alan

May 13, 2024 – Trip Day 43

by Meagan

We left the house at the crack of 1:15 in the afternoon, and headed to Ironwood National Monument. This site was designated a monument in 2000 and is managed by the BLM, so it’s not in our National Park Passport books. We finally got our act together a few nights ago and printed off the Junior Ranger books before going to the park. Arya and Jarek have completed their books. Evan is likely to have meltdown about not being done once we get there, but hey, laziness has consequences. It’s a clear 91 degree desert day with distant dust devils sending dirt up into the sky.

After driving 50 minutes and a couple of stops and wrong turns, we reached the Titan II Interpretive Site. There were 18 missile sites spread out across the desert south of Davis-Monhan Air Force Base. They were decommissioned in 197x and the bunkers destroyed. The site had a quarter mile gravel path around the former silo with sun faded signs detailing the layout of the complex and the explaining how it was constructed. The kids got an introductory lesson on the Nuclear Triad one of the worst jobs in the US military. Living in a bunker and running drills to end the world is not my idea of a good time.

We realized we did not have enough time to drive into town and turn in the kids’ books at the BLM office, so we headed to Saguaro National Park Visitor Center at Red Hill. We printed out the Saguaro NP books the previous evening and Jarek had finished his. Arya and Evan were less interested and scattered their pages across the house, helped by Garrett and Randal. Picking up all the pages left me reconsidering the wisdom of printing them off beforehand.

At this point, I realized I had grabbed Garrett’s two water bottles, my laptop, and snacks for everyone, but left my two full water bottles next to the door at home. I can’t stand being without water when I go out, but being without water in the desert was unbearable. It was too late to drive back and get them, so I commandeered one of Garrett’s. A spare water bottle proved to be full of repulsive floating bits, so Garrett’s teeny 20 ounce bottle would have to do.

Suddenly, there was a sign for the Desert Nature trail.

 I yelled,“Let’s do it!” with great enthusiasm, while the part of my brain that talks to my sore foot grumbled and cursed. “It’ll be a quick, half mile hike!” I said brightly, while the children slowly dragged themselves out of the car. Garrett woke up with a sob of despair while Alan got the Bob stroller ready for Randal. I’ll admit that I felt a lot less enthusiastic once I opened my door and began to bake in the relentless sun. Just a half-mile walk on a paved trail, no big deal. Having to convince myself to walk a half-mile is a new low for age 40.

The children got their Junior Ranger gear, grabbed their water bottles, except for Evan, who had once again left the house without one, and we all hit the trail. The trail was a smooth, asphalt path on completely flat ground. The saguaros were huge and most had multiple arms off their main trunks. They don’t start to grow their arms until they are at least 60 years old, so we had some real old geezer cacti out here. We passed a dead saguaro and Jarek was excited to see its inner structure. A saguaro is supported by tall wooden ribs around a central wood core. The dead giant had been at least 20 feet high and looked like it once had a diameter of two feet.

We walked quickly between the information placards and learned to tell the difference between palo verde, acacia and mesquite trees. A zebra lizard skittered across the trail and hung out long enough for a picture. We also saw baby saguaros underneath their nurse trees. Each saguaro produces 20-40 million seeds in its lifetime, but only one or two make it to adulthood. The only way they will grow is if a seed finds its way near a tree that shelters it in its infancy. We saw a few saguaros that now loomed over their nurse trees. Those trees were probably wishing they’d kicked their kid out a long time ago, the poor things.

Evan was now, once again, thoroughly regretting his choice to leave his water bottle behind. Maybe he’ll actually decide to bring one next time. My wittle bitty water bottle was completely drained when we finished the walk, so off to the visitor center we went. My foot was predictably unhappy, but kids had fulfilled my requirement to hike the park and could now become Junior Rangers. My first stop was the water bottle fill station where I guzzled two bottles and turned the third into a Liquid IV. Jarek took himself on the Cactus Garden Walk while I worked with the other two, less-than-enthusiastic Junior Ranger candidates. Long story short, they didn’t finish their books and I was ready to be done with all Junior Ranger programs forevermore. I bought a cute cactus sticker to make myself feel better.

