It ain't Ontario

This is the day we decided to drive 44 miles, each way, to view the Gila Cliff Dwellings in the Gila National Park, outside Silver City NM. These are natural caves that were occupied by Indians ( Native People) about 1200 AD. They had been in use prior to that as well. Well, the day started off with picture #1, a light dusting of SNOW, in spite of the fact it was, at that time, 45F . After Sue's return from church, we struck out. Some of the scenery on the way is in photo #2, very dramatic. Remember, we started out at 6,000 feet. The higher we went, the more it snowed...not too bad though, just flurries. We reached our highest point of 7,440 ft. just after the Continental Divide. To get there a grade of 7-8% had to be handled over a distance of 7 miles and full of switch-backs. The sign at the entrance to the National Park said 2 hours to go 44 miles. Finally got to the Visitor Center, only to discover to see the caves required an additional 3 mile walk. Well, Sue has challenges with her infected toe and my knees aren't what they used to be, so we did the tour of the information at the center and headed back to the camper.......so far so good eh? It was not snowing at the Visitor Center by the way at 5600 ft. Off we went. Well the return trip was not a walk in the park. During our visiting time, the snow had not stopped, as a matter of fact, it had intensified putting about 4-6" of wet snow on the roadway. We had no weight in the bed of the truck. Everything was going along fairly well, until about 12 miles from the end ( beginning) of State HWY 15. We had a 180* bend that included a hill........going up. Needless to say, we were stuck!!! Despite a couple of attempts in a higher gear, all we did was slip. Backing down the hill to a safe point on the bend, we weighed our limited options. By the way, this road is plowed, but not on weekends or at night. Eventually a Mexican speaking father and 3 of his teenage sons approached from the opposite direction of our travel. Fortunately he had a tow strap in the back of his old 4X4. We hooked up and he backed up the hill and we drove forward, eventually making to a point where we could proceed on our own. Quite embarrassing, a Mexican pulling a Canadian out of the SNOW. The adventure we thought was over. We still had 12 miles to travel. In spite of Mother Nature doing Her best to stop us on some additional grades we made it out of Hell. So Canada, we had enough of this white crap. We're over 4,000 miles from home and want to start enjoying the weather we were supposed to get. Please cease and desist.

Stoned in New Mexico

Our trip today from Las Cruces to Silver City was pretty neat. While most of it was through desert, the view changed quite a bit as we rose in altitude. In Las Cruces we were about 5000 ft. Tonight we are at 6000 and that was after only 125 miles. We took a short detour, to a natural site called city of Rocks State Park. These huge rocks were deposited here "way back" from a volcano 180 miles way. It apparently was 1000 times more powerful than that of St.Helens. The ones that Sue is standing by are some of the smaller stones. We are at 6,000 ft as I mentioned and now at 4:00pm it is 61F, however the weather man, who always tells the truth , says there is a chance of snow tonight. The desert certainly cools off at night. Yesterday was in the mid 60's and there was light frost this morning.

10 months 'til Christmas !!!!!!!!!

Our short drive today ( Thursday) saw the landscape become more and more desert like. We only travelled about 45 miles from El Paso TX to Vado NM which is about 15 miles from Las Cruces NM. Yesterday, we did a tour of the Border Patrol Museum in El Paso and went to an interesting shop called El Paso Saddleblanket wholesale. They sell everything western, from saddles to jewellery and furniture. On the way to Vado, we passed a couple of feed lots. The pic shows a small one, of about 300 head, the larger one we passed was likely over a 1000. The second picture is outside our trailer in the RV Park at Vado. The desert sand is very much like beach sand,about the same temp too, at 65F. Our expected stay here is for two nights before going on to Silver City NM, where we have booked another 2 nights. We ate a great at a very Mexican restaurant for lunch yesterday, where Sue had a chance to try her Spanish, as the wait staff didn't speak too much English....however, they returned her linguist attempt in English.

Spring is coming ???

