Archives September 2007

If you want to read this in order, scroll down to the prior entries and work up.  All the pictures are found here.

So we were back on I-10 again, heading east.  On the way back through New Mexico we were going to take a detour to stop at the White Sands National Park.  Teresa told us how cool it was so even though we were anxious to get home, we wanted to make sure to see this on the way.  We had to climb a massive hill on the way there.  The van could barely maintain 50 mph as it approached the summit. We also ran across a cool little souvenir store along route 10 in New Mexico that had this VW in front of it.

Inside they had a bunch of interesting things along with a MASSIVE fireworks display.  They had 700 dollar firework packs!  When I was a kid and traveled with my dad out west I remember all the fireworks and I remember wanting to buy them all.  For whatever reason, I had no desire to buy any of these monster rockets that I can’t get in Florida, just doesn’t appeal to me.  We did however find a few nice souvenirs that we picked up, our first real souvenirs from the trip.

As we neared the park we also saw the White Sands Missle Range which I had heard of before.  Again it was something we could have stopped and toured but with the dog I figured it wouldn’t work out. We also went through another border patrol checkpoint.  It was the 2nd or 3rd that we went through.  They basically divert all of the traffic under this pavilion, you roll down your window, the guard looks at you, asks if you are a US citizen, you say yes and you are on your way.  If you are hispanic I think the inquisition is more severe.  When we left they had a tractor trailer pulled over and a dog sniffing around it.

Finally we arrived at the park and stopped at the visitor center to use the bathroom and look around.

We loaded back up and drove down the road to the entrance to the park.  We paid our small entry fee and headed into the park.  Along the side of the road were little info boards that you could pull up to and read various info about the park.  We stopped at every one.

Not far up the road there was a sign for a nature trail.  We parked in the empty lot and headed into the trail, taking one of the pamphlets they had there as a guide.  Nicki was leading the way, excited to check out something totally new to her (and us).  The sand was so white that it was cool to the touch, even with a very warm sun beating down on us.  We stopped every few minutes to get Nicki out of the sun and to try to get her to drink.  The one mile jaunt took us maybe a half hour to complete.  It offered us some fantastic views as well as being very informative.  It was very interesting to learn how this huge snow white desert came to be.

We drove back further into the park.  They had some picnic areas, a spot for a sunset tour, camping and plenty of bathrooms. It was wild driving this route.  They had to plow the sand because it blows over the road.  It gave the effect of a winter road, from the pictures we took you would think we were driving through a snowy area.

We got to the back edge of the park and parked there against some very steep dunes with lots of foot prints.  Nicki and Ali went up first and I followed.  Once we got to the top we were blown away by the views, they were simply spectacular.

The dunes seemed to go on forever.  It was a shame that some people decided to deface the perfect sand by carving their names into it.  You could see spots where people used a saucer to sled down the sand.  For some reason it felt much cooler on top of these dunes.  Ali, Nicki and I all took turns sitting down in the sand, it was incredibly cool to the touch.  We spent a decent amount of time just looking at the beauty of the area.  Although we took a ton of awesome pictures during the trip, I think the best of the bunch are the ones we took at this park.  It was simply amazing.

There was a storm on it’s way so we decided to get going.  It was funny watching Nicki scamper back down the steep dune.  She really was having a blast.  We took more pictures on the way out.  I stopped and snapped this picture of one of the picnic benches.  Don’t ask me why, but I think it may be my favorite picture from the trip.

Both Ali and I were very glad that we made the effort to see this place.  It was unforgettable.

Our detour took a decent chunk out of our day.  Originally we talked about stopping at Fort Stockton in Texas but instead opted for El Paso.  It was a smart move.  We wound up staying in another one of the newer, fancier LaQuinta’s.  They are really nice, can’t beat it for 66 bucks.

There isn’t much more to describe about the time on the road since it was highway we had traveled before.  The one difference was we drove through TONS of rain on the way back.  It turns out we drove through what later became Hurricane Humberto, we were very lucky to have cleared it before it got really bad.  I had hoped to clear Texas entirely the next day but I was just too tired and we wound up stopping in a town east of Houston called Bayview. This La Quinta was not nice.  The room smelled musty, the bathroom wasn’t particularly clean, and the shower head in the tub only came up to mid-chest on me. Oh well it was a bed.

From Bayview we pushed through 3 states and returned back to the La Quinta in Tallahassee.  We knew what to expect and in truth, it was better the second time, the room was better.  We got up Thursday morning excited knowing we would be home later that day.  We did the trip back in the same 4 days it took us to go out although coming back we traveled a longer distance and were consistently losing time as we crossed back over the time zones.  The stopping times on the trip back were much later, as late as 11pm some nights.

We pulled into home right around dinner time at 5pm.  The odometer had just crossed 5000 miles.

The house looked intact except for the long grass from two weeks of growth.  The pots out front were wilted badly, evidently we didn’t get consistent rain.  It felt weird walking in the door, it felt weird being back in our house.  I don’t know why.  All I know is it was good to be home.

There ya go a monumental wrap up.  The trip was great.  It showed me all sorts of things I never saw before.  My time in Monticello made me appreciate people taking the time to recognize each other’s existence.  It showed me I could survive day to day without being plugged in, without being constantly sitting in front of a computer or tv.  The trip refreshed my spirits and made me appreciate how there is just so much out there to see and how little of it I have scratched the surface of.  I got to know my brother-in-law much better and benefited from it.  His outlook on life in some ways are enviable to me.  He just puts it out there.  Ali and I generally got along very well during the endless hours in the van with only little conflicts here and there.  We travel well together. I think we will be doing more road trips.

Now my favorite part, the out of order, random thoughts that come to mind about the trip.

– The cheapest gas on the trip was $2.45, right around Houston

– In total we spent somewhere around $1700 bucks on the trip, about $800 of that was spent on gas, not bad for a two week jaunt.

– In Texas on the way back there was gas station that was overrun by crickets. Some guy came over with a small aquarium with a tarantula in it and brushed some crickets into it for his pet.

