Views from our RV

Setting sun reflecting on mountain

Uh oh - storm coming our way

Yep - they were right - we got rain and snow flurries

View of snow capped mountains through front window this morning

Just thought I would share with you a few photos I took yesterday and this morning showing the view from inside (too cold outside!) our RV parked in a campground about 10 minutes north of Salt Lake City CBD.

A long drive to Salt Lake City, Utah

Scenery en route Cheyenne to Salt Lake City

Windiest & most trucked route!

Reminiscent of Monument Valley

Great place for a wind farm

Scenery through the window

Royal Wedding (courtesy thedailybeast.com)

After leaving Cheyenne (where Murray had to dust snow off the petrol pump at the bowser), we planned to drive 330 miles/530km to the tiny town of Fort Bridger, Wyoming. However when we arrived at 5pm, we learnt the campground wasn't reconnecting the water supply until the weekend. So we continued on another 2 hrs to Salt Lake City, Utah. At a total distance of 440 miles/708km, it was not only our longest day of driving in our 5 years of RV travel, but it was the windiest drive, with sudden gusts having to potential to push you off the road. Instead of travelling at our usual 65 mph/105kph, we were forced to travel about 20 mph slower. It also seemed to have the highest number of trucks we had seen consistently on a single route, but it was never a problem as the divided highway was 2 lanes each way. We have noticed we aren't seeing so many RV's on the roads this time. Perhaps the higher fuel prices and the ongoing financial situation are the main contributing factors, along with the odd weather patterns. The death toll from the latest tornado has passed 300. Scary.

Despite being a long day, it was a very interesting drive as there was lots of snow en route, and some interesting rock formations - very similar to Utah. Considering we were entering that state next, we weren't too surprised. We pulled into Laramie for a coffee break and lucked on a wonderful cafe where we were able to park right at the front door. It not only offered free wifi (so I could email the photos I had just taken of the snow), but it also had an expresso coffee machine, so we enjoyed the change from filtered coffee, and shared a delicious slice of carrot cake.

The last 50 miles into Salt Lake City were very scenic with pretty snow scenes. Although we were tired, the time just flew, as we were thoroughly enjoying the unfolding views. We were glad to see them capitalising on the notoriously windy area, by establishing numerous wind farms.

Snow flurries seem to be dogging our trail on this trip. Our high temperature today was 5 C and we reached that around 11am. It has already dropped to 3 C and it is 1.30pm. Murray & I stayed up until 6am this morning - I was watching the Royal Wedding - who doesn't love a fairytale - and he was listening to the Aussie football on the laptop (with one eye on the TV I am sure). He thought Posh Spice looked pretty smart, and some reports suggest Kate's sister Pippa was a great runner-up to the bride in the beauty stakes. What a fabulous spectacle, whether you are a monarchist or not.

Terry Bison Ranch, Wyoming

Sheriff checking Murray's credentials

Bison welcome to Wyoming

Camel following our train

2 day old Bison calf

Storms looming

Hills behind our campground 'whited-out' - our RV in foreground

Same scene as above, 4 hrs later

Before we left the tiny town of Seibert, Colorado, Murray decided to take a walk around the town taking photos of the derelict buildings that were mere remnants of earlier days. Being a stranger in town, his photo-taking was reported to the local sheriff, who pulled up beside Murray and asked for his ID. It is a very rare occasion that he doesn't have his driver's licence on him, but this was one of them. He was escorted back to our RV so the sheriff could sight & phone in his Aus driving licence - which he did. Within minutes of the sheriff arriving, his deputy pulled up in front of our RV as well. He didn't want to miss the excitement. Obviously very bored I'd say! Thankfully the credentials checked out - yes, we were valid tourists, but we were left wondering just what is hidden in this tiny town of around 180 people that they have to be so vigilant and wary of strangers. Someone had phoned the 'strangers' presence in to the sheriff. The campground hosts came over to apologise, but we just ticked it up to another experience, and I will put an ankle ball & chain on Murray for future forays!

Putting that behind us, we headed west towards Denver, and caught a glimpse of the snow-capped Rocky Mountains. Only the loftiest peaks had snow left on them. We were pleased to veer north from the built-up traffic around Denver and enter into the vast 'cowboy' plains of Wyoming. Our chosen campground is right on the Colorado/Wyoming border, and we were glad to pull in, as the snow flurries were increasing. Overnight we had our first-ever experience of the water lines freezing as we woke up to find we had no water coming into the RV from the shore water. We switched to our own water pump and fresh water holding. Murray gently disconnected the hose and found it was frozen where it connected with the RV. After waiting until after sunrise and letting the air temperature warm up, it was all back to normal. However, lesson learnt. Tonight we will disconnect the water hose before we go to bed, and reconnect in the morning. While we are staying at one of our favourite fishing spots in North Dakota we rely on our water pump for weeks at a time, so a few nights here & there are no problem at all.

