New Years Eve Day- through New Mexico

It was so cold and snowy last night and unfortunately Kirk had to get up in the middle of the night to take the dog out (again).  Being on the second floor of the hotel didn't help.  We got up and had free breakfast at the hotel before setting out on a 6 degree frosty morning.  We started seeing lots of buttes covered with new snow and in places all the vegetation was frosty, quite beautiful.  It was hard to tell the road conditions so Kirk was really being conservative which I was grateful for.  We saw one semi that had jackknifed which made it even nerve-wracking. The people at the truck stop in Santa Rosa said we should stay on I-40 towards Albuquerque rather than taking the diagonal state road we had planned on. We got to 7000 ft. elevation and eventually we were able to increase speed to 72 mph.  No snow when we went through ABQ, temp rose to 22!  Followed I-25 south of ABQ in the Rio Grande valley- mountains on both sides, pretty.  Glad to have left the snow behind.  We stopped off at Elephant Butte RV Park (where we will be in March) to check it out- quite a nice place.  Decided to keep going, and pulled over in Las Cruces, NM rather than going on to Tucson tonight and trying to set up in the dark in a temporary site.  High temp today was 38 degrees.  Kirk got camper set up and un-winterized. Milk was frozen in the frig and red wine was cold!  We are at Hacienda RV resort- not many people here. Nice dog walk area. Will go to the nearby winery/pizzeria for dinner: Luna Rossa.

We are not in the habit of going crazy on New Year's Eve anyway.  Dogs seem happy to be in their own "space".  
Happy New Year to all of our friends and family.  We are looking forward to an exciting new year and are anxious to be settled in our new "home" tomorrow! God bless you all!

Subscribe to my blog if you want to!

Hey gang,
I added a subscribe function to my blog (on the right side)  so that if you sign up it will notify you of new posts.  You can add your email address if you are interested.  I can't guarantee I'll be posting daily but it's a nice way to keep a journal for me! Thanks for your interest and miss you all! Nan.

Tuesday's travels from Wichita to Tucumcari, NM

After a free hot breakfast at Best Western hotel we left Wichita about 7:45 so we could travel in daylight. It is snowing and 15 degrees with a wind chill of minus 1.   Headed south again on 35 to try and avoid the snow. Skirted Oklahoma City by 10:30, with a north wind which is making driving difficult for Kirk.  Mileage dropped from 11.5 MPG to 9.5 and lower.  Not much scenery in OK, mostly red rock and juniper bushes with some wind turbine farms and a few oil wells.  It's been a very cloudy day with dropping temps (lowest we saw was 8). We stopped at a rest stop west of Amarillo TX to let the dogs out, I didn't volunteer to get out of the truck!  Still snowing. We decided to stay in Tucumcari NM tonight since it's been such a tiring day of driving with the strong cross winds.  Could not get in at the Holiday Inn Express so went next door to the La Quinta and got one of the last rooms. Luckily they take dogs!  We went to the K-Bobs Steak House next door (thank goodness we could eat somewhere that wasn't fast food) but their power was acting up so my food was cold and there was smoke in the air because their exhaust fans weren't working.  They couldn't take credit cards so we had to pay cash.  Mostly older couples were there, obviously other snowbirds trying to find warmer weather!!   We got a fraud alert on both our credit cards today- we forgot to call them and tell them we'd be traveling.  Always a good idea to do that before you leave! Attaching a picture I took out the window at the rest stop in Texas and when we entered New Mexico.  BRRR- can't wait to get somewhere warm!

First long day on the road- Oregon WI to Wichita KS

Monday 12/29/14 was a long day- we left Oregon, WI at 6:30 a.m. and headed southwest on 151 through Platteville, then took 35 south through Dubuque, Des Moines, and Kansas City MO. Three stops for fuel, we didn't get to have lunch until 4:00 because it's hard to just pull into any food place with this rig, you almost have to eat at the truck stops where you are getting fuel.  We put over 600 miles on in about 11 hours of driving, getting an average of about 10 mpg.  Got to Wichita, KS about 6:15 p.m. and checked into a Best Western near the airport.  Ole and Lexi have been good travelers.  We had a burger and wine at the hotel lounge before going to bed around 10:00. Kirk had to get up and take Lexi out about 1 a.m. and I got up at 5:15 to let both dogs out.  It is snowing and the wind chill is 1.  Major cold snap in most of the Midwest.  We are going to head out once it gets light out.  Looks like we will be fighting a north wind today.  Hope to get to Santa Rosa New Mexico (a little further than our original plans of staying in Tucumcari, NM).  I was surprised to see how hilly Iowa and Kansas were in general.  It wasn't a boring drive. Saw lots of hawks by the road, some oil wells and two funny town names- What Cheer in Iowa and Peculiar in Missouri. Feel free to share my site with others, I haven't figured out how to do that other than by email.

Packers 30 Lions 20 On to the playoffs!

We watched the Packer game at Kelly and Billy's, thank goodness we won!!  On to the playoffs with a bye next week.  Let's hope that Aaron Rodgers can heal up his injured calf in two weeks.  Grandpa Kirk is playing house with Anna.  We will get up early and leave for the south Monday morning.  So thankful for good roads so far!!  Keep up with our travels- it is sure to be an adventure!

New snow in Tomahawk, time to take off!

On Saturday 12/27 we had over 7" of new snow.  it was fairly heavy and Kirk spent some time removing it while I packed the camper.  After a nice walk with the dogs we went to church.  Not too many people there!  we had leftovers for supper, watched some TV and went to bed early.  The roads were very good Sunday so we cleaned out the frig, turned off the water, and finished putting the final items in the camper.  Left town about 11:30 a.m. and got to Madison about 3:00, in time for the Packer's game!
Thanks Dawn and WVS for the cute banner- it is packed and ready for the warm weather!

Packing for 3+ months on the road

Packing our 35 foot travel trailer will be a challenge as storage space is of course limited.  We have our normal kitchen stuff and linens always packed, it's just the food and clothes that are left.  I started a list 2 months ago as I thought of things I wanted to take along.  The hardest part of deciding what to take is remembering the everyday things you don't even think about until you need them. That is the challenge! We have extra bedding in case we get any visitors- they can use our pull out coach/bed.  We have already purchased an extra tower electric heater for those cold Arizona nights to save on our LP gas.

Family is so important!

This is our family. We were all together at Kelly and Billy's after Thanksgiving. It will be very hard to leave them for the winter but we'll depend on FaceTime to keep in touch.  Anna is changing and growing so fast!  Not sure when we'll see Kevin again.  Retirement will give us more time to travel and see the country and visit with friends and family who live far away.  It will be exciting!