Tuesday April 8th
Packed up this morning and headed north after saying good bye to neighbors Pat (Jay) and Jinx. Also saying good bye to the Gulf of Mexico for this year. We have enjoyed our time down here, although it has not been the best weather. Everyone we talk to agrees that it has been a cold wet winter and spring.
Drove northward through Beaumont on I 10 and then turned off and on northward to Carthage, TX to Carthage RV Campground, a distance of uneventful 207 miles.
Wednesday April 9th
From Carthage, TX continued on northward through the Arkansas Ozarks and up to Alma, KOA, near Ft Smith Arkansas. The Ozarks are always enjoyable, maybe somewhat comparable to the Hill Country in Texas, but in a more primitive way. Distance today was 295 miles. Took a circle route round Ft Smith and found Alma just a few miles away, but still near the main highway. The KOA was easy to find and it was a fair Park
Thursday April 10th
On the road northward again. Left Alma, Arkansas and went north on highway 540. I thought this was going to be on a secondary state highway. Not So!! It is a new interstate highway with some amazingly high bridges. Seems like we crossed about 50 of them with heights I'm sure over 300 ft above the creeks below. An amazing piece of engineering!! After we arrived in Lafayette, Arkansas the I 540 ended but traffic was very heavy for about 50 miles through several cities almost touching each other, The last was Bentonville, home of Sam Walton, the originator of Walmart, and from then the highway changed to Highway 71, but was still a very good 4 lane divided route. Arrived in Carthage, Missouri about 1 PM and checked into "The Big Red Barn" RV Park. Had some lunch and the headed off the "Precious Moments"
Did a tour of the grounds and chapel and viewed lots of magnificent stained glass work - away beyond my expertise, and then of course into the gift store. Dropped a couple hundred $$ there, but Denice got some neat things.
Friday April 11th
Away early this morning at 8:30AM and up Highway I 49 and US #71 to just outside Kansas City, then onto 435 around the city. Turned off into Smithville and then to Bass Country RV Park. I screwed up a little on the way in. These are narrow country roads to the park and our GPS was saying turn Right and I was thinking Left, so I turned left and then of course I could not back up and God knows how far I would have to go to get turned around, so I unhooked and Denice drove the jeep the last couple miles to the park. Got checked in and led to our site. 81. WIFI very poor, also TV poor but still OK here. They make Pizza and wings, so ordered for Dinner at 5:30PM.
Checked out possible sites for stopping tomorrow and chose On-yur-wa RV Park at Onaway, a Good Sam one. Reserved for tomorrow night.
Saturday April 12th
On the road early this morning by 7:30 AM as forecast was for wind. Traveled northward through Council Bluffs, Iowa. The same city as Omaho Nebraska, but on the east side of the Missouri River. We only had routed for 225 miles and arrived at On-Yur-Wa RV park by noon, and checked in. Got set up and found very good wifi here. Checked forecast for next couple days and does not appear good. Cold and wind, so we may just sit tight here until better weather.
Sunday, April 13, 2014
Friday, January 24, 2014
I've Gotta get this Blog going Again
Getting up to date in 2014
Well here it is January 24th and nothing reported to date on my blog. Shame, shame!!
Ok what have we done so far? Arrived Dec 29th from Calgary vie air. Next door friend, Wayne Lively picked us up at the airport and drove us home to ELTORO.
Thanks Wayne!!
A few days to get settled in, but as we had left the power on and the frig running, every thing seemed OK. We did have to make a fast trip to the HEB grocery for some supplies so we had food in the house. One small glitch was that as we had drained the hot water tank, we of course had no hot water. We are used to having the tank full and one of Denice's jobs is to start the turn on the propane to it to initiate some hot water, Without the water there the thermostat over heated and burned out. Lesson Learned! Thankfully the tank has two heating systems so after filling the tank with water, turned the electric heater on and soon we had hot water. Left the tank that way for a week or so until able to get Premium RV repair to come by and replace the thermostat. Also when they came by, the furnace was acting up, so they did some testing and found nothing more serious than a corroded ignitor. Repaired and happy now.
Weather has not been too great, especially for Texas, but warmer than High River. Watching the weather there daily and it definitely is winter back home! The first few days back here were highlighted by steady rain and cool. Then it started to warm up, and sometimes to near 80 Deg F. Today was remarkably cold with only a high of about 40. Understandably we spent most of the day inside with the furnace running. Cities like Houston and San Antonio were reporting icy bridges and recommending no travel. Yesterday morning we had frost on the top of our jeep, but seemed no damage to our flowering plants along our site. Forecast is for warming over the next few days back to seasonal temperatures. Sure hope so!
