Bill's Great Texas Birding Adventure

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Monday, April 25, 2005 Just over two weeks and I'm definitely feeling homesick. Would have started the trip back today, Monday, but the weather up in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area is forecast to include severe thunderstorms. So I decided to sit here for another day and get caught up on web site changes, solving the missing pictures issue, paying the bills I brought with me, etc.

The route back will probably go something like this: Ft. Worth - Lubbock - Albuquerque - and it gets a little vague from there. I want to play golf in Albuquerque, where I went to high school, and I dont want to take the same route back through Arizona that I came out on. (I have a real problem going the same way twice - hiking included). But that is complicated by the fact that the northern part of Arizona (Flagstaff/Kingman/Etc) has no resort golf courses like I enjoy playing. So I may divert to Phoenix for a few days and then go back north to continue towards home. We shall see - it sure is fun to be independent.

Monday Morning Weather in Beaumont

The First Leg

Monday, April 25, 2005 - 5 PM. Boy, it looks like I made the right decision!! I've been watching the weather channel and maps on the internet all day - and over the last hour three tornadoes were SIGHTED in the Ft Worth/Dallas metroplex - right where I would have been had I left this morning. Its very rainy here in Beaumont but not bad and no high winds or hail. Anyhow, departure is for about 7 AM tomorrow for an RV park just west of Ft. Worth about 360 miles of driving from here.

Laptop Cat

Yep, we're in West Texas, Candy

Tuesday, April 26, 2005 - 5 PM - We have arrived in Aledo, TX, just west of Ft.Worth. Beautiful weather - probably about 75 deg but a little windy. Walked around the RV Park after I got setup and found at least one new bird for the trip - a Western Kingbird. I'm researching a sparrow that I also saw but they are hard. If I figure it out I'll post it. Tomorrow it's off to Amarillo - I feel like getting out of the tornado area before I stop for golf. It looks inviting around my old stomping ground where I was a young whippersnapper - Albuquerque and Santa Fe, New Mexico. Some great golf courses and some old memories of places along the hiways there - like a place called Camel Rock - where we always had to stop on shopping trips to Albuquerque from Los Alamos in the very early days - 1948 to 1951.

Wednesday, April 27, 2005 - The second leg home - 351 miles - Aledo, TX to Amarillo, TX. Arrived about 3:30 PM - not much trouble although there was an overturned tractor trailer in the lanes going the other direction on I-35W going out of Ft. Worth. My side was not involved but a lot of detouring was using those lanes to go around the closed portion. Lost about 1/2 hr. Another neat part of the trip is that all Texas Rest Areas have wireless internet - so I was able to check e-mail during lunch break. So cool.

A lot of terrain changes in the last two days. Started out from Beaumont with lush green fields and crawfish farms with standing water and by the time I got to Fort Worth it was West Texas dry and scrub bushes in the fields. From Ft. Worth halfway to Amarillo there were cotton fields being plowed. From then on it was feed cattle or nothing but dry empty dirt fields as far as the eye could see.

It's a very windy day in Amarillo right now - probably 25 mph w/gusts to 40 mph. The old motorhome is rockin' in the breeze.

Tomorrow we go to Santa Fe, NM. I'm really looking forward to seeing how it has changed in the 50 years since I lived near there (Los Alamos) and almost 10 since I was last there. Looking to play golf at a course called Black Mesa Resort - Black Mesa itself was a geographic marker for us kids on long (100 mi one way) shopping trips to Albuquerque from Los Alamos. I'm anticipating lots of pictures of the Square in Santa Fe and maybe some other places I used to see. Plan on staying there 2 or 3 nights. And oh yes, there are 4 Indian Casinos in the area!! I may call one or more of you for cash if things don't go well lololol.

Next segment - Amarillo to Santa Fe - 288 miles

Thursday, April 28, 2005 - Maybe I should have looked at the weather first. Highs in the low 50's - overnight lows in high 20's or low 30's. Hope they have a Walmart so I can replace the defective electric blanket lololol.

Well, after going to at least 6 stores they have all taken electric blankets off the shelf. We'll just have to turn up the furnace tonight.

