One of the joys of driving vacations is the wide open spaces of America.
We love to take driving vacations. 3300 miles to Yellowstone this month. Before that, vacations to Yellowstone in 2021, Florida this year and 2022 (and many other times), the Grand Canyon in 2020, a few trips to North Carolina over the years. Besides vacations, there are other trips to Houston, Oklahoma, and more.
I remember a friend who used to complain about having to drive 2 hours to see some relatives – 2 hours doesn’t even count as a road trip for us.
On this last trip to Yellowstone, we noticed that a few times on Waze we were in what we (especially our granddaughter) started to call a “white-out.” The map display showed our car, the road we were on, and nothing else. No other roads, no lakes, rivers, other points of interest – nothing!
We love the wide open spaces and the stretches of the journey where there is nothing. Sometimes on the horizon you can see mountains or forests. Sometimes, not as appealing, you can see the windmill forests springing up everywhere. This last trip we saw lightning in the distance (including watching as lightning started a grass fire). We see livestock, antelope, and birds, haystacks, farmhouses, grain elevators. We see long lines of trains, so long you lose count of the cars. We passed through a canyon in Wyoming that we didn’t know even existed, and it was gorgeous (Wind River Canyon if you need to know). Caroline really enjoyed passing through a town in Wyoming with a population of 10 people.
You see, this is what has sometimes been called “Flyover Country.” Lots of big city folks, mostly in the East (which includes too many politicians and news people), have never experienced this. They have no true concept of how big and diverse this country, particularly west of the Appalachian Mountains, is. The thought of driving hours between cities bigger than 10,000 people is completely unknown. And there are so many interesting places and people to see in those wide open spaces.
I remember after our Grand Canyon rafting trip getting out on the highway and just being awed at the vista in front of us. Nothing to see for miles and miles except tumbleweeds and dirt. It was humbling to see and realize just how big and magnificent this country is. The density of much of the East Coast, particularly the big cities, has no appeal for me. As for me, “Give me land, lots of land, under starry skies above.”
When I was a child, we had a dog. She was a beautiful collie named Penny. We shared the same birthday (along with my father) – Penny was 3 years younger than me. But in the 1960s, dogs were treated differently than we treat dogs now. So Penny was an outdoor dog – almost exclusively and entirely for her whole life. She did have a dog house, and back then her diet was a can of dog food plus table scraps. We had a big yard, but we almost never took her for for walks. For some reason, she was terrified of rain, but she still had to stay outdoors in her dog house when it rained and stormed.
We cared for a friend’s poodle for a year or so when they were overseas in the military. That dog was named Napoleon, and we let it in the house a lot. We tried to get a poodle after that, but it died as a puppy from distemper or maybe parvo (even though I’d never heard of parvo back then). We also had cats along the way – one in particular was a Siamese cat we found in our car one day.
Thinking of Penny makes me sad. She was a good and sweet dog, and if she had been born nowadays she would have had so much better a life. But back then that was how dogs were treated, and we didn’t know any better. Probably because Penny was our dog but she wasn’t really part of the family, I became a cat person. When we got married and after we moved to Houston, we got cats. And we had cats off and on, mostly on, until one strange day in 2008.
You think you know someone after 29 years of marriage, but maybe not. Kerry, who had never outwardly expressed any interest in having a dog, told me she thought we should get a dog. She was thinking cockapoo. Wiley wanted a dog that looked like a wolf. We saw a Shiba Inu puppy in a pet store. Game over. Research said they were not good for first time dog owners (and they might have been right). We scoffed. We found the puppy we wanted.
Baby Krista
So in December 2008 we became dog owners. Krista joined us and we were in love. She survived parvo, and because of the vet bills we called her our golden dog. She was never a lap dog, and wasn’t all that great with strangers, but she loved us and we loved her.
Krista
We loved her so much we got her a companion – Winston, another Shiba Inu. Winston joined us in 2010, and he is a sweet natured, laid back, great dog. Krista was a red sesame Shiba, Winston a black-and-tan. We had officially transitioned into dog people! So much so that when our cat was struggling to adapt to the new reality, we rehomed the cat. (Sorry Addie!)
Winston
Fast forward to 2022. While much of the family was on vacation, at age 13, Krista decided it was time for her to go. And we let her go while we cried over a Facetime farewell, saddling Brian with the difficult task of being there with her. Winston, now age 12, wasn’t heartbroken, but he was lonely and listless. In the meantime, Kerry had been in contact with Roseberry Labradoodles for some time, and they were about to have a litter of pups. Lindsay, Eddie, and the 4 grandkids, who live next door, had also decided to add a dog to their up-to-that-time cat home. So we got a brother and sister.
