A Little Bit of Germany!

Today we left the desolation of Ft. Stockton about 11am and continued to head south on I-10. Unfortunately the desolation continued for another 100 miles, which was cruel since we were looking for a place to eat breakfast. There were absolutely no cities along the Interstate until we got to Ozona - an appropriately named little town. But by the time we rolled in the breakfast window had disappeared and it was time for lunch (thank god for Cheetos!). We saw a couple of local restaurants but parking a rig as big as ours was not to be. We finally found a Subway and parking on the street behind it.

Of course leaving the dogs in the car with 104° temperatures is strictly verboten, so we now fire up the generator in the trailer, turn on the air-conditioner in the bedroom to full blast, leave the dogs to lounge on our bed, and then close the doors.

Apparently Subway is THE restaurant in Ozona. When we entered, there was just a short line of folks waiting to order and as a result we had our roast beef sandwich in almost no time, but then the masses started to appear out of nowhere just after we sat down. By my travel-experienced eye, these were mostly tourists who were also drawn to the first place to grab a familiar meal within 100 miles.

We continued southbound on I-10 and the scenery was definitely changing from scrub bushes to real trees and the flatness was being replaced by rolling hills, Texas hill country couldn't be too far away.

After continuously staying on Interstates since we left Oceanside, we finally headed on a two-lane highway eastbound toward Fredericksburg. Houses were become more and more prevalent, and they did have a definite European flair. Closer to town, the street names became 100% German, ending in "Strasse" instead of the English "Street".

We had to drive through downtown Fredericksburg to get to our RV site. Tons of tourist cars were mixed with "cowboy Cadillacs" (pick-up trucks) which stuck out into the road, and as a result we had to take up a parts of two lanes just to navigate our way. But no one seemed to mind too much - heck we were just more tourists adding to the local economy!

The Fredericksburg RV Park is a nice park not too far from all the action. We pulled in, and for only the second time on our adventure we disconnected the trailer from the truck.

We took the truck to fill it up with diesel fuel just the third time on this trip, and again this was the lowest cost per gallon we've ever purchased, just $3.659, four cents cheaper that our previous record back in Tucson. Thank you Texas! A 50 gallon fuel tank is a blessing when driving, but can require two credit card swipes to fill up unless one stops at a truck stop, where we're just the little guy.

I was ready for a German meal and we found a restaurant called the Ratskeller. Their menu was loaded with familiar fare, yet there wasn't a German person anywhere on the premises, as the entire staff was Hispanic - they must have come from the extreme south of Germany...!

I ordered Jaeger Snitzel and Marianne had the sausage platter, both were very good, but don't hold a candle to my Mom's cooking! A hefeweizen bier made everything go down better, and a piece of the German all-time favorite (not!) key lime pie topped off the meal.

It was still very warm after we left the restaurant at dusk and walked a couple of the downtown blocks window shopping. We also discovered the Chester Nimitz birthplace and a museum, as well as the National Museum of the Pacific War - who'd a thunk? These are places I'll visit while Marianne shops. . .

Back at the trailer we appreciated the air-conditioning, loaded up on liquids, walked the dogs and finally passed out into our bed.

High temperature today: 104°

Miles traveled: 270

Fredericksburg by Marianne
click collage to enlarge

We hit a milestone today…our 2012 Ford F-250 truck, AKA Brutus, turned 10,000 miles almost exactly on the border of New Mexico and Texas. The truck has been performing flawlessly; I set the cruise control slightly below 60mph and whether we're going uphill or downhill we motor at a continuous speed. An interesting note, the speed limit here in West Texas is 80mph, and I swear some of the big 18-wheelers are flying down the Interstate 10 at that speed.

Just outside of Van Horn, Texas we entered the Central Time Zone, the time zone where we hope to be spending the next few weeks. I say this not to brag but to complain. You see, every time we enter a new time zone we have to go through the hoops of changing all of our clocks. It starts with the clock radio in the truck, then the GPS in the truck, Marianne and my wristwatches, then inside the trailer: two laptops, one iPad, five wall clocks, the satellite receiver and finally the audio receiver. Fortunately the cell phones take care of themselves. By the time I get that done we're almost in another time zone!

