LOOKING FOR GONADS

We had a great time at Rockhound State Park in New Mexico. Not because we know one rock from another, but because we hooked up with friends from home, Bob and Mary Ann Warner. Mary Ann is the Rock Star. She is always walking around with her eyes on the ground. The rest of us see dirty rocks but she sees gem stones. Bob doesn’t want to know how many pounds of rocks he is hauling all over the country in their 36 foot motor home. Every time he fills up at the gas station he is just praying that some of them contain gold. Gaila was  mistakenly calling geodes "gonads", until I told her the biology of her geology definition. Everyone was looking for gem stones and Gaila was looking for family jewels. The best part of traveling is meeting characters and one day in Deming, we met several. Bob and Mary Ann introduced us to Gertrude and Geraldine Kretek. They met them on a previous trip and became fast friends. The "girls"  (80 year old twins) are native to Deming, growing up on a large 3000+ acre ranch just east of town. We thought that was large until they took us out to meet their friend, Nadine, who has a ranch consisting of 15 sections. Her grandparents settled there in 1902. The highlight for us was visiting with Nadine who lives on her ranch by herself at 87 years old. She even has her own mountain. Most women bring out there knitting projects to show visitors. Nadine brought out her jars of rattlesnake rattles. The twins called her the Annie Oakley of the area. The rattle collection came from her yard. She likes to use her .22 cal rifle to shoot snakes that come up to the house. Her kids would prefer she use a shotgun but Nadine said that shotgun pattern puts holes in her garden hose and bird feeders.  She said that one day she just couldn’t seem to hit the darned snake. “I kept shootin’ and the snake kept comin’.” Finally she went in and got a fresh box of shells and finished the job. She found out later her grandkids had loaded her up with blanks. Ranch life can be dangerous this close to the border. Nadine’s late husband always told her to shoot first and ask questions later. One Christmas he decided to surprise her with a new wood burning potbellied stove. He unloaded it out in the yard after dark so Nadine would see it the next morning. Nadine was up before sunrise and in the dim light could see someone standing out in the yard. She shouted a couple warnings before she poured lead into her new potbellied stove. 

The twins have a ranch hand named Brent. He was showing us his latest hunting trophy, an African Oryx. You can see it in our slideshow as well as a photo of the twins. THE DICK AND GAILA CECIL B. DEMALLERY SHOW The Oryx were introduced to the White Sands Missle Range, here in New Mexico, for hunting purposes. It’s bad enough we can’t take care of the animals that were here originally, we are adding new ones to manage.

Gaila and I drove up into nearby Spring Canyon State Park and hiked up to “Lovers Leap.” You could see for miles into Mexico and off toward Arizona. I couldn’t get Gaila to jump. I guess, down deep, she really doesn’t love me. We also visited City of Rocks State Park - a geological wonder. These massive rocks, out in the middle of the desert, were blown here form a volcanic eruption 33 million years ago. We parked among the balancing rocks and explored the area for nearly a week.

We are still dealing with cool weather. Most days are warm and sunny but it drops into the 20s and 30s at night. My furnace has been acting goofy the whole trip. I have had it out and apart several times and still have not licked it. Before it’s over I will be an RV furnace expert. When it’s not working, it can be a two cat night. Sheba and Funny Face keep slapping me with their paws and looking at me like, “Hey, dummy. Go turn the furnace on.” They don’t know how lucky they are. I make them watch the weather news back home every night so they appreciate how good they have it.  

We are really glad we decided to come back to New Mexico. We did have a little excitement leaving Arizona. The car partially came loose from the motor home. It is connected with two towbars and cables. A cotter pin somehow fell out off one bar and the car started wagging behind the motor home. Gaila calls these innocent incidents “PreDickaments.” Luckily I wasn’t going too fast. I had just come off of a winding canyon road. I usually can’t see the car behind the motor home so when I looked in the rearview mirror and saw it trying to pass me, it got my attention. 

THE STATE FLAG OF NEW MEXICO

The yellow field and red symbol colors are the colors of Spain. First brought to New Mexico by Spanish explorers in 1540. On New Mexico's flag we see a red sun with rays stretching out from it. There are four groups of rays with four rays in each group. This is an ancient sun symbol of a Native American people called the Zia. The Zia believed that the giver of all good gave them gifts in groups of four. These gifts are:

• The four directions - north, east, south and west.
• The four seasons - spring, summer, fall and winter.
• The day - sunrise, noon, evening and night.
• Life itself - childhood, youth, middle years and old age.

All of these are bound by a circle of life and love, without a beginning or end.

