A Little Of Me

I remember our home on Dairy Road.  There was our house and an elderly couple living next door.  That was it.  Us and pastures and cows - oh, and a rodeo next door on Friday nights.  I remember being five years old - and Daddy never lived with us again.

Then we moved to Brookhollow.  Wonderful, 1950's-growing-up-neighborhood.  We played outside from sunup to sundown.  Riding bicycles, eating from the ice cream truck, playing Monopoly with neighbors with games that lasted days.  Street lights came on, and we were supposed to go home.  Mimosa trees in the front yard...

Then Momma and Daddy's breakup was official - and we moved to a stucco house in Abilene.  There was a candy making business up the street, huge trees in the yard. (eew! They were full of strange bugs - zillions of them!)  Momma painted one of the walls in the living room a rich deep red and hung our treasured 4 x 8 bevel-edged mirror on it.  At Christmas she painted a scene of Bethelhem from afar with angels watching down from heaven.  It was beautiful beyond belief.  I think that stayed up there until March when my oldest brother's birthday mirror was due to be painted.  We only lived in Abilene for a short while.  Momma had started an art business with a man.  All I remember about him was that he had a leg brace - maybe from polio as a child?

It was in Abilene that Christ came into my life.  An elderly couple living next door had a granddaughter visit for the summer, and she invited us to something - Vacation Bible School?  I think maybe my brothers and sister went once, but I kept going. I would come home so full of happiness.  When I walked into the house everyone would be angry and fussing.  I never understood why they didn't want to be happy.

Within about a year - maybe a little more - we moved to Nashville, Tennessee.  The house was on acres of land with hundreds of trees.  Really, really rich people lived next door. We were pretty isolated, definitely not Brookhollow.  I got invited to my first dance while we lived there. We were there for three years.

Then everything got left behind except us and our clothing - and the mirror which was to be shipped to us.  We moved into a rent house in the Oak Cliff area of Texas until Momma could find a job, then bought a house close to that job.  When the mirror was delivered the crew managed to shatter it into a million pieces.

It was there that things got very lonely for me.  Our oldest brother left to live with Daddy when he was about 16, and then he joined the Marines.  Our sister was wrapped up in a boyfriend and a job, then graduated from high school and went off to college.  Our youngest brother left to live with our grandparents when he was about 16, and then - not to be outdone by big brother - he, too, joined the Marines.

What they all probably forget is that I was two years ahead of myself in school.  I graduated from high school when I was 16.  That's the good news.  The bad news is, I couldn't get a driver's license until the end of summer before my junior year. Momma really liked for me to take her to work and pick her up.  She didn't have to get out in bad weather and walk a long parking lot to get to a building.  She got to spend twenty or minutes alone in the car with me every morning and every afternoon.  I couldn't get a job until the end of summer before my senior year.  Momma was working two jobs until my senior year.

I would go to school then go home.  Alone.  Just me and the TV.  No computer back then, and certainly no Facebook or online games. Certainly no boyfriends.  I was considered "jailbait" because I was so much younger that all of the other girls. No girlfriends to talk on the phone with - they were more "developed" than I was and proud of it. Having moved around as often as we did I made only one real friend in high school.  She, though, had a major boyfriend and spent most of the time with him.  High school was not a happy time for me.  College was about the same - but at least I could go down to the dorm lobby and play Bridge with other human beings.

By this time I had learned to not be lonely.  I learned how to be alone for hours and hours, but I wasn't sad or scared lonely. 

Buffalo Bill Center of the West

Museums aren't what they used to be.  Here is an example of when nature and art unite.

This dude is gritting his teeth because there just happens to be a bear on his back!

The museum carries folks from wildlife that was here before even the Indians up through the end of Buffalo Bill Cody's life.  Cody was the real deal.  He really was an Indian scout - and a superior one at that. General Philip Sheridan name him chief of scouts for the entire Fifth Cavalry, praising his tracking skills and knowledge of western lands even though there were no maps to be had.  In 1872, Cody even received the Congressional Medal of Honor for the bravery he showed after the Third Cavalry was ambushed by Sioux Indians.

