Is it "Mexican" or "New Mexican"?

Evenin' Campers! It's Silver Cliche' here with you again. Still camped at Tetilla Peak Recreation Area on Cochiti Lake between Albuquerque and Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Today was one of those treasured days for us where we didn't have to hitch up, didn't have to prep the trailer for the road (anything forgotten and left loose becomes a projectile), didn't have to stop at the dump station, etc.. Instead, we enjoyed pancakes and lingered extra long on the newspaper and coffee. The night was cool (for Floridians) but pleasant. It was in the low 50's at daybreak with a promise to warm to the low 70's and clear with less wind than yesterday (technically, tropical storms have less wind than yesterday, so we didn't think much of the weatherman's commitment to send us reduced winds).

I don't often talk about photography. I enjoy watching and waiting for the right moment to make an attempt at capturing what I see in these places we travel and sharing them with you. I especially look for sunrise and sunset shots (check out Flickr page if you want proof: https://www.flickr.com/photos/131457232@N02/ ) Sometimes I'm up and out before the sun (carrying a cup of coffee of course) to get the pics I want. This campsite has great views from just outside the door of the trailer, and they are looking to the west from our location. Yesterday I posted on Flickr and here a shot of the afternoon looking west. Here it is again:

This morning I got a chance to reshoot that view and make a panorama as the sun hit the Sandia peaks near Albuquerque on the left and the closer peaks of Los Alamos on the right of the frame. I like this better because the morning air is clearer, the contrast between sun and shade adds interest and the color of the morning sun brings life to the hillsides. I hope you like it too:

And finally, because I like to serve you, my readers, with the freshest photography in the entire state of New Mexico, here is the same shot taken moments ago as the sun has completely set and a crescent moon is about to follow it below the western horizon:

Occasionally on these trips we get a chance to visit people along the way. Today was one of those days. We drove into Albuquerque to visit and have lunch with my brother and his wife. A great visit it was. We met at their house and had a chance to share family news and pictures. I think this was the first time it dawned on me that every time we get together with folks we all pull out and pass around some electronic device. We looked at iPads, iPhones, AirBooks, Androids… you name it. I'm sure glad I balked when my stock broker recommended investing in Kodak and a new photo album company a few years back. We talked about fishing, Airstreams, kids, grand kids. It was great to catch up.

We had a good laugh about a major invention of the 1980's that Mrs. C' and I are very familiar with but my (slightly) older brother had missed out on – the Flowbee. Since I now know that some people are not familiar with the Flowbee, I have to assume more people may be in the dark, so I'm compelled to share the story. If you've never see this patented device, it is a do-it-yourself hair cutter. A "barber in a box" (I think I just made that up... but who knows). But I'm not joking about the Flowbee… and I'm fairly certain its inventors were not either. It attaches to a vacuum cleaner (not joking) which powers spinning blades (still not joking). The combination of the suction, spinning blades and the use of a chutes (various lengths are provided) allows one to suck the hair away from the head into the chute to meet the rotating blades and… voila'… cut hair.Best of all... the missing hair goes right into the running vacuum cleaner. This thing does for hair what the Veg-o-matic did for salad. Now, as you know, I'm disqualified from using such a device. I already cut my own hair with a beard trimmer set to its shortest setting. I call my hairstyle “The Pop” in honor of my late paternal grandfather who had precisely the same style. He often boasted “I can shampoo with a washcloth”. However, my lunch companions are all burdened by flowing locks. I can't imagine the stylist and shampoo bills these people face. So… the Flowbee is a solution to a problem they all have and in which they all took interest. Perhaps you, too are interested. Check eBay. There are plenty available and in good condition. Most eBay ads proudly declare “Used only once”. I'm still laughing at the vision of people going “That looks like a great idea” and actually following through with it. To them, the "only used once" tag is a sign of good condition. To those who think on it a bit longer, that same boast is a major caution and disqualifier. Here's a picture I snagged from Google. It shows a happy user (from the looks, this is an original, 1980's pic). I believe the thing he is holding in the picture is a hand mirror. It might have been much better for the Flowbee people to have sent out a STOP sign with each unit. If this guy was a professional model, I suspect his contract with Flowbee stipulated that at no time during the photo shoot would the vacuum cleaner be plugged into an outlet.

After having a good laugh we headed to a restaurant chosen by our Albuquerque hosts. You may know I believe in “eating local”. I had the chance today since I was informed that this is a genuine “New Mexico restaurant”. “Of course it is” I said “we are in New Mexico”. “No… that's not what we meant… there is a difference between a 'Mexican' restaurant that people all over the US of A know – they have those in New Mexico too – and a 'New Mexican' restaurant that exists only here”. That started to become clear to me as we entered the restaurant. They featured beautifully cut steaks and also ribs. Oh, they had “Mexican' favorites on the menu including a range of tacos, burritos and enchiladas. I went for the most New Mexican thing I could spot… Red Chili Ribs. That dish, it turns out, highlights to me the difference between “Mexican” and “New Mexican” cooking as I understand it. The essence is the chili… not the stuff you find in a bowl and for which the people of Cincinnati claim global superiority (they are wrong!). The New Mexico chili is a pepper that belongs at Christmas since its only colors are red and green. It is often served as a sauce which may be found at all meals in New Mexico (I had it with eggs as Huevos Rancheros on Route 66 the other day), lunch (witness the red chili encrusted ribs below) and dinner (on essentially everything). I saw a TV ad here today for green chili hamburger from… McDonalds. I suspect there are red and green chili pancakes, chili and cheese stuffed pita bread, peanut butter and chili sandwiches in school lunches. Get it? The essential element of New Mexican fare is… class?… anyone?… Bueller?… right!… the chili. And its good on all that stuff. Bright, flavorful, spicy but not deadly hot. This is clearly a pepper, but not a ghost pepper. It's a polite pepper and leaves room for the other flavors to move around it on the palate, while still letting everyone know who's boss. I liked it. Here's a pic of my ribs (with obligatory beans and rice side) before. I don't need to show you and after.

