Guadalupe Peak (09-24-13)

The last time we came through Guadalupe Mountain National Park, I was still recovering from foot surgery, so we elected to do a shorter, easier hike.  




This time- we came for the peak.  Guadalupe peak is the highest mountain peak in the state of Texas. The trail is 9 miles long, with 2900 feet of elevation gain.

 

We found out that the same storm that caused all the massive flooding in Colorado, dumped 13 inches of rain here at Guadalupe- all in a 24 hour span. In the picture above, you can see the dry riverbed. Usually there’s no water in it.  Paul said he would have loved to have been here to see the water gushing down the mountain.  To give perspective- on the right side of the picture there is a parking lot.  You can see our trailer in that lot.

Of the 85 miles of trails in the park, only 11 miles remain open, and luckily for us, the one we wanted was one of them!  There were quite a few areas of the trail that were almost washed out, which made for difficult walking.

We haven’t done much hiking lately so we were a little apprehensive about the elevation gain, but in the end, we did fine.  Every corner we turned, the view got better (and we groaned as we realized the peak we were climbing was not the peak.

Once we arrived at the top, we stayed for a bit, chatting with some of the others who had made the trek up the mountain. The lake in the background is actually the salt basin dunes.  It’s very rare that there is water there, but the recent flooding has completely changed the look of them.

Eventually though, we had to begin the descent.  This is where the washouts were more noticeable. With all the loose gravel and steep inclines, it took us longer than it usually does to come down the mountain. 

The last bit of Kansas (09-20-13)

Before we left Kansas, we had one more thing to see. A mine. Another mine?  Haven’t we seen every type of mine there is?  I thought so,  but I guess I was wrong, because on our last day in Kansas we visited an underground salt mine in Hutchinson, Kansas.  The mine opened in 1923 and is still running today.

Our tour started “topsides” where we all donned hard hats and re-breathers.  They were happy to tell us that in the history of the mine, no one has had to use the re-breather.

To get down to the mine, we all piled in an elevator and rode down the mine shaft.  It was extremely dark.  And quiet.




Then I heard someone softly say “ I think it’s a crab”.  That was when we realized that my clearance rack t-shirt from PEI actually glows in the dark.  Ha!  We all got a laugh out of that once I pointed out that it’s actually a lobster.










  Once at the bottom, most of the exhibits were self guided.  That’s great because Paul is interested in completely different things from me.

While he was checking out the equipment they used, I was looking at trash. They have a saying- “What Goes in the Mine, Stays in the Mine”, including all the trash- which they now call “artifacts”. The salt preserves even the trash for many decades!

Interesting that NO food or drink are allowed on the tour- not even water, because the floor is made of saltcrete. Instead of using sand to make concrete, they use salt, and make saltcrete, so yeah, if you spilled your water, the floor would dissolve.

One of the displays that interested me the most was about salt and iodine. Before the early 1900s, IDD, (Iodine Deficiency Disorder) was the leading preventable cause of mental retardation. Scientists were looking for a universal vessel for getting iodine into the world’s population, and that’s where salt comes in. 

We all need salt.  Actually, we need about 1/2 teaspoon of salt a day. In 1923, a scientist at University of Michigan figured out the chemical process to put iodine into salt and within a year, iodized salt was the norm.  I’m probably one of the few people who buys noniodized salt.  That’s because iodine can cause thyroid imbalances and I have had Graves Disease, a thyroid disease.  I’ve been in remission but my doctor has advised me NOT to have iodine because of that.  

If you’ve ever seen the show Dirty Jobs, Mike Rowe actually did a show down here in the mine.  The car that they drove him around in is still here.










There were two “rides” that took us deeper into the mining operation. One was a train ride and the other was a glorified golf cart train that was called the Dark ride.  The only light for most of the trip was the light from the tour guide’s helmet ( and of course, Paul’s flashlight!). We learned the history of the mine, and she told us a few stories- it was actually pretty entertaining.

One of the characteristics of salt is as a preservative, of course, and parts of the mine are now used for storage. At a constant 68 degrees and low humidity, the mine is perfect for storing fragile and/or important items. Over 8 million boxes of items are stored here.  Hollywood keeps prints and film here, including the original of The Wizard of Oz.

