There was a permission problem for the viewing of the Benson AZ photos that has been corrected so you should be able to see them now.
Till next time,
Bob & Jo
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NOTE: See our photos from places we have visited at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bobandjotravel/sets/
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Friday, May 21, 2010
Stormy Weather
Don't know why there's no sun up in the sky. It sure has been a stormy or cloudy spring. The weatherman recently displayed a graphic showing only 4 sunny days in the last month and a half that we have been here. Even before we became full-timers we were weather obsessed trying to catch as many forecasts as we can and then averaging them out. Most of the time they are fairly close but every once in awhile one of them will go out on a limb and be different. They may be the same or they may be different but they are invariably wrong.
When we were in our planning stages for full-timing we decided we needed a weather radio since we would not have a basement anymore. Since we were near two county lines we added both counties into the mix. We finally turned the dang thing off and sold it at the estate sale because we got sick and tired of getting woke up in the middle of the night because there was water in Millie's back yard. Every watch or warning was blared out and to be brutally honest 99.9% of them only served to annoy us.
Since we are weather obsessed we watch local weather no matter where we are, along with ForecastFox, a Firefox extension that puts weather based on a zip code in the statusbar of your browser. We also watch the Weather Channel but we still felt vulnerable even with all that. We are currently back in our old stomping grounds, the Kansas City area, and saw an article in the paper interviewing a local weatherman. They have hooked up with WeatherCall (http://www.kmbc.com/weather/16511224/detail.html) and this info is from their website, "WeatherCall combines this new method to determine a warning area with robust emergency telephone notification. Using computerized mapping, WeatherCall matches the danger area defined by the National Weather Service with your address. If your address is within the danger area of the weather warning, Chief Meteorologist, Bryan Busby will deliver the warning message to the phone numbers you register, and also send you an email if you provide one." SMS text messages are also available and an iPhone app is in the works.
This service is available for $6 a year but you must provide a specific street address. We contacted WeatherCall and was told we could change the location address on the profile at any time so we signed up. So far we have received one phone call that was for a severe thunderstorm that gave us enough warning to lower the satellite dish on the roof due to 70 mile per hour winds. Last night it was mentioned that WeatherCall warnings went out to phones 10 minutes before the sirens went off in an area that had tornadoes.
We may have had only one phone call but there has been numerous interruptions of television broadcasts for weather reports on local television. There is a website for one local weather personality, http://firekatie.com, that we swear will break into network shows when there is water in Millie's back yard. One night all three hours of network television were interrupted for a severe thunderstorm lasting a few minutes. We then had to follow it way out of the viewing area and see what the same storm front was doing in Oklahoma for a few minutes, freaking Oklahoma hundreds of miles away for heavens sakes. Luckily now that we are full-timing our network channels are out of New York and believe us they do not break into network programming as often as Katie does. We do lose the satellite signal occasionally in heavy rains though.
So far we have been pleased with WeatherCall and we will keep you posted as we change our physical address in the profile and see how that works.
Till next time,
Bob & Jo
You can subscribe to this blog posts and/or comments by making selections under 'Subscribe To' or you can join the yahoo group which will notify you whenever a post is made,
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bobandjotravelblog/
You can also signup to be a Follower of this blog.
NOTE: See our photos from places we have visited at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bobandjotravel/sets/
When we were in our planning stages for full-timing we decided we needed a weather radio since we would not have a basement anymore. Since we were near two county lines we added both counties into the mix. We finally turned the dang thing off and sold it at the estate sale because we got sick and tired of getting woke up in the middle of the night because there was water in Millie's back yard. Every watch or warning was blared out and to be brutally honest 99.9% of them only served to annoy us.
Since we are weather obsessed we watch local weather no matter where we are, along with ForecastFox, a Firefox extension that puts weather based on a zip code in the statusbar of your browser. We also watch the Weather Channel but we still felt vulnerable even with all that. We are currently back in our old stomping grounds, the Kansas City area, and saw an article in the paper interviewing a local weatherman. They have hooked up with WeatherCall (http://www.kmbc.com/weather/16511224/detail.html) and this info is from their website, "WeatherCall combines this new method to determine a warning area with robust emergency telephone notification. Using computerized mapping, WeatherCall matches the danger area defined by the National Weather Service with your address. If your address is within the danger area of the weather warning, Chief Meteorologist, Bryan Busby will deliver the warning message to the phone numbers you register, and also send you an email if you provide one." SMS text messages are also available and an iPhone app is in the works.
