Chaos Leaves Town

I spent two days at Sleepy Sunflower RV Park in Ogallala, NE, mostly because I felt like taking a day off from travel, and there was a big storm rolling down into South Dakota north of Ogallala a hundred miles or so, but covering the area where I’d be traveling. The days when I’d make a dash somewhere, traveling day after day, for up to 7 days, are gone. I’m just not going to do that anymore, preferring to do a leisurely trip and stop for a couple days in one place before driving on. I don’t miss driving every day either. That was caused by not having a car mostly, but I’ve always packed a bicycle and tried to choose places to stay that had interesting places I could access nearby. Now that I have a towed car, I can stay practically anywhere and not have to worry about getting around easily over longer distances. Makes for easier grocery shopping for one thing. Or checking out auto repair shops, local points of interest, museums, or getting something for the RV at a hardware store.

When planning this days travel, I found that Burwell, Nebraska has a city park with RV spaces. Though it’s in the middle of nowhere, it’s about halfway between Ogallala and Sioux Falls, SD which was my destination this portion of the trip.

Here’s a look at the countryside around here as I headed north, leaving I-80 behind. Nice comfortable drive on a nice warm day.

And boom…there’s this snow! WTH?  And then I remembered why I’d stayed in Ogallala for an extra night. To let this storm pass over the areas I planned on driving. My planning saw that I missed this storm by one day, and it had passed to the north of Ogallala so I’d not noticed any poor weather from it. There was snow on the crest of nearly every hill I drove over in the drainage ditches and alongside the road but always on the north slopes except one spot where it was so thick, there was still snow on both sides of the road. And these aren’t mountains by any stretch of the imagination. Here’s the outside temp as I passed one of the snow piles. The storm was the last gasp of winter in this area.

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Pueblo is a strange big town. It doesn’t seem to be fully aware of what it wants to become. But, the downtown river park is a good beginning of perhaps a revival. The downtown core outside of the Riverwalk area is rather dismal without much to recommend it from a touristy viewpoint but there was some massive construction going on in the core that should help the looks somewhat in a year or two.

The KOA RV park I was staying at is like a 20 minute drive from the downtown core of Pueblo but I had found a brochure about the River Park and I wanted to see that, despite the long drive. Many of you long term readers know I’m not a big fan of KOA’s at all due to their excessive charges for plain RV sites and that was true this stop, but like I said last time, my first choice was full, and it had been late when I arrived in town so sort of had to stay here. And then there was the wind storm that was heading through the area. I had first paid for 1 night but the reasonable speed internet along with the wind storm forecasts had me stay for 3 nights total. Anyway, I headed downtown for a tour of the River Park…

I was able to find a parking space just across the street from where the Riverwalk starts so that was nice. And here’s a few pictures of the Historic Arkansas Riverwalk.

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This should be an exciting trip…I planned it late last year and made an appointment at the Winnebago Factory Service department to have some work done on my Journey, along with planning to visit South Dakota and change my residency to that state to take advantage of the lower tag costs for my two vehicles along with other benefits for full time RV’ers. After doing that, which was quickly becoming necessary because my tags on the RV were to expire the week I visited SD, planned on visiting my daughter for a week, and then onto Iowa and the factory.

My drivers license was going to expire too! That was something else since an Oregon license is good for 10 years and here it was about to expire. And I’d not noticed it was getting close until I was in Mexico. Turns out that the temporary Mexican Insurance you’re required to have would have been no good without a legal drivers license…which is why I left early. But for now, back in the states, it’s still good. I just have to get from DeAnza Springs California up to South Dakota around the time it expires. SD has a 60 day grace period in which to renew an expired license so no worries there, I should make it up there with time to spare. I won’t need to take a drivers test or anything, even if it does expire before I get a new one.

So after my week at DeAnza, headed back to Yuma, only this time, I planned on staying at one of the two RV parks along the river. It had gotten so hot there, that I knew there wouldn’t be a problem finding a space at either park because all the snow birds were heading home. One of the parks is a Passport America half price park so that’s where I headed. It’s only a two hour drive from DeAnza Springs and I could have just passed Yuma all together but I wanted to stop there to fuel up and replenish my groceries and I knew where the best places to shop are since my last stay in town. So might as well spend a night or two, get my fuel and shopping done.

And this is what it looks like just outside of Yuma. Just a bit rocky.

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Continued: Except for the lack of grass at the RV spaces, I was quite impressed with this resort. It’s unusual to find such a remote resort with a working bar and cafe. The first night I was there, enjoyed meeting some fellow campers in the bar, and yes most were guys, and most were nude (I wasn’t – it’s optional). The bar tender (clothed) was an interesting gal who lives a 3 hour drive away when she got this job. She was really excited about moving here permanently. Really likes the place and the work. I can see why, nice small laid back bar with a mostly absent owner, bar visitors mostly retired successful business people who either live here for 6 months of the year, or travel here from San Diego or El Centro to spend a weekend. Young folks occasionally who enjoy the nudist lifestyle. And occasionally, for spicing things up, a large biker group will stop here for a weekend.

Thought I’d show a few shots of the place, ‘cus why not?

