2013 04 06 - San Angelo, TX to Austin, TX

Once we made it to Austin on Saturday afternoon, we'd logged about 2400 miles and about 40 hours of driving.  The remaining route would take us through Houston, Baton Rouge, Pensecola Beach (Florida), finally to Orlando by Wednesday.

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2013 04 05 - Carlsbad, NM to San Angelo, TX

Friday, April 5th, 2013

• Itinerary

Start - Carlsbad KOA, New Mexico
Stop - San Angelo KOA, New Mexico
Distance - 360 miles
Time - 6 hours
Route - Carlsbad south on Hwy 180 to Carlsbad Caverns, backtracking north on Hwy 180 to Hwy 396 (a much more country highway than expected) to get to south on Hwy 285 leading to the real Pecos, Texas and then on to Fort Stockton on I-10 for the first time, then northeast to San Angelo via Hwy 67

• Summary of the Day

Carlsbad KOA vs Whites City RV

There is an RV campground right outside of the Carlsbad caverns, at the small settlement of Whites City. I wish I had known that as we would have pushed through the town the previous night and probably saved at least an hour or so as the Carlsbad KOA is a good ways to the north of the town of Carlsbad. At night it would not have mattered much to have driven through the town before setting up camp - then in the morning we would have been able to get to the Caverns and off to Texas a lot sooner.

Carlsbad Caverns visitor center

A few miles south of the town on the Hwy 180 you'll get to the tiny settlement of Whites City which has a motel, a gas station, an RV campground, and a combo convenience and gift shop. That marks the turn NW that leads to the Caverns.

The drive up to the entrance of the Carlsbad Caverns is not too difficult in a 32' RV. Plenty of school and tour buses drive up the winding road and I didn't have any trouble. It's only about 7 miles but it takes a little longer than you think as you can't drive too fast.

The parking area had just enough room for our RV as there were several other buses and RVs.

Large Vehicle parking area at the visitor center

The visitor center is large enough and has a cafeteria, gift shop and book store in addition to the central information desk and ticket sales.

The Caverns themselves
You have a couple of options -
1) going down 750 feet via elevator to a central starting point for either a guided or self paced tour.
2) hiking in via the original Natural entrance which takes about 60 to 90 minutes to reach the same area as the elevator

With PezMiner being a bit hesitant, we opted for the elevator route down to the underground visitor center.

The self tour of the Big Room takes about 60 to 90 minutes, with a shortcut available also that would cut that in half.

At the shortcut is a sign to make it easy to cut through half of the Big Room tour

This was definitely the most impressive cavern I have ever been to - based solely on its sheer size and grandeur.  Over 14 football fields in area for the Big Room, you basically can walk through easily on a mostly level path in large almost oval route.

It is amazingly easy to walk through and small children and seniors were having no problem making it through. Several large groups of children would come through and there are plenty of places to either pass them by or let them go past. Since most folks go through the Big Room on their own, it is easy to spend as much time as you want at each interesting point along the way.

Lillber inside the Big Room

The Lion's Tail Stalactite and popcorn formation

Lots of helpful signs inside to help visitors understand each area

The Massive Gypsum layer and the scoring vertical holes

These caverns are a must see if you can make it to this part of the USA. None of the pictures I took can convey the height and size of the Big Room tour.


Long Drive through West and Central Texas
We weren't totally sure how far we would make it through west Texas. There is really nothing to see along the way.  Endless prairie.  Endless.  Did I say Endless enough?

We aimed for Fort Stockton for dinner and kids called for Pizza so the first thing we saw was a Pizza Hut. Sigh. Well - it worked sort of. They were out of the normal pizza dough so tried getting PezMiner the other dough but he didn't like it at all so FAIL. We got out of there after 9pm and weren't sure if any of the nearby RV camps would take late arrivals.  So back to the reliable "Come late if you need to" KOA chain. For a long cross country drive you know they will keep the light on for you with an easy self check in process.