Jarek turned in his book with much praise from the rangers. He proudly pinned his badge on his vest next to the rest and I bought him a sticker as a reward for doing the whole book. Most of the programs only require doing a certain number of activities, but my deal with Jarek is that if he completes all of it, I will buy him a sticker. I’d do it for Arya and Evan as well, but I think my wallet will be safe from them for quite some time.

There was another side of the park with its own Visitor Center so we planned to head to that one some other day and Evan and Arya could get their badges there. Back at the house, I made tacos for dinner. We ate and went to bed.

Editor’s note: Mommy was D-U-N done. 🤣

April 17, 2024 – Trip Day 17 – By Meagan

Ed – catching up on some back posts!

Another amazing day: we left the RV precisely when we meant to. No poopsplosians, nothing forgotten, lunch packed, nobody crying. We drove 45 minutes to Natural Bridge Caverns to take their Hidden Wonders Tour, a new cavern that opened last year. Alan, my mom and I had taken the Discovery Tour sometime in 2008 when we lived in Corpus Christi. It was definitely a good tour, but a new cavern sounded too exciting to pass up.

We arrived 30 minutes early, another rarely experienced phenomenon.

The pull-up and diapers were checked, straps checked on the kid backpacks and we waited for our noon start time. After pictures and a safety briefing, (no touching the caves you filthy humans and no getting hurt) we headed through the double doors and were immediately in another world. The cavern was warm and moist. There were beautiful formations everywhere. Flowing cave curtains, soda straws on the ceiling, stalactites, stalagmites and columns, this room had it all.

The stairs led downward around a central area covered in flowing cream colored rock. The guide explained this cavern formed when the water receded. and the limestone ceiling collapsed as it lost the support of the water. The calcium deposits over the fallen ceiling debris indicated that it was a stable chamber. The rock formations grow at a rate of one cubic inch per hundred years and there were a good number of tall formations on the rubble. This cavern was named the Jeffery Cavern, a combination of the first letters of the names of those who discovered it.

The tour continued downward and over the course of a half mile, we saw numerous formations, all easily visible with well-placed lights. There were a number of stops; the tour wouldn’t have been very that long without them. The blackout demonstration was great; everyone actually put their phones away and it was truly complete darkness. It really made me appreciate how much it sucks to not have darkvision in D&D: I could not see my hand just in front of my eyes. The people who found the cave were initially lowered in through a drilled shaft. It must have been amazing to see a cave for the first time and explore it. I think I’ll make spelunking a hobby after the kids grow up. Either that or I need to play more D&D to get that itch to explore out of my system.

The last room of the cave was a large plain chamber called the Ballroom. It had a large paved area that could be rented out for special events. I told Arya she should have her wedding here someday, but she was not amenable to that suggestion. Maybe one of the boys will make it happen. Jarek was the most excited about the cave tours (Good news, he told me later that he’d consider it.) We moved through the Ballroom to a dead end chamber. The tour ended there with a light show and dramatic music worthy of Jurassic Park.

Well, the cave exploration part of the tour ended there, but we got to ride the BAT back to the surface. The BAT, a Belt Assisted Transport similar to the moving walkways at airports, would carry us up the incline to the surface. After a five minute safety video, (I’m not kidding, people need to be told how to step on a moving walkway. My hope for the future of humanity took another hit today) we bravely stepped on and began the five minute journey back to daylight. I think my foot would have hurt less had I just walked up the ramp. The incline meant there was constant pressure on my sore heel. There were a couple of points where the belt did seem to be trying to shake us off as it passed over some rollers. I give the BAT two out of five stars, would not do again.

