Our Journey : September 2010

9/28/2010

September 27-28, 2010 Just Two Regular Days

I spent the last two days just getting caught up (bills, laundry, groceries, etc.) and taking it easy. And I am feeling much better. Andy spent the last two days cleaning the motor home and Tracker and also resting – so far he is doing well – he hasn’t caught my cold…

And now we are ready for the Balloon Fiesta. We move to the camping area tomorrow. We are so excited. Stay tuned for lots of pictures – :-))).

Here is our site at Leisure Mountain:

My new window shades are in the above picture and I love them – during the day I can see out but you can’t see in (at night we still have to use the curtains). I am going to try to find that material to make some for the other windows – hopefully block out the sun but let the air breeze in… Speaking of making – I made the blue “bra or bug catcher” in the above photo – it is marine vinyl and easy to wash the bugs away. The open areas are screen material. Not too bad – :-))). LOL!

Until tomorrow.

9/26/2010

September 26, 2010 - Back in the South West

Our travels today continued thru more of Texas.

Notice the moon in the upper left:

A huge feed lot – all those dark spots are cows – oh my:

Notice the change in the country side:

And into New Mexico and another time zone change – Mountain time:

That is Mt. Tucumcari on the left:

We are definitely in the south west – our altitude here was 3800’ – WOW!:

And we climbed even higher:

Some where around here our elevation was over 7000’ – another WOW!

I have missed these views of the southwest:

We are staying in Tijeras, New Mexico at Mountain Leisure RV Park (a Passport America Park – which means half price – :-)). We will be here until Wednesday morning when we head to the Balloon Fiesta.

The rest of the day I just rested. I have come down with a cold and it is in full swing – :-(((. So I am going to take it easy over the next two days and hopefully feel better by Wednesday.

Miles Traveled: 253 Miles

Routes Traveled:

Texas: US-54

New Mexico: US-54; US-40; SR-333

September 25, 2010 – Just Passing Through

Travel day today so here are some sites from the road:

Kansas:

A stone farmhouse:

Pumping Oil:

Digging for Oil:

More of those plants – see the bottom of this post:

Dirt Roads exit from the interstate:

Nice little churches in the middle of the fields:

Neat little towns – stone/brick buildings and even brick roads:

Beautiful flatlands:

Trains along the way:

Another gem of a place for lunch – we could have camped here too:

The scenery changed here – wonder what happened geologically:

Harvest time continues:

We passed many granaries:

Mountains of grain/corn:

Train on a ridge in Kansas:

Oklahoma:

Horses on a ridge in Oklahoma:

More farms:

More oil:

And into Texas:

Check out the oil rig on the right of the windmill – what a contrast:

And another contrast – the small windmill on the right is a farm windmill – those white wind mills are HUGH!:

And the road goes on and on:

We are camped at the Elks Lodge in DalHart, Texas where they had 4 nice RV sites with electric and water. We had a nice evening at the lodge – great supper and great lodge members. The only bad thing was the burrs – which we didn’t see and ended up spending time removing from ourselves (they hurt!), our clothes and the motor home.

Thanks to Jan, Ken, Bill, Shelly, Lynne, Fred and the folks at the Elks Lodge. The plants from above and yesterday are sorghum (or milo).

Miles Traveled: 374 Miles

Routes Traveled:

Kansas: SR-181; SR-232; I-70; US-283; US-54

Oklahoma: US-54

Texas: US-54

9/25/2010

September 24, 2010 Centers and Twine

Kansas is one beautiful state especially when the skies are blue. Between the fall colors of the fields and the farmstead, I could spend years just taking pictures.

As you can see from the pictures, we woke to a beautiful day with very little wind so decided to so some exploring.

This is Wilson Lake:

And the Dam:

We are parked on the other side of the dam (hope it doesn’t flood):

This area of Kansas is known for their stone Fence posts. Here is some info about them:

And the posts:

We saw many of the posts in use in our travels today. They are still marking boundaries – neat!

One of our many scenes from the road. The plants in the background are actually a beautiful brown/rust color. We are seeing fields of them and do not know what they are.

Another neat farmhouse – sorry to say but it was abandoned.

This was our first stop in Osborne. We could not get to the actual spot due to the center being on private property. But in Osborne, Kansas they have a replica marker and a little bit about the Geodetic Center of North America. I had never heard of this but in doing research to find the Geographical Center, I came upon this – who knew!

Those of you who know my Andy, know this is his favorite sights… and now he is even taking pictures of them. (Gas station prices – LOL!):

And here we are near the Geographical Center of the Contiguous United States:

The actual site is near here but again it was on private property.

There was a cute little church by the marker:

There was also the start of a little museum at the spot that listed the different centers of North America and the US. Did you know that there is a Google Center from where Google starts their maps? There is even a population center for the U.S. More locations to visit for us – LOL!

In 2007, we visited Belle Fourche, South Dakota, to see the geographical center of the United States (all 50 states). At their visitor center, we were able to get the exact location of the marker and off we went to find it. It was in the middle of a cow pasture but exciting to stand by that marker. Here is from the blog: http://thehitzels.blogspot.com/search?q=geographical+center

We were hoping to do the same with this but alas the exact locations were not given out. We did try locating it with the GPS numbers that were listed on the plaques but that brought us to the replicas above… Oh well!

And this was our next stop: