Heading east — by way of San Diego

We started our trip east by first going to San Diego. This coastal city is long known for its great weather, and this visit was no exception. It was sunny, blue skies, high 70s and low 80s.
However, it was not for the weather that we went to San Diego. It was to visit James’ aunt, the youngest of his mom’s siblings, who now enjoys 90 years of age. Although a bit frail, she is as witty, sharp, and interesting as she has ever been. I’ll bet the reader knows a relative like this and feel as priviledged that he does. She is the only one that can use the diminutive form of James, calling him Jimmy — and what can he say except "Yes Mam," and "No Mam," feeling a trilfe uncomfortable.
It feels great if not uncomfortable that this retired man is still a child in his aunt’s eyes.
Aunt Frances’ husband goes to Tijuana, Mexico frequently, as it is only a short drive south, but since James has been there a number of times, we decided to pass.
After a nice, interesting and rewarding visit with James’ Aunt in San Diego, we decided to go to the San Diego Zoo. The zoo, is of course, world renowned. Even if you have visited other zoos, this one is a must if you are in southern California.
It was a beautiful, warm, Friday, but no crowds and with an affordable entry fee, it made a nice addition to our trip. On the advice of a gentleman guide, we took a double-decker tour bus (included in the price) for the first 45 minutes. This orients visitors with the park, and gives you ideas of what areas you might want to visit. Once we returned to our starting point, James wanted to take the aerial Skyfari gondola ride to the "Polar Plunge" on the other side of the park.
Off we went, high above the lush vegetation and animals. Arriving on the other side of the zoo, we started to walk back, checking out the exhibits as we went. The first animals we visited were the polar bears. They were swimming in their pool, and their impressive size made us happy that they were happy on their side of the enclosure!
The other animals in this section were elk and and a cute, very fat Arctic Fox!
As we proceeded through the zoo, we could see how well the animals were taken care of. The enclosures and pens were scrupulously clean, and the animals appeared to be content. The habitats were natural to where they live in the wild, with vegetation that even in winter is beautiful.
We followed trails that led through jungle terrain, along the Monkey Trail, to the Gorilla Tropics and Absolutely Apes. Here we met an orangutan that wanted nothing but to socialize. He left his mates swinging on ropes and in the trees, and came to the 110 foot long viewing window to stare out at us, as we humans stared back at him. I got the feeling that if he could, he would climb into a lap to be rocked like a baby.
James wanted another ride on the Skyfari, so up we went again, sailing smoothly across the park. We went to the Elephant Odyssey, where a Fossil Portal (a bit of brackish water) slowly drained to reveal bones that had been found in tar pits in the Los Angeles area. The elephants were busy eating and ignored those who wanted a close-up look, so we proceeded on to the rhinoceros pen where two brother rhinos live and play. The guide told us that when they get pushing and shoving, the ground trembles and you can feel it through the fence!
There were some lions lying around — sorry — and one pacing along the fence. We then rode the Skifari back to the entry and left the park. Unfortunately, the Panda Bear exhibit was closed, so we didn’t have a chance to see these famous inhabitants of the zoo.
Food at the zoo is very expensive — $4 for a hot dog — so we went to the van to eat some sandwiches before leaving San Diego.
Heading east on I-10, we could see a change in the scenery. Hills and canyons, and lots of rocks. We watched the elevation rise from 1,000 feet above sea level to 4,000 feet.
We were in the Cleveland National Forest — a forest with no trees! Once at the summit, there were signs warning of a steep 6 percent downgrade and falling rock zones. And, a runaway truck ramp! As it was getting dark, we went down the switchbacks that snaked down the mountain with our ears popping, but couldn’t see the scenery.
There were areas where piles of rock sat along the road — having indeed fallen from the mountains above. This was the southern tip of the Vallectto Mountain Range. Suddenly, there was a sign that said "Sea Level" and the land around us was flat, flat, flat!
Leaving Texas and traveling into Arizona, the terrain changed again into desert. The Imperial Dunes Recreation Area draws dune buggy buffs from all over. We could see RVs parked out in the desert; and buggies, ATVs, and motorcycles on the dunes. Joan loves looking at the cactus and all the various shapes they grow into.
At a Border Patrol check, we slowly drove by as a dog sniffed around the van — obviously trained to smell for drugs. We went through several more checkpoints, and the agents only asked if we were U.S. citizens. This was the only one with a drug sniffing dog!
The Border Patrol also deploys what James thinks to be infrared heat senses to see how many occupants are in vehicles. One morning in the distance, we saw a small, low flying plane that we thought might be a drone flying over the border with cameras. It is clear the Border Patrol uses as many unintrusive measures to do their job. These law enforcement professionals are a credit to their profession — plus James likes their uniforms, too.