RV PARKING RAGE

I hesitate to tell this story. Readers might get the idea that I’m getting crotchety in my aging process. Truly that is not the case. I think my problem might be my vicinity to an aging population lately. We spent a wonderful few days in one of Arizona’s most beautiful “Sky Islands” high above Green Valley, Arizona. Being winter, we enjoyed sunny warm days and cold nights in Madera Canyon’s Bog Springs National Forest Campground. We love these out of the way, hard to reach, NF campgrounds for the solitude they offer, the beautiful locations, and the dark quiet nights. Because the campground is located a half-mile up a rough, little maintained, mountain road, few RVers are willing to negotiate it for the prize location we find at the summit. This is another reason to have a rig that is not too big to squeeze into hundreds of great government sites. 

The problem started when we left our mountain utopia and ventured into the valley below. The land of Oscar the Grouch. We decided to head for Patagonia, AZ, but first thought we would stop at the Green Valley Library book sale and get some reading material. It was early in the morning and we found a huge, mall type parking lot behind the library. The sign said it was the White Elephant Thrift Store but other buildings looked like Sheriff, Road Commission, county type stuff. We were the only vehicle in the lot. I parked horizontally, taking up five spaces. I was way out at the edge of the lot in nobody’s way. It was an hour until the library would open so we sat and ate breakfast. Quickly, over the next hour, every lot slot in the parking area filled. We were amazed. A line was forming at the White Elephant Thrift door. Soon the Golden Girls blocked me in from the front and Archie and Edith blocked me in from the back. 

When the hundreds of lot slots were filled, people started parking out on both sides of the street. 

I thought I was just imagining the looks we were getting from people walking by. Could my five spaces be that important in a sea of overflowing vehicles that clearly had to flood the nearby roads whether I was squatting here or not. I went on a recon mission. I discovered they were all here for the White Elephant Thrift Store. It wasn’t a once a year sale. This thing goes on six days a week, fifty-two weeks a year. It is more popular than Walmart at Christmas. When I got back to the motor home I discovered I had not been imagining the “LOOK.” The head of the Geritol Posse knocked at our door. At first I thought it was the Sheriff. Brown shirt with official arm patches, khaki pants, shiny gold badge and radio. My first clue she was White Elephant Security was the fact that she wasn’t packin’ any heat. 

When she said, “You have to move. You are taking up five spaces”, I could see the panic in Gaila’s face. She thought I was going to go into my raving jailhouse lawyer mode. It was true that I was breaking no law. I had every right to be parked where I was. I could have given this female Broderick Crawford much grief, but I could also see the strain in her face. Coming out and telling me I must move was the last thing she wanted to be doing, but the Golden Girls and several other complaints forced her from her better judgement. I could have unhooked, parked the car and motor home separately and vertically. That would have really blocked the lot. I know that would have sent her into a panic. So instead of being Mr. Hyde, I decided to be Dr. Jekyll. I told her I couldn’t squeeze out until she had one of her complainers move their vehicle. The word was out. I had been evicted. Cars were already vying for position to take my five spaces. When she got the car behind me moved, I still could not exit the parking lot until she made those crowding for the slots, like vultures on a fresh kill, to move on past. They did not want to lose their positions. Because of poor eyesight, I could tell many had taken their Vytorin in combination with their Viagra at breakfast and it had hardened their heart. They wanted to string me up but couldn’t find a tall enough cactus. We finally eased on down the road and found a gas station that said we could drop the rig for a couple hours. We went back to the library and later explored the White Elephant store. I saw my Rent-a-Cop friend and told her I had parked down in Nogales, Mexico and wondered if that was far enough. She got a chuckle out of that and hoped I would never come back to Green Valley, Arizona. No chance of that!  --Keep Smilin’, Dick E. Bird

HUECO TANKS STATE PARK IN TEXAS

Traveling is a constant learning experience. It is usually very laid back, but on occasion you will run into a situation where your mind had better be on full alert. Such was the case the morning we pulled into Hueco Tanks State Park on the eastern edge of El Paso, Texas. It is a small park with beautiful surroundings and thousands of pictographs adorning the nearby boulder formations. I went into the office to register for camping and it was filled with young college aged rock climbers waiting for permits. When the state park lady finally got to me, I found her very business like, organized and I could tell she had done this a million times by her spiel. I didn’t know anything about this park. It was just another of many Texas State Parks we had camped in. What I didn’t realize was the security involved because of the ancient art. I felt like I was back in the Marine Corp. Instructions were flying and you had better listen up. If I didn’t get them the first time I just knew she was going to tell me to get down and give her 50 pushups. I listened intently and I think I had it. I was told I had to see a short video before I drove into the campground. She said to stop at the next building and watch said video before going to my campsite. Okay, got it! I hope I had it. There were so many new state park rules I had never heard before I was afraid to fart. 

