Day 14 -- Hazen, Arkansas to Jackson, Tennessee -- 166 Miles

Today, after leaving Hazen, Tennessee, where we were camped well away from everyone else because the only hookups left were by the owner's house (photo left), we visited a city that I hadn't seen since May of 1970. Back then I was about a half year short of my 21st birthday, had been in the Navy only about six months, and had traveled to Millington, Tennessee to attend a Navy aviation-related school.

The U.S. Navy called them "A-Schools" and that's where sailors learned electronics and a dozen other skills necessary for a Navy flight crewman or ground support person to know. I didn't do so well in the electronics component, but I did well enough in the myriad of other skills to eventually graduate with my class.

Millington, Tennessee, lies just north and east of the city of Memphis, which is located on the Mississippi River, and hosted the premier school where Navy men went after bootcamp to learn their various trades before going on active duty. Naturally, I had already been on active duty, so I possessed a certain stature just slightly above my incoming class.

My active duty time began in October, 1969. I reported to the Naval Air Station in Glenview, Illinois and was placed in a barracks with dozens of other sailors. We didn't have it too bad there as you only had to share your space with one other guy, and things were fairly private.

My first job was in the galley (kitchen) where I worked from sun-up to sun down for three months. After the galley I was posted to the flight line where I fueled and defueled jets and properller-driven planes as well as jocked airplanes and heliocopeters into and out of the hangers.

This flightline job lasted for about three months and eventually involved me becoming a plane captain for the A4 Skyhawk jet fighters. This meant that I helped the pilot with his checklist before he taxied out to take off. I had to learn a myriad of hand signals that I held up for the pilot to see so he knew I had checked the necessary plane components.

So, not only had I been on active duty for six months when I arrived in Millington, but I had taken classes at John Muir High School for a couple of years in the California Cadet Corp program. This program was a sort of ROTC-like class. I knew how to march, I knew the various drill commmands, and I felt confident that I could march the men to their barracks on the first day. My stature as an "old salt" compared to the "boots," with their shaved heads and sunburns that covered the lower two thirds of their faces that hadn't been covered by their white Navy caps, was evident, and I was immediately put in charge of about sixty guys when we had formed up and the duty officer asked if anyone already had Navy experience.

This confidence was my undoing, of course, for as I marched the platoon down the main street and when I needed to issue a command for a "left wheel," I failed to do it in a timely manner. The plattoon, no doubt recently commanded by a non-commissioned officer at boot camp, dutifully kept marching straight ahead and right into a drainage ditch.

That goof got sorted out, but it was a serious blow to my credibility as you might guess. I don't remember ever being asked to march the boots anywhere after that.

Then, for the next four months, I spent every day learning whatever a designated anti-submarine equipment operator had to learn to graduate. Oddly enough, we were not allowed to take notes in class as much of the material was designated "Top Secret" and could not leave the classroom. Being as how some of the material was pretty hard to fathom, it left most of us pretty dazed and confused much of the time.

Except one kid. This particular sailor, though only 18 years old, had already been employed at IBM before becoming a Navy man. He seemed to grasp every concept without breaking a sweat. I was so impressed with this guy that I asked him to do me a favor and adapt my portable radio/tape player to work inside my car. The radio was designed to run on either batteries OR on 110 AC. I don't remember the guy's name, but he took the radio apart, soldered in some wires, crafted a plug jack in my car's dashboard, and added a cord to the radio with an audio plugin cable. This radio hookup was in 1970, long before cars came with cassett tape players. Cars with 8-track players were becoming commonplace, but not cassettes.

Anyway, by the summer of 1970, I had finished my four months in Millington, Tennessee, had graduated without too many difficulties, and had moved on to the second phase of my training which was to take place in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania. The things I remember most about Millington were the RAIN and the BUGS. It rained, as the saying goes, like someone pouring water out of a boot, and the bugs -- especially mosquitos -- were giants and habitully flew in squadrons, which meant you always got bitten several times if your were bitten at all.

Today Concetta and I crossed the border between Arkansas and Tennessee accompanied by a virtual deluge of rain. I'm not sure how Mother Nature knew I was coming, but obviously she wanted to welcome me back to Memphis with the very weather I had left there to escape.

When I was in Millington 52 years ago, I did have my car with me, unlike most of my barracks-mates. But access to the outside world was pretty regimented, and we didn't usually get to wander off unless we had a pass. But most of the boots had come without wheels and you can imagine how popular I was since I had a car on the base and most of the newbies didn't.

I had three buddies who I would load up and drive all over the immediate area. Their names escape me now, but we tended to leave the base and do everything together as far away from the base as possible. Since the Naval Air Station had about 11,000 sailors, you can imagine how disenchanted local businesses and residents were when the Navy "hit town."

Though I don't remember much of what my shipmpates and I did when we would venture out into the world, I do remember one trip to the Mississippi River. I had never really been on the river before, and that particular day we all just sat under a tree and watched that massive flood of water charge by our vantage point. Truly, you have not experienced the awesome magnificence of nature until you have seen the mighty Mississippi, its turbid waters host to dozens of boats and barages as well as all manner of flotsom and jetson.

But the point of this narrative is not to recount my antics from a half century ago, but to detail my efforts to visit the Navy base in Millington since we would be traveling within fifteen miles of the front gate today. So it was that as we crossed the Mississippi into Tennessee and came abreast of Route 385 which runs from Interstate 40 to Route 51 north at Millington, we took the offramp and made our way toward what I hoped would be my own personal class reunion.

