What I Learned on My Trip.

I found out that there are nice people all over the country. The busiest clerk had time to wish us a safe trip. But they couldn’t connect unless I breeched the wall first. I guess the message is chat, with real people, in the now. Our trip was like a trail of smiles.
Kias rule! I’m sorry, but my little car made it up and down the mountains and went 80 in West Texas, with the air on. I just took it back in to my mechanics (John and Charles at Superior Automotive on 1st and Congress. You guys are awesome. Go see them if you need a truly honest mechanic.) Clean bill of health.
Friends, beware. Move away from Austin and you too may get to host me, and any friends I choose to drag along. Thanks again to Doug and Faye in Fort Collins, Bruce and Phillip in Las Vegas and Carl and Janie in Tempe.
You can become jaded to anything. I asked Corey to take a picture of a mountain in Texas for my collection and she said no. She did take it, but I have to tell you, the mind can only accept so much. I think we were both mountained out. “Oh another spectacular red rock mountain view, Yaaaaawn."
Thanks for following the trip. I’m going to put a slide show of mountains from different states on facebook soon. If you are not inured to mountain pictures yet.

In response to 107 ( 107 degrees in Austin yesterday) I have struck back with my very own cool down system which I am willing to share.

1 Family Size Fun Pool- On sale at Target for 14.99

1 bath spa Thrift Town special for 20.00

1 extention cord - No clue where this came from.

1 Laudry detergent bucket- Free This is my pool side table.

1 Tarp Home depot maybe 6.00

1 glass of wine Twin vines, my new fav and only 6.00 at HEB.

1 steamy romance Book Exchange World's best used bookstore.

Results Priceless

I also included a shot of my new gazebo put together with my two hands and invaluable help from Michael and Kyle.

This system is not yet patented so anyone is free to copy the design or contact me for further instructions. Enjoy!

An Uncommon Blog: Hunger

An Uncommon Blog: Hunger

It’s late and I’ve been up since 5:30 mountain time, but I’m still buzzing from driving. We stayed with old friends of Corey’s in Tempe. Carl had the grill going and made Daddy Burgers and grilled shrimp and we had all the fixings to go with it. This was at poolside folks. While they were at it they fed half of their neighbors too. Salt of the earth doesn’t even begin to describe how kind these people are. We got a tour of the resort where Janie works. It was huge. We got lost wandering around the complex of rooms ,villas, restaurants, even a water park.
Sunday, Janie made us a wonderful breakfast from the baguette I got at the Wildflower Bakery in Sedona, (10% goes to help schools at risk.) Then we were off to the mountains that overlook the city. But it was silent Sunday and we couldn't go up the mountain unless we walked or rode a bike. Hmmmm walking up the asphalt road or even biking up a mountain in the over 90-degree heat, I don’t think so. So after goodbyes and invites to come to Austin and Bradenton, we were off on the road again. We did good. Made it all the way to El Paso. I will say that Tempe and most of southern Arizona is hot as the dickens. You couldn’t even know you were sweating. It just evaporated. What really got us were the signs. Caution : Blowing Dust Keep light on. Visibility may be zero. We saw the dust devils dancing between the mountains and us. There was a haze over everything. At night the side of the sky away from the sunset glowed pink with dust.
Starting out this morning after breakfast in the office. ( Janie, we miss your French toast!) We are home by tonight. Whoopee!

