Journey comes to the end

On the day the RV broke down and was towed to the RV doctor we got halfway into the hour long drive behind the tow truck and had to make a quick u-turn to head to the hospital back in Page, AZ (for the record this is the middle of the desert). Adam needed to see a doctor too. He experienced sudden belly pain and we were afraid he was having surgical complications. After visiting what was the largest hospital within a three hour radius, giving the doctors there a good scare, and determining together that he was well enough not to be admitted thereby avoiding a trip being airlifted back to Denver because they felt ill equipped to properly care for him, he was feeling slightly better and they let him leave. This visit clinched our decision to officially end our around-the-country trip.

So, on the day of our 8-year anniversary we spent it packing up our car to make the 11-hour drive straight back to Denver and giving up on our other plans to visit more places. The trials and tribulations of dealing with a sick rv and a sick husband finally got to me and Adam agreed that his health may now require more consistent care. Adam's gift to me was his understanding about how much of a toll the stress of mechanical and health issues (especially when they happen at the same time) takes on me and agreeing to end the trip. My gift to him was packing up the car with our essentials and valuables, getting up at 4 am and driving straight home while the rv takes a week to be fixed and then turning around to drive back to Utah once it is done and driving it back home again. Our anniversary may not have been spent at a nice dinner with roses, but we both sacrificed something for one another and to me that is an invaluable and cherished gift. It may not have been the most fun day of our lives, but we certainly appreciated one another and have grown more deeply connected today than we were on our wedding day.

We always said we would enjoy this adventure as long as Adam's health held out and we have now reached the point when we should stop. We are both glad to have had the opportunity to make our journey and will never regret it. Traveling is in our blood and we will strive to continue our adventures closer to our new home in Maryland. We will be in Denver for a few weeks until we get our belongings and vehicles back together and Adam is well enough to make the journey back East. We would love to see all our Colorado friends again while we are here.

P.S. If any of you know anyone looking to purchase a used motorhome (which will be back in working order before we sell) please let us know!

Tow photo

Tow truck

Well we hit Page, AZ and stopped for lunch but were unable to start again. The big green bus is being hauled 1 1/2 hours to the nearest service dealer. Yet another service experience I did not need to have. Hope they can fix it!

Sent from my iPhone

Grand Canyon

We arrived at our Grand Canyon home base of Williams, AZ and were instantly cooler. It was 89 with blowing winds. I picked this place because they said they were the closest town to the southern entrance of the Grand Canyon. That was not close. We were 60 miles away so the next day we loaded up our "gear" including our furry friend and headed in. I knew we were not going to be hiking down into the canyon and dogs are allowed on the rim trail. He was just very hot!

There is an IMAX movie on the way into he park but by the time we arrived it was already 2 pm so we didnt want to miss stuff in the park before dark. Therefore we skipped it. At this time of the year the rim trail road is closed to private vehicles and they require people to take a shuttle, but since I did my homework I discovered they offered an accessibility pass which allowed us to dive the road since we have a disabled pass. That was a life saver. We stopped at each overlook, sometimes I walked further in, but mostly this made it so Adam could see most of the work without overly stressing himself. If I was doing this again I would elect to stay at one of the lodges or cabins inside the park. It's like a little village. I thought it was nicer than Yellowstone's lodges because there is more to do around them. I would also rent or bring a bike to ride the rim trail. It's only 13 miles and mostly paved but absolutely gorgeous.

I also learned prior to arriving at the park that they had a week of star parties and star gazing activities and we were there for the last night. I expected that the park would provide a few telescopes for people to look at the stars since it was a dark nights sky. However, I never expected what we actually found. Since we had some time between just before sunset and dark skies we elected to have dinner first, rest up and then saunter over to the telescopes after refueling. I was amazed how tired I was from just driving and not hiking! When we got back to the visitors center we followed a path of red rope lights which were kind of like bread crumbs. The red light is not supposed to affect your vision when viewing the sky like white lights but it does not light up your path very well either. I felt like I was walking blind.  We came to a loud sounding group of people who had chairs and telescopes set up all over the place. There must have been 20 different telescopes some requiring you to climb a ladder just to use the eye piece. Not being able to see I thought this was being run by rangers or official park employees but it was actually a bunch of astronomer groups (amateurs) from Prescott and Flagstaff who came up to share their knowledge. It was absolutely fascinating. These people were unbelievably passionate about this hobby and would keep moving the telescopes to show different things. How they knew where to point the scope let alone maneuver the eye pieces and other necessary parts in the dark I have yet to figure out. These were some of the largest scopes I have seen for home use. The nights highlights were being able to see a galaxy far far away with a supernova in it, multiple other galaxies on different axis, and a red carbon star. None of these things are visible with the naked eye. The other fun highlight was when a satellite caught the suns rays and lit up like a lightbulb in the sky. Two seconds later a second one did the same thing because one was space junk and the other was its replacement so they flowed the same trajectory. I guess it could have been mistaken for a shooting star but it moved too slowly. We also saw saturn, its rings and three moons. It looked just like we all know it should except it was white and not red in the sky. The focal points moved out of the viewfinder within 45 seconds or so which showed us how fast the earth is actually turning. I'm afraid Adam wants a telescope even more now than he did before.