I really didn't know if they would let me on the base on the basis of my Navy ballcap and my story, but I thought it was probably worth a try. The first gate to the base we found was permanently locked and chained off, so we set off to circle the base and find another gate. Since we had to find a reasonable lunch stop anyway, it was easy to kill two birds with one stone.

Finally, on what must have been the north side of the base, we found the main gate. Concetta was skeptical, but I told her that if you don't ask, most of the time you don't get. I turned on the blinker and made a right turn into the main gate approach.

When it was finally our turn to talk to the gate guard, and I told him that I had been stationed there 52 years before, he was decidedly unimpressed. "Do you have your Navy I.D.," he asked, eyeing the massinve 32-foot rig out of the corner of his eye. Naturally, I didn't have any sort of I.D. for an active service member so I told him no. We'll you have to have an I.D. to get beyond this point, he said. I told him I had my DD-214 onboard, but he said that wouldn't do.

At that point I asked the gate guard what he wanted me to do, and he said he'd have to call for instructions. After his call, he told me that there was a military policeman on his way to escort us to a spot were we could turn around. After that we had to leave the way we had come. "Sorry about that," he said. "But if you come back on Monday with your DD-214 and valid I.D., they might let you in to take a tour." Naturally we couldn't stay around to take the policeman up on his offer, but it was nice he gave us a potential way to accomplish our goal.

Once we left the base I found a parking spot nearby and walked back to take a photo. It wasn't what I had hopped for, but it would have to do. Once the photo was accomplished, we sought out the nearest grocery store, did our shopping, had our lunch in the store parking lot, and once more hit the road. Interstate 40 was just fifteen miles east and it was fairly simple to find the onramp and continue our sojourn towards Nashville.

We hadn't had an opportunity to make reservations for a camp this evening, so we were glad when a roadside sign proclaimed that there was a camp in the town of Jackson just a half mile off the Interstate. We took the ramp, we found the camp named "Joy-O," and now we're esconced in just the perfect tree-shaded spot with all the hookups we desired. (see bottom three photos)

So, that's it for now. Tomorrow we're headed for Nashville where we have already arranged for a nice camp to host us tomorrow night. Monday we have made reservations to tour the gardens at President Andrew Jackson's home, The Hermitage. You know how both of us are just fanatics about great gardens, so that should be loads of fun.

And that's it for now. Concetta has left-over Chilli for dinner which contains ingredients from our home garden, so the evening is getting off to a good start. I'm going to do the dishes so she can put her feet up and rest, I wish you exciting adventures on your road of life! Ciao!

Day 13 -- Alma (near Fort Smith) to Hazen (near Little Rock), Arkansas -- 181 Miles

As I've said many times before, the best and most exciting thing about life on the road are the people who constantly cross your path. This morning as I was breaking down the water, electric, and sewer connections prior to our leaving, our next door neighbor wandered out and wished me a good morning. I returned the wish, and after that we got into a fifteen-minute conversation about a dozen different topics covering everything from the proper way to set up a sewer line to the American Civil War.

It turned out that both of us were California natives, both of us had moved away from California, and both of us were veterans. Ted was the neighbor's name, and he told me that he had spent his service time flying in heliocopters for the Coast Guard, and I told him that I had spent my time in fixed-wing, anti-submarine planes for the Navy.

,

From those revelations, we segued into a discussion of things like driving the Nachez Trace in Mississippi, spending some time in upstate Michigan, and his recent visit to the Civil War Battlefield of Shiloh. The minutes slid away when I should have been clearing up my gear, but we just talked and talked and talked.

Finally I told Ted I better get on with it as we were driving to Little Rock, and he told me that he had to be off as well. He didn't have far to go, he told me, as he just lived in Mississippi having relocated there from the northern California town of Petaluma. We shook hands and went our separate ways, but each of us, I know, carried with us today the knowledge that most Americans are pretty straight arrow, and all of us have a story to tell if we take time to listen.

After we rolled out of the beautiful Alma RV park that we accidently found just west of Fort Smith, Arkansas, we headed south for just a bit until we were able to join Interstate 40. Once on Route 40, we set the cruise control and sat back to enjoy some of the prettiest forest that we've yet seen on this vacation. The trees hadn't yet started to show any real color, but the forest in general looked so healthy and green that it was a pure pleasure to see after the rather austere plains vegetation of Texas and parts of Oklahoma.

Everything went so smoothly that we were almost to Little Rock by lunch time. Choosing an offramp that promised a park just up the road, we exited the Interstate and looked for a nice, shady patch of level ground to park for lunch. At first we chose the parking lot for a golf course, but we couldn't find level spot. Retracing our steps for just a quarter mile or so, we turned left down a tiny road that seemed to have sports fields just ahead. Sure enough, there was a nice level spot to park just adjacent to the basketball courts, and it came complete with huge trees for shade.

During lunch I was studying the atlas in hopes of finding some referenece to museums or other attractions when my eye fell on a reference for the name "Clinton." Of course I knew that President Clinton hailed from Arkansas, so I put down the atlas and grabbed a book out of our onboard reference collection for the Presidential Libraries and their locations in each state. Sure enough, William Jefferson Clinton's Presidential library was located in Little Rock.

The guide book came complete with addresses, so when we had cleaned up from lunch and were ready once again to rejoin the Interstate, I asked Concetta to feed the address into her iPhone and tell me how far away we might be. Sounding incredulous, Concetta said, "I don't believe it, the library is just 10 miles from here!" And that's how we picked the Clinton Library for our afternoon's adventure.

