Fact Check # 5

On road to Medicine Lake
Maligne Canyon
Fairy Slippers

Fact Check #

May 28, 2006

Total miles traveled to date: 3,249.2; includes sightseeing excursions.

Gas mileage: Holding steady at just under 23 miles per gallon.

Price of gas: Increasing with latitude; $1.01 per liter (Can) in Cranbrook,

$1.08 (Can) per liter in Jasper, $1.14 (Can) per liter in Prince George and Chetwynd, and $1.24 (Can) in Fort Nelson. There are 3.8 liters in a gallon. That means that the price per gallon in Fort Nelson is $4.71 (can). The exchange rate is currently .90 Can to $1.00 US. So, the price per US dollar is $4.24 per gallon. Considering my great math skills, a check of the math would be in order. Of course it may be that the price per gallon in Denton is $4.00 per gallon. Thank you Mr. Chaney for trying to help out the poor oil companies.

New low temperature: 34 degrees outside right now. The lady at the desk said it might snow today.

Gas canisters used: 5; Hot showers

Date had to buy more wine: May 27, 2006. Hey, most of that weight was in the bottles.

New record: We have now crossed the Continental divide eight times in one trip.

Ugliest town so far: I am not going to mention the name because I know that this blog is very widely read and I don’t want to offend anyone who has three riffles in the cab of their pickup and a 45 on their belt. However, the initials are F. N.

Most beautiful Town: Impossible to pick one. But the following would be in the finals: Trinidad, Co., Gardener, Mont., Laramie, Wyo. Polson, Mont. (on south end of Flathead Lake), Somers, Mont. (on north end of Flathead Lake), Jasper, Alberta

Note to Anonymous

May 27, 2006

I like your sense of humor and have liked it for many years. It is weird. I understand that living too long in the middle of the desert with cows, falls from horses and shooting yourself in the stomach with a roman candle can create a weird sense of humor.

And here is how I feel. I have never slept better nor been more eager for the next day than I have for the last 12 days. I am in a state of awe. I suck in the air and taste its sweetness as it crosses my tongue. I wallow in the beauty that surrounds me. My soul is lifted up. I love Annie more. Elmo is now my buddy. I like the process of making and breaking camp. I am a child of Lewis or Clark or the first people crossing ice bridges into the wilderness I now speed through.

Tim

Elmo's log #3

May 27, 2006

The new time zone (we are now in Pacific time zone) and the increased daylight resulting from constantly moving north make sleeping late difficult. The birds starting singing this morning around 3:40, first light. I woke again at 4:30 thinking it was time to get up. The sun was up, the birds were in full chorus, and the waves pushed by a light wind lapped rhythmically at the shore. I pulled my stocking cap over my eyes and managed to sleep until 6:30. The sky was bright blue and it was warm in the sun. Annie found false solomon seal and rough fruited fairy bell in the woods near our camp. We stayed on 97 to Chetwynd and then took Hudson’s loop, highway 29, to the Alaska Highway (97). At 1:27 P.M. Pacific time we entered the Alaska Highway. Aspen, birch, cottonwood and a sprinkling of spruce stretch in clumps on hill tops, squeeze into gullies sliding down the hills, blanket flat areas and line creeks and rivers. Annie and I imagine fall colors and are certain that we have not experienced color like that covering these hills in fall. We stopped in Fort Nelson and camped at the Supper 8 motel and ate at Dans, where all the other oil field workers and lumbermen go to watch hockey and drink hot tea. French fries and gravy is the specialty. The Oilers beat the Ducks. Saturday night motel is becoming a tradition.

Elmo's log #2

Elmo’s Log

May 26, 2006

We left Jasper, Alberta this morning about 9:00. We drove along Highway 16 to Prince George, crossing nine major rivers, the most major being the Fraser which was almost a mile wide at Prince George. We had a picnic lunch in Connaught Park on a hill over looking the Prince George. We then took Highway 97 north to McLeod Lake where we camped in Whisker’s Point Provincial Park. I really hope Elmo likes this. This park is way the hell in the middle of no where. At Surveyors Lake we got the last campsite available. Here we had our choice of every campsite. No one was here except the polite young man in the blue coveralls, long greasy hair and a three day growth of beard raking one of the campsites.

I am sitting a picnic table under huge spruce and cottonwood trees, listening to the unidentified birds sing, drinking cheap Italian wine, and looking across a beautiful blue mountain lake. This is a wonderful campground, and it is ours and the birds. I am surprised to see cottonwoods. The cottonwood

bark wears interesting black and pale green hairy Lichen. Elmo thinks this may be a little too much. I will try to do better.

