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I travel a lot; I hate having my life disrupted by routine. ~ Caskie Stinnett
It is good to have an end to journey towards, but it is the journey that matters in the end ~ Ursula K. LeGuin
Stop worrying about the potholes in the road and enjoy the journey ~ Babs Hoffman
I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be. - Douglas Adams
"Thousands of
tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out
that going to the mountain is going home; that wildness is necessity;
that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of
timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life."
Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe. ~ Anatole France
“When words become unclear, I shall
focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be
content with silence.”
Camping, At No Time In the History of My Life, Have I Enjoyed So Much To Be A Wife - Cindy Bonish 12/07
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Pat's December Blog If This is your first time here, you might want to start from the beginning of our fulltime RV Journey with my previous months Blog's
January Blog
February Blog
March
Blog
April
Blog
May Blog
June Blog
For Those That Don't Know Me, You can click here to read my Bio Photo Gear We Use - Solar Tips, Fact's and Trick's we've learned while on the road
Camper
Check List - A list of things we do before leaving camp.
Again, this isn't gospel, but its a good start for those who might not
already have a list made up. **** Saturday December 1st 2007 Some times you wake up and never know what the day is going to bring. Today was one of those days. After the crazy rain storm we had last night, the sky was a mix of wild clouds with brief sections of sun warming us up. We had stayed in the Gilbert Ray campground which was a nice quiet campground, but I'm starting to have trouble with paying $20 when we don't need to be in a campground. We've gone for 9 days now with no hook-ups, and haven't had a single problem or even noticed that we werent hooked to shore power.
Anyway, we needed to do some grocery shopping, so we drove into Tucson where we found a Wally World. Pulling out of the Gilbert Ray Campground, we stopped in the middle of the road as a Coyote ran in front of us. This time Cindy was handing me the camera before I could even reach for it and I was able to get a cool shot of this wild animal. Finally we got a picture of one so you wont think I'm making all these sightings up. As we were pulling in to the Wal-Mart, we remembered it was a Saturday and we were bordering a Native American Reservation. When we were near the Navajo Reservation, one of the locals said "Never go near a Wal-Mart on the weekend near a Reservation." They werent lying because I couldn't barely find a place to park our train in the parking lot. The place looked like the day after Thanksgiving or Christmas Eve. I just dropped Cindy off and said "Look for me in the parking lot, I don't even want to go in there." While she was shopping, I sat comfortably on the computer while it the dry Arizona climate dropped some more rain on us. Cindy finally came out and I could tell by the look on her face, that inside must have been a mad-house.
Joe McDonough is a aviation mechanic who is working in the area, and lives fulltime like we do on the road. After talking about various places we've visited, he was saying something about our GPS system when I said "I don't think I have that software?" He asked if I had a few minutes, and next thing you know, he pulled up and brought his computer stuff into the RV where we sat for the rest of the night. Joe is somewhat of a map expert and has loads of software for converting maps into usable files to upload onto my GPS. Most of this was way over my head, but Joe was kind enough to walk me though enough of it to get me started. By the end of the night, we had eaten dinner, shared a few Silver Bullets and swapped many stories on various travels. Joe has traveled extensively throughout Mexico, so I did my best to ask my typical 1000 questions on places that we wanted to visit. Joe did his best to show me how to map it out on the new software he had just installed on my computer, and give me 100's of tips on what to look for and what to watch out for. When it was all said and done, it was late into the night, and we called it quits so we could get some shut eye. You just never know who your going to meet in a Wal-Mart parking lot. Sunday December 2nd 2007 After last nights tutorial on mapping software, I thought it would be weeks of me playing with this new stuff before I'd figure any of it out. Joe was knocking on the door early explaining that a few of the pieces we couldn't get to work in last nights secession, he thought he had worked out the bugs.