Alan grabbed our gigantic lunchbox from the car and we sat down near a school group at a picnic table. A very polite and sweet young lady said she was sorry to interrupt our lunch, but she had to tell us we had a very handsome baby. He hadn’t bitten me yet today, so I agreed with her and thanked her for the compliment. The kids chowed down on their sandwiches, oranges, and Izze’s. Randal and I shared cottage cheese and a banana, then he wanted an orange, then he wanted my fizzy water. I finally passed him off to Alan so I could have my peanut butter crackers without having to share. None of the other babies needed food like Randal does, he’s such a little beast. Hauling him around in the baby backpack was a great workout. My poor foot hated me for it, but I gotta lose weight somehow.

During lunch, Alan and I discussed doing the Discovery Tour with the kids, and we got four out of five on board. Randal and Garrett were up for another fun ride in their packs, Jarek was bouncing with excitement, Arya was enthusiastic, and Evan was a no. I told him to suck it up because the rest of us wanted to do it, and he did. Garrett, after moving a safe distance away, stealthily dropped a bomb in his pull-up. This was discovered only after a vigorous session of tag with his older brothers, at which point the pull-up’s capacity to contain the bomb was exceeded. After going through half a pack of wet-wipes and bagging up the stinky clothes, Garrett smelled much better and we bought our tickets for the Discovery Tour.

This tour was also great. There were many named formations, impressive drop offs, underground streams with flowing water and lots of opportunities to be dripped on. The explorers found the cave by crawling through a small tunnel which narrowed to 11 inches at its narrowest point. They also waded through mud two to three feet thick and crawled through a place they named Grendel’s Gorge to explore the entire length of the cave which is about 2.5 miles long. The part we saw on the tour was three quarters of a mile. The mud river has a nice walkway over it and the gorge got a path cut over it so people with toddlers can enjoy a nice easy walk. Randal fell asleep immediately after we entered the cave and Garrett followed soon after.

It must have been incredible to be the first to explore this cave.

The end of the tour took us through grand chamber over 300 ft long and 180 feet high. There was incredible beauty where ever I looked. The flow stones, the cave curtains, the thousands of soda straws on the ceiling, it was absolutely amazing. Even the bat guano in the middle of the room was fascinating: a giant pile of poop dated to 15,000 years ago and another at the top of the climb that was 8,000 years old. You could see the bat roosts on the ceiling; discolored black by the oils of their feet. The same process that disrupts cave formations when they are touched by human hands, the natural oils produced by human bodies, still prevents stalactites from forming on the ceiling where the bats clung so many thousand years ago. A kind lady took a family picture of us on the overlook and we walked back to the surface.

Garrett melted down as we headed to the car. He and Jarek had just returned from a successful bathroom stop, but as we were leaving. Garrett insisted he needed to go again. I told him “No, you just went and we need to get home.” and that was it. He needed to pee RIGHT NOW. I then said a few words I would soon greatly regret. “Just come outside, you can pee on the wall by the van.” I thought he would forget his tantrum after being distracted by snacks in the car. “NO! I don’t want to pee on wall!” he shouted and I thought, “well, good, I didn’t want you to anyway.” and we loaded up.

For the next thirty minutes Garrett us treated to the phrase “I want to pee on wall!” in a maximum volume demon scream as we drove back. After fifteen minutes of this, I turned back to the kids, who all looked as if they wished they had brought a roll of duct tape, and said “I am so sorry I ever said he could pee on the wall. I swear I will never, ever, say that again.” This got a couple of giggles. I tried screaming the dreaded phrase to see if it would scare the wall peeing demon out of Garrett, and the kids all found that hilarious and started laughing. Garrett was momentarily stunned and Jarek passed him a lollipop, successfully breaking the demon’s hold. I added this new technique to my tantrum breaking tool kit and the rest of the drive passed uneventfully.

7 May 2024 – Trip day 37

On May 7th we packed up to head west toward Arizona. Here is a look at the post cards that we got from White Sands. Their selection wasn’t that broad, but the cards are nice.

We arrived at the camp site and began to set up. Randal helped supervise the activities.