Muffin and Ace as puppies
This is Muffin (white) and Ace (black). Both are 3/4 poodle, 1/4 lab. Muffin (ours) is the happiest, sweetest, most people-loving, affectionate dog you could ever imagine. She plays fetch for hours at a time, and she loves treats. She has a weird love of ice cubes and wants one every night at bedtime. As you would expect, it took a while for the grumpy old dog to get used to her, but it’s safe to say they’re good buddies now, and Winston has a pep in his step that was missing for a few months.
Muffin and Winston
So what do I mean “why did we wait so long?” I was thinking as I was walking the dogs the other day that from our move to Houston in 1982 to 2008, that’s 26 years. We missed out on the opportunity to have and to love maybe a half dozen more dogs during those years. Of course that would have also meant the heartbreak of losing them. (Why dogs can’t live as long as we do is a question to ask God one day.) But having experienced the joy and love that comes from being owned by a good dog, it made me a little bit sad that we waited so long to become dog people.
I’m not going to live in the past, though. I’ll apologize to Penny when I see her again, and I’ll introduce her to Krista, Winston, Muffin, and Ace when the time comes. But for now I’ll enjoy and rejoice in the love of my two dogs.
Travel Post. Near La Junta Colorado is a restored trading post from the 1830s/1840s. Kerry has cousins who live in Castle Rock and drive to Oklahoma, and they told us about it. It’s a National Historic Site, and it’s worth a visit if you happen to be passing through southeastern Colorado. Coming from Texas, it’s even worth a detour.
Rather than driving up across northeastern New Mexico like we’ve done many times before and boring old I-25 north to Denver, we kept going north across the Oklahoma panhandle (which I learned was actually a lawless territory belonging to no state for many years due to Texas admission to the US and the Missouri Compromise). Stayed in a lovely new hotel in Springfield, Colorado before spending a couple of hours enjoying Bent’s Old Fort.
Back in the first half of the 1800s, Bent’s Fort was on the border between the US and Mexico, right along the Arkansas River. It became an international trading post where Native tribes and trappers could trade buffalo hides, beaver hides, and just about anything else that might have been needed along the frontier back then. For much of its 16-year history, the fort was the only major permanent white settlement on the Santa Fe Trail between Missouri and the Mexican settlements. The fort provided explorers, adventurers, and the U.S. Army a place to get needed supplies, wagon repairs, livestock, good food, water and company, rest and protection.
It’s been beautifully restored, and the staff there dress in period costumes. They have childrens’ programs (our granddaughter got to trade a beaver pelt for beads which she made into a necklace), and very thorough information guides so that you know what you’re looking at.
If you’re planning a driving vacation that direction, it’s worth your while!
My parents used to go to Pagosa Springs, Colorado in the summer for a month or more. They did this for a few years, and went so far as to buy a house there for a while. I knew this was something quite a few people did to escape the summer heat in Texas, to the point where Coloradans were not especially fond of the Texans that invaded their state. But I grew up in Texas and had a pretty high heat tolerance – in fact I liked the heat. So I never felt the urge to get away from our high temperatures in search of cooler places. I saw a meme that someone posted when we had two days with highs in the 90s calling it sweater weather!
This summer here in north Texas we’ve had a particularly brutal summer in terms of heat. We’re at 40 days over 100 degrees and still going strong. 18 days over 105 degrees. 32 days since our last rainfall. The ten day forecast has 8 more 100 degree days, 4 of them over 105, and no realistic chance of rain. Yuck! I’m actually hoping for a tropical storm to break the heat wave.
The combination of this heat wave and my advancing age has led me to understand my parents’ desire to flee to Colorado. Just two weeks ago we were in Yellowstone and we had two days where the temperature never got above 60 degrees! We actually saw and experienced rain! Some of it was even in Texas! Notice the coats!
I don’t really want to walk the dogs even in the morning as our morning lows are in the mid 80s. I definitely don’t want to work in the yard no matter how much it needs it. I barely want to play golf even though I use a golf cart. Thank goodness we have a water well so my yard is at least partially green. We had some landscaping work done a month or so ago – not a great time to have planted some new bushes!
So I now truly understand my parents and all the Texans who escape to the mountains in the summer. Maybe I need to figure out how to do that next year!
