The Amazing Apache Trail....

While the Indian Skies RV Resort in Coolidge was very nice, it didn’t seem to me that there was going to be enough for us to do in that area to stay for a week. Some people had told us about a high rent RV resort in Casa Grande that offered first-timers a half price deal on a weeks’ fees. We wanted to have a look at the historic old part of town there anyway so we took the ten-mile drive to check it out. There wasn’t a whole lot to the historic part of town so we went for lunch and then stopped in at the resort. It was nice enough, for sure. It had a couple of swimming pools, an 18 hole golf course, the lobby was like that of some grand hotel and, generally, people weren’t dressed in t-shirts or tank tops. The half price deal turned out to be $400.00 for the week though so we decided to stick with our t-shirts and stay in the under $200.00 range.

Pictured below is a sunset at Indian Skies RV Resort.









In the afternoon I watched the outcome I was looking for in the Super Bowl while Janice did laundry and made Prawns Wrapped in Crab Cake and Bacon. We had purchased some, pre-made, at the Outer Bank in North Carolina but, of course, Janice’s were much superior.

Prawns Wrapped in Crab Cake and Bacon.
One dozen - 16/22 count prawns

6 oz. Crab Meat
One Egg
1 Tablespoon finely chopped red onion
1 Tablespoon sweet chili sauce, Thai Style
Half cup Panko
Mix the ingredients and then wrap the prawns in the crab cake before wrapping in a half strip of bacon each.
Janice says you can fry them or put them in the oven at 400 degrees until the bacon is slightly crispy.


On Monday morning, after some research on the internet and the Passport America book, we decided to move to Apache Junction and book in for a week at the Countryside RV Resort. It has all the amenities of Indian Skies, except free internet and cablevision, but it is closer to a lot more hiking trails and lakes. We can pick up fifty-two channels without cablevision anyway, so I think we can handle it. Internet is $15 for the week for two people, available at the clubhouse 24/7. They have a bunch of free DVD’s to choose from too.

In the afternoon we took a drive to Apache Trail, which is only five minutes from the resort. The pictures below don’t begin to portray the incredibly awesome spectacle of the area. The trail is only fourteen miles long, starting at Superstition Mountain and ending at Canyon Lake. I mentioned to Janice that, “ An artist could spend their entire lifetime depicting the area and the ever-changing colors, shapes, shadows and light.” Truly amazing. We went back again in the evening to see it under some different light.





































Whomever made the decision though to run a couple sets of power lines through the Apache Trail, should be strung up on them. There is so much flat desert nearby, or other ways they could have gone around. How short sighted and disgusting…








Today we plan to stay out of the truck completely; walking, biking, swimming and whatever else.

Tombstone, Casa Grande and, John Wayne?

In the morning, at Willcox, we found the thermometer had dipped to -12, slightly lower than predicted. We went for our helping of free waffles and pancakes and then for a brief walk, but the wind and cold drove us back after only half a mile or so.

The drive to Benson, and the Cochise Terrace RV Resort, took just a half hour. The elevation there is lower than Willcox but, disappointingly, it didn’t prove to be any warmer.

Pictured are the views from Chochise Terrace RV Resort.









We drove to Sierra Vista and the Best Buy to get a battery for my camera and then to Tombstone where we walked the old western town and the cemetery and stuck our heads in a few shops. A lot of the buildings there are much the same as they were in the late 1800,s, when much of the action we're familiar with took place. Coincidence would have it that the movie Tombstone was on TV the night before we visited the town. Val Kilmer, as Doc Holliday, is still one of my favourite roles by any actor. The whole loop back to Benson was just fifty miles.

Pictured are a couple of shots from Tombstone.
















Seeing it was so cold and there was little else to do, we rented a couple of movies from the park office - I picked another old Val Kilmer movie that we hadn’t seen, Saint, while Janice picked Bewitched - she likes them light and entertaining. Argh!

