No, this isn't where we are

We got home three hours ago, but I do not have access to my computer! This is one of the photos on file on my son's computer and for some reason I can't write anything on the blog until I post a picture. Great trip, lots of laundry, but worth it! Stay tuned for more adventures...not sure when though.

Las Cruces

Another nice travel day from Roswell, through Ruidoso (I used my Spanish English dictionary to look up Rondo and Ruidoso) to Las Cruces. We decided yesterday that we would have lunch at La Posta when we got here. I also took a look at the Bernina store (Andrea, if you read this, there is nothing you need to duplicate because I didn't buy anything this time)! That makes three fabric stores on this trip that I went into and came out of with nothing!

If you are wondering about the above picture, your eyes are not playing tricks, it is just me.  Home tomorrow and we will probably start planning on the next trip!

Guess Where We Are Now...

 Roswell really gets into the whole alien thing! If I hadn't been so tired, I would have taken more pictures.

The street lights in downtown

And even the convertible in the Albertson's parking lot had an alien! This guy wasn't driving though!

Hello From Soggy Amarillo!

We spent last night in Guthrie, Oklahoma. I planned on a few more pictures this morning, but it was raining. 

Last night's sunset was pretty nice.

I almost missed this little one sitting on the trailer across from us, but Cary noticed him (or her)!
We didn't plan on driving so far today, but it was a fairly easy drive, no problems, and the first few RV parks we thought about came up too quickly and didn't look that exciting. We had lunch at a Flying J near Sayre, Oklahoma. While I was fixing my salad a lady stopped her car and asked about the fifth wheel. I invited her in. She had all sorts of questions. She and her husband (a worker on the oil field) hate their trailer(I forget the brand) so she took notes. That was a first!

 We had stopped at this Texas rest stop before; it is also a tornado shelter.

 This was the view (or part of it, anyway) from the back porch of the rest stop/storm shelter.
After getting confused somewhere around Amarillo while looking for Palo Duro RV Park in Canyon, and making a phone call while sitting in the parking lot of the Russell Long Justice Center on the WT Campus, we got directions and decided maybe our GPS knew what she was talking about afterall!

It really started raining when we got here and the park is all grass, gravel...and mud. Cary got us situated finally just before the heavens opened up and really got going! I was worried we were going to just wash into the nearest river. But a few hours later I was able to relax. We had supper and even took a walk and got a few pictures.

Of course, an old truck!

Seeing Pam

 Getting ready to leave the Santa Fe RV Park in Chanute.

 Our destination: Peabody, Kansas, a great little main street town, home to our friend Pam. She and I taught together for six years at Esperanza Elementary School in Tucson. We both moved on, and she eventually went back to Kansas where she was born. Unfortunately the economy in this little town (as in most little towns) is not doing too well. She had to give up her book store, rents out the space to an antique store, and she commutes to Wichita to work at a hospital doing data entry!

I hope she manages to drive out and see us sometime during the winter. We have managed to stay in touch for quite a few years.

After a few purchases at two different antique shops and lunch next door (thanks, Pam), we drove about 15 miles to Newton where we spent the night.

Payne Oil Company has about 15 or 20 RV spots. No one is there to run the place over the weekend, nor is it very clear to anyone who hasn't called ahead what the actual cost is, but I had called, so we put $20 in an envelope and dropped it in a box by the building there. A guy in a rental RV was taking pictures of our trailer as we left!

Almost Caught Up!

 I like how the sunlight colors the scenery here in Springfield, after our day in Pontiac. Warm enough to go swimming the day we arrived, but Cary took this photo the morning we left.

 Our GPS got us a little confused near (in?) St. Louis, but we managed!

I wasn't quick enough to get these two red Winnebagos being delivered somewhere down the road. Really eye-catching!

Right now we are in Chanute, the place where our HitchHiker 5th wheel was made. NuWa is no longer called that; it is now Kansas RV Center. The staff has been cut to 15 employees, and the trailer being made there is called a Lifestyle. I am not sure, but maybe the toy hauler called a Voltage is also being made there. Cary had some questions for one of the staff (who was still there, yay), and we also made it to two yard sales, a thrift store, fabric store and to Walmart about three times!

Tomorrow we visit a friend I used to work with in Tucson who now lives in Peabody, KS, then we slowly work our way towards home.

Route 66 Museum in Pontiac

 Inside the first floor of the museum. Many main streets in Illinois were already connected by the Pontiac Trail when Cyrus Avery, an Oklahoma businessman and entrepeneur, envisioned a road stretching diagonally across the country between Lake Michigan and the Pacific Ocean, connecting hundreds of rural towns throughout the country and providing many small communities access to a national highway system.

 Outside of the museum and part of the tour (we did not go inside), this bus was owned by the man who also owned the VW camper inside the museum, Bob Waldmire. It had solar panels and he harvested rainwater.

The second floor of the museum was devoted to life in the 1940s.

 The kitchen

I have a feeling many dining rooms did not look like this one!

I had some of the paper dolls in the upper lefthand corner. I guess I still do have them, up in the attic with all the rest of my paper dolls!

Cary and I both had our cameras, but were so overwhelmed with everything that we didn't get as many pictures as we thought we did. Lots of memories though.

The Journey Continues

 On our way to Pontiac, Illinois, we made a stop in Marengo to have a guy turned two brake drums for his 1961 Pontiac and bought 4 wheels from him. Great guy. They had been emailing for awhile, so Ron was expecting him. This is where we had to park the truck and trailer while the work was being done.

We arrived in Pontiac before the museum opened, so had time to walk the streets.

 We thought these little cars had been around town for awhile, but one of the restaurant owners told us that a few years ago the businesses decorated dogs! I guess they are auctioned off as fund raisers; the cars have been around longer than the guy expected them to be.

There are also a lot of cool murals around town also.

One business had this banner hanging in the window! Go cats!

 We finally got into the Pontiac Oakland Museum when it opened at 9:00 a.m.

We had only been here a little while when Tim, the owner, asked Cary if he would like to ride over to the warehouse where he needed to pick up something he needed to use today. We both went along.

 Wow! Tim is a pretty young guy to have all these cars! He has only had the museum open a few years. He is from Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. He came to Pontiac and asked around about the possibility of opening a museum here. The mayor actually gave him a call...and the rest is history!

 Part of the building is dedicated to painting. He has a guy who paints cars,

and this gorgeous dress that glows in the dark,

and pieces like this, that although they are done on hoods of cars, they are meant to be sold as wall art, perhaps to restaurants in town.

Cary is still on Cloud 9 after Tim asked him if he would like to ride along when he moved this convertible to make room for another car going into the museum. Wow! Next stop, the Route 66 Museum down the street.