In 1893, Cody bought a printing press and set his sister and her husband up in the newspaper business in Duluth, Minnesota.  The paper folded in 1896 and Cody subsequently shipped the press to Wyoming so that he and a friend could establish the Cody Enterprise.  That newspaper is still being published to this day, and you will find the original printing press in this museum!

What would a wild west museum be with out an extensive (VERY EXTENSIVE) collection of guns!

They even have James Arness' (Marshall Matt Dillon) Colt Model 1873 Single Action Army Revolver, Paladin's from the TV series Have Gun, Will Travel, the pistols of the entire cast of Bonanza, Gene Barry's from Bat Masterson, as well as Audie Murphy's 1905 Bisley Revolver.

Seriously, the number of old west firearms is astonishing.  I thought I never would get Granpa out of there!  However, because he was lollygaggin' (as we say in Texas), I was sitting in the main area waiting ever so patiently, and I saw  the coolest thing of all.  This is a video Granpa took of an image projected onto a fine mist:

For those of you who don't get the video, here's a still he also took.  It's a very ghostly image as the mist is waving and barely visible.

The Irma Hotel, Cody, Wyoming

Of our innumerable trips to the Yellowstone area I don't believe we ever stopped in Cody, Wyoming.  Granpa and his family might have - but not Granpa and I and our family.

Looking for a place to have lunch, I spy the Irma Hotel.  It's lookin' like it's been in downtown Cody since the beginning of Cody - probably because it has been.

The one and only Buffalo Bill Cody built this place and named it after his daughter.  It cost Cody about $80,000 back then.  The Irma hasn't gone the way of many small town businesses; it is still very much alive and well.  One of the interior highlights is the solid cherry bar given to Buffalo Bill by none other than Queen Victoria!  (That seems rather odd to me - but it seems to be the truth.  I mean, did she give it to him because she heard he was opening a hotel?  Did she intend it as the registration desk and he put it to better American West use?)  Regardless, it's really pretty.

Buffalo Bill's whole plan was for folks riding the new Burlington Railroad line into Cody to stay there and book horse and buggy trips into the east entrance to Yellowstone.  He just knew he'd make another one of his fortune, but alas, it was not to be.

More importantly to us, the food was FANTASTIC!! and very affordably priced.  It was a fun lead into the Buffalo Bill Center of the West.  THE most amazing, all-comprehensive museum of the west we've been to - and classy.

Why!  There's Granpa with the man himself.

Leaving Yellowstone Through the Northeast Portal

This is my favorite way in or out of Yellowstone.  We get to see where Yellowstone got its name:

The Yellowstone River is the last undammed, large river in the lower 48 states.  Because the river is so pristine, it is a premier trout habitat sought by anglers worldwide.  It begins high in the Absaroka Mountain Range, flows into Yellowstone Lake, wanders up through Hayden Valley, drops over the Upper and Lower Yellowstone Falls and down into the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone (shown above.)  Then it continues its 671-mile journey to the Missouri River. 

We were parked at an overlook at just the right time of day to see an army of elk emerge from the forest far, far away, and move down into Hayden Valley - always a great place to watch for wildlife (and your best chance for catching a glimpse of Yellowstone's wolves.)

They just kept coming and coming, closer and closer to us.  Dozens and dozens.  So mesmerizing.

Going out the Northeast portal we pick up Chief Joseph Highway - again one of my favorite roadways.  Just look at these stunning hillsides.

It's a highway of very sharp downhill turns and wonderful vistas.

Dawn in Yellowstone

The very, very best time to get wildlife photos in Yellowstone is at the crack of dawn.  Campers with children are still in bed or fixing breakfast.


This was pretty magical for even us old timers.  The golden glow of the morning. the chill of the day, the silence, the peace these behemoths would live in if we would just leave them alone...

About 30 seconds into the video you will find two bulls pawing the ground at each other over a cute lil' lady buffalo.

When we back out from the domestic scene those of you not familiar with Yellowstone will see that Old Faithful is not the only hot spring in town!

