The long way home

I guess we've been on the way home since we left Alaska but today it really seems like it.  We are camped in Ft. Stockton, Texas - the same place we stayed our first night out on June 9th. Different RV park though - we've learned some things along the way - lol!

Nevada highways

Sunset in Beatty, Nevada with Venus in the sky.

We ended up not traveling "the loneliest road" - at least not the whole thing.  We looked at the map again and realized that the elevation changes would be a challenge (putting it mildly).  We found a chart on Google that showed the elevations changes (thank you Google! - again!) and there were about 5 and in a fairly short stretch of road. So we headed south after Carson City (nice place!) and drove southeast across Nevada.  My goodness, that is one barren stretch of road.  I think it's probably the "saddest" stretch of road we've seen.  Utah had some amazingly dry barren stretches where even the cows looked sad, but this was much worse.

Hoover Dam on the border between Nevada and Arizona

There is a reason that area is owned mostly be the government (Nellis Air Force Base aka "Area 51"). No one else wants it!

One of the remaining Burma Shave signs on the original
Route 66.

We stayed at a surprisingly pleasant little RV park in Beatty, Nevada. We saw a bunch of burros wandering in the area.  The owner of the campground told us they are wild.  They are descendants of the burros that were used "back in the day" when gold mining was big in the area.  Apparently, they breed like rabbits (his words!).  Many were abandoned there when the miners left and they've been there ever since.  We could hear their distinctive braying sound during the night. What we found disturbing all across Nevada are the current mining operations.  We saw huge tailing pits - giant scars on the desert.  Made us wonder how polluted the water was in the area.

Heading into Arizona we drove some of the original Route 66 (and got the t-shirt!!).  Highway 40 follows a lot of the original road but we actually drove some of the remaining original route.  From the condition of the road, Highway 40 hasn't had much upkeep since then!!  Some rough road going through the area.  We got a tip from the lady that ran the Seligman KOA about a great restaurant in Winslow, Arizona (remember the Eagles song?? - "Standing on the corner in Winslow, Arizona, such a fine sight to see, . . .") called La Posada so we stopped there for lunch.  It's the "last great railroad hotel" built in 1929 and is on the National Register of Historic Places. We had an amazing lunch in the Turquoise Room.

The Tepees in the Painted Desert

We added another National Park to our list, the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert in Arizona. So beautiful. One of our favorite stops on the drive through the park were the "Tepees".  These cone shaped hills are blue and purple and grey because of the minerals (iron, copper, manganese) in the ground.  The petrified trees are 225 million years old, older than the big dinosaurs.  There was creature called a phytosour that lived back then - looked like a giant alligator.  Amazing stuff!

A petrified tree - beautiful!

They call this one "old faithful" - one of the biggest of the
remaining petrified trees -part of the "Rainbow Forest"

Our journey from Arizona into New Mexico was a lot different than we expected.  We took back roads and threaded our way through the Apache and Gila National Forests.  During this part of the trek we managed to summit 8,550 ft - the highest elevation on our trip.  Beautiful forests with little communities scattered along the route.  Always makes us wonder what people do for a living in these places.  We decided to hang our hats at the Las Cruces KOA for the evening and what an excellent choice.  Las Cruces has about 100,000 people and sits at about 4000 ft.  It's surrounded by low lying mountains and the view is fabulous.  I'd have to say that New Mexico was one of our favorite states in our 14 state journey.  The high desert is great because even though it gets hot, it's a dry heat (not kidding - it's awesome).  Makes a lot of difference from the humidity at home. But this morning when we got ready to go and Jeff disconnected the water hose, he noticed the filter was BLACK!  It was filled with some kind of sediment - looked like bits of coal.  So a beautiful place, just don't drink the water - lol!

It's Fido!!  One of the creatures that lived 225 million years ago.

Driving into Texas we passed through El Paso.  I'd always heard of this place as "the armpit of Texas" but I'd have to disagree.  It has the same beautiful mountains and open spaces that we saw in Las Cruces.  What was shocking is that we could actually see that FINE border fence our government has spent so much time and money on.  When you see it, you realize just how ridiculous the whole idea is - what a total waste of OUR money.  (Okay - I digress - I'll get off my political soap box.)  We stayed on I-10 the whole time but were surprised that we had to stop at a "Border Patrol" station in Sierra Blanco (which is in the U.S).  They had dogs with them (scared Mya to death, Jade wanted to pet them).  I figure they were letting the dogs sniff all the big rigs to see if they were carrying drugs or people.  Who knows??  But it was curious.  All we saw on the trucks where white and yellow onions - huge bags of them!

We told our housesitters we wouldn't be home until Friday so we are going to lollygag tomorrow - stop at Kerrville for one last night out before we head home.  I asked Jeff tonight how he felt about going home and he said he has mixed feelings, as do I.  On one hand this has been an amazing adventure; on the other hand it will be nice not moving every day.  He got a message on his cell phone today from Jade's school reminding us about "market day" - the prep day for middle schoolers - ACK!!!  Don't know if I'm ready for it but it will happen, ready or not!!