Southwestern RV Trip – Days 57-59, Heading Home

After nearly eight weeks the time had finally come to point the coach east and head for home beginning with the 18 mile long, 4000 ft climb to get up on the Colorado Plateau at Flagstaff and the big diesel handled it well.  We soon left the pine forest around Flagstaff and found ourselves in a flat desert wasteland, so my positive AZ comments in the previous post apply only to southern AZ.  The road thru AZ and NM was okay – some very good, some good and a lot needing attention but none terrible.

We were driving along and saw this snow covered peak and then noticed what seemed to be a dumping ground for old asphalt so we did a little research and discovered that the snow covered peak was Mt Taylor, an inactive volcano and the piles of asphalt are really 1.5 – 3.3 million year old lava – a real shocker.

Once we entered NM the landscape became more rolling with lots of mountains around but it became very windy and I slowed down by 10 mph to feel more comfortable but I steered to the right most of the day and I was plenty tired.  

We pulled into the Sky City Casino around 3pm and were assigned site #3 in their RV park where we paid a very low $22 for the night – maybe our lowest ever.  The resort (casino, hotel, campground, fuel stop) is owned by the Acoma PuebloNative Americans but all I saw of it was the hotel check-in desk and the campground - our site was hard surface with gravel between the sites and it was very good for an overnight stop.

On Friday, we got back on I-40 an hour earlier in hopes of getting to the next stop before the winds got bad and we pulled into Oasis RV Resort about 2:30 pm as the wind was getting brisk.  Like Arizona, I-40 in NM had some good road and a lot that needed work soon, but when we entered Texas we were on a smooth concrete and asphalt surface.  The campground is located about a dozen miles west of downtown Amarillo and near I-40 but with no road noise.

We had previously experienced a wind damaged slide, so as the wind picked up I closed the two passenger slides and before going to bed, we brought in the other one and sure glad I did.  The winds were predicted to be 30 mph with gusts near 50 mph all night and the whole coach was rocking every time I woke up.  

This is our site #89 out of 192 total and I kept the driver’s side slide in until mid-afternoon on Saturday when the winds died down some.

Once again this was a nice place for an overnight stop or a longer stay to visit the area and it was pretty full each morning.

While in the area, we decided we should drive around downtown Amarillo just to have a look, but first we went to a late lunch at the Hoffbrau Steak & Grill House for chicken fried steak – they are a four location chain centered around Ft. Worth.

The inside was warm and inviting and very large with several rooms.  We all had Chicken Fried Steak with mashed potatoes and salad and Pat and I had THE TRADITIONAL  w/ peppered cream gravy  13.75.

Bev ordered THE COWTOWN w/ pepper jack cheese relleno, guacamole, pico de gallo & peppered cream gravy  15.75.

We all thought our meals were good but nothing special so I would not go back for their CFS but if I did, I'd order Bev's.

On our way to the restaurant, we past the Cadillac Ranch and there were several folks around each car so I assume they were painting them.

We drove around downtown Amarillo and then along Route 66 west of town and everything we saw was pretty clean and prosperous looking, but nothing unusual about downtown except the many brick streets.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them and the blue words are links.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

3/7 – 3/9/19 event dates