Weckworth's Adventures

Still here!

2010-11-14T09:41:00.000-08:00

Just want to post this to tell everyone that we are still around and having fun!

Since the last post, we have had a lot of changes in our lives. Barbara lost her mother in 2007 and we then sold our farm in Kansas and moved to Alamogordo, New Mexico in 2008.

With all of the changes in the economy back in Kansas, Sheri got a job at Los Alamos National Labs and her family moved there. Nice to have them near us.

I will try to add some posts in the near future to show some of what we have been up to.

Amazing show "Stomp Out Loud"

2007-12-25T08:55:00.000-08:00

When we were planning our trip to Las Vegas for the Christmas Holiday, we decided to attend the show Stomp Out Loud at the Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino as it has no dialogue and is just percussion music made from various items.
With Kimberly not being able to follow a lot of dialogue because of her hearing this was thought to be a good show to see.

Boy were we ever thrilled with the decision when we attended the show! It was wonderful in that they worked in sight gags and audience participation which made it a very entertaining time.

The imagination of the directors to come up with a variety of items to make wonderful percusion music and dance was just super! They billed the show as an intense assault for a full 90 minutes and they were correct.

They used everything from floor brooms to trash cans, cardboard boxes, car keys, plastic barrels, rubber hoses, newspapers, hand clapping, etc. and the results were astounding.

We are very glad we went.

Christmas Vacation in Las Vegas

2007-12-24T14:58:00.000-08:00

The family has come together in Las Vegas this Christmas Holiday to have some fun. We are fortunate in that all of us were able to make the trip this year.

Today we toured the Shark Reef at the Mandalay Bay Resort.

We were given recievers to listen to at each exhibit and learn about the creatures contained in them. Here Barbara, Shane and Nicholas are contemplating the information recieved!

The effect of having the sharks and fish swimming overhead is interesting to say the least. There was even glass underfoot so as to watch them swim underneath it. Sheri was less than impressed by that!

Here the Grandchildren are in front of the sign projected on the wall. When someone walked in front of it there are ripples

All eyes are on the fish and sharks as they swim past the glass in front of you.

The vast array of fish to view during the tour was just astounding.

Mr. Pumpkin Head

2007-12-20T09:49:00.000-08:00

Poor Mr. Pumpkin Head has been ravaged by nocturnal vandals!

Mr. Pumpkin Head has been traveling with us since he joined us at the Garlow reunion in October. He held a position on the front dash of the coach for most of that time as it was too warm to set him outside. We enjoyed his company and studious looks he gave through the reading glasses perched on his nose.

He came to life by the creative efforts of Darwin Gates who is a cousin of Barbara. He explained how he made the heads which we thought quite unique. The nose, eyebrows and mustache were made by chewing gum and when he was finished chewing he would fashion the shape he wanted and stick it on the pumpkin and paint accordingly.

Now that the outside temperatures have moderated here in Needles, CA, we decided to place Mr. Pumpkin Head out on the patio so that everyone in the park could enjoy his company! Unfortunately the first night some creature with a fetish for chewing gum took his nose! The second night he lost his left eyebrow and last night he lost his mustache leaving him a forlorn shadow of his former self!

We find it comforting to notice that with all of his problems, he appears to retain his jovial demeanor. It seems that it will take more than a nocturnal vandal to get the best of Mr. Pumpkin Head!

Oatman, Arizona

2007-12-19T10:43:00.000-08:00

We took a day trip from Needles yesterday and one of the places we visited was Oatman, Arizona which is an old mining town that has turned itself into a tourist attraction. Their main fun thing is to have donkeys wandering around loose and stopping the traffic. This group is on its way to town to beg for handouts from the tourists.

In order to get to the town we had to take old route 66! I took this route from Kansas to Long Beach, CA and back to Kansas during the summer of 1958 when I drove my mother, younger sisters and brother in my newly purchased 1948 Chevrolet Fleetline and with my newly acquired drivers license that I got on my 16th birthday two weeks before.

The trip today was far more comfortable in the Tahoe!

The actual town is quite small and mostly consists of shops full of trinkets for the visitors to purchase.

I will have to admit that their sense of humor is alive and well in the names that they chose for their stores.

Christmas spirit in Needles, CA

2007-12-16T18:59:00.000-08:00

We arrived at Desert View RV Resort yesterday evening and found it to be a nice park.
This evening we were pleasantly surprised to find a group of carolers outside of our coach spreading Christmas Spirit and Cheer!

Lovely group of nice folks.
Even Pepe sat quietly and listened to them. He was a bit unsure what they were doing and was anxious.

ORA Motorcoach Country Club

2007-12-16T18:42:00.000-08:00

We went to Indio to the Outdoor Resorts Motorcoach Country Club for two weeks to visit with old friends and do some shopping.
This is a picture of the lot that we used for our stay there.

The ORA is very unique in that it has canals which the owners use for their electric party barges. They have canals to each section of the resort and a marina at the clubhouse so that they can barge over and go up and have a meal or party with friends.

This photo is of a private site accross the water that has done extensive stonework to make a very nice patio next to the water.

Many of the sites have been improved by the individual owners to have a fun place in the desert to go to with their motorcoaches. They have outdoor kitchens, Casistas (small buildings about 12 feet by 12 feet square, with private restrooms, laundry, kitchens, offices, or whatever they feel appropriate for their needs), water features, small swimming pools, hot tubs, etc.

If you look carefully at this picture you will see what they call an infinity pool that makes it look like it is a part of the canal behind it.

What a life!

Geocaching with Pepe

2007-12-16T18:24:00.000-08:00

While we were staying in Borrego Springs we decided to go Geocaching and we took Pepe with us. We were pleasantly surprised at the result.
On our first cache we started searching and as we got close Pepe was using his nose to do some searching which lead him to stand on top of the actual cache and look at us as if to ask, "Is this what you are looking for?"

Sure enough he was on top of the cache. Here he is checking out the contents of the ammo can that was used.

Our search for more caches around Clark Dry lake were fun and it was interesting to watch Pepe smell them out. Nice doggy! I suspect that this is not what you would consider apropriate methodology for hunting caches!

Here he again inspects the contents of the cache.

New Datastorm System

2007-12-16T18:11:00.000-08:00

When we attended the Datastorm Rally in Tuscon, AZ in October we decided to upgrade our old system for a newer, larger, more powerful system.

Here Scott Whitney of Dustyfoot.com satelite systems company is busy installing the controller and modem inside of a cabinet in the bedroom of our coach. He was the man that installed our first system.

Quite a jumble of stuff strung out on our bed!

The system included a new controller that is a huge upgrade and should find the right satelite with greater ease.

Here Paul is attaching the new .98 meter dish to the new mount on top of the coach.

Now we are complete with an antenna system that is twice as powerful as the previous one! It will allow us to have faster service with better performance in marginal weather.

With the advent of more video content on the internet it should prove to be a very good improvement over what we were used too.

Garlow Reunion

2007-11-25T14:02:00.000-08:00

On October 13th Barbara, Sheri, and I attended the Garlow reunion held in Hazelton, KS at the community center. Each year we would take Barbara's mother to this gathering. When she passed away the family was very helpful and comforting to us and we wanted to be sure that we extended our thanks to them.

One of the best things about reunions is the feed that they put on. It seems that each cook tries to outdo the other cooks and we get to enjoy the results!

One of the guys raises pumpkins and then decorates them. He donated these to the reunion for an auction to raise money for the group. The one in the center on the back row has been traveling with us since we left Anthony on the 15th of October.

Basement ready for occupancy

2007-11-25T13:50:00.000-08:00

The work rehabing the basement continued for most of the summer. The result of our sweat and toil look good. All of the furniture is back in place and it is livable.

Several things that the rehab allowed us to do was to correct some errors that we had made previously and now we have tile floors instead of the carpet. The recovery from future water intrusions should not be so catastrophic!

So enjoy the pictures, we are proud of the results!

Geophysical Study

2007-11-25T13:41:00.000-08:00

During the later part of the summer they began a geophysical study of the surrounding area. Previous studies had been conducted by driving down the county roads and vibrating there and taking readings. This study is being done in a very comprehensive manner.

They lay cables over many miles and also across the fields in a diagonal pattern. Then they take the trucks out and follow a preset pattern and vibrate the ground at certain intervals. If you look under the trucks you can see the pads that they compress down on the ground when they vibrate.

Normally they use two trucks in tandem to get the proper volume of vibrations and they have extra trucks so that they can use them when the wind increases. It seems that the instruments are so sensitive that if the wind rises above 30 miles per hour the friction of the wind across the ground causes interference and they need additional help with the vibrators.

All of these pictures are taken of the trucks in our wheat field which had just been planted. There is a couple of wells directly south of our farm so we hope this brings good results for us!

Best Buddies

2007-11-25T13:09:00.000-08:00

There is no greater bond than a dog and his master! As Barbara's mother continued to fail and she was moved into a nursing home, we were able to bring her dog Pepe in to spend some time with her. As you can see in this picture, he snuggled up to her and she stroked him with her good hand. These visits brought some peace to her in her final days. Shortly after this visit she passed away on July 16th at the age of 85.

Since that time Pepe has adopted Barbara and the two of them have become quite close do to the mutual loss they share.

Forty Fifth Anniversary

2007-11-25T13:00:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to throw this in as it was taken after we got finished having a nice meal with Greg, Sheri and the Grandchildren to celebrate our 45th wedding anniversary.

Water in Basement

2007-11-25T12:49:00.000-08:00

With all of the rain this spring and early summer we had water come into our basement. There was so much moisture that the ground became saturated and it seeped into the basement through cracks in the concrete walls and holes drilled into the floor by termite exterminators earlier. The trailer holds our carpet and padding that we had to take up. All of the furniture was moved up to the garage with the help of Greg, Sheri, Nicholas, Shane and Kimberly.

Since this is a walkout basement it did not get very high but did get high enough to soak up into some of the walls which ruined them and they had to be torn out and replaced to prevent black mold.

There were no workers availble to help with the restoration so Barbara and I took it on ourselves when we had a break from going to visit with her mother in the hospital.

Sheri visits Grandmother Doris

2007-11-25T12:38:00.000-08:00

Since Grandmother Doris was unable to come up to the Graduation where Sheri got her Masters Degrees because she was in the hospital, Sheri came down the next day to show her the gown and hood.

Sheri here is reading a Certificate of Appreciation for Support given to Doris by the College for her support of Sheri during her studies.

After Graduation Party

2007-11-25T12:26:00.000-08:00

We all went to the local community center to have an after Graduation party for Sheri.
Here we paused long enough to have a picture taken of the graduate and the immediate family. Shown in order are Neal, Shane, Nicholas, Sheri, Greg, Kimberly and Barbara.
Here Sheri poses with the rose that her Grandma Doris sent up to her. Grandma Doris was unable to attend as she had suffered a stroke which paralyzed her right side and she was in the hospital. Doris had been looking forward to attending this for a long time and was very upset that she could not.
A number of friends and relatives attended the party and shared the sandwiches as well as the cake and ice cream.

Sheri gets her Masters Degrees!

2007-11-25T12:09:00.000-08:00

A very proud day! Our daughter Sheri recieved two Masters Degrees in Human Resources. She did this while raising a family and holding down a full time job!

In this picture her husband Greg is placing the Hood on her to denote the advanced degrees.
Now this looks like a couple that had just acheived a long sought after goal! Don't they look happy or is it relieved?
Dena, Neal's sister, along with her husband Mike and daughter Jeri made the trip down from Topeka to attend the graduation ceremony. Sheri was very happy to have family attend and help her celebrate this achievement.

2007 Wheat Harvest

2007-11-25T11:45:00.000-08:00

Our weather turned wet this spring and there was a late freeze on Easter weekend.
The combines finally were able to get into the field after several days of no rain which allowed the fields to dry up enough that they would not get suck. It turned out that this was the last day that this condition was available to anyone in the area as the rains returned with no dry spells to allow for any more harvest and the wheat that had not been frozen was ruined by too much moisture.

The results of the havest was very disappointing in that we only got 15 bushels per acre this year. It turned out that since we had been able to harvest on the only day anyone could for the entire season, we were the fortunate ones!

Aunt Hazel's 90th Birthday Party

2007-11-25T11:31:00.000-08:00

Aunt Hazel, not really a relative but a close long time family friend, celebrated her 90th Birthday at the Anthony Community Care Center in May of this year.

