Trip 67, Heading South

Saturday, January 5, 2002

After an interminable time spent packing the LER and getting the house ready we finally pulled out of the driveway at 1:45. A stop at Einstien’s in Castleton served as a reminder that we had forgotten the water thermos. Sooo, it was actually 2:30 when we really did leave. I was not in the best frame of mind. Nan Lou was tired. But we were on our way for a winter adventure while trying to circumvent the forecast snow that was coming in from the west, or the south, or whatever. 

The road, I-65, wasn’t busy, even through Louisville, and we actually made it to Elizabethtown, Kentucky a whopping 172 miles from our house. The Walmart welcomed us and the Mickey D’s across the street regaled in delight with our $6.46 order. 

We are settled down for the night as the local mufflerless pickups circle around preparing for the attack. I have never seen so many people in a Walmart, nor so many long lines at so many check out places. It is worse than the one at home on Keystone. Maybe they have help a step above Indianapolis cretins. hb 


Sunday, January 6, 2002 

Such a surprise we awakened to this morning. It had snowed during the night and there was about a half inch covering the ground. The streets were clear. but wet. It was shortly before 10:30 so we went across the street to Mickey’s and had the worst English muffins in the world. The coffee was not much better. 

Nan Lou took over the driving and headed toward Nashville. We tried a Cracker Barrel before Nashville only to find a full parking lot, a jam packed restaurant, and a 45 minute wait. So off we went past Nashville onto I-40 toward Memphis and a Barrel not too crowded with only a ten minute wait. Guess what I found. A Johnny Carson hat. Well, that’s what I call them after a character he played in one of his old skits on the Tonight show. I’ve heard people call them Fargo hats after the movie named Fargo in which someone wore one. Red plaid, a baseball cap bill, and earflaps. I am such a stylish guy. 

About 5:30 we stopped at Jackson, still in Tennessee, to checkout the Walmart and a shoe store. We found we had entered another time zone and it was only 4:30. We contemplated going on to Memphis until we saw the movie Kate and Leopold at the local stadium seated movieplex. It was pretty cute with Hugh Jackman and Meg Ryan. How could it not be? 

It was raining by the time we departed the cinema and Walmart welcomed us as long as we parked out past the trees or over by Sam’s Club. We did both and are snug in the LER for the night. hb
Monday, January 7, 2002

Yep, I was plenty tired last night and I thought I would sleep through the night.  It was not to be since my aching hips let me know they were there all night long.  Ham says I need to walk and I think he is right.  I will try to do better today.

We had a pukey breakfast at IHOP and Ham said it belonged in a class with Bob Evans.  However I don’t ever remember having such lackadaisical service at any Bob Evans.  By the way, at the movie last night, I noticed Tennesseans are not very friendly.  Not nearly as friendly as most Hoosiers.  No eye contact; no smiles; grim expressions.

Down the road again with the caravans of semis.  Tennessee roads weren’t too bad but when we crossed the Arkansas line the roads not only deteriorated, it was as if the state decided to do major construction on every road in the state at the same time.  Some looked as if they had been under repair or construction for years and had been left just sitting there.  The semis stormed on way above the 70 MPH speed limit.

The sun was out for the first time and the van got very toasty warm.  When Ham took over the driving I got very sleepy and kept drifting off.  Ham thought a nice friendly Mexican lunch would be tasty but alas, none could be found, so it was Cracker Barrel time again.  I couldn’t believe he ate exactly the same Chicken and Dumplin’s he had yesterday.  By the way, I notice he did not mention my outstanding playing of the little peg game on all Cracker Barrel restaurant tables.  I got “one” all by myself and then, with help at the end, four more times.  Today, the best I could do was two.  I know, I know, one should not mention ones own accomplishments, but what’s a girl to do when such a momentous achievement is completely overlooked for all time.  She toots her own horn, that’s what.

Yes, we are stopped at another Wal-Mart in Arkadelphia (What a name!)  We did a bit of shopping and at last played a game of Scrabble.  The first of this trip!  I am not so tired tonight.  It is not so cold either.  Maybe we will feel all rested tomorrow when we hit the Interstate again and head into Texas.  I think I’ll look for cowboys.  Did I say I am glad its not freezing tonight?  Beddy bye time!  nl 

Tuesday, January 8, 2002

Hoo Haa, not freezing she said.  In the wee hours of the morning I was cold.  Maybe because I’m not eating enough fat, maybe because I’m getting old, but it was a lot warmer than that night in Missouri a few years ago when it was three below and I was a lot colder. 

We ate at Mickey’s, I had a healthy bagel, Nan Lou had an Egg McMuffin.  Then it was back on I-30, one of the bumpiest roads we know of in the big I system.  We stopped for a little refreshment and found the joys of entering and leaving the expressway Texas style, via frontage roads and the shortest on and off ramps this side of Massachusetts.  In fact, I’ll bet they are shorted than those of the crowded east.  Seems so silly here with all their so called wide open spaces.   Anyway, we made our plans for Texas and hit the road again for about a mile and stopped at the welcome center where we loaded up on brochures, maps, and information.  This changed our plans and we decided to stay on the interstates until we pass Dallas and then head for the famed Texas Hill Country.  What makes it famed?  I don’t know, but it is. 

Back on I-30 Nan Lou noticed that the lanes were narrower than most interstates we’ve been on.  Just another Texas space saving ruse.  I’ll bet the King ranch only had forty acres and nineteen cows. 

We were looking for some sign of a Mexican restaurant as we sped along.  We soon found one high in the air as we whizzed past the exit ramp.  Not to be discouraged Nan Lou took the next ramp and we managed to find our way back to Ta Molly’s, possibly a play on words, or something.  It was pretty good, not quite a Cancun, but okay. 

Our plans called for a stop at Greenville since the map book showed a Wal Mart Supercenter there.  Is this our fourth night in such places?  Perhaps we will continue on in our quest for adventure stopping only at Wal Marts for the night.  Could that be a great travel book? 

We had a hard time finding the Wal Mart and drove all around Greenville before eagle eyed Nan spotted it.  Again, we were welcomed and directed to the east forty for our nights stay.  A game of Scrabble did Nan Lou’s back in and I am the logger tonight.  It feels as if the wind has come up as the LER is shaking.  It shouldn’t be as cold as the past few nights, the temperature was up close to sixty today.  Maybe we be finally in the south.   hb  

 
Wednesday, January 9, 2002

The gentle hum of the semis lulled us with white noise all night.  It was warm!  Even getting up to potty in the night, we did not freeze.  Then it was delightful lying abed in the morning feeling comfy cozy.  Every other morning, Ham has had to crawl out and face the brutal temperatures to turn on the engine and furnace.  This morning, the sun warmed us nicely.  We reminded ourselves that soon we would be complaining about it being too hot.

So, when gassing up, Ham noticed the van was a quart low on oil, the idea of giving some business to all our over night hosts, seemed prudent.  We toodled over to Denny’s for breakfast----oatmeal for Ham and toast for moi.  Then it was back to Wal-Mart to have the oil changed.  I wandered the store looking at girly things which I seldom do.  I found a pair of sneakers for $7.50 or there about.  They were either a wee bit too wide or a wee bit too short.  I didn’t think of it at the time, but, for that price I could have bought a pair of innersoles for the too wide ones.  Oh well!  I just hate to let a bargain slip by.

At last we were on the highway again!  Getting around Dallas was a breeze since we were not even near the rush hour.  I-465 at home is a lot worse most of the time.

I forget where we had lunch.  Ham will probably remember.  Anyway, we were going to have turkey sandwiches made from the frozen turkey brought from home.  Well, it never made it to the van; so, we had fat free cheese sandwiches instead along with spinach and arugula and celery.  We were feeling rather full of ourselves for eating so healthy.

On and on southward we went.  Going around (through?) Waco was busier than Dallas.  Also, the roads were rough and bumpy which made for my white knuckles on the steering wheel when the semis roared past on the narrow lanes. The worst was yet to come.

A tiny dot of a town called Round Rock was our destination since it was the only Wal-Mart Super Center on the road.  Well, we got to the place and found out it must be a northern suburb of Austin.  The traffic was horrific.  I said the worst was yet to come.

Ham thought to get off on one of these evil frontage roads to try to find the place; and, that was a great move because he did..  The problem was that it was on the other side.  Texans plan ahead because, realizing the need to go to the other side of the street, they have provided lanes of traffic for such U turns.  Darn nice of them, don’t you think?  Otherwise, one would just have to keep going in the original direction.

Wal-Mart again gave us permission to spend the night and when that was done we both admitted being hungry.  We had spotted an Italian restaurant called Al Capone’s.  Ham would have something clever to say about that but I am not so witty.  Italian sounded good and we did not have to get back in the traffic mess, so off to Al’s place we went.  We had different versions of Aglio Oleo and they were both pretty good.  I was surprised that for the second day in a row, I cleaned my plate.  Texas roads make one hungry.

Ham is touring the Home Depot store while I write this.  Now, I am going to dig out my new bud vase and put my red rose AND my new yellow rose in water.  They are both so pretty.  Ham has returned and he is driving over to the perfect parking place.  This always involves great discussion.  Well, what do you know, he found it with no discussion.

I’m going to take care of my flowers now.  nl  

Thursday, January 10, 2002

We had a bagel with our own Einstein’s light cream cheese at the McD’s that was next to the parking lot.  Then it was off to find the fabled Hill Country.

Well, we drove around a bit and Ham stopped in a town that wasn’t on the map to look at the computer program that would help us decide to get to said hills.  Finally we set off with me driving.  We came to a pretty reservoir with houses on the hills (yep, there were rather small hills in the area) that made those around Geist look like bitty things.  After a while I decided perhaps we had seen enough of Hill Country.  A wee confab at a Taco Bell and we were on our way south.  I was very sorry later when I realized that by doing so we had missed one of the war museums.  I don’t know why Ham didn’t remind me.

I toyed with the idea of a message at a local day spa; but, gave up on the idea since it would have meant an hour and a half wait for Ham and you probably needed an appointment anyway.

Actually the drive south was rather pretty.  Hilly and nice.  The roads were fairly empty compared to what we have been used to so they were a pleasure to drive.

The Wal-Mart book showed us that we were entering into an area with a dearth of stores.  We decided to find one, that was not a Super Center, in a town called Beeville.  After driving around town for a while we finally found a teeny tiny Wal-Mart and were given permission to park for the night.

I made the mistake, I guess, of trying to pick up home messages.  I got a message from a computer voice connected with U.S. Cellular Service saying that they wanted a credit card number because the connection could not be made.  We went up to the pay phone in the store and had to wait for 15 or 20 minutes to get on line with Verizon.  After a VERY lengthy conversation, Ham learned nothing could be done.  At least until we got in to a Verizon area.  His nibs is not a happy camper.

All the time I was waiting for him to use the phone, I people watched.  I saw about 4 white people, 2 or 3 black people, and everyone else was Hispanic.

We walked over to McDonald’s for a fruit and yogurt parfait and some fries to ward off the wolf.  It turned out to be the worst parfait ever made and they have downsized them too.

Back in the van, Ham still was stewing about the phone situation, and wanted to go back to the store and the pay phone to talk to Verizon again.  I decided to stay here and get the log done.  As of now, he has been gone about 25 minutes.  This has not been one of my favorite days.   nl   

Friday, January 11, 2002

Ham fussed with the phones very late last night.  Then, this morning we went over to McD’s for breakfast taking our own raisin bagels, our own light cream cheese, and our own banana.  We wish the coffee had been better; but, it was definitely on the weak side.

We headed east to the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge to see the endangered Whooping Crane.  We stopped for lunch in Refugio at Pizza Hut and learned they no longer have spaghetti.  We had some kind of pasta bowl thing that was loaded with cheese.  Too bad for both our fat and cholesterol.  It was warm in the tummy however; and, since the temperature was a cloudy 50ish, it tasted better than something cold.

I drove on one of the narrowest and roughest roads ever.  It threw the poor van from side to side and scared the waddin’ out of me when a car or truck came in the opposite direction.

Ham spotted a large bird landing in a tree top while he was driving.  He made a quick U turn and we identified a crested caracara.  They are supposed to be rare but possibly seen in the refuge.  Before we hit said refuge, we saw three more.  We felt we were doin’ good.

Then, while I was driving, Ham became very excited thinking the vultures were feasting on a dead javelina.  As it turned out, it was a feral hog which are supposed to roam this area.  At the visitor center we learned these creatures are what the term “razorback” refers to.  Ya learn sompin new ever day, don’t one?

After casing the visitor center and talking to the very pleasant person behind the counter, we proceeded on to the observation tower which was 40 feet in the air and accessed by a long ramp.  We took our time going up.  There were three whoopers wading in the water so far away they looked like egrets and not the 5 ft. tall critters they are.  We also saw some foraging hogs.  Feeling our trip up the ramp was somewhat worth the effort, we retraced our way to the visitor’s center, and had a closer encounter with said wild hogs and a herd of deer.  At least we saw some live pigs and not just the dead one at the side of the road.

The road south produced a flock of snow geese.  They didn’t seem to like cars stopping and would edge away, but instead of moving to the back of the field, they seemed to like to graze next to the road.

I was surprised when Ham turned into Goose Island State Park.  I was all prepared for another night at the Wal-Mart CG.  Anyway, we took a nice walk out on a very long pier.  Ham looked quite north woodsy in his Cracker Barrel Fargo hat.  It seemed cold indeed.

We have a lovely campsite all to ourselves under some live oaks and over looking a marsh/field thingy.  It was very nice not having to shade the windows so early.   We explored a little and saw a flock of about twenty white pelicans in the water near the boat ramp.  There were a few brown pelicans too, we were told that there were none near here.   nl

 
Saturday, January 12, 2002

The privacy and quiet of the state park prompted us to sleep much later than the WalMart parking lots.  In fact, we slept so late our breakfast ended up at McDonald’s by the bay around 1 o’clock after looking for nicer places which remained forever hidden. 

While near the park we went to see the Big Tree, a thousand year old live oak 35 feet around at the base.  Compared to the redwoods, it wasn’t so big.  We did find the highest priced used book store in the world though.  No bargains at all, things like a Mammoth Hunter for $67.00.  Many common everyday mysteries for $25 and up.  Not even first editions. 

Nan Lou was hankering for a cuppa coffee and we couldn’t find any place except an art gallery with a little coffee shop in the back.  It was kind of a neat place and we sat awhile drinking coffee and eating cookies.  Then it was time to say adios and head for Port Aransas and points south.  This meant a short ferry ride over to a barrier island which might be named Mustang Island.  Or maybe Padre Island, or maybe both depending whether one is at the north end or the south end.  I look at maps all day and the minute I set them down I forget everything that I’ve seen. 