So those were our Grand Canyon highlights. We had hoped to move on to Page, AZ today but got stopped in Flagstaff since one of the oxygen concentrators died. Apria did a good job giving us some sort of replacement on a Sunday but we will have to rectify the situation better when we get back to Denver.

For now, we are exhausted but I managed to get myself to historic downtown Flagstaff to see the shops and train station right on good old Route 66. Next stop we plan to take in the views from the Grand Canyons North rim. We are going that way anyway, so we might as well.

Steph at Grand Canyon

Alamogordo, NM

After a quick lunch in Roswell in the RV (parked in a parallel parking spot I might add) we made our way to Alamagorda, NM which was near White Sands National Monument. This was just over a mountain range in which we gained 4000 feet before descending to our final destination. We loved the sand dunes in Alamosa, CO and were anxious to see how different this park would be. We found an RV park along the route that was very accommodating to our flexible schedule and had a great dog run for Sequoia. I'm learning that what makes a good park to me is not always the same as the guide books. A dog run is high on my list while a pool and playground are not. This place had horse stalls where campers could let out their horses and an area for live music, concessions and a mini store. It was very nicely done. I heard music as we drove up and thought they were having a local concert. Upon further investigation I discovered the music was a gospel concert intermingled with bible study. I contemplated staying to listen but didn't feel like defending my beliefs should it come up. It was a small group after all and who knew if it would turn into an interactive discussion. This was my first introduction to RV Bible study. There are specific parks that promote themselves to traveling Rvers who want to meet others to study the bible. Too bad there is no Chavurah of sorts for us. The population of Jewish RV travelers is probably not so large that we could even find enough people to start that type of a group.

The next day I had a nice chat with the owner of the resort. Part of my journey is turning out to be an introspective on my next career move so I like to talk to people about how they have come to the current careers. She and her husband had a very interesting story. They met as employees at Intel in Albuquerque and then decided to quit and buy a ranch in the NM mountains. They even raised cattle. After seven years of that lifestyle in such a remote area they decided to settle closer to a city and build a new park. That's probably where the horse corral idea came from since they were used to owning them. They are no strangers to hard manual labor and keep this park up themselves with the help of some workcampers (people who sign up to work a few days a week in exchange for free camping). I also talked to her about that program and she said it works best for couples who want to be in one place for three months at a time. That's probably not in our plans at this point. I gather owning an RV park is much different than just visiting one for a few nights. I think changing the sewer line is bad for one RV, I can not imagine what it would be like to have to deal with a septic system for a whole park. Yuk.

Pictures from White Sands National Monument. It borders the White Sands missle range and is closed when they have missle tests. Wouldn't you know that the morning we got up at the crack of dawn to take pictures it was closed. So, here are photos from our second attempt.






Alamogordo has the climate of a middle east desert. Pistachios are mainly grown in Iran and have typically been very expensive because they are an import. This farmer discovered that Pistachios are the perfect crop to grow in New Mexico and now grows 1/3 of all the Pistachios in the US. The rest are grown in California. They offered free tours of their operations and even run a kosher kitchen. We learned all about the process of cultivating Pistachios. Did you know they split open naturally and not by a roasting process? I didn't until we took this tour.

Roswell, NM

I'm playing catch-up and discovered this is a post that never happened. Here's a bit about our adventures in New Mexico...

After leaving Carlsbad, NM back in April we made a day trip to Roswell, NM to see about locating some aliens. I expected the city to be more the size of a town, something in the middle of nowhere but I was surprised. It was larger than expected though a bit run down, but was still more kept up than the deserted, burned out “villages” I had seen in between the metropolises around the state. You would not believe the number of ghost town and deserted farms along the sides of the road. It really looked like a very impoverished part of the country; desert, dusty and desolate.


