Tag Archives: Gallup NM

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A wild windup to a wondrous week

Retirement

This is the latest in an occasional series of blog posts commenting on upcoming retirement.

Well now …

That was some ending to a totally delightful week on the road.

We awoke this morning at what has turned out to be my favorite RV park, in Gallup, N.M., to find our truck and fifth wheel dusted with snow.

I had to remind myself. Today is the First of May, yes?

We turned on the TV to watch the local news and we learned about high wind warnings all across New Mexico; they would be especially fierce between Grants and Santa Rosa — right in the line of fire, so to speak, of our route home.

Oh, brother. What do we do?

My wife reminded me of some obligations we have on Monday. If we were “fully retired,” she said, “we could pull up short of home, spend the night at an RV park somewhere and cruise on in the next day.”

Can’t do it.

We decided to wait a while before shoving off.

Then we took flight — in a manner of speaking.

Eastward we trudged: Me, Wife and Toby the Puppy — who I should add wasn’t the least bit concerned about a single thing. As long as he has his mother and yours truly, life is good.

We arrived in Gallup the previous day after driving from Casa Grande, Ariz., where the temperature had hit the high 70s. Gallup sits about 6,500 feet above sea level. Thus, it is cooler than the Valley of the Sun under normal circumstances.

There wasn’t a lot of snow to be seen. But as we moved closer to Grants, the scene changed. Not dramatically. But the snow crept closer to Interstate 40. Then we saw a westbound snowplow tossing the snow off the outside lane going in the opposite direction.

The temperature outside? A bracing 33 degrees.

This is May 1? Am I correct.

Onward we went.

Just as we crested the summit going into Albuquerque we started feeling the wind the weather guy was talking about earlier in the morning. I’m not sure it was of the dangerous variety. Besides, we’ve lived in the Texas Panhandle for more than 21 years, so we’re fairly used to the West Texas wind.

We did decide, though, to slow our rig down. Neither of us is daredevil enough to push the speed limit in what could be described as inclement weather.

Everyone else? They roared past us as though we were going backward.

Bully for them.

A six-hour trip home turned into a seven-hour trip home.

We did make a decision, though, from this experience. Once we do declare ourselves to be fully retired, and we no longer have those obligations awaiting us at home, we’ve decided against making RV park reservations too far in advance.

There’s no way to resist the forces of Mother Nature.

Flexibility is the key to this retirement thing. Or so I’ve been told.

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First big RV trip: a rousing success

This is the latest in an occasional series of blog posts commenting on impending retirement.

We can declare our first-ever multi-state, multi-day trip in our recreational vehicle to be a success.

And a rousing one at that.

We shoved off from Amarillo the morning of March 21 and arrived back home just yesterday. Our travel took us to Mesa, Ariz., where we met up with my sister and brother-in-law, who had driven their RV from just north of Vancouver, Wash.

We had a serious blast with them, enjoying the sunshine, a bit of fellowship with fellow RV owners encamped at the park in Mesa and visiting with our aunt and uncle, who live about an hour’s drive south of the Phoenix area.

Except for a couple of mechanical issues we’re going to resolve with the folks who sold us our fifth wheel, our trip began and ended well for us.

But we did learn a valuable lesson while towing our 28-foot RV: Do not venture somewhere until you know for certain whether you can be comfortable getting there — and then coming back out.

We pulled out of the RV park Friday morning to start our trip home, but then we decided to take a gander at an attraction called Tortilla Flats, about 25 miles or so northeast of Mesa along an Arizona state highway. We looked at our map and assumed we could keep on going to a more significant highway once we finished visiting the attraction, which was billed as a replica of a ghost town.

You know what they say about assuming … yes?

Tortilla Flats sits along a very narrow road, with plenty of curves, switchbacks and, I should add, some seemingly harrowing areas. We hauled our fifth wheel through and along all of it en route to Tortilla Flats. For a bit of the trip in there, the road was bordered on side by rocky cliffs and the other side by, well, a serious drop-off into a bright blue lake full of boaters and kayakers.

I had a nightmare scenario of getting the fifth wheel too close to the edge and being pulled into the drink backward by the plummeting RV.

We got there just fine, but then learned that getting out would present a bit of a challenge. The paved road became an unpaved road once we got past Tortilla Flats. We were advised by a young restaurant waitress that we should just go back the way we came in.

Well, OK. But to get turned around, we had to take the RV up a dirt hill, onto a parking area and get it pointed in the right direction for the return trip back to Apache Junction. It required us to back the thing up.

We sized up our turning area and decided we could get the truck and the RV lined up to back up in a straight line enough to get it turned toward the right direction.

So … we did.

And out we came. Back to Apache Junction, back to the main highway and off toward Payson, Holbrook and then on to Gallup. N.M., for a night’s stay.

We breezed home along Interstate 40 the next day.

All is good. Our fifth wheel has been cleaned of the bugs that splattered it on the way to Mesa.

Once we get the mechanical issues resolved, we’ll be ready to ride.