Our adult children recognize our project capabilities, and Jon and Katherine had two they hoped we’d be able and willing to tackle during our stay. No problem! The first involved removing a broken playroom window and closing the hole it left in the wall. The boys accidentally broke the window when the handle on the…
We left Arthur decorated until after the New Year. It wasn’t until we took down the decorations that the strange weather happened. The first event was the biggest snowfall of the season, although very little snow fell during our stay overall. The second event was heavy rainfall, sufficient enough to flood the street corner where…
This was the third time we’ve stayed at Sandy Lake RV and Tiny Home Park in Carrollton, TX (population 139,248). Not the best campground really, but we hadn’t found a suitable alternative that met our needs: reasonable cost; close to interstate highways; and convenient to Jon’s family in Richardson, the condo in Arlington, and our…
We would be in Carrollton, TX for the winter after just two more stops. But first, we needed to get out of New Mexico. After a 278-mile leg, including 50 miles of the Llano Estacado, we stopped in Amarillo, TX (population 199,371). There was no doubting in which state we had entered. We were treated…
We weren’t very far past Winslow when I-40 was closed because of an accident, and we were directed north on what became a 100-mile detour across more of the Colorado Plateau and the Defiance Plateau. Being retired has taught us to not be in any hurry and to take what comes along in stress-free stride….
Our next leg of 249 miles took us from Needles (elevation 495′) on a slow climb across west central Arizona to Flagstaff (elevation 6,909′) and onto the Colorado Plateau. We stopped at the Meteor Crater RV Park about 20 miles west of Winslow and 5 miles north of the Meteor Crater Natural Landmark. We had…
Few things scream coastal California better than a classic woody station wagon. We had lots of friends to visit in the Los Angeles area before heading east to winter in Carrollton, TX; so we again stayed for a week at the Walnut RV Park in Northridge, CA. From experience, I chose a better-located spot within…
NOTE: All historical facts recounted here were taken (but reworded by this author) from the “William Randolph Hearst” and “Hearst Castle” articles at en.m.wikipedia.org. The feature aerial photo was downloaded from the internet as it was uncopyrighted. William Randolph Hearst Sr. (1863-1951) was born into a wealthy family in San Francisco. George Hearst, his father,…
The drive to Napa, CA (population 77,492), traversed the fertile Sacramento Valley. The flat farmland and grass-covered rolling hills couldn’t compete with the majestic scenery we’d seen all summer; however, it did have a certain attraction and clearly made a significant contribution to our country’s food production. Our campground was east of downtown among the…
We planned on wintering again in Carrollton, TX starting on November 1st. This gave us about seven weeks to get there, so we needed a plan for where and when we’d be stopping. I still didn’t like making campground reservations too far in advance, because it reduced our flexibility. Instead, I planned our tentative route…