 A view of our camp site at the Dave’s Mountain view Jerkey and RV camp ground. Typically Arizona, gravel, dirt, and mountains.

 Ducky was playing soccer and had kicked the ball off to the side. There were some other people and they were walking some pit bulls. Ducky was a bit upset that he had to come back and was very pouty about the whole affair.

Arizona sunset.

 The mountains at sunset.

 We were, of course, joined by the ever present trains. There was a lot of train traffic, but fortunately it was not very noisy as they did not sound their horns.

 Final sunset.

 Our microwave glass tray did not survive the trip. It finally yeeted its last. It had yeeted out of the microwave several times, but it had survived. This time, it did not, and it took out several other glass dishes from the drawer below the oven, which tended to slide open during travel.

24 May 08 – Trip day  38

The next morning we proceeded westward, towards Tucson, Arizona. We had several hills to climb over, but overall a short drive at around 120 miles.

Meagan and the kids stopped at a rest area on the way for a bathroom break and a bit of rock and tree climbing.

 Arya never saw a tree that she didn’t want to climb.

 Arriving at our destination, an AirBNB, we began to unload the RV. It took a little longer than planned, so we shifted the drop off time to the next day with the repair place.

 Dinner on the back porch with the Saguaro cacti in the background. The kids were very excited about getting to be in a house, or perhaps, not the RV, for a little while. The biggest thing they were excited about was being able to take baths, followed by being able to run around.

09 May 2024 – Trip day 39

I dropped off Big Country to get repaired. It was a bit of a sad moment leaving Big Country behind, but it is all for the better. We should hear next week (on Monday, May 13, 2024) on the status and hopefully when the repairs will be completed.  

 After dropping off Big Country, I set up our Starlink at the house with my backup cable. The house internet is a wireless internet which tested out around 2 MBps, which while ok, is not great.

I would set up Starlink and boom, we’d be in business. Except that it booted up and promptly lost connection with the antenna. Periodically, it would reconnect. I turned the antenna and came back later to find it aligned, but not connecting. I ordered another cable, and we are eagerly awaiting that.

 A contemplative Duck in the evening. He was looking out through the fencing while I sorted out various things from Big Country.

 Sunset on the evening of the 9th, with a view of one of the Saguaro cacti that surrounded the yard.

 Baby Randal was pretty happy with the whole affair!

 10 May 2024 – Trip day 40

We woke up to find some of the flowers on the big saguaro had opened overnight. They only stay open for a short time, opening at night and closing by the next afternoon.

 Apparently, these cacti have to grow for about 35 years before they flower, and 60-70 before they grow arms, living to around 150-200 years old.

We took the day off mostly, sorting through all of our stuff that we moved out of Big Country. We took the opportunity to winnow down some clothes and identify things we could get rid of. Living in the RV with limited space necessitates a minimalist life style, as well as weight considerations for the trailer.

Randal enjoyed his breakfast on the back porch.

Ducky was practicing his writing on the chalkboard. He was getting into writing his letters. I offered to help him, but he didn’t want it (yet). Soon, though!

 Gambit was being weird and started nomming Meagan’s hair. He’s a weird cat.

 We made an evening trip to the local Costco for dinner and a resupply run.

We have enjoyed these much needed days of rest. We’ll take the weekend off and then we’ll be back at it next week. We’ll also hopefully have a timeline update on Big Country. The initial estimate over the phone was two weeks, so we’ll see what they come back with next week.  

6 May 2024 – Trip Day 36 – by Alan

Today we went to White Sands National Park, but first let’s catch up on a few things!

The RV we are staying at has a number of these type of shelters. They seem to becoming very popular in the southwest.

This morning the kitchen sink backed up as we were cleaning up after breakfast and getting ready to go. I checked the tank valves – usually my trick is to forget to open one of them and then we spaz out about having a clogged drain somewhere. Well, the valves were open but there was a small trickle of water coming out.

