2010
February 2010 March April 2010
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View entire year's route With Google Earth 588K
View year's Camps With Google Earth 106K
Route 108K     Galleries
Monday, March 1 Todays route using Google Earth
Oasis State Park   Clovis, NM Locate this campground with Google Earth $14.00 per night
We are in a lovely tiny state park where we met Lilly when we stayed here back in 1990. We have kept in touch with Christmas cards ever since. We drove 20 miles north to Cannon Air Force base to go to the commissary but it was closed on Mondays. The sunset here was very nice.   It is supposed to get down to the mid 20's tonight so we will disconnect our water hose. As of 6:30 this evening we are the only ones in the campground. I think this will be a nice quiet night.
Tuesday, March 2 Todays route using Google Earth
Raton KOA   Raton, NM Locate this campground with Google Earth $31.31 per night
We traveled north along the eastern edge of New Mexico before turning north west to reach Raton. Raton is the Spanish word for small rat. We passed a lot of territory that had recent snows. Beautiful scenery but mostly flat country.  
Wednesday, March 3 Todays route using Google Earth
Capulin RV Park   Capulin, NM Locate this campground with Google Earth $26.75 per night
We decided to move about 30 miles east to get out of the mud and to visit Capulin Volcano National Monument. Capulin is one of the best examples of an extinct cinder cone volcano in the US.   The campground owners here are very nice. In the late afternoon Tom did laundry while Frank washed the truck.
Thursday, March 4 Todays route using Google Earth
Colorado Springs KOA   Colorado Springs, CO Locate this campground with Google Earth $35.85 per night
We packed up and headed north. We are now just south of Colorado Springs, CO and will move on to Denver tomorrow.
Friday, March 5 Todays route using Google Earth
Dakota Ridge RV Park   Golden, CO Locate this campground with Google Earth $45.61 per night
The truck webcam computer didn't boot up properly this morning so we have no images from our journey today. Frank has been saving all the truck traveling webcam images since we started touring in 2008. This evening we had dinner with Dave and Jim at a small stake house about 5 miles from here.

Saturday, March 6
Tom called a Stanley Steamer company and we had them come over and clean our carpet. Quick, efficient, and now we are clean. The carpet is now 3 years old and needed a cleaning badly. We had been trying to find someone to clean it for a couple of months but everyone we called either couldn't do it while we were in town or their equipment was broken. Went to Micro Center and Frank got some USB cables to reorganize the external hard drives. Lots of little projects getting accomplished or at least started.

Sunday, March 7
Frank spent a good part of the day in the trailer basement working on a plumbing job. Now the water softener is much easier to remove for regeneration. He did have to move some pipes and that's when we found none of the hardware stores around here have the pipe fittings our trailer uses. So a couple of the pipes got jerry rigged until we can find the proper parts. We had dinner with Dave and Jim at Chad's restaurant. Locate with Google Earth

Monday, March 8
Today was a shopping day. We went to ACE hardware to look for plumbing parts, but did not find them. Later we visited an RV dealer where we were able to order the parts needed. Surprisingly, they called us an hour later saying they had them delivered and we could come and get them. So when we returned to the trailer, Frank again worked on completing the basement's replumbing, finishing after an accident which flooded the basement with several gallons of water. We also picked up some RXs at Walgreen's.

Tuesday, March 9
Tom took five of our audio books, which we have listened to while driving the truck and trailer, and sold them to a used book store. Then he bought seven new audio books for future listening. Frank and Tom went over to Jim and Dave's trailer and assisted them in removing their trailer's fifth wheel hitch from the back of their truck. Then Frank went with them to see their new house. Later Tom joined them at their house. The house will be 100 years old next year and is in excellent updated condition.   Later all four of us went to dinner at Country Buffet.

Wednesday, March 10
Yesterday Tom noticed a squealing sound coming from the front end of the truck. Since we needed new front tires, we had a tire store put on new tires, check the front end alignment and investigate the squeal. They said there was a U-joint problem at the end of the drive shaft. Later in the afternoon we dropped the truck off at a nearby Ford dealer and rented a Nisan truck while the F-250 was in the shop for repair. We then drove back to Dave and Jim's new house to help setup new furniture.  

Thursday, March 11
Today the Ford dealer called and said the U-joint problem needed to be shipped off for another company for repair, and that probably we would get the truck back tomorrow, Friday. Tom did the laundry, and then went grocery shopping. Frank again picked up RXs. Had dinner again with Dave and Jim at White Fence Farm, which serves a nice family style meal where everyone orders their own entree but the rest of the meal is served family style. Foods are included such as corn fritters, mashed potatoes and gravy, cottage cheese, cole slaw, beets, and a bean salad, plus rolls.