The KOA on the path to Austin was still pretty far away - over two hours more, perhaps three. But it was in a certain town from my past that I had wanted to make it to if I could.

San Angelo in the Dark
This would be my first return trip to San Angelo in almost 25 years!  I had been stationed there at Goodfellow Air Force Base in 1989-90 for final training before I went to England. It was also there that I had the worst pain I had ever experienced - a rupturing appendix. I spent some time in the civilian hospital for my appendectomy which led to me moving back one class in tech school and staying a little longer in training. So I had some nostalgia for at least seeing the place the next day if possible.

The KOA was on the western side of town on the popular Lake Nasworthy. We pulled up for another late night arrival and settled in for the night without any problems. I am now an expert at setting up in the dark.

Achievement Unlock - Setting Up your RV in the Dark 7 Times in a Row (Meridian ID, Brigham City UT, Green River UT, Cortez CO, Albuquerque NM, Carlsbad NM, San Angelo TX)

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2013 04 04 - Albuquerque, NM to Carlsbad, NM

• Itinerary

Start - Albuquerque Central KOA, New Mexico
Stop - Carlsbad KOA, New Mexico
Distance - 300 miles
Time - 5 hours
Route

• Summary of the Day

National Museum of Nuclear Science & History
Just a few miles away from the KOA is great little museum dedicated to explaining the history of nuclear science - explaining a wide variety of background from war to popular culture.

As part of the warfare exhibits it has a small collection of airplanes and other weaponry from the Cold War including life size mockups of the Little Boy and Fat Man bombs used to end the war with Japan.

Lillber enjoyed the planes outside.

B-29 Just like Grandpa Keith Robar used to fly in WW2

Unfortunately, we found out that the last fully flying B-29 out of Dallas had just been to Albuquerque the previous day!  They had even given flights and let kids explore the full plane.  By one day! Darn.

Getting Luna a Checkup
With so much driving last summer and now a hard push from Seattle all the way to New Mexico, I had that feeling that I'd be better safe than sorry to get Luna some new oil and a quick checkup while we took the boys to lunch and another museum stop.

We had decided to head downtown for lunch so I found a fantastic RV service and repair shop nearby 'Old Town' and dropped Momma and the boys off to find a restaurant while I took Luna to the service shop.

The folks at Statkus Engines were very helpful and the price was great ($90 for oil, filter, check the tires, etc). They are a little hard to find but close to the I-40 and Old Town. There service was fast and efficient and they even gave me a ride to the restaurant back in Old Town and offered to pick us up when the RV was ready.  5 out of 5 for going the extra mile on customer service.

Albuquerque 'Old Town'
Just SW of the I-25 and I-40 interchange and west of the new downtown is the Old Town art and shopping district. Worth the trip for the nice walking area and food, etc.

High Noon for lunch
Momma found a nice little Mexican restaurant and the food was great. After a nice lunch there we split up so Momma could try to find a pedicure while I took the boys to the Titanic exhibit.


New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science, Titanic Artifact Exhibition

This was for PezMiner. He has read up and researched a lot about the Titanic - probably starting with the great series for kids, The Magic Treehouse. Albuquerque's Natural History museum is just a couple of blocks away from the High Noon and the rest of Old Town.

We spent most of our time wandering through the temporary Titanic artifacts portion of the museum. At the start you are given a ticket for one of the passengers of the titanic and you won't find out until the end whether your name is from one of the survivors or fatalities. Along the way are multiple actual recovered items plus paintings, photos and videos from the visits to the bottom of the Atlantic.

Here's their website for the exhibit (until Oct 2013): http://nmnaturalhistory.org/titanic

All three of our tickets were survivors from Third Class passengers. I was amazed at just how many crew members there were and most of the fatalities were crew (over 700 crew members perished).

We finished up, got picked up by the nice folks from Statkus and were back on the I-40 and headed towards the famous Roswell, New Mexico and then to Carlsbad.

