This will be short and not so sweet. Why can’t campgrounds provide reliable wifi for their campers? Wifi will be very limited. Tomorrow night I will be staying in a state park in Indiana so no wifi at all You may not hear from me again until I’m home. So no worries, things are going well. Got away at 8:30 and landed in the campground at 3:30 but with a few stops in between. When it’s a long day I like to stop every couple of hours, let Malika out and use the restroom of wherever I happen to be. Or get gas as the need arises. The Welcome Centre for Missouri beckoned me in to use the restroom and then the information lady was waving and saying Hi so I went and had some laughs ... read more

Ok here’s something I forgot about 3 days ago. When I was coming across one of those big mountains on my way to Carlsbad, I kept thinking something’s different. Then I realized that I wasn’t on a desert mountain like the others I had been across. This was a mountain with tall deep green pine trees marching up the slopes. And they were all pines, no spruce or deciduous and it was cool and refreshing like being in northern Ontario. It put me in mind of the Black Forest in Germany where all the evergreens are of such a dark green that they almost look black. I left KOA Carlsbad at 8 a.m. this morning driving past acres of pistachio orchards. Unfortunately it’s too early for them to be flowering because they are stunning pink in ... read more

Despite mentioning that I bumped up an hour crossing the New Mexico border, I forgot to change my Fitbit and the microwave clock - which are the two things I look at for time. So I left an hour later this morning than I planned. However the day went well & we arrived at 3:30 in Carlsbad KOA where we are staying for two nights. Overall the drive today was tedious and boring. “I’ve been through the desert on a horse with no name. It felt good to get out of the rain”. Desert, desert and more desert. And this desert is mostly flat without anything interesting like Saguaro cactus or spring flowers. I crossed a mountain this morning without any issues and came back out on, guess what, the desert. The weather this morning reported ... read more

It will be a more relaxed day today. We didn’t leave until close to noon to go to the train station in Clarkdale - about 40 minutes away. There I climbed aboard a luxuriously comfortable vintage passenger car. There was a good sized, good quality charcuterie box at each seat and they gave us a small cup of champagne to toast the trip. The track follows a historic trail along the river’s edge lined with towering red rock pinnacles, nearly 600 year old ancient Sinagua Indian ruins and over and though bridges and tunnels. The train moves quite slowly but steadily uphill. On the right side of the train it drops down to the Verde River which is flush with cottonwood, juniper and sycamore trees. The left side is the mountain slope with rock, prickly pear ... read more

First thing it’s traditional coffee and doughnuts in the camp pavilion. Every Saturday morning the camp provides coffee and doughnuts for all the campers. It’s an opportunity for people to talk to others and find out where everyone comes from. I sat with a couple from Calgary who travel south regularly. It’s not really that far from Alberta to hop over the border and in a short time be in warmer weather - except for this year when it is much colder than normal. Then it’s off to Jerome. Jerome is at an altitude of over 5,000 feet and the road leading there is steep, narrow with switchbacks and hairpin turns. It gets a little frightening near the top because there’s only a small guardrail to keep you from making a quick trip to the bottom. ... read more