Elmo's Log

Elmo’s Log

Elmo decided that there should be something written down that just said where we were and what happen today, short and sweet. He said that some real humans back in the real world might not want to hear all my philosophizing and cutesy descriptions. Elmo is a pretty sharp fellow. So I am adding a new section of Travels with Annie and Elmo that will give the Cliff Notes version of what happened each day. Since I am a little behind, I will start with a summary of the first 10 days of Elmo’s Log. After that I will try to do it daily.

Elmo’s Log summary of first ten days

May 15, 2006

Route: 380 to Decatur, 287 through Amarillo to Dumas, 87 to Raton, N.M., I 25 to Trinidad, Colo.

Campground: Trinidad Lake State Park

Weather: Beautiful but cold when we got up

Highlights: Sense of adventure and biscuits and sausage on way to Decatur, and surprise at the great campground.

Nature: Great Lichen, and orange globe mallow.

May 16, 2006

Route: I 25 from Trinidad to Colorado state line just past Fort Collins to Cheyenne, Wyoming; I 80 to Campground near Lairmie.

Campground: Yellow Pine Campground

Weather: Perfect

Highlights: Introduction to the Great Plains, walk on hill behind campground, finding star lilies

Nature: Star lilies

May 17, 18, 19, 2006

Route: I 80 and 287 to Rawlins, 287 north to Grand Teton National park.

Campground: Jenny Lake Campground

Weather: Light rain one night, otherwise perfect

Highlights: Teton Mountains and play of light between the mountains and Lake; fabulous campsite.

Nature: Great herds of Elk, feeling the force of the creation of the mountains and Jenny Lake

May 20, 2006

Route: 89 through Yellowstone National Park to Livingston, Montana, I 90 to Missoula.

Campground: Grant Creek Inn, a motel, in Missoula.

Weather: fabulous

Highlights: Dragons Breath and Artist point

Nature: Buffalo, wondering about what was going on underground; great plains rocks and hills and canyons, fields of sunflowers, lilacs in cities

May 21, 2006

Route: US 93 to Canadian border, Canadian 93 to campground.

Campground: Surveyors Lake Campground in Kikomum Creek Provincial Park.

Weather: Excellent

Highlights: Drive through the fabulous garden of Montana and along the shore of Flathead Lake

Nature: Flathead Lake, flowers around surveyors lake, young humans.

May 22, 23, 2006

Route: 93 to Lake Louise

Campground: Lake Louise Campground

Weather: Rained most of both nights there, days overcast, windy and cold at times.

Highlights: Hike along shore of Lake Louise, singing ice, Bow River, Moraine Lake.

Nature: See highlights, big horn Sheep, black bear, orange lichen.

May 24, 25, 2006

Route: 93 to Jasper in Jasper National Park

Campground: Whistlers Campground

Weather: Rained both nights, hard at times

Highlights: Athabasca Falls, Maligne Canyon, Medicine Lake, the village of Jasper, clouds on the mountains, gray limestone mountains.

Nature: See highlights, elk in campground next to tent, fairey slippers next to tent.

Singing Ice

May 25, 2006

Something new to experience; never seen, never heard, never read about, never dreamed of or imagined, never even heard of; is difficult to stumble into when one is as old as dirt. But the singing ice at Lake Louise was such an occurrence. It was like a baby tasting ice cream for the first time or like the first time a boy kisses a girl other than his mother.

I was walking, a few steps behind Annie and Elmo, along the bank about half way between Lake Louise Lodge and where the stream from the glacier pours milky water into the lake when I heard angels singing. The sound was like thousands, no millions of tiny wind chimes in different pitches blowing in varied breezes, some steady, some gusts, some fitful rushes.

I stopped; more like, froze. I looked at the trees, at the clouds scurrying over the snowy peaks, for falling rocks on the mountain sides, for a group of children with strange musical instruments coming up the trail behind me, for the angels leading the second coming. After exhausting all other possibilities, I noticed the ice. The ice was singing.

Ice, in its last throws before it dies and again becomes water, covered large portions of Lake Louise. At this stage, the ice was a carpet of ice crystals as numerous as stars or sand, the size of half used pencils, standing on end, each snuggled next to its neighbors on all sides forming a sparkling delicate layer the surface of the lake.