The first thing Nan Lou said upon disembarking from the ferry was, “I’m hungry.  Feed me now or you die.”  Well, needless to say, I stopped and checked out one place that served only battered fish and steaks.   We did find a place with grilled fish, “On the water, and had a sandwich and salad for about $14.00 apiece.  Now, over at the Captain’s Table on Cedar Key, one can be “On the water” and not have a view of various industrial detritus.  There I go again, making comparisons.  One should judge places and things on their own merit and not make these comparisons. 

By then it was getting dark and we headed for a state park called Mustang Island SP that was about 12 miles south.  We found it and I was a little disappointed at first when I saw a bunch of motorhomes lined up side by each.  Since the money collectors were gone at this late hour, 7:30, I drove around and followed a sign to Beach Camping.  It was too dark to see everything, but it looks like a long beach with campsites parallel  to the gulf.  The sites are decently spaced, might even be free, and beat most everything that we’ve seen in other gulf states.  So there to!!!!    Wellll, Shired Beach is awfully nice.     Bad Ham! Bad Ham!…      hb       

 
Sunday, January 13, 2002

The beach was very nice even though the noise and the fumes of the big bull dozer or whatever was a little obnoxious.  It was making the camping road wider and the road to the beach smoother.  Actually, he didn’t seem to be doing much at all except riding around.

Ham fixed breakfast and it was a gourmet treat, indeed. Toast, apple, prune juice, and, at last, a cup of good coffee made in the new coffee press.  As was his wont to criticize yesterday, he didn’t think the coffee tasted too good.  I thought it was great and I even had soy  vanilla hazelnut creamer.  Ham also took charge of the clean up and he said the press wasn’t too bad to clean up.  Perhaps he was just feeling nice this morning…. Complaining about the coffee, but nice!

Without further ado (well, aside from a little walk down to the water) we started off for Padre Island.  The visitors center was minimal as was the convenience store.  The latter couldn’t even provide a quart of milk.  We did get several bottles of water not trusting the stuff that comes out of the tap and is supposed to be drinkable. Yuk!  The lady at the information desk was not particularly grouchy, but she certainly wasn’t brimming with friendliness.  The people we have met around here have not been smiley friendly as they were in the Refugio area where we had all the phone trouble.

When we were driving to the beach camping area, which was again free, Ham reminded me that all beaches are state highways in Texas.  He said Oregon or some other state we had visited in the past was the same way.  If I knew that I had forgotten it.  Beach walks mean you have to watch out for vehicular traffic in both directions.

We walked down the beach looking at all the beached jelly fish, star fish, dead fish, and lots and lots of washed up junk, broken glass, beer bottles and such.

After such exertion, a nap seemed to be in order.  So we settled on our beddy bye and within minutes Ham was snoring.  I tried to read a bit, but gave it up myself and off to slumberland, I went.  We called NL2 and Evans before we settled in.  Evans is in L.A. and we were tickled when he said he was having a few people in for brunch.  Is he getting civilized?

After our nap, we enjoyed views of the clouds turning pink just before dusk.  From this location, you can’t see sunset over water.  Then, it was time for chow again.  I warmed up Trader Joe’s vegetable bowls that we brought from home.  They traveled very well and tasted good.

A game of Scrabble after dinner and it was time to write this.  I guess I will go muddle on through the Whitley Strieber book that was written in 1986 and was supposed to take place just a few years from now.  It is tedious and I tend to skip whole passages.

That’s it.  I’m wondering if we will stay at this nice quiet place tomorrow or surge on to Corpus Christi.  As I told Ham, you can’t beat the price here.  I imagine that things will be more expensive down at South Padre Island.  nl  

And I have this to add.  As Nan Lou said, you have to watch out for the cars and trucks on the beach.  Compare this to the other National Seashore are we were in last year.  You know where that was, I won’t mention the place except to say it was near Pensecola and on the same gulf. 

The sand was nicer, the water was prettier, and there were no cars and trucks scooting along.  One could fly a kite and run around without much risk.  Well, there is always the risk of the killer sharks lurking in a few inches of water waiting for the unwary to venture in too deep.  That is all.  hb 

 
Monday, January 14, 2002

We were awake pretty early but lounged in bed for an hour or so before getting up and cooking a LER special.  Then it was a little beachwalk followed by a drive to the north beach area and then into Corpus Christi where we found an Appelby’s that served the usual Indianapolis fare.  There was a 16 screen movieplex next door with everything but “In The Bedroom” so we passed on a movie for the time being.  Last but not least, a WalMart stop for a few necessities and we headed back to spend the night at north beach and not south beach like last night. 

Taking a drive along north beach we were appalled at the amount of trash littering the area where people have camped.  At the far north end the national park ended and the beach became a Texas type place.  There were even trash cans every hundred feet.  The catch was, they hadn’t been emptied since the Civil war.  Hardly anyone was camping at either area, but we did notice at least two cars backed up to the dunes with someone just sitting there as if he was waiting for someone.  We figured that is exactly what he was doing, trolling, so to speak, for you-know-what. 

Now we are parked within five feet of where we were parked last night on south beach.  The couple in the overloaded pickup camper parked in the middle of the beach road and fished for an hour or two.  It is now almost dark and they have left.  We are still here, and I’ll bet that there are a couple of cars backed in up at north beach…..waiting.    hb    

 
Tuesday, January 15, 2002

We awoke rather early and really didn’t dally in bed because the sun was bearing down on the LER and it was getting very warm indeed.  Ham had seen the big billboard proclaiming a Cracker Barrel in town so since we were pretty hungry a big breakfast seemed like a fair to middlin’ idea.  We found it with no trouble.  I indulged in some kind of peachy special which involved a plate of pancakes slathered with said peach stuff, eggs, cheesy hashbrowns, one piece of sausage, one slice of bacon, and one piece of ham.  Ham had a big breakfast but one that was not nearly so decadent. We declared we would never be hungry again.

Ham found his way out of town as if he knew exactly where he was going.  I guess he did.  We went to Kingsville to see the King ranch which I saw at age six with Aunt Toots and Uncle Basil.  We decided the museum might not be very interesting.  I wanted to see the saddle shop.  It had lots of very expensive furniture, luggage, etc., etc., etc. 

I had spotted a hair do place that looked lacking in business and had my hair washed.  It was good to have it clean; however, the goopy cream rinse smelled to high heaven and I left trails of scent as I strolled down main street and through the King Saddle Shop.

Then, it was go South or bust.  The barren road was called the Texas Tropical Trail.  I guess it was because when we reached a town north of Harlingen (I forget the name) palm trees had been planted in the median and on both sides of the road.  They were pretty tall.  This was Rt. 77 by the way and it was listed on our map as a scenic highway.  There was not too much scenic about it.

Getting to South Padre Island was a snap.  The so called State Park had closed.  We are in a very cramped site that cost $15.  It sure makes Padre Island look good.  We are still not sure if this is part of the state park or and independent lot.

We drove round and round and back over the causeway looking for dinner.  Yes, we did get hungry again.  We ended up back at our cramped little space having a cold dinner in the LER.  You can’t win ‘em all! 

If I can get Ham to make up the bed, maybe I’ll finish this stupid book tonight.  nl  

 
Wednesday, January 16, 2002

It was about 8 AM when we awakened.  The neighbor to the left was setting up his dining table just three feet from our bedroom in the LER.  The neighbor to the right was starting his fast idling Suburban about eight feet away.  We lolled around for an hour or so and then did our morning stuff and off we went to Denny’s for a pretty decent breakfast.

The day appeared to be a beautiful day with blue skies and a temperature of 70.  A drive north through the condos and houses was pretty much like many other beach front communities we’ve traipsed through.  Not as snitzy as most, but nice enough for us inlanders.

Then we headed north on the main road which soon became the only road.  It passed between nice medium sized dunes on the gulf side and smaller dunes and flat sandy areas on the bay side.  The dunes were very nice, prettier than those on North Padre Island with their sandier and dunier look.  There were beach access roads about every mile,  or less, with one being the entryway to a small paved parking area with access to a beach one could drive and camp on like the place to the south.  This did cost three dollars and wasn’t as wide a beach with a lot of hard sand one felt really safe on.  It also had a lot more people driving and walking around.  After a beach walk we went back to town for a lunch at a Mexican restaurant.  Not as good as Cancun, but better than some we’ve been in.

Back to the beach for some kite flying and more walking.  The new kite was a bear to assemble taking at least 30 minutes, just enough for the wind to abate.  The tide appeared to be coming in so we asked a few other beach parkers about the safety of our situation.  They didn’t know much more than we did, but they said it looked as if we were safe from the high tide.  We worried, I backed up another eight feet risking getting into softer sand, and then settled in for an evening tide watch.  It peaked after dark at 7 PM, an hour before the local paper’s tide table showed, with the nearest the incoming waves petering out about 20 to 30 feet from the front of the LER.  The next high tide is about 4 AM.  I think we won’t watch it to come in this time. 

A game of scrabble helped us through the tedious tide watch and we scrounged some food from the LER’s pitiful larder to celebrate our high and dry status.  Now it is bed time, goodnight.  

 
Thursday, January 17, 2002

Okay! So the killer tides didn’t swallow us up.  We were so elated that we headed for Denny’s for oatmeal.  The breakfast was good, the lackadaisical waitress was---lackadaisical.  Then it was off to the post office and to find a phone so I could call all the credit card companies and get all of that under control. 

That done, we went in search of clip on sun glasses to replace the missing ones.  Where is everything disappearing?  No decent clip-ons in all of Padre Island South, but I did get a nice gaudy sarong for nine bucks. 

A local deli served up pretty good sandwiches before we headed back to the beach camping, which was free since we arrived just as they were closing the parking lot at 4 PM.  

The wind wasn’t to strong but I got out the new F-16 kite and it actually flew.  I guess the wind was too slight for aerobatics and the old stunt kite wouldn’t even get up and stay up.

The F-16 looked really neat and it was up a long time before I crashed it trying to do some dives.  Just wait till I get to the Oregon coast.

We are parked a little farther away from the water tonight and we aren’t even giving the tides one single thought.

By the way, last night was pretty foggy and the fog was still hanging around this morning when we left the beach and drove into town.  Some high rise condos were still enveloped in the mist which was blowing in from the gulf in wispy little clouds.  The temperature has been very nice in the low seventies and at night we have used the blue bag only half of the time.     hb   

 
Friday, January 18, 2002

We were 30 minutes later leaving the beach camp than we were yesterday.  The Espresso bar in the upscale shopping area had decent bagels and coffee but were a little lacking in the cream cheese area.  A quick trip to the LER for the last tub of Einstien’s whipped reduced fat stuff topped things off just right.

By the time we had finished eating it was noon and after much “Whadya wanna do Martys” we ended up going to the bay area to watch the ducks, the white and brown pelicans, a very active and hungry blue heron, terns, and the mysterious seagulls.  This killed 45 minutes and then we headed for the cinema to see ‘Beautiful Mind’. 

The movie and the popcorn served as an appetizer so we drove around to find the perfect restaurant.  That turned out to be the ‘Amberjack’ which served a pretty good salad along with a good view of the bay and the setting sun.

By then darkness was fast approaching and we hightailed it to the beach camping so we could park it without sinking in some soft sand.  It was more crowded than the previous two nights with everyone clustered toward the parking area evidently to ward off the tsunami or the local hoods.  I managed to back into the sand just off the beach highway without sinking and we are now settled in for the night.    hb     

 
Saturday, January 19, 2002

We left Indy two weeks ago today.  It really doesn’t seem like two weeks at all.  Ham tells me the Friday night party folk were rather loud, especially with the bass beat, until the wee hours of the morning.  Fortunately, I went right to sleep and missed it all.

My back and hips have been hurting like crazy; and, Ham has played Monsieur Masseur two times a day.  Today was the first day I have felt a little human.  I can actually see (feel?) an end to the pain coming.  I am mentioning this in case anyone ever wants to wonder why I haven’t been holding up my end in the journal writing department.

The wind rocked the van for most of the night and was still blowing briskly as we headed out for breakfast.  Yesterdays breakfast place was out of bagels so we went back to the urban mall deli and there we found good old sesame seed bagels.  Again, with our own Einstein’s light cream cheese and my own hazelnut soy creamer, it was almost like being home.

After much coaxing and cajoling, I convinced Ham to spend the time putting his new kite together and giving it a go over on the bay side sand flat.  A couple of kiters were already at it when we arrived.  Soon, Ham had the F-16 in the air and was doing some rather daring aerial acrobatics with the thing.  After about 45 minutes or an hour, he felt he needed more challenge and he got the old delta type out.  A few minutes of that, and he declared himself an “ace” and whipped off his belt, slipped the belt through the hand grips and secured it to his leg.  Yes, he did look pretty strange, but he had the personal satisfaction of flying two kites at once.  He did have to yell for help one time when his pants started to fall down.  He was so enthralled that when I announced I was going to fly one, I got the same look I used to get when I interfered with dark room work.  All in all I think Ace Kite Flyer is ready for bigger and better things.

We did our “drive around forever” bit trying to find a pleasant place for lunch and ended up back at Amberjack’s on the bay.  Ham had the usual chicken sandwich and I tried the fish tacos.  They were lightly breaded with flour and much better than the last fish tacos I ate.  We thoroughly enjoyed watching the black birds steal sugar packets from the outside tables.  They would hold the packet down with a claw and peck open the packed and snarf down the sugar.  Too funny!  This restaurant is cold and the outside temperature was falling.  I may have looked strange, but I wore my polartec jacket in to the restaurant and still froze. 

After an enjoyable lunch we drove around a while and Ham finally found a kite shop open.  I went into the beach shop next to it and finally found the elusive clip on sun glasses at a six dollar price instead of twelve dollars.  We are not sure whether they block UV rays, but at least they are amber.  By the way, Ham found his old progressive lenses and he can see again without having to change to three different pairs of glasses.  That’s a big hooray!

We went to the TCBY for a cone for dessert; then, to the grocery; then back to the beach.

Again the wind is blowing hard enough to rock the van and, as I understand it, sand was actually blowing in the range hood.  Ham blocked it some way on the outside.  The tide was coming almost half way across the road.  We are farther back than some of the vehicles, so I guess we are OK. 

I think we are definitely in for the night.  I think this will definitely be a blue bag night.

