Route 66 Chronicles - Part 4, The Final Frontier (RV world)

Part 4 – The Final Frontier….....

We left off last time camping in yet another casino …this time in an official RV park adjacent to the casino. We planned to take a cultural tour of Sky City in NM and view ancient Indian cultures and sacred grounds.

The visit was interesting and packed with history and folklore. Ahh.. the American Southwest!

Upon departing the sacred city we decided to trek back east toward Albuquerque on old Route 66. While not “recommended” in our guidebooks, we decided to do it anyway! About 5 miles into this lonesome and desolate road, the pavement suddenly ended and we dropped onto a gravel road that was more “washboard” than navigable terrain. We had a choice to make – go back and take the REAL highway, or just keep going and take in the adventure! By now you should know that we picked the 2nd option and stayed on the road. Somewhere in the next 20 miles there MUST be blacktop…!

Ok… so now we’re in our big-ass RV taking in the scenery while everything is shaking and rattling and falling all over the place cuz we are getting the HELL pounded out of us on this friggin’ road. NO ONE is anywhere in sight except for an occasional horse, cow or bull. We did however, notice that the road was covered in horse shit all along the sides and in the middle so clearly, we were not too far from some form of civilization. On the plus side, the views, the colors the rock formations, the sky and everything around us was spectacular to see and heavenly in its own way. So we decided to just keep going and bear under the incredible racket from this bus being rattled back into its component parts by the “road”, if you can call it that. I was sure I was in Costa Rica…

So, now the doglet, who has had a prominent perch on my lap for the entire trip, likes to look out the window. She occasionally barks at a rock. We begin approaching a huge herd of bulls… I mean some very big-ass bulls grazing along this deserted patch of old Route 66. My “cute” dog begins to show her authority to these 1-ton creatures – all 8 lbs of her. She barks at them! And keeps barking. And barking. The bulls begin to notice us. We could see them beginning to turn there giant heads toward our RV. Understand, we are driving about 2 miles per hour and surely a bull can overtake us if he wants to! Or charge at us or something. We see them lift there heads and give us that big bull eyeball angry stare. OMG. They are LOOKING at us - and holy whatnots, they don’t like this nippy little dog. We realized we were alone out there and quickly shut up the dog, closed the windows and got the hell out of there!

Finally, after 20 miles we got off that gravel road and back to something more sane! What an adventure. Little noisy dogs and wild bulls don’t mix well.

We dropped by a little local bar and had cocktails with some of the locals who gave us a lot of rich history on the area and the demise of the golden years of Route 66. It was one of the few incidents that gave us a sense of what had been lost when the American highway system bypassed Route 66 and literally destroyed the richness of this great historic route to California. We passed many boarded and abandoned up gas stations, motels, diners and other landmarks that spoke of another time. Now it was basically a photo montage of life,, families, businesses and traditions that have disappeared or moved on. For better? One wonders……

The final days of our trip were calm compared to the “Griswold” start. Except for the final night and the last day. By this time it was really getting cold and not liking this weather, I was getting a little tired of the RV setup routine…. Freezing my hands connecting water hoses, draining sewage and generally being outside in winter…camping. So the last night after connecting electricity, water and TV, I just decided that, even with the planned freeze I was not going outside in the dark to disconnect the water. Nope.

The last day, we needed to de-camp, clean the RV and get on a plane home. Simple! I get up early and it is sunny and tolerable…as in perhaps mid 30’s in temperature. I did not expect to see the complete MESS I had outside from the night’s freeze! Oh NO!! The hose had burst and frozen ice covered the side of the RV and all the connections were in solid ice!! I nuked some hot water in the microwave and was able to thaw and detach the hose. Then I took it to the shower building to run hot water on it to get the ice out so I could store it. Gads. That done, I then needed to do one more DUMP of the sewage, the gray water and such. The RV was about 2 inches shy of the sewer drain pipe in our parking spot. I pulled on the plastic drain pipe to make the connection and ripped the end of it off! Oh no. Now sewage was running all over the place and the frozen water was still there from the fresh water flood of earlier. I just DUMPED and ran and hoped the minor sewer stuff would disappear by spring!

So long Route 66, RV camper and Albuquerque! What a great adventure! I would do it again in a minute – but NOT in the WINTER !!!

Thanks Kris for a fabulous 60th birthday bash!!! It was maaahvelous!!

Epilogue:

We got the RV back in halfway decent shape and left for the airport where Kris discovered her return flight was actually set for a week later! What??? After much ado, she got herself on a plane home to Mpls and giggled all the way home.

Back home now, we see that ARE the Griswolds!  ...or we became them for a short period of time!