Gusts of wind rushed down the slopes and across the lake pushing the ice crystals into flows, and streams, and ridges, and piles, and sheets; each crystal as it moved pinging off every other crystal that it touched.

“Annie,” I said. “Come here. Listen.”

She stood beside me, head cocked. “My God, what is that?”

“It is the ice. The ice is singing.”

Info

All the posts published this date, May 25, 2006, ar being sent from The Black Sheep Cafe in Jasper, B.C., right in the middle of Jasper National Park, maybe the most beautiful place we have been yet; the park, not the cafe.
Life is,
Tim

Elmo Report

May 24, 2006

Elmo has settled in to the pace of the Journey. He likes his bed in the car stuffed between the ice chest, tent polls and camping chairs, the head rest of Annie’s seat and the door. He loves the tent and his bed there. I think he would sleep later than any of us.

He does have one complaint: the leash. He is required to be on leash everywhere we have gone. Elmo has expressed his displeasure by twice chewing apart the new self-retracting leash. It is now tied to one of his old leashes. I tried to explain the rules to Elmo and even showed him one of the signs. It didn’t help. Annie has convinced him that he is not really a dog. Oh, he also insisted on being friendly to the Japanese tourists while we were walking around Lake Louise. He did not seem to understand that they were more interested in their photography than petting a cute dog like Elmo.

I am trying to be as much like Elmo as possible. And I am doing much better than I ever imagined at taking what each day has to offer. However, I refuse to eat moose pellets.

Fact Check #4

Orange Lichen, Lake Louise
Elmo, Montana; On the shores of Flathead Lake
Lake Louise

May 23, 2006

Time it takes to break camp: one hour forty-five minutes; includes gourmet breakfast and Elmo walking.

Time it took the Australians camped next to us in the rental RV to break camp: fourteen minutes twenty-two seconds, but they had tea and left over barby for breakfast.

Time to set up camp: average, one hour depending on when we open the wine.

Coldest Camp: Still Trinidad Lake State Park first night out.

Most interesting bear protection: Lake Louise Campground had a six strand electric fence all the way around the campground.

Most rain: Rained all night until about 10:00 in the morning at Lake Louise; not hard, but steady. We were warm and dry.

New mammal sightings: big horn sheep and black bear, both in Kootenay National Park,B.C.; and ground hogs at Lake Louise, believe it or not.

New personal record: We have now crossed the continental divide six times on one trip.

Most interesting village name: Elmo, Mont. on the shore of Flathead Lake. Elmo was somewhat excited to learn that a town had been named after him.

New best bike ride: Bow River loop in Lake Louise. This trail runs in a loop along both sides of the Bow River, frequently close enough to dip your toe as you race along. It weaves and bends on a narrow packed trail through a spruce forest and can get interesting as you pick up speed. At either end, narrow wooden bridges cross the raging Bow River.

Least attractive camping spot: Grant Creek Inn, a motel in Missoula Mont. We needed internet access.

Mileage to date: 2,347miles.

Eternal Spring

Lake Louise
Annie probably knows these. I forgot to ask.
Surveyor Lake campground, B.C.

May 22, 2006

What a glorious time to go north. We seem to be following early spring. Annie has identified over seventy species of blooming wild flowers, eight of which she has never seen before. She has also spotted numerous species not yet identified. Some of the unidentified, I am including with this post. If anyone can help, let us know.

Laramie was like March in Washington D.C.. Plums, crab apples, pears, forsythia, and cherries decorated the streets with color. The Aspen in Grand Teton National Park were covered in tiny yellow green leaflets. We thought we would run out of wild flowers, get too far north, but it is spring even in Lake Louise where we are camped tonight. The rivers are running near flood stage; unseasonably warm weather and rain.

There are other reasons for heading to Alaska this time of year. With one notable exception, the crowds which frustrate the summer traveler do not exist. We have no problem finding camping sites. Most campgrounds are virtually empty. However, one should check holidays in other countries. We got to Surveyor Lake Campground in Kikomun Provincial Park about forty miles north of the Canadian border around four in the afternoon. The place was packed. Most of the adult campers had their kids with them, and there were a lot of older teens camping there with their older teen friends, with all the attendant nuisances. We got the last camp site, literally. Canada celebrates Victoria Day on the last Monday before May 24. It is a national holiday and all the schools were out. They all go back to school and work Tuesday.

