End of the Road.....For now

Arrived in Carrollton, IL this evening. Ready to commence with our mission tomorrow.

Amarillo, TX

And Tonya complains about my parking. I bet this guy's wife is really upset.

Tonight our heads will hit the pillow in Amarillo.

Grants, NM

Headed to Illinois.  When we stopped for fuel in Grants, New Mexico I discovered the trailer brakes weren't working.  Found a cracked fitting in the hydraulic lines.  By the time I got it replaced the wind was blowing 40 mph so we stopped for the night.  Good thing, the local news reported even higher winds to the east including a 75 mph gust in Albequerque.

I know I haven't posted anything since we were on our way to Yuma.  We are still here but getting ready to hit the road again.  I could have filled up the blog with all the things we do while we are here, but we are so busy doing stuff that I don't have time to post it.  One of the entertainers that performed at our park was amazed at how active everyone was.  He remarked "And all your kids wonder what in the world you could possibly be doing all winter in Yuma, Arizona.  They think you're sitting in a dark trailer putting together six piece puzzles and spending their inheritance."  Other than the "spending their inheritance" part that's not exactly how it goes.
As the president of the Billiard Club I write an article every month for the Courier, a  park newsletter.  This usually consists of news about the club's activities for the month and upcoming events.  The article for the April edition was more general and, I think, best expresses how our life has been the last few months, so here it is.

Country Roads/Courier/Billiard Club News/April 2012

What is happening?  I see people and rigs leaving the park, the billiard room isn’t as busy as it was just a few days ago and things seem to be slowing down.  It can’t be the end of the season, can it?  I distinctly remember the agonizingly slow trip across the desert to get here, including a 4-day stop in the middle of nowhere to get a 3-hour repair done on the truck.  I remember finally coming through the pass and looking down at the Foothills.  I remember pulling up to the gate where the security guard said, “Welcome home”.  That was surely just a few weeks ago.  How can it be April already?  There can only be one explanation.  Apparently when we came through the gate we crossed over “into another dimension of time and space”.  A “worm hole” in the universe, where everything moves at warp speed.  A dimension where pool games, pool tournaments, holidays, spaghetti dinners, dances and shows are all like blurry scenes passing by at an incredible rate.  A dimension where everyone walking, riding bicycles and golf carts looks like they are in a Charlie Chaplin movie, but we don’t realize it because we are all going at the same speed.  Occasionally we glance over the wall and see the others in the outside world plodding along at the “normal” speed at which the rest of the world operates.  How do they get anything done at that rate?  We might ponder that question if we had time, but we’ve always got to get to the next activity that fills our schedule.  As we go through the gate for the last time of the season we might not realize it, but, just as Einstein predicted, we have aged a little less than the people who have been traveling at less than the speed of light for the last several months.  Have a safe summer; see you next winter.

That pretty well sums it up.  I'll start keeping you updated on our travels, at least until we get back here and start putting our puzzles together again.