I am writing this from our home in Ponce Inlet, Florida.  After driving about 15,000 miles between the motorhome and the car we arrived home on Sunday, September 21.  We left home on May 6, so the journey lasted about four and one half months.  This post is mostly to acknowledge the two great travel companions I had at my side through the whole thing; Daisy, our Border Collie, and my bride, Joan.

My liberal friends just roll their eyes and call me crazy when I say this, but my very favorite thing to do when I am driving long distances is to listen to conservative talk radio.  And my favorite bag of wind is Rush Limbaugh.  However, as you travel the vast distances that we did it is hard to keep Rush tuned in.  I have a phone app to show me the closest Rush stations, but  it is not always accurate and requires constant fiddling with the radio.  Consequently, for most of this trip I resorted to my second favorite thing, and that is listening to classic country music from the 40’s through the 70’s on Sirius satellite radio. Joan is the musician in our house and plays several stringed instruments.  I know nothing about the music (I only can play the radio, but I do that well), and when I say I like classic country music I mean mainly the lyrics.  I  find that the titles of the songs and/or the actual lines in the songs relate to so much that is going on at different times in my own life.  And for my  money, the greatest song title ever written anywhere is “If I Said You Have a Beautiful Body Would You Hold It Against Me?”  Really that works on so many levels!!

At almost 67 years of age when I hear Roy Clark sing “Yesterday When I Was Young” I start wondering how did I get to this point so quickly.  Wasn’t it just yesterday that I was relating to the John Conlee song “I’m On the Back Side of 30”??  Or when I hear Loretta Lynn sing “Don’t Come Home a Drinkin’ With Lovin’ On Your Mind”, I remember Joan giving me the same advice when I was headed out for a night with the boys.  Quite frankly though I never understood Loretta’s or Joan’s attitude on that score!!

Tom T. Hall did a song wherein he sings “There’s only three things in this world that’s worth a solitary dime–that’s old dogs and children and watermelon wine.”  I’ve never had watermelon wine, although I would like to try it.  And I’ve never been much into children until we had one of our own.  And now that there are grandchildren that takes things to an entirely new level of caring. In that song Tom T. goes on to say that “old dogs care about you even when you make mistakes”.  On this trip Daisy celebrated her tenth birthday, so, unfortunately she qualifies as an old dog.  The joints are getting stiffer and the movements slower.  And when I blasted into that cluster of buzzards on the road at 60 mph it was terribly obvious to all three of us that I had made a huge mistake.  But when I got stopped and bent down to put Daisy’s leash on her to take her outside to get the glass out of her coat she licked my hand.  Just to show me she did still care about me.

Waylon Jennings had a song about Luckenbach, Texas that starts out with the lyric “There’s only two things in life that make it worth livin’—that’s guitars tuned good and firm feelin’ women”.  As I said above I know nothing about musical instruments and that includes guitars, tuned or otherwise.  But I met what would become my own little hardbody in March or April of 1969.  I was in my second year of working in the college dormitory cafeteria.  Since most people who worked there only lasted weeks or a few months at best, I was kind of a big cheese on the wait staff.  Not the biggest cheese, but I was still pretty cheesy.  When Joan was hired toward the end of that school year, and I saw her big blue eyes and long brown hair, I thought she was just about the cutest thing I had ever seen.  So did the rest of the guys there, but I moved quickly, and we dated several times before school was out for the summer.  And then we headed our separate ways with promises to write.  Neither of us did, not even once.  But in September we started up again, and by Christmas we were getting married, which we did in June, 1970 after a nine month courtship.  She was 20 and I was 22.  That’s the way we did things yesterday, when I was young.

Sometime between age 20 and almost 65 women stop being CUTE.  This has happened to Joan too and now the term I use to describe her is LOOKER.  Joan is a looker.  I looked up the word in my Funk and Wagnall’s and they give it two definitions;  first, it is someone who looks at things.  Secondly though, there is an informal definition that describes a looker as a very attractive person.  My wife qualifies in both regards, and I will add that if she were a dog, she would be a Pointer.  You’ll see what I mean in the following photos from our trip.

 

Joan looking at the Badlands 

 

 Joan looking at me and ignoring beautiful Muncho Lake in British Columbia

 

Joan looking at something! 

 

 Joan looking up close at a glacier

 

Joan looking at Homer, Alaska

 

 Joan looking at another glacier near Valdez, Alaska

 

 Joan looking at the attractions in Stanley Park, Vancouver, British Columbia

 

Things are looking up for Joan 

 

Joan looking at Crater Lake in Oregon 

 

 

Joan looking at a fumarole in California 

 

 Joan looking at a Sequoia tree (nice socks)

 

 Joan looking at Grand Canyon (nice socks)

 

 

 

Joan looking at her huge piece of pie (so much for the hardbody) 

 

 

Joan looking at Tuzigoot ruins near Cottonwood, Arizona

 

Continue reading The Looker →

We ended up spending eight nights in Tucson, Arizona.  That was exactly twice as many nights as we spent in any one town anywhere else along our Alaska journey.  That was partially because we were having some minor repairs done on the motorhome, but also because we both like the Tucson area.  It was a little too hot this year to suit us at 104-105 degrees every afternoon.  True, it is a dry heat, but still the afternoons are just like an oven.  But the bright sun gave us a chance to tan up again after wearing jeans and long sleeves all summer in Alaska.  And because of the heat Daisy finally gave up wearing her favorite Alaska boots we bought for her and is back into flip flops, her usual Florida footwear.