I pulled up to the next building and a guy came out the door and signaled me on to the campground. The gate was open and I went in. Before I could even park the rig, I had a campground host on me like ugly on an ape. He may have been a graduate of Campground Host School, but definitely not Valedictorian. I could tell by his body language he was upset. Luckily he had a radio in his hand and not a weapon. He told me I was supposed to have stopped for a video and I would have to go back. My simple little tourist brain had already figured that out. I then figured out the guy that waved me through must have been trying to point to a parking area where I wouldn't block the road with my rig while I watched the flick. The host lightened up a bit and allowed us to park the motorhome first, since the car was half unhooked and I was already causing a traffic jam worthy of a pictograph. 

Dutifully we got in the car right away and started back to the entrance for our video indoctrination. I was still a bit upset with the hosts attitude but Gaila was counseling me and suggesting I continue to be polite. While I was digesting her advise, I came to the campground gate and it was shut. I would normally get out and push the gate open, but to continue my spousal therapy I decided to go find the host and politely inquire about Hueco Tank State Park protocol when it came to closed gate policy. I knocked on the first RV I came to that said, “Host.” A very nice polite woman came to the door and answered my questions. “Yes, just push the gate open and close it behind you - it's not locked. It’s always supposed to be closed. Someone must have left it open when you arrived.” As I was walking back to my car I ran into my host friend, Judge Roy Bean, dragging his dust mop dog. Knowing my wife was watching me like a hawk I mustard every theatrical cell in my body and said a pleasant, “How ya doin’?”  At that he answered, “What’s your problem now?” Gaila was reading his lips through the car windshield and knew it was too late to keep a cork in me. I blew. By the time I was through dressing him down he and his fufu dog were turned around and heading back to their rig with their tails tucked between their legs. 

Yes, we did finally see the video and met host number two who may have been Valedictorian. It was his rig I had knocked on and his wife who was very polite. He was the kind of campground host we had come to expect and enjoy in all the state and national parks we visit. Gaila thinks my approach was all wrong, but I think I did host #1 a huge favor. I think I gave him an attitude adjustment that might go a long way in tweaking his Emily Post host etiquette.

We didn’t need any more aggravation. We just wanted to do a little hiking, which isn’t easy. Most trails require a guide to protect the pictographs. As we studied the maps, our cat Funny Face bailed. Great, that’s all I need. I was already on the host's scat list and now my pet was loose in the park and heading into the no hiking without a guide area. Gaila literally cut Funny Face off at the pass. I held the door open to the motorhome, determined to deny I had a cat if anyone asked. Gaila scared the schizophrenic little furball back into the rig and I was ready to pull up anchor and leave. Three law enforcement officers with glocks have already walked slowly past our rig peering in. I would not be surprised to find my picture on a poster at the entrance station. 

This park only allows a three day stay, instead of the usual 14, unless you get special compensation, for an additional three, from the Pope. In this case, the campground host. In our case, FAT CHANCE. 

You might think all this camping stuff is easy. Well, let me tell you, it takes a big set of Cojones, as the Mexicans say, to do this. We are the only other rig in the campground besides the two sites the hosts occupy.  They have scared all the other campers with less cojones away.
Never mess with an Irishman!

FROZEN FECES AND POOPCICLES

The RV lifestyle isn’t all fun and games. There are many things to deal with just as owning a home. The refrigerator won’t light, the battery is low, the heater won’t ignite, and here is a new one for me, the waste holding tanks and pipes are frozen! 

This winter has been a record for cold nights in Big Bend National Park, and one still night it reached the single digits. The warming sun rose, not a cloud in the sky. We decided it was time to run the rig over to the dump station, empty and water up for another few days. When we arrived we discovered the park water lines were all still frozen from the night before. The sun was hitting the pipes so I worked on getting a drip started and Gaila and I sat in the motor home and played cards until finally the water was streaming through the pipes at a decent flow. I went out and tried to open the valve on the motor home black water tank----FROZEN. I tried the gray water tank----FROZEN. We played cards for another hour while we waited for the sun to do it’s magic. When I could finally open my sewer valve nothing happened. I was still frozen into the pipe and tank. I took the sewer hose off to inspect, when Murphy’s Law kicked in and the log jam (pun intended) broke loose. Luckily the first wave of frozen feces hit the ground like a slushy snowcone and hesitated long enough for me to get the hose back on. It could have been jump or swim, but the disaster was diverted with action on the part of a master dumper like myself. The solution will be a short wrap of heat tape around my exposed pipes. I can fire it up with the generator when needed and speed the process along. It could also save a lot of misery from cracked pipes if it stayed cold for any length of time. 