We took Barbara's mother Doris, shown here in pink, and she and Hazel had a wonderful day. Doris by this time was beginning to fail health wise and was on oxygen full time.

The ladies talked about their grandchildren and of many past adventures they shared over the years.

Geocaching at home!

2007-11-25T11:22:00.000-08:00

I am going to attempt to bring the site up to date after not having blogged for the entire summer and fall because of personal problems that occurred. As I go along I will highlight some of the events of the past months and then I will try to be better at keeping the blogs coming.

Dena came down to visit from Topeka and she and I took a moment out and went Geocaching in the area. We were fortunate in that we found three caches during our outing.

One cache was at the Anthony 9/11/2001 Memorial in the city park. It is nice to have a cache there as it brings people to the memorial.
This cache is the second one we found at the Anthony Lake. It was off of the road 50 feet or so through high weeds and was a sneaky hide. They took a rock and drilled a hole just large enough to glue a medicine bottle to it and placed the log in there and when the rock is in place with the cache on the bottom it is hard to find! When we turned the rock over we were surprised to find the cache.

Returning to normal (Whatever that is!)

2007-10-20T13:18:00.000-07:00

The last post that I made was late April and since that time a lot has happened to us that precluded posting.

Real life rose up and grabbed us hard this summer.

I will try to create some posts of those happenings soon.

At present we are in Tucson, AZ at the DataStorm Users Group Rally and are seeing some of the folks that we have met over the last few years of rallies.

Weather is warm here and we are expecting 94 degrees today! Did I hear something on the weather that some snow is coming up north?

New Tractor

2007-04-21T16:43:00.000-07:00

We have been looking for a tractor for some time because the one we had previously had a major engine problem. On a trip to Alva, OK we decided to detour to the John Deere dealership to see what they had available and found this diesel tractor. It was priced as a package deal with the new tractor, loader, brush hog, box blade and trailer. The price was very reasonable so we bought it and brought it home.

Anytime you live on a farm, you have a number of chores that require the use of machinery to do it efficiently. Here I am spreading out rock that we had delivered. The drive had become very worn and rutted and we needed the rock to redo it. Trying to do this with only a shovel is not practicable.

Here Barbara is taking a few shovels of rock to place it at the edge of the concrete portion of the drive. She doesn't trust me with the tractor that much!

Ah, the joy of a new TOY!

While it is fun to play with the tractor now, it will be work in the future as we maintain the grounds. We will cut the weeds in the back area, remove old fence posts, remove small trees, etc. It is always nice to have a loader to do the heavy lifting that needs to be done around any farm.

One thing we do not want to use it for is the removal of SNOW!

Roswell, NM Visit

2007-03-22T15:53:00.000-07:00

No visit to Roswell, NM is complete without a stop at the UFO museum downtown. They have exibits of all of the history of the UFO pheonenom as it relates to Roswell also much from around the world. There is a complete library located in the museum so that you can use to research the subject.

Here Barbara is examining a fibreglass horse that has a number of newspaper items regarding UFOs laminated to its exterior! There are many exibits located all around the museum.

This is a wooden replica of a stone tablet found in Mexico that was of Mayan origination. It has enthralled many UFOers for many years. They see it as a representation of an alien spaceman controlling a spacecraft.

If you click on this photo you will get a better view of what they say is the explanation for the symbols on the above slab.

Here is a photo of the exibit showing a representation of the supposed examination of an alien by the military in a Roswell Army Airfield Hanger in 1947.

All in all we were impressed with Roswell in general. It was a military town until the late sixties when the Walker Air Force Base closed. This caused a drop in population of about 50 percent! Since then they have battled back and seem to be reasonably prosperous. The current population is around 50,000 people.

During World War II the Roswell Army Airfield was the place where they trained with B-29s and the ones that dropped the Atom Bomb trained here before heading to the Pacific.

The New Mexico Military Institute, a 4 year high school and two year college combined, is a beautiful campus and has a huge presence in the city. Some of the more memorable graduates of this institution are Conrad Hilton, Roger Staubach and Sam Donaldson.

There are all of the modern shopping opportunities available here. Most of the chains have representation here, such as McDonalds, Appelbees, Chili's, Sams Club, Walmart, Super Kmart, etc.

City of the Rocks Redeux

2007-03-20T17:48:00.000-07:00

We are on our way back to Kansas and decided to stop at the City of the Rocks State Park with the coach since we had descovered earlier that the sites were large enough for us.

When we arrived we were told that all of the sites were full and would have to dry camp until one opened up. Not to be denied that quickly, we decided to take a look at the sites and make sure. Much to our surprise, there was one site open and it was perfect for us, so we quickly occupied the site as it was first come first served! Talk about lucky! The office told us that it had been full for some time and people were dry camping trying to sneak in and get a site with electricity and water!

The park is quite busy now compared to what it was back in November when we last were here but it is quite peaceful and restful.

We took the opportunity while here to go Geocaching here in the park. Barbara shown above is at her first geocache since registering her name with geocaching.com. She is known as Cachegal and I am known as Canvasman! This is also her first cache with the new Garmin GPS that she got for her birthday. She wanted to have her own so she was not dependent on me. I think that there was a bit of competitive nature coming to the front on that! She wanted to have some pride of finding caches on her own. There are two caches here in the park and we found both.
(Truth be known, I found them both, but don't say anything to Barbara. OK?)
This is a telephoto shot of the campground from the site of the second geocache that we found. It is about a third of a mile from where we were.

This is the same shot without the telephoto element added. You can see the lovely setting that we are priviledged to be at today.

Our site was very long and open. Just the ticket for a relaxed stay here.

The far hill was where I took the telephoto shot from. We will have to come back again as this is really what RVing is all about!

The Springs at Borrego

2007-03-12T15:39:00.000-07:00

We thought we would share with everyone a few photos of the RV Resort we are staying at.
The setting is very pretty and they have done a good job of designing the resort. It is fairly new and they only have about 90 sites done so far but plans are in the works to expand it.

They have a nine hole regulation golf course that is in super condition complete with a driving range as well as an eighteen hole par three course.

Here is a view of the swimming pool at the club house area. They have a number of showers in and several meeting rooms.

They have several hot tubs which have the mineral waters from the Springs. The tubs are sized for several people or you can use one that is sized for only one person.

The park is somewhat empty today but was packed to the gills over the weekend! We decided to make reservations for next winter and were only able to get Nov, Dec, and Jan as Feb is full. We are first on the waiting list if they have a cancellation so we think we will be ok.

The area has a number of sites and a lot of desert to wander around in. It is only two hours from San Diego or LA and 65 miles from Indio so you have a number of options for day trips.

They even have a nice excercise room equiped with state of the art torture equipment!

There is also a couple of nice tennis courts and two horseshoe pits.

Borrego Springs brags that it does not have any major franchises like McDonalds, etc and no stop lights!

We did see a bumper sticker that said: "Experience Global Warming, Borrego Springs, CA"

The Slot Cache

2007-03-10T14:40:00.000-08:00

When we learned that we were going to visit the Slot in Anzo_Borrego State Park, we did some checking and found out that there was a Geocache located there so we added it to our to do list and headed out.

Here Neal is taking the rocks off of the cache after finding it.

The cache was an amunition can which is used by a lot of caches as they are waterproof when they are closed. This one held a number of trade items and cards from people who had found it as well as the normal log for us to find.

Here Dan is signing the log since he has now listed with Geocaching.com and is an official member.

We were very pleased with our GPS unit which allows me to download the information directly to it from my computer making it very easy. Then you tell the gps unit to find that cache and it points to it and tells you how far you are from it.

The problem we find out here is that the direct way is not available and you have to take roundabout routes to get accross the ravines and other obstructions.

This photo was taken from the cache site and it would be hard for anyone seeing it to realize that it was a trek of about one half mile back down into the canyon, then down the canyon to the junction with the main canyon, then back up the canyon to the area to climb out and return to the car! Lots of panting and some stopping for rests by the time we arrived at the car!

All in all, it was a great outing and we all had a ball!

The Slot in Anzo-Borrego State Park

2007-03-10T14:24:00.000-08:00

Dan and Barbara's daughter told them about a site to see in the Anzo-Borrego State Park called the Slot and we decided to go and find it! Here you see both Barbaras and Dan early in the trek while they were still able to smile and were not tired.

As we progressed deeper into the canyon, we found the going a little more challenging! Here we had to be inventive to get through a tight spot mid way to the Slot.

Success! We found the Slot down the canyon from the parking spot which was at the end of a sandy rutted road that made us put the car into 4 wheel drive.

Whatever goes down must later come up to get out of the canyon. This photo is real deceptive as it appears to be a gentle climb out. It is covered with very loose rocks and it was hard to get a decent footing so we did not fall back into the canyon!

Geocaching in the Anzo-Borrego State Park

2007-03-08T16:47:00.000-08:00

Dan and Barbara went Geocaching in the desert with us.

Here Barbara and Dan are admiring the scenic beauty of the area.

One of the Caches was down the Truckhaven Trail marked by this sign at the trail head. We were glad we had a 4 wheel drive vehicle to get us closer to the sites.

One of the caches that we found is shown here. It was a plastic drink jug with a screw on top. In the cache were a number of items which people trade or add one of their special items to. This shows the cache after some of the rocks which hide it have been removed.

This particular cache gave us a real challenge! Here Dan is giving his thoughts on the cache after we had treked over several arroyos and between here and the cache, which is on the peak under Dan's thumb another quarter of a mile away, there is yet a larger arroyo to traverse!
At this point, we decided it was not worth the effort as we had found four caches that day already and were getting a bit tired.

Anzo-Borrego State Park

2007-03-08T16:28:00.000-08:00

We visited the Anzo-Borrego State Park visitor center in Borrego Springs with Dan and Barbara.

Anzo-Borrego is a desert state park consisting of 600,000 acres around the town of Borrego Springs where we are staying at a nice RV park for a few days. The name of the park is generated from two sources. Anzo was the Spanish explorer who first transited this area as he took cattle and immigrants to the San Francisco area to settle there. Borrego is the name for the Big Horn sheep found in the area.

The center is built partially underground and has a number of exhibits showing the desert flora and fauna as well as the creatures that live there.

There is a number of walking trails in the immediate area of the center and they have markers to identify the various species of fauna found in the desert.

The two Barbaras and Dan trying to decide which direction to head next.

Here they collared me to make sure I got into the picture!

The entire center reminded us of the Living Desert in Palm Desert, CA.

Cactus Jack's

2007-02-18T15:32:00.000-08:00

For many years, it was the tradition to go to Cactus Jack's for breakfast on Sunday mornings in Indio for the bunch from ORA Indio. The two families that started this was Tom and Mary Cowgill and Don and Charlotte Chilcutt. When the Chilcutts moved to Pheonix and the Cowgills sold out and don't come down to the valley the group just disentegrated.

This morning in memory of those fun years past we went to the Restaurant for breakfast. There were fewer people than we had in the past when we had as many as 20 in the group.

We were also visited by several other former residents of the resort. Gary Lee and Ron Palin stopped by to say hi on their way to breakfast.

Bethlehem Street Party, ORA Indio, CA

2007-02-18T14:53:00.000-08:00

For the last 11 or 12 years there has been a street party held in Phase one of the ORA Motorcoach and Spa Resort. The entire resort is invited to come and byob and Hors D'oeuvres to share. All costs are paid from donations made by residents in Phase one and pay for Margaurita Mix and Mudslide Mix which are served to those who want them, decorations, and the band which provides entertainment for the group.

For many years Tom and Mary Cowgill were the driving force for this party. They have now sold their lot and the leadership mantle has fallen on John and Cathi DeBeaumont shown here. The preparations are extensive with buying supplies getting posters, organizing all of the details, etc.

Much help is provided by other residents of Phase one who gather tables from the area and bring them to the circle to use for the party and then taking them back the next day as well as acting as bartenders.

There were even past owners who came all the way from Pheonix to attend the party. Here we see Frank Hallacy, Don Chilcutt, Charlotte Chilcutt, and Pat Hallacy enjoying the party.

The entire resort looks forward to the street party which is held the third thursday of the second month each year. Fortunately, the weather this year was just beautiful and the turnout was extra large.

Friend's TV Challenge

2007-02-15T20:11:00.000-08:00

Dan and Barbara have been fighting a problem with the television in their coach for the past year or so. It seems it would lose the
picture and have only a white line from side to side in the middle. They had to use a rubber mallet that Barbara's father used to install the windshields into the model A Fords on the production line.

