Day 33 Tuesday May 31, 2022 Our time here is up so we departed for a new adventure at 7:15AM. We will be making our way to meet a RV Caravan for a 50 day trip to Alaska. We drove across the Virginia border on I77 and stopped at a Love's Truck stop for fuel and some fuel for us as well. I pumped in 77 gallons and it was $440.00. Ouch!! Over 100% price increase in a year.
We drove to Baxter Tennessee and stopped at the Delmonaco Winery for an overnight Harvest Host stay. We went from Eastern Time Zone to Central Time Zone today. I think we will be in 5 more different time zones on this trip. This is a beautiful winery on a very beautiful setting. About 5PM we walked over and had a meal in the Bistro of Pulled Pork, etc. on Taco Chips, and some of their wine. Yummy. They have a gravel lot that will handle about 10 Rvs and there are 5 here tonight.
Day 34 Wednesday June 1, 2022 We ate breakfast and departed about 7:20AM and arrived in Red Bay Alabama about 12:30PM and checked into 1St Class Campground site 5. Red Bay is the home of Tiffin Motorhomes which is the manufacture of our motorhome. They have a service center with about 90 service bays and there are numerous private businesses in the area that work on different motorhome issues and there are several small campgrounds in town. The town is a small town about the size of Wallace NC.
After some lunch at Jack's we ran the Jeep through a car wash and then stopped at the Tiffin parts store to pick up a small part I needed. We had several power outages during the afternoon. It is 91 degrees here today.
Day 35 Thursday June 2, 2022 We took the motorhome to Bay Diesel to have the annual chassis service done. While they were doing that we drove a few miles to Sparks Restaurant for breakfast. We got the motorhome back about 10:30AM and returned to the campground. It is cooler today so we sat outside for a few hours.
A local repairman name Tim Goza came and replaced a broken latch on our bedroom window so now we can get it open.
Day 36 Friday June 3, 2022 We took the motorhome to Sabrina's to get it washed and waxed. Her and her crew of 6 worked on it for 4 hours and got it slick and shiney. To bad it will not stay that way as we travel.
We departed Red Bay at 12:15PM and drove about 120 miles to a Harvest Host outside Jackson Tennessee named Century Farm Winery. We had some trouble getting through Jackson. They had very poor road signs and I turned left one time before I was supposed to but luckily I was able to find a cross over in a couple of miles and get back on the correct road. Then the GPS told me to take a right exit to get on I40 when it actually it was a left exit. But a kind driver let me cross over and get in the correct lane. It appears the exits had been reworked since the maps in our GPS were created.
The gentleman at the winery told us to drive through the vineyard turn around and park right in the vineyard. There is one other Harvest Host guest RV here also. They are from Manassas Virginia. After we got a late lunch we walked around and took some photos and then did a small wine tasting. They grow some of the same Muscadine grapes here that we have at home and is grown all over Duplin County. The gentleman that was helping us had an accent. I like to figure the origin of accents so I commented to him about that and he asked me where did I think he was from originally. I told him I believe he was from Scotland and I was correct.
The farm has been in the family over 150 years is owned by the Spivey family, who migrated here from North Carolina. They have 400 acres of land and I believe he told us there are 11 separate vineyards on the farm.
It was nice setting outside of the motorhome enjoying the breeze and watching the birds as they played about the vines.
Day 37 Saturday June 4, 2022 It was 67 degrees this morning and the birds are singing a merry tune. We opened the windows last night and sleep like a log. We ate breakfast and departed at 7:30AM. Going around Memphis TN, again the GPS tried to send us on the wrong exit but we saw the signs in time to turn on the correct exit. Again more signs of recent road changes.
We exited I40 at exit 183 for lunch at Nicks BBQ and Catfish Restaurant. We saw the their billboard signs along I40 and the sign indicated they had parking for big rigs which is smart since about the only place that a trucker can stop normally for food is at a truck stop and many don't have really good restaurants. There were several 18 wheelers in the parking lot. I ordered the sliced port and Lena got the pulled pork. It and the sides were delicious and very generous portions.
We took half of it with us and will have it tomorrow when we get to our campground for the night. We also ordered two Fried Apple Pies to take with us. We ate them when we got to our stop for the night. I think they could have made 20 Fried Pies with just one apple. Not much apple was to be found in the pie.
