Back home again in Indiana

The Sunday afternoon before we were to head home found us having a great visit with cousins, some of whom I hadn't seen since we were kids.  If you can't tell, I'm the oldest of the gathered cousins, but I have a couple other cousins older than me.

On Monday morning we set out for Indy intending to split the over 8 hour drive into two days.  However as we pressed on, the driving was easy, the traffic was minimal, and my energy level was good; soooo, we decided to go all the way.

Unfortunately, we wound up veering off the road and my truck and trailer didn't fare so well.















OK, so that's not really my rig, we wound up at home about 7 pm local time, parked in the drive and headed out to get some supper.

I thought you might find some statistics about our trip interesting, so hold on, here goes:

We were on the road for 84 days covering 8,412 miles in 14 different states.  

We attended 8 different Lutheran churches and listened to the Lutheran Hour on 2 Sundays when a church was just a little too far to drive.  

Of the 84 days we only paid typical rates for a campground with hookups for 19 nights.

That means that for 65 nights we camped for free or at minimal cost.  20 nights were dry camping using a generator or at a cousin's house.  17 nights were dry camping with solar panels for electricity. 12 nights were dry camping at a small fee.  And 14 nights were free full hookup in exchange for labor at Standing Stones.

The strong F-350 6.4 liter diesel got 11-13 mpg depending on the terrain.  

We experienced some unexpected truck repairs and necessary maintenance as well as trailer repairs and necessary maintenance which included 4 new trailer tires. 

We chose to install the solar panels sooner than we had planned, but once we dry camp for free for 73 nights we will have recouped that investment.  We are already well on our way to that goal.

Our goals for this trip were: to escape from a mid-west winter, see a lot of God's beautiful creation, find places where we might like to spend more time, and discover the pro's and con's of dry camping.  We agree that we have successfully achieved all of those goals.  We have also been able to meet a lot of great new friends and re-connect with relatives all across the country.

All in all, God blessed us with safety and good health as we experienced the trip of a lifetime.  

soli deo gloria

On the road to Cousin Jim's Farm Themed RV Park

As you can see on the map, the trip from TX to Kansas City, MO is too long for one day, even too long for two days if you are retired and not in a hurry. 

Therefore, we broke the trip into 2 1/2 days and avoided the Interstate so we could see some of Kansas more closely.

Our first night was spent at Ford County State Park, just northeast of Dodge City, KS.  For just an overnight stay, we don't even unhook, just find a level spot and put down the stabilizers.  It was peaceful, scenic, quiet, and FREE.

The second 2 nights we spent at the Rolling Hills COE campground in the FREE loop, meaning it has no hookups.  But remember we are equipped to stay for many nights without hookups ;-)

Again we encountered high winds. Not as bad as an petrified Forest, but enough to keep us off the roads for a day.  We just hunkered down & relaxed.

The next day we only drove a couple hours to get to Cousin Jim's Farm Themed RV Park.  We'll sit here enjoying friends and family through the weekend.  

On Thursday evening 2 good pastor friends who had been on a trout fishing trip to southern Missouri invited us to come over for a fish fry.  One serves a church in Leavenworth, KN and the other in Elk River, MN.  There was great company and fellowship and wonderful trout (and cold beer). YUM!

On Sunday morning I will be preaching at St. Paul Lutheran Church in Leavenworth, KS.  How do you suppose I got talked into that?  That pastor and wife are going to a Conference this weekend, so he whined until I agreed to get him off the hook for preaching Sunday.  

On Sunday afternoon, cousin Jim and his wife have invited other cousins to come over for a BBQ and to visit.  I don't think I have seen some of these cousins since we played together as kids a LONG time ago.  I'm really looking forward to catching up on a lifetime of memories.

On Monday we will set out for a 2 day trip home to Indy, stopping somewhere in the middle.  But that's for another post.

Leaving AZ, crossing NM, happy in TX

After a great tour in Petrified Forest NP we pulled the rig up through that park and into Painted Desert NP making our way to I-40 so we could head east.

This 0ld Studebaker sits at the site where famous Rout 66  crosses the park road.

