2025 Airstream Travels

We leave about 8:00am from Tucumcari driving east on I-40. Our plan is to drive to Elk City, OK where we plan to stay at 66 to Go, a Harvest Host site. For $60 a year, as a Harvest Host member, you have access to overnight park at over 2,000 restaurants, museums, farms, wineries, breweries, and much more. Not a bad deal since most campgrounds are around $35 for a State Park and upwards of $40 – 50 for a private campground with full hook-ups. HH sites are typically dry camping with no hook-ups but what they do offer is a unique local experience sampling local wares and generating revenue for their community by bringing tourism to it. There is a website where you can look for sites, make reservations, and read other reviews about the host. We did not use it on the way but were determined to on the way back, and we are here tonight at our first of many.

The interstate first took us through a small part of New Mexico before heading into the panhandle of Texas. Here there are thousands of wind turbines as far as the eye can see on the distant horizon. They must power millions of homes and businesses, it’s quite a sight to see. It’s flat as a pancake here with next to no trees, with large ranches and irrigation systems and we wonder what they grow here. This is definitely big sky country since there is nothing but the land spreading out to the horizon.

While enroute, we stop at the first rest area we come to in Texas Panhandle near the Gray County sign. This rest area is the Taj Mahal of all rest areas in our travels, and I venture to say, the entire US. From sliding glass entry doors to marble stalls, terrazzo floors, tiled walls, to hot water instantly out of the faucets, and so clean you could eat off the floors – this is an amazing facility, if only all rest areas to be remade in its exact likeness!

We reach Oklahoma around 2:00pm, crossing another time zone from MST to CST. Elk City is a small town just to the inside of the state line and the Harvest Host is located on the outskirts of the town. We park in the gravel area adjacent to the restaurant and use the LevelMatePro to find a level spot so the refrigerator can work. Other than putting the feet down on the camper, we are fully set-up and hungry – good thing the Harvest Host is a restaurant! We each enjoy a pizza, one gluten-free and one traditional, it is great. For dessert, they have dozens of flavors of frozen custards, I chose Butter Pecan and Ron, Strawberry. It’s delicious.

Tomorrow we will travel east on I-40 towards Arkansas. Originally, we wanted to head northeast from Oklahoma City to Tulsa and then into Missouri, but the weather is not cooperating. The roads in starting in Texas and continuing into Oklahoma are some of the bests we’ve travelled, and it makes traveling so much easier and less stressful. Fingers crossed that tomorrow’s travels will be as pleasant.

We slept soundly last night, better than the last couple of nights. Not sure why but it felt great. Today we want to visit a couple of the museums located here in Tucumcari.

It’s evident from the local architecture, that the village was in its heyday during the mid 50s – 60s when Route 66 was the main route you traveled from Chicago to the West Coast. Route 66 was the first major highway to traverse the country starting in 1926 and continuing many years until the advent of the Interstate Highway systems. The traffic on Route 66 fueled the local economies with tourism, shopping, gas, motels and more. The road still exists in some areas where you can slow down, enjoy the local scenery, and here about local lore in these small, quaint villages. Many, such as Tucumcari, have a lot of character, and we hope it and other small towns along Route 66, can find a way to continue to welcome visitors for many years to come.

Many of the buildings and stores in Tucumcari have engaged local artists to paint unique murals to their facilities, adding a colorful, unique, and uplifting theme to the community. We decided to make the Mesalands Dinosaur Museum our first stop. Upon entering the building, we were greeted by the curator, who shared some information about unique museum. She told us that many of the rocks and bones on display were found in this area, but there are some are various parts of the world. The local college has a department that makes bronzes of the bones found here, an exacting task that can take up to 40 hours for one small bone. By bronzing the bones, many of the exhibits can be touched and are exact replicas of the original.

The curator also told us how Tucumcari got its name from a local legend. Hundreds of years ago, two Native American tribes lived in the area and one of the Chiefs wanted his daughter ‘Cari’ to marry another Chiefs son, but Cari was in love with another tribesman, ‘Tucum’. When her father tried to force her marriage to another, Cari and Tucum climbed to the top of the Mesa and jumped off. Her father upon finding out, cried out for ‘Tucum’ ‘Cari’ , lamenting over their deaths.

We also visited the Railroad Museum which has some interesting artifacts but no trains to tour. Several people we spoke with recommended “Dels” as the place to get a good meal. From the outside it was non-descript, but the food was absolutely amazing. Ron had a fantastic hamburger and fries, I opted for a chicken breast with a raspberry jalapeno sauce, roasted veggies, and a baked potato. The service was great too and we highly recommend Del’s to anyone traveling through this unique village.

