A number of years ago we flew into Phoenix, Arizona to watch Tina Turner in concert (yes it was amazing). While there we took a drive around Flagstaff and Holbrook for the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest. Despite having visited them before we decided that we should visit both those places again – in a more leisurely way.

First things first, the winds in Arizona build during the day and most seem to be from the south or south west, as we travelled from east to west on Interstate 40 it made for some interesting comments from me, most not repeatable, and resulted in even more finger marks in the steering wheel.

Holbrook was our first stop so that we could drive through the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest, very little of this brought back any memories, we think that may have been that we took the reverse route to our first visit, so every view was different, yet still amazing. The campground was really different, not the usual ‘enclosed’ area, but RV hookup sites on city streets, really odd, and all gravel.

Petrified Forest Route 66

Petrified Forest old truck

Painted Desert crow – local wildlife

Flowering cactus by petrified log

Painted Desert Blue Mesa

Painted Desert

Painted Desert Teepees

Large petrified log on the hillside

Agate Bridge – 110 foot petrified log bridge

The next stop was Kingman with a small detour through Winslow on the old Route 66, not much to see except for the statue “Standin’ on the corner in Winslow Arizona” Eagles – Take it easy 1972.

We noticed that in Arizona the dry riverbeds are washes, and normally named after someone or something, so we saw Frees Wash, Griffiths Wash and Rattlesnake Wash, all fairly normal then we passed Holy Moses Wash still not sure what is was named after. Our first trip from here was over the pass and mountain roads to Oatman and on the way stop at Cool Springs Station and Museum, a really quaint and quirky place. Check out the rest room picture, and see if you can find the face in the rocks.

The rustic rest room at Cool Springs

Cool Springs Station and Museum

Can you see the face shaped rocks ?

Oatman is an old gold mining town, which is now a serious tourist attraction. We had no idea there would be Burros and Donkeys roaming the street looking for alfalfa feed sold to tourists to feed them. Not a fun trip for Rusty, an old timer said that if a Burro came at Rusty that we should go into the nearest shop for safety and tell the owner, who would go out and chase the animal away with some kind of spray. Needless to say that combined with the heat made for a short stay.

Locals on Oatman Main Street

Oatman Feeding Time

Oatman Feeding Time

Lake Havasu City was next on the agenda, a short 70 mile drive through the desert. London Bridge is not falling down here; the structure is all new inside with the original London Bridge bricks forming a cladding on the new concrete, still looks really good. It was a very long time ago that I saw the original in place over the Thames in London, must have been 5 or 6 years old. We ate on the veranda of the Javelina Cantina overlooking the bridge and lake, pet friendly, really great food and nice views, the best so far. We took a walk over the bridge to look at the shops on the other side, not much to see, another day over, another one ticked off the list.

Lake Havasu City – London Bridge from the Cantina

Lake Havasu City – London Bridge and Cantina

London Bridge original ironwork South Molton St London W

Arizona was behind us as we headed into Nevada, again gusting winds made the crossing over the new Hoover Dam or the Mike O’Callaghan – Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge real fun, don’t look now we’ll come back later.

Again the Boulder City campground, Canyon Trail RV Park, was all gravel and blacktop, no fun for Rusty, we managed to find a nice park, the Veterans Memorial Park real grass and lots of it, and he was in doggy heaven.

Trees in the Boulder City Veterans Memorial Park – Rusty stopped at each one

Rusty rolling in the grass

Rusty relaxing at the park

Boulder City is really quite interesting with its Historical District full of great eating places and its huge memorial park, the Interstate 11 bypass may not be good for the town once completed. We drove through Las Vegas to the Red Rock Canyon loop, really amazing views. Las Vegas was heaving, even though it was mid week so we decided to see it from the car.

