Picture practice

 
 
 
These are 3 pictures from our trip out to BC in August. The first is Lisa with Grandma Bunton on her 95th birthday! The second is at Kalamalka lake, celebrating my Dad's 90th birthday. I am playing with my nephew Taz's son, Chase.
the third picture is at Don and Andrea's at the precelebration for Dad's birthday. Pictured are Ruth and Stan, Dave Don Gerry and Barb.

gearing up again

We are planning to head south soon. We know we would like to go back to Nashville and Memphis and so will head that way. We may circle around and head back towards Georgia and Florida. Its quite liberating not to have a plan or deadlines.

Yahoo, I see to be able to remember how to blog! Adding pictures might be another thing.

Mother's Day, 2011

This is a memorable Mother's Day, here in Petersburg MI. We left Hutchinson, Kansas and headed through Kansas City (with a very long delay due to road construction) [but we can report that "everything's up to date in Kansas City] we saw some nice neighbourhoods as we took a secondary route to try to get around the traffic mess. We carried on to St. Louis thinking that we would camp nearby and then go in to the city in the morning to go up in the arch! Apparently there are oval shaped trams that can take you up to the top to a viewing room. It was a really hot drive - 90+ (finally, when we have to head for home) - and then when we thought it over, we realized that it was a Sunday and Mother's Day - likely to be a popular outing, and busy. So we decided to hit the road. We drove all day, a big loop around Indianapolis and through Ft. Wayne up to Toledo, Ohio. We are just past Toledo, at an amazing KOA. We are the only campers - no one else here that we can see - but this place must rock in the summer. It has a water slide, fishing area, playgrounds for big and little kids, and a baseball diamond and a soccer field. Glad we're not here when the hoards are!

Thinking about home. Wonder how dusty the house will be? Have seen tulips, lilacs and cherry trees in bloom around here - so should have some blooms at home too. It will be great to be back in our "big bed" - although we are very comfortable in the camper. We are out of food, not bothering to shop. I brought too many clothes, but didn't anticipate needed all the warm stuff so much!

Next time, we want to go back to St. Louis, the north rim of the Grand Canyon, back to Bryce to do some hiking, and more time in Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico. And Barb wants to play more golf!

We stopped @ "Wendy's" for lunch - and had clean out the fridge for supper - two left over spare ribs, 4 hot dogs, rice, broccoli, peas and onion stir fry - yum...

Barb is up in Cribbage by two!

Hutchinson Salt Mine 2

There were several costumes on display - Batman (with George Clooney), Men In Black and superman - all looked to be in perfect condition in the dry air, constant temperature of 68 degrees, no bugs or vermin environment. Original Film storage is big! I was a little claustrophobic at times, and was quite happy to be above ground again.

Of note - in this campground they have signs of where to find shelter in case of "inclement weather". Tornado alley - yikes!

Hutchinson Salt Mine

Ooops, here's the picture of the block of salt. Apparently some of the salt has pockets of water encased - millions of years old!
We took a little train ride through some of the mined areas - and saw what some of the early miners left behind. Garbage...
They had a neat system of using old boxes from explosives to block old passageways to keep a good flow of air. Now days they use vinyl sheets.
We also took a tram ride to see other sections - where the floor has been forced up by the weight of the walls, or where the ceiling or walls were spauling. (Flaking off). It was all quite well done. Several videos to explain how the salt is currently mined.

Dodge City to Hutchinson, Kansas

We "got outta Dodge" and headed east to Hutchinson. Just a short hop of about 200km. We (Barb) had hoped to golf in Dodge City but the wind was just too strong and gusty. I was fascinated by the difference in the fields where they used the massive sprinklers vs the dry dusty soil with little to no crops without the sprinklers. They must have lots of water!
So we drove to Hutchinson to do a tour of their Underground Salt Museum. We were able to join a tour leaving right away - turned out to be a group of women RV'ers - so Laurie was the token male with about 45 women! We went down in an elevator that was "industrial" and had 2 levels of boxes - so we were herded into one, it lifted and they filled the rest of the folks into the box below. Then we dropped 650'. It is a huge mine - they dig out box cars of road salt (It is NaCl)- and it has been in operation since the 1920's. We weren't in any of the areas where they are currently mining salt. But the museum shares the space with a company that uses the salt mine to store valuables - paper, costumes, movies, art...then several of the RV ladies stated that they keep their RV's in a cave - dry, constant temperature, protected from bugs or rodents. The block of salt is about 2'x 3' x4' - weighs about 3000 lbs!

Dodge City 3

the chair was made out of cow horns! The long horn cows were a mainstay of the economy of Dodge City for a lot of years. Now it appears to be mostly a farming community.

Dodge City 2

the Museum was quite well done. I had never seen a bicycle powered saw before. One nifty display about the slaughter of millions of buffalo was that they had a brief video of the sights, sounds and vibes of the thunderous noise of a stampeding herd of buffalo. They did have documentation of who was the Marshall of Dodge City, and when. I don't think Wyatt Earp was ever the actual Marshall - only the assistant.

