Grand Finale

I had planned on getting home on the 20th but since I had passed that deadline the day before I figured I ought to try and get home on the 21st. My plan was to hit Petroglyph National Monument outside of Albuquerque and then take the scenic route through southern Colorado on my way to Grand Junction and then home.

The Econo Lodge I stayed in had free breakfast with those yummy make-your-own waffles so I partook of that and then headed out of town. The Petroglyph Monument was easy enough to find and I hit the visitor's center. There I talked to the Ranger and he suggested I take the 1 hour hike north of the visitor's center that would expose me to about 200 glyphs. I bought the guide, some postcards, and some pretty pins and headed out. I read through part of the guide which talked about how we don't really know what the glyphs mean because each of the different pueblo cultures interprets them differently and it sounded like they don't really want to share that with us.

The glyphs themselves are unremarkable except that they are old and etched into this basalt rock. They are dated to the 1300's which was European Renaissance time so I had a hard time getting excited about what looked like finger painting to me. I'm sure that's disrespectful on some level but I thought I would see things that were more elaborate and without any explanation of what they mean the whole thing was sort of lost on me. The coolest thing I learned about was that there were long distance trade routes in the Americas at that time because there were Macaque glyphs and the birds are not native to the area. In fact they have to come from Mexico City about 1500 miles away! Remembering that they didn't have any pack animals and had to carry everything on foot that's pretty amazing. They aren't sure if the trade sort of leap frogged from village to village or if there was a super long trade road that people used to walk. However, if you consider that on the Camino Real, using donkeys and horses, that it would take 6 months to get there from Mexico City then you can understand just how amazing that is. Turns out they were also trading with cultures from the Pacific ocean based on archaeological finds of shells and fish. Pretty cool.



After leaving the monument I headed out for Colorado. For some reason my body had decided that I needed way more rest than I was giving it so I managed to stay awake until I got to Cuba, NM where I stopped for lunch. There is a neat Mexican Restaurant on the north side of town called El Bruno's that served some good food. I had a stuffed sopapilla which I was excited about because I hadn't had a sopapilla in years. The meal was entirely too large for me and I didn't really like the seasoning on the beef but the chilies were quite good and the dessert sopapilla was awesome. Afterwards I took myself a 1 hour siesta nap under the shade of some trees in the parking lot.

After I sort of woke up I drove into Durango and then took the road north through Silverton and onto Ouray. This was one of the best drives of the trip. I love the high mountains with their lush forests, snow, and multitudes of rivers and waterfalls. The cities are mainly old mining towns and the architecture is Victorian. I met a few people just as I was getting out at scenic points. A retired couple had come down from Montana and were staying in Durango and were going to take the railroad the next day. The lady was quite polite and kept saying 'sir' to me which is unusual at least for me. We talked about the other part of the scenic byway that goes through Telluride and they pointed out some Tanager's that were sitting in trees nearby. The husband reminded me of Melanie's dad as he wanted to talk about my digital camera when his wife left. I imagine they are about the same age so it kind of cracked me up. When I was getting ready to leave that same scenic point this guy that had been riding his bicycle up the mountain (!) stopped for a breather. Remember this is Colorado so these are true mountains and he had ridden up to a height of 10,000+ feet. I stopped to talk to him about the ride and he said he likes to ride from Durango to Silverton a couple of times a year and had ridden through a lot of the parks in Southern Utah as well. He also talked about a friend who rides all the way to San Francisco every year which is ~ 1200 miles and goes through some really mountainous terrain. While we were talking the two girls he was with caught up and started cussing him out for lying about how far they were going. They seemed like a pretty fun group and I kind of wanted to meet up with them in Silverton but figured I had probably better get home. I'm going to seriously consider going back later this summer since there were a number of neat mining ruins that I'd like to go out and explore.



By the time I got to Ouray the sun was setting so I didn't stop and drove through to Grand Junction where I passed out for about 2.5 hours in the rest stop and then drove all the way home.

Petroglyph Pics
Colorado Pics

I finally made it back home on June 22nd at 6:15 a.m. after 43 days, 9000 miles and 170 hours of driving. It was an amazing trip to be sure and I'm glad I'll always have this blog to remember it by. I met some fun people and saw many of the wonderous things our country has to offer. This trip made me realize how much there really is to see, even on a local basis, and that you really have to pick and choose carefully where you go because there's just no way to see it all and really take it all in.

So, at the end of something like this you've got to have a best/worst list, right?

Best Drive: Niagara Falls, NY to Hanover, NH
Worst Drive: Rapid City, SD to Chicago, IL

Coolest: Mount Rushmore
Most disappointing: Petroglyphs

Best 'section': Maine/Acadia
Worst 'section': Both times I got sick!

Favorite baseball game: Boston Red Sox vs Milwaukee Brewers (Sox win)
Least favorite: Stars game (because it went on so long...........)

Places to visit again: Chicago, Maine, Southern CO (and family, of course)

Regrets: None :)

White Sand for everyone!

I woke up around 8 and was still tired but knew I needed to get up so I got my butt out of bed and jumped into the pool for a minute then packed and headed out. White Sands National Monument is only a 30 minute drive from Alamogordo and it went by quickly. You pass through Holloman AFB on the way there though there wasn't much you could see from the road.

The visitor's center at White Sands is pretty neat. It was built in the 1930's using adobe and native materials. Inside are a handful of old looking exhibits but they have a neat introductory video. The gift shop had pins and shot glasses so I picked those up and then went outside to the picnic area to drink my red bull and plan the rest of my day. I wasn't sure whether I wanted to go north around the white sands area or go south to Las Cruces so I was checking the map and seeing where it was I was going. I tentatively decided on Cruces since Mom/Dad lived there. The road into the monument is paved most of the way and then turns into a sand road. They actually use snow plows to clear the road of any sand that gets blown onto them and I thought that was pretty funny.



The white sand itself comes from gypsum that dissolves in the mountains and flows down to the valley. The valley doesn't drain to the ocean so the water becomes trapped and as it evaporates the gypsum is left out on the dry lake beds and becomes wind-born. It's pretty crazy to see all of this white sand everywhere with occasional flashes of green marking the innovative plants that are able to survive there. My favorite was the cottonwood tree that can get smothered by a dune but keep living as long as some of its leaves are poking out of the sand. In the fall these leaves turn a brilliant red which looked pretty cool in the pictures I saw.

I went on a couple of quick guided hikes and ended up at a nature center deep within the park near the end of the road. Since its so remote the center uses solar panels to power everything inside which I thought was neat. There were some informative kiosks talking about how solar worked and how states like New Mexico could easily meet their power needs with large scale solar projects. Inside the center was this neat old lady that I talked to at length (longer than I wanted) about traveling and the various parks in the U.S. She's been to Alaska several times and was telling me about the inter-coastal ferry that can take you from Seattle to Alaska in 3 or 4 days. That sounded pretty cool because she said you could just take a bike and hop on and off at the various ferry stops and that sometimes a park ranger would come on board to talk about the things you can see. I might look into that later on in the summer if I can get some work done :)



After taking a few more pictures out on the dunes I high-tailed it back for the highway and headed to the White Sands Missile Range (formerly Proving Grounds) where my dad used to work because they have a museum there that I thought might be neat to see. Unfortunately I was late getting there and the museum itself was closed but they had a number of outdoor exhibits showcasing various missiles that the US had developed. It was a little emotional for me as I thought 'hmm, maybe dad was walking on this same road'. I think he also worked on a couple of the missiles that I saw as I have a cup commemorating the launch of one of them. After I left the base I also thought that dad had probably made the drive to Las Cruces from there several times so that was another bonding moment for me :)

I didn't stop in Las Cruces but just kept driving north. By this time it was pretty late so I decided I wasn't going to make Albuquerque and decided to stop in Socorro, which is about 60 miles south, instead. What a great find this was! Socorro was founded in 1598 by the Spanish and was burnt to the ground during the Pueblo Revolt and resettled in the 1800's. The hotel rooms were super cheap (29.99) and they had a pool that was more than 4 feet deep so I had fun playing around in that. After I got done with the pool I decided to head back into town to take some photos of this building I thought looked neat. I never found out what it was but it was right by the railroad tracks so I'm assuming it must have been a ticketing station or something like that.



On the way back I saw a historic sign so I pulled a u-turn and found the Garcia Opera House. I took this little side road out of the parking lot and noticed there was some sort of to-do going on so I stopped to check it out. Turns out the town has a spanish style plaza and in the center of the plaza is a park. They had some festival going on with a live band so I wandered over and sat in the park under these big old trees listening to live music. The band did cover songs in both English and Spanish and there were a lot of people there wandering around and dancing. Towards the back of the park was this big group of really cute single moms playing with their kids. In fact, most of the moms I saw appeared to be single which seemed kind of odd to me. Around 9:20 I figured I should probably find dinner and get to bed so I headed back for the hotel but before I got there I saw a neat church I wanted to take photos of. It's an adobe church in the missionary style but is not original to the founding of the town.