Our current campground in located within the Terry Bison Ranch Resort. We thought it would offer a different experience as they have train rides out to their bison herd, and have a 'Senators Restaurant' on site where you can order your choice of lean buffalo meat. We took the midday train ride out to see the bison and passed some of their other animals - camels, ostriches, horses and llamas. There was a baby bison only 2 days old - it was born on Easter Sunday. If you are quick you will pick him out in the video below. En route we saw prairie dogs peeping out of their holes, rabbits, canada geese and a whole flock of red-winged blackbirds. They are smaller than our aussie blackbirds, and it is not until they fly off that you see a bright red triangle under each wing. Very pretty. Fortunately it was fine weather when we boarded the little train, but while we were out watching the bison, we could see ominous clouds looming in the distance, and by the time we got back to the campground, the snow flurries had 'whited-out' the distant hills. A few hours later, the sun was out, and everything looked clean & bright. Dinner was very pleasant: Murray had bison ribs and I had bison sirloin. Nice & tender.

Easter in Colorado

Happy Easter from Berlin

Our basket left by 'Easter Bunny'

Uh oh - snow on roadside - must be cold out there

Mansion overlooking corn fields

I wonder what stories this old place could tell...

Main Street of Seibert, Colorado

Old building in the main street

The Easter Bunny found his way to our RV in this tiny town of Seibert, Colorado this morning. Totally unexpected, we found a cute little easter basket on our step when we stepped outside this morning! The campground owners must have left it there for us which was very thoughtful. While visiting a yummy chocolate shop with Kim in Berlin, I saw a cute little easter gift for Murray, and it survived the trip home to Australia and then over to the USA. I'm just amazed that I remembered where I had hidden it in the RV when we unpacked.

Yesterday was Easter Saturday and we drove up the centre and across the west of the state of Kansas - also known as the Wheat State, and famous for it's quality steak. The scenery was ever changing, and we enjoyed seeing the old, dilapidated homesteads and the contrasting mansions overlooking the corn fields. We were en route to Colorado, but even before we crossed the Kansas/Colorado border and gained an hour (switched from central time to mountain time), the weather had cooled. In fact there were several large patches of snow on the side of the road.

We arrived at our destination of Seibert, a tiny town of less than 200 people. We only stopped here as it was the right driving distance for us from the previous stop. The campground is only basic, but offered all hook ups (electricity, water, sewer) plus cable TV and wifi for $13.60 a night, so we checked in for 2 nights. Mad if you don't! The trees here are still fairly bare - some early spring foliage, but not much as yet. Given the high is only going to be 8 C today, and it got down to -1 last night, I can understand why the trees are still in winter mode. Not to mention the snow flurries we had this morning. The locals may not have been too thrilled, but we enjoyed watching the snow flakes fall. Hope you all had a nice weekend and celebrated the true meaning of Easter.

Al Capone's Haunt - Hot Springs, Arkansas

Steam escaping in street from underground hot spring

Easter Display in Arlington Hotel

Al Capone Suite

Hotel Porter making sure Murray didn't steal from Al Capone's suite!

Murray turns the Tommy gun on Al Capone

We were farewelled from Fordyce by Sandy & Joe Bill just after a Rotary lunch where Joe Bill's brother (John Benton) led everyone in a rousing local railroad song. See video below. Joe Bill is in yellow shirt and Sandy the black with her arm on his shoulder. We then had a very pretty 2 hr drive west to Hot Springs, Arkansas.

The natural thermal spring waters that provide water heated to 147 F/64 C created today's popular spa city of Hot Springs. Long before the white man arrived in 1673, American Indians were bathing in the warm, mineral water for its healing properties. As you drive along the street you can see the steam escaping into the air. Bath houses became popular, and the main street became known as Bathhouse Row. After the civil war, illegal gambling took hold and attracted notorious gangsters like Al Capone. Now gamblers have it all legalised in Las Vegas. At the end of Bathhouse Row stands the magnificent Arlington Hotel, where Al Capone had his own suite - Room 443 if you want to check it out. In the entry foyer they have set out an Easter Display which I thought I would share with you!

On the 4th floor is the original Arlington bath house, and Cindy & Mike had recently booked in for 'the works' and highly recommended it to us. As it is something neither of us had ever experienced, we arranged to have the same treatment. Women on one side, men on the other. First you have a 20 min soak in a private hot, mineral bath, followed by a sauna. Then you are wrapped in towels soaked in the hot mineral water and left lying quietly for 20 mins. Very relaxing. From there you have a rinse in the shower before enjoying a 20 minute Swedish massage. Most enjoyable.

The day before, we had got permission and checked out Al Capone's suite - it gets rented out as a special request hotel room, and we were fortunate it was not occupied the day we visited. With his appetite whetted, Murray decided to check out the Gangster Museum down the street. He enjoyed learning about the gangster history as it was played out in this city. That was our 3rd visit to Hot Springs.