Dodge City, Kansas

We drove from Armarillo through the pan handle of Oklahoma to Dodge City, Kansas. Everything has the cowboy theme - streets are named for Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, etc. We toured the Boot Hill Museum, which is situated somewhere near where the original Boot Hill cemetery was (but it was only used 3-4 years in the late 1800's.

Amarillo 3 Cadillac Ranch

These are the only pictures we took in Amarillo. It was warm, but a wind gusting up to 40 mph - so we couldn't golf. (Had to shop instead). The guy that planted these Cadillacs apparently didn't like where they were so he recently had them dug up and replanted. You are encouraged to go armed with spray paint and add your own graffitti. (Try doing that in 40 mph winds!) The angle of the cars is meant to replicate a certain pyramid. Unbelieveable!

Capulin Volcano 2

We hiked to the bottom of the Caldera - you can see the front of the camper way up in the car park. The other picture of me sitting is on the far rim, you can see the truck way down below. The other picture is the view of a nearby mountain, with the evidence of the flow of the lava beds in the surrounding terrain. Great hike. There were 10 deer inside the caldera, but the picture doesn't do them justice.
We left Capulin and headed to Clayton. Stopped for fuel and decided to head south to Amarillo, maybe it would be warm enough for golf!

Capulin Volcano

We went east from Raton to Capulin Volcano. We saw many herds of deer, beside and on the road. We drove up to the top and then walked the rim of the caldera. At times we were going through a snow drift of about 1'! So that bear paw print was verrrry fresh!

Taos to Raton

This trip was up and through the mountains. Lots of deer, jumping across the road. Truck performed well, she's very practiced at climbing up and down big hills. All of a sudden we were out of the mountains and into pastures - grazing buffalo and cattle!

Taos

The road to Taos is along side the Rio Grand. It ws pretty with the snow and frost on the sage brush and cacti. Taos is also very touristy, with many, many shops selling artwork. No bargains to be had, some verrrry beautiful things, but way out of our pocket book. We'll come back if we win the lottery! Had an excellent lunch of Salmon cakes on a bed of spinach - yum...
Continued on to Raton, up in the north east corner of New Mexico, planning to head to Dodge city in Kansas and then work our way home. Too cold to golf!!!

Santa Fe 3

We loved Santa Fe. Even if it was cold - I wore 4 layers most of the time, and gloves! This artwork was outside of a gallery. The Elk is for Sara. The bears looked much warmer than it was! Santa Fe has many galleries and all the buildings have to meet the standards of adobe styling. It is a beautiful small city. We stopped for lunch at a tex mex place and had enchiladas, burritos and refried beans, and hominy and .... very good - but we were stuffed!
Laurie was able to get the camera cleaned so we should have better pictures now. We headed back to Los Alamos to go to the Bradbury Science Museum. Los Alamos used to be the secret location where they developed the Atomic bomb. The museum gave some of the history of the development of the lab, Robert Oppenheimner etal, and hinted at some of the top secret work going on there still. We decided to go back to Bandelier NP as it was nearby and familiar - but Gypsy (the GPS) took us right through the restricted area - camper had to be searched! Another verrrrry cold night. Furnace on but the propane tank 1 ran out about 1 am - super husband went out in the snow without his knickers to switch tanks! Thanks!

Santa Fe 2-Loretto Chapel

We visited the Loretto Chapel, which is now privately owned and possibly a tourist trap but the stairs are a double helix with no visible support. Pretty technically marvelous. It is supposidly one of the oldest churches in USA(?)
We went from here to the Georgia O'keeffe Museum, and happened to catch up to a lecture by a docent about her life. Quite fascinating and great art. She did some pictures that I loved that were viewed through the holes of a cow's pelvic bone.

Santa Fe 1

We awoke in the morning to snow! And steps to the camper so slippery that we could hardly step out. We agreed to head into Santa Fe - surely it would be warmer! And tour museums, art galleries or go out for lunch! The over passes heading into Santa Fe are interesting - mostly going to Casinos on Indian Reservations

Bandelier National Park

This will be the abbreviated version - I originally did 2x as many pictures. I swore I was not going to go to see any more red rocks or Anasazi cliff dwellings. Then we decided to go to Santa Fe, and this National Park had been recommended to us. It is about 1/2 hour away from Santa Fe, and 15 minutes from Los Alamos. We arrived at Bandelier about 3pm - and it was finally warm, not snowing or frosty, so we decided to go and check out the cliff dwellings. It is really quite interesting to look back over our trip, the first taste of cliff dwellings was at Semolina State park in S. Texas, and there was cliff dwellings with no buildings, just the cave and some pictographs. Bandelier (and Mesa Verde) were so much more advanced. Here at Bandelier, they dug into the sandstone, they then had caves at the back and built 2 to 3 story levels, multiple dwellings. Finally they moved to the ground and built a huge circular, multilevel complex. It was another fascinating hike.