I took a couple of pictures and then went back to the hotel. Right next door was a restaurant that offered a 10% discount to hotel stayers and the clerk at the hotel desk had said they were excellent so I went in to check it out. The decor was pretty old but the fajitas I had were really good. It seemed like everyone in town ate there as I saw a few people from the plaza party come in to get take-out orders. After dinner I just went back to the room and sacked out.

White Sands Pics
Socorro Pics

Park hopping

Though I had a crappy night's sleep I decided I didn't want to wander around smelling like a dog so I took a quick 'bath' at the camp restroom and then parked up by the visitor's center. It didn't open until 9 so I had some time to wander around a nature loop that goes around the center to some old ruins from a Butterfield stage post. The Butterfield stage was a per-cursor to the pony express that delivered mail and people across the country via various 'stages'. The buildings are mostly just shells so it wasn't super interesting but still fun to read and learn about.



After returning from the loop the visitor's center was open so I went in and perused their exhibits and then asked about trails. The lady working there was very helpful and even gave me information about Carlsbad Caverns which was my next stop. She recommended 2 hikes to me: Smith's Springs and McKittrick Canyon.



The trail to Smith's Springs starts at the Frijole Ranch. This is an old homestead that is maintained by the Park Service and has several buildings and a spring on-site. The house is actually quite large for the time and there were several exhibits inside that were interesting. In the back of the home they have a small orchard, planted by the boy scouts, with heirloom fruit varieties. The irrigation channel still in use today was built in the 1800's and is a simple stone lined causeway.



The trail to the springs goes in a loop and had a guide with a few stops in it. The first part of the hike is open desert and then goes into a wash that is lined with trees. One of the prettiest is the Texas Madrone which has a beautiful bark and pretty flowers in the spring. As you head up the wash you encounter Smith's Springs which bubbles quietly under a shaded outcropping of rock (making it hard to take good pictures). I figured out when I got to the springs that I had actually gone backwards on the trail (oops). The trail back is covered at first then gets back into the high desert and wraps around to Manzanita springs which looks like a small pond in the middle of the desert. There were fish in the water and a number of birds flying by including a golden eagle. As I was wandering around the pond I startled a deer who ran off into the trees, upsetting the eagle who talk off to parts unknown. Back at the ranch house one of the volunteers wanted to talk to me about the Prius. It's quite the conversation starter!



By this point it was 11:15'ish and getting hot so I debated heading on to the next trail (which was 7 miles round trip) but figured, what the hey, you're only here once :) The road to the canyon visitor center is mostly unpaved and there is absolutely no shade in the parking lot. At this point I was starting to freak out about the meat Wade gave me because I had just put a bag of ice in there as a stop-gap measure and every time I got into the car it was super hot. I decided to gamble it and figured it was silly to plan a trip around food that might spoil. The water at the visitor's center was ice cold so I lapped it up and filled up my camelbak and headed out. The first part of the trail is open desert and you cross a couple of dry stream beds. I passed the older couple I had talked to the night before over one of these stream beds. Surprisingly there are a few places where you cross spring-fed 'rivers' that carry water year-round though it's only a couple of inches deep and the signs everywhere remind you not to get into it in case you disturb the fragile ecosystem. The trail winds its way in and out of trees and dry stream beds until you get to Pratt Cabin.



Until recently you could get water and use a restroom there but they still have power lines running to the property and some electric fans and heater inside the cabin itself. When I got there nobody else was around but while I was trying to find a way into the cabin I heard someone inside and when I walked around the cabin I found a park ranger had opened it and I got to go inside. The cabin is unremarkable to me except for its location. It's a nice size and very rustic and would probably be a fun place to stay.

The next landmark on the trail is the 'grotto' which looked pretty neat and sort of unique in the pictures so I hoofed it that way. I think that somehow my Garmin got screwed up while I was in the house because I had magically gone a mile further than I thought I had when I'd looked at it earlier. The trail to the grotto was mostly shaded and you could tell the vegetation and micro-climate had changed. The canyon is surrounded by cliffs that reminded me of Peru and India. Perhaps that is because they are all limestone based? I don't really see cliffs like that here in Utah so I'm not sure. There were a lot more pines and higher altitude plants there that had survived from the last ice age by going higher up on the mountain. The grotto was really quite small but visually interesting. There was a collection of stalagtites and stalagmites jutting out of the side of the mountain.



There were a large number of stone picnic tables and benches so I rested my weary legs and had a bite to eat there. I could imagine that during the busy times (Spring/Fall) that this area would be packed with people and much harder to navigate. On the advice of the ranger at the cabin I peaked into the creek close by to see if there were any fish in there and in fact there were. Don't ask me how they got up there because the ranger didn't know either :)



The hike back went by pretty quickly as I was just ready to sit in the car for a bit. In the end my gps said I had gone 7.25 miles which made for a total of 10 for the day so far and I still had the Carlsbad Caverns to do!

It's a short drive from one park to the other and it passed by quickly. Right now the visitor's center is undergoing major reconstruction so everything is housed in temporary 'trailers'. I can only imagine how much the center is costing since they have things like copper rain chains that I know cost a couple of hundred dollars a piece. You can enter the cave through the natural entrance which is a steep paved trail that takes you 700 feet underneath the surface or you can take the elevators. Either of these are free with park admission (park pass to the rescue again) which was a nice deviation from Wind Cave where there isn't any entrance fee but you have to pay to see any of the caves. I picked up the self-guided tour stick that plays audio about the various areas in the cavern. Randy Travis was trying to hawk some cd he'd made in the caves at the beginning and then never came back. Being the adventurous type I chose to take the Natural trail and would recommend it to anyone whose knees can take the beating. After getting a quick rules talk from a ranger you head down to an amphitheater where you can watch the bats fly out at dusk if you are there in the evenings. The caves are a major summering destination for a large colony of mexican free-tail bats and they used to mine guano out of the caves. From the amphitheater the entrance is visible and several swallows have built nests on the ceiling of the cave opening so it's quite a sight.



Right away the trail is quite steep as you descend into near darkness. The first explorers of the cave used a guano bucket to get in and out. An Indian family came in right behind me and an old man and woman left the group and wandered ahead. At some point the old lady had too much gas and decided to stop and fart. Of course, in a cave, sounds like that are magnified and I had to hold back a snicker. I don't think I know of any culture that enjoys sharing bodily functions with other whether they are gassing out or going to the bathroom on the street :) There are a number of neat formations that you have to see for yourself. I brought the tripod with me and tried to take some long exposure shots but most of them came out blurry.



At the end of the natural trail is a large complex they've built into the cave. I have mixed feelings about this...it's nice to have bathrooms down there but they've got gift shops and restaurants down there as well. It seems a little weird to have so much development inside of a cave but I guess it makes it accessible to more people. If you want a rustic experience this is not the cave for you but having paved trails and lighting makes it a lot nicer. You can take tours that go into undeveloped parts of the cave but I am cheap so I just stuck with the freebies :)

The second 'cave' that you can explore on your own is called the 'big room'. It's quite literally a large room in the cave with a number of interesting features. There was a group that obviously lived out in the country somewhere that I kept intersecting with along the trail. At one point the dude with the cowboy hat let out a loud fart. Why do people fart in caves? It's not like you can blame that on anything else. Oh well, only Indians and Rednecks :) By this time I was starting to get a little weary of hiking and walking so I cruised through the room and then out of the cavern via the elevators. These things were pretty cool as they had windows in them so you could see the limestone walls as you went up. Back on the surface I scoured the gift shop for a pin or a shot glass but found nothing so I grabbed some postcards in case my pictures didn't turn out. I figure it's always a good idea to get some professional photos when visit a cave or anyplace that is dark as it's much more difficult to get good pictures.

By now I'd been in the caves for 2.5 hours and the car was roasting. It's cool enough in the cavern to want a jacket or something long sleeved but when you get back on the surface you take that off pronto. Since I wanted to go to White Sands the next day I programmed Alamogordo into the GPS and headed off. The drive from Carlsbad (no dry ice there either :( ) to Alamogordo is pretty as it gets into the mountains and then makes a 4000 foot descent into the city. I'm pretty sure I've travelled this road with Elaine in the past as I remember being freaked out about how steep and narrow it was.

In Alamogordo there was some VFW convention so I had to hunt around for a motel room. I ended up at a motel 6 for 36.99 a night! Score. Unfortunately I got there so late that all of the restaurants were closed. After harassing the girl working at the front desk (Becky) and not being able to find anywhere that was open she offered to cook me something at her house so I had mac and cheese and green beans for dinner. We watched the sequel to Underworld which wasn't very good but had some cool action scenes. I was totally passing out during the movie though so I headed back to the hotel and sacked out.

Guadalupe Mountain Pics
Carlsbad Caverns

Just too hot

When I talked to the ranger the previous day she strongly suggested I make sure to go and hike the Santa Elena canyon in the morning so I figured I ought to take her up on it and headed out that way. Part of the problem with Big Bend, other than the heat, is that it's so big and the speed limits are so slow that it takes forever to get anywhere. Plus, there is only one gas station in the park and they were charging 4.42 a gallon! I'm just glad I didn't have some huge SUV or a diesel truck I was trying to fill up. The drive to the trailhead was quite pretty and is the Ross Maxwell scenic route in the park. Along the way you can see some old homesteads and there are a number of exhibits to explain the geologic features in the park. I didn't realize that the area was volcanic in origin so that was pretty cool to learn about.



