruts and Independence Rock. ... read more

This part of New Mexico is new for us. Camped outside of Albuquerque, surrounded by mountains, the internet and phone coverage was weak and unpredictable. Our friend Oland called to let us know where the pickleball games were in town. How nice to have friends on the road. But, the winds kept me away from the ballfield. In fact it was so windy that we left 2 of our slides in most of our two weeks in the area. We did the tourist thing in Albuquerque and also Sante Fe, which was less than an hour's drive North. You really get the flavor of the Southwest in these towns. Especially the old Catholic churches that are still in use today. Oh, that endangered lizard in Texas that is preventing oil drilling is alive and running all ... read more