Friday Morning Report

So far, we're happy with the HIE Tempe. Didn't need to use A/C last night. We are concerned about the tornado reported SE of Warrensburg, wondering if our place was safe.

Today we see what we can do this AM & set up for Sandra to do this PM while I'm at the meeting. Report on today's activities tonight.

Bill

Thursday Evening Report

Thursday Evening, Holiday Inn Express, Tempe AZ

Miles: 210 (plus local travel in Tombstone & Tempe)
Time on Road: 7:40
Gas prices paid: $2.41 in Tempe. Saw much higher prices

Highlights:
1. Tombstone - Neat buildings, friendly people, an interesting museum. Even the dogs were photogenic.
2. Tempe - Not the town or anything, but meeting Jeremy Robinson & his business partner John Hinton for dinner & a beer.
3. Tucson area - Saguaro National Park, east unit. Lots of good pictures (we'll see which of us has the better shots); also a ranger told us a scenic route that avoided backtracking and missed most of Tucson).

Lowlights:
1. Traffic
2. Traffic
3. Yep, traffic

Comments:
1. Found a good Mexican restaurant (Lupe's) at a crossroads of AZ-77 & AZ-79 along that scenic route. FOlks at next table heard us telling waitress where we were from, and they stayed & just talked & talked with us. Retired from back East, & pretty well off judging from the rocks on her fingers.
2. Casa Grande Ruins Nat'l site. Very interesting remains of a Hohokam site. We stopped right across the street at Wally's for needed supplies.
3. We also stopped at the Gila River Reservation's cultural center & gift shop. Learned a bit from the displays, but the gift shop had a lot of nice items. Place iteslf a but run down, and they didn't have any info to speak of on other tribal attractions (like casinos).

Pictures - no time this evening.

Tomorrow: Gallivant around the local area & plan for what Sandra is going to do while I'm in a meeting.

Bill

Thursday Morning Report

Motel report, Holiday Inn Express, Tombstone:

Room: Very nice, spacious room, essentially clean but vaccuum needs better edge work. Finally, a toilet that didn't keep running. Bathroom standard HIE, good towels, etc, plus great water pressure. I could say the place was the pits, but it'd be more correct to say they have pits - of the horseshoe variety.

Breakfast: standard HIE, but the lady hanling it had lived here 40 yeares and loves the town Had a restaurant at one time and retired.

Today we'll spend a bit more time in Tombstone, taking pictures of downtown, visiting Boot Hill and maybe the museum. Then it's off to Saguaro, Casa Grande Ruins, and finally Phoenix.

Bill

Wednesday Evening Report

Wednesday evening, from Holiday Inn Express, Tombstone AZ

Miles: 383
Time on road (including visits): 10:35
Gas prices paid: $2.39 in Las Cruces to $2.49 in Benson. A lot of places were higher.

Higlights:
1. Las Cruces - Visiting Uncle Murray, a great Mexican restaurant, and visiting a super used bookstore (Bill bought 16 titles for $27).
2. White Sands - Lots of photo ops.
3. Tombstone - Dinner at Big Nose Kate's saloon.

Lowlights:
1. Heavy crosswinds.
2 & 3. Weren't any.

Comments:
1. Got to Tombstone late, but the town seems to really be doing a good job with their "old west" tourism hook. For a tourist trap, it's not all that tacky. Some of the folks in the old time saloons we visited looked like they dressed that way all the time.
2. That picture taking at White Sands got kind of competitive. Sandra kept getting into Bill's picture (was that competition of vanity?).
3. Would have liked to stop in a neat rest area in AZ with granite boulders all around, but time was a bit tight.
4. First Sightings: White sands by Bill.

Tomorrow: Saguaro cacti, an ancient ruin, and Phoenix.

Bill

Wednesday morning report

Breakfast here doesn't start until 6:30, which is 7:30 to us. We'll be on the road by 7:30 their time, on to White Sands.

Motel report, Holiday Inn Express, Ruidoso:

Room: 3rd floor, clean, great shower, good towels, good mattress, TV, microwave, fridge, wi-fi. 4 HBOs on the TV. This is the competition for B&Bs.

Continental breakfast: Haven't eaten it yet, but it will be the standard HIE breakfast with no hot food.

While waiting for breakfast, I may work on some pictures for the main travel website.