Ham has started that dumb Strieber book.  I’ll bet he likes it.    nl 

Sunday, January 20, 2002

The wind died down sometime during the night but not before it had filled every crevice and crack in the LER.  It was warmer even though the sun was still behind the ever present cloud cover.  I washed the salt, sand, and scum off the LER on the way to breakfast at Denny’s.  It was just like home on a Sunday, crowded.  Omar, our waiter was a fit with his theatrical actions and effusive actions about the crowded dining room and the slow service we would have.  Omar was wrong, the service was very good and the food was even hot, a surprise to Nan Lou who just expects cold food at Denny’s. 

I thought we might be heading out today, but we were both sort of tired and just loafed, shopped, and ate before returning to the beach camp.  We’ve been here for six nights.  Never before have we stayed at one place for so long.  I think it is a combination of the free space, the fact we’re on the beach, and if we want something, the town is just three miles away.  Restaurants, coffee shops, groceries, movies, you name it, just like home but with a gulf view and nice campsites.

Our restaurant tonight had a Mexican type name (Brisas Latinas) but when I asked for chips and salsa I was told they were more Caribbean and not Mexican.  The food was like Mexican, but a little different.  It was good though.

On our way back to the beach, just before dark, we saw a couple of stunt kites being flown on the sand flats.  They were doing a regular dance, sometimes in sync, sometimes flying like fighter planes.  We turned around to watch, but, alas, the kiters were packing up to go when we got there.

Back on the beach, we saw a big motorhome pulling a car make a turn behind a parked one and bog down in the sand.  It was a pretty silly place to turn into, so close to other campers when there was a whole beach there. 

Our usual game ended up in a one sided rout with yours truly on the short end.  As the late Harold Stassen said, “You can’t win them all.”      hb      

 
Monday, January 21, 2002

I suppose there will be even more twos to type tomorrow.  This is MLK day.  The teachers of the country say “Hooray!”

We had breakfast at the little Deli.  A nice place but the most uncomfortable chairs on the island.

Then we went to the Post Office to determine whether it was closed for aforementioned holiday.  It was, but we spent the time getting the packages ready to send off to the boys for their birthdays.  Mailing will have to wait until tomorrow, but it should be a breeze.

Ham flew his delta kite for a while on the sand flat of the bay.  His expertise impressed one winter resident of the island so much he came up to talk to him (Ham) about buying his own kite.  He kept complimenting him on his maneuvers which I didn’t see because I was alternating between finishing my book and freezing.  The sun was completely hidden and the fog, or mist, or whatever, was present all day.  With the wind it was quite chilly and I changed into long pants and long sleeves.

The kite flying and the time lapse from breakfast made us think strongly about eating again.  Not wanting to let a single eatery go untried, we went to Blackbeards, which seems to always have a crowd of cars in the parking lot.  The place was rather plain with uncomfortable bent wood chairs.  However, the food was quite good.  Ham had a grilled fish sandwich with a huge slab of tuna and I had a Brother Junipers special kind of thing.  Later, we agreed this just might be our favorite island restaurant.

For some reason, clean clothes seemed to be in order.  Ham hates to store one dirty sock in the LER.  So, we hit the Laundromat.  Five bucks poorer, we headed to the campground on the beach for another free night.  Unfortunately, it was dark by the time we got there, and with the stuck Class A of the night before in mind, and being unable to see the churned up sand, Ham decided not to chance it and drove on out without a clue as to where to spend the night except, possibly, the sleazy Wal-Mart in Port Isabel. 

The LER got another wash down because of all the sand.  Then we tried the county park on the other end of the island.  It was full but the nice attendant said we could park free of charge in the office parking lot.  So here we are.  No partyers and no pounding surf and no worry about being swept out with the tide.  At least for me, that was some concern last night.

Ham showed his stupendous Scrabble skill (Lord, how I love alliteration) by not only trouncing me but by getting two seven letter words in the single game.  He also has a very great skill with the creative use of gerunds.  I know when I have met my match.

That’s it for this day!  ‘g night!  nl 

 
Tuesday, January 22, 2002

Wow, just think, another 220 years and the date will be all twos.  We forced ourselves up and at’em at 8 AM to make sure the parking lot people wouldn’t sick their Gestapo on us.  I parked at the beach access we found yesterday and we did our morning rituals there.  Then we cleaned out the LER completely, mailed the birthday goodies, and found a new place for breakfast.  The prices were fair, but the laziness of the conchita offset that, not even a coffee refill.  Seldom do I fail to tip, but I did.  Perhaps she was witch and put out the bad spell for us. 

We left South Padre Island, impossible to believe we spent seven days there, and headed for Brownsville.  A fairly short drive through desert like sand flats with cactus and yuccas to our right and to our left.  Our trip through Bville took us near the edge of the city since we found no reason to sight see downtown.  Or you could say, I just happened upon that route.

Leaving the Bville area the aforementioned bad spell caught up to us.  The brake pedal felt funny, too high and hard, so I stopped for a look.  Nothing seemed out of the ordinary so we went on our way.  Immediately things got weirder.  It pulled to the left, braked funny, sounded like we were pulling a semi, and acted just like the good old brake-lock-up problem.  Luckily we were about ten miles from a Dodge dealer and made it there with the front pads smoking away. 

Now we are at the local Executive Inn, next to Denny’s,  down the street from Cardenas Dodge, where we will spend an indeterminable time awaiting the call from Joe Garza with the bad news about the bad spell from the wicked waitress witch whom we stiffed this morning.  It was time for a shower anyway.     hb       

It was nice to be clean again; but it would be nicer if we had a cleaner bed.  I fear I will not recommend Executive Inns to many.  And, if we have to stay here another night, which I think we will, I intend to check out the Holiday Inn Express next door.

Time flies when you are having fun and before you know it, Ham announced that it was time to make another trek to Den’s for pie and coffee.  The thing is, when we got there, hunger pangs hit and Ham had  a full Thanksgiving dinner with turkey and all the trimmings and I had my chicken fried steak.  No pie!

There was no where else to go except back to the Ignoble Inn.  I faced my 74 pieces of junk mail and answered the three that were actually letters.  Ham has been watching something on TV that is in black and white and is positively ancient.  It seems to have an all star cast however.

Well, I hope the Dodge dealer gets on the ball and we can get out of Brownsville and the Executive Inn tomorrow.  I sincerely doubt it, though.  nl   

 
Wednesday, January 23, 2002

I was awake before eight and made enough noise to awaken Nan Lou.  At least we were to have the motel’s free breakfast, which wasn’t bad, bagels, coffee, and juice.  Then the wait for the Dodge dealer to call.  Finally after our two calls to him, we had to check out of the motel and hit Big Denny’s for lunch.  Another call and their shuttle van came for us.  As it turned out, our little Brownsville sojourn  was for naught.  They couldn’t get it to malfunction. Therefore, they couldn’t fix it.  At least we weren’t charged for their time.  It just cost fifty bucks for the  Executors Inn.  It was time for a shower anyway.

Off we gingerly went along the road nearest the border, route 181, I think, to McAllen, Texas.  Navigatrix Nan led us right to Wally’s Suppercentre,.  How’s that for classing it up a bit?  We ate fairly well in a Golden Corral, located a local cineaplex, and maybe even a Dodge dealer to advise us tomorrow if we should replace every brake part in sight, or just the most likely parts.  Or maybe none. 

I mentioned to Navigatrix Nan that we need to tow a trailer full of tools and jacks and all things necessary to do our own repairs.  NN didn’t seem too enthused about that.  I guess I really ain’t too worked up along those lines myself.  I be gettin’ old you know.

Phone calls to Nannie and RT kept us abreast of things back east and Dorothy’s strange by-pass ordeal in Evansville. 

Oh yes, the stuttering phone, 74 by name, was almost declared DOA this morning when it wouldn’t stop its stutter for an hour or two.  I called the Verizon experts who said they couldn’t fix it, but might mail a new phone to us if we would stay put long enough to receive it.  Or, go to their store in El Paso for help.  Hoo Haa.  Maybe we could park it for awhile in Big Bend.  Gotta check this out.  So much to do, so little time.  Since both two year old phones are spastic, yes 44 has some problems too, maybe we should send Motorola our next two blivets.   hb      

Thursday, January 24, 2002

Actually we had a pretty good toasted bagel with cream cheese from, of all places, McD’s.

Then Ham announced that he was going to see about the ailing brakes from the Dodge dealer, which just happened to be right across the street.  They would be only too happy to take care of things if we would just wait until next Monday.  Really!  So, Ham decided to go to a small town, Weslaco, which was half way to Harlingen.  The name of the town sounds like West Loco to me.  Any way, this Dodge dealer said they could take us early tomorrow morning.  So we toodled down the road the fifteen miles to West Loco and the young man confirmed what we were told on the phone.  So what to do for several hours until nightfall?

Go to Wal-Mart, of course!  We found perfect clip on sunglasses only to have the cart stolen out from under us and away went our perfect sunglasses; and, they were the only ones in the store.  Swell!  Also, we don’t seem to have much luck lately finding Select-a-Size Bounty paper towels.  By the time we had a few essentials, we were starving.

Nan Lou had called saying Dorothy seemed to be doing quite well.  This was good news.

We went to Red Snapper Mexican and Seafood Buffet for lunch.  A bargain at $5.95.  Usually Ham and I think buffets are at the low end of the culinary totem pole, but this one was a pleasant surprise.  All the food was tasty, even the deserts, and well prepared.  Hmm!  I think I had that backward….well prepared and tasty.

The temperature had been up to 93 degrees and then in the high eighties.  We came out from our leisurely lunch, the wind was blowing, and the temperature had dropped to the high sixties.  It felt cold. 

Driving around the town, Ham found a K Mart all night super center.  We went in primarily for the elusive paper towels, which we couldn’t find, but Ham found some ultra cool teal colored caps to match the LER.  We shall proudly look like the Bobsey twins.  I imagine when he reads this, Ham will say, “Who are the Bobsey twins?”  He also found a pair of neat lights which go on with a touch and will be used for getting up in the middle of the night.  I know Ham will appreciate them because when I go click, click on the light at night, it always wakes him up.

We found a movie in an adjoining parking lot, and went to see Tom Cruise in “Vanilla Sky.”  I forgot my hearing aids and Ham surprised me by going out to the car to get them for me.  The thing is, he didn’t know they didn’t have batteries.  I sat through the whole movie listening to, “mumble, mumble, glff, dghff, mumble, szgg.”  It ended up being some dream-like, science fiction kind of thing.  I asked Ham to explain it to me, thinking he could because he could at least hear it.  No such luck.  He finally thought of a simple explanation; and, that satisfied both of us.

Back to K Mart for the night, the new lights are installed,  and all seems right in the van.  The only thing is we have to get up about 6:30 AM, find breakfast, and be at the Dodge dealer at 7:30.  Ugh!  We have to gather many things to keep us amused.  We will probably be sitting there all day.

I think it is snack time.  Then it is bed time.  I doubt that even though we must rise at an indecent hour, we will be able to go to sleep any earlier.     nl  

PS   When we came out of the movie, the temperature had fallen to 58 degrees.   nl 

 
Friday, January 25, 2002

To make a long story short, the dodge dealer didn’t return the LER to us until 1:30.  What did he fix?  Nothing, he has to get the parts from Dallas, and that will take until Monday.  At least he put the LER back together and didn’t charge anything.  It does seem to run okay, but who knows how long it will be until the brakes freeze again?  I’m tempted to go to some other place like Goodyear and have it done with aftermarket parts, but according to Kmart’s auto gurus, they would have to get the parts from Mr. Dodge.  Do I want to run all over looking for the parts myself?  This is ridiculous!!!! 

At least there was a nice big customer waiting room with a computer station which kept Nan Lou busy for most of the time.  A game of Scrabble and an aol session did the rest.  I guess we will kill two days near here, within towing distance anyway, and return at 9:30 Monday morning.  Or maybe not.  Maybe it only goes bad every two or three years.

We ate lunch at the Red Snapper again, maybe not quite as good as yesterday, and dinner at Milano’s, which had good spaghetti and meatless sauce.  Poor tired Nan Lou didn’t want alfredo but ordered it in a senior moment of Devil-may-care abandon.  We are back at Kmart for the night.  I hope we don’t have to put up with an arguing couple like last night.  They parked two car widths away and he stood outside the car haranguing his poor sweetie for at least 30 minutes in 95% Spanish and 5% English.  I thought they might get reckless and I moved the LER near other night parkers when they went into the store.

It was a 47 degree night and might be colder tonight.    hb          

 
Saturday, January 26, 2002

It didn’t get colder, in fact, by 10 AM the LER was getting a little warm.  By the time we left Weslaco we missed the breakfast hour at Mickey’s.  It didn’t take very long to get to McAllen where we found a very crowded Denny’s which ended up being pretty good.   Then it was time for an exploration of McAllen and the discovery of a Verizon store.  I tried to explain all our cell phone problems to the young lady and she told me they could be fixed in two hours.  I think she thought I was crazy since I kept thinking of each problem as an afterthought.  Oh well, we hope for the best.  I do expect to have another Dodge dealer situation though, no parts, no time, no expert, no nothing.  Okay, I should have said just ‘nothing’ there.  Fooie Phooie Fuey.

We have now been in a McDonald’s parking lot for an hour just killing time waiting for the phones.  What to do for another hour?  And then what, since you and I both know that the phones won’t be ready?    hb

Actually waiting in the McD’s parking lot wasn’t too bad since we had the shade of a nice little tree which kept the van from turning to broil mode.

More driving around, left us with the impression that McAllen is a prosperous town and very, very clean.  The houses are well kept and most that we saw were huge.  We actually wondered where the poor people of McAllen live.  We decided they may come in from the other towns.  Maybe so!  Some of these people (the way they are dressed and their houses) look like they have boucoup bucks.

At last it was time to go back to Verizon.  Hoo Hah!  Ham was again right!  Another hour’s wait for the phones.  Believe it or not, after the huge breakfast, we were hungry.  We went across the street to Logan’s and Ham’s smile was ear to ear as he dug into the bucket of peanuts.  Home at last!  He had his usual chicken sandwich and I had my sweet potato, rice, and veggies.  We were very full; so we waddled out to the van to go see if the phones were really ready since we gave them more than the requested hour.

What do you know? They were ready, supposedly with problems solved, and, at no charge.  We will just have to see.  By now it is approaching 5:00 PM so it is definitely time to find the state park which is just down the road in Mission.

You would think there would be signs leading to a state park.  The road was under construction almost all the way.  There weren’t even road signs.  When I thought we had gone too far, I suggested we actually do the unthinkable; that is, stop and ask.  Ham pulled off at a gas station and I went in to the convenience store to ask.  It’s the woman’s job, I guess.  Here were the poor people.  I thought for a minute I might have to dig up my very limited Espanol from the old gray cells.  However, the young lady went right into English as these people amazingly do.  It seems the side road went straight into the park.

