Fix the Toyota and Polish the Trailer

John called the Auto Club to come and give the Prius a "jump." Then he took it to Kearny Mesa Toyota to get the battery charged. AAA said a Prius should be run every three weeks, one person at Toyota said every two weeks, and another one said every week. They also commented that they have to charge batteries a lot. Wonder if the Quastlers' Prius will start when they get home?

Our other project today was to polish the trailer. I did the roof, which is my responsibility. John does the rest.

So, dear readers, that's the end of my blog for now. Hope you've enjoyed traveling along with us this summer.

Gasoline this summer

FYI - We traveled 12,524 miles in 3 months and used 936 gallons of gas for an average of 13.38 mpg. Gas prices ranged between $2.29 and $3.19.

We're Home and the Prius Won't Start

We left Las Vegas about 8 a.m. and pulled into the RV storage lot at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot about 3 p.m. We had to make two trips from the trailer to the condo to unload everything and multiple trips from the car to the condo. Maggie went in the first load. Here she is curled up in her box by my desk. I wish she could talk. Would love to hear her take on this summer.

We were going to take both cars back to the trailer for our second load, but the battery in the Prius is DEAD. Will deal with that in the morning.

Doug and Elisabeth Clark, our wonderful neighbors who gathered our mail each day and forwarded the "important" stuff, brought the bag of "maybe important" stuff over and left it on the table. They threw away all the "defintely not important" stuff or we would have had ten bags.

Sunday in Las Vegas

We met Pastor Lehenbauer at Lamb of God Lutheran Church at 8 a.m. He has retired (again) so isn't preaching. Unfortunately, Mona's health doesn't permit her to come to church anymore. But we spent the afternoon at their house getting caught up on news of health, kids and grandkids. Mt. Olive had their 50th anniversary celebration this summer and two of their daughters attended and took pictures. We saw some familiar faces in the photos.



We had a great visit and a delicious lunch. As we were leaving Vic told us about a very strange looking building about 2 miles from their house. We drove by and it is very strange. It reminded me of the Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and when I looked it up on-line it was designed by Frank Gehry, same designer. It's a branch of the Cleveland Clinic that will specialize in brain diseases.

Back at the campground, we get ready to go home tomorrow.

Flagstaff, Arizona to Las Vegas, Nevada

We finally left I-40 at Kingman and headed towards Las Vegas on US 93. The fun part of this trip is driving across Boulder Dam. They are building a new bridge that will bypass the Dam but it's not completed. It was started in 2005 and supposed to be done this year. We had to stop for a security check and they looked inside the trailer and its outside compartments. Unfortunately, there was no chance to stop for photos since all the parking areas were small and full. No room for a car and trailer. John and I took the tour down inside the dam many years ago.

We're in Las Vegas to visit the Lehenbauers. Vic was the pastor at Mt. Olive Lutheran Church in Poway and married us in 1978. He and Mona were good friends of John before we knew each other. We've been vowing to come visit for a couple of years and thought this would be the easiest way to make it happen. We'll spend tomorrow with them.

We're staying at the Thousand Trails campground on Boulder Highway. After dark, John and I decided to drive down the Strip. It has changed so much since we were here last which was only 3 or 4 years ago. New casinos and lots of new high end shopping. The casinos don't stand out anymore because there is so much in between. But it was fun to see all the people on the street.

Acoma, New Mexico to Flagstaff, Arizona

As we were leaving the Casino RV Park I saw this triple rig. I was shocked the first time I saw a Hummer used as a tow vehicle behind a RV, but here you have a RV, a large trailer, AND a Hummer. That RV has one powerful Diesel engine. Then there is the RV that looks rather permanent in its spot with an enclosed ramp out one window to an outside cage. Must have a cat.

Another State and the 25th of the trip.



The J&H RV Park had an interesting sign outside their office door. We did have a back-in site, but I'm getting better at this.



I called our son David, in Phoenix, to get a dinner recommendation. He said their favorite place was the Little Thai Kitchen so that's where we went. It is little, about 10 tables, and it was busy with eat-in and take-out. John had a curry dish that left him raving about the flavor.

Amarillo, Texas to Acoma, New Mexico

At 8:15 a.m. we had Maggie in the car, trailer jacks retracted, and I was backing the car up to the trailer to hook up when John said the car was getting a flat tire. I pressed the magic button on the dashboard that shows tire pressure, and sure enough the left rear had 13 pounds of pressure, instead of the recommended 35 pounds. In the past three or four days we had seen many cars, trucks, and RVs by the side of the road changing tires which we kept commenting on. Thankfully, ours is in a city and only 2 miles from a Sears store. (If you recall, we bought these tires at Sears in Jamestown, New York last month.) I drove very slowly down the I-40 frontage road to Sears and into the service department.

We heard on the news this morning there were tornadoes in Oklahoma yesterday. The last time we were in Oklahoma City there was a horrendous tornado the day after we left. The USA Today showed the swatch going through the part of town where we had stayed. Not sure where the ones were yesterday, but guess it was a good thing that we left.



