June 23 - 25, 2023 - Fort Collins, Colorado - Nairobi, Kenya

We are traveling with five other friends and this should be a great trip but this latest adventure definitely took a long time to get here!

Fort Collins to Denver 1-1/2 hours. Denver flight to Frankfurt, Germany - 9 hours, 40 minutes. Frankfurt to Nairobi, Kenya - flight was delayed, then 9 hours to Nairobi arriving at 9:30 pm on June 24. THEN we had to adjust to the time change. It is 9 hours later in Kenya than Colorado!! It took us forever to get through passport control but we FINALLY made it and connected with our guide, Simon, about 11:30 pm - more than 24 hours after leaving home. Another 30 minutes to the hotel and we were finally able to go to bed about 1am on June 25!

June 25

We had an early wakeup call - 6:00 am! Breakfast at the hotel, then loading into the van to begin our adventures.

First stop was the Karen Blixon Museum. Karen Blixon is the author of the book, Out of Africa. She lived here from 1917 until 1931. After Blixen's death in 1962, the house was donated by the Danish goverment in 1964 to the new Kenyan government as an independence gift and was opened to the public in 1986 as one of Kenya's national museums, following the popularity of the movie, Out of Africa. It was interesting to see the house, some of the old coffee plantation equipment, as well as photographs and some of her artwork.

The next stop was the Giraffe Center. It is located in an area that was the landing strip from the Blixon coffee plantation and farm. The Giraffe Centre was established in 1979 in order to protect the Rothschild giraffe that is found only in the grasslands of East Africa.
There are 10 giraffes and we got to feed them. Their tongues are really rough - and they are quite greedy about being fed! We also had a short presentation about the giraffes. The males can reach over 17 feet tall and weigh up to 4000 pounds and their tongue is 2 feet long.


We headed next to the Daphne Sheldrick Animal Orphanage to see the orphaned elephants being fed. After parking, we watched a troop of babboons.

The "warm-up" band, so to speak, was an orphaned hippo. I have a little video of him following one of the handlers.
https://youtu.be/qaNVGAV8Hb8

Then the elephants came in from the reserve. The first group was the youngsters - up to three years old followed by the older group. It was interesting to hear how they rehabilitate the elephants and reintroduce them back to the wild. It can take up to five years before they connect with a herd.



We headed back to our hotel for lunch before departing Nairobi for Kibo Safari Camp just outside Amboseli National Park. The 250km trip took about five hours!

We passed many different markets along the way and saw the diverse economic population of Nairobi and other communities.


Because it was Sunday, we saw lots of people socializing everywhere! There were lots of people in the shade of a pedestrian bridge, just hanging out and visiting.

We saw several large cement plants along our drive, too.

The closer we came to Amboseli, the more rural it became and we started seeing more wildlife.





And the clouds finally started to lift and we caught a glimpse of Mount Kilimanjaro - the flat mountain on the right.
We have arrived! Kibo Lodge is beautiful and we are looking forward to a good night's rest!

This is our room!


We have another early morning tomorrow and the internet is SLOW so I will try to post tomorrow!

March 13, 2023 - Scottsdale, Arizona

Well, we are happy to report that Tobey's mom, Ruthellen, is on the mend. After many tests in the hospital it was confirmed that she had norovirus (a type of severe stomach flu) which really wiped her out. She had lots of IV fluids and lots of rest. We were able to bring her home yesterday after eight days in the hospital. 

She is still weak and will take time to regain her strength, but she is happy to be home - as are we! Thank you everyone for your kind wishes and prayers.

March 4-5, 2023 - Fort Stockton, Texas to Scottsdale, Arizona

Sometimes plans change. Today was one of those days, but if you have family, you can understand that they come first.

We got a call about 4am Saturday morning that Tobey's mom wasn't feeling good at all, so we changed plans skipping Historic Fort Stockton and headed back to Scottsdale. When we got back around 8:30 pm, we decided to call the paramedics (for the second time of the day) and have her taken to the hospital. She was suffering from what we (and the doctors) think was food poisoning and dehydration. They finally got her into a room around 4am Sunday morning and we headed back to the house to catch a few hours of sleep.

