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 2004 ARCHIVES On Friday, May 17, 2002, we relocated the Bartlett’s Peak Communications home office—in fact, the whole Bruce/Bartlett home—into a 39' fifth-wheel travel trailer, pulled behind a new medium-duty truck customized for full-time living on the road. These archives cover the entire adventure, starting with the weeks before we hit the road. The old archives will eventually be moved into the new Blogger travelblog, but in the meantime, they are presented here for your pleasure. (To read about our more recent travels, click on the View from the Peak button at left.) |
 2003
2002
April 10, Canyon Country, California
Easter Sunday was only a day after Bro's birthday, so the day become a double celebration.
Jay and Sherryl watching the kids play on the lawn outside the clubhouse. Too bad the pool was closed for repairs...but the clubhouse was roomy and air-conditioned, with a fully equipped kitchen, cable TV and a pool room--quite the place for a party!
Undoubtedly, brother Jay will love this particular shot of him playing Red Light-Green Light with the kids on Easter Sunday. He and his wife Sherryl played host to 18 for the day at the clubhouse near their home. Her family was there in full attendance, and we Bartlett's were well represented, too, since sister Susan flew in from KC for a week. And just look at the cake he had! Aside
from the gold ribbons and the candles, EVERYTHING on this beauty is edible--the fruit was
sugared, the flowers are frosting, and the shells and banner are all white chocolate.
We're still waiting in Valencia for repair to our rig. Hopefully, we'll be repaired and ready to move by the 18th so we can get to the Spring Escapade in Lancaster... April 3, Valencia, California Our first serious mechanical difficulty! We left Indio early on Saturday (early for us anyway), just before 10:30am. Since we were only 120 miles from LA, we figured we'd be in Valencia and all set up by 1pm. One very time-consuming fuel stop at a station where diesel was still under $2/gal (and trucks and RVs were lined up for a quarter mile) set us back a bit, but we were still making pretty good time. At about 1pm, we were rolling along I-5 north at about 60 mph when I spotted smoke coming from the passenger side tires on the trailer. We took the first exit. Turns out that a hanger that attaches the suspension to the trailer frame failed--the steel tore and bent, leaving the tires rubbing up against the underside of the trailer, which caused the smoke.
We spent a lot of time trying to find help or a safe place to drop the trailer on a Saturday afternoon. Trust me, being in a metro area doesn't make it any easier than being out in the sticks--just less lonely. Finally, out of options, we limped into the RV park where we had reservations in Valencia, traveling the last few miles with hazard lights blinking, at 15 mph on an LA freeway on a late Saturday afternoon, hugging the shoulder as much as we could, climbing the hill and watching the transmission gauge rise because we were going so slowly under a load (good thing it was serviced in Phoenix just a week ago!). About every tenth driver that passed us leaned on the horn as if THAT would make us go faster! I believe that was the longest 20 minutes of my life. At 5:30 pm, we pulled into the park, safe and sound. Harry at Newmar Customer Service and I have spent the week since then getting quite chummy! April 1, Joshua Tree National Park, California
It was overcast on our one-day visit to Joshua Tree National Park, but we enjoyed ourselves immensely anyway. This is one for our list of "places to go back to again."
This, we surmise after reading the literature about the park, is a patch of climbing milkweed vine. In the spring rains, it uses low-lying bushes and cactus as a support for its fast growth. When it finds conditions to its liking, it looks just like a blanket of green thrown over the landscape.
The ocotillo is one of my personal favorites. It was wonderful being there when all the cactus and wildflowers were blooming...
On leaving Joshua Tree NP, headed through the Palm Springs area, we came across this forest of windmills! We later learned that the mountains around this valley funnel the wind into a unique pattern called the Venturi Effect, and more than 4000 windmills are set up to harness the power for Palm Springs and surrounds. March 31, Payson, Arizona The desert is blooming...it's springtime! We've had a great time in the Phoenix area. It has all the things we love about this lifestyle--friendly people, beautiful country to visit, mild temperatures...and a wide variety of great restaurants. Never underestimate the attraction of good eats! One of our favorites in the Chicago area, Todai Japanese Buffet, also has a franchise here. And a couple weeks ago, Scottsdale hosted the annual Chicago Festival--complete with Windy City style hot dogs and Italian beef.