This service is available for $6 a year but you must provide a specific street address. We contacted WeatherCall and was told we could change the location address on the profile at any time so we signed up. So far we have received one phone call that was for a severe thunderstorm that gave us enough warning to lower the satellite dish on the roof due to 70 mile per hour winds. Last night it was mentioned that WeatherCall warnings went out to phones 10 minutes before the sirens went off in an area that had tornadoes.
We may have had only one phone call but there has been numerous interruptions of television broadcasts for weather reports on local television. There is a website for one local weather personality, http://firekatie.com, that we swear will break into network shows when there is water in Millie's back yard. One night all three hours of network television were interrupted for a severe thunderstorm lasting a few minutes. We then had to follow it way out of the viewing area and see what the same storm front was doing in Oklahoma for a few minutes, freaking Oklahoma hundreds of miles away for heavens sakes. Luckily now that we are full-timing our network channels are out of New York and believe us they do not break into network programming as often as Katie does. We do lose the satellite signal occasionally in heavy rains though.
So far we have been pleased with WeatherCall and we will keep you posted as we change our physical address in the profile and see how that works.
Till next time,
Bob & Jo
You can subscribe to this blog posts and/or comments by making selections under 'Subscribe To' or you can join the yahoo group which will notify you whenever a post is made,
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bobandjotravelblog/
You can also signup to be a Follower of this blog.
NOTE: See our photos from places we have visited at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bobandjotravel/sets/
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Benson, Arizona 2010 Stopover
Benson really surprised us with all that there was to do. Close by was the incredible Kartchner Caverns State Park which is a virtually unspoiled “live” cave recently discovered in 1974, is host to a wide variety of unique minerals and formations. Tombstone was as an easy day trip as was the mining community of Bisbee. Tombstone is not just the OK Corral and Boot Hill which we visited but we also saw the world's largest rose bush, the historical displays in the Courthouse were informative and the Bird Cage Theater, one of the few surviving structures, was musty but real neat. The weather finally started to cooperate and we had pleasant days. There were some really good places to eat like Gracie's Station and the Apple Farm Restaurant. We cannot believe we jammed all this into just one week. This is definitely a place we want to visit again. For more detailed information read on.
Kartchner Caverns State Park - In 1974 two young spelunkers were exploring the limestone hills near Benson. In the bottom of a sinkhole they found a narrow crack leading into the hillside. Warm, moist air flowed out, signaling the existence of a cave. After several hours of crawling, they entered a pristine cavern. Existence of the cave was kept a secret for a few years and then it was reported to the land owners who sold the area to the State of Arizona for a State Park. It took a few years to develop it as a "live" cave so the park has only been open to the public for a few years.
There are two tours available the Big Room and the Rotunda-Throne Room and we took the Rotunda-Throne Room Tour.
It was too late in the day to do both tours, oh well next time. This bell canopy is one of many fascinating features on the tour at Rotunda-Throne Room. It is formed by water flowing over a bump on the wall, then dripping to create this beautiful formation. Full-timing has shown us just how much we don't know about this great land of ours and caves was one of our weaker areas. Now we know all about stalactites and how Kartchner Caverns is home to the world's longest soda straw stalactite at 21'3". We also learned about stalagmites, moonmilk, birdsnests, and turnips. In Kartchner Caverns you will see the only "turnip" shields and "birdsnest" needle quartz formations in the world and the most extensive formation of brushite moonmilk anywhere. So if you are a spelunker then you need to head to Benson ASAP.
No trip to this part of the country would be complete without a trip to Tombstone, site of the infamous shootout at the OK Corral. We actually saw Tombstone on two separate occasions since the historic Courthouse was closed on the first day we went. Turns out the Courthouse is a State Park and Arizona is having a budget crisis so they have closed some State Parks and a number of Rest Areas. Coming back to Tombstone on our way to Bisbee and stopping at the Courthouse was well worth it. We decided not to pay to walk into the OK Corral since it was expensive and we thought it just would not be worth it. You can read about the shootout in many places so we passed. There were a lot of historical markers along with a commentary on politicians, seems like they had issues with politicians back then too.
We also saw the world's largest rosebush while in Tombstone. The trunk is 12 feet in circumference and the rosebush covers over 8,000 square feet. Each spring the rosebush blooms with over a million tiny white blossoms. The accompanying museum about the family that planted the white Lady Banksia rosebush in 1885 and the interactions with other Tombstone residents was one of the better museums we have seen.