 

After lunch we went to an outdoor market/art fair/jewelry show featuring southwestern colors and items. The weather was Albuquerque perfect. 75 degrees, bright sun lightly filtered since there was 5,500' less atmosphere to skim out UV rays than we are used to in Florida and drier than British humor. Here are a few pics of that featuring brightly painted ceramic pieces.

 

So, tomorrow is Mother's Day. I wish a happy one to any mothers reading this – especially my own in the Pennsylvania hills which we plan to invade on our next excursion across America this summer. Mrs. C' and I plan to explore Santa Fe tomorrow since we have another day without hitching and rolling. Tune in for a summary of that adventure tomorrow.

Good night.

SC'

Neither snow not wind will keep us....

Evening Campers! It's Silver Cliche' again writing to you tonight from the high desert (not “high dessert”… that's only available in Colorado and a few other places without a prescription) between Albuquerque and Santa Fe.

We awoke early this morning… before the chickens as an old colleague of mine used to say… at Santa Rosa Lake 2 hours east of Albuquerque. We felt comfortable there and had a good night. It was quiet and perhaps best of all we had an entire state – and the largest of the lower 48 for good measure – between us and Louisiana. I've finally got the sting from Steamboat Bill's gumbo out of my mouth after 5 or 6 days.

We decided to hit the road early (by our standards) and agreed to have all 8 wheels rolling at 9:00. I must have been ready because by 8:50 the truck and trailer were ready, garbage deposited in the cans, dogs walked and in the truck, next stop set on the GPS and I was waiting for Mrs. C' to finish making herself beautiful for the day (getting beautiful doesn't require much extra effort for her, so it shouldn't take long) and I could unplug from shore power and toss the power cord in the locker and roll. We left on time, tanked up the truck for the day in the town of Santa Rosa Lake near the campground and were off to I-40.

Speaking of tanking up, have I told you that gas isn't the same everywhere in the country? I didn't know that until we started filling in the outline map of the US with states we've been to. As one moves west, the gasoline offerings change. In the east, essential every gas station sells three grades of gas. An 87 octane which most cars use, an 89 octane for people who feel they have deferred too much maintenance and think somehow that feeding their car better gas now will make up for those past sins, and a 91 octane for people who spent money on a Lexus or BMW with a high compression ratio engine that knocks if bourgeois gas is fed through it's garden hose sized fuel line. (In the spirit of full disclosure, I bought and drove one of those cars for many years. The feeling of smug superiority when passing 87 octane burners was worth every penny at that age. I got that out of my system and I am even more pleased to be looking at the cheapest price when I fill the trusty Tundra). So, that 87, 89, 91 slate of offerings changes somewhere about Texas/Oklahoma/Kansas. Here in New Mexico the slate is 86, 88 and I didn't notice. Seeing as how my truck needs 87, I'm now forced to step up to 88. From prior travels, I know that in Colorado, Wyoming and nearby states the entry gas is generally an even lower octane like 85. I'm not sure what runs well on 85. Maybe a moped or a lawnmower.

Back to I-40. We hit the interstate at about 4,400 feet above sea level. Given what I'm about to tell you, I wish I had made careful note. That's high, for Floridians (it's more than 11 Florida's stacked one on top of another vertically). We've been higher in the east for example 4,500 feet in southern Virginia or 6,000+ in the Great Smokey National Forest, but over 4,000 is high for us. In the first 10 minutes we climbed to over 6,000 feet. At two points between Santa Rosa and Albuquerque we were over 7,000 feet. That's still 4,013 below our high with the truck pulling the Airstream (the Eisenhower Tunnel – known as “the Ike” – on I-70 west of Denver which is also the highest point in the US interstate system) but it was high enough for serious ear popping and a slight shortness of breath. As we closed in on Albuquerque I pointed to the north and said to Mrs. C' “Look, SNOW!”. Sure enough, on the highest peaks north near Taos we could see the unmistakable caps of snow. We went to great lengths and greater expense to retire and live full time in Florida to avoid snow… but to see if from a distance in 74 degree weather and shirtsleeves was just fine with us.

In under 2 hours we descended into Albuquerque. We were low on provisions, so we stopped at America's second favorite food store – Trader Joe's. It used to be America's favorite food store, but was passed recently by (get ready you readers in Western New York) Wegmans! Anyway both of those chains are favs of ours when we can get to them. We gladly stocked up on needed supplied at TJ's. Mrs. C' need some home décor items (or perhaps better called trailer décor items), so we found a suitable store and I stayed with the dogs while she kept her retail skills sharp. Then one last hop for the day.

Our campground tonight is on Cochiti Lake between Albuquerque and Santa Fe. It's near and east of Los Alamos for those of you familiar with the area or with the history of the US atomic weapons program. Here are two panoramas. The first from right next to the trailer and the second from down the hill about 100' or so:

Here's a shot I posted on AirForums (the site for Airstream owners and aficionados online which includes a running exchange called “View from your Airstream door”). I posted this photo there this evening:

That black stripe in the pics is the dam itself. We spend a lot of time it seems in dam campgrounds (sorry… that never gets old for me). The Cochiti dam took 8 years to build. It stops up the Rio Grande River and is the 11^th largest earth filled dam in the world. In other words, the dam itself is made of “earth”, not concrete. We drove along the dam on the downstream side. It is amazingly high and impressively long. Here's a link to Google maps. Zoom out to see the size if you need to, but that dark, knife edge thing is the dam. If you zoom out far enough, Google will show you to the north and on the east side of the lake (that's up and right of the dam for those of you in Louisiana) a place called Tetilla Peaks Recreation Area. That's where we are camping.