Nice to have the antique mallet to whack the tv with every time they wanted to watch it, but it does get a little old real quick.

Dan had tried everything he could to get it fixed and could not find anyone to do it. He tried to buy another tv but they don't make this tv anymore and he could not find one that would fit. He tried to get someone to rebuild the cabinet with no success. Needless to say he was at his wits end with the problem when he mentioned it to me.

After looking at the problem for a bit I suggested we get a thin LCD tv and mount it on the outside of the cabinet.

Dan was open to any help he could get so we took it on as a challenge and went shopping after taking lots of measurements. We found a Sony 26 inch LCD that fit the bill very nicely. Along with the tv installation Dan wanted to do something about the sound system as it would not work in surround sound and had a nasty buzz in the speakers.

After a couple of days, we were successful in mounting the tv in front of the cabinet and we got the sound system details worked out so that the Bose surround sound was clear and the rear speakers worked properly.

Here you can see ther grin on Dan as we are finishing up the installation. The new LCD Sony is such an improvement over the previous tv that it is quite stunning. It is capable of HDTV if they decide to put in the HD system. When they watch movies it is especially nice.

I enjoyed the challenge and felt a great deal of satisfaction with seeing the joy Dan and Barbara had with the new setup.

Frank and Kay Niessner

2007-02-12T11:55:00.000-08:00

Frank and Kay Niessner arrived at the resort and are on Jackie Miller's second lot. They are only here for a couple of days before returning to the Pheonix area for the balance of the season. Frank and Kay are owners of a Newell Coach as are Jackie and us.

They have been friends and acquaintances since our first trip to the resort in January of 1994 when we both attended the Newell Coach Rally. Frank and Kay are from Washington and have always extended an invitation for us to come to visit their "Poor Farm". Their farm, as we understand it is huge and they grow vegetables and fruits that they ship around the world in large shipping containers.
We promised to try to get there as soon as we could.

We all gathered on Jackie's patio and had drinks and fellowship as we talked about mutual freinds and mutual experiences that we share.

Frank told us that he is now 81 years old and has decided that he is now "non-productive". I recalled our first conversation from back in 1994 in which we discussed retirement as we both had retired at the same time. Frank was having a great deal of difficulty adjusting which prompted his telling me that he is now non productive.

Kay, seen here on the left with Jackie on the right, talked about all of their Grandchildren and Great Grandchildren from their ever expanding family and they even have some in the "oven".

It was very pleasant to spend some "together" time with the Niessners and recall the many wonderful times that we shared in the past.

College of the Desert Steet Fair

2007-02-10T20:47:00.000-08:00

Each weekend a street fair is held in the College of the Desert parking lot. These fairs are very popular and you can find just about any sort of item there. They have farm produce, knick knacks, clothes, watches, and many other sundry goods.

The crowds are huge and interesting to watch. Many of them are winter visitors who shop for various trinkets.

Here Barbara prepares to challange the crowds to find some treasures.

They have moved the Street Fair from the South east side to the west and aligned the stalls in straight lines which makes it a bit easier to shop. There are about 5 such lanes about two or three city blocks long with stalls on both sides!

As many others, we just have to attend at least one Street Fair during our visit. Yes, we did find
several items that we "Just had to have!"

Superbowl Party at ORA Indio

2007-02-05T09:34:00.000-08:00

There was a wonderful party at the clubhouse here at ORA Indio yesterday! Full bar and food (Ribs and Chicken with all the trimmings!) which were provided by Beaudry RV, Country Coach, and Patio Plus.

These pictures were taken just after the food had been served and shows some empty chairs which were in high demand just moments earlier!

They had set up an enormous projection screen on the stage of the clubhouse which made it easy to see from any place in the room. There were several television sets scattered around the perimiter also as well as the one in the owners lounge.

This is the group we came with. John and Cathi DeBeaumont shown on the left had us up to their lot for drinks and snacks prior to the "Big Feed!".

This is the only flat surface they could find to eat their dinners on as all others were full.

Got to see a lot of people that we had not seen for a while and had a great time.

Borrego Springs

2007-02-05T09:19:00.000-08:00

After lunch with the Tom Miller Memorial Ride group in Santa Ysabel, some of us got together to take an alternate route back over the mountains on the way back to Indio.

The route selected took us back through Borrego Springs which is just west of the Salton Sea. The road was up and down as well as twisty turny which was fun and quite picturesque.

We turned into the lookout over the town and took some time to visit and take a few pictures of the area.

I mentioned to the group that there was a new RV park down there with a golf course that I would like to find. Three carloads of us took on that challenge and located The Springs at Borrego RV resort to the north and east of the town. It has a nine hole regulation course and an 18 hole par three course as well as a driving range.

There is also a nice sized clubhouse with a swimming pool and three hot tub pools with the mineral water from the springs to soak in. The entire facilities were quite inviting so Dan and Barbara and us decided to reserve sites for the first week in March.

Our next adventure awaits!

Tom Miller Memorial Ride

2007-02-03T18:46:00.000-08:00

Today we were honored with the opportunity to join a group and to ride in memory of our friend Tom Miller.

The ride began at ORA Resort in Indio, CA where we ate a real nice breakfast and then went to Santa Ysabel to have a lunch then back to Indio. The total distance was about 240 miles. We took our car and Dan and Barbara rode with us since Dan did not bring his Harley down this year.

Jacky Miller along with her daughters Lori and Sheri and Sheri's husband Robert were in attendance.

This photo was taken from the photo memorial put together by his daughters and presented on a television in the clubhouse here at the resort.

Here are some of the riders gathering in preparation for the ride.

Most of these people were part of the regular group of riders that took rides here over the years. Barbara was Tom's designated rider and went with him on many rides behind him on his Harley. Tom's wife Jacky did not like riding that much so she and I would sometimes take my car and meet them for lunch. So we were glad to have made it to the ride.

Here is a group photo of the bikes prior to starting on the ride. There were a total of 42 bikes and 50 riders plus 24 more attended via the automobiles.

Everyone had to sign up and pay a donation of $25.00 per person to participate. The organizers anounced that they had gotten enough money to send $1000.00 to the Heart Association as a donation. They also announced that they had decided to make the Tom Miller Memorial Ride an annual event to be held the day before the superbowl each year.

The breakfast was furnished as a donation by Beaudry RV Sales, Country Coach, and Patio Plus which was a real nice gesture.

Lunch at the Apple Country Restaurant in Santa Ysabel was very nice.

All in all the ride was a success!

Geocaching with Dan and Barbara

2007-01-31T10:38:00.000-08:00

We took Dan and Barbara with us out looking for Geocaches yesterday. It was their first time to try this very popular hobby where people hide a "cache" and record the longitude and latitude whch they publish on Geocaching.com and everyone that finds it signs a log at the site and records their finding it. They also record the finding on the internet site so that the owners of the "cache" know that people have found it.

We looked for and found some in town and then headed out into the desert for a bit of excercise.

This cache is called Lady bug and as you can see on the rusted tin can there is a couple of lady bug plastic items attached to it. Inside there is a log book to record your visit.

Here we have found another cache and I am recording our visit to the site as Dan plots our next move from the printed pages that we took off of the internet site.

This photo shows the gals all decked out for a trip to the desert. This was not too far from town but was quite isolated. After leaving the pavement and taking the "trail" out to the cache area we had to travel through a lot of trash that people had hauled out to the desert. Surprising how much trash is just out of sight near our towns that does not go to the regular trash sites.

Dan had his eye on a set of matching couches that he felt had some life left in them. I won't tell what his wife had her eye on after a long trek through the desert!

Here Barbara and I pose at a cache. We look real proud of ourselves at our success! All in all we found a total of 6 caches.

It was a very fun day with a lot of laughs and a good time was had by all.

We suspect Dan and Barbara will be willing to go "Geocaching" with is again in the future!

Pamela's Cadillac

2007-01-24T10:48:00.000-08:00

Karl Blade had several cars that he brought to the Barrett-Jackson Auto Auction to sell. One of these was a car that belonged to Pamela Anderson who bought the car to give to Kid Rock as a gift when they were engaged. When they broke up he gave it back and she sold it. The title was still in her name when Karl brought it to the auction.

In order to cause some excitement for the car, Karl hired a lookalike to spend some time in the car before and during the auction. The first photo is of Barbara with her as she sits in the car out in the tent during the day prior to it coming in to the main tent. There were a lot of people taking pictures and asking for autographs.

Here the Karl is in the car with "Pamela" just prior to entering the main tent for the auction. People are crushing in to get autographs and pictures!

I had to add this photo to the group as it shows that Karl was having way too much fun with this Pamela deal!!!

The excitement carried over to the auction as this newly restored 1960 Cadillac convertible brought $105,000.00 which made Karl have an even bigger grin than the one in this picture!

Auction Fun

2007-01-24T10:18:00.000-08:00

We had a wonderful time at the Barrett-Jackson Auto Auction in Scottsdale, AZ! The weather turned sour on us the last several days but did not dampen our fun.

This is a picture taken from our "Newell Sky Box". It was very well located so that we could see the cars as they came into the tent to be auctioned off. The tables were covered with different colored clothes for each day. There was catered food, coffee, tea, soft drinks, and of course mixed drinks and wine provided. There was security at the bottom of the stairs to prevent just anyone from coming up to the box.

As you would expect, the food was first class as is everything that Newell does during these gatherings.

We were pleased to have the opportunity to see a number of fellow Newell owners that we had not seen for some time. Jim and Arlene Adams, Jim Howell, and Rod and Mary Whelan all came from Florida just to attend this event. Jim Howell is the fellow that we purchased our current Newell from and he gave us an ataboy for taking such good care of our coach.

Here is a photo of Alice Blade. As you can see from her expression, she was having a great time just like the rest of us.

This picture of Karl Blade is somewhat unfair as he was in a deep conversation with someone as I snapped his photo. He really did have a good time at the auction.

This is a photo of me next to the CNN warrior hummer which was in the middle of the Iraq war and had correspondents from CNN in it as they followed the war.

Chip Foose and the group of Overhaulin, a TV show where they redo older cars, redid the hummer and made it a showpiece for CNN to take around to various functions. CNN decided to auction off the car and donate the proceeds to a charity that helps the families of the service personell. It brought over $1,250,000.00!

Another oddity at this years auction were the "Gravity Racers". These were put together by car company design teams and used for charity races. They were very popular at the auction. The one you are looking at was designed by Bently Motors and brought about $45,000.00.
It is comprised of a carbon fibre body and many exotic weight saving ideas.

Barrett-Jackson 2007 (Opening Day Monday)

2007-01-16T07:29:00.000-08:00

The first day at the auction is one of expoloration! We wandered around the grounds to get a lay of the land and it took us half a day.

To say this place is huge is an understatement. They have five large tents with cars under cover as well as many between the tents. If you love cars, this is the mecca of car enthusiasts of all kinds. There are muscle cars, antique cars, special interest cars, etc. A veritable candy store!

Here is a view of some of the tents. The people who have brought their cars to the auction are constantly busy keeping them clean. Out here in the desert there is plenty of dust to keep them on their toes.

We found many cars that reminded us of our past automobile experiences. Ones we owned and ones we wish we had owned! This 1955 Oldsmobile 88 is identical to one we owned while I was in College back in the 60's.

They have booths for just about anything related to vehicles for you to buy, even airplanes!

Here Barbara stopped to examine a streamlined version of a motorcycle trike. She was less interested when I said that I would buy it for her! Guess she is just a "Window Shopper"!

Dropping in on old aquaintances

2007-01-14T19:05:00.000-08:00

We took the opportunity while in the area to contact and visit a couple named Brent and Louise Green that we had met at a FMCA Rally in Baton Rouge, LA in 1994. Both couples had gone to the rally and stopped at the staging area prior to going into the main rally.

The sites at the main rally filled up prior to our being allowed in and we were forced to stay where we were for the duration of the event. This adversity was shared as we became neighbors and decided to make the best of the situation and have fun.

After that meeting, we attended the FMCA rally in Las Cruses, NM and Puallope, WA together and enjoyed each others company. After that Brent and Louise dropped out of motorhoming and moved from Tucson to Sunlakes, AZ to be near their family.

We called them and made an appointment to visit with them. They were quite surprised to hear from us as they thought we had moved on and forgotten them!

Our visit was a real joy! As you can see from this photo, Louise still wants to make sure you understand fully what she is telling you!

