Santa Fe

There are several areas of the United States which makes one realize the past times of North America, and Santa Fe ranks up there with all of them!  The history of Santa Fe spans from before the Ancient Ones (the ancient Pueblo Indians formerly called "Anasazi"), to the establishment of a permanent settlement in AD1610 to the Atomic Age and World War II and into the present day.  Santa Fe is the oldest state capital city in the United States.

There are so many parts of Santa Fe to see and explore.  In the past, we were just tempted by what we could see in the limited time we were here.  With this stop, we started exploring parts of Santa Fe with more time.

Have you read "109 East Palace Avenue"?  If not, it is a very interesting story about the "Manhattan Project" from a civilian's point of view, Dorothy McKibbin.  Dorothy was "personally recruited" in the La Fonda Hotel lobby by Dr. Robert Oppenheimer to serve as the "front" for Los Alamos at 109 E. Palace Avenue.  From 1943 until late 1945, this was how everyone came to Los Alamos, including Einstein, Fermi, and Bohr.

The building has been around since the 1600s immediately east of the Palace of the Governors.  In 1943, the opening to the interior plaza was a doorway which was 109 E. Palace.

The plaque is all that remains of this chapter of history.  Actually, the plaque is on the wall of an area owned by a tourist store, "The Rainbow Man".  The actual address 109 now identifies the doorway to the right of the plaza entrance . . . a chocolate shop.

It is amazing, but for all the huge scientific, national, historic, etc., significance of the Manhattan Project and 1943-45 Los Alamos, very little was preserved and most nothing remains - or remains open to the public.  Of course, the lobby of La Fonda remains, but for the front office of the Project, there is only the plaque.  As we knew, and would see again, the only part of the early Project at Los Alamos that remains are parts of the old boys' ranch school.  It is documented and can be viewed that most of the school buildings used as the Project labs have been replaced by more modern buildings.  So, the history remains, but the physical historical presence is gone.  But that is actually a different day trip.

A visit to the Square in Santa Fe would not be complete without a walk along the promenade of the Palace of the Governors - where licensed Pueblo artisans display their wares, mostly jewelry, for sale.

Again! More trouble!

Early Tuesday, January 20 found us on the road by 10am heading to Santa Fe!  First leg of the trip was west on I-40 to Clines Corners.  All was going well, the truck was running fine.  Well, until about 8 miles east of Clines Corners!  I noticed that the truck's RPMs seemed to be surging.  Then suddenly, the PowerTrain Malfunction light appeared - again!  The truck started shifting trying to find the "limp home" gear.  We pulled over to the side of I-40.  We knew from the previous experience that by shutting off the engine, the malfunction would be cleared, but the error codes in the computer would remain.

Once the truck was restarted, we carefully proceeded down the road approaching Clines Corners.  We had not gone two miles before the malfunction light was back!  And this time, the truck was running up and down the gears, shaking, surging, and scaring us!  Would we make it even into Clines Corners, in the middle of nowhere, or even Santa Fe?  The truck finally settled into fourth gear, and we limped into Clines Corners.

Again, we shutdown the truck and let it cool for a while.  When started back up, all was fine or so we thought.  We started up US 285 north towards Santa Fe - very carefully.  All seemed well until about 10 miles south of I-25.  Again, the malfunction light!  We limped along until right south of I-25, and pulled off the road and restarted the truck.

Once again, with the malfunction cleared, we carefully approached I-25 and Santa Fe, minimizing the speed, shifting, and every finger and toe crossed for luck!  And I guess luck was with us, because we did not have another malfunction, especially through Santa Fe traffic.  We reached Trailer Ranch RV Park on Cerrillos Road successfully around 5pm.  Needless to say, it was a long day for a short drive!

Once set up, I contacted the Ford dealership for an service appointment, but as it was late in the day, it was not until the next morning, Wednesday, before I received an answer.  The Santa Fe Ford dealership was down to only one diesel mechanic, and he was backed up until February!  However, they suggested taking the truck to Chalmers Ford in Albuquerque.

A quick call to Chalmers Ford in Albuquerque, and we were on I-25 heading south by 11am.  By 1pm, the truck was checked in for service, and we were heading out of Enterprise Rent-A-Car back to Santa Fe.  At least, our "first stop" was to be Santa Fe, and we were there, though without the truck!

