SUNNY ARIZONA - 9,700 Mile Journey completed - New job Tetons

When Geni and I left Gardiner Montana on September 28 I reset the trip odometer in the pickup truck to zero. Todays date is December 13, 2017 and I took a photo of speedo with over 9,700 miles in less then 3 months. We drove from Montana to Ohio, Ohio To Tennessee, Tennessee to Arizona.
We stayed or traveled thru 17 of our beautiful United States, camped in State Parks,
National Parks, BLM land, Private campgrounds, repairs of roof leak, slide out motor, locked keys in truck (haven't done that in 25 years), Hospital emergency room visit, traveled thru Arkansas twice in two weeks! What a journey it has been!  We have finally arrived in our winter designation with Geni's Sister and her husband.

 

Sundance RV Park

Sundance RV park  sits on the Colorado River and is about 30 south of Lake Havasu, we are just over the border in California. Its a beautiful park with a club house, pickle ball courts, saloon and hundreds of miles of ATV trails across the street! 

The Saloon with great pizza and beer

Our camp spot parked next to Geni's Sister's Motorhome

Miles of awesome ATV trails across street

 

Also wild Burros and coyotes

Sunset on the Colorado

They have a free water taxi to cross river, this is bar across park

 

 

 

Excited news this morning when we accepted summer employment with Grand Teton Association. We were also offered jobs again in Mammoth for next year and it was very hard decision for us not to go back! This would be a totally new adventure for us in another Stunning National Park. We will miss all of our old work mates, but look forward to meeting new ones! 

Our new jobs will be here at Grand Teton National Park
LINK to Tetons
https://www.nps.gov/grte/index.htm

THE BATTLE OF PARKERS CROSSING TN. - on the road again!

Today is Friday December 1st 2017, we left Eastern Tennessee on Tuesday morning with a new slide-out motor, a new 12 volt breaker and a new control switch. The motor arrived on Monday afternoon and the tech said it would be a easy install and you will be on the road in a hour or so.
Well im old enough to know when someone tells you it will be easy or no problem, it usually turns out the opposite. This time was no exception to the rule. The motor only took a 1 hour to install, when the tech when to operate it NOTHING. Well he looked at the switch and found it faulty and said it would be a easy fix, sure it would be? Put switch in and nothing, no power at all. To make a long story short it took them to the sun set to find the 12 volt breaker that had also burned in half The one positive of all of this is im really learning how the systems operate in a RV.

Monday morning wile we were waiting for our motor to arrive we decided to walk the Battle field nearby called Parkers Crossroads. It has an awesome visitor center with a movie explaining the battle in detail. Just like the battle of Shiloh the rebels had it won and faith at the last minute changed everything and the Union ended up winning. I have been to many of the Civil war battle fields thurout the years and I am amazed at the courage of the soldiers that fought at such close combat!
The amount of troops in the tens of thousands, the supplies, cannons, horses etc are just amazing how they moved from battle to battle with little knowledge of exact placement of troops. The casualties and wounded are always in the thousands.    
 BATTLE OF PARKERS CROSSROADS LINK:
 https://www.civilwar.org/learn/civil-war/battles/parkers-cross-roads

Almost 5000 troops were in this battle in the Western part of Tennessee

Beautiful sunny day with over 5 miles of trails

It took 7 troops to man each piece of field artillery and there were 4 to 6 cannons in a battery

LINK to Field Artillery http://cwartillery.com/FA/FA.html

MEMPHIS -Blues - BBQ - Beer

Since Geni and I have been delayed until our Slide out motor arrives from the factory we decided to make the best of it and explore western Tennessee. We are only 90 miles or so from the Blues capital of the world! We left early in the morning to arrive just about lunch time, we had to stop at Gus's world famous chicken. Gus's is rated one of the top 100 eats to see in America! Next we stopped at a local BBQ dinner for a awesome pulled pork sandwich! And last we stopped at the famous Catfish house near Shiloh.

Gibson Guitar factory

 BB KINGS night Club on Beale Street. He also has one in Nashville that in my opinion has more style with originalBlues paintings and a private dinning room.

Out front of BB's, yes you can walk and drink here!

The BEST catfish I have ever had!

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History of Catfish Hotel

LINK http://catfishhotel.com/            

Very Rustic inside

Local Hole -in the wall BBQ

                                                      

Very GOOD!

http://www.southernfoodways.org/interview/silers-old-time-bbq/

Been doing BBQ here for over 100 years!

LINK http://gusfriedchicken.com/downtown-memphis-tennessee-location/

Hot & Spicy

One of the best chicken dinners I have ever had! Moist and spicy, very different from the fried chicken I am used too!

Yall come back now , ya here!



Famous BEALE STREET - Each pub has a live band playing, party time when the sun sits!











 

SHILOH - Civil War Battle Field - Rv repairs

You have probably noticed I'm catching up on my blog the last couple of days?  Geni and I were heading west on Route 40 on our way to sunny Arizona when we pulled into a rest area and Geni noticed our roof coming apart! Well luck had it that the next exit in Crossroads Tn. had a RV park and repair shop. RV's are no different from homes, they need maintenance . We got VERY lucky the roof was ready to completely blow off and rotted underneath the rubber shell! Bob and Mike the owner of Crossroads RV park in Crossroads TN. were just wonderful people, they took us right in, there shop and started ripping the roof apart, they worked on Sunday to complete!