Ship’s Log - Stardate: 2015-09-03 - Thursday - Mission Accomplished.

Captain’s Log:

The trip home on day 101 yesterday included a stop at the truck wash to remove over three months of space dust from Starship Arrowstar. We were lucky this time because we didn’t have to wait in a long line of truckers. We were second in line and only had to wait a few minutes after the wash and dry for a spray on wax job. Since they tagged along, Maxwell and the trailer even got washed!

Today Frank tucked our beloved Starship on its pad next to the house and locked the double gates behind it. It’s great to be home with the majority of the laundry finished and most of our stuff unpacked and stowed. Friends have invited us out to dinner tonight to celebrate our return. Life is good!

My backyard has grass almost a foot high and the sunflowers that came up while we were gone have already gone to seed. The birds have been feasting on them already. The stocks are bowed down over the foot high grass, and what looks like grapes have started to vine all over one end of the vegetable garden.  

One red tomato greeted me when I went to check on the garden yesterday. I ate it for breakfast. The mint looks like it got cooked this summer, and I truly don’t know if my jasmine vine is going to survive so much of it is baked. 

Tomorrow I’ll brush the pool and Frank will spray the filters. Hopefully we’ll get that finished before the heat of the day, which only got to 98 degrees today. I haven’t been in the swimming pool yet, but I imagine it’s still plenty warm for swimming since nighttime temps are still in the 80s.

Someone recently asked us to name our favorite part of this Starship mission. We both agreed it was the Henry Ford Greenfield Village and Museum in Dearborn, Michigan.  Our least favorite visit was the glass bottom boat tour of sunken wrecks in Lake Huron. The views we had of the wrecks were murky at best. 

First Officer’s Log:

Well, “we is arrizz.” Or if you prefer, “we have arrized.”  In any vernacular, we are safely docked at Star Base Griswold.

Now, let me write a word or two about the favorites and least favorites described above.  Yes, as the captain said, we both are in awe of the Henry Ford Village and Museum.  But the four days we spent with my brothers Greg and Scott, and their wives Betty and Linda in NC, and the week we spent in Virginia with brothers Guy and Kim and neph/niece kids Guy Jr. and Terri, made the real highlights for me.  Family trumps all!

 Greg & Betty

 

 Frank & Greg on the Blue Ridge Parkway

Scott & Linda

As for the least favorite, the glass bottom boat tour of the sunken ships, it was a disappointment because the boat a) wasn’t really “glass bottomed” and b) the boat had no illumination under it so the wrecks were just murky images of indefinable something or other.  The boat needs lights under it!  On the other hand, the first mate and the deckhand were cute as bugs, and the (free) museum was worth the price we paid for the boat ride.

We spent 101 days and 9700 miles out there.  We saw a lot of neat things and I squashed a lot of pennies.  We visited with our kids, spouses and grandkids, on both Cheryl’s side of our extended family and on my side.

We saw things that have been on our “Bucket Lists” (I’m beginning to hate that phrase) for years, places like the Henry Ford and the Cowgirl Museum being prime among them.  We saw things we never knew about like the Duesenberg Museum, the Carriage Museum, the RV Museum (of all things!), and the Very Large Array.  (Now that was NEAT!)

And I got to visit Pie Town New Mexico and have pie at BOTH of the cafés.  Now that’s saying something!

But all good things have to end.  So we will say “so long” for now.

“This was the voyage of the Starship Arrowstar.  Its three month mission to boldly go where lots of other people have gone before.”

Mission accomplished!