– I felt like we ate like shit during the trip.  On the way out we had Subway three or four times.  It seemed every meal we were stuffing ourselves with carbs (bread, chips, pasta, etc)  I was so sick of drinking diet soda.  I could not believe it when we got home and I weighed myself.  I LOST 5 pounds.

– McDonald’s is not nearly as shitty food choice-wise as it used to be.  Although the junk is still there, they also have a number of healthier options now.  A couple times I had their salads, they were fresh and tasty.  Their coffee is no longer road tar either, I actually preferred it to the Dunkin Dounts stuff I drink everyday.

– Nicki may have eaten her supper half of the the days we were away.  When we were on the road she basically existed on treats alone, she just wouldn’t eat her dog food.

– When faced at staying at a motel/hotel that has exterior doors versus interior doors, take the interior doors every time.

– Some gas stations won’t allow you to buy more than $75 dollars worth of gas.  With a 30 gallon tank and 3 dollar a gallon gas they may want to rethink this policy.

– a theater room is incredibly cool. 

– watching the Eagles lose on a huge screen doesn’t make the loss any easier

– During the trip I watched all 9 hours of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy plus two or three other movies

– I got to do very little conventional exercise, I was on a treadmill a bit the one night, a few sets of push ups here and there, not much else.

– We saw no rattlesnakes at my dad’s place.  We did see a few spiders skittering about.

– People in Pie Town are bad spellers

I’m sure there are other things that will pop into my mind as time goes on.  As mentioned several times before, check out the pictures, they do say a 1000 words after all…..

If you want to read this in order, scroll down to the prior entries and work up.  All the pictures are found here.

So we shoved off from Pie Town around 3:30 mountain time.  The route dad prescribed would take us through a small town named Alpine and then down route 191 which dad described as very “scenic”.  He said that Alpine was a neat little town.

On the way to Alpine we spotted some elk off to the side of the road. They were big, much bigger than deer.  Ali got a few good shots of them.  We got to Alpine with minimal fuss.  I was getting a little low on gas so I decided to fill up, not knowing how long it would be until we hit our next town.  I didn’t see a whole lot of note in Alpine, it’s an old town, established in 1879 but other than that, the gas station seemed to be the highlight of the place.  When I went inside to pay I decided to use the bathroom.  I had to laugh when I saw the hand written sign taped to the door that read:

LARGE DEPOSIT   ?

PLEASE FLUSH TWICE

Ali laughed when I relayed the sign to her.  So anyway as we were leaving Alpine we saw this sign and thought nothing of it. 

91 miles to the next town, should only take a couple hours. 

So after Alpine we were climbing gradually.  We kept trying to get a shot of the GPS when we were at max elevation.  The highest we saw was 9300 feet, close to two miles up!

As we climbed we took a little detour to go down a side road.  It had a sign indicating buffalo could be seen.  We drove back the stone road for a couple miles but saw no buffalo.  We stopped and walked around a bit.  There was absolutely no one around.  We snapped a picture of this old weather beaten sign. We also got a treat when we ran across a big pack of cattle hanging out along the road.  We stopped and got out to take some pictures, it was really neat.

The drive was very nice we drove through sweeping curves cut through dense forests as we climbed.  The van was really working hard to push us up the incline but luckily there were hardly any vehicles on the road so it didn’t matter.  Finally we got to the more or less “top”.  Then things started to go downhill, literally and figuratively.

We emerged onto a very steep, very twisty section of the road with sheer cliffs next to it with no guardrail.  We also came across a sign that said something to the effect of “shitty mountain roads for the next 60 miles”  I still had a sense of humor and figured it couldn’t be all that bad, could it?

  Ali was panicking.  She is scared of heights.  As I carefully navigated the turns and steep declines she was leaning away from outside of the van. She held on for dear life, like we were about to plummet over the edge at any moment.  I tried to reason with her, asking her if she really thought I would let us go over the edge?  Reason didn’t matter, she was scared to death.

 There was some beautiful views to be had as we went down the increasingly sharper turns.  Several times I stopped the van and walked right up the edge of the road to inspect just how far the drop off was.  Then I took a bunch of pictures of the views.  They were almost worth the hassle of the drive, almost.

I doubt my speedometer crossed 20mph for a couple hours.  The newly repaired brakes on the van were being put to a torture test.  I could smell them cooking as they tried to keep the van creeping downward.  At certain points I resorted to downshifting to first gear to give the brakes a chance to recover, they smelled red hot.

This drama continued for what seemed to be an eternity but finally we came down into what appeared to be flat land and straighter road.  We both breathed a sigh of relief.  We cruised along for maybe 10 minutes, happy to be able to at least go 40 mph.  We already had passed the 3 hour estimate dad had offered and still had well over halfway to go to Sierra Vista.  Then we started going back up. 

Our sense of humor finally vanished.  Not again.  Yep we were going back up another mountain and although I deemed it not possible, it was worse than the first set.  When I saw this sign I was almost in disbelief.  Surely this sign has to be a cruel joke.  10 mph for the next 11 miles????  Doing some quick math that would mean it would take me roughly an hour to go 11 stinking miles??  Unreal.

The road was as bad as advertised, it was steeper and meaner than the first set.  We took a picture of the GPS as we navigated down the ridiculous sharp turns, it was unreal.

This section of the road took FOREVER to navigate.  To make matters worse, we ran out of daylight and had to travel the last section of the mountain in the dark.  By the time we got to the small town of Morenci on the other side of the mountains we had spent a full 6 hours on the road.  Unreal.  Ali called Torrin once we managed to get cell phone coverage to inform her of our delay.  She laughed at our situation.  She mentioned something to me about this route taking a hellauva long time when dad talked about it but I didn’t even bother to hear her.

So finally we were back onto normal road.  For a long time 191 opened up to a two lane highway although it was pitch dark with wilderness butted up right against the road.  The speed limit was 70 mph but I was hesitant to go that fast because of the frequent animal crossing signs posted along the road.  I had visions in my head of smacking into a goat or elk.  So I kept my speed at around 55 as other native drivers flew by me.  Hell 55 felt like 100 after driving 10-20 mph for four or five hours.

