We’ve been home a few days and have been getting things cleaned out. The truck camper is emptied out and we’ve started to clean it thoroughly. Kathy went straight to work getting the shrubs in the yard trimmed. I noticed a bit of a leak in the patio ceiling so I got up there and applied some acrylic roofing material. I need to put a few more coats up there but we are getting rain this weekend so I’m hoping it will be enough until next week. We trimmed and cleaned the yard, got the waterfall and hot tub working, and began to get settled in. The house was actually pretty nice inside; we were expecting Arizona dust, which was not there.
I am still having clarity issues on what to do with the house. I want to rent it but storing all the furniture and the cars is costly. We may rent it furnished because that might be easier. Still working this out. We have been to three dr appointments already this week and got Maggie’s haircut. Next week we will have more appointments and hopefully will get the house cleaned out.
I ordered an air conditioner to replace the large unit in Howie. This newer DC unit should use less than 60A on high, or about 750W. The old one was pulling twice that.
We made it home by noon. We stopped to weigh the truck to see what we had actually ended up with at the end of the trip. We shed about 300 pounds during the trip. We have quite a few items that we’re planning on not taking them with us further, so that should drop some more weight. The total mileage for the trip was 19,500 miles. Diesel cost was approximately $6,600. Groceries and restaurants was about $4,000. Camping and campgrounds were about $1400. We ended up about $4000 over our budget, which we were blaming on dog treats. Lol. Here’s a map of our tracks.
Screenshot
We were very surprised by the house, considering all the storms and dust storms around Coolidge. The house is in great shape. The yard was a bit overgrown because our landscaper dang near cut off his fingers a couple weeks back at another job. Kathy grabbed the shears and started working on the backyard. There’s a bit of cleanup to do, but I got the waterfall filled in the hot tub filled and we were able to relax in it last night.
We will be working at getting the house packed up and ready to rent, getting our trailer moved down to my brother’s house, and finding someplace to put the cars. The next phase will be Mexico and Central America and that will start sometime mid November in Baja Mexico. We are scheduled to finish up whenever we get done.
We had not really missed the house while we were gone, but once we got there, we realize how nice it actually is, and we settled in really quickly. I will post you every couple of days just to keep track of what we’re doing. Thanks for reading the blog (David, Garret, Tony and Debbie, Moms and Dads, and all of those following Kathy on Facebook). Thanks for all the support. I look forward to keeping up with you guys as we go further.
We left El Paso and stopped for fuel in Las Cruces. I remembered there was a great restaurant there called La Posta and since we were close, we stopped. It has been there since 1936 and serves excellent Mexican food. The place is kind of unique in that in the waiting area there are several McCaws in cages and some piranhas in tanks to look at. We enjoyed some authentic Mexican food before getting back on the road.
We arrived in Willcox around 2pm and visited with my brother, David; sister-in-law, Leslie; and my parents. This weekend it was Rex Allen Days, a local festival, and we headed to the park to look at the vendors while mom and dad napped and then went to church. We all met at Isabelle’s for dinner and a great visit.
Sunday, our last day on this keg of the trip, I cooked a skillet breakfast for my parents and then we visited with my other brother, Rick; sister-in-law, Terry. Terry and Rick invited us to do a corn maze at Apple Annie’s. That was pretty fun one only took us 46 minutes to complete the complicated maze.
Mom made lasagna and salad for dinner and we all had a really nice visit. We said good bye to my parents as we planned to head out early to get to the house. It’s been 4 months and 4 days.
We were up early to get on the road. Today was going to be the longest travel day of the trip. We planned to visit White Sands National Park and then drive onto El Paso to visit Mike and Mari. The government shutdown however thwarted our national park visit. There were two park rangers blocking the locked gate. Oh well, that would have been #57 on the trip.
We arrived in El Paso and spent some time catching up. It’s interesting the different stories we get from the boys. Mike and Mari took us to their bar, Three Pints Pub, a really popular local hang out that they’ve been building for many years. The food was excellent, the people were fun, and we loved catching up in their recent trip to England, Ireland, and Scotland.
We enjoyed coffee the next morning in their lovely backyard and planned to meet them in Honduras in May where they will be coordinating with our sons. Gonna be a great family vacation. I know Riley and Peyton are looking forward to it.
We had purchased some tickets to a play in Colorado Springs were a friend of Kathy’s was acting in. I arranged with an old friend to meet for dinner before the show. We decided on an Indian place, and the food was actually very good. It was Kathy’s first experience with Indian food, and she might have some at a future time. We talked for a couple of hours and it was really nice catching up and seeing all he has accomplished. He asked us if we had a place to stay and I told him we hadn’t figured it out yet, so he invited us to park in his driveway. We agreed and then headed towards the show.
The show is called Ms. Holmes and Ms. Watson and was an interesting adaptation of a mystery theater. Her friend Johanna, had an interesting role in that she played three or four different characters throughout the play. She’s a really good actress. We met her after the show and went down to a place called Cork and Cask, a quirky little establishment with very comfortable yet eclectic furniture.