Data is also stored here. Several states, and some countries, keep back up data here.  This computer was used for data storage until the 1960s.  It looks impressive and huge, and it stored less data than an ipod nano. My, how times have changed.







Once we were back above ground, our plan was to drive to Liberal, Kansas, park the trailer for the night, and drive in to look around the famous town, but we were too tired.  Instead,  we decided to do a ‘drive-by’ on our way out of town in the morning. A famous person is from Liberal Kansas- her name is Dorothy Gale.  



She and her dog Toto were picked up by a tornado years ago.  They had quite an adventure before making it back to Kansas.

A Busy Day in Kansas (09-19-13)

   We woke up in the morning, all set to head out and move towards Oklahoma, when I said to Paul “Ya know, the New Horizons factory is pretty close by” and he replied “Yeah, and the Eisenhower Presidential Library is, too”.

So just like that we decided to stay another day and do more exploring.  It means knocking off one of our stops on the way to El Paso, so I guess we’ll see Comanche National Grassland some other time.

  For anyone not familiar with 5h wheels, New Horizons produces one of the best quality 5th wheels on the market- also one of the most expensive ones.  New Horizons is known for  highly customizing their 5th wheels to whatever the customer wants.  There were several reasons why we didn’t look at them when we ordered our Mobile Suites, and that’s one of the reasons.  I honestly didn’t want to think that hard figuring out what we wanted. 

Their location was another reason we didn’t consider them.  We wouldn’t have ordered without seeing them being built, and the factory is way over here in Kansas.  The third reason we passed them over is the price.  We couldn’t justify spending $150,000 on a rig. All that being said, we were still curious about them, since we’d never been in one, and so we drove over to take the factory tour.





Our guide was Drew, the owner’s son, and he spent most of the morning showing us around the place.  New Horizons is so customized, they only build one a week.  So, after a great tour, did we see anything that made us want to run out and buy a New Horizons? Nope! We’re still happy with our DRV product, and after all, it was semi-custom built for us, and in fact there wasn’t anything that we wanted that DRV couldn’t do for us. 


“If we don’t defend ourselves on the Rhine, we’ll have to defend ourselves in New York” –Dwight D. Eisenhower

After grabbing a quick lunch, we went to the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Museum and Library.  I must be easily annoyed because within a few minutes, after seeing rows and rows of huge plaques that were loaded with verbiage, I was complaining that if I had wanted to read a book, I would have saved my money and gotten one from the library.

Dwight Eisenhower’s life can essentially be divided into three parts- his childhood, his military career, and his presidency. 

  His childhood was spent in a small home with his parents and 5 brothers, all of whom were particularly successful. In fact, when asked, soon after D-Day, if she was proud of her son, Dwight’s mother replied “ Of course.  Which one?”

He never forgot the small town of Abilene Kansas, where he grew up, claiming that the thing he was most proud of in his life, was his upbringing in his hometown in Kansas.

He attended West Point Academy and graduated with a group of men who would become extremely important and influential. In fact, his graduating class had more Generals than any other graduating class in West Point history.  Out of 164 cadets, 64 eventually became Generals.  Of course, Eisenhower was among those 64.  During World War II he was promoted to Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, overseeing not just the United States war effort, but all the Allied Forces.  He played a major role in the successful invasion of France and Germany.

Convinced to run for the presidency, Dwight easily won the election in 1952, and again in 1956. His terms in office took place during a relatively calm time in our history, although the cold war was “heating up.”

Once we’d had our fill of Dwight, we headed back home, but we’d heard about Mushroom Rock State Park, and since it was on the way, we decided to stop and see it. Yup, it looks like a mushroom.

Working Our Way towards El Paso (09-18-13)

Our original intent was to make our way to Colorado and do some hiking in the Denver area, but mother nature changed our plans.  With all the flooding going on up there, the national park is closed, the trails would be impassable, and the last thing they need is people coming into the area. So, we went to plan B, and will head to El Paso to see Paul’s mom.  Along the way we are stopping to do some hiking and exploring.


  Our first stop was near Marquette Kansas.  We stayed at another Corp of Engineers Park, this time on Kanopolis Lake.  The trail we hiked was Horsethief Canyon Trail.

We didn’t hike all of it, partly because the signage was so lacking that we weren’t sure which way to go.  The other issue was that it’s in a canyon and the forecast called for rain in the afternoon.  3 miles later, we were back at the truck, and headed into town to get some diesel fuel.