The electric sites were all filled by motor homes that looked like they were situated for the duration.  For the first time we immediately noticed mosquitoes when we found our primitive site.  This is called Bentson/ Rio Grande Valley State Park.  We saw a sign saying it was a world birding site------whatever that means.  We heard ‘em but didn’t see ‘em when we took a little walk.

After the walk, we played our Scrabble game and had quite an enjoyable argument/discussion about the acceptability of the word “razored”.  I feel I must put this word into usage so it becomes more commonplace.

Is Ham asleep?  Is he playing possum?  We’ll soon see.    nl 

 
Sunday, January 27, 2002

We spent a very lazy morning waiting for the ranger to come and collect the rent.  He never did, hooray.  We took a short walk and saw white pelicans, cormorants, herons, cattle egrets, snowy egrets, and some little shore bird.  But we did not see the elusive green jay.  Oh yes, the rusty blackbirds were singing in great voice as they usually are.

We took the back road, Military Highway, into McAllen.  It was a much more pleasant drive, it even seemed shorter.  Sunday breakfast at Denny’s at noon was a pleasant surprise, it wasn’t crowded.  Then we drove around aimlessly exploring Weslaco, Merecedes, and the small area in between.  There were some pretty nice neighborhoods in both towns. 

Finally we checked the West Loco cinema for something palatable to both of us and found nada.  To stem the encroaching starvation we went into the Blue Onion for a treat of flat bread made from their pizza dough with dips of spicy marinaro, roasted garlic, and hummus.  It was all very good and tasty.  We finished up splitting a piece of cheesecake and retired to the LER for the another night in the Kmart lot.

 
Monday, January 28, 2002

We were hot last night.  Nan Lou was sick, probably from over indulgence in last nights feast.  And the McDonald’s English muffin, putrid coffee, and dirty water left a bit to be desired.  Oh for Einstein’s. 

The LER is POSSIBLY being worked on.  It has been six days since we first went to a dealer with our brake problems.  RIDICULOUS!!!  Once we get it fixed we might be able to be on our way.  Maybe I’ll take Nan Lou to the people dealer to have her problems fixed next.  Maybe they will have to get parts from Dallas and we will spend another six days at Kmart.  Maybe we’ll just head for the snows of home and parts north.  Now I think I’ll go and struggle with the excell program.   hb     

Nan Lou’s side of the story:

Yes, I really thought everything in my system was wrong last night; and, we had to get up relatively early after a sleepless night.

Then it was off to the Dodge dealer who told us the parts had come in.  He also said it would take two and a half to three hours to fix the van.  He lied.

Ham and I played computer people and read for five and a half hours!  By the time the van was finished we were both starving.  By the way it was ten ‘til three.  We took it in at nine thirty.

We went back to the Blue Onion, the restaurant that about did me in last night.  It seems to cater to an Anglo clientele.  I was surprised to find the menu was rather heavily laden with garlic.  That terrified me so I chose a turkey sandwich.  We finally tried the tirimisu for dessert.  I had heard about it for a long time.  Yummy!  Of course it wasn’t good for us.

After eating, I convinced Ham to get a shampoo over at K Mart.  He luckily got the same girl I had and I know he feels much better.

The four lane roads were filled with rush hour traffic and there was what seemed to be a stalled car and an accident farther on, so we crept.

We got to the same state park we stayed in the other night arriving after they stopped collecting fees.  Perhaps we shall be lucky enough to get another free night.  I hope so.

Anyway, we got here just at sunset.  That was pretty lucky because we were able to 

We woke up rather early (for us) and went to McD’s for a breakfast of tasteless bagel and cream cheese.  Then it was off to the Saguaro Park to take the eight mile drive through it to see the majestic giants.  Right away, we realized it was the week end from the number of cars at the visitor’s center and the resultant number of people milling about.

Soon after getting on the one way drive, we realized this was the place for people to come to hike the eight miles instead of driving, and to ride a bike around.  As Ham said, as nice as it was, he just wasn’t as impressed as he was the first time he saw them.  After completing the loop road, we stopped in to the center to ask a few questions about the flora.  As usual, the rangers didn’t know much.  You would think they would have heard every question there is, many times over.  Oh well!

We went in search of lunch because of our light, early breakfast.  I saw an Italian restaurant I thought would be a nice change.  Alas it had a private party and didn’t open until 4:00 PM.  Anyway, we ended up at a Japanese fast food place called Yokohama Rice Bowl.  How very cool!  I had steamed see.

 We played our nightly game, and ate the left overs from lunch.  The dates and days seem to be mightily messed up so I guess Ham is waiting to fix it.  I am wondering if we were wishing Evans a happy birthday on the wrong day.  Oh well!  We’re old you know!   nl

 
Tuesday, January 29, 2002

We were up and away about eleven.  The border patrol was in the campground with two or three dogs.  Maybe they were just practicing, or maybe they were after aliens or drugs.   Maybe even people who arrive after 5 PM and sneak out without paying.  There was a real nice looking GMC in the campground.  It’s been a long time since we’ve seen any GMCs in a campground.  Nan Lou spotted a group of people walking behind a great white hunter with an enormous camera slung over his shoulder.  They would pass him every now and then and then wait for him to regain the lead, which was only right since he had the biggest thing.  They must be on the trail of that darn green jay. 

Within 10 or 15 miles we came to a nice looking restaurant and we stopped for breakfast.  The menu was totally Mexican and the food was very good.  I had a quesadilla and Nan Lou had something from the breakfast menu that had eggs and beans and a lot of other good stuff. 

From that point things started to look more like Texas should look.  Less palm trees, less cultivated land, more mesquite, or whatever, and an arroyo now and then.  It still looked more like we were in Mexico than the USA.  Almost every sign was in Spanish, all the ‘vote-for-me’ signs had Spanish names, and the pale Anglo was not to be seen anywhere.

Nan Lou said it was like being in Mexico without the worry of the banditos or the Federales. 

Farther along in Zapata, we stopped at a Mickey’s for a coke and three Anglos struck up a conversation.  They were winter Texans who had been coming down here for years.  One was quite outspoken about the fact that the Anglos were disappearing from the area.  I think the way he spoke he would let the Hispanics know who was boss, or would keep the Mexican war going for another hundred years.   

Our last stop for the day was the big city of Laredo where I was determined to find the old downtown area so we could see the old buildings and streets since this cities history goes back so far.  It was easy to find and it was pretty crowded.  The city square was a far cry from that in Santa Fe.  We did see an Anglo with a red cap.  There were a couple of art deco buildings in need of a little help, but, all in all it was not too super.  I did notice quite a few senoritas of the hefty variety with high heels and short slitted skirts. 

Soon we were back on the highway in search of Casa Blanco Lake State Park and a little bit of food.  We found both near the airport.  We arrived after five; but, I don’t think we will get out free this time. 

I still can’t get over how Mexican it is around here.  Maybe I’m as bad as the Omaha farmer in Mickey’s place.  In McAllen and the cities we’ve been in in the past week we saw more Anglos.  Maybe they are all the winter Texans and the area really turns into Mexico in the warm weather.  I ain’t complaining in any prejudicial vein, I’m just so surprised.    hb

 
Wednesday, January 30, 2002      

Well, phooey on Texas State Parks!  We were ready to leave and found the ticket under the windshield saying we needed to pay for the night’s parking.  We didn’t even hook up to electricity.  The ax dropped when the fee for the night was eighteen dollars.  I was miffed!  We hated to try to scam them out of the fee since they may have had our license number in a computer system the way Florida does.  That would have been it, if we wanted to camp in another state park from necessity.  My larcenous heart was bruised.

We went north and west and the road became less and less crowded.  The world’s largest and most gaudy travel information center supplied some more material which we collect but seldom look at.  Go figure!

The small towns were fun to see along the uncrowded highway.  The landscape was covered with what we figured was mesquite and lots and lots of opuntia cactus clumps.  We saw one poor guy trying to clear a field of them and then burning them.  What a terrible job.  Speaking of jobs, this was also our day for contact with the now familiar green and white vehicles of the Border Patrol.  First we had a drug check.   We looked like such honest old geezers we were just waved right through.  They had the dogs out and everything.  Later, we kept seeing them either parked along side the road or, of all things, dragging big tires behind their cars to smooth out the gravel frontage road.  We got a kick out of that and wondered if they were doing it so they would be able to check for footprints of aliens as they crossed the road.

We finally ate a fairly healthy lunch at Subway.  It’s about time.

We noticed that the farther we went the lower the vegetation became.  Still a lot of cactus but now there were low bushes of a sagey color; but, I don’t think it was sage brush.

It seemed like some of the towns had more Anglos than we have been used to seeing.  That doesn’t mean a lot, it just means that you would see one or two from time to time.

We came to Del Rio just about 4:00 PM and found the Wal-Mart with little effort.  Ham became very excited and enthused because he determined our back battery was not working to optimum performance and he wanted to replace it.  The security fellow said we could park for the night.  There were already three or four big rigs in the lot.      

Ham got his battery and worked like a dog to get it installed.  Maybe our refrigerator won’t shut down every night now.  I guess the last one lasted eighteen months or so and that was pretty good since we seem to go through those batteries on a regular basis.

We walked over to Wendy’s for dinner and Ham pigged out on really bad hamburger and large fries.  I suppose he felt entitled after working so hard.  I was a good girl and had a so so salad.

We played a game; and, even with decent letters, I was skunked.  I just can’t compete with those seven letter words.

Ham is quiet in the back and I wonder if he is asleep.  Maybe another freebie night will make up for the overcharge of last night.  nl 

Thursday, January 31, 2002

We drove around Del Rio for a while looking for place for breakfast.  Giving up, we went to McD’s and found out we could get our bagel after all. 

Then, we headed for Big Bend.  The road was pretty nice without so many big semis.  The tiny towns were few and far between; and, even when we came to them we wondered how they could be called towns on the map.

We were pretty hungry after just the bagel for breakfast.  Thinking each town down the road would produce at least a little café, we drove on and on. No cafes, no nothin’.

Finally, in desperation, I fixed peanut butter on crackers in the LER.  We were glad to have it.

At one of the immigration check points, Ham asked why the Border Patrol pulled big tires behind their vehicles.  How we laughed when we learned I was right after all and they do it to check for foot prints crossing the road.  I said that any illegal worth his salt should know enough to use a branch to wipe out his prints.

It took miles and miles of driving, after leaving the main road, to get to the park.  The shadows on the hills in blues and lavenders were very nice.  The landscape looked just like Randolph Scott should come tearing down the hill on his trusty steed.

As devoid of traffic as this place seemed to be, we were surprised to see two campgrounds were full.  We got a spot at one that is very close to the minimalistic lodge and food.  We both had a sort of Mexican meal.  I told Ham it was like eating Mexican at MCL’s.  He had to agree.

We found our way back to the campsite just before full dark.  I also have to say we could’t believe how cold it was.  Last check showed 37 degrees.  It’s red bag time again!  South Padre Island is looking pretty good.  Ham said we were at about 5,000 feet here in the campground.  I found that hard to believe.  I wonder how much that adds to the lowered temperature?

We are both tired; so, it’s off to beddy bye under the red bag.  Maybe we will sleep in tomorrow.    nl  

 
Friday, February 1, 2002

Sleep in we did!  We were so cozy under the red bag it felt good to just relax and keep dozing once the sun came up.  We hit the lodge restaurant for lunch.  Then we went to the visitor’s center to get an idea of what to do for the rest of the day since, by that time, it was 2:30 PM or so.

We took the drive down toward Boquillas, Mexico.  It was a pretty drive.  We stopped at one overlook that said “Rio Grande Overlook”.  There wasn’t much to see-----possibly a sliver of a river way off in the distance.

Then we came to the road and there was supposed to be an easy trail to see Boquillas Canyon.  Easy! Hah!  It was up hill and then clear down to the river bed.  We went up a little way and my thighs were feeling it.  Ham pointed out that we couldn’t make it before dark.  It was about five o’clock.  He didn’t point out that he was pooped.  He was very quiet all the way back to the campground.  I was hungry, but Ham wasn’t so we came on and parked the van, read a little, then ate the rest of my dinner from last night and made do with a few other things from the LER pantry.

A winning game of Scrabble for Ham and he has already gone to beddy bye.  I will finish my mystery and no doubt join him very soon.    nl

 
Saturday, February 2, 2002 

We got up and went to the lodge for breakfast/lunch.  Then we got gas for a trip to the Castolon area along a nice road.  The campground at Castolon had a bunch of javalinas in it.  We went to the river and crossed it in a Mexican powered rowboat to get to the Mexican town of Santa Elena.  Very small.  Ate a real Mexican dinner and crossed back to the USA.  Back in the campground we each played with computers.  The digital camera is not working right.  hb    

Well that was certainly short and sweet.  At the time Ham wrote the above, he was more than a little nonplused because the fairly new digital camera was doing bad things and he thinks the good pictures of the javelinas and such were lost forever.  It was a whole lot of them grazing right in the campground.  And, yes, he got more of them in view than just their behinds.  Oh well, other pictures have been lost throughout the years.

Back to the day’s events, the high light being our unofficial trip in to Mexico and the town of Santa Elena.  It was a nice adventure.  It was a rather long one third of a mile down a dusty road from where we parked the car to the boat to take us across the Rio Grande.  The thing is, the road was so very dusty.  Dusty on both sides of the river!  On the way back, I picked some of it up and it was as fine as talcum powder.  But that’s getting ahead of the story. 

The nice, rather good looking boatman came over right away to ferry us across for the $2 fee.  I had my usual trouble getting into boats but with two strong arms helping I managed.

The walk to the little town was up an equally dusty path.  You could take a burro ride but that wasn’t for me, thank you very much.  We had met several people returning and the last couple raved about the second restaurant on the street called El Canon.  We opted to take their suggestion.  It was spotlessly clean as was the employees.  The lady in charge was a cutie, probably in her 50’s or early 60’s with snow white hair.  English was at a minimum, but one wonders just how much these people really understand.  The meal was good.  The previously mentioned couple raved about the guacamole.  It is never my favorite, but I really liked this lady’s do.

The town was made of adobe mostly.  The tiny low roofed houses didn’t look tall enough to stand up in.  As we were told at the ranger station, this place is lucky because they have electricity.  There were even electric washing machines sitting outside the homes.  The poverty is just awful in the parts of Mexico we had seen previously, so these people had it pretty good.  In fact, the meals were even charged in American money.  So seven bucks for a lunch was quite an income for some parts of Mexico.

I guess I was tired before we strolled back to the boat.  It was harder to get out of; then, we had the long stroll back to the van through the powder dust.

