We had hopes to spend Thanksgiving in Oklahoma with family however, due to the accident we were still not sure what was going to happen with our beloved home on wheels. Because we were not at fault the young man’s insurance company agreed to pay for a rental RV so we didn’t lose out on being able to spend Christmas with family and other reservations we had. So we set out to find a rental RV for a two week time over Christmas and New Year’s. Several years ago Michael had rented an RV and we contacted the same company he used before, we secured the RV, made the deposit and informed the insurance company what the fee would be (once we had a receipt we could submit it and they reimbursed us).

We hauled the rental up to Oklahoma to stay at mom and pop’s house for Christmas and were prepared to make the best of not having our own home with us. It was a different layout and definitely did not have some of the nicer features our own has but it was a way to be with family and camp until we could get ours back. While there Michael had an appointment and as he was driving in to a parking lot hit a bump and the hitch that the rental place had needed to lend us – ours sat too low – fell off the truck. Someone saw it happen behind him brought it to him and asked if it had fallen off his truck. They couldn’t figure it out as the pin was still on the truck. Turns out the RV rental person didn’t ever attach the hitch fully to the truck. We drove 390 miles from the house to Oklahoma basically with the weight of the RV keeping it in place. We considered ourselves very lucky that nothing worse happened that caused it to detach along the way.

We left Oklahoma for Cedar Hill State Park – just outside of Fort Worth/Dallas area – to spend our New Year’s there. We drove through pouring rain – very glad we had attached the hitch correctly once we realized what they had done and prepared to spend a week there to ring in the New Year. As we got the camper opened up, set up and and situated for the week we started noticing water dripping in over the dinette. I was literally getting about rained on at the table inside. We tried offsetting the jacks to try to re-direct the flow of water and that didn’t work either. Eventually, Michael tried adjusting how far out the slide was and that seemed to solve the problem. Following that problem we had hot water issues – I kept noticing the shower water getting cold very quickly until the 3rd day I had none at all. After a minor adjustment there we got that working as well.

Unfortunately because of the wet weather we didn’t get to do any hiking though the temperature was great for it the trails were too wet and dangerous so they were closed. We did find an amazing campground and have been there twice since – I’m actually currently writing this from Cedar Hill right now. It’s 5 miles from any shopping we may need – food, pet food, restaurants and a liquor store – yet in the park you have no feeling of being that close to town. Because it’s halfway between the house and family in Oklahoma, has over 350 RV sites with decent connectivity and tv channels for checking news and weather and is pretty easy to find a site in when we want one.

We appreciated the insurance company paying for the rental, loved that we got to spend time with family for the holidays, that we found a great new park we love – however – it made us appreciate even more our current RV and it’s amenities. Another reminder to be grateful for what we have.

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It was a beautiful Tuesday morning when we were leaving Ruidoso Downs New Mexico. We were sad to leave there as the weather was beautiful, even with the rain, and we were enjoying the mountains around us. But we knew we were headed to Arizona with similar temps and elevation and were excited to be in the woods again. That’s not where we ended up spending the night or any of that week.

Before leaving Michael added the rest of the tire pressure monitoring system (tpms) to the tires that had been under the slideout and hard to access the night before. In doing so he noticed a tire going bad with a tear forming on the sidewall. I started looking for a place to get tires in Arizona once we got there so we could take care of it there. We knew we had the tpms so we could monitor the tire temp and pressure as we drove.

We were 20 minutes in to our drive heading down a huge mountain that was about 2 miles long at an 8% grade. It was super steep coming down and we had driven it the day before without the trailer to go to Capitan so we knew what to expect. As we were almost down that mountain Michael started seeing/smelling smoke and got us pulled over to the side as soon as possible. Our brand new front brakes that we put on the truck a week before we left were very, very hot – almost on fire. It was a very scary few minutes while we assessed what we were going to do next. Between the brakes and the tire going bad we felt we had to get out of the mountains the quickest we could and decided to come back to Oklahoma near family and get things taken care of. I sent the tire info to Pop and asked if he could see if anyone had tires near them as we decided to replace both the tires on that side as they were both looking a bit rough. He set up a tire and a brake appointment for us so we could get things fixed while we stayed near family. We also figured out why the front brakes had to work so much harder than usual.

