Nothing much to talk about unless you want to hear our rain story. When we got ready to go to bed, Gary noticed that water was leaking from the center seam in the ceiling. It was a fairly steady drip, although not very fast. Well that was enough to put us immediately into panic mode. First we put the dishpan down to catch the drips, then we pulled out the tarp we had bought (as an emergency backup to the goop), put on our ponchos and headed out to protect ourselves from the dreaded water. The instant we got outside, the first problem presented itself: how to get a gigantic tarp over the top of the camper. We had not planned this out ahead of time so we stood there and pondered a moment. Gary climbed onto the back bumper and hung on right below the spot where the gutter drained. The gutter acted just like a giant funnel sending ice cold water down the front of his shirt. Now that his teeth were chattering, he started laughing. You know what that did—it got me laughing too. Now neither one of us could think because we were getting soaked, we were cold and laughing too hard. At least we got the tarp unfolded. Since Gary’s “from the back” plan didn’t work, I decided the only way to get the tarp over the top was to climb up on the roof. Great plan—but we only had that little 4 ft bunk ladder for inside the camper, and the ladder on the back of the camper was not very steady at all. Not to mention, Gary thought it was a very bad idea for me to get up on the camper and act like a lightning rod. So we both ran around the camper a few times, hoping to be struck with divine intuition. Finally it came—use poles to heave the tarp over to top. Didn’t work exactly. Only 1 pole (the broom). Not long enough to do much more than get the tarp started over the back of the camper. Still laughing. Well with all our struggling, flinging, laughing and ineptness, we managed to get the tarp up over the driver side of the back end. We hooked bungees into the holes and tried to pull it up over the passenger side. Problem—the air conditioner is up there on top of the camper. It turned into a great tarp snagger, so Gary finally took the bunk ladder to the middle of the camper on the passenger side. He climbed up to the very top and heaved the tarp up and over the ladder and the air conditioner. Then he calmly announced, “I’m falling.” And he did. It was like slow motion. He of course landed in a huge puddle and one of his sandals ended up on the top of his foot, but except for some bruises, he was OK. We took a few more minutes to position the tarp over the center of the roof (correct, it wasn’t big enough to cover the whole roof) and secured it with bungees. Then it stopped raining. We went inside to get warm after the cold rain water and discovered somewhere between 1/4 and 1/2 cup of water in the dishpan. After some consideration, we decided several things. First, the tarp is too small. Second, water is not that bad. Third, if we want the tarp up again, we need a plan and a practice drill.
July 14. We left early this morning after repacking the tarp. Most of the day was very cloudy and actually cold enough to require jeans and jackets. About lunch time, we stopped in a town called Chugwater, home of the “World Famous Chugwater Chile”. We stopped in town for a free sample and bought a couple packages of their mix, which we used in South Dakota for buffalo meat chile. We also drove through a town with a posted population of 12. It was too long ago to remember the name of the town, and we should have taken a picture of the sign, but I bet the population hasn’t changed much.
When we got to the Mount Rushmore area, we followed a very narrow and winding road. It was so narrow that I couldn't stand to watch.
I experienced the one and only panic attack I have ever suffered along this road. I actually made Gary pull over and let me out to get over it. The good news is that we made it to our campground without any disasters. This campground was outstanding. I wish I could remember the name of the place. I would definitely go back there. It was in a very secluded pine-rimmed valley. There was a huge dining hall or chuck house and I think they even rented horses. There were plenty of interesting hiking trails and we took advantage of every one that we found. What I remember most about this campground though, is that it rained every day. Not a good thing when you have a leaky roof, but you know, we watched some of the best lightning shows we have ever seen from the porch by the laundry. And we listened to the best thunder we have ever heard from that porch too. The thunder would boom and then just roll and roll and roll for minutes. It was outstanding. There was another couple on the porch with us. They were from California and said that they had never seen such a storm. They were just as fascinated as we were. 
We did get enough of rain while we were parked at that location. Sleeping with the dishpan dripcatcher on his chest made Gary a little cranky after a couple nights, so after a quick view of Rushmore and a stop at Crazy Horse, we headed to Devil’s Tower.
