Chuck and Naomi Adventures in RV Land

Midland (Nov. 30 – Dec. 3)

For a place you probably never heard of, Midland has a lot to offer the visitor.  Or, perhaps you have heard of it, since the Bush (as in 2 presidents) homestead is here.  In any case, this is the heart of the Permian Basin Oil Field (and pumps are everywhere) and has (besides the Bush homestead site), an Oil Museum and several nature preserves.

Because we needed to reorganize after our long stay in Tucson and 2 long driving days, and we also needed a working day, we only had one day to sightsee in Midland.  We decided to see the Petroleum Museum and the Sibley Nature Preserve (which allows dogs).

The Permian Basin Oil Field is the largest oil repository in the continental US.  Everywhere one looks there are nodding donkey pumps, like the ones shown here in front of the Petroleum Museum.  This particular set of 3 there is a very small pump between the 2 larger ones) is interesting because all 3 pumps use the same shaft, but draw oil from different rock layers.  Our understanding is that the pumps are driven by electric motors, and that the oil is directed by pipeline to a central repository.

We found the Petroleum Museum interesting, but definitely directed at school children, with lots of information about how to get a job in the oil industry and interactive displays.  There was some geological information about how petroleum is formed and deposits are trapped.  I like the way that these historical markers outside the museum depicted the geographic strata as part of the marker.

For me the most interesting thing I learned from the museum is that less than half the petroleum is extracted from the initial well.  After that, water, CO2 and other chemicals are injected into the well to aid in the extraction.  Many of the pumps we saw were surrounded by small tanks which we initially assumed were intermediate storage for the oil.  Actually, they are subsidiary injection pumps used to help strip the wells.

The museum made the good case that what we consider to be our oil reserves depends a lot on economics.  More petroleum and be found and more can be extracted from existing resources, but it might be more costly.  On the other hand, new technologies can bring the cost down.  Of course, the same factors dictate the relative cost of other energy technologies, and the museum pointed this out as well.  (I note that oil-rich Texas also has the highest use of wind energy of any state at this point in time.)

The museum also has a very nice mineralogy section, with some very nice crystalline rocks.  There is also an art gallery, with paintings by Tom Lovell about the oil industry.  Finally, there is a racing car exhibit.

As always, we were not able to see the entire museum before we needed a break.  So, we have a reason to go back.

After lunch we collected Rumple and went to the Sibley Nature Reserve.  This reserve is on the Llano Estacado. It does not look like much, there is more to it than meets the eye.  Fortunately, the trails are well marked with interpretative signs that made it much more interesting.  There are also a lot of birds, so our binoculars and identification apps were handy.

The reserve looks quite dry, but the water is actually just below the surface.  For this reason, there are lots of both fresh and salt water playas,  These are shallow ponds which may dry out from time to time.  During our visit, there was some water in a couple of playas on the reserve, and lots of water in a larger playa on the adjacent golf course.  This large playa was full of waterbirds such as coots and various types of ducks.  As well, shallow areas that look like stream beds show how the water flows among the playas when it is wet.

Since the buffalo and prairie dogs were pretty much eliminated, the plant life of the region has changed.  Mesquite bushes like those in the photo used to be sparser.  However, the cattle eat the leaves and seed pods, and spread the seeds (well fertilized by manure) and so the bushes have spread.  Mesquite is a legume, so it adds nitrogen to the soil.  Various other plants and lots of birds and mammals thrive.  Apparently prairie dogs are returning to the area, along with their predator, the black ferret, as farmers now recognize their value in maintaining the ecosystem.

 

 

 

 

Tucson to Midland

We decided to start our journey home with 2 long driving days. After that we will do some sightseeing on route.

We started by retracing our path to Las Cruces and then carried on to Texas.  One thing that struck us during this part of the trip was that there are many large farms near the highway, with hundreds of cows. We think these are dairy farms, both because the animals are the classic black and white and because they are mostly corralled and eating from troughs. The countryside looks very dry to be supporting a dairy industry, although east of Tucson there is less cactus and more scrubby bushes.

We drove back through Las Cruces and continued on to the outskirts of El Paso, jut past the Texas border.Our KOA campground was simply a parking lot behind the Camping World. I stopped by the Camping World to get a map we can stick on the camper to trace our route. Otherwise, the location was remote and had no amenities although it did have a good view of the mountains.

A very fierce wind stormed up in the evening. The camper rocked at each gust and we were very glad to be off the road. In fact, had we still been on the highway, we would have had to stop because the camper would be uncontrollable with these types of gusts.

Fortunately the wind died down by morning and we got off to an early start. The highway goes right through El Paso, which is large and sprawling. Many roads cross the highway. Most of the bridge supports are quite ornate with facing in adobe colored red plaster and turquoise bands, along with embossed designs including Texas stars and geometric designs in desert colors. We also saw these fancy bridges (in similar colors) in New Mexico.

The scenery around El Paso is dry and mountainous. Because there is so little vegetation, the mountains, although not high, appear stark. El Paso itself is in a mini-Badlands, with gullies and jagged hills.

East of El Paso the terrain is flatter, although  some considerable mountains. are still visible in the distance.  The highway speed here is 80 mph – undoubtedly a boon to truckers, but far higher than we are comfortable with.

Once we passed Pecos we entered oil country. There is nothing but flat scrubby fields with oil wells and tanks as far as the eye can see. We were surprised to see a few gas flares – we through that any natural gas was now being captured.

There are also a lot of old fashioned wind pumps of the type on exhibit at the Zuhl Museum, pumping up water for the cattle.

The rest stop near Monahans has an exhibit on the nearby Rattlesnake Airforce Training facility. During WWII, this facility trained the pilots who flew the B17 and B29 flying fortresses. These planes flew missions in Germany and Japan and were redeployed during the Korean War. However, the Russian MIGs, which were designed specifically to bring down these planes, finally put them out of service. The Base was named after the thousands of rattlesnake nests, some housing more than 1000 snakes, that were disturbed in building it. The site was considered extremely remote. However, the discovery of oil in the area has now added a lot of population and industry.

We decided to stop in Midland TX, which was the right driving distance for the day and has some sightseeing attractions.  After a full day of driving, we made it only about 1/2 way across Texas, which has certainly impressed upon us just how big the state is.

 

Tucson (Nov 21)

We rolled into the Tucson/LazyDaze KOA on Tuesday evening. It is a very big resort-type KOA, with 2 swimming pools (both open, since the temperature here is hot!) a large lounge and a restaurant. They also have an events tent, where they held a Thanksgiving dinner.

The campground also has two large roofs supporting solar panels. If you park beneath these roofs, you get some much needed shade. The sun here is relentless. (However, we did not park in that area.)