Passing over the Continental Divide, we continued east. We could see snow on the mountains in the distance and they were quite beatuiful. We decided to stop for the night in Fort Stockton, Texas. We had been through this little town two weeks before on our trip west. This time we noticed a motel that had been badly burned in a fire. This had happened during the two weeks since we were there last! Fort Stockton is a little town off of I-10, but since it is the only town of any size for miles, they get lots of tourist traffic. That night there were at least 8 RVs in the Wal Mart parking lot. Word does get around to where the parking is free and inviting!
This Wal Mart put our purchases in paper bags. When we asked the clerk about no plastic, he said that in all of Fort Stockton, NO store is allowed to use plastic bags. This keeps the area free of blowing bags. We like this idea! We wish large retailers would adapt this policy without government intervention at any level. We are not tree huggers, but it saddens us as we pass through pristine deserts with discarded platic bags blowing, scarring sacred land created by Mother Nature for all of us to enjoy, free of man’s trash.
And, that night it SNOWED in Southern Texas!
This week James would like to comment on what he describes as the "underbelly" of the large urban cosmopolitan cities.
The American Vagabonds live a lifestle among all the people. In every city we see modest homes providing the workers who clean the rooms, cook and serve the food and the countless other services that tourists enjoy. Most of these workers can never and will never be able to afford an expensive trip that someone else just like them will take care of their needs and wants.
In this political system we just hope that the American Dream is still alive for all Americans, and all politicians to be truly committed to all the Americans of modest means with hopes, dreams, and aspirations for themselves and their children.
From one of our favorite cities, San Antonio,
James and Joan the American Vagabonds
You can e-mail James and Joan at american_vagabonds@yahoo.com. Follow them online at www.registercitizen.com’s home page, then click on the blog link. Stay tuned for the next post!

Greetings from Benson, Arizona!

We’re writing from the west, but we have to backtrack in this chapter a little to share more details about our stay in Pensacola, Florida.
Along the shoreline they have developed a wonderful park to memorialize all of the wars. Each war or conflict has its own section and statue or plaque. The one that struck Joan the most was the memorial for soldiers who received the Purple Heart. If there is another like it — we don’t know where it is. There is also a replica of the Wall in Washington D.C. memorializing the names of American men and women who gave the ultimate sacrifice in the Vietnam War. War is a sad commentary on mankind.
Across the roadway, there is a memorial dedicated missing children. It has a walkway that projects out into the bay and a touching bronze statue.
We left Pensacola and continued on our trip westward. We crossed the Mississippi River at Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The Mississippi is an important commercial and recreational waterway to our country and is visually quite impressive. Perhaps a houseboat trip down the Mississippi, just like Huck Finn took, may be in the Vagabonds future.
James is visualizing himself in a straw hat and bare feet, with a straw in his mouth and a fishing line is hand.
Joan laughs as she visualizes this geriatric literary character.
Entering Louisiana, we stopped at the Welcome Center. It was very attractive, decorated for the Christmas season with antique toys, greens, and ribbons. A visitor is immediately taken by the Southern charm of this region of the country.
As we continued on I-10, a large construction truck drove past us, spewing pea gravel all over the roadway — and the van. Two pieces of gravel hit the windshield and made chips. We took down the trucking company’s name and plate number.
At the Butte La Rose Exit #121 we pulled into the parking lot to examine the rest of the van. After ensuring that there was no other damage, we called the trucking company, and discovered that they really didn’t care about our damage, so James placed a call to the state police and got the same attitude.
Things are different in the south! James had the exact same type of incident years ago with a dramatically different response from both the trucking company and law enforcement in Connecticut.
At this exit we also found another visitor center. This one was built right into the swamp on stilts, with displays of the wildlife that live there.
Beside the parking lot of the visitor center we noticed the L.A. Airborne Memorial Bridge and Monument. The memorial was dedicated in 1989 by the the National 82nd Airborne Division, and includes the 18-mile elevated Atchafalaya Expressway that travels through the swamp.
Another large swamp we visited was the Blue Elbow Swamp along the Sabine River at the entry into Texas. This is another welcome center built on stilts in a swamp. At the back of the building is a boardwalk that gives visitors a look at life in the swamp. We could only go part of the way on the boardwalk, due to repairs being made to the structure.
Heading south, we crossed the Boulivar Peninsula, which is at sea level and onto Galveston Island. This area was devastated by Hurricane Ike in September 2008, and homes and businesses are still being rebuilt. The homes are built on stilts at least 10 feet high.