So far in our travels, Concetta and I have visited the Presidential Libraries for Gerald Ford in Michigan and Jimmy Carter in Georgia. Each of those libraries were a not-to-be-missed experience. We were so impressed by each of them that the experience easily brought us to tears at times. Though the Clinton Library did not exhibit the same awesomeness that the former two libraries possessed, it was pretty impressive in its stark modernity, its beautiful setting next to the Arkansas River, and its sort of "down home" approach to conveying the President's message. We enjoyed our visit and recommend that you stop by on one of your vacations.

When we got out of the Clinton Library it was three o'clock and the parking lot was vitually empty. At that point we had no idea where we where going to camp for the night, so we just decided to take potluck and head east on Interstate 40 to see what we could turn up. Incredibly enough, nothing much turned up and by four o'clock the only camp that showed up Concetta's iPhone sounded a little rustic. Still, it being late and yours truly having a blog to write, we took the proper offramp and headed south a mile or so to "H & G RV Camping" and pulled into the camp's entry road.

Hastening to meet us as we pulled in was a middleaged woman, and I stopped and rolled down my window. "Your name?" the woman asked?

I knew immediately that she was expecting someone who had made a reservation, and we were not that person. "We don't have a reservation," I told her.

"Ah," the woman said. "Well, are you okay with boondocking?"

I figured what she probably meant was, would I be okay with no hookups at all, so I said, "Well, we'd like to have full hookups if you have them."

"Sorry," she said. "We're all full. But I could put you up on the highway at the grandmother's house if you can make do with just water and 110-volt power."

Naturally, I asked if there were any other camps reasonably nearby, and she kinda squinted her eyes and looked in a couple of directions. Finally she said, "No, we're pretty much it."

"Well then I guess the grandmother's place will be fine," I told her.

"Follow me," she said, and she took off walking briskly toward a house about three hundred feet away across a grassy swale and up a hill to a neat red brick house. When we had proceeded slowly across the grassy swale and and rolled into the backyard of the house, the woman said, "here's fine," and we rolled to a stop.

I jumped out of the rig and helped as the woman pulled a garden hose towards us and soon we were hooked up to water. After that, I pulled out our electrical cable, attached a long extension we always carry, and once we had hooked the cord to an outlet on the house, we had lights.

When the owner of the property, Gary King, knocked on our door about six o'clock, we gave him our twenty dollars for the night and learned that it was his mother who owned the house and farm land. His father was newly deceased, so Gary was handling things for his mom. I found everyone here we had met, including Gary and his son Luke, a highschool senior, were just the nicest, most polite people you'd ever want to meet. The woman who got us the parking spot turned out to be the camp host, a job she was doing while she was in the process of moving from California and was looking for a house to buy here in Arkansas.

Yes, it's always our desire to have full hookups when possible, but we can make do with whatever we encounter. The sewer tank is half empty and we can just dump it at our next camp. The distance from the Interstate means it's as quiet here as it is in the cemetery across the street when the sun goes down. We can hear a bit of traffic noise, but not enough to complain about.

Tonight Concetta cooked up some chilli using a banana pepper and two Jalapenos from our home garden and it was great. We also had a salad with a sliced carrot and a sliced cucumber from our garden. To say that life is good is just an understatement. We're sitting here in the side yard of a neat ranch-style house, on the edge of a newly-mown field of hay, next to a dense forest of tall trees, with soft breezes gently wafting in our screened windows, and the only thing I can think to complain about is.....well, actually I can't think of a damn thing to complain about.

So, at this point I'll wish you a great evening and many happy adventures of your own. Ciao!

Day 12 -- Oklahoma City, Oklahoma to Fort Smith, Arkansas -- 283 Miles

Today was our day for driving. Since we've had several 100-mile days recently, we thought perhaps we should save our seeking out of interesting stop-offs and try to make up for the short days. We still had a couple of disks left from the Wild Bill Hickok series, so we queued up what has proven to be a fascinating tale, and hit the road.

The first thing we learned was that Oklahoma City's commuters are just as hair-brained as commuters in any other city with a ticking clock on their minds and nothing much else. So we navigated carefully, stayed in the center lane to avoid onramps, and made sure the running lights were lit so everyone could see us from a distance.

Once beyond the borders of Oklahoma City, the speeding commuters seemed to mellow out and we just cruised along at our 65 mph and enjoyed the story of Wild Bill

By noon we were already just 45 miles from Fort Smith, our evening's destination, so we pulled into a unnamed tiny town and cruised the back streets looking for a park with sufficient parking to have our lunch. Failing at that endeavor, we just picked out someone's vacant lot down a side street and made that do. No one who passed our way seemed to give as a second glance, so our spot beneath a small forest of spreading trees worked out nicely.

It was at lunch that I suggested we visit the historic Fort Smith Museum since it appeared that our expeditious driving would allow us a couple of hours in the afternoon to spend time doing something fun and still get into camp by a decent hour. To that end we picked out a camp not far from the center of town, called in our reservation, and then proceeded to head for the Fort Smith Museum.

That came to a screeching halt when we were warned by Concetta's cell phone of a 15 minute delay because Interstate 40 would be reduced to one lane just up ahead. The wait, the signs advised, would be in the neighborhood of a quarter hour. We weren't happy, of course, but what could we do. Those highway workers would be cutting into our "fun time," but we had to suppose they had good reason.

