On to Mississippi (06-20-18)

It wasn’t long before we felt the difference between the trailer and the camper.  With temperatures soaring to over 100 degrees every day, our travel days got longer than we anticipated.  It’s hard to justify stopping at 3 pm if you are going to sit in a camper and listen to the AC run as it tries to cool the place down. In that type of weather the trailer is much nicer.

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Hiking is best done as close to sunrise as possible when it’s this hot out. I am not great at getting up and out that early, but I am trying.








We had to re-think our meals for the first few days as well- it was too hot to grill outside, and too hot to cook anything in the oven. In addition to that, we had not done a great job of “downsizing” the fridge and freezer contents.  We have had to try and eat whatever takes up the most space.  With the high heat, and a crammed freezer, the food is not staying frozen.  So, we had soup for dinner. Ugh.

Jackson, Mississippi

Our first stop in Mississippi was Jackson, the state capital. We headed over to the archives and spent a full day and a half looking through books and records.

Although we are researching Porters, when I need a break I look for Kings.

It’s amazing how tiring it is reading books and documents all day. We were happy we found a spot in the local state park so we could relax at the end of the day.

Once we had exhausted the archives, we didn’t want to just run off to our next destination, so we scouted around for hikes and other things to do. There are many museums in Jackson, some of which are free of charge, but we don’t like art museums. We decided that the Agriculture and Forestry Museum would be interesting, so we checked it out.

I am not really a museum person, so I like unusual museums and/or I try to find something of interest to me in a museum.

The Ag museum was billed as a “living history” museum but there were no active demonstrations and it was really quiet when we were there. Still, at $5 per person, we are easily entertained. ( Crank call I made as a teenager: Do you have Prince Albert in a can??? Then let him out.  I had no idea what Prince Albert even was!)

My two takeaways from the museum? Mississippi supplies 62% of all the catfish in this country, and in 1910, when the “horseless carriage” was coming of age, Mississippi only had 10 miles of stone paved roads, so the state resisted the movement.

The State park we were in boasted a “nature trail”. Usually when that term is used, its a short, sometimes not very interesting, walk. But we needed some exercise, so off we went.

This particular trail was pretty good- 3.5 miles into the “bayou”, up and down stairs, it had several platforms for watching wildlife and quite a few plaques explaining what we were seeing.
It made a great outing before we left for our next destination.

Meridian, Mississippi

Meridian is where Paul loses the Porter name, so we knew we would spend a few days at least, combing through whatever records we could find. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much. Paul’s great grandfather was born in Meridian, but it was during the civil war, and General Sherman came through here and destroyed many of the buildings, and therefore, records.

After a frustrating two days, we had nothing.The only positive is that we gave it all we had, and feel like if there was something to find, we would have found it.

One of the websites we use is Findagrave.com. In addition to using it to find burial information that YOU need, you can help other people by taking pictures of graves that they are interested in. Although we didn’t find any graves of Paul’s ancestors, we did find a gravestone that someone else was interested in.

Our research exhausted, we looked for other diversions. I had chosen the RV park we stayed in based on the fact that they have a pool, and I could swim. Unfortunately the pool was being renovated, so it was empty.

That  led us to Bonita Lakes Park for our exercise- a town park that is very close to where we were staying.  We mapped out a 4 mile hike around one of the lakes, and got there as early as we could, to beat the heat and humidity. This trail is what I call a twofer.

It had nice views, and also had exercise equipment along the trail. With the humidity so high, we didn’t bother with the equipment, but it was nice that it was there. This is actually an incredible park, with something for everyone.

While driving around Meridian, Paul had noticed a museum that he was particularly interested in. The Meridian Industrial Heritage Museum is housed in the Soule Steam Works factory.

This family owned factory built steam engines for over 100 years before going out of business in 2002. They were the major employer in Meridian for many years.

I literally laughed when I saw the sink set up in the locker room. It looks very  much like the sinks in the parochial school I attended in first grade.

It wasn’t the best museum or tour we’ve ever taken, but it is a small town.

 

Let The Summer Begin! (06-12-18)

On June 5th we had everything “summerized” in the house, and the camper all packed up ready to go! Ordinarily we would take the trailer on a trip this long, but not this time! Our plan for the summer is to combine exploring with genealogy research. Much of that research will need to be done in major cities, and we decided that driving a dually would get very old very fast, so we are taking the camper and towing the Jeep behind us. 

Before we left we sat down and made a list of the states and provinces we need to visit in our search for information. Our basic route will be Texas /Mississippi /Tennessee /Georgia /Alabama /Virginia /Massachusetts /Nova Scotia.Then, if need be, we will reverse the order on the way home, depending on what we learn along the way.

We are determined to keep our pace as leisurely as we can, even though we know that won’t always be possible. With that idea in mind, we stopped several times before we got to El Paso to visit Paul’s mom.

