Desert Snow, Oliver Lee State Park, New Mexico – outside Alamogordo

Snow in White Sands New Mexico

Playing with Tumbleweeds in a wind storm, Monahans, TX

Hope to have some more soon.

We went out a few times a week and on the weekend with our friend Olivia who moved to Austin from Portland about 2 years ago. We were lucky to know someone there who knew the kind of food we wanted and places we would like to see.

Brite Wash, Austin Texas – Urban Cowboys

Beer Land Show, Austin Texas

Dont do coke in the bathroom

Zombie Attack!

Swad – cheap indian food, Austin

star wars loteria cards by Chepo Pena

Finally having some film to upload will be nice, and I bought several more rolls of slide 35mm, 120 and even a pack of fuji instant. I haven’t tried it yet but I’m sure its just fine. I don’t really see a need to bring Polaroid back – Fuji bought the formulas from them and presumably makes the exact same thing. The name Polaroid is classic but necessary? No. Seems our cultural hangup on brand identity knows no limits. If Coke sold their formula to Shasta Cola (cheap soda), people would still call Shasta cheap crappy soda, even if its the exact same thing as Coke.

Last week I developed some film in the RV. It was the first time I made the attempt on the road and oddly it went without a single hangup. The film even dried correctly with no water spots or particles all over it. I thought for sure my chemicals would have been bad after all the temperature changes they’ve gone through. I keep them up above in the storage area where the heat and cold aren’t really controlled directly but I tested the fixer, it was fine – and the developer didn’t smell funny so I went on with it. To prepare I only had to turn on the water heater and wait a while for the water tank to heat up. Each roll takes about 20-30 mins altogether to load, develop and rinse, then they were hung in the bathroom on the shower pole with shower curtain hooks and weighed down so they wouldn’t curl with paper clips. I only did 2 rolls and still have 3 more to do but I’m making progress on my backlog of film from the trip.

Here’s a few from those rolls, all taken with my big Pentax 67:

Spokane, WA – Benny & Joon House

Spokane, WA – Railroad Collecting

Spokane, WA – Hillyard Ghost Town

Pecos Texas, Crooked house

West Texas – Gas Station fire

New photos should include ones from Salton Sea, Monahans, Llano River, Catalina State Park and more!

We go to Austin Tomorrow and we’re tying for a place closer to town, The weather should be getting better next week and I plan to do something with it (and blog more) . Stagnation and stability are my ultimate killer, or maybe just boredom and the lack of someone to meet for coffee?

The last 2 weeks we’ve been at Travel World RV Park in San Antonio. It’s a pretty regular RV park with some fairly nice to fairly rude little old ladies working the counter. They have a little overpriced store in the office and spots run average $228 a week. They didn’t ask us, so I had to mention – that I read about the economy spots on their website – $150 a week. The lady looked rather annoyed and I asked what the difference was. “Cable” she said, “the economy spots don’t have cable”. I liked having cable at the last place. Having a TV to watch forced me to get away from the computer for 30 mins to watch some cartoons or news but charging nearly $80 a week for cable TV, digital or not = horrible. She failed to mention though that the economy spots also only have 30amp plugs as opposed to the usual 30 and 50 which allows us to (more conveniently) charge our batteries that all the 12 volt lights and car stereo (w/speakers, our house stereo too) use. We also had to buy a new drain hose because there was no way to park close enough to the drain in the ground. This however did not help us much – we bought the 10foot hose for $12 because, although we needed a longer one, the 20foot foot hose was $44 for some reason in their pricey little shop. Neither came with attachments so we also had to buy one of those – and after 2 weeks of stretching the hose as tight as we could, the attachment to the RV broke. It’s now held on with duct tape – they’re easy enough to get and cheaper than a new hose but.. well they’re about 60 feet away and that’s just too far in this cold.