They have a lovely home which is set up to suit them in their current lifestyle.

Here Louise is showing us her craft room where she currently is working on glass jewelery. She takes pieces of colored glass and combines them into beautiful designs and then fires them in a furnace to melt them together. The results are stunning!

Here is a photo of Brent in his new office. He is on many volunteer boards in the area and tries to help with community projects. These keep him quite busy.

Brent also has a complete woodworking shop in his garage which he is very proud of. His current projects are Turned Timepieces that are quite unique.

All in all, it was a very fun and pleasant visit. It is nice to reestablish our relationship with the Greens and we plan to maintain it in the future.

Bisbee, AZ

2007-01-05T11:16:00.000-08:00

Our visit to Bisbee was enlightening. We learned a lot about its turbulent past.

Bisbee is a mining town that began after a soldier, who was on a march through the area that was aquired by the Gadsden Purchase, noticed the large amount of mineralization and put in a mining claim.

The mining of Copper and other minerals is a high capitalization effort and this brought in big money from back east to set up mining firms and mine it. Over 8 Billion pounds of copper have been mined here from the start to the present time. Phelps Dodge is the current company here but it is up for sale and will be under new owners soon.

One of the affects of this was the strife between the miners and the companies as the miners tried to organize to protect themselves from terrible working conditions down in the mines.
The history of the strife is interesting in that it is one of the foundations of later unionization of workers in other industries.

As Bisbee grew it went through several sites as it was consumed by fire several times and relocated to make way for mining. Eventually it rebuilt with brick and stone and was a very substantial city which competed with San Francisco and St Louis in many respects. It had Opera houses and was very modern. As this photo shows, it is built upon the hills which border the mines.

The building at the left is the US Post Office for Bisbee. Very ornate as are many of the other buildings in the city.

This is the famous Bisbee Grand Hotel which was known far and wide for its opulence.

Over time the population of the city dwindled as mechanization of the mines reduced the number of miners needed and later when the underground mining was dropped in favor of open pit mining which was much cheaper.

The city now has many arts and crafts shops for the tourists to purchase trinkets and fine art at.
It reminds us of Eureka Springs, Arkansas in many respects.

The elevation of the city makes for cooler temperatures in the summer than most of southern Arizona and is a mecca during the summer months.

Four Generations of Family

2007-01-05T10:42:00.000-08:00

We assembled the family for photographs during our visit home over Christmas and the first one shows the four generations of women in the family. Each one of these beautiful ladies were the first born child to thier parents.

There is a tradition in the family that the first born daughter of each generation would alternate between one of two middle names, Ellen or Mae. Therefore you see before you from the oldest to the youngest the following named first daughters.

Doris "Mae", Barbara "Ellen", Sheri "Mae", and Kimberly "Ellen"! This goes back a number of generations previous also. Kimberly says that we will have to wait for some time before she makes a donation to the tradition!

Here we have Grandma "Dorie" with Sheri and her family. She got that name when one of the grandchildren could not say her name when they were little and it stuck.

If you are waiting for my opinion, I will have to tell you that this is a fine looking group if I have ever seen one!

Sheri, Nicholas and Kimberly are all college students at the present time. Sheri will graduate this spring with TWO masters degrees in Human Resource. The other students are hard pressed to keep up in her wake! Shane is in the sixth grade this year so he is not caught up in any scholastic competition with the older folks!

This is a picture of Barbara and I with Grandma Dorie. The sweatsuit was warm and comfy on me so I did not dress up for the photo session!

Christmas Time with the Family

2007-01-05T10:19:00.000-08:00

We drove back to Kansas in the Tahoe so we could spend time with the family for Christmas this year. We had to take the southern route from Benson, AZ through El Paso, TX and Wichita Falls, TX and then north to the farm because of the terrible snow storm that was pounding Colorado, northern New Mexico and western Kansas.

Sheri and her family came down and stayed Christmas Eve and Christmas day at the farm with us. This was a fantastic visit and everyone had a good time.

Above is a photo of Pepe, Barbara's Moms dog showing off his new warm winter outfit.

As these photos show, gift receiving is a pleasant task!

Here Kimberly is opening one of her first presents with many more to follow. Watching her is her mother Sheri and father Greg who are waiting thier turn at the treasures fo the day.

Nicholas is grinning from ear to ear as he opens his new Xbox 360! Now he says he can get online and play with his friends who live in other states. (Amazing how technology has transformed our lives!)

This photo is of Shane in a moment of pure rapture as he discovers that he got a "Guitar Hero II" to use on his Playstation 2.

Notice the huge pile he has accumulated and stored in the cardboard box in front of him. Guess he was a good boy this entire year!

Needless to say, our trip home was one of great family togetherness and love.

Burning Question!

2006-12-14T18:29:00.000-08:00

I know that many of you have often wondered how the miners that went down several hundered feet into the mine relieved themselves when nature called!

Well, now I can answer that burning question for you. Pictured is a cart that was taken around the mine on the rails to the miners so that they could use it when nature called. Guess that puts a new meaning to the term Porta-Potty!

Queen Mine Tour, Bisbee, AZ

2006-12-11T18:59:00.000-08:00

We took a tour of the Queen Mine in Bisbee, AZ today. Bisbee was a huge source of copper along with other sundry minerals taken from the hard granite mountains in the area. They started with hard rock tunnel mines and after near the middle of the last century they converted to the open pit mining.

They made us dress for the tour with hard hats, slickers, and a light. The mine is about 47 degrees year round due to the availability of air coming through cracks and man made vents.
Don't we look cute!

Here we enter the tunnel on the train. We had to sit straddle of the center line and be very careful as the walls were quite close. Barbara was concerned going in as to whether her claustropbia would allow her to go in. She did just fine.

The mine has 120 miles of tunnels in it. It was one of the very first mines in the area and is owned by Phelps Dodge.

This view shows the train as we exited the mine. Looks like everyone was glad to get back to the surface!

This is the second entrance and it was made in 1915. The orginal entrance was higher up the mountain.

Kartchner Caverns-Big Room Tour

2006-12-10T18:22:00.000-08:00

We went back to Kartchner Caverns yesterday for a tour of the "Big Room". All tours are with guides and they take the time to explain in detail how the caverns were formed and all of the various formations that are in the caverns. The Big Room is only open for 6 months a year as it is used the other 6 months by the colony of bats for the birth and nursery of their newborns. It is near the entrance which allows it to breathe and is not as humid as the Rotunda room which has air tight doors to keep it pristeen. The Big Room has these door also but the small entrance hole for the bats makes the difference there. The big room was near the entry which was made at a sink hole that the cavers found. They had to cut a bigger hole at the entry as it was only about 4 inches in diameter. They knew they had a cave because the air was coming from the hole and they smelled bat quano. The smell of bat quano is pure ambrosia to a caver as it is a telltale sign that there is a cave around.
We can only imagine the delight of these fellows as they made their way into the cave knowing that no human had ever been in there before them. When they got to the big room they just sat there in silence for a while soaking it in until they realized that they had entered a cave and no one knew where they were and if they had a mishap they would never be found! They left and made sure that someone they could trust with their secret knew where they were every time they entered the cave to explore.

This is a sheet which resembles a slice of bacon!
These stalactites resemble carrots!

All in all we had a marvelous time in the caverns. For those coming through the area, the park is about 9 miles south of Interstate 10 at exit 302 and it has a real nice RV park with power and water with a dumpstation nearby. The sites are large enough for big rigs.

Kartchner Caverns State Park, AZ

2006-12-04T14:59:00.000-08:00

We visited the Kartchner Caverns today. It has to be said that this is a wonderful experience.
The Caverns were discovered by two men who lived in Tucson and were cavers. They found it in 1974 and kept it a secret for many years until they found a way to protect the cave for the future enjoyment by everyone. The land was owned by a family lead by a man who was a teacher and rancher. They were let in on the secret and helped to present it to the state of Arizona who then made it into a state park.

These pictures will give you a little idea of the wonders of the cave. They by no means will allow you to really experience what you can when you go there.

The park and the tour are very well designed and executed to make the experience a special one. They have air locks that you have to go through so as to maintain the fragile environment of the caverns. No pictures, food, drinks, etc are allowed in the cave and you only go through with a guide in small groups.

There are walking paths that you are very strictly kept on so as to not endanger the cave. There are two tours that you can go on, one of the rotunda and one of the big room. You have to have a reservation made in advance to be taken on these tours.

We only took the rotunda tour today and will try to take the big room on a later date.

Presidio Santa Cruz De Terrenate

2006-12-01T18:33:00.000-08:00

Today we took a hike out into the desert to the ruins of this Presidio which dates from 1775 and was used until 1780. It is about one and a half miles from the trail head where we parked the car. The trail is good but lots of rocks for a good part of the trip. The last portion is along an abandoned railway bed.
The spanish moved to this location from one south of here. They wanted to exert control over this area which had been the home of the Apache indians. They brought some 80 soldiers who were basically calvary men with lances and each one had 5 horses. Among those who came were some mission indians to help with the construction of the adobe structures and some civilians who did not want to be left behind with no protection.

The site they picked was on a bluff overlooking a river. It was a very defensible position in a military sense. The problem was the Apache would not confront them in the fort. They would raid the horse herds, harrrass the supply trains, attack the farmers that tried to farm to supply the presidio, attack those going to the river for water, etc. Basically they conducted guerilla war and the Spanish could not sustain the fort long term so it was finally abandoned in 1780 and the Spanish retreated to the south.
In a way this helped the Americans later when they were acquiring this regon in the Gadsden Purchase from the Mexicans. The Mexicans wanted protection for their people from the Apache and other maurading indians and the Americans promised to do this.
As you can see the weather over the last 200 years has taken a toll on the adobe structures.

We enjoyed the hike and the visit to the ruins, but we discovered how out of shape we were! It is not like walking on the paved roads here in the RV park. Lots of up and down and around the rocks. Oh well, we will get into better shape as we do this more.

Fun Day in the Desert

2006-11-27T17:11:00.000-08:00

We decided to combine two destinations in one trek today.

As shown on the sign we elected to go on a hike to the Pesidio Santa Cruz de Terrenate ruins. On the way to the ruins we were searching for a geocache that we found on geocaching.com.

Fortunately we did not see any venomous creatures! Did see some tracks that they left on the trail though!

We had no trouble finding the geocache this time! The gps took us directly to the site about a mile or so into our hike. This is a picture of the cache for those who have never seen one. It is an amunition can under the rocks. It holds the log and a bunch of items to trade. (Deck of cards, CD of songs, plastic soldiers, key chains, etc.) The search and the find is the fun of the deal.

This picture is of the beginning of the trip and as you can see Barbara is ready to go and has the equipment to make a successful search! She has her gps and hiking stick (as well as mine!) and her hiking boots on. The jacket was too much soon into the trip.

Lots of fun but a lot of exertion of effort!

Palomas, Mexico

2006-11-21T16:42:00.000-08:00

We went down to Palomas, Mexico the other day. It is a very small town south of Deming, NM and the only place in the town that we went into was the PINK STORE!

It had lots of trinkets and mexican items for sale as well as some liquor and a nice restaurant. We decided to try the restaurant. Barbara made a fau pax and ordered a water to drink. They brought her a glass of water and I asked her if she really wanted to drink it and the lights went off in her head and she asked the waiter for a coke!

The food was really good and we enjoyed it a lot. They even had live entertainment for us!
This picture of the inside of the restaurant shows the attempt to use all available space to show the customers the items they have for sale.

Not a lot of activity on the streets of the town while we were there. Other than the store we went into the rest of the area was seedy to say the least.

They have a statue of Poncho Villa in the main square of the town.

Palomas is directly south of Columbus, NM which was invaded by Villa in 1916 and many were killed. This caused the Americans to send Black Jack Pershing on the "Punitive Expedition" against the Mexicans. That expedition was the first to use motor vehicles and airplanes by the army in an operation.

Even with all of this equipment, the Americans never got close to Pancho Villa and his men.

The Museum at Columbus, NM has a lot of items from that era on display and was a real delight to go through.

City of Rocks State Park New Mexico

2006-11-16T13:14:00.000-08:00

When our friends Denny and Judie Harden left Kerrville last January after our cruise together, they toured some of the New Mexico area and have shared with us the results of their "scouting". One of the places that they recommended in the Deming, NM area was the City of Rocks State Park.

