Well, as is so often said, you can't win them all. I say that because once again we're fighting a sub-standard, coma-producing slow internet here in the Carlsbad

Well, as is so often said, you can't win them all. I say that because once again we're fighting a sub-standard,

Day Fourteen - Grants, New Mexico to Santa Rosa, New Mexico

So Concetta and I set up tonight in the little town of Santa Rosa, about 120 miles east of Albuquerque, along the historic path of Route 66. Some of the town is up and coming, especially since Interstate 40 affords the tiny berg a total of three whole exits. Other parts are, well, a little dead looking, as you might expect for a town that Route 66 forgot back in 1985, nearly 30 years ago. So, here and there, long dead filling stations with weedy asphalt and ugly, pastel-colored motels with boarded up windows dot the landscape. In between, where similar 1950s era detritus has long ago disappeared, you find brand new hotels, restaurants, and other tourist-related businesses flourishing. It's rather startling, but nice to see that dead doesn't mean dead forever, zombies not withstanding.

I first traveled Route 66 way back in the glory days of the late 1960s. That's when I joined the U.S. Navy. Soon after joining I was having second thoughts about serving aboard a U.S. Navy war ship way down in the bowels of some hot-as-Hell engine room where, they said, they intended to put me. Instead, I volunteered for the U.S. Naval Air Corp when a chance piece of junk mail caught my attention and I saw that they were looking for volunteers. All I had to do was extend my previous two-year enlistment for another year, wear a different color of shoe (brown instead of black), and agree to fly around in largely obsolete 1940s vintage airplanes at altitudes too low to safely jump out of in case of trouble.

Piece of cake, I told them. Where do I sign? Anyway, when they asked me just where I'd like to spend my time flying in these airplanes I told them places like Jacksonville, Florida or Point Magoo, California. They nodded and smiled and assigned me to Chicago. So it was that in October of 1969 I and my recently-acquired '65 Chevy Chevelle set out driving from Los Angeles on the much storied Route 66. It was my first time away from home, literally. No, really! As a kid I never even indulged in sleepovers at friend's houses. With no time to do my growing up little by little, I headed east along Route 66 to do my growing up all at once.

So, as you might guess, traveling along Route 40 most of the day within sight of many of the old stretches of Route 66, I got to relive a few memories. Not many, mind you, as my 64-year-old brain hasn't actually retained much of that trip. I know it took six days to get there, which meant six motels and maybe as many as two score restaurants, but as fate has decreed, I don't remember a single one of those. I do remember certain parts of the road and a few roadside attractions, but mostly it's just an overall nostalgia for the journey that remains.

The town of Grants where we stayed last night is only about 75 miles west of Albuquerque and so we had hardly gotten started this morning when we stopped again to visit a couple of museums we found in the guide book. For some reason our GPS refused to take us to the Art Museum, our planned first stop, so I just took the Interstate 40 turn-off to old town Albuquerque and then took a convenient side street before we actually reached old town. I pulled over and told Concetta that we'd need to study the problem and try and figure out where we were in relation to the Art Museum. As fate so often has it for us, we accidentally turned onto the exact street that flanked the Art Museum and, seeing that, pulled to the curb in the next block which had plenty of space for the RV and no attendant signs proclaiming that we couldn't, indeed, park there.

Although art museums are seldom my first choice for entertainment, I have to say that the Albuquerque Art Museum is just stunning in it's design and execution. We saw everything from modern paintings and statuary to equestrian-related accoutrements from the time of Mexican Vaqueros and Spanish ranchos (photo 3). We saw paintings from artists as well known as N.C. Wyeth, to the work of several "up and coming" new artists. They have a wonderful, art-related book store, a small cafe in case you get hungry or thirsty, and an overall clean and spacious facility that welcomes visitors both young and old. I would not hesitate to visit the museum again should I be passing through town.

The top two paintings were just two of my favorites today and there was no prohibition against photographing them. I, of course, didn't use any flash which they might have frowned upon. There was only one part of the museum that I would like to have shown you as it was the most magnificent part of our experience. That exhibit held a variety of paintings, handcrafted furniture, and carvings in various themes done by Spaniards in the new world after the arrival of Columbus. We just loved it and spent nearly an hour in that one exhibit alone.