New Mexico legalized recreational Marijuana last year and there must be at least 10 dispensaries in this town of about 6,000 people! Possibly it will generate some economic development for the community!

We plan to leave early in the morning around 7:30 to head east to Oklahoma. Winds are going to start picking up which we hope to avoid. One of the locals told us that home insurance in this area won’t cover roof damage because it’s always windy here. Just last week they had winds clocking 80mph.

Tomorrow we will be in Oklahoma – a new state and planning to stay at our first Harvest Host site. We enjoyed our stay at Blaze-in-Saddles and visiting Tucumcari, New Mexico!

After leaving our overnight stay at Walmart, we headed north on I-25 towards Alburquerque. The road is in good condition and the scenery starts to change from a desert landscape to wide open prairies of rolling hills, buttes, mesas, and trees. We haven’t seen so many trees since we started our trip and it’s a nice change for us. In looking on the internet, we think they are a type of cedar tree and must be very prolific since they cover the landscape to the horizon in all directions.

New Mexico is #6 for the lowest population density in the US and here it’s evident as there are no towns, gas stations, or any hint of civilization other than the highway and fencing. There must be huge mega farms in the area and in reading about it, Ted Turner owns a million acres in New Mexico and owns the largest herd of Buffalo on private property. Richard Branson, multi-billionaire and founder of Virgin Galactic, lives in Truth or Consequences, NM and is building a spaceport here, to offer 50,000 customers flights to space when it’s completed.

The city of Alburquerque is located 5,000 to 7,000 feet in elevation and appears to be a beautiful city with great scenery of towering mountains. The highway is busy but just as we are driving through it, Justice decides he needs to stop and stop now! He starts nudging Ron, which he never does, and we know it’s urgent but there’s nothing that can be done at the moment. I tell him he has to wait, and he lays down for now – he’s such a good dog and I locate the nearest roadside rest outside of the city. We reach it in less than an hour and he has to go NOW, dragging Ron to the dog area when he lets loose a huge load, then taking 10 steps, drops another just a big! Poor dog, had to go so badly but he managed to hold on!

New Mexico has some of the most unique rest stops, at least in our experience. I had to snap a picture of this one and the historic sign that’s posted there. The historic marker described how in this area hostile Apache frequently waited in ambush along a narrow passage by the Rio Grande River which runs through the area. Travelers had to organize into well-armed caravans to assure their safety along this section of the Camino Real.

After a long drive of nearly 5 hours, we make it to Tucumcari around 1:00pm and get checked into our campsite. It’s nothing fancy but its level, full hook-ups including a good WiFi connection, and the showers are amazing. We are spending tonight and tomorrow night here before moving on and plan to check out some of the unique attractions nearby tomorrow. We are looking forward to some R&R for a couple of days.

Do you ever have a day when every decision you make, seems to be wrong? Today was my Bad Decision Day for 2023.

We left the campgrounds in Willcox Arizona about 7:30am, driving east on I-10. During the night we heard some strange cooing noises periodically and in retrospect, we think it was the Sandhill Cranes making their way home for the summer. At least when listening to an audio recording, it sounded like what we heard that night.

The rough conditions on I-10 continues for the reminder of Arizona, making it a rough day of driving for Ron. We soon reach New Mexico, and the road improves some but still has some bad patches and fortunately within an hour we reach Deming where we head northeast on a state highway to Hatch to catch I-25. The state highway is a vast improvement over I-10 and we feel like we can relax some and enjoy the scenery here. After getting on I-25 north towards Alburquerque, we find it also is in good condition – whew, what a relief!

I hadn’t picked out a campsite yet for tonight and thought we’d get one enroute after approximately 3 1/2 hours – 4 hours of driving. I checked the Campendium app and found a campground I thought was a good fit for driving time and location. Bosque Birder’s RV Campground is located 3 1/2 miles off of I-25 and is located next to a 57,000-acre National Wildlife refuge. This area is a waterfowl area for over 15,000 Sandhill Cranes and 50,000 Snow Geese each winter. I guess it’s a sight to see why they take to the air. So the birder in me takes over, and I decide this is the campgrounds for us. To my defense, I read the reviews and overall, they we pretty good but after we arrived there, I don’t know what those people were thinking.

This place should have been named Nightmare on Elm Street RV Park, well maybe it wasn’t quite that bad, but it was close. The road to it was deplorable, shaking the truck and camper the entire 3 1/2 miles before we pull up to the property. The sign was falling down, literally and there wasn’t any grass or vegetation surrounding this rundown house that sits in front of the campgrounds. We could see a couple campers back there but when Ron said I guess we’ll try it, and I said, ‘WE ARE NOT STAYING HERE’, rather emphatically to put it mildly. There wasn’t much room to turn around with a camper, but Ron made it, and we bounced our way all the way back to the interstate.