The trailhead is really poorly marked as you just get to this point where the road stops and there are some toilets. The same area is used as a put-in for river tours and a large troop of what I believe to be boyscouts who were rafting got there at the same time. At first I couldn't figure out if that was the trailhead or not so I drove back a bit to an overlook to see if it had more information about the trail. The map confirmed that the area I'd been to was the trailhead so I went back and followed the trail down to the river. After you come out of this shady forested area you get into floodplain which was dry but had flooded recently because there were still some small pools of water near the river. Everywhere else there was baked mud which was about 4 inches thick and looked like scales on the hide of an alligator. There was still no sign indicating this was a trail but I saw what looked like a trail in the embankment on the other side of the dry river bed so I followed that. Lucky me, that was the right way to go so I followed it up to the overlook. The canyon is quite pretty which stark headwalls on either side of the river and not much else. Once you get into the canyon on a boat you either come out on a boat or you have to climb. Because the area is quite wet compared to the surrounding desert the river bank was lush and had a variety of trees and plants. There were several footpaths that weren't marked at all and wound randomly through the trees so I followed some of these for a while. I kept trying to find a way to get down to the water but there really aren't many sand bars on the side of the river I was on so I gave up and headed back. The sun was trying to fight its way through the clouds so it gave everything this fluorescent glow. On the way back I stopped by the river again and picked up some of the excellent skipping rocks that get created when river rush madly over rocks. I had a good time tossing them into the river and got one to skip 24 times!


Mysteriously unmarked trail head



Once I got back in the car I headed back to a visitor's center I'd seen along the way to use the facilities. Since I was traveling in the 'low' season the visitor's center was closed but they had some neat old machines laying around so I grabbed some photos before heading out. The visitor's center doesn't open until November!

The drive back to camp was pretty long and I decided that I didn't want to camp there again as it wasn't a great place to have a 'base camp'. The road in is pretty steep and twisty so it takes a while to get there not to mention the great distances involved at 35 mph. I packed up the tent and went into the visitor's center to see if there were any souvenirs (none I wanted) and then stopped by the camp store to get some powerade and a Dr Pepper. By now I just wanted to go drop into the Rio Grande and then get on my way so I headed for the South Eastern section of the park where there is a campground that abuts the river. This drive was across true desert...nothing but cactus and flat land as far as the eye could see and the temperature was 112 according to the car. At least the roads were a little twisty and fun to drive because otherwise it would have been pretty boring. Turns out the visitor center at this section of the park was closed too so I dropped into the campstore for souvenirs (score) and to try and find out if there was anywhere I could get into the river. The guy at the store assured me I could get in and showed me where and then recommended a 3/4 mile nature loop trail so I headed off the the spot where I could get into the river. Well, I don't know what that guy was talking about because the spot he told me to go to was right by the river but unless you just wanted to jump in (I did not, it looked gross) there was no way to get in. I backtracked and tried a few trail that were cut into the bamboo growing by the river but couldn't find any way in that didn't lead into dense vegetation that I was unwilling to test. It wasn't worth getting bitten by a snake or whatever else was living in that jungle. I got back in the car and decided to try the area that was marked as a boat ramp. When I got there I decided I could probably just get my feet wet and be okay so I setup the camera and got a picture with my foot in the river. Man it was gross; the water is a weird green color and the mud at the bank stunk of manure and had the consistency of quicksand so it sucked my foot in.



After that pleasant experience I washed my foot off as best I could and drove to the nature trail. I figured it wasn't very far so I put on a shirt and my flip flops and grabbed my camera and the trail guide they had. Right off the bat I could tell that hardly anyone had visited the trail in a while. Mesquite trees branches had grown into the middle of the trail so I had to pick through those to get to a boardwalk over a beaver pond. The pond itself was okay to look at but was the same green color as the river and looked otherwise unhealthy. On the other side of the pond was another mesquite infested walkway and then you get into open desert. I followed the trail and read through the guide but I guess I missed one of the numbered signs and ended up at a sign that had directions for a spur trail and the normal trail. Well, I had no idea what the spur trail was so I took the normal trail which starts climbing up a hill and didn't seem like it was going to lead back to the trail head. I hiked up to the top where I found some additional numbered signs (much higher than where I had started as they were numbered 12/13 instead of 5 which was the next one I expected to find). The view from the top was pretty neat as you could see pretty far into the park and then across the border into Mexico. I didn't see anyone trying to sneak across but then again I wouldn't try it in 112 degree weather either. While I was up there I read back into the guide to see if I had missed #5 and sure enough I had and it gave directions to follow the spur trail so I headed back down to the trail and followed it. There were some interesting metastes (holes in the rock) that had been used by natives to grind corn and other objects. I would have thought they were just holes caused by water pooling on top. As I followed this spur trail it became harder to follow and started going through sand. Now remember that it's 112 and I don't have any water and the sun is beating down and I'm wearing flip flops and the sand is hot as hell. I think I spent about 2 minutes trying to follow the trail before deciding it wasn't worth it and that if I didn't get back I was probably going to internally boil like a lobster so I high-tailed it back to the car and cussed out the people who were in charge of marking and maintaining trails in Big Bend. I've never seen so many poorly marked trails at a park before. Maybe it was because this was the low season. In case you can't tell I was pretty bent out of shape by then so I decided to just leave the park and head up to Guadalupe Mountains National Park via the west exit of Big Bend which was supposed to go through Terlingua ghost town.



Well, the ghost town is sort of a ghost town and a living town as people have built shops and houses among the ruins to serve as tourist attractions. There is a cemetery that is unremarkable except that it is on the national register of historic places.



I drove through a bunch of small towns in BFE West Texas before getting to Alpine. Back in Hutto Wade had given me a bunch of his frozen meat and I was trying to keep it frozen with dry ice and had run out. I figured the local supermarket would have it but no luck there or the Wal-Mart. I did get some sunburn lotion as I had gotten crispier than intended while I was walking around shirtless. The next large town wasn't that far west so I figured I'd try Marfa and see if they had anything. About 18 miles out of Alpine the engine abruptly shut off and the 'check engine' light came on and this annoying symbol popped up on the top of the display in the car that looked like a warning light but didn't explain what the problem was. I assumed the car had gotten too hot (it was 112 and I had the A/C on max after all) so I let it cool down for a minute and then started it up. It came on but the check engine light stayed on so I drove down the road a little more slowly and figured I'd just take it easy until I got to Marfa. Once again the engine died on me so I let the car coast a bit and tried to nurse the battery to see how far it would get me. Thankfully the road in was mostly downhill but eventually I got to a hill and ran out of juice so I stopped the car again and this time checked under the hood. Turns out I ran out of coolant! Unlike most cars there isn't any oil pressure or temperature gauge on the Prius so I assumed that it would pop up a warning message or something if they ran low or there was an issue with it but I guess not. I could've believe a car that was smart enough to manage the motor and battery would fail to have at least some means of alerting you to a potential problem. Furthermore the manual says NOT to use plain water so I was kind of screwed since I didn't happen to be carrying any spare coolant. I am at least partly to blame as I never checked though in my defense I've never had a problem like that with a car nor have I ever had a car that lacked a temperature gauge. Of course the coolant reservoir only takes maybe a quart or two of fluid so it doesn't take much to go through it. I didn't really want to walk the remaining 4 miles so I let the car cool for a while and then decided to try driving again but take it really slow and not use the a/c or radio to conserve battery power. I nervously watched the miles count down on the gps but managed to make my way into the first gas station which miraculously had the proper 'premium pre-mixed' coolant that the owner's manual wanted. Of course it's not Toyota's brand but oh well. In fact, the manual wants you to call Toyota for everything whether it's the check engine light coming on or you need a tow into somewhere. Ridiculous.

Outside of Marfa there was this random 'Prada' store that apparently is some community art project. The juxtaposition of this fancy store with the open farm land and windmills in it was quite striking.



Thankfully the rest of the journey to Guadaulpe Mountains was without incident on the car's part though I did get rained on. The clouds were just amazing after the rain and I wasn't really paying that much attention to the road as I drove through :)



The Guadalupe Mountains rise out of the middle of the desert creating a strange oasis and are actually part of an enormous fossilized reef which was several times bigger than any reef we have today. As I got there a high desert thunderstorm was rolling in and created a really neat display of lightning. I made it to the Visitor center while it was still light out but they were closed so I walked around reading the various placards and ran into an older couple. They had been to a lot of parks and had lived in Provo for 2 years in the late 70's and the woman was talking to me about an interested set of novels written by a former Park Ranger that gave some interesting insight into the various parks the novels were set in. In fact, they had learned about this park through one of the novels. I'm going to try and see if the library across the street has any of these and see what they are all about. The lady told me she had been to 38 national parks though I think she's counting national monuments too as they are all run by the park service. If we do that, then I've been to at least as many as she has :) I'm pretty proud to say I've been to so many of the parks at what I consider to be a young age. I think more young people in this country ought to take advantage of them while they don't have families as you get an entirely different kind of experience (much cheaper).

