Wednesday, 28 January - Left Albuquerque and went to Santa Fe's Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, Lamy, New Mexico, and the San Cristóbal Ranch in New Mexico where my father spent some time as a young man living and ranching with his grandfather and grandmother, Zack and Minnie Gunter, whom he called Ma and Dad, for a short time when he left college to be a cowboy. Made contact with the current ranch foreman, Grant Mitchell, and the former ranch caretaker, Wesley Layman, who is now retired and paints and hunts for Indian artifacts and dinosaur bones. There are five known Pueblo Indian ruins on this 83,000 acre ranch. My father had found a beautiful stone axe on the ranch in the late '30s that I am trying to find a permanent home for. http://photographers1.com/StoneAxe/StoneAxe.html The ranch has been purchased by an extremely smart scientist/businessman/rancher named Henry Earl Singleton, that Wesley Layman describes as probably one of the five smartest men in the world, that now owns most of eastern New Mexico, much of Arizona, and large parts of Colorado and California and operates under the name Singleton Ranches: way over a million acres. http://www.singletonranches.com
            I stayed overnight on the road near Wesley Layman's home after having dinner with his family and seeing his collection of Indian artifacts and dinosaur bones. Since he was the San Cristóbal caretaker, he has extensive knowledge of the ranch and frequently acts as a liaison for the ranch and movie production crews. He asked if I'd like to go see the Pueblo San Cristóbal ruins and petroglyph the next day and I jumped at the chance.

Thursday, 29 January - About 9:30 am, Wesley knocked on my door and said that he was going to show some location scouts for the upcoming movie, Simplistic Six, or something like that (a comedy knock off of the great film "The Magnificent Seven"), and I got to go with them. He and I had about an hour and a half before we were to meet them, so we headed over to the pueblo first, then met the location scouts. They described briefly what types of scenery they were looking for and they followed us around the ranch, looking first at the remains of a set for "True Grit", then remains of a set for "The Cowboys", both starring John Wayne, and another for the movie "Cowboys and Aliens" and a couple of others, then off to other sites that haven't yet been used for sets…a great tour of the ranch for me!

Friday, 30 January - Woke up to find a couple of inches of fresh snow on the ground and I'm off to see Maxine McBrinn at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture to donate the Indian artifacts my dad found on the San Cristóbal Ranch, then heading south again. I stopped off on the way south to give Wesley Layman a couple of pounds of walnuts for showing me around the ranch and to give Grant Mitchell the photographs that Dad had taken while he was on the ranch. Had a little snow, rain, and quite a bit of fog on the drive south and east. Refueled in Tucumcari, New Mexico and received a call from Wesley Layman highly recommending I drive at least 30 miles further to have dinner at Russell's Truck & Travel Center just short of the border of Texas/New Mexico.
            I had an enchilada dinner that was so-so, then wandered into the free "car" museum. Wow! One big room full of '40s and '50s classic cars, all in near perfect condition. One '56 Corvette that is all absolutely original with about 360 miles on it! About 30 of the 60 that they have in rotation for display; plus filling station pumps and other memorabilia, Coca Cola machines, juke boxes, model trucks, and fancy cash registers. They also have a significant collection of Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Elvis, and Roy Rogers and Dale Evans photos and memorabilia. A great little museum that costs whatever you wish to donate, and the donation all goes to charity.
            The curator and restorer of many of the cars, Franklin Flint, was there vacuuming the floor, answering questions, and taking donations, so I talked to him for quite a while. He's a retired multi-millionaire rancher about 75 years old and just works at the museum to get out of the house, has owned many similar cars as a youth, and has a '66 Corvette Stingray (first year) with large hood scoop that he thought was modified from original. He recently discovered that Chevy actually made about 14 of them at the Kentucky factory and that his was number two off the line. He traded a guy 15 heifers worth about $15,000 for it about 20 years ago and it's worth about $250.000 now.
            If you're ever on Interstate 40 headed east, I highly recommend stopping here. It's real easy to find; right in the middle of nowhere and has a big multi-colored electronic sign to draw you to it.
            Raining as I go to bed. No phone coverage here, so I can't send out any email or make calls. I'll try to stay in touch. It's hard to get good communications links to power my laptop out here in no-man's land.
            I know, I haven't even seen the ocean yet, but I'm getting closer.

Saturday, 31 January - Awoke to rain on the roof, had cereal for breakfast, hit the road. Contacted Larry Wright, an old high school and college buddy, as I approached Amarillo to tell him I might arrive in Marble Falls, Texas today for a visit with him and his wife Lynda. Couldn't do it. He was on the way north to Paris, Texas to return to work as Fire Chief. He's sold the ranch in Marble Falls and had been down there to move stuff out of the house.
            HEY!!! I'M IN TEXAS! Land of endless cotton fields and oil wells.
            Since I couldn't visit with Larry and Lynda, I took a short side-trip to Palo Duro Canyon State Park. I'd always heard stories of it, but never been there. Unfortunately, it was shrouded in very low-lying clouds, but what I could see made me realize why the Comanches and Charles Goodnight, the man that established the Goodnight-Loving Trail to drive longhorn cattle north, loved the place so much. The Comanches loved it because it was virtually invisible until you were right on its edge. This allowed them to go undetected when they hid there after raids on the plains above. Goodnight loved it because, after running the Comanches off, and removing about 10,000 buffalo from the canyon, it was out of the harsh winters and summers of the plains, and had plenty of water and feed for his longhorn cattle. Plus it's absolutely beautiful. The CCC did extensive work there in the ‘30s to create the park. I'm glad I took the short detour.
            I hadn't planned it, but at the end of the day's drive, I ended up in Big Spring, the town my folks came up to Utah from. I had a wonderful enchilada dinner and margarita (surprise) at the Red Butte Mexican Grill, a place Mother, Dad, and I ate at several times when I visited them in Big Spring.
            Tomorrow, closer to South Padre Island!