I participated at the jam that they have every Wednesday night at the Cochise RV park. There are roughly twelve musicians that show regularly. Some are park regulars while others drive from as far as forty-five miles away. The more serious players go four nights a week; at this park, another RV park, a bar nearby and a bar in Tombstone. The music was mostly country, with a little Everly Brothers and Righteous Brothers thrown in. There was also a talented couple from Oklahoma that did gospel, him on guitar, backing her up on vocals.

Pictured is Tim jamming at the RV park. There was a woman keyboard player, out of the picture, to the left, who was both friendly and talented. She liked my playing and invited me to play with her regular four-piece in Tombstone, including a sax player. While it would have been kind of cool to say that I’d jammed in Tombstone, it happens on Tuesday nights and I didn’t think we’d be around by then.








After the jam we watched Bewitched. I only remember watching the TV show a couple of times as a kid, not exactly what I’d call a riveting movie.

When we went to brush our teeth, we discovered that the pipes had frozen. By morning the rest of the park was in the same boat. Because there were more record setting cold temperatures on the way, there was really nowhere to run, so we went to the hardware store and bought a heat lamp and one of those reflective windshield shades to use as a windbreak. We got the wind mostly blocked and the heat lamp positioned under the problem area, we hoped. Nothing worse than being without water.

In the evening we went for a dinner at a little café near us - we didn’t want to dirty more dishes because of the water situation.

Pictured is a frozen elephant fountain outside the cafe where we had burgers.











After dinner we watched Saint. Val Kilmer was great playing Simon Templar in a variety of disguises, seamlessly infusing different accents.

By morning the heat lamp had done it’s job - water was flowing again. We hit the road for Tucson, where it was supposed to be a few degrees warmer. When we got there however, the only park with availability was not to our liking, so we kept driving, stopping for a roadside lunch at Picacho Peak, pictured below.









We drove on to the John Wayne RV Park, part of what remains of John Wayne’s 60,000 acre ranch, about twenty miles from Casa Grande, and took a good walk in the desert. The area there is some sort of ‘highway’ that the Mexicans use to sneak in to the States, so it is littered, here and there, with discarded backpacks, blankets, tins and water bottles.

Pictured is a weird old Saguaro Cactus in the desert behind the John Wayne RV Park.











The next day it had warmed up considerably so we decided to back track a little to Coolidge, nearer Tucson, so that we could explore that area a little further. We settled in at the Indian Skies RV Resort in Coolidge. After washing all the grime from the Texas/New Mexico storms off of the truck and trailer, we went went to visit the Casa Grande National Monument, pictured below. In the 13th century the Hohokam Indians built North America's first highrises.




















Back at the park we went for a swim in the eighty-six degree pool. The air temperature was only in the mid-sixties so the pool felt pretty warm.

We might stay here for a few days because the park has lots of amenities and it’s close to some more ruins, and just a half hour from Tucson. We'd also like to return to Picacho Peak, pictured earlier, because we've learned that there is a trail to the peak.

On to Big Bend and Severe Weather Beyond…

We left Hondo in the dust and rode for Del Rio, a three hour jaunt, where we had lunch at a great little side-road Mexican restaurant called Chinto’s. We noticed a lot of Mexicans hanging about, a good sign. Janice had Barbacao, a beef cheek taco with cilantro and red onion. She kept humming as she was eating - a dead giveaway that she’s loving it. I had a Guisado, a beefy stew in a taco - good, but not humming material.

Del Rio is right on the Texas side of the Mexican border, on Amistad Lake, which means ‘friendship’ in Spanish. Good thing because the lake is enormous and shares a lot of water with America.

We found our way to the Trav L Park RV resort, a couple of miles north of town, set up, and then went back to town to give it a better look. Later, we walked around the park - I was at a loss on a Sunday with no football. Janice wrote a nice poem for our friend, Charlie, who’s in her final days.

On Monday morning we took Highway 90, west, towards Big Ben National Park. By about 2:00 we arrived at the small town of Marathon, about 70 miles from the park. The Marathon Motel and RV Park turned out to be a very nice surprise.

Pictured is the park we stayed at in Marathon. The courtyard with the fireplace and the cool furniture was perfect for sitting around at night, with the fire going. The park even provided the firewood.
















Also pictured are a couple of shots from the park.