We headed straight for the UFO museum because that's what people do in Roswell, right? I envisioned this to have large alien replicas and the actual pieces of the “ship” that people say they found in the '60s, but it was more like letters and newspapers pinned to the wall. There was a lot of reading. I hadn't remembered that the pieces of the unidentified craft were collected and taken to area 51 (well really an army hanger) where they later disappeared. Thus the conspiracy theory was born. What I do know is Roswell is not far from White Sands missile flats where they test missiles, it is not a heavily populated area, and there is an army base nearby. So, what was it that people saw in the sky? It could have been a downed missile or military testing item, or it could have been a convenient place for aliens to crash land without being detected. Either way, we'll never really know since the pieces went missing. The part that was really confusing was the eye witness account by a nurse who saw three small humanoid bodies with heads that did not look human and for which child-sized caskets were purchased. Whatever happened, no one was talking until right before their deaths and that eye witness was never located to make any comments. The part that fueled the fire was the fact that the government kept changing their stories about what seemingly happened. I halfway expected this legend to simply be a tourist trap without any basis at all, but the story is very real and continues to evolve even to this day. There was a news report just the next day relating to the Roswell siting. I didn't see any alien bodies except for a few used in more recent movie/TV shows. If you don't believe in what happened you should make the trip to visit this museum to read the various sides of the story. They do a great job presenting it for the public to draw their own conclusions though it is not overly interesting for the littlest travelers.

This is the only picture I have from our Roswell visit since there was not much to see. I sent this postcard to my friends kids and one of them asked why the aliens weren't wearing any pants. Good question! Kids say the funniest things.

Family Visits in San Diego

Before Adam got sick the Heller clan came to San Diego and we spent four days together. We visited Sea World but mostly just hung out together. They stayed at the hotel where we stayed 30 years ago! Vacation Village lived again and it had plenty for the kids to do without going anywhere.

Connor and Lily Heller

Mom and Dad, Mike, Christie and Lily



Mike & Lily, Connor at the door


This pretty much sums up the trip. Lily only wanted Mommy. Connor loved the ducks.




Mom came to visit Steph while Adam was in the hospital and we took a drive to LA to visit more family. It's fun meeting cousins I never met before.

Visit with cousins Cookie Barsky, her daughter Karen, Mom, Karen's son and Steph

Au Revoir San Diego

Though our time in San Diego could not have been better between great medical care, cool weather, and a very accessible community, today (Thursday) it was time to leave. One last stop at the doctors office the day before and we were cleared for take off! Anticipating a long drive through the desert heading in the direction of the Grand Canyon I woke up at 530 am thinking I would get a jump on the day and travel before it got too hot. What I didn't fully plan on was the fact that we would actually reach the desert and the hottest part of our drive in the afternoon. We only overheated twice (doesn't this happen to everyone?) but as long as I reminded myself to downshift in order to keep the rpms up high to cool the engine we were not force to pull over. However, as soon as the lube pump alarm went off I drove to the side of the road in a hurry. When I got out to check that it was just a flaky alarm and the pump still worked (and it did) I felt the sweltering heat coming off the back end of the RV and onto the front of the car. I couldn't even touch the grill cover to close it because I burned my fingers as soon as I did. Now I see how people can fry eggs on the hoods of their cars.

We pressed onward and drove with our generator on and room AC cranked. At least that cool air would not overheat the engine like the air in the dash. I had planned on stopping in Lake Havasu City near a reservoir I heard about from some Canadians I met in the laundry room, but instead we decided to turn left and head to a casino town called Laughlin, NV for a little night life. It is a mini-Vegas posing city literally sitting on a river that flows to or from Lake Mead. Adam found a casino campground that had 700 spots! I guess they have a lot of space in the desert. We arrived after office hours and after studying the campground map I finally figured out where to go. The campground was kind of terraced on the side of a hill and they managed to plant and grow a few trees. But, as soon as I stepped outside I couldn't believe the heat! I think it was 110 degrees outside at 6pm at night. Our car said it was 122, but I found that hard to believe. If this is what it is like to live in Arizona or the desert in the summer I think I'll pass. What are we doing going to the Grand Canyon at this time of year? I almost want to go back to San Diego where it was a consistent 68 degrees. It was paradise (minus the fact that we were living in a park on the side of a major highway and could not hear ourselves talk when standing outside). I take the good with the bad.

After a fairly edible dinner in a TexMex restaurant at Harrah's we just headed back to our cool abode to unwind for the night. The early rise and long drive and unbearable heat left us feeling beat and somewhat nauseous.We have set a course for ourselves to finish up our country tour with the National Parks of the Grand Circle. We are heading to the Grand Canyon and then back towards Denver by way of Bryce and Capitol Reef National Parks. We've been to Moab and Arches several times so I expect we'll skip it this time. We are anxious to get back to Denver for a homecoming stopover before heading directly back to MD. We've done that drive so many times that neither of us are really excited about stopping anywhere along I-70, but we are always open to suggestions. If anyone knows of some fabulous not-to-miss attractions along the way (other than the world's largest ball of twine), please let me know! We expect to be back in MD by the end of July and ready to begin the next new chapter of our lives. It will be different not living within our 200 square foot aluminum walls, but I'm starting to feel claustrophobic, so I take that as a sign that I'm ready for more space!