Las Vegas Strip Hard Rock Cafe

Las Vegas Strip Paris

Red Rock Canyon balanced rocks

Red Rock Canyon just west of Las Vegas

Eldorado Canyon was next on the list with the Techatticup Gold Mine, now a tourist stop on the way to nowhere, well it went to the Colorado River but not much else down that road. Just before we saw the mine in the distance 3 Mountain Goats ran across the road, and stopped about 250 yards away in the hills, time to test the new zoom lens, then the issue of taking out the regular lens and putting in the new one while keeping and eye on the mirror, luckily there was no traffic.

Mountain Goats in Eldorado Canyon – first shot with the new zoom lens

Techatticup Gold Mine in Eldorado Canyon

Techatticup Mine Building

Techatticup Mine water tank

Techatticup Mine workings

We waited until the last few days before we visited the Hoover Dam. The dam was originally called The Boulder Dam, until it was officially renamed The Hoover Dam in 1947, some of the facts and statistics are mind blowing – 45 million pounds of reinforcement steel had gone into what was then the tallest dam in the world, and 6.6 million tons of concrete. We toured the power plant inside the dam, really worth taking the time to learn more about the turbines and power generation.

Hoover Dam me and Connie with the Memorial Bridge in the background

Winged Statues at Hoover Dam

Winged Statue at Hoover Dam – Connie rubbing the toes for luck

Memorial Bridge over the Colorado River

Hoover Dam Schematic

Huge pipes that feed water to the turbines inside Hoover Dam

Access tunnels inside Hoover Dam

Once we’d been on and inside the dam, we really needed to go up to the new bridge to look at the dam from another perspective, well I did, Connie and Rusty do not like heights.

Another view of the Hoover Dam

View of the Hoover Dam and Lake Mead from the Memorial Bridge

The winged statues from the Memorial Bridge

Tomorrow we leave Boulder City for Kanab, Utah.

Well here we are again, off on a long trip around a few US states in Junior. Planning has taken weeks, picking the sites we want to stay in and the sights we want to see there.

On our last trip at Christmas we caught the tow hitch on a raised patch of ground in the RV park we stayed in. It damaged the lights cable from Junior to the toad, and the tail lights on the toad (brake and blinker) were not working. As we were travelling in daylight and the toad brake light still worked from the braking system, we decided to drive home and order a new cable once we got back.

So back to this trip, off to our favorite hooking up place at the local Baptist church parking lot, line it all up, attach the tow bar, breakaway chains, Patriot system in the toad, then the brand new bright yellow lighting cable between Junior and the toad. Test the lights, nothing, nada, zip – no toad lights and we have 230 miles to go. Luckily I had purchased 2 cables, second one same thing, and no light action on the toad. Again daylight and the toad brakes work from the Patriot so we hit the road.

So we get to I20 just south of Fort Worth and the brake system alarm sounded with error 4, if anyone knows that section of road it’s like driving through a concrete canyon with no places for a 37 foot motorhome towing a Honda CRV to pull over. So Connie googled the error, car battery low – OK, it’s not going to cause a problem, drive on a few more miles where we found a nice long wide section. The car battery was totally dead. We have to fix it; we can’t drive without lights on the toad. Start the generator on Junior, get out the battery charger, get the 50 foot extension and plug the charger to the battery – fast charge for 15 minutes and just had enough to turn the engine over. We have to leave the car running as were towing it, better that than have the same problem a few miles down the road.

As Google had helped us with that problem Connie started Googling the hitch cable problem as we travelled – it was a fuse, where are the fuses, on the left on the dashboard under a secret panel. Once we arrived at our first stop I pulled open the panel and searched the Ford manual – ah hah – fuse 22 is a 20 amp for the hitch connection, we must have blown the fuse in Canton when we damaged the cable, replaced the fuse and all was well. What a start to our journey.

We left that RV park to make our way to a site near Lubbock, only 260 miles and fill up on the way, Flying J have started putting RV friendly lanes in their newer stops, we used the one at Tye, just outside Abilene, really easy and filled the toad as well – $125, oh well, just less than 7 miles to the gallon, but that was with the generator running for nearly half an hour.

