Greetings from Beaumont, Texas

We have officially crossed the Lotion Line.  That is the line between the dry air of New Mexico or West Texas where one must drink three extra glasses of water a day just to keep from shriveling up and the moist, humid coastal air where nothing ever dries out completely.  The line itself moves around a bit depending on the seasons, but we have put away the large economy size pump bottle of Extra Dry Skin Relief until our return loop gets west of Oklahoma City.

Yesterday we continued our visit to the Pacific War Museum in Fredericksburg, tootled down the road to Luckenbach and then wandered over to visit the LBJ Ranch National Park alongside the Pedernales River.  The bluebonnets and wildflowers were blooming, the grasses were green and the view of the hill country from the ranch was inspiring.  One really could imagine what it must have been like when LBJ hauled those city slickers from Washington D.C. out to the ranch for some down time and discussion.

We ended the night in Driftwood, TX and spent the evening with friends from Cheryl's college days. ( We figured out over dinner and a couple of bottles of wine that it has been 40+ years since those days!)   This morning found us on the road early, but by midday we decided we would rather take a leisurely pace and stop early, so here we are, still in Texas, but the border is just over yonder.  We took advantage of the extra time to catch up on chores and email and will hit the road tomorrow and head to Louisiana.

Laundry drying 

Tom 'watching' the news while checking his email.  Hercules is swathed in his blanket, having survived his shower.

Irish Day in a German Town

Our full day here in Fredericksburg was spent doing a little shopping and a lot of museum visiting.  The WWII Pacific War Museum here in the birthplace of Adm. Chester Nimitz is world class, and takes several hours to see just the highlights, but is truly a wonderful museum with a tremendous amount of artifacts and displays. 

In between we celebrated St. Paddy's Day in this German town by eating German food instead of corned beef.  But yes, we had the cabbage (or in our case sauerkraut.). Followed, of course by a stroll through several art galleries and shops where we almost managed to not buy anything, but ultimately failed in that regard. 

Wrestling an Octopus

Greetings from Fredericksburg, Texas.  We had a lovely night at camp in Big Bend National Park with some beautiful tropical colored small birds and cottonwoods all leafed out already.  Our trip down was better than the last time we traipsed through Fort Davis (five inches of half-inch hailstones) although the wind we battled on the way down finally caught up with us and stayed all night.  This is the picture of the clouds as the sun rose on our way out of the park this morning.

Despite our best intentions, we seem to be dashing up and down and across Texas just in time to let the cold front winds catch up every night.  This is now the third day of this back and forth race and it is getting a little tiresome.  Each day has been just a little bit windier and driving today was about a 35  mph crosswind with gusts up to 45 and we agreed it felt a lot like we were arm wrestling an octopus.  Lane management was a big challenge, but as our brother Jim said at the outset, "Keep the greasy side down".  We got here fine, although Cheryl is now drinking a few glasses of wine to get rid of the tension in her shoulders and brain from all the white-knuckle driving.  Tom, OTOH, has no problem with "ground turbulence"  because he has "experienced worse flying in thunderstorms and lenticular clouds and this only moves in two dimensions".  Well, OK.

Fortunately, we have two nights planned here in Fredericksburg, so we are gonna let the storm move right along without us.  Tomorrow we will relax a bit, sightsee in town, do some retail therapy and head to Driftwood,TX  on Tuesday.

Day one is Complete

Greetings from Van Horn, Texas. We had a relatively uneventful day driving down, a little wind, seven hours, a lot of traffic through El Paso (ugh!) but we got here safe and sound in plenty of time.  Van Horn is not much more than a wide spot in the road with motels and gas stations and four RV parks.  We are at one called Mountain View.

We have free cable, free Wi-Fi, full hookups and a very nice couple at the front desk running the place under new management. We're off to take the dog out for a walk, cook up a little chicken for dinner, and check the weather for the winds tomorrow. We're heading to Big Bend National Park, and we likely will not have much in the way of either cell or Wi-Fi service for the next 48 hours or so, we'll catch you on the other side.

Packing it in

Just after we bought our land in Corrales, which was 21 years ago this month, an early summer thunderstorm dumped so much water in just a few minutes that the arroyos nearby filled, re-carved their spaces and filled the local streets to within inches of flooding the few homes just east of the arroyo.  At the time everyone said it was a 'storm of the century' and unlikely to be repeated for fifty to a hundred years.  The politicians did eventually build a storm runoff pipe to divert the arroyo water to a concrete lined flood channel to the north.  And they did put up signs on the local streets which advised 'roads may be impassible in times of heavy rains or inclement weather'.

Thirteen years later Corrales had another major flood during a summer thunderstorm.  The runoff pipe did its job and diverted most of the water to the concrete lined channel.  But added to this water was mud and debris from the mesa and growing streets to the west.  So much mud and debris came down the concrete flood channel arroyo that the main road was closed because the bridge was weakened and the asphalt road had washed away.  When everything finally dried out and the mud was removed from the streets we were told it was one of those very odd 100 year flood events.  Nobody seemed to pay much attention to the fact that the prior '100 year storm' had been just 13 years earlier, about a tenth of the predicted timespan, but then again it was a different batch of politicians and a different batch of homes impacted.