When the lesson was over, I thanked Joe for all his knowledge, and we got back on the road. While we were at the San Xavier Del Bac Mission, we found out there was another historic mission a half hours drive south. So we jumped on Route 19 South and headed on our way. Tumacácori National Historical Park is only a few miles North of Mexico's border, and set off the main road only a few miles. Mission San José de Tumacácori was established in January of 1691 by a Jesuit Father, Eusebio Francisco Kino. The mission is located on 310 acres in the town of Tumacácori, which just happened to be hosting a little art fair when we pulled up. I love how we always just seem to find these events almost like we planned it that way. If only we were that organized...LOL While we were walking through the fair, we were being entertained by fantastic local Native American music, got to see some cool craft work being worked on, and even spotted a beautiful Barn Owl. When I saw this gorgeous bird, I practically sprinted over to see if I could take a picture of it. I had just said to Cindy a few days before that in all my years of photography, I've never had a chance to get any good shots of any owls.
We
introduced ourselves to Darlene Braastad, who is the Director of
Forever Wild
Animal Rehabilitation Center. She was also the one who had the
big owl
We sat talking with Darlene about her organization for a few and made some arrangements to meet up later in the week so we could get some photos of the many animals she has at the center. She told us she has so many exotics that right now would be the perfect time to come by. That got me pretty excited to think we could get the chance to see so many of these beautiful animals and it made it all the better knowing Darlene was helping them get rehabilitated and back into the wild. Tumacácori National Historical Park is completely different than San Xavier Del Bac Mission. San Xavier has been beautifully restored to its original beauty, where Tumacácori is left in its various stages of disrepair. In a weird way, I almost liked Tumacácori better for the simple fact that there is more left to the imagination of how beautiful this must have been at one time. Now the crumbling mission is just a shell with little bits of history left to let the imagination run wild.
A few hundred images later, I heard Cindy whistle for me and for once when I said "Are you ready to go?", she snapped back with "Are you crazy? This light is perfect right now!" We wandered around for a few more shots before I reminded her of the celebration back up at the San Xavier Mission tonight. Make sure to check out the Gallery for Mission San José de Tumacácori.
We got to San Xavier just in time to grab some dinner in the RV in the parking lot before the celebration started. I laughed my tail off as Lucy the beagle was begging to go outside with us when the first of many fireworks went off. Lucy is terrified of loud noises, and went from this happy dog, begging to go for a walk to a shivering coward hiding under the bed. We left her under Luca's guard while Cindy and I spent the next hour being fully entertained by the festivities. From the procession of the Statue of St Francis Xavier around the courtyard of the mission, to the fantastic fireworks display, to the rhythmic dancing of the Native Tohono O'odam Indians.
Then when the ceremony was all said and done, we climbed back into the
RV for the night and the strangest thing happened. I went to look
at the camera to see if any of the images had turned out of the
procession of the Statue of St Francis Xavier around the courtyard, and
none of the pictures were on the
All in all I enjoyed our evening very much and as we were going to bed, we could still hear the music being played in the town hall where a party was still going on strong for the celebration. Make sure to check out the Gallery for the Mission San Xavier for plenty of photos. Monday December 3rd 2007 Road Trip! The best part about not having any plans is being able to go where we want. We woke up this morning and were debating about what we wanted to do. Tucson is loaded with hikes and assorted things to keep us busy, but to be totally honest, we were getting bored with doing the same old thing. While checking our morning emails, we had received one from a good friend back in Michigan. He said he had been following along with the blogs and noticed we were in Southern Arizona.