I closed the other valves to the other gray tank and hooked up my flush hose to the back flush valve on my sewer adapter. I opened the valves and back flushed the gray tank for about 30 seconds and then opened the drain gate. I saw a lot of chunks and debris come out of the drain, followed by the rest of the water in the gray tank. After that, it drained normally. Except that I forgot to reopen the rear gray tank valve, which backed up during the kid’s showers. Easy enough to fix, but irritating. After our plumbing adventures, we headed out to the Park.

We got the kids Junior Ranger vests, so now they are fully kitted out.

We picked up the Junior Ranger books and headed out to do a hike on the Dune Nature Trail. It was a windy day and a lot of the sand was being kicked up.

The road into the park was closed past the Nature trail parking lot due to a F-16 crash that happened previously.

All of the visitors were packed into this small parking lot. It was fairly packed when we arrived.

 Kitted out, we started out on the trail.

 The trail had various signs describing the wildlife and they were tied into the Junior Ranger program. However, a decent number of the signs were sun faded to the point of being unreadable.

 Posing on a crest for a photo with the blowing dust in the background, the kids did well in the soft gypsum sand of the dunes. The dunes can move as much as 30 feet or more in a year.

 We came across this Cottonwood tree, which from the looks of it, had been buried at one point.

 We came across this little guy crawling on the sands. Upon further investigation, we found that he must have been blown off the Cottonwood tree.

 A nice gentleman passing by took our family photo; he mentioned that he came from a family of 6.

 Despite the harsh environment, desert flowers were blooming.

 After our hike, we drove back to the Visitor Center and turned in their Junior Ranger workbooks. The kids happily added another badge to their collection.

Afterward, we drove back to the campground but we stopped at the https://pistachioland.com/worlds-largest-pistachio/. 

 In keeping of the tradition of roadside attractions, we sampled their ice cream.

 Evan and Arya were not fans of the pistachio ice cream, but Garrett and Jarek didn’t mind.

Tomorrow we are back on the road, headed to Arizona.

 257 miles tomorrow with a mountain range to get over, then an over night and a shorter drive to Tucson to get Big Country’s slide out fixed.

5 May 2024 – Trip day 35 – by Alan

We drove from Carlsbad, New Mexico to Alamogordo, NM for the next stop on our journey, White Sands National Park.

As we prepared to depart, I noticed that one of the rear jacks had a small puddle of hydraulic fluid. The fix for this is to replace the jack, so that will be fun. We’ll address that in Tucson. The annoying part is that the replacement jacks are just under $700 each.

We took US 285 north to Roswell, then turned left on US 385, which turned into US 70. This took us over Apache Pass at over 7,500 feet in elevation.

We stopped at a little rest area before Roswell which was the site of the Blackdom Townsite.

 One of the annoying things about the drive was the GoPro recording the drive lost its mind. It started randomly rotating the video and locking on sideways. Of course, it was mounted perfectly fine and stable the whole ride, so I’m not sure what happened with that.

 I’m making a trip video where I cut out the sideways parts. It is rather unfortunate that this happened, as it was a nice drive through the mountains.

It was a bit windy and gusty, and as we came through the mountain pass, we could see the white sands ahead of us were being blown into a large white hazy cloud.

There were a few good gusts that tried to push the trailer around on the highway. One in particular was a good hit as we came around a bend and lost the shielding of the mountain side.

 The driving video will be available here later today.

One of the other fix it things I had to take care of was our griddle.

 In Florida, everything worked fine. When we got on the road, in San Antonio we went to cook dinner on it, but it barely worked. And by barely worked I could get one burner to work at about half power. If I turned the other burner on, both would go out.

I suspected that the regulator had gotten some sand or other dust in it when I packed it up. I took apart the regulator and blew it out, and put it back together. There was a little improvement, but not much.

I ordered a new regulator and it arrived while we were in Carlsbad. I put it on, and the problem persisted. Somewhat at a loss, I tried a different propane tank from the RV, and that did not fix it. At this point, the only thing left was to try a different hose. I ran down to the local Walmart and picked up a new hose, and like magic, we were back in business! I don’t think I’ve ever had a hose fail like that before on me.

