We are in Basque, NM this morning. The temp is 39 degrees. Have now been in NM for two days. Left Clovis yesterday morning with a vicious wind blowing most of the day. Made several stops along the way. The most interesting one was at a Spanish Mission at ABO, NM. By then the wind had died down, and we could actually get out and walk around. When we stopped for lunch and gas the wind was blowing so hard that the gas tanks were rocking back and forth. I am not complaining, mind you, especially after having seen the news about the storms in Oklahoma yesterday. They were in the area that Joyce and I had been through two days ago.

Joyce saw lots of flowers yesterday. We traveled Rt. 60 from Clovis to here. Stopped at the National Park Welcome center in Mountainair, NM and picked up a couple of wildflower books for Joyce. She had left a couple books at home that she needed.

Today we are bound for Pie Town. Looking forward to a pie.

Well, we made it to Pie Town, but on the way we stopped at Sevellita National Wildlife Refuge where they had this great walk around the grounds that had all the wildflowers named. Needless to say Joyce was in seventh heaven. Next we drove about 40 miles down I25 to Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge and went through the Cactus Garden. Lots of blooming cacti. A special treat was seeing a Western Tanager. We got several pictures that we will post at a later time.

Next we took Rt 60 west, fighting the wind. BTW: Did you know that RT 60 was the first Transcontinental Highway? Got to the place where we had thought to camp for the night, but was too early in the day so we kept on going. Stopped in Pie Town for Blueberry Pie. YUM YUM. Kept heading west to Springerville, AZ. Did not realize we had switched time zones again. We are now on PDT. We then turned south on Rt 191 through the White Mountains. Ended up here at Hannigan Meadows and are staying in the Lodge tonight. Too windy to set up the camper, and since we are at 9100 ft., oxygen is thin up here and we are not acclimated. Just walking around makes us dizzy and breathless. Temperature was 45 a little while ago.

May 8, 2010

We are now in Foss Lake State Park,OK about 60 miles from the Texas Border. Other than one idiot who passed me on the right side as I was moving over one lane, it was an uneventful trip. Stopped at the WalMart in El Reno and bought a few things that we needed. Joyce has seen lots of wildflowers today. I have seen lots of highway. We did have a special treat this evening as we drove around the park and the adjacent Nahitisha Wildlife Preserve. We saw several “Split-tailed Flycatchers”. They are the state bird of Oklahoma and quite pretty. Unable to use the internet tonight since my data plan is on roaming. Hopefully tomorrow I can post this to my blog.

Of interest is that Foss Lake has 60 miles of shoreline and a surface area of 8300 acres. The dam is 3 miles long and 124 ft. tall. When it was built in 1962 it was one of the largest earthen dams. There is also a small Bison herd here, which we have not seen, behind the Park Office.

Before statehood this area was an Indian reservation, but I am not sure of which tribe or tribes.

We are now at Twin Bridges State Park in Wyandotte, OK. Uneventful trip which is a good thing. Only one traffic slow down on I-44. This is a nice State Park and a nice campground. Joyce thinks we are getting better at setting up. At least a little quicker. As much practice as we are getting, we should be better. We will move on tomorrow to Foss, OK. There is a State Park Campground their. State Parks or National Park/National Forest campgrounds are our preferred thing. Not close to big towns or Interstate Highways. We will have to stop and re-supply tomorrow. Probably at a Wal-Mart. I checked our MPGs last night and we are getting almost 14MPG. Not bad considering we are hauling the camper at speeds of 60-65 MPH most of the time.

May 5, 2010
Left Carter Caves at 8:30. While getting around to go, we were able to identify a bird we had seen. It was a Summer Tanager. We had also seen Redheaded Woodpeckers. They are not the type we have at home, that everyone refers to as “Redheaded”.