We drove into the small town of Lindsborg.  Lindsborg is a Swedish settlement, which we figured out pretty quickly by reading the “Valkommen” signs.  One of the first things we noticed in the historic and cute downtown was the horses standing on many of the street corners.  We learned that they are called Dala horses and historically they are carved by the Swedes during the cold winter months and then painted to show them off.  If you search the internet for “Dala horse” the first thing that pops up is the store here in Lindsborg that sells them.


I’m not sure if that means that they are the leading authority on the horses, or that no one else really cares about them!

The Homestead Act (09-16-13)

What is the Homestead Act, and why are we learning about it? We are learning about it because we happen to be in the area in Nebraska where it started and a National Monument was placed here so that no one would forget the historical significance that the Homestead Act had on our history as a nation. As to what it was, it was enacted by Abraham Lincoln in 1862, and the general purpose of it was to encourage people to move out west and settle in new areas of the country.  To do that, the Homestead Act allowed anyone over the age of 21 to apply to receive 160 acres of land for free, but that acreage had to be in certain areas of the country.

Of course, there were rules. You had to live on the land for 5 years, build a home on it, and use the land to cultivate crops.  Millions of people took advantage of this program until it was abolished in the 1980s.  The first successful homesteader had his plot at the location of this museum.  His descendants donated the land for the museum.  The last homesteader got his 160 acres up in Alaska in 1986. 

The idea of “taming” the wild west was not a new one in 1862.  As early as the late 1700s our government was trying to find ways of creating settlements out west. Telling “Americans” to go forth and build communities in unpopulated areas pretty much ignored the fact that actually, those lands were not uninhabited.  They had been inhabited by native Americans for thousands of years by that point.   No one asked the Indians what they thought of the idea of thousands of people settling on lands that they already occupied, and as has happened innumerable times over the course of the history of our planet, the Native Americans were shoved aside to make way for new, more powerful people.

Over 270 million acres of land were given away by the Federal government, in 30 states.  Along the wall at the entrance to the museum there were metal representations of all the states that were involved, with a square cut out of it to indicate how much land was given away in that particular state. This picture shows that Iowa had very little land given away, but Minnesota had a lot.

Once the land had been occupied and cultivated for 5 years, the settler could apply for the official patent (deed) for the land.  He or she had to bring two witnesses to the Land Office that would verify the the fact that they had fulfilled  the obligations required of them.

a restored 1800s homestead cabin

The Ingalls Family of “Little House On The Prairie” fame tried, (in Kansas) and ultimately succeeded (in South Dakota),  in receiving their 160 acres of land from the government.

Mutual of Omaha (09-15-13)

{Post Delayed due to Lack of Internet}

Well, just Omaha, really.  Omaha Nebraska. Slowing down the pace a bit, we spent three nights in Omaha.  We were lazy for the first day, and only ventured out to check out the Mormon Trail Center at Historic Winter Quarters.  What a mouthful.

When the Mormons originally started their trek from Illinois to their new home of Salt Lake City, they thought the first wave of settlers would reach their destination within the first year.  They were wrong. Weather conditions forced them to stop for the winter, and they did that in Omaha Nebraska.

Once here, they built a small town of 500 homes.  A smaller “scouting” party was sent ahead to Utah, and along the way they mapped the trail, watering holes, and good camping places. Once the weather was favorable, the Omaha settlers left for Utah,and more pioneers from Illinois took their place.  Over the course of several years, more than 70,000 Mormons migrated through this area.  In fact, it is considered to be the most successful pioneer migration in history.  These people were hard workers, smart,  and willing to sacrifice for the common good- or for God, as they probably saw it.


This is a small museum, adjacent to the cemetery where the pioneers who didn’t survive the winter are buried.  Once we entered the building, we were greeted by a “sister”, a young lady who is on an LDS mission in Omaha.  She was curious about our beliefs and she and I had an interesting conversation about the beliefs of the LDS church.  I enjoy learning about their faith, as long as one tries to convert me!  She didn’t, but she also didn’t let me tour the museum on my own.  She stayed with me, discussing each exhibit.  My only issue with that is that it made me feel rushed as I read the information presented.  Paul took the opportunity to scoot ahead and tour at his own pace.