The last two miles to our stop (Paw Paw's Pecans a Harvest Host) for the night was dusty gravel and dirt. I was not pleased that that was not mentioned in their Host profile and our trip planning APP didn't note it either. I would not have chosen this Harvet Hosts had I know about the road. We had just had the motorhome washed and polished in Red Bay and now the back of it is really dusty and the Jeep is wrapped up in dust. Oh Well, don't sweat the small stuff.
We got parked about 2PM and relaxed for awhile before walking up to their house. The pecan orchard has 8,500 pecan trees that are mostly about 18 years old. The owners are former health care workers. Billy was a LPN at a long term care facility. They take care of the orchard by themselves. They said they can't find any workers because people rather take a government hand out than work. They make several different items with the pecans, fudge, chocolate covered pecans, etc. Currently they harvest over 100,000 pounds of pecans and sell them all to local people and small businesses in the area. They do not have a larger market buyer. They have equipment to shell them that cracks them and removes the hull.
Their home looks like a two story Southern Mansion with large white columns and massive staircase inside leading upstairs that has five bedrooms they rent out to B&B guest. Charlotte also has a large automated quilting machine in one of the rooms downstairs. In addition to all they do they also take care of his mother and her mother, both 92, one blind and one with dementia.
This was our first time to stay in Arkansas.
Day 38 Sunday June 5, 2022 We departed Paw Paw's Pecans at 7:30 and headed to Weatherford Oklahoma. We stopped for a break about 10:15 at the Oklahoma Welcome Center and just a few minutes after we left there a dark cloud came up, with strong wind and it rained for 1 ½ hours. It stopped just before we got to Oklahoma City which I was glad about because the traffic picked up near the city and there was a lot of road construction to get through.
We got to our campground, Wanderlust Crossings RV Park, for the next two night at 2PM. This is a really nice RV Park, all paved streets, level concrete RV sites, dog park, dog wash stations, storm shelter, etc. Someone did some good design work/planning when they built this RV Park.
We had hoped to be able to set outside some but the wind is gusting about 30 MPH. Late in the evening the wind calmed down and we set outside and enjoyed the nice weather.
This will be our first time to stay in Oklahoma. We saw lots of cattle, horses and a small herd of bison today. And a lot of dead Armadillos on the side of the road. I guess they just don't have the speed to handle the interstate highway traffic. And lots of windmills and only about half of them were turning so the people drive Teslas might not be able to charge their batteries.
Day 39 Monday June 6, 2022 There are still sections of the historic Route 66 highway that begins is Chicago Illinois and end at the Santa Monica Pier in California in this area. I40 in this area took over most of the Route 66. The old Route 66 runs through Weatherford Oklahoma. We rode on some of it as we drove into town to the RX Brew Coffee and Donut shop. We haven't had a cup of coffee in about three days, not even one from our coffee maker in the motorhome so we thought we were due one. We both got Lattes and some donuts. My Latte was just okay, not great.
Then we went to the Stafford Air and Space Museum in town. Thomas Stafford was a Lieutenant General in the Air Force and was raised in Weatherford. He was a US Air Force test pilot and NASA Astronaut and was one of 24 people that flew to the moon. He flew two Gemini rendezvous missions and commanded the Apollo 10 mission. He was the commander of the Apollo-Soyuz mission in 1975 which was the first international space flight where the American space craft and a Russian space craft linked up together. This was a very interesting museum.
After a short stop at Walmart we returned to the campground to relax the remainder of the day.
Day 40 Tuesday June 7, 2022 We had heavy rain from 3-6AM but thankfully it was almost stopped by the time we were ready to hook up the Toad and depart. We departed at 7:15AM and headed to Tucumcari New Mexico. We drove through the top of Texas just below the panhandle of Oklahoma. We could see for miles in any direction and not a tree in site, just some scrub bushes and a few cows. We passed one cattle feed lot that had thousands of cows in it. I guess they were waiting to be shipped to slaughter houses. We fueled up in Amarillo Texas before crossing the border into New Mexico and into the Mountain Time Zone.
