It’s time to say goodbye.
Geri, Chuck, and I get together again at the Twin Rocks Cafe. The past few days the crew and I camp at Sand Island. It’s been hot with spells of wind-blown dust. We’ve hung out at Geri and Chuck’s fifth wheel, soaking up their air conditioning and the strong WiFi at Cadillac Ranch RV Park, as well as the great company!
The sudden wave of heat reminds me summer has arrived in southern Utah.
At the Twin Rocks Chuck and I order another Navajo pizza while Geri has a Navajo taco. It’s the fry bread that makes it Navajo. You can have something called ash bread (traditionally made on a slab of rock spread with ashes), but we stick with fry bread.
I think it was Tuesday when we made a second trip back to Bluff City Grill. I’m marking the days in restaurant meals! So much for frugality and a low-carb, low-fat diet!
After dinner we browse the Twin Rocks gift shop and the adjoining Navajo art gallery.
Geri surprises me with a beautiful, beaded barrette from the gift shop. Out by the PTV we hug and say goodbye. Chuck and Geri are going back to New Mexico to get rid of more stuff in preparation for selling their house and full-timing. They’ll spend next winter in Florida. I watch them walk away, hand-in-hand, and my throat tightens. When will I see these dear friends again?
I drive past them on the way out of the parking lot.
I roll down the window, and with a big wave I call out, “I LOVE YOU!”
rvsue
Bluff Fort
(Click on above link for history of Bluff Fort and click on a photo to see a fuller view.)
My list of “must visits” is growing thanks to you, your crew and your photos! Still trying to leave winter behind here in East TN despite what the calendar says!
I love the fact that you previewed Bluff for us. Good reporting!! Nice to hear Cadillac has good WiFi, that’s where we are staying. But…I don’t like hearing it is hot!! I was hoping it would be cooler there. We are very warm here at Lake Powell. As I said before, we don’t eat out very much (just too unhealthy and way to expensive for what you get) but I am liking the sounds of these little restaurants in Bluff. I love Indian Fry bread!!
Travel safely to your new destination!
YUM, the bread sounds fantastic. I have had it before but it has been a lonnnnnnnnnnnng time.
We have a saying in our brain injury support group. “We are here every week, and so are you, even if it is just in our thoughts.” The nice thing about getting back together again, is looking forward to it.
Safe Journey!
Hi Sue, Like most I was always the same way AH, Heat, lets go north.. as you know I don’t comment much, but I never stop traveling with you, and thanks for all the new places you have
taken me, and for all the memories of the places I have been to before.. I know your time being
with Chuck and Geri was a real pleasure, and that ” see you down the road’s ” are no fun
I hated saying that to friends I made, again thanks for the ride, and safe travels..
That’s the good thing about having a home on wheels…..you can take it any where you want it!! So, you’ll just have to come east of the Mississippi for a while next winter, Sue! 😉
Yes Sue, Mississippi isn’t far from Floida….visit Ladybug!!! FYI Ladybug, Nature Coast RV in Crystal River, FL is BEST Evergreen dealer!(thanks Sue)
Great post, Know just how that feels. Where you headed next, (to get out of the heat)??
What a special friendship and just imagine the beaded barrette will be a treasure forever….what a sweet gift! In the words of Henry…. Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes. ~Henry David Thoreau
I love that quote Cozybegone… thanks for sharing! And Sue, you never know, we might just be beyond the next bend in the road!
Hello. I am new to your blog and found you through Happy Trails. I have started a blog myself and I am learning from others such as you how to express and share. I lost my wife of 47 years last summer to brain tumors and have decided to full time rv with our little dog, Dexter, until my health, or pocketbook, decide otherwise. I am most interested in where you get your information on locations to park or boondock. Thanks again for an interesting blog and I will be riding along with you. I am headed from Texas to East Glacier, Montana for a summer job just to keep busy for now. Safe travels.
Gulp…….you made me get a lump in my throat.
Your roads will once again meet……..the barrette as a gift was sweet.
