Captain’s Log
At first I
thought, “Gazelles in Texas! How great we got to see them.” Three of these
beautiful creatures were traveling down a dirt lane along a fence bordering Hwy
180 today as we made our way west toward the little burg of Post, Texas. They
were as small as a young deer, but their antlers were long, pointed and
extended straight from their heads over their backs. I found a picture of Dune
Antelope Gazelles on the Internet that look like them.
After doing
some Internet research, I now know there are no antelope native to the U.S.,
but over the years many have been imported from Africa. Then, I read that Texas
has many antelope in game preserves for hunters. As we drove today, we had
noticed quite a few hunters’ blinds across the landscape. “Now I feel so sad
because these three were most probably in one of those preserves.” In addition,
I read that these particular Gazelles are an endangered species! I hope I’m
wrong about this, but it does trouble me.
While we’re
on the subject of wildlife, we saw more of those chicken-sized turkey vultures
on a latticework tower along the road. This time there were at least 50 of
those big-black-scary birds perching high above us. I don’t think I like Texas
very much! I’m a wimpy, wimpy, wimpy Arizona girl.
Tomorrow we cross over into
New Mexico and stay in Roswell at the Red Barn RV Park. Tonight’s venue ain’t
that great, nor was the one in Fort Worth. And that’s another reason I’m ready
to get the hell outta Texas!
We saw a
really neat old hotel in Mineral Wells, Texas. This huge building’s
architecture can easily be described as glamorous. Sadly, it sits derelict with
boarded over doors and broken windows.
Evidently in
the 1920s this little bump in the road of a town used to be quite prosperous.
Mineral Wells has mineral water that used to be bottled and sold before the
Great Depression hit. For many years, tourists flocked to the grand Baker Hotel to
stay awhile and drink the healing water.
If you’re interested, here’s a history page about it: http://www.mineralwellstx.com/pages/History/
You’ll find
an amateur video at the bottom of the page with a good picture of the building.
The video takes you inside the ruined hotel after you skip the ad and get
through the strange introduction.
Once again I enjoyed seeing all the
small towns along this two-lane road we chose to drive instead of the modern
four-lane Hwy 20. Our GPS tried valiantly to have us drive south on one of the
many roads connecting Hwy 180 with 20, but she had no success whatsoever. It
was a very memorable driving day on one of America’s more entertaining back-roads.
First Officer’s Entry:
“Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose,
and sometimes it rains.” So goeth the
line by Tim Robbins in the movie, “Bull Durham.”
So I had this really neat idea. I would spend a bunch of money on a digital
“Atomic Clock” to replace the really nice, attractive, round, wood grained,
battery operated, analog clock in the living room of the rig. The Atomic Clock, although it was plain,
square, and not very attractive, would
monitored the GMT clock signal, would always be correct, and would
automatically reset itself when we passed from one time zone into another, thus
saving me from having to do it manually.
And so I did. I purchased the Atomic Clock and went through
the set up procedures, one of which is to tell it what time zone it was in when
it was set up, and hung it in place of the very attractive round analog clock.
Thus equipped with this latest
technology we set out on our across the nation journey and don’tcha know . . .
.
It didn’t work.
Yeah, it monitors the GMT signal just
fine. And it is perfectly accurate. But it doesn’t know for beans what time zone
it’s in. So as we crossed and re-crossed
the nation and its time zones I had to reset the fancy-schmancy Atomic Clock in
order for it to not be an hour ahead or behind whatever time the real time
really was.
Oh well, to quote Alan Alda in another
good movie, “Same Time Next Year”, “I just didn’t think it through.”
And so it goes.
Oh by the way, here’s another time
related quote, this one by the great Groucho Marx.
“Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.”
Think about it.
End Log.
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