Have you ever driven in the boonies along the highway and seen a "trailer court" and wonder how in the hell people could stay there? Well, The Fort Stockton RV Park is one of these establishments. We pulled in, checked into the office and were greeted by a lady direct from central casting. But then we got a pull-through site for only $28.80. It was gravel and not 100% level, a;though a couple of leveling blocks fixed that, and since it was on the edge of the "park" we were only a quarter mile from the Interstate,  we'd be the closest to the road noise. No fear, the drone of two air-conditioners drowned out any other sounds. We're in Texas. Things are different here. It's in the air.

We were later to find out that this place was a defrocked KOA. We had wondered about the address on Koa St., but I didn't notice the familiar KOA A-frame office and the giant faded "KOA" sign on it's roof. Makes you wonder….

I woke up and walked the dogs and it was 78° and very comfortable. But by the time the afternoon arrives, the temperature should climb by 25°.

Usually I try to publish this blog early in the morning, but the promised WiFi here is non-existent. And the on-site café is also closed. Oh for two in the amenities department.
Today we're headed for Fredericksburg, a German community in the Hill Country. It's supposed to be an interesting tourist trap. . .and we hope to stay there at least a couple of days before heading to Austin.

It's been cooler. . .only getting up to 103°.
Miles driven today: 286

Las Cruces, New Mexico

Before I go any further you should know this: we are not the fastest people in the world when it's time to get ourselves together to prepare for the day. We get up at 6:00am +/- one hour. I have the morning duty of walking and feeding the dogs, then I make my first cup of coffee (I love having our Keuring machine along!), and then I get on the computer checking my mail, Facebook, and financial stuff. And now I'm writing this blog in the morning hours.

With all of this in mind, we didn't leave Tucson until 11:30am headed toward New Mexico. It's not a very interesting trip on I-10, quite boring as a matter of fact. Add that to 108° heat and you begin to think you're at the gates of hell!

It was too hot to stop and make lunch on the road so we had our first McDonald's stop on this trip in Lordsburg, NM.

We continued on to Las Cruces, NM and are currently staying at the Hacienda RV and Rally Resort. A nice, modern, and clean site with a pull-through site so we don't have to disconnect the truck from the fifth wheel for the night. We just parked, plugged into the power grid, opened the slides and turned on both air-conditioners to full blast. In this heat it took a while to cool the living space, but we love having two air-conditioners, since one would not have cut it.

We fired up the satellite and antenna and watching the news one of the main stories is the heat wave in the Southwest, supposedly the "once in a century" heat wave. Great! What luck!

This morning we woke up to an overcast sky, a definite relief. Oh, and we probably won't get started until 11am today either (but cut us a little slack, we're now in the Mountain Time Zone, so we lost an hour!).


Maximum temperature: 108°
Miles traveled: 277

Las Cruces Hacienda RV Resort

click image to enlarge

Day 4 - Still Tucson

We wanted to stay in Tucson for at least one full day to experience the city. So after a lazy morning we finally got ourselves together to drive into downtown and explore. Our first stop was the Tucson visitor center. Since Marianne volunteer's for the California Welcome Center in Oceanside, she said these are great places to get the information you need about an area.

When we arrived at the visitor center we were the only people there so we received the full attention of the lady behind the counter. We were interested in Old Tucson, the colorful houses, points of interest and a place to eat lunch. Within minutes of our arrival the center was crowded with a dozen tourists and our individual attention was severely diminished.

But for lunch she recommended a Tucson favorite staple, El Charro which was not too far away. And since it was close to lunch time, we made a beeline for the place. El Charro claims to be the oldest Mexican restaurant in America in continuous operation by the same family, since the 1922. Their original chef, Tia Monica Flin, is well-known as “The Inventor of The Chimichanga.” While frying her now famous El Charro ground beef tacos, she accidentally dropped a burro into the frying pan and when the oil splashed up she was about to lash out a common Spanish cuss word starting with “Ch” but because she was among her young nieces and nephews, changed it to “Chimichanga”, the equivalent of “thingamajig.” 