Roswell - not just a quirky little town
Momma drove for a while once we were headed south towards Roswell. She stopped to let me drive in town in case we had any tricky turns to deal with. While we stopped the boys took the time to scooter in the large empty parking lot for a quick break.

We made it to Roswell too late to see the UFO museum unfortunately!  The biggest surprise to me was just how big Roswell actually is as a town. Its rather large actually.  I had expected a one street village with a UFO themed bar and diner. Not so. At least three Sonic drive ins that we counted (which has become our measure of how large a southern USA town is - it seems to be the dominant fast food in this part of the country).

We pushed on a bit further and got to our next KOA campground for the night just to the north of the town of Carlsbad.

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2013 04 03 - Cortez, CO to Albuquerque, NM

Wednesday, April 3rd, 2013

• Itinerary

Start - Cortez KOA
Stop - Albuquerque Central KOA
Distance - 264 miles
Time - 5 hours
Route - Cortez to Durango, Durango south on Hwy 550 to Benalillo, Benalillo south on I-25 to Albuquerque

• Summary of the Day

We had been in Cortez on our first RV trip when we visited Mesa Verde.  The KOA campground was right on the edge of town with easy access and almost deserted. The view from the KOA  was fantastic.

 

We started the day with shopping at Wal-Mart for resupply.  Also I got my haircut as I was tired of waking up with 'camping hair' that was a bit reminiscent of Doc from Back to the Future.

After being told by two different people (one at the KOA and another at the haircut place inside the Wal-Mart) that we should head east to Durango then south to Albuquerque, we followed their directions. Durango has a ton of outdoor activities from river rafting to a cool zipline that takes you across the forest. Seems like a great town to visit.  But we wanted to get into Albuquerque before dark so we drove right on through. But if you find yourself in SW Colorado it seems like a great town to add to your itinerary.

Coming out of the mountains of SW Colorado you eventually drop down into flat, desert New Mexico.

For a long long long while Land of Enchantment means "Sleep Spell". Almost no towns except a couple of tiny one house towns along the way. The first sign of modern civilization is the outskirts of a suburb named Benalillo, which has every necessity you might need after hundreds of miles of desert. And that was almost in Albuquerque itself.

We had hoped to get to see one of Albuquerque's top attractions, the Sandia Peak Tramway, the world's longest aerial tram ride to the top of over 10,000 feet!  But we arrived during its annual two-week maintenance closure, our bad luck.  Argh! The mountain dominates the Albuquerque area. This is what we had been looking forward to but didn't get to see:

Missing that - we decided to stop for dinner and a movie, just before the I-25 and I-40 meet (a good central crossroads of the city). Dinner at nice restaurant next to massive 24 screen movie theater, the Cinemark Century Rio 24 Plex and XD.   The restaraunt was a nice brewpub called Chama River Brewing Company. I had a delicious Kobe meatloaf and a good sample of their local brewpub beers (knowing I was going to be in a movie after dinner). The kids has the usual chicken fingers and fries and chocolate milk of course.

After dinner, PezMiner and I went to see a movie - The Croods, while Momma went to see The Host, a movie based on a book. Our movie was great - a 4.5 out 5.  Momma was disappointed in the adaptation.

We then loaded up and made it to the nearby KOA - Albuquerque Central KOA. The campground was quite large for a semi-urban location - and despite its close location to the Interstate we slept well and without noticing the traffic at all.

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2013 04 02 - Green River, UT to Cortez, CO

Tuesday, April 2nd, 2013

• Itinerary

Start - Green River KOA, Green River, Utah

End - Cortez KOA, Cortez, Colorado

Distance - about 270 miles

Time - one hour to get to Goblin Valley, 2 hours there, 2 hours to drive to Moab, 2 hours from Moab to Cortez

Route - I-70 West to Hwy 24 to Temple Mtn Rd, backtrack onto I-70 East to Hwy 191 S to Moab, then Hwy 491 east to Cortez

• Summary of the Day

Our goal for the day was to get out of Utah but at the same time, I wanted to see a couple of things we missed the last time in July of 2011.

