My wife and I recently returned from a lengthy driving excursion through Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. It was not unlike other trips that we’ve made over the years, with thankfully, no major incidents. Our two Amazon parrots, Jess and Aldo, rode along making things quite interesting and noisy. They’ve been entertaining us now going on 35 years.
Jess and Aldo were not happy from the git-go being forced into smaller cages. Their larger metal homes wouldn’t fit inside our RV so they were left behind. Angry birds the whole way, they tried several times to bite the fingers that fed them. I’d probably be doing the same after enduring day after day of bumpy roads while standing on wood perches. Joleen and I had cushy seats so we wouldn’t exactly know how they felt.
The purpose of the trip was for my wife to reconnect with her brother, aunt, and cousins, along with displaying our old 1950 Chevy pickup at the McConnell Air Force Base, “Frontiers in Flight Air Show” including the Chapman, Kansas, “Labor Day Car Show.”
Getting to our destinations, we traveled a good many miles on rural highways. There were interesting things to see on this route while meeting some down-to-earth people in cafes, restaurants, and truck stops. I talked politics with a couple of truck drivers, including doing the same with an Amish family in Kansas. Amish people generally don’t vote, but these folks are fully aware like most of us of what’s going on in the country.
Sadly, it’s amazing how much roadkill we saw on our journey. Raccoons, possums, armadillos, coyotes, and skunks had been a bit too slow crossing busy roads and highways. We generally smelled the skunks before and after seeing them. Hungry ravens, vultures, and hawks were usually circling above the carcasses. I honked our horn at a few on the ground so that the scavengers didn’t end up with missing feathers.
While away from home for any lengthy time, it never fails that our alarm system goes berserk, with it doing the same this time around. After a physical inspection, we were assured by the alarm company that no entry had been made into the dwelling through opened doors.
Strangely enough, one motion detector had picked up movement in the living room. With no ceiling fans left on, and it being too early for Santa to come down the chimney, a ghost evidently set things off.
The only problem we encountered while driving, was on the return leg coming down that steep hill out of Kingman. An 18-wheeler blew by us nearly sideswiping our RV on the final sweeping curve. In the process, the careless truck driver came close to running our vehicle off the road while he was traveling well over the speed limit.
After this happened, four angry birds were squawking inside our motorhome, with Joleen and I being the loudest. Wanting to desperately catch the driver, the tantalizing allure of a succulent Cinnabon roll at the newly opened Flying J truck stop just down the road in Yucca, quickly took revenge off my mind.
On our final push into Lake Havasu City, there were several RV’s sporting out-of-state plates behind and in front of us. They were most likely snowbirds making their way back to Arizona paradise to escape a forthcoming cold winter.
Hopefully, none of them became angry at the hotter-than-normal temps here. On a positive note, where getting the best RV parking spaces is concerned, these savvy visitors understand that the early bird catches the worm.
As far as Jess and Aldo the parrots go, they lost their angry bird status once back inside their comfortable and spacious cages. Something tells me they’ll opt to stay home next time or ask to sit up front with us.
I like to write junk... 