So it wasn't long before traffic began to slow down and then to virtually stop. We couldn't see just how long a line of traffic was ahead of us as it went around a curve, but we had the feeling it was going to be long.

As you've probably noticed whenever you've been stuck where two or more lanes of traffic are reduced to one, there are two kinds of drivers to contend with: those who faithfully merge one after the other in an orderly fashion; and those who speed by the merging traffic to try and grab a better spot way at the head of the line where they expect to push their way in.

Personally, I absolutely LOATH those sneaky bastards and usually do everything I can to both disuade them and prevent them from succeeding in passing me, even to the point of driving in the middle of two lanes to partially cut the sneaks off.

If you've ever been in this situation, you've probably noticed that big-rig drivers are absolutely hip to the various techniques for stopping cheating drivers passing them when the merge is taking place. The guy ahead of us today just didn't move out of the vacating lane which would have allowed a half dozen frenzied drivers to blow by him and us and rush toward the head of the line. He crept forward with the merged traffic but didn't merge.

Deciding to emulate the big-rig driver, we kept hogging the merging lane right along with him, and I could tell from my side mirror that there were a bunch of drivers of sporty little cars just itching to get by us.

At one point the big-rig driver let himself drift just a bit too much out of the merging lane and a middle-aged woman in a high-priced BMW saw her chance. She came roaring up from behind and screeched to a halt right beside us with half her tires sagging into the soft grass beside the highway. She stopped because the big-rig driver saw her coming as well and moved back fully into the vacating lane.

When the woman slammed on the brakes right beside my door I blew the horn and then rolled down my window and pointed a finger back down the way she had come in an effort to command her to behave. But she was having none of it, and I could see that she still intended to get by the trucker ahead.

Just then the traffic started to creep forward again, and I immediately eased further left to cut her off and succeeded in leaving her sitting there, half on the road and half in the grassy slope beside the highway. And there she sat fuming as the line of traffic rolled forward a few feet at a time. After our rig had passed, she immediately squeezed in behind us, and for the next mile or so she frantically weaved back and forth appearing first in our left side mirror and then in our right side mirror.

Eventually, the line of traffic had fully merged, orange cones appeared on each side of us, and there was no further opportunity for anyone to squeeze by us and speed to the front of the line. The woman had been defeated, and I hoped she had learned her lesson.

Amusingly, when we had finally cleared the work area and eastbound traffic lanes had been restored, the woman's BMW blew by us like we were standing still, though we were back up to our usual Interstate speed of 65 mph. I imagine that she was topping 85 mph by the time she disappeared from sight, and was probably cussing us for ruining her whole afternoon. But I regard the events in the Oklahoma work zone as just doing my part for restoring balance in the universe.

By the time 3:00 p.m. rolled around, we had left the Interstate in Oklahoma, crossed the Arkansas River into Fort Smith, Arkansas, and we still had good couple of hours to kill before we needed to find our camp located only about ten miles away.

Fort Smith first came to prominence when the United States, under a series of Presidents, made every effort to remove Native Americans from the southeastern part of the country and move them beyond the Mississippi River and into the future state of Arkansas.

President Thomas Jefferson greatly facilitated this effort by affecting the acquisition of the so called Louisiana Purchase which added some 530 million acres to the United States. At that point, some governmental officials surmised, there was lots of potentially uninhabited lands for the removed natives to inhabit. Trouble was, the lands weren't vacant. By 1817 when the Cherokee started showing up beyond the Mississippi, the Osage people were already there and determined not to share their hunting grounds. This resulted in much conflict and the two tribes were preparing themselves for war.

To alleviate the tension, and attempt to broker some sort of peace, the United States decided to place a substantial fort on the banks of the Arkansas River in 1817. The fort was substantially built and was surrounded by a twelve-foot wall. When Arkansas became a state in 1838, the fort was relocated and built even larger as it had become an important stop on the movement westward by Americans.

There is of course much history that took place in Fort Smith with the Army, the indians, and the settlers moving west, but Fort Smith also played a major role in the quest for law and order in the new state of Arkansas and surrounding states. Starting in 1872, a federal court was established with jurisdiction over the surrounding Indian Territory and all aspects of law enforcement thereabouts.

Judge Isaac C. Parker, nicknamed "the hanging judge," tried to create a moral force and a strong court. He heard over 13,000 cases and only really hanged 79 prisoners for capital crimes over his 24 years on the bench. But during that time, literally hundreds of deputy marshals rode out into the territory to maintain law and order.

I had known about Fort Smith and the "hanging judge" for most of my life as I began extensively reading of western history when I was in the 6th grade. Naturally, I was really excited to finally get to come here. Though our visit was all too brief, I will always be grateful that we came this way.

And that's it for now. We wish you many exciting travels of your own.

Day 11 -- Sayre to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma plus side trip to Washita Massacre Site -- 170 Miles

Last night we chose our campsite for its proximity to the infamous massacre site that took place in 1866 on the Washita River in Oklahoma. There the famed (or infamous) Lieutenant Colonel, George Armstrong Custer, along with the U.S. Army's celebrated 7th Cavalry, massacred as many as sixty men, women, and children, essentially in cold blood, and also destroyed the tribe's entire horse herd of over 650 ponies.

The most awful and shameful aspect of this massacre is not just the needless deaths, but the fact that this particular Southern Cheyenne band of Native Americans had as their leader, Chief Black Kettle. This Chief was the most peaceful of all the Cheyenne leaders and had repeatedly proclaimed his pursuit of non violence to the extent that he had actually erected a large American flag on his Teepee.