We went on our trip up to Silver City to look around yesterday and on our way back we stopped at the park. Denny and Judie did good work! The park is just wonderful! It is the remnants of volcanic ash from an eruption some millions of years ago that had hardened weathered into this landscape of upright boulders reminisceant of a city of buildings.

The above photo was taken from the observation point to the south of the park and gives a feel for the overall size of the formation. The white dots are campers in the campground which has water and electricity. We will not be going up there to camp this time but you can be assured we will make every effort to stop for a while and camp in the near future.

There are many campsites around the park that are for primitive or dry camping that sit in alcoves of the rocks and are special places to camp also.

You can get a feel for the size of the boulders when you compare Barbara and the car to them. It is hard to take the picture and have them show the impression they make.

This is a telephoto shot of the campground that has electricity and water. The sites are large and generally level so they will fit most RVs.

Needless to say, we were exceedingly impressed with this park and are looking forward to staying there in the future! Perhaps on our way back towards Kansas this spring!

Rough Country to hike

2006-11-13T19:31:00.000-08:00

We thought we would share with you some of the photos we took today of the country that we had to traverse to get to the Geochache. There was a lot of sage brush, some catus, and a lot of loose rocks. Deep cuts making it hard to find a way to the destination. We made the best time by traveling the wash at the bottom in a roundabout way and it was easier walking even though it went farther. Straight line traveling is not in the cards here!
The views shown here were all taken from the top of the mesa.

The white dot at the bottom of the picture below is Barbara wondering if I would ever come back. I was out of sight to her for quite some time and she called me on my cell phone to check my welfare! Modern life in the rough country!

Our First Geochaching Expedition

2006-11-13T14:57:00.000-08:00

Today we went on our first hunt for a Geochache by ourselves. Neal had done some in Stillwell Store with another person.

We chose Mohawk Mesa Cache number GCG052 from Geochaching.com as our first endeavor as we will be leaving tomorrow for Demming and this one looked like it would give us some excercise and challenge.

The location is quite some ways from the highway over varying terrain, most of which is desert scrub. The problem that comes up is there is no direct way to get to the location. You have the coordinates for your GPS and have to work out the best route as you go. This causes some missteps and extra work.

Barbara is sitting at the base of the mesa in this photo which was taken after a long (for us old folks!) march around the toolies.
This photo of Neal is after he had gone up to the top of the Mesa in search of the cache. He found it after a bit of searching around. The cache was a plastic container which held a log book for us to sign. There were trade goods there also and you can trade some items for some from the cache.

The views from the top are magnificent.

Barbara elected to halt a bit down from the top as it was a harder and she had already used up a lot of energy to get this far. If you look closely you will see her in this photo. Click on it for a larger view.

We laughed going out as we then knew the best way to go and it took us MUCH less time exiting back to the car. We carried fanny packs with supplies in case we needed them and did take advantage of the grainola bars and water. The walking sticks were essential as the ground was crumbly and sandy.

We will be doing this more and more as we wander around. Demming has about 87 caches for us to find in the area! Geocaching is a growing hobby and there are about 900,000 caches in the US. Great way to see sites that we would never ever have an opportunity to see otherwise and get healthy excercise to boot.

Contents of Felipe Frais's Buckets

2006-11-12T19:46:00.000-08:00

These are closer pictures of the contents of the lard buckets found near Van Horn, TX after 100 years. At the left is the letter and a hand sewn envelope for it. Also shown is a shaving mirror and a washcloth.

This is the evidence that allowed them to date the find. It is an advertisement for Arbuckles catalog and some coupons from the catalog all dated in 1897.

On the left is a pen in a leather pouch, next is a piece of soap, then a tobacco pouch and papers. On the lower shelf are some dried peppers and seeds.

It interested us to see what someone thought was important enough to keep in their kit as they wandered the mountains in search of silver in the late 1800's.

Van Horn, TX

2006-11-07T08:19:00.000-08:00

Every town we stop at and take the time to look around and see what they have to offer has some very interesting things to share. We went to the Clark Hotel which has been converted into the local museum and got to visit with Robert Stucky who took us around and told us of the history of the area.

The above picture was taken in 1919 during the Old Setllers Reunion and Barbeque which brought people (even the Govenor) from around the state to participate. The Clark Hotel is seen in this picture and is the two story building. The upper floor was built to act as the original court house until they built a dedicated building a couple of years later. This view was taken from the main drag between the buildings and the railroad tracks. Later when the highway was built, they ran it through what had been the alley behind the buildings which caused all of the business to redirect their focus towards the opposite direction!

Here is a photo above of Robert taken at the bar in the Clark Hotel. Robert gave us a feel for how this part of the state developed. Texas, since it came into the Union as a republic, never had federal land. The state sold land to private people to expand the civilization. They had tried to sell this land for 50 cents per acre and had no luck. They decided in about 1906 that they would open it up for homesteading to get rid of it and get it on the tax rolls. Instead of the federal size of 160 acres which is one quarter of an section, they allowed each homesteader to have 8 full sections of land each.

You can imagine the problems this caused! The local ranchers were using the land as open range and now would find themselves limited to the 8 sections they could homestead. Not to be stymied by this, many ranchers hired a lot of cowboys who then applied for their 8 sections which later found thier way to the ranchers hands. The ranchers also had to deal with those folks who would come in thinking that they could get a homestead. Most of those were convinced by one means or another that their health would be much improved if they turn over their homesteads to the ranchers and leave the area. There, of course, were some hardheaded ones that had to be made examples of and their bones were found later on out in the sagebrush!

Above is an exibit from the museum. It is of two lard buckets that were found by a border patrolman about 20 years ago north of town in the mountains where there are some silver mines. Inside of the buckets were the possessions of a Mexican. The material in the buckets indicated that they date from early 1897 and there was a letter that he had written but never sent so they have his name but are not aware of what happened to him.
This is a translation of the letter and you can see his name was Felipe Frais. Amazing that this was found after being out in the mountains for 100 years unmolested.

Demajuana

2006-11-05T13:28:00.000-08:00

Pictured at left is a Spanish demajuana jug that was found by the Stillwells on their ranch. They had removed a large catclaw tree and this was underneath it in the sand.

A demajuana jug was used by the Spanish to hold sacramental wine and is made of glass in a fashion that dates back to the Egyptians several thousand years ago. It is made of sections and pieced together in a peculiar manner. All of these were made in Spain from methods given to them by the Moors and are considered a real treasure.

As near as can be determined this jug is over 300 years old and they think it was left here in the late 1600's or the early 1700's and may have been stolen from the Spanish friars by the Indians and hidden in the sand and they never came back for it for some reason.

The jug is quite large, about 5 gallons, and is in perfect condition.

Makes one wonder what else is hiding out there to be found someday!

Stillwell Ranch Store and RV Park

2006-11-05T13:00:00.000-08:00

We have spent the last few days here at the Stillwell Store RV Park located on Texas Ranch road 2627 just outside of Big Bend National Park. It is a very laid back environment down here! Every evening we gather around the porch to tell stories and have a bit of fellowship. Barbara is the second from the left sitting in the brown rocker. Nan, the daughter of the current owner, is seated the second to the left of the door and is a great story teller. The gal in the gold shirt by the post is Miss Della who is a local gal and quite personable.

This painting is of Hallie Stillwell and hangs in the Hallie Stillwell Hall of Fame and Museum on the grounds. Hallie was the wife of the founder of the Stillwell ranch who started the ranch in 1906 and they were married in 1918. Hallie lived a very long life and kept the ranch together with the help of her children after the death of her husband Roy. She was a very talented writer, rancher, business person, etc. and was much respected throughout the region. She was the first Queen of the International Chili Cookoff in Terlingua, TX and held that position each year until her death in 1997.
If you look closely you will see some rocks on the hill above that make the brand of the Stillwell ranch, 4 L, which stands for the four L's in Stillwell!

Life on the ranches in this area is very marginal as it is so arid. One ranch is 80,000 acres and only has 300 head of cattle. If they get rain they go up to 400 head! Many ranches are being sold to outside investors and money people who just want a place to escape to and play cowboy. Land sells for up to $350.00 per acre here! This is only a part of the accomodations for RV's here. There is another section for 30 amp and another one for primitive camping. If we wanted to we could stay here for a month with full 50 amps and hook ups for $300.00 per month. It is tempting as we have the satellite dish for internet and tv but we are so far out that the cell phones don't work!

Luna's Jacal

2006-11-02T18:44:00.000-08:00

Located in Big Bend National Park along the unpaved and rough Old Maverick Road is an interesting site known as Luna' Jacal (Pronounced Ha-Kahl). This was the home of a farm family for many years.

Gilberto Luna built the Jacal (a name for a goatherd house) when he got married and he lived there until he died at age 108 in 1947.

This view of the home will give a perspective of the size. There is a large rock at the rear which has been incorporated into the construction. The home was built in the "waddle and daub" method which uses the sticks, stones, and local mud.

The story is that Luna farmed in the dry wash in front of his home and raised beans and children. From the short research that I was able to do there were somewhere around 30 children sired and he had as few wives as 3 and as many as 11. This would lead us to the conclusion that the house was hard on the wives but it was good for him as he lead a very long life for the times!

It is hard to imagine life in this home. It is very low and there does not appear to be a chimeny for a fire. The stones around the bottom would help keep it cool in the summer and warm in the winter. I suspect most of their days were spent outside working the fields, grinding grain for meals, cooking meals, etc.

We were very taken by this house and when you consider the habitat that it is in you gain a great deal of respect for these people and the hardships that they endured as a matter of course. Summers here can see temperatures in the 120 degree range. How many of us would last any appreciable time trying to duplicate their feat.

Visit to Big Bend National Park

2006-11-02T17:20:00.000-08:00

Today we went to Big Bend National Park. The vistas are just awsome! I have included a few photos that I took today but it by no means shows the wonder of the landscape we saw today.
When we saw this mountain in the distance the first thing I thought of was the spires of a cathedral. Turns out that the name given by the early pioneers was Mule Ears! Guess they had a different perspective than I did!
I wanted this picture to come up first but it didn't. Guess I will have to read the instructions again.
This is a photo of the Rio Grande River exiting Santa Elena Canyon. The power of water on rock is evident here. Over many years it has cut out this route through the mountain.

We traveled a great distance around the park today and took a lot of photos which I will share in other posts as 4 seems to be the limit per post. Every mountain and spot has a name but we are not familiar enough to point them out in great detail. We just enjoy the beauty of them. The Park covers over 800,000 acres so there is a lot of open country as well which was being used in earlier times by ranchers and subsistance farmers.

La Linda

2006-11-01T17:11:00.000-08:00

We found a campground near Big Bend National Park called Stillwell Store and RV Park on Texas ranch road 2627. Will post another blog about the RV Park in a day or two as it is an interesting place.

In looking at the map we noticed that the road ran south from our campsite to the Rio Grande River which is the border with Mexico so we decided to take a trip down and have a look.

The entire way down is through the Black Gap Wildlife Park which is very rugged and isolated. The road is just wonderful, very well maintained which we found to be interesting when we found that the road ended at a bridge that was totally blocked.

The bridge while older is a real nice one that crossed the Rio Grande River and was used by people to mingle on the border. Things have changed and barriers have been placed on the bridge as you can see in the pictures.

The river is wide and runs with some force through here but I doubt that it would inhibit a determined person from crossing. More of a deterent is the fact that there is nothing for a couple of hundred miles north except rough country that you would not want to walk through.

Here is a nice picture with Barbara that really shows the bridge. The top photo is a telephoto shot of a church that is sitting in the middle of nowhere accross the river in Mexico.

"Hub" Parker

2006-10-31T15:28:00.000-08:00

We made a new friend today! When we were at Fort Stockton we ran into a gentleman in the gift shop who had written a book which they had on sale.

Hub Parker and I got into quite a discussion about the area and it's history. Hub has lived and worked on ranches throughout the area for his entire life of 74 years.

He is a walking encyclopedia of the geography and happenings and is more than ready to tell you about it! He said that he only went to the sixth grade and most of his education came at the feet of the cowboys and ranchers of the area.
He talked of breaking horses and was delighted to hear that Barbara had broken horses in her youth.

We bought his book which he signed to Neal and also two small books of cowboy poems that he had written and he signed those to Barbara.

This was a delightful interlude in our day of sightseeing!

Fort Stockton, TX

2006-10-31T14:52:00.000-08:00

We visited the museum at Fort Stockton today. It consists of about 5 buildings left from the original fort.