The wind was blowing 30 with gusts to 40 when we made camp. The trailer was shaking like a Amtrak train car. It was in the low 80's but the sun beating on the trailer combined with the wind was like being in a wind blown oven… quite strange. Eventually the wind died down, the sun got lower in the sky and we had dinner acquired at TJ's today. After dinner I made shortcakes (of course we have a real oven… what do you think we are, barbarians?) which carried strawberries and whipped cream in a delicious blend. I'll say good night with a shot of that creation sitting on the coffee table between the two recliners illuminated by the setting New Mexican sun (I think that's too much description... even for me).

 

We are here for three nights. Tomorrow it's back to ABQ to visit my brother and his wife. Sunday it's north to explore Santa Fe. Monday we'll pull up stakes and head to Colorado for some dessert and a visit with Mrs. C's niece and her family.

Until tomorrow…

SC'

Now we've been enchanted

Howdy, Campers! It's Silver Cliche' here with you again. This time from Santa Rosa Lake State Park in Guadalupe County, New Mexico. Some people think Texas is “west”. We're even “wester” than than now.

I try to keep the focus of these posts on the positive side… you know… sights that were seen, “eatin' local” and getting a little elbow rub on us from the folks we meet. I have to point out now and again that this travelin', writin' and photographin' sometimes carries a price. When we checked into Palo Duro yesterday afternoon I explained to the nice lady dressed like Smoky the Bear (if she needs a killer costume for Halloween all she needed to add is the bear mask… a sure prize winner!) that we are retired, like to be in a quiet corner of the campgrounds we visit and don't need proximity to the “facilities” since we are self contained. She pointed out a place that fit the bill. I asked “Is there anyone else down that way? Particularly in these two spots on either side of us?” She looked it up and said “Those are empty and that whole section only has a few other campers”. Excellent! Off we went. At the time we arrived, what she said was true. Slowly over the hours it became less so. The whole plan landed in the crapper when the campsite immediately next to us… wait… worse yet… on the side where our entrance door is located became occupied. Up pulled a major sized white passenger van towing a small black trailer. Not a travel trailer, a cargo trailer. Out of the van come mom and dad and nine, count 'em, nine kids. Plus a dog. The swarm the campsite as I'm grilling dinner and in a model of industrial organization they extract from the trailer enough camping gear to serve a family of eleven and erect two tents. One is the size of the Old Faithful Inn at Yellowstone (a 6 or 7 story tall log structure of unimaginable grandeur). The kids are actually amazing. The one dog in the group… not so much. That fleabag barked every five minutes for hours. Somehow at 9:00 literally as I put my shoes on to go ask them to shut him up, he stopped. He stopped until 7:30 AM when the whole thing started again.

Anyhow, the sun came up today. The coffee was good as usual, the reading was off since the internet was inaccessible on the floor of Palo Duro Canyon (primitive alert!) and by 10:00 we were pulling out of the campground.Here's our last view of Palo Duro:

We took the fastest route which was mostly interstate and zero city. We were near to but didn't even see Amarillo (there may be no tall buildings… I don't know). After an hour or so we left Texas moving 68 MPH on I-40 and pointed 270 on the compass. Due west! I have not mentioned altitude in any of my posts this trip. You probably figured out that along the coast we were slightly above sea level except in Louisiana where we were slightly below at times (seriously… parts of Louisiana, especially in New Orleans, are below sea level thanks to levees and pumps… hurricane Katrina pointed out some of the challenges with that system). As we moved through Texas we climbed slowly to about 1,500 feet above sea level. Yesterday we topped 3,000 and today we hit over 5,000 feet above sea level at one point before settling back a bit as we neared camp. I might add that about 15 miles before we left the panhandle of Texas the terrain changed again. It changed abruptly. After spending hundreds of miles in the flattest grassland plains you have ever seen in an instant we came over a little rise and it was over. In its place you could see geographic features with names we Floridians hardly ever get to use. There were hills (the highest point in all of Florida is less than 400' above sea level… it's the flattest state in the Union although Kansas has a better marketing department) and mesas and buttes and coulees and draws and a whole bunch of other terms I couldn't properly use in a sentence. New Mexico is a state with lots of things in the distance. More on that later. There are two reasons for this: 1.) along with a change in topography came a change in vegetation – less stuff grows here and what does grow is shorter and 2.) the air is dry (I'm guessing that's connected to the land being dry and my skin blowing away. We've only been west of the Mississippi for a few days and I'm chalkier than Richard Prior) so even far off things are visible. In Florida we sometimes can't see from one end of the driveway to the other due to humidity. Here it's easy to see things that are probably 40 or 50 miles away. Anyway, the undulations of the land and what grows on it changed almost at the flick of a switch just before the New Mexico border.

By then it was getting close to lunch time. We looked ahead on the internet and picked a town (Tucumcari) and a place Kix on 66 and set course. Now Tucumcari is a place I had never heard of and still can't pronounce (I didn't know the Incas settled this far north but based on this town name, it seems as though they did). But I was familiar with the reference made in the name of the reference. Tucumacari's main street is a section of the old “Route 66”. Known to many as “the mother road” it was formed in 1926 by applying the route number to a group of existing roads that ran from Chicago to Santa Monica, California – over 2,600 miles. Remember, this was two years before Henry Ford started producing the Model A. So we ate lunch on Route 66. There was absolutely nothing photogenic about Tucumcari. In fact, it had more abandoned gas stations and derelict motels per mile than any town we've been to.