Sunday, 1 February - I awoke before sunup and was anxious to get going. Bought gas and was on my way. I had heavy fog in the dark and until about 8:30am, then light rain or drizzle until about 10:30. I left the high plains yesterday and entered the sage brush and cotton fields. Today I left the sage brush and mesquite trees for the hill country with its juniper, large oak trees, pecan trees and lots of skunks asleep on the roadway; many of them so deeply asleep that they had deflated, but they were all aromatic. I saw several things for the first time in a long time today: large oaks, pecan trees, butterflies, an armadillo, skunks, jack rabbits, wind mills, bugs on my windshield, and palm trees.
            I really had a battle with my GPS today; it telling me to one way and me wanting to go another. It was right about half of the time and so was I. I wanted to go south and it wanted me to go northeast. It wanted to take me through the heart of San Antonio and the traffic and road repairs were so bad at about 11 miles out, that I hit the loop and went the long way around. That was bad enough. My GPS sure didn't like it. It kept telling me to turn around and go back. I think it was as mad at me as I was at it.
            I'm southwest of Corpus Christi. I should see the waters of the Gulf tomorrow.

Monday, 2 February - Awoke in the rest area, Texas seems to have a nice one about every 50 miles or so, and decided it's warm enough to finally put water onboard. First I need to sanitize the system, since I don't know what has been done to it previously. Added Clorox to about 6 gallons of water and put it in the tank. I'll let it set there awhile, drain it, and refill the tank later.
            Arrived and checked in at South Padre Island State RV Park about 4:00pm. The one fellow there was so busy that he wasn't very helpful. They were totally understaffed. One person behind the counter, 7 or 8 in line, and some, like me took 10 or 15 minutes each; and I didn't even get all the info. Found my site then drove around the park to see what they had to offer. Not much for me.
            Headed out the main drag to see the island. Shortly after I passed the last building on my map, I saw a police car and pulled over to ask how far the road went and if I would have any problems with my long vehicle. As I was getting out, the car took off as if he was afraid of me. I don't think I look that bad, yet.
            Well, it was already too late. I just didn't know it. I continued on for about 4 or 5 miles until I saw a sign that said, "Road Ends 1000 ft." I could see the end and THERE WAS NO TURN AROUND! and there had been absolutely no signs indicating that long vehicles would have trouble. Because of drifting sand it was wider where I was than at the end. To make a long story short, you could have heard me digging for about 3 hours before two deputy sheriffs showed up and told me I needed to get the trailer off the road. They'd give me 1 hour to get back on the road and turned around; then they'd be back to check on me. Well, I got back on the road within the hour, but I was still headed in the same direction, away from town. I pulled into the oncoming lane and turned on my hazard lights. About 10 minutes later, a police car went by me to the end of the road, turned around, then zoomed past me back to town, never slowing down or offering help. I could sure have used some light to see what I was doing.
            I finally got turned around, but not before breaking one of my top running lights on the trailer by jackknifing just a little too far as I backed tried to back the trailer up a sand dune ten feet from the pavement in the dark.
            I passed the city police department as I headed back to my parking spot for the night, whipped a U-turn, and went back to thank them for all their help. They said it couldn't have been them; probably the park police. I mentioned that it would probably be nice to have several warning signs for long vehicles on that road, He agreed. Anybody want tor bet on how soon that gets done?
            Hooked up electricity and water in the dark, took a shower and got to bed about 1:00 am. I slept very well.

Tuesday, 3 February - Woke up to light rain on the roof. It rained or drizzled all day long, which gave me a chance to follow Denise's advise to get some re-organizing on board the motorhome done. I had had things on the old motorhome pretty well organized, but when I bought the new one, everything had to get switched within about 3 hours. No organizing, just get it moved. Piles of stuff everywhere. I doubted that it would all fit. Then, in a rush to get to visit with Ray and Denise before they headed to Mexico, about all that I did was move things around so they wouldn't all fall off the shelves and out of the cabinets onto the floor. I've been spending an hour just looking for things like the Pam, the kitchen timer or the shovel. I know it's all here. I just can't find it.
            I just spent an hour and a half on the phone with Apple and WebIntellects, my domain name server trying to get my email straightened out, again. Several of you didn't get the first episode of my trials and tribulations. Maybe we'll do better this time. I know that Chuck Richardson and Jay Kirigan may still not get this one. Their ISP, xmission.com said it may take up to a week for the trickle-down effect to work. We'll see. If you guys get this, let me know.
            If this moisture makes its way to Utah, all you skiers should be getting some great snow soon. I wonder if the daffodils and tulips are coming up in my yard yet.