I camped out that night with the storm all around me. I tried to take some pictures but to be honest the S5 is crap in the dark. Every time I take a long exposure I get a lot of noise in the image even if I set the ISO way down. Oh well. I had a really rough time sleeping because the wind was whipping around and the walls of the tent kept popping me on the head or feet or body. I must have awoken 10 times during the night. Note to self, make sure that you fit comfortably inside of a tent before you decide to use it :)

Road to Hell (or Big Bend in the summer)

I made it out of Austin Tuesday morning around 8 and headed for Luling, TX. Their City market was another one of those places that was mentioned as the best for barbecue in TX. Thankfully they don't have any time cutoffs and I got there around 10:30 so it was nice and quiet. Inside they have a big eating area and then in a separate room in the back is the BBQ. First thing you do is go back and order the BBQ then you can come back and get the sides and drinks at the front counter. I asked them if they had some sort of sampler so they gave me what he called a 2-2-2 which was 2 ribs, 2 brisket slices and 1 whole sausage. Man, it was soooo good. The ribs were my favorite and had a crispy exterior with a hot juicy interior. The meat was so tender and the textures really made it special. I'm sort of drooling right now just thinking about it. My next favorite was probably the brisket with their mustard sauce on it. It was also hot and tender and had a great smokey flavor throughout the meat. I couldn't finish both slices so I wrapped one up in some bread to have later. I hadn't had this kind of sausage in a long time but it was pretty good too. It's super greasy so I'm sure you don't want to have it on a regular basis but the flavor took me back to when I was younger. I couldn't finish that either so I struck out of there with half a piece of sausage and that strip of brisket. Best air freshener I've ever had! The car smelled amazing when I got back into it after grabbing some gas.

I was thinking I would take I-10 down to Big Bend but Betty took me down the highway along the Texas/Mexico border so I passed through a number of border towns (and immigration checkpoints). There wasn't much of note out there...it's pretty dry and desert like and it just goes on forever. Amistad reservoir was pretty neat outside of Del Rio. In the middle of the desert is this big blue body of water. I'm sure it sees a lot of use year round.





I finally made it into Big Bend around 5 p.m., just in time to catch the rangers at the entrance station (which is forever into the park). She recommended I go camp in the mountains where it was at least 70 at night as opposed to the riverside campgrounds that got down to 80 if you were lucky. Since most of the parks I've been to are further north I am used to summer being the busiest time of year and the winter being the low time. Well, not at Big Bend. Seems like people don't really want to go hiking and camping outside when it's 112!!! Guess I should have read up on that :) On the plus side it wasn't crowded at all and I had no problems getting a site. The ranger said that their busiest season is the winter when people come down to escape the cold.

Once I set up camp I figured I'd try to get in one of the hikes nearby. On the road into the campsite I noticed a trail with a parking lot called the 'Lost Mine'. Since I love exploring old mineworks I figured that trail would be really cool so I drove up there and got ready to head up the mountain. It's a 4.6 mile round trip and I figured the elevation gain wouldn't be too bad so I headed up around 7:30 p.m. They had a nice trail guide to explain the vegetation along the way and the hike offered some pretty nice vantage points. Unfortunately the heat produced a lot of haze and most of the lookouts were west facing so taking pictures of anything but sunsets and clouds was not going to happen. I'm sure it'd be a really nice trail to take early in the morning and catch the sunrise. Anywho, I made it to the top in pretty good time and took a bunch of pictures and explored a bit and started going down as the sun was. Half of the trip was in that late evening dark but it was still pretty easy to see everything and the weather was nice so it didn't bother me. Along the way I met an older gentleman who had started his climb a little too late and was going to try and make it up the next morning. My only disappointment with the trail is it had nothing to do with any mine! Oh well. If you're interested in seeing more while I was googling the trail I came upon this virtual hike that is pretty well done.


There's no mine up here, just me!

I figured I'd try to catch up on my picture organizing and blogging so I setup my laptop on the picnic table and worked while I was eating. A little bit later on I heard this scurrying sound nearby and figured there was a mouse or bird or something in the pavilion. When I looked down I saw a freaking skunk! Now I'm not usually very timid with wild animals but I did NOT want to get sprayed and have to try and get de-funked so I tried to stay very still until it left. I also figured that it was probably time to go to bed in case the thing came back so I headed off to the bathroom to brush my teeth. There was another guy in there doing the same so I mentioned the skunk to him. Turns out that skunk makes the rounds in the campground and you just have to stomp your feet to make him go away as he doesn't seem to be prone to spraying humans. I'm surprised the park service hasn't got that bugger and either put him out and moved him far away. It's not safe to have animals that are habitualized to humans.

I pretty much slept naked because it was so hot (and very windy). In the morning it was about 70 when I got in the car so I guess it had cooled down a little. The wind in the little canyon I where the campground is really picks up in the morning so I had to collapse the tent and weigh it down with rocks so it wouldn't blow away





Big Bend Pics

Austin

I left Plano around 9 o'clock which was about an hour after I had planned to leave. We had breakfast at Taco Cabana's which is a 10-15 minute drive from where I was staying and then as I was heading out to Waco I noticed I had forgotten the pictures Uncle Bob gave me! Needless to say I hurried back and had to go meet up with Lyndel to get his house key so I could get in. All of the running around pushed me back to around 9 but the drive still wasn't bad and I made it to Waco in good time.

Uncle Bob had recommended I stop off in Waco to see this old toll bridge which was a scale model precursor of the Brooklyn Bridge. There were actually 2 or 3 neat bridges right together so I stopped and took some pictures.



As I was heading back to the freeway I saw some signs for a Dr. Pepper museum. I'm a long time fan of Dr. Pepper since I was 4 or 5 so I was sort of excited to go to a museum about the drink. After a little bit of driving I found it in an older part of town. It looked like they had converted the old warehouse/factory into a little museum. I went in to look around but the exhibit they had was a 'pay' sort of thing and I was already behind so I just glanced around and went into the gift shop to see what I could find. They had little 8 oz bottles of the original version of Dr. Pepper made with REAL sugar so I picked up a 6 pack since I knew Melanie would want to get in on some of that too. Most interesting tidbit I picked up there was that Dr Pepper was started in Waco in the 1800's. Who would've thunk it? Btw, that original flavor is quite pruney so I wouldn't recommend it to people who don't care for prunes.



Once I hopped back on the highway I made good time down to Austin, ne Hutto. Because I had taken so long in Waco I decided to forget about trying to get to the BBQ place in Lexington and figured I'd try it again the next time I'm in town. Since I'm so brilliant I ignored Betty's instructions on how to get there and just shot for the route I used to know. Well, turns out that route isn't quite the same as it was and Betty's maps weren't up to date so getting to Wade's was a little sketchy. Used to be you would drive up Priam to Rowe Ln and then take that in. Well somebody went and built a huge tollway in between them and the frontage roads are one way so I had to drive around a bit to get back to Rowe. Of course Betty started freaking out and every second would say 'recalculating...make a u-turn'. That got old pretty fast so I shut her up. Once I was on Rowe it was like I remembered except that there are now a number of housing developments out there. I remember when Wade moved there and it was really BFE. Not so much anymore but at least his side of the road has retained the original small farm flavor.

Wade has built a couple of additions to his property that I hadn't seen before. The most prominent of these is a barn/clubhouse that I've decided is really just a big-boy fort :) It's shaped like a barn but doesn't have doors on the bottom and isn't enclosed. The main run is a cement slab and the 'wings' are grass/dirt. Upstairs is a long room which is intended to turn into a 'hunting' lodge of sorts and is called the Dawg House but right now it's just used for storage and man was it hot in there. When you got out of there it made the 100 degree weather feel cool. This reminded me of the story Danny told me about how Rob had locked his door and rolled up the windows and turned on the heat in the middle of summer. Turns out Danny had been complaining about how hot it was so Rob told him that after he got out of the car he would think it was quite cool. Hilarious! Ahh, brotherly love.