In addition despite our fears of snow and freezing weather, The weather has been perfect. We wear jackets in the mornings and evenings and when the clouds and wind pass by. Still we have been too warm as much as we have been cold. However, the Canadians tell us that the weather is uncommonly warm for this time of year.

I suppose that we can go north only so long and then we must turn south for eternal fall. That is the plan, you know.

No Ice Cream

May 22, 2006

One of the basic guidelines of Journey Travel is the “Archeologist Principal,” named after my neighbor Reid. This principle encourages the traveler not to try to experience too much. Archeologist don’t set out to explore Africa or dig the shore of the Black Sea; they find the one great spot, 50 feet by 72 feet, and spend the rest of their lives scraping away grains of sand down through centuries and millenniums of history. The archeologist finds the story that piece of earth has to tell. The only thing that could get Reid away from that site in Georgia would be senility or revolution.

Journey Travel should try to discover the story of a place. However, the scope of our Journey necessitates a limited application of the Archeologist Principle. We must skip stories to get other stories.

We spent part of a day in Yellowstone, much of it driving. We watched boiling mud pots, bottomless pools of super heated emerald water, colorful mineral deposits pilled on other colorful mineral deposits for millions of years, snow caped mountains reflected in Yellowstone Lake. We stopped and gazed across Lewis Lake, still frozen from one bank to the other. We saw and heard the Dragon’s breath, a hole roaring and spouting steam. We walked to the overlook at Artist Point and watched the spring flow of the Yellowstone River squeeze through a narrow opening in rocks and fall in silver slow motion to the gorge below. We saw elk grazing next to the wooden walkway leading to the hot pools, hundreds of buffalo, and a loan coyote. Despite all that we saw, our trip through Yellowstone was like visiting the ice cream store and tasting a few of the flavors in a little plastic spoon and leaving without choosing.

To some degree, tasting flavors is what this journey must be. Only occasionally can we have a cone. In fact we cannot even taste all the flavors. We must have a new Journey Principal for this type of trip. Call it the “Bachelorette Principal.” She needs to date a fair representation of males, but not all; and she certainly doesn’t have to marry them all.

So we had a couple of dates with Yellowstone. We held hands and kissed the Grand Teton National Park good night. We decided not to go out with Glacier National Park, despite the fact that our friends said we would like him best. There will be other difficult decisions. Love is not easy.

America the Beautiful

May 20, 2006

I am not going to try to describe The Grand Teton Mountains. I am giving you some pictures. My descriptive powers are inadequate. Their beauty, their majesty, their individuality demands poetry and a poet to write it. Another day, maybe; another life.

I have this only. The Teton Mountains are like an unattainable woman possessing perfect beauty; Princes Di, perhaps. Pick your own. I would probably pick Sophia Loren. One never tires of looking; but it is that, just looking.

The Great Prairie on the other hand is like the perfect lover, always new, always creative, always caring and always pleasing.

This Country is unbelievable, and we must occasionally drive across it to remember what we have.

Tomorrow we may leave the USA. This journey has reminded me that our Country possesses unfathomable beauty, beauty that can give joy to our souls and the souls of our grandchildren and great grandchildren. This beauty is a gift, but not just for us. We must preserve it for those who come after us. We must ensure that our generation’s greed does not destroy this gift that was given to all generations.

I believe that “no beauty” is a form of death and that destruction of beauty or our failure to protect it for others is sin.

Fact Check #3

May 18, 2006

Man on the Bicycle: Rick, a college professor from Ft. Collins. He is on his way to visit his mother in Portland, Oregon. We met him at a rest stop about 40 miles from Muddy Gap, where he had camped the night before.

Campground in Grand Teton National Park: Jenny Lake Campground. We camped there Wednesday, Thursday and Friday nights. It was located on the south end of Jenny Lake which is 200 hundred feet deep and was carved by a glacier sliding out of the gap to the north of Grand Teton (the mt.) and drilling into the edge of Jackson Hole closest to the mountains. Incidentally, Jackson Hole is the entire valley nest to the mountains. Jenny Lake Campground is, “Tents only,” which means only liberals camp there. The conservatives camp in their RV’s at Gros Venture Campground.

Jenny: For whom the lake was named; she was the Shoshone wife of a trapper named Dick. I saw her picture. No comment.

Best bike ride: Trail along the shore of Jenny Lake with the Tetons reflecting on the placid surface.

First rain: Thursday evening. Blew more than it rained. Tent held up well.

Best dinner: Grilled chicken and grilled vegetables (asparagus, red peppers, onions and portabella mushrooms) on a green salad drizzled with olive oil and balsamic vinegar dressing.

