Santa Fe
April 07, 2013 05:38 PM
If you follow this blog, you’ll find that I often make reference to the flexibility of the fulltiming lifestyle. You can look at this from two directions. First, the nature of the fulltiming lifestyle allows a lot more flexibility than the stick-and-brick lifestyle. Second, it often demands flexibility. We’re living through a good example of the latter as I write this.
Today is Tuesday. We arrived in Santa Fe last Thursday, planning to stay four nights and depart Monday (yesterday). Well, Mother Nature had other plans. The weather has been great here until today, but it’s been ugly to the west along our planned route to Williams, AZ and then Las Vegas, NV. A monster storm raced down from the upper Pacific coast bringing winds of 40-50 mph with gusts above 70. On Sunday morning, the National Weather Service issued wind warnings along I-40 through western New Mexico and all of Arizona, specifically advising “high profile vehicles such as trucks and RVs should avoid travel through the area.” Having experienced lane-changing gusts in the past, I decided staying in Santa Fe for a couple more days would be wise. So, we adjusted plans, rescheduled reservations, and are still in Santa Fe. I’m glad we did; yesterday, a long section of I-40 was closed to all traffic due to high winds and blowing dust. We had a dust storm here yesterday afternoon, sleet and snow this morning, and are expecting more snow this afternoon and tonight. Extending our stay here was, to put it lightly, a very good decision. Luckily, it’s been warm enough that no snow accumulation is expected, so with a little luck we’ll hit the road tomorrow, hopefully in much-improved conditions.
But that’s not all. Yesterday morning I went online to America’s Mailbox, our mail forwarding service, and ordered a delivery of mail to meet us in Las Vegas. This morning, I received an email from the owner of the business advising that the Postal Service has suspended all mail services until further notice due to snow and high winds in Rapid City, SD. Thus, our mail will not ship until Thursday or Friday. So now I’m facing the decision of whether I should leave the order in place and hope the shipment will make it to Las Vegas before we leave, or cancel the shipment and order another later, perhaps while we’re in Morro Bay, CA. I guess I’ll wait for an update on conditions in Rapid City tomorrow morning and make the decision then. Such is the life of the fulltimer. You make plans…, and then you adjust.
The nice part of the above is that we got to spend a couple of extra days in Santa Fe. We’re terrible tourists. The best example of this is when, several years ago on a trip through England, we stumbled across Stonehenge while looking for a place to turn around. Really, we’re terrible tourists. We land at a place and wander, more interested in the feel of the place and its people than the usual tourist spots. So, in Santa Fe, we mostly wandered around the old town area people-watching, sampling the food (I ate carne adovada, which Siri spells “Kearny auto Buddha”, in just about every restaurant we went to) and, of course, beer (four breweries—Santa Fe Brewing Company, Blue Corn Cafe & Brewery, Marble Brewery, and the Second Street Brewery), and stumbling, by chance, across several famous tourist spots (e.g., the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum). But despite our lack of organization—or perhaps because of it—we’ve enjoyed our stay.
April 10, 2013 09:25 PM
We left Santa Fe in light blowing snow this morning and are now in Williams, AZ. The trip was windy but uneventful. Tomorrow is forecast to be even better.
William’s claim to fame is the Grand Canyon Railway and their famous Route 66 main drag. We just returned from brews and BBQ at Cruiser’s, a 1950’s style diner on Route 66, which also hosts the Grand Canyon Brewing Company. Kinda fun.
Tomorrow morning, we head west to Las Vegas, where we’ll spend six days at the FamCamp (“family campground,” an RV park) on Nellis AFB. Check back in a few days for our Las Vegas report.
Alan
Today is Tuesday. We arrived in Santa Fe last Thursday, planning to stay four nights and depart Monday (yesterday). Well, Mother Nature had other plans. The weather has been great here until today, but it’s been ugly to the west along our planned route to Williams, AZ and then Las Vegas, NV. A monster storm raced down from the upper Pacific coast bringing winds of 40-50 mph with gusts above 70. On Sunday morning, the National Weather Service issued wind warnings along I-40 through western New Mexico and all of Arizona, specifically advising “high profile vehicles such as trucks and RVs should avoid travel through the area.” Having experienced lane-changing gusts in the past, I decided staying in Santa Fe for a couple more days would be wise. So, we adjusted plans, rescheduled reservations, and are still in Santa Fe. I’m glad we did; yesterday, a long section of I-40 was closed to all traffic due to high winds and blowing dust. We had a dust storm here yesterday afternoon, sleet and snow this morning, and are expecting more snow this afternoon and tonight. Extending our stay here was, to put it lightly, a very good decision. Luckily, it’s been warm enough that no snow accumulation is expected, so with a little luck we’ll hit the road tomorrow, hopefully in much-improved conditions.
But that’s not all. Yesterday morning I went online to America’s Mailbox, our mail forwarding service, and ordered a delivery of mail to meet us in Las Vegas. This morning, I received an email from the owner of the business advising that the Postal Service has suspended all mail services until further notice due to snow and high winds in Rapid City, SD. Thus, our mail will not ship until Thursday or Friday. So now I’m facing the decision of whether I should leave the order in place and hope the shipment will make it to Las Vegas before we leave, or cancel the shipment and order another later, perhaps while we’re in Morro Bay, CA. I guess I’ll wait for an update on conditions in Rapid City tomorrow morning and make the decision then. Such is the life of the fulltimer. You make plans…, and then you adjust.
April 10, 2013 09:25 PM
We left Santa Fe in light blowing snow this morning and are now in Williams, AZ. The trip was windy but uneventful. Tomorrow is forecast to be even better.
William’s claim to fame is the Grand Canyon Railway and their famous Route 66 main drag. We just returned from brews and BBQ at Cruiser’s, a 1950’s style diner on Route 66, which also hosts the Grand Canyon Brewing Company. Kinda fun.
Tomorrow morning, we head west to Las Vegas, where we’ll spend six days at the FamCamp (“family campground,” an RV park) on Nellis AFB. Check back in a few days for our Las Vegas report.
Alan
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