NM, AR, FL – Nov 2025

Well, that’s a rap!  I spent the last few weeks of October making a mad dash across the country, mostly following along I-40, making my way back to the east coast and to my home base of Florida.  Indeed it was a dash as each of my stops beginning with Gallup, NM and all along the subsequent 10 stops taking me all the way back home, I only stayed for two nights per stop.  I planned that since many of the places I was stopping I had been to before, and I knew I’d be anxious to get home.  So, let’s review the few things I did see along the way.

Santa Fe, NM

So I began my trek to the east beginning in Gallup, NM with a two night stay, and pretty much hung out at the campground.  My next stop would be Santa Fe, NM.  I landed there right in the middle of Balloon Fiesta going on in nearby Albuquerque, which is a huge touristy event.  I’d been to the Fiesta before, so I needn’t go again.  I did, however, want to catch up with my good friend Greg, and his wife Sheila.  Since my stay in the area was short, and I didn’t know what my plans would be, I decided to not reach out to him in advance, and rather just showed up at his door on the morning of my only extra day.  Fortunate for me, he was home!  We chatted a bit  and then Sheila arrived soon thereafter.  I only visited with them for a short time, as they had other things to do in the day.  It was great seeing you folks again!  Looking forward to spending more time with you next year when I come through the area during my Rt 66 run.

The other thing I did while in ABQ was to pickup this equipment rack.  I have lots of network and security system gear in my shed back home, and it’s all just sitting on a wire rack.  I’ve wanted to do a more professional installation and enclose all that equipment in an enclosed rack.  One of the things I did while travelling was to check out Facebook Marketplace in the towns I was staying in, to see if there was anything I needed for sale locally.  I came across this rack for sale in ABQ and it was an awesome deal.  So, I picked it up and put it in the back seat of the truck for the ride back home.  Score one for me!

Fort Smith, AR

So I buzzed through the rest of NM, into TX then OK, until I reached the far western edge of Arkansas in the town of Fort Smith.  Despite only having a single tourist day, I had not been to this area before, so I spent that single day taking it all in.  According to Roadside America, there was a lot to see!  I found my way around 10 different places to visit – all in one day.

First up was a visit to what is called Popeye Park – located in the town of Alma, which itself proclaims to be the spinach capital of the world.  They even host an annual spinach festival.  So it makes sense to have a large bronze statue of the spinach eating sailer stand tall and proud in the middle of a fountain in a park named after him.  It actually was a very nice statue, and a beautiful park.  Several murals depicting old time Alma were painted on the adjacent building next to the park.  Very nice!  Across the street, in front of the Alma police station sits this memorial honoring city marshal Henry Humphrey. In June of 1933, he had the misfortune of running into Bonnie & Clyde two nights in a row.  The first night, he was captured, forced into the town’s bank which they robbed, he was tied up, and his gun taken.  The following afternoon, he ran into them again on a road north of town, where a gun fight ensued.  Sadly, the marshal was shot and killed.

My next stop takes me to the town of Van Buren.  There in the town’s Fairview Cemetery is what the locals call the “mystery grave”.  This grave predates the founding of the actual cemetery from 1846.  In fact, the cemetery was actually built around this grave.  While cemetery records relating to this grave have long since been lost, it is believed to be in the style of a Viking Runestone making it the likely resting spot of a 14th century Viking.  It was definitely old and unusual.

Also in town was this statue of Dr. Douglas W. Parker Jr.  He was a local practicing orthopedic surgeon who sadly lived a short life from 1949 to 1995.  He dreamed of creating a medical clinic here in town, and worked tirelessly on that goal.  It was eventually realized, and now this statue sits at its entrance.

Next I headed back to Forth Smith to visit building 803 at Arkansas’s now-closed Fort Chaffee – or as its better known as, the Chaffee Barbershop Museum.  It was here on March 25, 1958 that Elvis Presley was in-processed and had his hair cut for entrance into the Army.  Lots of Elvis pictures and memorabilia was present in this part of the museum which was the actual barbershop.  A nicely done recreation of his haircut using giant photos was a nice touch (at right, bottom right).  Besides the Elvis room, there was the other part of the museum which told the story of Fort Chaffee.  Originally established as Camp Chaffee in 1941, then renamed to Fort Chaffee in 1956, this facility has served the Army as a training ground, POW camp, and refugee camp.  It was decommissioned as part of the 1995 base realignment and closure commission, and is now used by the Arkansas National Guard as a training facility.  Across the street from the museum sits one of the barracks buildings (at right, top left) that Elvis supposedly slept in for a night or two.  However, it is apparently unknown which actual room or bunk he was in.  Oh well!