Around noon we left the art museum and walked back to the RV for lunch. That's a part of RVing I just love, love, love. I don't have to pay anything (much) and I can have my personally-made coffee, a sandwich, and a couple of homemade cookies in the privacy of my own "home" without any muss or fuss. And lots of times we can have any vista we want as a backdrop for our lunch table. Today we had the city park, filled with trees and sunshine, and it was wonderful.

After lunch we consulted our watches and decided we could still get to Santa Rosa at a decent hour if we spent 60 to 90 minutes at the

Natural History Museum, which, wouldn't you know it, was just across the street from where we had parked. That's kind of a rushed itinerary. If you've ever tried to hurry through a Natural History Museum you soon find that the quantity of things to see there is nothing short of mind boggling. This museum today was no exception. Still, we concentrated on the pre-history exhibits involving some of our favorite subjects: dinosaurs and rocks. Man, they sure had plenty of each of those.

So, as I said, here we are in Santa Rosa, New Mexico at the aptly named Santa Rosa RV Park. Tonight we broke with our two-week-long tradition of eating dinner in the RV and accepted our host's offer to serve us dinner in the Park's restaurant. I had the brisket, potato salad, and beans dish, which I adored. Concetta had the somewhat less than thrilling catfish dish (I told her to order the brisket) and wasn't quite as complimentary of the fare. Still, it was nice to stay out of the RV kitchen tonight and avoid the attendant chore of doing the dishes. That left me time to work on the blog, recounting the day's events, and Concetta a chance to have a shower and do her hair, then settle in with a good book.

I don't know how many of you listen to books on tape on your long drives, but Concetta and I listen most of the time while we're RVing. We've had several great books so far this trip, including a decent thriller by Lisa Scottoline, and a great shoot-um-up thriller by the tried and true John Sandford. Now we're listening to the extremely well written book, Frankie Machine, by Don Winslow, an author who is new to me. This story about a retired mob hit man and his efforts to stay alive once the mob decides he has to go. I'll tell you, the story is nothing short of riveting. I'm going to have to track down more stories by Winslow, assuming he has more, and queue him up for a future trip.

So, I guess that's it for now. Today turned out to be one of the best days we've had so far. The wind has died down considerably making the driving much easier. And even though we had to travel the interstate for much of the day, tomorrow we get to jump onto one of the less traveled byways as we head south toward Roswell and Carlsbad. Not sure how far we'll get, nor just what we'll encounter along the way, but I sure hope I get to see Fort Sumner where Billy the Kid had his run-in with Pat Garrett.

For now, I wish you Happy Traveling. Ciao!

Day thirteen - Holbrook, Arizona, to Grant, New Mexico

I always thought that northern Nevada specialized in wind. Well, we found a place today that could certainly give Nevada a run for its money in that category. As I told a fellow camper this afternoon after we had set up our rig in Grants, New Mexico, the wind blew so hard today as we traveled along route 40 out of Arizona that I probably only put any wear on the downwind tires. The upwind tires felt like they only occasionally touched the pavement.

Our route this morning out of Holbrook, Arizona, was a bit circuitous. After gassing up at a station adjacent to our KOA camp (don't stay at the Holbrook camp -- the WiFi is terrible) we headed back the way we had come the previous day so we could visit the old courthouse and tour the museum now housed there (photo right). It was early, about 9:00 a.m., and we turned out to be the only patrons of the museum. We got to wander the halls, move the "don't touch this" signs so I could get better photos, and generally make ourselves comfortable. The building is not in very good shape, owing I expect to the fact that the whole town looks pretty run down and tired. I think back in the Route 66 days the town fathers probably had more money to spend, but now that Interstate 40 blasts by the town without looking back the old municipal building is beginning to sag and leak a bit. Still, we had a great time wandering the halls and reading the faded captions.

Of course, I'm in heaven whenever and wherever I can spend an hour or two with a whole building full of antiquated equipment and rusty junk. My favorite part of the museum was the typewriter display (photo left). There was just acres of law books which I gazed at in some wonder. How in the world does a lawyer know what's in all those books? You weren't supposed to touch the books and I honored that request, but I sure would have liked to see if anyone had ever opened them.