We were happy to reach Cottonwood campground where the javelinas had played.  So now we are back to the beginning of this report.  Ham played with the camera and computer and got more and more frustrated.  I gave up an went to bed.  Our little adventure was worth a more detailed report however.   nl 

 
Sunday, February 3, 2003

There was no place to eat near Cottonwood so I volunteered to do a LER breakfast.  All went pretty well except for my poor, weak coffee made in the new coffee press.  I thought it was much better than instant.  I don’t think Ham agreed as he just grunted when I made that remark.  It was rather pleasant spending a leisurely morning with breakfast in the van.

When we finally left it to get ready to pull out, there were no javelinas.  However a couple of very tame turkeys came calling.  They really wanted a hand out; but, we are not supposed to feed the wild life.

Off we went the eight miles to Santa Elena Canyon.  The trip continued to be quite lovely with all the volcanic debris.  On the way back, we learned the ash was called tuff. There were almost all colors of the rainbow.  Greens, rusts, white, bright yellow, bright red---with the subtle colors of the vegetation, it was a most enjoyable sight.

We stopped at the river access and walked out into a rocky sand flat in the middle of the Rio Grande, which isn’t very wide at all at this point.  I picked up two or three rocks just for old times sake.  Then it was off to the canyon.

It is impressive rising 1500 in shear cliffs from the bed of the river.  The trail, of course, was all uppy.  We went up to the first level and I thought that was quite enough with Ham toting the heavy camera bag.  

In the parking lot, there was a semi friendly Chihuahuan Raven.  He let Ham get really close to him to take his picture, then he almost followed the van.  I liked him a lot.  When we got almost back to the Basin Campground where we had spent two nights, we saw a flock of them dining on road kill.  They didn’t seem to have the personality of the first guy.

Retracing the road gave completely different views of the landscape.  This is really gorgeous scenery.  I love all the desert plants.  I just don’t care for the scorpions and other creepy crawlies that live around and in them.

Back to Basin and a campsite; then, up to the lodge for dinner.  Since we hadn’t eaten since breakfast, we were pretty hungry.  The dining room didn’t open til 5:30 so Ham used the time to pick up messages on the land line phone.  We have been really out of touch with no cell service at all.

After dinner, we played our Scrabble game.  I do need to mention that since we are at a higher altitude it is much, much colder, and the first thing I said when we got back to the campground was, “Turn on the furnace.”  I’m such a wimp!  nl

 
Monday, February 4, 2002

We forced ourselves up to make the 10 AM breakfast closing hour.  No washie, no toothie brushie, just get dressed and go to the lodge.  They had imitation eggs so that’s what we ate, imitation eggs and toast.  Real toast, not imitation.  Not too bad.

It was now time to leave Big Bend.  We asked each other the usual question, “Is there anything else you’d like to do here?”  We answered, “No, maybe one last trip to the visitor center though.”  And so we did.  When we first come into BB we didn’t spend any time in the main visitor center.  I was greatly disappointed to find there was no movie about BB.  I usually like to sit through those old videos, it’s the only way I learn anything. 

They had an exhibit of dinosaur bones and the big bones of the pterodactyl were truly surprising.  We wondered how anything that big and heavy could ever fly.  They had a wingspan of 34 feet, bigger than a Piper Cub, a mechanical dino of the late thirties, for you young readers.  Their carpet was gray with a full scale bird in red.  A mock fossil wing spread across half the room too. 

Time to go.  We left passing out the west gate heading for Study Butte, Terlingua, and Presidio.  Study Butte was next to nothing, Terlinguia was a bunch of small dwellings and businesses scattered around the landscape, and Presidio was big in comparison.  It even had several restaurants, some of which were very by-passable.  El Patio had the necessary clean windows and many cars parked in front of it.  It was pretty nice, the Mexican food wasn’t up to Cancun’s standards, but better than the lodges Mex fare.  The drive to Presidio was almost as nice as driving in Big Bend.  Even better in places with views of canyons, the Rio Grande, and nice rock strewn slopes.  All in all, it was a very nice road.  Oh yes, I forgot Lajitas, a resort community a few miles from Terlingua.  It seemed to be mostly a budding resort area that wasn’t yet up to speed, or closed for the winter. 

Back on track, we are now at Marfa, the home of mysterious desert lights which I know nothing about.  The campground might be closed, no one answered the door, so we parked anyway.  There is one trailer that appears to be hooked up for the duration.  We will find out if we owe some fee when the knock comes at the door.  The town is pretty drab but there was a very nice new book store slash coffee shop combo where we had the world’s worst cuppa joe.  How will they pay the rent here in beautiful downtown Marfa. 

It is raining in this desert.  It had rained slightly last night at the camp in Big Bend and on our way here.  It is raining a little more now and the temperature is around 39 or 40.  We ain’t doing this exactly right.  At least there’s no snow, yet.   hb     

Tuesday, February 5, 2002

All last night I listened to the steady drip drip of rain on the fiberglass roof of the LER and the steady plop plop sound of something like water coming through a hole in the roof and falling into a half full two gallon bucket.  I did manage to catch a few winks every now and then.  Well, maybe it wasn’t all that bad.  I just wanted to embellish the story a little.  A later look for the lousy leak left me thinking that it is behind the sink or stove between the inner and outer walls of the LER.  Probably puddling up because some drain hole is plugged.  It will drain out when the LER rusts out.  Poor LER, getting old.  

When it was time to get our selves out of bed the rain had slackened to about seven drops per square foot per second.  Figure that one out you weather statisticians.  The deserted campground was truly muddy.  I felt the tires slipping as we pulled out of the site onto the gravel camp road. 

I was about to head for the next town for breakfast; but, Nan Lou suggested trying the café in the same building as the bookstore.  Indeed, it was open and served pretty good pancakes and ham for a reasonable price.  The coffee was marginally better than that of the neighboring coffee shop. 

Then it was time to head for points west.  It had started to rain with a little more verve and Nan Lou said something about the Goretex rain coats being saved behind the back seat.  They’ve been there for at least five years and maybe worn twice.  As we passed through the next few towns it became evident that eating breakfast in Marfa was a good thing.  Those towns were just a few sheets from being full fledged ghost towns.  Valentine and Kootchiecoo, or something.  Soon we reached Van Horn at I-10.  It had several big gas stations and the usual Texas assortment of run down buildings and more trucks than Truckee.  That’s in California.  I think that small Texas towns are more rundown, poorer, and generally less appealing than most small towns we’ve happened through.  So much for the Bush clan.  If you can’t make your home look good, how can you make our home look good?  What does that mean?  Think about it.

Nan Lou took over the driving since we were entering the interstate with all its trucks, road repairs, and get this, snow.  Well, it wasn’t much, but it was coming down in soggy white flakes in the 34 degree weather we had reached in our quest of following the balmy breezes of the great southwest. 

Soon we neared El Paso, the anus of the southwest, as I called it a few years ago on our trip home from points west.  The temperature had climbed to a comfortable 49 degrees and the sun, which we hadn’t seen in five days, found a few holes in the overcast.  Speaking of overcast, we have seen several cloud banks that stretched for miles and were only 243 feet above the ground. 

El Paso wasn’t nearly as bad as I had been expecting.  The traffic was moderately heavy on the eye-ten, ha ha, and the city looked semi civilized for a Texas city.  We had located a Cracker Barrel and a WalMart at exit 11 on the northwest side of the city and we headed right for them.  It was a little bit of heaven having chicken and dumplings again along with great tasting clear iced tea and mashed potatoes.  WalMart, one of the busiest ones I’ve seen, told us we could park for the night.  Since it was fairly early we went on an exploratory drive that took us into downtown El Paso along Mesa road.  Every area we went through looked pretty nice and the downtown area warrants a closer look tomorrow.  On our way back we took a side road up into the hill or mountain, or whatever the elevated area is called that runs parallel to the interstate on this side of town.  There were really nice apartments and great looking houses looking over the valley into Mexico and New Mexico.  The sun had set behind a row of distant buildings but we could see some nice orange highlights on the clouds off to the southwest from the parking lot of WalMart.  Tomorrow we might explore El Paso, get a shampoo, do civilized things, and plan our next move.  That’s it for now,   hb            

 
Wednesday, February 6, 2002

We moved out from WalMart about 10:30 and found one of the bagel places we had noticed last night.  It was sort of like Einstien’s only there was more Spanish spoken.  Two very well dressed women customers were slightly offset by the appearance of one bag lady complete with a shopping cart full of bags left outside. 

Them we drove all around El Paso, old parts of town, downtown, industrial areas, poor areas, average areas, and the areas way up on the hill overlooking downtown and Mexico where the houses cost $459,000.  It did have pools galore and over 4000 square feet though. 

After making our way back to the far east side we found a computer store where I hoped to find a cure for the computer’s floppy drive in the form of new disks.  Alas, the new disks didn’t help.  I guess the drive has gone bad.  I tried the restore disk with my fingers crossed hoping I wouldn’t lose everything on the darn machine.  It didn’t help, but then again, maybe I didn’t use it the best way.  What to do?  Buy an external floppy?  Just forget about backing things up on floppies?  I can back things up, but the floppies will only work in this computer and not in Lappy or in other machines.  If this one goes belly up, or vanishes, the floppies are useless.  I can’t fix it myself since I left the sixteen pound sledge at home.  Woe be me.

We are at another WalMart tonight, along with four or five other bigger motorhomes.  Maybe I’ll go back and rassle with this thing some more. 

After rasslin’ I decided to go back to Circuit City where I had stopped earlier and look at external drives.  We did that and I bought one for eighty bucks before the crippling Texas 8.25% sales tax.  It is now installed and I will start backing up stuff that I think might be corrupted by Giant’s floppy drive.  Ta Dummm.      hb    

 
Thursday, February 7, 2002

Ham woke up with a bad headache.  I said it was from lying on the mattress with all the map books under it    He didn’t acknowledge that this could be the reason.  Anyway, we headed back to the west side of town where the friendly Cracker Barrel waited.  Here we had a breakfast that would have done a football player proud.  It wasn’t too healthy for us however.

Ham took a trip to Pep Boys to get something for the LER.  He has a new project in mind.

We took the back roads to Las Cruces.  Here we saw very nice ranch homes.  By ranch, I mean real ranch style, not the Indiana equivalent.  But also, we saw evidence of real poverty.  Also, the graffiti, which had been minimal to nonexistent in Texas, came on in full artistic splendor.

Ham drove straight to the cute little town of  La Mesilla.  This is the place where I found my eagle necklace the last time we were here.  The day was a beautiful one.  Cool and sunny.  Really pleasant!  I was searching through the shops trying to find a small band ring to wear as a guard on my lily ring finger.  I kept worrying about losing it down the drain the last time I showered in the crummy motel.

We had a linner (late lunch/early dinner) at the Double Eagle which was AAA recommended.  It was a cute environment with lunch being served around a fountain with lots of climbing live plants giving the area a greenhouse feeling.

After being fortified, we went in one shop and found nice Kokopelli and lizard light switches for our Santa Fe slate kitchen.  Then, we found southwestern design placemats.  All in all, they will give the kitchen a nice touch, I think.  There were even cute ceramic drawer pulls; but, we didn’t want to get into that again.

We fiddled around in the little town so long we knew sunset was approaching.  It was time to seek out the Las Cruces Wal-Mart.  I don’t know how he did it, but Ham drove right to it.

I thought we would play our Scrabble game, but Ham wanted to get right to work on his project.  I shall now ask him what it was. The answer:  He was modifying his little auxiliary battery for the furnace.  By the time he was through it was 9:15 PM and I thought that was too late for a game.  Poor Ham just wanted to rest.  But, he does keep neating things up.  No rest for the …….as they say.

It’s time for a snack so I can take my pills, even though I’m stuffed from linner.  Then, it’s off to beddy bye.  The farther west we go, the more these Wal-Mart parking lot looks like campgrounds.  We’re beginning to wonder how long the stores will put up with this.

I hate for it to end.  Such nice free camping, with a store that has almost everything right across the lot.  Time to eat!……Again!   nl  

 
Friday, February 8, 2002

 We were awake in time to see the other “campers” leave, something we are usually to late to do.  Then we spent about an hour cruising WalMart looking for things we just had to have.  What did we do before Wally came to the world? 

Nan Lou fixed a cold LER breakfast and an hour later on our way out of town I had a Mickey attack so we stopped at a local Mickey’s for a snack.  I bought a paper and saw the Olympics were opening tonight.  Since Nan Lou and I both like the opening ceremonies we decided to hang out where we would get good reception.  A local RV resort wanted $25 for the night and no doubt our reception would be sucky.  The Best Western was $56 with cable TV and a shower. 

After we registered at the motel we went on a bookstore hunt.  We made it to two.   One was pretty close, it was small and didn’t have much to offer except a beat up copy  of ‘The Boys Of Summer’.  The other was downtown and a little harder to find.  It was huge and a veritable labyrinth with more books than we could buy.  I even found the pulled-from-the-shelves Amelia Earhart Lives book, I think.  We might have to return to the shelves tomorrow as well as to La Mesilla to get all the good things we by-passed.  

Such energy expended looking for books whetted our appetites and Nan Lou said, “Cracker Barrel.”  I said, “Where?”  She said, “Never fear, Navigatrix Nan is here.”  Well, guess what.  We had a nice round about tour of Las Cruces in search of the Barrel which was right next to the motel.  Two dumpy chickens later and we hit the TV just in time for the ceremonies, which are still going on.      

Nan Lou is doing our laundry in the bathroom sink during the commercials, I am doing this.  Which I will now end.   hb 
Saturday, February 9, 2002

 We slept in just about as late as we could; and, were really rushed when we finally checked and found out check out time was 11:00 AM.  It was only much later, that I found out Ham had had a pretty bad night….or morning.  It seems he tossed and turned from 4:00 AM on.  The heating/air conditioning unit was a noisy one.  It did work well, along with the dry desert air,  drying my load of laundry, however.

 Anyway, Ham jumped in the shower; and, then when I was showering he started loading the van, and we actually checked out by 11:00.

 We went back over to Cracker Barrel for breakfast.  I over sugared on French Toast.  Ham had his egg whites which would be OK except he also chows down on biscuits and gravy - not so good for the old diet.

 Since we were right on the Avenida de La Mesilla, it seemed the thing to do to go back and see the little turquoise fox we had seen before.  It seemed to be calling “Ha—am—ie, come and get me!”  Were we surprised to find the town was only about two miles down the road from the motel.