In checking Campendium again, there was a campground that looked like it had good reviews located in the town of Soroco just 8 miles up the road. I gave the campground a call and a manager told me to drive there and pick out a site, get hooked up, and give him a call to come check us in. Ron said ‘red flag’! If there is no manager onsite, he doubts this is going to be a decent campground. Well, he was right. This place is a tiny parking lot about big enough for 3 or 4 campers and all of them have a small area to try to back into the site. On top of that, the neighborhood was iffy and we decided not to stay here. We were both exhausted and needed to get a place to stay and decided to check the local Walmart.

Here I made mistake #3 for the day by having Google maps navigate us to the Walmart from the current location we were at. It works great for navigation but doesn’t take into account we have an RV in tow and took us down a street with a huge dip where we knew the camper would bottom out on. Yikes! At the last minute, Ron was able to turn off on a side street and then was going to swing around another street to head back the way we came. Mistake #4 coming up, in following Google maps I said, ‘no, go straight here and then turn left’. Hehe, wrong! The city was working on a water line or something and had vehicles on both sides of the street that was narrow to begin with. How he slithered through we are not sure, but I think he had a whole 2 inches of leeway on either side :)!

But we made it to Walmart without incident and in checking at the service desk, they do indeed allow RV’s to overnight in the parking lot. We were able to get level, so the refrigerator worked, and I fixed a meal of baked chicken breasts with baby red potatoes, my one good decision for today – it was delicious. I also picked up some items at Walmart and it was the cleanest, most organized, and least cluttered Walmart I’ve ever been to – it was enjoyable to shop there! We soon were in bed for the night reading, then sleeping. Overnight, several other campers parked nearby us for the free campsite overnight.

Even though it’s not ideal, Walmart was a far better campsite then the other 2 we looked at put together! I did learn a few lessons today about picking out a campground: 1) If they don’t have a website, don’t select them; 2) If they do not have a manager on site, nix them; 3) Compare reviews from multiple apps, I sometimes wonder if some of the reviews are legit or fake??? Don’t know but I think we can weed out some by comparison.

We picked out a good campground for tomorrow and it’s located on Historic Route 66 in Tucumcari, NM. Sounds like a good place in reading reviews from multiple apps and has a Campendium award (but starting to wonder about Campendium’s standards)! We have traveled every day for the past 4 days and think we’ll take a day off and spend 2 nights at Blaze in Saddles RV Campground. We are close to the Texas panhandle and then on into Oklahoma.

We left Sonoran Desert RV park near Gila Bend around 10:30am, heading east on I-10. For an Interstate highway, it’s in poor shape with potholes and rough patches that make the truck and camper shake. It makes it more difficult to drive and increases stress levels.

The Valterra adapter for the sewer hose was delivered to the Amazon Hub Locker in Tucson. Unfortunately, I picked a location right downtown and for future reference, will pick another more convenient location if we have to order something enroute. We were nearing the pickup point but still on I-10, when we hit an enormous pothole, throwing the truck and camper sideways. It could have caused us to plow into another vehicle, but Ron was able to get it under control. This is the worst pothole I’ve ever experienced, and the city of Tucson should get it’s act together and patch it before there is a bad accident.

Stopping at the Amazon Hub Locker worked out great and we are pretty confident the part is exactly what we need. While stopped, we decided to use the bathroom in the Airstream and after opening the door, Ron was startled to notice the window over the kitchen sink was busted out! It must have shattered when we hit the pothole from hell. Most of tempered glass was gone but a few of the hardware pieces were still there. Accidents happen and fortunately no one was hurt, so minor bump in the road in our journey. We stopped at a small town with a TSC to pick up Justice’s dog food and also bought plastic and tape to cover it for the trip home. I sent a letter to Airstream in Jackson Center to inquire about buying one and they are checking on it. So again, no worries that it’s going to work out.

As we are driving, we see flowers blooming now in the Arizona. There are purple, yellow and on occasion, orange flowers coloring the desert landscape floor. It is beautiful.

We picked a quick camping spot in Willcox, AZ. The town and campgrounds have definitely seen better days, but it’s cheap and level enough to stay hitched up overnight. They do have full hookups and we’re able to dump our tanks with the new adapter part fitting perfectly. I bought 2 so we always have a spare, another lesson learned.