After lunch it was another 70 minutes across I-40 and we entered Santa Rosa Lake. Like many places we've camped at, this lake is here because of another damn project by the Corps of Engineers. Sorry. That's a typo. This lake was created by a US Army Corps of Engineers dam project in the 1970s. They dammed the Pecos River and made a lake for flood control and irrigation. It's big. 26 square miles of water. The thing that amazed me as we drove across the top of the dam to get to the campground is that there was a spillway very near the dam height. This is common in dams and allows the biggest floods to bypass the dam and not erode and undermine the dam itself. The logic goes “better to let some water flow unimpeded around the dam than attempt to contain it only to have the excess destroy the dam and release the whole lake at once”. I like that kind of thinking. When we compared the spillway height to the current lake level (which is considered just about right for normal lake use) there must have been 100' vertical height between the current water level and the spillway. On researching the dam I learned that the lake normally holds 200 trillion something or another (pints, I think is the dam builders preferred unit of measure… or acre feet… or something… anyway, this dam holds back 200 of them) but can hold over 700. In other words, they are prepared to hold nearly 4 times as much water at peak as at normal. I would not want to be here when that happened. In fact, I could not be here when that happened… the campground we are in would be underwater. Here's a panorama of Santa Rosa Lake:

When I walked around I realized that there are two stories here. There is the gross geography with incredible long vistas, occasional impressive features on a grand scale and man made wonders like the dam and its lake. That's the story of the west as seen in Cinemascope. But the real story in on the fine scale. Looking in closer, the general pattern here is this:

 

Not much to look at, but when examined more closely it's clear that there is variety and detail all around. Here is a sampling of pictures I took within 10 minutes and within a radius of maybe 150'

 

So let me leave you for tonight with a thought. Here in New Mexico it seems that there is always something on the horizon, always something out there to see and something to call you onward. In the midst of all the flowers and cacti and rocks I saw some buttes (or maybe a ridge or a falderal… I don't know… I'm not from around here) off in the distance. “Hey”, I thought “those are in the direction we're heading. Maybe we can go see those tomorrow. Here, take a look:

And so, tomorrow we head on continuing west. We'll be camping between Albuquerque and Santa Fe coulees on a lake make by another dam project of those Corps of Engineers folks (what are they, the Army's answer to beavers?). Until then…

SC'

At the end of the flat earth there really is a deep canyon (with no internet)

Written Wed Night from Palo Duro Canyon, TX where there was no internet...nada... zilch. Posted Thursday afternoon from Santa Rosa Lake, NM. SC'

*******

Evenin' Campers! It's Silver Cliche' here with you again. This time from Palo Duro Canyon State Park in Canyon, Texas.

“Silver Cliche', Where is Canyon, Texas?”, I hear you ask. Well, remember yesterday we were talking about the panhandle of Texas… the part you'd grab if there was a box full of Texases all lined up and you wanted to grab one to throw on the grill… right? In that nicely trimmed rectangle of land (it's a Texas sized rectangle) there is only one city you've ever heard of – Amarillo. Amarillo is nearly in the center of that rectangle… actually just a touch to the left of dead center. Canyon is south of there about 15 or 20 miles.

Our trip today was uneventful, unremarkable and essentially unmemorable. I know you think I'm being hard on North Texas, and perhaps I am. There were a few memorable moments. First, we were hoping to stalk and photograph the wiley Road Runner which had been see in Copper Breaks State Park. We drove around a while and... nothing. So we headed out and while leaving the park saw…

Not a bad catch. We tried to call him closer… “Beep Beep!”… “Beep Beep!”. No luck. We used an “Acme Bird Attracter” to lure him in. Nada. In fact, an anvil came out of the sky and made a hole in the ground next to us the size and shape of an anvil (I'm thinking it went clear through and came up in China where it knocked someone out). So, all we got was that one pic.

We moved on. Zero interstate time today! We moseyed through small towns of North Texas. Stopped for gas and set the GPS to the Red Barn Cafe (or something like that. We don't have internet here tonight, so I can't do my usual, thorough “fact checking” on any of this stuff…) in Memphis, Texas population 2,000 +/-. TripAdvisor said it would be good. So after looking over the lunch buffet and considering the menu, we had a split decision. I went for the buffet. Mrs. C' ordered a club sandwich. I figured “how long could a club sandwich take to make” so I asked Mrs. C' if she minded if I attacked the buffet bar while the chef prepared her sandwich. She was good with that. I approached the line and knew what I was going for. You may have concluded by now that I like to “eat local” with the exception of any time I'm in the Rocky Mountains (as you may recall). Here in North Texas, the most “local” thing going was right there on the buffet… chicken fried steak! I took a heaping serving along with spinach and mashed potatoes and a side plate of salad. I headed back to the table. Mrs. C' took one look at what I had done and said “You're not going to eat that, are you?” I anticipated her reaction, had the camera ready and caught the moment to share with you:

I recognize that look as a blend of disapproval and disbelief. Of course, I've earned both of those responses simultaneously often enough in nearly 34 years of marriage to know instantly what I've unleashed. I willingly share that hard earned knowledge with you.

But, eat it I did. When I first sawed open the chicken fried steak (after slashing through the white gravy which I had liberally slathered on the aforementioned steak) I cut into the entree itself and exposed the core. I though Mrs. C' was going to scream with horrified surprise. Instead, she uttered “It's brown inside!”. I said “Of course… its steak.” she shot back “I thought it was fried chicken”. “No” I said “It's chicken fried steak. That means it started as a steak (in this case, cubed steak) which they battered and fried just like the Colonel in Kentucky has done for decades with chicken pieces. Chicken-fried steak.” By then it was too late. The damage had been done to both my reputation and that of the Red Barn Cafe in Memphis, Texas. We ate our lunches (here's a pic on mine in “mid-eat”):

Then we got the dogs and two ice cream bars out of the trailer, piled into the truck and continued to head toward Amarillo.