What a start to retirement!  What a start to our travels!  Why did it seem like retirement had not even started?  Was retirement supposed to be this stressful!  I had weighed myself on Wednesday morning and found I had lost 10 pounds so far in retirement!

Wednesday night, the winter storm moved in.  Thursday morning was a Santa Fe winter wonderland.

And late Thursday afternoon brought a phone call from Chalmers Ford!  The truck, hopefully, was fixed!  The service department found a recall on the transmission programming on the truck.  They had to delete the complete programming for the transmission and shifting control, download and load a new transmission program.  Let's hope this will fix the problem, for our next trip will be to Pagosa Springs!   John, the service advisor, said if we had any problems on the road to call him immediately.  That is, if there is cell phone coverage north of Espanola!

Thursday night found us both fatigued and imploded from stress, worry, and concern.  To bed early, and a long sleep to follow!

Monday, and the Truck

Monday morning found us at the Amarillo Ford dealership at service opening.  With the truck in service,  what to do with the rest of the day?  Those high winds were now calm, so should we go see Palo Duro Canyon?   But what would we do if the truck is fixed and ready to pick up?  If the truck did not get fixed on Monday and if we did not get the truck back, then we would have to stay in Amarillo through the approaching winter storm, possibility until Saturday or Sunday.  

So the solution for Monday was to get ready to leave Tuesday, and hope that the truck would be ready.  And only a few miles west of the Ford dealership . . . Cadillac Ranch! 

It had been decades since I walked out to the nose-first buried Cadillacs. In fact, the first time I visited the Cadillacs, they were located still in their original location some 3 miles east - which is in Amarillo city limits now.

But there the Cadillacs were in all there graffiti-coated glory. 

Of course, there are discarded paint cans left for others, and who can resist leaving their fleeting calling card?

Now with all hopes that we would get the truck back on Monday,  we left the Cadillac Ranch and headed to buy groceries.  As we approached the check stand, my phone rang - the truck was ready!   Check out and head to the Ford dealership!   What was wrong?   A software update and replace some intake gaskets.  We headed back to Overnight RV Park with leaving early Tuesday for Santa Fe in mind. We returned the Enterprise car, got back to the RV and prepared for departure.   Priority was to get to Santa Fe before the winter storm arrived!

The 6am alarm was early.   But we were able to leave Amarillo by 10am pointed west to Clines Corners. Everything was running fine and all was well.  Maybe . . .

On to Amarillo and trouble

We left the Cotton Gin RV Park shortly before noon on Saturday, January 17.  This may seem late, but it is reasonable since the distance is only 140 miles.  At least that was our thought.  Short drive, easy day, no stress . . . right?  No.  Out in the panhandle is a small town named Memphis - literally in the big middle of nowhere.  

About 8 miles north of Memphis, with no cell phone coverage, an error light lit up the control screen - a red wrench and the transmission started erratically shifting up and down.  Fifth gear was suddenly missing and when the truck tried to shift to fifth, there was an erratic series of shifts across the gears until it settled on sixth gear.   Note, our fifth wheel RV weighs around 19,000 pounds.  What to do but carefully press on.  We "nursed" the RV and truck into Amarillo to the Overnight RV Park.  We later learned that with the warning, the truck goes into "limp home" mode.  In "limp home" mode, the transmission tries to lock into one gear - in our case it was sixth gear (second overdrive).  Unfortunately, we were in the "canyon area" of west Texas, so "limp home" meant creeping up hills, losing speed all the way up, and just no acceleration.  Also, in "limp home", shifting between gears is very rough. So when we had to stop at a light in some small town, getting the truck and RV moving again was unnerving.

We called and rented an Enterprise car and prepared to stay at least 5 days in Amarillo rather than one night.  I got the truck manual out and learned we had received a "PowerTrain Malfunction" - not something one wants to learn while pulling 19,000 pounds.  Sunday was just stressful,  running some errands and preparing to spend longer than planned in Amarillo.  To add to the stress, Sunday was extremely windy in Amarillo with winds of 30-40 mph with gusts of up to 60 mph.  Monday morning found us at the Ford dealership service department early. 

In addition to this problem,  the weather news was not good.  Dire predictions of a major winter storm moving into northern New Mexico and panhandle Texas on Wednesday were broadcast on every outlet.   If we didn't get the truck back on Monday,  then we would probably spend the week in Amarillo along with the winter storm.   Ugh! 