View from our window


Hello again, this time from Sedona. We woke up yesterday in Las Vegas. Bruce filled us full of coffee, even pouring the cream. We talked and played with the dogs, then set out for the Pilipino grocery store. Aisles of fresh whole fish on ice, along with octopus, squid and pork blood (?). (Corey claims she was glad to be there with friends because it was scary. I did find some new fruits and veggies. I bought some purple yams, evidently a mainstay of the diet, and banana pears, (just short, fat bananas) and seaweed salad). Corey reminded me of the milkshakes, avocado, yam and other things I’m not sure of the spelling. We went to Jason’s Deli for lunch and then took off for Arizona.
Blowing kisses goodbye to Bruce we went first to the AT&T store to figure out why my Bluetooth wouldn’t work. (Don’t ever turn it off at the phone.) Then we were off to the Hoover Dam. Do you know that there is a security Guard at the Dam and it takes about an hour to make it across? Crawl, crawl crawl. But we saw that they are making a bridge to flyover the dam, so they can eliminate the security stop and speed up that spot.
The dam buildings at the top are all Art Deco, with Statues and gold art deco doors. On one side you are in Nevada and on the other side you are in Arizona. If driving with a standard transmission, I advise coasting down the hill to the dam to save your clutch. We had to go about 5 MPH the whole way down.
On the other side we hit our first real desert. We did spend short time on Route 66. Mostly a lot of really funky old building with "Historic Route 66" painted on the side. Still lots of mountains and the signs claimed elk and big horn sheep were going to jump us anytime, along with falling rocks. Nothing jumped us, the weather cooled from the razor wire wind we met it first to cool breezes and we were again in the mountains, this time with firs and the twistiest roads to date. But here we are in Sedona! First thing out of the car (at 8:30 at night) was Gypsy Jenny’s. Awesome clothes from Nepal. She really, really hoped that selling these clothes was a good thing for the people in Nepal. She knew and liked her suppliers, a family from Nepal. I talked Corey into a wonderful cute dress made of recycled saris and I got some truly wonderful pants. Jenny had been a hairdresser, but she now has the shop, with singing bells and jewelry and this unique clothes. I really haven’t seen anything like them.
We met a youth group on a mission trip from Richardson Texas, Church of the Nazarene. The youth minister was in front of us in the line (Sorry for the delay taking your order. We weren’t expecting 50 teenagers). They had been to a Navaho reservation for community service and were on their way back. We got the veggie pizza, truely fine and listened to a musician sing about his father and how he was sure he too had long hair while he was standing next to Jesus and now he understood his son.
It was hot tub and sleep time. Woke up and looked straight out on those rocks in the picture. Took that from our window. Now we are off to Tempe.

Morning all. I write from sunny Las Vegas. Yesterday was delightful. Free breakfast at the motel and it was good. Fresh waffles off the grill. Then we got on the shuttle to the park. Once in the park we got on another shuttle that took us through the park. You could get out at any stop, wander around as much as you wanted and catch another shuttle. It was all very clean and organized. We took some short walks, nothing over a mile. There were tons of people there of all sorts. So many different languages. Nice folk. We at garlic French bread with goat cheese and avocados, blackberries and cherries outside the old lodge that was built for tourists back in the 20’s. We stayed until about 3 then went back to town, picked up our car and headed for Las Vegas. Along the way we went to the Big Chill for snow cones. I was just thinking that snow cones were few and far between in this neck of the woods and here is a Hawaiian shaved ice place. Bright blue, built like a little house, cute as it could be. Very nice man inside. I really liked him because there were some kids there and he listened to what they wanted instead of listening to the Mom yelling from the car. Rather sounds like I’m a traitor to my own kind but she did sound a little bitchy. Anyway Austin got his three flavors instead of just two and he gave them an extra punch on their frequent customer card.
At this point we had gone through so many time changes, we literally didn’t know what time it was. Our various electronic devises didn’t agree either. Oh we changed the Tomtom’s voice so now he sounds like a Brit, sort of a young Sean Connery. But he still didn’t know what time it was. So we thought we were going to get here at 7:30, then we revised to 6:30 and it was actually 5:30. I think we now know we are firmly in the Pacific Time Zone.
We went out for Thai food, which was very good. We went swimming in a pool that is Bruce and Phillip’s backyard. ( We don’t need no stinking grass!) Today we are messing around in Las Vegas and then it’s off to Arizona. Yes we are going to Sedona Debra. Then off to Tempe.

Rain and Rocks

This is Bryce Canyon . Me & Lou's



I’m trying something new. I’m writing as we go along the road.
We had the most extraordinary luck last night. We ended up in this cool little town of Malad. The motel was simple but you could tell a lot of work was being done. I talked to the lady who ran the place and she was trying to bring it back after the neglect of the former managers. She told me about her kids who “lived close enough to see but not so close they could show up on the doorstep with all the grandkids” . We went to eat at Me and Lou’s café. Wowee zowee! Gorgeous. Ed was there. He was from Dallas but had family in Austin. Went north after his divorce and never looked back. I had the best biscuits and gravy.
What a long day it was. We traveled down to Bryce Canyon and got there about 4:00. We almost passed it up because of the rain, cold and unrelenting. I was not a happy camper. ( Speaking of which, we have not been able to camp a single night. Either too tired, too late, too cold, or too wet. Lots of toos.) I’m so glad we got to go to Bryce. I thought it would be too much the same, but every new spot was another OMG experience. We aren’t seeing a lot of animal life. We saw a foolish prairie dog standing upright in the middle of the road. Much like our bison friend but so much smaller as to be stupid rather than brazen. There was one lone deer.
We are off to Zion today, so biblical. They have a great system. We are staying just outside the park. They shuttle you to the park and then they shuttle you around the park . There are shuttles every ten minutes all day. We are going to stay until about three then we are off to Las Vegas.