The senseless massacre at the Washita was even more unforgiveable as it came on the heels of another attempt to eradicate Black Kettle's band of Cheyenne. Just two years before, in 1864, at an eastern Colorado river location known as Sand Creek, the Colorado 100-days Volunteer Cavalry swooped down on Black Kettle's village that included mostly women, children, and the elderly. The Colorado volunteers slaughtered an estimated 150 tribe members.

Custer's "blue-bellies" didn't get off as easily as they might have hoped. According to accounts of the battle, 18 troopers were themselves massacred when Cheyenne warriors from nearby camps on the Washita descended on them and wiped them out. In addition, another 22 troopers were wounded. Some might say it was insufficient payback for the deed the soldiers were intent on performing that day.

These episodes have been extremely interesting to me from the time I was a child and learned that my great granduncle, Benajah Stubbs, was a member of the Colorado 100-days Cavalry. When I was still in junior highschool, my mother showed me a diary that had been penned by my great grandmother in which she described the soldiers, including her brother, who rode away one day in late November, 1864, and returned many days later with scalps hanging from their saddles.

Concetta and I visited Sand Creek some years ago, and we were quite moved by the eerie and somber feeling of the massacre site in the sand hills of eastern Colorado. And as we walked from the nearby museum up to the edge of the arroyo that is Sand Creek and looked out over the battle site, Concetta told me that she could actually feel the presence of the dead, especially the children who seemed to want to guide her footsteps.

Today, we toured the museum that is perched on a small hill overlooking the Washita River and became thoroughly acquinted with the whole sad story, some of which we had read about previously. We learned that Chief Black Kettle's wife had a premonition that an attack was coming, and on the very night before the massacre, pleaded with the tribal elders to pick up and move the camp closer to a quartet of other, stronger camps upriver.

The answer Medicine Woman Later got, unfortunatley, was that perhaps the elders would consider moving in the morning. Sadly, many of tribe would not live through the following morning including Black Kettle and Medicine Woman Later herself.

As we left the museum today we happened upon something littering the ground that neither of us had ever seen before. The object was as hard and unyielding as a baseball, but was a chartruess green in color and covered with rounded spikes. Thinking it must be some kind of fruit or nut of some sort, I whipped out my pocket knife and attempted to cut the object in half. Much to my surprise it proved to be just about as tough to cut through as a basefall and resembled a cucumber complete with tiny seeds. Cutting it left a sticky residue on my knife that proved impossible to wipe off.

Just about then the park ranger strolled by on his way to lunch and we stopped him and asked about the weird fruit. "Osage orange," the ranger said. "Also known in French as the bois d’arc, or bowwood as the new, green branches of the Osage Orange tree were used to make bows with wich to shoot their arrows."

The ranger went on to tell us that you can't eat them, but if eaten by cattle the animal is likely to get the tough rind stuck in its throat and die. "But," He said. "Farmers would cut the limbs of the trees for fence posts because once planted in the soil and strung with barbed wire, the darn things would last forever. Because of the plant's toughness, native Americans would also use the wood for clubs."

When we rolled out of the museum's parking lot, we drove the short distance to the trailhead where, if you were up to a 1.5 mile hike, you could visit the actual site of the massacre. Since neither of us are equipped to do any hiking these days, we had to be content with a few photographs of the distant river. But the whole experience was much the same as our visit to Sand Creek. You just can't help but be struck by the utter brutality and waste that occured as settlers poured into the Great Plains and Native Americans tried valiently to stem the overwhelming tide of humanity in the only fashion they knew.

Since we spent a good three hours driving to the Washita, enjoying the museum and driving back to Interstate 40, we didn't have much of the day left to accomplish anything but driving. Though we put 170 miles on the oddometer, including driving to and from the Washita Museum, we only got as far as Oklahoma City and the Rockwell RV Park this afternoon. Tomorrow we will be continuing east on Interstate 40 towards Fort Smith, Arkansas, a city I don't think we've ever visited.

So, until tomorrow, we wish you exciting adventures of your own.

Day 10 -- Amarillo, Texas to Sayre, Oklahoma -- 124 Miles

Okay, I'll just come right out and say it. Today was the much dreaded day from HELL for any RVer. It all started when we had finished breakfast, done our housekeeping prior to leaving, and I had inserted the key into the RV's ignition as required, switched it on, and tried to retract one of the slideouts. To my dismay, the slideout refused to move and showed no signs of life whatsoever. Thinking that if I could start the engine perhaps more amps would be available for the sliding sequence. I went back to the cab and twisted the key to "start." Only the faintest muffled "click" resulted. "DAMN!," I said to no one in particular. I knew instantly that I had a very big problem.

I knew that I could probably lasso someone into giving us a jump since we carried my own cables. But once the engine was running, we couldn't just sit there and annoy the other campers with the motor noise while we worked on the rig. We had to be ready to roll, which meant that one way or another, the sliders had to be in, and all the setup gear had to be stowed so we could leave as soon as the engine started.

Fortunately, when we had the slider problem in Michigan in 2019, the technicians at Camping World had jerry-rigged a hot wire from the battery to the slider relay which took the bad fuse out of the equation and allowed the rooms to retract. Since then I had discovered the exact fuse that goes bad for some reason and had learned how to exchange it for a new one.