I ended up staying at Wade's longer than I had intended because I was hoping to get everyone to goto Schlitterbahn which is supposed to be the best water park in the world! Unfortunately we didn't get to go there but I did get to fix and ride a 4 wheeler, go creeking, play with the kiddos Maggie (13) and Emma (6), eat home-grown steak and crawdads, and visit Barton Springs pool with Marianne and the girls. My creeking experience was vastly better than it had been in Plano. I went down there with Maggie, Emma, Christian, and Tanner. The two boys being friends of the family and similar in age to Maggie and Emma. We had a good bit of fun just exploring the creek and sitting in the relatively cool water. Near the end we found a place where you could jump in (maybe 3-4 ft deep) and had some more fun down there. Maggie didn't want to get in so various people 'helped' her into the water :) Emma was a big jumper and swimmer and I was pretty impressed with how daring she was for having never had formal lessons. I also got to help feed Maggie's 2 new show cows, Chrome and Ekkita. All in all it was a very relaxing and enjoyable time. Much like Michael and Deeanna's place I wished I had more time to spend there and that I was closer so I could get down there more often but as Danny says, wish in one hand and spit in the other and see which one fills up first :)

Austin Pictures

Farewell to Dallas

Tonight is my last night here in Dallas before I head out to Austin tomorrow. I'm hoping to get a chance to stop by a barbecue joint in Lexington, TX that was rated #1 in Texas Monthly. Unfortunately they don't really have set hours so I just have to hope I get there before they run out of meat :)

Wednesday I got to the gym and wasn't really impressed. When you walk in they have a big 'buy stuff' section and then they had some really odd cardio equipment that I couldn't figure out how to use. I also couldn't find anything to stretch on and it looked like the aerobics class area was really small. Since I didn't have a towel I didn't get a chance to get in the hot tub but it looked a lot smaller than the one in Sandy. I met up with Lauren in the mid morning time frame and we had second breakfast at Taco Cabana and then went and saw 'Don't Mess With the Zohan'. Like most Adam Sandler flicks it had a nice message to it once you waded through a lot of garbage. I really didn't need to see that many close ups of his 'package' or his bare butt throughout the movie. I think I'd give it 2 out of 5 stars if I'd rented it on Netflix. Afterwards we went to Jamba Juice and then I dropped her off. When I got back I called Uncle Bob and he picked me up and we went to Starbucks for some coffee and chatting. That evening I went bowling with Chris and Candy. My first game wasn't that great (116) and Chris won with a 118. The second game I sort of hit my stride and ended up with a 169. Not as good as the 203 I got last time Melanie and I played but pretty respectable. After I got home I played dominoes with Lyndel and Carmen again and got whupped.

Yesterday just flew by. I started the morning off by going for a run and then came back and tried to setup some stuff for the online benefits company I started with some buddies. That was an exercise in frustration. I am NOT a systems admin and really hope that I never have to do that job. I ended up having to submit a help desk ticket to figure it out and then I had to rework my project. Anyways, major pain. In the middle of that I met up with Vicki and Lauren for lunch at Napoli's. It was pretty good but the portion size was really too big. Chris came by in the afternoon and we headed out to finally go creeking.

Creeking is the term I use to describe what we did growing up where we would go down to the creek and just explore it for hours on end. It helped me keep my sanity when I was younger and was a great way to bond with my friends. We got into the water in the same place as I did when I was younger and headed upstream. It gets pretty deep right off the bat so we had to walk through this oddly placed bamboo forest to get back into the creek where it was semi-shallow. Along the way we saw a bunch of frogs jumping into the water. As I remember it from my youth, the creek went up a little ways after the deeper section and then widened out where there was an old railroad trestle. Well, there's a railroad bridge there now but it's way higher and they've blown out the side walls of the creek and then dammed it up so there's a nice retention pond for the development they are doing there but no way to walk up the creek. Yet another piece of my childhood obliterated :( We tried to go back to the old house I grew up in and get down to the creek. I guess I didn't realize how much work went into keeping that area cleared but it's just a huge jungle now. All the trees have grown together and it's pretty clear that nobody tries to get down to the creek anymore because it's all overgrown with brush and crap. We fought through the brush only to find that the creep was covered with pollen and looked super gross. I decided to give up so we worked our way out of the brush and back to Chris' car. We came back home and rinsed off and changed our clothes for the rest of the evening which entailed going to see the house Chris and Candy are buying and then going to the Plano Tavern. The house seems to be nice...the neighborhood certainly is but we didn't get to go inside. It's in one of those master-planned communities with hike/bike trails and a nice clubhouse (they call it a lodge) and a pool. At the tavern we met up with a bunch of Chris' friends from work to eat and watch the Lakers and Celtics game. I had a promising chipotle chicken fried steak but the gravy was disappointing because it tasted powdery. The game was good and I finally got that Shiner I'd been wanting since seeing it on tap in Washington D.C.

Today I started off by going back to the gym. I had a more thorough look around and decided it was pretty nice. Instead of having a large aerobic class area that basically has a large 'viewing area' (wall of see through glass), they only have a small portion visible through the obscured door and then the rest of it is hidden from the main gym. They actually have several stretching stations...not sure how I missed that one. And the hot tub, while not as big as the one at home, is a lot deeper and the waterfall was pretty neat to see. When I got home Uncle Bob had called and after I showered up and threw some laundry in we went out to lunch at Bennigans. This time around I didn't have the monte cristo and opted for the somewhat healthier turkey sandwich on a soft pretzel which was really quite good. It came with fries but for once they just gave me a reasonable portion.

After lunch we went out driving to the boonies and saw the new landfill for Richardson and Plano and also drove through the town of Anna. We got into a subdivision where the builder had 8-10 houses in various stages of construction that were abandoned. I'd never seen anything like that...it reminded me of the ghost towns in the west. On the way back we stopped at starbucks and shot the breeze some more and then came back to the house. I took some pictures and we said our goodbyes. Hopefully he'll be able to make it out to Salt Lake some day soon (hint hint!).



Chris and I were supposed to meet up around 6:30 so since I had forgotten to get a picture with Vicki and Lauren the day before I went over there and we took a couple of pictures and I said my goodbyes. Lauren might come visit later this summer if she can handle hanging out with a bunch of OG's :)



Afterwards I met up with Chris and Candy at Taco Bueno. I usually like the food there but I didn't think it was as good as Taco Bell to be quite honest. I guess my taste buds have changed a bit over the years. Because of the salmonella scare they weren't serving tomatoes and I think the last time I was there the nation was suffering from a big tomato shortage so they didn't have tomatoes that time either! After we got back to Carmen's house I took a group picture with Chris/Carmen/Lyndel/Candy/Me. Chris started looking for a football for us to throw around and stumbled across his old baseball cards so we reminisced a bit about that and then went out to play putt putt golf one more time. Chris won the first game handily and had the second one in his grasp but lost his focus on the back 9 so I ended up winning by 2 strokes. I think I was the only person to get a hole-in-one (a feat I achieved once in each game). Since we were there I figured I'd give the batting cages another shot so I bought some tokens (the cashier 'accidentally' gave me 4 tokens instead of 3...whoops) and Chris and I hit the cages. Since we'd sucked so pitifully last time in the 60 mph cage we stepped down to the 50 mph cage and both were pretty successful there. I decided to give the 60 mph cage again (I keep typing mpg instead of mph btw...) and did pretty well there too. I'm not sure what the difference was but this time I pulled the annoying face guard down more so I could see everything more clearly. That couldn't have been the only difference because the ball did not seem to be going as fast as it was the other day. Even without my gloves I was able to hit the ball pretty well so I was stoked about that.

After coming back home Chris and Candy left to get Chris packed for his trip to Vegas tomorrow and Lyndel, Carmen, and I played 2 last games of dominoes. After getting pounded in the first game I won the second so I get to go home a winner :)

D

Six Flags and more

Well, it turns out I can take hanging with a teenager all day though it appears that my OG (old guy) brain can't handle the twisting, turning, and upside downing of the various roller coasters. I was in no way prepared for the first ride, Mr Freeze, which throws you headlong into a loop and twist before briefly pausing while you are hanging vertically and then dropping you back the other direction. My mind never had a chance to catch up with where I was so I got off of it feeling a little nauseated and never quite got back to normal. The park itself was not very busy and as the short cloud bursts moved through it became so sparsely populated that you could basically get on any ride you wanted without any wait. I can say that we tried almost all of the rides except for the shock wave and the giant pirate ship that completes a 360 degree loop with you in it.

Favorite: Batman
Least Favorite: Flashback

Yesterday I also got to try one of the 'breakfast' smoothies at Jamba Juice. I have to admit it was pretty tasty and I enjoyed the added texture the granola gave it. I originally wanted this chunky strawberry smoothie but they were out of fresh bananas and peanut butter so they could only make half the smoothie. I ended up with a blueberry one which is a reasonable compromise considering I love blueberries.

Last night I played my first game of dominoes in 20 some odd years with Carmen and Lyndel. I won one of the games and came in a close second in one of the others. Carmen whooped me in my first game when I stopped getting dominoes I could play after a fast start.