Today we drove to the Grand Tetons. Wyoming started out sort of like a green north Texas, sort of all rolling plains. Then gradually the hills got taller, and then we saw the mountains. It just got bigger and better as we went along. Craggy towers were growing right next to the road. We did hit some of our tax dollars in action (shovel ready as it were) and the roads were rugged. Rain also gifted us. We went into Chugwater to eat, but the Buffalo Stampede Inn was under new management and wasn’t open yet. While taking pictures of charming downtown Chugwater one of the natives came out to take pictures of the tourists. We ate breakfast at Wheatland Inn, where we found out that the lady next to us had a lazy daughter-in-law and who was getting what test. Just like home. Yummy blueberry pancakes. We are now in the economy room at the Hatchet Resort. Very nice place. They cut us a deal since we got there late. Wonderful food in the dining area and our hardworking waitress was from Romania.
I’m off to bed. No internet because of the rain. Will post tomorrow.

Hail to the Rockies

And they'll know you are Texan by your hat, by your hat. And they'll know you are Texan by your hat

Today Faye took us up to the Continental Divide in Rocky Mountain State Park. It's cold up there, people, too cold for the elk. Faye stopped for every possible photo op. We ate homemade almond butter sandwiches in the car. The altitude started getting to me a little and did I mention it was COLD? So we didn't hike to the very top of the divide. For Texas folk, it was like walking halfway up Enchanted Rock in 40 degrees with a 30 mph wind. The wind was really bad. But you can see the sky was blue and it was a lovely day. Lots of people around. The women co-oped the men's room at one stop ( We had a line and they didn't) . Very empowering.
We topped it of with a tourist crawl through Estes Park and the Chocolate Factory. Ancho Chili Truffles! Tres, tres yummy.
We are home tonight ( Yes we think of it as home. Doug and Faye are so welcoming and they listen to NPR in the morning and buy organic produce and Doug is turning his front yard into a vegetable patch. Our kind of people.)

Onward through the rain

Today we hightailed it up thru Colorado to light in Fort Collins with the Lovely Doug and delightful Faye.
I got to see a windmill farm. Forget your grandma's windmills. This guys are huge and clustered on the edge of a ridge and go on for miles. Fantastic to see.
We ate at the Freedom Cafe. 2 eggs , 3 pancakes, 2 sausage patties and hash browns for 6.50. Waited on by the little girl( Seventeen is little to me) who was on the student council and serenaded by a little girl ( This one was about 6) on singing along with "This Little Light of Mine" on her laptop computer. You have to love it.
We went from the flat ,flat Texas plains to the mountains of Colorado in just a few miles. And it is cold up here. We are going to the Continental Divide tomorrow and there is going to be SNOW. Take that Austin with your 100 degree heat.
We did hit a patch of rain outside Denver, but Cori made it through with flying colors.
The trip is now going on longer because I totally messed up and got my dates messed up. This is going to be great. More tomorrow.

Northwest Bound

Cori and I are on the high trail to adventure, heading north and west as we please. We went on a lot of smaller roads today. We saw a lot of ranches and places that looked like movie sets for westerns. We got a twelve pack of cinnamon rolls and lots of health snacks and snacked across the country. There was this fantastic sign in Paducah that said SATAN SUCKS 2' high letters on a black background, brought to us by hellfighters.com. We found the best rest stop ever, complete with Beware of rattlesnake signs on the playground. The inside was truly beautiful. There was a little museum of the near by town of Clareton, founded to bring God and Education to the wild west. It was named after the founder's wife Clara, a saintly name if ever there was one. We are now camped out in Amarillo after a dip in a very cold pool we are in for the night. Tomorrow we head for Fort Collins.
People in Texas are so nice. We have been God Blessed and Be Safed all across the country.