Now, Mrs. C' and I consider ourselves to be pretty seasoned travelers. We might easily have 1,000,000 driving miles between us, We've driven in at least 45 states. I can say with complete certainty that the Texas Panhandle has the flattest, most featureless terrain I have ever driven on. We went for miles and mile without seeing anything except road, fence posts, phone poles and distant power lines (big ones). There were occasional herds of cattle of every variety. There were Angus, Longhorns and Brahmas all mixed together in celebrations of cattle diversity. What there was not was indication of human settlement and civilization. There are not even oil pumps or wind farms out here. And in middle America, that's forgotten. It was so desolate that I expected the “Pass with Care” signs to end and be replaced with “Drive in either lane… it really doesn't matter”. Along the way on US 287 there were numerous dirt or gravel crossroads. These were generally unmarked and led to absolutely nowhere… they headed straight off and eventually disappeared over a slight rise. I still believe that deep space is the closest thing in the universe to a place that is totally empty. The Texas Panhandle is second. I'm sure you think I'm exaggerating. I knew you would. I can feel the skepticism radiating back at me through the internet. Ok, smart guy (or gal… you can read that sentence with the appropriate choice for yourself using the gender with which you identify. This is America 2016 and the law in many states requires me to offer you that choice) I now present you with “the Silver Cliche' Driving Experience”. This is a three picture panel snapped in rapid succession on a typical stretch of US 287 in North Texas somewhere outside of Amarillo. If you look at the center of the pic then shift your head rapidly to the left then to the right you will see what Mrs. C' and I saw for endless hours today. I'd recommend that you stare at this picture for about 2 hours or until the need for a bathroom break makes you stop. That's what Mrs. C' and I did. I'll wait… yawn… stretch… snore… there, now do you believe me?

 

Ok so by about 3:00 we pulled into the park and checked in for our campsite. Palo Duro is remarkable for many reasons, not the least of which is that within the barren landscape I just shared with you suddenly a huge gulf appears. Palo Duro is called “the Grand Canyon of Texas” by Texans. I understand that the people at The Grand Canyon (where we will be in 10 days) when told of that said “Huh?”. The canyon itself is about 800' deep from rim to bottom. The campsites are on the canyon floor (try doing that at the Grand Canyon… a 5,000' descent from the camp office to the campsite!). We arrived at our campsite and set up. We fed and walked the dogs, and I headed out to take some pics. After that, I made dinner (grilled sweet potatoes, grilled cheeseburgers and petite peas) and settled in to write and edit pics. It's an impressive landscape and one to warm us up for what's ahead. The campground has roaming wild turkeys including this old guy and a youngster he seemed to be pursuing. Mrs. C' said leave it to one old turkey to read the mind of another. Lucky for her I had already cooked and served her meal before hearing that.

So, I leave you tonight with the panorama of the day (no, the “driving experience” wasn't it). A view of some cliffs of the canyon taken from a spot just above our campsite. From where I am sitting now in my recliner in the trailer I can see the tallest point just to the right of the middle of this pic):

 

Good night, Campers. Tomorrow night from Santa Rosa Lake, New Mexico… the land of enchantment. Texas has been nice (and finally, dry) but I'm ready to be enchanted.

SC'

Those are the breaks!

 

Howdy, Campers! It's Silver Cliche' here again writing to you tonight from Copper Breaks State Park somewhere south of Quanah, Texas. I'm not sure where that is either. I believe this is territory that was once home to the Fa-gah-wee Indians. You remember them right… relatives of the Hi-cah-wee Tribe. Both had a terrible sense of direction and when they would stop to ask other tribes for directions they would always begin with “We're the Hi-cah-wee”... No?... Think about it.

Anyway, the day started with great news. No rain! (more on that later). We arose with the sun on tranquil Joe Pool Lake (that still doesn't sound right to me). We read, drank coffee, had pancakes, and started to prep for the road. At 10:00 we pulled out, made our necessary stops on the way out of the park (no… I do not think I ever will describe the complete departure sequence for a travel trailer… this is a family friendly blog… except that part about the Fa-gah-wee tribe). We headed West even though it was slightly faster to head north into the Dallas Metroplex and those darned toll roads.

We had a slightly longer day of driving than we had planned because the campground I had booked (Lake Arrowhead State Park) had been closed until further notice because of… yes, rain and flooding. So, we were not going to Wichita Falls this trip. Instead we pressed on a bit farther to Quanah in Hardeman County. There are 254 counties in Texas. That's too many for even the Governor to remember. Most are plain square shapes which makes identifying them on a map really hard. However, Hardeman is easier to spot. I you think of the map of Texas, Hardeman is on the Oklahoma border precisely where the panhandle meets the rest of Texas. You know the panhandle, right? That's the stick on the top that holds up that unbalanced part of Oklahoma. Said differently, if Texas was a projectile, the panhandle is the part you would pick it up by to throw it. Anyway, that's where we are.

There were two options to get here. 1.) The interstate (that would be I-40) or 2.) US and state highways. Both had 75 MPH speed limits (seriously… an average 2 land country road here is posted at 20 miles per hour faster than one flys when landing a Cessna… the pilot of a single engine plane making an emergency landing on a Texas highway should be instructed to look behind them to make sure they are not run over by a driver who is texting while doing the legal limit in a Camry.) We took the state roads. Along the way we decided to stop for gas and gas… er… I mean Mexican food in the little town of Jacksboro, Texas (no, I have never heard of it either). It's the county seat of Jack County – there, now you know the names of two Texas counties. You only have 252 to go. You're welcome.

These unplanned lunch stops almost always start as a drag and end up as a treat for us. If you follow these pages you know I ramble on about “authenticity” a lot. There are few places we have been to that are as authentic as Jacksboro. It presents itself as having no aspirations beyond being what it is, and that's just fine with it. I'm not saying Jacksboro is dead. I went to their web site. They have four city activities listed for this month including “siren testing” on May 18. I could make this stuff up, but thanks to the internet and Americans just being themselves I don't need to. In Jacksboro the most prominent building (by a factor of six) is the County Courthouse. Here she is:

 

An interesting feature of the streets around the courthouse is the parking. In addition to angled parking at the curbside, there is a row of angled parking spots in the middle of each street. This creates a sort of boulevard using parked pickup trucks and aging Chevys as a center median. The angling works so traffic coming down the street in either direction can pull in. I speculated on how this came to be since I've never seen it in any other town I've been to. After significant pondering and beard rubbing (accompanied by repeated “hmmmm”s and the occasional side-to-side head shake) I think I have it! I concluded that Jacksboro saw itself as an up and coming place when the town square and courthouse was being planned. It was clear they would need lots of parking. You know… like Dallas. So they made the streets very wide. Decades later when fessing up to the shortfall in growth, but seeing the need for more parking to serve the increased use of cars by locals and visitors alike, a local genius (hey… this is my theory… stop questioning its potential to be true!) said “I know… we could park cars in the middle of the streets around the courthouse”. The rest is history.