Best camping gear purchase: Shower tent. No shower in Jenny Lake Campground, but we still smell good. Our shower tent works perfectly.

The 287 Effect

We caught up with 287 again on Wednesday morning just outside Laramie, Wyo. It was the same highway we took at Decatur and deserted at Dumas. That old friend would now take us across the Great Prairie all the way to the Teton Mountains. Sometimes old friends are best.

The Great Prairie that 287 took us through was not one Great Prairie but a hundred Great Prairies or a thousand. Each turn, each rise, each dip in the old road flashed a new image on my mind; each image a reality worth of a life time of exploration and experience. The highway rolled across rolling hills the color of old lemons, up and down, up and down. And just when I thought the Great Prairie was nothing but faded yellow rolling hills undulating from one humped horizon to the other, where the tallest vegetation was foot high sage, 287 topped a hill and dropped us into canyons filled with multi colored skyscraper rocks. At one place a ridge of rocks a mile long thrust up 200 feet above the grassy soil, showing an inclined surface as flat as a computer screen, and reflecting the noon sun as if it had been polished. Some force, with measured precision, had chiseled vertical lines every few hundred feet along its surface.

The prairies were also different colors. For some time the prairie was yellow like the inside of a mango. When I looked again it was the color of Boing 747 skin; and then like a fir and spruce forest seen from 40,000 feet.

On some prairies the earth lay draped across the horizon in a gently curved line, and in other prairies, black mountains, red hills, jagged striped bluffs, or distant gleaming white peaks decorated the horizon.

At one point 287 led us across a prairie that was like a yellow table cloth stretched from horizon to horizon. It seemed to have no end. And at that moment we fell off the table cloth and into the side canyons zigzagging and tumbling into the incomparable Wind River valley filled with green fields and surrounded with rocks like castles and turrets and minarets and steeples painted in alternating layers with ice cream colors, strawberry, vanilla, strawberry, vanilla, strawberry.

At the end of The Wind River valley 287 went up the mountains through the snowy pass and showed us the Teton Mountains, hazy white peaks thrust jaggedly into the heavens.

Correction

The order of the posts is all screwed up. However, the dates are correct, I think.
Tim

Preview

I am posting this in Jackson Wyo., just out side The Grand Teton National Park. We are camped next to Jenny Lake right under the Grand Teton mountain. I don't have any more time right now. Annie and Elmo are tird of waiting in the parking lot. The photos are just a taste of future posibilities. Also spell check isn't working.

Fact Check #2

May 17, 2006

Actual gas mileage: 23mph, all highway, Wow!

May 16 Campsite: Yellow Pine Campground in Medicine Bow National Forest just East of Laramie, deserted, great early wild flowers.

Gas price in Laramie: 2.55 per gal. Life is good

New flowers for Annie’s life time list: Pasque flower(also known as starlily, star of Bethelem), in anemone family; and sand lily.

Park maintenance: The state of Colorado spends more on their state parks than the Forest Service spends on their parks. Vote.

Average time to break camp, including breakfast, brushing teeth, etc.: two hours, fifteen minutes.

Time it took the guy sleeping under the picnic table down by the campground entrance to break camp: seven minutes.

We Took a Left

May 15, 2006

We could have turned right at the end of Loop 288 and gone through Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska, and still ended up in the Grand Tetons, a place we want to be sure to experience. Instead we turned left. In a way our choice was not the “less traveled” road. We have certainly traveled this way before. But 287 through Bowie, Chillicothe, Esteline, Headly, Claude, and Dumas beats I35; and 82 through Dalhart, Texline, Clayton, Capulin and Raton is definitely less traveled than I40. After all, Frost’s road may go through Wichita Falls.

The main reason to turn left was the biscuits and sausage. In the early 70”s we started backpacking and skiing in Colorado. Our route, with only a few exceptions, followed 287 at least to Amarillo. We left early and always had Biscuits and sausage. Now I have a Pavlov dog reaction. Anytime I smell biscuits and sausage, I get altitude sickness; and for me the drive out 380 to Decatur so we can pick up 287 is like realizing Annie is wearing perfume on Friday night and we are not going out. Adventure is in the heart.