Photo By Rich Van Every He said he was going to be filming with Dirt Bike Television and it would just be a fun weekend for all of us. So Cindy and I threw caution to the wind and said "Let's take a road trip from our road trip!" It's only 800 miles from where we are, and we don't have to be there till Thursday night to meet up with Brett. This should be an interesting little adventure. I will say that driving out of Arizona was enough to make me cry. With my new Scanguage hooked up giving me my Miles Per Gallon reading the whole time, I was about to cry the whole day. With a 20 mph hour headwind and all uphill climbs, Cindy was yelling for me to turn off the gauge when it was telling us we were getting 3 - 4 Miles Per Gallon on some climbs!! Oh how awful is it to see that! We made good time though, and pulled over in a Flying J to do some laundry, empty the tanks and get a good nights sleep. Cindy said to me when she was going to bed, "Remember when we first started this trip and I used to have trouble falling asleep if we were in a parking lot?" I just nodding thinking I was in for a scolding. But she just laughed and said "With the sounds of diesels and trains going by, I can now sleep right through it all!" Tuesday December 4th 2007
I was able to make up for yesterdays awful fuel mileage with long stretches of flat road where we werent battling that strong headwind. What we were battling was the constant stench of cattle farms and signs that just said EAT BEEF! Being in the advertising business, I would have loved to have been sitting in that marketing meeting when some hot shot yelled out "EAT BEEF!" and the money people sat back in their chairs thinking, "It says it all!" I was able to average 14 miles per gallon for most of the day which I thought was pretty good. We were making good time and the sights included crossing back over the Continental Divide in New Mexico with completely flat fields from horizon to horizon, towering peaks all around us at different sections and wide open vistas in other parts. That was until our blow out! Remember a few days back when I had mentioned that my one rear tire on the RV was real low? I had put air back in it and for the next few days it was doing fine. While we were in the Flying J, I mentioned to Cindy that I didn't like the looks of the tire. Even though it was holding air fine, the top of the tire was becoming rounded? She told me to change it, but smarty pants ol' me just said "We'll see what it looks like when we stop tonight." Big mistake on my part, I know, you can all tell me just like Cindy has a hundred times, "Next time, listen to your wife!" We were just cruising along taking in the long expanses of nothingness when we heard that dreaded POP! Followed by a continuous thumping sound that couldn't be doing the camper any good at 60 miles per hour.
I jumped out of the truck to see a big section of the fabric that holds the insulation to the underbelly hanging down with some tire hanging from it, and one of my decking support arms was nicely bent up. But other than that, there was little damage done. I said a quick "Thank You" prayer to the gods who had been watching over us and got to the task of changing out this defective tire for our spare. While I was doing that, Cindy set up a few warning triangles a few hundred feet behind us as we both had visions of some underslept truck driver slamming into the back of our camper. We've all seen way too many police videos where this happens on the side of the roadway. I was really amazed at how many vehicles wouldn't move over into the clear lane and would come flying past me with only a few feet between my body and their bumper. One truck was so close, my hat went flying off bouncing down the road in his wake. I was way off the edge and far down on the shoulder, and it wasn't like I was sitting in the road or anything. I had the tire changed in no time and we were back on the road. For now, some trusty duct tape covers the hole in the underbelly lining till we can figure out how to get it repaired the correct way. But you can never underestimate the power of Duct Tape!! We pulled off in Van Horn Texas for the night at some road side turn around that had about ten other campers parked there before we pulled in. Just as we were going to bed, a train came flying past so close everything in the Sunline was shaking on the shelves. Cindy and I just laughed at each other and said "Some how, that train keeps following us!"
Thursday December 6th 2007 Red Bull Last Man Standing
This will also come in handy for when we head towards Moab this spring and now have a good connection in that area. Jim is into outdoors like Cindy and I and sat telling us of the endless outdoor activities we have waiting for our travels when we get up to his neck of the woods. Since I don't have a set of knobbies for our motorcycle, and Jim's business is renting street legal trail bikes, this will work out perfect to get me onto the world famous trails of Moab. The qualifying for the Last Man Standing Race didn't start till tomorrow, so today was just a kick back day. Red Bull had a nice set up with a hospitality tent for us media personnel which had plasma screens, couches and all the Red Bull you could drink. The more we learned about this race, the more excited I got.
In the world of off-road racing, it doesn't get much harder than this event. It's the only event in the world that is run during the daytime and at night. The riders have to run two laps during the daytime spanning over 80 miles and the course covers some of the most grueling terrain I've ever seen. Then, whomever finishes the best during the daytime race, moves up to the night race where the course is run in reverse. Last year of the hundreds that entered, only 11 made it to the night time race and only two crossed the finish line. It's just that tuff. It looked like it was going to be a weekend to remember. Friday December 7th Qualifying of The Last Man Standing
The qualifying was starting early this morning, so we were suited up and
ready for some action. There were 175 riders that had passed the
guidelines to be able to enter, sort of the crem-da-le-crem of the
enduro motocross circuit.