End Log

I hope you've enjoyed reading our travel blog. If you'd like to hear more from Arrowstar's Captain C. K. Thomas, author, you can find her blogs, books, and pages at the following links:

We-Tired and Writing - Insiders Scoop on the Arrowstar Series & Musings
Phoenix Meetup Group Blog - Observations & Arrowvations - 29th ea month
Amazon Author Page - Book Summaries, Links for purchase, Author Bio
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Ship’s Log - Stardate: 2015-09-01 - Tuesday - Mission Day 100

First Officer’s Entry:

Who wudda thunk it!  Our last day on vacation and we had several interesting experiences.  First, we went to breakfast and enjoyed the down home, local watering hole, geriatric atmosphere of June’s Cafe.  Then we decided to check out a nice sounding RV Resort about 15 miles north which turned out to not be as nice as it sounded.  But then, when we were there, I mentioned (groused) that we were half-way to Holbrook and I was going to have to backtrack and then re-track a whole bunch if Ms CKT insisted I take her back to the rig before I went penny squishing and she surprised me by agreeing to go with me.

So we went further north and visited Snow Flake, AZ which was named after Mr. Snow and Mr. Flake (True!) and replenished my wallet an ATM and then drove west to Holbrook.

In Holbrook I squished pennies at the local CoC and then drove to “Jim’s Petrified Rocks” to squish some more.  That was an interesting experience because what I expected to be a grungy, dusty, dingy shop turned out to be anything but.  It was really neat.  Big, clean, bright, and full of fossils and polished petrified wood.  I really enjoyed it.

Leaving Holbrook we returned to Overgaard (named for the Dane who founded it) and visited another RV Resort and fell in love with a really nice RV site that would be a great getaway place for CKT during the hot Phoenix summers.  I will include a couple of photos and here’s a link. 

 www.PinecrestLakeRVResortOvergaard.org

Naturally no decisions have been made.  But it was and is fun thinking about and “blue-skying” ideas of what we could do with it.

So it has been an interesting day.  Tomorrow back to reality.

End First Officer’s Entry

Captain’s Entry:

It’s been a day of blue skies both inside and out with just a few peals of thunder and a short blast of serious rain.  Yes, Frank and I love to blue sky about our future. It’s fun to consider the what if’s. What if we bought this lovely RV site with its own 10 x 12 storage shed (probably Frank's workshop) already in place? Is this really a good idea? As you can imagine there are all sorts of advantages and disadvantages to such a purchase. We mulled them over this afternoon and decided to let them percolate for awhile.

For a few years now I’ve wanted to spend my summers up in Washington State to be near my kids and grand kids for a few months. The problem with that being real estate continues to be super expensive there. We’ve looked for resorts like the one we’ve found here in Overguaard and found that monthly and seasonal rates just aren’t available during the summer. Rentals are by the day only, and RV sites you can buy are non-existent. 

We’ve also considered applying to be a camp hosts for a month or so up at Fort Worden to be near Kimberly and family. It would be nice to be a close-by grandma even if only for a few months out of the year. 

We didn’t come here to look for property, but the cooler temperatures, clear atmosphere, and beautiful pine-covered terrain really appeal to me. That’s when I started looking for resorts just to see what’s available. One of the great things about the Pine Crest Lake RV Resort is that you buy and own your own land. There is a $55 a month association fee for maintenance of the park, but beyond that you don’t pay rent. The prices on property here are very reasonable as well.

I guess we’re going to have plenty to think about when we get back to Phoenix! We talked to several owners in the park, and they told us they love watching the wild horses in the Sitgreaves National Forest. It’s a wonderful place for taking walks and many of the sites back up to that land. 

I thought this would be a quiet day, but it turned out to be quite adventuresome. I love looking at properties even if I’m not going to buy one.  All in all this was a perfect way to spend our last vacation day! Tomorrow, home!!

End Log (Photos below)

Ship’s Log - Stardate: 2015-08-31 - Monday - Mission Day 99

First Officer’s Entry:

I just realized that I have come full circle.  And I don’t mean this trip although we will return to Phoenix Wednesday having gone more than a 9,700 mile, 101 day, full circle.

The full circle I am writing about dawned on me as I was standing in the center of our rig’s “Living Room” and I realized that at 40 feet long, and with the slides out, I have just about as much space as I did when I lived in my first bachelor pad efficiency apartment down at Oakwood Garden Apartments at 40^th street and Camelback.   