The two strangest buildings were a laundromat in a house trailer, high above the ground, and an elementary school entirely built on pillars.
The storm surge at Crystal Beach was 14 feet, and the new building is to prevent the homes and businesses from washing away in the event of another hurricane. Living to appreciate Mother Nature can also have its downside!
On Galveston Island, the waves were crashing into shore, and surfers were taking advantage of the frenzy of the water. Galveston Island is a pretty island with miles of open beaches on one side of the road, and attractive condos and hotels on the other. This area was also hit by Hurricane Ike, and the new buildings are behind a sea wall. While we were on the island, we saw an advertisement for the Festival of Lights and decided to go that evening. It was held at Moody Gardens, an educational and entertainment center that includes a rainforest, an aquarium, film theater, beach, and gardens. The Festival of Lights is arranged with over 100 lighted scenes — including music — along paths lined with flowering shrubs. It was a beautiful, cool evening and the presentations was well worth the $5.95 Senior entry fee.
We left Galveston and headed to Corpus Christi — a city with heavy traffic that never stops — worse than I-84 in Hartford at rush hour!
James is of the opinion that population growth will severely overload the local network of city streets in the near future. Our purpose in visiting Corpus Christi was to attend the H.E.B. Festival of Sharing. H.E.B. is a grocery chain in southern Texas and Mexico that, for 23 years, has put on a free meal once a year in 23 Texan and six Mexican communities. Everyone is welcome to come and enjoy the meal, and be entertained by singers, dancers, and musicians. It is staffed by volunteers who set up, serve the food, clean up, and do whatever is necessary.
Last year we attended the festival in San Antonio. We are unaware of anything like this event on such a huge scale back in New England. Corpus Christi is also the home now of the USS Lexington, a living museum similar to the USS Intrepid in New York City. It is a WW II vintage air craft carrier modernized with continuance service into the Vietnam War. Its last duty was to qualify Naval Aviators in the art and science of aircraft landings and takeoffs. It is nicknamed the "Blue Ghost."
James is not sure of the genesis of the nickname; but, a night landing by a fighter pilot might turn the pilot a little "ghostly blue" after a safe landing.
SNOW! In Southern Texas! If you were watching the weather, you would have seen that it snowed here. UGH UGH UGH — we can’t go too much more South in Texas than the Gulf of Mexico.
Southwest Texas is flat — extremely flat. It was windy and cold as we passed into Mountain Time at Van Horn, Texas. There is little civilization between the small communities.
As we traveled through a desolate section, smoke came from the van. We had to pull over and James discovered a broken heater hose plastic connection. James is of the opinion that all car manufacturers are enamoured with "planned obsolescence."
Fortunately, he had a few spare parts and the tools needed to fix it. While we were sitting on the side of I-10, no one stopped to see if we needed help.
With traffic passing us at 80+ mph, it was a cold, dismal place — but soon James had the problem fixed and we were on our way again.
For many drivers it would have been a time consuming, expensive repair, but we were ready.
We passed over the Continental Divide and about 50 miles later we drove into Arizona.
This week seemed to pass all to quickly. Thankfully we are in a part of the country that offers breathtaking scenic beauty.
From Benson, Arizona — James and Joan, American Vagabonds
You can e-mail James and Joan at american_vagabonds@yahoo.com. Follow them online at www.registercitizen.com’s home page, then click on the blog link. Stay tuned for the next post!

American Vagabonds: We go westward - and how we live on the road

Before leaving Pensacola, Florida, we visited the Naval Air Museum on the Pensacola Naval Base. The Petty Officer sentry at the gate only required to see the driver’s (Jame’s) license. The museum’s parking and entry to the museum are free. In addition, there is a free tour of the museum’s flight line conducted by a retired naval aviator. This is a must-stop, not just for the military-minded but for all Americans. The museum, at the very "cradle of naval aviation" is a living testimony to America’s ability to project its foreign policy anywhere in the world.
Bidding goodbye to a fine American city, we are now heading west, staying on I-10 until we hit the Texas border. Then we plan to go south along the coast.
We entered Alabama on Dec. 15, and the difference in landscape was immediate. There were fields of cotton along the roadway — which had not been in evidence in Florida. We used our GPS to guide us on the state and county roadways. The GPS we have now is a Magellan, which is pretty good with finding our way. We started out with a Tom Tom a few years ago, but since it gave us drastically wrong directions, we switched to a Garmin.
We named it ‘Ms. Direction’, and sometimes ‘misdirection’ depending on the results of our instructions from her, but after a few years her maps were out of date and we wanted something different.