We actually closed the place down that night talking about all the travels we’ve done, all the travel she’s done, and interestingly, she has been recovering from second and third-degree burns from a fall in Phoenix, where she burned herself on the pavement this summer.
We found my friend’s place and parked on the street, and settled in about 2 AM. We had a long drive the next day and we had to get up at six, fuel the truck and head to El Paso.
We stayed several nights at my son’s new place in Cripple Creek, Colorado. He bought this place in July after several years of saving and scrimping and living in a camping trailer. Patience and persistence pays off.
His house is an old log cabin built in 1902. A newer two car garage/barn with a with a loft was added later. He’s been looking for quite a while to find a house that gives him a place to work on his vehicles, do his projects, and have some space for his dogs. We’re really proud of him. It’s a neat place on the outskirts of Cripple Creek. I asked him if he had anything that he wanted me to work on, and he knows I love projects, so he said that the garage door was having some issues closing, and that there were some electrical issues in his garage. I investigated the garage door and it appeared to have something to do with the sensors, and I tried aligning them without success. So Kathy, myself, and the dogs took about a 3 mile round-trip walk up to Ace Hardware to see if I could purchase some new sensors. They didn’t have any, but the Ace Hardware guy said that I could possibly mount them about a foot apart on a rafter and see if that would work.
On the walk back from Ace Hardware we stopped at a little sandwich shop and shared a club sandwich and some chips and sat outside in the warm sunlight. There was a Dollar General store down at the bottom of the hill and Kathy wanted to stop by and pick up some basic supplies. The dogs and I waited for her outside. We found a cute property complete with an old Ford truck.
When we got back to the property, I disconnected the sensors and mounted them up on the rafter, reconnected the wires, and wouldn’t you know – the garage door worked. So I re-mounted the sensors on a more solid surface at the bottom of the garage doors, adjusted the alignment, and rewired them. Now the garage door opens and closes as required.
The electrical took a little bit of investigation, but it appeared he had some loose connections in the common wire in a couple of his junction boxes. So I clipped the ends, reconnected them, and now his lights and extra outlets work in his garage. For me, it was a very fun day. He had asked me to take a look at his fireplace as well, and I had forgotten to do that on both of the days I was there. Sorry, Peyton.
We headed up to the casinos to get a pizza for dinner, and ended up taking it back to his house for to eat with beverages. Peyton makes handmade soap, and he had a special order to complete that night. Kathy and I were very interested in seeing how that process was done. The soap making process itself is amazingly easy. You combine some sort of oil or lard with lye and it eventually, after several days (in a cold process) will create soap. The challenge comes in when you’re trying to make it smell nice or do the “hot” process, which requires heating the oils and combining it with the sodium hydroxide. That can create a very bubbly reaction, which we got to see. We did purchase 6 bars from him since we’ve been using his soap on this trip and it always works well and smells nice. If you’re in the Colorado Springs, Woodland Park, or Cripple Creek area, here is a link to his Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/share/16Ggj9xuA3/?mibextid=wwXIfr
The next day, Kathy and I decided to go check out Cripple Creek so we headed up towards the casinos to browse the various antique shops, curio shops, and tourist shops. One of the buildings in particular was very interesting as it had been gutted and completely redone on the inside to contain a mining sluice/waterfall between the big meeting area upstairs and the second hand store downstairs. We did try a little bit of our luck in one of the casinos to double our money, but we ended up just donating our bets to the casino.
I had asked Peyton whether he had a lawnmower, and he said he’d been looking for one, but new ones at the stores were $300-500. So I got into Craigslist and I found a really nice Husqvarna lawnmower with a Honda engine and agreed to meet the guy in Colorado Springs. The drive down the mountain was filled with fall colors.
When the guy showed up, I tested the lawnmower, and it started up on the first pull. We took the handles apart and managed to stuff it in the back of the camper, and Kathy and I headed back up the hill. We stopped at the grocery store to get some steaks and vegetables for dinner, and texted Peyton that we were going to barbecue.
Peyton got off a bit early that night so he was there when we got back. He was happy for the new lawnmower, and quickly mowed his immediate backyard, which had grown about 12 inches high. He has a little fire pit thing in his backyard so we cleared that out and added coals and cooked some potatoes and steaks over the fire. It was a nice treat. We got to meet his new girlfriend, and she was a hit because she brought fresh hot banana bread; one of our favorites. She seems to be a wonderful young lady and we had a great time visiting and getting to know her that evening as we burned wood on the fire.
We we all set our goodbyes because he was gonna be leaving early in the morning. To be frank, we don’t get up that early anymore. I had told Peyton that I was gonna mow his property. It took me about three hours but I cleared the entire lot and really enjoyed the workout. Kathy was chuckling at me because apparently I got a little sunburned. I had not thought about putting sun protection on. We cleaned up, took showers, packed up Howie and headed over to Victor to check out that old city. It was a fantastic visit, and a well needed rest by staying for a couple of days in the same spot.