What have we been doing with ourselves you ask. A lot of reading, eating, sleeping! Isn't that what we are supposed to do when retired? We have been doing some day trips to see the birding areas around here. Often we just walk over to Bentson State Park across the road from us. There are lots of trails and places to see and while we observe the birds we do get our daily walk in. Sometimes up to three miles, but that is a little much. We have also gone to The National Butterfly Center just down the road, Santa Anna National Wildlife refuge, Salineno (60 miles NW along the Rio Grande River) and yesterday to Edinburg to their Scenic Wetlands and World Birding Center. Main reason to go there was to possibly see a Tropical Parula. Denice took lots of pictures, but we were unable to find the elusive parula. It was not until we were back home and she was reviewing her pictures that she noticed that the very first bird she took a picture was that parula! How about that, and didn't even know that was what she was looking at! Salineno is always one of our favouries. Hosts for that site have a couple of 5th wheel trailers that is there homes during the birding season. It is right on the Rio Grande River and rather secluded. So much so that last year they were not allowed there, as it was thought unsafe, with illegal Mexican activities so close, but this year they relaxed there requirements and are up and running again. they have about 20 chairs set up and bird feeding is always on. All you have to do is sit and take pictures, and there always seems to be a feeding frenzy. All the birds we enjoy are there. Orioles, Kiskidees, Green Jays, Warblers, Wrens, Thrushes, Cardinals, Doves, and a host of others.
One day we went on a boat trip up the Rio Grande
Behind ELTORO we have 7 or 8 bird feeders out offering a much varied buffet for the birds. We have daily visits of Kiskadee's, Green Jays, the odd Cardinal, Warblers, Woodpeckers ( both ladderback and golden fronted), Doves, occasionally an oriole, a million sparrows and a million blackbirds, and grackles. Also a few squirrels.
Some more updates
Again been some more catching up to do. We have now left Mission, Texas on our somewhat indirect trip northward. We are trying to outlast the last remnants of winter back in the frozen north.
It was a great winter in Mission, although not as warm as we might have wished, but still we did not have to shovel!! We spent a lot of time "birding" in and around the area. I will not add a lot of photos, as most of the birds are repeats of ones we have already seen and posted on this blog.
We made a lot of new friends in the park, and will be keeping in contact with all of them.
One day we made a trip down across the border to Progresso, Mexico and snapped these pictures.
At the park, there is a great wood shop with a lot of the guys, and ladies, doing great woodworking projects. There are about a dozen privately owned lathes and 3 park owned so a lot of "turning" takes place there. Now I am supposed to be the turning guy, so you would think that I would have a lot of projects on the go. Not so! Just did not seem to ever get the time or the urge, but at the end of the season they had a craft show, so here are a few of the projects that were completed. I even bought one myself!
We even had a dog show one day!
We had planned on returning every year for the winter, so had reserved our Super site #722 for the year from April 15th 2013 to April 15th 2014, and certainly planned on extending it for another year. The super sites included a 12 ft x 12 ft. Garden shack on our large cement pad. All the pads are bordered with flowering shrubs that the birds and butterfly's are attracted to. Ours was Great and I added new grass seed to the back yard to increase the appeal there. However, as time wore on, we had that wanderlust feeling that there was still a lot of things we wanted to see, before we got too old to enjoy them.
A couple other shots around the area:
Decision time.
With a bit of sadness, we made the decision that maybe it was time to move on, we will probably return to the Rio Grande Valley someday, sometime in the future! We are not the only ones seeking new adventures, our near neighbor/family/friends Wayne and Jan are also moving on....Arizona is their next stop (Wayne and Jan from Michigan are full timers). We are not sure where our travels will take us, but, we do know we will enjoy the fun and adventure wherever the 'new' road will take us.
So, we pack up Eltoro AND Toadone, because we seem to have gathered up more 'stuff' while sitting in one spot.....a swing, a 12 x 12 shade canopy, more tools, more craft stuff, two tables etc and now Eltoro is packed, every last little nook and cranny is full....oh yes Dennis's wood takes up a compartment!!!! And then, as I never did get involved in the wood working shop, I had elected to do some stained glass work instead, so had purchased all the tools and equipment need for that endeavor. Like grinders, a glass saw, cutters, soldering equip, and a whole bunch of glass of various colors and textures. Another compartment!!