Return to Fordyce

Mike's Number Plate - Gotta love it!

Our Priveleged Park at Meadolark Farm

View from front door of house to their Lake

Trish, Sandy & Wanda break for morning tea

Ruth proudly displaying her turkey photos

That's one BIG male turkey

After saying farewell to friends Cindy & Mike (and taking a photo of his 'Retired' number plate') we drove south past Little Rock to pull up in front of friends' Sandy & Joe Bill's lovely home in Fordyce, Arkansas. In the photos above I have tried to show you the setting, with our RV parked at their front door surrounded by tall Loblolly pine trees, and with the lake to the rear of us. You can constantly hear birds chirping, and we saw numerous red cardinals, bluebirds and red-wing blackbirds. It is a busy time for our friends as it is Festival time, and Joe Bill is the chief organiser. Sandy works in the festival HQ each day along with Wanda, and they sell over $1000 worth of Tshirts a day. I was able to spirit them away for a coffee break though, and we left Murray & Joe Bill to mind the HQ.

While I was sitting with them in the HQ, a young married woman, Ruth, came in to buy a Tshirt. She was dressed from head to toe in camouflage, and I jokingly asked if she was heading out on a duck hunt. She gently advised me that duck season was over, and it was now turkey hunting season. In fact, she had shot herself a magnificent turkey only a few days ago. She had the photos to prove it, and even gave me two as a souvenir. She proudly described how her turkey was a male, weighed 20lb and that she had killed it with a shotgun.

Tips for sharing the internet

I came across this site in my travels, and I thought it could help many of you struggling with this same dilemma of internet sharing. I thought we might have the same issue, as although I was initially the main user of the laptop in our motorhome, I do believe that Murray now surpasses me with time on the internet. He and his 2 sons & daughter are part of an aussie football game online that relates to actual players and games played each weekend. So he needs to keep up with football news to know who is injured etc so he can rearrange 'his' team and hope to get more points. Our problem has been helped by me having an iPhone and most campgrounds we choose to stay at have free wifi.

If you go back to the main page, this site has lots of other interesting bits of info for RVers on all different topics. Tom, you & Betty might enjoy reading this when you get a chance.

Mountain View, Arkansas

View of countryside as we drove along

Lunch with Cindy & Mike on the White River

Dogwoods flowering in the wild

Fishermen on the White River below the Dogwood

Gourds for Sale

Decorated Gourds

A Gourd Mandolin

We crossed the border into Arkansas around midday, then stopped for 2 nights in a nice campground with very welcoming owners. It was our first chance to catch up on washing and getting back into our RV routine since leaving home. It was 30C when we arrived, breaking records in that town for that day of the year, so we decided to take it easy the first day, and leave the washing till the next day. No sooner had we had our first glass of red wine and our weather monitor alerted us to a 'tornado watch'. Not believing our bad luck, we turned on the TV weather channel, and sure enough, there it was heading in our direction and due to hit around 2am. Well, we figured we weren't going to get any sleep, so we stayed up and watched TV until the threat was removed at 3am. Thankfully the campground had a tornado shelter within several paces of our front door, and we were ready to sprint over there as soon as the campground owner sounded his alarm. As you would know from news reports, tornadoes toss RV's in the air and they can land far away from their moored position. The last place you want to be during a tornado is in a mobile home. We got some rain and gusts of wind, but it moved across the north of us, damaging 70 homes in a Wisconsin town as it swept through that area. When we awoke the next day, it was much cooler, and we did get the washing done. One more night there, and we were out the gate driving to Mountain View where we planned to spend 5 nights at a familiar campground with friends Cindy & Mike.

Cindy & Mike hail from Louisiana, and we met them at this campground 2 years ago. Last year we caught up with them in their hometown of Denham Springs, about an hour north of New Orleans, and again at a music festival in Suwanee River, Florida. Yesterday they took us to a nearby store where outside they sell gourds straight from the farm, and inside they sell the gourds after they have been done up - either as musical instruments (banjos, mandolins etc) or decorative gourds.

Today was a glorious spring day, and after spending the day touring through the Arkansas area near the Ozark National Forest, we can understand why it is called the 'Natural' state. So much natural beauty abounds - especially when viewed with the spring flowering dogwood trees everywhere. We lunched on the White River at Bull Shoals, and the drive there and back was very scenic. We were gone for almost 8hrs and had a great day. The White River is the very same one that got Bill & Hillary Clinton into hot water with the Whitewater (real estate venture nearby the White River) controversy. We drove past the turnoff to the real estate involved. We saw our first deer and bison for the trip, the deer were wild, but the bison were on a farm. Tomorrow we will start attending the country music shows that this town of Mountain View is famous for, and that should take care of the next 3 days!

