FRIDAY, AUGUST 8. 2008
Our last travel installment left off with us exploring beautiful Palo Duro Canyon Park in the Amarillo, Texas area while anticipating our second July 4th party with our good friends at their nearby cabin in the Palo Duro Club. We all gathered at the cabin and prepared for our gender-specific fun and games.
– the guys have their activities (drinking and shooting) and the girls like to drink, gamble and play games (just kidding, although we did enjoy a few adult beverages occasionally and safely.) After getting set up at the cabin at the Palo Duro Club, the girls gathered around the kitchen table and had a good time playing games. The boys, always enjoying things that make a lot of noise, went skeet shooting, used the rifle range, and tested Jeff’s new potato launcher (aka ‘spud gun’) built for brand-new father-in-law, Harry. More about that later! Jerry bought some shotguns, rifles, and his skeet launcher, so the guys all took turns shooting the clay pigeons. Everybody did pretty good with the skeet, but Jerry was clearly the best shot among Jeff, Harry, and myself. Next we tried the rifle range and I shot about 50 rounds from a Ruger Mini-14 (caliber .223) and decided my ear protection (active ear buds that operate on a loud noise and shut off) weren’t doing an adequate job with a bunch of rounds fired. My ears rang all afternoon!
The major excitement of the afternoon for us guys was Harry’s brand new spud gun. The basic idea of a potato launcher is you jam a potato down the PVC or ABS barrel, remove the end cap, spray in a three-second burst of ‘Axe’ deodorant (an exciting mixture of propane, butane, and smelly stuff) and ignite the mixture via a BBQ grill sparker. A moment later there is a muffled ‘whoomph’ and out goes the potato beginning its usual journey of about 200 yards! After a few shots at terrestrial targets, we all wanted to see how high we could launch a spud so the
tube is elevated and then ignition! That spud was headed for Mars! A Turkey Vulture soaring nearby did a double-take as it saw the potato flying by – it was too funny to believe. Being totally and completely enamored with the spud gun, I took measurements and pictures so I can build my very own copy. Here is a video of the gun in action! Watch for a future update! (For more information about spud guns, Google ‘spud gun’ or ‘potato launcher.’) After our respective activities, everybody thoroughly enjoyed eating host Jerry’s wonderful Texas BBQ – we had pork, beef and turkey – yum-yum.
After a wonderful July 4th gam with our friends, we pointed the bus north and headed for Forest City, Iowa and our first Winnebago Grand National Rally (GNR.)
Basically an RV rally consists of a bunch of old people that drive their RVs to a predetermined location at a predetermined time and party. The primary difference between partying in your 20s and 30s vs. partying in your 50s and up is most all of us are in bed by 10 PM. The activities are more sedate with eating and talking being some favorite things to do. There were many vendors in attendance at the GNR which provided seminars and many performed free service on their particular products. For example we received another replacement water pump (we’re on number four), an overhaul of our Jeep towbar, and a new Sleep Number bed control box/air pump at no cost to us. In spite of the high cost of fuel, almost 1,400 Winnebago RVs attended the GNR – now we know part of the attraction – free repairs! Speaking of repairs, Winnebago cleared up a few remaining problems we were experiencing and now the coach is about 100% functional and in good repair – it’s a good feeling for the time being!
Our original plan was to point the coach home after the rally, but we couldn’t pass up an invitation by Jane’s brother Bill to have a rendezvous in Silverton, Colorado – the idea of fellowship with Bill, wife Bettye, and the Corgi boys, cool weather, and doing some Jeep trails together was a powerful incentive. Even though we enjoyed our two and one-half weeks in Forest City (a wonderful small town which epitomizes Americana), it was good to be back on the road again and to have another event to anticipate with eagerness. Off we headed for Colorado and as we progressed further south and west, the weather became more and more oppressive (104 degrees last Saturday in Ogallala, Nebraska) which just taunted us with suffering before our destination in Silverton.
An interim stop before Silverton was the Colorado Springs area. We booked a pleasant and picturesque RV park which we discovered was fairly close to Canon City, and was fairly close to the Royal Gorge. The distinguishing feature of the Royal Gorge is the bridge which rises 1,000 feet above the gorge. The interest of Canon City for us was the Royal Gorge railroad which is a tourist train that travels 24 miles to and from the gorge in a two hour trip. Since we both love trains, we booked a trip for the next day in the ‘vista dome’ observation car with the ‘wine express’
option. The wine express option consisted of four locally produced wines and a selection of hors d’oeuvres. We boarded the train and looked for a table with our name on a card. We found a table with our name, but our name on two cards with a total of 16 glasses of wines. We were a little overwhelmed but quickly recovered when we realized the 16 glasses of wine were all ours. Shortly after being seated, the hors d’oeuvres arrived and to our surprise discovered they weren’t simple cheese and crackers, but an expertly prepared and presented selection of pork loin, steak, salmon and lobster. The wines were quite good but we both agreed the Merlot was a little too dry for our palate. Fortunately the amount of wine in the glasses wasn’t quite the amount you would expect in a restaurant, so over a two-hour period we were able to do a good job of packing the wine away in our biological containers.
After the Colorado Springs area we headed closer to Silverton and spent a night atRidgway State Park, and then drove the twisty two lane mountain road over elevation changes of 6,000 feet to 11,018 feet (Red Mountain Pass), down to the 9,000 feet elevation of Silverton. Finally we have our cool weather – as I type this in the afternoon, it is a delicious 66 degrees! There is a funny story about our reservation we thought we made for the RV park here, but our dear readers will need to wait for the next installment to hear the details.
Until the next time, may God richly bless you and keep you healthy!