Wrapping up -- Hitting the Road Tomorrow

Today was fairly uneventful. I had to run some errands and be back in time for my new mattress to be delivered.  It is much better than the inflatable mattress. I haven't been sleeping much and the inflatable mattress didn't help. I hope tonight is different.

I had to solve my cell phone problem today before I hit the road again.  I went back to the guy at Contact Cellular and he scrounged up an old cell phone that he cannibalized and used parts to fix mine.  This guy is a wizard. It was going to cost me $280 for a phone and he fixed my dead phone for $48 and even saved all of my contacts and 350 pictures of the inside of my pocket!!!  I don't make butt calls anymore but I have lots of butt pictures.  So...How cool is that?

I stopped at J C Penney and got some sheets and a pillow for my new mattress. When I got home Rod was hanging on the fence so we talked some more. This time it was about scorpions and centipedes and tarantulas and snakes. He had a rattlesnake get into the house once.  He got stung by a scorpion. I think I'm going to stop talking to Rod.

I managed to take care of the pond twice today and never fell in. Of course the resident wildlife was back.  The quail are early risers and were out before I had my coffee. My two rabbits spend most of the day in the yard. Sometimes there are three.

The birds are still cautious and would like me to go away...or at least not sit close to the bird feeder.  Today I had lizards...a new addition to the zoo.  Rod tells me that Roadrunners will eat lizards and they also eat rattlesnakes. They are carnivores and you can encourage them to stay by putting out a feeding station with some hamburger or other meat scraps. If you have Roadrunners you won't have rattlesnakes.

That's it for today. Even McDonald's is dull tonight.

Look at All Those Happy Creatures Dancin' on the Lawn

In spite of everything, today was closing day on the house and it went off without a hitch. My lender couldn't make it but that seems to be normal for local closings. I will talk to her later....she is the person who informed me that I was dead according to all three credit reporting bureaus -- thanks to Capital One. I had to prove that I was alive to several ladies in India...not an easy task. But that's and old story.

The closing was at the title company, which is located in a Den of Thieves. This was a ghetto made up of title companies, mortgage lenders, lawyers' offices and real estate agents....all off of a single parking lot. Must be a zoning thing. Everyone was nice. My agent was there, The sellers did their thing in Georgia and faxed everything from there.  I signed about a bazillion papers and...surprise...it all made sense...and now I have a house.

After closing I went to the nearby Verizon store to see about my dead phone. Not good news. It would cost me a fortune to get new phone and I'm all out of fortunes. The guy told me to go to Contact Cellular and buy a refurbished phone and then bring it back to Verizon and they would set it up. The guy at Contact Cellular didn't have a phone like mine. He suggested that I set my dead one on the dashboard of my car and let the sun bake it until it dried out and then maybe it would come back to life.  Well, OK, I tried that...figuring either It would dry out or somebody would steal it. After several hours on the dashboard it now gives me a solid white screen and nothing else. I think it's fried.   I will try something tomorrow.  Hold your calls, please.

I went to Walmart and stocked up on fish food, hummingbird nectar and bird seed along with some regular household stuff. It was threatening to rain when I came out so I headed back to my new house and settled in.

Ike and Tina

The wildlife was waiting so I filled up all of the feeders. Then my two rabbits showed up...what??? no rabbit food???.  They are almost tame and will come up very close as long as you don't make any startled moves. They ate birdseed the birds carelessly threw away. Everyone seems glad to see me. It wasn't too long before  family of quail paraded by...literally...in a single file line own to get some water from the pond. These quail have that big feather top-notch -- like they are wearing a hat.  I feel like Marlin Perkins.



Rod came by and officially welcomed me. He had his dog, Molly, who he rescued off the Interstate. She is a cutey. Watson out weighs her. This is the second dog Rod has rescued..he has a big heart. By then it was raining steady but not hard. Rod pointed out that I have a Fig tree in the yard. Will wonders never cease?

I had an argument with the automatic gate. It works on a remote clicker...opens and closes. It also makes an irritating  alarm sound so I discovered that one of my two clickers makes it go crazy and the alarm won't shut off. I'm already a novelty in the neighborhood and now my alarm is going nuts. I finally had to go turn off the power to the opener and it sort of rebooted. That clicker is going into a drawer somewhere.

