TOUR

At our last check of the Weather, before turning in last night, we noted that a front would bring rain in the night.  So, when rain on the roof of the Pony Express, woke us up briefly in the night it wasn’t a surprise. When I stepped out of the Pony after breakfast, cup of coffee in hand. It was a pleasant surprise to find that the light drizzle that was falling, was not the cold Winter mix that I had feared. Instead it was a mild Springtime shower that was quite nice. Here is where we were parked this morning early.

Soon we caught up with the Storm as it traveled to the East. We are headed to Florida on the first leg of the 2014 Oliver Legacy II tour. Traveling along in the rain we began to talk about the dry conditions in Quartzsite, that we had been in a few short weeks ago. Here is a blog post about the dust there in “Q”, that somehow I just never did get around to posting.

DUST

The wind blew like crazy yesterday. Coming out of the South West the wind gusted to up around thirty five miles per hour. Here in the Desert South West, where ground covering vegetation can be pretty sparse, high wind means billowing dust. That wind and dust was a sign of a front that would soon arrive here at our Quartzsite campsite. Daytime temperatures will be dropping down into the upper sixties during the day. Now, that ain’t all that bad of a day !

However, this morning everyone is wearing heavy coats and hoodies, and giving Betty and I strange looks as we are in our tee shirts and shorts. With another Artic blast about to hit family and friends back in America’s Heartland, we feel so lucky to be currently workamping here in the dessert South West.

MEANWHILE, back in the real world.   .   .   .   .

So, here we are headed to Florida in a driving rain storm, yet we are looking forward to our first showings there.

The Oliver “Road Crew” , Florida Bound.

Many

After our weekend trip back to Arkansas to take care of a couple of chores, we are staying at a cool Horse/trail riding campground, in one of their cabins. It is right on the banks of the Buffalo River and it is the “Many Cedars Campground”. The stables are in a line behind the row of cabins.

There is no Cell service here, no Internet and no Television, not even a land line Telephone, .   .   .peaceful. Yes, peaceful.

Sitting on the front porch this morning I could hear a Turkey gobbling nearby. It was fun to sip coffee while calling to him.

There is a back porch on the cabin that looks like this. Maybe tomorrow I’ll try Coffee and Turkey talk there.

The light is from the Kitchen window, just before dawn. Yeh, I think I’ll try the back porch in the morning before breakfast, It’s closer to the Kitchen table, for when Betty hollers “it’s on the table” !

Here we are at the Oliver Plant.

We took the class C motorhome, a Pony Express,  that we will be pulling the 2014 Legacy II with to get some service work done today.

It won’t be long before we hit the road on the show tour.

HIDDEN

While recently, on a quick trip back to Arkansas from Tennessee. Betty and I didn’t have the stereo on, but instead chatted the trip away. Mostly we were talking about our recent Quartzsite stay. Here is one of those things we talked about enjoying so much.

Many of the dessert’s secret’s are hidden in plain sight. Here is one of those cool things.

Clearly, these precise, large rock letters are meant to be seen from the air. They gave much information to America’s early Aviators, who flew with little in the way of instrumentation.

The signs are giant representations of the symbols on the maps of the era. In the above photo, the direction of magnetic North is given.

The cool site is protected from vandals by a sign that is wired to a rusty barb wire fence.

Once we located the correct dirt track, we found the site in the second lava bed on the left.

In this photo, Betty stands inside the middle of the map symbol for town.  The word QUARTZSITE proceeds that symbol, then is followed by distance symbols and a directional arrow. A bit hard to see from the ground level, but likely very obvious from the air.

General Patton had his field Headquarters nearby and it is also in a fence. Clearly visible is the rock lined walkway to the HQ Tent and the division number markings made of rocks.

SEVENTEEN

Our trip back to the plant in Tennessee was highlighted by a flat and a blowout on Friday. The flat was in Deming Nm and the blowout was near Van Horn Tx. As we were refueling in Deming, Betty checked the tires and found a low tire on the trailer. There was a tire shop just up the street and we were soon on the road again.

Here we are at “Big O” tire shop in Deming, Nm.

Later that evening, just before dark, we had a blowout. Though we immediately pulled over, we still had some damage. Here is a look.

The tire that blew was a good looking tire that was three years old. I had been checking the temperature of the sidewall and tread at each stop with no hint of a pending problem. Go figure  .  .  .  .

We keep a jumper pack and a 12 volt impact wrench handy for such occasions.

We pulled the good tire up on a block and soon we had the tire changed out. Now, we were out of spare tires and we eased into a tire shop in a old service station. Being next to the border and at night, the border patrol was constantly active as we got a new tire and our spare checked out.

Here is the service truck that got us back on the road.

We waved good by to the tire guys, and put on a few more miles to make sure that things were working well. Overnighting in Van Horn Texas, we were still ahead of Winter storm Titan. It was time for a few hours of sleep. Up early the next morning, we put in seventeen hours behind the wheel to beat the storm into our docking port in Norman.

ROAD

Hours behind the wheel put us into the docking port just ahead of Winter Storm Titan, soon we were iced in.

There wasn’t much snow but instead it was mostly sleet and freezing rain all wrapped up in a thunder storm !

Poco was hidden under the comforter on the bed between Betty and I. Around six AM he had to go outside and we discovered that the ice had the door sealed shut !

Non the less it is good to be back in these Ouachita Mountains !