This is our last night in Arizona and although we’ll miss the campgrounds and scenery, we won’t miss I-10. Tomorrow, we continue heading east to Deming, NM where we head north to I-25 to Albuquerque, then hitting I-40 east to Texas and Oklahoma.

Travel Day! We are headed east about 7:30am PT to start our journey of a little over 2,000 miles back to Ohio. Last evening we met another couple who have an Airstream. They are on their way to Big Bend National Park for 4 days and are camping here at the Chiriaco Summit BLM campground behind the museum. Very nice people and always glad to hear about others adventures.

At our last campground when we visited the dump station, we discovered that the Valterra adapter for our sewer hose was broken. This is not convenient or sanitary since sewage came leaking out as we emptied the tanks. Ron (with gloves) was able to hold it together to complete the dump, but we knew this wasn’t a permanent solution. Our next couple nights is dry camping so no worries on dumping but that will need to happen soon.

In researching where to buy a replacement, we discovered there are available but only online and Amazon has them at a good price. They also have hub lockers at various locations and since we knew we were heading to Tucson on 1-10, we picked out a location to have the parts shipped there. Delivery is scheduled for Sunday, and we have 3 days to pick up the parts. Whew – literally!

Tucson is a 5 1/2-hour drive from Chiriaco Summit and since we have 3 days to pick up the parts, we picked out a campground that was a 4-hour drive. Sonoran Desert RV Park is located on the outskirts of Gila Bend, a small town about 1 1/2 hours northeast of Tucson.

While driving there we got a call from Joe and Shannon and learned the windstorm over the weekend created some issues at the house. A small pine tree was uprooted near the pond, some facia had pulled loose on the garage roof, and with the electric being off for over 24 hours, the garage door keypad would not work. News to us that happens with them but unfortunately, this is the way in for them and the extra keys are in the garage. Hindsight is 20/20, we should have given them an extra set of keys or hide one somewhere other than the garage in case of emergency, such as now. We called a local locksmith there and even though it was Sunday and cost us double, she was able to get out to the house and get Joe in. So, problem solved – whew!

Sonoran Desert is a super nice park and won a Campendium Award in 2022 and upon arrival we can see why. After checking in, one of the staff on a golf cart, drove us to our site and made sure we were good to go before heading it. Our site was level upon pulling in with no adjustments needed side to side or front to back and that doesn’t very often happen. After getting set-up and taking a couple steaks out of the freezer to fix later, we walked up to the dog park first and it’s super nice. We then checked out the showers and they are the best we’ve seen on the entire trip. They also have laundry facilities and decided to take advantage of them as well.

With hot showers, T-bone steaks, and clean clothes, and catching up on our TV series, and getting both problems solved, the day ended on a high note! Tomorrow, we head to Tucson and pick up our parts, then continue east on I-10 towards New Mexico.

The free campgrounds are located near I-10 and we can hear some traffic from it and the gas station located nearby. It wasn’t enough to disturb our sleep and we woke up about 7:00am PT with plans to visit the adjacent General Patton Museum soon after it opens at 9:30am.

The camp host here told Ron that most of the other campers are here for an ATV run in the desert. This looks like it’s a big sport here is the desert as we’ve seen them at most of the Arizona campgrounds and now here in California. Ron was able to get a photo of them heading out.

We caught up on our blogs since connectivity is good here and we are able to load pictures and post easily. After cleaning up, we drove the 1 block over to the museum and since we are seniors, we get a discount, costing $26 for the both of us. On the way, we wondered why they have a General Patton Museum located here in Chiriaco Summit, a tiny town with a post office slash store, a gas station, and a small coffee shop slash restaurant.

Before World War II, General Patton, ‘Old Blood and Guts, decided to establish a military training base here in Chiriaco Summit. Over a million soldiers received training here, learning how to survive tough weather conditions of extreme heat and cold. General Patton was a tough leader, but his troops probably benefited from it and became good soldiers. “A pint of sweat will save a Gallon of Blood” was one of his famous quotes.

Ron would love to metal detect the area because it’s obvious in the museum that some of the artifacts are indeed ‘hunted relics’ from the time when it was encamped. The museum was extremely interesting, and we spent a couple of hours hear, reading about his life and wars he fought in beginning with the Mexican uprising in the early 1900s to WWI and then WW II up to the time of his death in 1945 in a car accident while overseas. I think Ron’s favorite exhibit was the Sherman tank and this is the first time he got to see one in person.

The loss of life in WWII is truly astounding with an estimated number of 70 – 80 million soldiers and civilians who died during the 6-year period. The US alone had over 400,000 causalities. WWI was the war to end all wars but less than 30 years later, the world was engulfed in another war. Let’s hope and pray we never see another.