October 1997

<<< Wednesday, 1 - Monday, 6 October 1997

We have now travelled 1,910 miles in six days camping in a different state each night. The terrain slowly changed from the densely deciduous tree-covered mountains of West Virginia to more gentle hills in Kentucky and then into the flatness of Arkansas. We saw tobacco leaves drying under wooden barns in Kentucky, fields of what initially looked like small white flowers but were cotton bushes growing in Arkansas as well as soya beans which at this time of the year the leaves have turned a pleasant yellow. After which it was mainly flat to Oklahoma City where we had arranged for a major service to be carried out on the RV.

The landscape through Texas to Amarillo and beyond was very flat and uninteresting. On into New Mexico where we had planned to stay overnight in Albuquerque, however upon arrival, we found that it was the world-famous balloon festival week and we were informed that we were unlikely to find a campsite within a hundred miles; which proved to be correct so by the end of the day we had travelled 379 miles to Grants, New Mexico.

During the six days, the weather slowly changed from that more typical of a cool English summer to clear skies and temperatures in the high eighties, however, we had a rude awakening when camped about 60 miles from the Grand Canyon when a cold front driven by a high south-westerly wind developed and the temperature suddenly fell 50 degrees during the day and then down to 28F overnight, it was time to switch on the furnace!

Tuesday, 7 October 1997

As we were ahead of schedule we decided to stay for an extra night in Williams, AZ so we could visit the town of Sedona whose scenery has been used in many cowboy films. The town is surrounded by a range of beautiful mountains but today it is yet another tourist haven with numerous gift shops and offers of helicopter flights and 4X4 drives to explore the local terrain.

Wednesday, 8 - Thursday, 9 October 1997

Bulkhead City, AZ is one of many new towns still developing in what seems an uncontrolled manner along the Arizona side of the Colorado river. We stopped at Riverside campground which is a C2C membership park and it turned out to be yet another large campground tailored almost exclusively for long stays by snowbirds.

Friday, 10 - Saturday, 11 October 1997

The final 296 miles to Long Beach, CA then stocking the cupboards and spring cleaning in readiness for Doug and Ivy's visit, who arrived on time from Miami.

Doug & Ivy

Sunday, 12 - Wednesday 29 October 1997

Sorry readers but despite several promises Ivy never did get around to writing anything for the diary during her three-week tour with us, we must have kept them too busy!

We visited many of the big attractions which have been fully written about by our previous visitors however we did visit several new places including the Canyon De Chelly which is the most picturesque canyon we have seen, particularly as the trees were in their autumn colours.

Thursday, 30 October 1997

We drove Doug & Ivy the 50 miles to Beuna Park where they had arranged to rent a motor home from Cruise America for 8 days. They were looking forward to the experience, planning to travel up the west coast and explore San Francisco. The rest of the day was spent doing the laundry, cleaning and restocking the empty cupboards.

Friday, 31 October 1997 - Halloween Day

For weeks we have seen masses of pumpkins, ghouls clothing and the like in shops, decorating houses and indeed RV's in campgrounds but even so we were surprised how many people dressed up in weird customs for Halloween, which included many shop assistants in most of the large outlets. On the surface, Halloween is a childish trick-or-treat occasion but from what we saw more adults were dressed up than children, including the compere and contestants of TV shows such as quiz programmes. >>>

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