I40 in New Mexico is in need of some serious road repairs. We pulled into Mountain Road RV Park about noon Mountain Time and the office was closed until 2PM with a sign to setup and check in later so we picked site 33 and setup. I guess they take their siesta from 12-2PM. This will be the first time we have stayed in New Mexico.
To say this RV Park is different than the last one we were in is an understatement. It is basically a gravel parking lot but it does have hookups. With a little trash pickup on the sites and some TLC it could be much better but there is not much to chose from in this area so for a one night stay we can deal with it.
After setting up we drove into the town of Tucumcari to get some Mexican food for lunch. I looked at Google Map and picked El Herradero Mexican Restaurant from a choice of several in town. It was a very good choice as the food was very good. After eating we went around town taking photos of the many murals on the buildings before we returned to our “resort”.
Day 41 Wednesday June 8, 2022 We departed at 7:10AM. You may be wondering why we leave so early. Well we are awake by 6AM and by leaving around 7AM it is a cooler time of the day and we have noticed there is not as many 18 wheelers on the road until later in the morning, so less traffic and we get to our next campground before it is so hot in the afternoon.
I40 was in a little better shape today but still some rough sections. Still very windy today and no trees to block the wind. After a couple of hours we stopped at a road side Tourists Trap called Circle 'C' Ranch for a break and they had a DQ inside so we got a vanilla ice cream cone dipped in hot chocolate, yummy to the tummy.
Near Albuquerque we moved over to I25 which had lots of up and down hills. We are seeing some very different landscape for us, dry gravely ground, no trees, no green grass, no water in the ditches and very large rocky hills. We passed by several hundred acres of pistachio trees. This is about the only trees and green grass we have seen in this state.
We got to Caballo Lake RV Park at Caballo New Mexico about 2:30. The GPS took us 8 miles past the exit we could have taken and then routed us back to the RV Park. Very strange. It is 100 degrees here. The owner of the RV Park thought we were supposed to be here two days ago on the 8th of June. I told her today was the 8th of June so she showed us where our site was. A pull through so we didn't have to unhook the Toad. Each site has an electrical meter and she reads the meter when a RV hooks up and then when they leave the meter is read again and you pay $15.00 for your site and the electricity is extra.
She has a social hour at her house from 4:30-6PM, which is on the edge of the Park. We went and met three other people that are staying in the park. Most of her sites are rented to people that stay here long term. She keeps her park very clean and tidy unlike the last one we were in. After it cooled down some we walked around the park to take some photos.
Day 42 Thursday June 9, 2022
We got ready to leave, read the electrical meter and met C.J. At her house to pay our bill. It was a whopping $20.57 with tax and electricity. I don't know when we have ever stayed at a full hookup campground and paid that low of a fee. We asked her how long had she owned the park. She is 83 and had it built 30 years ago.
We departed at 7:30AM and headed to Tucson Arizona. We stopped a few miles inside Arizona for fuel at the station that had the best price. They had 7 truck bays and only three had working pumps and one of those (the one I pulled up to) only had one working pump. Normally a truck stop has a pump on each side of the bay because 18 wheelers have fuel tanks on each side of the truck. The trucker in front of us came back and told me he had to fill his drivers side tank, pull out, turn around and pull back in to fill his passenger side tank and then back out of the bay. I told him not a problem, we had plenty of time and he was working and we were just traveling.
When I pulled up to fill, the pump was extremely slow. Most truck stop pumps are really fast. I noticed a card attached to the hose at the pump I was using that stated the pump failed inspection yesterday so that is probably why all the pumps were out of order. This truck stop needs a lot of TLC.
We got to Tucson Lazy Days KOA campground about 2PM and set up in site 1456 which is under a large solar panel array. They have several rows of sites under these solar panels, which is nice as it provides some shade from the hot sun. It is 102 degrees as I write this. This will be our first time to stay in Arizona.
We rested a little and walked over to the main building to get something to eat in the BBQ Rush Restaurant. It was a good meal but we couldn't eat it all because of the large portions so we got two take out boxes. When I looked at our bill I noticed the waitress didn't charge me for my $17.00 meal. I told the cashier about it and he said not to worry about it so my meal was free. Yea Me.
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