The fort was started around 1858 but abandoned in 1861 due to the Civil War. In 1867 the army returned to the post and started rebuilding it so they could guard the trail from San Antonio to El Paso from the Indians and Mexican bandits. The first building on the fort was the guard house. (Now that says a lot about how they controlled their soldiers back then!)

The soldiers that manned the post were exslaves who became known as buffalo soldiers.

There is not a lot of exhibits at the fort with the exception of the buildings which were interesting in their own right.

This exhibit was in the enlisted mans barracks. We found the beds very interesting. They consist of iron headboard and footboard with wood bolted to them. A real neat way to make a bed that could be taken apart and moved without much bulk. I doubt that they would be very comfortable as they did not have much in the way of a mattress!

Annie Riggs Memorial Museum

2006-10-31T13:52:00.000-08:00

We decided to stop in Fort Stockton, TX for a couple of days and visit the sites.

One of the best sites in town is the Hotel turned into a museum which displays a lot of the articles from the pioneer days.

The hotel began construction in 1899 and finished in 1901. The cowboys needed a place to stay when they came to town which is also the county seat for Pecos County so they all got together and put up the money to build it. It is made of exposed adobe bricks with walls two feet thick and ceilings fourteen feet high. There are 15 rooms nine of which are guest rooms.

When you stayed at the hotel you did not rent a room, you rented a bed and there were two beds in a room. It cost 50 cents a night and if you wanted a private room you had to rent two beds! Annie Riggs purchased the hotel in 1905 for $5,000.00 with $3000.00 cash and the balance in payments. (To be able to come up with that much cash back then was astounding.)

Here is a picture of an inner courtyard at the hotel. It is a very pretty place.

The folks in the museum showed us a desk that sits in the lobby of the hotel. It seems that this desk has a history.

It seems that it sat in the 1883 courthouse office of the Sheriff by the name of A. J. Royal. Sheriff Royal was one of those that took advantage of the office and was expropriating from the locals everything he could including complete ranches. He came up for election in 1894 and it was a very volatile and fueding atmosphere so the governor sent in 5 Texas Rangers to monitor the situation.

In the meantime a group of local business men got together to draw straws to see who got the pleasure of killing Sheriff Royal. Well, the election came and went and Sheriff Royal was not reelected. Several of the Rangers left and two weeks after the election poor old Sheriff Royal was shot and killed while sitting at the desk. There is a drawer with some of his blood stains still visible. Even with the three Rangers still in town, there was never any solution to the crime.

The museum holds many artifacts from around the area. One display is of many fossils which is quite interesting.

Surprise Visitors!

2006-10-29T17:17:00.000-08:00

This afternoon we were just finishing up our laundry after a busy week here in Buckhorn Lake Resort when we got a knock at the door of the coach. To our surprise, Hal and Susan Hunsaker had come by to visit! They are on their way to Indio, CA to spend the winter and stopped here for the night. They remembered that we sometime come here so they took a tour and looked for us.

It was a lovely day so we sat on the patio and got caught up on all of the things they had been up to and we passed along our adventures of this last year to them also. Of course Barbara had to give their dog Huey a treat or two while he was here!

Hal and Susan are from the Houston, TX area and own a Newell also. They were surprised and delighted to find out that we would be going to the Barrett-Jackson Auction with the Newell group and then going over to Indio for a while. Turns out that they are going to the auction also! We had to laugh when Hal explained Susan's approach to auctions. He said that she loved "Winning" bids!
Now to him he is not sure that if you are successful with the high bid it is really a "Win" to be overly happy about as it always means you have to come up with the bucks to cover it!!

We really enjoyed their visit and getting brought up to date on all our friends in Indio.

DataStorm users Rally, Kerrville, TX

2006-10-29T08:45:00.000-08:00

This last week we have been attending the DataStormusers Rally at Buckhorn Lakes RV Resort in Kerrville, TX which is one of our favorite places to stay.

The DataStorm users Rally is for those of us who use the Mototsat DataStorm automatic internet satellite dish when we are traveling in our RV's.

We were pleasantly surprised to find our friends Bob and Lynn Packer attending also. They are from Dallas, TX and have spent the last 4 or 5 winters out in Indio, CA at Outdoor Resorts where we stayed. We also got to see their new Newell coach which is just beautiful! As we plan to go to Indio for the later part of January and all of February we will get to see thier new lot at Outdoor Resorts Country Club that they customized to thier needs.
There were people from many distant locations at the rally. These folks are from Australia and are touring the north american continent in their RV. They are very supportive of the Americans and have found that the information that they had heard before coming here was totally false and the Americans were a pleasant surprise to them.

The Rally consisted of many technical seminars that gave helpful tips on how to get the best from your dish. Of course no rally is complete without the social side. We enjoyed wonderful dinners and live bands for entertainment.

There were about 110 RV's of every size in attendance which made for a lot of curiosity and there was a nice writeup in the local newspaper along with photos.

All in all, the rally was a ringing success and everyone (and that is not an exageration) had a wonderful time.

Canton Lake

2006-10-22T14:55:00.000-07:00

We took a day trip down to Canton Lake in Oklahoma to visit with Barbara's sister Beverly and her husband Perry.

Beverly and Perry live in Enid and have for many years spent most of the summer and early fall at Canton Lake fishing, boating and living a good life!

Barbara's mother Doris went down with us and brought her dog Pepe who was just delighted with his new playground.

The weather could not have been better. There was no wind and the temperatures of around 70 degrees, just ideal day to sit at the campsite and visit.

Beverly and Perry told us that this was a banner year for fishing at the lake and they had caught a large quantity of fish. Their daughter her family come out some weekends and fish and boat with them which is a delightful way to spend quality time together.

Stray cat and Possums on the farm.

2006-10-22T14:07:00.000-07:00

We live on a farm in Kansas and the nearest neighbor is one and a half miles away so it is somewhat isolated and it is unusual for a stray cat to show up here. Now we have three "Barn Cats" that have been "Fixed". The other day, a stray cat showed up and proceeded to try to establish himself as the "Alpha" cat which is MY JOB.

I decided that I would take care of this interloper by catching him in my live trap and haul him to some remote location so he could try to ply his trade elsewhere! I carefully baited and set the trap in what I thought was a suitable location and left it for the night. The following morning I went out early to check to see if the cat was caught. Instead of the cat the trap held a possum! Now, the possum had not done anything to me so I decided to haul him (or her, I did not check real close!) to a real nice creek some number of miles from the farm.

Not to be out smarted by the cat, I set the trap up again the next night. The following morning I again went out to check the trap. No cat in the trap, just another possum! So again I loaded the trap up in the truck and hauled it to the creek to be with its relative. (I wanted to keep the family together!)

I began to make jokes about giving the possums away for the meat but no one was in the mood for good possum stew around our parts.

Never one to give up I set the trap again! You guessed it! I caught another possum! This continued again and again, night after night. The final tally of possums caught was 16!!

The wife asked why I could not catch the cat and I told her that the possums where not giving the cat a chance! Finally, I caught a racoon in the trap and hauled him off also. The cat was not to be caught and in fact had become scarce around the farm so I guess I got rid of him as he knew if he hung around I would have him in the trap. (I like that thought as it makes me feel I won!)

Kansas State Fair

2006-09-24T18:12:00.000-07:00

We went to the Kansas State Fair for the first time in a number of years. There were many great displays, animals, and items for sale there. Here is a picture of a sunflower which is the state flower. They grow these for the seeds and the oil and they grow to amazing sizes.

No fair would be complete without a HUGE pumpkin!

This is a display carved out of real butter! Looks like the horse is winning this time!

We thought that this turkey would fit in quite well in Anthony! A very beautiful bird.

Planting time on our farm

2006-09-24T17:58:00.000-07:00

The wheat is being planted as we begin another crop year. The wheat is planted at this time so that it will grow enough to be a source of food for cattle during the winter months. The cattle will be taken off of the wheat pasture around March 15th of next year and the wheat will then mature and be harvested in mid June.

It is interesting to watch the equipment that is used today. They can cover a lot of acres in an hour with rigs like this!

Turkeys in Anthony, Kansas

2006-09-24T17:46:00.000-07:00

Several wild turkeys have made Anthony their home! There was some talk of having them removed but the citizens of Anthony would have none of that and the turkeys wander through town at their leisure. Here one is admiring himself in the window of a store.

The turkeys have no fear of traffic and all drivers keep alert to avoid them!

Nice to see the outpouring of love for these birds. They do not have to worry about their next meal as many stand ready to feed them!

Grandchildren's Birthdays

2006-09-24T17:14:00.000-07:00

August and September brought two birthdays for us to celebrate. First was Kimberly who turned 19 years old. Kim is a sophmore in college and our "Favorite Grandaughter"! In fact she is our only grandaughter. Here she is shown with her mother opening gifts.

Her brother Nicholas, father Greg, and Great Grandmother Doris Garlow taking in the festivities during the birthday dinner for Kim.

The second birthday was for Shane who turned 12 years old! Shane had a traditional party and made out like a bandit! Shane is in the sixth grade in Clearwater, Kansas.

Here is a picture of Kim showing her personality!

All of our Grandchildren are special to us!

Dalton Gang Hideout, Meade, Kansas

2006-09-24T16:16:00.000-07:00

On our way back from Colorado and New Mexico, we stopped in Meade, Kansas to see the Dalton Gang Hideout. It was very interesting to us.

The entrance is in the barn to the south and a little downhill from this house. It seems that this house was built by one of the sisters of the Dalton brothers and her husband and there is a tunnel that goes from the barn to the house and comes out in the pantry in the kitchen of the house and the tack room of the barn. Both entrances very well concealed. All the time the sister lived in the home the law tried to catch the brothers there and never were successful.

There was a lot of local stress regarding the relationship to the brothers, so one day the sister and her husband just up and left! After a time the house was sold at a sheriff's sale for back taxes.

Some number of years later, the new owners (totally unaware of the tunnel) were sitting in the kitchen eating when a cowboy came out of the pantry and asked for the Dalton's sister. Learning that she was not there, he went back into the pantry and disapeared. The owners then followed the tunnel from the kitchen to the barn and were amazed.
There is no real evidence that the Daltons ever used it, but then!

The house is interesting as it is so small which is indicative of an original home of that era.

When you enter the barn you are then allowed to go through the tunnel to the house. Now it has lights and is bricked up. Originally it was just a dirt tunnel.

Secrets of the Table, Clayton, NM

2006-09-15T10:49:00.000-07:00

These pictures are a continuation of the previous post of the table at the museum in Clayton, NM.
This shows the reverse side of the chess board which makes a nice felt card table top!

When the felt card table top is removed it reveals a roulette wheel! All of this is done with the highest of quality. The wheel is smooth as it spins!

We were just amazed to watch as this was revealed. There is no way to determine this from the very start it is so well made and concealed.

Black Jack Ketchum and Clayton, NM

2006-09-15T10:18:00.000-07:00

We stopped in Clayton, NM to learn about the Black Jack Ketchum saga. It seems that Mr. Ketchum and his gang was fond of robbing trains in the late 1800's and he was captured by a posse and jailed in Clayton, NM. A trial was held and he was found guilty of the offenses and sentenced to hang.

Now, nobody in Clayton had ever hung someone and were not sure how to accomplish this in accordance with the proper custom so they contacted the people in the Capitol of NM to obtain the rules, methods, etc. They were given all the particulars including how high to build the scaffold, the type of rope to use, how to test the rope to ensure it would do the job, etc. Well they built the scaffold, bought the rope from the local hardware store, went to the scaffold the day prior to the hanging and tied a bag of sand to the rope and dropped it. The rope held! They then learned that the measurements for the scaffold were wrong and they needed to dig a pit under it to gain the proper drop distance. That accomplished they retired for the night leaving the sand hanging from the rope. (The sand hanging from the rope strecthed the rope out entirely so that there was no give to it at all which proved to be a problem later!)

The morning of the hanging arrived and people from far and wide came by to witness the deed. Poor old Black Jack was taken from his cell and marched to the top of the scaffold. The rope was placed upon him and they dropped the door under him whereapon he dropped, the rope reached its end and cleanly snapped his head off at the shoulders making a mess of the entire hanging. Since that time all hangings in New Mexico were held at Sante Fe!

We found Clayton, NM to be a delightful town. Very wide streets, lots of historical buildings still in use including the hotel downtown with a wonderful bar that still is in use. Most of this area was settled around the early 1900's when there were a few rainy years. Later normal moisture returned and it caused many to leave.

