My Life and Travels
Today was our arrival at the balloon festival. As we drove into town this morning you could see balloons flying across the valley.
Campsite pictures, site 3894C
Saturday we will be going to the Dawn Patrol (balloons lit just at dawn) and mass Ascension of all 600 balloons. We I say going l mean going a mile north to the field where the balloons are assembled and lift off. Our current understanding is we will be able to see a lot of the events from where we are parked.
I feel better today, not much but better. Hank
We are in site G8 one of the newer areas of the campground.
No electricity or water but it is kind of flat.
Overhead view.
This morning started out with taking Hank to a vet. Last night we were playing our usual evening games and while running to jump onto the bed he gave out his high pitched squeal, like he does when something hurts him. I thought he had stepped on a burr or caught a toe nail. He was not putting any pressure on his left hind leg. When he has a burr he usually chews on his paw until he get it out however he was not chewing on it. The first time he got a burr in his paw he let me pull it out, the second did go as well as the first and haven’t tired it since.
This morning he did not come flying out of his kennel and when he did he was not putting any weight on his leg. Google had two vets in Winslow, the first one was out of the office today visiting ranches and the second turned out to be great. Hank has a strained knee ligament on the inside of left hind leg. Doc have him a shot and some medication for the next ten days. Said Hank should be better in two weeks but not to worry if it takes up to six weeks, another one of those age things again. He is to be kind of quiet for the next one to two weeks so he does not over work his good right leg. This means carrying him in and out of the motor home to pee and poo. Hank has never liked to be picked up however he has been pretty good about it today. Hopefully him and I will get it all worked out and he will not be as afraid as he as been in the past.
Driving maps:
Around Winslow
Winslow to Bluewater Lake.
Campground over view.
Travel day so we could get laundry done and hopefully get propane.
We are in site 24 a pull through. Their is a laundromat in Marble Canyon right at the turnoff to Lees Ferry. We drove down to it yesterday and found 8 washers ( 1 was currently working) 8 dryers (2 were working). We have been to Winslow several times before and previously found a nice laundromat right in down. So today was travel, laundry and a little grocery shopping.
Tomorrow we will go to Winslow Flying J and hopefully get propane. I’d like to start the week at the Balloon Festival with full tanks of gas, propane and water empty grey and black water. Goal is fill propane at Winslow, fill gas Flying J in Albuquerque, at Bluewater Lake State Park NM, dump holding tanks and fill with water.
Update: added maps
We really are in a big universe.
We just never see this many stars at the big house.
Last night was the first time in a long time I have been out at night taking pictures. Here a few:
We left Sand Hollow at 7:15 this morning, wanted to get on the road before the bad weather moved into the area. It worked out well at we got here about 10:30 local time.
Here is today’s drive.
Lees Ferry area.
Our campsite, we set in the middle area for a while before moving over to a canyon edge site.
We are in site 41 at $9.00 a night with old guy pass. We may be here until Wednesday or might move on sooner.
View from my chair in the shade setting next to the motor home is below.
This is looking back towards the campground from the river.
At 8:30 this evening the wind picked up and by 10:00 it was blowing 50 and 60 miles per hour. We put the large slide in around 9:30 and then put the bedroom slide in around 10:00. The wind was blowing over the bedroom slide topper however the weather app shows rain coming this way and I don’t want rain coming in under the slide topper. Getting the wind from the driver’s side rear quarter panel and it is sure raising hell with the old satellite dish. It is designed for wind to come from the front and not the rear. It is really banging. 10:45 and starting to RAIN big drops. Update at 11:00, rain quit after a few minutes wind is still blowing. 11:21 wind has stopped. Man is it quiet.
We keep a thermometer in the refrigerator to make to easy to keep track of the internal temp. This afternoon I looked to see what the outside temp was and the refrigerator was at 50 degrees. We went through this several years ago and I finally figured out that if I shut off all the power to the house side of the motor home for 30-60 seconds the refrigerator will reset it’s self. I reset the power turned on the internal fans and an hour later the refrigerator was back down to 38 degrees. Those internal fan can move some air.
I like traveling in warm weather not hot but warm. One of the advantages is the motor home’s batteries last forever. This evening we had the TV on using the 12 volt DC to 110 volt AC for several hours and the battery voltage never got off 13.0 volts. With a light it went to 12.9.
Just a few miles from Zion however I wanted to watch Survivor and we also needed a major shopping trip today.
We are in site 7 a great pull-through and it is RAINING. We stayed here several years ago when we were looking for sunny weather, we were not successful then either. Last time we went north to Mountain View Idaho, this time we will move east Lees Ferry for several days.
Written on IPad
Last warm day for a while, today’s high is 95 and tomorrow it’s 79.
Wednesday we will be moving on towards our next goal of Albuquerque on September 30th for the nine day Balloon Festival. Wednesday night will be at Sand Hollow State Park just down the road at Hurricane, Utah. This way we will be within local TV satellite range so I can watch the first show of this season’s Survivor. Then it is on to Lees Ferry for couple of days to get some Milky Way pictures, Bluewater Lake State Park in eastern New Mexico only a couple of hours east of Albuquerque.
I have added some additional information to my motor homing by the numbers post. The number of days in each state.
Arizona – 109
California – 33
Canada – 4
Colorado – 1
Idaho – 33
Montana – 5
New Mexico – 65
Nevada – 60
Oregon – 56
South Dakota – 4
Utah – 153
Washington – 408
Wyoming – 21
Motorhoming by the numbers
We purchased our first motorhome in November 1993. We have kept a travel logbook to record our travels. Over the last week or so I have updated the Excel copy of this logbook with a summary table of every night we have camped.
Total nights – 1040 this does not account for the days we used the motorhome, ie a weekend out would be one night however we were using the motor home 2 days.
1993 – 6
1994 – 30
1995 – 19
1996 – 23
1997 – 20
1998 – 14
1999 – 9
2000 – 10
2001 – 17
2002 – 21
2003 – 19
2004 – 19
2005 – 42
2006 – 45
2007 – 45
2008 – 63
2009 – 54
2010 – 74
2011 – 58
2012 – 57
2013 – 67
2014 – 121
2015 – 138
2016 – 89 through 9/21/2016
Types of places we have stayed:
National Parks – 195
State Parks – 577
Fort Flagler – 180
Zion National Park – 110
Boondocking – 109
Private Commercial – 10
RV Resort/Spring Training – 30
Forest Service – 62
Rest Stops – 43
Walmart – 8
Washington Coast – 39
Number of days in each state (Updated addition)
Arizona – 109
California – 33
Canada – 4
Colorado – 1
Idaho – 33
Montana – 5
New Mexico – 65
Nevada – 60
Oregon – 56
South Dakota – 4
Utah – 153
Washington – 408
Wyoming – 21
Miles driven
24 foot class C – 40,933 miles
32 foot class A Bounder – 90,820
Total miles – 131,753
Since September of 2004 at the end of each two plus week trip I summarized our fuel costs and gallons used.
since 9/2004 – $24,476.43 and 7894.5 gallons