For a few weeks Michael when towing the trailer he said the trailer brakes didn’t feel like they were engaging right. About a month and a half ago as we were traveling to Louisiana on another trip (more about all this soon) we had a bearing go out on one of our driver side trailer tires, almost caught fire, we got it in time thanks to a very nice truck driver on the road getting our attention. We limped to a repair shop where they were able to get the part the next day and fix the whole bearing, axle etc. However, it appears they didn’t adjust the brakes right while under there so they weren’t engaging right when he was trying to brake. Pop to the rescue again. He found a YouTube video on how to adjust trailer brakes and he and Michael climbed under there yesterday to tighten said brakes and discovered this is probably a big reason our front truck brakes had to work so hard coming down that mountain. They proceeded to try to put the tpms on the passenger side trailer tires only to discover they were the wrong load range. Their max. capacity is about 1400 pounds less than what we need.

Between tires, brakes and trailer brakes it’s been a stressful week around our world. New correct tires will be in tomorrow (Tuesday) and we should be able to head on to Cedar Hill State Park in the evening to be in the woods again soon.

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It seems a lot of our travels recently have started out with this sentence. What started as a 4 day trip to go to a medical appointment and get some meds refilled has turned in to an almost 3 week adventure. About a month ago we were camping in Oklahoma with Michael’s mom and pop when we decided that New Mexico in July sounded like a nice idea. I thought it was crazy until I started seeing the average temperatures for Ruidoso, New Mexico in July are in the mid-70’s (a much better average than in Austin for sure). So we decided that after our appointments in Oklahoma in July that we would head west to the mountains of New Mexico. I am not sure what it is about the mountains but I feel the most at home when I see the mountains. There’s a feeling of peace and calm that just seems to wash over me when they first come in to sight.

We left Oklahoma earlier this week, spent an overnight in Lubbock where our site was so close to the highway if I had any kind of aim and threw a rock I’d have hit a vehicle on the road. But, it was a long enough pull-through site we didn’t have to unhook the truck all we really needed since we were coming from another campground that had been full hookup was to plug in to the electric there. We were a few sites down from mom and pop and had dinner with them before everyone crashed for the night in preparation for an early morning departure to New Mexico.

We were up at the crack of dawn the next morning and headed off through some pretty remote parts of Texas and New Mexico before driving through Roswell – we went there last year so we didn’t make a point of stopping there. We arrived in Ruidoso at Slow Play RV Park just after their noon check in time and were able to unhook the truck from the camper and enjoy the cooler air outside. We had bad news on our drive that his mom and pop would need to return to Oklahoma for family so unfortunately we only had one night here in New Mexico with them. The campground here is quite nice, the owners a younger couple who bought the place last year and are slowly making it there own.

Ruidoso Downs is a neat little tourist town in the mountains near the Mescalero Reservation. The downtown has many different shops for souvenirs, a winery, a few breweries nearby, and some cool pottery places. We’ve spent time at the winery where we got a few bottles of different wines, window shopped at a pottery store and some souvenir shops, had some really not great barbecue and a great burger at a local bar with many local beers. Today has been stormy all afternoon we’ve had several waves of ongoing rumbling thunder and some lightning and a bit of hail even. It’s 59 degrees right now and we can have the windows open to listen to the raindrops. We’d like to go to Capitan tomorrow and may even look at a piece of property just out of curiosity. We’re finding we really like the area here. More to come soon on our adventures here in New Mexico and then as we head to Arizona.

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November 6, 2020 – We had spent several days at Stephen F Austin State park where we had a wonderful time camping, hiking, campfires and enjoying watching the deer at our site. We loved the campground loop and the fact that while it was a large loop you couldn’t see the people across the loop from you because of the grass in the middle of it. We left the campground a bit later than we usually would because we didn’t really want to go back yet. We’d even started planning on maybe trying to squeeze another trip in before Thanksgiving and our plans (at that time) to go to Oklahoma for turkey day.