It was dinner time and looking through the hole in the wall the waiters use to access the bar, you can see the cafe was packed. Everyone is clothed…no nudes in a cafe. Continue reading →

After a great week in San Diego, headed back eastward with a destination in mind. I had originally contacted the DeAnza Springs Resort back when I was in Mexico about staying there as I was bored with El Centro and wanted to try a new place. Had some confusion about their prices, so I contacted them via em and the manager happened to get my email and responded directly. There’s a link to my blog as part of my email signature and the manager offered to give me a discount if I’d give them some exposure. Well, sure I can! So the offer was a weeks stay for $125 instead of $256. The offer was pretty good, and I did want to visit, that lowered price changed my plan from a 2-3 day stay to a 7 day stay.

It only takes 1.5 hours to reach DeAnza from where I was parked at the county park in San Diego so I dawdled there until the 11 am checkout time, then took the freeways east. I did have to stop at a view area to top off my surge tank. After a long uphill pull, my warning light about low coolant came on. I’d installed the new surge tank just a couple months before so I wasn’t that surprised since I wasn’t sure I’d put enough juice in. Topped it off though, and the light went off. I’d just done this road a week before so didn’t take many pictures. Some of the hills were a long climb.

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After a solid hour of wandering through the Star of India, published last time, it was time to move on to the other ships and subs crowding the museum’s dock. I’ll try to get most of them posted this time because it’s almost August now IRL and there’s new adventures to be documented here on the blog. These boats and ships though…so interesting that I wanted to publish about them.

Here’s another look at the dock map. Press and hold the CTRL key on your keyboard while you rotate the scroll wheel on  your mouse to zoom in on the map.

But first, I wanted to tour the HMS Surprise. Continue reading →

As I was touring the USS Midway, I couldn’t help but notice that there were some tall ships not far from the Midway. Like 2 miles away, up the coast and docked along the San Diego harbor. I could see the sails hanging from the masts from the height I was at. I’d been checking things online for several days and somehow missed seeing anything about the tall ships. But this great view the upper decks of the Midway afforded, I decided that I’d make time for a tour of the Maritime Museum San Diego.

After I finished touring the Midway, picked up my car and drove the two miles north up to the Maritime Museum and grabbed one of their brochures, scoped out the parking situation, and made a plan to visit the next morning, planning on arriving early enough to score one of the dockside metered parking spaces. Also planned to park in a centrally located spot so I could periodically come and fill the meter without much hassle. The meters all take either coins or cards. Very handy. And the parking was within a few steps of the entrance to the museum and the museum itself is made up of several restored or reproduction ships from the 1500’s to the Viet Nam war. So you walk the docks as they say visiting one ship at a time.

After gathering some info, went home and rested. All that walking aboard the Midway can take it out of you. Got online and read what I could about the Maritime Museum venue. Their web site isn’t much of an inducement to go visit them though. But it is an adventure of touring ‘Sail to ship to sub’ as they put it. The Yelp reviews I read about it had more content about the museum then their own web site does…which seems to be focused on renting the museum sections out for parties and weddings.

The next morning when I left the county RV park, there were these horses. They came in while I wasn’t watching or I would have come visit them the afternoon previous. It rained a bit last night and the one on the left shrunk. This park has lots of activities for horse people and many horse trails to travel. Have several RV or tent rental spaces with these horse corrals. Kinda cool.

After about 20 freeway travel minutes later, had no trouble finding a parking space right in front of the museum. Then waited the 10 minutes or so until the museum opened. You can see 3 of the attractions in this picture that I’ll eventually tour. The sub, the Berkeley, and the 3 masted ship, the HMS Surprise, next to it. Cost was minimal. I don’t recall how much or where I paid, either inside the Berkeley, or at the kiosk in front of the next ship over. Maybe $8? Not much anyway. You get your hand stamped and that allows you on all water craft. I think the Star of India was an extra charge maybe? Or not. Can’t remember. You should go and let me know. Yeah. Continue reading →

Last time, I had taken the Hornblower hour long harbor cruise to get a good look at the ships around the harbor. I’d planned my visit to the waterfront to include visiting the USS Midway Museum and I’d allowed all day for these two things. But I suppose if you’re not ex-Navy like I am and have less of an interest in ships, a half day would suffice.

Here’s a shot of the Midway from the Hornblower as we docked. My car is somewhere with those others.

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Most folks are well aware of the majestic San Diego Zoo. One of the world’s oldest, largest, and most copied zoos. I’ve been lucky in that I’ve visited a couple times and this time was able to spend all day, or rather most of the day here touring the compounds at my leisure. I drove from the Summit Meadows RV park where I was staying the 16 miles to the zoo in 20 odd minutes and avoided rush hour traffic by leaving around 9 am on a fine April 4th Wednesday. Traffic was fairly light. Arriving at the zoos free parking lot, I first parked way off in the boonies and after walking around a bit to get my bearings, drove over closer to the front gate so I walked into the park around 9:50. I had purchased a ticket on line and my UPC code was scanned right at the entrance turnstiles, bypassing all the people who hadn’t prepurchased their tickets and were now standing in long lines. I’d read enough about the zoo that I knew to head straight for the bus tour gate but even with my early arrival on a weekday while schools were in session, it was still crowded with lots of parents with school age and younger kids in line. After getting in line there at the bus kiosk took almost 1/2 hour to actually board the bus. The buses are double decker with the top side uncovered so I steered myself into the upstairs line for the best view. Turned out I sat on the wrong side of the bus as nearly all the good pictures would have been taken from the other side.

Heading for the buses along with some other folks that were hurrying in my direction towards the buses.

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