Riverbend Campground

Here we are on the Hiawassee River at a small Vintage Camper Rally.  Ronnie arrived yesterday as did we and Caroline will be here after work tonight.  Had a great Fish Fry last night and met other vintage campers (yup, both camper trailers and campers are vintage...)

Campground is very nice with the river at our sites, ice cream available til 9:30PM, nice bathrooms, and gorgeous gardens.  Once again I am reminded that gardens do much better in cool weather, unlike the deer infested, hot, humid gardens in Bluffton SC.  The guys are off golfing and I took a nice walk - cool enough to do that midmorning.  The photo is the first glimpse of the Blue Ridge Mountains on our way here.

Mississippi

Saturday was cross the Mississippi River Day!  We were on our way to Natchez, hoping to see a bit of the town Greg Iles describes so well in his novels.  The bridge we crossed looked like Christo had visited - they were working on the lanes heading West and had draped tge bridge with canvas.  Hard to see in the photo...

Decided to have lunch at the Magnolia  Bluff Casino that is right on the river - just in case there was an empty seat at a Black Jack table.  Unfortunately when we finished it started raining hard so our tour of Natchez was shortened to seeing buildings on our way out of town.  The downtown area was reminiscent of Charleston.  

We found our campground outside Meridian MS - a pretty city that reminded us of many Southern cities with sprawling suburbs.  The campground was at Lake Okatibbee - close in name to Okatie!  Maybe our GPS knows we are heading home!   This was our last night camping with Hilda.  Sunday we will be at Bradberry's "Trailer Park". And home on Tuesday.  It has been a great adventure!

Hello Louisiana!

We decided to forego the Silos during today's business hours - we drove around them last night and learned that seeing the Silos is like getting a closeup of Old Faithful!  You have to go early and be willing to wait in Waco's heat as well as fight the crowds.  Plus parking with a camper is another hurdle.  Just seeing them at night was fun - the Bakery is easy to udentify with its grass checkerboard area.  The whole area has been renewed with buildings nearby coming back to life with restaurants and shops.  Nice to see that.  

So we left Waco mid morning and arrived at our Toledo Bay campground on Sabine Lake in Louisiana in time for early cocktails!  The lake is gorgeous and the campground very pleasant - many families head here for weekends and a longer stay in the summer.  It is HOT and most campers bring these huge fans that you normally see in warehouses!  Good idea!

On the drive through Texas we saw the landscape becoming more wooded and hilly - very pretty with mild winters and horrendous summers.  Lots of small towns with gutted Main Streets - so sad.  Once in a while there was a tiny town with lovely buildings - why are they there?

First time seeing a church with red paint!

Kosse Texas

We ate lunch at Davy Crockett's Bar and Grill in Crockett Texas.  Outside in the parking lot was an ice cube  shaped kiosk where you could fill gallon jugs with fresh water for 25 cents or buy ice.  Different!

So now I am hoping for a good sunset shot - first time our camper has faced West over the water!

Good night Louisiana!

Waco

The drive to our wonderful campground in Waco had its interesting moments.  Lots of farm land as well as some wide open spaces replaced the wind farms.  There were some tiny towns and one had two unique sales centers.

Who thought you could buy a ready made deer stand complete with camouflage and gun slots!  Having grown up with a deer hunting father,  I thought the idea was to HUNT deer, not sit and wait for them - but what do I know?

Across from the deer stands was an entire store of things I wanted to buy - anyone who knows Sun City's rules knows I would landscape every inch of my yard with items from this store - alas, we only bought some salsa and home made jelly.

We arrived at the campground - why are we only spending one night here???

Hmmm - maybe we will stay longer.  

Roscoe Wind Farm

Google the title of this post after you stop laughing...😂🤣😁😉

Wide, wind, and Waco!

We are on our way to Waco, taking two days.  The first two thirds of the drive today was WIDE OPEN SPACES.  Oh my, who knew how many miles of nothing but "freckled" plains we would see.  The freckles are the short scrubby bush/trees that grow all over like freckles!  And then there are the empty plains with no trees, no animals, no houses - nothing to look at.  That makes Hilda's driver sleepy...

The skies have been beautiful though.

I missed the photo I wanted to take (driver is not the only one who gets sleepy) in Lubbock - yep, wanted that happiness shot of Lubbock in the rear view mirror!