We walked around Marathon, another pleasant surprise, which hosts the historic Gage Hotel, the James Evans Gallery, (kind of like the Ansel Adams of Big Bend) and a few other cool little shops and restaurants. We liked it enough that we decided to stay another day and take a day trip to the park from here, instead of staying in the park itself, which has very limited amenities.

We took the seventy-mile drive to the park in the morning. Whoa, if you want to see some beautiful scenery...

Pictured is the approach to The Chisos Mountains, the part of the park that we chose to explore up close. My camera battery calved completely just as I tried to take my first picture in the park, so these pictures and all the rest of the pictures in this blog are from Janice’s Nikon CoolPix.












Parking at the Chisos Basin we took the five-mile Window Hike. It was warm, sunny and dry. The walk was mostly downhill to The Window, which reveals a glorious view to the Chihuahua Desert below. Of course it was all uphill on the way back - really, not bad though.

Pictured are some shots of Big Ben National Park, basically, from the trailhead to the The Window, with Janice and I posing at The Window.
























After the hike we drove west to the ghost town Teralingua and then north along Highway 118 to the university town of Alpine. When we got back to Marathon we went for dinner at the historic Gage Hotel, with our new neighbours from Ontario, John and Pat. Janice had Smoked Pheasant Enchiladas and I had Pork Tenderloin with Ancho Chile Glaze. The Gage Hotel is a beautiful piece of preserved history with original furniture and décor, and serves great food.

With January 31st came the conclusion of eight months on the road. We discovered that we’re still within budget, thus the nice dinner out.

After dinner we built a fire and shared some wine with Deborah and John, from Maine.

Pictured is Tim at the fire. It was balmy until about 10:00pm but, very suddenly, a cold wind kicked up and sent the thermometer plummmeting, and us scurrying inside.










We knew that there was a severe cold weather warning for the next few days, so the idea was to drive as far west as we could handle in the morning.

What a difference a day can make. When we hiked to The Window we enjoyed perfect temperatures in the low twenties, Celcius. We woke to freezing temperatures and howling winds. We hooked up as fast as we could and were on the road by 9:00. We bucked very strong head winds and blowing snow on highway 90 but made it to Alpine without incident, where we fueled up, for the first time that day.

We stopped for lunch at a picnic spot just before we reached Interstate 10 and then Janice took over driving for a few hours. In all, we stopped for gas three times during the day, with another stop in El Paso to look for a camera battery - unsuccessfully.

From the Wal-Mart parking lot in El Paso you can look across to the hillsides of Mexico, a quarter of a mile away, where hundreds of ramshackle, run-down, multi-colored but grimy, tiny shacks make up Ciudad Juarez. The Rio Grande, which separates El Paso from Mexico is, at this point, nothing more than a ditch. You may know, last year alone, Ciudad Juarez was the site of more than four thousand violent drug war deaths. It was also the sight where, a number of years ago, the mass murderer/rapist, single-handedly, took hundreds of women's lives. It’s hard to comprehend, when you see it, that nothing but a fence separates this sad part of a third world country from a bustling American city.

Pictured are some of Janice’s shots from the road.

















After battling the wind and a lot of scary weather all day, we finally made it to Willcox, Arizona and the Fort Willcox RV Resort, just after 6:00pm. Owner, Barb, has promised us free waffles and coffee in the morning. We're only eighty miles from Tucson but it's supposed to dip to -11 Celcius tonight. It's forecast to start warming after that, we hope...

Austin and Beyond...

It was sunny and warm as we headed up the I-35 to Austin. We pulled into the Austin Lone Star RV Resort, had lunch, and set out for Sixth Street, the live music strip. Sixth Street is not much by day but we wanted to see if we might get a feel for what was going on by night.

Pictured is a shot of Sixth Street by day.









Of course, Austin has grown a lot since we were there sixteen years ago. It now boasts a population of 1.4 million, about the same as Vancouver I believe. Besides being the Live Music Capital of the World, it's also the State Capital and is home to The University of Texas, Austin State University and a whole host of colleges. It’s a happening kind of place.

Pictured is the city of Austin from the Congress Street Bridge. You can see the Capital Building way up at the end of Congress Street.