(The Griswolds.... recall the relatives in the Chevy Chase Vacation movies....)

Route 66 Chronicles - Part 1, Background

Hello all,

Background:
For those of you not following my life in minute detail, let me set the stage.

Last year I decided to celebrate the big "six ooh" by doing something completely out of character - or at least outside the character I'd worked so hard to build these last 25 years - and took a trip somewhere I've never been, doing something I've never tried before! After all, it WAS ..."MY birthday" and as it was a big one. I figured it was t-i-m-e (and long overdue) to get back some of the vigor of my youth and my natural sense of adventure that I had stuffed away in deference to climbing the corporate ladder.

So I called my long time girlfriend from MN - who is a dormant party animal as well - and we both decided to go "on the road" for a "great outdoors adventure" along the remnants of Route 66! What fun this would be! We had not been on a trip together since…. maybe 1980….??

It was November, the day before Thanksgiving. We would spend 10 days rolling around the area and hoping to finally see the Grand Canyon….in a 29 foot RV!

Our starting point was Albuquerque. I flew in from Florida. She flew in from MN - with her brave college-age daughter who had the poor luck to be reliving the youthful exploits of a couple of "grandmas" traveling in an RV with a non-winterized, fussy, spoiled Florida toy poodle named Coco Chic....

While not matronly and certainly not "old" in our minds, we set out on this great adventure to just let the spirit move us.... After all, we lived through the 60's and of course being former flower children, 10 days hanging out on Route 66 seemed like it could be fun!

So let me set the stage more clearly so you can visualize the novelty of the situation:

1. A rented 29' RV being driven by 2 women who NEVER drove anything bigger than a station wagon or SUV, and who regularly bump into curbs and other minor obstacles in compact cars…not being so adept at driving…and being short so the view out the window has always had some “limitations”… or so that’s the excuse we employ…. The rental guy convinced us it is just like driving a car. Yeah…right..

2. Both of us 60-ish women are vertically challenged. And we talk when we drive.

3. A spoiled, manicured Florida toy poodle accompanied us and would not pee anywhere unless it was manicured grass and the temperature was above 70.  This became a constant issue and challenge throughout the 10 day trip since the natural terraine is rocks, gravel and dirt. We often set out to "find a lawn" and found ourselves stalking neighborhoods and commercial buildings along the way just to accommodate our (ok ..my) pet!  Insurance agencies seemed the best bet for pooping stations! They always had the nicest grass in the middle of desert and desolation! 

4. The trip was in late NOVEMBER...in an RV....in the mountains....staying in RV parks for the first time ever by either party...dealing with camping in winter conditions.  We did not consider this at all when making our plans to be there for my Nov 30th big birthday! 

5. Forget the size factor on this gigantic vehicle!  RV details in general were completely foreign to us.  Neither of us had any idea how to work a generator or how to discern white water, gray water, black water (RV terms). We got a 5 min lesson from the rental guy….Let's see, do we turn on the lights first or start the generator, and what about how the water and the pump works for both toilets and sinks?  More than once we drained the battery by mistake... and had to start the motor to get the battery going so the generator could start so the heat and water and TV and DVD would work.  But once all were working we were in literal RV HEAVEN.  We had movies, iPods, extra speakers and all the accoutrements of a luxury vacation in a rolling hotel room. This RV truly had all the amenities of home - albeit on a small scale.  After a few days in our mobile hotel room, we found that we could actually live in Wal-Mart parking lots - for days if necessary!  We were eating Wal-Mart deli food and watching movies among the other shoppers in the parking lot.   Is it the 60’s again?  Oh dear.

6. Neither of us considered the challenges of size (the vehicle), the weather (dah, winter!), the terrain (dah, mountains) or culture (hello? RV park clientele...).  We also did not consider the challenges of sharing narrow fast-moving highway lanes with the big trucks during rainy, snowy, windy conditions….on our way to the Grand Canyon…

So the trip begins…unaware of what lies before us but full of hope, expectation and excitement and the prospect of hitting the open road in the Great American Southwest!

We certainly did not expect a "Griswold" experience but found it was getting more "Griswold" every day into the adventure!

HEY, I live in Boca! ...where we manicure everything - twice daily....  And the concept of an RV adventure is met with "say WHAT"?   "Reeeally?"....   Needless to say, I have few locals endorsing this concept of "fun" and adventure!  After all, it’s not a yacht or a cruise, or a trip to an exotic island, or jetting to off to Paris or Tahiti, but it’s my birthday, my way. Shared with a great friend who has a wonderful sense of adventure and was kind enough to indulge me on this wild excursion!