The campground, although favoring desert landscaping as is the usual now, has a lot of trees. Most of these are citrus trees – oranges, lemons, grapefruits and limes. Although it is a bit early in the season, much of the fruit was ripe and guests are encouraged to use it. I enjoyed oranges and grapefruits during our say and also came away with a few lemons for future use.  Here is Rebecca picking a grapefruit.

Our primary objective for this visit was to spend Thanksgiving with Chuck’s parents, who have a house in a lovely suburban development.  Our nephew Jake and his girlfriend Rebecca who graduated from U. Maine in May and are now living in Phoenix, also came for the week to stay with my in-laws.  We spent a lot of time with the family, enjoying meals out, Thanksgiving dinner and lots of left-overs, as well as women’s college basketball – some UConn fans in the crowd.

The neighborhood is a typical Tucson suburb, with lots of low-rise adobe style homes and desert landscaping.  I stopped to chat with the owner of this pomegranate tree, who gave me some fruit and an abbreviated version of her life story, which included being an air force parachutist.

I have to say that between the weather – very hot in the sun, but quite lovely in the shade – and the amazing scenery, I was quite taken by the Tucson lifestyle.

Jake is uber-good at motor vehicle repairs including cars, trucks and RVs.  We took advantage of this by hiring him to do some work on the RV.  He adjusted our suspension system and also installed a mud guard.  The latter proved to be much trickier than the former.

While we were at it, we also decided to get a memory foam topper for our mattress.  We were shocked, when we lifted the mattress, to find that the bottom was moldy (thus explaining why I seemed to be allergic to Tucson, a place where people move to alleviate their allergies).  The internet informed me that this is a frequent problem with RV and boat mattresses, which lie on solid (usually plywood) frames rather than bedsprings.  The bottom of the frame is cold.  The mattress is warm and porous and has moist bodies resting on it.  As a result, there is condensation between the mattress and the frame.  We put the mattress outside in the dry air under the hot Tucson sun and scrubbed it down with bleach.  We also bleached and scrubbed down the plywood.  This seems to have solved the problem, but we will start airing the bed weekly.  In the long term, we need to get some type of spring or porous matting to place between the bed and the plywood.

We did not do much sightseeing in Tucson, but we did take a few hours to drive through part of the Saguaro National Park. New Mexico is the Chichuahuan Desert. Most of the plants are scrubby, with a lot of yuccas, a few shurbs and some agave. The main cactus are prickly pears and a basic cholla, except where humans have planted.  Tucson is the Sonoran Desert. It has some archetypal desert features – especially the many types of cactus, such as saguaro and barrel cactus, and many types of very spiny chollos like the one of the right below.  The bushes behind Chuck are regular leafy plants when there is enough moisture, but the fuzzy looking clump is a cactus and that fuzz is made up of needle sharp and very strong spines.

The entire Tucson area has a lot of cactuses, both in gardens and growing wild where there might be weeds or underbrush in other parts of the country.  Saguaro National Forest is literally a forest of huge saguaro cactuses, along with many other types of cactuses (or is it cacti?) agaves, and dry-land plants.  In the photo to the left, Chuck is posing with several barrel cactuses (in bloom) and one of the types of cholla.

The saguaro is able to grow so tall and support its large branches because its main stem is made up of woody supports as shown to the left.  When the plant is alive, the pulpy flesh between the supports is a perfect place for insects and birds to burrow, and the forest is alive with bird, insect and animal life.

We were surprised to learn that the cactus forest had been depleted in the 1920s, not directly by humans, but by cold weather that killed many of the cactuses.  Grazing cattle made it difficult for the young seedlings to replenish the forest. (How the cattle manage with seriously thorny plants everywhere, including underfoot, I do not know). To preserve some of the forest, the Saguaro National Forest was established, with exclusion areas to keep the cattle out. There is now a high density of huge saguaros – in some ares laooking very similar to photos taken before the bad weather hit.

There are several short trails through the forest that are sufficiently cleared that Rumple could walk on them There are some longer trails, which we are leaving until our Xmas visit with our kids.

We decided that we would end our trip before Xmas, and so we are heading east next.

Rabies (or fortunately, no rabies)

On Saturday afternoon in Las Cruces, I was sitting outside the RV with Rumple, when I heard a horrendous scream. It sounded as if someone were being physically attacked. Being the good Samaritan that I am, I immediately headed for the sound, and discovered a woman in the dog park screaming that her 3 dogs had been attacked by someone else’s dogs. By the time I got there, there were a number of people milling around outside the dog park, and the two sets of dogs were separated. However, the woman was quite hysterical.

I decided to step in and try to calm her down. I offered to walk her back to her RV while she prepared to take the injured dog to the vet.

Unfortunately, one of her other dogs had been very agitated by the events, and nipped at my loose pant legs. He got a bit of me in the process. I did not think much about it until I got back to the RV and noticed that although it was a tiny scratch, it was oozing blood.

The woman, who was still agitated and not taking care of the dog at all, assured me that her dogs were well-taken care of and vaccinated, so I just disinfected the scratch and carried on with my day. However, I wanted proof of vaccination, which she kept promising to get, but did not produce. Each time I talked with her she got more hostile. 3 days later, her boyfriend admitted that the dogs were NOT vaccinated.

As we were leaving for Tucson, I decided the most appropriate thing to do was to get my rabies booster when we got to our next destination, Tucson. (I only need a 2 shot booster because in 2012, while I was in Delhi, India, I was bitten by a street dog and got the entire series of shots.  That was a much more serious incident, because India is having a rabies epidemic, and most cases in humans originate from dog bites.)

I took a risk in waiting, because rabies is essentially always fatal once you have the symptoms. However, I recollected from my first set of shots that the instructions said “within 10 days” and I thought I had 10 days to proceed. It turns out that this was not the smartest thing I could have done, because the symptoms can actually emerge in 5 days, although that is rare.  Once you are symptomatic, it is time to write a will and say your goodbyes.   On the other hand, given all the wrong information I got from Las Cruces animal control and even the ER doctors, I am glad that I waited, because I got to talk to the Tucson epidemiologist, Mike Callahan, who is very knowledgeable.

The bottom line is that infected animals are not contagious until they display symptoms, and then the animal generally dies within 10 days. Rabies is extremely rare in house dogs, even if unvaccinated. The dog in question was a permanent resident of the RV park, and hence essentially an indoor dog, and quite unlikely to have been exposed.  Standard procedure after a domestic dog bite is to quarantine the animal in a facility where they can be observed, and begin rabies vaccination of the human only if symptoms occur in the dog.

I decided that I would be best off just having the shots, rather than getting involved with this woman. Actually, I think I was getting more afraid of her and her boyfriend than I was of getting rabies. However, it then turned out that the Urgent Care facility where I planned to get the shots would not administer the booster without documentation that I had been previously vaccinated. With the Thanksgiving holiday, I figured it would take a few days, and in the end I decided that I would wait until the day after Thanksgiving (7 days after the bite) and if I did not get the documentation, I would call animal control in Las Cruces. By then I figured that if the dog were still healthy, it would only need to be quarantined for a couple of days and the owners would not be so upset. And if it were healthy, I would not need the shots.

