Road Trip!

stever

It has been a chilly Spring but that would be a nice route. Chimayo does get the weather though. The firewood piles we saw a few summer back remind me of the piles that accumulate around here.

Cimarron Canyon would be new country for us - we turned south to do the Angel Fire loop (and hit a little snow in June on that stretch!). Looks nice. And the long range weather forecast is looking pretty good for you.

iluvmysephia1

if you come back through Albuquerque and head south on I-25 look us up here in Alamogordo. I'll treat you to some Daylight Donuts and some Seattle's Best coffee. Yeah, my wife and I recently visited Albuquerque and the people were very nice. The city is easy to learn from the internet and in practice, the routes map out accurately. We were feeding a parking meter and one young man saw our troubles trying to pay in the parking lot that had a broken meter box. He offered to pay for our parking meter on the street!

We did go north to Santa Fe the next morning. What an interesting place that is! It might be a bit spendy to retire in but even here in Alamogordo wouldn't be so bad a place to settle in. Ruidoso is a nice mountain town here that the Texans love to visit and buy vacation homes at. The Ruidoso Wal*Mart had a bomb scare and evacuation the other day. Probably a teenage prankster but who knows, I found that one to be very strange. :blush:

steve, edmunds.com doesn't have private messaging or does it? Can't rememba.

stever

No PM, but it's on the wish list. Did you take the survey? One of these years.

Try El Meze in Taos for dinner some time. It'll blow your budget but it's worth it. They had cardamom donuts for desert the night we were there and they were memorable. :shades:

gagrice

We stayed over night in Alamogordo Marriott.. Had good Chili relleno at Margo's. Cheapest gas was USA $3.25. Nice town, not too congested. We were headed home so not much time looking up old friends. On my list as good route driving cross country. Like US 60/70 a lot.

iluvmysephia1

I understand. In fact, that was just what I was thinking just before I found this message. Yeah, my wife and I were up at Ruidoso and Fort Stanton today and it was good sunny weather and hot. Alamogordo has a lot of houses for sale or rent, too. Glad you liked your stay here!

stever

Didn't take long to get into AC conditions, and the lakeside campground near Ann Arbor had some active skeeters last night. Lots of flowering trees. Cruising through Ohio on the Interstate today heading for some W VA and VA backroads in a few hours.

stever

Highway 50 in West Virginia was even fun in my minivan. Tons of curves.

Then there are the 9% grades you have to groan up mile after mile and when you think you're home free you have to downshift and ride the brake through a bunch of curves marked 35 and 20 mph to wind up at the bottom of another hollow.

hpmctorque

Hey, Steve, if you're going to be in or near the DC area, I'd love to meet you and buy you and your spouse or traveling companion(s) coffee, a beer (or two), or lunch. Please let me know.

stever

Thanks so much! That would be fun - I'm still bummed that a planned visit with another '99 Quest owner in Chicago didn't pan out. He had a last minute problem come up when we were down there last month and had to cancel our coffee rendezvous. It's fun meeting you guys in the flesh.

We went into the city last year and hit the cherry blossoms just right. My sister is out toward Winchester and we've been hanging with her a couple of days (great sushi and bento box at Mr. Noodles & Rice :-)).

We are heading to NYC tomorrow; we've rented a cabin at Croton-on-Hudson and will be hanging out a week there with my brother and his wife.

I get back this way once or twice a year so maybe next time.

explorerx4

NYC could have more traffic than normal due the CT train accident which has knocked some of the service, i.e. more car commuters.
There is a great walk across bridge in Poughkeepsie that's on my list.

stever

Yeah, we're hoping that they'll have most of that cleaned up soon. I remember how fast they got most of the lines running after Sandy, except for the track down at the, er, Battery area iirc.

I told my brother if the trains get messed up, we could drive one of our vans in and just pay the $12 an hour to park - or more.

gagrice

$12 per hour to park. :sick:

Another advantage to avoiding big cities. Most I have spent on parking over the last 20 years or more would be a quarter in a parking meter. I don't allow any valet to touch my vehicles either. I suppose if it was an old beater I would. High priced parking/valet parking means too many people in a small place.

stever

Nah, you just avoid driving. When there's so many alternatives, it's easy. Bus, train, cab, foot, whatever. Unfortunately the rent-a-bike program in NYC won't start until the week after we're there. Be fun to cycle around Central Park.

gagrice

Be fun to cycle around Central Park.

I can HONESTLY say, visiting NYC has never entered my thinking. I took the job in Alaska back in 1970 because the town I lived in near San Diego put in a mobile home park. I live far enough out on my own acre that I can breathe. I know and get along with all my neighbors on our street. How many people living in an apartment can say that? We are now experiencing in the US the problem with moving from an agrarian society. Detroit is a good example of how bad it will get everywhere. Don't get mugged.

stever

If you've never been there, you really can't talk eh? :shades:

fintail

I visited NYC 2 years ago - it was pretty fun. Don't think I would want to live there unless I was wealthy and had a reason to be there, but it's something to see.