This morning I shut my alarm off at 7 and stayed in bed until 10. Uncle Bob called at 10:20'ish saying he was coming before 11 so I hopped in the shower and ate a quick breakfast. We spent the early part of the afternoon at the Dallas Museum of Art browsing through their European Collection, sculpture garden (meh) and the Americas Collection. I love the work of the realists from the Post Renaissance time frame on and most of the impressionist artists. For some reason I can't get into modern art; I might just be too lazy to try and figure out what the artist is really trying to say. I think I got enough art critiquing done in my 10th grade humanities class :)

We were able to get out of downtown before rush hour really hit and made it back to Plano in about 20 mins. Uncle Bob loves the coffee at McDonald's (27 cents for the senior citizen's special) so we stopped off at the one in the Wal-Mart on Spring Creek that is right next to the Schlotzkey's I worked at in high school. I tried the Hazelnut Iced Coffee which was decent but they put so much ice in it you hardly get anything to drink. Seems like a lot of single moms like to frequent McD's. You would think that based on the poor nutritional content and the semi-steep price that they would avoid it like the plague. However, since they don't I can only guess that it is that much easier than cooking or they are trying to assuage their guilt from being a single parent by spoiling their kids. Either way I don't want to be picking up the tab for their health care but I guess I don't get a lot of say :)

I got in a quick 20 minute run between the time I dropped Uncle Bob off and Chris got here. Who doesn't love running in 90+ degree heat on a lovely Texas summer day (i.e. really humid). After I got back from my sweat fest I looked through about 200 pictures from my childhood that Uncle Bob had given me. What a cutey I was! I'm going to scan them all in when I get home so I don't have to worry about them getting left out in the rain like the big box of pictures the owners of our old house in Huntsville sent us (wonder who did that....). Many thanks to Uncle Bob for putting that together. Memories and photos are very important to me.

Chris and I got out and threw the football some before dinner. If you recall I talked about how much I loved that in Alabama and I still do. Carmen made us some taco salad which was quite tasty and then we had fresh-from-the-oven home-made cookies with milk. Afterwards we went down to putt putt golf where we got in 2 games (for the price of 1, shhhh, don't tell) and got to drive some go-carts. I couldn't believe how well I did on the mini-golf...I got fatigued in the middle of the second game but came back strong. Chris still won so we ended up splitting that. Afterwards we tried the batting cages which I really sucked at. I used to be so good at hitting but today I couldn't even hit baseballs I tossed into the air. Guess I need to work on that!

Chris' curfew is at 10 so he had to get back home to Candy and I came back and played some more dominoes with Carmen and Lyndel. I squeaked into 2nd place on the last round...wahoo!

Tomorrow I hope I can wake up a little earlier and get to the gym. I haven't really worked out since I was at the hotel the first night of this trip! The last time I was here they only had the 'preview' version of a Golds Gym but now the real thing is in place so I'm looking forward to checking it out. Oh, and I'm going to grab some breakfast at Taco Cabana, too! I love their breakfast tacos but I can only get them when I'm here (which is probably a good thing).

D

Back in the Big D

I made it back to Dallas today after a wonderful evening/morning with the Taylor boys. Wade showed up at Michael's house with a bunch of steaks he got from a cow that they had raised and then butchered. I've never had anything like that before so it was a neat experience and the meat was quite tasty. I also got to see Cory's baby girl though Cory is in Iraq for 2 more weeks before he gets any leave so I didn't get to see him and mama had a girls night out so I didn't meet her either. It's funny how much people can grow while you're gone: Lee is 6'5" and Maggie is a budding young lady and Emma is out of diapers! Michael/Deeanna and Wade/Marianne seem to be ageless other than some graying out of the hair on the boys.

It's probably been 8 or 9 years since I stopped into Arkadelphia and I wish I could make it there more often. Sometimes I wish I lived closer but I really do love living in Salt Lake. Why can't I just have all of my cake and eat it too? Well, enough grumbling...much thanks to everyone for the food and hosting my overnighter.

I have to go back on my earlier post about the distance...turns out it was only 400 miles to Arkadelphia and I made it in about 6 1/2 hours. It was a straight shot as the Prius can go 500 miles on a tank and my bladder can hold 500 gallons. Okay, that's a slight exaggeration but as long as I'm not drinking soda I'm a pee camel.

Betty (the gps) did well on this stage of the trip. I never even got into Memphis at all! I think that they have built a new expressway since my last drive-through (circa 2000). It also seems like I'm perceiving that the trip is shorter whether or not it actually is. Guess after 6500 miles they just fly by :)

Tonight I'm staying at Chris' parent's house and will be here for the duration. Lyndel and Carmen took Chris, Candy and I to dinner tonight and then I've just been catching up on my emails and reading through my gobs of cartoons since we got home. Tomorrow I'll be off to breakfast with Uncle Bob and then Lauren and I are going to 6 flags for the day. We'll see how I handle being with a teenager all day :)

D

Off to Arkansas

Today marks the end of my time in Alabama. It's been a great week with lots of fun and relaxation. I'm still not sure where some of the time went but seeing as how this is a vacation I think that's just fine.

I've mostly been just lazing around. The kids love to swim and since the pool is so accessible (back yard) they like to go out there a lot. I don't think I've done this much swimming since I left the condos. On Thursday we went to Point Mallard for 2 hours and had a fun time. It's a pretty small place with only a few different rides but the ones they have are entertaining enough. I think our favorite was this 2 person ride down a tiered but otherwise straight ramp. We got the lady to spin us a couple of times going down and that really makes it feel like you're about to take off as you come off of the humps. The kids really liked the wave pool though the waves weren't very high. I think that was a favorite place when I was a kid but now it seems sort of lame. They have a ride called the toilet bowl where you go through this enclosed tube into a bowl which looks like the one you can throw change into and it will gradually fall into a hole. Maybe if I was a coin it would have been cooler but the bowl part had seams that you could feel on your back and they really didn't have enough water in there. I just kept going around the bowl without really getting to the center so I positioned my body so it would go that way and almost ended up going into the hole backwards. That hole is dangerous; if you don't pitch your body forward you could end up hitting your head. Not my favorite ride.

Danny and I haven't worked much on the shelves but he has gotten them primed and we put some wood filler in to fix a couple of holes/knots. We've also thrown the ball around a good bit which has always been one of my favorite things to do with Danny. Yesterday we smoked a couple of pork shoulder (butt) roasts and had some of one of them for dinner last night. This is by far my favorite thing to eat when I come here although I have had wings twice in the last few days and probably 8 bowls of ice cream (one with each meal). Gotta love vacations!

Last night we went to a baseball game that only went 10 innings but lasted ~4:45. The pace of the game was painfully slow and it was quite toasty warm plus super humid without any cooling breeze to speak of so we just sort of melted in our seats. The only reason we stayed all the way through was to see the fireworks which were done up in a patriotic fashion to commemorate D-Day. I think the song 'and I'm proud to be an American...' is one of my all time favs and I usually get a little teary when it's played. They had a couple of other good patriotic songs and the fireworks show itself was exciting. At the end they had what looked like the world's largest roman candle spewing stuff out everywhere. I think everyone was pretty amazed at that thing. The only problem was we didn't get home until after midnight (!) so I scrapped my 'leave at 8 a.m. plans' and grabbed some extra sleep for my drive today.

This morning it's pack, eat, say goodbye, and then drive another 10 hour stint. Arkadelphia is only 2 states over but it's close to 600 miles! I think I'm going to miss those nice New England state distances :)

D

Slow Southern Life

The past couple of days here have been very relaxing. I've been able to catch up on my sleep and get my health back to a reasonable level. I'm still sort of congested and I'm starting to wonder if I have pneumonia but my energy levels are quite high and I 'feel' better.

So far my days have been pretty unstructured with plenty of 'me' time as well as plenty of time with the family. Danny and I have been working on some shelves for Sarah's room and got to go out yesterday morning and hang out a bit. I took my car in to get the oil changed so we had an hour or so to kill. We went to Costco so I could re-supply my car snacks and then shot over to Home Depot to check out the lumber. For lunch we went to Beauregard's which has really good wings and their fries were quite tasty, too.

I've been swimming with the kids a bunch of times as the weather here has been quite warm. Temps are in the low to mid 90's and with the high humidity it can be oppressive at times. Luckily there has also been a nice breeze to go along with it so overall it hasn't been too bad. I wonder if I'll get home having gotten used to this high humidity and then have to go through the awful dry skin phase back in our dry desert air. At least my poor curly hair won't be crazy frizzy anymore :)

On Tuesday we went down to the Greenway which is an open-space park which a nice jog/bike trail and a creek running through it. Right by a bridge there is an easy access point to the creek which is quite shallow so we played in there for a good bit. Danny and Christopher were building dams and things again and got a nice 'super channel' going by damming up most of the river except for a 2 foot wide section where the water was forced through. The current there was actually pretty strong and you could see some minnows fighting to keep from getting pulled down. Along with the minnows we saw some tadpoles, some mid-sized fish and a snake. The snake looked like he had just eaten something and was out on a rock getting some sun and digesting whatever it was. None of us were sure what kind of snake it was but I'd estimate it to be about 2 to 2 1/2 feet long with a pretty banding. Sarah and I spent some time skipping rocks and I helped her figure out how to get some good skips. Later she went off to make mud rocks so I explored the creek a bit more. Just past us was an oxbow where the creek got pretty deep but I got into the water just past the oxbow and it became shallow again. I walked up the creek for a few hundred yards, reminiscing about how I used to spend my summers doing this back in Dallas. Good times.

Other than that there's not a lot of major interest to tell. Tonight we're going to Point Mallard which is a local waterpark where they had the nation's first wave pool! Friday night we'll go to a Huntsville Stars baseball game and then Saturday I leave for Arkadelphia.

D

Back home in Alabama

Today was my first day of not staying in a hotel or Hostel since I left home over 3 weeks ago and I have to say it was pretty nice. I didn't feel compelled to be out sight seeing or in any sort of hurry. In a word, it was nice.