Supper was stir fry - pork and peppers, squash and onions. Not bad for my first supper here. I ate out on the front porch  (a "portal" in local vernacular) surrounded by three rabbits....my adoring fans. I decided the pond needed water and accidentally over filled it...Rod will tell me about it tomorrow.

 The rabbits are back as I write this. The goldfinches have decided I'm harmless and are coming back to the feeder.  They have had the run of the place for a few weeks so they weren't expecting me to show up and they have Rod feeding them carrots.

Later -- Since I have no Internet at home I'm posting this from my friendly McDonald's....me an six 13-year-old girls.  Oh the humanity!!!

Peacable Kingdom

Things went along just fine today, for the most part. Everything fell into place for tomorrow's closing on the house. I went up to the local bank branch and got my cashier's check with no hassle. Everything was going along just fine. I even stopped at my favorite little coffee shop.


I stopped at Denver Mattress and bought a mattress and a platform foundation with springs. The mattress will be delivered on Saturday but the springs are back ordered so I'll pick them up next trip. I can sleep on the floor.

I stopped in at the local Lutheran church that is in my neighborhood and met some puzzled people.  Apparently you don't just wander in and quiz folks about the church. Turns out that there was only the preschool staff there and they weren't sure what to say but they gave me a brochure and the email address of the pastor. That's more than I had before so okiedokie.

I went to lunch and had my very first Whataburger...a local chain or at least a regional chain that includes Albuquerque. A Whataburger is a huge hamburger...like a whopper with just about everything on it. You can have cheese or green chile or both on top of the other stuff.  I opted for cheese. I needed two other people to help me eat it but it was good.

I met with Betty so we could do the walk through at the house.  She was a little cramped for time. Since we have both spent time in the house on different occasions and I didn't see anything wrong and neither did she so we decided to not go through the formality of the walk through.  She said the closing was set for 10 AM tomorrow.

I did a little shopping for the house and headed up to do some organizing and to feed the fish. I had several boxes packed and two folding chairs, a couple lamps, dishes and glasses, folding bookcases, a boom-box and a few other things. I had my inflatable bed for my first night in the house and got it situated and inflated.  I unpacked and organized what kitchen stuff I have. I'm happy to have a gas stove...finally. Everything works and I keep finding new things. There is an automatic gate on the driveway that operates with a remote.

I decided to go out and tend to the koi pond. Rod has been taking care of it so I figured I'd handle it while I was in town. Rod is 75 and negotiates the process pretty well. Looks like it is an easy job. Well...I'm not as nimble as Rod is and I had a hard time getting down to check out the filters. I'm a little top heavy so I have to be careful getting down and back up. I got the filters pulled out and then had to get back up and squirt them with the hose. Then I had to get back down and replace them into the pump compartment. I did this ok but somehow, getting back up my foot jostled a loose rock and it rolled to the edge of the pond. Well...we can't have that, can we? So I scramble back to reposition the rock and stepped on another loose rock and --splash-- my foot was in the water...then my knee and then most of me. It's deeper than it looks. The rocks in the pond were too slippery to get any traction. I managed to go down hard enough that I banged my head on a rock and my glasses frame cut into my nose and I bumped my forehead on one of the rocks. I thrashed around for a while and finally got some traction and climbed out of the water. The fish were impressed and were holding up numbered signs. I got a 10 but most were 7s or 8s...I think the 10 was a suck-up.

So, there I stand sopping wet with blood dripping off my nose. I trudged back into the house...hoping no one saw my little escapade (I am the center of attention right now). I'm lucky that the house has a working clothes drier and that it has shades on the windows.


I stopped the bleeding and put ice on my forehead and stuck my clothes in the drier and just chilled out for a while. I made sure the shades were down.   I bought a six-pack of beer so I had a beer and listened to a couple CDs on the boom-box while my clothes dried. Rod already told me that I'd get a staph infection if I fell into the pond with an open wound. Well, my head stayed dry so I think I'm OK.  After everything dried I went out and threw some food at the fish and left them in peace.

