To say our travel was exciting in May would be an UNDERSTATEMENT!   We’ve seen it all this month as we traveled from DFW to New Orleans area, then turned around and headed for Oregon.

We started our travels by traveling first to Livingston (where we ‘live’) in order to pick up some mail - we had had a couple of credit cards compromised in the preceeding month and needed to get our replacements.  We also had some problems with our email because of a “denial of service” attack against my one email address.  Guess I ticked someone off!   Anyway, we ended up having to delete that email and then spend the next month trying to get it our email from our Barbanddave.net site set up again.   Fingers crossed all seems ok now. 

After Livingston we headed for the New Orleans area (Abita Springs) so that we could visit former student of Dave’s, Tom and his wife Suzanne.  In fact, Tom was one of Dave’s FIRST students at UM-Flint and we haven’t seen them since 2007!   Tom is at Xavier University and we got to spend a lovely SUNNY day with them - one of the few we had seen in a week.  And of course, since we were in NO, they took us to a local restaurant for a wonderful lunch!   This picture is from the causeway across Lake Pontchartrain heading towards New Orleans from the Abita Springs area.   

We then turned the coach West - and spent a week dodging WEATHER! coming through Texas and New Mexico.  Every day violent storms were rumbling through the areas.  This picture is from outside of Greenville, Texas (about an hour northeast of Dallas) after one “cell” came crashing through. Luckily the park we stayed at that night had west-east parking space for us, so the coach (with all slides drawn in) rode out the storm really well.  

We knew we had a window the next morning and so we started out.   We managed to get onto the road before the rains started, and did it ever rain.   I don’t think my arms have ever hurt so much as trying to hold the coach straight with 30+ mph winds sitting us on the side.  It didn’t rain, it POURED that morning.  But after about an hour we made it West enough to encounter clear skies again all the way to Henrietta, TX where we stayed in their small RV park ($15/night) with 50 amp power just off of US Highway 87.   Next day, still in sunshine, we made it to Amarillo, TX.   We spent that night (which was cold) at the Oasis RV resort.  More expensive, but at least they had pizza you could order and the laundry was very cheap!   So we munched on pizza while I did up ALL of our dirty clothes.    

Next morning was COLD as we started out (again, I’m driving, have been doing most mornings on this trip). But we were climbing so it wasn’t surprising that it was on the cold side.   What we hadn’t counted on was the lowering of the snow level.  It was sunny to Tucumcari, NM and we planned to stop for fuel in Santa Rosa, NM.   And then the scenary changed!  Yes, that is ice starting to form on the windshield as our defroster in the coach worked to keep up with it. There really wasn’t much to do besides just keep on going.   We finally made the rest area East of Santa Rosa, where we could let the defroster catch up and clear the windshields and CHANGE DRIVERS!  I was tired!   

We continued on in the fog before it finally cleared off and we were left with snow covering the country side in New Mexico IN MAY.  Luckily by the time we got to Albuquerque, it was just RAIN.  

The remaining days of our 11 day travel were spent in HOT weather followed by rain and more rain as we crossed into Oregon!   To say we looked bedraggled when we arrived in Sutherlin would be an understatement - - in fact the coach (and of course the car) were so flithy that Dave agreed and we washed them both before MORE rain descended upon us!

Yes, that is Dave getting the last of the road grim off of the back of the coach!

We’re in Sutherlin because it is a convienent, inexpensive stop for us (we stay at the Escapee Coop park Timber Valley) and because it is easy for us to get new tires for the coach and save a little money since Oregon has no Sales Tax.

When we are buying tires this size, the savings in sales tax adds up to more than pocket change!

Our mail was also able to catch up with us and in the mail was my Mother’s Day gift from Megan and Kenneth - a VERY appropriate new Sleep Shirt:

Next week we move into Washington State and have our fingers crossed that the weather will be at least a little better.