During Bible class this morning, the video we were watching talked about the presenter’s family Bible he had inherited from a grandfather, and how the pages were so worn out that they had to be taped together. He also talked about how interesting and meaningful it was to see the passages that his grandfather had highlighted and underlined over the years. It got me to thinking.
I have been reading the Bible and studying for a few years now on my iPad. The apps I use give me access to different versions in an instant. They include notes, reference materials, cross-references, and many other features and tools that make study and understanding easier. I can highlight easily, choosing from many different colors, and I can make notes that are legible and attached to the appropriate passage of Scripture. But the comment in the video made me wonder what have we lost?
Unlike the grandfather that was mentioned, my iPad will not become a family treasure or legacy. Someday, possibly in my lifetime, the app will disappear or not be backed up and I’ll lose my notes and highlights. Nobody will ever be able to look and see what passages I underlined as meaningful or what notes I might have made as I read and studied the Bible. There won’t be worn out pages showing how much I used my Bible. Another victim of technology.
Maybe it’s not just our Bibles that this is happening to. Taking photographs used to be a significant event, and many of my parents’ photos were in albums, sometimes with identifying information about the who, what, where, and why behind the pictures. Now we take hundreds of pictures which we upload to our computers or the cloud, most to never be looked at again by anyone. It’s unlikely that anyone will sit down and go through them all when I’m gone. So what’s the point?
The last time I wrote on here was back in January. Kerry is always wanting me to write more. So why don’t I?
As someone once said, let me count the ways. Laziness. Lack of something to write about. Feeling like I should only write if I have something to say that someone else cares about. Lack of discipline.
I thought today about starting to write again and post on this site. As I was thinking, I had a new thought as I remembered how I chronicled my trip to India (12 years ago!) and our Grand Canyon raft trip (3 years ago). I need to write to create a personal and family history. By writing things on here, even if nobody reads them, I’m preserving some thoughts, ideas, pictures, and memories that someone might care about in the future.
My father once wrote a personal biography by hand which we (Kerry) typed. It’s wonderful to have that record. I used it when he died (13 years ago) and again when my mother died, and I also used a personal biography written by my uncle Lon.
So I think I’m going to try to write more often, mostly to create a record that my children and grandchildren might someday read. Believe it or not, I’ve got about a dozen titles in the drafts folder waiting for me to actually write the content. So I’ve gotten over the need to have something to write about and to feel like anybody else would care what I write. Now I just need to work on the laziness and lack of discipline.
My Daddy loved to go to the rodeo, especially the Fort Worth Fat Stock Show Rodeo. When I was growing up, I can’t remember a year we didn’t go multiple times. He would buy a block of tickets for groups he bought grain from. He always bought tickets for our family to go once or twice each year. He coveted the box seats but could never crack the waiting list to be able to get them.
Back then the Fort Worth Rodeo was quite a show. Rodeo wasn’t the big money professional sport it is now, so there were fewer rodeo events. There was a live band providing the music. The Grand Entry filled the arena with horses and riding clubs. Every performance had a few horse shows, and he hated them! Back in the 60s and 70s there was always an entertainment act – I can remember seeing Anne Murray and Ed Ames and others I can’t remember. Performances had trick riders some years or other western entertainment. I was there the night Larry Mahan scored a 98 on a bull ride!
As I got a little older, I would go along sometimes on the nights he was taking a business group and roam the exhibits and the midway. Again, it was a different world back then – I was probably only 10 years old when I was allowed to wander on my own. I know one year, when I was in 8th grade, on Stock Show Day (school holiday on a Monday) my mother dropped me off and I cruised the midway all day long! I wasn’t a farm kid, but I always enjoyed going, seeing the livestock, looking at stuff in the Exhibit Hall, and playing games on the Midway.
Flash forward to returning to Fort Worth in the 1980s with children. We took Kelly to the Houston Stock Show when she was barely one, and I remember the face she made when she smelled the horses for the first time. So when we were back in Fort Worth we started trying to take the kids most years. Even in the 80s and 90s the Rodeo was great fun. There were still some entertainment acts – the monkey riding the dog comes to mind – but the horse shows were gone and the Chuck Wagon races were added. The Grand Entry got smaller and smaller. In old Will Rogers Coliseum (where my high school graduation was held, by the way), you were still close to the action and the prices were reasonable.
We started taking the grandkids on a grandparents outing. We’d start when they were 2 or 3 – the first year was always a bit of a challenge – but as we would go the next year, they started to get the hang of it. We’d go see the animals and the children’s barnyard, look at the exhibits, let them sit on a tractor, and go to the rodeo. We looked forward to it every year and I think the grandkids did too.