The museum had literally everything from a cowboy chuck wagon to an empty court room where you could sit and pretend you were a judge. It also had a basement jail which, having seen it, left me with the distinct impression that crime doesn't pay, at least it wouldn't for me. Most of the displays would have been more interesting to a local resident, but we still found enough to see and appreciate to make the stop worthwhile.

After the museum we backtracked further south along yesterday's Route 77 until we encountered Jim Gray's Petrified Wood store. Included with our check-in materials from the Holbrook KOA was a coupon for a free piece of the ancient rock and so we thought we'd just go and collect. Of course the petrified wood store coupon was just meant to get tourists in the door and it served well in that capacity. But even though we had no intention of buying some ruinously expensive piece of 200-million-year-old pre-history, we DID want to see what other tourists were buying. Let me just say that the store is well worth a visit even if you don't intend to buy anything. Somewhere nearby, the clerk informed me, was a starving artist doing the cutting and polishing of those magnificent rocks and I just loved his work. My favorite were the bookends, which cost in the neighborhood of $100.00 and up. I was sorely tempted to buy a set, but space in the motorhome being a premium I decided to pass up the deal. We had so much fun looking at all the lovely polished stones and ancient sea creatures that we forgot to collect our free piece of petrified wood. No matter, the experience was worth the stop.

Since Gray's shop lay right at the intersection that led, so the sign said, to the Petrified Forest, you know where we went next. Seventeen miles and mere minutes later we were pulling abreast of the park service check-in shack presenting our credentials. I might mention at this point that if you buy a National Parks pass at the park headquarters in Carson, your out-of-pocket costs for visiting most of our National treasures are zip. The park ranger asked us if we were carrying any petrified wood and of course we were carrying a sample that the Holbrook museum had traded us for a small donation to their cause. Handing it over, I sheepishly recounted where we had obtained the item and the ranger asked for the sample so he could confine it to a plastic bag, zipped-tied shut, to prevent us from being arrested when we later left the park for petrified wood snatching.

For some reason, just about the time we entered the park, a near hurricane-force southwesterly wind kicked up and turned our much anticipated visit to see the stone trees and nearby painted desert into a sort of endurance contest. We did stop at the visitor center and watch the video, which thankfully did much to bolster our understanding of just how the petrified logs we saw on our brief stroll outside the center had come to be where they now lay instead of near present day Panama where they had originally formed.

The wind was blowing so hard, and raising dust clouds that might easily rival those from the dust bowl days of the American depression, that we had to view the painted desert from the comfort of our vigorously rocking RV. No matter. Even with the dust the vistas into the canyon of the painted desert were well worth coming to see.

Leaving the park we headed east toward Albuquerque. We didn't plan on staying at that infamously difficult to spell New Mexico city, but planned on stopping short in the town of Grants. Here we had read in the Good Sam travel guide that the Bar-S RV park was well worth a visit. The Bar-S proved easy enough to find since they put giant red and yellow signs nearly everywhere as you approached Grants. So by 4:00 p.m. we had found the park, got the coach set up with water, sewer, and electricity, and had even set out on a wind-blown walk over to the nearby Native American craft store. On the way I noticed that the Burlington Northern Santa Fe tracks ran quite near us. Going back to the grade crossing some time later I managed to capture a photo of the next passing train. I thought I had been extremely lucky since the train came by almost as soon as I showed up to photograph it. Silly me, we now realize that a train goes by either east to west or west to east about every ten to fifteen minutes without fail. If you're a dyed in the wool "train spotter" you're going to just love this RV park and the adjacent rail line.

My train spotting adventure didn't end at the approach of the bright orange locomotive. Though I have shot countless locomotives and trains in my lifetime, I had never attempted to shoot some of the wildly creative art that "decorates" many, many pieces of rolling stock these days. The particular train that I had come to shoot this day was hauling a near endless collection of new cars in covered, two-story flatcars. You may remember, if you're old enough, that new cars were once hauled out in the open air on double-decker flats for all the world to appreciate. But at some point kids started throwing things at the new cars as they passed by, which resulted in a lot of damage. So, the railroads built roofs over the flat cars which deflected most of the missiles. Nowadays those same kids have taken a new tack and begun to channel their energy into graffitizing freight cars, including the covered, car-carrying flats. The engineer was coming fast, but I did manage to grab a few shots by panning with the speed of the train. High times!