But back to the tire situation. The young woman who checked us in announced that when we bought the tires we didn’t purchase road hazard insurance. John said he was in such shock over the price of the tires that he didn’t want to add any more cost. BUT – 10 minutes later she announced that for $100 we could add it now. We will. And we’re holding our breath that the tire is repairable because if we need a new one, they’ll have to order it and we’ll be in Amarillo another day or two. But it was just a short, rusty screw in the tire and by 9:30 we were on our way back to the RV Park. By 10 we were on I-40 again.



Originally we had wanted to stay at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque tonight, but they’re full up and we didn’t want to try dry camping since the weather could be hot and we would need a fan. So we made a reservation at the Sky City Casino in Acoma, about 50 miles west of Albuquerque. And we gained another hour today when we moved into Mountain Time at the Texas/New Mexico border.

Oklahoma City to Amarillo, Texas

We’ve been on I-40 since Knoxville, Tennessee, and we’ll stay on it until Flagstaff, Arizona.

At 8:30 we waved goodbye to Oklahoma City. It’s been misting since about 5 a.m. and the weather forecast is for five inches of rain with possible flash flooding today. Maybe we should stick around to see if our roof repair was good. Or not!! The rain is from Tropical Storm Hermine.

We are definitely back in the West. You can see for miles (when the rain lets up) rather than driving through a tunnel of trees. And there are dead armadillos on the road, and several Route 66 museums, and then this hand made sign in a field near Hydro Oklahoma “We’ve elected an American hater and the Democrats won’t stop him. Vote them out.” Not that has anything to do with being in the West, but the term “American hater” is puzzling to me. Yesterday I saw a billboard that said “Billboards are the art gallery of the public.”

It rained most of the way to Amarillo. We arrived at Sundown RV Park about 2 p.m. It’s right on the I-40 frontage road west of town so very convenient. I think John picked it because it has a storm shelter.





After we set up we went to Wal Mart to buy some RV supplies and then stopped by the ten half-buried Cadillacs called Cadillac Ranch about a mile west of our campground. We had been there before, but I needed a photo for the blog, so we stopped. There is so much graffiti on these cars they probably weight twice as much as normal. There was a young man vigorously applying another layer hot pink spray paint as I was taking pictures. This sign faces the frontage road where you park your car. Which side of the sign are they talking about?




I fixed steak and baked potato for dinner and we watched an old Dick Tracy movie that we borrowed from the office.

More Oklahoma City - Dale Chihuly - Bricktown

Our second stop was downtown at the Museum of Art. They have one of the largest permanent collection of Dale Chihuly glass. Evidently his wife is from Oklahoma City which is one reason the exhibit is here. The last Chihuly exhibit we saw was at the Phoenix Botanical Garden last year.



From there we went to Bricktown, an area that has been redeveloped with a minor league baseball stadium, a huge Bass Pro Shop, and lots of restaurants in old brick warehouses. Reminds us of San Diego’s Gaslamp, but bigger. We saw the “Oklahoma Land Run" bronze sculptures, all 47 of them, making it one of the largest collections in the world. Lunch at Abuelo’s Mexican Food Embassy, a wonderful Mexican restaurant. I had small tacos with pulled pork, lots of cilantro, and a smoking salsa. Yum!!






Last stop of the day was at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. It was too big to see everything in the time we had, but we saw some artwork we would have loved to purchase if we had a few spare thousands. Every year they host an invitational art show called Prix de West and it just closed yesterday but everything is still displayed. (Photos weren't allowed, of course.) We also browsed the Western Performers Gallery. Here is the "flamboyant" suit Nudie Cohen created for Robert Redford in "The Electric Horseman."



This is our last "tourist" day. For here we drive pretty straight home with one stop in Las Vegas to visit friends. It's been a fun summer.

Lots to do in Oklahoma City - Including a State Capitol

By 7 a.m. John had left to get the car serviced and I had started the ironing. When Saturn ceased to exist we thought we could get our Outlook serviced at any General Motors dealer. Not Chevrolet. They told John to go down the street to the Cadillac dealer.

Weather note: it’s much cooler today and overcast. Not so good for photos.





But on with the serious stuff of the day: by 10 a.m. we were at the State Capitol gift shop. The only Christmas ornament was of the State Seal, not the Capitol. It’ll have to do. The next tour wasn’t until 11 a.m. so we wandered around on own. There is wonderful art everywhere of Oklahoma scenes by Oklahoma artists. But I was surprised to see various names around the dome, both companies and individuals.





We learned that if your name was up there it meant you donated a million dollars or more to the construction of the dome on the capitol building in 2001. A dome was in the original design but never constructed so they decided to do it before their centennial celebration in 2007. The existing building was already reinforced to carry the load of the structure so it seemed fairly simple. It was done at no cost to the taxpayers and the big donors got recognition in an unusual way. The statue on the top is called "The Guardian." It is 22 feet tall and there is a 9 foot replica on the first floor. I should note that Oklahoma is the only state capitol building with a working oil well under it.