'My cup runneth over......'

6:46 am - Saturday - January 26th - Sun Valley, AZ - 18º F, 84% humidity, wind 3 mph out of the south by southwest....clear skies today with a forecast high of 51º F.  Ironically, in Flagstaff which is 2,000' higher in elevation it is 30º F this morning!

As Friday morning wore on more and more pictures began to appear on social media as family members began to arrive at the hospital to welcome Crosby Mark into the world....

Back row, right to left: Tim (father), Cynthia (grand daughter), Jennifer (Laila's mother), Rochelle (daughter-in-law), Chris (son) Front row, right to left: Crosby, Laila, Cathy (Laila's grand mother), Alexis (cousin of Laila)

 The happy, but exhausted parents and Crosby

......'My cup runneth over....'

We planned to roll our wheels a little later in the morning so we would not arrive at our destination too early in the day.  The Jello plan was for us to roll our wheels out of the Route 66 Casino RV Resort around 10 am, and then 'pay the rent' at the Route 66 Fuel Station at the entrance to the property.  Their CASH price for diesel was $2.71, and that is about the best we can expect for a while.  We took on just shy of 111 gallons for $300, and that will probably be the last time we fill up for a while as we are within 100 miles of our destination....Flagstaff.

We were merging back on I-40 around 10:30 am with clear blue skies from horizon to horizon, and no wind whatsoever......

......the driving was easy, and traffic was light.  We began gaining elevation almost immediately and eventually found ourselves crossing the Continental Divide for the last time in along time at just under 7,300'......

.....of course with the elevation gain we began to see snow on the ground, and I had to turn on our chassis heater to keep us warm.....

.....between us and our destination was the Petrified Forest National Park, emphasis on 'National'.   We had passed by this National Park several times over the years always telling ourselves we would stop 'next time'.  Well 'next time' was Friday.  Regretfully, the park was closed, except for the Visitors Center, due to the Federal government being shut down.  Nevertheless, we decided to stop and check out the Visitors Center, see the ubiquitous movie that is always offered at most National Parks, and then take a short 2.5 mile hike to the Painted Desert vista point.....

....the vista point was spectacular, and I wish we had been able to drive into, and through the park, but alas that will have to be 'next time'......

 Click on this pano to enlarge.....

 Hopi House

.....we arrived at the Visitors Center around 1:30 pm and did not leave until almost 3:30....our 2.5 mile round trip hike took us about an hour of that time.  We were only 17 miles east of our destination for the day, a Passport America park in Sun Valley, AZ (just east of Holbrook, AZ)......

......we chose site #2 which faces away from the Interstate and gave us a great, unobstructed view of the giant horizon....after I finished setting up for the night I sat down and just stared at the view......nothing like the high desert near sundown......

Old sign on premises...you can just make out the words....'GAS Sold Here'.....very cool!

.....my medical appointments in Flagstaff are on the 29th and 30th, so we will continue on to Winslow, AZ Saturday where we will hang out at lower elevations for a few days before heading up to frigid Flagstaff (4,300' elevation versus 7,200' elevation).

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8 lbs 11 oz........

6:57 am - Friday - January 25th - Albuquerque, NM - 20º F ('feels like' 13º F), 79% humidity, wind 4 mph out of the northwest.......clear blue skies today with a forecast high of 46º F.  We roll our wheels in 3 hours!

Our Jello plan was to be on the road between 10 and 11 am Thursday headed further west, but by 9 am, after very little discussion, we opted to stay put for another day at the lovely Route 66 Casino RV Park.  I needed to dump our black tank, clean a month of road grime off the outside of our many windows,  lube the cruise control cable, and frankly, just enjoy being outside in the sun with no wind.  Additionally, we had noted in the RV park brochure that we were 1.2 miles away from the "World Famous" Laguna Burger in Rio Puerco, NM at the 66 Pit Stop fuel station (exit 140 off I-40 westbound) just across I-40......

......Yelp gives them 4.5 stars on 131 reviews....there are currently 3 locations (Laguna, NM; Albuquerque, NM; Rio Puerco, NM).....there is no way we can be this close to a world famous burger and not check it out........

 The famous Laguna Burger......1/2 lb certified Angus Beef, cheese, jalapenos, lettuce, tomato, salsa....one of the 5 best I have ever had!