I live in an apartment and get along with everyone, and know a few people. I doubt Detroit will happen everywhere, although it will in some places, as different places in the US continue to evolve in different directions. In my neighborhood, rents and mortgages are so high that only gainfully employed or trust fund trash are going to be able to live here, so people are generally well behaved.

imidazol97

Will we see you in the crowd on the Today show wearing an Edmunds shirt?

gagrice

I have many friends that have made the mistake of visiting NYC. Cramped dirty rooms for $250 per night. $20 for a decent sandwich. Fighting a mob to go up in the Empire state building is hardly my idea of a nice vacation. I can get a decent room overlooking the ocean in Hawaii for a 100 bucks a night. If I could just get my wife back onto an airplane. I really enjoyed our cross country vacation. Bypassed all the big cities. Except for the stop and go through Las Cruces NM. Even El Paso was not a big deal getting gas at Costco right on the Interstate. I will never do Interstate 20 again. That is brutal. And our trying to bypass Dallas was less than pleasant. There are more pleasant ways to get across the USA than the Interstates and big cities. Every little town has a museum that does not take a week to see. And you learn a lot about what used to be good about America.

gagrice

In my neighborhood, rents and mortgages are so high that only gainfully employed or trust fund trash are going to be able to live here, so people are generally well behaved.

That is nice for you. It is also the minority of apartment neighborhoods in the USA. All the ones I pass and they are being built by the 100s as we speak are slums in the making. Section 8 dumping grounds. Apartments built less than 2 years ago already looking like the projects. Thanks to the Stimulus San Diego is a dumping ground for the indigents both legal and illegal. The only light I see at the end of the tunnel is the current housing bubble. Housing in my neighborhood is going up at 10% per year. Should be back to what I paid in one more year. Then we decide whether to get out and find a better state to live in.

fintail

I think most cities that aren't dying have wide areas where apartments are not the ghetto. More younger people are remaining single for longer or forever and just don't want a house, cost of living in this dumbed down new order usually doesn't allow for a single income homeowner in such areas - at least without parental help, and cities where the jobs are often have limited land availability which keeps housing prices high.

No place is perfect...I am sure you could move now if you wanted. But then you couldn't complain about CA :P

gagrice

No place is perfect...I am sure you could move now if you wanted. But then you couldn't complain about CA

Those are the facts. I have a couple places in Kentucky I could like. One is 10 acres with a 3 acre stocked pond and plenty of room to have a rifle range.
I could buy it with our current equity and have a lot left over. Then go to the Keys in the winter and rent a condo. My wife is just about fed up with CA to the point she will leave. When you add up all the taxes living in CA it gets close to 50%. So I know what Jon Stewart was ranting about. Our favorite spot in the USA is still Hilo Hawaii. And that may be where we end up. Again not perfect, but less taxes and better weather. Better growing conditions.

stever

Oh, don't say that (my sister-in-law dropped a hint - the line probably forms at 4 am). I'm in an audience shot on the Letterman show back in '99 (?) when we got to see ZZ Top. :-)

My sister lives about 20 miles from Willard Scott and has seen him several times, so I'd go run around there if I was a celebrity hound.

imidazol97

>Oh, don't say that

I think you're safe. I scanned NBC Today this morning and they were showing the audience in the dark--in Hilo, Hawaii. Unless what I saw was a rerun, they're out-of-town.

Of course, this is gagrice's chance for Hawaii and stardom all in one.

stever

Whew.

Good tapas place in Croton; Sala de something. Highlight was scallops in a white wine garlic pistachio sauce.

Got our train tickets last night so we should at least get as far as Grand Central in a couple of hours. Lots of security at bridge crossings but it looks like all the trains we need are running fine.

gagrice

We are so thankful to have gone through the region of current devastation with great weather. Shows how it can change in a heartbeat. So sad all those children thought to be safe in their school.

stever

Bad news for sure.

We're dogged tired - 12 hour day in the city. Really fun showing the newbies the ropes and finally made it to Staten Island. Lunch was pizza and mussels at Eataly in Chelsea. Lots of good food for $37 for two.

I was way off on the parking - the lots near the theater district were like $18 an hour or $32 all day. Out train ride along the Hudson was nice. We got great info and directions from a dozen strangers and didn't get mugged once, nor run down by speeding bike messengers. My brother and his wife really loved it.

Rest day at the cabin tomorrow.

gagrice

The cabin sounds great. You keep the cities. In case you haven't heard the big cities in the USA are more dangerous than the war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan. Thankfully you made it out alive. :shades:

iluvmysephia1

although my wife and I enjoyed our visit to Albuquerque we were warned by one of my co-workers that New Mexico's largest city still has its crime quotient. I'm sure it does and I'm sure we'd probably not relocate there. But having grown up around Seattle the lure of a big city is hard to ignore, especially for rock shows and ballgames. Though Albuquerque's most major-league team are the Albuquerque Isotopes, who play at Isotope Park. Anyone know what an isotope is? Sheesh!

gagrice

If you like sunshine and not extremely hot weather Albuquerque is hard to beat. I have a sister and a pot load of nieces and nephews there. My folks lived there a lot, so I visited a quite a bit. not bad as big cities go. If you are a ways out of town

stever

Will be home later today. The Bruce Peninsula was a bit of a bust - too much fog to see anything on the two hour ferry ride, and too wet to see much on the drive or short hike we did. Sitting at a muni campsite just east of the Soo Locks right now watching the "boats" go by. They don't call them "ships" on the Great Lakes. Having marinetraffic.com on the laptop helps you learn when they should pass by our tent, and you can get flag info and tonnage, destination, etc. there.