A chance encounter in the Arizona desert nets us three new friends

It was just serendipity.  We had stopped at the Jacob’s Lake refueling station and victuals replenishment station and the captain left me to renew the fuel rods while she took shore leave to buy the few necessaries we needed for tomorrow’s breakfast.  (Un)fortunately the store also had a nice little bakery that lured her in, and a couple of cherry turnovers stowed away in her basket.  This forced an unplanned stop at a nearby scenic overlook, for a quick overlook, and a cuppa coffee.  Oh the joy of having a complete galley while on tour!

The captain took the space pups out for a stroll and I made myself the cuppa.  Then I looked out just in time to see a fellow pull in on a Vespa loaded for touring.  That was enough to pique my interest so I strolled up and said “Howdy.”  It turned out he is visiting from Galaxy England and had been on the road for months!  I figured that was worth a cuppa and invited him down to the rig.

The captain and I interrogated him just to make sure he wasn’t another of those sneaky Romulans and then decided he was OK to see the Triumph in the garage.  He said all the appropriately nice things about the bike and the workshop and then mentioned that he had found that the Vespa dangerously low on oil when he had checked it that morning.  “No problem,” I replied.  “I always carry a quart of oil for my bikes.” 

OK.  Here’s where it gets sorta weird.  I couldn’t find the oil!  I looked up, down, and all around and it was just not there!  I finally apologized and we decided he would just have to go on as is.  He walked out to the Vespa to leave and I groused to the captain about the missing oil.

She said, “Why don’t you just take some oil out of the Triumph?”

I said, “You know what!  I should just take some oil out of the Triumph!” 

I ran out and flagged down Mike and that’s what we did.

OK, OK.  Here’s where it gets really weird.  While installing the oil, a nice young couple (Bjorn and Danelle) came by and showed interest in the bike and what we were doing. They are visiting from Galaxy Holland, are not Romulans, and it turned out she is a bike nut and he is a car nut and we all struck it off beautifully.

So after about an hour or so of visiting in the rig and telling tires and kicking stories we exchanged emails, took some photos and then set our own courses.

I gotta say that frankly, this encounter was just about the highlight of our trip, other than spending time with our kids and getting our granddaughter safely married, of course.

Fly Safe!

Rusty Pistons
First Officer
Starship Arrowstar – NCC-1702

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Captain’s Log  - Thursday, September 20, 2018

 

Our international gathering in the rig today reminded me of a gathering we hosted on the last family-day following Madison’s wedding. We had ten people in the living room (grown sons and daughters, former husbands and wives, as well as a few grandchildren).  Frank cooked breakfast for several, who showed up hungry. All were on their way somewhere else, so we got to share hugs and say goodbye and safe travels. It was an unexpected gathering, just as it was today. Those are the best!

Black Bart’s RV and Starship Camp personnel didn’t think it prudent to answer the phone today, so we opted to stay at Kit Carson RV Park in Flagstaff. Our site is 60 feet long and 20 feet wide! It’s a pull-through, so easy-in and easy-out in the morning. The RV Park had mixed reviews online, but we’re perfectly happy and the pine trees towering over us are awesome. 

The temperature is heavenly at around 75 degrees, and we’re at an elevation of 7,000 feet.  Taking a walk literally takes your breath away! I’m so glad we’re staying over tonight before returning to the heat of the desert. I didn’t want to arrive home dead tired. We’re only about three hours from home, so hopefully we’ll feel like unpacking and settling in tomorrow.

Even though we’ll be glad to be home, we were just talking about going down to Willcox for Rex Allen Days. It’s the 67^th Annual Celebration!

Safe travels and thanks so much for reading about our adventures in Starship Arrowstar.

Sparkie Plugs
Captain
Starship Arrowstar – NCC-1702

Some photos follow:

First Officer’s Log – 20-18-09-19

We are jaded, and we know it.  Travel this country and you will see VAST expanses of beautiful scenery, so much so you start to forget to appreciate it.  It’s sorta like the (usually) guys on the airplanes who studiously ignore the flight attendant’s safety speech.  Been there, heard that, I’m way too cool to pay attention to your rinky-dink speech.  

We have seen so much beautiful scenery this and other trips that we even came up with several mnemonics.  ABL, ABV, ABM, ABR, ABCWSDATC, as in, Another Beautiful Lake, Another Beautiful View, Another Beautiful Mountain, Another Beautiful River, Another Beautiful Cowboy With Six Dogs And Thirty Cattle.

Today we got the jaded slapped out of our heads.  Routes 20 and 89 in Utah and down into Kanab and Fredonia in Arizona are staggeringly beautiful.  At one point we were at 7200 feet up on a mountain pass (in first gear) and we didn’t care how difficult the climb had been as the panorama from that mountain top made us remember that America is great, has always been great, and will always be great.  You can’t look over miles and miles of ranch and farm land chock full of cattle and crops without accepting that we feed half the world and that the other half wants to move here.

OK, enough potentially controversial stuff.  

Here’s some fine old Del Monte Pithiness:

** I’d rather be behind a big truck struggling up a hill than be in front of a big truck struggling up a hill.

** It’s really easy to drive one of these big rigs, really, it is.  But you have to drive them sixty seconds out of every minute.