But the Denice is not totally left out. We made a couple of trips to Harlingen to buy material, threads, and equipment for her the work on a quilt to replace the one she lost in the High River flood. She had purchased a new sewing machine, again a flood replacement, before we left home and brought it down with us in Toadone last fall. Now we need to find a home to store all that away as well. And then there were her books --------!!!
On March 14th we headed north to Rockport, where we met up with the wonderful people we call friends from when we were there before. Two weeks did not give us a lot of time to visit and do everything we wanted to do. We visited our favorite birding sites.......Goose Island State Park, we saw lots of warblers, water fowl and most importantly nine whooping cranes. Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, not to many birds but we did see nine alligators (hmmm, nine again). We also had quite few birds at our feeders (happy Denice)!
We took two days and headed up to New Braunfels to see Denice's cousin Hettie and Hettie's family, Loren and Teresa, their children Kylie and Jake. Visited downtown, old town, New Braunfels, that was settled by mainly German people and has a great history! We also took in a few shops and spent a FEW dollars! Had dinner out with all the Partridge family at the Grist Mill in Gruene, good food, wonderful people. Gruene incidentally is pronounced green, so the German influence.
Back in Rockport, we were invited to go with our "Jaxsen Heights" friends to China A's, our favorite Chinese food restaurant and then before we left Rockport on the 14th we again, with the same people and a few more went to JD's Seafood Restaurant. First we had gone to a place called Moon Doggies and after all 11 of us had sat down, we told that our bill could only be split 2 ways. Customarily when a group of this size gets together we usually have bills for each couple. We said "OK, we will just separate the tables and order individually." But they told us we had come in as a group and would have to order that way. We said "No," and got up and left. My parting words to the manager was, "I hope you realize you just lost about $400 income and 11 peoples business for ever!" However we went on down to JD's and were welcomed in. I had a chicken fried steak that the size of a platter, enough food for three people (and it did two more meals). We will miss our Jaxsen Heights friends and will look forward to seeing them in the future. Of course we do keep in touch with all our Winter Texan friends via e-mail and FB.
On the 28th of March we headed north-east to Galveston, a trip of a couple hundred miles. We had reserved at Jamaica Beach RV resort. We found it to be a very nice, clean park with lots of amenities. Since were only there for four days we found them a busy four days. One of the guys I had hired while I was a Shell employee is stationed in Houston and as we do communicate occasionally had expressed an interest in meeting up for dinner, so that night he and his wife, Linda, came to Galveston and we had dinner with them at Gaido's Seafood Restaurant. It was great and we chatted for 3 hours, Rob bringing me up to date on a lot of the happenings in the Shell World and where a lot of the guys and gals I had worked with, but had lost contact with. Denice and Linda also chatted a whole lot, and found they had so many of the same interests, Stitching, quilting, scrap booking, and birds. We had never met Linda before, but were sure impressed! The next morning we again met them for breakfast at IHOP. Another 3 hours!! So glad we had done that!
For the remainder of our time in Galveston we visited along the Seawall, went to the Strand ( Galveston's Business section) Ocean Star ( An Off Shore Drilling Rig Museum), The Alissa Museum (An old Tall Ship that is still sea worthy) and to the Moody Gardens (A ) Moody Gardens boasts 3 large glass pyramids featuring and aquarium in one, discovery center in one, and a tropical forest in the other. All were very interesting and time consuming. We visited some birding sites as well, but one of them that we wanted to see was closed down due to the old spill in the harbor the week before where a Liberian tanked rammed a barge carrying bunker crude. 160,000 gallons were lost in the harbor. We saw little of the oil on the beaches or along the port, but there sure was lots of Oil Spill activity happening. Ironically, this is the exact area where 30 years ago, as a new Shell employee, I was sent to take an oils spill course and how to clean up one!
April 1st we loaded up again and crossed the Galveston Bay on the ferry onto the Boliver Peninsula. Crossing the bay on the ferry is about a half hour trip of a few miles, but very interesting to be so up close to the seagoing ships and freighters. At any time there are up to a dozen ships lined up waiting to enter the bay.
Once across the Bay we continued on down the peninsula to High Island, about 25 miles. We had booked here for a week as this is rated as probably the #1 birding spot on the Southern States. High Island town has only about 300 people and one RV Park.