The drive over from Amarillo was absolute terror - 30 to 40 mph winds all the way and gusts much higher. Really tiring struggling to keep the rig on the road - very bad between Tucumcari and Clines Corners - with lots of narrow lanes due to construction. It seemed to change from headwinds to tailwinds and everything in between. 288 miles of no fun at all. Its cold here in Santa Fe - but not as much wind - and it might even be survivable playing golf tomorrow. I may stay here three nights - tonight, tomorrow after golf, and Saturday night so I can go to Mass in one of the very old churches in Old Town. I should be able to find time for some tourism in there too.

To calm my spirit I went out and had a Mexican dinner complete with two Dos Equis beers, and two good ole southwestern sopapillas. I also brought home a KFC chicken breast for Candy. She's addicted to them - so I chop off 3 or 4 little chunks for her - and she is in cat heaven!! That way it leaves lots for future meals too.

I took some pictures along the way but Im just too tired to manipulate them tonight.

Typical New Mexico Scenery

First Rest Area Inside New Mexico

Black Mesa Golf Course - Espanola, NM

Black Mesa Golf Course - Espanola, NM

Additional Golf Hazard - Chollo Cactus??

Black Mesa Golf Course - Espanola, NM

Camel Rock - US 285 N. of Santa Fe

Santa Fe Airport Terminal - Southwestern Design

Friday, April 29, 2005 Pictures from the Amarillo - Santa Fe leg and from the golf course and other childhood places of mine. I will annotate each picture later today - but now its time to head for SUSHI!!!!

The day started out promising as it wasn't as cold overnight as I expected. Bright sunny skies with the promise of potentially good weather for golf. That lasted for 14 holes and then the sky fell in. The rain that is shown in some of the golf course pictures finally arrived overhead. The pace of play was really slow by then, the course was a disappointment to me as far as condition was concerned and I didnt want to come home with a cold so I quit at the 14th hole.

One thing you notice right away here is the quality of the clouds - they are much more varied and striking than those we see back home. The sky is so clean you can see the cloud patterns right down to the horizon. The only other time I've noticed that is far out at sea on a ship.

I also wanted to get some pictures of Camel Rock - a place us kids hounded my parents to stop at on every trip to Santa Fe or Albuquerque while we lived in Los Alamos. In those days we could climb all over the back and neck of the camel - but now its all fenced off "because of the liability issues". Hard to believe its been 55 years since I have been up on the camel.

The sushi bar had just opened when I arrived and I got excellent service. That too, had been too long in the past - I sure do enjoy sushi - I had Mizo Soup, California Roll, Maguro, Yellowtail and Mackerel sushi and an "oki no Sapporo" (big Sapporo beer). Truly one of life's pleasures.

Tomorrow I get to play tourist and head to Old Town for some shopping and later Mass at one of the old Mission chapels. They say the easiest way to do this is to take the city bus because of the difficult parking situation. I'm still conflicted on that.

I've decided that we will come on home after this stop - looks like 3 days enroute via Flagstaff/Barstow/Groveland. I should arrive home Tuesday late afternoon. A band would be nice but not necessary!! lolol.

Weather forecast is for a low of 29 Deg!! overnight. That is a bit brisk but I am at 6700 ft here so not unexpected I guess.

The last segment home

Saturday, April 30, 2005. Well, A slight change in plans - there are no decent RV Parks between Needles, CA and Bakersfield, CA on my route so I have decided to go from Flagstaff all the way to Bakersfield on Monday. Thats going to be one of the longer legs of the trip (485 miles) but I'm not going to be comfortable otherwise. I'll just have to make plenty of stops for rest and running the car transmission for lube purposes. That will make a leg of only 225 miles from Bakersfield home to Groveland so I will arrive there with plenty of time to unpack a bit on Tuesday.

Got my tourist stuff taken care of this morning and shot lots of pictures. Used up one whole digital camera card of 35 pictures. I'll put some on the web later.
Click here for the Santa Fe pictures.
Now all I have to do before leaving tomorrow is go to Mass this evening at 5:15 PM.

Sunday, May 1, 2005. Mass last night was a real nice experience - a High Mass complete with incense in a real cathedral with echoing voices, etc. I was glad I stayed in Santa Fe for the occasion. Departed real early this morning - 7 AM - and had a pleasant drive of 385 miles to Flagstaff. Stopped for gas and to run the transmission in the car, and then pressed on with only one more stop to check the directions to this RV park. Even mooched a banana off the owner for my breakfast tomorrow - I always forget to buy them - whether Im at home or on the road. Gained an hour on the clock between Sanat Fe and here - so Im on California time since AZ didnt go to DST. This place is filling up fast - I've only been here an hour and I'll bet 15 more people have arrived. Up again early tomorrow for the long trek to Bakersfield. In case those who are interested didnt notice I added a link to a lot of pictures from Santa Fe in the paragraph above.

