Day 51 Sunday September 28, 2025
Note: We will not have as many photos to share from now on. My camera was damaged during the elk attack and it does not work. I will ship it off for repair when we get home.
We got heavy rain in the early hours this morning. The people of Arizona are probably glad to get it.
After a good hot shower Lena reapplied my bandaids and antibiotic creme. The stitches still look good, no swelling or redness. The skinned knee and elbow will take some time to heal over I expect. I found another big purple bruise on my right hip I hadn’t seen, now I have matching bruises, one on my left upper arm and my right hip.
Lena said she thought the traffic would be light this morning since it was Sunday morning and the Weatherbug app showed just a light change of rain after 10am so we decided to do some exploring in Flagstaff along the historic Route 66. Route 66 runs right through downtown Flagstaff.
Several of the iconic Route 66 buildings are still in use with the old style signs and architecture. We spotted what looked like a Farmer’s Market and parked to check it out. Of course about the time we stopped it started raining again lightly so we walked through the market. Lena checked the price of farm eggs at one vendor and they were $10 a dozen. Later we got a dozen and a half of organic pasture raised eggs at Walmart for $10.47. At home they are $8+ for the same egg brand.
We decided to go to a Historic Pioneer Village near where we were only to find out it is temporarily closed. So we stopped at a coffee shop for a latte and snack. It is still raining so we decided to go to Walmart and get a few supplies and return to the campground.
We decided everyone in Flagstaff was either on the road or in Walmart today. There was a sea of humanity in Walmart. It took us about an hour to get a few groceries, some bandaids and pain patches and check out. So Lena missed her prediction of low traffic and Weatherbug blew their weather forecast for today.
Day 52 Monday September 29, 2025
I did some searching yesterday on the internet for a replacement camera. We have paid a lot of money to attend the Balloon Fiesta and I was looking forward to photographing the colorful balloons. I have found a repair facility in California but there is not enough time to get my camera repaired before the balloon fiesta.
I found exactly what I was looking for on Facebook Marketplace and it was located right here in Flagstaff. It is the exact same camera that we have that was damaged during the elk attack. I made contact with the owner and we set up a meeting this morning at a coffee shop in Flagstaff a few miles from us.
The camera is in excellent condition, to the point of looking new. He said his in-laws gave it to him and his wife and they just didn’t take many photos. I tested the camera and everything worked like new so we come to an agreement on price and now we have a working camera again. Yes I know we can take photos with our iPhone and iPads but using a digital 35mm style camera works so much better for the way we do most of our travel photos.
And to top off the morning we got the best Lattes we have had in very long time and in a ceramic cup no less plus good muffins at the meeting place.
We returned to the motorhome to get our camera stuff organized and then drove about 45 miles to the town of Winslow Arizona. The is the real location of where the lyrics of the song “Take it Easy” by the Eagles happened. The tune/music was written by Glen Frey of the band but the lyrics were written by his good friend Jackson Browne. He was not a band member. This song was the Eagles band’s first number one hit.
The town has been very smart and has capitalized on the fact it happened in their town. They commissioned a bronze statue of a balladeer and a second one of Glen Frey and created a small park at the intersection where the event happened and there is also a “flat bed ford truck” at the same location.
The location is now a very busy tourist stop. That brings lots of tourists dollars to the small town. The town probably has taken in more money from the song than the band has.
Lena bought two T-shirts and we ate at the Sipp Shop cafe right across the street from the corner park. And we are just two people. There were dozens there while we were there this morning and the street is right on the famous Route 66. The food was excellent at the Sipp Shop and priced within reason. The price of food in restaurants/cafes on our trip in this part of the country is pricey.
Then we returned to the campground for the day. We are having trouble adjusting to Arizona time for some reason. They don’t observe daylight saving time so we are three hours behind time in North Carolina but we have been two hours behind for weeks now and it didn’t bother us. It gets dark about 6pm and it seems like a long time before bedtime, oh well we will just have to deal with it a few more days until we get to New Mexico.
Day 53 Tuesday September 30, 2025
Well Happy Anniversary to us, 58 years and still going strong. And they said it wouldn’t last. Yep, we got married young…2 years old to be exact. 🫣🫣
We began today by trying a coffee shop that the man that sold us the camera yesterday said we should try. It is called Macy’s and is supposed to be an European coffee shop. About half way there I realized I had forgotten my wallet so we had to turn around and go back to the campground to get it.
We finally got to the coffee shop and after searching for a parking spot for a while we went in and ordered. The Lattes were good ( served in a ceramic cup ) but not near as good as the ones we got yesterday where we bought the camera. My scone was kind of hard and dry, Lena’s blueberry coffee cake was good. Even if we were staying here longer we would not return here. They were doing a booming business but it was just too noisy for us and we saw nothing that reminded us of anything from Europe.