So, at that point, there was nothing for me to do but clean up all the gear outside, hook up the jerry-rigged wire in case there was a problem with the fuse, and then go find someone to jump the battery.

Once I had done all these things, I set out to find a fellow camper to jump our battery. As fate would have it, the local electric utility company had a truck sitting just two or three doors down, and it was even running. I approached the driver and asked if he had time to jump us, and he readily agreed.

With the jumper cables connected to the utility truck's battery, I was able to start the engine. It protested at first, but then fired up and kept running. Using the jerry-rigged wire, I was able to retract the sliders, and with that accomplished we were on our way. But at that point Fate decided she wasn't done with us for when I asked Concetta to make sure our automatic entry step had retracted, she told me that it was still lowered. That was not the news I wanted to hear. Normally the step automatically retracts whenever the door is closed and the engine is started. Our troubleshooting list suddenly got longer.

I had asked Concetta to navigate us to the nearest Walmart so we could buy a battery, and I would drive gently to make sure the step didn't ground out against a dip in the road or get sideswiped by a passing car. However, before we had a chance to reach Walmart, we saw a Ford Dealer and I decided that since we were driving a Ford we would just stop there and buy a battery.

As it turned out, Ford had just the one we needed, and it was actually a more heavy-duty model than we had been running. That sounded fine to us, and the purchase was made and installed by a super nice chap, Dale. I told Dale that since our old battery was only less than four years old, he might try to keep it and use it for some light-duty application. I don't know if he decided to do that or not, but it would have been a good deal for him.

Since we were sitting in a fairly nice spot at the dealership, I decided to check all the under-dash fuses for a bad one that might be controlling the step, and I would replace the fuse AGAIN for the sliders. I replaced the slider fuse which fixed that problem, but much to my irritation, I found no other bad fuses that might control the step.

After leaving Ford, we set our GPS for Camping World to see if they might help us with the step problem. Once we arrived, thankfully without crashing the extended step against anything, I marched in to humbly request the advice of a technician who might know where the fuse was located that controlled the retraction of the step. But when I presented my problem at the front desk the woman said, "You mean now?"

I said, "ah, yeah. I just need a couple of minutes of someone's time for advice."

"I'm sorry," the woman said. "At this point we're making appointments in mid-December. But you could go talk to one of the service people over there." She indicated a nearby counter where a half dozen people were busy writing or talking on the phone.

Having nothing to lose, I dutifully approached the service desk and talked to the first person to look up. After I had explained to him that I only needed the advice of a technician, and I might be able to make the repair myself. The man sort of paused while he stared off into space, no doubt pondering just what he might do for me.

"Okay," he said finally. "There's only one guy who might be able to help you. I'll go back in the service bay and see if he can break away from what he's doing."

I thanked him profusely and off he went toward the back of the shop. It took him about ten minutes, but eventually he returned and told me that, sadly, his technician was right in the middle of a ticklish operation, and he just couldn't help me at that time.

Feelng none to cheery at that point, I was about to leave when I thought of a question. Since my original guy was on the phone, I asked another guy if they sold the step retraction motor at Camping World. Before the guy could answer, a nearby young woman said that they did, and if I would go out and crawl under the rig and write down whatever information might help her identify the specific motor unit, she would look it up and see if they had one in stock.

Well, I guess it was a tiny ray of hope, but I wasn't too thrilled with crawling under the rig in a hot parking lot with lots of traffic. But with no other alternatives, I left the store and trudged back to the rig. One of the lockers harbors a vinyl-covered exercise mat that I use for just such work under the rig. Before long, I had obtained the information needed by the service clerk, and I returned to her counterspace.

"Okay," she said. "I can get you an electronic module that controls the step operation and I can have it here by tomorrow morning if I order it right now. The cost will be two hundred dollars."

"Well," I said. "Since I don't really know if the module will fix my problem, I guess I don't want to do that."

The clerk said, "Okay, but I'll give you the order information so you could get one someday if you decide you want it. They are not available except through a third-party supplier as the part is obsolete.

So the clerk wrote down the information, and I wearily made my way back to the rig. I realized at that point that I could not drive the rig anywhere with the step in its lowered postion. I would have to find a way to raise it even if it was a semi-permanent correction. So I dragged out the exercise mat again, slid underneath, and disassembled the activation arm from the motor to the steel-step mechanism. This involved merely removing a cotter pin and clevis pin and swinging the activation arm out of the way.

At that point there was still a problem to tackle. How was I going to keep gravity from lowering the step on its own? But then I remembered that I carry a brand new jug of Home Depot bungie cords, and I retrieved one of those and successfully bungied off the step mechanism, hooking it to a stationary part of the frame.

The step problem "solved," at least as far as being able to drive safely, we loaded up and said adios to Amarillo. Since we had burned through a solid three hours in our pursuit of mechanical viability, our travel time had been drasticaly reduced. After taking an additional hour for lunch in a nearby farmer's field, our available running time had shrunk to about two hours. And that's how we ended up in the town of Sayre at the Bobcat Creek RV Camp in Oklahoma.

We didn't get very excited when we first read about the Sayre camp since it only had 15 spaces. But Bobcat Creek turned out to be a nice, quiet camp with level spots and a wonderful view. Plus, our nextdoor neighbor turned out to be a super friendly ex-California native like me who has moved his home to Kentucky and is on his way back to the "Golden State" to retrieve his stuff.

