Voyages of Starship Arrowstar

Voyages of Starship Arrowstar
Starship Arrowstar and Shuttlecraft Maxwell

Thursday, September 3, 2015

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
Facebook Author Page -  Book releases, author signings, and authorspeak
Facebook Personal Page - Nonsense, Tidbits, Blog Links and Trivia
Goodreads Author Page - Book reviews, book lists, book recommendations
About Me Page - Bio, Interests, Online Connections, People Discovery





Tuesday, September 1, 2015

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. 



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)