 

Back to our journey. We have now totally left the east and are in the heart of the plains. As testament to that we saw several firsts for this trip today: The first wind farm (hundreds of turbines all stock still), the first working oil wells, the first prickly pear cacti and the last hills for a while. You may say to yourself: “Hey, I would like to see first hand these things that Silver Cliche' describes. Why should he have all the fun?” Well, here… let me show you what I spent hour after hour looking at today in this "Silver Cliche'-eye view":

You see, kids… bringing you these tales of America takes buns of steel and a high threshold for windshield boredom. I only share the best bits with you.

Speaking of stopping for lunch, as you may recall we are fans of TripAdvisor. Not only does it collect a huge number of opinions from people who live in or travel through the areas we go to, it is sometimes a source of perplexing amusement. Today was the best example of that ever. I was scanning towns on our planned route to see if any held promise as lunch spots. Down the road a piece from Jacksboro is Olney, Texas – population 3,223 and dropping. Their top rated restaurant is Don Antonio's. It has five stars (out of five) and exactly one review which is six months old. That single review is written in Italian. Thoughtfully, TripAdvisor has a button next to the review which clearly will activate Google Translate against the Italian text to present it back to the reader in English. Fantastico! I said and I hit the button. Here's precisely what I got (cut and pasted from my browser):

Try !!, pending before the meal, max five minutes that I forget them on arrival of the

beautiful girl"

Sep 28, 2015 A TripAdvisor Member

On Friday with only nine US dollars at will fry fish, very tasty, with side dishes of all kinds of vegetables. There are quantity problems, if the stomach holds, because it is self-service.

I found this as unhelpful as it was hilarious. I'm still not sure about the “if the stomach holds” part. I hope the Italian visitor to Olney, Texas got home ok.

We pressed on. The absolutely beautiful day that had carried us through Jacksboro and Olney (clear, around 70, dry.. a perfect spring Texas day!) began to change. Clouds to the west began to build. Then thicken. Then darken. Then rain in the distance. Then lightning. Then it hit us. The wind blew to the point Mrs. C' said she could feel the truck move every time the wind hit the trailer. I was focused on the road and the fact that I was now going 25 miles per hour below the speed limit and wasn't sure that was slow enough. As the wind and rain picked up at one point I cleared my throat and prepared to shout “WE HAVE ROTATION” (fortunately I didn't have to). It was intense. There have been instances in Texas over the past few days of grapefruit sized hail and this storm was the type that could produce it. One challenge with our shiny home on wheels is that it's made of aluminum. Aluminum is rather soft. While grapefruit sized hail can put grapefruit sized dents in the steel of our truck, it can put grapefruit sized holes through our aluminum home. Fortunately I didn't have to dial up my insurance company today and start off “Well… you'll never believe what happened to us today in Texas...”

So on to Copper Breaks. We got in about 3:30 PM. The campground was nearly empty so they said “head down this road and pick any spot you want”. We complied. On the short drive we saw many rabbits and two road runners. After feeding and settling the dogs, I took a walk and found a few sights I think you might enjoy. This would be a bird hunters paradise. I flushed several grouse and there are doves everywhere. They were a bit too fast for me to photograph, but the landscape and some flowers held still long enough for me to share them with you.

 

 

Finally, our panorama for the day. Taken about ¼ mile from our campsite on the entrance road to the campground. I had to dig around to understand what put the “breaks” in Copper Breaks State Park. The best I could find was a definition of the Missouri Breaks and it reads: "The Breaks" by locals, it is a series of badland areas characterized by rock outcroppings, steep bluffs and grassy plains. Works for me. See if you feel the same from this pic:

 

That's it for today, Campers. Tomorrow we continue northwest and head to “the grand canyon of Texas” for our last night in the Lone Star State. That destination would be Palo Duro Canyon for those of you who are preparing for a run at Jeopardy!.

SC'

A day in Dallas

Evenin' Campers! It's Silver Cliche' again. Second day here at Cedar Hill State Park in Cedar Hill, Texas.

So, what's the big buzz in the Dallas area today, or for that matter, across the south? Rain. Lot's of rain. Which is a good thing sometimes (ask the people of California). But when lots of rain falls after lots of rain has recently fallen… not so good. It started here at about 4:30 AM today. Fortunately (and unlike our camping experience the other day in Lake Charles, Louisiana) our campsite here is high and dry. The rain and lightning woke the dogs. They woke us and we all got acquainted in the dark. Fortunately we also all fell back to sleep.

The rain continues the erosion that has already closed a big portion of this park. Here, let me show you a pic of a tree at the lake shore about 100' from our campsite. Although the picture doesn't capture it clearly, on the point of land in the background is a picnic table that now sits in about a foot of water. I'm figuring it originally sat on the lake shore ready to host family gatherings by the lake. Now its ready to host people in the lake. Check out this tree, the roots of which are now hanging in the air:

Just to demonstrate the seriousness of the rain and flooding, there have been fatalities from flash flooding near here in the past 24 hours. The NBC Nightly News did a story this evening with a reporter in Lake Charles, Louisiana to show the flooding right where we were a few days ago. This spring the rain across the south has been the stuff of tragedy.

Today we had a day off the road and decided to explore Dallas. Our two most common ways to get to know an area are to eat there and to shop there. We chose both. Once the rain stopped and we got organized it was late morning and we headed off. Walking the short distance to the truck we realized that the dry, cracked ground that seemed so inviting when we arrived yesterday was a different matter entirely after an inch or two of rain. I'm sure that soil scientists have a name for this earth in its semi-saturated state. If they don't have a name, I would like to propose “brown glue”. I'm thinking this will dry and cake off sometime. Let's hope it's soon. And let's also hope the dogs come to understand “no… stop… not in the mud… oh geez… how am I going to get that crap off your paws so you don't track it all over the trailer again…”. If they were parrots I think they'd be repeating that line by now. Dumb dogs.