Well, how could Ham not buy the little blue dude when he found out that he had read the price tag wrong and it was only twenty four dollars and not the forty two he thought it was.  We admired the Navajo rugs on the way out and the nice lady gave us quite a lesson on what to look for if we ever got around to buying.  We were both surprised at the fact that we there was so much to learn.  For example, if you fold the rug in half, it should be square, also, holding it up to the light, there should be no pin holes of light shining through.  The edges should be straight and not wavy.  And, finally, the edges should be tightly woven.  When you pull on the yarn, you should not be able to separate the yarn along the edge.  I include these things we learned because some day we might want to seriously look into buying a rug and by then we might have forgotten all we learned.

At last we headed out of town on I 10 toward Demming.  It was only after going a few miles that I learned Hammie felt really lousy.  His back hurt and he was pale and he felt really wiped out.  I finally got the steering wheel away from him.  When we got into town, he thought spaghetti at Pizza Hut sounded good, so that’s where we went.  He had said the one nitro tablet he took didn’t help at all.  However, he did feel a bit better after he ate.

Ham, having again taken over the driving, knew exactly how find the Rock Hound State Park.  There is a new visitor’s center which should be interesting to check out tomorrow.

The fee is $14 for an electrical site which we wanted since we had no lights this morning because we forgot to turn off the furnace last night and, for the first time, it ran all night long.  Of course, this completely depleted the battery.  Finding a nice site and paying our fee, Ham again, like a homing pigeon, drove directly to the house at the base of the Floridas that I wanted to buy when we were here before.  The people who bought it have put up a high chain link fence and have landscaped the yard with natural desert plantings.  The place looked nice.  That’s good----it deserves to look nice.

Back to the campground and Ham is watching Olympic free style skiing, with pretty good reception, on the telly.  I am writing this; and I don’t know what I’m gonna do next.   nl 

 
Sunday, February 10, 2002

After  Hammie felt puny yesterday and going going going, sort of, it felt really good to sleep in this morning.  Finally we decided to move.  At first I said I was going to cook breakfast.  But by the time we got up, the lazy thing to do was to go into Demming and eat at Denny’s.  I was determined we were both going to eat healthy today.  It was really late by the time the leisurely breakfast was finished.

We went to the Mimbres Museum in town.  We had missed it before since we are usually not too interested in county museums.  We kept hearing what a good museum it was.  I really don’t remember who we heard this from.  It was in a large building and I thought it would be in a room or two.  How wrong I was.  The museum took up the whole building.

They had quite a collection of Mimbres artifacts along with costumes of different periods, room settings, stuffed heads, collections of odds and ends such as bells and dolls.  You name it, really.  The slow trek through the building wore my back out, but Ham seemed to be doing better than yesterday.

We then drove 20 miles back to Akela which is nothing more than a tourist trap really to see if they still had the moose hide moccasins in Ham’s size.  It was disappointing to find the size 11’s were a bit to short feeling and the size 12’s were too wide.  We’ll keep looking.

We went into town to replenish our milk then made it back to the campground just as the sun was near to setting.  The sign said they lock the gates at sundown; and, the forms you fill out say there are positively no refunds.  So I guess its a good thing to get in or you’ve just wasted 14 bucks.

We played our Scrabble game which we haven’t done for, what seems like, many days.  Then Ham turned on the Olympics and we had a snack.  I thought we would just have cereal which is fat free, but then Ham found the left over pizza in the fridge so we each had a piece of that.  Along with Fritos, we weren’t so fat free after all.  We are going to do better tomorrow.

Ham is resting in the back watching the down hill skiing while I write this.  I like to watch part of it, but not to just stay glued.  I think I’m going to look through the new books we bought in Las Cruces and choose one to read and keep one eye on the Olympic excitement.  I hope I find a good read because the last couple of books have just been

so-so.  Nighty night.  nl 

 
Monday, February 11, 2002

We stopped in the well designed visitor’s center and were surprised it was so well done for a state park.  Then, we took the drive up to Spring Canyon State Park.  Most of this was closed off the last time we were here.  The park has winding roads with the mountains all around.  Over all it was very rugged.  There were picnic areas which Ham said would have been great had they been camping sites.  I will bet that some day there will be camping up there.

 We went to Denny’s for a healthy brunch.  Ham had a Boca burger.  Then we went off to the Dodge dealer.  Soon they will all know us.  They agreed with everyone else that the light came on when a certain mileage was reached and didn’t mean anything was wrong.

I had read about the City of Rocks State Parks so since it was so close, we decided to check it out.  The desert had very little vegetation and the landscape was completely flat with low hills on the horizon.  Following the side road into the park, we came over a very small hill and there were all these rock formations.  They were from an ancient volcano eruption and were a variety of upright shapes.  We were reminded, somewhat, of Joshua Tree.  We both concurred we did like Joshua Tree somewhat better, but these were very, very nice.

Ham decided that camping among the rocks would be a fun thing to do.  These were the primitive sites.  We took a couple of rounds through the park to pick out the perfect site; then, stopped in this visitor’s center where a cute, very nice ranger gave us a little information about rattlesnakes and relocating them.

After getting back to our site, we took a walk up and through some of the closest rocks.  By then it was time to take a wee afternoon nap.  We both went to sleep; and, slept until stars came out.

Dinner was fat free cheese on crackers, the really good navel oranges, and Fritos.  Ham started to watch the medal competition of the pairs skating.  It’s kind of difficult writing the log, when the little couples are skating their hearts out.  The two leading pairs will probably not be on until very late tonight.  I don’t know what we will do next.

Watch the downhill skiing?  Play a game?  Go to bed?  Who knows?  I know I am through with this report.   nl  

 
Tuesday, February 12, 2002

I think the Giant is going bad.  Now there is a horizontal line across the screen about an inch from the top.  It isn’t noticeable when you’re in a document, but it is there on the desktop and anything else from the minute you fire it up. 

We awoke to a little warmth in the LER this morning.  There was no need to turn the furnace on.  All the rocks were still in place too.  Hoping to find a bagel and coffee place in Silver City we headed right out.  After a wrong turn or two we found the old downtown section which did have the Silver City version of Einstien’s.  It was much cuter but the bagels and cream cheese were just average.  The coffee was quite good. 

Silver City seemed to have more than its share of bearded homeless types around the downtown area.  Maybe they had homes and just were unkempt and dirty and liked hanging out on street corners. 

A couple of bookstores weren’t very productive for us and Nan Lou took over driving and headed for Lordsville, New Mexico, on our way to Arizona.  The drive was beautiful with the surrounding mountains and the nearby hills covered with mesquite, or juniper, or whatever the small roundish trees are.  We think they were some brand of juniper.

After looking in Lordsville for an eatery, there wasn’t any we liked, went west on the I-10 for a few miles until we got to route 80 and headed south by southwest into Arizona.  Again there were mountain ranges surrounding us, but this time they were without the green vegetation of New Mexico.  As usual, a restaurant was hard to find, except for a very small café in a very small place called Rodeo that only served a few things when they had them.  They didn’t have them when we stopped which was okay since methinks their fare wouldn’t be too swift. 

On we went into Douglas, Arizona, on the Mexican border.  I know they had a restaurant or two because it was a sizable town, but we decided to head for Bisbee about twenty miles away.  We drove through the narrow streets of this old mining town for a block or two and stopped near the big old hotel where we had eaten breakfast a year or so before.  The restaurant wasn’t going to open for another forty minutes but the bar was still serving.  We ate poorly, fat, grease, and all things bad, but it tasted pretty good. 

The campgrounds in Bisbee are small and cramped.  I remembered a place out in the valley we had passed about ten miles back and we headed back to it for the night.  It is small, not crowded, run down, has all the hookups, and costs eleven bucks.  The guy at the office trailer talked my arm and leg off in a nice way and we finally got to a campsite just a few minutes before dark.

The kaysadeeah I had for dinner is repeating something awful and I think it will be a tum tum night.    hb      

 
Wednesday, February 13, 2002

First of all, let me say that my bagel yesterday was burnt to carbon.  I would have been ashamed to hand it out, if I had been the cook.  Second of all, let me say that the quesadillas, that Ham poorly, but phonetically spelled, about did me in last night.  I burped; I ate Tums; I suffered: I couldn’t sleep.  I think they slipped some poisonous ingredient into mine.  However, Hammie did have some mild distress himself.

Now that all of that is out of the way, I shall surge on.  Actually the little campground was rather nice with all kinds of hook ups and everything.  I saw the big dipper over head.  It is unusual to see stars going clear down to the horizon.  Of course the horizon is higher here since there are usually hills on it. 

I asked Ham if he would be satisfied with cereal for breakfast.  I just couldn’t face anything this morning after being awake until 3:00 AM or so.  We enjoyed watching the cows in the next field as we ate.  They were huge with very long horns, but I don’t think they were longhorns.  There was also a monster sized Brahma bull in with the bunch.

After breakfast, we did our February 13 celebration.  It was very nice doing this in the van looking at the hills and the desert vegetation and the cows.  Ham got a pair of slacks which we don’t know if they fit or not, a southwestern design tie which he declared he will probably never wear, and some new undies, which he probably will wear.  I got a fine hot water bottle for my cold feet, a wallet on a chain that looked strong enough to hold back the already described cows, and a white jade bangle bracelet.  All it all, it was fun.  I hope Ham gets around to trying on his pants so we can take them back to Wal-Mart if they don’t fit or look right.

After breakfast we went back into Bisbee.  It is a great artsy fartsy town with galleries, antique shops, gift shops, etc. galore.  We stopped at the coffee shop after deciding to pay the $2 fee to park rather than be bound by a two hour limit imposed on street parking.

The first thing we did was stop for a good cup of coffee.  My tummy, having settled, told me a muffin would go well with the coffee; so, Ham and I split one.

This town is completely vertical with houses perched on the hills almost like Taxco.  So the main shopping street is a long sloping hill..  Off we went with Ham saying he was going all the way up.  I thought with his back we would just go a little way.  But going in almost every one on both sides of the street, we managed to do the whole street.  Ham found a cute little fox fetish for $24; and, by then, I think we were both starved.  What to do?  Go in the little Mexican café, or choose to eat healthy.  Healthy won out.  We had a vegetarian sandwich that was two and a half inches thick.  It was really good!  It had cabbage on it along with shredded carrots, avocados, cheese, spinach, white cheese, and sprouts.  Ham didn’t care for the thinly coated mayonnaise on one slice, and honey mustard on the other, but I thought it was good.

About four we said good bye to Bisbee, and headed for Sierra Vista about 20 miles away.  I drove and had to circle the town to find Wal-Mart.  My navigator was gawking or napping.  Anyway, we were turned down!  Can you believe it?  That has happened only one other time and that is because the RV Park owners got together and passed an ordinance prohibiting over night parking.  I wondered if this was the case.  However, K Mart gave us permission and there is one other vehicle, a class C, here.  After eating almost healthy, Ham was having meat withdrawal and we went over to McD’s and he indulged in a small hamburger with fries.  I satisfied myself with a small cone and a fry or two.

Ham is happy to find he can watch the Olympics tonight..  Last night, we had no reception.  We read an article at McDonalds about a sex pervert being loose in the city so I hope we are safe here.  One thing for sure,  K Mart is not to generous with their outside lights.  When we pulled in after eating, this area doesn’t even have one light on.

I hope I sleep better than last night.  Actually, I’m rather proud of myself.  I think I held up pretty well.  Of course, I must admit we did sleep late this morning.

Happy 13th, Hammie; and thank you!  It’s been a very good day, I think.  I hope you think so too.  Things are so much better than four years ago.    nl 

 
Thursday, February 14, 2002

Well, we hit Denny’s for breakfast and had a giant oatmeal breakfast.  I even brought a bagel and raisins back for a starvation snack.

It was off to Nogales and then up again toward Tucson stopping at Tubac the little contrived artsy town we stopped at before..  The drive was very pretty.  Much more vegetation than we have been seeing and the rolling hills and mountains in the background made the out of the way drive well worth it.

When we came to a town called Patagonia, Ham started yelping about a Coke so I turned around so he could peruse the town and decide where he wanted to go.  We passed an outdoor Mexican place so I went around the block and we parked our bodies at one of the outside tables.  It was perfect weather for eating out.  We were under awning, so we didn’t have to worry about sun stroke, or sun in the eyes, or sun whatever.  There was a lovely little breeze.  I had one tostada and Ham had two tacos.  We had eaten that huge breakfast not too  long ago and neither of us was really hungry.  Wouldn’t you know it? Both our meal items were huge. 

I thought there was a little art gallery down the street but it turned out to be an art school of the community type.  A couple of ladies were walking out and just ahead of us as we walked back to the LER.  One went in to a Monessori school obviously wanting to get away from her companion.  She turned around to us and said, in all seriousness, “Have you ever been visited by aliens?”  When we answered negatively, she said, .””Well, I have.”  In fact, she said she had been abducted by aliens.   From that point on, she continued with a diatribe about how they gave her an object which did wonderful things for her.  Also, she said she could predict tragic outcomes for people who were nasty to her.  I am not sure whether she was predicting, or if she would just say something bad would happen, and her alien friends would make it happen.  Now, we are always talking about geezers, geezerettes, and just plain characters.  One of her stories happened when she was 4 ½ and in a bar with her father.  Some guy set his hand on a chair or a stool and told her to sit on his up-raised thumb.  Well, her powers caused his thumb to be cut off in an auto accident a short time later.  Another involved a guy she had sex with who said he was sterile, needless to say, she got preggers.  Later he somehow lost his pecker, her term, not mine.  She also offered to be of service in case Ham wronged Nan.  Wow!!!

This dear lady didn’t have a tooth in her head, was fairly young (late 50’s-early 60’s) and had a single graying braid that reached down her back to her waist.  Ham wondered if she was just putting the turistas on.  I think she was gabby, but quite serious.  What fun!  A real, true character of the old West!

On our drive around before eating Ham spotted a little adobe house for sale that was made of the mud stuff and had a rusty metal roof.  More driving around to find the phone number of the realtor.   I about fainted, or had a cow, or somethin’, when Ham wrote a note saying they wanted $128,000 for the place.  No information came forth about the condition of the place because it had been too long since the realtor had been in it.  A tiny 850 square feet place on the main drag was priced at $110,000.  Even with the pleasant lunch, we were inspired to zoom out of town post haste.

We didn’t quite make it to Nogales.  Our stop for lunch cost too much time and we saw a state park between Patagonia and Nogales.  The drive to Patagonia Lake State Park was again very pretty.  Again, the houses were just short of mansions just as they were on the way in to town.  The side road leading to the park was curvy and quite beautiful.  I was surprised that such an out of the way park had so many RVs already in place.  In fact the hook up sites were all filled.