Today we spent most of the day at the hospital and she is improving but not ready to come home. We are hopeful that she will continue to improve and be home in a couple days. If you believe in the power of prayer, we ask that you keep her in yours. She is one tough cookie at 97 years old and we'd like her around a lot longer.

March 3, 2023 Cosha Campground near Carlsbad, NM to Fort Stockton, Texas

I forgot to add this picture of us from our day at Carlsbad yesterday. Yes, those are winter coats!

The wind FINALLY let up late last night (or early this morning) so our drive wasn’t as bad as it could be. We did have miles and miles of road construction and LOTS of oil trucks. We left New Mexico and were soon in West Texas and it is oil country.



We made it to Pecos, Texas around lunch time then decided to check out the West of the Pecos Museum.

Opening in 1963, the historically recognized landmark was once a saloon which was built in 1896 and the Orient Hotel which was added in 1904. The museum displays cover three floors and 50 rooms of exhibits, artifacts, history and Old West Texas lore. We were impressed with the huge variety of things in the museum.

In the saloon the bar keep is animated and tells the story of some of the gunfights that took place there. You can still see the bullet holes in the woodwork around the doors and walls!

Pecos, Texas claims to be the home of the World’s First Rodeo. Not sure if that is true, but they had lots of rooms dedicated to rodeo stuff.


We liked reading about Pecos Bill and seeing the displays.


From Pecos we made our way to Fort Stockton, Texas where we are spending the night. Tomorrow we will visit the Historic Fort Stockton.

March 2, 2023 - Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico

Our campsite was 30 minutes from Carlsbad Caverns, and we had a timed entry for the caverns at 9:30 this morning so we got up early and were on our way. Thank goodness, I woke up feeling like a person again today!

The drive to the visitors’ center from the highway is about 7-1/2 miles and there were several pullouts with informational signs along the way. It was a fun drive and we enjoyed the stops.

We checked in and found we could get tickets to the 11:30 am King’s Palace Tour which we hadn’t had any luck getting online so we added that to our day’s agenda.

Carlsbad Caverns National Park is located in the Chihuahuan Desert of the Guadalupe Mountains. The gigantic subterranean chambers have amazing cave formations and features. Over 1000 years ago, American Indians ventured into the caverns but left no records of entering the “dark zone” of the cave, but they did leave mysterious drawings near the natural entrance.

It wasn’t until the late 1800s that the cave was really “discovered.” A young cowboy, Jim White, spotted thousands of bats rising out of the natural entrance. He came back and explored the cave and was eager to reveal to others the natural wonders of this extraordinary place. Few people believed him. Finally, in 1915, photographer Ray V. Davis joined White on a cave trip and Davis took photographs which were displayed in the town of Carlsbad. The photos created quite the sensation and people finally clamored to see the marvelous cave. In 1923, the U.S. Department of the Interior sent an inspector to see if the cavern really was an outstanding natural scenic wonder. Following his report, Carlsbad Caverns was named a National Monument by Preside Coolidge. In 1930, Carlsbad Caverns became a national park. From 1938-1942 the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) began constructing a service road and water diversion ditch and many of the structures in the park. In 1995, it was designated a World Heritage Site and now included 46,766 acres and over 100 caves.

We started off with the Natural Entrance Route self-guided tour which is about 1.25 miles and rated as steep and strenuous. It took us from ground level to 750 feet below the surface! The first visitors into the caverns entered via guano buckets prior to 1925 when wooden stairs were built. The paved path we took was much better.

We marveled at the formations and enjoyed working our way deeper and deeper into the underground passing the “Bat Cave,” Devil’s Spring, Devil’s Den, Iceberg Rock, and Boneyard on our way to the Rest Area 755 feet below the surface.




Unfortunately, we are here too early in the year to see the evening flight of the Brazilian free-tailed bats who make this their summer home.

At 11:15, we met our tour group at the rest area and headed off for our 1-1/2 hour, 1mile tour of the “King’s Palace.” We went through the Green Lake Room, the King’s Palace at 829 feet below the surface, The Queen’s Chamber and the Papoose Room.