One of the exhibits showed the handcarts that were used by the pioneers to cart their belongings from Illinois to Utah.  It was actually faster and cheaper to travel that way, since the oxen that had been used previously walked slower than people, and of course needed to be fed and watered.  Paul’s great great grandfather was one of the Mormons who made this trek using a handcart. Although small, this museum had a lot of interesting information.




The following day didn't start out exactly as planned.  The night before we had been having issues with the hot spot and Wi-Fi on Paul’s phone, and after 3 hours of talking with AT&T and Apple, they told us to go to the nearby Apple store and get his phone replaced.  Luckily we had insurance, so it didn't cost us anything. We took care of that before heading to the Henry Doorly Zoo for the day. (Edit: Paul’s new phone doesn't work correctly so we’ll have to replace it again when we get to El Paso.  Meantime I activated my hot spot so we’ll see if I can post with it)

We don’t go to many zoos, and we had just been to the National Zoo in Washington DC, but one of the exhibits sounded particularly interesting to me.  The Desert Dome houses habitats from 3 deserts around the world, and beneath it is Kingdoms of the Night- the world’s largest nocturnal exhibit.  

Here they have switched the day/night cycle, so we can see nocturnal animals at a time when they will be more active.  It was quite an exhibit. I enjoyed it, and most of the rest of the zoo as well. 

  The view of the crocodiles and alligators was interesting because we could see them above the water …

and below.

Some of animals didn't seem to have very much room to move around and definitely appeared bored.  That’s sad.  The National Zoo has large areas for the animals to roam, but then of course there isn't much chance of close up pictures!

The gorillas  have managed to find ways to combat the boredom, however.

They spend a fair amount of time interacting with the people on the other side of the glass. I love watching the gorillas- they are so intelligent!

 

One gorilla has his fun at the expense of the unwary.  He waits until someone is sitting in the round window, and then he runs by and bangs on the glass, startling whoever is sitting there.

We did a lot  of walking, checking out the larger enclosures.















This bird was the weirdest thing I’ve seen in a long time.  Pretty colors though.

Probably my favorite animals of the day were the lion cubs. They are so adorable and very curious about the people staring at them! They are almost a year old.

Iowa- don’t Blink (09-12-13)

Before leaving for Iowa, we spent one incredibly hot afternoon in Shipshewana (or Shopshewanna, as my friend says).  As many times as we have been to this area, we've never made it to the huge flea market. We finally remedied that, but with record high temperatures, we didn't walk the whole thing.  After all, we don’t buy much anyway.

We took two days to drive across Indiana and Illinois, into Iowa. This is the view we were greeted with when we arrived:

Acres and acres….and acres….of corn fields.  Mile after mile.  Of course, there were some acres of soybeans in there too, but farming is clearly  the main business in Iowa. I searched the internet looking for something to stop and see that wouldn't be too far out of our way as we crossed the state.  I found “The Kellogg Museum” nearby and thought it would be pretty cool to see where Corn Pops are made.  But when I looked further, I realized that this Kellogg had nothing to do with the cereal.  Oh well.  We skipped the museum.


We decided to spend a couple of nights at the Core of Engineers  Park on Lake Red Rock, near the small town of Pella. 




Our interest in Pella was a sports bar-the Sports Page- that was showing the Patriots football game on Thursday night.  We used it as an excuse to go out for dinner, and watch the football game.  Dinner was actually really good, but we were the only customers left by the time half time arrived.  We left a little while before the end of the game and listened to the last bit on the truck radio on the way home.








The next day we took off on the nearby bike trail. We had a pleasant 12 mile ride, and saw a fair amount of wildlife along the way. At least the weather has cooled off and it was only in the mid 70s.



This deer is barely visible in the picture, but he carefully watched us as we stopped to take his picture.  Before I could get a clear shot, he decided he’d had enough and took off.

Along the shores of the lake we saw pelicans, great blue Herons, and a young bald eagle.

  

And, last but not least, the Monarch butterfly migrates through this area on the way to Mexico.

One of the things I've really enjoyed since we left Michigan is the price of the RV parks we've been staying in.  Paying $35-$55 a night for a spot for the trailer gets pricey after a while.  It feels great to pay $12-$20 !!