Gas prices yesterday: $2.49 almost everyplace, low was $2.45. First day we saw from the mid $2.30s to $2.50.

Today we're off to see some white sand, Uncle Murray, and Boot Hill.

Bill

Tuesday Evening Report

From the Holiday Inn Express, Ruidoso NM

Miles: 440
Time: 11:36 on road (& sight-seeing)

Highlights:
1. Tucumcari - Mesalands Dinosaur Museum is a great little museum with a friendly staff. Sandra met a Triceratops there. Also some neat murals, and of course old Route 66 kitsch.
2. Roswell - The UFO Museum, of course, followed by a few of the rooms at their fancy art museum.
3. Green or Red - great SW Mexican food (for lunch & supper)

Lowlights:
1. Breakfast at Comfort Inn
2. Rain - especially at night
3. ?

Comments:
1. High Plains scenery - Sandra especially liked the windmill farm and the mesas, all while listening to Coyote Waits by Tony Hillerman.
2. First sightings: Bill got the tumbleweed, Sandra had the dustdevil.
3. Apache casino (Inn of the Muntain Gods) is spectacular. Sandra lost $5, but Bill won $3 of it back.

Tomorrow: White Sands, visit Uncle Murray in Las Cruces (as well as a good bookstore), and on to Tombstone.

Tuesday Morning Report

It's still dark out here at 6:30 AM, so no rush to leave.

Motel review - Comfort Inn Guymon:

Room: 3rd floor - nice, spacious, clean, good wi-fi connection, small fridge, microwave. Toilet didn't shut off until jiggled. Water pressure not that good. Had a folding chair at the desk/table (tacky, tacky).

Continental breakfast: We'd seen what Dale Yelton serves at the Warrensburg Station Comfort Inn and would have been happy with about half of it. Didn't get it - nothing hot whatsoever, just some wrapped rolls, bagels or croissants, 2 flavors of cereal, one banana (yesterday's) and badly watered down apple & orange juice. Not happy.

We're off to see some dinosaurs, aliens, outlaws and horse statues.

Bill

First Day Report

Reporting on our first day on the road:

Miles: 497; hours: 10:06.

Ending point: Comfort Inn, Guymon, OK.

Highlights:
1. Dinner at Cattleman Cafe, Liberal, KS. Best chicken fried steak ever!
2. Hooker, OK - ultimate in Chamber of Commerce promotions - See the picture of their sign.
3. Prairies of Kansas - lots of rolling hills, cattle, wheat fields and oil wells (pumping away madly).

Lowlights:
1. Mullinville KS - Bill wouldn't stop for the whirligigs along the highway (as seen on CH-19 KCPT "Rare Visions and Roadside Revelations") - something about a semi on his tail and a 30 mph headwind.
2. Plains KS - Bill wouldn't stop to let Sandra make a snowball left over from the 10" blizzard a few days ago.
3. Meade KS - Sandra couldn't find the sign she remembered from last year: "The Dalton Boys shouldn't have gone to Coffeyville."

Comments:
1. Great use by several towns of pretty small tourism hooks. Already mentioned Hooker OK - oh, and their baseball team is called the "Horny Toads.". Meade KS has signs all over promoting their Dalton Hideout museum. One sign for Greenburg KS (home of world's largest hand-dug well) said "You'll get a BIG-WELLcome here."
2. First Sightings - Bill got the first antelope, first cholla cactus, 1st oil well and 1st dead coyote. Sandra got 1st prairie dog hole. No buffalo or dead armadillos.
3. Unique sighting - a herd of black angus galumphing across the highway, then turning around and galumphing back. Think they were escaped convicts.

Tomorrow: Tucumcari NM dinosaur museum, Roswell Art Museum (just to tell them that we're really there for the UFO museum), possibly Lincoln (Billy the Kid country), ending in Ruidoso, with perhaps a visit to the Apache casino.

Tune in tomorrow, same time, same station.

Trip To Go

Howdy. My name is Earl. I have checked my travel list, rechecked it, crossed off from my list what I have packed, and where is my karma!!! Must pack for winter, spring, and maybe warm days in the desert. We leave by 7AM Monday and head to Kansas, first to plains, then oil wells, and then New Mexico - volcanos!!! Would sure try someday to count all the old volcanos in New Mexico. Capulin Volcano is my favorite - try to the top it, walk the rim, and look for miles in the distance for the other volcanos. It's fasinating! Sandra.

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