A little research told us that we actually wanted to drive to North Dallas. How did we determine that? Well, we looked into restaurants and discovered that our favorite dining place had a location – actually two locations – in North Dallas. For those of you who have traveled along with us before, pardon the repetition. When we lived in the Maryland suburbs of DC there were two Houston's restaurants in the area. They became our go-to dining spot. At one point when we needed an apartment as we were making the move to Florida we chose one apartment over others in part because it was not only across the street from Houston's, but the apartment had a view of the restaurant and its parking lot so we could gauge when we needed to head over to avoid the crowd (unlike some of my yarns, that's entirely true). So we headed to Houston's which was every bit as good in Dallas as in Bethesda, Coral Gables Pompano Beach, Atlanta and I'm sure Houston's we have yet to visit.

After that we headed to some shops specializing in ladies finery and accoutrements. Although “we” headed there, “I” received a pass and chose to stay in the truck in the parking lot. Most of the time I spent trying to figure out how much damage our GPS and I had done on the way to North Dallas. You see, this area is criss-crossed by toll roads that have no tool booths. There are multiple icons and logos on overhead signs that are as easy to interpret as the hieroglyphs of the pharaohs and that indicate (I suppose) what type of agency or authority has declared the right to charge you for driving and what means they plan to use to do so. One of those said “pay by plate”. Until today I thought that was the pricing model at a dim sum restaurant. It turns out my world view was incomplete. Evidently they were watching the ass end of my truck to see where I came from and they have a plan to send me a bill. Guess what? I'm not there! So I figured I'd reach out to them. One hour and many web sites and e-mails later I'm not sure if I ever contacted the right agency. We'll see. Having spent my entire adult life (including much of my professional life) interacting with government agencies I have great confidence that one day they will find me and send me a bill. I have the same amount of confidence that they will have spent almost as much collecting my toll as the toll payment itself brings in.

After a bit of shopping we headed south toward the campground. Since we were in North Dallas and heading south we wound up in… class?… anyone? That's right: Dallas is the correct answer. The #1 thing to see or do in Dallas is… right… go to Dealey Plaza, site of the JFK assassination. We went. We parked on the street just a block away for 50 cents. We had been joking en route about taking a pic or two showing ourselves as shadowy figures on the grassy knoll. That joking stopped as we walked across Houston Street, passed in front of the building that once housed the Texas Schoolbook Depository and walked down Elm Street. I've been to strange and eerie places before. Crossing the Gettysburg battlefield in the place where Pickett's Charge occurred (with unspeakable slaughter) was thoroughly creepy. Standing at the rusting ruins of Launch Complex 34 at Kennedy Space Center where the Apollo 1 astronauts perished was equally still and eerie. Dealey Plaza is different – or at least it was for me today. My memory is so full of images of the event that happened there over 50 years ago that the place triggers a flood of real memory, not just historic reference. We stood on the grassy knoll, we stood where Abraham Zapruder took the footage that captured the events. We looked up at the window of the Schoolbook Depository. What eventually struck me was that the people all around us (there were maybe 100 or so people at 3:45 PM who were obviously doing the same thing we were. All were speaking in low tones. All were moving slowly. All were (evidently) having a similar experience. I thought of us as a group of zombies, moving slowly, gesturing occasionally, milling around with little purpose or direction except to be there. I'll leave you with this panorama which starts with the Schoolbook Depository on the left and ends with the grassy knoll on the right. It's about 270 degrees from end to end and right in the center is Elm Street where the President was hit.

So, quietly we walked back to the truck and drove the 25 minutes back to the trailer and the dogs. It's been a quiet evening, too.

At sunset I walked the dogs and took a last pic for the day of Joe Pool Lake.

As I turned to walk back to the trailer and lock up for the day there were two bluebirds on top of a railing post at the campsite where I took the picture above. I thought "Zip a Dee Doo Dah" and walked home to Mrs. C' and the two traveling dogs.

Tomorrow we are back on the road and continuing to head northwest.

Good night.

SC'

A slow waltz across Texas

Evenin' Campers! It's Silver Cliche' here with you again. Tonight from beautiful Cedar Hill State Park in Cedar Hill, Texas. What? Never heard of it? Me neither until I started to plan this trip. Ever heard of Dallas, Texas? Let's start there. We are 20 miles southwest as the Toyota flies from that most notorious place in Dallas… Dealey Plaza. Aw, come on, kids. How about “the grassy knoll”? Still no? Maybe the “Texas Schoolbook Depository” or November 22, 1963? Any of you who have not solved the riddle yet have no future as a “Jeopardy” contestant. We are near the place where John F. Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald (or was he…).

But that's not all nearby. We are about 45 minutes from Ft. Worth which is Northwest from here. Due north of us is the city of Arlington, Texas. Being a curious traveler I decided to ask TripAdvisor what there is to do in Arlington. After all, we have a free day tomorrow and might like to tune in to the local sights and sounds. So, contestants… what's the top thing to do in Arlington. Class? Anyone? Did I hear someone say “According to TripAdvisor the #1 thing to do in Arlington, Texas is to visit AT&T Stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys?”. CORRECT! This is the group that modestly calls themselves “America's Team”. That sort of modesty generally only leads to becoming the presidential nominee of a major political party. Sorry, lads… the president is an individual… no groups need apply. Any of you who know my NFL rooting habits know that my favorite team is A-B-D. For those of you who are not fans, that's Anybody But Dallas. When I realized the draw that the stadium represents to rabid Dallas fans I had visions of the hajj of Dallas being an obligation of all Texans at least once in their life (except those that are Houston fans) and that each pilgrim was required to walk seven time counterclockwise around the stadium wearing only a silver helmet. Fortunately, I was able to shake that vision. I hope you can do the same. In any case, football is nearly a religious activity in Texas and the Cowboy's home is clearly revered as a temple. All I can say is “we're not going”. Oh… and “I hope they lose again this year”. Now that I've said that, I hope I can escape Texas without being pulled from my truck and beaten with a hose.