The highlight of Tombstone though had to be the Bird Cage Theater, which is one of the few surviving structures from the Earp era. The current owners wanted to have a museum in Tombstone and were surprised to find that the previous owners had just left everything in the building so all they had to do was buy the building and they had their memorabilia along with some supposed ghosts. Legend has it that 26 people were killed at the Bird Cage during its 8 year run and there are countless numbers of bullet holes that you can see to this day. The hearse that carried everybody to Boot Hill from 1881 to 1906 is also part of the exhibit. The only downside to the Bird Cage is that it smells like it was shuttered for a number of years which it was. In fact 6 rooms on the lower level were just opened to the public that have been sealed off since 1889.
Since we were planning on going back to the Tombstone Courthouse and since it was on the way to mining community of Bisbee we decided to combine those in a day trip. Bisbee is a neat city built right into the mountains that provided the copper they were mining. The streets were narrow so we were glad we just had the F-350 but even with that it was narrow. We found a place to park and on our way to the Bisbee Mining and Historical Museum we walked by a shop selling Killer Bee honey. Having never tried it we bought a couple different flavors and man are we glad we did as this is good honey. We then toured the Bisbee Mining and Historical Museum which is part of the Smithsonian Museum Affiliates Program. We have to say we came away a little underwhelmed by the mining museum so we cannot really recommend. After seeing so many good small museums we were a little disappointed.
As far as food goes we have a confession to make, we are creatures of habit. If we find a good place to eat we go back. So except for a visit to Quiznos, Taco Bell and the deli at a Safeway grocery store we ate at Gracie's Station or the Apple Farm Restaurant for every meal we did not have in our condo on wheels. Both are highly recommended as evidenced by the number of times we ate there. We were getting recognized at the Apple Farm we ate there so many times.
Next time we visit we will visit Kartchner Caverns again and do the Big Room tour. We also plan on the Chirachua National Moonument, a day trip to Wilcox and a visit to the Cochise Stronghold and Dragon Mountain. For food we hope to try other places but will probably eat a lot at Gracie's Station or the Apple Farm Restaurant.
Photos from this visit have been added to flickr.com.
Till next time,
Bob & Jo
You can subscribe to this blog posts and/or comments by making selections under 'Subscribe To' or you can join the yahoo group which will notify you whenever a post is made,
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bobandjotravelblog/
You can also signup to be a Follower of this blog.
NOTE: See our photos from places we have visited at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bobandjotravel/sets/
Kartchner Caverns State Park - In 1974 two young spelunkers were exploring the limestone hills near Benson. In the bottom of a sinkhole they found a narrow crack leading into the hillside. Warm, moist air flowed out, signaling the existence of a cave. After several hours of crawling, they entered a pristine cavern. Existence of the cave was kept a secret for a few years and then it was reported to the land owners who sold the area to the State of Arizona for a State Park. It took a few years to develop it as a "live" cave so the park has only been open to the public for a few years.
There are two tours available the Big Room and the Rotunda-Throne Room and we took the Rotunda-Throne Room Tour.
It was too late in the day to do both tours, oh well next time. This bell canopy is one of many fascinating features on the tour at Rotunda-Throne Room. It is formed by water flowing over a bump on the wall, then dripping to create this beautiful formation. Full-timing has shown us just how much we don't know about this great land of ours and caves was one of our weaker areas. Now we know all about stalactites and how Kartchner Caverns is home to the world's longest soda straw stalactite at 21'3". We also learned about stalagmites, moonmilk, birdsnests, and turnips. In Kartchner Caverns you will see the only "turnip" shields and "birdsnest" needle quartz formations in the world and the most extensive formation of brushite moonmilk anywhere. So if you are a spelunker then you need to head to Benson ASAP.No trip to this part of the country would be complete without a trip to Tombstone, site of the infamous shootout at the OK Corral. We actually saw Tombstone on two separate occasions since the historic Courthouse was closed on the first day we went. Turns out the Courthouse is a State Park and Arizona is having a budget crisis so they have closed some State Parks and a number of Rest Areas. Coming back to Tombstone on our way to Bisbee and stopping at the Courthouse was well worth it. We decided not to pay to walk into the OK Corral since it was expensive and we thought it just would not be worth it. You can read about the shootout in many places so we passed. There were a lot of historical markers along with a commentary on politicians, seems like they had issues with politicians back then too.