Love their simple menu....

.....about 1 pm (after completing the tasks I listed above) we walked the 1.2 miles over to Laguna Burger.  By this time the wind had risen to 15-17 mph (not in the forecast), but the sun was out to somewhat mitigate the chilly wind.  Laguna Burger has a very simple menu which revolves around their famous burger.

We ended up covering 2.5 miles on our round trip walk to Laguna Burger

On our way home we stopped off to view the 'Historic Route 66 Rio Puerco Bridge', a 'Parker Through Truss' bridge which is among the longest truss bridges in New Mexico at 250' long....

.....good on the state of New Mexico for preserving this bridge....it is no longer in use, but still there for us to view a great example of truss bridges in general.

We were home just before 3 pm.....it's a good thing we had the 1.2 mile walk home....it helped burn off a few of those Laguna Burger calories.  Being that the sun sets around 5:30 pm it had already begun to cool off significantly, so we found ourselves staying inside the balance of the afternoon and evening.

Since Tuesday afternoon our daughter-in-law, Laila, had been at the hospital waiting to deliver our 7th grandchild, Crosby Mark, and finally, on January 24, 2019 around 8:22 pm (Pacific Time) after 2.5 days he was delivered into the world by Laila weighing in at 8 lbs, 11 oz.....he is 20" long and looks like he is a month old already.......

.......our son Tim, and Laila are doing great, and totally in love with their son, as are we.  We are looking forward to being formally introduced to this young man!  Congratulations to Tim and Laila!

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Completely deflated.....

6:54 am - Thursday - January 24th - Albuquerque, NM - 30º F ('feels like' 24º F), 55% humidity (love it!), wind 6 mph out of the north by northwest.  Crystal clear blue skies today with a forecast high of 48º F.  Sunrise is 7:11 am, and sunset is 5:28 pm.

As you will recall we awoke to a frozen world Wednesday morning.....the 'feels like' temperature was 10º.  At one time we had three electric heaters, plus all 3 gas heaters running full blast to take the chill off the Newell interior.  Sometimes when it is bitter cold we will lose some air from our airbags which we use to level the coach, and this was the case Wednesday morning.  Often it is the right side of the coach that settles, and I simply turn on the leveling system and let a little air out of the driver side airbags to bring it level again, but when I attempted this nothing happened.  I looked at the air pressure gauges (there are two) and saw that the PSI was just above 10 PSI, which essentially means we have no air pressure....

Note the red lines I have drawn on this picture in the upper left of each gauge...that is where the gauges were Wednesday morning

......hmmmm, that is worrying, right?  Of course my mind always goes to the worst case scenario, and that is there are more MAC air valves going bad.  Of course, the worst is rarely ever the case.   We planned to roll our wheels about 9 am, so about 8 am I attempted to fire up the Detroit Diesel, but I was unable to give it any throttle as I had no air pressure, and my throttle, of course, is air activated......air pressure is needed to operate the throttle.  Since I could give it no throttle the engine kept dying.  Okay, I can solve that problem!   I go out side to the passenger side engine bay and set up my pancake compressor to feed air back into my system. It takes about 10 minutes to bring the air pressure to just shy of 110 PSI, and I am then able to start the big DD 6V92.  While it is idling I quickly put away the pancake compressor.  

All the while TLE has been putting the interior into travel order so by the time I get back inside we are ready to roll.....it is just 8:30 am.....a little earlier than we like, but we rolled our wheels anyway.  By the time we merged onto I-40 the PSI was running at 120 PSI, which is where it should be.   As we left frigid Amarillo in our rear view mirror......

.....the views gradually opened up, which we had missed for such a long time.....

.....just shy of noontime we entered New Mexico, and the Mountain Time Zone, so now it was just shy of 11 am.....another hour retrieved on our way back to the Pacific Time Zone.....

.....in Amarillo we were sitting at about 3,600' elevation, but as we put mile after mile behind us we were gaining elevation.....soon we passed 5,000' elevation, and about 50 miles east of Albuquerque we topped out at 7,200' elevation

7,200' elevation....heading downhill into Albuquerque now

......as we passed through Albuquerque about 1:30 pm we were back down to 5,200' elevation, and when we exited I-40 westbound we were at 5,300' elevation.  We had covered some 320 miles, but it did not feel like 320 miles.  The drive Wednesday was such a pleasure we blew right by our originally planned stop about 40 miles east of Albuquerque, and continued on another 60 miles to our present location......Route 66 Casino and RV Resort, about 20 miles west of Albuquerque.....