It was a long day driving, but other than the wind, conditions were good, the road was good. The worst part is getting off the Interstate and to our Campground. As usual, I missed the turn (even using the GPS) and ended up across the river and then had to get back over the Mississippi. Still being ill-advised by the GPS we are in the same place we were the previous time we were here. Knowing that
if I went back onto the Interstate I would end up across the river I rerouted us using the least Freeways. Finally got here in East St. Louis around 5:30 CDT. Drove about 428 miles. Needless to say we were exhausted. Set up camp, went and took showers. Felt better after that. Went to the Casino and had dinner. After dinner we played the slots for a couple of hours. We each lost out allotted $5.00.
Really big gamblers aren't we? Back to the Camper and to bed. Had forgotten how noisy this campground is. Highway and Train noise.

May 6, 2010

We have to give a big thanks to Roger and Carol Ingerthol for suggesting that we go to the Missouri Botanical Gardens while here. Such a nice place. I think it has about 84 acres and we spent at least 5 hours walking around it and did not see it all. Joyce saw lots of flowers, many she had never seen before. I tease her that it is like shooting ducks in a barrel. We did see a rare Kentucky Lady-slipper. Very pretty. We will post a picture of it. Back to the campground to rest and get ready for another big night. Joyce will go play the slots, while I go to the hotel and use their Wi-Fi . You would think that next to such a big city, my Verizon Data Card would get a stronger signal than it does. At times I can get a fairly good signal, but other times it is worse than land-line dial-up.

Tomorrow we will move on. Going west on I-44 to Oklahoma. A little over 300 miles. Will probably keep moving fairly steadily until we get to Arizona. NO, I am not boycotting Arizona. Joyce would like to see the Saguaro Cactus there. After that we will head northwest into California.

We spent today here at Carter Caves State Park. We had been here twice before, but always left the next morning. I took a cave tour with one of the rangers. Met him at Cascade Caves. A neat cave.
Several rooms with interesting formations. While this cave did not compare to Luray or Carlsbad, I can honestly say that I enjoyed it more. There were streams running through it, different rooms and bats. There is also a waterfall in a separate section of the cave. At one time this was the water source for the Lodge that is here. The Ranger that I was with has been leading these tours for 20 years. He said sometimes during the season they have as many as 70 people on the tour. In my opinion this is the season, just me.

Joyce spent the day wildflowering. I helped her some. I usually go ahead on the trail and point out new ones to her. She refers to me as “flower dog”. She has had a successful two days finding flowers. Hopefully this will continue so she stays happy.

There has been a lot of flooding here. We could see evidence of it here in the Park. Streams had been over the roads coming into Park, and if we come Sunday, we would not have gotten to stay here.

The weather has been really nice today, high 70's.

Carter Caves State Park Resort

Had a decent day driving. Left home about 0830 and arrived here around 5 p.m. Traffic was light for the most part and conditions were good. We saw quite a bit of the flooding that had occurred in Ky. In one place we could see houses surrounded by water. Coming into the Park here we could see where the creek had been over the road and a huge boulder had come down onto the side of the road. Joyce got some pictures of the Rock.

We are set up here in the campground. Plenty of room. Nice sites. We went down to the lodge for dinner. Had a good dinner for a very reasonable price. My internet connection works well here. Using my Data Card from Verizon. It goes where I go. All for today. Am tired.

Tomorrow is the day.

We will be leaving tomorrow. It is an ambitious trip that we have planned. Will be tired when we get home.

Roughly, what we have planned is to go out to California. See a couple things on the way. Once there we want to see several of the National Parks. Kings Canyon, Sequoia, Yosemite and Redwood. We will travel up the coast along the Pacific Coast Highway, taking in the wonderful scenery, exploring the tide pools, visiting the numerous light houses along the way.

By June 9 we need to be at Port Hardy, BC to catch the Ferry to Prince Rupert. Then a couple days later, we will board the Alaska Marine Highway Ferries to Haines, AK with stops at Ketchikan, Wrangell and Juneau. Then back to driving again. Up the Alaska Highway to Tok and then on to Fairbanks and Denali. After that heading to the Kenai Peninsula to explore places we did not see the summer I worked in Alaska. Sometime after that we will head home. I will post pictures occasionally.