Friday, October 11, 2019

ANOTHER TRIP ENDED TOO SOON

Well, from the title you can tell something happen.  This time it's not any RV breakdowns but issues back home.  A little background.  Cathie's father has dementia and is cared for by in-home caregivers around the clock.  After leaving Canada, Cathie was in pretty regular contact with the caregivers, receiving updates on her father.  She was receiving some reports that things were not going smoothly, so we decided to cut the trip short and head home.  We figured with hard driving we could be home in 4 days.

As we headed southwest, we kept receiving more troubling reports.  Our son Randy was asked to go and check on the situation.  Then one of the night caregivers quit.  With Randy covering the nights, he has a full time job, we decided it was best for Cathie to get home pronto.  So we made a slight detour to Omaha. The next day, I put her on a flight home, and I began the much slower trip back with the RV.  Now that we are home, we have got control of the situation with her father.

On my drive home, I slowed way down and took a week to get home.  By going slower I was able to take in a few sights along the way.  I headed south to Amarillo to pick up I-40 for the drive westward.  Amarillo had been on our trip agenda as we had planned on paying a visit to PALO DURO CANYON STATE PARK. This a a deep canyon said to be second only to the Grand Canyon.  I hoped to spend a day there and get in some hiking.  Well, as my (our) luck continued to suck, there had been 7 inches of rain in the days before my arrival and all the hiking trails were closed.  So I took a few pictures, checked out the campgrounds for a future visit and went back to town. 



I did manage to check out Cadillac Ranch, a tourist attraction of sorts along Route 66.  People are able to bring their own spray paint had have at it.  Of course in the tradition of people who tag such things, they also leave a mess.




So after Amarillo, I pretty much headed straight home, taking three more days.  I had intended on taking more time, but approaching storms with high wind warnings encourage me to drive 550 miles on the last day to beat the winds. I did manage to make one stop to stand on the corner in Winslow, Arizona.


And there was a girl my lord in a flatbed Ford, slowing down to take a look at me!


A Nebraska Sunrise