Apparently there is one other race that is billed as the hardest race in the world which is held in Austria and a new hot shot from Poland, Taddy Blazusiak had beat Knight last year at this race. Both riders were in Bulcher Texas this weekend, so there would be some serious racing going on to see who is the best rider in the world. Oh, and both riders also rode for Team KTM, so not only were they battling for the Best in the World Title, but being team mates made the competition all that much better. With a beautiful day weather wise, Texas broke record highs today with the temperatures reaching into the high 80's, we couldn't ask for a nicer day to be sitting out in the tall grass watching some great motocross. The property the race is held on is right on the Red River, the same one where John Wayne filmed the famous 1948 movie which is known as one of his best films. So needless to say, the rolling vistas are just beautiful. Red Bull lived up to their title of putting together a fantastic course that would not only challenge the riders, but allow the spectators to get right up close to the action.
During qualifying, they were running a rider through the course every 30 seconds, so it gave us a second to catch our breath and focus through the lens with some thinking behind the images. I can only imagine tomorrow when all 100 of them will be flying at us at the same time! We spent the day riding our motorcycle around the 3000 acre ranch scouting out the different sections of the track. I was surprised at how excited Cindy was and could tell her excitement was building each time she would see a new section of the course. This was going to be one amazing race tomorrow. After a great day of photographing the racers, we all headed down to the Red Bull tent for some libations. They had a DJ spinning tunes and a bunch of the racers were mingling with the photographers and other press people who were just hanging out. We filled our bellies with some fantastic Texas BBQ from Rudy's while talking about what we felt would be the hardest section for the racers tomorrow. Would it be the 3 story drop off, the hill climbs that were challenging for us to walk up, or the boulder sections that looked like they could eat a rider up and ask for more? Of course by the end of the night, Cindy was grabbing David Knight's butt who had now become quite acquainted with us. We were all swapping stories and I wish I could remember some of them, but to be honest, I think my Red Bull and Vodka drinks were mixed too strong, as I cant seem to remember most of the night.
At one point, Cindy had her arms around Taddy and David at the same time and just as I went to snap a picture, she grabbed both their butts at the moment I snapped the picture sending them jumping into the air. Something tells me she had drank too many cans of liquid energy and the buzz was going to her head. Either that, or the amount of testosterone from all the amazing riders was just getting her too excited. Saturday December 8th Red Bull Last Man Standing We woke to hearing our lock on the door being unlocked, which was a strange sound. Jim opened up the door and said, "Hey, you guys left your keys in the lock on the door!?! Get Up - Coffee's ready!"
Either way, the riders meeting was starting, and we needed to get our groogy heads out of bed to figure out how the race was going to be run today. Those record highs and beautiful blue Texas skies were long gone, and a blanket of fog was covering the Red River countryside. Some nasty weather had blown in and looked like it was going to make the course that much harder for the big race. The cool morning air was waking me up fast, and that first Red Bull was already starting to surge through my veins. The race was being pushed back to 11am to see if the fog would lift, so we had enough time to clean the images off the cards from yesterday and get everything charged up for today's events. That and try to lay back down for a few to see if the Ibuprofen would take care of my pounding headache.
In the first 1/4 mile, I saw numerous riders get thrown from their bikes, get trampled by other riders who were flying past all while showing some of the best skill I've ever seen displayed on a motorcycle. When we were moving to the next area on the track, Cindy said it was hard for her to take pictures, she was just too caught up in all the action going on. The first spot we got to was a section called Joshua Tree. This obstacle was a giant hill that was very steep with a big vertical section right at the top. If the riders could make it up and over the vertical section, they had two different narrow rock sections they had to overcome before they could get down the backside.
The first few riders made it look like a piece of cake. These were
also the top riders in the world. When the rest of the pack caught
up, this is when you realized how hard of a climb this section was. Now
remember that this is an
One of the rules of the race is the riders can have no outside help, riders can help riders, but none of the course officials can help them get their bikes up the hill. Numerous times would a rider make it right to the top, fall, and have to go all the way back down to try it one more time. Some riders would come flying up the hill with the throttle pinned, hit the vertical section and get thrown from their bikes. This happened one time and the out of control motorcycle flew over the fence almost landing on a group of photographers lining the hill. This is also when Jim and Cindy had another bike come flying out of control straight at them. Both went running down the hill with the bike hot on their heels. Luckily for me, I was able to get out of the way without falling, but other photographers werent so lucky. From Joshua Tree, the course only got harder. Ever time you thought you had seen the worst of it, we'd ride up to a new section and just drop our jaw when someone would point out the route they were going to ride. Each section only got harder and I can imagine how hard it must have been for the riders getting more and more tired as the miles racked up.