We had a fairly uneventful day yesterday (Tuesday) other than the fact we had SNOW in the morning and the waterline to the trailer was frozen. The temp last week was 70F....go figure. El Paso really had some problems with at least 12 major traffic collisions and one fatality...all this from about 1-2" of the white stuff. Today is to be in the mid 50's and tomorrow in the mid 60's. Our stay here in El Paso will end Thursday when we head into Las Cruces New Mexico.where we'll spend at least 2 days.

On the previous post, one thing I neglected to mention was water. The ranch we were at had at least two wells, one at 300 plus feet and the other over 600'. The cost of drilling these is $111.00 per FOOT. The last one was drilled two years ago and they are still paying it off.

Today...Monday Feb 22, saw us take a tour of the McVey Ranch, through the owners tour company, Red Rock Ranch Tours. The owner is Darice McVey and was an excellant guide. The claim to fame for this spread, is the amount of Pre-Cambrian rock formations. Pre-Cambrian is the time before fossils. This area was, at that time, the floor of sea. The stone is really compressed sandstone, which gives it the unusual shapes as errosion takes place. Here that errosion is wind. The area was also part of the nomadic Indian tribes migration route and "grind holes" are found in quite a few places on the ranch. The first picture shows the outcroping of the Pre-Cambrian rock, the second is of a grind hole ( with a quarter in the bottom to show the size of the hole), and the third photo shows how the outcrops rise from the ranch floor.
This ranch (remember this is Texas) is 27 sections. Each section is 1 square mile or 640 acres. Therefore it is 17,280 acres covering 27 square miles in size. The land is so arrid in this part of Texas (SouthWest) that it requires 100 acres for each cow and calf. This ranch does not raise cattle. It has been used for several movie shoots and commercials. This is our last night in Van Horn, tomorrow we are booked in a campground in El Paso for at least two nights. We may walk across the border to Juarez Mexico for some "bargins".

A tiring day....not !!!

Had a real long drive today ( Saturday) of about 80 miles.
The first photo is of the campground garden (?) last night. On the way to Van Horn, which our stop tonight and for the next 3 nights, we stopped and visited the San Soloman spring which is a natural spring heated to 70-75 F as it passes under the Apache Mountain Range. As you see, Sue took a dip ( I had to take the pic). The "pool" holds 3.5 million gallons and the water flows in at a rate of 1 million gallons per hour.
The last two pictures are of an old hotel here in VanHorn, that has been turned into a museum. The older couple that take care of it where very interesting in their descriptions. About 10 miles West of here we will change to Mountain Time, which will put us 2 hours behind the folks in Shelburne

The missing pictures from the previous post.





1) The bordello






2)The San Angelo Rodeo


3) The West Texas Plains

Desert

I said we were off to see a brothel, which we did. Miss Hatie's actually. Quite interesting. It operated until 1951, when it was finally closed for good by the Texas Rangers. When the current owner bought it, a lot of the original furnishings were still in place. He now operates it as a museum. Sorry for the lack of pics, but I couldn't get them to upload. We also did a tour of Fort Concho which is a restored frontier fort and for the most part, intact in the original form although restoration is on going. The last stop of the day ( Thursday) was to the San Angleo Stock Show and Rodeo. What a great night it was, with bull riding, calf roping, cow wrestling and bronc riding. The end of the show was Mutton' Bustin' where young kids 5-7 years old, tried to ride a sheep. Again, the pictures wouldn't upload, but I'll try again. We are in Balmorhea TX tonight which is about 150 miles East of El Paso. Tomorrow is a short drive to Van Horn and a two night stay. The temp is above 70 today. The land between San Angelo and here has become more and more arid with the vegetation changing from Mesquite to sage and cactus.

Flatter yet

Quite a short Drive today, only about 100 miles. The land is very flat. Arrived in San Angelo where we will spend a couple of days. Planning on going to a rodeo tomorrow (Thur) night. and a brothel....more to follow. Temp is sitting on 60F and it's about time !!!!!!!!! going to 63 tomorrow and 65 Friday. Our total mileage thus far is about 3600 miles.