Yet with all that great history, I was sadly disappointed. Their margarita was excellent, but the carne asada burrito I ordered was so salty I had to send it back, and a few minutes later I received a different style carne asada burrito but it was also too salty. I could only muster a few bites before I gave up on it too. I had to have their flaun dessert just to clear my palate.

With a bad taste in my mouth, I decided we'd finally get the weight of just our 2012 Ford F-250 alone. We found a truck scale a few miles east of Tucson off I-10 were our weight was officially recorded as 8660 pounds. Armed with that information, and the weights I recorded of the truck and trailer together in Oceanside, I was able to compute all the necessary weights an RVer should know.

We came back to the trailer to avoid the 108° afternoon sun.

A couple of hours before sunset we headed out to the University of Arizona to an area called Sam Hughes were we would find some interesting adobe homes that our daughter, Nikki, discovered a year ago when she passed through here after moving from Charlotte to Newport Beach. The neighborhood is indeed very interesting.

But now we were headed to the 9000 foot Mt. Lemmon just north of Tucson where it would be 30° cooler and offer us phenomenal sunset vistas and view of the lighted city below. We weren't disappointed.

The pictures below show the colorful downtown area, Marianne with two dogs combined into one very long dog, and the views from Mt. Lemmon.

The news is still inundated with the heat wave coming toward Tucson from the West. They've increase the predicted high temperature this weekend to 113°. Maybe we can stay ahead of it as were headed toward Texas.

Miles traveled: 85.

High temperature: 108°

Click to enlarge

Day 3 - Tucson

Today was a very short driving day from Gila Bend to Tucson AZ, just 135 miles. We did stop for fuel and in the year we've owned our 2012 F-250, this was the least we've ever paid for a gallon of diesel fuel, just $3.69. Sweet.

We're currently in a gated RV resort, Rincon Country West RV Resort, and we're just one of a handful of RV's in their large lot, as their season is from October to May. In fact, their laundry is closed for lack of customers.

This is a pretty fancy resort, one enters through a security gate and then travels through a plethora of park model homes to get to the transient RV park. When we checked in, we received not only the usual paperwork but also a coffee cup and a Chapstick - a first for us!

We'll be spending a second night here, since we're going to explore Tucson today, hopefully signing up for a bus tour.

Watching local TV, we're inundated with reports on how hot it's going to be for the next few days, From 130° in Death Valley, 120° in Las Vegas down to a "cool" 112° in Tucson. The last time we traveled this route in 2010 it was also one of the hottest summers on record. We've checked the weather throughout our planned route and every place is plus or minus a few degrees of 100°. Yuk!

Once we checked in and set up, we entered Monte and only left it to walk the dogs. Coco is still recovering, playing the role of a sick dog to the hilt. Her demeanor changes to normal during feeding times when she still wolfs down her food, and when we go on walks when she's the explorer extraordinaire! Marianne and I had both AC's blasting, caught up on email, photos, and TV watching - pretty boring, but it's vacation down time!

Click to enlarge

We made it to Arizona

We finally got on the road at 9:30am, only ½ hour after I had hoped for. But we immediately had to turn around and head home because I realized I had forgotten my sunglasses. That disaster averted, we headed for a public scale to see what our rig weighed and discovered the truck and trailer have a combined weight of 21500 lbs! That's with almost 50 gallons of diesel fuel and a full tank of fresh water. With that information we headed on the road.

Then 10 miles down the road Marianne realized that she had somehow lost her information notebook where she writes down everything (and I mean EVERYTHING), a frantic search throughout the cab turned up nothing. Marianne wasn't a happy camper - oh, oh.....not a good was to start a journey. Nevertheless we continued on our journey. (Even a thorough search of the truck and RV turned up nothing - yikes!)

Just before Yuma and the Arizona border,we stopped at a rest area and stepped outside into the 101° heat. HELLO and welcome to the desert! We fired up the generator, turned on both air-conditioners, walked both dogs, and then had lunch. I also tried to get my tire pressure monitors working again (they worked fine for Zion trip) but I failed. I called the company office Florida office and spoke to Chuck for 40 minutes and he tried to get me to do a myriad of fixes none of which worked, which totally stumped him. But TireMinder is a great company so they're sending me a complete new unit to Austin, which will be our first stop where we know a mailing address we can use.