......there are 100 sites in this pretty new RV park at the Casino, and all the interior roads are paved, with each site having a 45' concrete pad.  There were very few RV's in the park when we arrived at 2 pm, but by nightfall there were probably a dozen.  The views are gigantic, and unspoiled.....we may just be tempted to stay here for more than one night.....suweet.  There was, and is not a breath of wind, and the sun feels so good.  Of course, the low humidity (55%) doesn't hurt even a little.

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The color is Yellow......

7:18 am - Sunday - April 22nd - Amarillo, TX - 41º F, 91% humidity, wind 7 mph out of the northwest....forecast high for Amarillo today is 64º F.......mostly clear skies after a little rain yesterday.....we only experienced some sprinkles west of here for a few minutes.  Will be on the road in less than an hour.

It was quite cold (34º F) Sunday morning in Edgewood, NM, and it took about an hour using the block heater to warm the big 6V92 up enough to start her.  We were back on eastbound I-40 by 8:30 am heading for, we hoped, Amarillo, TX.......another state and another time zone change......more clock changing ahead.

The skies started out partly cloudy, and by the time we arrived in Amarillo (means yellow in Spanish) around 3 pm Central Time it was totally overcast, however, I get ahead of myself.  The road surface was as smooth as a baby's butt most of the day, and mostly flat.  The engine temps ran in the low 180's most of the day climbing into the 190's on short climbs......perfect!  It was really just a matter of me hanging onto the steering wheel and enjoying the giant views...... 

......by  11 am we were coming into Tucumcari, NM which is about the last large (I use that word advisedly) New Mexico city on I-40 before the Texas border.  We stopped overnight in Tucumcari about 9 years ago, and while it was kind of a sleepy little town on a Sunday afternoon, it seemed there were a lot of active businesses.  We took a walk that day down Route 66 about 6 blocks to visit the local supermarket.  Below you see the local supermarket all boarded up in the background on Saturday, April 21, 2018.  It seemed that about 50% of the local businesses were closed for good.....

.....it was a little sad to see the stark decline in just 9 years.  We took our second break of the day in Tucumcari at the abandoned supermarket and then continued our quest to cross another state line.  Within an hour we were saying goodbye to New Mexico and being welcomed into Texas.......

.....the terrain did not immediately change, but within 20 miles we came to the flat Texas landscape with which we are well acquainted.........

........with 100's of windmills covering the landscape in every direction......we were passed by a couple of  'Tiny Homes' along the way.......

.....at last we were on the outskirts of Amarillo and our destination for Saturday......the Cracker Barrel just off the Interstate on the north side.  We exited the Interstate and made our way over to the RV parking area in the Cracker Barrel parking lot.....

.....found a spot that suited us and parked.  This is only the second time the RV parking has been long enough for our 62'.  The only other time we have found long RV spots was at the Cracker Barrel in Missoula, MT a few years ago.  The time was about 3 pm Central Time, and the skies looked quite threatening, although we did not get any rain.

We went into the Cracker Barrel about 5:45 pm to have breakfast for dinner.....I had their Oltimer Breakfast (2 eggs, bacon, grits, biscuits and gravy).  Service is always quite fast, and true to form within about 8, or 9 minutes we had our food and were sipping coffee.  We talked about how idyllic the day had been, and our Jello plans for Sunday.....hopefully we will enter another state (Oklahoma), but no new time zones.

After returning to the coach I decided to spend the evening setting up our ROKU TV channels.  Many of the channels we watch are already included in the 'Home' menu, but we had to add about 6, or 7 more which takes a while.  By the end of the evening we were set, and as I write this latest missive I am watching British Premier Soccer on ROKU TV......no turning on the DirecTV DVR, or cranking up the satellite dish.....just turn on my Samsung hotspot, and turn on the TV and we are in business.....perfect for traveling.....quick and easy!

We watched Masterchef Junior before retiring the for evening at 10 pm, which is really 8 pm Pacific Time......my body is still adjusting.

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