Finally I got back to I-10 and after that it was maybe another hour to our destination.  We crossed time zones again and pulled into Torrin and Damon’s place somewhere around 10:30 local time, meaning our epic journey totalled almost exactly 8 hours.  We were both exhausted as we greeted them quietly as Emily was already in bed.  I had seen pictures of their house before and knew it was big.  I didn’t get a true appreciation until I walked in.  It is a mini-mansion of almost 4000 square feet.  They gave us a quick, quiet mini-tour.  Damon went all out when building this place, everything he did was top notch.  He is most proud of and I was most impressed by the theater room.  It literally looks like a small movie theater with stadium seating. It had 8 comfortable recline leather seats, a 133 inch projector screen, and surround sound. Wow, what a set up. 

Our bedroom was very nice.  It had a flat panel tv and Torrin even went as far as putting fresh roses on the bed stands, very thoughtful.  We both showered in the huge whirlpool bath tub and hit bed.  Even though I was incredibly tired I started watching an interesting show on the history channel.  I fell asleep with the tv on. (which Ali woke up and turned off later)

The next morning we got up and quickly got ready to head off to the starfish class, Emily’s swimming lessons.  When we got there we ran first into Damon’s mom and later his dad. We hadn’t seen them since Torrin and Damon got married a few years back. It was fun watching Emily going through class.  She really enjoys being in the water.  I think it is smart to get a kid comfortable in water at a young age. 

After starfish we all went out to breakfast with Damon’s parents, his sister and her two little boys.  Breakfast was very good.  The little boys were very cute. After breakfast we headed back to Torrin and Damon’s place. their place by the way, is featured through out the website for his business, check it out.

When we arrived, Nicki was instantly scared of their cat, Ethel.  Ethel was very friendly and just wanted to say hi to Nicki.  However Nicki wanted nothing to do with it and would back away in fear as the cat advanced, it was ridiculous.  Well we left Nicki at their place obviously when we went out.  When we got back and walked past our room we smelled something.  We looked in our room and didn’t see anything but then Ali discovered the source.  Nicki shit in Emily’s room….

I was pissed.  Nicki had been hardly eating during the trip, she surely should not have had to go.  Ali began the clean up process after I asked Torrin where the rug cleaning junk was, not telling her why I needed it.   After scolding Nicki big time and taking her outside, I came back in and took a peek in the room.  Wow, you can’t even tell it was there, the spot was totally clean. Damn we need carpet like this!  Damon said they had it treated with some teflon stuff.  Well it definitely works.  Add that to house upgrade list we want to do.

We got a tour of the rest of the place in the daylight.  It really is impressive with 14 foot high ceilings, first class surfaces everywhere you looked and warm inviting colors on the walls.

We got to watch the last half of the Eagles/Packers game in the theater room. Wow was that cool, well everything except the outcome with the Eagles special teams choking miserably and costing them the game.

After the game Damon wanted to take us out on his Polaris Ranger which is a 4 wheel ATV.  He wanted to show us the start of the new house he is building.  So Ali, Damon, Nicki and I piled into the front seat while Baxter hopped in the back.  The Ranger definitely was a go anywhere vehicle, it plowed over brush, climbed steep inclines and maneuvered over very rocky roads without incident.  We stopped for a bit and let the dogs walk around.  After tooling around for awhile Nicki was obviously very hot so we headed back. 

On the way back we came across a young kid standing next to his ATV, obviously he was having mechanical difficulties.  Damon stopped and asked him what was wrong.  Evidently a clamp that holds the exhaust pipe in place broke and it allowed the pipe to lay on the clutch cable.  As a result the ATV was unable to move, it acted like the clutch was constantly applied.  Damon looked through the various goodies he had thrown in the back of the Ranger and whipped out some metallic HVAC tape.  He wrapped it around the pipe and temporarily raised it by taping it to the seat.  It worked like a charm and the kid was back on his way.  Damon is always willing to lend a hand.

After we got back we sat out on their back porch for awhile and just hung out talking which was nice.  Soon we ran out of beer so Damon and I ran out to the convenience store to grab some more.  By the time we got back a friend of theirs and her mom and grandmother had stopped by for a visit.  We noticed that both of the dogs were outside standing at the door looking desperate to come in.  We asked why they were outside and were told it was because their friends grandma was scared of dogs.  Well that sorta seemed silly to me so I went out and hung with the dogs until they left.

The rest of the day was laid back.  Torrin and Damon made dinner which was good.  We hung out in the theater room and watched Eraser.  I worked on a couple of computer problems Torrin and Damon had with their laptops. It was nice and relaxing.  We got a good night’s sleep in prep for our departure on the long road back east Monday morning.

Monday I had my standard pop tart breakfast and we casually got our stuff gathered up to head out.  Nicki was obviously excited to go.  As I was going out to the van to load up, Nicki followed and hopped in the driver’s seat.  She remained in the seat even as I went back and forth between the house and van. She was ready.

We said our goodbye’s and thanked them for the hospitality.  We had a good time there.  The house is indeed awesome.  I got a lot of time to spend some one on one time with Damon, getting a chance to know him better.  He is a good guy that has a very honest and genuine personality.  I was glad we got the chance to spend the time there. 

As we made our way back to the highway, we stopped to fill up right before the on ramp.  After gassing up we headed up the ramp and immediately spotted an old mini-van on the shoulder with the door open and a person standing by the road.  It looked like they were half trying to flag someone down so I stopped right in the middle of the road after verifying no one was behind me at the moment.

I lower the window and we are faced with an old woman with no more than two teeth in her mouth and heavily wrinkled, leathery skin.  She starts pointing at Alison and mumbling stuff that made no sense. Something about she wasn’t going to let people like us take advantage of her.  It was bizarre.  I saw that some motorcycles were coming up behind us so I ended the encounter as the woman was still agitated and pointing at Alison.  I said “ok, thank you…” as I raised the window and drove away. Obviously the woman had mental problems.  Alison and I were both stunned and gave each other WTF looks as we merged into the traffic.  I hoped this wasn’t a preview of how the return trip would go…..

One more part to go.

If you want to read this chronologically, scroll down and work your way up.