Seriously, that was one small apartment!  It didn’t even have a bed, just a pull out couch.  At least now I have a bed!  And to top it off I had two motorcycles parked in the apartment's garage, my Norton and a R80 BMW.  Well, I still have the Norton but the Beemer has long since been replaced by a string of bikes, the latest of which is my little 500cc Triumph Bobber, and both bikes are parked in the rig's garage.

Another aspect of the “full circle” is that Oakwood is where I was living when I met Ms. Cheryl Thomas who is currently sacked out on our living room couch playing with her iPad.  Well, at least that much has changed.  At Oakwood all we had to play with was, a) each other, and b) a very small television set with no VCR, DVD, or cable.  Remember, home computers, smart phones, and the internet were still the stuff of Star Trek.  (Of which our rig is named after.)

Thank goodness we had “a”, above.

Anyway, today we are safely ensconced in the Elk Pines RV Park in Overgaard, AZ.  The trip from Pie, NM was only 4 hours and we picked up another hour when we entered Arizona so it’s really strange to be in the park so early.  We are staying here to rest and avoid the Valley’s heat for one more day.  The plan is to leave here Wednesday morning, and we’ll be at the house by mid-afternoon.

Resting has never been my favorite thing to do, so tomorrow I am going to drive up to Holbrook to press a few pennies.  That should fill a few hours.  Then I will sit around the rig and try to not get too antsy. 

I promised CKT we could go out to dinner tomorrow night, and we scoped out the local restaurants a little while ago.  Pickings are slim but there’s a small café down the road, and I guess we’ll end up there.

That’s it.  We’ve talked about and think we will do a “wrap up” blog after we get home and talk about the trip’s highlights.  Maybe we will, maybe we won’t.  Don’t count on it.  Life may well get in the way of our plans.  It works that way sometimes.

End First Officer’s Entry

Captain’s Entry:

It’s chilly this evening in Overguaard! Isn’t that just the greatest news! We only ran our air conditioner about an hour this afternoon as the sun was going down. The rest of the afternoon was great with a light breeze and about 78 degrees. We sat outside the RV and read books under the tall pine trees. Lovely!

I really like it here, but Frank is itching for Phoenix and getting back to business. I’ve got tons to catch up on when we get home, but I’m not looking forward to being locked inside with the air on full time. At least I’ll have a month’s worth of swimming left in September. October should bring some sweet relief and November through the winter months will be heaven. I’ll be gardening and taking daily walks with the puppies.

The two Chihuahuas, Cleo and Peanut, have been a delight on this trip. They know when we’re taking off so they hunker down in their beds under my feet in the passenger seat. They also know when we're about to leave them alone in the coach while we go exploring. They slink away to their beds under the table in our dining booth and things are always as we left them when we return. They greet us as if they haven't seen us for months, and we feel properly appreciated every time. It's great having them along.

Even though I’m looking forward to being home, I’ll miss the fun of seeing new places almost every day. We’ve visited some unexpected and unplanned places this time like the Very Large Array near Pie Town, New Mexico, the Carriage Museum near Long Beach, Washington, and the Duesenberg and RV Museums while we were staying in Elkhart, Indiana.  All of these visits turned out to be exceptional. 

I’ve especially enjoyed the scenery through our big front windows as we’ve traveled down the many highways all across America. My gosh, this country has so much to offer, and we are so thankful we can wave the flag and sing, “Oh say can you see . . .” 

We can assure you "our “flag is still there.” It flies over ranches, car dealerships, RV parks, front yards, schools, parks, marinas, state capitol buildings, post offices, and up and down the streets of many a small town and near mailboxes on the back roads.

We’ve loved getting high on the freedom of the road. Thanks for hitching a ride with us. It's been grand having you along.