Fast forward seven years to last summer, when many more homes had been built and now filled the 1992 storm arroyo and flood plain runoff area.  One big summer thunderstorm and mud filled basements, mucky water ran 6-8 inches deep through courtyards and kitchens, asphalt sinkholes captured firetruck wheels and pallets of firewood travelled half a mile from their arroyo starting position.  This time, people sort of remembered the 2006 storm, so they called this storm a 500 year event. And the village is trying to do some additional flood control channeling and hardscaping in the arroyo flood plain.  The six or seven homes built in the middle of this same arroyo flood plain are demanding the village do something, while some of us are left wondering why they were allowed to build homes in the middle of the 50-100-500 year water flow at all.  

It will be verrrry interesting to see how it all turns out.

If you have read this far, you may wonder what this has to do with our traveling adventures.  Well, it goes like this:

1. People have short memories, and selectively short in many cases.

2. Statistics can be manipulated to fit the situation.

3. Mother Nature and history both tend to repeat themselves; because of #1 and in spite of #2

4. We are beginning to pack for our upcoming trip.  Due to #3 it's like starting all over again, as if we have never done this before and not just two months ago.

5. In the middle of December, March and 65 degrees sounded like springtime and lovely weather, not the rainstorms back east and cold wind we have been told to expect on portions of our trip. 65 degrees as a high can be be calm and sunny (lovely!) or gray and rainy (miserable).  This also makes choosing clothing more of a 'take everything' proposition.

6. The Packing Corallary says if you 'take everything' in clothing you will also 'take everything' in supplies and provisions.

7. We do not need or want to 'take everything', but that requires that we know what will be needed.  

8. See #1-7 again.

<Sigh>  It will be verrrry interesting to see how it all turns out.

Project du Jour

Here is a picture of today's project.  One would think that this should be a rather simple assembly, no?  The thing is only three main pieces of metal, a couple of screws here and there, and voila!. right?  Not so fast.

First, there were two sets of instructions, which of course did not go sequentially, but rather one had to flip-flop back and forth to find the correct section to be working on.  Then we had to figure out what the picture was actually trying to show us, ala Lego kits, rather than use words to describe what we were supposed to be doing.  We did OK with the assembly of the tube to the rack.  Square peg in square hole, tighten four screws.  And we did fine with the anti-sway device and the locking hitch pin, although we did have to remove the locked hitch pin to put on the anti-sway device.

Then it came time to add the silver ramp bracket to the rack.  First we put the bracket on facing backwards, because the instruction pictures are not nearly as big or colorful as Lego Instructions.  But not a real big deal, although we did have to remove the locked hitch pin and the anti-sway device in order to run the silver ramp bracket around.  Got that facing the right way, got the ramp attached, but there is a little silver bracket that goes on the tie down bar, and a gold chain with pins at either end that go somewhere near the end of the ramp, but the pictures are way too small to see exactly where.

Here is a sample.  

The photos are of three different ways to put the gold chain doohickey on, depending on which model you have.  We have the middle photo, the 55RK.  See that first photo above for what the correct actual placement is supposed to look like, and then tell me you could figure that out from the instruction photo.  I couldn't either, so I had to call the company and explain to Brandon I could not figure out what the picture showed, so please tell me where the gold chain cotter pin and snap ring actually attach.  Amid sniggers of near-hysteria, he managed to tell me the attachment points and how the ramp section fits on the holder.

Then we get the scooter up on the carrier.  HOORAY!  It fits!  (Thank God)

After trying three or four different ways to rig the new motorcycle tie downs (over the throttle, under the collar, around the fork) and tightening and unlashing four tie downs each time we change the plan, we finally admit the new tie downs are way too long and need to be shortened.  So back inside we go, unthread them all, cut off half the length, seal the ends with a candle, re-thread them through the automatic tighteners and try again.  

Now it is lunchtime, and we have spent at least TWO HOURS putting this thing together (13 screws, 3 snap rings, one hitch pin and a partridge in a pear tree).  My fun meter is pegged, and I give up for the day. 

Have you been doing this?

Don't know about the rest of you, but we have been tuning in to the nightly TV broadcast from Sochi, plus watching a few obscure events on live streaming.  Like curling. I have come to the conclusion that curling is really just bocce ball on ice. Plus they get to use assistants with brooms. I think the dog would like to be an assistant on the bocce ball court, but I'm not too sure how he would do with the broom.  Not sure why I like watching this sport, I certainly don't understand the nuances, but the scoring is exactly like bocce.

I also am fascinated with the media hype over certain individuals who were expected to be big stars, signed major endorsement contracts, but then don't live up to the expectations. Suddenly the commercials with these people are nowhere to be seen. I feel so sorry for them for not getting the expected gold medal but I feel even worse that they suddenly lost their income, too.

On a happier note I am tickled that there are some unexpected young superstars who have won the gold medal against all odds or expectations.  And I am quite enamored with the death wish sport of snowboard cross.  Take bunch of 20-something's, fill 'em up with caffeine, throw them on a snow covered backside of an alley on a hill, and watch them scrape and scramble their way down to the bottom of the pile.  Not one heat where all starters finish, and some of the survivors only manage to make it to the next round by falling down and sliding across the finish line.  

So, have you been watching this, too?  What is your favorite part of the spectacle?