More nothingness in small Texas towns - lots of empty grain silos and warehouses - and then we came upon miles and miles and more miles of wind turbines.  The first hundred were atop a mesa - a surprising sight after so much flat land.  

We are now going to our campground in Sweetwater Texas.

Santa Fe to Taos

Finally had the time to visit Taos.  Previous stops in Santa Fe were too short.  The drive is spectacular once you get past the commercial areas outside Santa Fe.  We are getting used to canyons and love the surprise of a gorge we did not know about:  

We learned too late that beyond Taos the canyon and gorge are even more spectacular and there is even a foot bridge across the gorge (I definitely would not be taking that path...).  The city of Taos is worth some time just walking around and soaking up the artistic atmosphere.  Of course there are shops and galleries and restaurants.  The first leather shop we went into had some handbags just like I had purchased in Morocco last year - the Taos price was NINETEEN times higher than the Moroccan.  Hmmm - sometimes made in the USA isn't worth it.  We had a lovely lunch and got rained on and filled our etes with art and then drove back to Santa Fe.

Anyone know what the big cactus-like plant is?

This reminded me of a giant sand castle at the beach!

On the way back to Santa Fe I was able to get a shot of Camel Rock.  The first time we passed it, I did not recognize what it was until we were passed it.  

He will probably go the way of New Hampshire's Old Man of the Mountain, but for now he looks good!

Vail to Santa Fe

Yesterday after our brunch at the top of the mountain we all took naps to rest up for the evening's entertainment.  At 6PM we headed to the Four Seasons to their aptly named bar: Remedy.  I love the  name and wondered if they opened at 4AM in the morning!  We grabbed a front table and people watched until the act of the evening arrived for an 8PM performance.  For 23 years there has been Vail Jazz and for 21 of those years "Tony G" has been a mainstay.  Two keyboards, drums, and at times a Melodium and a Metallium (?) - having trouble remembering the name since it is not a common instrument.  They played for over two hours with one short break - absolutely a wonderful evening!  We cannot say more about how good they were.

Sorry to leave beautiful Vail but more adventure was waiting!  I decided to take one last photo in Vail - the view from our friends' living room.  It was hard to leave...

We travelled on the Top of the Rockies Scenic Byway. The scenery again overwhelmed us.  It was fascinating to see the engineering of several dams plus the manmade lakes along the way.  We stopped at a scenic overlook that had a marker for towns that had been flooded when the dans were built - one has a Masonic Temple that was at the highest altitude of all temples: 10500 feet and I was standing well above where that town had been.

The city of Leadville was a surprise.  It is the highest city in the Rockies and is beautiful!  

The landscape changed over the next 50 miles or so from the gorgeous mountains to scrubby mountains to pretty flat terrain.  We passed three mountains named Yale, Harvard, and Princeton - that was anitger surprise.

And then we came to 100 miles of sleep inducing monotonous sagebrush covered land.  Seems every state has its roads passing through boring terrain.  A stop for coffee revved up tge somnolent driver abd we got to Santa Fe in record time - just in time for anafternoon  shower.

You can see the rain getting ready.  Tomorrw we are off to Taos.

Colorado!

We sadly left Cheyenne and in less than half an hour we were in Colorado.  Somehow the grasses seemed greener just across the border and the road shoulders were strewn with sunflowers.

Lots of flatland for agriculture - pinto beans are a big crop along with, of course, corn!  Miles of fields and many big grain towers.  We have promised ourselves that someday we will learn how they work.  In the town of Nunn we came across a camper trailer graveyard - had to stop for photos and send them to Ronnie, our renovator extraordinaire.

There were also about 20 Studebaker Larks in various stages of disrepair.  You never know what you will discover on back roads.

Passed by Denver and it rained on us - first time we have had to drive in the rain in over four weeks.  Maybe that is why the grasses are greener?  On I 70 the traffic got heavier - everyone is on their way to wonderful places!  And the scenery got prettier.

Arrived in Vail and parked Hilda in a free lot and found our friends' address.  Their condo is in the heart of Vail and here is the evening view from our room:

 

Their living room looks out to the Gondola to the mountain top!  Thought I would like to move here but the altitude is not being nice to me...  Could I adapt?

Here are the views from the mountain top where we had brunch today.

So back to my favorite things to photograph:

I would love to have one of these in South Carolina!

We leave Vail tomorrow and will be in Santa Fe for two nights.