Also in Fort Smith were these gems.  Most notably the world’s largest Christmas Pickle being one of them.  Artist Eric Brown has taken an old Chili’s restaurant chili pepper and repurposed it into this Christmas Pickle.  I had never heard of a Christmas Pickle before this visit, so I had to do a bit more digging.  There are many Christmas traditions that are passed down through the generations – like using an Advent calendar, elf on the shelf,  or perhaps leaving milk and cookies for Santa.  Well, apparently, putting a green colored pickle ornament on the tree is also a tradition in many families (certainly was not in mine). As its name implies, this special ornament is green and shaped like a pickle. There’s usually just one pickle ornament per tree and it can be hard to spot in the green branches. However, hiding and searching for the Christmas pickle is exactly the point.  Placing the ornament on the tree might be relegated to a child, or a parent might wait until Christmas Eve to hang the pickle in the Christmas tree. Sometimes, Santa himself hides the pickle ornament. The first person to find the pickle on Christmas morning often receives a reward. They may earn the honor of passing out the presents or the opportunity to be the first to open their gifts. Finding the pickle ornament also is said to bring good luck.  Does your family practice the tradition of the Christmas Pickle?  Geez – who knew!  Also around town were these various other Roadside items.  This included Captain Hydraulic (at left, top right) – a mascot robot creation made mostly of hydraulic pumps, that sits in the parking lot of, what else, a hydraulic repair company. Next was this giant Mr. Peanut (at left, bottom left).  Standing 30 feet tall, this billboard style display sits at the entrance to the Planters company visitor center.  Sadly, it was the weekend, and the center was closed.  So, no tour or nut samples for me.  Last up was this very large, what I believe to be a water tank, that was nicely painted.  Not a Roadside attraction yet, but I may submit it for consideration.

Next, I visited Immaculate Conception Church, and St.Anne’s Academy.  In the 1840s, before there was a church and school, there was a home on these grounds.  That private home belonged to our future 12th president, Zachary Taylor.  At the time, he lived in this home while he was commander of the military garrison at Fort Smith.  The home was destroyed by fire at the turn of the century, and the only thing still standing is what is now referred to as Zachary Taylor’s chimney (at right, top right).

Speaking of the garrison, that was my next stop.  Now known as the Fort Smith National Historic Site, Fort Smith became a town where the lawless west met up with the civilized east.  And the man who reigned the big stick and dished out justice was Isaac “Hanging Judge” Parker.  It would be the no-nonsense Judge Parker that handed out hanging sentences to 160 men and women during his time on the bench.  The gallows (at left, center and bottom right), only a few hundred feet from the courthouse, would see a lot of activity during his tenure and was quite the killing machine.  It has a beam long enough to accommodate 8 people simultaneously, with a 16 feet long trap door that opens with the pull of a single lever.  I would have liked to have seen more of this national monument, but alas I was visiting on a day while the nations government was in shutdown mode (at left, top left).  So, the place was mostly locked up.  Best I could do was wander around and look at things from the outside.

My next and final stop in this whirlwind one-day tour of Fort Smith would take me to the US Marshals Museum.  Similar to the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum in Waco, TX, this museum tells the story of the US Marshals organization.  The US Marshals Service is a federal law enforcement agency that serves as the enforcement and security arm of the U.S. federal judiciary. They are primarily responsible for locating and arresting federal suspects, the administration of fugitive operations, the management of criminal assets, the operation of the United States Federal Witness Protection Program, the protection of federal courthouses and judicial personnel, and the protection of senior government officials through the Office of Protective Operations.  The museum did an excellent job of telling the stories of these courageous men and women all through history.  It covered their work during Prohibition, their involvement with Ruby Ridge, and many other fascinating anecdotes throughout their careers.  Besides all the terrific exhibits, the building itself that houses the museum is quite impressive!  Well done!

Other Tidbits

I don’t think I’ve ever described the process that I go through when preparing for a travel day.  Usually the day before, I take the time to review and verify the travel route.  I use several tools to check, and cross check, to validate that the route I’ll be taking is safe and appropriate.  I also manually write down each of the turn-by-turn direction onto a 3×5 card to ensure that I know exactly where I’m going, and how to get there.  One of the most important checks that I include is to verify that I will not be going under any low bridges.  Pulling the big boy 5th wheel that I am, I certainly do not want to find myself getting the top of the RV ripped off due to a low bridge.  I use specialized mapping software that included details about the height, width, and weight of the RV that is used by the routing program to keep me away from things where I don’t belong.  Well, when I was reviewing this particular travel day route from Starkville, MS to Pratville, AL, I saw that I would be going under a bridge that was listed as 13’6”.  I checked Google Maps street view, and verified the bridge height.  In fact, that was the minimum height that I had set in my RV configuration which is why the routing software figured it was fine to go that way.  However, earlier in the year, I had a pair of new air conditioners installed on the RV.  They are taller than the ones I had before, so it is very likely that my 13’6” minimum may no longer be accurate, and I hadn’t remeasured or updated the configuration.  Seeing as how I wasn’t going to take the chance of having my brand new ACs torn off my roof, I decided to plot a course around this bridge.  Such is the good fortune of pre-planning and reviewing routes.  Also, I have updated my configuration to now look for 13’10” minimums.