So anyways, the first night that my sis was there Teresa made a big meal.  During the process another quirk of the house layout was revealed.  The lack of AC combined with a hot propane stove and a utility room adjacent to the kitchen with a burning hot boiler in it made for an extremely hot kitchen.  It wouldn’t surprise me if the temp in the kitchen hit 90 degrees.  The only relief she had was a ceiling and floor fan both spinning as fast as they could.

The house has a unique round dining room.  It sort of has a medieval look, not quite fitting in with the rest of the house but neat anyway.  Luckily it was cooler in that part of the house.  Preparing, serving and cleaning up from meal with 7 people is quite the chore.  Ali and I tried to pitch in wherever we could to make Teresa’s workload less.  It was a lot to do.

In our bedroom were some bookshelves.  On the bookshelves was a book, Poker for Dummies.  I dug into it with vigor and read everything in there regarding Texas Hold Em.  It was quite interesting.  I asked dad if he cared if I borrowed the book to bring back with me.  It is now sitting on my night stand.  The most interesting parts to me were the sections regarding reading physical “tells” from other players that give clues to what sort of hand they are playing.  It is amazing how in depth Texas Hold Em can be.  You can analyze the game endlessly which to the outsider seems impossibly boring.  It motivated me to practice some more and actually get involved in some of the many tournaments that are held right down the road from us at the indian casino.

Wednesday was lake day.  Well before we took the boat to the lake dad and I did more work outside, I think it was more pvc pipe work, I can’t quite recall.  A little before noon we packed up and left for Elephant Butte lake.  Originally we were under the impression that we were taking the dogs along to the lake, Ali even went so far as to buy Nicki a dog life jacket.  However Damon said there would not be enough room for 7 people and 4 dogs.  We had a HUGE cooler along that ate up most of the floor space, it would have been a real pain trying to jam dogs in there as well.

I can’t tell you the last time I was on a small boat (not a casino boat or throw up ferry).  Reagan could easily have been president the last time I was on one.  We picked a great time to go.  Evidently nobody goes boating two days after Labor Day, there was practically no one there.  We all loaded up and shoved off the trailer.  While the truck and trailer was being parked it was my job to act like a human lanyard, securing the boat to the dock. 

Just like his truck, Damon’s boat was very nice as well with all sorts of gadgets including Sirius satellite radio and a digital depth finder.  Once we got out on open water the stereo becomes useless.  The engine noise combined with the wind makes it impossible to hear anything.  This lake is man made, created by damning a river many decades ago, a much larger version of Blue Marsh Lake back home.  It is surrounded by very scenic rock formations everywhere you look.

We tooled around for awhile, Damon was looking for a good spot to anchor.  Finally he found one and in no time, my sister, my niece and he were in the water.  Emily loves the water.  Soon my dad and Teresa followed.  When we came in the water temperature was posted in lower 70’s, a bit cold compared to what we were used to.  I knew there was absolutely zero chance of getting Ali in the water.  It might as well have been battery acid as far as she is concerned.  I however knew I had to join the gang so I jumped in and after the initial shock wore off the water was tolerable.  Ali stayed securely on the boat and instead became the event photographer.

 I am not the type to be able to just sit still and shoot the shit typically so once I jumped in and joined everyone else I instantly started entertaining myself by picking up rocks and throwing them around.  Soon that got boring and I started picking up smaller rocks and throwing them near my sister, not to hit her, just to splash her.  I miscalculated the one time and just missed hitting her in the face.  I was much more careful afterwards.

Soon rock tossing became boring and I decided to move on shore to explore.  I went up the bank and shortly stumbled across a nice worn stick which made a perfect walking stick.  Me and the stick walked up the hill and then down the shore a bit to a big rock formation over looking the the lake.  I climbed to the top of it and then threw some more rocks in between admiring the views.  It really was a neat place.   I spotted two turtles down on the rocks by the water so I made my way down to them.  When I got too close they took off.

Damon was a nice guy and waded down to me with an extra beer in hand.  He is a good guy that way.  He wants to interact with people in a genuine way.  My natural hermitude is probably seen as quite odd to him and I think this was an attempt to draw me out a bit.  I recognized and appreciated it as we talked a bit while we drank beer on the rocks.  Soon the beers were empty and it was time to wade back to the boat for the second part of the boating experience, wake boarding. 

I agreed early on that I would try wake boarding even though I was sure I would be miserable at it.  When I was younger I water skied successfully once.  On our honeymoon I tried again and never got out of the water.  Well my wake boarding experience was more of the same.  I followed Damon’s instructions but I seemed to keep burying the wake board so deep in the water that it had no chance of coming up.  I let go only at the point where either I let go or my arms would pull off my body.  After 4 or 5 head first dumps into the water I let Damon try.  I felt less bad about my performance when Damon dumped the first two or three times as well.  But then he got up and stayed up doing well.  So I agreed to give it another go.  I had a couple instances where I was almost up but then at the point where you had to turn the wake board 90 degrees I went right back down. I was beat up from eating water 10 times or so and had enough.  I crawled back into the boat and as I stood up, I lost my footing and hit hit the corner of the handrail right on my tail bone.  Shit that hurt bad.  That wrapped up our boating excursion and we headed back home.

Thursday was a weird day.  Teresa had been complaining about how the refrigerator wasn’t doing a good job, was too small and now for some reason it stopped making ice.  Torrin told her that they should just go out and get a new one, using the logic that my dad has been buying stuff and spending money left and right to get the property fixed up, a new fridge isn’t much to ask.  So when approached, my dad agreed with little fuss.  So Damon got roped into driving down to Las Cruces with my sister, Teresa, Ali and my niece to go appliance shopping.  Las Cruces is an hour and a half away.  I stayed behind to help dad with that days projects and boy were there projects.

Dad and I kept busy the entire day.  In the morning we took a trip to the landfill.  They don’t have trash collection (or recycling) you just bring your trash to the landfill, tell them what you have, the guy takes a look and tells you the price, normally a few bucks.  I wish I had my camera with when we went there.  The landfill “office” was an old beat up RV with a sign nailed to the side of it.  In front of it were two weather beaten plastic chairs.  It was really funny.  Dad pulled up, told the guy what he had and was told “3 bucks”  After that we pulled up to the huge mountain of garbage and made our contribution to it.  The no-recycling thing made Ali cringe.