Anyway… Dallas. “The big D”. How did we get here, you ask? Well, the evening yesterday in Weches was hot and nasty. We may have left the bayou, but we brought the weather with us. Even so, we slept with the windows open and the AC off. It feels more like camping that way. By morning it was comfortable in the trailer… right around 70. As the sun came up we were treated to the sound of the forest around us being filled with songbirds. We opened the door and the rear hatch of the trailer (remember, we live in a hatchback house) but left the screens in place on both since the mosquitoes were still out there somewhere. The morning light hit first the tops then worked all the way down the 150' trunks of the pines that dominated the park. Some of these monsters were 4 or 5 feet across at the bases. Majestic. About every other day while on the road we have pancakes. On a quiet Sunday morning surrounded by majesty that seemed just the thing. By about 10:00 we were prepping for departure, securing this, draining that, filling something else, throwing out anything that wasn't making the next leg of the trip and calming the dogs (who seem to know before we do that it's departure time and believe me, they do not plan to be left behind).

Yesterday we had zero interstate time. Today we had to have some but it wasn't going to be in the first half of the trip. We continued where we left off yesterday… driving county roads (they designate them as “FM 1234” or whatever number didn't win the powerball drawing the week the road was bulldozed through the forest and paved over. The “FM” stands for “Farm to Market”. These rural roads were justified as economic development assets to connect the rural food producers to their urban consumers and they bear the mark so people wont forget that. Smart. The roads we traveled were generally narrow, curvy and even hilly. As such, here in Texas they mostly had a 70 MPH speed limit. Of course we saw signs marking the occasional school zone. In those areas the speed (during designated school hours) was more like 55 MPH. I'm thinking the average Texas school kid has a nervous twitch and an ability to jump pretty quickly if a fast moving F-150 comes around a curve. I like that. The Texas public school experience must prepare kids for a wider range of adult challenges than do the schools in states with school zone speed of 25 or so. Smart.

Something happened as we moved northwest from Weches. The hills got less pronounced. The roads got straighter. The trees got shorter. By the time we stopped for lunch around 1:00 we had completely left the forest environment where we spent yesterday and last night. We were on the Great Plains of the central United States.

Let's talk about that lunch. Somewhere in every driving day either Mrs. C' or I turns to the other and asks “You hungry?”. The usual response is a noncommittal “a little… and you?”. Sometimes it takes 10 minutes and several proposals, counter-proposals and fine tuning before we decide whether we are stopping to make our own lunch, pressing on to the campsite or finding a restaurant. Today we decided to sample the local cuisine. By “local” I mean Ennis, Texas where I-45 meets US 287. It happens that our go-to source (yep… TripAdvisor again) called out for a stop at Bubba's Bar-b-que and Steakhouse. Mrs. C' was still smarting from the guidance offered by TripAdvisor that led us to Steamboat Bill's and the Boudin Balls in Lake Charles. I reassured her that this time would be different. How I was able to reassure her I do not know. It was the same TripAdvisor and I had never been to Ennis or any restaurant named “Bubba's”. I'm thinking now that when she said “If you say so” it wasn't a vote of confidence… it was a sign of resignation. Anyhow when a patron enters Bubba's they are greeted warmly by a local lass who asks if they have come for the bar-b-que, the steaks or “something ordered off the menu”. We chose bar-b-que and were directed to the left and into a cafeteria line. OK. I'm still good. The people in line around us were buzzing with excitement and suggestions. When our time came to face the man with the knife and long fork, Mrs. C' went for the ribs and I pick the “3 meat platter” choosing brisket, pulled pork and chicken. We each added two sides and headed to our table. I'd give Bubba's pretty high marks. Now, this is Texas style bar-b-que which (as far as I'm concerned) features beef and sausage versus east coast bar-b-que which is centered around pulled port or Mississippi River style which features ribs. So, we had ordered the Texas versions of their own and other regional specialties. Given that, the beef brisket was their best item followed by the ribs, pulled pork and lastly the chicken. It was lightly smoked with mesquite (as opposed to hickory most often to the east). I think TripAdvisor got it right.

In another 40 minutes we were at the campground. Cedar Hill is pretty nice. It's clear that they suffered heavily this spring with the rains and flooding that hit Louisiana and southeast Texas (e.g.: Houston) even harder. Nevertheless it's obvious that they were hit here. Sections of this campground are still closed due to the erosion. Even in our section of the campground there are individual sites that are not habitable. I walked down to the lake (just 200' or so from where we're camped) and too this shot of the shoreline and a dock in one of the unusable campsites. Note how the land is undercut and the dock foundation which was once clearly in dirt is not being undermined by the lake itself. Hey, if water erosion can carve out the Grand Canyon, this place doesn't stand a chance over time!

And here we are tucked into our campsite. We don't have a waterfront site this time (Texas parks assign sites when the camper arrives, not at the time of reservation and there were none available that were big enough for us and had not been condemned) but it's not bad and it's quite well protected from gawkers on the road or in other campsites. Google Maps makes it easy for me to share with you precisely where we are. Click this and you can see our spot then zoom out for a view of the entire region (https://goo.gl/maps/rrZbiUqCSX92 ):

 

And finally, here's our landscape of the day. Now that we are getting into western landscapes I hope to concentrate on panoramas to show you what we see in our travels. This single frame seems to capture the This is Joe Pool Lake (don't be confused… Lake is the geographic feature and Pool is the proper name...it's a Lake, not a Pool and it's named after a guy named Pool, not a guy named Lake) as the sky tells the story of its day before turning in.

And with that, I'm turning in. Good night, campers.

SC'