Friday, March 12
We got the truck back today. Turned out we had a slightly bent drive shaft which had to be sent out to a special place to get straightened. Frank spent much of the afternoon working on the computer cabinet, rebuilding the mounting system which had an oak piece split last year. Looks much better and shouldn't have any problems with the server moving.   We had one last meal at Chad's restaurant for dinner.

Saturday, March 13
We decided to stay another day and take a bit of a tour into the mountains. Beautiful weather and beautiful scenery. Locate with Google Earth

Sunday, March 14 Todays route using Google Earth
Lamar Sportsman's Campground and Horse Motel  , Lamar, CO Locate this campground with Google Earth $32.50 per night
We're on the move again. We are generally headed for Oklahoma City to have some work done on the trailer. It was cloudy all day with a cold damp wind which made travel a bit drab. Frank spent some time this evening learning more about KML maping files. The results can be seen in today's Google Earth campground place mark. If you click on the camping icon in Google Earth you will see a photo of this campground as well as more info about the campground.
Monday, March 15 Todays route using Google Earth
RJ's RV Park LLC   Garden City, KS Locate this campground with Google Earth $27.00 per night
We were planning on going about 220 miles today but decided it wasn't worth getting as tired as such a long drive would cause. So we stopped about half way here in Garden City. Frank continues working on his KLM files and learning new code.
Tuesday, March 16 Todays route using Google Earth
Fort Supply Lake (COE)   Fort Supply, OK Locate this campground with Google Earth $10.00 per night
We're in a beautiful Corps of Engineers campground just 100 feet from a large lake. The dam is huge, over a mile wide and it looks like over 100 feet high. The Corps campgrounds are almost always excellent and great places to spend some time. We would love to stay several days but need to get into Oklahoma City tomorrow for an appointment Thursday to have the trailer steps replaced.  
Wednesday, March 17 Todays route using Google Earth
Council Road RV Park   Oklahoma City, OK Locate this campground with Google Earth $25.20 per night
We're in Oklahoma City again for trailer service tomorrow. We just noticed too that we have another trailer tire that is just about worn out despite our realignment of last year. Will have to get another tire before leaving this area.

Thursday, March 18
We got up early and took the trailer to Motley's. We showed Allen our concerns and asked him about some unusual tire wear we had just discovered. He climbed under the trailer and found the Mor-Ride suspension system was broken. That required a call to the factory for overnight shipment of replacement parts. we also took all 4 tires over to a tire place nearby that was recommended, and at their recommendation, we replaced one tire, and at our decision we also replaced a second one that was beginning to wear. So we ended up in a hotel and had no access to Frank's email or our daily log for updates.

Friday, March 19
Once we checked out of the hotel we drove to the Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum for another visit. This one was nice as we spent almost all our time going through the art gallery of fantastic western paintings and sculptures. Due to photography restrictions in the paintings area no pictures are available. After the museum we went to the tire place and picked up the 4 trailer tires and hauled them back to the RV shop. We left and did some sight seeing and a bit of shopping before returning to pick up the trailer at 5:00. We also had them lube the slide-outs and repack the trailer wheel bearings. Bottom line, $4,400. Here are some photos of the broken parts.

Saturday, March 20
The snow began last evening and continues today. We had some thunder storms last night and the campground's Internet went down. Apparently their router was blown out, so we are using our own service for the rest of the weekend. Frank spent a lot of time learning more about KML files, and Tom worked on taxes. We drove to Country Buffet for dinner through the snow storm but it was worth it to keep from having to cook dinner here. Roads are slippery but traffic was light.

Sunday, March 21
The snow quit this morning, total accumulation is only a couple of inches but that is mostly because the tempeture was right around freezing and most of it melted as it hit the ground. The sun was out this morning but we had partly cloudy skies most of the day. We went to Country Buffet again for dinner but this time the sky was clear. We are anxious to get on the road again. Frank worked on fine tuning the Google Earth link for campgrounds we have staid in this year.

Monday, March 22
Well we didn't get very far today. The RV repair place called us this morning and asked if we could stop by and let them weigh our trailer to see if we were overweight. That could have caused the failure in our suspension system. Turned out this was the first time they had used their new weighing system and it took several hours to figure it all out. The info will be sent to the scale manufacturer for a detailed analysis which will be sent to us later. It doesn't appear we are over weight, but while we had the trailer in their bay they checked the distance from the hitch pin to each side of the two axles. It turns out that one axil is 3/4 inch off of what it should be. That could also be responsible for both tire wear and possibly for the previous failure of the Mor-ride suspension system that was replaced last week. So we decided to stay another day, and tomorrow they will try to make an adjustment that should straighten out the alignment. Hopefully that will solve the overall problem.