LIQUID BORDER

We have always said that entering a National Park gate is like coming home. It doesn’t matter which one, they are all managed in a similar fashion and all have the same feel. We know many of them well and Big Bend is no exception. It is not a pass through park. If you come to Big Bend you made an effort to get here. It is a special natural area secluded in a corner pocket of Texas. Despite the remoteness it has not escaped the geo-political catch-22 of the past decade. There is little illegal trafficking through the park because of its remote location, but the invisible cactus curtain is recognized here as much as any other border section with Mexico. Since the Parks inception in the 30’s the small Mexican villages just across the river have built a meager economy on U.S. tourist trade. On previous visits we used to give a guy a couple bucks for a row boat ride across the river and burro ride into town, have a delicious meal and buy a few trinkets. Today that would cost you five thousand dollars and a year in jail. The Park Service continued the status quo for a while until some tight-ass Bush Bureaucrat heard about all the contraband tortillas that were being eaten in Mexico and deposited in the U.S. The “no crossing” ruling destroyed a unique neighborly economy. If the results of this typical government decision were not so sad it would actually be comical. The people from the two small border towns used to cross the river each day and sell walking sticks, carved and decorated from the sotol plant, and wire sculptures of scorpions and roadrunners. They would sit quietly along the canyon trails and display their wares. Today they are not allowed to cross the river into the U.S. but the crafts are still along the trails with pricing info and money jars. Park brochure warns visitors not to buy these items. You could be charged with illegal importation of goods. I’m no lawyer, but I can’t figure out how we illegally imported a walking stick we bought on the U.S. side of the river. I would also scream entrapment since these beautiful items are everywhere along the river trails and do not seem to be confiscated by the Park Service or the Border Patrol. But the best gig going is Victor the Singing Mexican. Victor sits high on a rock outcropping on his side of the river and sings beautiful love songs that bounce off the canyon walls. He has binoculars and can watch for Border Patrol and Park Service personnel. When we met him, the coast was clear and he climbed down from his perch, crossed the river, and sang a beautiful love song to Gaila. (Click Here To Hear Victor) He truly has a wonderful voice. We do not speak Spanish so he could be singing something mocking but we didn’t care, he was great. Someone was approaching so he went back to his perch, but we could still yell back and forth in English. Victor from the small village of Boquillas, with no electricity, in remote northern Mexico, somehow has his CD’s for sale online.

A better and cheaper solution to this problem might be to man a small border crossing station in the park, where we could all conduct ourselves in a legal fashion and enjoy the experience as we once did. Instead, we spend millions trying to enforce the harmless commerce of a friendly bunch of neighbors, who live across this shallow liquid border, while every hiking visitor in Big Bend is carrying a beautiful ornate sotol walking stick.

We didn’t spend all of our time here breaking the law, paying for contraband musical notes. Big Bend has miles of incredible hiking trails and thousands of panoramic views. From the South Rim of the Chisos Mountains you can see a hundred miles into Mexico and most, if not all, of Big Bend’s 800,000+ surrounding acres.  Keep Smilin’ Dick E. Bird

“Environmental issues are not radical notions by those looking for Utopia; they are the product of an ancient natural process evolving now through the destructive bombardment of intensifying human pressure. In our travels we have met friends on all sides of environmental issues, each with individual perspectives and all without solution, because time holds the solution and only slowly distributes direction.” - Dick Mallery

Padre Island National Seashore, Texas

It took a week in Texas to finally pry the sun out of the ocean. It was still warmer than Michigan, and we made the best of it selling books, walking the beach, and spotting a Jaguarundi in Aransas Wildlife Refuge.