The one rule was, once the first place rider crossed the finish line during the day time race, the rest of the riders had 1 hour to make it across the finish line to move up to the night time race. Just to put in perspective how utterly grueling of a course this Last Man Standing race is, only 3 riders were going to be in the night time event. Taddy had finished first in the daytime race, while David Knight was only a few minutes behind him after getting lost in the woods. Ten-time national trials champion Geoff Aaron, from Bailey, Colorado, was the only other rider to finish both 40-mile laps at the Red River Motorcycle Trails course on the Texas/Oklahoma border. Talk about separating the men from the boys. While we had a break between races, we grabbed a bite to eat and charged up the batteries in the cameras and washed it all down with a few more Red Bulls. Then at 5pm, we heard the civil war cannon fire to signal the start of the race. The top 3 riders in the world were at it again. Riding into the Night
It was wild to see more than 2,500 spectators, making it the highest-attended sporting event in the history of Bulcher screaming for their favorite riders when they would come into the technical sections. This race would surely be one to go down in the history books. We kept hearing over the radios that Taddy and Knight were battling it out for first place and had swapped the lead a few different times. Aaron was hot on their heals and his trials background would help to close that gap in the really rough sections. Then word came across the radio that Knight had pulled off the course saying he couldn't finish. Apparently he had been battling a nasty cold for the last few days, and the dehydration from the days event had caught up to him. He was vomiting and the course officials were trying to put fluids into him which didn't seem to be staying down. At the finish line, we sat waiting for Blazusiak to come riding in with the crowd swelling and getting worked up on the sponsors energy drink. When someone yelled, "I can see his head light!" You could hear the roar from the crowd echo over the fields.
After Knight dropped out, Geoff Aaron persevered and crossed the finish line with a time of 4:09:02 - 31 minutes behind Blazusiak and the only other rider to finish the race. The rest of the night was spent in the Red Bull tent where all the riders were trying to ease those sore muscles from the weekend of punishment. I'm sure you can use your imagination as to the debauchery that followed. Make sure to check out the Gallery for some great pictures of our weekend Sunday December 9th 2007 The Long Drive To Somewhere Warm The drizzling fog had turned into a light rain by morning. The temperature was also dropping steadily which doesn't make for good driving conditions. We hurriedly packed up and said our goodbyes to Jim. We made plans to meet up come spring in Moab when the temperatures would be a bit warmer and the spring runoff would be kicking the rivers up.
At times, the hood of the truck would get a thick layer of ice built up when the rain would start falling hard. Cindy kept saying we should pull over, but as long as the roads were clear, the last thing I wanted to do was get stuck in an ice storm. Luckily for us, the nastiest weather was just above Texas as we kept hearing awful news reports on road closures and states of emergency in some of the Mid-Western states. Just as it was starting to get dark, we pulled over at the New Mexico/Texas state line at a campground where we would be able to plug into shore power. We would have to run the tank heaters all night since the forecast was for freezing rain and cold temperatures. When we crawled into the camper, the thermometer was reading 37°! Not my idea of a fun night. We cranked up the heater and sat in the truck till it warmed up to a tolerable temperature inside the camper. Monday December 10th 2007 Waking up to pouring rain, and news reports of it not letting up for the next few days, we got on the road figuring the farther west we headed, the warmer it would get.
Jim went on to say that when he saw the Toy Hauler come up beside him, he thought "Oh boy, this is going to be fun!" He went from swerving across both lanes on his side to crossing the median into oncoming traffic. All the time he said he was trying to keep the Toy Hauler from toppling over. He crossed back across the median before getting it under control. After pulling safely to the side of the road, he told us the only damage to the camper was a bent section of frame on the front corner where it had made contact with the ground in one of the median crossings. That was until he opened the door to see how the inside had survived the crazy last few minutes. Jim was laughing when he told us how in the scary few minutes of uncontrolled sliding, all the cupboards had come opened with the contents shattered and broken everywhere on the floor. Both motorcycles he had brought along for the weekend were upside down leaving the place looking like a bomb had gone off.