A bit about High Island:
It is called a dome. A lot of Texas has a thick salt layer some 30,000 ft down and with a tectonic movement millions of years ago a column of the salt was pushed up, raising the surface about 35 feet higher that the rest of the surrounding area. Trees were now supported here and flourish. Oil collected around the outside of the dome and back in the 30's a multitude of wells were drilled here, and the town flourished. A few are still producing, but most are just rusting pumper hulks. But new life for High Island! Birds migrating northward in the spring and southward in the fall, to and from the Uccatan Peninsula in Mexico, find this a haven to either rest from the crossing, or to fatten up for the 600 mile flight across the Gulf of Mexico. Apparently when the small birds, mostly a variety of warblers, strike out across the Gulf, they leave Mexico at dusk and fly non-stop for about 12 hours through the night until they reach Texas. By now they are totally tired and hungry and land as soon as they can. High Island with its lust growth is most appealing to them! And where there are birds, there are Birders!!
Well here it is January 24th and nothing reported to date on my blog. Shame, shame!!
Ok what have we done so far? Arrived Dec 29th from Calgary vie air. Next door friend, Wayne Lively picked us up at the airport and drove us home to ELTORO.
Thanks Wayne!!
A few days to get settled in, but as we had left the power on and the frig running, every thing seemed OK. We did have to make a fast trip to the HEB grocery for some supplies so we had food in the house. One small glitch was that as we had drained the hot water tank, we of course had no hot water. We are used to having the tank full and one of Denice's jobs is to start the turn on the propane to it to initiate some hot water, Without the water there the thermostat over heated and burned out. Lesson Learned! Thankfully the tank has two heating systems so after filling the tank with water, turned the electric heater on and soon we had hot water. Left the tank that way for a week or so until able to get Premium RV repair to come by and replace the thermostat. Also when they came by, the furnace was acting up, so they did some testing and found nothing more serious than a corroded ignitor. Repaired and happy now.
Weather has not been too great, especially for Texas, but warmer than High River. Watching the weather there daily and it definitely is winter back home! The first few days back here were highlighted by steady rain and cool. Then it started to warm up, and sometimes to near 80 Deg F. Today was remarkably cold with only a high of about 40. Understandably we spent most of the day inside with the furnace running. Cities like Houston and San Antonio were reporting icy bridges and recommending no travel. Yesterday morning we had frost on the top of our jeep, but seemed no damage to our flowering plants along our site. Forecast is for warming over the next few days back to seasonal temperatures. Sure hope so!
What have we been doing with ourselves you ask. A lot of reading, eating, sleeping! Isn't that what we are supposed to do when retired? We have been doing some day trips to see the birding areas around here. Often we just walk over to Bentson State Park across the road from us. There are lots of trails and places to see and while we observe the birds we do get our daily walk in. Sometimes up to three miles, but that is a little much. We have also gone to The National Butterfly Center just down the road, Santa Anna National Wildlife refuge, Salineno (60 miles NW along the Rio Grande River) and yesterday to Edinburg to their Scenic Wetlands and World Birding Center. Main reason to go there was to possibly see a Tropical Parula. Denice took lots of pictures, but we were unable to find the elusive parula. It was not until we were back home and she was reviewing her pictures that she noticed that the very first bird she took a picture was that parula! How about that, and didn't even know that was what she was looking at! Salineno is always one of our favouries. Hosts for that site have a couple of 5th wheel trailers that is there homes during the birding season. It is right on the Rio Grande River and rather secluded. So much so that last year they were not allowed there, as it was thought unsafe, with illegal Mexican activities so close, but this year they relaxed there requirements and are up and running again. they have about 20 chairs set up and bird feeding is always on. All you have to do is sit and take pictures, and there always seems to be a feeding frenzy. All the birds we enjoy are there. Orioles, Kiskidees, Green Jays, Warblers, Wrens, Thrushes, Cardinals, Doves, and a host of others.
One day we went on a boat trip up the Rio Grande
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| At the Dock |
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| A Mexican Mansion - Did Drugs pay for it? |
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| Another Mexican Villa |
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| Our Protectors - The Border Patrol |
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| Flying Egret |
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| Looking up the Rio |
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| Screech Owl |
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| Black Headed Grosbeak |
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| Cardinal |
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| Titmouse |
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| Indigo Bunting |
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| Black Phoebe |
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| Golden Fronted Woodpecker |
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| Great Kiskadee |
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| Another Golden Fronted Woodpecker |
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| Monk Head Parakeets |
Behind ELTORO we have 7 or 8 bird feeders out offering a much varied buffet for the birds. We have daily visits of Kiskadee's, Green Jays, the odd Cardinal, Warblers, Woodpeckers ( both ladderback and golden fronted), Doves, occasionally an oriole, a million sparrows and a million blackbirds, and grackles. Also a few squirrels.
