On our way back to Show Low after dropping the new issue of the Gypsy Journal off at the printer in Flagstaff yesterday, we took a break to explore the ruins of Two Guns, which was once a Route 66 icon.

There isn’t much left these days except stone ruins, but you can just feel the history of this old place.

Two Guns is sandwiched between Interstate 40 (which replaced Route 66) and Diablo Canyon, a deep, rough chasm with a history all its own. Warring Indians used the canyon as a refuge and to launch ambushes against their enemies. One legend tells of a “death cave” in the canyon near Two Guns, in which a war party of 42 Apaches hid after raiding two Navajo villages. When the Navajos pursuing the war party discovered the secret cave, they set fires at the entrance, sending their enemies to a horrible death by smoke inhalation and asphyxiation.

Early white settlers built a small, short lived community known as Canyon Lodge here, but the town failed before long. Two Guns was built on the old town site.

Two Guns was named for a eccentric hermit named “Two Gun Miller,” who claimed to be an Apache and to live in a cave in Canyon Diablo. Miller operated a trading post and tourist attraction at Two Guns, making a living off the travelers who passed by.  He was a colorful character who billed himself as “Chief Crazy Thunder,” wore his long hair braided, and told wild tales of his adventures to thrill the tourists.

Two Guns was typical of the Route 66 tourist traps that dotted the highway from Chicago to Los Angeles. Miller built a series of stone buildings at Two Guns, including a zoo where he displayed several mountain lions, rattlesnakes, and a collection of other wild animals. Other buildings include a restaurant, Indian curio shop, and a tourist court where road weary travelers could spend the night.

We drove past the ruins of the old mountain lion pens and across an ancient concrete bridge, then followed a dirt road a quarter mile or so to the main ruins perched on the edge of Canyon Diablo. Most of the old stone and block buildings have fallen in, but one turret-like structure still had a spiral stairway winding up the outside of it.

Being careful of rattlesnakes, we walked around the old ruins and wondered about the lives of those who had been here before us. Peering over the edge of the deep canyon, we understood why it was such an important refuge for the Indians who once lived here, and why it was such a roadblock when the railroad came through northern Arizona. 

The road was a bit rough, but our van had no problem getting us back to the ruins. I wouldn’t want to drive it in a passenger car, and in bad weather I wouldn’t attempt it in anything less than a four wheel drive vehicle.

I was pleased to see that, unlike many of the ghost towns I have been too, overall Two Guns is in decent shape. There was evidence of a camp fire, a few broken bottles, but no graffiti or piles of trash laying around.

Two Guns is located on the south side of Interstate 40 at Exit 230, and is visible from the highway. After you turn off the highway, there are the remains of a service station and campground on the hill to your right, but if you go there, you’ve gone too far. The road to Two Guns is an immediate right after you get off the highway. Drive west about 1/4 mile and turn through the fence to Two Guns. 

Thought For The Day – We have enough youth, how about a fountain of Smart?

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One of the great things about the RV lifestyle is having the opportunity to eat so many different kinds of food in so many different places. Whenever we can, we pass up the chain restaurants in favor of the local fare. Let’s face it, a Grand Slam breakfast is going to taste the same, whether you order it at a Denny’s in Pittsburgh, Palo Alto, or Paducah.

But in the local restaurants, you find great dishes like the Especial, the world famous hot dog/cheeseburger combo at Lute’s Casino in Yuma; or the Five Cheese burger at Burgers & Beer, also here in Yuma. I’ve had both, and they beat the heck out of anything you’ll ever find at McDonald’s or Burger King.

Move over Long John Silvers and Red Lobster! For real seafood, you need to go to places like Moondog Seaside Eatery in Rockport, Texas, pictured here, or Keys Fisheries on Marathon Key in the Florida Keys. Yeah, you may have to wave away the seagulls when they try to steal your food at an outside table, but once you have had a blackened grouper sandwich at either place, you’ll be spoiled for any of the chain eateries.     

Regional food is another treat for travelers. I had never heard of a Cuban sandwich, which is a delicious combination of ham, roast pork, pulled pork, cheese, and a pickle, served on Cuban bread, until I first tried one in Florida a few years ago. I was immediately hooked. My two favorite places to order a Cuban are at El Siboney in Key West, and Mykonos, in Brooksville, Florida.

For a real taste of local food, you need to find a place like the Boiling Pot in Rockport, Texas, where they bring you a Cajun boil of shrimp, crawfish, sausage, new potatoes, and corn, pour the entire concoction out on butcher paper, and tell you to dig in! No frills, no silverware, just good food you’ll never forget! 

I love pizza, and I’ve had delicious pizzas everyplace form New York City to Chicago to Seattle. But I don’t think you can beat the brick oven pizzas we had at several different places around Berlin, New Jersey. Those folks know how to make pizza!

We’ve been busy sampling the local restaurants here in the Yuma area, and yesterday we joined Tom and Barbara Westerfield, along with David and Lynn Cross, at the above mentioned Lute’s Casino in Old Town Yuma. The place isn’t really a casino, but rather a funky little restaurant with all kinds of antiques, artifacts, and junk hanging from the ceilings and decorating the walls. Did you ever notice that food always tastes better when you dine out with good friends?

Fortunately, we have plenty of friends here in Yuma, and plenty of local restaurants to try out yet. I can’t wait to see where we eat tonight!

Bad Nick must be on a diet, because while I was out chowing down, he was busy posting a new Bad Nick Blog titled I Don’t Get It. Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – Everything is funny if you wait long enough.  

