D-Day is Tomorrow

Tomorrow is D-Day, or Departure Day, for our 72 day motorhome trip throughout the southwestern USA.  Are we ready?  Of course not!  We still have a list to get through so we will do what we can this evening after the temperature drops into the 80's and we will get up early in the morning and complete our preparations.  Our goal for departure time is 10:00 AM.  If we make it great, if not it's no big deal.

We will spend tomorrow night in Wichita Falls, which is 303 miles and about 6 hours of driving time.  As long as we make it by dark I'm happy.  Our second day (Sunday) will be 334 miles to Tucumcari, NM, so maybe 7 hours max.  Over 600 miles in 2 days and we will just barely be out of Texas (would be a lot further if we weren't driving through the Panhandle).  On Monday should be relatively easy Tucumcari is only 168 miles to Santa Fe.

We will have Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday to tour the Santa Fe area.  One place on our "must see" list is Bandelier National Monument where evidence of human habitation goes back 11,000 years.  I'm not sure what we will find there because of recent fires and the resulting flooding.  According to the National Parks website the short trails to the main archeological sites are open, plus there are shuttle buses that go to other parts of the park.

On Friday, Saturday, and Sunday I will be attending a "Hill Country Photo Workshop" led by Bob Pearson and his wife, Cynthia Hunter, both professional photographers.  There will only be 9 students, which should translate into a lot of one-on-one instruction.  I attended this workshop last year and it was excellent (I've placed a few of them on the page named "Santa Fe Preview."  I'm expecting this year's workshop to be even better.  Saturday will have us treking out to Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument to photograph hoodoos and a slot canyon.  On Sunday we will spend some time on Santa Fe's Canyon Road where there are over 100 art galleries in a one-mile stretch.

Check back often to keep up with us and to view the photos that I will post. 

Countdown to Our Southwestern USA Motorhome Vacation

Trip Begins:  18 August 2012 in Nacogdoches, TX

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Trip Ends:  29 October 2012 in Nacogdoches, TX

Trip Length:  4,538 miles over 72 days

(First Half Map & Mileage changed on 7/30/12)

First Half:  Nacogdoches to Santa Monica – 2,439 miles

Second Half:  Santa Monica to Nacogdoches – 2,099 miles

 

Route Highlights:

Nacogdoches, TX (START)

Santa Fe, NM (1 week)

Lake Tahoe, NV (2 weeks)

Yosemite National Park, CA (2 weeks)

Santa Monica, CA (~ 3 days)

Tucson, AZ (1 week)

Deming, NM (1 day)

Alpine, TX (3 days)

Bracketville, TX (3 days)

Mission, TX (1 week)

Nacogdoches, TX (END)

Only 20 more days until we depart on our next great motorhome adventure! This trip will be longer than our Mexican caravan was in both miles and number of days.  Also, unlike our Mexican adventure, this trek across the southwestern USA will not be as part of a caravan.

All of the damages that our sojourn in Mexico inflicted upon our motorhome have been repaired and its bravery rewarded with a new Pergo floor!  We have also replaced the Saturn Vue, which required a 1,200-mile ride on a flatbed truck from Merida, in the state of Yucatán, to the US – Mexico border.  Our new “toad” is a Midnight Blue Metallic 2012 Chevrolet Traverse LTZ.

The repairs to our motorhome and the toad replacement added a rather large unanticipated chunk of change to the total cost of the trip to Mexico.  Our Mexican insurance and our Platinum Good Sam Emergency Road Service covered only a portion of the expenses.  However, it was something that had to be done.  We have just “written it off” as the cost of having fun. 

(NOTE:  For those readers who may not know about the problems that plagued the Mexican adventure, please look back through the archives of this blog.)

Prior to our departure date I plan to remove the Mexico photo pages to make room for new images I plan on posting during our southwestern adventure.

Our first major stop will be in Santa Fe, NM where I will be attending a photography workshop.  While in Santa Fe we are planning on a day trip to Bandolier National Monument.  Bandolier covers over 33,000 acres of canyon and mesa country with evidence of a human presence going back over 11,000 years.  There are petroglyphs, dwellings carved into the cliff faces, and the remains of masonry walls.  The ancestors of these ancient people still reside in the surrounding communities.

The next stop on the tour will be the southern shore of Lake Tahoe.  Here we will meet Bruce and Karen, with whom we shared the Mexican experience.  Carol Ann and I are looking forward to our two-week stay with them at the Tahoe Valley RV Resort.

From Lake Tahoe we will travel with Bruce and Karen to Yosemite National Park where we will meet a third couple, Gunther and Kandace, from the Mexico trip.  For two weeks we will make Yosemite Lakes RV Resort our base while exploring the National Park and surrounding Sierra Nevada Mountains.

After saying goodbye to our friends, Carol Ann and I will journey to Santa Monica, CA for a brief stay at Malibu Beach RV Park while we visit our son, Rob, and his fiancé, Leslie, who live in Pacific Palisades.

Once our family reunion is over we will begin the homebound leg by traveling to Tucson, AZ for a week and the Discovery Owners’ Association, Inc. National Rally for Fleetwood Discovery motorhomes. 

The end of the DOAI rally will be the beginning of a “rolling rally” back to Texas.  This will include the members of our DOAI Texas Chapter who attended the National rally.  The rolling rally will spend one night in Deming, NM before proceeding to Alpine, TX for three days, followed by three days in Brackettville, TX before reaching Mission, TX in time for the annual Butterfly Festival.  We will spend a week at Bentsen Palm Village RV Resort in Mission and try very hard to resist the temptation to cross the nearby US – Mexico border for a return trip to Ole’ Mexico.

After our week in Mission we will turn towards Nacogdoches and home.   We are expecting that the trip will be fun and adventuresome, however without any attendant bodily injury or motorhome damage.  Check back for blog updates as August 18^th approaches.