** I think toasters should be equipped with smoke detectors.

** When did “party” and “disrespect” become verbs?

** If you fight with your boss and win you lose.

** If you ever hear anyone use the phrase, “Once you get used to it,” you can bet they are talking about a poorly designed product.

** I never saw it coming, and I should have seen it coming, but I still don’t understand when “seen” replaced “saw.”

** The definition of “win-win” is “lose-lose.”

** Negative progress is still progress.

** There are dreamers and there are doers. Dreamers work for doers.

** Treasure and pay attention to complaints.  One out of a hundred people will tell you what you did wrong.  The other 99 will tell their friends.

** In business meetings treasure the nay-sayers.  They are often the only ones in the room telling you the truth.

OK.  I’m done.  I will now let the Captain speak of serious things in a mature and intelligent manner.

Rusty Pistons
First Officer
Starship ArrowStar – NCC 1702

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Captain’s Log – 20-18-09-19 (Wednesday)

Being almost brain dead after six hours on the road today, I offer you some words of mine I neglected to post a-ways back.

09-13-18 (Thursday last week) -Today we drove two of the most scenic stretches of our trip, Highways 6 and 12 between Long Beach and Randle, Washington. We vote that the National Geographic Road Atlas mark Route 6 as a scenic byway! So there!

Here are some highlights of the voyages of the Starship Arrowstar since leaving Starbase Phoenix on 

Monday, August 20:

The first night we landed, along with some geese who took up residence under Starship Arrowstar, at the Pahrump, Nevada RV Park.

Traveling right along, the crew (Rusty Pistons) insisted on revisiting an iconic RV Park known as the Pony Express in Austin, Nevada. There we stumbled upon Stokes Castle built by a railroad magnate and mine developer in 1897. Stokes’ family lived in it for only two months and since then it has remained deserted.

Zooming at light speed we then landed in Tillamook, Oregon where we happened upon three heretofore undiscovered attractions: The Tillamook Cheese Factory, The Blimp Air Museum, and the Latimer Quilt and Textile Center (I bought the most luxurious deep-blue yarn there). 

Beyond star system Tillamook, a disruption in our flight path by Romulans disguised as six dogs, a cowboy and 30 head of cattle caused a time warp that hurled us back to an as yet undetermined year somewhere in the mid-1800’s. 

The pull of gravity from the 21^st Century soon righted our course as we hurtled on through space to spaceport Gig Harbor where we toured the waters on a tugboat-style vessel owned by friend of our son.

The Romulans continued to interfere with our travels and warped us briefly once again back in time to a pioneer fortress, Fort Nisqually near Tacoma. The first officer entered the watchtower which was a dark and moody place, and hearing a young boy’s voice above him groaned out “Fe-Fi-Fo-Fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman.” Then, as he climbed the stairs, he ran across the boy and his father and found to his surprise that they were indeed Englishmen! As in from England! And a good laugh was had by all. 

Back to the present: It’s HOT here in Fredonia, Arizona where we’re staying at the Wheel-Inn RV Park.  The address on Pratt Street given to us by the owners didn’t specify WEST, so we took a tour of EAST Pratt Street which wasn’t a place you’d want to take anyone in order to show off. 

We went around the block, as is our custom when we end up going the wrong direction, and found a place to land and call the RV Park for directions.

RV Parks are like the famous box of chocolates from the movie Forest Gump – you never know what you’re going to get. We’re not too choosy when we’re staying over for just one night, but no matter how weird the park, there’s always something to redeem staying there. 

Tonight it’s “purple mountains majesty” in the distance (really!) and a stunning blue sky full of puffy, pure white clouds. There’s a breeze as well, and so we haven’t resorted to the AC yet. It’s nice to enjoy the quiet. 

Last night’s redemption was a sky full of stars at 2:00 a.m. that looked close enough to reach out and grab a handful. Why, you ask was I outside at that wee hour? Our little “teddy bear” Chihuahua had to wee-wee, which is unusual for her at night. 

After throwing on my shoes and a robe and sleepily managing the RV steps to the ground, I found the serendipitous reason for the outing. It felt magical!

As Rusty Pistons has already logged about today’s flight through the Kanab galaxy, I’ll sign off now and hope to see you tomorrow in Flagstaff. 

As the old, old song suggests, always remember to “look for the silver lining.”

Sparkie Plugs
Captain, Starship Arrowstar - NCC-1702

Pictures from our "Not Used" vault:

First Officer’s Log

Today ….

   I took my trusty pencil ….
       And blacked out a circle around ….
           the cities of ….
                  Ogden, Salt Lake, and Provo, Utah.

As it so happens a couple of years ago I blacked out the complete state of Oklahoma.

Back then I had transited the (not) OK state both west to east, and north to south and both transits were life threatenly horrible on roads so bouncy and rough that we actually bent a solid, cast iron trailer hitch, and I SWORE that I would never set a tire in the state ever again.  And so far I haven’t.