However, by Friday I still had not got the documentation from the hospital at UNC (where I had my follow-up after returning from India) and so I decided to follow through with the Las Cruces Animal Control.  (The documentation arrive on Monday.)

It is not at all clear how to contact Animal Control in Las Cruces, because, unlike Tucson, they do not seem to have their own number. After several tries, I ended up calling “Central Dispatch” which had Animal Control call me. The Animal control officer told me that if the dog had rabies, I would probably have symptoms already and would be dead within 10 days. (I later confirmed with Mike that this was unlikely – the incubation period can be quite long, which is why animals shipped to Britain need to be in quarantine for 6 months.) According to the internet, typical periods in humans are 20-60 days, but can be as short as 5 days.) The girl who was the first to survive rabies had symptoms after 2 weeks.

In any case, the Animal Control officer went out to the RV park to check the dog. I called the RV park to let them know that she was coming. The office assured me that there were no unvaccinated animals in the park. However, in 10 months of RVing, no-one has ever asked to see our dog’s vaccination records and this was also true at La Hacienda. Many parks ask the breed of the dog, as they often do not allow breeds with a history of aggression. Many parks limit the number of dogs per RV to 2 (although even those will usually allow 3 if the dogs are small). In this place, at least one RV had 8 (yes, 8) small dogs.  But vaccination records?  Never.

In any case, an hour later the  agent called to tell me that the dog was alive and well. So I decided to wait for the end of quarantine. 3 hours later, she called back to say that she was not able to observe the dog. For the initial visit the owner was not home, and she had just looked through a window. When she met the owners later in the day, they told her they had “rehomed” the dog outside of Las Cruces. The agent was really annoyed both with me and with the owners, but not as annoyed as I was. I suspect that either she left a note stating that she was coming to quarantine the dog, or the office let them know.

In any case, with no documentation of my previous shots, and no dog under observation, it was clearly time to go get shots. For the full immunization you have to go to the ER for the first set of shots, because both an active and passive vaccine are administered. The active vaccine (which already has active antibodies) is available only at the hospital.

Imagine my surprise when I got to triage. There were two admitting doctors. The first told me that if the dog were infectious, I would already be having symptoms (and she seemed quite unconcerned about that).   She also said that in the US there are so few rabies cases in domestic dogs that all I needed to do was to check with the owner after 10 days to see if the dog is still alive. (This even after I had told her what happened with Animal Control, and also noting that the whole point of the quarantine is so that the shots could be administered immediately if the dog had symptoms.) The other doctor told me that, although they would take my word for it that I had the shots, shots given 5 years ago were no longer effective and I needed the entire series. However, because I had spoken with Mr. Mike, I was pretty sure I only needed the booster, so he then went to the CDC webpage. The recommendation is that once you have had either prophylactic or post-exposure vaccination, only the 2 booster shots are required.

After that I was passed on to “FastTrack” where, 3 hours later (not so fast) I finally got my first shot, along with a tetanus shot. I then had to wait around for another hour to make sure I did not have an allergic reaction to the shots.  However, I was happy to have got started on the shots, and that I would get the second shot while still in Tucson.  I got that on Monday at an Urgent Care Center.

So, what did I learn from all this?

1) Even if the owner says the dog is vaccinated, you need to see documentation.

2) If the documentation is not forth-coming in a day, call Animal Control and let them know when you think the owner will be home.

3) If the owner does not appear to be concerned with the fact that you got bitten, don’t be “nice” – just call Animal Control.

4) The risks in the US with a dog that is essentially an indoor dog (at RV parks dogs do not run loose) is small, but not zero. The last case of a domestic dog with rabies in Tucson was 2009 – I am not sure about Las Cruces.

5) An infectious animal dies within 10 days, so in a low risk scenario you can wait for confirmation, as long as the animal can be observed during that time and you can live with your level of risk.

What I learned previously, is that rabies virus does not travel through the blood stream, but actually moves along the nerves. So a bite to the extremities will become symptomatic more slowly than a bite to the head, and a bite that penetrates to the muscle is more dangerous than a superficial wound. I had a superficial wound close to my ankle. Still, I did not behave wisely, given the lack of co-operation from the owners and the fact that once you are symptomatic, it is too late to get treatment. On the other hand, the risk was probably less than what I sustain every time I get on my bike to go to PSU. Anyways, I will declare myself rabies-free in 60 days.

 

 

 

Las Cruces (Nov. 14)

The route from Albuquerque to Las Cruces is mostly flat and dry, with spiky, dessicated mountains cropping up from time to time.

With our early start, we arrived at our La Hacienda Camping Resort in the early afternoon.  The Resort has a pool and hot tub and a nice gift shop with local crafts, but is otherwise pretty much the usual RV parking lot.

On Wednesday we went into Mesilla, about a mile from the campground.  Mesilla is the oldest part of Las Cruces, and consists of a large church and many older adobe buildings which are mainly now restaurants and tourist shops – some quite high end.  It is very pretty and New Mexican.  Mesilla was a stop on the historic Butterfield Stagecoach route from St. Louis to San Francisco.  Like the Pony Express, this mail service ran for only a few years, but had a large impact in American western legend.

Mesilla’s biggest claim to fame, however, is that Mesilla is the place where the famous outlaw, Billy the Kid, was convicted and incarcerated.  Billy escaped from jail here, and was later killed in Fort Sumner, NM by his former friend, sheriff Pat Garrett – another piece of American legend.

We mostly just wandered around with Rumple, and dropped into a few shops.  I confess I was sorely tempted to buy some clothes or souvenirs, but thoughts of all the stuff I already have prevailed.  For lunch, we stopped at a restaurant with outdoor seating so that Rumple could stay with us.

The next day, we headed into Las Cruces to see the Zuhl Museum.  This gem on the New Mexico State U. campus is a geology museum which specializes in petrified wood.  We have never seen anything like it – both cross and longitudinal sections from around the world, as well as entire petrified logs.

We really liked the petrified pine cones, as well.  The museum also had a collection of large “crystal balls” like those on the table above, made from various minerals and a modest fossil collection.

In the back yard of the Zuhl was an exhibit on windpowered water pumps, as seen to the right.  In the northeast, these have been replaced by electric pumps; those that remain are ornamental wind vanes still turning but detached from the pumping mechanism.  However, in the west, particularly on the cattle ranges, we saw plenty of pumps still working and filling reservoirs.  This exhibit showed how the wind works the pistons that pumps the water.