Some more updates
Again been some more catching up to do. We have now left Mission, Texas on our somewhat indirect trip northward. We are trying to outlast the last remnants of winter back in the frozen north.
It was a great winter in Mission, although not as warm as we might have wished, but still we did not have to shovel!! We spent a lot of time "birding" in and around the area. I will not add a lot of photos, as most of the birds are repeats of ones we have already seen and posted on this blog.
We made a lot of new friends in the park, and will be keeping in contact with all of them.
One day we made a trip down across the border to Progresso, Mexico and snapped these pictures.
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| A field of Broccoli |
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| Harvesting the Broccoli |
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| Crossing into Progresso |
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| Welcome to Mexico |
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| Inside the Canada Store in Progresso, Mexico |
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| ELTORO gets a wash job |
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| Looking Down the Table |
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| A Nifty Design |
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| Multiple Segments |
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| A segmented Bowl |
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| Dyed wood inserts |
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| Some of the selections. I bought the one on the bottom left |
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| And our neighbors Steve and Kim's dog won |
We had planned on returning every year for the winter, so had reserved our Super site #722 for the year from April 15th 2013 to April 15th 2014, and certainly planned on extending it for another year. The super sites included a 12 ft x 12 ft. Garden shack on our large cement pad. All the pads are bordered with flowering shrubs that the birds and butterfly's are attracted to. Ours was Great and I added new grass seed to the back yard to increase the appeal there. However, as time wore on, we had that wanderlust feeling that there was still a lot of things we wanted to see, before we got too old to enjoy them.
A couple other shots around the area:
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| Horned Lizards |
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| Female Cardinal |
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| Munkhead Parakeet |
Decision time.
With a bit of sadness, we made the decision that maybe it was time to move on, we will probably return to the Rio Grande Valley someday, sometime in the future! We are not the only ones seeking new adventures, our near neighbor/family/friends Wayne and Jan are also moving on....Arizona is their next stop (Wayne and Jan from Michigan are full timers). We are not sure where our travels will take us, but, we do know we will enjoy the fun and adventure wherever the 'new' road will take us.
So, we pack up Eltoro AND Toadone, because we seem to have gathered up more 'stuff' while sitting in one spot.....a swing, a 12 x 12 shade canopy, more tools, more craft stuff, two tables etc and now Eltoro is packed, every last little nook and cranny is full....oh yes Dennis's wood takes up a compartment!!!! And then, as I never did get involved in the wood working shop, I had elected to do some stained glass work instead, so had purchased all the tools and equipment need for that endeavor. Like grinders, a glass saw, cutters, soldering equip, and a whole bunch of glass of various colors and textures. Another compartment!!
But the Denice is not totally left out. We made a couple of trips to Harlingen to buy material, threads, and equipment for her the work on a quilt to replace the one she lost in the High River flood. She had purchased a new sewing machine, again a flood replacement, before we left home and brought it down with us in Toadone last fall. Now we need to find a home to store all that away as well. And then there were her books --------!!!
On March 14th we headed north to Rockport, where we met up with the wonderful people we call friends from when we were there before. Two weeks did not give us a lot of time to visit and do everything we wanted to do. We visited our favorite birding sites.......Goose Island State Park, we saw lots of warblers, water fowl and most importantly nine whooping cranes. Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, not to many birds but we did see nine alligators (hmmm, nine again). We also had quite few birds at our feeders (happy Denice)!
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| Hooded Oriole |
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| Can you seethe Owl? |
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| Kiskadee and Clay Colored Thrush |
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| Cedar Waxwing |
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| Vermillion Flycatcher |
We took two days and headed up to New Braunfels to see Denice's cousin Hettie and Hettie's family, Loren and Teresa, their children Kylie and Jake. Visited downtown, old town, New Braunfels, that was settled by mainly German people and has a great history! We also took in a few shops and spent a FEW dollars! Had dinner out with all the Partridge family at the Grist Mill in Gruene, good food, wonderful people. Gruene incidentally is pronounced green, so the German influence.