We've been staying in the East Valley--the FAR East Valley--out past Apache Junction in a tiny town called Gold Canyon, within sight of Superstition Mountain. One of our favorite drives is to head further east along Highway 60 to the Miami/Globe area. We've traveled that way almost every weekend to enjoy the mountains, the saguaros, and the rock formations along the way, and the Intertribal Pow-Wow and Regional Rodeo on arrival. Even the huge open pit copper mining operation has its own beauty when you see the lights twinkling on the mountainside at night. Last weekend, after being told by a fellow RVer "It's better than Hiway 60," we took AZ 87 northeast to Saguaro Lake and Payson. In our opinion, not better--but very, very good! If only the fuel prices didn't make us feel guilty for enjoying long drives--we paid $1.99/gal for diesel last week! Now the end of the month is approaching and we're on to our next destination. For the next several months, we'll be traveling north on the Pacific coast, visiting family and friends along the way. March 30, Gold Canyon, Arizona
A view from Lost Dutchman State Park, only about 15 minutes north of our RV park in Gold Canyon.
Canyon Lake, northeast of Apache Junction, is a jewel in the desert.
If you get to Tortilla Flat along AZ 88 northeast of Phoenix on a weekday between noon and four, you'll find these ol' boys entertaining.
These little guys weren't the most expensive art we saw in the Scottsdale gallery district, but they were among the most amusing.
In Chicago, it was cows...in South Padre Island, it was porpoises. In Scottsdale, they painted horses.
If the fellow on the bull looks a little young, he is. He's riding in the 9-12 year old category! February 28, Tucson, Arizona Saguaro National Park is a must-see. We took off one afternoon and drove about 10 miles to the eastern half of the park, just an hour before sunset. The light was brilliant, turning the hillsides gold and red and creating a palette of blues in the clouds to the east. We were so taken, we drove through twice. A few days later, after wasting several hours at the tourist trap they call Old Tucson Studios, we drove north into Tucson Mountain State Park and from there into the western side of Saguaro.
The west side of the park is more primitive and parts of the area seem to have survived a prairie fire or two, leaving many of the saguaros just tall, dry, reedy skeletons. We happily bounced the B.A.T. over the washboard gravel road through the desert valleys. The day was cloudier, but the cactus and mountainsides were just as breathtaking. February 25, San Xavier del Bac Mission, Tucson, Arizona
Ash Wednesday--our usual pattern of sightseeing at the end of the day yields some gorgeous sunset scenery. The mission gate is actually whitewashed (San Xavier is known as the White Dove of the Desert), but the Arizona sun played Midas for us.
The inside of the mission is elaborately decorated, with hundreds of wooden carvings adorning the altar, and painted embellishments on almost every square inch of the walls. February 14, City of Rocks State Park, New Mexico
We spent Valentine Day in the rocks. Volcanic eruptions a few million years ago formed the stones, then the desert winds uncovered them. Tucked back inside the "city" are some beautiful primitive campsites that we've vowed to visit again! February 8, Carlsbad, New Mexico These caves are cool! Ambient temperature--about 55 degrees, just what it was outside the day we visited! While we only had the time, youth and stamina to visit the Big Room, the Carlsbad Caverns are a lot bigger than what we saw. The mapped portion of the Upper Caverns, where the Big Room is located, is over 100 miles long. About 30 miles of the Lower Caverns have been mapped. But the unmapped sections may be several times larger than what are already known. Exploration is ongoing. The visit took our breath away in more ways than one--some of the path required steep climbing and we didn't have much time for lollygagging, since we arrived just in time for the last elevator ride down (750 feet!) and had to catch the last one up in just an hour. Next time, we'll take our time.