After the Zuhl, we continued out of town to the New Mexico Farm Museum.  As promised, it had exhibits about farm life.  We started by crossing the historic Green Bridge, moved to the museum from its former location on the Pecos River.  This took us to the outdoor exhibits.  We started in the Dairy Barn and learned about how milking was done historically and now, including the evolution of the milking machine.  We saw a huge collection of old tractor parts.  The museum boasts a large “zoo” of different breeds of beef and dairy cattle, including Texas longhorns (which are seldom seen on farms today).  We also visited the saddlery, where the workshop of saddle maker Slim Green is on display along with some of the beautiful leather work he did.  Unfortunately, we did not have time for the exhibits in the main building.

Both the Zuhl and the Farm Museum are part of the New Mexico State University.  To get to the museums, we drove along the edge of campus.  Although we did not stop to see the campus, we were struck at how similar the architecture was to the main quad of Stanford, with its red tile roofs and western style adobe-like architecture.

The scenery in Las Cruces is dominated by the Organ Mountains, a chunk of igneous extrusion (whatever that means).  At the base of these mountains is an oasis, Dripping Springs, with a nice hike.In the 1870s, a resort was built there and visitors came the 17 miles from Las Cruces by stage coach or horse to enjoy the setting.  When the hotel was abandoned, a tuberculosis sanatorium was built on the site.  Now the buildings are abandoned, but the stage coach road provide a good trail to the site, which is very pretty.

On Thursday, we headed out to Dripping Springs and walked along the old stage coach trail to the resort and sanatorium.  The vegetation is interesting, with lots of varieties of yucca and other semi-arid plants.  Due to the constant water supply from the springs, we expected wildlife. However, what we saw was an interesting assortment of insects. The most exciting, which we saw almost as soon as we started walking was a 4″ tarantula, (my glasses are in the picture for scale) walking calmly across the trail, as well as a smaller tarantula nearby.  The grassy vegetation was full of grasshoppers, most of which were black while at rest but which had scarlet wings when they flew off.  There were also a smaller number of grasshoppers which appeared similar while at rest but which had bright turquoise wings.  Both varieties are very noisy in flight.

 Near the springs and creek there are a lot of birds. 

 

As well, from the spring you can hike around some interesting rock formations and also visit a cave that was inhabited for a while by a hermit.  The cave is really an ideal dwelling – spacious and high enough to walk around in, with a nice view of the rock formations, valley and creek as can be seen from this photo taken from inside.

The hermit’s neighbors worried about him being alone and far from help.  He agreed to light a fire outside the cave weekly so that they would know that he was OK.  One week, there was no fire and he was found murdered.

The whole “wild west” meme was frequently brought to our attention, as historical plaques often noted that inhabitants of the historic building had been murdered.

Saturdays and Wednesdays Las Cruces has a downtown Farmers’ Market.  This would be more properly called a crafts market, as there were very few farm stalls.  It also had the unique feature (at least on the Saturday when we were there) of having a children’s section, where many enterprising youngsters were selling crafts.  (I bought a duck tape purse and a clay pendant – the latter because the 3 little girls staffing the booth were such excellent salesladies that I felt I had to buy something.)

My favorite craft stall sold these amazing sculptures made of bottle caps.

The vendors were very friendly.  We spent quite a bit of time chatting with one woman whose main product was Jerusalem artichokes.  I had previously been unsuccessful in getting much of a crop, so besides extolling the nutritional value of the tubers, she explained her experiences in cultivating them and concluded that I had not given them enough sunshine.  We bought a few tubers, but I cannot say they will become a regular part of our diet.

We also spent quite a long time chatting with a retired gentleman who made hand-knapped blades from both natural materials like flint and obsidian, and man-made materials like old TV screens. It was quite fascinating.  He had some beautiful pieces, too.  He uses modern cutting tools to make the blanks, which is less wasteful than flaking them by hand, and then finishing by hand knapping.  He also had some very innovative handles.

Of course, no farmers’ market is complete without some relaxing music.  In this case, the musicians were also pretty relaxed – that is the horn player on his back on the sidewalk.

Our final day in the Las Cruces area was spent at White Sands National Park. This park, which is right beside the White Sands Missile Range, consists of huge dunes of white gypsum sand covering (according to Wikipedia) 442 square kilometers. I thought that the texture of the sand would be like drywall dust, but it is actually more like very fine table salt. The sand is formed from desert evaporites which are blown off the surface by the wind.

To reach the park, we drove through a pass in the mountains, which, in itself was quite interesting. We then drove through the missile range. We also had to pass through our first immigration checkpoint, which seems to be designed to make sure that vehicles are not transporting illegal immigrants. I was surprised at how quickly the big semis went through the checkpoint, but my nephew pointed out that there is probably heat-sensitive technology for scanning the rigs.  We passed through several more of these in Arizona.

The dunes appear quite suddenly and seem to be confined to a certain region, perhaps a basin.  Here I am at the edge.

The drive through White Sands has many interpretative nature trail with notes about the flora and fauna. We enjoyed several of these. As well, visitors are allowed to toboggan down the dunes at various locations, and we enjoyed watching some of the tobogganners. However, we did not get the full impact of the impact of the dunes until we got to the Alkali Flats Trail.

The Alkali Flats Trail is at the farthest point on the loop drive into the park and is not at all flat due to the dunes. It has no interpretative signs, and needs none. There is nothing but sand – huge white sand dunes. Except that the sand is so pure white, it looks like an idealized picture of what a sand desert should be.  On our outward journey, we walked up the steep lee side of the dunes, and down the gentle windward side. This was very strenuous work in the loose sand. But on the return, we walked up the gentle slow side and then could literally leap down the steep slopes, landing in soft sand up to mid-calf. I had to empty my shoes several times.  I really felt like a kid, launching myself down the slope like I was bouncing up and down on a bed.

The force of the wind could be seen in many ways. The trail is marked with 6 foot steel markers – you can see here that these are often buried in sand after a few years.  As well, in some places between the dunes there are flat areas that appear to have tire ruts. Upon closer examination, you can see that these are the compacted layers of sand from dunes that have been swept out of the area.

White Sands is really something very special and will have to do for me as the archetypal desert – at least until I make it to the Sahara.

 

 

 

 

White Sands

border patrol looking for illegals. Quick throughput for semis.

 

 

On Sunday we went into Albuquerque to meet our friends Nevin and Melissa and their young son Sebastian.  They moved to Albuquerque about a year and a half ago, due to his job, and are enjoying suburban life there.  He works at the Sandia National Labs and she works in a veterinary office, although as of our visit she has been on maternity leave.  (Baby Scarlett Rose arrived on Nov. 26).

After admiring their new house and taking Rumple for a walk around the neighborhood, we headed off to a Mexican Restaurant for lunch.  We appreciated the decor, which was more Mexican mansion with murals than the typical Mexican restaurants elsewhere.  We also appreciated the heaps of food, although I decided that lamb is really too heavy for tacos.  Sopapillas were a new treat for us: puffy pancakes with sweet fillings.