Despite it's size we could still find our way around the downtown pretty easily. We even got a parking spot right on Sixth Street, but, like I said, it's pretty quiet in the daytime. We did find one store where I could have spent thousands of dollars on everything from guitar lamps to drum sticks that light every time they're struck. After spending about twenty minutes in there, we walked up to the Capital Building for a look.

Pictured is the Capital Building, from inside and out.












Because we couldn’t find out much about what was going on musically from the street, when we got back from driving around the city a little, I got on the internet and found www.austinlivemusic.com where I found everything I needed.

One thing that has changed since we were in Austin last is that the live music is spread all over the city now. We decided though that there was enough happening on Fifth and Sixth Streets that we would just go back there and stroll around, sticking our heads in doors to see what we liked.

I wasn’t keeping track of all the performers names and I never took any pictures of the musicians, but I can tell you that the first bar we went into had a kickin’ seven piece R&B band that did all original material. Next door we saw an acoustic trio led by the very talented and unassuming singer, songwriter, Chris Ruest.

Next, we strolled down to Evageline’s on Fifth where the Mark Gouduin Trio was playing. They had been the house band at Antoine’s for a number of years, the club where Stevie Ray Vaughn got his start, and where we'd seen an amazing gospel troup on our previous stay. It turned out to be the high roller spot in town though, which we weren’t dressed for - nor did we want to spend the money on high priced drinks.

Every three doors, or so, there’s another band playing and there are no mediocre musicians. Actually just about any one of them would fit in the ‘Monster’ category. The guitar player for the seven-piece R&B band mentioned earlier had just come back from a gig in Vegas.

A little later, when we found our way up to a rooftop bar that we’d noticed some music leaking from, there was a trio playing a Doors tune - to just four patrons. Cover tunes were not what I came to hear, so, we were just about to turn around and look elsewhere when I mentioned to Janice that the guitar player, who was a lefty playing an electrified acoustic, was amazingly talented, getting incredible sounds out of his set-up. I'd never heard someone get those kinds of sounds out of an acoustic guitar, playing rock music. You could tell it was totally effortless to him too.

As they finished the tune he announced that, “My electric guitar’s in the shop, because I’m going out on the road and I need it to play like it’s supposed to.” The bass player then added, “Ya, on the road with Kenny Chesney.” We listened to them play a couple more tunes by Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughn. They explained they wouldn’t be playing any country music this night. Fine by me. The reason being though was that the guitar player's contract with Kenny Chesney states that he can’t play any country music, publicly, between gigs. I guess because he might leak one of the licks he plays when with the big show. Like I said, monster players.


Pictured are a couple of night shots from Sixth Street.












Maybe I'm just getting old but, despite the quality of the musicians, the trouble with the scene is that the new state-of-the-art PA systems, which the operators use to the max, were wearing us down. We stuck our head into one more bar where a hard rockin’ blues quartet was playing. Despite hiding behind a post we came out with our ears bleeding - well almost. We decided to call it a night.

Like I said, things have changed. If you’re planning a trip to Austin for the live music, do some careful research and pick a couple of shows you’d really like to see - and enjoy some incredible music.

In the morning we took advantage of a $2 breakfast at our RV park and then hit the road for Hondo, a small town not far from San Antonio. After setting up at The Quiet Texas RV Park we toured the town a little and then washed the RV. The park is run by an entrepreneur named Kevin, who also runs a ranch and has a business installing wind power generators. This whole park is run by wind generators. They’re not that big, or noisy, and cost about $18,000.00, all in. There's no bank of batteries required, they'll easily run an average household and they have a about a five-year payback on one of them. Me thinks he's on to something.

At dusk we invited ourselves to the neighbour' campfire. We knew we were probably pretty safe because earlier, we’d noticed her t-shirt that pictured three glasses of wine with the caption: Group Therapy.