Yeah.. cold. I always thought the south was warmer in the winter, and I guess sometimes it is – of course in the desert during the day, but it has been colder lately than Portland and even the mountain range my mom lives in in New Mexico. Tap is running and going to the bathrooms is a constant battle. We just happen to be parked about as far as possible from the bathrooms, another perk of the economy spot, and the other night when it was about 20 degrees, the locks to the bathrooms – some sort of metal key pad – were frozen and I couldn’t get in till the next day. Ross of course managed to get in somehow – I say he broke a window or used some kind of voodoo magic (I punched and pulled at those doors for 20 mins). Last night, the coldest so far, we were out till 2am eating at one of the several restaurants in town with vegetarian food, then going to a midnight showing of Daybreakers. A movie I would recommend the whole family go see. If you don’t agree, tell the woman with the 3 year old above us in this gore fest of a film (that’s a good thing – the gore not the lady and her kid). I seriously considered yelling at the lady to leave before the film started but really, what do I know about raising kids right. He didn’t cry once is all I can say about that – when I was that age I would have been crying and had nightmares for years. I once saw the cover of a horror movie at a video store when I was 9 – and believed in toilet monsters till I was 12. True story, from just the cover.

So.. speaking of procrastination- New Years. What did we do? We actually didn’t do nothing! We instead took the bus that’s right across the street downtown and walked around the waterfront. The waterfront here is far superior to the waterfront in both Portland and Spokane for many reasons. Although it is practically still canal water, it is accessed by walking down stairs to a water alley of cool old buildings and restaurants and absolutely no railing whatsoever to save you from falling into the cold, bacteria filled cesspool; But it looks cool and that is what matters. Along the canal there are stone bridges above periodically that you can access with stairs in order to get to the other side of the canal – most of the bridges are busy streets in the city above. In the water, there are cute little boats similar to gondolas and how appropriate, because it looks like a miniature Venice. I really have no good photos of this because it was night time but I would have liked for you to get the idea of how fearfully close we were forced to the water in the New Years crowd. A constant stream of locals and tourists shoving past you on a narrow piece of sidewalk and crowding outside restaurants waiting for their names to be called made the experience pretty frightening really. I’m not sure (if) how the night was pulled off without at least 40 people in the canal – especially since most of them were drunk.

San Antonio Water Front

After trying 3 different restaurants and being told that there would be at least an hour and a half wait, we left the canal for less populated eateries. We found Rio Rio – which actually happened to be on the canal as well we later noticed – just on the other side and downstairs. We were surprised it was so empty but after ordering their vegetarian burrito and veggie quesadilla – I mean the spinach on spinach burrito and spinach on spinach on cheese quesadilla we understood. This was the second time we’d ordered a “vegetarian” item in Texas “non vegetarian restaurants” and the second time our food was stuffed to the brim with soggy nasty canned spinach. Apparently Vegetarian and Popeye are synonymous here to restaurants who don’t specifically care about people who don’t eat meat. It’s really a convenient enough addition to any menu, how can they screw it up? food but without meat! What a wacky concept!!!! YET they still cant pull it off. Here is a good veggie burrito for you – Spanish Rice, Beans, Cheese, Pico de Gallo and FRESH spinach – here is a veggie quesadilla – Cheese, Black beans and FRESH spinach. I KNOW that you have those things in your Mexican restaurant kitchen. I think what the problem is, is that they just hate us and want us to never eat at these places again. Done and done.

After that we went towards the funny space needle wanabe thing where the fireworks would be going off, and near our last bus. We made the mistake of asking a police officer where the bus mall is and he kindly directed us to the largest and most packed group of people since Black Friday at a Walmart. It seemed there may be a through way but we were duped and spend the next 20 minutes smelling armpits and stepping on push chairs trying to get out. I cant tell you the number of thick leather, heavily cologned  jackets were shoved into my face nor how we survived but eventually we burst forth from the mass. I wanted and planned for most the time to run like hell as soon as we were free but the crowd of people leaving also bogged us down all the way to the bus stop.. which was a block back. The cop made of go through the crowd for nothing.