We found a nice little place between some low trees for a bit of shade.  I had to turn the backing in process over to Ham.  We took a bit of a walk and went up a hugely arced foot bridge.  We opted to go just to the top and no further because that would mean more climbing uphill.

Ham played with the water tank and I started to write this.  He seems to be working on the Mom and Dad book answers that Nan Lou requested us to do.  I think I will wash underwear.  Whee!  Doesn’t that sound like fun?  Nl

 
Friday, January 15, 2002

Hammie woke up with a headache and we lounged around in bed for quite a while.  Our propane has run out so I couldn’t make a delicious breakfast using the great coffee press----or make toast for that matter.

We finally pulled out and admired the beautiful scenery on the way into Nogales.  Ham said they didn’t have storms.  Get it?  No Gales?  Oh well!

The scenery was gorgeous.  Rolling grass covered hills with rugged mountains in the middle ground.  After our last trip to Nogales, who would have believed it could be pretty?  Remember, the bad Chinese lunch and the deliberate shopping cart dent in the LER?  Well, that was down in the city near the border.  The houses on the park road and then on the main road leading to town were the kind that cost six or seven figures.  Wow!  People in the southwest sure do have the moola. 

We by passed Nogales; and, yes, we still haven’t had breakfast.  By now it is after twelve noon.  Well, the by pass was because we couldn’t find a decent place.  That is par for Nogales.

We went all the way to Tubac and finally found a place serving food.  I made yet another mistake by saying we would eat inside when Ham wanted to eat out.  Why didn’t he speak up, I wonder?  Mistakes? My best is yet to come!

We wandered around the shops and galleries for a very long time.  Ham told me his back wasn’t bothering him, but I wonder.  I bought a $10 bear fetish for Joy.  Ham wondered why and maybe I do too.  We couldn’t find one to talk to us.  There was a sleeping fawn carved in relief out of antler.  I wondered if Nannie would like it for her birthday but we moved on.  We’re going to have to get on the ball about that.

Ham said he was OK to drive.  The traffic on the interstate was pretty heavy.  Then, we went around the south side of the town, passing the airport, the airport museum, and even an airport junk yard.  My navigating was supposed to take us to the Saguaro National Park, Monument, or whatever.  Now, here’s my Big Mistake of the day.  Ham doubted a time or two if there was camping there, but I kept insisting there was.  When we arrived, the visitor’s center was closed; and, sure enough, the only camping was to hike in back country camping.  Shame, Nan Lou, shame!

Off we went to find the closest Wal-Mart.  By this time, I know Ham is really tired.  Then, the WalMart dufous tells us it is a city ordinance and overnight parking is prohibited in all business lots in the city.  Ham drove right back to Osco where we parked two years ago.  The manager was very gracious and said we would not be hassled by the police and we were welcome to spend the night.  Fie on the local Wal-Mart!

We had a reasonably healthy LER supper and learned that the poor Canadian Pair was also given a gold medal to share with the Russians.  I guess it is, Hooray for Norte Americano.

I think it is time to turn in.  I am wondering if we will toss the red bag tonight.  It seems very warm tonight.  The last several days have been beautiful, but it gets downright cold at night.  We will just have to see.   nl  

 

Saturday, January 16, 2002veggies over rice and Ham had Teriyaki chicken over rice.  Would they had such an eatery in Indy!

Then, we drove to Colossal Cave Park.  We don’t know if it is a county or a state park or what kind it is.  The entrance fee which includes primitive camping was three bucks.

As we drove back to the camping areas we were impressed with the sheer numbers of saguaros on the hillsides.  There seemed to be many more, actually, than in the national park.  The road was narrow and we had to traverse two rather steep washes (draws, arroyos, you name them).  We turned around in a stream bed and came back to what seemed like the only site left on the road.

Ham immediately wanted to take a walk.  So we walked a bit into the desert to see the cacti up close and personal.  I tried to be aware of spines and thorns because everything seems to be prickly.  Then we walked down the road to where we turned around.  

After such an exertion, it seemed like the time for a rest.  Having healthy discussions, and reading the local newspaper kept us prone for quite a while.  But it was so-oo nice having a plain old lazy afternoon.

We are really needing milk, ice, and such, although Ham did fix us up with two gallons of water today.  Somehow Ham managed to fix an edible supper.  He is now perusing maps.  To find out where we are going?  To find out where we have been?  To find out where we are?  Probably all of the above.  I think it will be a pleasant temperature tonight.  I am just not sure I am ready to give up the red bag yet.  It do seem to get cold in the desert at night.  Don’t it?  I know it’s bad grammar.  I’m talking like Archy.  nl 

 

Sunday, February 17, 2002

After much study last night I had our day all planned.  We awoke about eight and lay around in bed for about an hour before getting up for our morning toilet.  It was a very nice day with a cool breeze, a few small clouds, and we were off for breakfast.  I thought we would bagel it at Mickey’s but as we neared the closest Mick Palace our time ran out and we headed for Denny’s.  So far my plans were going according to schedule.  Denny’s had the dirtiest carpeting I’ve ever seen, not part of the plan, by the way.  There was a bit of a wait, we stuck it out since this Tucson area seems to be overrun with people and we figured it was our only chance for breakfast.  Nathan the waiter was very accomplished working the whole section himself.  He even sent Nan Lou’s bacon back for a second burning when the cook set it on the serving shelf. 

From Denny’s we had a short trip to the Park Place mall where we were going to see the movie Evans gaffed.  ‘In The Bedroom’ has even been nominated for several Academy Awards.  It is in some kind of limited release and this is the first chance we’ve had to see it. 

The theater is actually in the mall like ones at home used to be., except the mall is bigger than any at home.  I expected to find a small kinda of old fashioned theater there even though there were twenty screens.  Not so though.  We walked a very long distance through the mall, a big surprise to both of us, and came upon a very long line at a very big box office.  It went surprisingly fast since there were at least seven ticket sellers.  From there we went up a very high escalator to the second floor where the snacks were sold in another very big area.  It was semi self service and you went to a separate cashier line to pay.  It too went surprisingly fast.  Something for the Indy people to think about for their next big movieplex.  They collected our tickets up there as we headed down the proper aisle for our movie.  There were three rows of flat seats and the rest were stadium.  Another surprise, it filled up to almost capacity.

I don’t think I’ll review the movie except to say it was worth the time and money to see Evans Brown as the Gaffer.  I will say it was slow, a bit of a downer, but with a happy ending if you like vigilante justice.

We weren’t hungry enough to eat at the Sweet Tomatoes restaurant which we loved in Florida.  We also had a fairly long drive to our planned night at the Gilbert Ray campground at Tucson Mountain park way on the other side of Tucson.  It also ended up being on the other side of a very nice mountain range which had a lot of saguaros on each side of the steep, curvy road.  Luckily we were able to get a nice site, especially since they had their no vacancy sign out. 

It is a little cool here, we have no propane for cooking or heat.  The rules say that we can’t use the generator.  We are truly roughing it.  Just like last night.  We are so adventurous anymore, no WalMarts for days and days.   hb           

 

Monday, February 18, 2002

It wasn’t too cold last night even though the telly predicted a 20 degree drop by today.  It rained a little and wetted the road a bit, mostly on the way to the restaurant where we had a mediocre breakfast.  I finally put about six or seven gallons of water in our tank hoping all the anti-freeze and chlorine have been flushed out.

Then we went to the Saguaro NP west which is smaller than the east one we visited before.  But, it is nicer, at least as far as cactus viewing is concerned.  Also the visitors center is nicer and they had a pretty good slide show with a really neat ending as the screen rolled up to allow a view of the real desert.  About the only thing that might be better about the east place is the paved road, west is gravel, which is a bit more scenic and ‘mountainous’, but not as full of saguaros. 

Since we used up most of the day doing this we re-upped for another night and went in search of a place to eat.  Not wanting to spend all our money in the same place we went to Tiny’s Saloon, recommended by the campground person last night.  The breakfast place was better, but I’ll bet the people in Tiny’s were more interesting.  The room length bar was full when we walked in, and still full when we left.

Back in camp we talked about my health and back pains and what we were going to do next.  The last thing decided was to head for home.  Maybe this decision will change by morning.  Maybe not.  How does the song go?  “Nooboody  knows the dejection I feel, nooboody knows the sorrow”.  Well, something like that.    hb    

 

Tuesday, February 19, 2002

 Ham had a Nannoo the Massoo Massage last night.  When I finished he said his back felt better.  Perhaps he lied.  We’ll see.  This morning he complained mightily about the pain being mostly gone but that he hurt because I bruised him.  The back…not his ego!  Anyway, we went back to the same place for breakfast.  First we went to the Post Office to mail off the pop up book that we bought for the boys.  Now back to the breakfast.  Mine was simply awful.  ‘Nuff said!  The meal discussion and Ham had changed his mind about heading home.  He declared we were going on to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.  What a name to type!  Could it be that the message actually made him feel better?

I felt it was imperative that I drive to give His Nibs’ back a rest.  It was a super easy road to drive even though it was somewhat wavy and made the van go from side to side.  State Road 86, it was.  It just went in a nice straight direction.  We came to an observatory at Kitt’s Peak, I believe it was called, and had quite a discussion about whether to go, or not.  It was perched up on the side of a rocky hill or mountain; and, the road up there was 12 miles long.  We figured with all the switchbacks, etc. it would take a minimum of forty five minutes up and down, and probably an hour there.  It was a lot of time, anyway.  I insisted Ham make the decision, since I didn’t care one way or the other.  He decided we should go on.  I am much, much better than I used to be about mountainous roads, but this looked particularly scary.  I am brave though.

Pressing onward, we truly enjoyed the very rugged, rocky peaks and the Saguaros along the way.  They looked, on the whole, much healthier than the ones in the East park.  Many of them were taller too.  It truly was a very pretty drive; and, interesting too, since every few miles had a change in desert landscape and then we would do it all over again in a few miles.  We entered the Tohono O’othum reservation and passed a school or two and the usual ill kept Indian houses.  The towns on the map were pretty non existent.  Just before it was time to turn on to the road leading to the Monument with a very long name, there was a filling station, convenience store, and casino.  Ham lost a little, and won some, ending up only a few cents in the hole.  I tried later and lost two quarters and I said, “That’s it.” 

It was a pretty long way down to the park entrance and campground.  This drive was also OK, although Ham was beginning to think the Organ Pipe thingies were a myth.  At last we saw One at the entrance to the park.  Neither of us was impressed.  We got to the campground just before the man in the booth was going to close up so he told us to pay tomorrow morning.  Our site is all right because Ham is the expert at jockeying the van around to get it level.  It is good in one respect.  That is, we have an unobstructed view of the distant mountains, the lights of the small town, and the desert in the foreground.

I was pooped from the driving.  Ham was tired too.  So he got another back rub; and, we both conked out and took a nap.  Feeling refreshed and, I hope, pain free, he cooked a lovely meal of beanie weinie with chicken being the weinie.  He is now reading the paper.  I don’t know what I am going to do next.

The loop drives in this park are very long.  One is over 50 miles and the other one is 21 miles.  Will we see more desert than we already have by taking one of them?  Only the coyote knows!  nl 

 
Wednesday, February 20, 2002

That is a lot of twos.  Back to the log.  Ham had a pretty rough night waking up with an aching left arm.  He didn’t wake me up to tell me.  So, he slept in rather late.  Then, we had a simple LER breakfast.  Although, coffee in the press is never really simple.  I used eight teaspoons full this time and it was a bit more drinkable.

Then we took in the visitors center and found out that a National Monument was signed into being by the president; and, it takes an act of congress to make a National Park.  One question answered.  I also found out that the nearest hospital was in a town called Casa Grande back toward Tucson on I -8.

Ham said we were going on to Yuma; so we piddled around the park for a while.  We went down to Lukeville which seemed to be nothing more than a port of entry.  Perhaps there was a mobile home neighborhood somewhere, but it wasn’t too be seen.

Then, we finally found the shorter of the two drives.  We were tired of the washboard road before we even got to the fee station.  Ham drove on a bit farther to the point the one way part of the loop began and we turned around and went back.  So that was that as far as Organ Pipe was concerned.  We said bye bye to the organ pipe cacti on the way out of the park.  Actually, compared to the Saguaros we were never too impressed with the Pipes.

I drove on to a very attractive town called Ajo.  The plaza had green grass, many kinds of palm trees, and cacti.  The nearest I can describe the three sided building of the plaza is that it reminded me of the plaza in Santa Fe.  We had linner on the square.  We were the only diners for a while.  The Mex meal was fairly good with a slightly different taste.

Ham decided to go to the hospital.  As I drove northward, he tried to figure out whether it was better to go on up to Phoenix, or go to the recommended Casa Grande.  The latter won out.  I was driving and I was afraid darkness would overtake us, so I really booked along at the speed limit of 75 mph most of the time.  I only had about 15 or 20 minutes of driving in the full dark.  We found the hospital with little effort.

I don’t know about Ham, but I couldn’t believe how crowded the waiting room in the emergency room was.  We decided to either come back late tonight or to set the alarm and go in around 5:00 AM as was recommended by the person manning the desk.

Ham wanted something to drink so we went to McDonald’s.  We had a conversation with the snack.  Hmmn!

Back at the hospital campground, the helicopter pilot was fooling around.  I thought he would take off, but he just fiddled around and went away.

Ham is watching the Olympics and I don’t know how I am going to get him away from the TV to rub his back a little.  I am very itchy.  The head is fairly clean, but methinks it may be time for a shower.  Maybe I can wait until Sunday and we can watch the Closing  Ceremony from the comfort of a king sized bed.    nl  

 
Thursday, February 21, 2002

We awoke and were in the hospital by 7 AM.  I was checked in and wired up pretty quickly and the resident doc came around and told us how the 150,000 snow birds stretched the local hospitals past their limits.  He also said I had to wait until the cardiologist came in.  Sometime, much after lunch which we didn’t have, he came around and said he needed stuff from Methodist at home.  Well, it never arrived and by late afternoon I made the decision that we had to get outta there.  Besides, their floor was almost as dirty as the Denny’s floor in Tucson.  The bathroom wasn’t too swift either.  Oh for good old mid west standards, at least those in Indy.   They were all prepared to ship me off to some other hospital for all the angio goodies they didn’t do at Casa Grande.  If I had to be cut and poked I wanted to do it at home.  Since I had been tooling around down here with my mild symptoms for a good while I figured I’d make it home.   Poor Nan Lou didn’t leave my side all day, not even to pee.  Against their advice I signed myself out and we went to Denny’s for much needed sustenance.  Then it was off to Osco for a passel of drugs to see me home. 