Jim said that he spent the next hour on the side of the road cleaning the debris. He basically had to empty out everything, roll the awning back up and re-pack the whole ordeal. Luckily no one was injured and except for the bent frame and some broken plates, Jim walked away just a bit shaken. He told me the next exit had a casino where he parked the rig, went inside and got a message in the spa to calm down a bit. All I could do was laugh and say "Glad to hear you're alright." Thankfully we had gone south, and never ran into much but some ice on the hood.
We are getting way far behind when it comes to our galleries. In the past few months, we've been going non-stop and haven't really had time to sort through the pictures to pick out our best of the best to upload to our gallery section. Then something went wrong with the Verizon card and I spent much of the night on the phone with Tech Support trying to resolve the problem. If you're wondering why we haven't returned any emails in the past week, Verizon is having some trouble with my broadband card, and hopefully we'll get this resolved soon. Tuesday December 11th 2007 I was up early waiting for a call back from Verizon tech support. What I got was a punch to the gut. Apparently while I was on the phone last night for an hour with them, the multiple attempts on our account froze the account. The service tech explained that they are so backed up right now, it would be 10 days before they could get it back up and running.
What we decided was the area we are in right now, Southeast New Mexico, has no Verizon coverage and when they reset my account, the card itself cant connect to the system to reset itself. This Tech rep went over and above his job and asked "What direction are you heading next?" When I told him the route we were going to be traveling, he said that he would call us in 3 days when we were in an area that had a tower close by. If you've never had to use Verizon Customer Service, I cant say enough about how nice they are. When in the last few years have you heard anyone say this? Coming from multiple years with Nextel, who in my mind has the worst service coverage and customer service of any phone provider out there, I am never mad when I get off the phone with Verizon. Thursday December 13th 2007 The past few days was spent driving from the Carlsbad area, where we decided not to go to the caverns, but instead made the few hour journey towards White Sands National Monument area.
Carlsbad is in flat country, and leaving out of that southern most
section of New Mexico, you start to climb up drastically. Route 82
West is a fun little road
Luckily we had topped off the diesel tanks when leaving Carlsbad, because between the town of Artesia and Cloudcroft, which was close to 100 miles, we never passed another vehicle and nothing that resembled a fuel station. Cloudcroft was our destination, but it was sitting on the Eastern side of a mountain and covered in a blanket of fresh snow. I decided to see if the western side was any warmer, and as soon as we crossed the peak, the snow disappeared. We found a little RV Campground just on the outskirts of Alamogordo with full hook-ups, and pulled in for the night. We've come to the conclusion that anytime the temperature is going to be hovering around the freezing mark, we need to be hooked up to shore power.
If
we tried to run our tank heaters, the forced air furnace and everything
else needed to keep us from freezing to death, it would cost us more in
the long
White Sands National Monument is located right beside the White Sands Missile Range, and both can be seen across the valley from our campground. Just before we were going to bed, we heard a rumble in the distance. I looked at Cindy and jokingly said "That sounds like a bomb just went off!" | ||
I
was a little worried that those past few days of November with the cloud
cover might drop the battery level, but 3 days with no sun, and our
battery bank was still reading at full power. So paying $20, which
is very cheap compared to what many campgrounds want to charge just
seems like a waste to me. 
While
she was putting away the groceries, I went to grab something out of the
truck and not knowing that Cindy had pulled out the step, I literally
fell out onto the parking lot. Some guy was walking past and
laughed at me while asking if I was alright. We started talking
about the goofy things wives do and next thing you know, we were talking
about different places we've been traveling to.
So
the rest of the morning was spent with the second part of my mapping
tutorial. I was starting to get worried that I was going to get a
hefty bill for all this training, but I think Joe just likes to share
his knowledge and was more than happy to answer any and all of my many
questions. 