New Years was also a blue moon I was told. What does this mean you ask? NOTHING of any SIGNIFICANCE! It means there were 2 fill moons in one month, apparently rare, but mind you these are human months – concepts of time written down by man so for nature, its probably no big deal at all. If you told nature “hey that’s freakin cool!” She would say, “oh that? eh, I guess” and not because she’s modest. Nature has no concept of a 30 day ‘month’ nor a 28 day one. (That was an existentialist rant if anyone was wondering what that was).It was pretty anyway, although not at all blue and not at all special.

We arrived home with no problems, except for the lovely man on the bus listening to music loudly on the world’s worst cell phone/mp3 player.

We have since been working and little more. I should write about work more and probably will. I am officially the only one writing blogs so if you all come here for Ross, you will be disappointed.

We made it to Central Time (nice to sleep in a bit before work), we made it to a state I’ve never been to and we were both tired of pouring all our money into the next jump east so we decided to stay a while and slow the trip down. The first thing we’ve learned about the south so far is that is is NOT warm in the winters. Apparently this is an “Arizona. California and Florida thing” and only small parts of those states as well. We have had our heat on pretty much every day all day and night since we ran out of propane and thought we would freeze to death a few weeks ago. Luckily it only gets down to about 30 here at night and up to 65 during the day – with a breeze that says “keep your damn hoody on outsider”.

This Saturday we got up at the crack of noon and took to the town. Our first stop Denny’s for garden burgers, probably the only restaurant in town with those, then the Cemetery. I thought… well, assumed it would be old and awesome – therefore photogenic – but it wasn’t, so we hung out long enough to find a smelly orange berry fruit – which turned out to be a Kumquat (the most stupidly named fruit ever). I didn’t eat it but if I see more I may.

Brougham at the Cemetery

We then looked for a post office, being lied to horribly by google maps (on iphone) we walked around downtown a bit looking for it when we finally found a blue box and dumped our Christmas cards in it – with Edgar Allen Poe stamps haha.

Then the Gun Show. I found out about that by looking up “Fredericksburg Texas Christmas” in an effort to find out why they spend so much on their Christmas decorations – like maybe they hold a fair, parade… party? I found the official Fredericksburg website and found it is the home of Lady Bird  and possibly Lyndon B Johnson and they have a holiday party at his house. They also had an events calender with the Gun Show listed directly next to that on the same day. Rather than rub elbows with the local elite, we decided to see what Texan gun enthusiasts were like and boy, it was…. something.

We got there late so they only charged us a single fare, $5 and I think it was worth it. It was the smallest gun show I’ve been to (I used to do security at the Portland Expo Center Gun Show) but it did not disappoint. One of the first tables we came to was a hate filled cesspool of “kill liberals, kill cats and obama is a terrorist” stickers next to books about surviving the coming apocalypse, killing your enemies and gun defense for women carrying babies.

I lost almost all my photos of the gun show today when my iPhone crashed and I didn’t back them up lately. Luckily I uploaded a couple to facebook – though not the most offensive.

Saturday, while playing with our tomtom GPS, I found out we were really close to some interesting sounding places. Balancing Rock (which we never found), Pilar Rock (which we traded for a movie) and the Cave Without a Name.

Hilmar Hung street, where we got lost looking for a balancing rock. Notice the measure stick in the background? Notice that it says 5 feet ABOVE the road – fun with flooding!

We drove about 56 miles without first researching much aside from their hours of operation. When we arrived we found they charged $15 a person and tours only. After a round trip of over 100 miles, gas was enough of a price so the weekend began playing makeup for all the weekends we.. well.. spent lots of money on gas driving.. hmm.We had somehow imagined the cave would be free and without a tour… now we know for sure that anything people can make money off of, they will.

Anyway, we went. It was pretty cool. It looked more to me like a cave people should live in than one people should tour. I imagined it succeeding greatly as a restaurant for people who would love to eat in caves, like me. There were only 4 people on the tour, the other, a Chinese couple from Houston who were twice asked how and why they came from China – both having been born and raised in Texas, this was a little odd and funny to watch. People weren’t rude to them just really curious.