Thoughts on elevation blocks

If you've read this blog in the past you know that one of the first things I found out I had to do was come up with a way to elevate the RV when we encountered camp sites which weren't exactly level. On previous trips I discovered that though my "single wheel" ramps worked well for the front wheels, if I had to elevate the dual rear wheels I had to put both of the single ramps in the rear. If I still had to elevate the front I was out of luck. So, before this trip I built a somewhat smaller ramp just for the dualies. Though the next time I do one I'd design it slightly differently, the pictured unit has worked well and I have needed it about half the time this trip. Here's a shot of the new ramp.

As you can see, I attached a galvanized garage door handle from my junk drawer to the end to make it easier to move the heavy wooden unit around. Someday I'd like to come up with some sort of lighter material to build the ramps from, but the RV is pretty heavy and you need something substantial on which to elevate it. I've seen other RVs using some sort of plastic material that looks a lot like giant Lego blocks, but they always appear to be partially crushed to me. I've also seen a lot of RV guys who don't bother to elevate at all, which makes me a little nervous in that the fridge needs to be level most of the time.

The bottom photo is of a single ramp which I constructed from a piece of pressure-treated 2x8 fir. The handle on this ramp is of brass from the junk drawer, which is a little nicer than the galvanized handle.

Relaxing our way through days 9, 10, and 11

Sorry there's not much to report. We've just been hanging out with relatives -- eating, drinking, and planning the next leg of our trip. Tomorrow we're going to be back on the road, headed more or less east. As always we'll be trying to stay off the interstate highways and exploring the lesser-traveled byways. Right now we're in Care Free, Arizona, and tomorrow we intend to head for the Petrified Forest area on Route 40 (old Route 66) around Holbrook, Arizona. Mapquest wanted us to head back up Route 17 toward Route 40, then going east on 40. But we'll be going a more direct route from Carefree, though we have to dip down a bit toward Scottsdale before we head northeast along routes 60 and 77.

Last night Concetta's nephew, Marc, and wife, Nancy, surprised us with an absolutely wonderful dinner near here at a place called the "Spotted Donkey." Don't let the name fool you, the food was crazy good. I had a dish called Pescado Veracruz, which was fish and Spanish rice. Others in the party had the fish tacos. One member, evidently not into Mexican food, had the meatloaf and potatoes. But before you say WHAT? let me tell you that it was done Mexican style with peppers and such and he said it was marvelous. If you find yourself in the Scottsdale area, look up the Spotted Donkey, you won't be disappointed.

After dinner nephew Marc and Nancy then had a further surprise for us -- a real life, bull riding, rodeo. Now I hadn't been to a rodeo since Moses was a pup. Concetta had never been. So, we didn't know what to expect. Long story short, we had a great time. There were so many cowboys strutting around with their sweat-stained cowboy hats and big-buckled levis I would have sworn that Nevada must be missing most of their supply. I don't think I'd ever seen bull riding and let me just say that you couldn't pay me enough money to stand next to one of those critters let alone put my butt on top of one. The best guy lasted a total of 11 seconds or so. The least experienced (or lucky) guy got knocked off as the bull cleared the chute.

Then the fun stuff started. They gathered up a dozen kids three to four years old and put them atop sheep. You would have died laughing.

Only one kid stayed on longer than a second or two, and this boy hung on so tight that he slowly revolved from on top to underneath the sheep as the critter ran around the ring. The rodeo clowns finally had to pry him off when the sheep quit running as he didn't want to let go. Naturally he got the prize for the evening.

Sorry that there's no photos. When we left Marc and Nancy's house I didn't realize that we were going to be running into any photo ops that evening.

So, see you tomorrow. We'll be staying (if everything goes right) in the KOA in Holbrook so we should have WiFi. Right now we have to get ready for the next meal which is scheduled to be a gigantic barbecue event for more than 25 people from around the neighborhood. They're having cheese cake for desert so I don't want to miss it.