Then we went to the UPS Store to ship my damaged camera to a repair shop in California.
After dropping off the camera we headed out of town on Hwy 89A towards Sedona to ride through the Oak Canyon Scenic highway. It was a beautiful drive. Parts of it hugged the side of the mountain and the curves were so sharp the speed limit was 15mph. We pulled into the entrance to a state park so we could ride through it and it cost $30 to enter the park. I don’t think so.
Later we found a small parking lot beside a huge canyon so we pulled into there to take some photos. After taking a few photos we saw a sign that it cost $5 to park in the parking lot. Huh! Man Arizona likes to take your money. We left just as a Ranger truck was pulling into the parking lot and no we didn’t pay to park 5 minutes.
Sedona is a fairly small busy town with a beautiful backdrop of rocky mountains in the background. We drove through one of the residential areas that kind of backed up to the mountains. Most of the homes in there were of the adobe style. Very pretty, clean neat neighborhood. They don’t have to worry about mowing any grass. We didn’t see a sprig of grass in the small yards. What ground was not covered in concrete for the driveway had small rocks covering the ground and some western style plants.
We turned around and headed back to Flagstaff with plans to eat lunch at Texas Roadhouse but when we got there at 12:30 they didn’t open until 2pm so we decided to try Fat Olives where they serve brick oven pizza. Mike was our waiter and he gave us a rundown of their pizzas and said his favorite was Miss Piggy so that is what we ordered and it was delicious. We saved half of it for our lunch tomorrow when we get to the next campground. We decided to really treat ourselves and ordered one order of Tiramisu and two Lattes. They served the Tiramisu in a small glass jar and you spoon it out with a long handle spoon. If you are ever in Flagstaff we recommend Fat Olives for pizza and ask for Mike as your server.
We returned to the campground to do laundry and other chores before we pull out of here tomorrow.
Day 54 Wednesday October 1, 2025
Today is travel day so we got out of the campground at 8:30 for our 303 mile drive to Route 66 Casino RV Park outside of Albuquerque New Mexico. We stopped for fuel and got to the RV Park at 2 pm and setup in site 1128.
I think the Casino, RV Park and Truck Plaza is all owned by the Navajo Nation. The campground is nice, has 100 sites, that are full hookup, paved parking pads and paved picnic table patio. Some of the other 14 RVs from our tour is also here including our friends Sean and Lorraine.
After we had lunch and rested awhile we walked over to their site to discuss our trip tomorrow into Albuquerque and getting into the correct parking lot for the Balloon Fiesta.
Day 55 Thursday October 2, 2025
We headed for the Ballon Fiesta parking lot at 9 am with Sean and Lorraine following us so we could get parked together. Albuquerque is a huge city, lots of traffic and where I 40 and I 25 intersect it looks like a big bowl of spaghetti with roads going in all directions. We had to exit I 40 onto I 25 in that mess but with the GPS and Lena following the directions we got from Fantasy on which streets to turn on to get to the huge RV parking lot we got there without any issues.
It took us almost an hour of waiting to get guided to our parking site. The Fantasy parking team did a good job of parking all the RVs in an orderly manner. It is not a real RV Park just a huge gravel parking lot with sites marked off with spray paint for each site. Big Tom was directing each RV into their sites because the sites are close together and to insure each RV has their share of the site and not parked to close to their neighbors. We have 50AMP electrical service and water to fill our tanks if needed but not to stay hooked up to the water source. We came with a full fresh water tank and empty black and grey tanks. Fantasy has arranged for a pump out service on Saturday but I don’t think we will need that service.
Shortly after we got parked in our site I discovered there were sand spurs all over the ground. I told some of the others around us about them. It wasn’t long before we began to see people out walking their dogs and the dogs had little boots on their feet to protect their paws from the sand spurs. Some of the dogs wouldn’t wear booties so the owners had to carry them to a patch of green grass that Fantasy provided for dogs to have a place to do their business.
After getting setup and having lunch we went to the Fantasy Hospitality Tent to register, get our name badges, tickets for events and an itinerary for the event.
Then at 3pm we returned to the tent for orientation, social hour followed by some door prizes (we won a $25 Starbucks gift card) and then a meal was served cafeteria style by the Fantasy Team. A local company catered the food. It was very good.
We met several couples at our table and talked about traveling with Fantasy RV Tours. After our meal we returned to the motorhome so I could prop my leg up. After setting in a less than comfortable chair I wanted to elevate it some.
Day 56 Friday October 3, 2025
We went to the tent for breakfast and watch a few balloons that were practicing early this morning. Then at 9am we boarded a Fantasy chartered bus to tour the Nuclear Science & History Museum here in town. It had a lot of information about nuclear energy that was way above my knowledge. But it had the first in person display about the Atomic Bombs that was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during WWII to bring that long war to a close. There was also a B-29 airplane outside similar to the airplane that was used to fly the atomic bombs.