Another interesting happening recently was that I had seen a significant spike in access to the Luv2RV website.  By significant, while I usually get anywhere between 3-5 visitors a day, or perhaps up to 25 or so when I publish a new blog, I was seeing spikes up in the 40s, 60s, and even 80s on several days (at right, top right).  When I did a bit more digging, I discovered that 90% of those hits were coming from China and Singapore (at right, center).  I can’t imagine that I’ve developed a following from those countries, so it’s more likely that these visits were not best intentioned.  I’d also seen an uptick in attempts to login as administrator (which I have extensively protected) which likely corresponds with these foreign attacks.  Since my little website is only designed for domestic friends and family, I decided to put a stop to any attempts to access the website from foreign countries.  I added a plugin that allows me to pick and choose countries that I do not want accessing my website.  I’ve pretty much checked off every country and territory that is not US related, or Canada (I have friends up there).  Once I implemented this control, you can see that access logs are now showing significant reductions in traffic overall, and I’ve not seen any attempts to gain admin access either.  These significant lower trends have continue now for close to a month since the change.  So, this was probably a good decision on my part to limit access to the website.  I do however apologize if I did happen to cutoff access to a legit reader from a foreign country.

So I made it back to the home base, got settled in, and even managed to back the RV into the lot within a few tries this time (evidence video next month).  My yard was looking good, and I’ve since moved all my outdoor furniture and accessories back to their normal winter position out in the yard.  I did, however, get some bad news.  The wonderful folks who have maintained my lawn for the past few years are relocating to South Carolina.  So, I was faced with finding another service to take care of the lawn.  But, being the tech geek that I am, I thought about applying a technical solution to the problem. So, I invested in a robot lawn mower (sort of like a Rumba for the lawn).  I negotiated a great deal on a slightly used Segway model from FB Marketplace, and immediately put it to work.  It was a fun process standing behind the robot driving it around with my phone while establishing the borders of the property that it is to mow.  I created two zones (at left bottom left) to make the process easier.  I have programmed and scheduled the mower to mow the entire lawn (both zones) three times per week.  Apparently, that is the preferred method with these units so that it only cuts off a very small portion of the grass each time.  It’s also supposed to be better for the lawn overall.  So far, it’s has mowed the entire lawn 8 times in the past couple of weeks without issue.  I’m hoping I can get this thing finely dialed in over the winter so that I can trust to leave it on its own during the summer when I’m gone.  If this works out, with the savings of not paying for a lawn service, I figured I could get this mower paid off in just over a year.  Hopefully worth it!

Besides purchasing the new robot lawn mower, the other big expense I’ve had since I’ve been back was to replace all the batteries in the golf cart.  I knew this was coming, and did have myself mentally prepared for it.  Towards the end of last season, the cart was only good for a couple of short rides in the community before the batteries would give out.  Also, at night when I had the lights on, they would dim considerably when the gas pedal was pushed.  When I got back last month after the cart sitting all summer, the batteries wouldn’t even take a charge.  So, it was time to get them swapped out.  Like-for-like replacements, that is the same exact make/model of 6 x 8V lead acid batteries were running about $1,600 before taxes on Amazon.  With that, I would have to do the swap out work myself, then find a way to properly dispose of the old batteries.  And, I would still have to deal with manually checking and replenishing the water level – which is a pain!  Once again, FB Marketplace to the rescue!  I found a small business guy that would come to my house with a single brand new high capacity 48v Lithium battery, new charger, new battery monitor with bluetooth, full installation, and take away the old batteries for $1,900.  Winner winner!  The work was done in just a couple hours, and the cart has never run better.  I went just over two weeks of pretty regular daily use driving around the community without a single recharge, and I still had 45% of remaining capacity.  And, the cart flies down the road now – so much so, that it probably exceeds the 15 MPH rule.  Best of all, the battery is warranted for 10 years!  The lead acid replacements would only have been good for about 4-6 years before needing to be replaced again.  This was a no brainer upgrade!

Finally, I wanted to share something else I’ve been working on for several months.  I might have mentioned that besides being the community tech leader, I’ve also taken an interest in the community’s history.  I’ve worked closely with our amazing resident historian, and over the past few years have developed historical videos related to the evolving of the community, or in some cases, specific disasters.  This year is the 20th anniversary of the 2005 floods that wreaked havoc on the community.  It’s an amazing story that demonstrates the strength and resilience of our residents.  So, if you’d care to watch this story, here’s the link below.  It’s about 22 minutes long, so make sure you’ve got the time before you get started.  I think you will find that it’s worth it!

Final Thoughts

Between getting settled, working on projects, and reengaging with my Tech Committee duties, I’ve been pretty busy these past several weeks.  I haven’t had the opportunity to fully develop my year in review that highlights some of the interesting facts and figures from this year’s RV trip.  But, I’ll work on that in the coming weeks, and will share it with you in next month’s edition of the blog.  I did, however, get the opportunity to meet up with the local Florida family (L to R: Don, Debbie, David, Gerry, Louise, me) for a nice lunch get together.  My brother Don also came out to pick me up to take me back to his place where I could retrieve my car that spent the summer in his garage.  Thanks again for the ride, and for letting me store the car at your place for the summer!  I’ve got lots left to do, many projects yet to tackle, so until next month, be well and safe travels.

I only show a sampling of my adventure pictures here in the blog, and do so mostly in collage format for brevity and ease of reading. If you want to view an album containing individual full fidelity and hi-res images of all my travel pictures related to this specific blog, click the image below. Enjoy!