|
|
|
||||||||
RVLovers Adventures
~ 2001 ~
A Motorhome Odyssey
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The first half of the year...
January -
The New Year 2001 found us celebrating with our friends Bill and Hillary in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas
Click on the Picture for a Closer Look
New Year's Eve was mild and pleasant, but the next week was
cool and rainy. We soon set off for warmer climates. Bill and
Hillary went east toward Florida, and we drove west toward
Arizona. 
Quartzsite, Arizona
We went to a Newmar rally "six miles south of nowhere" -- Quartzsite, a little town in the western Arizona desert, well known to RVers as a winter mecca. The food at the rally was to die for...well, at least this pig made the sacrifice. What a feast!
Puerto Peņasco, Sonora, Mexico
From Quartzsite we immediately joined another Newmar rally and caravaned to Rocky Point, a Mexican resort on the Gulf of California. We spent 10 happy-go-lucky days enjoying the pleasures of Mexican touring.
After the trip to Mexico, Mary went on a diet and exercise program to lose the extra pounds she has gained since beginning this wonderful lifestyle. Here is one of the places where she fulfilled her 2001 New Year's resolution.
*(Note: For progress on her exercise program, see our July update.)
February.
Organ
Pipe Cactus
We returned to Mesa, Arizona for a few weeks and visited with our friends Bob & Merita, who had just moved into their motorhome to begin the fulltiming lifestyle.
From there we traveled a little further west to southern California
California
Mary had not visited San Diego for twenty years, but she found a long lost friend still living there.
Janice had been Mary's friend and her son Robert's babysitter when she lived there 30 years ago. Of course, then she was only 17 and Mary only a little older. But time hadn't made them forget the special friendship they had.
Mary especially enjoyed visiting the little island community of Coronado again, and although the rent is now a little higher, the place was still much like it had been in the 1970's.
Hotel del Coronado
Lighthouses on the
Western Shore
At one time there were as many as 60 major coastal harbor lights guiding ships from San Diego to the Olympic Peninsula. Many of the old lights are still burning, and we saw as many as we could.
Many of the first western lighthouses were built following a single basic architectural scheme, that of a Cape-Cod dwelling with the tower thrusting up through the center of the roof. One of these is the Old Point Loma light, which was built as the loftiest lighthouse in America. Unfortunately, all too often fog and low clouds obscured the light, so 36 years later a new light was built at a more practical elevation. The "new" light is still active.
Click on the picture for a closer look
March
Still in California, we made our way up from San Diego through the Los Angeles area, to San Francisco
Joshua Tree National Park
We attended church services at Dr. Robert Schuller's Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove.
We visited a lot of David's relatives in California. Here are some pictures of our visits. Point your mouse to the picture to reveal the names:
April
We celebrated Easter with David's family at the Arbanas home in Los Altos, CA.
We had a wonderful visit with daughter Julie in San Francisco during her week of Spring Break..
To see more pictures of our week in San Francisco, click on to the picture of us standing at Hyde Pier on the right:
The rest of April was very busy as we saw five National Parks in California and Nevada: Yosemite, Arches, Canyonland, Zion, and Bryce
Double-click each picture to see more closely
Scenes from Yosemite
We stopped in beautiful Salt Lake City and visited with more of David's aunts and cousins. Besides viewing the majestic Mormon church buildings we drove up to the ski country to see where the 2002 Olympics will be held. It was warm down in SLCity, but still snowing a few miles from there up in Park City.
Some of our family in Salt Lake City
The National Parks in Utah were a marvelous surprise - we had no idea they would be so beautiful
After experiencing snow and very cool temperatures in natural Utah, we drove a few miles over to Las Vegas, Nevada, where we experienced both weathershock and cultureshock -- 98° temperatures and the most outlandish scenery ever made by man..
.
We dropped a few dollars into the machines, and then headed back to some friendlier scenery.
Just a short drive from Las Vegas is one of the engineering marvels of our time, Hoover Dam. We took the "hardhat" tour under the Dam, but the most exciting part was afterwards, driving our motorhome over the Dam.
May
We returned to Arizona, to see what we had missed a few months before--The Grand Canyon, The Painted Desert, Sedona, and ancient Indian ruins.
We were able to stay in a campground right at Grand Canyon National Park. It was a tight squeeze, but David managed to park our home between the trees.
In Arizona we were able to see many different kinds of Pueblo Indian ruins.
Drawings - called Petroglyphs - pecked into the rocks allow a glimpse into the cultural life of the people who lived here 600 to 800 years ago
Ancient artists chipped away the dark desert varnish coating the rocks, exposing lighter rock beneath. Their handiwork included representations of human faces, bighorn sheep, antelope, lizards, and other things occurring in nature. We especially loved this one with the bird catching the frog.
The Painted Desert
Nearby in the Petrified Forest we were delighted to see this brilliant Collared Lizard:
He stayed very still while I took a picture. Click on the picture for a closer look.
Although we had seen only a fraction of the beautiful scenery in the west, we were feeling the need for a "grandbaby fix." So we headed eastward toward Indiana and Kentucky.
On the way we stopped to see the National Memorial "On American Soil" in Oklahoma City.
We come here to remember those who were killed, those who survived and those changed forever. May all who leave here know the impact of violence. May this Memorial offer comfort, strength, peace, hope and serenity.
. The Memorial Center takes you on a self-guided tour through the story of the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building on April 19, 1995.
Then further east in Tulsa, we were greeted by these magnificent praying hands at Oral Roberts University.
Click on the picture for a closer look
June
We spent the last of May and most of June in both Indiana and Kentucky with family. We will publish new Family Pages in a few weeks--we have lots of grandbaby pictures!
Yes, it's already July and we have left Indiana and started another trek across the Western U.S. We spent the 4th of July in Branson, Missouri, while in the company of several friends we met along the road this year. For the next month we will be traveling with our friends Bill and Hillary, and we have lots of exciting adventures in store. So stay tuned for our updates this summer.
Email us at this address: RVLovers@aol.com
Recent Updates:
