RV-Junke's: 2012 West Coast Adventure, Day 28

Day 28 July 20th, 2012:

Good morning / evening from Las Cruces, New Mexico…

What a great day compared to the events of the previous day.

Victor from the glass company came at 8:00 am, and within 45 minutes, with a HUGE personality and a very loveable guy, had the large crack to a very small, hopefully livable crack until I can get windshield replaced, and we were set for 9:00 am at Premier RV.

Arrived at RV place and they lifted MH and you could see instantly the issue with the tires…the front end alignment was so bad words can’t describe…now their FE machine was broken, so who do they sub out to but Purcell, who told us yesterday they couldn’t do one on our coach due to the independent Front end…Eric the owner, made a call, and followed us over to the shop, and showed them how it was done, and after 2 hours, we were set and on the road…Michael stayed with me, while Patty and Nicholas went shopping at a local mall. When we were done, we picked Patty and Nicholas up at an In-N-Out burger, and one Double - Double cheeseburger, chocolate milkshake with fires later and I was smiling like a school boy on the last day of school!

Now, I need to tell you all of this is occurred within a 10 mile area which happens to be near an Air Force training base, so for the entire day, all we saw were A-10 Warthogs practicing strafing runs, C-130 Gun Ships, F-16’s doing bombing runs, just stuff like that…Michael and I were in HEAVEN!!!!

Ok, back to the rest of the day…after our burgers we decided to go and see the museum we drove by and drive by the bone yard…what a treat, absolutely one of the BEST air and space museums we have ever been to. It’s HUGE!!!!! After a few hours, the heat and the fact it was 4:00pm, and we had a 200 mile drive a head of us, we made a quick circle around the bone yard which was really something to see, 3,000 airplanes neatly aligned in thousands of acres of open land…a sight to see in person, and a place I will come back one day!

Now, we have been across this country as you all know, and driving Rt. 10 across lower Arizona, and into New Mexico is a drive I would recommend…spectacular open views, huge and vast, and some WICKED weather patterns…we drove through a stretch, that was torrential rain, high wind, dust storm with zero visibility, and sun all in the same spot…absolutely bizarre, and beyond cool. A definite must drive.

The plan was to head to White Sands National Park, but to do a scenic road Michael had found. As we were getting close, Patty, who has done an exceptional job finding us places to stay, fed, and feeding directions to the nav system, made a call to a place to stay. Once again God is watching over us, this scenic road is 90 miles out of our way and the real scenery is at the end of this loop…so keep this in mind. We are now 5 miles onto this by-way and I hear Patty on the phone, going oh, really, oh that’s not good…so I slow down not really sure why but I do, and Patty informs me that there is NO WAY we can do this…there are tunnels and bridges that we cannot drive on. Michael looks on the Internet, and low and behold at around mile 70, there are two tunnels that are only 12’ 5” high….we are 13’ 5”…could you image it being night, and having to back track 70 miles…YIKES! Thank God, Patty called when she did…needless to say, the scenic by-way is on the “list” of things to do (man is that list growing…), and we were headed back on Rt. 10…with White Sands as the next stop.

If you read day 27 (the previous day), you will know the punch I got from the big man upstairs to slow down, and smell the roses…now here is where you get the Ah Ha, moment…so we are driving on Rt. 10 thoroughly enjoying each other’s company, scenery, and just laughing up a storm about everything (truly an awesome moment…especially knowing we have been in this MH for 28 days and to be able to still do this…so cool), and Michael goes, OMG…we all pause, and he proceeds to tell us that White Sands NP was closed all day for missile testing, and will not re-open until today the 21st …just to remind you, if we had pushed like we were supposed to we would have been at White Sands the day it was closed…which was one of the big places Michael wanted to see…so once again I am convinced, God’s plan was for us to slow down stay to our plan, and don’t rush things…there are at least 2 of these events EVERY year we travel…one day I will learn!