I also was able to get my butt back on the road for some running. My running pace down out of the mountains is a lot faster but I think my energy levels are still a bit low and that my lungs are still feeling the effects of me being sick. I got in 2 miles at an 8:06 per mile pace so I was pretty happy with that and also quit sticky with sweat. Got to love the humidity!

The morning time was taken up by the run and some e-mail catch up. I get these really long emails full of cartoons and it has taken me until today to catch up. Christopher was playing Zelda on the Wii so I was switching off between watching him and surf/chatting. Danny and Sarah had gone off to a physical therapy appointment because during her stint in the hospital for diabetes she had a blood clot in her right leg which has weakened it so she was walking a little funny. Christopher and I were supposed to setup the tent we had used in the Smokey Mtns because it had gotten soaked and needed to dry out but by the time we got around to that Danny came home so we got into a little bit of trouble but we got the tents washed off and put out to dry. What a mess...I'm glad we didn't have to try and set that thing up somewhere else. Camping in the rain is the pits if you're in a tent.

Danny and I went off to Lowes to buy some lumber for shelves he's putting into Sarah's room. She has too much stuff so they are really doing up her room with shelving, cabinets, and a new bed with drawers in it. How can someone so young have so many things? The lumber we were getting was 10 and 12 foot long by 8 inches wide so I grabbed a nearby lumber cart to put it in. When I started pushing it I had apparantly found the noisiest cart ever. It wasn't really consistent but maybe every 3rd revolution the wheels would make the worst screeching sound...like an old door with rusty hinges would. It was very conspicuous and everyone would look at us as we were walking up to the registers. Danny had forgotten his coupon and I told him I could stay there and wheel the cart around the store annoying everyone. He took that idea one step further and said I could just sit there wheeling it back and forth at one spot smoking a cigarette and saying 'This is America...' like the lady at the restaurant in Townshend. Awesome.

After getting the lumber back we took it out and hung out in the shop for a bit and then got our swimming suits on to go swimming. Sarah had gone out with her friend Anna (sp?) and they came back around the same time we were getting in so they joined us. Little kids love to be thrown around and are sort of demanding about it so I got a nice shoulder workout tossing them to and fro. Anna is tiny so I had to be careful not to throw her out of the pool. Sarah is at least one growth spurt ahead of her so it wasn't as much of a problem. Both of them were having troubles keeping their suits on tho. I guess they don't know how to buy clothes that fit them :)

After that it was back to vegging mode as Donna got home and we all kind of did our own thing. I got started in on the latest National Geographic I have which has a nice series of articles about China. Later on in the afternoon we all went outside and tossed around the football which is one of life's little pleasures for someone like me. I really wish I had more people to toss around a football or baseball with.

Dinner was a home made chicken pot pie which Danny had made up. It's not like the pot pies I had as a kid in that it came in a 13 x 9 pan instead of those little pie tins. I remember really liking those ones you got out of the freezer as a kid but I wonder if it would be at all the same having one today. The only problem with the pie was that it was hotter than hell and for some reason didn't want to cool down so we all sat there for a bit just talking and blowing on it trying to get it to be cool enough to eat.

After dinner Sarah and I did the dishes and then we all sat down to play some phase 10. I got slapped a lot for skipping people and I have to say it sort of ticked me off. It's a game people! Nice lesson about using violence to solve problems. Why is it that girls think it's totally cool to hit guys when they are upset with you some how? What a load of crap. After the kids went to bed the adults played a game of Sequence which I'm proud to say I won.

I got to bed pretty late because I got caught up in watching this show 'Bones'. I've never seen it before but it looks pretty interesting. In this episode they had managed to get into a really old bank vault from one of the first banks in Washington D.C. I missed parts of it because I was on the phone but they started talking about the illuminati so that was interesting.

No pictures from today, only memories :)

D

A full day of walking the mall

Today (5/25) Rob and I spent almost 12 hours walking in and around the mall. Our first stop was the Smithsonian's Natural History Museum. Since we hadn't had breakfast we ate there. I had a nice brisket with some mac/cheese and some broccoli. For my brunch dessert I grabbed a really nice looking pudding cup, not like the ones you get at the grocery store...it was really a drink cup filled with pudding, whipped cream and chocolate chips. Yums! However, this smörgåsbord came at a steep price: $18.26. It might be free to go in but it sure as hell isn't free to eat there :)

The museum was really interesting. The first floor had a nice exhibit about a variety of animals from each of the major continents. This was comparable to the exhibits I saw at the Field Museum in Chicago. They also had a number of fossils and life size skeletons of dinosaurs and a timeline which covered the origins of organisms to the end of the dinosaurs in so much as it could. I liked how the exhibits left room for some interpretation and where needed said things like 'this is our best guess' or 'we're not sure but here are two points of view on the issue'. They also did a really good job of re-creating habitat and making the scenes depicted seem realistic. For example, one of them had a cheetah who had pulled an impala up a tree while a hyena was on the floor scrounging for droppings.

After the museum we walked out around the mall some more and hit some stops we'd missed the day before. We wandered through the national sculpture garden first. I just don't get a lot of these sculptures. Most of them just look random to me. I guess I'm not deep enough :) While we passed through the garden we noticed the National Archives building just across the street so we thought we'd pop in really quickly. Unfortunately you can't really do that. There was a 10 minute line to get into the building and then a 30 minute line to get up to see the Documents. I'm sure almost everyone has seen them at one time or another but it's still really neat to be able to see the originals. The Declaration of Independence is pretty faded and had some water marks on it. A few of the words seem to have been retraced or something because they showed up a lot clearer than the others. The constitution is in amazingly good shape for coming from the same time period. A theory I have is that the Declaration had to be hidden away during the war while the Constitution has been publicly visible and cared for the entire time. The last document is the Bill of Rights and it's in a really sad state. The paper seems to be moldy or something and most of the words are illegible. Still, it was really exciting to see the documents and sort of feel the history that surrounds them.

Following our 'quick' detour through the archives we decided to check out some of the other memorials we had missed. The first of these was the Jefferson Memorial. This one is done in the style of the Lincoln memorial and has a pretty nice vantage point on the tidal flats. I liked how this memorial is open air on three sides (around the supporting columns of course) so you got some more breeze and it didn't feel quite as stuffy. Unfortunately I don't think a lot of people get around to this monument because it's off of the beaten path. On the plus side that meant we could take more photos. Also, if you stand on the walkway across the flats from the monument you can watch airplanes come in and the angle at which they fly in makes them look like they are going to run right into the monument. I did not get a picture of this phenomenon because when I tried to take one at a closer vantage point the planes were flying behind trees and it was pretty obvious that the plane was not really anywhere near the monument. Alas...

Just around the bend from the Jefferson monument is the FDR monument. This one is fairly new, having been dedicated in 1997 and doesn't really the style set out by the others. Instead of a single monument it's a timeline walk which looks back at scenes from FDR's 4 terms in office. We, as usual, started on the wrong side so we went back in time much like Michael J in Back to the Future, only on foot instead of a Delorean. Rob really liked it and I like a few of the sculptures but I think I like the monolithic monument style. We both agreed that FDR was one of our greatest presidents. He is the only one who has a monument in D.C. without having a face at Mt. Rushmore.

After completing the loop back to the Washington Monument we decided we should get something to eat. Finding food in D.C. is a huge pain. You'd think with all of the tourism around the mall that restaurants would be plentiful but this is not the case. Most of the buildings are owned by the government and I guess they have cafeterias in them because you can't eat at any of them. We decided to try and find a restaurant that was listed on the map we had but we couldn't find the road we were supposed to be on and somehow ended up at the water's edge where there were a ton of seafood restaurants/shops. Most of these sold both fresh seafood and cooked stuff. We stopped at Jimmy's which we think is more of a Jimmy Woo than a Jimmy smith. I was underwhelmed with all of the things I got except for the sweet rolls. Those were great. Rob had fried scallops and shrimp so of course it was awesome. Afterwards we went back for some soft-serve but I think the milk they use in the mix had gone bad. I'm really not sure that the meal could have been much worse but at least I didn't get sick :)

Part of the reason we were out so late was that Rob wanted to see the monuments at night. Therefore we headed back to the mall to check it out. The Washington monument is lit up really nicely...I wish you could go up there at night because I have a feeling the view would be amazing but I'm guessing national security precludes that. I took some pictures of the monument but I'm not sure how they turned out. I forgot to grab a good tripod so all I had was the little crappy one and it can't handle me putting my camera on the side so I had to take it by hand. Rob and I both spent some time trying to get good pics of the Lincoln Memorial from the Washington one but weren't having much luck so we walked out the WW II memorial again. I got some nice pics there and took some okay ones of the Lincoln Memorial across the reflecting pool. I wish there was some sort of causeway through the middle of the reflecting pool but I guess that would sort of defeat the purpose :) The Lincoln memorial was packed with people but not quite as many as we'd seen during the day. We both tried to get nice pictures of the Washington Memorial in the reflecting pool with the Capitol behind it but there was a fence and some concrete barriers in the way at one place and then the lights from the memorial were causing a halo type effect when I tried to take pictures higher up so I said screw it and just took some of Lincoln bathed in the light.