Painted Desert National Park is a separate park, but both it and Petrified Forest are on the same park road which has it's own dedicated exit from I-40 with no other access.  Not too mane pictures of Painted Desert here, because we spent more time and took more pictures there on our trip last June.

Once we exited the park and got on I-40 it was a straight shot to Amarillo, TX and Palo Duro State Park interrupted only by an overnight stop in Albuquerque, NM.  

The day we drove from Albuquerque to Amarillo, it snowed all across NM.  Darlene never saw it because she was so wiped out with her fibro from the winds and weather changes, that she slept the whole way in bed in the trailer.  

She woke up to find us already in the campsite and set up.  She was zonked out!

The site next to us was never occupied.

According to the Palo Duro Canyon State Park web site, the park opened on July 4, 1934 and contains 29,182 acres of the scenic, northern most portion of the Palo Duro Canyon. The Civilian Conservation Corps of the 1930's constructed most of the buildings and roads still in use by park staff and visitors.

The Canyon is 120 miles long, as much as 20 miles wide, and has a maximum depth of more than 800 feet. Its elevation at the rim is 3,500 feet above sea level. It is often claimed that Palo Duro Canyon is the second largest canyon in the United States. The largest, the Grand Canyon, is 277 miles long, 18 miles wide, and 6,000 ft. deep.

Palo Duro Canyon was formed by water erosion from the Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red River. The water deepens the canyon by moving sediment downstream. Wind and water erosion gradually widen the canyon.

Early Spanish Explorers are believed to have discovered the area and dubbed the canyon "Palo Duro" which is Spanish for "hard wood" in reference to the abundant mesquite and juniper trees. 

Humans have resided in the canyon for approximately 12,000 years. Early settlers were nomadic tribes that hunted mammoth, giant bison, and other large game animals. Later, Apache Indians lived in the canyon, but were soon replaced by Comanche and Kiowa tribes who resided in the area until 1874. At that time, Col. Ranald Mackenzie was sent into the area to transport the Native Americans to Oklahoma.

The park is a meca for off-road bikers, hikers and trail runners.  The weekend was busy, but the weekdays were quiet and relaxing.

A nearby campsite to ours contained this beautiful Tepee.  I stopped and chatted with the couple camping there and found that the woman was the great-grand-daughter of Quanah Parker.  He is mentioned in the park brochure we got when we arrived, so I asked if we could chat and I could take a few pictures.

Wikipedia says that Quanah Parker (Comanche kwana "smell, odor") (c. 1845 or 1852 – February 23, 1911) was a Comanche/English-American from the Comanche band Quahadi ("Antelope-eaters").  Quanah was a Comanche chief, a leader in the Native American Church, and the last leader of the powerful Quahadi band before they surrendered their battle of the Great Plains and went to a reservation in Indian Territory. He was the son of Comanche chief Peta Nocona and Cynthia Ann Parker, an English-American, who had been kidnapped at the age of about nine and assimilated into the tribe. Quanah Parker also led his people on the reservation, where he became a wealthy rancher and influential in Comanche and European American society.

The woman is wearing a typical Indian dress.  Behind her is a decorated shirt used for more fancy occasions, made by her husband (also Indian) from deer hides he tanned using deer brains.

The buffalo hide covering their bed is from a buffalo they raise on their place.  

The man is holding a bow and arrow he made from Osage Orange wood, just as Darlene's dad used to do.  His quiver and other decorations hanging on the tripod are from Otter hides.

The Tepee is manufactured by a company in Colorado, but the Lodge-pole Pine poles and Osage Orange tent pegs are authentic and home made.

















Wildlife was also abundant in the park.  Deer, turkeys, and road runners were every day visitors to our campsite.

From Palo Duro park, our route would take us up to Kansas and to our next scheduled attraction, Cousin Jim's Farm Themed RV Park.  See you then.

Petrified Forest National Park

The day after the BIG blow.

It has taken a LOT of running water to make this area what it is.