Our first stop for the day - Goblin Valley State Park, about an hour back to the West and South.  Our goal was South and East (the corner of Colorado and NW New Mexico) but this was worth backtracking.

One of our family's favorite movies is "Galaxy Quest" - brilliant satire but also tribute to Star Trek and other TV sci-fi. One of its important scenes is the typical crew trip down the surface of an alien planet. This setting for the movie - Goblin Valley State Park.

Galaxy Quest's Captain running from the Rock Monster

The short drive west on I-70 led to the 2 lane highway 24 southwest to the area of the state park.  A pretty lonely road but with fantastic scenery.

Enormous storm clouds rolled over us and dropped more rain and I began to worry - would we be washed out from a cool park? But by the time we got to the cutoff of Temple Mtn Road we were fine.

The only other incident on the way was a small group of cattle that had decided to cross the road in front of us.

After that short delay we were just about there.

The small park ranger office and gift shop marked the entrance. The fee was only $7 so not bad.  There were many other folks camped before the park with Rec off road vehicles. And the campground in the park was full. But still rather a less visited park.

At first, PezMiner was hesistant to go out and see the sites. But after a few minutes he relented. And once we saw the place he was very happy he did.

The whole family wandered down from the small parking lot and picnic shelter that was already filled with other families.

The family about to explore Goblin Valley

We spent two hours there and could easily have spent another hour just exploring, playing hide and seek, etc. A great place to adventure.

Goblin Valley, Utah - a totally alien feeling landscape

PezMiner climbs to the top of a very large hill in Goblin Valley

Daddy hiding from the Rock Monster, it does help to roll by the way

Momma walking off to explore (or to find Lillber?)

PezMiner conquers more Goblins

Hole in the Rock, Moab, Utah

Last trip we had spent so much time at Arches National Park that when we had to leave Moab to head south we missed out at stopping at the Hole in the Rock - a small touristy stop about 10 miles south out of Moab. It closes right at 5pm so you can easily get there too late. It is also by itself on the east side of the road far away from anything so if you're not prepared you can miss it quickly. You come around a few curves and suddenly see a crudely painted sign on the top of a mesa, the entrance is IMMEDIATELY past the bluff:

The sign for Hole In the Rock tourist attraction

Its a small stop along the way but one of those one of a kind weird places in the USA. A man decided to build his wife a home inside the cliffside and over the years blasted out a unique house. They turned it into a diner during the 1940s-50s and eventually it became a tourist stop. It now has a unique zoo and the short 15 minute tour is worth stopping to see.

Further south you get into Mendicino where you can start to head southeast on highway 491 to get to Coloroado.

The drive from Mendicino, Utah into Cortez, Colorado is an undulating highway where you finally see farms and ranches compared to the wilderness of Utah.

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2013 04 01 - Brigham City, UT to Green River, UT

Monday, April 1st, 2013

• Itinerary

Start Brigham City, Utah (north of Salt Lake City by about an hour)
Stop  Green River KOA, Utah
Distance - 236 miles
Time - one hour in the morning, then 3 hours after leaving Salt Lake City to get to Green River
Route - I-15 South to Spanish Fork, UT then Hwy 6 over the mountains to I-70 East for a few more miles to Green River, UT

• Summary of the Day

The morning was weird. I was awakened by the sound of the falling of random objects on the top of our RV. Then I heard what sounded like the screams of a 1000 birds. The first sound was heavy nuts from the adjacent tree while the birds turned out to be seagulls and what I assume was some robins. Our campground had been invaded!  PezMiner spotted one unique and pretty blue jay looking bird.

A sample of the Seagulls everywhere at the KOA in the morning

Getting some showers in we were ready to go and we packed up by 1030am.

Our stop for the day was downtown Salt Lake City. We visited our company's headquarters in an old factory building converted to office space that was quite nice.