We also saw the world's largest rosebush while in Tombstone. The trunk is 12 feet in circumference and the rosebush covers over 8,000 square feet. Each spring the rosebush blooms with over a million tiny white blossoms. The accompanying museum about the family that planted the white Lady Banksia rosebush in 1885 and the interactions with other Tombstone residents was one of the better museums we have seen.
The highlight of Tombstone though had to be the Bird Cage Theater, which is one of the few surviving structures from the Earp era. The current owners wanted to have a museum in Tombstone and were surprised to find that the previous owners had just left everything in the building so all they had to do was buy the building and they had their memorabilia along with some supposed ghosts. Legend has it that 26 people were killed at the Bird Cage during its 8 year run and there are countless numbers of bullet holes that you can see to this day. The hearse that carried everybody to Boot Hill from 1881 to 1906 is also part of the exhibit. The only downside to the Bird Cage is that it smells like it was shuttered for a number of years which it was. In fact 6 rooms on the lower level were just opened to the public that have been sealed off since 1889.
Since we were planning on going back to the Tombstone Courthouse and since it was on the way to mining community of Bisbee we decided to combine those in a day trip. Bisbee is a neat city built right into the mountains that provided the copper they were mining. The streets were narrow so we were glad we just had the F-350 but even with that it was narrow. We found a place to park and on our way to the Bisbee Mining and Historical Museum we walked by a shop selling Killer Bee honey. Having never tried it we bought a couple different flavors and man are we glad we did as this is good honey. We then toured the Bisbee Mining and Historical Museum which is part of the Smithsonian Museum Affiliates Program. We have to say we came away a little underwhelmed by the mining museum so we cannot really recommend. After seeing so many good small museums we were a little disappointed.
As far as food goes we have a confession to make, we are creatures of habit. If we find a good place to eat we go back. So except for a visit to Quiznos, Taco Bell and the deli at a Safeway grocery store we ate at Gracie's Station or the Apple Farm Restaurant for every meal we did not have in our condo on wheels. Both are highly recommended as evidenced by the number of times we ate there. We were getting recognized at the Apple Farm we ate there so many times.
Next time we visit we will visit Kartchner Caverns again and do the Big Room tour. We also plan on the Chirachua National Moonument, a day trip to Wilcox and a visit to the Cochise Stronghold and Dragon Mountain. For food we hope to try other places but will probably eat a lot at Gracie's Station or the Apple Farm Restaurant.
Photos from this visit have been added to flickr.com.
Till next time,
Bob & Jo
You can subscribe to this blog posts and/or comments by making selections under 'Subscribe To' or you can join the yahoo group which will notify you whenever a post is made,
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bobandjotravelblog/
You can also signup to be a Follower of this blog.
NOTE: See our photos from places we have visited at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bobandjotravel/sets/
Friday, May 7, 2010
Not really roughing it : )
We married late in life and although we had camped in tents and RVs my wife said her idea of roughing it was a nice Hilton. After going to a number of RV shows and walking through a lot of different floorplans we finally decided we could have a nice RV and just take our Hilton room with us as we traveled across the country. That is how we ended up with our Carriage Cameo, or what we call our condo on wheels.
Being a fully enclosed fifth wheel allows us the capability to do what is called boondocking, that is parking without the electrical, water and sewer hookups. So far we tried this once at a Wal-Mart parking lot in Illinois when we were bringing the Cameo back from the dealership in Michigan where we picked it up. It was the first time we tried this and it was a disaster. We talked about this in an earlier post, http://bobandjotravelblog.blogspot.com/2009/09/2-weeks-of-full-timing.html, but this experience has made us very cautious to repeat roughing it in that manner. Running the battery down and not getting much sleep due to the parking lot and lack of circulation was so much fun!
Our reaction was to go clear in the other direction, every night that we have parked for the past 8 months we have had full hookups (electrical, water and sewer) at the site. We have two options when it comes to electrical hookups, either 30 amp service or 50 amp service. So far we have been able to get 50 amp service which allows us to use all of our appliances, even both air conditioners at the same time if need be.
This may change this summer as most of the parks that Bob has found in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan are 30 amps and a few do not have sewer hookups at the site. This will be a new experience for us as we may have to worry about running the microwave and the toaster at the same time for example, oh the inhumanity. Now that is really roughing it!
Till next time,
Bob & Jo
You can subscribe to this blog posts and/or comments by making selections under 'Subscribe To' or you can join the yahoo group which will notify you whenever a post is made,
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bobandjotravelblog/
You can also signup to be a Follower of this blog.