So, all's well that ends well. If we have to put up with the weird step arrangement until we get home, well so be it. Perhaps we'll run across a fellow camper at some point who will clue me in as to how the problem should be fixed. If not, perhaps fate will feel sorry for us, and the mechanism will simply come back to life. Whatever happens, I'm fine with it. I'm on vacation!

Ciao for now and we you wish an exciting, trouble-free vacation of your own! (Yeah, right!)

P.S. The windmill photos along the way are just thrown in for added interest. Texas is vitually carpeted with windmills. However, the elsusive "great windmill shot" for which I've been dilgently looking is still unrealized.

Day 9 -- Tucumcari, New Mexico to Amarillo, Texas -- 113 Miles

Yes, you can believe it. We only managed to drive 113 miles today. Usually such insignificant mileage totals are my fault, and today was no different. As you motored east on Interstate 40, which runs at times quite close to the old Route 66, I kept seeing things I'd like to shoot.

For instance, we spent a good chunk of the morning motoring adjacent to the largest wind farm I have seen east of the Altamont Pass area of California. If the sun would cooperate and illuminate the cream-colored monsters against a backdrop of darker clouds, I might get a good photo. Naturally I started looking for an offramp that might get me close enough and maybe even provide a good foreground subject.

So it was that as we approached the offramp for the tiny town of Vega west of Amarillo, I turned on the blinker and made my exit. Wonder of wonders, as we pulled into town we came abreast of a marker that proclaimed that we were now located exactly halfway between the starting point of Route 66 in Los Angeles, California, and the ending point in Chicago, Illinois. In addition to the roadside historic marker denoting Vega's half way status, there was a broad white line on the pavement to make sure you didn't miss the point.

Forgetting all about the windmills, I parked the rig under a giant CAFE sign for some long-gone restaurant and leaped from my seat with camera in hand. Because the few surviving motels and restaurants in Vega are anxious to lure travelers inside their establishments even today, the roadside glitz and whimsical antiques were on display in living color. Everything from long-dead automobiles covered with clever grafitti, to displays like a rusty coke machine and an ancient gasoline price board were just a short walk from the rig.

Naturally, it took me so long to shoot everything from at least there differenbt angles that it was lunchtime before I finished. Finding a seemingly unused piece of commerical real estate, we pulled off the main street and spent a pleasant hour having lunch.

After lunch my mind drifted back to the need to find a windmill shot, so we picked a street in Vega that seemed to lead to a decent stand of windmills and we motored off in that direction. Unfortunately, when the city street turned to gravel and then turned to a dead end at the edge of a farmer's field, I determined that the shot was not to be. We still weren't close enough nor had a decent foreground scene to make a good photo.

Rolling back towards mainstreet, we came upon a truly great example of a Route 66 filling station located just across the street from the courthouse that had been restored and turned into a sort of Chamber of Commerce display. Once I had stopped to photograph the filling station, it was perfectly logical that I should cross the street and photograph the "World's Largest Branding Iron" on the museum property there.

While I was lining up the shot for the branding iron, a museum docent came out and wanted to know if I'd like to come inside and see the rest of the exhibits. When I said I really couldn't spend that much time, he suggested I at least photograph the two vintage cars that the museum had on display. Naturally, I had to grab those shots as well, along with the cool mural that the museum had someone paint on their outside wall.

By now most of the day had flown by. Our clock said two o'clock and we still needed to try and reach Amarillo to do some badly needed shopping and to pick up a perscription at Walmart.

Sadly, the windfarm dropped behind us as we took to Interstate 40 and continued our sojourn into Amarillo. But just moments later, I perked up again as we passed a whole line of Cadillacs with their noses buried in the earth of someone's farm field. "I'm going to have to come back here in the morning and get this shot," I told Concetta, and she agreed that would be great.

Before long we rolled into Amarillo city proper and with the help of the GPS unit we quickly found the Walmart and hurried inside to accomplish our shopping. This particular store was about three times as busy as our local store in Nevada, but we made the best of it and were soon headed for checkout.

Almost immediately I botched the checkout procedure as I hit the hand-held scanner button once too often and rang an item up twice. But with the help of a kind and helpful Vietnam vet, we soon were straightened out and had checked and sacked all our groceries and were headed for the exit.

Imagine our dismay as we reached the exit and discovered that it was pouring rain outside. Usually we park the rig as far away from the store as possible so as not to inconvenience other customers, and this time was no exception. Neither of us are up to do much running anymore, but we did our best to not get drenched by hobbling briskly.

At this point we decided that it was just too late to attempt to leave town and find a camp further along our intended route. So we called a nearby camp that we had seen just before leaving the Interstate to find Walmart and they agreed to rent us a spot for the night. Incredibly enough, the camp was called "Cadillac RV Park" in homage to the row of buriend Cadillacs and sports quite a display of Cadillacs of their own.

So that's it for today. We're all set up for the night, I've bought my "Get Your Kicks on Route 66" t-shirt which I couldn't pass up in the gift shop, and tomorrow we'll be headed just down the road to capture the row of Cadillacs "on film" so to speak before we resume our journey east.

Hopefully, we'll have just as much fun and just as many distractions as we did today, but maybe we'll get a few more miles on the clock. Until then, we'll saty ciao and wish you many happy adventures of your own!

Day 8 -- Albuquerque to Tucumcari, New Mexico -- 163 Miles

Today we rolled out of Albuquerque under blue skies, fluffy white clouds -- well, most of them -- and resumed our sojourn east in search of adventure and fairly decent RV parks. Our plan initially was to stop at the office laundry facility, and, if found empty, to gather up the bedding, towels, and other hamper items and do some washing machine duty.