Elk were to be found, too,

and deer and ducks!

The last vestiges of summer are lining the lakes and trimming everything in gold.

Yellowstone Tremors, Fires and UFO's

We rested up for a week after the grandkids went back home to Texas - and then we were off again.  Praise the Lord for our Travelers lifestyle and the health we have to pursue it!  We're camping again - only this time WE get the big tent.

Notice the layers of sleeping bags - and even an electric blanket!  It was supposed to get down into the 30's - but I was prepared!

You know, sometimes on our contracts I have teased that, "if we have to live in a tent, we can."  That's a queen size air mattress.  Looking at these photos, you know what?  I think we could!!!

But someday I think I'd like to stay in one of Yellowstone's rustic lodges.

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How many of you know that Yellowstone National Park is mostly made up of the huge caldera of an ancient monster volcanic eruption?  Did you know that every day there are tremors in Yellowstone that could be precursors to the next "big one?"

They have seismographs all over the Park and these recording graphs set up in the Canyon Junction Visitor Center. We were there September 12, 2015 - and this is what we saw.  We never felt anything - but they were there!

When we got back on the road, we see this:

Yellowstone was on fire!!                And then we saw this in the sky!

Is this a UFO?

Remember Those Geodes?

The grandkids couldn't wait to get home and attack those rocks (that promised to be geodes) with their dads and hammers.  The results were pretty rewarding!

This was so much more fun than buying them already cracked open - and cheaper!!

The Journey Is Not Over

Now that we have all of the family back where it belongs, Granpa has decided to take a vacation from the vacation!  Having a week off of work every other week is certainly the way to enjoy life!  Everyone should work 12 hour days one week and have the next week off!  Except ...

(Got this meme off of Facebook)

So instead of going directly back to Kingman, Granpa has decided to detour up to Red River, New Mexico and circle back to Albuquerque.  It wasn't much of a detour, but he really likes touching base
with Red River.  Spending a week there on vacation simply does not do the same as getting a contract and living there for three months.  But we do what we can do.

The End of the Vacation

Yes, when we reached the hotel in Tucumcari to meet Jamie, Calin was acting a bit strangely.









He had Elly pretty spooked about what was behind that door!

It was just the surprise birthday-for-her ending to their long vacation with Granma and Granpa!

Last Visit to the Rock Shop, Petrified Forest and Painted Desert

In the Rock Shop outside of the National Park the kids each selected a nice round rock the size of a softball.  Inside, supposedly, there were geodes - but they would have to break the rocks open to find out.  They carefully chose two rocks, hefted them in each hand, and took home the lightest one hoping it was hollow inside.

Then it was on to the Petrified Forest Visitor's Center.  THIS is what Arizona and New Mexico looked like before the Flood.

And this is what it looks like now.

 

The biggest animal you'd find out here now is a snake - oh, and some really tired grandkids...















 
 Some of whom have not lost all of their enthusiasm!

















But time is growing shorter and shorter for us to get to Tucumcari and meet Daddy.  So, we gotta put the rush on.

 And that suits someone just fine!

And A Stop At Montezuma's Castle

Granpa and I have a post of our first visit to Montezuma's Castle.  http://www.thetravelerstwo.net/2015/02/montezumas-castle.html  But this is a first visit for the grandkids (and Kristin.)

Oh, my goodness!  It was a hot, hot August day!  I can imagine the ancient peoples that lived here reveled in the breezes that that height made, the shade and the safety of cliff dwelling!

Kristin asked one of the Park rangers how the children kept from falling off.  He opined, "The parents told them not to."  It certainly was a simpler time back then!

Traveling should be an education for children.  Can you imagine if they had flown to Arizona to see us?  All of the things they would have missed seeing!  It's unimaginable to me that parents or grandparents would choose to fly hither, thither and yon rather than driving!  Especially with a traveling companion like Kristin to read books to them, play games with them, challenge them to memory verse competition...

(And then there are always the evening dips in hotel pools.  Can't get that on an airplane!)