Michael blew through town last night/this morning and left behind a minor mess. Nearly ever horizontal surface in our neighborhood is covered in thousands of twigs and leaves and bitty branch ends. Sure glad the hurricane was slowed down by 300 miles of land, instead of the usual 150 miles, before he made it here.
Sometime this past Monday or Tuesday the Lady Bug passed the 29,000 mile mark.
As I’ve mentioned a bunch of times before here, we always park way far out in parking lots, for both the walk and to avoid door dings. Trouble is, that more times than not, we will come out and find that someone has parked their very large truck right next to us blocking our view for pulling out of the spot.
Today when we pulled into Kroger’s to pick up a couple things, I noticed this large truck parked way out with nobody else around it, so to give one of the them a taste of the same sort of inconvenience, I parked right next to them.
I think I made my point.
Somewhere on our shopping trip drive the Angry Ladybug crossed the 28,000 mile mark.
Day 26 of our 2018 Jumbo Road Trip.
Gainesville, TX to Minden, LA. We walked a half mile into downtown Gainesville for breakfast on the recommendation of the clerk who checked us in last night. We ate at a place called Fried Pie Co. & Restaurant. Because we were at a place with Fried Pies in their name, we both opted to try one for breakfast and both our reviews of this dish was, “Interesting, not bad, but I bet the fruit pies are better.”
For lunch we didn’t need a recommendation because we knew just where we were eating because we had eaten there 4 years ago. I had even planned our return route through the city of Paris, TX so we could get a hamburger and fries at Burgerland. The 65′ Eiffel Tower replica with a giant red cowboy hat on top was a bonus. The hamburgers are of course awesome, but the fries don’t really take second billing here, they are hand cut, salted just right and a single order consists of about 26,000 potatoes. Not only is the their food fantastic, it is easy on the wallet too. Two burgers, a small order of fries and a large drink came to $14.75.
We did manage to grab a couple of geocaches before lunch in Paris and had plans for more after, along a 10 mile long walking/biking path, cheekily called Trail de Paris, but one look at the sky and another at the weather radar made us just hop in the car and head east as fast as the speed limit would allow.
About ten miles from arriving at tonight’s hotel the Lady Bug ticked over 26,000 miles.
The above photo came from Burgerland’s Facebook page, the ones below are mine.
Day 24 of our 2018 Jumbo Road Trip.
Albuquerque, NM to Amarillo, TX. 4 for 5 in geocaching. A couple of them had no container required, just a photo or a question answered and the two small containers we had no difficulty with, but the one regular sized one, we just couldn’t find. 🙁
We did a few other stops today besides the geocaching and eating or rest breaks, first up was the Bosque Redondo Memorial in Fort Sumner, NM. The Bosque Redondo spot was very interesting. Do yourself a favor and click the link and at least read the main page. Neither Donna nor I knew nothing about the history this place represents until we stumbled on the little red square on the New Mexico state map that was right along our route. A little humbling when you are confronted with something of this sort. Reminded us of our visit a couple years ago of Manzanar Camp.
Secondly, by some sort of weird quirk, also in Fort Sumner, is the grave of Billy the Kid. We stopped outside the cemetery to take a quick photo, but didn’t bother to go in. What is even quirkier for us is, with absolute no pre-planning we have now happened to pass thru two of the three towns that claim to be the burial site of Henry McCarty, AKA Billy the Kid. On the way west we stopped in the small town of Hico, TX for a leg stretch and there was a small museum dedicated to The Kid who they believed wasn’t killed by Pat Garret in NM, but lived out a quiet life there and died in 1950. And had we known we were going thru two, we could have adjusted our route in Arizona, adding a mere 100 extra miles, and hit the third in Prescott, AZ. Billy the Kid Wikipedia Page.
The third stop is obvious from the photos above and below, Cadillac Ranch (it is a mere 3-1/2 miles from tonight’s hotel.) I have now been to both of the Big Two of car related Roadside America having visited Carhenge back in 2009
On the way back to the hotel in Albuquerque after breakfast the Lady Bug crossed the 25,000 mile mark.
Day 21 of our 2018 Jumbo Road Trip.
Glenbrook, NV to Beatty, NV with a dip into Death Valley. Today was the first of ten travel days on the drive back home. Our Nevada drive today was a much better one than the one eight days ago and a thousand miles ago. Zero interstate and practically zero rain. We did do three widely separated geocaches on the day just to get in a couple of small leg stretches as an accompaniment to our usual snack stops along the way.
After dinner in Beatty we took a small drive down into Death Valley. A few miles into the park, NV374 turns into Daylight Pass Road and it falls from 4300 feet to below sea level in 13 miles. And even though the sun was already dropping behind the mountains to the west, the temperature in the valley was 101° (it was 80° at the top.)
Somewhere between Mina and Coaldale, Nevada along US95 South, the Angry Ladybug flapped her wings past the 24,000 mile mark.
Day 12 of our 2018 Jumbo Road Trip.
Green River, UT. to Wendover, UT. Three geocaches today, one at the start near the hotel, one somewhere in the middle of nowhere Utah and one at the end of the day that is just into the state of Nevada. In between those three spots it was raining, somewhere from drizzle up to pouring down. Most of the time the rain wasn’t a problem until we were on I-80 West going 80 MPH among the 18 wheelers and over-sized loads.
Even though the rain pummeling the front of car while doing 80 miles an hour washed almost all the Texas, New Mexico & Arizona bugs off, the rest of the car needed washing, especially the flat back, so we went to a self-service car wash and tried to clean it up. A serviceable job for now, maybe while in Lake Tahoe I can get a chance to do it right.
Somewhere close to the burgeoning ghost town of Eureka, Utah the Lady Bug crossed over the 23,000 mile mark. When we got to the Bonneville Salt Flats I was going to see about celebrating by trying to see how fast I could her up to on the 2 mile raceway, but because of the rain, the salt was still wet. You are not supposed to drive on it then.
Day 8 of our 2018 Jumbo Road Trip.
Albuquerque, NM to Albuquerque, NM. No geocaching today, but we didn’t just sit around the hotel. First we went out to breakfast on the edge of Old Town at the Central Grill and Coffee House. Donna had her go to Eggs Benedict and I opted for the Waffle Dogs (maple sausage links, dipped in waffle batter and deep fried.) Afterwards we drove over to the minor league baseball stadium to check out parking and seating locations. The Albuquerque Isotopes are a Triple A affiliate of the Colorado Rockies and they were playing a matinee game that we thought we might attend.
When we did head over to the game we were unpleasantly surprised to find out that for a week day morning start the place was probably going to sell out the 13,000 plus stadium. Traffic was creeping along to get to parking and there were hoards of people walking towards the stadium. As we got closer and noticed the crowds trying to get into the park we decided we didn’t want to see a baseball game after all.
Instead we took a drive up to the top of Sandia Peak to get a look back down on the town Albuquerque from nearly 22,000 half-feet (10,679 whole feet) high. After coming back down we drove north towards Santa Fe on scenic NM14. We stopped in the small artsy community of Madrid1 where we spent one night instead of two back in 2009.
In spite of it being an off day we drove almost 200 miles and just south of Madrid the Lady Bug ticked over the 22,000 mile mark.