Monday, May 2, 2005. Departed Flagstaff just before 7 AM and arrived Bakersfield at 4:30 PM. A long day but not as tough as I thought it was going to be. The biggest problem was the condition of I-40!! The right hand lane had potholes in both wheel tracks almost all the way. It really rattled everything - the trim strip around my vcr in the cabinet above the passenger side fell off twice!! I actually started driving with one wheel in the center of the right lane and the other on the fog line between the potholes and the thumper grooves. It probably looked really weird but it was certainly smoother. Another highlight on this leg of the trip - I planned my gas consumption so I was pretty low at the Arizona/California border so I could get as much cheap gas in the tanks as possible. Well, I achieved that!! 63 gals @ $2.25/gal in Kingman, AZ. Thats enough to get me here to Bakersfield and home with about 1/3 tank left. I have never looked it up but this rig must have a 70 gal gas tank. I still had not reached the red warning level on the tank when I got gas.

Tomorrow is homecoming day - I'm only 225 miles out - I think I'll sleep in a little later and time my arrival for about 1 or 2 PM after a 5 hour drive. Boy, its going to be nice to be home - even though I seem to have let myself run out of bananas, bread and snack cookies and will have to go to the store soon after I get Candy settled in.

The scientist/engineer in me has a question I'd like to pose to whoever has a theory on it. "How do the House Sparrows know where all the Rest Areas in the world are? Do truckers take a breeding pair to each place? Do House Sparrows migrate? Without fail you can count on seeing House Sparrows at a Rest Area and almost nowhere else. How do they get there??"

I've been thinking about this for some days now - its not as if I'm getting dingy at the end of a long trip lolololol.

Tuesday, May 3, 2005. Departed Bakersfield about 8 AM and had a nice uneventful short leg home. That is, if you call worrying about running out of gas during the last 50 miles or so. Just to ease my mind I went into Jamestown and put 10 gallons more in the tank so I was sure I could get to Groveland and out again whenever I take the next trip. Arrived Groveland about 2:30 PM and was spotted by numerous clients either on the way in - or on my trip to the Post Office to restart service. I'm pretty bushed after unloading the inside part of the motorhome so I will put off the summary stats on the trip until tomorrow. But Candy and I are both real happy to be back!!!