The Ozarks, Missouri with Friends

Unique Cafe

Lunching with Trish & Dave

House on far left is Andy Williams

Murray chatting to Harley Owner

Sunset behind the Papoulis Greek Restaurant

Wouldn't you know it - our first night in the RV and our weather alarm and the TV alerts warned of impending hail storms and dangerous winds. A severe storm was coming our way, and here we were perched on top of a mountain! Hmmm. Fortunately the worst we got was thunder, lightning, some light hail and pounding rain Given our elevation we were spared any flooding. Phew.

Our friends Trish & Dave who we joined in the campground are full time RVers and relish the lifestyle. They kindly took us to spend the next day sightseeing the edges of Branson (we have been there twice already so didn't need to see the bright lights) and hearing a bit of the local history - they had a property in the Ozarks before moving into the motorhome and had seen Branson grow up. We had lunch in one of their favourite cafe's which was a unique place to visit, and then we drove over the river past the campground where we have stayed twice before, and pulled in to a scenic overlook. Andy William's home was pointed out to us (he still lives there) and is a permanent singer in town. Then an ex-USAF chap pulled up on his Harley, so I took a photo for my friends Leonie & Stan who love their Harley. That night Trish & Dave took us to a local Greek restaurant in a tiny little township that has a population of around 500 people. We tried the greek fare and had a very pleasant evening. The sun was setting as we left. Another day to put to bed. The next morning will see us heading on a road and crossing the border into Arkansas.

Back in USA for 2011

Red Lobster Feast

Bananas - 1/10th the price

We are now back in the USA for our 5th consecutive RV trip. Considering that we only planned to do just one 12 month RV trip around USA in 2007, it still amazes us that we are still coming back each year. Once we discovered that we loved the RV lifestyle in this country, it wasn't hard to plan to return for spring & summer each year for as long as our motorhome kept going. So here we are. We flew into LA airport to be greeted by blooming cherry blossoms, and then flew onto Kansas City where we picked up a hire car, and immediately proceeded to collect our RV out of storage. Thankfully the RV started as soon as Murray turned the ignition on, and we breathed a sigh of relief and appreciation. Our RV is 10 years old, and despite standing for 6 months at a time, it has started first time, every time. Although having had no sleep since we left Australia 30 hours earlier, we were on a high as we drove the RV out of the storage area. Oops, not so fast...we got out of the initial locked garage door, only to find ourselves locked inside the next grille gate. We thought the area was accessible 24/7, but apparently it gets locked up at 7pm. Hmmm. We had entered at 6.30pm and all the lights were on, and we did wonder why the lights suddenly went out at 7.15pm. Fortunately they have a 24 hr guard on the premises, and Murray was slim enough to fit out of a hole in the rocks beside the gate, and he alerted the guard who then came and let us out. Phew. I wish that I had taken a photo of us behind the locked grille! When I rang the storage office the next morning to advise that we had removed our RV and to take us off the books, the office lady had heard about our incident, and mentioned that the guard got a rap on the knuckles, as he is supposed to ensure that there is no one in the facility before he locks up! She said he won't make that mistake again - nor will we!

Making the most of our few days in a motel, we ate out at an Olive Garden (a nice Italian restaurant chain) and a Red Lobster (seafood chain). I felt right at home having a margarita and enjoying a favourite seafood trio of lobster tail, baked lobster mornay, and skewered garlic prawns.

After getting the RV serviced, we set out on the road south about 10am this morning, and remembered that the last time we took this road we had my younger sister and aunt travelling with us. Lovely memories. We passed some Amish buggies on the road and saw armadillos dead on the road - reminders that we were far away from home. The clincher was to walk into Walmart and see bananas at around $1.20kg (54c/lb) - due to the damage from floods and winds in north Queensland and areas of New South Wales where the banana plantations are, the price of bananas before we left home had escalated to almost $12/kg (~$6/lb). Come and visit Clairie!!

Petrol sure has gone up since our last visit here. We are paying $1 per gallon more, and they say it is only going to get worse as the year progresses. Today we paid $3.60 gallon or 95c/litre. Then again, back home it was close to $1.40 per litre ($5.30/gal) when we left, so it is swings & roundabouts.

We are now settled into an RV park in the Ozark Mountains - south of Springfield and about 25 mins north of Branson, Missouri. It is only a basic park, but it has water, electricity, sewer and free wifi for $7.50 per night. No cable TV but digital TV reception is great due to our elevation. Friends who we met 2 years ago in Wisconsin are in the site next to us. Yes, we knew they were going to be here, and we were all happy to meet up again and had a good chat sitting under the stars each with a glass of red wine. It was 30C when we arrived around 4pm, and is supposed to get down to 18C overnight. An abrupt change from the 8C we woke up to in Kansas City this morning!