Ciao for now.

Day Eight - Life in the SLOW lane

Today, Concetta and her sister, Phyllis, and Phyllis' boyfriend, Collin, and I spent the day just hanging out at sister Phyllis' son, Marc's house near Rock Creek, Arizona. While Marc and his wife, Nancy, hit the highways early on their way to their jobs, the sisters spent a big chunk of the day by the pool reading while I and Colin hung out in the dining room trying to tell each other progressive more grandiose lies, tall tails, and intricate designs for curing all the world's ills. In between times I tried to get the blog caught up. Plans had been briefly circulated for a auto trip back up the highway to Sedona, but as nap time came on, the plans were dropped. Now we're planning on just doing more kicking back, maybe a barbecue, maybe a local shopping trip down to the town of Rock Creek. All of this is fine with me. After 1,200 miles on the road behind the wheel I can do with a short spell of vegetative status. I even had time to start my new book, "House of Rain," by Craig Childs, which is subtitled "Tracking a Vanished Civilization across the American Southwest" and revolves around the history of the prehistoric Anasazi. Great stuff. Reads like a novel. Photo left is Concetta enjoying her time by the pool.

Day Seven - Kanab, Utah to Grand Canyon, Arizona

Day seven of our adventure found us in Kanab, Utah, and headed for the Phoenix area. Since we couldn't get there in one day we just HAD to feed our Grand Canyon addiction by stopping on the south rim for the night. Initially we thought that no one would be visiting the Canyon this early in the season since temps were still ranging below freezing there at night. But just in case, while still in Kanab, we took the extra step of calling ahead to "Trailer Village" to see if we needed a reservation. Good thinking! When I got the reservation clerk on the line he told me that it was a good thing we called since there was only ONE spot left. Good grief! "Yes," I said. "We'll take it." Of course there was probably more room in the primitive camping area if it had come to that, which is much prettier but lacks water, sewer, and electricity. Arriving in camp around 2:00 p.m. I hurriedly got the RV on the ramps to level it and then we dashed off to see what we could see of the canyon in the afternoon light. I'll probably put more of the photos on Facebook, but here's one of Concetta and me on the south rim. I stopped a couple of Japanese students to take the shot and gave them an "Arigatou" when they handed the camera back. They got a big kick out of that and insisted through hand motions that we reciprocate and take their photo, too. Having had a Japanese roommate at one time I knew what to say. What they said in response went over my head, but oh well.

The best thing about visiting the Grand Canyon, other than the awesome magnificence of the geology, is the way the park has worked hard to cater to the visitor. Buses circulate throughout the entire south rim area and you can catch a ride to wherever you'd like to go and you won't have to wait more than 15 minutes for the next bus to stop. The next best thing about the park is the visitors themselves. They literally come from everywhere around world, from the far east to the Mediterranean countries; from the Scandinavian countries to South American countries.

After walking all afternoon along the south rim we arrived at the Geology Museum where I purchased yet another book on natural vegetation. I've been trying to find a way to identify the "weeds" along the roadside as we take our walks or do a roadside stop with the motorhome. On this trip I finally learned what a "Creosote Bush" looks like since there were so many in the Valley of Fire. But still there's lots of other plants that I don't know. Most of the books seem prone to identify the prettiest plants but the "uglier" plants go undiscussed. I have found a couple of books on native plants and how they were used by the native Americans, which is pretty fascinating.

We got back to the RV just about dark, but since I didn't have to set up the water and sewer due to the impending, overnight freezing conditions, my work for the day was done. The next morning it was so cold I had to set up the sewer line to be pumped and washed out then dash back inside to warm up a bit. Then I'd go back out for a few more minutes of work. The temperature gauge in the front locker was registering 35.7 degrees, which meant in the outside air it was probably at least five degree colder than that.

At left, by the way, is a Creosote Bush which grow in profusion all over the southwest.