Typical New Mexico Scenery	First Rest Area Inside New Mexico
Black Mesa Golf Course - Espanola, NM	Black Mesa Golf Course - Espanola, NM
Additional Golf Hazard - Chollo Cactus??	Black Mesa Golf Course - Espanola, NM
Camel Rock - US 285 N. of Santa Fe	Santa Fe Airport Terminal - Southwestern Design
Friday, April 29, 2005 Pictures from the Amarillo - Santa Fe leg and from the golf course and other childhood places of mine. I will annotate each picture later today - but now its time to head for SUSHI!!!! The day started out promising as it wasn't as cold overnight as I expected. Bright sunny skies with the promise of potentially good weather for golf. That lasted for 14 holes and then the sky fell in. The rain that is shown in some of the golf course pictures finally arrived overhead. The pace of play was really slow by then, the course was a disappointment to me as far as condition was concerned and I didnt want to come home with a cold so I quit at the 14th hole. One thing you notice right away here is the quality of the clouds - they are much more varied and striking than those we see back home. The sky is so clean you can see the cloud patterns right down to the horizon. The only other time I've noticed that is far out at sea on a ship. I also wanted to get some pictures of Camel Rock - a place us kids hounded my parents to stop at on every trip to Santa Fe or Albuquerque while we lived in Los Alamos. In those days we could climb all over the back and neck of the camel - but now its all fenced off "because of the liability issues". Hard to believe its been 55 years since I have been up on the camel. The sushi bar had just opened when I arrived and I got excellent service. That too, had been too long in the past - I sure do enjoy sushi - I had Mizo Soup, California Roll, Maguro, Yellowtail and Mackerel sushi and an "oki no Sapporo" (big Sapporo beer). Truly one of life's pleasures. Tomorrow I get to play tourist and head to Old Town for some shopping and later Mass at one of the old Mission chapels. They say the easiest way to do this is to take the city bus because of the difficult parking situation. I'm still conflicted on that. I've decided that we will come on home after this stop - looks like 3 days enroute via Flagstaff/Barstow/Groveland. I should arrive home Tuesday late afternoon. A band would be nice but not necessary!! lolol. Weather forecast is for a low of 29 Deg!! overnight. That is a bit brisk but I am at 6700 ft here so not unexpected I guess.
The last segment home
Saturday, April 30, 2005. Well, A slight change in plans - there are no decent RV Parks between Needles, CA and Bakersfield, CA on my route so I have decided to go from Flagstaff all the way to Bakersfield on Monday. Thats going to be one of the longer legs of the trip (485 miles) but I'm not going to be comfortable otherwise. I'll just have to make plenty of stops for rest and running the car transmission for lube purposes. That will make a leg of only 225 miles from Bakersfield home to Groveland so I will arrive there with plenty of time to unpack a bit on Tuesday. Got my tourist stuff taken care of this morning and shot lots of pictures. Used up one whole digital camera card of 35 pictures. I'll put some on the web later. Click here for the Santa Fe pictures. Now all I have to do before leaving tomorrow is go to Mass this evening at 5:15 PM.
Sunday, May 1, 2005. Mass last night was a real nice experience - a High Mass complete with incense in a real cathedral with echoing voices, etc. I was glad I stayed in Santa Fe for the occasion. Departed real early this morning - 7 AM - and had a pleasant drive of 385 miles to Flagstaff. Stopped for gas and to run the transmission in the car, and then pressed on with only one more stop to check the directions to this RV park. Even mooched a banana off the owner for my breakfast tomorrow - I always forget to buy them - whether Im at home or on the road. Gained an hour on the clock between Sanat Fe and here - so Im on California time since AZ didnt go to DST. This place is filling up fast - I've only been here an hour and I'll bet 15 more people have arrived. Up again early tomorrow for the long trek to Bakersfield. In case those who are interested didnt notice I added a link to a lot of pictures from Santa Fe in the paragraph above.
Monday, May 2, 2005. Departed Flagstaff just before 7 AM and arrived Bakersfield at 4:30 PM. A long day but not as tough as I thought it was going to be. The biggest problem was the condition of I-40!! The right hand lane had potholes in both wheel tracks almost all the way. It really rattled everything - the trim strip around my vcr in the cabinet above the passenger side fell off twice!! I actually started driving with one wheel in the center of the right lane and the other on the fog line between the potholes and the thumper grooves. It probably looked really weird but it was certainly smoother. Another highlight on this leg of the trip - I planned my gas consumption so I was pretty low at the Arizona/California border so I could get as much cheap gas in the tanks as possible. Well, I achieved that!! 63 gals @ $2.25/gal in Kingman, AZ. Thats enough to get me here to Bakersfield and home with about 1/3 tank left. I have never looked it up but this rig must have a 70 gal gas tank. I still had not reached the red warning level on the tank when I got gas. Tomorrow is homecoming day - I'm only 225 miles out - I think I'll sleep in a little later and time my arrival for about 1 or 2 PM after a 5 hour drive. Boy, its going to be nice to be home - even though I seem to have let myself run out of bananas, bread and snack cookies and will have to go to the store soon after I get Candy settled in. The scientist/engineer in me has a question I'd like to pose to whoever has a theory on it. "How do the House Sparrows know where all the Rest Areas in the world are? Do truckers take a breeding pair to each place? Do House Sparrows migrate? Without fail you can count on seeing House Sparrows at a Rest Area and almost nowhere else. How do they get there??" I've been thinking about this for some days now - its not as if I'm getting dingy at the end of a long trip lolololol.
Tuesday, May 3, 2005. Departed Bakersfield about 8 AM and had a nice uneventful short leg home. That is, if you call worrying about running out of gas during the last 50 miles or so. Just to ease my mind I went into Jamestown and put 10 gallons more in the tank so I was sure I could get to Groveland and out again whenever I take the next trip. Arrived Groveland about 2:30 PM and was spotted by numerous clients either on the way in - or on my trip to the Post Office to restart service. I'm pretty bushed after unloading the inside part of the motorhome so I will put off the summary stats on the trip until tomorrow. But Candy and I are both real happy to be back!!!