Cindy
and I did our typical separation as I went one way snapping pictures and
she went another doing the same. For once we were in a spot with
the afternoon light hitting the structure perfectly. I know saying
that "I was in Heaven" is way too much of a pun, but with the light
streaming through the mission windows, bouncing off the ancient adobe
walls, I was having trouble holding the camera up to my face due to the
gigantic smile. 
Reluctantly we left one historic church, to drive a ways north to visit
another. Wouldn't my Mother be proud of me now knowing that I not
only went to one church this Sunday, but was on my way to the second one
of the day. I've always tried to explain to her that just because
I don't attend church regularly, it doesn't mean I don't have the faith!
So don't go thinking that I'm some kind of Heathen.
camera?
I knew the camera was on, and Cindy even said she saw the flash go off 3
times, yet none of the images were on the compact flash card? Oh
well, I guess we were just supposed to remember it from the experience. 
His email said He was going to be flying into Central Texas this weekend
for the 
With
empty tanks, fresh water full and all our laundry caught up to date,
thanks to services of the
I
looked in the rearview mirror to see bits of tire flying all over the
roadway. Luckily for us, we were on a section of road that wasn't
too populated and the only other vehicles around were a few big rigs
hauling smelly cattle. I was able to bring the train to a fast
halt on the side of the road in a very short distance. 
After a few days of non-stop driving, we pulled into
the ranch in Bulcher Texas, meeting up
with Brett and his buddy Jim. Jim is from Moab Utah, and runs a
tour company for motorcycles called
We
wandered around the grounds checking out some of the different setups
and talked with
Riders were here from all over the world and last
years winner and the crowd favorite David Knight would also be making a
return visit. 
I
had to keep reminding myself that this was only the qualifying portion
of the race. I couldn't imagine when the riders would be going at
it with all 100 of them fighting it out on the course together.
I
do remember Cindy telling me to come feel how tight his buttocks were
which I snapped back with something along the lines of "Cindy, I'm not
going to come over and feel this guys butt, I don't care who he is!"
Now I don't even think the door was locked in the first place, so I have
no idea why I would have used the keys to come inside, but since neither
of us remembered leaving the hospitality tent, we had no idea why the
keys had been used, or why they were left in the door.
The start of the race was enough to tell me that this was going to be a
wild day. The rodeo section was like something out of a horror
movie, and I was just amazed that anyone was able to make it over some
of the obstacles the had in front of them. 
invitational race only, so anyone riding in the
event is highly talented, but some made it look like it was their first
time riding a motorcycle. 
Another thing that really impressed me was, there was one female riding in
the race, and she road better than many of the men!
Of
the 100 starters, only Knight and Aaron joined Blazusiak in blasting off
the starting line for the night race, meaning 97 riders failed to finish
the first lap within one hour of the young Polish rider. 
With a twist of the throttle, Taddy pulled up to the last obstacle that
stood between him and that finish line, a wall of boulders 25 feet tall.
In true motocross fashion, he launched right up throwing a roster-tail
of Texas dirt into the roaring crowd. And with that finish, David
Knight had been dethroned and a new Last Man Standing King had been
crowned. 
We
got a call from Utah Jim, the one who owns
I
asked if he had to change his pants after filling them? But Jim just
laughed saying that it all happened so quick, he hadn't realized how bad
it was till he was on the side of the road. Jim was telling me at
one point, the awning had come open and was flapping out while he was
careening towards oncoming traffic. I can only imagine how funny,
scary and just out of control this must have looked to passing
motorists.
We
were pulling into Carlsbad in no time and the rain was letting up, but
not for long. We found a full service RV park,
I
sat stewing for a bit, and called back to talk with another service
tech. This guy was much more knowledgeable and went on to explain
that the only thing frozen was my account if I wanted to pay my bill
online. That really eased my worries, but over the course of the
next 2 hours, while we sat on the phone troubleshooting our broadband
card, we learned that we just couldn't get it to work.
that
passes through a few towns forgotten by the rest of the world.
Giant farms with barns and houses sagging under the weight of old age,
and leaning ever so ready to topple with the next stiff wind.
run
than the minimal cost of a full service campground. By hooking up
to shore power, we can run a small electric heater and not have to waste
our propane.