Moose Viewing Routes, Rules, and Regulations

I had always heard Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont were loaded with moose.  I felt sure we were bound to see a few zillion while we were here - especially once I found this map.  Not only did it show us the roadways most likely to give moose-sightings a chance, but it gave us moose tips, too.

For instance:

#1.  Apply brakes
#2.  Let up just before impact
#3.  Aim for hind end
#4.  DUCK!


Unfortunately, after days of driving these stupid moose routes the only moose we saw was at an outlet shopping mall!

Manchester, New Hampshire

Manchester is the capitol of New Hampshire, and it is the largest New England city north of Boston - with a population of about 110,000.  Add in the surrounding 'burbs and you have a population of about 410,000 - or 1/3rd of the population of the entire state of New Hampshire. 

I found us a little place in the rural 'burbs:

Now, don't get all wowser on me.  We just had the apartment on the left - see our van?  The rest of the place is a home.  Jean works at the Manchester hospital Granpa is contracted to, and that's how we got onto this place.  Sure beats an Extended Stay!

The driveway was a bit tricky once the snows came.  It wasn't just long, it was downhill if we were leaving - and there were curves!  Brett would clean it with his snowplow tractor attachment, but not always before I took Granpa to work.  One time I tried three times to get up the driveway before Brett plowed, and finally just parked the car at the road and walked up the driveway!

Other Things While We Were Home

There was a Princess style show:

A puppet show:

Halloween:

And the inevitable phone call taking us away from all of this... to New Hampshire!

The Turkey Shoot

Every Fall in Tyler the local Kiwanis Club holds a Turkey Shoot.  For you non-Westerners, that does not mean we all get together and go hunt turkeys for the Thanksgiving table.  It means that, to support the Kiwanis, we pay a couple of dollars, use their single-shot .22 rifles, and, if we hit the target, we get a free frozen turkey - which we can then use for Thanksgiving dinner.  They also dangle a golf ball from a string and if you hit it you get a free ham!

This isn't nearly as easy as it sounds.  In days gone by you could use your own firearm.  You were used to it.  If it was a good gun, it was properly sighted in; if it wasn't a good 'un you at least knew that it pulled to the left or right.  No, nowadays you have to use their rifle- which may or may not have been cleaned in the last ten years, may or may not have been sighted in, has been fired that morning a hundred times or more...  Not to mention the wind seems to always be howling, blowing your bullet God knows where.  And that golf ball on a string?  It's definitely dancing in the wind - at 50 yards!

No, this is for real shooters.  Like us! And we have a winner!  (Of course.)

 Now it's time for Momma to go for the ham...

And, bam!  Just like that there's a ham to go with the turkey!  Never mess with Texas women 'cause she didn't hit the golf ball - she sliced that string in two with one bullet!  The judges figured that was a fair shot! (We did, too.)  Not unexpected for someone who went to college on a Rifle Team scholarship and qualified "Expert" on National Guard rifle range every year!  That's where she met our son - and he qualified Expert not only with a rifle but pistol and machine gun, too.  (She wasn't required to qualify on anything but the rifle.  But she could always out-shoot our son...)

Chores Around The Farm

For awhile now we've needed to rebuild our little bridge over the "creek."











Actually, it's a drainage ditch between the house and driveway,

but Granpa has dressed it up to look like a creek.

He had some pretty good helpers, too.




















Came out looking pretty good.  In no time at all those wolmanized 2x4's will be equally weathered, and it will look even better.  That and finishing the handrails....

Then it was off to repairing a shed torn up by a wind storm.  Mordachai our burro always, always keeps an eye on things!  On a farm you have to use whatever comes to hand, and as you never throw anything away when you're living on a farm, you never know what you'll be using.





It was a big stain, er, strain on the the grandkids to help put on a protective coat of paint.

Then it was on to moving, repairing or outright building new fences.  This is what's known as a "fence slammer."  Our Houston son made it for us.  You just put it over the top of a metal t-post and slam it down to bury that post into the ground.

Leaving Kingman

Going back through these photos certainly makes me homesick for Kingman and all of our friends there!  This time we were in Kingman for a full year.  We acquired so many thing, though, that we had to bring in Granpa's pickup and rent a U-Haul to get home!

Isn't Arizona beautiful?  The skies are endless and the air is so clear, dry as a bone and there is still gorgeous greenery.

But with everything - and everyone - all packed up and good-bye kisses taken care of, we're on our way.

Once we got home and had some going-away gifts put in place ...

...we were ready to get on with the farm chores!

The Blood Moon Prophecy?

 And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit.

And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth,

blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.

 The sun will be turned to darkness, 

and the moon into blood ,

before the great and dreadful day of the LORD comes.

And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord

shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be a deliverance,

as the Lord hath said, 

and in the remnant whom the Lord shall call.

-- Joel 2:30-32

Joel is one of the twelve "Minor" Prophets that God spoke through and the Prophet recorded.
There were only five "Major" Prophets.  Those Prophet books of the Bible are tough to read through because of the prophetic language and seemingly constant warnings and condemnations.  The book of Daniel is really, really hard.  Entire seminary courses are taught on that one! But those books of the Old Testament are important because they tell the future.  (People are still going to palm readers to learn the future.  It's already written in the Bible.  Just go there.) Isaiah and Micah told of Christ's birth - and it came to pass EXACTLY as the said it would.  Not impressed?  Isaiah wrote about it seven hundred years before it happened!  Isaiah also tells of Christ's death on the Cross.  Ezekiel, Daniel and Zechariah told of Christ's return.  Now, if his birth was foretold in precise detail, and his death was foretold in precise detail, why would you doubt that Christ's return won't happen exactly as they said?  You might want to read about that so that you'll know what's going on when it happens!

But, back to the Super Blood Moon...

In 2013, John Hagee published, Four Blood Moons: Something is About to Change, and the term "Blood Moon" became a part of the world's standard lexicon.  In his book he lays out why he believes that this series of blood moons, the tetra, heralds the coming of the end times as prophesied by Ezekiel, Daiel and Zechariah.

What Hagee doesn't say is that God/Joel perhaps meant a simultaneous solar and lunar eclipse.  The astronomers say that that doesn't happen.  Even more, they say it can't happen, EVER, on the same day. 

I say, unless, of course, you're GOD!  I mean, after all he hung the sun and the moon!  He can arrange them whatever way He wants whenever he wants!

September 27-28, 2015 - The Blood Moon

The origin of the term, "Blood Moons," is religious, at least according to Christian pastor John Hagee, who wrote a 2013 book about Blood Moons.  The media picked up the term then and have run with it ever since. What astronomers call it is a lunar tetrad (meaning group of four.) It’s four successive total lunar eclipses, with no partial lunar eclipses in between, each of which is separated from the other by six lunar months (six full moons).

The big deal this year of 2015 has to do with Biblical Prophecy of what Christians call "the End Times."  This tetrad began on the night of April 15-15, 2014.  The second one was October 7-8, 2014, and the third April 4th, 2015.  The third eclipse was the shortest lasting one for the entire 21st century.  The fourth, on September 27-28 was  the coolest of all because it was a Super Moon!

Granpa and I drove up into the Hualapai Mountains.  Looking back on the town of Kingman was a treat.

We did the best we could with the cameras we had.  They were good enough to create some great memories.

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.