Flat

Tuesday saw the drive go from Arlington ( Dallas/Fort worth) to Abilene Texas. We're into the flat Prairie type land now. The top pic is of the Town Hall in a small town called Weatherford. You can see it miles before you reach the town itself as it is so large and the land so flat. The second picture is typical of the landscape.
The last pic is not of the windmill farms of our home area, but rather on a Mesa about half way between Arlington and Abilene. It is much larger, likely 4-500 windmills. In Abilene, we took a tour of a Museum called the Frontier Museum of Texas. It highlighted the lives of some of the early settlers of Texas....quite interesting .

Where's the beef??

Monday Feb 15, 2010 . We drove into Fort Worth and saw the Stockyards. In "the day", up until the mid 1980's, this was the central gathering point for cattle from the west, were buyers would come to purchase the animals. They offer an reenactment of the cattle drives down Exchange St. While these cattle are pretty tame, it is still very impressive. It's hard to imagine 100's to 1,000's of these "horny" creatures coming down to street. The statue is of Bill Pickett who was on of the first Black cowboys. He developed the cattle wrestling that is used today in rodeos. His unusual technique was to bite the nose of the animal.
We visited Billy Bob's which is the largest Honky Tonk ( bar) in the world. However the action doesn't start until evening. They regularly fill the place on Fri. and Sat.nites to capacity (2,000 people)

Catchin' up

Well, we've had a few interesting days. On the last post of Feb. 11., we had just come into Texas and were greeted by an 1" of snow. We camped in Gladewater Texas that night
and the morning (Fri) brought the sight of 6 more inches and then the power went out. It stayed out for more than 24 hours. The trailer requires 110V power to operate the furnace. Needless to say it was cold, as the outside temp was around the freezing point. We had paid for 3 nights (Thur., Fri., and Saturday). We pulled out on the Sat. morning and headed to Dallas/Fort Worth as the campground owner had been toldthe power would not be back on until Sunday. 20,000 people were out of power.
DFW had 12.5 inches of snow!!!!!!, and 200,000 without hydro and no snow removal equipment. People were using square nose garden shovels to remove the snow from walks. A huge number of people had gone into the median on I20. The power at the campground here in Arlington had power ( that means we had heat....yes). The pictures to the left are of the 9th hole fairway at the golf course in Gladewater on the Friday morning and of Brandy after a run on fairway.

Aw yes Texas. Home of Longhorn Cattle, Lone Star beer and SNOW. There is a snow storm warning in effect until 4:00 tomorrow ( Friday) afternoon. They are expecting up to........FOUR inches. The highway department is talking about putting sand down on the bridges to make them safer and perhaps some "granular stuff". The temp now is 34F. We've driven almost 2,000 miles and this stuff keeps being too close. Darn Canadians anyway, or perhaps it's the fault of the damn Yankees. We're here for 3 nights, leaving Sunday for Dallas/Fort Worth. It should be a short day, as DW is only about 100 miles West of here.

No Pepsi here !!!

Yesterday ( Tuesday 2/10.10) saw us take a our of the home and museum of Mr. Joe Biedenharn. He was the person that first bottled Coca-Cola. Prior to that, syrup was put in a glass then seltzer water was added. He developed the system of blending them together and bottling the product. Also his great grand-daughter, who was an opera singer, had a house just down the road that had flower gardens at the rear.




We also did a walking tour downtown West Monroe LA. Lots of antique stores, but fortunately for the pocket book, nothing was bought. Temp was about 48-50F overcast.

Headin' West

Tuesday Feb. 09 and we we're on the road again, heading into LA. The weather has been cool to say the least, but not as bad as a little to the north, where it has been snowing . They are calling for snow flurries here ( West Monroe LA.) on Thursday. We'll be long gone by then, hopefully in Texas. All that deep fried and breaded food fare seems to be behind us now, as catfish and gumbo are appearing on menus.
A visit to the Mississippi Petrified Forest was made enroute. Quite interesting. It is privately owned by the family that discovered the logs about 40 years ago. There are many more logs below the surface, that will due time, find their way to the top, much like rocks in a farmer's field. A well was drilled a number of years ago
and they drilled through a log at 75 feet.
The flowers are just to give y'all hope that Spring can't be too far away. We have also seen large flocks of Robins.

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