Our first stop was Colossal Cave, just outside Tucson.  We have seen the highway billboards for this cave for years. It has been a tourist attraction since the 1920s!



The underground temperature is about 70 degrees, which we figured would be a  welcome relief from the 107 degrees on the highway.

The only problem was the cat.  We couldn’t leave him in the camper for 3 hours without air conditioning, so for the first time ever, we paid for an rv spot with electricity, even though we had no intention of spending the night there.

There are several different tours you can take, and although I am NOT a fan of being underground, we chose the 1.5 hour long Ladder tour, which involves some scrambling and climbing. I figured as long as I was going to be underground,  it might as well be fun.

The pictures came out fuzzy because pretty much the only light we had was our headlamps, which made it more interesting, but more challenging for pictures.


We’ve been in quite a few caves over the years, and other than the hiking aspect, this one doesn’t rate in the top 5.  The formations are quite dusty and dirty, and not all that pretty ( admittedly, we are spoiled).

Our next stop along the way was Wilcox, AZ, the closest town to Chiricahua National Monument.  We have hiked many of the trails here, but we were again hoping for some relief from the heat by hiking at an elevation of about 7500 feet.

We chose the Sugarloaf Mountain Trail- its only about 3 miles long, and we tried to get an early start to beat the heat. There are great views wherever you go in the Chiricahuas-one of the reasons we like it so much.

After a quick picnic lunch we meandered through the town of Wilcox, thinking we would check out the museum that we somehow have never taken the time to investigate. We chatted with the woman operating it, (not pictured here) and she was warning us that she might get an urgent phone call that would require her to leave, and sure enough, the words were barely out of her mouth when her phone rang, and the “closed” sign went on the door.  Oh well, maybe next time. At least the ice cream parlor was open!

We spent 4 days with Paul’s mom, and dang it, I never took a single picture! I am great at taking scenic shots, but horrible at remembering to get the camera out when I am with other people.

April and May, 2018

First of all, I guess I should answer the question I posed in my last blog post- what happens when people get bored? They go shopping.  And boy, did Paul and I go shopping.

Our first major purchase was a new truck camper. We spent a fair amount of time looking at campers, and even toured the Lance Camper factory in California.  One of our favorite brands was the Host Camper but in the end we decided it was too big and too heavy for what we wanted.  We ended up with an Arctic Fox 1150- slightly smaller and much lighter than the Lance we were giving up.

I didn’t take the time to do some nice, staged pictures, so these will have to do.  The bedroom area has a ton of storage.

Overall the floor space feels much larger than in the Lance, but I did have to buy a step stool, and I am not all that vertically challenged.

Looking back towards the rear of the camper, the bathroom is on the right, and the dinette on the left.  The bathroom was our biggest compromise.  Its not exactly big, and has taken some getting used to- but we are managing, and we really like the feel of the lighter camper, going down the road.






Over the last two months we have taken it on two test runs- one to a nearby state park, towing the jet ski, and another to Fresno CA to see friends, towing the Jeep. Based on those trips, we have made some modifications and additions, to make it better suited to our needs.


The annual boat show in Havasu occurs in April and Paul and I made the “mistake” of going to it.  We have been sort of thinking about a boat, and renting one for a day in March made us more antsy to own one.  Boating, after all, is the main reason we built a house in Havasu.  So off to the boat show we went, thinking we would look at deck boats- maybe a bow rider.



The first booth we came to was Avalon pontoon boats. We had no desire for a pontoon boat but they were giving free demo rides. Uh oh.

Avalon advertises that “this is not your Grandpa’s pontoon boat”. And they aren’t kidding.  This boat cruises at 45 mph. 

Although we investigated all other options (spending 8 hours looking at boats, with temps of 100 degrees), in the end, we bought the boat that we took for the demo ride.

We have already gotten a lot of use out of it, and even took it for a sunset/stargazing cruise (not pictured).

Oh, we also bought a sign for over the sliding glass door-

Although April and May were quieter months, we still had visitors, including our daughter, and took several trips with the camper.


Memorial Day weekend is typically our last “hurrah” before we take off for the summer.  This year, as usual, my cousin Linda brought her friends for a fun filled, crazy weekend.











They brought a boat with them but on Friday we all piled in our pontoon and headed up the lake.












The weather was perfect for a trip through Topock Gorge to one of the restaurants on the water.















Saturday was too windy for boating, but we all managed to have a great time anyway.











Sunday we were back on the lake, using their boat, and our jet ski.  Perfect weather.

Unfortunately I found out over the weekend that my favorite uncle had passed away, so I flew out on Sunday evening, headed to Boston to attend his funeral.

As soon as I got back to Havasu, we pushed hard to pack up to leave for the summer.