Creatures of the Black Lagoon

I'm hoping that I will see some humor in this by tomorrow. My cell phone died in the deluge so I need to find a Verizon store tomorrow on top of everything else. I was never enthusiastic about the koi pond so maybe it will become something else.  I'll give it a try but it has one strike already.



The place is literally crawling with wildlife. I chased a roadrunner out of the garage. I filled the bird feeder and was swamped with all sorts of birds. The hummingbirds were flying around but I don't have anything for them yet. Chipmunks are running around in the Russian Sage. I have rabbits in the bush honeysuckle. Rod apparently feeds the rabbits so he has more than me. He also has coyotes coming for the rabbits. He had a couple horror stories about the coyotes. Watson will not go outside on his own.

Rudy's

I got back to the motel and cleaned up and changed clothes. My supper was a short walk down to Rudy's BBQ -- about a block away. They have great BBQ but it is a little rough around the edges. It is actually a meat market that serves cooked BBQ, bread, chips and beer....what more could you want?

Peaceable Kingdom

My Triumphant Arrival in Albuquerque

RANT:  It was cloudy and threatening rain again this morning.  Still cool -- about 64 degrees. I stayed at my usual Econolodge in Tucumcari. I have made this trip so many times the motels seem to be  blur. I've been here before and decided I wouldn't stay here again....but I forgot.  Last time it was run by an (east) Indian family who ate curry three times a day so the place had a certain smell.  When I checked in this time, it was somebody different...maybe Palestinian or Syrian...anyway, the smell was different.  I went to my room and decided to open the window but the window fell into the room when I tried to slide it up. I put that back together and turned on the AC even though it was pretty cool outside.

I stopped off on my way back to the motel after supper and got some snacks so I could park in front of the TV and watch baseball's All Star game.  Well, guess what....the motel doesn't get that channel on it's subscribed stations. Bummer....so there I was with my snacks and nothing to watch....nothing that I wanted to watch.  So I drank my wine and ate my Pringles and went to bed.

Morning arrived so I went down to get my free breakfast. Not good. I wound up at McDonald's. So...I need to remember not to stay at the Tucumcari Econolodge. (I'm writing this so I remember.)  END OF RANT

The drive to Albuquerque is only 2 1/2 hours so I took my time. I stopped off at the Cline's Corners for some gas and to look over the fine selection of southwestern decor they stock there for tourists. I was tempted but passed up some great stuff.

It was sunny when I got to Albuquerque before noon and, of course, my room was not ready at the motel. I headed up to my favorite brewpub and had a beer and a brat and watched the first half of a soccer game. I drove up to Bernalillo and stopped off at the bank I'll be using to see what I need to do to change from my local Jefferson City bank. Apparently, nothing other than put in a change of address. They are both branches of the same bank (US Bank) so no big deal.

I drove past the house on my way back to the motel and it is still there. We have some ongoing confusion about the well. The well is fine but the pressure tank is borderline. It's a long story but the lender can't finalize the loan without a new pressure tank. The sellers agreed to replace the tank but it is taking a while and the lender needs a written report before we can close. So maybe we close on Friday and maybe we don't.

The sellers have moved to Georgia and the house is vacant. They gave me access today so I unloaded the car.  I met my nearest neighbor. His name is Rod and he has been taking care of the fish twice a day.  Apparently, I have about 40 fish in my pond and they need to be tended to every morning and evening. WHAT???  Holy Crap! They are having babies in the pond and the population is growing.  I have dependents I hadn't planned on. This is in addition to the chipmunks, hummingbirds and quail.  This is going to be like the scene in Disney's Cinderella when the critters are all singing and dancing. Watson will have a conniption.

Rod is great...I'm going to like him. He knows the neighborhood and also knows my house. He can tell me where the switches are and what the access code for the garage door. He was hoping I play golf...but no, I don't.  He can play bocce. He pointed out that we have a "friendly gate" between our two yards. He is also watching the house on the other side where the people are away for a month.

The landscaping looks good. We've been getting rain so stuff that is usually brown is very green. I have sweeping patches of blooming Russian Sage around the fish pond. There is something blooming that looks like Four-o-clocks.  It is all bushier than what I remembered. Most of it is native plants.