In the museum in Clayton, found many wonderful exhibits including this inlaid game table made in Italy. It has hidden talents that were displayed by the curator of the museum.

By turning the top over you have backgammon board!

Removing the backgammon board reveals the chess or checker board!

In the next post I will show more of this table.

Chaco Canyon

2006-09-15T07:43:00.000-07:00

Upon leaving Pagosa Springs, we headed south into New Mexico to visit more ancient Indian sites. Our campsite was at the KOA in Bloomfield, NM.

Just to the west of Bloomfield on Highway 64 we found Salmon Ruins historical site. It was an outlier site for the Chaco Culture just like those at Chimney Rock.
The interesting part of the Salmon ruins is that it was protected by the Salmon family who homesteaded the land and no one was allowed to touch the site until the mid 1970's. This allowed for a serious excavation of the site which proved to be very full of artifacts. They have a wonderful display at the site.

We decided to head south to explore Chaco Canyon. The canyon is located about 21 miles west of the highway and the last 16 miles is gravel road. The road was completely washboard the entire drive. As we were in our new Tahoe that only had 2,000 miles on it we took it very slow along that stretch and it shook the car tremendously causing us some concern. We talked about that with the people at the Ranger Station and they said that you need to go fast so the car hits only the tops of the bumps. So when we left we went 50 mph instead of 6 mph on the way in and it worked!

Chaco Canyon was the administrative, trading, and ceremonial center for the native indians until the 1200's with most of the building taking place from around 800 AD until 1100 AD.

Chaco Canyon is a wealth of ancient ruins and pictographs. There are many sites thoughout the canyon and it is overwhelming to attempt to really do it in one day!

We took our lunch with us and were glad to have it as there is no place to obtain a meal in the canyon.

All of the photos here were taken in the canyon and it is just a small sample of the sites we saw during our visit. I have pondered what to write about the ruins and decided that it would be more prudent if you as reader would Google the Chaco Canyon and read about it from more professional writers. I can only give our reactions to the experience here and I must tell you that we will go back in the near future and spend even more time! They have a campground there but it is dry camping only without hookups.

We walked the sites and read the information provided and found them to be quite helpful. The Park service has done a good job here at the canyon.

The most interesting nugget of information that we gleaned out of our reading and listening to the tour guides at the ruins, was that the many rooms surrounding the Kivas were never lived in! The entire sites were used for assemblies and ceremonies.

It seems that the clans would travel to Chaco Canyon in order to associate with others of their clan and to participate in their ceremonies. They traveled great distances as we have noted at Chimney Rock in Colorado. They did not use beasts of burden or the wheel, so they only brought with them what they could carry on their journey.

There was a group of permanent residents in the canyon who were responsible for the maintenance of the buildings and to raise food for themselves and their visitors as the travelers could not carry enough food to last for the trip in, the stay, and also the trip back.

From what we learned we have made some suppositions. The main one is that since the Kivas were there for each clan, (Later to become our modern Navajo, Zuni, and other Puebloan peoples), they had to have someplace to store the clans wealth such as the clans pottery, ceremonial items, etc. and the rooms were dedicated to this. ( None of the reading or the guides offered this, we just have concluded it from what we observed and read.)

Thre is a lot of unknowns about these ruins as there was no written lanquage left to help us. We have to rely on oral histoy from modern indians and what we glean from the ruins. It is very interesting and informative.

View from Chimney Rock

2006-08-05T08:05:00.000-07:00

This is the view from the top of Chimney Rock.

At the far left distance is a view of Chaco Canyon about 90 miles away. If you look along the walls of the ruins towards the nearest hill you will be looking directly at the hole that was cut into the bare rock outcropping. Behind you is Chimney Rock. Also note the piramid shaped rock in the near distance to the left. This rock, back to this Kiva, and over to Peterson ridge ruins is a perfect equalateral triangle!
This view is of Peterson Ranch which is to the northwest of the kiva. There are ruins on top of this ridge that have not been excavated as the access is blocked by private land and they want to wait for money and better techniques before they work on them.

This view is a telephoto shot of Chaco Canyon in the distance. Line of sight was important to them as they built the outer communities. Not sure, but it would appear to be for communication.

This view of the upper Kiva will show some of the detail. Please note the square hole on the floor. This is connected to the chimney you see on the far side of the kiva walls by a tunnel. It could not be for fires as they used the hole in the roof for that. Was it an entrance for the ancestors to enter the Kiva???

More Chimney Rock Adventure

2006-07-30T18:55:00.000-07:00

From the lower area we began to climb up along an old trail towards the upper site on Chimney Rock. The climb is strenuous as it is 7,400 feet in altitude! You had to watch you footing all the way up to the top.

H
Here is a picture of the Navajo from Taos Pueblo explaining in great detail his interpretation of what we are seeing. This added a great deal to the visit.

This is a look at the Kiva at the top of the ridge. There are a number of rooms surounding the kiva and no one really knows what they are for as the archaeologists did not find any debris from any inhabitation of these rooms.

The masonery of these places is just fabulous. The built all of thier walls of a outer layer of finely laid rock on both sides and an inner layer of fill rock between them. To look at their workmanship and to remember that they only had stone tools, you begin to appreciate their skill. Then to finish it off they plastered over the fine stone work! All of the plaster has weatherd away leaving just the stones.

Here we finally arrived at the pinnacle and have a view of Chimney Rock and Companion Rock!
The view from up there was just magnificent. The guide pointed out a ridge to the south about 90 miles and said that it was Chaco Canyon.

This visit was educational in many ways. We really enjoyed the time and effort we spent in order to see it all.

Chimney Rock Archaeological Area

2006-07-30T18:25:00.000-07:00

While in Pagosa Springs we decided to visit this site of ancient Indian ruins. You meet the guide at the bottom of the mountain and then follow the guide up to the upper area in your car. Once you get to the parking area you begin a wonderful tour. The site is considered an outlier of the Chacoan Culture. Chaco Canyon is about 90 miles due south and the stonework and layout are similar.

No one really knows why the ancient indians would build up so high as this site so everything is speculation.

This is known as the "Great Kiva". It was a meeting place and while most kivas had a roof over them made of logs and adobe and they entered it through a hole in the roof this one seems to not have had one. Some think it was for religious ceremonies that they gathered in these Kivas but we had a Navajo visitor from Taos Pueblo with us and he said that kivas were and are used for all types of gatherings.

Here Barbara tries out the indian way of grinding corn. She decided that it was better to use an electric grinder! Most of the ancient Indians would end up without any teeth left after the age of 35 or so because of the residual stone particles in their corn meal from this type of grinding.

This perfectly round hold in a solid rock baffles the archaeologists. It is only about 4 inchs deep and there are no other items close to it.

If you stand behind it and look towards Chimney Rock you are in a perfect location to observe the solar and lunar activity.

I will post another post about this visit as the system only allows a few photos per post.

Treasure Falls

2006-07-29T18:08:00.000-07:00

On the west side of Wolf Creek Pass there is a waterfall that is known as Treasure Falls. We had to make a trip back to see them as we did not want to stop the coach on the way past. The falls are quite senic.

This photo is how it looks from the roadside stop.

This is what it looks like through the telephoto lens on the camera. We decided that we were too old and too out of shape to walk all the way up to the falls for a closer look.

This sign was next to the Treasure Falls sign and now I know why the falls have the name! If you click on it and expand it you can read it.

Interesting Neighbors in Gunnison

2006-07-28T19:30:00.000-07:00

The day we left Gunnison we found an influx of military type vehicles to the campground.
These 4 wheel drive units are from Sweden and are sold to the US after their use in the Swedish army. They are of mid 1970's vintage and are lovingly rebuilt by their new owners. There is a large group from Colorado that uses them to go out on 4 wheel drives through the back roads of the mountains.

This will give you an idea of the size of these vehicles. That is our coach in the background. The name on the front of the truck is Pinzgaur by Styer. They seem to be very well made and rugged which I suspect is their attraction to those wanting a unit to go anywhere in the mountains.

Not sure what a Treffen is but that is their sign at the gathering place.

More Gunnison Pioneer Museum

2006-07-26T12:45:00.000-07:00

The museum is in a campus type setting with a number of buildings holding displays of pioneer artifacts and some buildings from pioneer times.

In the railroad depot we found this wonderful trunk complete with its interior compartment boxes. They are very elaborately covered with drawings and scrolling. I have seen many trunks but never with the original interior.
This typewritten page was found on the teachers desk in one of the school houses on the campus. It is full of advice on how to conduct yourself as a teacher and how to save money for your old age. If you click on it and make it larger maybe you can read it as well.

In the first building we went through there was a large display of arrowheads found around the southwest. This display held 1,500 specimens. There were a couple of other displays of arrowheads and it was quite impressive.

This school house was unique and interesting to us. It was built 1910 for a cost of $1,900.00. The man who built it had a background in shipping and he fashioned the room on the front right into a round almost lighthouse looking room. The windows were curved to fit the shape of the room!

There was way too much to list here and we would recommend a visit to see it all.

Gunnison Pioneer Musuem

2006-07-26T12:11:00.000-07:00

We found a car that is just like the one that Barbara had when we got married. The only difference is that hers was pink on the bottom instead of the green! It is a 1960 Nash Rambler 4 door. When Barbara and her family took it to Colorado they utilized the feature where the front seats would lay down and you could fill in the gap between the front and back seats which for them made a nice place for them to hold a card game while another person did the driving. We later used this feature when we attended the drive in movies. We could put the front seat backs down and sit with our backs on the rear seat and our feet comfortably stretched out as if we were in a recliner! Now don't go reading too much into this!!!

They had a lot of cars on display from early 1900's on up. Real nice building full of nostalgia.

Blue Mesa Reservoir

2006-07-24T11:44:00.000-07:00

Blue Mesa Reservoir to the west of Gunnison, CO is the result of a dam on the Gunnison River. The lake runs for 23 miles and is a very popular fishing lake.
Barbara's mother and father used to come out here for a number of years to fish and get away from the hot weather in Kansas. Later they were joined by her uncle and aunt who lived in Loveland, CO. They had a boat and spent many happy hours on this lake.

Black Canyon of the Gunnison

2006-07-24T10:35:00.000-07:00

As we continued on from the area of the previous post along the northern side of the Gunnison River we arrived at our planned destination for the day, the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park North Rim. When we walked up to the observation post for the "Narrows" we ran into another group from Kansas. They insisted on taking our picture so we were happy to let them.

The photos are hardpressed to show the awsome granduer of this chasm. The canyon is 48 miles long and the river loses more elevation than the 1,500 mile long Mississippi River does from Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico! The river drops an average of 96 feet per mile in the national park. It drops 480 feet in one two mile stretch. Fast, debris-laden water carving hard rock made the canyon walls so steep.

Standing at the top of this canyon and looking down at the river below is a stirring experience. The water rushes past and even at the height we were above you can clearly hear it. The color does not show up in the photos as well as in person. It is a green color. At Warner point the canyon is 2,772 feet deep!

The canyon gets its name from the fact that it is so deep that sunlight does not get to the bottom most of the day and the walls are shrouded in shade which lend a dark foreboding look to it. Needless to say we really enjoyed our visit.

Gunnison River

2006-07-22T14:45:00.000-07:00

These photos are from a trip along the north side of the Gunnison river on our way to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. The first is of the Curecanti Needle which is quite popular.

This is a photo of a lake in the far distance. Very beautiful view from way up high.

This picture is of the Nationl Park Service boat that takes people up the river on a sight seeing trip to the Needle. We tried to get a reservation to take this trip as it is up the Gunnison River through the canyons, but they were full.

This is the information on the Needle.

This is a photo of the boat without the telephoto lens. Gives you a better idea of how high we were above the river.

Tarryall Reservoir

2006-07-22T09:55:00.000-07:00

We took a day trip down to Tarryall Res. when we were in Fairplay. The lake is quite nice. Rather small but is in a pretty setting. The one thing that will forever stay in our minds is the public toilets at the lake. I can honestly say I have never seen dirtier, stinkier, fouler, messy, unsanitary bathrooms in my entire time traveling around and stopping at state parks! Think of the worst you have ever seen and mulitply it by a factor of 10!
As you can see from this picture of the dam it is not very large. The white to the right of the photo is the overflow spillway. We had a lot of rain and it was really running over.