Monday Morning Weather in Beaumont	The First Leg
Monday, April 25, 2005 - 5 PM. Boy, it looks like I made the right decision!! I've been watching the weather channel and maps on the internet all day - and over the last hour three tornadoes were SIGHTED in the Ft Worth/Dallas metroplex - right where I would have been had I left this morning. Its very rainy here in Beaumont but not bad and no high winds or hail. Anyhow, departure is for about 7 AM tomorrow for an RV park just west of Ft. Worth about 360 miles of driving from here.
Laptop Cat	Yep, we're in West Texas, Candy
Tuesday, April 26, 2005 - 5 PM - We have arrived in Aledo, TX, just west of Ft.Worth. Beautiful weather - probably about 75 deg but a little windy. Walked around the RV Park after I got setup and found at least one new bird for the trip - a Western Kingbird. I'm researching a sparrow that I also saw but they are hard. If I figure it out I'll post it. Tomorrow it's off to Amarillo - I feel like getting out of the tornado area before I stop for golf. It looks inviting around my old stomping ground where I was a young whippersnapper - Albuquerque and Santa Fe, New Mexico. Some great golf courses and some old memories of places along the hiways there - like a place called Camel Rock - where we always had to stop on shopping trips to Albuquerque from Los Alamos in the very early days - 1948 to 1951.
	Wednesday, April 27, 2005 - The second leg home - 351 miles - Aledo, TX to Amarillo, TX. Arrived about 3:30 PM - not much trouble although there was an overturned tractor trailer in the lanes going the other direction on I-35W going out of Ft. Worth. My side was not involved but a lot of detouring was using those lanes to go around the closed portion. Lost about 1/2 hr. Another neat part of the trip is that all Texas Rest Areas have wireless internet - so I was able to check e-mail during lunch break. So cool.
A lot of terrain changes in the last two days. Started out from Beaumont with lush green fields and crawfish farms with standing water and by the time I got to Fort Worth it was West Texas dry and scrub bushes in the fields. From Ft. Worth halfway to Amarillo there were cotton fields being plowed. From then on it was feed cattle or nothing but dry empty dirt fields as far as the eye could see. It's a very windy day in Amarillo right now - probably 25 mph w/gusts to 40 mph. The old motorhome is rockin' in the breeze. Tomorrow we go to Santa Fe, NM. I'm really looking forward to seeing how it has changed in the 50 years since I lived near there (Los Alamos) and almost 10 since I was last there. Looking to play golf at a course called Black Mesa Resort - Black Mesa itself was a geographic marker for us kids on long (100 mi one way) shopping trips to Albuquerque from Los Alamos. I'm anticipating lots of pictures of the Square in Santa Fe and maybe some other places I used to see. Plan on staying there 2 or 3 nights. And oh yes, there are 4 Indian Casinos in the area!! I may call one or more of you for cash if things don't go well lololol.
Next segment - Amarillo to Santa Fe - 288 miles Thursday, April 28, 2005 - Maybe I should have looked at the weather first. Highs in the low 50's - overnight lows in high 20's or low 30's. Hope they have a Walmart so I can replace the defective electric blanket lololol. Well, after going to at least 6 stores they have all taken electric blankets off the shelf. We'll just have to turn up the furnace tonight.
The drive over from Amarillo was absolute terror - 30 to 40 mph winds all the way and gusts much higher. Really tiring struggling to keep the rig on the road - very bad between Tucumcari and Clines Corners - with lots of narrow lanes due to construction. It seemed to change from headwinds to tailwinds and everything in between. 288 miles of no fun at all. Its cold here in Santa Fe - but not as much wind - and it might even be survivable playing golf tomorrow. I may stay here three nights - tonight, tomorrow after golf, and Saturday night so I can go to Mass in one of the very old churches in Old Town. I should be able to find time for some tourism in there too. To calm my spirit I went out and had a Mexican dinner complete with two Dos Equis beers, and two good ole southwestern sopapillas. I also brought home a KFC chicken breast for Candy. She's addicted to them - so I chop off 3 or 4 little chunks for her - and she is in cat heaven!! That way it leaves lots for future meals too. I took some pictures along the way but Im just too tired to manipulate them tonight.