By this time we were both foot weary and we headed back to the hotel. The subway was almost as far away from the memorial as the hotel but we figured it would be worth it to ride the subway so we headed up to the Foggy Bottom station and then home. I am looking forward to a good night's sleep and hope my feet are well rested for tomorrow.

D

Rocky Steps and Our Nation's Capitol

Despite the crappy night of sleep I got up early so I could get in line for a ticket to go on the Liberty Square tour. Leann didn't seem to be too keen on going so I headed out all by my lonesome back to the visitor's center. It wasn't open yet but I was among the first 10 in line so I figured I'd get one for sure. Since the next day was July 4 they had put out cardboard headstones to memorialize the troops that have died in the Iraq/Afghanistan conflict. I though that was pretty touching.



Once the doors opened up I got in line and was able to score a ticket to the first tour of the day (they are free). Since I had time to kill before the tour (9 a.m.) I read through the exhibits I'd missed the day before and had a little bit of breakfast. The tour was pretty interesting and the tour guide was hilarious. They take you through a few different buildings and give you some interesting history to the place. It was sort of electrifying to think of the great decisions that had been made here and the people who had once sat there. Both the constitution and the declaration of independence were signed in Liberty Hall.





After the tour I headed back to the hostel to collect Leann and our bags and go find the Philadelphia Museum of Art which is where Rocky actually ran up the steps and the Rocky statue is outside the grounds. The GPS did a great job of getting us there and we ran up the steps ourselves and took pictures with the statue.



There was also a really neat water fountain with a statue of George Washington in front of the museum that we took pictures of.



Getting out of Philly sucked it big time. Apparently the road we were on is a major artery to the art museum as well as the zoo and everyone and their dog was trying to get to those places. It probably took us more than 20 minutes to go maybe a mile. Once we were on the freeway we made good time though and got into D.C around 11. I dropped Leann off at her hotel and made it over to my brother's hotel to pick him up and then we headed into VA where our hotel was. After getting settled in we caught the metro into the city. The entrance to the metro is this long escalator ride deep into the pits of hell which I thought was pretty cool.



After we got off the metro we headed straight to the Smithsonian museum of natural history. Our first stop was the restaurant as we were both starving and after paying our arm and leg we had a fine meal. We probably spent 2-3 hours in the museum, wandering from room to room. They have this neat 'life on earth' timeline that you follow as you walk through the museum with lots of modern animals, extinct animals, and dinosaur skeletons. They also have a really need room with precious stones and just a bunch of different minerals from mines around the world.

We really didn't have a plan on where to go next so we wandered toward the capital building, into a sculpture garden, and stumbled upon the National Archives. Since it didn't look too busy we decided we'd go see our famous documents. Standing outside in the heat was terrible...it was in the mid 90's with probably 80% humidity so the ice cream lady was making a killing. Once inside we saw an introductory video and then stood in line for maybe half an hour before getting to see the documents. Some of the documents were in way better shape than others but it was still pretty cool to see these originals and think back to the climate of the day and how brave and forward thinking these people were.



Next up was the Washington monument. I later learned that the reason it's called the Washington monument and not memorial is that construction was begun while he was still alive. Since the Lincoln memorial is just a little bit further down the mall we headed there next. Before you get to the reflecting pond there is a WWII memorial with some beautiful fountains that we stopped to take pictures of. At the other end of the reflecting pond is the Lincoln memorial which was probably my favorite thing to see in D.C. Lincoln was such a force and his untimely death was a tragedy for the American people. It gave me tingles to sit there and thing of all that he had accomplished and what he stood for.



Since we still didn't have much of a plan we just sort of wandered around. We saw the back side of the White House and some older administrative buildings and then found ourselves some dinner at this good pizza place. Since we were both pretty beat we just found our way back to the hotel and called it a night.





Washington Pics

Philly time

After getting into Philly late and helping out the lost Frenchman, Leann and I slept in a little and woke up to find our roomates about to go out on a jog. I hurriedly dressed in my own running gear and went on a short run myself. The are where we had chosen to stay turned out to have been an area where the elite of the city had built mansions on generous estates. At some point the majority of the land was purchased by the city and turned into various parks with a nice jogging path running alongside the road. I went past a couple of other mansions that offered tours and ran back to the hostel. We showered up and hopped in the car for the drive into Philly proper. The drive was pretty uneventful though when we got into the downtown area Betty went crazy. First she didn't tell us to turn onto the street we needed to until we had already passed it and then she tried to get us to turn down this 'road' that might have been a road for horses back in the 1800's but certainly wasn't wide enough to accept any sort of modern automobile. We finally found our way in and parked (perhaps illegally...) and got to the hostel right as they were 'closing' for the morning. What a weird place...they basically shut down for the afternoon (9 a.m. to 4 p.m.) so you have to be out and about in the city. The girls that were closing up the place seemed to be pretty annoyed that we were there so we took off and found a nice place to park the car by Penn's landing.

After selecting our travel gear from the car we headed off to find a nice place to breakfast. There was an older looking diner with a bar counter that wrapped around the inside so we thought that would be a nice place to eat. It turned out to be a great little eatery and had been around for some time (50 yrs+) and our waitress looked like she had been working there since day 1 :) She was quite old and had a bit of a palsy so she shook a bit when she was talking. Our food was good and afterwards we headed out to the liberty square area to see what was there. They have a great big visitor's center with plenty of exhibits to look at but after we found out that they didn't have any more tickets to go visit Liberty Hall we left. While Leann grabbed some Z's I went over to the Constitution center which turned out to be a lame exhibit with an copy of the constitution which you had to pay to see. After leaving I picked up Leann and we headed over to the visitor's center for the Liberty Bell. The building is pretty new and has some neat exhibits as well as the Liberty Bell itself. We took our pictures with it and then headed out to meander around the city and see some of the other sites (like Betsy Ross' house).



The downtown area is littered with various historic buildings, monuments, and interpretive sites. They have a set of people who actual come in character to a location and discuss the events that transpired there but we didn't get to see any of those. We eventually made our way to the chinatown area and then found this really neat place called the Terminal Market which is basically a bazaar inside of this building. Lucky for us the Amish were there that day. They had a wide variety of jellies to try and I had some Dandelion (tastes like honey), Tomato (too sweet)and Spicy (just as it sounds)jell as well as some Pumpkin Butter. I ended up getting a jar of the Dandelion, Spicy, and Pumpkin butter to take home. I also tried to talk to the sales-guy about how the Amish reconciled using electricity at the market and he said it was okay with them (still not sure why) and that many of them were Mennonites which use more modern technology but try to take the best of things and ignore the worst (i.e. pr0n). I remembered reading that the Mennonites were granted some time when they turned 19 or so to go out into the world and decide if they wanted to remain Mennonites and that often times they are quite debaucherous. However, this dude didn't seem inclined to talk about it only muttering that some friends of his had gone to Denver to see a football game. While I was talking to him Leann ordered some BBQ and then we went outside to eat it. Man, that was some good BBQ! After we ate we went back into the market and grabbed some of the, if not THE, best ice cream I've ever had. It was so creamy and flavorful...yums! However the people were not interested at all in talking to me...I guess they just wanted my money :)



After we left the market we decided to try and find the Rocky statue. We both thought it was at the city hall building so we walked up there and then all around it only to find out that no, the Rocky statue is not in fact found at the city hall building. It was a beautiful structure though and there were several other interesting buildings in the immediate vicinity so it wasn't a total wash.



Since we'd been out wandering for quite a while the hostel was finally open so we headed back to the car to pick up our bags and then went back to the hostel to check in. Luckily they had a room for Leann and since our clothes were pretty much all dirty she did wash for us while I sat and blogged. By the time we were finished it was pretty late and time for dinner so we asked about where to go to get a philly cheese steak. Apparently the two 'original' places, Gino's and Pat's, were quite a ways away from where we were staying so she recommended we go to Steve's (I think...) which was a lot closer and she said tasted essentially the same. I think it was about half a mile to walk there and the street it was on was packed with clubs and 20 somethings. The restaurant itself is pretty non-distinct and you get into a big line with everyone else and order it. I got mine with provologne and no onions but I think I should have got it with 'the whiz' (yes, cheeze whiz). The guy cooking the meat (huge black dude) kept putting water on the meat so it wouldn't burn but I think it ended up just making the meat taste like water. To be honest I wasn't that impressed with it. I think it would've been better with some grilled peppers on it but the meat was just so bland that I really couldn't taste much of anything. On the plus side, I had a yoohoo for the first time in years and that was really good. I think Leann's was better as she got the onions and peppers on hers but she wasn't all that impressed either. At least we tried it though :) The walk back to the hostel was uneventful and we pretty much just went to bed when we got back. Sometime in the middle of the night these guys came in and turned on the lights which made it really hard to sleep plus I kept alternating between hot and cold so I ended up getting a terrible nights sleep.