After lunch, Melissa and Sebastian headed home for a nap while Chuck, Nevin and I collected Rumple and headed for the foothills of the Sandia Mountains, which start pretty much behind the house.  The paths climb (of course), affording great views over the Albuquerque area and the surrounding mountains and volcanic cores.

 

 

 

 

 

 

For our last day in Albuquerque, we decided to take Rumple to the botanical garden, which is adjacent to the zoo and aquarium near the Rio Grande.  Unfortunately, the gardens are not open to dogs. They have a kennel, but he was quite unhappy about being left behind, so we decided to walk along the Rio Grande instead. This proved to be a rather boring walk, so after a bit we decided to try the kennel again.

The person manning the kennel was extremely nice and noted that dogs often calm down once the owner was out of sight and smell. We decided to go to the Shark Reef Cafe for lunch while waiting to see whether Rumple would adjust, as it has an outdoor seating area where we could sit with him if necessary.

The interior of the cafe has a window into the aquarium shark tank, with a great display of sharks, rays and other large ocean fish (and their much smaller cleaner fish) . We enjoyed watching the sharks and while enjoying a nice meal.

Unfortunately, the atteendant came to tell us that Rumple had been whining incessantly, so we decided to take him back to the RV before continuing with our sightseeing.

One of the Albuquerque attractions is a trail with ancient petroglyphs (actually, several such trails). These rock carvings look very simple on the whole – like pictures done by young children. However, it is through that they had religious significance and may still have importance to the local Native Americans. (They hold their cards close to the chest on this.)

The trail that we took was at the base of some rocky crags. A suburban neighborhood starts at the edge of the park, and one is always within a half mile of the houses, with scrubland between. Despite this there was a lot of wildlife. We saw a coyote, many black-tailed jackrabbits, ground squirrels and a roadrunner. The jackrabbits have enormous ears, which reminded me of Ms. Frizzle (the Magic Schoolbus) and her “ear-conditioning” comment (although that was about desert foxes.)

As always, we could have stayed longer and found more to see and do, but it was time to move on.

Albuquerque (Nov. 7)

If you are a late riser like us, driving west is a problem.  In the early afternoon, you find you are driving straight into the sun.  The problem was exacerbated for us due to the change back to standard time on the weekend.  We learned our lesson coming into Amarillo, and decided to leave very early on the way out.  As a result, we were on the road by 8 a.m.,  stopped for breakfast en route, and were camped in Albuquerque in time for lunch.

Our campground, Hidden Valley, is actually to the east of Albuquerque in the town of Zuzax, (love the name!) just east of the Sandia Mountains.  There was not much space between sites, but the campground had a good view of the mountains, a nice lounge, free coffee and a large book exchange.  (I ended up with 7 new books.)

Another problem of driving west, particularly with the end of Daylight Saving Time and a stubborn dog, is that we needed to turn our clocks back by 2 hours.   Rumple’s attitude, of course, is that there is no need to adjust to an arbitrary clock.   So he now wants his evening walk around supper time, and is quite disgusted that we do not want to head for bed around 9 p.m.  On the other hand, at 6:30 a.m. he feels his morning walk is very overdue (and we are lucky that over the last few months he was getting up later – otherwise he would be feeling perky at 5 a.m.)  Since it now gets dark at 5, and most museums also close around then, we would probably be better off following Rumple’s example.  But of course we reset the clocks and our schedules.

My new habit has been to call up all the knitting places as we pulled into town, in the seemingly hopeless task of finding the 11 balls of  yarn needed for Elisabeth’s sweater.  Happily one store said they had 9 balls and another had 5.  I decided that this was the best I was going to do, as even special orders would not guarantee a single dye lot.

In the morning, I drove into Albuquerque and picked up my 9 balls of yarn from one store and 3 (just to be safe) from the other.  Astonishingly, they were from the same dye lot.   The next day I decided I needed a bigger margin of error,  so I picked up the last 2 balls.  So, I ended up with 14 balls of yarn from the same dye lot and have been knitting away ever since.  Anyone in Albuquerque who is interested in this particular yarn is going to be out of luck until the next shipment comes in.

The yarn excursion took up the entire morning.   For the afternoon, we visited the Old Town of Albuquerque.  This is the oldest part of the town, built around the old plaza and church.  The buildings all look very Mexican, and have mostly been converted to restaurants and tourist shops.

We spent some time wandering around and admiring the old buildings, as well as dropping by the Tourist Information Center, where the friendly volunteers gave us advice about the local attractions.

Decorating with strings of red peppers is definitely the thing here.  As well, there are lots of small alley ways opening up to small plazas crowded with shops.

 

 

 

 

 

 

For lunch we went to a restaurant that is situated in what was once one of the oldest homes in the area.  It was well worth it just for the ambience, as it retained the interior architecture and was beautifully furnished.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After lunch, we decided to go to the Rattlesnake Museum.  As advertised, it was full of live rattlers of various types – we had no idea that there were so many types of varying sizes.  Other wildlife – most other snakes and reptiles – were also featured, including a couple of tortoises that were always under foot.  As well, they had a nice collection of art and artifacts with snake themes.

By the time we were done, it was rather late to go to the Albuquerque Museum.  (I was there for a conference, and it has a great art collection.)  However, the museum gardens are open and free.  They have a monument to the Spanish settlement of Albuquerque which is on a scale similar to the Oklahoma City Land Rush monument.

With a work day on Friday, we were eager to get back to sightseeing on Friday.   There is a back route from Albuquerque to Los Alamos that follows Jemez Creek as it goes through the mountains and includes many scenic and historic sites.  We decided to follow the route, stopping at sites of interest as we went.

We started out at the Coronado Historic Site and Kauau Pueblo archeological site.  Around 1540, The Spanish “explorer” Coronado searching for the fabled (and non-existent) cities of gold, followed the Rio Grande with retinue of about 2500 Spanish and native American soldiers and arrived in the Albuquerque area.  There he found several villages of Tiwa Indians.  Whether willingly or by force, the Tiwas (whose villages, including women and children were quite outnumbered by the Spanish) fed and housed Coronado and his retinue.  Eventually the Tiwas resisted.  I do not recall all the details, but within a few decades, the Kauau Pueblo was abandoned until archeological excavations were started in the 1930s.

The Pueblo on the shores of the Rio Grande was apparently first occupied in the 1300’s, and there may have subsequent immigration and absorption by other groups, as evidenced by artifacts at the site.  The site includes several kivas (underground ceremonial sites) of various designs.  Visitors can wander along the trail going through the pueblo, but to visit the famous painted kiva you must go with a park docent.