Then we boarded the bus and was taken to the Moose Lodge for a very good box lunch. After lunch the bus took us to The Turquoise Museum. The family that owns the museum also make and sell all kinds of items made from turquoise. We thought the museum was housed in an old church but we heard one of the staff telling one of our group that the building was actually built as a house. It look like a large mansion. The fifth generation of the family is now running the business with several family members working in the business. One of the prior generations actually collected the items in the museum before it became the business it is now. They told us one piece in the museum was worth 8 million dollars. I guess that is why the fence that surrounds the museum is lined with razor wire and spikes on top of the fence.
They gave us a demonstration on grinding the turquoise down to a useable piece that can be made into jewelry, etc. And then we got a talk on silversmithing which is part of the process to making jewelry with turquoise. Then we went into the silversmithing workshop to see a few things they were working on. The workers were not at their stations because the owner said they didn’t like to do their very delicate work with someone looking at them.
Then the bus took us back to the fiesta grounds to our RVs.
Fantasy had a social hour at 4:30 and then a BBQ catered meal at 5:30 followed by a country band after we ate. We listened to the music for a while before returning to the motorhome for a shower and some rest. We have to get up early in the morning.
Day 57 Saturday October 4, 2025
Early morning. We got up at 4:30, went to the tent for breakfast and boarded a school bus that took us over to the balloon field where all the hot air balloons are. I had noticed on the list of 100 or so couples here on the Fantasy RV Tours for the balloon fiesta that there was one couple from Wilmington NC. And on the bus ride over to the balloon field we discovered they were sitting across the aisle on the bus from us. What are the chances of that happening.
After we got off the bus we had to get in a very large/long line of people to show our tickets and go through security before getting out onto the field.
We had to walk a long ways to get near where we could see about a dozen balloons already inflated. It was still dark when we picked a place to set our chairs down and a little cool. It was just about 60 degrees this morning when we got up so we didn’t wear a jacket but kind of wished we did because it was a little cool sitting outside in the dark.
As the sun came out the crowd swelled to a sea of people and balloons all around us setting up to fly. It was quite a spectacular sight as every direction we turned there were balloons. It takes several people to get the basket, which holds the propane fired burners set up, then the balloon has to be stretched out and attached to the basket and then as they blow air into the balloon to begin the inflation process someone that is strong/heavy has to hold onto the rope that is at the tip end of the ballon. As the balloon gets filled with air that person is pulled along until the balloon is almost upright. It is quite an interesting sight to see. At this ballon fiesta the spectators are allowed to be all over the place where the balloons are being setup so we got a really good experience seeing them setup.
All of the balloons were supposed to lift off at the same time which is called the Mass Ascension but due to high winds aloft that was cancelled and the balloons will not fly today. It is too dangerous to fly the balloons when the winds are strong because the pilot doesn’t have much control on the direction of the flight other than following the wind currents.
We were told that the reason Albuquerque is so popular for hot air balloons is the wind currents in the morning go in one direction and then in the afternoon the wind currents reverse and sometimes the balloons land with a few feet of where they lifted off. But we will not see that today. Maybe tomorrow.
We boarded the school bus and returned to the motorhome about 9 am. They get school buses from the area to use as shuttle buses. We probably would be shocked if we knew how much money the balloon fiesta brought into Albuquerque. Our tickets were included in our tour package with Fantasy. We noticed the price was $15 a person to get onto the balloon field and there were lots and lots of people on the field.
At 12:30 we had a demonstration by a hot air balloon pilot. The pilot, his wife, his son, his granddaughter and another man was the team that did the demonstration.
They had the wicker basket and the burner on display but of course not the actual balloon. Plus the wind was blowing about 15-18 mph.
I have never been as bored in my life at a demonstration. He tried to be funny and fell flat of his face, in my opinion. And he didn’t know when to shut up. He got way too deep into the weeds. We were supposed to eat at 2pm and he was still talking. Finally the Fantasy team cut him off, thankfully. Then the Fantasy team had to set up the tables and chairs again before we could set down for our meal. Then he had to go over to the other Fantasy tent and do it all over again.
The Fantasy team served us “loaded nachos” and margaritas after they got everything setup. The couple from Wilmington that we met this morning, Ed and Shelia, sat at our table and we had a good conversation. They are originally from Indiana. I asked them what brought them to Wilmington 20+ years ago. Well Ed said “drugs” (The legal kind).
The wind is still really blowing. We hope it is calm tomorrow morning so the Mass Ascension can take place. That is when all balloons lift off at the same time. We heard there were 391 balloons here this morning but none could fly due to the winds. There were some events this evening on the balloon field but we didn’t think they would take place with the strong winds so we didn’t go.
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