But things change.
Rodeos got more professional and the prize money got bigger. New events were added and the entertainment went away. Finally Fort Worth decided the old Will Rogers Coliseum had reached the end of its days for the Rodeo. The needed more and cushioned seats, better video screens (so people could watch the screen instead of the actual riders), and fancier concessions and amenities.
We tried the new Rodeo – but it lost its heart. For one thing normal people can’t get seats in the lower half of the arena – the day tickets went on sale only upper level seats were being sold. And ticket prices have skyrocketed to a point where they are unaffordable. Particularly when we’re trying to take the little ones. From the upper deck, its just not the same; you’re too far from the action and you’re almost forced to watch on the screen. The band is gone and now its just constant loud recorded music. Somehow rock music and rodeo don’t seem to mesh.
So this year we’re not going and it hurts my heart a little. We’ll take the grandkids to the Stock Show, we just won’t go to the Rodeo.
It’s not all gloom and doom though – we found an alternative!
Last night we went to the Rodeo at Cowtown Coliseum in the Fort Worth Stockyards. Historic location in the same building that hosted the first ever indoor rodeo (and hosted professional wrestling(?) in the 60s!). In the Stockyards where my grandfather worked. Substantially cheaper than the big rodeo, less than half the price. Smaller arena so you can be really close to the action (as you can tell from the blurry pictures). The unknown question was whether the rodeo itself was going to be any good. And I’m pleased to report that it was – using a baseball analogy it was probably minor league compared to the major leagues, but there were contestants from all over the country and the world (one was a world champion roper) and the livestock seemed top-notch. Lots of contestants with all the normal rodeo events. Bull riding to start and to end the show. A young but talented trick rider. A very good trick roper. The rodeo is every Friday and Saturday all year long, and there’s a lot of fun activity in the Stockyards for before or after the performance.
So I think we have a solution for the future – we’ll take the grandkids to the Stock Show, and we may go by ourselves (when the senior prices are lower!), but we’ll go to the Cowtown Coliseum when we want a rodeo fix. We’ll take our grandkids to the rodeo there – maybe even parents and our grown children too.
It’s a solution but it still makes me a little sad to have lost the charm of the old Fat Stock Show and Rodeo.
One year ago today I had my right ankle replaced (the left was 12 weeks later).
Talk about life changing! The whole idea still sometimes freaks me out – my ankle and leg bones have been replaced with metal and plastic.
A year ago I had trouble walking, I limped everywhere, I struggled to walk up or down inclines, stairs were challenging and terrifying at times, and my swollen ankles hurt all the time, usually about a 7 or 8 on the 10 point pain scale.
Now I don’t limp, stairs, inclines, and uneven surfaces provide no problems at all. I can take Winston out for a mile and a half walk and I can play a round of golf without difficulty or any negative after effects. No swelling, no pain. My ankles aren’t swollen and my normal pain level is now a zero.
I’ve still never met anyone else in person who’s had this procedure, and from Facebook groups it seems my double replacement is a little uncommon. But the fear I had a year ago is long gone, and I couldn’t be happier with my results! Bionic ankles for the win!
“Write something,” she said. “I don’t have anything interesting to write about,” I responded. Her answer – write about our recent road trip. so here goes.
As of now, we have four grandkids – current ages 9, 7, (almost)5, and 3. It’s hard getting to spend good quality time one-on-one, so two years ago we took the oldest, our granddaughter, on a weekend trip. She’s a huge lover of National Parks, and two years ago, in the summer of 2020 when everyone and everything was freaked out over Covid, we decided we’d take her to Hot Springs, Arkansas. And despite our being out of practice at taking care of a young child, it was awesome!
We left on a Friday and headed to Garvan Woodland Gardens, a beautiful arboretum on the shore of Lake Hamilton. Then that evening we tried mini-golf. She had a blast – creating a new scorekeeping system for golf, filled with one-ers, two-ers, . . ., and the dreaded four-ers and five-ers. So much fun that we had to go back for a second night!
At Garvan Woodland GardensMini-golf, hoping for a one-er
Saturday was Hot Springs National Park and the trails and hikes were lovely if a bit hot. We discovered the allure of the National Park was maybe more than the reality of hiking up som big hills! The lookout tower was fun though. Then it was time for the Alligator Farm – one of those odd bits of Americana that was completely unexpected in the middle of Arkansas. Lots of alligators, and you could hold one if you dared and feed cut up hot dog bites to a pool full of little gators.
Bravely holding a gatorGators like hot dogs!