Due to a lull in the stream of visitors, we had a docent to ourselves. She showed us how artifacts are constantly rising to the surface, from pottery fragments to pieces of metate to shards of flint.  She also noted several types of vegetation that grow wild in the area but that were very useful to the native peoples as foods, fibers and building materials.

The above ground buildings were all make of adobe and have been washed away over time. The outlines of the walls have been redone in adobe bricks as part of the exploration of the site, but the original walls were not build this way. One of the building has been reconstructed by archeology students using the original technique, which was to stack balls of mud. Once a couple of layers have been stacked, they begin to compress and flatten out. They were then left to dry and harden before the next layer was added. When the walls were finished,  a layer of adobe plaster was smoothed over the entire shebang. The roof was constructed of branches covered by brush and then more mud. Apparently these structures could be built several storeys high. The individual rooms are quite small – mostly about 8′ x 8′, with smaller structures thought to be storage rooms, in some areas. I can vouch from the reconstructed building that the rooms stay cool even in the hot sun.

One of the kivas is open for viewing. It is unique partly because it is square, rather than the traditional round room, and partly because the wall paintings were preserved. Apparently painted walls have been found in many historic kivas, but all were destroyed during excavation. The interior walls of this kiva were carefully deconstructed and moved to the Albuquerque Museum. Seventeen layers of paintings were found – apparently from time to time the old paintings were covered with a thick layer of adobe plaster and new paintings created. The paintings that can currently be seen are reconstructions of the originals from the last 2 layers.

To enter the kiva, you climb on the roof using a wooden ladder, and then climb down through a hole in the roof using another ladder. In theory, Rumple could have entered the kiva, but the logistics dictated against it. I went down with the guide and a few people who had joined us. Chuck waited with Rumple and then went down with a different guide and the next group.

The interior of the kiva, besides being well decorated, had a number of interesting features including a ventilation shaft, guarded by a low wall, which also shielded the central fire pit and a small alcove meant for sending messages to the heavens. The murals depicted kachinas, eagles, various animals such as snakes, and rain.  Apparently the symbols are known to the local Native Americans and are still considered sacred. Photos are not allowed. Our guide has clearly spent a lot of time contemplating the murals and pointed out features such as the commonality among parts of the mural and well-known symbols. It was quite interesting.

The interpretive center also had some artifacts from the Spanish occupation. One interesting set of posters was about Estevan, a Tunisian slave of a Spanish noble who might have been the first westerner to set foot in New Mexico. He survived a shipwreck and went on to become an explorer in his own right.

Finishing at the Coronado Historic Site, we continued on to the Jemez Mountain Trail National Scenic Highway.  Having bypassed the restaurants in nearby Bernallilo e hoped to find lunch at the next town San Ysidro.  This tiny spot has only a church and a few houses, however, so we carried on to the Jemez Pueblo.  This village is situated in a gorge of bright red sandstone which make the red soil of PEI look faded.  We did not go into the town, which appears to be residential, but a roadside service station served a very palatable lunch which we ate outside while admiring the scenery.

Carrying on from there, we discovered that Jemez Creek cut this very interesting “hole in the rock” waterfall.  One interesting feature is that the rocks (including the one I am standing on) are covered in flowstone such as you usually see only in limestone caves.  I am not sure why this occurs, but it seems that either the waters of the creek are very mineral rich in this area, or that there is a local deposit of soluble limestone that is quickly redeposited.

It turns out that the entire area through which the trail wends was formed by successive episodes of volcanism.  The mountain range is actually the outer edge of a giant calderon.  There is a road to the interior of the calderon, which makes this more apparent, but we did not have time to explore this.

We then continued up the road to the next geological site, which is called Battleship Rock, and is another layer of eruption rock.  We did not stop for a photo, but there is a good one at this website.  http://www.jemezmountaintrail.org/Jemez_State_Monument.html

As it was getting late, we decided we had time for only one more stop: the Jemez Historic Site.  This is the site of a Spanish Mission, and includes the old basilica and an art gallery.

With sunset around 5:00, we reluctantly turned back to Albuquerque to avoid being on twisting mountain roads after dark.

However, our adventures for the day were not yet over.  While looking for a restaurant for lunch in Bernalillo, Chuck had read a review of the Range Restaurant and decided we needed to go there for dinner.  It was a very interesting choice.  Bernalillo is not exactly a tourist hotspot, but there in this quiet suburb is this very popular restaurant, wildly decorated with local art.  As well it is attached to a large New Mexican artisans’ store.  To avoid waiting in line for a table, we decided to sit at the bar.  This was a fortuitous choice for two reasons.

Firstly, it turned out that the dessert station was literally right in front of us.  Although I am sure they had a pastry chef in the kitchen, the final flourishes to the desserts – swirls of chocolate sauce or whipped cream, sliced fruit or whatever – were prepared right on the counter where we sat.  We got to watch dozens of desserts laid out as we ate.

Secondly, the owner of the store plopped down beside us and proceeded to tell us how she had known some of the great pueblo potters and artisans while growing up, had moved away and then returned a few years ago to assist her aged mother with the shop.  I still cannot see how this shop can remain in business away from the main shopping area of Albuquerque but both it and the restaurant seem to be well attended.

 

Amarillo (Nov.3)

We set off from Oklahoma City at our usual late hour, passing through oil country and a relatively flat landscape.  What looked like snowy fields proved to be cotton – lots of cotton.  (Read the first few chapters of The Grapes of Wrath to understand some of the ramifications of this.)

Not surprisingly, given the constant wind, Oklahoma also has a lot of wind farms, which generate about 25% of the state’s power.  (However, Texas is the state with the most wind generation at this point in time.)

We pulled into our RV campground in Amarillo in the mid-afternoon.  It was recommended to us by our RV neighbors in Oklahoma City, and indeed they pulled in shortly after we did.  However, it turned out to be your basic RV parking lot – clean and convenient to the highway, but otherwise not notable.

The campground was very close to two of Amarillo’s more bizarre landmarks, which I visited without Chuck the next day.  In 1974, a group of hippie artists from California partnered with billionaire Stanley Marsh III, to build a piece of “art” to confound the locals.  Cadillac Ranch is a field with 10 Cadillacs half-buried nose down.  Much of the exposed parts of the cars have been stolen, but it has become a place of pilgrimage on Route 66 – in fact I first spotted it because of the line of parked cars out in what otherwise appeared to be a corn field.  The idea is to come out with one of more cans of spray paint and document yourself (or your kids) spraying graffiti onto what is left of the cars.  Since there is a constant trek of visitors, you can expect your artwork to last about 15 minutes before it is covered up by the next visitor.  The main trick is to get the photo without getting someone’s spray paint on your camera lens.

  In honor of Cadillac Ranch, our RV park has its own half-buried vehicle.

Less than a mile away, at a Cadillac dealership, stands the Second Amendment Cowboy – a “Muffler Man” statue in a yellow shirt and cowboy hat.

