Mon, Oct 15th - Home at Last

We drove from Crossville, TN, about 90 miles west of Knoxville, to Stafford, VA today and got home about 6:30 p.m. We are glad to be home--at least for a little while. We head to FL the middle of Dec!

I would have loved to have had time to add more pictures and information about all of the things that we have seen and done, BUT I've just run out of time! So until the next trip--so long and hope you have enjoyed our "Westward Ho" trip as much as we have!

Sun, Oct 14th - Bean Pot Campground, Crossville, TN

We checked into the campground early today--around 11:30 and then headed out to see what Crossville, TN was like. We had been looking into "The Gardens" community there. See http://www.gardensrvvillage.com/ . It's a unique retirement community with duplexes that have RV garages attached to the houses. Wish they had a community like it in Virginia!

This is just the right side of the duplex.

Here's another one that was for sale. The size is deceiving because the house is so deep vice being long. This one had a walkout room in the basement and had about 2200 square feet of space.

http://www.beanpotcampground.net/ Bean Pot Campground

Sat, Oct 13th - Sam's Club Parking Lot, Jackson, TN

Tonight we camped in Jackson, TN-near Nashville. We had dinner across the parking lot from our "camp site" at the Lone Star Steakhouse! Yum. Oh, of course we did a little shopping at the nearby Wal-Mart too. And again, we had free Wi-Fi thanks to the Day's Inn near by! There were about 5 other motorhomes camped with us.

Fri, Oct 12th - East to Arkadelphia, AR

We spent the night in the Arkadelphia Campground & RV Park just off I30 in Arkadelphia.

http://www.arkadelphiacampground.com/

Thur, Oct 11th - Vernon, TX

Today we drove from Albuquerque, NM to Amarillo, TX on I40. Then we headed southeast some on Rt 287 to Vernon, TX where we spent the night in yet another Wal-Mart! How lucky we were to be parked in the lot next to where a campground was. We had free Wi-Fi from the campground!

Flat, tree less TX. Can't you just see how you could see a tornado coming for miles!

There was a train track all along this route, mostly filled with coal.

And did you know that they grow cotton in TX? I didn't. I saw a sign in Memphis, TX that said that they are the cotton capital of the panhandle of TX.

Wed, Oct 10th - Hugs and Kisses and Everyone Heads for Home

The Discovery Rally is officially OVER! We had our last coffee together this morning and then we packed up and started our trek back to VA! We drove south from Moab, over into the southwest corner of Colorado and then down into New Mexico. We drove thru the UTE and the Navajo Reservations. We got as far as Albuquerque, NM today. We camped out at the Wal-Mart on the east side of town. We had lots of company in the parking lot and the Wagners were there too! We had dinner together at the Boston Market and after did a little shopping at Wal-Mart! We got a little turned around in the city of Albuquerque and found where the Balloon Festival is held! Now we'll know where to go when we come back for that event.

Tue, Oct 9th - Jeeping the Shafer Trail up to Dead Horse Park

Shafer Trail

Another day of jeeping up another trail. We just love it and are so glad that the Mertz' have included us in all the fun!

These petroglyphs were different than we had seen before. They kind of look like centipedes!

Remember the movie "Thelma and Louise"? Well it wasn't Arizona where they drove off the cliff. It was here in Moab and they catapulted the "stripped down to nothing car: over this cliff and into the Colorado River.

Dead Horse Point--This made a perfect, natural corral for horses as there is a narrow piece of land behind it (that you can't see in this picture) that they could gate off to keep the horses out on the point.

Here's a picture of the "Z" trail that we climbed up in the Mertz' jeep. Boy it was steep!

Here we are almost to the top of the Shafer trail having lunch with a view that looks down on the trail that we just drove up--see that light colored line almost in the middle of the picture--that was the easy part of the trail.

This is the view looking down from Dead Horse Point. Can you make out the white rock formation that is in the shape of a horse? It's legs are pointing toward the bottom right corner of the picture. The river is the Colorado River.

Pucker Pass--yes, we had to drive under this rock to get down the trail!

And Betty Mertz made it thru just fine alone with the rest of the group.

Dinner at the Moab Brewery

Linda & Bill Johnson

Neil & Marlene Elkins, Rally Masters

LaVerne & Bob Foerster

John & Judy Wittenberg

Sue & Bobbie Bryan

Junior & Betty Mertz checking out some pictures Junior took.

Lollie & Denny Kendrick

Violet & Bob Radd

Karen and John Didich

Gayelene & Jack Muckenthaler

Jim & Margie Madole

Some how we missed getting a picture of the Wagners, but they are in alot of our other photos as we did alot of sightseeing with them!

Tomorrow Oct 10th, we say goodbye to all of our friends, old and new and head for a Wal Mart in New Mexico! We will be heading back east via route 40 and then up I81 in VA.