Hence, the Magellan — and when she is on target— she is ‘gellin.’
When she is off, we need more assistance! Our iPhones have MapQuest, and a few other navigational helpers, so if we are lost — we are really lost! (We do use road maps, too.)
We thought this week we would give you, the reader, an idea of how we live in the van and our rather unique lifestyle.
The van is a 1997 Volkswagen with the inside camper by Winnebago. It has a lot of miles on it — 193,000 — but James says it drive like a new car. We are averaging 23 mpg on the highwayand 20 mpg in the cities. James does the driving, while Joan navigates, checking the maps, iPhones and GPS.
She also spends down time knitting to keep busy. The top of the van pops up with canvas sides and zippers to open screens, to increase head room and ventilation, and provide a bunk (never used as such yet) or storage, depending on what we are doing.
We have all the comforts of home, only in a much smaller space.
We will start with the "kitchen." The surface of the stove and sink is stainless steel and easy to keep clean. The gas stove has two burners that work great. A lid covers the burners when we aren’t cooking to provide a small work space. We have a small sink with a cold water faucet. Below the burners is a small refrigerator that doesn’t work as well as we’d like, but runs on electricity, battery, and gas. Beside the fridge, there is a small cupboard for groceries and cooking utensils. (Notice the operative word here is SMALL!)
Next to the cupboards, the back seat stretches across the van. A small couch barely seats two, but it’s cozy. The seat folds down to become part of the bed at night, and during the day we sometimes eat meals there, or just relax. There is a space in back of the couch where we put bedding and duffle bags when we are traveling. At night, when the bed is made, the duffles go up on the top bunk, or in the driver’s seat. The passenger seat is turned around to add to the living area.
Beside the food cupboard is a small cabinet where we keep our morning coffee supplies. We make drip coffee as good as any resturant — or what you can make at home. We use a Jet-Boil with a butane burner to heat the water, then pour it through a funnel made by Melitta with a coffee filter and the coffee in it. The coffee drips directly into a cup and so we have delicious coffee in minutes!
We use the same process when we are camping and backpacking. Under the coffee cabinet we keep cards and small items in a drawer, and a bottom cupboard for our electronics: Notebook computer, DVD player, battery TV, weather radio, and a few other incidentals.
As we previously mentioned, the ‘downstairs’ bed is a narrow 46" wide. It has taken us many experiments to make it comfortable.
Too hard, too soft, it was like the Three Bears’ beds. We have finally hit on the most comfortable system with air mattresses under the foam mattress. The foam mattress is only 2" thick and folds in sections. On this, we use a fleece ‘sack’ Joan made from a set of sheets, and on top of that blankets or sleeping bags depending on the weather.
We put hanging pockets on the wall next to the bed to hold glasses, tissues, etc. We don’t use the "upstairs" bunk for sleeping, since this requires climbing up and down, and it is difficult to make up with the bedding.
There are lots of storage spaces in the van. Beside the bed is a closet with sliding doors. On one side, we keep our ‘good’ clothes or what some might consider more formal attire, for dancing or going out. On the other side we keep hiking boots, dance shoes, spare sneakers and other shoes we don’t wear every day.
Another large space is under the bed, but is only accessible from the outside. What goes in there are items we don’t plan to use for a few days. On the side of this space is room for tools and mechanical items.
Attached on the back of the van is our bike rack. Some years we take our hybrid bikes or our tandem bike, but this year we have two lawn chairs, the zero gravity kind. Their main purpose is for New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day in Pasadena, California, when we settle on Colorado Boulavard for the Tournament of Roses Parade.
There is also a small space outside, above the cab of the van, to carry weather-proof items. The problem, of course, is to put them up there and get them back down when you need them. There is also a cost of approximately 1 mile per gallon of gas as anything outside affects the wind stream.
Inside the van there are lots of other nooks and crannies to put things. All we have to do is remember where we put what! Enjoy the photos with this post; they're not scenics, but our way of showing you what our home on the road looks like.
In conclusion, for this week the reader must consider this is not a lifestyle for many seniors. We choose this traveling lifestyle not only for the economic advantages, but also for the freedom it offers us: To go anywhere and not be readily identified as "out-of-towners."
It, our lifestyle, just works for us.
From Corpus Cristi, TX, The Sparkling City by the Sea (Gulf)
James and Joan, the American Vagabonds
You can e-mail James and Joan at american_vagabonds@yahoo.com. Follow them online at www.registercitizen.com’s home page, then click on the blog link. Stay tuned for the next post!