We were slowed due to a work convoy and the fact that many people don’t want to let our traveling rig over (we do slow anyone behind us down). Turn signal blinking, trying to be cautious of the workers in front of us all of a sudden we felt a thud and I’m like did someone just hit us. Sure enough a young kid (16) had rear-ended the RV. From the workers that were around and saw it apparently a car (we didn’t see it ourselves) whipped around us cutting off the young man, he swerved to avoid the car but clipped the rear passenger corner of our RV and totaled his truck. When the police arrived one of them even commented to us on what kind of camper we have because his truck is destroyed and our camper with a bit of burlap and bungees could be driven home for repairs. We were heartbroken and sick to our stomachs at the damage to our lovely home on wheels. We limped home, received a call and started working on arrangements to have repairs done, called our RV dealer to see about bringing it in the following morning, and I cried. We had no idea if she could be repaired or would be totaled so when we got home – already exhausted – we unloaded every personal item we could from her to take her in the following morning. It took time between holidays and pandemic shipping slowdowns it took about 3 months for her repairs and a lot of time wishing we had her back.

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Well, it’s been a long time since we posted but we’ve been a bit busy trying to figure out life stuff. After our last post our RV was in rear-ended on our way back to the house in Austin. Their insurance paid and it was a long 3 months without our little landship. I will be making some posts in the near future and we’ll share some of the adventures to catch you up from the first of the year til now. We’ll start back up with our current location and we’ll add some posts along the way catching you up on some of our adventures.

Our current location is in Scissortail RV park in Ada, OK. It’s a small little park with a lot of long-term campers but it has decent wi-fi, full hook-ups, and is close to family. Michael had an appointment near here and we have enjoyed being back in our home. A bit before we got here we had made plans with Michael’s mom and pop to go to Ruidoso, NM. We leave here Wednesday for 5 nights in New Mexico. From there Michael and I have decided to go to Arizona as well to a neat looking State Park there. Because for some reason we can’t seem to just drive straight home we decided to go north to the Four Corners Monument and stay a few nights in Colorado. It’s becoming quite the adventure we’re on together.

Stay tuned for more new updates – and updates and pictures on things we’ve been doing this year.

During the night on Saturday night in to Sunday morning the winds started picking up and it became very chilly (for those of us that are like lizards apparently). The morning temps were about 37 with a feels like temp of 25. It was definitely a shock to the system after our temperatures in Texas. We took quick walks with the dogs and let them use the dog park that was adjacent to the campground. They were thrilled to run around and stretch their legs in there.

We picked up a few supplies we needed as well as some gloves and slippers for me for the camper as we’re moving in to cooler weather camping. I took advantage of the great internet and was able to stream for a few hours that day as well. It always makes me happy when I get to stream on the road. Dinner that night was a new one for us from Michael Angelo’s frozen meal line. We love their eggplant parm meal and their lasagna one as well. For frozen meals they are truly delicious and nice to have on the road to heat up in the oven. After a nice dinner by candlelight and some mellow music we spent the evening watching some stuff we had downloaded ahead of time on Netflix. It was an early night for us as we prepared to head to Oklahoma the next day as we continue the journey back to Texas.

Saturday morning we rose at our usual (for Colorado) early time and starrted getting things finalized for our trip to Dodge City Kansas. We had a beautiful day for traveling and hated saying goodbye to our lovely Pueblo campsite. That patio truly made the experience that much better for the dogs to have some freedom outside to play and do what they wanted while we relaxed and had a coffee, lunch or a drink. We would not have found this spot if we hadn’t checked the website pictures and looked at their map online. Definitely use the internet and web to look at maps of sites and the options available.

