Settled in for the night

Hi! Louise here. Its going to be cold tonight. Mid 20s by daybreak. My staff has not gotten us far enough south. Thelma said she heard it was cold all the way to Dallas.

So I have curled up in the throw with Sharon. She will keep me warm. Tomorrow we head into Mississippi. Its got to be warmer there.

Thelma said, "If Loren doesn't get us some place warm soon, I'm going to drive this bus myself. And head for southern Louisiana."

Staying with the Truckers

We got tired at 4:00 and stopped for the night just outside Fort Knox, KY. Got nestled right in with my fellow road warriors.

Didn't do much today, but drive. Had to get slide topper fixed before we left Decatur. Just needed spring tightened. Sullivan RV did it quick and inexpensively.

Headed for Nashville in AM, if we survive the expected cold and snow to night. Both furnaces will run all night. Should give the batteries a healthy workout.

New Drawer

The new drawer is in. Greg did a great job.

New Kitchen Drawer

Greg at Trees to These has the dishwasher out and the drawer goes in next.

The Alabama Coast

The Roving Cats are back. Thelma (that's me) and Louise (my sister) are traveling again. This time our staff has taken us south to the Alabama Coast. We are in Summedale, Alabama. Just east and south of Mobile, about 17 miles north of Gulf Shores, AL, which is actually on the Gulf of Mexico.

The weather is FINE. Today it was 73º. A bit cloudy and windy, but warm. I like warm. The rest of the week it will be sunny and in the high 60's.

Many people have asked about our newer coach. So I asked my male staff, Loren, to take some pictures. To show you our new home on wheels. You would think he would pick up a little before he took the pictures. But you know men. . . .

This shot is of our campground. There are 97 sites. Each site is about 40 feet wide and 75 feet deep. Very large compared to most campgrounds. We have been here a week. I'm not sure when we will move on.

This is our spot. Trees on both sides for shade. You can see the new bedroom slide out in the back of the coach. This add some needed room to get dressed.

The bedroom has lots of hanging closet space and Sharon and Loren each get two large drawers. Why our staff needs so much space is beyond anything the Louise and I can understand. I mean come on. What is with all the clothes?

There is even more storage space on each side of the closet and drawers at the foot of the bed. Loren told me he is planning to put out litter box in one of the cabinets at the foot of the bed. But that will have to wait till he gets us home.

Nice big queen size mattress. I really love the Sleep Number mattress.

And a TV in the bedroom.

Next come the shower. Full size for the staff. They do tend to smell if they don't bath regularly. Once again, I'm not sure I totally understand showers. I just find a comfortable spot, and clean myself. Usually in the front window. Some times I get Louise to help me with the hard to reach parts.

This is the Living – Dinning – Galley Rooms. With a slide on each side, it gives us felines a lot of space. Not that we take up much room. But it is nice to have the space, so we can run, jump, and generally drive Loren crazy. Once again, You would think he would have clean up the mess before he took the pictures. I will have to have a stern talk with him when I am done writing this blog.

Actually I am done, till later have a Cats Life.

Thelma

White Sand really are white

Hi, Thelma here.

For once our staff took us with them when they went out to see a place. That place was White Sand National Monument. Actually they didn't have a choice. They were able to drive the bus on a 16 mile loop through the sand dunes. And were the bus goes, we go.

I now understand why humans wear sunglasses. The sands were so white and bright that my eyes could hardly stand it. Of course my sister Louise and I have very sensitive eyes.

I wanted to get out and roll in the sand. But Loren told me, "No!. Besides, it's not really sand".

Well that just shows how much he knows. Sharon read to me from the brochure that it is a very special kind of sand, made of gypsum. The common mineral gypsum is rarely found as sand because it it easily soluble in water. But here in the desert, water is rarely found. So the gypsum remains as sand.

Any way I won't bore you any more with science class. Here are some of the pictures. Enjoy.

Sharon and Loren climbed up one of the dunes and took a picture of the bus.
You can't really see me, but I'm standing on the dinning room table, looking out the middle window.

Yes in the desert you still need a warm jacket.

It is hard to get a good perspective of size from a photo. In most of these photos we were in the middle of the dunes, and you can not see were they end in any direction. They cover about 275 square miles. And the dunes are moving North East by as much as twenty feet per year. They are not very tall, maybe two stories tall.

The desert is a truly beautiful place

Hi again. This is Thelma. Sharon and Loren went "walk-about" in the desert. They left Louise and I alone in the RV. They had all the fun, we had another boring day. We did have a great view out the window. They told us all about their adventurous "walk-about" when they returned. Below are the pictures, and their story.

This is a picture of the trail at a point about a quarter of the way up.

As you can see, it was an easy walk. NOT! In place the trail was easy.

But many places were steep and rocky.

This is the canyon wall. It is very steep, almost vertical. The canyon is about a mile long. The wall of the canyon ( in fact the entire Kofa Mountain range) is the remains of a series of volcanos that blew there stack million of years ago. The rock is rhyolite, very hard but brittle.

The weather was cool. Part way up we stopped for a breather and to take

a drink from the water we carry with us every place we go. The desert will'

not forgive those who get thirsty. As you can see the trail was well marked

and easy to follow, but made of loose broken stone that made for difficult

walking.

This picture is from about half way up the canyon. You can see the ribbon of dirt road that winds and bumps it way for seven miles back to the paved road. Then another 18 miles back to Quartzsite and the RV. We are standing at about 300 feet above the floor of the desert. We have to climb another 200 feet up, and another quarter of a mile into the canyon before we can see the palm trees.

This is what all the effort was about. The sign point to a side canyon.
And up there is 40 palm trees. This is one of only a few places were
palm trees grow native in Arizona. In is thought that they may be the last
remnants of a grove that was growing here during the last ice age when the
climate was much more tropical. The palms are about 20 feet tall. They are
very high up the side canyon. We did not try to actually reach them.

On the way down I stopped to explore a cave. Sharon kept yelling at me that

I was going to wake a sleeping bear. Not likely. A Mountain Lion, maybe.

The cave was about 20 feet deep and probably a rock hound miners dig.

The last four picture give you an idea just how beautiful the desert can be.