After the dump we had to run into the “big city”, Truth or Consequences, or as it is known to local folks, TRC. Odd name for a town huh?  Actually it is the name of an old tv game show.  The story I read was back in the 50’s they filmed an episode of the game show in this town which at the time was named something else.  Evidently having the game show filmed there was such a big deal they decided to change the name of the town to match the show.  Weird stuff.  Anyway this was the third or fourth time I had been into TRC since arriving.  It seemed nearly every day there was another reason to go there.

When we got back we dug into more work.  We had more pvc to lay, irrigation pipe to fix and trenches to backfill.  I was still beat up from the lake experience, a day full of work piled on the hurt.  Dad didn’t ask me to do anything but there was no way I could let him go it alone.  I knew he wanted to get certain things done and I wanted to help him get it done faster.  The work during the day was frustrating, it seemed like little things kept going wrong. Then we got the call a fridge was coming.

To prep for the fridge coming, we wanted to move the old one away from the wall and disconnect the water line.  As dad was down on the floor disconnecting the line, water started pouring out, then as he touched the copper water line he got a nasty shock.  What the hell?  Hmmm, we didn’t know why he would be feeling current through the line but we unplugged the fridge as a precaution.  He goes to disconnect the pipe again and again ZAP, another shock.  Now we were perplexed, why was he getting shocked.  Dad was pissed.  The house has a number of things that were sort of rigged, done in a half ass manner or done in ways that just didn’t make sense.  Dad attributed this latest incident to more of the same.  The copper water line lead back to the utility room was in close proximity to an open electrical box that had a bunch of wires haphazardly thrown in there with wire nuts connecting various parts of the water heating system.

To further isolate the problem I threw the main breaker to the house.  The current stopped flowing and we were able to disconnect the line.  In the meantime the wood floor was soaked with water which we sopped up the best we could.  Later dad had the electrician that was working outside put a meter to the pipe and he read nothing.  His explanation was that when dad was lying in the water on the floor touching the pipe he became a more direct ground so the current flowed towards him.  It seemed to make sense because once the floor was dry and you touched the pipe, the shocking stopped.

So Damon pulls up with a nice big fridge loaded in the back.  Getting it off the truck wasn’t bad, getting it in the door was another story.  We had to take the door off the hinges and even then it didn’t seem like it was going to fit.  Damon put some tape over the fridge door handles to protect them and we jammed it through.  We got it wheeled into place and then Alison and Teresa worked on the food transfer.  After they were done we wheeled the old fridge out to the building by the house so it could be used as a beer fridge.  We did not hook up a new waterline to the fridge yet.  Dad bought some plastic tubing to run a new line to eliminate the possible shock hazard associated with the copper run.

Friday morning Torrin, Damon, Emily and Baxter took off for home.  We would be heading their way later on Saturday.  After they left Dad and I once again hit the trenches, this time running pvc back at the pole building, t’ing into an irrigation line to supply water to the new interior building and running a drain line out of it.  After the pipes were in place we did the initial back filling by hand and then we pulled out dad’s big Kubota tractor to backfill some more.  Dad said I could run the tractor as I told him how I used the neighbors to bring up fill from our pit.  I should have kept my mouth shut.

So I brought the tractor over, lined it up, dropped the bucket and started pushing dirt towards the trench as dad looked on.  It was difficult to see if the front bucket was level and how the dirt was positioned in front of it.  As I am pushing dirt around, dad is flashing hand signals trying to indicate that I should move the bucket up, down or rotate it.  It was very frustrating for me.  When his hand signals obviously weren’t working he resorted to yelling instructions which I could not hear at all due to the noise from the tractor.  I tried to keep one eye on him and one eye on the tractor as I tried to push the dirt around as he was directing.  It just wasn’t working out, I was getting annoyed at my dad getting annoyed with me.  I never backfilled anything with a tractor before in my life.  Luckily, Teresa came out and got us to remind dad he wanted to go into TRC to have lunch, otherwise we would have easily been out there another hour or two.  So we did some minor clean up and headed back out to TRC.  We ate at a place called the White Coyote, a small and I stress small vegetarian restaurant.  The place looked like a converted house with about 10 small tables in a small room with an open view back into the kitchen area.  It was very cute.  When I asked for a diet coke or pepsi the woman looked at me like I was an alien.  They had neither.  Instead I went with a root beer, the only soda like beverage on the menu.

The meal was quite good.  The place was relatively full, if you wanted to you could easily listen in on any conversation that was being held in the place.  The food was very good.  After lunch we stopped at a south western furnishing place where dad bought some colorful bench thing and then also stopped at a big pottery/old stuff store as well as an artsy/souvenir type place.  The artsy place had a woman that talked non-stop.  She clung onto anyone that was willing to listen to her, in this case my dad.  She repeatedly pronounced how proud she was of various aspects of the store, almost like she had been coached to use the line. 

After we got back from lunch it was back outside. I wanted to give back filling another try, hopefully without dad flashing signals.  Well I started up but again dad came down to coach unsuccessfully. So I hopped off and told dad to drive while I used a good ole rake to smooth out the rough spots. It took him quite awhile to get it right as well but I didn’t resort to shooting him any hand signals.  We backfilled what needed to get done.  I went back inside while dad dealt with the electrical work that was going on.

Well in some ways I almost felt like I was transported back to my teenage years. I disappointed dad with my poor backfilling skills so I wanted to atone, I decided I would run the new water line for the fridge so he wouldn’t have to do it.  Pulling out the old copper line was a bit of a pain in the ass, I used a snips and cut it in various places to make removal easier.  Running the new tubing was even more of a pain in the ass.  Getting it through the thick adobe wall was more challenging than anticipated.  I had to use a long piece of the cut copper pipe as a snake to feed the plastic tubing through, otherwise it would just curl up inside the wall.  I had to be careful in my routing of the plastic tubing since it was going behind the very hot boiler.  I needed to make sure there was plenty of clearance so the tubing wouldn’t touch a hot pipe that could melt a hole in it.  Once I got it all connected the moment of truth came, I opened the valve and of course, it leaks, at both ends. 