Thanks for sharing the pics of Bluff Fort. It’s so interesting to see how folks lived many years ago. I can hardly imagine what it would have been like to travel in the RV of bygone days – the covered wagon!
CT, there is short film in the new visitor center that shows the country those covered RVs took! WOW, no way could our RVS stand up to that trip! Chuck, New Mexico soon FL
Chuck,
It sure is amazing what those intrepid pioneers went through in their “RV” adventures!
Always sad to see good friends leave 🙁 it’s definitely getting close to hot-time in Utah. Weather is fickle there, but around mid-May you can start seeing hot, hot, hot. And Utah heat is something else! There’s several spots you can escape to cool off. If you go up towards Moab you’ll come to a nice, high pass at Monticello with lots of forest service land. Also the Dixie forest along Hwy12 has some really high, cool spots on both sides. Hope you find your cool!
Nina
If walls could talk “The Old Meeting House” would no doubt fill a few books. Great pictures Sue.
When we have to say do long to dear friends it’s easy to be depressed about it but each departure makes the reunion so much sweeter….My best to you three…Chuck, safe travels…
I enjoyed your visit with Geri and Chuck very much and feel as if you are all my dear friends. “Merry meet and merry part and merry meet again. Happy trails to you and the crew!
Lovely lesson in history. I was thinking as I saw the cabin and the church that way back then they had more space than you do. So any of us think those early pioneer cabins are small…but it’s all relative. I teared up too when you talked about watching your friends walk away. That’s hard, maybe one of the harder things about full timing…the moving on part. I hope your paths cross again. Safe travels.
“Parting is such sweet sorrow…” your friends will see you again, I am convinced, sooner than you think. Time will fly with all the wonderful places you and the crew will explore over the summer and fall and before you know it, you’ll be back to winter camps…maybe even N.M. before your friends leave for Florida. Meantime, I see you’ve already started exploring…what gorgeous pictures you take. Safe travels.
Yes , a lump in my throat as you said goodbye………..I felt what you were feeling after such a nice time with good friends of whom it may be sometime before you meet again. Safe travels, onwards to the next adventure!
Joy,Colorado-stop at visitor center and museum in Monticello ,Look at picture of man and wife who first settled there on wall .My favorite.Grassey area for dogs.Hole -in the Rock- outside Moab(a guy;s house) and then lovely park on right with dog area,nice walks big trees,very pretty.
Nice photo of the covered wagon. Contrary to hollywood most of the pioneers walked beside the wagon to save the beasts of burden the extra effort of pulling. The only time one got to ride in the wagon was if you were sick and couldn’t walk. They were not a pleasure to ride in as they had no springs, shocks or nothing to cushion the ride and they just about jarred your teeth loose when hitting a bump. They were used to haul…stuff. If you were lucky enough to have a nice feather bed you could put it in the back and be relatively comfortable until you felt the big bumps that would shoot you sky ward until you came back down again with most likely a thud. Ah yes those were the days, but the good old days were not then…not until Bill Haley and the Comets.
Hello! I would like to reply to each comment. Can’t do that as I’m “on the road” after the crew and I spent the night in Glen Canyon Rec Area. What a scenic drive and a camp I still find hard to believe! I could take 10,000 photos and not feel like I’m capturing much of what I’ve seen in the last 24 hours. More about that soon. I’m hoping our next camp has cell signal so I can make a full blog post. Thanks for all your wonderful messages!
You were disappointed with the campground at Hite Crossing. This is what I had to say in my Journal in 1991 when I was doing an 11 week Park to Park bicycle tour of the Rocky Mountains and Pacific Coast.
19 Jun: Bicknell to Hites Crossing
Roads: UT24 & UT95
Distance: 106 miles (first Century)
Camp: A bare parking lot by the Colorado River
I just thought yesterday was tough. Today we had and easy time of it for about the first 50 miles to Hanksville but then turned south to a gradual uphill and into a headwind. Then when we thought it couldn’t get worse it got hoter and there were two steep climbs at the end of the day. There were a lot of people quit and take the “sag wagon” today, there was a point where I stopped to rest that I would have probably done the same if one had come by.