Amazingly enough, not a soul was present in the laundry roomm, and we had an amazing opportunity to do ALL our laundry without having to wait for anyone else. I told Concetta to bogart the three machines we needed, and I'd dash back to the rig and bring all the washables to her.

Sadly, by the time I had accumulated everything, a six-foot tall, tattoo-covered bruiser driving a lifted black four-wheel drive truck had arrived, ambled into the washing machine room like he owned the place, and grabbed the two washers that Concetta had not yet actually covering with crime scene tape to protect. Since he was a good two feet taller and outweighing her by at least a hundred pounds, she decided to keep mum and just be glad she managed to keep one machine to herself. We got to wash the sheets and towels, but I got to lug the rest of the laundry back to the rig and hope for another opportunity down the road.

When 10 o'clock rolled around, we were finished and were rolling down old Highway 66 toward the nearest onramp for Interstate 40. Now is probably a good time to explain why we're spending so much time on the Interstate unlike our usual vacations. The reason is pretty simple. Over the past half dozen or more RV trips, we have racked up around 50,000 miles, a large percentage of which has been criss-crossing the southwestern states. Since this time our plans are to spend more time in the southeastern part of the country, it makes more sense to more quickly and more directly reach the Mississippi before we start exploring the backroads.

It turned out to be weird sort of day in more ways than one. In addition to the laundry, we really needed to buy a few grocery items just as soon as we spotted our traditional shopping mecca, the ubiquitous Walmart. Though I have spent a large portion of my life avoiding the Walmart like I avoid people with the flu, once we became RVers we soon learned that Walmart is your very best friend in the world when you're on the road. They stock every conceivable item you might want in your rig including those special items on the RVers aisle like sewer hose extensions.

Today, I solemnly swear that we did not see a single Walmart, at least one on our side of the freeway, the over the entire day. I think we did see one initially as we careened through Albuquerque on our way out of town. But caught between armies of 18-wheelers, getting to the offramp in time would have proven impossible. Naturally, we told ourselves that there would be another one on the horizon in thirty minutes or less. Well, that didn't happen, and we never saw another one all day. "Okay, fine," Concetta said. "We'll just make do with the groceries we have." Yes, I thought, maybe tomorrow will surprise us with better luck.

After leaving Albuquerque (which I'm spelling correctly like a pro now), we spent a very pleasurable day just enjoying the rolling plains and scanning the horizon for anything that might make good photo subjects. We hadn't really seen anything we could conveniently reach from the Interstate -- part of the reason we don't usually travel the "four-lanes" -- so we just sat back and enjoyed New Mexico.

Around lunch time, we pulled into a rest stop packed with legions of tractor-trailer rigs that had left scant room for us pipsqueek RVers. Fortunately, we eventually saw an overflow parking area off to the southeast that had plenty of room and was far enough away from the trucks so that their engine noise wouldn't overwhelm our lunchtime ambience.

That's when I finally saw my photo opportunity. I had been eating my sandwich while idly surfing Facebook, when I happened to glance out the window and saw the perfect shot for a person wanted to write something about commerce in America. Dropping my sandwich on the plate, I grabbed the camera and sprinted for the door before the scene outside had a chance to change subject matter or lighting. "Be right back," I said to Concetta, and was gone.

Commerce in America is always a subject that I find fascinating, especially as we motor across America and see literally thousands of trucks crossing the country in both directions every day. In addition, if you have an opportunity to remain in one place in the vicinity of a set of railroad tracks, you soon find out that mile-long trains rumble by every quarter of an hour or so.

Today, while we were waiting for the laundry in Albuquerque, I conducted a test I like to do in such sedentary moments. I picked out a point at the edge of the Interstate, in this case a tree, and every time an 18-wheeler reached my point of reference I counted it. Most of the time I use a time increment of just two minutes, which is what I did today. Although I viewed the traffic volumne as "light" compared to what I have seen in the past, I counted 18 commercial big rigs passing my reference tree. Doing the math, that's one every 6.5 seconds or so, and 12,960 trucks in a 24-hour period. Truly awesome!

So when I looked out my window and saw the most handsome line of trucks imagineable, I just had to have that shot. Fortunately, nobody moved their truck while I was shooting, but soon after trucks began to leave and more trucks arrived. I had grabbed just the perfect moment to attain my goal. So far I haven't captured any photos of trains hauling double-stacked cargo boxes, hopper cars of coal, or graffitti-embellished automobile carriers, but I'm watching out for my chance.

This afternoon we sort of took a wrong turn trying to follow a segment of Route 66 while scouting for our evening camp in Tucumcari, New Mexico. Our destination had the unlikely name of Blaze-In-Saddle RV Park and you'd think we'd have seen it from the Interstate, but unfortunately we zigged when we should have zagged and ended up closer to the competitive KOA camp on the south side of the Interstate. But Concetta got the camp host on the phone and soon worked out that we had wandered off down a country road instead of sticking to Route 66 on the north side. When we reversed our direction, thanks to a farmer's muddy driveway, we soon came upon the our sought-after camp and all was well. Even better, the laundry room at Blaze-In-Saddle was completely empty, and we got to complete our unfinished washing chore from this moring.

So all was well that ended well. Hopefully, tomorrow we will be more successful in finding the elusive Walmart and will complete the other chore we didn't complete today. So until then, we wish you many happy adventures of your own.