We had planned ahead and put our frozen breakfast sandwiches in the fridge to thaw overnight so we didn’t have to worry about breakfast. On Friday I made us some delicious sandwich wraps so we wouldn’t have to stop somewhere on the way for lunch. We had some low-carb tortilla shells with ham, turkey, lettuce, tomato, cheese, and bacon. We cut them in half and double wrapped them and then put them in a big baggie – when we munch on a sandwich we tend to just want a half at a time so this makes it easy to share along the way.

When we got to Dodge City it was about 80 degrees and sunny. We found that the city here has a wonderful dog park that happens to back up to the KOA campground here. This is one of the biggest dog parks I’ve ever seen and the dogs got to run and stretch their legs for a bit. We love getting to let them run like that. This is a newer KOA and the pull-through spots are HUGE. We love when we can hook the truck up the night before to the camper without being in the road – makes leaving so much easier the next day. We ended up having dinner with Michael’s mom and pop who were spending just one night here before going home Sunday. George made brats from frozen in their Ninja Foodi and we were highly impressed as brats are one of our favorites as well. After a dinner of chili dogs and brats Michael and I spent the evening relaxing. The internet here is amazing so I was able to stream a video game last night which is always a bonus when traveling.

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With the time change the dogs have had a hard time letting us sleep in past 7:30 mountain time. After having spent the first 3 days in Pueblo running all day, dogs waking us up early and the altitude by Thursday we were a bit run down. We spent Thursday and Friday running a few errands and enjoying the private patio at our site. We thoroughly enjoyed having lunch out there with the pups running around and playing. We had dinner out there with Michael’s mom and pop a few times and on our last night we had a fire in the lovely firepit they provided.

One of the things that wore me out so much was the altitude. The few days of driving up in to the mountains I battled nauseau and shortness of breath both times. One thing that helped was drinking water. If you are making huge altitude changes quickly be sure to drink lots of water. We also took with us cans of air that with the touch of a button you could breathe in and help catch your breath. I didn’t use those but Michael whose lungs are a bit touchier used it quite a bit while we were in Colorado. You can buy the canned air like that on Amazon.

While we were resting I made use of the internet and hopped online to order groceries from Walmart. One of the things we do on longer trips (especially in Texas) if we need to restock we try to order what we need online and scheduling curbside pick up so we don’t have to spend our time away at the grocery store.

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Many campers have that one gadget they can’t do without (or that they would rather not camp without). One of our favorite gadgets is the Ninja Foodi. While camping in Utah earlier this year the temperatures were over 100 degrees. When it’s extremely hot you definitely don’t want to turn on the oven in temperatures like that. The Ninja Foodi can do so many amazing things and it’s nice to have a tool that will do so many things in one tool. We’ve used ours to air fry snacks in the evening. We have used it to slow cook stews and roasts as well as the pressure cook function to take steaks right from the freezer to your plate in about 20 minutes. We enjoy our 6.5 quart so much that we’ve decided it’s staying permanently in the camper and when there was a sale this week we ended up buying an 8 quart one for the house no so we don’t have to haul this one in and out the camper between trips.

With the internet and all the different recipes available we’ve enjoyed finding recipes that are easy to make on the road as well as trying new foods that maybe we wouldn’t have attempted before. I’d love to have you share your favorite gadgets with me. Please feel free to put it in the comments.

While we’re in Colorado Michael’s parents are in the same campground as us. They planned a trip up in to the mountains for a day trip on Wednesday. His mom and pop rented an SUV so we could all comfortably ride up to the mountains and enjoy the scenery. We drove about an hour and a half each way up through the winding switchback roads until we reached Cripple Creek. It seems to be a neat little town with several small casinos and restaurants. We enjoyed a lovely lunch at a little restaurant called Dynamite Dicks in a small casino there. After lunch we each spent a little money and enjoyed the slot machines. Michael’s pop came away the big winner – seemed fitting since he bought lunch and all for everyone.

We stopped many times on the way back down the mountain so Michael could get some pictures of the beautiful views we were seeing. We have spent every day running since we’ve been gone. We were both exhausted and were grateful for the pot roast we had started in the slow cooker portion of the Ninja Foodi. It was wonderful to not have to cook anything when we were so very tired.

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