The house is almost spotless. The sellers cleaned up everything and left me a three-ring binder with all sorts of information.  I don't have any new pictures today. I'll take some tomorrow.

I'm back in my usual motel here while I'm waiting for closing. I complained the last two times I stayed here so they know me by sight and know my name and make sure I have what I complained about. I have pots and I have a chair. I hold them to a higher standard than the old Econolodge. It is an extended stay motel and people are trying to live here for long periods...months, sometimes. Just call me the Squeaky Wheel. They even gave me some free coffee packets....anything to shut me up.

Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?

To prove to the armadillo that it could be done.   Dead armadillos are all over the road. They look like basketballs with tails. I actually saw a road crew guy with a snow shovel pushing one off the road. Vultures don't mess with them....they'd need a can opener.  I think I've only seen one live armadillo in my life. I started seeing them just a few miles west of Camdenton but out here in Kansas they are more plentiful. People do make purses and boots out of armadillo hide but since they can transmit leprosy to humans I don't think that's a good idea. I will try not to hit any as I go forward

I was back on the road fairly early. I thought Wichita was a bigger town but it seems rather small and I didn't see much. This is my second stop here and I'm sure there must be something to see or do but I haven't found it. I'd have to say the same for Tulsa or Amarillo.

Highway 54 just keeps on going. I expected it to be a dual lane divided highway and it is in a few places but it is mostly just a two-lane blacktop with not a great deal of traffic....but there are a few trucks.  There are fewer armadillos, too.

I stopped in Greenburg KS to walk around and get some coffee. You will remember Greenburg as the city that was 95% destroyed by a huge tornado in 2007. It lost 12 people and another 500 moved away shortly afterward. Recovery has been hard but they are coming back as a sustainable "Green" city. Most of the construction in town is LEED certified meaning it conforms to green building standards. They have a lot of room to build...only three buildings survive from before the tornado. There are large areas of vacant space and most of the trees are gone. Just about everything is gone. The card catalog cabinet is the only thing left from the county library. The building and the books were swept away or hauled to the landfill with the debris. Today they have a new hospital, city hall, strip mall, museum, courthouse, and several new housing developments...all built to sustainable standards.  I went through here a couple years ago and it has come a long way since then.

 Greenburg was once known far and wide as the location of the world's largest hand-dug water well. It also is the discovery site of the worlds largest Pallasite meteorite. (Pallasite is a mix of olivine and iron-nickel found in meteorites.) Both of those amazing "World's Largest" sights are visible at the local museum.  The museum also has a lot of information on the tornado which is very interesting.



I had mixed feelings about the well....maybe it was going to be like the world's largest ball of twine.  I figured the well might be pretty small....how big of a well can you dig by hand?  Apparently, a very large well. This well was dug back in the 1880s and is 109 feet deep and about forty feet in diameter....all lined with limestone blocks.

The museum is built over the well so you can't see it unless you pay admission to the museum ($6). I was impressed. I think the entire city could have gone down the well when the tornado hit and they would  all be safe. There is still water in the bottom and it is pretty cool on a hot day...I would think.


I'm having odd weather on this trip. It is cool and rainy with some wind. I expected it to be hot and humid and very sunny. When I pulled into Liberal KS to get gas and lunch it was 64 degrees with a wind-driven mist. It never rains for long but it is heavy rain, sometimes, and the terrain is so flat that you can see it miles away.

I always wondered what Liberal Kansas was like....not much. The main street is Pancake St., which I thought was odd until I remembered that they have the pancake races here on Shrove Tuesday (AKA Mardi Gras). Women run 400 yards down the street flipping pancakes in frying pans.  They do this also in Olney, England on the same day. I can't walk and chew gum so running while flipping pancakes is sort of a challenge. I think this is something that you have to witness to appreciate but you could say the same for Mardi Gras. Probably once would be enough for both.

US-54 crosses into Oklahoma's panhandle just south of Liberal and before you know it, you are in Texas. The highway in Texas is a two lane blacktop with a 75 mph speed limit and almost no traffic except for livestock trucks...traveling at 85 mph. The cattle must be pressed against the back of the truck.