There is a plaque about the Second Amendment (the right to bear arms) and a few names of famous gun-toting actors.  Ironically, the Cowboy himself does not have a gun or even a gun belt.  Anyways, it is a very Texan concept.

Near Amarillo is Palo Duro Canyon, the 2nd largest canyon in the US and also known as the Grand Canyon of Texas.  Unlike the Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania, Palo Duro actually looks like the Grand Canyon, shrunk down to a more human scale.  I ended up going twice – once with Rumple but no Chuck (who was tired after driving from Oklahoma City) and once with Chuck but no Rumple (because it is really hot on the canyon floor, and there are too many pricklies for a bootless dog.)

The canyon was carved out by a branch of the Red River, which is just a small creek about 3 feet across when there is no rain.     The river is red, because most of the rock is bright red – our cameras are not good enough to get the actual color.  The road winds part way around the canyon rim and then descends to the canyon floor, where there are lots of river depth gauges (all starting about 10 feet above the creek during my visit) and flood warnings.  The canyon is filled with camp grounds, and we later heard that these frequently need to be evacuated if there has been rain.  It certainly looked more like a desert during our visit, except for the cottonwoods near the creek, which are brilliant yellow at this time of year.

The white layers in the cliffs are made up of vertical crystals of something – maybe calcite. They are harder than the red rock, which leads to      Ω

some interesting hoodoos (pillars) where erosion of the underlying rock was impeded by the harder cap.

The most famous rock formation in Palo Duro is the Lighthouse, seen above to the left. The two narrower pictures are the 2 towers, as seen from the table formation between them.  The lower longer tower can easily be climbed, although we opted not to do it.

The Lighthouse is reached via a 3-mile hike.  About a mile in, we met a couple from northern Texas – a dentist and his wife (who ran his office) – and walked the rest of the way with them.  They were entertaining company and also took some photos of the two of us.

Another attraction in Amarillo is the RV Museum.  This is the private project of Jack Sisemore, an Amarillo RV dealer, and one of the founders of Keystone RV (one of the large manufacturers.)  The RV showroom has some interesting uses of RV parts, like this sales desk made of an Airstream front end.

Mr. Sisemore was an early RV owner, and some of the early models in the museum were ones he bought to use.  He also collected motorcycles.

  Two of the motorcycles that more interested me were a WW I cycle complete with rifle holster, and the beautifully detailed vanity model below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The museum also had this original A&W lunch counter.

 

 

 

And then, of course, there were the RVs.  One of the things that interested me in the museum is that most of the basic designs (except slide-outs) were available from the start – that includes the pop-up tent trailer, the basic pull-trailer with kitchen and the teardrop trailer  (which has a bed inside and the kitchen in the tail, accessible from outside only).  Most of the RVs, even going back to the 1930s, would not look out of place in an RV park today.  However, indoor toilets did come a bit later on the scene.

Finally, there were the nostalgia pieces, like the 1960s “love bug” converted VW van, and the bus from the RV movie with Robin Williams.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the afternoon, we went to Medipark.  This is a rather large park with a pond and the Amarillo Botanical Gardens, surrounded by the city medical complex, with most of the hospitals. The park is home to hundreds of long-tailed grackles and the pond is full of ducks and geese.  We added a lot of duck species to our viewing list, including some domestic varieties which must have escaped into the wild.  We also enjoyed the Botanical Gardens, which were still full of blooms.

 

Oklahoma City (Oct. 30)

When we started the trip, a two hour haul between campsites seemed like a big deal.  Nine months in, the two hours between Tulsa and Oklahoma City seemed short.  We had breakfast at one end and lunch at the other.

Actually, it was not a particularly relaxing drive for the driver.  As Rogers and Hammerstein said: “Oklahoma, where the winds go sweeping down the plain.”  I don’t want to complain when the east coast just got hit by a major wind storm (not to mention all the hurricanes) but in OK, it is windy every day.  And windy, with a 12 foot RV on the highway, makes for tense driving.

In any case, we are now camped at the Twin Fountains RV Resort just outside OK City.  Outside it is windy and cool, but sunny.  With the curtains open, inside it is like being in Hawaii.  Here is the view from my window of the Twin Fountains.  Notice how the wind is whipping the water around!

Arriving early gave us a chance to spend the afternoon relaxing.  Just before dinner, we played a round of mini-golf at the deceptively difficult course at the campground.  It did not really look like much, but every hole had weird bumps.  There were several holes which neither of us completed within the 6 stroke limit.

The RV park is close to several museums.  On Tuesday we decided to go to the American Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum.  This huge museum includes many galleries including modern takes on “traditional cowboy crafts” such as leatherwork, silverwork and rawhide braiding, art about cowboys and the west, Native American history and life, cowboy life – both historic and modern, movie and TV westerns and more.

The first exhibit as you walk in is this huge sculpture named “The End of the Trail” by JE Fraser.  I thought this referred to the Trail of Tears, but apparently the title was much more politically fraught.  Fraser thought that Native American cultures were doomed, and this was his way of depicting it.  There is an explanatory note on both walls – one from Fraser’s perspective and one from the Native American perspective, noting that Native American cultures have survived and are thriving.

The first gallery that we viewed had modern cowboy crafts – primarily leatherwork like this amazing saddle, silver work, and rawhide plaiting. The other galleries that we saw included TV cowboys, a rodeo, including a history of women rodeo performers, cowboy life in the late 1800s in various parts of North, Central and South America,  art by and about cowboys and Native Americans, and more.  It was very interesting and we were “museumed out” before we could see everything.  I was intrigued by these candlebras made from deer (or maybe elk) antlers.

The RV park did not seem to have a lot of kids, so we opted out of Hallowe’en festivities, such as they were, by the simple expedient of leaving our outside lights off.

The next day, we both worked in the morning.  In the afternoon Chuck decided to stay at the RV, so I took Rumple to Hefner Lake (no relation to Hugh as far as I know) for a walk.  On the map, the lake looks like a pond, but it is actually quite large – certainly big enough for sailing.  With the strong steady wind, I could see sail surfers in the distance, even though the lake is not big enough to generate waves. There is a biking and hiking path that goes around the perimeter of the lake.  However, as is often the case, the path did not afford good views of the lake. Instead, Rumple and I branched off to a number of side-paths which took us through woods and brush and closer to the water.  I parked at Stars and Stripes Park.  I guess I am still Canadian enough to be amused at the “over the top” color scheme of the playground at the park.

  Downtown Oklahoma City has been renovated by creating a small canal from the Oklahoma City through, Bricktown, the older part of the city.  The canal connects the softball stadium with the Convention Center. A walkway on both sides of the canal provides a pleasant stroll through the center of the tourist district, and is lined by eateries and hotels and even a downtown mini-golf course.