Here's some info on the Creosote Bush: "Creosote bush (Larrea tridentata), sometimes called greasewood, is a large shrub found in most of Arizona’s counties. Creosote bush grows at elevations of 5,000 feet or lower and occupies thousands of square miles of Arizona’s Sonoran desert. It is also common in the Mohave Desert in California, Nevada, and southern Utah as well as the Chihuahuan Desert of New Mexico, west Texas, and Mexico. Locally, creosote bush grows on valley bottoms and benches in and around the Verde Valley." This website will elaborate: http://ag.arizona.edu/yavapai/anr/hort/byg/archive/creosote.html

Day Six - Mesquite, Nevada to Kanab, Utah

Day six found us driving north out of Mesquite into Utah before dropping south toward Kanab. Not much to see on Interstate 15, but once past St. George, and we exited onto Utah route 59, we came across the most wonderful setting for our noontime lunch break. Nestled on the edge of a resident's property in the town of Tocquerville, we found this cute little log cabin. Though no one was around to ask, if I had to guess I'd have to say that the cabin is an earlier rendition of the family's larger house. You can see that it's made of traditional hand hewn logs with the corners squared off to mesh with the log on the adjacent wall.

Day Five - Valley of Fire to Mesquite

On day five we didn't connect with the the RV park that we had intended. It wasn't really our fault. When we called the woman at the park she said she couldn't give us GPS coordinates because we'd end up in the wrong place. Well, the verbal directions she gave us sent us off in the wrong direction which, ultimately, caused us to stumble over the RV parking lot for a local casino called the Casa Blanca. Since I was in no mood to try and sort out this puzzle, we just went ahead and registered at the Casa Blanca, which turned out to be affordable. Only thing was, the RV parking area had no WiFi. They invited us to come hang out in the Casino lounge and use the free WiFi there, but we declined. We found out later that the original RV park was really nice, and much more upscale than where we ended up, and probably would have had WiFi in every palm tree. But sometimes it's just a whole lot easier to not try and swim upstream when the Fates are insistent on having their way.

So, it turned out that the lack of WiFi didn't matter much anyway because our friends, Frank and Patti Adams, who live in Mesquite, volunteered to take us to lunch at a local golf course as well as treat us to a backyard barbecue dinner at their place (this is the view from their patio). I was able to upload the previous two days events while at their house, but didn't end up with sufficient time to actually write anything about the day's events since our party lasted into the late evening.

Before arriving at Mesquite Concetta and I did take time to visit the Lost City Museum in Overton, Nevada, and spent a wonderful couple of hours visiting with the ghosts of ancient Puebloan Indians. We saw some really fantastic basketry, pottery, and other related everyday items from local tribes.

The photo at left is the Lost City Museum near Overton. I had never visited the museum before, but the last time Concetta was there, which was about 40 years ago or more, it was a tiny, two room affair. Now, they have a new building of about 2000 square feet and some expertly done displays of native American basketry, weaving, and other antiquities. I was very impressed with their efforts and recommend a visit when next you're in the area.

Day four – the Valley of Fire Visitor Center

Did you know that there are 300,000,000 bugs on planet earth for every one of us humans? Neither did I. Concetta and I learned that bit of trivia when we hiked to the Valley of Fire Visitor Center this morning after breakfast. I say “hiked” because the Center isn’t located here where our RV is parked. No, it’s about three miles from here by a narrow, two-lane road, flanked by millions of acres of desert.

When we first decided to stay here at the “Atlatl” campsite, we thought the Visitor Center WAS here. But that turned out to not be true. Yesterday, when we strolled to the far end of our camping area to see the native America pictographs, I caught sight of a park ranger in the pictograph parking area and dashed over to ask him. “Can you tell me how far away the Visitor Center is,” I asked. “Sure,” he said. “I’d say a couple of miles or so.” “Ah,” I said. “Is it okay to walk there?” He looked at me for a long moment and said, “Nobody really ever does that.” I told him thanks a lot and stepped back from his truck so he could continue on with his ranger duties. Guess we’ll be the first, I thought.

So it was that right after breakfast this morning, while the air was still long-sleeves cool and a gentle breeze was wafting over the desert playa, Concetta and I set off with our tiny backpack full of water bottles and energy bars to see if we might get to the Center and back before any afternoon heat might set in.