The cattle trucks are in a hurry to get to the two huge feedlots just south of Dalhart. When I got there I wasn't sure what I was seeing because the cattle are so crowded in the pens that you don't immediately recognize them. You can't see an individual cow. The wind was blowing to the west so the first feedlot, on the west side of the highway didn't smell too bad. I was congratulating myself on my good fortune when I came up on the second feedlot on the east side of the road. Yikes...there is nothing quite like the smell of a rain soaked feedlot crammed full of cattle. I was too slow in rolling up my car windows so I got to experience the smell for a few miles. (Next time -- Roll up windows when leaving Dalhart.) This area was all the center of the dust bowl but I couldn't see any indication of it.

It is a tedious drive through Texas and into New Mexico. The most exciting thing is the change to Mountain Time. Eventually the scenery changes and it gets a little more rough and rocky and you can see the Tucumcari mountain off in the distance. 

I got to my motel in Tucumcari and then went out looking for supper. I ate at the Thunderbird restaurant and had a New Mexico meal of Chile Rellenos, rice and beans with green chile sauce....two beers and a big class of water.

The Road Less Travelled

I'm heading west on US-54 and finding the trip interesting. It is good not to be on the interstate. I once had a travelling auditor job with the state and we went to every county seat but I don't recall ever coming out this way.

I was on the road fairly early and was in Eldorado Springs by about 10 AM. The towns out this way are fairly evenly spaced so that when you get moving up to speed you only have a few miles before you are slowing down to go through these little towns. You see some interesting things...like a big sign on a house saying "KIDNEY WANTED" and an interesting little café called "Aunt Toadies".  The towns look reasonably prosperous but there are not many people. The farmers are having a bumper year with hay and milo (grain sorghum) so I guess they are in the feed business. The hay bales look like giant marshmallows sitting out in the fields.

I stopped in Eldorado Springs to get some coffee at a McDonald's. The place was crawling with flies...both inside and out. You couldn't stand to sit in the place for the flies. Not surprising, then, when I headed out of town the first creek I crossed was Fly Creek.  Must be some kind of local phenomenon...yuk.

Hospital

I enjoyed stopping in Ft. Scott KS just across the Kansas line. Guess what...there is a fort there....yes...Fort Scott. It dates from the 1840s and was involved in the Mexican War. Soldiers from Ft. Scott went all the way to Mexico City. The fort has been turned into a national historic landmark and is very interesting. It also had a role in keeping peace among the various Indian tribes being relocated to eastern Kansas.  The fort was abandoned in 1852 and the buildings were sold to local settlers and became the nucleus of the town. The government rented it back during the Civil War and it served as a refugee camp and hospital.

Parade ground and stable

12-pound Mountain Howitzer (L) and
a 6-pound cannon (R)

Officers' Row

Dragoon Uniforms

The soldiers were Dragoons, which means they could fight on horseback or on foot. They usually patrolled the plains and went as far west as South Pass in Wyoming and down the Santa Fe Trail. Their uniforms are quite different from what we expect from the mid-1800s.

The rest of the trip to Wichita was pretty uneventful. There were a few sprinkles of rain. The highway crosses part of the Flint Hills which is probably the prettiest part of Kansas (It's the best they can do and it does have some beauty - in a way.)

I got to Wichita and checked into my motel and then went looking for something to eat. I managed to get lost and it took a while to find my way back.  It's been a long day....I'm tired.

Wish Me Luck

It looks like everything is going to fall into place on time for me to close on my house on Friday. The trek begins tomorrow (Monday) bright and early and I should be in Albuquerque by mid-day on Wednesday.  I have a few things I need to do before closing and then I hope to be able to actually stay in the house Friday night and through the weekend before heading back.  I'm taking a different route this time.....going through Wichita and Liberal, Kansas, before heading south to join I-40 at Tucumcari. So it will be US-54 out of Jefferson City and straight through to Tucumcari.  I might come home through Oklahoma City and Tulsa.

I need to get back on Tuesday so I can get organized for the weekend trip to Chicago for the Gold Cup Final on July 28th. After that I'm planning on renting a trailer and loading up my pick-up and the trailer with some stuff and heading back down again around August 3rd or 4th.  I'll have some professional movers move the big stuff down the end of August or after Labor Day.

So, am I coming or going?  I'm not sure.