NOTE: See our photos from places we have visited at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bobandjotravel/sets/
Being a fully enclosed fifth wheel allows us the capability to do what is called boondocking, that is parking without the electrical, water and sewer hookups. So far we tried this once at a Wal-Mart parking lot in Illinois when we were bringing the Cameo back from the dealership in Michigan where we picked it up. It was the first time we tried this and it was a disaster. We talked about this in an earlier post, http://bobandjotravelblog.blogspot.com/2009/09/2-weeks-of-full-timing.html, but this experience has made us very cautious to repeat roughing it in that manner. Running the battery down and not getting much sleep due to the parking lot and lack of circulation was so much fun!
Our reaction was to go clear in the other direction, every night that we have parked for the past 8 months we have had full hookups (electrical, water and sewer) at the site. We have two options when it comes to electrical hookups, either 30 amp service or 50 amp service. So far we have been able to get 50 amp service which allows us to use all of our appliances, even both air conditioners at the same time if need be.
This may change this summer as most of the parks that Bob has found in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan are 30 amps and a few do not have sewer hookups at the site. This will be a new experience for us as we may have to worry about running the microwave and the toaster at the same time for example, oh the inhumanity. Now that is really roughing it!
Till next time,
Bob & Jo
You can subscribe to this blog posts and/or comments by making selections under 'Subscribe To' or you can join the yahoo group which will notify you whenever a post is made,
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bobandjotravelblog/
You can also signup to be a Follower of this blog.
NOTE: See our photos from places we have visited at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bobandjotravel/sets/
Monday, May 3, 2010
Full-timing is about choices
Most of the time we as full-timers concentrate on the choices that we will be making, we can choose where you visit, how long we will stay there, etc. Rarely do we talk about what we gave up when we made the decision to go full-timing. This hit home as we spend time in our old stomping grounds of the Kansas City area. We had season tickets at the New Theatre Restaurant which is an excellent dinner theatre and the American Heartland Theatre. The local talent in the KC area is incredible so we always saw great talent doing shows. The New Theatre also brings in a celebrity to headline each of their shows.
Since we were back in the KC area for awhile we decided to attend a show at the New Theatre. We were surprised that we got great seats, in fact one of our old season ticket tables so that was special. The show was "Becky's New Car" which dealt with adultery in a very funny way. The celebrity headliner was John Davidson. The food, oh my gosh, the FOOD!! We have always said that the New Theatre is probably one of the Top 10 places to eat in the KC area and this time did not disappoint us. The quality of the food is well worth the price of the tickets by itself so we look at it like we are getting a show for free. If you are ever in the KC area we highly recommend the New Theatre Restaurant in Overland Park KS.
Before we head out of town we also will be going to the American Heartland to see a show. The American Heartland Theatre is located in the Crown Center in Kansas City MO. The show we will be seeing is the Dixie Swim Club.
It will be good to get a taste of what we gave up to become full-timers and still enjoy the lifestyle, it is good to be us!!
Till next time,
Bob & Jo
You can subscribe to this blog posts and/or comments by making selections under 'Subscribe To' or you can join the yahoo group which will notify you whenever a post is made,
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bobandjotravelblog/
You can also signup to be a Follower of this blog.
NOTE: See our photos from places we have visited at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bobandjotravel/sets/
Since we were back in the KC area for awhile we decided to attend a show at the New Theatre. We were surprised that we got great seats, in fact one of our old season ticket tables so that was special. The show was "Becky's New Car" which dealt with adultery in a very funny way. The celebrity headliner was John Davidson. The food, oh my gosh, the FOOD!! We have always said that the New Theatre is probably one of the Top 10 places to eat in the KC area and this time did not disappoint us. The quality of the food is well worth the price of the tickets by itself so we look at it like we are getting a show for free. If you are ever in the KC area we highly recommend the New Theatre Restaurant in Overland Park KS.
Before we head out of town we also will be going to the American Heartland to see a show. The American Heartland Theatre is located in the Crown Center in Kansas City MO. The show we will be seeing is the Dixie Swim Club.
It will be good to get a taste of what we gave up to become full-timers and still enjoy the lifestyle, it is good to be us!!
Till next time,
Bob & Jo
You can subscribe to this blog posts and/or comments by making selections under 'Subscribe To' or you can join the yahoo group which will notify you whenever a post is made,
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bobandjotravelblog/
You can also signup to be a Follower of this blog.
NOTE: See our photos from places we have visited at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bobandjotravel/sets/
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