Our friends have asked us what made our decision to go West this year. Simply stated, it is because there are too many crazy family members East. Saturday morning, Cindy and I leave with the XM Radio Bowl schedule as well as the direct TV bowl schedule and head due West with RV in tow. Within three days, we will be in Death Valley at a place named Furnace Creek Resort. We have scheduled outings in Titus Canyon, Scotty's Castle, Rhyolite, and an old abandoned gold processing site called the Bonnie Claire Site. We have a few people to see in LA on the 23rd which includes the O'Connors. Christmas day, we pull up anchor and head to Vegas for three fun filled days at shows and the tables. We start the return trip on the 29th with a stop off in Albuquerque to see more friends. We return home on 2-Jan.
Never got rid of the truck. I've had a few of them and now drive a 2009 GMC. We bought the Accords for fuel mileage. I have a three car garage and I filled it! 8) The garage looks empty now with my Accord in the body shop.
Cindy might get a desire to fly on a vacation but I fly so much for work that I get sick of it. I fly back out to China on 7-Jan for three lovely weeks in the air pollution capitol of the world, Xi'an.
Saw friends in Midland last night and had breakfast with them at the country club this morning. We made our way to El Paso and just parked the RV. I learned something today. There is a huge elevation change between Midland and El Paso. I averaged 8 miles per gallon between Austin and Midland. I averaged 5.9 mpg between Midland and El Paso. Two more days and we will be in Death Valley.
I just found that not all Black Angus locations are open for lunch. If that one is, how does 13:00 sound?
:wink: tOM AND cINDY hOWS THE SNOW OR ARE YOU JUST GETTING RAIN.. HOPEFULLY THIS WILL ALL BE GONE BY wENESDAY AFTERNOON. I HAVE NEVER SEEN THIS MUCH RAIN. PLEASE BE SAFE. IT WILL BEAUTIFUL WHEN IT CLEARS.
No Snow or rain where we are. We have stopped in the big city of Eloy, Az. That is just about 50 miles west on I-10 from Tucson. We have about 12 hours more driving to get to Furnace Creek in Death Valley... and two more days to get 'r done. No RV grounds in Eloy. We parked it in Flying J and fired up the generator. Looking to do seven of the 12 hours left tomorrow.
... by the way, Cindy just called the restaurant. They open at 4 p.m. Cindy and I have switched a few things around and can meet you there at 4 p.m. if that works for you. I will check back in tomorrow night when we settle down for the night.
Great... 4 p.m. it is. Actually hit rain today about 100 miles South of Kingman, Az. Our estimations were incorrect on time to destination. We were only 8.5 hours from Furnace Creek in Death Valley so we made it there today. We are sitting at 190 feet below sea level. Tomorrow, we go out to the excursion through the sights of Death Valley. This was supposed to happen on 24-Dec but since we are a day early... Thursday is the LA trip. Friday we either go back North through Death Valley one more time if there is anything we missed, or we head to Vegas. We'll wait and see. Rain has stopped for now but still looks possible.
re: Death Valley Where you are was the bottom of a gigantic lake during the last ice age. All that is left of it now is the Great Salt Lake, but it covered most of Nevada and California east of the mountains at one time... It has now rained here every day for a week with more on the way...
There is water in Death valley right now due to the rain. We want good pictures and it is raining as I type. Letting e camera bateries charge while we eat breakfast in hopes that the rain will stop. It can take a trip over to Round Rock Texas wher the grass believes that rain only comes from underground sprinklers. :wink:
Let's just call this entry: How do you get creases out of passenger side leather seat? We went to the ranger station this morning to find that Titus Canyon was closed due to rain. A high percentage of Death Valley was closed due to rain and/or snow. We picked an area South of the Furnace Creek area to go explore. This included 31 miles of West Side Hwy. This "highway" is a rock/dirt road suitable for great sight seeing. However, it has been raining. Dirt becomes MUD when it rains. About 20 miles into the trip we encountered three very long and quite deep water holes completely covering the trail. After these three speed bumps the road became extremely rough. Not wanting to go through the three mud holes again, and knowing we were about 11 miles from getting back on paved roads, I pushed on slowly. We could see rain, heavy rain off to the right. I sped up a bit knowing that the raing was going to run down hill in our direction. Ten miles of the extreme road, being just one mile from paved roads, we found a river crossing the road. That was my concern and why I sped up earlier. There was no way to cross. We turned around knowing that the heavy rain was also going to make the three long deep mud holes worse. We had another 30 miles of muddy roads to travel and were working against time to run that gauntlet. We had gone only about a mile when we saw a bunch of teenagers in a jeep patriot ad told them to turn around. We sped off and never saw those bullet proof lads again. After getting through the three mud holes that had deepened, Cindy finally started to relax a little. We stopped and called the park rangers on the GM Onstar (we had no signal on cell phones). We advised them on the vehicles known to be on that road and that the North end should be closed (North end is where we started). Upon returning to the camp site Cindy exited the truck. I found a permanent crease in the seat cover. Anyone know how to remove it?