Along the trip we saw a lot of nice views but none to beat this one of a valley ranch house setting. This bucolic scene was quite lovely, with the meandering river running through the pasture.

This is a telephoto shot of a house we saw some distance from the road. It is the headquarters of a Bison ranch that is in the process of being set up. The rest of the ranch was being done up with no costs spared!

South Park City

2006-07-16T17:20:00.000-07:00

Fairplay, CO has set up a wonderful area of town and made it into a museum of early pioneer days. It has about 35 buildings showing such things as a doctors office, newspaper office, railroad station, blacksmith shop, homes of several types, stagecoach inn, etc. In these buildings there is a most complete collection artifacts that I have seen in one area.

Take note of the picture above of some patent medicines. In the center is a cough syrup that if you take it you will be afraid to cough as it is also a laxative!
The collection of patent medicines in their drugstore is the largest in the country.
This wagon is a hunting wagon that they used for trips out to the hunting areas but, like campers today, they did not want to really "rough it"! It has a bed, stove, all of the things one would need to be comfortable.

Next we have something I found very interesting. It is a wagon full of logs that had been bored out by hand and then laid in Fairplay to be their water line from 1882 until 1960! I just am amazed at the amount of labor this represented and how their ingenuity won the day!

Each log is cut with a larger section in the inside of the one end and the other end is cut down on the outer side so that each log was able to nestle into the next long and make a leakproof connection.

This is a partial view of the buildings that are open for inspection to the lucky ones who take a moment out and stop to see. It is more than worth the $5.00 per person ticket!

Climax Molybdenum

2006-07-12T14:55:00.000-07:00

High above Leadville, CO is the Climax Molybdenum Mine which sits at 11,300 feet at the top of Fremont Pass. This mine has been in operation off and on since World War 1 when it was discovered that molybdenum was useful in hardening the steel used for military equipment. For many years, the mine employed hundreds of people from Leadville, Colorado. When it shut down for several years the residents of Leadville were severely affected. Now, the mine is back in operation on a limited scale and the economy of Leadville is based more on tourism than on mining.

The photos shown here are of the tailings from that mine which are filling in the valley below. The memorial stone is in memory of three towns that once sat in that valley.
It is hard for the photos to give the massive size of these tailing but you can believe me when I say it is huge. 30 years ago when I first saw this operation the tailings were hundreds of feet lower in elevation. I was shocked to see how high it has grown.

The intention is to plant trees and vegetation on the tailings when they finish filling up the valley.

If I remember correctly there are 144 miles of tunnels in this mine which just boggels my mind.

Twin Lakes, Colorado

2006-07-12T13:58:00.000-07:00

During the early to mid 1970's Barbara's Father and Mother came to Colorado to fish on their vacations in the summer. One of thier favorite places to go was Twin Lakes which is south of Leadville and north of Buena Vista, CO. These lakes are Glacial lakes and if I remember correctly are the only ones in Colorado.

On several occasions we came out from Lakewood, CO where we were living and spent a weekend fishing with them. The area has changed in that there are more houses and cabins up in the overlooking hills than there were those 30 plus years ago, but the beauty is still there.

Above is a picture of a Yurt that some adventureous soul placed near the lake. A Yurt is known in many parts of the world as a wonderful tent for the nomadic people.

You can get a sense of the beauty of the setting in the picture of the lake with the mountains in the background. The observant ones will see the cut made by the glacier in the mountain.

We were pleasantly surprised to find that the cabins we stayed at were still there and in use!

Back Country Adventure

2006-07-05T18:13:00.000-07:00

Dennis and Judie Harden from Lakewood, CO came up to Fairplay to spend a couple of days with us. It was decided to go out for a tour along Colorado road 14 north of Fairplay as they heard from a lady at breakfast that it would be worth it.

Lucky us! We had a great time and found a cabin that Barbara and I fell in love with! As you can see it will take a bit of TLC to bring up to liveable standard, but the location was the key. As the Real Estate people say Location, Location, Location.
As we turned around this is the VIEW that we had! Simply marvelous! We really love the Rockies!

Cool Colorado!

2006-07-03T19:33:00.000-07:00

We took a road trip today around the mountains of Colorado. When we returned to Fairplay we found the ground covered with cold white stuff!

It has been a long time since we have seen any of this stuff as we have been careful to go south in the winters!

The temperature did not get to 60 degrees today and we have to have heat in the mornings as it is quite cool here.

Toto, we are not in Kansas any more!

Golf Outing at Grandote Peaks Golf Course

2006-06-28T19:14:00.000-07:00

Since this would be our last day in La Veta, we decided to have a golf outing at one our favorite courses. Grandote Peaks was designed by Weiskopf/Morrish and is in a spectacular setting! Hard to keep your mind on the game while you take in all of the sites. Behind Barbara is Grandote (the Mountains).

Unfortunately the course is not in the best of shape this year because of the drought! They are on strick watering restrictions and it is only June! Here is another of the wonderful rock outcroppings.

This guy was trying to keep from laughing at my golfing attempts! We saw several deer and one beaver in one of the ponds.

This picture will show the condition of the course. It is still playable but it is turning brown rather quickly. We come to La Veta mostly for the chance to play this course. (Also the ball flies a lot farther at 7,000 feet altitude!)

Side Trip

2006-06-27T13:45:00.000-07:00

We decided to take a side trip out into the hills to test the navigation system on our new Tahoe.

We headed west out of La Veta on Hwy 16o over La Veta Pass and then north towards Gardner on back roads then around through Walsenburg and back to La Veta.

The system is just great! We could track ourselves on even the most remote of roads and not worry about getting lost in the hills! It is surprising how many houses are built way back away from anywhere. The house shown above is at the very end of the electrical line. It has a wonderful view and is very secluded. Just a bit of heaven in Colorado!
When we turned north from US 160 onto the dirt roads we came accross a staging area for the fire fighters working the forrest fires. There is a pond to the rear of the area and the Choppers come in with their buckets to fill them up and then head out again. Could not get close enough for a better picture.

All in all it was a neat trip and we saw alot of back country.

Forrest Fire near La Veta, CO

2006-06-21T14:17:00.000-07:00

As the series of photos above show, it is very dry here in La Veta, CO! The fire is north of Highway 160 and south of the Great Sand Dunes National Park. It is close enough to the highway to cause it to be shut down to traffic. There are some houses south of the highway that have been evacuated.

Some 270 fire fighters are trying to get this blaze under control and have been at it for several days. Just when they get it calmed down the wind picks up and they have to try to calm it down again.

There doesn't seem to be much in the way of weather coming to help the situation. It is as dry here as We have ever seen it. Streams that normally flow this time of year from the snow melt are dry as a bone. Not a good situation for
the people here as the depend on wells for water and it surely will not last the summer which will cause them to have to haul water from elsewhere. Rationing is already in affect.

Playing Tourist in Dodge City, KS

2006-06-20T10:39:00.000-07:00

We elected to stop in Dodge City on our way to Colorado for the summer. It seemed like a good chance to see the sights and get some of the history of Dodge. One of the first things we did was to take a tour on the trolley through the historic areas of the town so we could be oreintated properly.

As you can see from the above photo, we got to the main area of Front Street just in time for the shootout! The men did a good job of it and when they started shooting the babies and young children began crying!

Above is a view of Front street just prior to the gun fight. These stores have a lot of historic information in them as well as an informative museum along the entire street. One of the museums has over 200 period firearms in it. There are others that depict the buffalo hunts and growth of the area as well as the arrival of the Texas longhorns.
Here the adversaries are "Pumpin' the Lead"!
The house above is called the Home of Stone. It was built in 1879- 1880 for the John Mueller family. John Mueller came to Dodge to open a bootmaking shop and parlayed that into three cattle ranches.

The construction of the house was done by a German stonemason out of stone quarried 12 miles north of Dodge. They drilled a series of holes and poured water into the holes. When the water froze it split the rock and they had a stone the size that they wanted and all they had to do was to surface it to get rid of the ridges.

In 1886 there was a terrible blizzard that wiped out the entire cattle herds in the area. This brought the Mueller fortune to disaster and the house was sold to Adam Schmidt for his family. The Schmidt family lived in the house until 1965 when it was sold to the county to be preserved. It is in excellant shape and a wonderful place to visit.

During the Trolley tour of Dodge we were taken to this area to show the feed lots for the fattening of the cattle for the processors in the area. As you can see the feed lot stretches to the horizon! There are a number of processers in the area, the largest of which process 6,000 head of cattle a day and one that does 4,600 per day! That is a lot of beef!

Wild Trip West

2006-06-20T10:05:00.000-07:00

We got a nice rain on Sunday which allowed us to leave the farm on Tuesday, June 13th without a lot of dust getting into the coach. The trip out to Dodge City, KS was uneventful and quite enjoyable with no wind to contend with and clear sunny weather. Once we arrived at the campground and started to set up everything, I discovered that I had not packed the Internet Modem! I had everything else, even the electrical cord to it. It is an example of "Old Timers" disease!

We contacted Doug who looks after the property while we are absent and asked him to go out and get the modem and mail it to us. We recieved it the next day and all was well, except for the high winds that day. The antenna was kept down so as to keep it from being blown off of the top of the coach!

Thursday we headed out on our way towards Colorado. The entire trip had some wind to contend with and at about Lamar, CO we were hit with a huge gust of wind from the south and the wind increased. At that time our front right windshield began to seperate from the coach at the top right corner! We put the flashers on and limped on into La Junta, CO at 35 MPH until we got to the KOA campground.

The campground recomended a glass company and when we called them they came right out and replaced the window in a very professional manner. The worker took extra pains to make sure the job was done right and that was a pleasant surprise at that stage of the trip.

No sooner than the window was reinstalled we were again hit with a huge wind storm! It knocked down trees, blew out store fronts, etc. I would have to say it was a micro burst and the speed of the wind was in excess of 90 miles per hour! There was an enormous dust cloud with the wind and then a light sprinkle of rain! That fixed the wash job I had done on the coach before we left Kansas!

Friday we drove over to La Veta, CO in a light rain and arrived without further drama!

Kansas Harvest

2006-06-10T13:34:00.000-07:00

The winter wheat harvest has arrived here at our farm. The wheat was cut on June 7th this year which is one of the earliest dates that I can remember. With the lack of rain the wheat, what there was of it, matured early and was very short in stature and yield! We got about one half of a normal crop out of it.

Watching the harvest this year brought back many memories for Barbara and I.

Barbara reminisced about the many harvests she particpated in on her family farm while she was growing up. She spoke about the number of people that it took to get the harvest in back then compared to today. She said that they had 14 hired hands for harvest which she had to cook for starting at the age of 13 as her mother worked in the fields along with the men. In fact she was given a special drivers license which allowed her to drive to the grocery store to buy food and back to the farm at age 13!
Now we watch as our farmer and his two sons harvested our farm in about 4 hours. They stopped for dinner which was brought to them by the farmer's wife, who owns funeral homes in the two adjacent towns. She stopped at the burger joint and loaded up on burgers, onion rings and large cokes. What a difference today!

I remember the harvests of 45 years ago as I was working at the local CO-OP. Back then the farmers used small (we thought of them as large) farm trucks to bring in the wheat. They would be lined up for a block trying to get in to get unloaded. To unload them we had them drive the front wheels of the truck unto a hoist and then we lifted up the truck and opened the tail gate to allow the grain to come out. You had to scoop the corners out as they would not drain so it took some time to do all of this. Now they use semi trailer trucks with bottom gates that allow for all of the grain to come out without help from a hot, tired, sweaty worker with a scoop shovel!

You have probably seen the grain cars used by the railroads today. They are purpose built and empty just like the semi trucks I mentioned above. Back when I had to load out a load of wheat it was into a standard box car! The railroad provided us with as many cars as we felt we would need. In each car was a set of Coopering (not sure where the name Cooper came from) material. That consisted of heavy flat steel rib reinforced cardboard and some boards. You would nail the material accross the entire doorway on both sides of the car and leave a little bit open at the top. Also you had to inspect the entire floor and walls to patch any place that might leak on the trip. The next step was to load the wheat in with a chute that you had to direct from side to side trying to fill the car up. Of course you had to scoop it into the corners where the chute could not get the wheat into. After you had it loaded you scrambled out of the space you left for the loading chute and closed the boxcar doors! You can imagine what the person who did this looked like on a hot day with all of the wheat dust!!! Yes, I was that person too many times, and they call those the "good ole days"!

Can you believe that I quit this job to go to college??