The day had been frustrating enough already.  I muttered under my breath “nothing goes right…” So I undid both connections, redid them and tightened things back up.  The fridge side was ok but the supply side was now leaking out the saddle part of the valve!!!  Now I was pissed.  By that time dad had come in.  I reluctantly told him of the issue.  He looked at it and said it was because he had it cranked down hard to stop the water.  He said if I opened it fully the packing should seat again.  I tried it and it worked.  I was glad. No leaks.  Now it was time to try it out.  I select water from the front panel, hit the button, hear water traveling through the line but nothing is coming out.  Hmmm, maybe it just takes awhile.  I try again and again and again. Nothing.  Then I glance down and notice another huge puddle in front of the fridge!

I throw open the door and see lakes formed on the shelves.  The water was pouring out inside the fridge.  Evidently there is a plug that goes in place where the water filter can go.  Damon the day prior stuck it in there but mustn’t have had it screwed all the way in so it was pumping water everywhere.  Clean up was a joy, pulling the wet food out, drying it, drying the shelves and then shoving it all back in.  I put the plug in tight, held my breath and hit the water button one more time, success.  Water flowed into the waiting glass as planned.  Luckily that was the last chore of the day.

Like I mentioned before the first couple nights I left the screen door open to cool the room.  The one night it came in handy when Nicki woke me up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, I was able to hop out that door and walk her around.  I had a little flash light with me as I walked around.  We walked under some big trees and were startled when a big collection of birds flew out of it.   When I was walking around our screen door I shone the light on it.  In the span of 5 seconds I saw a big praying mantis on the screen and a field mouse scrambling away along the bottom of the frame.   

The last few nights the door was closed and the ac was turned on after we had small swarms of insects flying around the lights on the ceiling fan.  Ali isn’t a fan of bugs. The white noise from the AC made it easier for me to sleep anyway.

So Saturday comes, our last day at Dad’s.  The plan was to head to Pie Town which he estimated as two hours away to attend the big Pie Town festival!  During the morning we packed up our stuff and loaded up the van.  During our 5 days there I had become much more comfortable with the surroundings.  I could understand the appeal the place holds for my dad. (although I still think it is too much work)  Our time there wasn’t spent doing lots of touristy things.  Instead some of my fondest memories were the simple things like feeding the horses apples I knocked down from their apple tree and interacting with all of the dogs in various ways that was really relaxing and fun.  The relaxed atmosphere and way of life (when not tending to house projects) is something that has become foreign to me.  It is kind of how I remember the Gouglersville place being years ago. Things are simpler there. 

I was sort of bummed out that Seymour wasn’t around to say goodbye to.  He was really an unexpected bonus, he is such a cool dog.  We pulled out from the ranch and made our way up the bumpy road.  The drive to Pie Town, which sits right on the continental divide was scenic.  At one point huge satellite dishes appeared out of nowhere, there were tons of them.  Then we could see a building they were associated with.  It turns out this was a huge radio astronomy array.  We stopped and read a sign about it.  It was quite interesting.  If we weren’t following dad to Pie Town with three dogs in the vehicles I would have liked to stop and check it out in detail.

On the way dad stopped for gas at some small town I couldn’t remember the name of.  Evidently the gas station which also happened to be a  store, restaurant and hotel was pretty much all that was going on.  Across the street were a couple of other businesses that had boarded up and left.  Even in this remote place dad found someone to talk to while pumping gas.  He always manages to find someone to talk to.

The rest of the ride to Pie Town was progressively up hill.  By the time we got there we were just under 8000 feet.  The van chugged along but got us there.  As we pulled into town I was surprised by the amount of cars.  I wondered where all these people came from, there just weren’t many houses around.  We parked right next to the port-potties which I immediately used.  I was unhappy to see someone stuck fresh toilet paper rolls in the urinal part of the unit so I had tog o in the main hole which required me to gaze into the pool of excrement, something I avoid doing normally when using these things.  I held my breath as long as I could and then inhaled quickly through my mouth until I got back out in to fresh air.

The Pie Festival was low on one crucial thing, pies.  Evidently it had been going on since 7 or 8 in the morning.  We didn’t get there until around 1 so we missed out on quite a bit.  We were all hungry so we immediately jumped in the food line.  A carnival is not a good place for a vegetarian.  While we ate hot dogs Ali had nachos smothered in nasty cheese, apple pie and later dined on fried bread that reminded me of funnel cake, yuck.   While we were eating dad started talking to a guy sitting near us.  I actually jumped in on the conversation a bit when I heard the guy mention that he used to fly hot air balloons.  I told him I always wondered how they steered those things.  He said they basically just get a weather forecast and go where the wind takes them.  He could only control the height.  We talked with him for a good ten minutes.  He was quite familiar with the festival even though he lived in California. 

As far as entertainment, there wasn’t a whole lot.  There were various people set up under canopies selling stuff, a merry go round to entertain the kids and three horseshoe courts.  We did see a big crowd formed around the feature event, the pie eating contest but the crowd was too deep for me to sneak a peek.  Heck some people even hopped up in the surrounding trees so they wouldn’t miss the spectacle. 

We were there for about two hours which was more than enough to see what was available.  After the pie eating contest finished things started to clear out rapidly.  Dad wanted to go to a store across the way to buy a pie to take home with them but after we got there Teresa said she didn’t want any more, she felt like enough of a pig eating carnival food.  So it was time to say our good bye’s.  We thanked them for everything. We really did have a good time and said we would like to come back in a year or so to see how things are progressing.  I patted the dogs good bye and we were off down the route that dad pointed us to.  He said he thought it might takes us three hours to get to my sister’s place in SE Arizona.  Eight hours later, we were cursing his name…. 

More tomorrow.

When faced with the prospect of trying to recant two weeks full of cross country traveling I was somewhat leery .  It would be much easier to just say “It was a good trip, here are the pictures” and move on. I don’t plan to do an in depth day by day analysis, it would require me to call on my memory far too often. This will probably be broken into several posts.