Back in Rockport, we were invited to go with our "Jaxsen Heights" friends to China A's, our favorite Chinese food restaurant and then before we left Rockport on the 14th we again, with the same people and a few more went to JD's Seafood Restaurant. First we had gone to a place called Moon Doggies and after all 11 of us had sat down, we told that our bill could only be split 2 ways. Customarily when a group of this size gets together we usually have bills for each couple. We said "OK, we will just separate the tables and order individually." But they told us we had come in as a group and would have to order that way. We said "No," and got up and left. My parting words to the manager was, "I hope you realize you just lost about $400 income and 11 peoples business for ever!" However we went on down to JD's and were welcomed in. I had a chicken fried steak that the size of a platter, enough food for three people (and it did two more meals). We will miss our Jaxsen Heights friends and will look forward to seeing them in the future. Of course we do keep in touch with all our Winter Texan friends via e-mail and FB.
On the 28th of March we headed north-east to Galveston, a trip of a couple hundred miles. We had reserved at Jamaica Beach RV resort. We found it to be a very nice, clean park with lots of amenities. Since were only there for four days we found them a busy four days. One of the guys I had hired while I was a Shell employee is stationed in Houston and as we do communicate occasionally had expressed an interest in meeting up for dinner, so that night he and his wife, Linda, came to Galveston and we had dinner with them at Gaido's Seafood Restaurant. It was great and we chatted for 3 hours, Rob bringing me up to date on a lot of the happenings in the Shell World and where a lot of the guys and gals I had worked with, but had lost contact with. Denice and Linda also chatted a whole lot, and found they had so many of the same interests, Stitching, quilting, scrap booking, and birds. We had never met Linda before, but were sure impressed! The next morning we again met them for breakfast at IHOP. Another 3 hours!! So glad we had done that!
For the remainder of our time in Galveston we visited along the Seawall, went to the Strand ( Galveston's Business section) Ocean Star ( An Off Shore Drilling Rig Museum), The Alissa Museum (An old Tall Ship that is still sea worthy) and to the Moody Gardens (A ) Moody Gardens boasts 3 large glass pyramids featuring and aquarium in one, discovery center in one, and a tropical forest in the other. All were very interesting and time consuming. We visited some birding sites as well, but one of them that we wanted to see was closed down due to the old spill in the harbor the week before where a Liberian tanked rammed a barge carrying bunker crude. 160,000 gallons were lost in the harbor. We saw little of the oil on the beaches or along the port, but there sure was lots of Oil Spill activity happening. Ironically, this is the exact area where 30 years ago, as a new Shell employee, I was sent to take an oils spill course and how to clean up one!
April 1st we loaded up again and crossed the Galveston Bay on the ferry onto the Boliver Peninsula. Crossing the bay on the ferry is about a half hour trip of a few miles, but very interesting to be so up close to the seagoing ships and freighters. At any time there are up to a dozen ships lined up waiting to enter the bay.
Once across the Bay we continued on down the peninsula to High Island, about 25 miles. We had booked here for a week as this is rated as probably the #1 birding spot on the Southern States. High Island town has only about 300 people and one RV Park.
A bit about High Island:
It is called a dome. A lot of Texas has a thick salt layer some 30,000 ft down and with a tectonic movement millions of years ago a column of the salt was pushed up, raising the surface about 35 feet higher that the rest of the surrounding area. Trees were now supported here and flourish. Oil collected around the outside of the dome and back in the 30's a multitude of wells were drilled here, and the town flourished. A few are still producing, but most are just rusting pumper hulks. But new life for High Island! Birds migrating northward in the spring and southward in the fall, to and from the Uccatan Peninsula in Mexico, find this a haven to either rest from the crossing, or to fatten up for the 600 mile flight across the Gulf of Mexico. Apparently when the small birds, mostly a variety of warblers, strike out across the Gulf, they leave Mexico at dusk and fly non-stop for about 12 hours through the night until they reach Texas. By now they are totally tired and hungry and land as soon as they can. High Island with its lust growth is most appealing to them! And where there are birds, there are Birders!!
Monday, September 9, 2013
The Final Leg of our 2013 Trip South
September 9th
Well, not a lot to report today. Left Albuquerque thismorning and headed east on I-40 for about 60 miles to Clines Corner, where we turned south onto 285, then nothing to see except cactus, sand and flatland all the way to Roswell. Even going through there, there were no aliens to be seen, so no pictures today. Another 100 miles and we were finally in Texas. When we went through here in the spring the wind was blowing, the sand was drifting, and we thought this to be a very poor area, but today was surprised to find quite a different story. The fields are growing lots of potatoes and other veggy crops undetermined by us what they might be. Irrigation sprinklers were everywhere, and all was very green. Not sure why we did not see the same thing in the spring. Maybe it because it was the end of the day and we were just looking for a place to rest our heads. Arrived at Big Springs, Texas at 5:00PM (now in Central Time Zone) and was going to check in at a La Quinta Hotel, but they wanted $199, so went one block back and checked into Advantage Inn for $78, tax included. And it sure is not a dump!! Dinner at a steak House adjacent, and again ate too much, but this was a celebration for us. 52 Years of marriage. How about that!!!
