Wheels

Roads, roads, and more roads. We live on the roads, so we'd be hard pressed not to see interesting vehicles on our travels. I've been collecting up photos of these vehicles since I enjoy anything out of the ordinary. Unfortunately, there are way too few interesting vehicles on the road or in RV parks. Most of what we see in our parks are huge motorhomes. So, I guess I'll start there.


Monster size motorhomes are everywhere. And, really, I can't talk. We are pulling a train ourselves. Where the motorhomes are massive in height, we are massive in length. Still, do the huge motorhomes have to pull Hummers or long trailers? I see this and think we wouldn't have to have sold our furniture and put anything in storage, we could have brought it with us like these folks seem to have done.

Of course, there are those who do the complete opposite and travel across the country with almost nothing. Like this cyclist in Joshua Tree National Park, CA:



or this biker in Prince George, Canada:



Every once in a while we see people with tiny teardrop or A-frame trailers:

Yosemite LakesThousand Trails Campground, California

Silicon Valley, California

I assume that most people with these small vehicles are simply camping and will not be living in their vehicles for long periods of time. However, we've met several couples who have been on a road trip from Argentina to Alaska lasting over two years. They travel and sleep in these:

Glacier National Park, Montana

Valdez, Alaska

Europeans and Australians, on the other hand, tend to like tank-like motorhomes:

Europeans at Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

Europeans at Stewart, British Columbia, Canada

Early in our trip we visited a Mennonite community where we came across lots of these:

Versailles, Missouri

Rangers in the national and state parks can often be found driving these electric vehicles:

Itasca State Park, Minnesota

Death Valley National Park, California

Interestingly, in some cities the police have started driving the electric cars as well:



San Francisco, California

Police driving those electric cars might feel a bit less than macho, but at least they aren't stuck with the patrol cars used to control speed in Canada:

Yukon Territories, Canada

In Canada and Alaska vehicles look a bit different than in the areas I've lived most of my life. Here are some forms of transportation in our nation's largest state:

Dog sled, Denali National Park, Alaska

Snowmobile, Yukon, Canada

Ice cream/Expresso truck, Valdez, Alaska

Hovercraft, Fairbanks, Alaska

Alaska, of course, is not the only place with interesting vehicles. California has talent there as well:

Joshua Tree National Park, California

San Francisco, California

Slab City, Niland, California

Salvation Mountain, Niland, California

Sadly, we have found very few art cars. So I took pics of all of them:


From the Tea Party protest in Minnesota.


Found in Slab City, California.


Part of Salvation Mountain, California.


In front of the Visitor Center, Prince George, British Columbia, Canada.


Near Yosemite, California


Bald Eagle car found in Fairbanks, Alaska


Painted live in school bus of Slab City, California


We followed this car in Arkansas.

More often than art cars, we see antiques:

Parked at a rest area in Oregon.

Olympic National Park, Washington

Heritage Park, Alaska

Fort Nelson, British Columbia, Canada

Fort Nelson, British Columbia, Canada

Terlingua, Texas

Stalked Yet Again

While we were in the north, we saw bigfoot everywhere, and I wrote about it here. Now we seem to have a new stalker--Kokopelli. He seems to be following us all around the Southwest.

He serenaded us as we hiked through the slot canyons near Page, Arizona.

Kokopelli found us in Camping World when we had our trailer hitch repaired.

There he was again on this trading post on I-40.

This time Kokopelli was waiting for us when we walked into a cafe near El Morro, New Mexico.

I think Kokopelli was hoping we'd stay at this Chinle, Arizona motel.

He watched us drive by this Chinle restaurant.

He waited for us at this store in Cottonwood, Arizona, too.

He was on the shelves at the grocery store.

He lead us on a hiking trail.

Even when we purchased gasoline, he was there on the mini-mart window.

We started to get annoyed with kokopelli, but I think I would have been quite happy to have seen him here.

Getting Our Kitsche on Route 66

After Thanksgiving, Adolfo and I took I-40 west out of Albuquerque. Much of I-40 runs along the old Route 66 and still has much of the same character. Our first stop was an RV Park called Enchanted Trails. The park rents classic trailers and specializes in Route 66 memorabilia.

As we entered Arizona we visited Petrified Forest National Park just to find more Route 66 information, a rusty old car, and an old fender.

Back on the road, passed two blue dinosaurs. We weren't exactly sure why they were there to greet us, but we enjoyed them none the less.

Not far down the road we started seeing road signs a la Wall Drug or Burma-Shave. The signs advertised all the fabulous tourist items we could buy at Geronimo Trading Post. We were not interested and pretty much flew by the ornate post. Wow! we both exclaimed, and Adolfo started looking for a way to turn around. The trading post was kitsch to a tee. It was surrounded by painted Teepees and petrified wood probably stolen from the national park. We didn't go in the store, there was way too much to see outside.

Our tour through Route 66 ended in Arizona. As we entered Winslow, Adolfo played "Take It Easy" by the Eagles. After all, you just can't get enough pop culture.