USS Midway Tour

Living in an RV park for an extended period of time and traveling to and from the hospital daily made San Diego start to feel like home. I had visited almost every mall I could find in the area, went running around Mission Bay and a walk along the water at Embarcadero, took Sequoia to the Festive Beach dog park, had a relationship with a groomer for him and a hair stylist for me, I knew which grocery store I preferred, and scoped out the closest Red Box. While Adam was resting in the hospital I took myself to a play in Balboa Park at the Old Globe theater, saw the seals in La Jolla, visited Sea World previously, went to the La Jolla arts festival at UCSD, and another fair in the eclectic neighborhood of Hillcrest, but for some reason I felt like I had not seen enough of San Diego. I felt so at home with housework and responsibilities I forgot I was on vacation. So, before we left San Diego I wanted to have one more touristy experience.


This past Tuesday we toured the USS Midway, an aircraft carrier named for a WWII battle. It has sailed all over the world and is staffed by over 1000 volunteers some of whom had sailed on her or flew the planes on display. The museum featured various types of retired aircraft as well as explained the workings of the vessel, how the aircraft take off and land on the carrier, and life aboard. I was surprised to see so many planes with dates painted on them from around my birthday. They must have flown during the Vietnam war; the war that brought my parents to the island of Guam and where I was born. I felt some affinity towards them and a weird sense of pride that I have never experienced before when visiting other military locations. It seems that many people in San Diego have actually been to Guam since this is a Navy town. I even saw a Guam license plate on a car one day. It was the first time I felt my own connection to the military and felt proud. Learning about what it takes to run the aircraft carrier showed me just a glimpse of how hard our troops really work for our freedom and the extensive technologies our government has at their fingertips.

Go Navy!

The carrier was not quite as large as I expected or should I say, it did not seem as large as some of the cruise ships I have been on which was surprising. However, maybe that was due to the fact that I was comparing its size to the planes parked on her. Of course it was huge and large enough to house more than the 40 planes on display with lots of space in between. We had the chance to climb up and down some ladders to see the Brig and engine rooms as well as the Bridge and captain's quarters. What surprised me further was the fact that if the Navy wanted they could put this ship back in working order even though thousands of visitors have pushed many of the buttons on her. It was hard to remember that this ship was a high-tech vessel while watching the five year old in front of me flipping every switch he could reach.




Adam directing planes to land



Another highlight for me was meeting a pilot giving the lecture about how planes land on deck and hearing his war stories about how he flew in many of the planes on display. However, now that I think about it I wonder if he was pulling my leg and making up those stories to enhance the experience. If so it worked! Those volunteers really brought the ship to life explaining how life was while they lived aboard. From someone who has never actually lived in military life, I found it fascinating.

Adjusting the steam engines. Full speed ahead!

Out and About

It's always a good sign when Adam feels well enough to go out to play poker. He found us a very nice casino in Alpine, CA about 40 minutes from our camp spot, so here we are. I busted out early so I took myself to the gourmet buffet with the high price of $7. It is always too much mediocre food.

Yesterday, Adam had enough energy to go see a movie (XMen which was awesome) and then we had a chance to shop for a few items of clothing for him. The benefit for him of being in the hospital was a 25 pound weight loss which is almost unbelievable. The downside is now all his pants are falling down. Things could be much worse! Sequoia got some funny looks in the clothing store but handled his first time in a dressing room like a champ.

We topped off the inaugural outing with dinner at The Cheesecake Factory and a milkshake that pushed our tummies over the edge. We had to celebrate the only day we have not visited the hospital in over a month somehow. Back to my running program tomorrow! I'm following something called "couch to 5k" that gets you running a 5k in a matter of weeks. As one of my friends said, at least I'm off the couch!

We love hearing your well wishes and are feeling more positive now towards the new future on the horizon. It looks like we'll be making our way back to MD sooner than planned but will get to stop and see a few things on the way given that the transition for Adam back into the RV is working out. For now we are enjoying lovely San Diego and getting to know the area. It is a much smaller town than I expected. I saw my first Guam license plate the other day. Go Navy! My other favorite pastime is watching the fighter jets fly overhead as they take off and land at Miramar. I'm a Top Gun girl at heart. Love this Navy hub! Hopefully we will get to explore LA soon too but I'll take any outings at the moment. Trying just to enjoy where we are for now.

Happy to be clean