Beaumont, Victoria and San Antonio, Texas

As promised, we stopped at Suire’s Grocery and Restaurant on the way out of Louisiana. We had the Turtle Picante, that the New York Times described as the best anywhere. It was really good. Turtle meat is dark and lean. If asked, I’d bet that most people would guess they were eating beef. We also had Texas Toothpicks - deep fried strips of jalapeno and onions, as well as Pistolette, a bun injected with crawfish and then deep fried. It all came on one big dish, accompanied by a small helping of potato salad and a small piece of chocolate cake too.

People were lined up, mostly duck hunters, for both take out and eat-in, the whole time we were there. You’ve never seen so much camouflage clothing in one place.

Pictured is the lineup at Suire’s. It doesn't give much idea of all the camo clothing, but try to imagine that this lineup never goes away.








As we followed Highway 82 along the coast we witnessed a lot of destruction left behind by 2008’s Hurricane Ike. Any rebuilt structures, including mobile homes, look kind of silly elevated on ten-foot stilts.

Arriving at Beaumont Texas around three o’clock, we checked into Hidden Lake RV Park under cloudy skies. The huge puddles everywhere were evidence of a lot of rain, and there was more in the forecast.

I saw the second half of the Packers beating the Bears in the NFC final and then the Steelers beat the Jets in the AFC final. While I didn’t mind the results, they were both poorly played, boring games. Those multi-million dollar coaches for the Jets should all be fired. Here’s hoping those games weren’t any kind of harbinger of this year‘s Super Bowl - two weeks away.

Monday morning we took a drive around Beaumont in the rain. We saw some of the grand old houses from the age of the oil boom and shopped for groceries at a mega-store named H. E. Butts. The best part was the 7 Deadly Zins priced at $11.00. The same stuff that we pay $28 for at home.

Most of the afternoon was spent hunkered down in the trailer, attempting to plan some kind of itinerary. We knew San Antonio was on the list. We loved Austin when we there years ago, but we know that will cost a bunch of money because we’ll want to see lots of the live music. Big Ben National Park has also been recommended but it’s a long way from anywhere, and it borders Mexico. Hmmm...

It continued to rain heavily all day. We decided on driving to Victoria, Texas, about two hours from San Antonio. We didn’t get on the road until about 10:30 because we slept in until 9:00. It was still raining when we left - I had to put on flip flops to hook up the trailer, otherwise my shoes and socks would have been soaked in the deep puddles.

By the time we got to Houston, the clouds had parted. While eating my tomato, red onion, basil and Provolone cheese sandwich, lovingly made by Janice at a mall outside of Houston, somehow I bit down too hard on a bottom tooth. The pain was so sharp I thought I had broken it. It was still in place when I checked, but it was too sore to wiggle it enough to see if it was loose.

Pictured is Janice's drive-by shooting of Houston.









We got to the Lazy Longhorn RV Park in Victoria about 3:00. My tooth was still sore so we walked to the grocery store and got some ice cream and eggs. There was already a Yam on board so, considering the tooth problem, Janice had planned to make Yam Soup for dinner. The ice cream was for later, the eggs for the morning - scrambled. I did my best not to whine too much, so, when we got back from the walk, she poured me a big Scotch on ice and we went and sat in the sun by the pool. Nice.

It was the next day when we were leaving Victoria that it revealed some of it's beautiful architecture, pictured below.



















The drive to San Antonio took about two-and-a-half hours and was Texas-like. That is to say, scrubby, with the odd ramshackle abode stranded on an otherwise desolate landscape.

We pulled into the Mission Trail RV Park, just outside of San Antonio around 2:00 and then took the five-minute drive to the city. The RV park is right next to the highway and, believe me, ther's nothing special about it but, it turned out to be just five minutes from San Antonio's River Walk. It made getting in and out of San Antonio a breeze.

I'll stick my neck out here, without Googling it or anything - The River Walk must make San Antonio one of the most livable cities in America.

Pictured are some shots of the River Walk in San Antonio. Also pictured is The Alamo. You might notice one building cropping up a lot. It brings to mind one of Vancouver's most grand pieces of architecture, the Marine Building.






























We thought we might drive southward, hoping to ensure some warm weather, but the draw of Austin is just too strong. We know it might cost us some money but, after all, it's the Live Music Capital of the World - gotta' go, ya' know?...