As it turned out, I started doubting our sanity about twenty minutes into the hike. As we left the confines of the camping area, reached the highway and kept walking, we rounded a bend in the road and discovered that the whole valley dropped away to the east so that we could see EVERY sign of civilization that could be seen from that vantage point. Trouble was there were no signs of civilization. Just a yellow-striped ribbon of asphalt that meandered listlessly in the brilliant morning sun, here and there disappearing from sight as it dipped into arroyos and climbed back out again, clear to the horizon. Occasionally a tiny automobile could be seen moving toward us, serving as some indication that life other than the two of us could be found out there among the creosote bushes and low-growing sage.

“Come on,” Concetta said. “We can make it.” “Make it where?” I asked. “I don’t see a Visitor Center anywhere.” “Has to be out there,” she said. “The ranger told you two miles.” And so we continued hiking. I found myself hoping that the ranger wasn’t someone they had just hired the previous week.

As fate would have it, we had hiked about a mile or more when we started seeing cars leave the main road and venture toward the sandstone cliffs on the north side of the valley. We couldn’t see any structures, but the distance from us to the turnout seemed to be about a mile and so lent some credence to the ranger’s sense of distance. “I bet that’s the turnoff to the Visitor Center,” I told Concetta.

And so it turned out to be. Before we had even walked that last mile, we saw the sandstone-colored building nestled close against the sandstone cliffs. It blended so well with the environment that you just knew that was the architect’s intent. Our only surprise at that point was the sign at the base of the visitor center driveway. “Visitor Center,” it said. “One half mile.” That bit of information added to my suspicion that, counting the walk to the main highway from our camp, and the walk from the main highway to the Center, the total walking distance was closer to three miles than two.

One of the first things we did at the Visitor Center was watch a video on the bugs of planet Earth. That’s where I learned the 300,000,000-to-one bit of etymological trivia. And that’s where I was momentarily catapulted back to my childhood. Let me explain. When I was a kid my dad raised horses. He and mom had, at one time, been horse-riding people. Once my brother and I arrived on the scene, their horse riding days were largely over. But Dad still kept them around for quite some time after that. My big complaint about the horses in those days was the fact that they always took precedence over the humans. No matter where we were, and how much fun we might be having, at some mid-afternoon hour Dad would rise and say, “Well, it’s time to start home so I can feed the horses.” I wasn’t very old when I vowed that I would NEVER own any pets of any kind who would control my life the way the horses controlled Dad’s.

Today, while Concetta and I were sitting in the movie theater watching a myriad of termites building a structure equivalent to a human structure two miles high, a youngster about seven years old ventured into the auditorium and dropped down in a seat. He had only sat there for perhaps two minutes, obviously lost in the sights and sounds of the bug world, when in marched “Dad” who said to junior, “Come on, the dog’s in the car.” With the greatest reluctance and several backward glances at the screen, junior finally rose and exited. Wow! I thought. There’s my childhood in microcosm. Did that insensitive dad have any realization of what he’d just done? I doubt it. Had he just thwarted what might have been the child’s only exposure to that particular fascinating topic? Possibly. Had I just witnessed a parent who didn’t have clue what was important in this world. Emphatically! A pox on that guy.

I expected the three mile return trip under the noonday sun to be just this side of exhausting, what with the tired feet and the increased temperature. But in reality I had more fun coming back than I did going out. I spent my time (when we weren’t dogging cars) looking for prime examples of the various rock types in the valley that were big enough to be representative but small enough to carry around in a pocket. That combined with photographing the various indigenous plants kept me occupied the whole walk back.

Only one event begs inclusion here that I haven’t mentioned, and it happened on BOTH legs of our journey. Much as I related a couple of days ago when the military jet flew by us at eye level as we enjoyed the view from the rim of Death Valley, today we belatedly looked up just in time to see a glaringly chartreuse Lamborghini go rumbling by us as looking so out of place that we might have been imagining it. Then, as we trekked back up the desert highway in the opposite direction that same Lamborghini sailed past again. We couldn’t have been more surprised if Marty McFly’s Delorean had dropped out of the sky and stopped to ask us for directions.

Now, back at our wonderful bastion of serenity and cool air (it’s only 77 in the coach right now with the windows open), Concetta is out on the lanai reading and I’m, well, you know what I’m doing. Until next time, keep on traveling!