We continued on our way and made it all the way the Gila Bend, AZ where we decided to spend our first night, arriving about 5:00pm local time (same as California time - Arizona, although in the Mountain time zone doesn't "celebrate" daylight savings time). We pulled into Augie's Quail Trail RV Park, which we found through our Woodall's directory. It was 103° when I stepped out of the truck, but as they say in Arizona, "It's a dry heat. . ."

The lovely girl at the counter informed me that this area was under a heat advisory. Wow, I thought, when in the summer isn't this area under a heat advisory? We got a nice large flat pull-through space close to the entrance of the park for only $27 with our Good Sam Club discount, which may be the best deal we get all trip.

We pulled into our spot,didn't bother on unhitching, but did put down the stablizers, and hooked up to the 50 amp electrical circuit and stood by as the interior temperature started to decline after we turned on both air-conditioners. I fired up the satellite dish and we caught up on the day's news - just a rehash of non-worthy items. Marianne grilled cheeseburgers with sweet potato fries, she was so glad that she could do this on our stove instead of on our outdoor grill on our old Outback trailer. Obie had a design flaw - the stove exhaust fan did not vent outside, but rather right back into one's face and living area, making the Obie really stinky if one cooked inside. What were the engineers/designers thinking? The Monte is got it right - and no stink.

We noticed that our dog Coco was acting a bit strange and continually scratching under his chin. Upon closer inspection we discovered a 3" red raw area caused by a too close of shave when he had gone for his grooming on Saturday - thanks Jacki at Grooming with TLC - I guess I didn't know that TLC meant Too Livid Close. Marianne put antibiotic with anesthetic on the infected area, and we had to continually had to reprimand Coco not to scratch the infected area. Marianne was such a trooper that she slept with Coco all night to prevent her from scratching. It's gotten better today.

After dinner at dusk when the temperature became more bearable, I went outside, turned on the outside TV, smoked a cigar and had a refreshing libation. Ahhh, this is camping the way I like it.

I was in bed by 10pm, totally pooped.

Total miles driven today: 323
Maximum temperature: 105°

Click to enlarge

Getting Ready to Head 'em on Out

It's 5:30am on the morning of June 24, 2013 and Monte, our new 2013 Montana High Country 343RL, fifth wheel is almost all packed up for our first big trip together. Oh sure, we've had a couple of mini-trips, the first one was a 500 jaunt bringing it home to Oceanside from the RV dealer in Sacramento. Some folks think that might be a little far (1000 mile round trip) to pick up an RV, but I'll just about drive 1000 miles anywhere to save $10,000. Even if it means spending a night in a motel (which we hate) and spending another night in our new RV with a limited number of creature comforts, like the correct sized sheets (how did the twin sheets get mixed up with the queen sheets), toilet paper (just forgot), or even coffee. I guess we were too excited about picking up Monte (the fifth wheel's name in case you haven't guessed by now).

We also did a shakedown cruise to Zion National Park in the beginning of May. It worked fine.

We have almost all our doo-dads along, including bikes strapped to the back, tire pressure monitors, and even a device that will let us know if our big Monte (13' tall) will fit under certain overhangs or tree limbs. But now Monte is totally decked out with an automatic Winegard DirecTV satellite dish, a solar panel system, a MorRyde hitch box (the kind!), an Onan 6500watt propane powered generator, a second air-conditioner, all lights converted to LED's, remote controlled LED puck lights throughout, a Keurig coffee maker, a Progressive surge protector and electricity monitor, a Blue Ox bed saver, 4 - 6v golf car batteries (more power than one measly 12v battery), a deluxe shower head, and even more. We hope to be on the road toward Arizona by 9am taking the interstate system, or freeways as they're called out her in California. But first we're adding the last minute items and then well head on over to the truck scales to see how much all of this stuff actually weighs (I'm keeping my fingers crossed were all within our allowable limits).

Our Monte sure dwarfs our previous Obie (the Outback)
Click to enlarge