July 17. We stayed at a campground just outside the monument park. Thinking that we were pretty tough, we decided to hike up the tower. It was an excellent walk on the road that winds around the tower which gave us the opportunity to see the
Tower from all angles. I think someone told us that it is a 4 mile walk from the campground. When we got back down to the bottom, we stopped at the store at the gate to the monument and sat down long enough to have some iced tea. That was a mistake. Not the tea—the sitting down part. Boy was it hard to get up and walk another half mile to the camper. Guess we weren’t quite as tough as we thought. The only real negative about this stop was the water at the campground. You could see the mud still in it. The jug of iced tea that we made there got pitched the next day because you could see so much crud in it. So, for the 1999 trip, we have decided that we will always have a filter for our water.
July 18. We headed back toward Colorado because we were getting a brake warning light that seemed very ominous. The brakes seemed fine, but we had no idea how long it would last. So we called my dad and asked him to make an appointment with a mechanic friend of his. We traveled to Douglas Wyoming and then down route 59, a wonderful scenic road where we saw zillions of pronghorns.
What a nice ride. Once again, the scenic route was a good choice because we avoided highway and it felt like a shortcut. The next day, we got back to Loveland Colorado and had the brakes fixed. We spent a few more days with my mother and father and then decided to head toward New Mexico.
July 25. When we left Illinois, we had a vague notion that we wanted to live in either Santa Fe or Flagstaff. We were pretty sure that anyplace else in “The Desert” would be too hot for us. Understand that as long as we could remember, if the temperature was above 85 degrees, we were whining about the heat.
That is because in Chicago you can have 100% humidity and NO rain. We always used to kid my brother (who lived in Phoenix) about lunatics who would live where it was so hot. Regardless, when we left Colorado this time, we were headed for our first real destination: Santa Fe. We made it to Colorado City where we stayed at a city park. It was a pretty nice place both quiet and inexpensive. There was a trail that led up the side of a hill to a road. When we got to the top we were fascinated by a wild melon vine growing right on the side of the road. No idea what kind of melon because they were nowhere near ripe, but interesting anyway. We also picked some yucca fruits to taste. ACK! Boy was that a mistake. Bitter and gross! Maybe they weren’t ripe either.
July 25-July 29. We stayed in a KOA in Las Vegas New Mexico the first night and pressed on to Santa Fe the next day. We discovered that we were able to do some of our own vehicle maintenance here. As we pulled into the campground, we blew a power steering hose which we figured out all by ourselves and fixed ourselves. Gary was very proud of himself. (Neither one of us has any mechanical experience, so this was very major!) Our campground here was right next to an outstanding Mexican restaurant called Casa Margarita. We ate there more than once. We also discovered that the bus service in Santa Fe was outstanding. We took the bus downtown twice. All in all, Santa Fe was a very nice town to visit, but we decided that it was not where we wanted to live.
July 31-31. We stayed in Red Rock State Park in Gallup. What a pretty place. We hiked back into a canyon where we saw lots of hummingbirds, wildflowers we could identify and a great rock formation called Church Rock. This state park is where the Intertribal Ceremonial is held each year. This is definitely a place we want to visit again.
Aug 1. We drove through Painted Desert and Petrified Forest. The Painted Desert is amazing to see. It is so hard to describe though. I wish that we had pictures so that I could display them here, but we had our film developed into slides and they don’t seem to be anyplace where I can put my hands on them easily. On the other hand, the Petrified Forest doesn’t do much for me. But they both can be found pretty much on the same road so you get them both for the price of one. We stayed in a campground in Holbrook that had absolutely the best showers we had encountered on our whole trip. My diary doesn’t say what was so great about them, but they sure rated a thumbs up! From Holbrook, we headed to Flagstaff where we stayed a few days. It only took 24 hours to decide that Flagstaff was not the place we wanted to live either.
For the rest of August we stayed in the Turquoise Triangle campground in Cottonwood Arizona. It is a small town high enough up that the temperature is about 10-15 degrees cooler than Phoenix. At the end of August we had run pretty much out of money and Cottonwood did not seem like the place to make enough to pay some old bills. So, kind of like the people in the movie Lost in America we decided to go to the big city. We lived in our camper for a year, found jobs, and then bought a house. Then we bought a bigger house on 3 acres way out in the desert. Then, we decided that this whole house owning, yardwork creating, staying in one place was not really what we wanted either. So we sold the house, bought a 30ft 5th wheel, a big truck to pull it with and we’re on the road again. For our new adventure in 1999, check out the 1999 trip.