Well, not a lot to report today. Left Albuquerque thismorning and headed east on I-40 for about 60 miles to Clines Corner, where we turned south onto 285, then nothing to see except cactus, sand and flatland all the way to Roswell. Even going through there, there were no aliens to be seen, so no pictures today. Another 100 miles and we were finally in Texas. When we went through here in the spring the wind was blowing, the sand was drifting, and we thought this to be a very poor area, but today was surprised to find quite a different story. The fields are growing lots of potatoes and other veggy crops undetermined by us what they might be. Irrigation sprinklers were everywhere, and all was very green. Not sure why we did not see the same thing in the spring. Maybe it because it was the end of the day and we were just looking for a place to rest our heads. Arrived at Big Springs, Texas at 5:00PM (now in Central Time Zone) and was going to check in at a La Quinta Hotel, but they wanted $199, so went one block back and checked into Advantage Inn for $78, tax included. And it sure is not a dump!! Dinner at a steak House adjacent, and again ate too much, but this was a celebration for us. 52 Years of marriage. How about that!!!
Sunday, September 1, 2013
Finally heading South Again
Well here we are, after that disastrous summer final heading south for a couple of months to see if we can finally slow down a d relax a little. Last couple of days we spent trying to get everything under control and packing the jeep in preparation for the trip down.
Now I am going to fill you in on the whole dastardly summer activity, but do not expect an immediate update as an awful lot happened during the summer, and is going to take me sometime to tell you all about it. I am going to show you from time to time when I have done an update with a link and you should be able to click on it an go directly to the new data - well I hope that is the way it works -----
September 1st
So anyway today we left High River this morning and travelled down #22 to Lundbreck and to Pincher Creek
Had Breakfast Porridge with Don, Shannon, Caitlin, Samantha, Mike and kids before we headed south. Went through Cardston, and Carway border crossing with out an issue, and then to St Mary's, Browning, Choteau, and on to Helena to the Hamptons Hotel for the night - Had supper at the Overland Express, and will retire early.
September 2nd
Left Helena this morning after breakfast at the hotel and headed down the valley towards Yellowstone. Stopped in Wheat at the sandwich deli and bought some sandwiches for lunch.
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| Smoke from Idaho Forest Fires |
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| Harvest Time in Montana |
Arrived in West Yellowstone about 12:30 and decided to continue on into the park. It was raining so we just drove on with few stops until we reached Old Faithful. She had just erupted shortly before so Denice bought a few nick-nacks, and we decided not to wait until the next Old Faithful event as we have seen them many times in the past.
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| South from Earthquake Dam |
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| Just a Local!! |
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| Old Faithful at a quiet moment |
Headed south to the South Entrance and through the Grand Tetons, then into Jackson Hole. The rain has let up, but still very overcast. Took a room at the Elk Refuge Inn for $140. We originally went to the Rustic Inn, but they wanted a mere $260! Sorry, not interested!!
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| Jackson Downtown park |
September 3rd
Breakfast this morning at "The Bunnery" in Jackson Hole, then headed south on 191 through a lot of Wyoming sage brush country all the way to Rock Springs, Wyo. West on I-80 for 13 miles then south again on 530 toward Flaming Gorge.
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| Fall is coming!! |
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| Crossing the Oregon Trail |
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| A nice Buck |
Seemed we were just seeing a lot more sage brush until we finally did come to the Gorge. It was GREAT and well worth the drive. A long way down a steep grade to the bottom of the gorge, followed the bottom for a few miles and the climbed the long 8% grade out of the canyon. Many overlooks and great scenery. Stopped at Red Canyon overlook for another photo op and then headed south to Vernal, Utah where we checked into a Best Western for the night. KFC for dinner.
September 4th
Slow day today - had breakfast then drove east a few miles to a Dinosaur Park. A great facility with lots of uncovered dinosaur bones - they call it a log jamb of bones left from some event that caused hundreds of the beasts to die, many by drowning and floating down a river to be buried in the sand.