Lubbock, 3 nights 2 days, one to go into the town and search for Buddy Holley’s center and statue and one to shop for groceries and a new battery for the toad. The first day saw major storms coming through, lightning, thunder and torrential rain – Rusty was a real mess, panting and shaking – there wasn’t a lot we could do just hold him tight and hope the storms would soon be over, not so, almost all afternoon until 9 in the evening. We leave here for New Mexico and Roswell tomorrow, to see the aliens.

Buddy Holley Memorial Park

Buddy Holley Center in Lubbock Texas

Connie and Rusty with Buddy

Roswell is a really ‘odd’ place, not just because of the brightly colored alien figures scattered around, but because it seems to be a city of 2 halves, the old downtown where the alien museum is and the more modern area just north of downtown. We found a city park where we could take Rusty for a really long walk twice a day, was doing us some good too, getting the blood pumping – Rusty was on a tear each day. We found a food truck – Chef Todzillas Mobile Cuisine, we got the last green chili burger of the day, juices dripping down to our elbows, and the tumbleweed onion rings sliced very thin, coated and fried – really healthy eating. The alien museum is quite odd, with newspaper accounts of the ‘landing’ surrounded by plastic aliens, still interesting though.

Connie and Rusty in Roswell

Connie Rusty and a pink alien

Alien close encounter

Alien poker players

Aliens and the space ship

Alien tanning booth

The best part of that area was the Bitter Lake Wildlife Reserve. Lots of wildlife, mainly water fowl – 2 kinds of Ibis, American Avocet, small ducks and a yellow breasted bird that we still can’t identify, so if you can tell what it is from the photograph, let us know.

3 Wading Ibis

Ibis and Avocet

Unknown Yellow breasted bird

The next day was not a fun day driving, we had swirling side and head winds of 15-25 mph gusting to over 40, new finger impressions in the steering wheel. I had worked out that we had enough gas to get to Albuquerque – hadn’t accounted for the winds and hills, we were lucky to find a gas station 50 miles from Albuquerque, I say lucky as we could get Junior into it, and out again.

This was our second visit to Albuquerque – to walk around the old town plaza again, visit a couple of the local shops for more flavored oils, the ones from the last trip had been used and some licorice from the Candy Lady. She also makes some really amazing truffles, this shop is dangerous and you gain weight just walking through the door. We had a light lunch (and a beer) at the Church Street Café, a grilled chicken sandwich with a green chili for Connie and I had the Ruben (sic).

San Felipe Church in Albuquerque Old Town

Albuquerque Old Town Plaza

We had decided that we really wanted to visit the Four Corners Monument, where the four corners of Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico meet, so our next stop was only 134 miles away. Again we had very strong winds, swirling around so there was no relaxing, for anybody. Connie ‘suggested’ I add the next part – apparently I talk to the drivers as they are overtaking, ‘encouraging’ them to get past quickly. There were also a few expletives when a sudden gust of wind would move us sideways a foot or so, the stronger the wind the stronger, and louder, the expletive. What can I say!! We stayed in a park in Gallup so that we could take a day trip to Four Corners the next day, the next day started really badly, high winds and lots of rain, so we decided to go to the Monument the next day. The rain eased off around noon, too late to go to the Monument so we found a place nearer, the Window Rock and the Navajo Code Talkers Memorial, just 30 miles away, really amazing place.

Window Rock and Navajo Code Talker Memorial

The next day was good so we drove to Four Corners, nice place surrounded by about 60 Navajo tradespeople selling jewelry, arrows, T-Shirts and all manner of souvenirs. Lunch was Navajo fry bread, nothing memorable about that.

Shiprock near Four Corners

Outcrop near Shiprock

Mesa and outcrop near Shiprock

Standing on Four Corners

Connie standing on all four states

So that was our trip from East Texas through New Mexico, next leg is Arizona and Nevada.