Sunday we drove home, stopping at the Crater of Diamonds to search for jewels. Not highly recommended for small children on scorchingly hot summer days! But a fun memory nonetheless.
No diamonds for us!
Flash forward to the summer of 2022. Thankfully the majority of the Covid restrictions are gone! This time it was the oldest of the grandsons who turned 7 in April. We decided we would try the Hill Country with him, so it was off to New Braunfels by way of Inner Space Cavern in Georgetown Texas. I’ve been there a few times before and it’s a fun little introduction to going down into a cave, and it was fun seeing the grandson’s reactions to his first cave experience. There’s not much to beat the feeling when a little hand reaches out to hold yours! Then since it was getting a little late and we were close, we decided to head into Austin to go to the Congress Avenue Bridge for the nightly bat flight. There is a huge colony of Mexican free-tailed bats living under the bridge, said to be the largest urban bat colony with about 1.5 million bats, and they come out each night around dusk. It’s one of those fun things to experience!
Inner Space CaveWhen are the bats going to wake up?Bats!
Saturday we spent the entire day at Schlitterbahn water park, one of the oldest original water parks, in the heart of San Marcos. I thought we might be there until 2 or 3 in the afternoon and he would be tired, but that was not to be. We were there until about 6 pm, trying most every slide and pool they had. The 7 year old as expected, but not bad for the old grandparents as we tried everything along with him. A few times we went once and he went multiple times, and at the pools he was content to be an imaginary superhero racing around the pools for quite a long time. Dinner at Chili’s, and everybody slept early and well!
Sunday we tried to eat at an IHOP, but despite almost no one being there the wait was too long (due to low staffing) so we found Seguin’s best donut shop and then headed to Wonder World. Let me tell you, this was the unexpected highlight of the trip – almost like a trip back in time.
At Wonder World you start out on a little tram ride through a petting zoo filled with lots of deer and goats, a few peacocks, a donkey, some emus, and other animals. You can buy some animal food ahead of time, and the animals all know when the trams come through, especially the first one of the day. After that jaunt, it’s time for the cave tour. Yes, two caves in one trip!
A 4-horned goat!
The cave at wonderland is a bit different as it’s a dry cave formed millions of years ago by an earthquake that split the Balcones Fault. So instead of dropping down into a cave carved out by water, you’re walking into a narrow crack in the earth. and it is narrow at times and the steps down are steep. (As a side note, I don’t think I could have done this a year ago before my ankle replacements!) There were some pretty low and narrow cracks, and one of our favorite things was how the grandson would duck every time the guide said to, even though at his height there was absolutely no need to! Our guide for the whole time there was a goofy, charming 20-something named River who seemed to genuinely enjoy what he was doing, explaining about the animals, sharing extra animal food, playing practical jokes in the cave, and just generally making it into an even more fun day. When you reach the end of the cave tour, you take an elevator to the top of an observation tower, before descending to the ground. The final thing on the tour is an “anti-gravity house” like at Six Flags Over Texas where you struggled to stand upright as balls rolled and water flowed “uphill.” The antigravity house was one of his favorite things on the whole trip!
Deep underground!River (our guide) taking a selfie
No surprise, but one 7-year old slept the whole drive home!
So grandparents, if you can arrange it, try to take a trip one-on-one with your grandkids. I hope they remember it as much as we do. The challenge now is what to do when the next one turns 7 and whether we’ll be able to keep up!
100+ degrees today. 100+ degrees yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that, and . . . 100+ degrees for at least the next week.
As a kid, I thrived in the heat. We played outdoors everyday all summer long, and the heat wasn’t that big of a deal. In my 20s and 30s I still didn’t mind the heat all that much. I’m not sure we even paid attention to the temperature – we just played.
I really really don’t like the cold. We lived in Chicago for three years and were there when the temperature reached minus 29 degrees with a wind chill of minus 80. We had blankets in the car trunk just in case something happened because cold could kill you. Cold brings snow, ice, car wrecks, and other problems that always seemed more problematical than hot.
But somewhere along the way as I age I find that I’m much less heat tolerant than I once was. I have little desire to go outside once it passes 90. Walking the dog has to be done early, before 9 am, for my comfort and for Winston’s. Projects and chores I need to do in the yard, garage, and attic aren’t getting done because it’s just too darn hot!
I’ll add this to the category of things that happen as you get older. I’m just not as temperature resistant as I used to be. It’s more proof our ancestors who settled in Texas were just tougher than we are. Thank goodness for air conditioning!
rickysplace 