End Log

Ship’s Log - Stardate: 2015-08-30 - Sunday - Mission Day 98

First Officer’s Entry:

Yesterday as we expedited ourselves expeditiously across NM Rt.60 to get to Pie Town we passed the Very Large Array (VLA).  I knew what it was because of my work at NASA and other government agencies and Cheryl and I both knew it from it being featured in several movies we’ve enjoyed, the most prominent being “Contact” with Jodie Foster.

The good news was we had reserved ourselves into a two day stay in Pie Town, all half mile, two café’s, no post office, no grocery store, no stop light, no sidewalks to roll up of it, and had all of today to either relax (the original plan) or to drive the 50 miles back to the VLA.  The VLA won, and boy-oh-boy are we glad it did!

The VLA has 27 antennas on-line, each 80 feet wide weighing 100 tons and one spare. The on-line antennas are arranged in a “Y”, nine to an arm each arm being 13 miles long.  The antenna spacing is adjustable from about one mile to the full 13 miles and since they function as one big antenna that makes an antenna 22 miles across. 

I really enjoyed the VLA.  For a REALLY NEAT movie narrated by Jodie Foster, see:  https://public.nrao.edu/gallery/beyond-the-visible-vla .

Now I will let the Captain tell of our adventure in much more flowing, descriptive, emotional, and feelingfull, words.

Captain’s Entry:

We’re all alone in the campground, and I love it. Last night it was velvety quiet way up here at 8,000 feet! Yep, it was so cool last night we snuggled under two blankets and turned up the heat this morning to take the chill off the rig. There’s a sign next to the small road by the campground that says PIE – 200 yards ahead! It’s the Pie Town Café the sign is promoting, and we ate breakfast AND lunch there today.

Everyone we’ve met who lives in and around Pie Town has been super friendly, and when we stopped back at the Café for lunch, we felt like old friends. I walked in the door, and without hesitation said, “We’re back!” Isn’t it great to have been made so welcome that you lose all inhibitions about saying the wrong thing?

To top off lunch we each had a piece of pie that had been fresh-baked this morning. When we were there for breakfast the waitress was just sliding two coconut cream pies into the glass case. We both thought we’d order a slice for lunch. Not on your life. That pie was long gone when we got back around 2:30 p.m. for lunch.

Anyway, Frank ordered New Mexican Apple Pie (with green chili and pinion nuts).  He said it was better than Aunt Imogene’s Apple Pie that I slave over and bake at home!! Can you believe that Heather Godel??? The photo and recipe can be found here, http://www.pietown.com

 

I had a piece of dark chocolate pie with whipped cream on it that I have to admit was better than my Aunt Olive’s recipe for chocolate pie that I bake at home. That’s saying a mouthful! 

I’ve decided I’ll never bake again. I’ll just roll out the RV and head for Pie Town whenever I’m hungry for a piece of pie!

The First Officer has fairly well covered the technical aspects of the visit to the Very Large Array, so I’ll just say I’ve never seen scenic vistas like we saw today on the way there, while we were there and on our way back. The atmosphere here is clear as can be and the high-desert landscape is backed by shrouded, light -blue tinted mountains under a brilliant blue sky full of giant, snow white cumulus  clouds.  The feeling you get while you’re driving through it is electric!

Tomorrow we’re off to Arizona and a couple of days in Heber/Overgaard up on the Mogollon Rim where it’s cool and smells like wet pine boughs.  I won’t want to go home on Wednesday, but I’m sure the resort where we’re staying will be all booked up Thursday through Monday for the Labor Day Weekend.

Well, we almost did it. We almost stayed on the road in our RV from Memorial Day to Labor Day. As Maxwell the Smart piped up and said, “Missed it by THAT much!”  I told him to pipe down, or I’d seriously consider leaving all those bugs smashed on his grill until after Christmas. 

When we return home on Wednesday, we will have been on the road for 101 days! It’s been a pretty good test of whether we’d like to do this full time.

End Log