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With only 33,000 miles on it, our 2002 Winnebago diesel pusher is like new in many ways. The previous owner kept in inside a heated barn most of the time, and only used it for vacations and short trips with the grandkids. Miss Terry and the other ladies who have seen it all agreed that the stove had probably never been used, for example.

But the motorhome did have one noticeable flaw; one of the decorative stripes was chipped up in several places for some reason. So yesterday Michele Henry, from Phoenix Commercial Paint, spent several hours with a heat gun removing the old stripe, and this morning we are taking the Winnebago to her shop, where she will repaint the stripe in the original color.

We’d love to have one of Michele’s custom full body paint jobs, but there is just no room in the budget for it right now. Still, she can work wonders, and while the motorhome looked nice before, we know it will be even more attractive after Michele gets the new stripe on.

She will need to keep the motorhome overnight, so we are going to be back in the bus for one more night. I told Terry it’s sort of like having a weekend getaway place until we sell the bus.

Several fulltimers who have been RV shopping have written to tell me that they have been having trouble getting bank financing, and asking me who financed our rig. Over the years, I have had several fulltimers tell me they have experienced problems getting financing, even though they had very good credit.

We worked with Eileen Gilmore, an assistant branch manager with Alliant Credit Union in Chicago. We joined Alliant after meeting Eileen at Escapade in May, and she worked with us to get things set up to be sure we qualified. She has done everything she said she would do, and we are very pleased with our experience working with her. If you are shopping for a new or late model RV, I suggest you give Eileen a call at (773) 462-9642 or e-mail her at egilmore@alliantcreditunion.com, and tell her I sent you.

At the same time we joined Alliant, we also joined Community Resource Credit Union, which is based in Texas, and also had a booth at Escapade. One of the reasons we joined Community Resource is that they are part of the Shared Network, which in theory gave us the convenience of access to hundreds of affiliated credit union branches all over the country who also belong to the network. We were told that we could go into any Shared Network credit union anywhere in the country and it would be just like if we were at one of Community Resource’s own branches.

Well, not exactly, as it turns out. We made a couple of small deposits at Shared branches here in Indiana, and it took anywhere from two to three weeks minimum for them to be credited to our account. I could mail a deposit to our regular bank and have it credited before that!

As if that were not frustrating enough, when we took in cash to get a cashier’s check when purchasing our motorhome, we had to jump through all kinds of hoops and get a manager’s approval.

I called Community Resource to complain, and was told that while we could use any of the Shared affiliate credit unions, we had to wait for them to forward the deposits to Texas, which could take at least two weeks. Or, to speed things up, we could take photocopies of the checks we were depositing, as well as the deposit receipt from the Shared branch, and fax them to Community Resource in Texas. Yeah, that sure sounds convenient!

I had a better idea. I just closed the account.  

But before I close this blog post, Bad Nick wanted me to tell you that he has a new post in the Bad Nick Blog titled Yes, Racism Plays A Role. Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – One nice thing about egotists; they don’t talk about other people.

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Miss Terry is still feeling pretty bad, so I wasn’t sure if she was up to traveling yesterday. But when we woke up she said that maybe her problem is not a cold, but rather allergies, and she wanted to get out of the area to see if that made any difference.

So we left Ray Behrens Corps of Engineers Campground about 9:30 a.m., drove north a few miles to U.S. Highway 36 and took it east to Hannibal. We crossed the Mississippi River and the road became Interstate 72 on the Illinois side of the river.

The weather had predicted scattered thunderstorms, and we had a few sprinkles as we were leaving Missouri, but they soon disappeared. Traffic was light and the bus was running good, so it was a great day for traveling.

We had talked about stopping in Springfield, Illinois to see the Abraham Lincoln Home National Historic Site, but Terry was feeling so bad that about an hour into our trip she went back to the bedroom and laid down. She was still asleep when we reached Springfield and I didn’t want to wake her, so I just kept driving. Terry woke up about 160 miles down the highway, as we were passing by Rantoul, Illinois on Interstate 57.

We try to avoid driving anywhere near Chicago whenever we can, so at Gilman, Illinois we took U.S. Highway 24 east into Indiana and turned north again on U.S. Highway 41 and followed it until we came to U.S. 30, drove east again for ten miles, then got onto Interstate 65. It was a short jog north again to Interstate 80, and we followed it all the way to Elkhart.

Except for one short stop for a late lunch/early dinner at one of the service plazas on the Indiana Toll Road, we just kept on rolling, putting about 450 miles behind us. This is more than most RVers like to travel in a day, but sometimes we get out there on the open road and the miles just keep going by effortlessly.

It is always nice to pull into Elkhart Campground, which feels like home to us because we have been coming here so many years. We know all of the regular visitors here, and got lots of waves as we drove past. As soon as I stopped the bus in front of our regular site several fellows came by to say hello.

It always takes a while to get the bus set up when we arrive at a new location, and I told Terry to just let it go until she got to feeling better, but she likes things in order, so she insisted on getting organized while I hooked up our utilities.

After more than a week of very slow National Access service on our Verizon air card, it’s great to have four full bars of EVDO high speed internet again. We’ll be here for much of the summer, with some trips out to visit family members in Michigan, and maybe to a few RV rallies in the region. It’s good to be home again.

Thought For The Day – When you were born, you were crying and everyone around you was smiling. Live your life so that when you die, you’re the one who is smiling and everyone around you is crying.

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