Today I swore the same oath about the megalopolis of the above three cities.  Never again, never again, never again!  Although shown on the map as separate cities they are, for all practical purposes contiguous.  The problem is that I-84, which goes thru the middle of all three cities, appears to have been in continuous construction since Eisenhower was president.  Back then he decreed, that for reasons of national security, we needed a major road system like the Autobahns in Germany.  BTW, did you know that straight stretches of roadway are specified at regular intervals on the interstates so they can be used for military aircraft purposes?  Yup, that’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.

Besides the continuous construction, I-84 once again, through the middle of all three towns is seven lanes wide and is posted at 70 mph, dropping all the way down to 60 mph in the wavy, temporary, extra narrow construction lanes, with weird or worse yet, no signage.  And the locals don’t pay any attention to any of that, and drive like they are bat-shit-crazy.  I actually saw one fool cross over 5 lanes in one fell swoop, causing several cars to swerve and brake to avoid hitting him.  And they sure didn’t like me puttering along at my sedate 55 mph in the center lane because the right hand lanes had the bad habit of either disappearing completely or turning into one of those $%#@ “Exit Only” lanes requiring a last minute “please let me over” lane changes.  And BTW, several times the answer to my plea was, “No.”

Apparently they have so many accidents along there (we saw three) that they don’t even send out the police anymore but have “Incident Management” trucks with flairs, lights, barriers, and special personnel to manage the messes.

OK, now a bit of good news.  We made it to Nephi, Utah safely and turned in for fuel.  Seeing how very cute the town is we decided to stay over and are now ensconced in the Jones High Country RV and Starship Camp next to a really nice Alpha Motor Coach.  I think Alpha’s are really neat coaches, and they have an owner’s club that is amazingly fanatical.  Alpha’s were built from 1973 to 2008 and were killed off by the financial crisis.  They were always ahead of their time, and I wish someone would bring them back.

That’s all for now.  The George Foreman cooker just beeped so the steak, pot-a-tos, ka-rotz, and on-yums are done, and I’m hungry.

Just FYI here’s a link to some Alpha info.

https://money.cnn.com/galleries/2008/smallbusiness/0811/gallery.victims_of_the_crash.smb/4.html

Fly Safe,

Rusty Pistons
First Officer
Starship Arrowstar – NCC-1702

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Captain’s Log

Just to be clear, the First Officer doesn’t ALWAYS cook.  Captain’s fare tonight was round steak with veggies and not so long ago pork chops with veggies plus salad. And last evening BLT’s with tomatoes fresh from my daughter Stacie’s garden. Those tomatoes are primo! They have hardly any seeds and taste like they were grown in Indiana (it don’t get no better than Indy tomatoes!)

I have been the silent partner in this blog for several reasons: I’ve been busily trying to learn how to make crocheted baby booties from YouTube tutorials (nope, not pregnant!) I’ve also been making more crocheted dish rags, which seem to be a hit with Stacie, Kimberly and Grandson Rowan (for his new apartment in Seattle as he returns to college). I’ve still got cotton yarn to use, and now that I’ve memorized the pattern, I can crochet while Rusty Pistons drives. I’ve also been embroidering a couple pillow cases to keep me busy in the evenings. 

In my opinion, Utah is prettier than Nevada. That’s why we’re coming home by way of Utah. I have been helping plan our route to avoid the desert as long as possible. Unfortunately, it’s HOT here in Utah tonight. This is our first stop on the way home that won’t have a low in the 40’s at night. Sigh.

We have been choosing the back roads as we always did while riding on Frank’s motorcycles. Today’s traffic was a total nervous, anxiety producing affair. We navigated through the cement roads through Salt Lake City only by staying super vigilant when lanes became EXIT ONLY. The two left lanes were some sort of HOV toll lanes and forbid heavy vehicles (like trucks and US). Anyway, we were really relieved when we made it all the way through to the little town of Nephi, just south of Provo. By that time, we needed to decide where we were going to land tonight and pulled in for a fill-up and found a shady spot to reconnoiter. Thus, we ended up here in the sweet town of Nephi where the streets look swept, the houses are gingerbread cute with white picket fences, and it feels like we’ve been time-warped back to the 1960’s.

With that thought, I think I’ll stay back here in the 60’s for awhile as I peruse, on Shutterfly, the photos taken at my 55^th Kokomo High School Reunion. I’m having trouble recognizing anyone. It’s great to see the gatherings of my geezer friends of yesteryear, since I was in Seattle while they were gathering. I wouldn’t have missed my granddaughter’s wedding for the world! I wanted to be everywhere at once!

Tomorrow we’re planning to arrive in Kanab, Utah (actually we’ll overnight in Fredonia, Arizona) where the scenery might just outshine everything we’ve seen so far. On Wednesday we’ll stay over in Flagstaff, Arizona, at Black Bart’s RV Park where they have a restaurant that serves prickly pear martinis, and NAU students sing and dance though dinner. Hooray! 

We’ll be on the road from Flag to Phoenix on Thursday, “Home Sweet Desert Home.” The only desert stop I approve! 

Next year Arrowstarship will continue to explore brave new worlds and go where a whole lot of people have gone before, Naples, Florida and Key West.

Sparkie Plugs
Captain, Starship Arrowstar – NCC-1702