No cave tour can be complete unless the ranger turns the lights off so you can see how dark it really is 829 feet below the surface. Trust me, it is completely dark. We could not see our hands before our faces. She continued to tell the stories of Jim White and his explorations of the cave while we tried to imagine what it was like.

After the tour, we took the elevator back to the surface and went out to the RV for a late lunch before returning to the depths to take the 1.25 mile “Big Room” (The Big Room is 8.2 acres!) self-guided tour. It is so hard to explain how huge these rooms are and the pictures do not really do it justice!

We were thankful that we were underground most of the day today because the winds above ground were fierce! The outside temperature reached 57 F (in the caverns it was 56), but the winds were 35-55 mph gusting up to 85mph. We drove into Carlsbad so I could have internet to join my book club meeting tonight before heading back to the Chosa campground for the night. We have our nose facing the wind, but we needless to say, our little RV is still rocking! 

March 1, 2023 - Lordsburg, NM to Chosa Campground near Carlsbad, New Mexico

We set the alarm for 7:00 this morning so we could get an early start heading to Carlsbad. We were on I-10 and joined by many semi-trucks as we made our way eastward. We stopped in El Paso, Texas for gas - $2.91 per gallon! WOW - GREAT!! The wind is really howling today and there are high wind warnings that we could encounter gusts up to 70 mph. YIKES! Unfortunately, I am not feeling very good today, so I spent a lot of time on the sofa sleeping while Tobey drove!

Further down the road we spotted a sign for Guadalupe Mountain National Park and we could see Guadelupe Peak. We had never been there, so we decided to stop. The picture above is Guadelupe Peak, which is the highest point in all of Texas at 8751' above sea level.

There is a nice visitor’s center with displays of the plants, animals, and birds in the area.



We took the short Pinery Trail from the visitors’ center to the ruins of the Butterfield Station (about ¾ mile roundtrip).

Rocks from the station wall

One of the station outbuildings.

From September 1858 to August 1859, stagecoaches regularly stopped here for food, water, fresh mule teams, and protection on their way from Saint Louis to San Francisco. A forerunner to the Pony Express, the Butterfield Overland Mail ran on this 2,700-mile route and was always completed within 25 days! John Butterfield had a 6-year contract with the government, but it was cut short after the start of the Civil War. Butterfield had 100 coaches, each costing $1,500, which would carry up to 9 passengers, baggage, and 12,000 letters and pulled by six horse or mules. The only wildlife we saw was one blue jay, but it was an interesting walk and we were glad we made the stop.


They had WIFI at the visitors center and Tobey needed to get online for a while, so I went back to the RV and slept then got YESTERDAY's post finished!

We headed north to Chosa Campground which is BLM land and a large, flat parking area about 1/2 mile off the highway on our way to Carlsbad Caverns. We joined over a dozen other RVs parked there for the night and pointed our nose to the wind. Fortunately, the winds were really mild overnight and we had a good night. Tomorrow, we are on to Carlsbad Caverns!

February 28, 2023 - North Phoenix, AZ to Lordsburg, NM

After spending the last couple weeks with Tobey’s mom and sister in Scottsdale, we went north for a couple nights to have some time with my sister and her husband. I got some great sister time and we spent a day shopping – always fun! Then we were treated to Jim's great chili - Yum!

This morning we pointed the RV south and headed first to Florence, Arizona to have lunch with my cousin. Mount Athos Greek Restaurant had really good gyros and they were huge! After a good visit, we continued on to Lordsburg, New Mexico for the night. Tobey obliged me and we stopped to take pictures of the flowers along Highway 74, as well as some of the desert landscapes.

Desert lupines

Poppies

Cactus flowers


We stayed overnight at the Veterans Park, just south of town tonight. There was one other RV parked at the far side of the park and we almost didn’t see them! Our tailpipe weld came loose, so Tobey called a mobile welder and he came out to the park and got us fixed up in no time. It was a little more expensive than what we paid in Missouri (go figure), but hopefully it will be the last time we have to do this!

Tobey grilled some pork chops tonight and then we were treated to a beautiful sunset before settling in for the night.

Tomorrow we head to Carlsbad Caverns.