Tuesday, March 23 Todays route using Google Earth
Eisenhower State Park   Denison, TX Locate this campground with Google Earth $20.00 per night
We are on the move again. We started off with yet another trip to Motley's RV service where we dropped the trailer. We went shopping while Motley drilled out a bolt and rewelded the hole, essentially moving the right rear wheel back a half inch. Hopefully this will finally finish fixing the suspension system. We shall see. We drove south into Texas and a nice state park campground with full hookups. Very few other campers are here as the season hasn't really started yet. The weather was sunny and in the mid 70's. We are now in the scrub oak forests and the trees are starting to bud. We are seeing much green grass and some wild flowers all around. Our trailer is next to a flowering tree, I believe a crab apple.
Wednesday, March 24 Todays route using Google Earth
Purtis Creek State Park   Eustace, TX Locate this campground with Google Earth $16.00 per night
Today was cloudy with sprinkles and a few places with heavy rain but not too much. There is forecast of heavy thunderstorms tonight. Weather Radar   This is an older state park and needs just a bit of updating. Only 30 amp service and the paved sites need new asphalt but still very nice. Cell phone service is week but Internet is fine. Of course our cell phones are with AT&T while our Internet is with Verizon. I'm looking out my window at lots of cedars, hollies and some type of white flowering tree. We found out this evening that a campground we were expecting to stay at 2 days from now on the Gulf is closed from hurricane damage from several years ago. So we will make a slight change to our route and go into Louisiana a day earlier than we expected.
Thursday, March 25 Todays route using Google Earth
Huntsville State Park   Huntsville, TX Locate this campground with Google Earth $16.00 per night
The history of Huntsville State park (available on their website) is interesting. The original dam and some of the infrastructure was built by the CCC. This is a pleasant park with loads of trees. Speaking of trees, as we get further south and east, the trees have more leaves on them. I suspect we will be in full spring within a few more days. This is our last night in Texas. Tomorrow we move into Louisiana.
Friday, March 26 Todays route using Google Earth
Whispering Meadow RV Park   Westlake, LA Locate this campground with Google Earth $26.00 per night
We had planned on staying at a nearby Louisiana state park but they were full so we ended up here, which was not a bad thing. Nice campground. Concrete pads, full hookups, clean, inexpensive for a private campground, but the free WyFi is slow. Tom did laundry while Frank worked on fixing a design problem with his new outside light. The halogen bulb keeps working loose when we drive. He thinks he has the problem fixed with a small piece of coat hanger threaded through a couple of holes he drilled in the body which should keep the bulb in its socket.
Saturday, March 27 Todays route using Google Earth
Pine Crest RV Park   Slidell, LA Locate this campground with Google Earth $31.17 per night
Further east and we are going through southern white pine forests. Lovely day, fairly low humidity for the south, and the summer heat is not yet here. The winds of the last few days have also blown away most of the local pollution so things are nice. This campground needs work rather badly. At least the free WiFi is decent. As luck goes, most of the time Frank was driving we were going through construction areas with narrow lanes. When Tom was driving the roads were fine.
Sunday, March 28 Todays route using Google Earth
Gulf State Park   Gulf Shores, AL Locate this campground with Google Earth $23.59 per night
Warm today in the mid 70's and we can feel the humidity again. Very beautiful state park just off the ocean, very large with over 400 full hookup sites. Nice sea breeze this evening. Frank has now updated all the Google Earth place marks for our trips back to 2007 so they will bring up the campground photos and information.
Monday, March 29 Todays route using Google Earth
Tyndall AFB Famcamp   Panama City, FL Locate this campground with Google Earth $17.00 per night
Nice wooded campground, generally peaceful except when the Air Force jets come over. We staid here 20 years ago. We thought we were going to have full hookups but all those were taken. But we are fine. Frank is starting to have problems with mosquitoes.

Tuesday, March 30
Work day. Tom did shopping while Frank worked on web pages. We got our full timing trips from 1989-1993 formated for the web and posted.

Wednesday, March 31 Todays route using Google Earth
Perry KOA   Perry, FL Locate this campground with Google Earth $35.10 per night
We continue to move east. We tried to stay at Ochlockonee River State Park Locate with Google Earth near Sopchoppy (try saying that 3 times real fast, check out the photo on their website "Gruntin' for Worms) Locate with Google Earth. We had staid there on January 1, 1990, but they only had 2 sites available. One was too short, the other would have taken an hour to get into and another hour to get out of due to trees. We stoped in Sopchoppy to check out a little city park with camping, but almost all the sites had a reserved sign on them and the ones that didn't were not level, so we continued on to Perry. That was disappointing but what can one do if one didn't make reservations. We traveled along the gulf coast for quite a ways where we got a few shots.   We had dinner at a local spot called Goodman's BBQ. Lots of rednecks, friendly staff and good food. Here's their menu (PDF 84k)