February 7, Brantley Lake State Park, Carlsbad, New Mexico
We found a beautiful spot to spend the night--in this photo, you can just see a corner of the lake at the far left, but we could overlook it all from our picnic table. February 6, Roswell, New Mexico Cory mixes with one of the "locals" in Roswell. We did all the tourist stuff, including a tour of the International UFO Museum. February 2, El Paso, Texas
Now, maybe it was just our imaginations working overtime, but that cloud formation in the sunset over the Hueco Tanks sure looked like the state of Texas to US! February 1, El Paso, Texas
The wind at the top of the Scenic Drive north of El Paso was blowing at about 50 mph the evening we arrived, but it didn't stop us from enjoying the view. January 20, Luckenbach, Texas We stumbled into town on a lark. We're staying in Fredericksburg, only 10 or 15 miles away. The sun was shining and the temperatures were warm this afternoon, so we decided on a little exploring. First, we took a quick jaunt to Old Tunnel Wildlife Refuge. It's an abandoned train tunnel carved out of the native sandstone sometime in the late 1800s.
Millions of Mexican fly-tailed bats moved in when the trains moved out, and tourists gather every evening at dusk to watch them take flight. That is, they gather from March to October. In January, no bats--they've gone back to Mexico for the winter. But it was a pretty drive, and we did see a couple peahens, a half-dozen goats that had escaped their pen and were grazing next to the road, and about a dozen deer in various stages of crossing the road right in front of us. Not bad for a twenty-mile drive. We had seen the turnoff to Luckenbach on our way into Fredericksburg yesterday, so we knew it was just a few miles away. Well, "Waylon and Willie and the boys" went there, so "Let's go." A few miles down 1376, we sailed past the first end of the Luckenbach Town Loop, but now on the alert, we caught the other end less than a hundred yards further down. It was dusk as we turned down the short, narrow roadway--at first I thought we'd made a wrong turn and were headed down a driveway, then we saw half a dozen pickups and a couple Harleys parked outside an unpainted warehouse-looking building bearing the sign, "U.S. Post Office, Luckenbach." A single string of small white lights all around it came alive just as we parked. We opened the front door of the post office, but saw no sign of activity. But as we stepped back out on the front porch and looked around, we spotted the yellow light outline of a doorway at the back of the building. So we walked around, opened the door, and stepped into another world. The single room, no more than 20 feet on each side, was filled to capacity. Along two walls was a bar lined with standing patrons, and behind it, a quiet man in a white hat was running to keep up with the beer orders. In the center of the room, a woodburning stove was putting out just enough heat to earn itself a small margin of floorspace. The only chairs in the room were occupied by three fellows with guitars (one of whom had his feet up on the fourth chair). Beers on the tables beside them, they were alternately chatting, singing, and strumming, sometimes in pairs, apparently to each other. It was happy hour, so our two bottled beers were just $3. The bartender was no slouch, but before he could put the pair of longnecks in our hands, we'd been welcomed and engaged in conversation by the people standing nearest us. For the next two hours, we talked, nursed our beers, and listened to some of the most enjoyable music we've heard yet in our travels. Rarely have we been made to feel so welcome, so quickly. We left reluctantly--the boys in the corner seemed to be just getting warmed up. But we'll be back. January 14, Bastrop, Texas
So we're exploring, discovering that the Texas State Park system is full of gems, most of which are convenient to large urban areas so we can enjoy the best of all worlds. Right now, we're in Bastrop State Park, about a half-hour east of Austin, where our site offers quiet privacy with a forest view, as well as mild weather (highs in the 60s and low 70s). We've seen more than a few whitetails during our local tours; at McKinney Falls State Park, they were almost fearless, posing politely for photos only 30 or 35 feet away from us. This time of year in the Hill Country, the rusty-green cedars offer a delicious backdrop to the live oaks with their mostly barren, almost sculpted craggy limbs and trunks. |
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 2003
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