While I spent the day with my boss and our CFO and got work stuff done, the family went to do a little bit of shopping for a couple of hours. By about 4pm I had wrapped up my work meetings and the family had made it back to the RV.

Daddy and PezMiner

I had known there was a Brazilian Steak House at the nearby mall and that Momma loves that type of restaurant  Surprisingly Lillber (who normally loves a great steak) was too tired to join us so just the three of us walked the several blocks over to the restaurant.

PezMiner ended up being brave and trying many new things he normally doesn't try.  He decided to give the restaurant 4.5 stars out of 5, knocking off .25 because we had to wait 15 min to be seated, and another .25 because the servers who bring the meat to your table would occasionally go by our table without stopping to let us have any.  In the end, we had a great meal and great family dinner and we would heartily recommend this restaurant.

After dinner the weather turned hard-core rainy.  Since it was an outdoor mall (much like the mall at Redmond Town Center back home) we had to almost swim back to the RV at the Smart Bomb parking lot. The downpour thoroughly soaked all three of us .  After drying off we were ready to hit the road by about 7pm.

As we got on Interstate 15 again the rain fell even harder. I was hoping I was not going to have to drive all evening underwater. Thankfully after about 15 minutes the rain vanished.  We could once again marvel at the beauty of the mountains to the east and the west of us as we drove.

And I could unclench my fists from the steering wheel.

We had a big decision to make by around 8pm - stay on I-15 and head south and camp for the night at Salina, Utah and then head east on I-70 in the morning
OR
head SE over the mountains in the dark taking Highway 6 out of Spanish Fork.  The weather report predicted snow overnight in Salina so we took the same cut off we had a year and half ago on our first RV trip.

I knew it was going to be a bit hairy - I had driven it in the evening before.  But now full darkness fell just as we headed up into mountains.

Two hours to go - most of it as mountain driving. I tightened my grip on the wheel, pushed a bit harder on the gas and we twisted and climbed and climbed and twisted. After over an hour of this, we finally dropped down out of the mountains, met up with I-70 and went the last couple of miles into Green River to our KOA for the night.

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2013 03 31 - Meridian ID to Brigham City UT

Sunday, March 31st, 2013

• Itinerary

Start - 2pm Mountain (Boise-Meridian KOA Campground)
End - 8pm Mountain (Brigham City KOA Campground)
Distance - ~ 300 miles
Time - 5 hours including 30 min rest stop

Route - I-84 East into Utah then to I-15 South 

• Summary of the Day

445pm Sweetzer Pass - Elevation 5535 feet

500pm Rest Stop - the whole area used to be the biggest lake in North America at 20,000 square miles

615pm Crystal Springs - didn't work out

700pm Brigham City for gas and then over to KOA

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2013 03 30 - Kennewick, WA to Meridian, ID

Saturday, March 30th, 2013

• Itinerary

Start - 3pm Pacific (Kennewick WalMart)
End - 9pm Mountain (Boise-Meridian KOA Campground)
Distance - ~ 280 miles
Time - 5 hours including 30 min rest stop

Route - South I-82 to I-84 East, From SE Washington through NE Oregon into Western Idaho

• Summary of the day

Spent the morning helping the Mother-in-Law with computer issues (updating IE, reinstalling printer drivers, etc). We then went to lunch at 1230pm, got gas, and picked up some last minute items at WalMart. So we didn't get on the road until about 3pm.

It's symbolic when you cross the Columbia river - you know you're leaving your home state of Washington. It is relatively flat and simple drive to Pendleton, Oregon.  Then the first set of 'hills' are visible in the distance and it turns into a steep, twisting climb that is deceptive.

By 445pm we'd reached the top at Deadman's Pass.  We pushed on and on through this mountainous part of Oregon heading SE towards Idaho.

At 515pm we crossed the 45th Parallel - halfway between the equator and the North Pole.

After that it was a pretty simple drive to get into Idaho and also to shift into Mountain Time Zone.

We pushed towards Boise and stopped for the night at a KOA just west of Boise, the Boise-Meridian KOA.

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