Ok looking back it looks like I have up to Day 3 decently documented.  The trip up to that point was enjoyable.  Neither Ali or I spent much time in the back of the van because we were constantly seeing new things that neither of us wanted to miss.  We were following a pretty relaxed driving schedule, leaving by 9:00 or 9:30 and then stopping normally no later than 7.  Plus as we headed west we were gaining time due to passing through time zones which gave the illusion of even more padding in the schedule.

Our 3 rd day ended in Fort Stockton, Texas which was more or less a hole in the wall town.  I wasn’t thrilled with the LaQuinta there, one of the reasons being the place was jammed full of truckers.  As I walked Nicki around I saw drunk guys walking around as well as empty beer boxes outside several rooms.  When I related that as one of my reasons for not liking the place to Ali she was a bit taken back about my negative stereotyping of truckers since her Pop Pop was a trucker.  I immediately felt bad and tried to clarify my comment based on what I saw. 

The final leg of our drive to my dad’s was very interesting.  Ali and I both were anxious to reach our destination.  Up until the last day and a half I had kept the van at speeds no greater than 70-72 mph, kept constant by the cruise control.  However I decided to push through the 73-75 mph shake zone and set the cruise at 80 which smoothed out again.  The only problem was as our elevation kept increasing (Dad lives somewhere between 4500 and 5000 feet) the van was unable to maintain 80 up even the most mild of hills.  It was downshifting constantly to try to keep it’s speed up.  Back east it had no issues.  The lack of power was astonishing due to the thinner air creating a rich fuel mixture which in turn makes for a less efficient combustion process.

We got to the point where we could no longer use the GPS and had to switch over to the directions dad sent us.  As we went on the roads got progressively less populated until eventually it was just us and a few cattle.  As we descended into the canyon where my dad’s place is we crossed two arroyos which are dry river beds.  They only have water during the monsoon season which is a very small portion of the time.  The rest of the time they are just extremely bumpy, rough terrain to cross.  The van bounced around like crazy as we crossed, it wasn’t made for off road adventures. We see the signs pointing to our stopping point, we are close.  As we navigated our way towards their house we both got a true sense of how isolated this little town was.  It truly is in the middle of nowhere.

We turn on to Hummingbird Lane which is the side road they live on.  It isn’t an official road as far as a map is concerned but it was named by the residents, because well, they have a lot of hummingbirds in the area.  We pull into dad’s property and see their pickup truck parked with the doors open.  They had just gotten back themselves and were unloading groceries. 

After some quick greetings we jumped into unloading both the van and the remaining groceries.  It looked like Teresa cleaned out the store, there were that many bags.  Their refrigerator was packed to the gills.  She was prepping for both our arrival and the next day arrival of my sister, brother-in-law and my niece (and their dog, Baxter) 

We threw our stuff in the guest bedroom which was very nice.  It had the brand new, remote controlled Samsung AC unit in the window to combat any hot bedroom issues that could be present.  The house itself was very nice, pretty much what I imagined from the pictures.  After getting a brief tour inside, Dad took us outside to tour the “estate”.  He has about 16 acres of land. 

 The first thing I noticed was the trench running down the middle of the property along with various guillotine-like gates along the way.  This is the irrigation trench.  Every 19 days, someone upstream diverts water down this trench for a period of 9 hours or so.  Then the gates are used to divert water to the various areas of the property.  It is flood irrigation where each field is covered with a few inches of water which sustains it until the next 19 day cycle begins.  Rain is so scare that without this water source nothing would grow.

Dad had two large fenced in fields which surpisingly both had horses in them.  Dad never mentioned anything about having horses.  He told us that the horses actually belonged to one of the neighbors.  He is allowing them to graze there in exchange for his neighbor tending to the watering duties if Dad is away.  It turns out that is quite a bargain for the neighbor. Dad later found out that normally it could cost someone upwards of 200 bucks a month to rent grazing land like that.

Dad took us around showing us more things like the several fruit tree orchards, the various out buildings like a big metal pole barn, along with two other storage buildings and the remains of another one which he was in the process of taking down to build something else in it’s place.  Under the pole barn was another structure that he was building to serve as a workshop.  It’s only phase one as there is going to be another building inside to store things like his motorcycles and the Alfa. 

As he is rattling off all these perspective to do projects I couldn’t help wondering what he got himself into.  Don’t get me wrong, the place is very beautiful and as soon as I arrived I got a quite sense of peace about it, but then again I don’t have to maintain it.   I guess I keep putting myself in his shoes and imagining if I would want that much to do on a daily basis when I am 60.  My answer is no, but I guess Dad feels differently.  I would need to keep busy, I would need to do something to feel useful, just not THAT much.

So anyway the tour was over and we got to settle in.  It was great fun watching their two dogs interact with Nicki.  Dad and Teresa got a new dog, Clara around the time Dad was in Florida visiting us.  Clara is very high strung and likes to greet you by nipping at your face.  She also is not very well disciplined and has a tendency to run off when she is unrestrained. She didn’t get the formal training that their other dog Maggie did. Plus when Maggie was maturing they lived in the development in Las Cruces and had plenty of free time to focus on training her.    Nicki got to be off leash the entire time we were there since obviously there are no busy roads to be fearful of.  It was a big treat for her.  Initially she would stay right by our side even though she was unleashed.  As the week progressed she got progressively braver, often venturing out on her own to explore.  I actually had to reel her back in several times by the end of the week.

Before we left on the trip dad had told me how he had been quite busy with various projects and he was worn out and looking forward to taking a 4 or 5 day break while we were there and not do any work and just relax.   Once we arrived dad mentioned that some guys were coming during the week to do several things related to the new well he had dug and running electric out to the new building he was erecting.  However he indicated it should be minor as far as his involvement. Eh I didn’t care really. We surely did plenty of work when he visited us.

Our first night in Monticello/Placita wasn’t bad.  Our room had a door with a screen door to the outside as well as a ceiling fan.  Instead of turning on the AC I left the door open to see how it would be.  As I was falling asleep, instead of the white noise I am accustomed to hearing, it was replaced with a huge array of sounds from the nighttime creatures, some familiar some not so familiar.  When I woke up in the morning the room was actually chilly.  When I took Nicki out for her bathroom jaunt there was a refreshing chill in the air, something we won’t feel in Florida until mid to late October, maybe. Nicki had a hard time figuring out where to do her business.  Unlike the wall to wall grass she is used to, the land right around dad’s place is rather spartan with a small patches of grass and weeds and a whole lot of dirt.  Nicki made do and found small spots of vegetation to utilize.