Cotton Gin RV Park, Goodlett,TX

We arrived at the Cotton Gin RV Park in Goodlett, TX right at sundown, Friday January 16.  (I hate setting up the RV in the dark, especially in the cold and wind!)  The office was closed, but we were told in a telephone call just to pick a spot and visit the office in the morning.  Goodlett is between Vernon and Childress, Texas - out on the flat plains where the wind always blows!

We got setup quickly, had a bite of dinner, and it was bedtime!  I have to admit, we did sleep in a little on Saturday morning!  After walking dogs, breakfast, and a little "get ready" time, we headed over to the office when it opened around 10am.

The history of the gin is very interesting.  A local lady, after raising her 4 children, went back to Texas Tech and earned her PhD in agriculture.  She developed a very successful strain of cotton . . . just an amazing story.  She is 91 and has some health issues - but still lives by herself somewhere north of Goodlett.  She bought the cotton gin some 15 years ago with the understanding to keep the gin building.  Her vision was a RV park, and she has done very well!  This is really the only nice RV park between Wichita Falls and Amarillo!  Besides converting the area around the gin to an RV park, she removed most of the machinery and converted the inside of the gin to a meeting area.  Unfortunately, with her health issues, the kids are now "remotely" running the RV park and will soon have it for sale.  I hope someone with her same vision will buy it!

The inside of the gin rewarded us with some interesting antiques.  This gin was one of the few in the area to have two lint pickers in series - to removing as much cotton lint from the seed as possible.  Next to the huge lint picker was a late 1800s or early 1900s Whitney cotton gin!

Off to the side, we saw an original "ice box".  For the younger crowd, before the day of refrigeration, a well to do house would have a wood insulated case with a spot to load a block of ice.  This particular ice box actually had a porcelain inside!  Fancy!

Next to the ice box was an item that took me back to my youth - a dry sink.  A dry sink was a type of pantry.  The one I remember had a bin for flour with a sifter at the bottom of that bin, so one could sift flour directly into a bowl for preparing meals for the farm hands.  This dry sink did not have a flour bin, but it was very neat and sparked many memories.

We paid for our night's stay, hooked up, and hit the road to Amarillo!

Finally! Retirement and Travel begins!

My original intentions were to never let this blog go for more than three days without a post.  After all, a reader will be frustrated that there is nothing new.  It has now been three weeks since my last post - and I do apologize. 

So far, retirement has brought no rest!  I am beginning to think I need to find a job so I can get some rest!  We have cleaned out the extra U-Haul storage room, the storage basement in the RV, all the cabinets - including the pantry. . . scary, especially the tomato paste can with a 2008 date - and checked/worked on all systems required for travel.  We delayed departure for a week.  Then delayed two more days.  Then finally, one more day.  With that one more day, we finally completed the preparations for travel! 

Our original thoughts were to travel only about 180 miles from Denton to Goodlett, TX.  We knew the first day of travel would be a late start . . . and we were correct!  Woke up at 5am with a sick dog!  So a call to the vet at 8am and pick up medicine at 9am.  Then all the last minute chores to be prepared to leave.  And the unknown . . . being in one spot in the RV, one tends to make many friends in the RV park.  And we just had to say good-bye to all of them!  Saying good-bye to friends is never easy.  And even at that, it's not good-bye because we will be back!  It is just until we meet again.


Finally, at 2pm in the afternoon, we were hitched up, "good-byed" out, and leaving Destiny RV Park in Denton with sights set on making it to Goodlett, TX.

Delayed before start!

I guess we could blame the weather, but that isn't the whole story.  A wet cold front came from the north, and though it left a nice dump of snow at Wolf Creek, it left an un-nice coat of ice on the roads from Santa Fe to Wichita Falls!  As it is, not a big deal - we are not ready to leave!  We have stayed in one spot too long!  Understand, when one camps in one spot too long, one starts "accumulating" in and around the RV.  In addition to the stuff, we are sorting out the remnants of office clothes to make room for true winter clothes and ski clothes.  So between the finishing of readying travel goals and the weather, it now appears the we will head to Santa Fe on the 12th or 13th. 

Now what to do with all the rocks around the patio?