 

 

At first we were so caught up in the motorhome repairs and the sight seeing around the area that we ignored the plethora of fine eating establishments in Tucson.  We both like Mexican cuisine and we finally realized what better place to taste really good Mexican food than in a town filled with illegal immigrants, and where over half of the local TV stations broadcast only in Spanish?? Just as in Alaska, where there was a coffee stand on every corner, in Tucson there seemed to be a stand selling hot dogs or tacos on every corner.  I was not expecting hot dog stands in Tucson and don’t remember them from previous visits.    But when we decided to go out for Mexican food we had a nice sit-down kind of place in mind.  So I got on the internet and found one with really good reviews and photos that made it look attractive, and so we headed out.  But when we got there it was not in a nice section of town, and it was a place where you ordered at a window, and then took your food inside to eat or stayed outside at their tables.  But most importantly I noticed that they bragged about their version of something called “Sonoran Style Hot Dogs”.  Now, I pride myself on being something of a hot dog aficionado.  I’ve had them all over West Virginia, Pennsylvania and New York.  I’m usually strictly a chili, onion and mustard kind of guy, and the chili makes the dog for me.  The only place that seems to specialize in them that I have not tried is the Cincinnati area.  But Sonoran Style Hot Dogs intrigued me and in spite of Joan’s reluctance we stayed and both ordered one.  It sports a wiener wrapped in bacon and cooked on the grill.  Pure health-food, right?  Then they add Pico de Gallo, cheese, a Mexican Mayo, and, of course, some peppers.  I’m not going to say this was the best hot dog I’ve ever had.  Or even second or third best.  Those spots all belong to places in West Virginia with Wimpy’s Pool Hall in Elkins, WV in the early 1960’s still holding the top slot. (Wimpy’s dogs were even better when I finally turned 18 and could legally eat them accompanied by an ice cold Stroh’s or Iron City!)  Nor were these Sonoran style dogs the most unusual I have had.  That distinction belongs to the “Viagra Dog” from Bob’s in Norton, West Virginia.  It is a foot long wiener served on a six inch bun with the bun placed clear at the one end of the wiener.  (Seriously!)  But the Sonoran Style dog was so good that I was ready to go back to get another one the next day.  But Joan still had her mind set on going to that nice sit-down kind of place which we did.  And it was good too, but I sure would have liked to have had another of those Sonoran Styles.

 

 

I took a ton of pretty good cactus photos around the Tucson area, but one cactus in particular caught my eye as we were driving by, and I had to stop and turn the car around and go back to photograph it.  You see, it reminds me exactly of Joan after a double martini.

 

 

After the eight days in Tucson we decided that we had had about as much fun as we can stand for one summer, and that it was time to get serious about getting back to Florida.  I’m anxious to start playing tennis again with my buddies there, and Joan is missing her music playing friends.  Therefore, our plan was to not make any more stops at parks, monuments, historical places, etc.  We knew we were going to stop for a few days in Houston to visit these new twin grand-babies, but no other stops were planned.  We left Tucson, spent a night in Van Horn, Texas and another in Junction, Texas, and then got up bright and early on Friday morning for the five hour drive to Houston.  We were really looking forward to spending a nice weekend there with our daughter’s family.

You know how when you are driving along you sometimes see birds ahead on the road cleaning up some road-kill carcass?  And you know how those birds, usually they’re buzzards of some variety, always see you coming and they fly away?  Then if you look in the rear view mirror after you pass, they just fly right back down and resume their meal.  Okay so, I’m driving the WildaBeast along on Friday morning on a country road near Johnson City, Texas (home of LBJ) heading for Houston.  I’ve got the cruise control set at about 62 mph.  I’m listening to Merle Haggard on Sirius Radio singing “Everybody’s Had the Blues Sometime”.  And I’m right there singing along with old Merle, matching him note for note, and word for word.  And sounding pretty good too, even if I do say so myself.  Just then I spot this group of 8-10 huge buzzards about a quarter of a mile ahead of me on the road.  Nothing to worry about, right?  They ALWAYS fly away.  And sure enough all but four of them immediately take off.  Now I’m about an eighth of a mile away and two more fly away.  But the other two seem to be having a disagreement over whether to leave or not.  However, one of the two decides it really is time to get going and he flies off when I am about 100 yards away.  Now I’m beginning to really bear down on that last one and I consider tapping the brake to slow down a little.  But, then I would just have to reset the cruise control again.  And besides I KNOW this last one is about to make his exit from my pathway.  And sure enough he does just at that moment.  Imagine my relief!  But then this retarded buzzard decides to fly right at the oncoming WildaBeast rather than following his buddies.  Thank goodness for safety glass, but it is shatter RESISTANT, not shatter PROOF.  WildaBeast won the battle, but did sustain some damage.  The windshield shattered and glass just blew everywhere inside the motorhome.  We finally found a place to stop and pull off of the road to clean up.  My hair, eyebrows and beard were loaded with pieces of glass.  Daisy rides on the floor between and behind our seats.  When I took her outside with me she stood there and shook herself off, and glass flew off of her like water after she swims.  We found pieces of glass clear back in the bedroom at the rear of the coach and that is almost 40 feet from the point of impact, so its amazing that none of the three of us were injured.  For now the motorhome is still in Johnson City awaiting a new windshield.  We are in Houston until the repair can be scheduled.

 

 

The unplanned night we spent in Johnson City did give us a chance to visit The LBJ National Historical Site.  I was never a huge fan of LBJ so we had never stopped in Johnson City even though we had driven through there at least twice before.  But with time to kill this time we did it.  I was a sophomore in high school when Johnson assumed the presidency after Kennedy’s assassination.  By then he was already an older man by my standards at that time.  Therefore, I always assumed that he grew those huge ears in adulthood.  But inside the LBJ visitor center some early photos of him as a small child proved me wrong.  I’ll bet he always had a terrific sense of hearing.

 

 

Speaking of the twins, I ran across this photo that I took of them on our last visit.  No wonder Andrew is bigger than Audrey. Blame Grandma!