Dad recently got “high speed” internet in the form of satellite internet.  When we first moved out to our house I too had satellite internet.  It was not great.  The performance varied wildly and the response time up to a satellite and back to terra firma just is not fast.  Dad’s service seemed worse than ours, offering speeds that may have equaled a normal 56k dial up line.  It’s all that is available.  I hopped on their computer a few times to check email and post a couple brief blog entries but that about it.

That first morning dad was outside early roughing up pvc fittings and priming them.  After a pop tart breakfast I went out and helped him, priming the fittings while he sanded.  With our huge sprinkler project we never bothered to sand the fittings maybe because of the scope of it.  Anyway all of our sprinkler connections were just fine but dad wanted to go the extra step and rough up the pvc for his lines.  He was putting in pvc to run from the new well that was just dug.  The old well was not actually on their property so they dug a new one. 

Later in the morning a guy named Terry showed up.  He is the jack of all trades in this small town, you name it and Terry can pretty much do it or knows someone else that can.  Terry was using his backhoe to dig a trench from around the house down to the pole barn, nearly 300 feet away as well as a shorter trench from the new well to the side of an out building by the house..  In parts of this trench was going electrical conduit, the pvc dad was laying and wiring to control the well pump.  Terry was a very likable guy that seemed to have a very happy disposition on life as well as being an extremely hard worker. 

During the day we took a quick drive into “downtown” Monticello, there wasn’t a whole lot to see.  Many of the properties were abandoned and/or used as junkyards.  Everything is more or less on one road including the post office and fire department.  The paved road ends and turns into a rocky dirty road which we traveled along for awhile.  As we passed various properties dad would comment on them.  He knew much more about the people in town than I thought he would.

One thing I picked up on right away is the difference in the people.  Every car that we passed, waves were exchanged.  There is a friendliness that I am just unaccustomed to.  It is a good fit for dad whom always has been the type to strike up conversations with people, unlike me.

Late in the day Tuesday, my sister, my brother-in-law, my niece and their dog showed up.  They were pulling their boat with their MONSTEROUS Dodge Ram truck.  Damon had this thing tricked out to the max with huge 27 inch wheels, an industrial winch, lift kit and auxiliary propane injection system, what a beast.  I got meet my niece Emily whom up till now I only knew via pictures.  She is a cute little baby.  Their dog Baxter added to the canine madness. 

In addition to the 4 dogs we had under roof, there was 5th dog as well, Seymour. Seymour is a basset hound from a neighbor that lives at least a half mile away.  He seems to have adopted my dad and Teresa as his new family.  He spends much more time with them than his home.  He had a hilarious personality.  He just wanted to be involved in things.  Even though he had short stubby legs he was surprisingly fast and was eager to participate whenever the other dogs were running around and rough housing.  Every time you went in or out the screen door, Seymour was normally right there ready to go inside at a moments notice.  As we were inside, Seymour would be laying outside the door staring in.  As soon as you looked at him or said his name, his big long tail would start wagging.  It was so sad.  All he wanted was to be part of the gang.  Every couple of days my dad throws Seymour in the truck and drops him off at his real home only to have him wander back to his place within a day or so.  When Seymour is at my dad’s overnight he spends it sleeping on a lounge chair on the porch.  He is a great dog, it’s sad that his owners don’t really seem to care about him.  My step mom may try to find him a real home.

This is enough for one entry….

that we took a detour through Alaska…

11:30 pm, CST, Baytown TX (little east of Houston)  Fell a bit short of my goal by about 75 miles or so, no big deal.  Still covered around 800 miles.  I don’t recommend it.  As long as we can make it to around Pensacola or so tomorrow we should be all clear for a late Thursday return to Naples.  We are ready, the gas and hotel bills are piling up fast.

Wow my Treo is working.  It’s 3:40 central time and we have a looong way to go, we haven’t even hit San Antonio yet.  Ali is driving while I watch the 2nd Lord of the Rings movie in the back.  Nicki is lying next to me.  Over and out.

Yes I am still kicking.  I haven’t really felt like blogging at dad’s.  I prefer to do it in private and privacy was one thing that was not available in abundance there with 7 people and 4 dogs (and Seymour) running around for most of the week. 

I am dropping this down very quickly from the continental breakfast area in one of the LaQuinta’s in El Paso.  Yesterday we officially started our return trek home after a brief visit with my sister.  We stopped at the White Sands National Park yesterday even though it took us a good 100 miles + out of our way.  It was worth it.

I have high ambitions today of covering essentially all of Texas even though that would mean traveling 850 miles.  If we manage to get somewhat close to that goal, rolling back into Naples on Thursday is a possibility.

There are so many stories to relate, so many scenes to describe, so many things that I saw, it will be quite the challenge to relate them all back accurately but I will give it a try once we return.  For now, I have over 700 pictures to keep you busy.  I had to split them into two albums which can be seen here.

Today is September 11th, six years from the most historical event I ever witnessed.  I wonder how the event and the actions that have followed will be remembered 50 years from now?  Sadly, I think it could dwarf Vietnam in terms of strategical blunders…

I have a looong day of driving ahead, gotta go….

The days are blurring together.  Tomorrow we will be heading over to my sisters place and then leaving Monday for the long trek back.  We hope to see some more things on the return trip but it will be hard to fight the urge to beeline home to all things familiar.

Much more to come, later.

We have arrived at my dad’s place.  Wow I knew it was in the middle of nowhere but just not HOW in the middle of nowhere it is.  I don’t have the time or energy to go into detail about everything.  This place is very charming, very in touch with nature, very “back to your roots”.  Life seems to be stuck in 1st gear here which is a good thing in many ways.

Seeing the scope of work that dad has planned for this place on top of the massive amount of upkeep required to keep it all running is more than a little scary.  We are enjoying our time away from the “big city”.

 There are all sorts of details I could post but I’m just going to have to rely on my memory to pull them back at a later time.