Petrified tree trunks

Big, long petrified tree trunks

Notice Darlene at the end of a big, long petrified tree trunk

Looks like someone ran a petrified tree through a log chipper

Petrified log sitting on a ridge until it broke in half and fell down.

Look at all the layers laid down by LOTS of water

I wish you could see the earth tones, purples, light blues and greens in the layers

Struggling to make it in a hostile environment

Petroglyphs

Pueblo ruins

Rain comes out of the clouds, but never makes it to the thirsty ground (Virga)

After Petrified Forest NP we will leave the Holbrook, AZ area, have an overnight at Albuquerque, NM, and land near Amarillo, TX at the "Grand Canyon of Texas" (maybe you didn't know there was such a thing). Pictures to prove what a beautiful place it is in my next post.

From Easter to the Petrified Forest

As Easter approached, work on the building at Standing Stones reached a milestone.  It was time to fix up and finish a lot of small details and prepare the building for inspection of electrical, plumbing, etc.  There were also special services on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday.  Many of the Sowers who had been working for the previous 3 weeks were preparing to transition to their next project at another location.  On Saturday it was time for Darlene to practice organ.

What?  Practice organ?  Yup. We learned that the organist at Redeemer Lutheran where we had been worshiping had lost her daughter in a tragic house fire and would not be playing for Easter Service.  You guessed it: Darlene volunteered so that the folks at Redeemer would have great music at that special Easter service to glorify and praise God for the resurrection of Jesus. It was a God thing that we were there and she has the skills to do what was required.

We started Easter morning with a sun-rise service in the outdoor prayer garden at Standing Stones. And yes they asked the guest pastor to contribute some words, too.  It was a crisp and clear 34 degrees as we huddled with coffee in hand to witness the sun rising as we heard words about the Son rising.  Then back to the trailer to get ready for Easter service at Redeemer at 10:30.

After church we hustled back to the trailer, changed clothes, picked up a couple dishes to pass and set out for an afternoon lunch at my cousin's house.  Lori and Steve live over 80 miles from where we were camped, but still within the metro-Phoenix area.  We had a wonderful afternoon with them and two of their kids and some friends.  Great hospitality.  Super visit with family.

Monday morning after Easter it was time to start the final phase of our first winter on the road—time to intentionally head north and east back toward Indy.  Our goal was a campground near Petrified Forest National Park at Holbrook, Az.  It should have been an easy and relatively short day on the road,  BUT ...

On a beautiful, sunny day, with the wind at our backs, on our way north on I-17, at about 10:30, it was time for a proverbial pit-stop.  I pulled into a rest area and got out to stretch.  I was approached by a “man” who must have “parked” somewhere else, because I didn't see where he came from nor where he went.  He had a simple message for me. “As I followed you in here I noticed that you have a bulge on your front driver's side trailer tire.  You'd better look at it.”   I looked.  It was a BIG aneurysm about to break.  I thanked the “man” and went to tell Darlene we would not be moving on very soon.  The man was gone.  We could have been anywhere along that mountainous stretch of Interstate when that tire blew and that might have ruined the rest of that day and more.  But a “man” with a message sent by a friend, saved the day and us, too.

After air was released it shrank. Before it was as big as a baseball!

Well, we called road service because it came with our trailer.  The tire was changed and showed not 1 but 2 bulges on the inside surface where they wouldn't have been noticed on a casual inspection.  Since we had a blowout on the rear tire in that set last June, we lost faith in the entire set.  We stopped in Flagstaff and replaced 3 tires (1 replaced last June).  With confidence in the new tires we pushed on to Petrified Forest and set up camp.

Remember the wind I mentioned before, it grew and grew.  We shut all the slides and taped the vents shut.  That night the trailer rocked & rolled like our boat did on Lake Michigan.  The winds continued all the next day, peaking out at almost 50 mph.  Needless to say, we just hunkered down, read books and rested.  Make that I read books.  That kind of wind wreaks havoc with Darlene's Fibromyalgia, so she mostly just slept.











Once the wind abated, The next day after the wind abated, we enjoyed a thorough exploration of the Petrified Forest NP.  But that's the subject of my next post.  Come on back.