So we took the left and again traveled the oil country around Iowa Park, cotton country near Amarillo, cowboy country on both ides of the Canadian River, wheat country west of Dumas, cow poop country just outside Clayton, volcano country next to Capulin and antelope country on the rush into Raton. We climbed the caprock at Childress, gazed at the fire blackened fields near Amarillo, wondered at the white wooden cross hanging miraculously between the fresh leaved mesquites and the yellow dirt waiting for cotton just past Headly, watched the dust clouds billow into the air behind distant multiple racks of plows pulled by Goliath tractors on the road to Hartley, and sucked in our breath as the mountain peaks still frosty white finally materialized over the barren ridgeline west of Raton.

Left is good.

Tim

Grapes of Wrath

I stuff the Highlander like my mother stuffed the turkey at Thanksgiving. A few minutes later, driving down the highway, the SUV’s passing me start looking like the trucks that Steinbeck described in Grapes of Wrath. Of course I am also driving one of those trucks, except that I have more matrices and bed springs tied onto wooden sideboards and bumpers and more hungry eyed children hanging out windows. That is the reason the other Okies are passing me.

Last night we camped at Trinidad Lake state Park. What a wonderful accident. If you were going to plan the first campsite of a six month car camping trip, you would pick that park. They even had simi-hot showers. Our campsite overlooked a lake that was formed in part by a meteor that hit southern Colorado millions of years ago (of course they didn’t know it was southern Colorado at the time) and in part by the Army Corps of Engineers.

I don’t think we are going to have to fight crowds this time of year. We shared the campground with just a few Greyhound bus and truck trailer RV’s. They didn’t bother us much since they all have satellite TV.

Elmo liked the view but hated the leash. Isn’t that true of most men.

FACT CHECK # ONE

Car--2006 Toyota Highlander, 4 wheel drive in case of snow, previously undiscovered canyons or melting permafrost.

Gas mileage--21mph without the camping stuff, Annie, Elmo,Yakima car top carrier, portable shower and kitchen sink.

Gas price in Denton--currently $2.84 per gallon, maybe; I haven't checked since before noon.

Estimated gas price in the Yukon Territories--$329.84 per liter; just kidding I hope.

Estimated total cost of gas between Denton and Anchorage--$700; we should have bought a hybrid.

Elmo--Hines57, abandoned on the road near our house by someone who wanted a better home for their dog; person obviously knew Annie.

Tent--Eureka 6 person; I can stand upright in the middle; Elmo has his own room, but is afraid of bears, so he will not sleep there; unless, of course, Annie also sleeps there, which she just might if she needs a little non-Tim time.

Total distance from Denton to Anchorage--4,106 miles.

Total weight of passengers and stuff crammed into the Highlander--1012 lbs.; including 22 lbs of cook books, Elmo at 50 Lbs and 41 lbs of wine.

In the Beginning

Annie is my wife, and Elmo is our dog. We are leaving next Monday to drive from Denton, Texas to Anchorage, Alaska where we plan to stay for a couple of months. Then we plan to drive from Alaska to Maine across Canada and stay in Maine for a couple of months. Then we plan to drive back to Texas. We should be back to Denton in November.
We call these plans,"the plan of the day." Everything changes; nothing remains the same. I know you are thinking, "gosh, how profound." All of us, of course, know that everything changes. The problem is that most of us live our lives like nothing changes. On this journey, we "plan" to live in the reality of change and try to experience that change fully. We have frequently called this, journey travel. If you read this travel journal regularly you will hear me talk about journey travel, and what makes journey travel different from destination travel.
Understand that we are not experts in journey travel; well actually Elmo is an expert. He has a journey life. He takes every day just as it is, experiences every event with all his sences and makes the most of it. Maybe we can learn a little from Elmo.
A few weeks ago I attended our regular Wednesday night prayer meeting at Hannahs. Hannahs has $1.00 Shiner on Wednesday afternoons. I told the guys about our travel plans.
"You are going to drive 12,000 miles in the car with your wife?" Tommy said.
"And Elmo, the dog," I said.
"You are totally nuts," Steve said.
"Tim W. said, "You better put a divorce lawyer on retainer before you leave."
Mike, one of the regulars who was sitting across the table, just happens to be a divorce lawyer. I took a dollar out of my pocket and tossed it across the table to Mike. "Here, you are now on retainer."
Mike tossed it back. "Sorry, Annie has already given me a twenty."
So here is another part of the plan of the day. We are camping on the way, not an RV, tent camping. And the redheaded weather lady on chanel 11 reported snow in southern Colorado yesterday. We were thinking about camping near Trinidad, Colorado next Monday night. Trinidad is in southern Colorado.