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| A very Large back bone ( could not spell vertebrae???) |
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| The indoor excavation area |
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| Now there is a femur ( or is it a drum stick?) |
After a couple of hours there headed south on 191 to Moab. Arrived there early and checked into the Holiday Express. Jut rested to rest of the day.
September 5th
Hot breakfast at the hotel before heading off to to Arches National Park. Been the a few times in the past, but it is always a great place to visit. So many photo ops!!! It is about a 40 or 50 mile round trip so we did not get back to the Visitor Center until noon. Of course could not pass there without stopping and giving them some business!
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| As You can see from the Captions, I borrowed these |
Then on the road again down 191 through Montechello, Blanding, and Bluff. A few miles out of Bluff turned east onto 160 to Colorado and 4 Corners. Here is the only place in the USA that 4 states meet at a common corner. Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico all join here.
Very nice facility with a lot of native art wares displayed for sale. And of course we supported them!! Then on to Cortez, Colorado for the night.
September 6th
9 miles out of Cortez is the entrance to Mesa Verde. Arrived there by about 8:00AM and stopped at the info center to find out all the details. Advised to drive on ahead 20 miles to the Palace Ruins. The road to there takes you up over a couple passes at more than 8000 feet and through a 1/2 mile tunnel. But all very picturesque. Takes about an hour and a half to reach the Anasazi cliff dwellings.There must have been a very large civilization of them in this area as there are recorded over 4000 individual sites. We spent most of the day here and visited (or at least took pictures from the road above the cliffs) many of them. Denice has been having trouble with her left hip, so cannot walk a long distance . We are not sure what the problem is, but will have to have it looked at once we return to Canada in November.Once we had seen all that we wanted, and a couple hundred pictures, we headed back to the info center and then to Durango, a short 40 miles east. Checked into a motel right next to the start of the Durango/Silverton narrow gage railroad. Once settled in I went over and purchased tickets for tomorrows train ride to Silverton and back by tomorrow evening. Denice says that is another of the things in her "Bucket List"
September 7th
Caught the Durango / Silverton Narrow Gage Railway this morning at 7:00AM, exit Durango at 8:00AM. Was a great day! A little cool in the morning, had to wear jackets, but return trip was hot and sunny. Trip to Silverton took about 3 1/2 hours, just in time for lunch, and a little shopping at the neat stores there. Denice is starting to replace a lot of items lost in the High River flood!!
Caught the return train at 1:30PM. Our seats were on the same side of the outdoor coach so we did see both sides of the track. Great scenery!!! Back to Durango by 5:30PM and to our reserved motel at the Best Western, who gave us 2 complimentary drinks each. Another GREAT Day!!
September 8th
From Durango toward Albuquerque for 80 miles, then a right turn onto a local road heading for Choco Canyon. First 8 miles were fair pavement, then road bed changed to Light gravel for about 5 miles, then to the worst dirt / sand / washboard that you can imagine for remaining 10 miles. Once into the National Choco Canyon Park all roads were well paved highways, but that 10 miles should be an embarrassment to the US Government. The ruins in the canyon are nothing less than fantastic.
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| Park entrance - after 20 miles of washboard |
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| Lots of petroglyphs |
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| Many, many rooms (600 I believe) |
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| Very precise rockwork |
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| Only a portion of the total of one site |
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| A very large Kiva |
Rather than cliff dwellings like Mesa Verde, these are ancient Pueblo dwellings at the base of the canyon walls. These you can drive right to the edge of them and walk freely among the many individual rooms and Kivas. But, as in Mesa Verde, the sites indicate a huge population living there for several hundred years from about 800 to 1200 AD. A very advanced civilization with complex structures, dams, irrigation systems and roads. A very unique item are their road system leading to many other areas. These were clearly marked out and 30 feet wide. Seems strange as they had no horses, wagons or means of moving between the sites other than on foot. Archaeologists have no explanation of this phenomenon. After wandering around a few of the sites for a couple of hours elected to head back to the main highway over that embarrassment, the US Gov't calls an access road. Makes me feel like sending an email to Mr. Obama voicing my concerns. Once back on highway 550 headed to Albuquerque, arriving there at 4:00PM and checked into another Best Western Hotel. We had been to this one before, and found it very nice and about half the price of others we have been staying at this trip down. Sometimes I just do not understand the rational behind their rates. After settling in, called Denice's aunt and took her out for dinner to Landry's Seafood Restaurant. Very Good!!!
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