Now we are back in the hospital’s parking lot for one more night.  The Olympics are on and I think I will hit the sack now.  hb 

 
Friday, February 22, 2002

The alarm went off at 8 AM and we made haste to Denny’s just across the street from the hospital.  I slept a bit fitfully but the night was uneventful giving me hope that I might be ready for Death Valley.  Nan Lou said, “No way”!  So we went to Sedona instead.  Stopping at the Gila Indian superstore just south of Phoenix.  They had a small display about Ira Hamilton Hays, or Hayes, who was one of the marines in the famous flag raising photo on Iwo Jima in WW 2.  Interesting middle name, we must be related some way.  He died at 32, from exposure when he passed out drunk after a poker game.

There was also a display of the Japanese internment camp that was on the reservation back in 1942 when we rounded up all the people of Japanese descent who lived on the west coast.  When big brother wants to do something, he can do it no matter what constitutional guarantees we have.  Wait until they get a hard on about old men with beautiful silver hair.    hb

Well, I do have to say that the beautiful silver hair is enhanced by a rinse-left-in-the-hair by the one giving us a shampoo outside of Saguaro National Park East.  Well, I admit it is very nice and women ooh and aah over it, but metallic silver, usually, it ain’t.

Wouldn’t you know?  Dr. Parr’s office returned my call just as we were going through the heaviest part of Phoenix traffic.  As usual, the nurse said she would pass the information on to the Dr. and get back to us.  At least I could hear her; even with all the semis and other heavy traffic.

I was surprised that Ham wanted to go to Sedona which is somewhat off the beaten path.

I always forget how beautiful those huge red rocks are.  No picture can really do justice to it.  When they really came into view my eyes started leaking again.  I had trouble with that during breakfast.  We have come so far since our first visit in 1997. 

Ham actually found the little restaurant called Olive Oyl’s.  It was still there and it still had the spaghetti we loved with olive oil, artichoke hearts, chunky tomatoes, garlic, and spinach.  Yum yum!  The servings were so big we have enough for another meal.  It really tasted good to both of us.

We stopped at an Indian Jewelry place in town and saw a cute Indian blanket back pack which both of us thought Nan Lou might like for her birthday.  Then I had the brilliant idea that she might like a black velvet broomstick skirt for orchestra concerts.  Of course, all of them were in about a size 2.

On the way out of town, we stopped at Garland’s in Oak Creek Canyon.  They carry the most beautiful handcrafted jewelry I have ever seen.  Of course, the prices are out of this world too.  They had no fetishes that talked, barked, squealed, or yipped at us.

Ham drove the canyon to Flagstaff and we saw patches of snow on the ground.  The temperature has been moderate all day.  Finding the hospital from the directions on the stupid DeLorme computer program was a bust.  After going way out of town on one road, we had to come back in and go on another road (in the same direction, I think).

Well, anyway, we finally found the place after calling for directions.  Ham went in to ask permission to park.  Here we are in their very slopey parking lot.  We are hoping the security guys don’t roust us out at three in the morning.

Yesterday, we both finished our McBain books while waiting all those hours in the hospital.  I seldom read a whole book in one day.  Ham seldom finishes a half a book in a day.  So, anyway, it will be new reading for us tonight.   nl 

 
Saturday, February 23, 2002

Ham said he slept better than the last two nights.  We woke up before the alarm went off.  We hit Mickey’s for a bagel then headed eastward on I-40.

When we were almost to Gallup, we took a north bound road to go to the Hubbell trading post.  It is a National Landmark and is supposed to be the longest active Indian trading post in the country.  Ham found another fetish book and also a book about the Navajo soldiers who developed an unbreakable code in WWII.  If he gets it read he will be an expert by the time the movie comes out in June (which I think will just be a war movie with lots of bang-bang). 

Then it was back to I-40 and east. We drove and drove and drove.  Ham insisting it was Albuquerque or bust.  The trucks were a pain.  Almost, if not as many, as I 70.  I was driving.  I hated it.

By the time I got to Albuquerque, I was pretty grouchy and numb.  My hand kept cramping up.  There was a beautiful sunset which was hard to appreciate because with all the trucks, it seemed imperative to keep my eyes on the road.  When the city came into sight it sparkled nicely in the valley but as I got closer, I couldn’t even see the exits.  Finally, with help, I got off the highway and turned the driving over to Ham, who isn’t supposed to be driving at all.  He found the hospital (Presbyterian Hospital) with little trouble at all.  We found a place to park and fixed the van for the night rather quickly.  It is 7:30 and I don’t know if I’ll be hungry after relaxing a while or not.

Pretty sunset, pretty scenery, yucky day!   nl 

Ham says.  I-40 across Arizona and New Mexico is one of the prettiest interstates we’ve ever been on.  That is if you can overlook the trucks.  As we sped along west of Petrified Forest NP we went past some private exhibit that stretched for miles.  It had big dinosaurs and a name to match.  But the most interesting thing was the amount of petrified logs  scattered along the road.  Big long ones, naturally they were broken into two foot long sections as they all seem to be, but laying out for thirty feet or so.  Much more than you can see driving through the National Park.  Saguaro NP all over again.  I expected to find all kinds of good things at Hubbell, not so.  And most of the prices were much higher than the regular shops we’ve seen, especially the Navaho rugs. 

The sunset was really nice, as far as a rear view mirror sunset is concerned.  There was even a bright pink reflection to the north.  Albekerrkey seemed to be as bad as good old route 19 in Florida.  Maybe the dark and degree of tiredness had something to do with that.    Anyway Nan Lou, I love you with all my heart.  Thank you for taking care of me.  hb  

 
Sunday, February 24, 2002 

We went back five miles for a Cracker Barrel breakfast and then drove to Amarillo, Texas and ate at a Logan’s.

In between we left the 40 and took route 66 through Tucumcari, New Mexico and officially declared it a WOT (Waste Of Time).

We saw the Olympic closing ceremony from a Best Western.  hb   

 
Monday, February 25, 2002

We ate breakfast at the motel.  Oatmeal and toast for $2.  It was about as mediocre as the price.  The oats were OK but I keep telling them to hold the grease they use for butter on the toast.

Today, the wind ruled.  The farther we went the colder and windier it got.  Finally we stopped at Clinton, Oklahoma to go through the Route 66 Museum.  It was fairly interesting.  We were hooked up to a tape player with ear phones as we strolled through the nostalgic displays.  Nostalgia is the word.  They really do make a lot of fuss about that old road.  Some of the history and pictures of the dust storms of the thirties were interesting.  We have seen Dorothea Lange’s photographs, but these pictures showed the billowing clouds of dust that turned day into night.  At the end of the tour, there was a movie showing the road as it was in the early stages and the decaying motels and businesses along it when it was finally by passed by interstate roads.

Ham continued to drive and the wind was blowing the van all over the place.  He finally admitted his back pain has returned.  I know from yesterday and this morning that it takes some strength to hold the LER on the road.  It is one skittish vehicle!  It didn’t seem to bother Ham but I hate it when the semis pass us or we pass them as we are skittering from side to side.  Maybe it did bother Ham but he refused to admit it.

We took a brief stop at a so called Cherokee Trading Post which ended up being one more glitzy tourist trap.  Of course, I knew that when I went in.  Perhaps it goes back to my childhood, but I just love those places.

Finally, arriving on the west side of Oklahoma City, we found the Wal-Mart Super Center with no trouble at all.  We went in to get anti-freeze for the water system and masking tape to tape up the stove vent.  Cold air just poured in there.  We got permission to spend the night.  We have been spending the night in hospital parking lots, so this is something new, at least for this trip home.
We ate at Applebee’s which is adjoining Wal-Mart.  Ham had a pretty good, but small in quantity, stir fry.  I was devastated to learn that this particular one didn’t have steamed veggies.  So I shortened my life by three days with their veggie patch pizza.  The thing had an inch of cheese on it, I swear.
 
Back to the parking lot, we wrapped up for the arctic cold and bravely went out to pour in the anti freeze.  It seems only a few days ago, we finally filled the tank with fresh water.
Fortunately, we filled the propane tank.  So until we turn off the furnace, things are rather comfortable in here.  Ham just read that it was ONLY going to get down to seventeen degrees tonight.  It is definitely a two bag night, along with long john jammies, wooly socks, and maybe even a knit cap for the beanie.  nl 

 Tuesday, February 26, 2002
We survived the night.  I wasn’t cold at all but the two sleeping bags really weigh you down  They are also a mountain to climb over.  Ham had to get up a couple of times during the night, but I didn’t until about six.  It was a very hurried trip to be sure.  Hammie was even gallantly trying to warm the toilet seat for me.  He had my jammies all warmed for me last night.  That was so nice! 
The road toward St. Louis (all through Oklahoma) was mostly toll road.  At three fifty a crack, it cost us seven dollars just to drive.  Actually the road was less crowded than other interstates with fewer trucks. That made it almost, but not quite, worth the money.
The Cracker Barrel at Joplin wasn’t at the exit where it was supposed to be.  I was driving and, of course, there was the usual construction.  Ham finally said to turn on to a city street and it would lead back to the highway.  Then at THAT exit, stood the Cracker Barrel.  I still couldn’t get in to it and had to go down on a side street to get turned around.  Well, to made a long story short, the chicken and dumplin’s tasted pretty good.  We were both hungry after our minimal McDonald’s bagel this morning for breakfast.

Ham took over the driving and he didn’t look like he felt well at all.  Of course, he won’t tell me.  He is supposed to be honest, but…….  We found the Wal-Mart Super Center right by the road in Springfield.  Ham declared the need for a little confabulation.  He wondered why I hadn’t said more about staying in a motel.  I hadn’t because, as my usual co dependent behavior indicates, I didn’t want to nag or be pushy.  At this point, he finally admitted to feeling very tired and having some discomfort.
We went on down the road and found a Comfort Inn.  It is the nicest and cleanest motel of the trip. Wouldn’t you know?  Just like it has been so warm all over the country until we have to go home and then there is a frigid cold snap.  It got down to thirteen above zero last night.
We got in the nice room and turned the heat way up and Ham said he thought part of the reason he felt so bad was because of the cold.  He insisted on getting the gas, etc.

He took a little nap; we read a while; and, I thought it was time to pursue food.  There is a Denny’s adjoining the motel parking lot.
Ham was happy to see it because he has been in the mood for a salad.  We couldn’t believe that the only salad dressings the place had were creamy ones.  Poor Hammie!  We both ended up eating Boca burgers and fries instead.  Maybe we can find a good salad place tomorrow if we aren’t snowed in.  It has been flurrying this afternoon and evening.
So Hammie is taking a hot bath, and I think I shall get into my new book.  It IS nice to be warm and in a fairly clean room for a change, too!  nl 


Wednesday, February 27, 2002  
The continental breakfast offered by the motel was more than adequate for us.  After breakfast we hit the open road toward St. Louis.  For once the trucks were not too bothersome.  I do hate these macho trucks.
Ham took over driving when it was time to go around St. Louis.  He actually chose to go straight through the city and not take the long by pass.  This scared me (not really scared but I didn’t look forward to it) because every time we have been on I 70 in St. Louis the traffic has just been a nightmare.  Actually, it wasn’t too bad this time.  I saw a lot of small, very small, shot gun houses reminiscent of Louisville.  Except there, they are all built of brick.  These were frame.  There were also a lot of red brick four flats and such.  This reminded me of Cincinnati. Ham does an excellent job of driving, watching traffic (read raging trucks) and reading signs all at the same time.  And, this was a circuitous route.  Not at all easy to follow!
We got through the city and it was still quite early so we continued heading eastward on I 70.  We thought if we could have an easy drive and get in to Indianapolis early in daylight it would be easier to get the water turned on and all the other things that need to be done to make the house habitable.
We stopped at a Day’s Inn in Effingham.  It is pretty clean.  It looks like it has been recently remodeled.  It again felt good to be in out of the LER and warm.  We took a pretty long nap.  Ham couldn’t make the coffee maker work.  So the remodeling left something to be desired.
After napping we walked to the so-called Steakhouse which adjoined the Day’s Inn.  The food was a poor comparison to MCL.  My broiled cod was mushy and swimming in grease.  The salad and rice were OK. Ham’s fish wasn’t so greasy.
A short walk back to the room and here we are wondering how much snow we are going to run into in Indiana.  The St. Louis station just showed the graphic of snow falling all over Indiana, but of course, they gave no details about weather there.
I am very grateful to be warm.  The LER has nice warm sleeping bags, but cold is cold.

Tomorrow we will be home.  Under the circumstances, I think we will both be very glad.     nl 

Thursday, February 28, 2002
I like the idea of continental breakfasts at the motel.  I suppose they save seven to ten dollars and they are pretty convenient.  It is nice to feel you are eating a little healthy and not loading up on grease.  The motel room looked like it had just been redecorated so it was pretty clean.  It was so warm we could sleep without even a sheet.
The trip home was pretty uneventful.  I forgot to mention yesterday that the minute we got in to Illinois, the giant trucks seemed to creep along.  How nice! It seems the speed limit in Illinois is 55 mph for trucks.  They evidently enforce this, because the trucks were complying……for once.

The minute we got in to Indiana, they were off!  Zooming along!  Whizzing along!  OK; OK not like they were doing in the southwestern states when they would pass you going over eighty miles an hour; but evidently Indiana doesn’t enforce the speed limits like Illinois does.
 
Everything was just fine at home.  Bill even had the mail waiting for us on the settee.  Ham got the furnace turned up and the water turned on.  The furnace ran and ran and ran trying to heat up the entire cold house. Later, we learned from Bill that it was ten above zero last night.
After unloading some of the things and taking care of the house, I made the decision to eat.  Yep, I’m always thinking about food.  Ham has been wanting a salad for a long time so we went to Olive Garden.  He was a bit disappointed in his maranara sauce.  My green bean thingy was pretty good.
We even went to Starbucks for a relaxing cup of coffee, in my case, a relaxing cup of café mocha.  That was very pleasant.
Home again to put clothes away and Ham even started doing the laundry.  He wanted to see the first episode of the new Survivor series.  So we watched that and then I did a mighty conk out.  I was just so pooped.  I even told Ham I was beginning to feel cross and irritable.  He was sympathetic.
I finished my latest mystery story and it was nighty night for both of us.
Except for Organ Pipe, Casa Grande, and the trip home, it was a good trip.  At least I thought so.  We had fun on the beach at So. Padre Island, we saw lots of beautiful scenery, we had pleasant times together with no unresolved issues.  So it was a much  shorter trip than I (we, I guess) hoped for.  But all’s well that ends well.  And we made it home safely and in one piece.  What more could two old fart travelers hope for?   Ham says it is our last trip.  Now that is really sad.  nl  





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