At the farthest end of the canal, near where it meets the Oklahoma River (aka the North Canadian River), is the Land Rush Memorial.    After shoving the Native Americans into ever smaller areas, the federal government found itself with 2 million acres of “unassigned” land.  The government announced that the land would be open for claims of 160 acres at noon on April 22, 1899.  Although some settlers jumped the gun, and managed to hide out in the “new” territory to stake their claims in advance, an estimated 50,000 potential settlers lined up at the border and set out when the gun was fired at noon.  (We met the ancestor of one of the successful settlers a couple of weeks later at a campground. )  The event is commemorated with a monumental set of twice life-sized bronzes of settlers, wagons and their animals.  We had not set out to see this memorial, but it is well worth the trip.

 

After lunch in Bricktown, we dropped Rumple at the RV, and headed out to the Oklahoma City Zoo.  (Our membership in the Columbia SC zoo got us in for half price, which was nice.)  We enjoyed the ambience and the animals.  We spent quite a long time watching their troop of gorillas and also enjoyed watching the elephants reach for food in this overhead feeder.   We always enjoyed watching the big cats.

Oklahoma City was the first place we encountered the great-tailed grackle, a spectacular irridescent black bird, larger and much more talkative than the common grackle.  They make a varied assortments of screeches, whistles and gracking.  There were hundreds of these noisy and melodious birds in the bushes of the zoo, which made it sound like one was walking through a tropical rainforest.

All in all, a very good zoo.

We definitely could have spent more time in Oklahoma City.  For example, we missed the American Pigeon Museum (just up the street from the campground), the Banjo Museum in Bricktown and the memorial to the Oklahoma City bombing.

 

Tulsa (Oct. 27)

Our trip continued on Route 44 through the Ozarks. The first part of the drive was very pretty, with rolling mountains and lots of limestone rock cuts. This part of the country is riddled with limestone caverns, including the caverns used by Disney to film Tom Sawyer (for those of us old enough to remembr the scene of Tom and Becky lost in the cave with the wall of flowstone). Since our objective is now to get to Arizona in time for Thanksgiving, we did not stop.

Our campground just east of Tulsa OK, is at the Cherokee Will Rogers Down Casino and Racetrack.  My initial dismay at being so far (2o miles) from Tulsa has been replaced by enthusiasm, as there are many advantages to being at a casino and racetrack.

Will Rogers was a famous American comedian, political satirist, show cowboy and journalist who died in 1935. He must have been famous in Canada, too, because I heard about him from my father, who would only have been 13 years old at the time of his death. What I did not know was that he was part Cherokee Indian. He grew up near Tulsa and there are many schools, parks and buildings here named after him.

We decided to visit the casino for dinner. It has a relatively small casino floor with various gambling machines. There is a larger bar and restaurant, and an even larger section that appeared to be closed for the evening, for betting on the horse races – both local and elsewhere. As the evening wore on, the restaurant filled up. Most of the men sported jeans, black cowboy hats and western boots. The women were a more mixed bunch. At 8:00, a country and western band started to play, and instantly the dance floor was filled with couples. Many of these folks were considerably older than us, but they were certainly in good dancing form. After a while we decided to dance too. We seriously need some lessons, but we had fun.

By the time we left, the place was really getting lively.   By our bedtime, the parking lot was quite full.  However, we found that Friday is THE night for dancing.  Although there was also a band on Saturday evening, the crowd was much smaller.

 We parked facing the race track, and so we had ringside seats for the Saturday and Sunday races.  The races start at noon, but in the morning the horses were being exercised on the track.  Later in the morning we watched as the track itself was groomed by tractor and water truck. It was really fascinating and reminded me of how we used to entertain ourselves in Montreal by watching the precision snow-plowing operations.  This last item going onto the track is the starting gate.

All I know about horse-racing I learned from the crime novels by Dick Francis.  In fact, I just finished one, called “Bolt”.  So I had the basics, but had never actually observed an racing.

At this time of year, the quarter horses are being raced.  As we learned in State College, quarter horses are bred for quarter mile races.  Most of the races on we observed were 350 yards to 440 yards, although there was at least one longer race.

The horses are escorted to the gate by some type of groom, with the jockey riding high in the stirrups. It was quite interesting to watch the jockeys and their escorts line up at the starting line.  We had an excellent view of the horses as they left the gate and could hear and feel the thunderous pounding of their hooves.  It is quite exciting to watch.

Between football and horse racing, we had little reason to leave the RV on Saturday.

The past couple of days with Rumple have been tough. He is now getting 3 pills morning and night.  To get him to swallow them, I have been sticking them in little balls of canned dog food. However, for the past couple of days he has rejected the canned food – with or without the pills.  Last evening I wrapped the pills in butter and some of our left-over meat from our dinner. He still was not enthusiastic about swallowing them. And an hour later he threw everything up. This is very problematic. He has arthritis, allergies and a heart condition. Without his meds, he is going to be miserable.

So, I took a trip to the supermarket and got a variety of things that dogs are supposed to like, to try to hide the pills.  So far, he has eaten the pills hidden in cooked chicken liver and in cream cheese.  So far, so good.

Sunday we went into Tulsa for some sightseeing and bicycling.  Tulsa looks pretty, but we did not really spend any time downtown.

We started by visiting the Woody Guthrie Museum.  We learned a lot about the Dustbowl and also about Guthrie’s life and work.  It turns out that a lot of songs that I thought were American folk songs were written by Guthrie.  Besides being a songwriter, singer and political activist, he was also an accomplished artist, cartoonist and writer.

Oklahoma is heavily Republican, so it was quite interesting to see some very modern political commentary in the display.  There was a film clip, running continuously, of a group of women in “Pussy hats” singing “This Land is Your Land” at the Women’s March.  And there was an article by  Guthrie, who  in the 1940s lived in NYC in a building owned by Trump’s father, in which he denounced Mr. Trump’s racism.

The museum also had a special exhibit on the work of John Denver.

Across the road from the museum is Guthrie Green, a small park.  There is a Sunday afternoon music series, and today there was also a bit of “Trick or Treat”ing for the kids.  So after we ate we returned to the Greens to sit in the sun, listen to music and watch the kids in costume.

The Arkansas River runs through  Tulsa.  Both sides of the river have (separate) bicycle and walking paths, and there are several bicycle and walking bridges.  In theory the path forms a loop, but due to construction this is not currently available.

We parked on the west side of the river, biked along the shore, across a bridge, and then down the other shore.  We then came back the same way across the river, and went the other way along the bank.  We ended up at a spillway the width of the river.  Below the spillway were lots and lots of waterfowl including many herons, ducks and – to our astonishment – dozens of large white pelicans.

We decided to return to the casino for dinner.  One thing about staying at a small casino – cheap eats.  We had a very good pot roast dinner for less than $7 each.