We went into the AWR to see whooping cranes.

 http://www.nwf.org/whoopingcrane/

It is their winter hangout and the easiest place to spot them. After watching them for a while, it was getting late and we decided to drive a 16-mile wildlife viewing loop before sunset. El Gato was right in the road, crossing into the high dune grass and hammock. Our first thought was Cougar, not knowing about the Jaguarundi. We were confused because it seemed too small for a mountain lion, and it was almost a chocolate brown color. It had the right tail, so we figured it had to be Mr. Puma himself, only young. If I’m confusing anyone, a cougar, panther, mountain lion, and puma are all the same critter. The ranger at the visitor center seemed to think we saw a mountain lion. She said it was a rare sighting but that they were known to be in the area. Still not convinced, we went home and Googled the wildlife refuge and known suspects that live there. Up popped our feline, no question. More of a Mexican mammal, they are seen occasionally in coastal regions of Texas. For wildlife freaks like us, this is like a seven on the richter scale. Jaguarundi Info

No sunshine had been kind of a bummer, not only for sought after warmth but also for solar energy. We like to boon dock camp (no hookups), so I installed a solar panel on the roof of the motor home before leaving Michigan. Without it (or the sun) our battery only lasts a few days, then we need electricity to recharge. Our plan was to move down to Padre Island National Seashore and camp out on the beach for a week or so. It is the only place in the U.S., that I know of, that you can drive right out on the beach and park with the waves outside your door. We arrived during a stormy week of bad barometrics, rain and wind. A combination that makes beach boon docking almost impossible. We stayed up in the regular park campground, which is a 100 yards up off the beach. We could still beach comb and walk for miles along the coast and sleep comfortably knowing we would not be washed out to sea. Finally, after four days, we decided it seemed calmer so we moved to the beach. We spent cocktail hour (5-6) looking out at high tide, which we were told would be 6 o’clock, to see how close to the motor home it was getting. It only washed under us a couple times and we figured it would begin receding after dark. We decided to stay-- until the rangers showed up and convinced us differently. They didn’t demand we leave but suggested it might be in our best interest. So it was back to the campground for the night. The next day we went to Corpus Christi, stayed at the Mustang State Park to recharge the battery, buy grub, and wait out the storm. It worked. The sun finally made its appearance on Friday. We moved out to the beach at Padre. The surf was tamed, the solar panel was charging, the pelicans were kettling, our closest neighbor was a couple of coyotes, and the beach was littered with every kind of shorebird we could find in our Geographic bird book. It was truly “sucking the juice out of life.”   

BEATING THE BLIZZARD

Traveling is an adventure. You never know where you are going to end up and what the stories will turn out to be along the way. On this trip the plan was to beat the snow out of Michigan. So far, so good. We did hear about a snowstorm in Houston, TX. We are hoping they have that all out of their system before we get that far south. It has been cold at night so far along the Natchez Trace and brisk during the day but the further south we roll the more it’s beginning to look “less” like Christmas.

My Uncle Vic loaned me a GPS when I left. This is my first experience with one. I have to say, “I am not impressed.” Doesn’t it seem odd that Garmin would use the voice of a very dominant women, who can’t make up her mind and with no sense of direction, to guide you through the spider web of American roads. She has me hang left when the exit is three lanes and semi’s to the right. I may be a sick puppy but I find myself arguing with this broad. Gaila says I can’t use the “B” word anymore, so I call her a Witch, as in “Witch way do you want me to go this time bitch.” She’s mad at me now, Gaila and the Witch. I can’t get any navigation help from either of them anymore. 

Our first unplanned turn of events happened in Kentucky along I-65. I sped up a bit to make room for an 18-wheeler coming out of a truck scale. When I let up on the throttle my engine backfired like a cannon shot through the motor home. I stopped at the next exit to check things out and found my backfire was one of my inner dual tires quickly expelling air. I had the brakes done before we left and the mechanic did not hook up the extension between the two tires. It hung down and rubbed against the brand new tire for five hundred miles before the extension wore through and blew. The tire was also shot as it had rubbed a soft spot in the tire too. 

I’m always a little nervous when someone works on my rig, especially if it turns out to be Homer and Jethro. We stopped at a tire dealer and sure enough H&J both worked there. They were trying to pull my hubcap off by hand, slappin’ each other upside the head and comparing tatoos. I decided to watch them like a hawk.

We met our friends from home, (the Fosdicks) at the tire store. They were headed for Alabama along I-65 the same time we were. By cell phone we kept in touch and planned to meet at the exit to Mammoth Cave National Park. We thought we would miss them when we had to leave the expressway to find a tire store, but they have a GPS with a different woman than mine and came right to the tire store and found us with no problem. It’s a small world. We hardly ever see them at home and end up having a reunion at a Kentucky tire store. 

We love reading about the history of the Natchez Trace. There should be more of these scenic roadways that allow no commercial traffic. For 444 miles we move south along a beautiful parkway at 45 m.p.h. No traffic signals or stop signs, picture perfect pavement, historical pullovers every few miles, free campgrounds and lots of hikes and friendly people. 

Still traveling after all these years!