15 April 2024, Trip day 15 by Meagan

Garrett Quote of the Day:

I’m putting bacon on the mesh tray of the air fryer as Garrett saunters over.

Garrett: “Mama I want some bacon!”

Me: “I have to cook it first honey.”

Garrett: “Can I help? Is it meat bacon?”

Laughing, I reply: “Yes, it’s meat bacon, what other kind of bacon is there?”

Garrett: “Bad bacon.”

Exactly Garrett.

Hey, Meagan here. Today we toured the Alamo. The Alamo is the famous fort where in 1836, 187 men led by Davy Crockett, James Bowie and William Garret Travis held off over 1,000 Mexican soldiers before they were killed to the last man. The part of the Alamo that remains today is the restored church and the Long Barracks building. The buildings can be seen from the outside, but reserving a ticket allows you tour the inside of the church, the barracks and the courtyard. The tickets are free so the price was right. There are also have guided tours, but with two wee little ones, we decided that wasn’t the best bet.

Our plan was to pull up next the Alamo plaza and unload, but we found the street blocked off due to construction (Waze failed us again!) so we drove a few streets further before turning back to the plaza. This ended up working out better as we parked in a lot next to the Morgan hotel and across from the Courthouse and Post Office and had only to walk a short way. We read the descriptions on the bronze models on our way to the church. The models depict how the Alamo changed over the course of 300 years. As Alan went to reserve our tickets, we discovered the reason for the road closure: the construction of a new visitor center. The fabric overlay of the new building on the construction site was very detailed and impressive. I guess we’ll get to see it when we bring Garrett and Randal back in ten years!

After getting the tickets, Garrett decided he needed to drive the wagon containing Baby Randal. He made a grab for stroller bar and had a meltdown when I fended him off. He cleverly ran around to the front and grabbed the pull handle, and, accepting this compromise, I headed toward the church. Two Alamo Rangers in their tactical gear and cowboy hats watched with amusement as we crept forward, one teeny toddler step after another.

Walking through the wooden doors, we entered a small building with a vaulted ceiling. Flags, representing the countries or states of the men who had died at the Alamo, lined the walls. The church had air conditioning which felt great after strolling around in the muggy 85 degrees of San Antonio. We strolled around the edge of the room reading the exhibits while Garrett asked me to pick him up about 20 times and I told him no 20 times. My left heel still hurt a lot after all the walking on the disc golf course. As I walked, it grew increasingly painful. (I have an appointment tomorrow at 1:30 to see a podiatrist.)

We read the names of the men who died on bronze plaques in the back of the church. Their last shots were fired from this spot. As Jarek got into a discussion with a volunteer about artillery shells versus cannon shot, I took a few pictures then joined Alan in the line to the Sacristy exhibit.

Sacristy Exhibit projected the changes to the Sacristy over time on a screen placed over the back wall of the room. The projection is accompanied by peaceful chants that give way to the sounds of the battle as the families of the soldiers shelter in the Sacristy during the battle. It was very well done kept Garrett’s attention for the whole five minutes.

We were about an hour into our visit and Arya and Evan were dragging a bit. We left the church and wandered the into the shaded courtyard to the north. I got a nice picture at the well with Arya and Evan, then bribed a fussing Garrett with a lollipop and got him to sit in the stroller with Baby Randal.

Baby Randal rode in his stroller like a champ the entire day. He hadn’t fussed one bit the whole time as he happily snacked on his Gerber baby snacks from Nene Mel. Garrett helpfully shoved a snack into Baby Randal’s mouth and continued to enjoy his lollipop.

We finished our visit with a look at the displays in the Long Barracks and the bronze statues in the garden. A living history volunteer told us about daily life at the Mission, we bought some postcards in the gift shop with grand ambitions to send them in a timely manner, and headed back to the park.