I managed to take some photos at iso 1600 with my digital, didn’t even bother bringing film because of the lack of light (and I only have 50 and 100 speed film). The walls look like parts of mud monsters and had a certain glitter to them, apparently having a crystal content or some kind – to which the guy in the other couple stated “looks like Edward”. I tried so hard not to bust up laughing.

white grapes at the cave without a name

All in all the tour was a little less perilous than I wanted. We weren’t allowed into the section where they dive under water in the cave to explore it. Apparently there is 3 miles of cave so far but people only get to see about 1/4 of a mile of smooth trail, floor and concrete stairs.

After the cave we were going to head to Pillar Rock outside Kerrville but after seeing photos on Wikipedia, we decided it was boring. Instead we went to see Avatar in 3D! It was nearly a 3 hour movie but totally worth it. The graphics were not the slightest bit annoying or unrealistic – and while in 3D you really started to feel like everything about the world was completely possible and after a while, normal. It was a pretty big disappointment leaving the theater and coming back to earth – seeing trees that don’t glow and animals that cant swallow your head. I was quickly reminded after the film where we were when a kid behind us said “damn treehuggers”, repeating a statement from the military in the film who were set on stealing the planet’s resources. I suppose if you hunt and every member of your family is in the military, you may take the military side in the film but I think the main purpose of the plot was to attempt to visually explain the importance of appreciating your resources and the destructive results of stealing from – destroying and remaining ignorant about other cultures. Also understanding your right to abuse the environment, especially for something so temporary as money. Anyway, great film! See it! (in 3D if possible).

We got into town relatively early considering our usual arrival time in of 3am – rolling into a super cheap RV park at 8pm was some kind of miracle. We wanted a place near the center of town to get a chance to do something, anything, during the week. It would be the first time we were near anything at all really. A part of me just wanted to be able to walk to a store or ride my bike to a bar after spending the last couple months in the boondocks. Of the 2 closest to the center of town, Hill County RV Park was the cheapest at only $20 a night or $100 a week. It was almost as cheap as some of the non-hookup sites at state parks and featured free wifi, cable TV and the usual hookups. They even had a gray/black water hookup unlike all the parks so far. For everyone who doesn’t know what gray water is (and I barely know), its the water from your sink and shower, basically anything but your toilet. Black Water is toilet water + the rest – anything you should be embarrassed about. We still don’t use our toilet and don’t plan on it. There is a bathroom with a shower about 40 feet from the RV and as usual we are some of the only people using it so it’s not bad.

Since this is technically the first RV park we have stayed at (everything else having been state parks or parking lots) we were skeptical about sharing space so closely with so many people. Turns out people tend to leave you alone, especially if you leave them alone or look different. They have a rec room we haven’t used for anything yet. It has a TV, books and 2 computers with internet. They are planning a Christmas potluck – probably consisting of a few of the many full time residents at the park. There’s are 64 spots here and less than half of them every seem to get new people in them. Most of the people seem older, many working locally and all of them spending most of their time inside.

Fredericksburg has so far proven interesting enough to keep us here 2 weeks. After we were here a couple days we took a bike ride into town to find a place to get a drink. The highway is the only way into town from where we are and it’s definitely not meant for bikes. It was already dark, naturally (since it gets dark at 5:30) and we hadn’t made the attempt in daylight to get a feel for it. People travel down the highway at about 50 to 70mph, most any intention of giving us any space. I can ride my bike in the dirt if I have to but Ross’s bike has small road tires that pop if you look at them wrong. We had to share a headlight and tail light, me in the back with the flashing red – and probably the only thing that kept us form being smothered. The ride into town is about 2 miles up a slight hill, which wouldn’t have been a problem if I had ridden a bike more than once in the last 3 years. About half way there we found a place called Mamacitas and stopped for something to eat. I thought it was locally owned but we were immediately greeted by a Starbucks inside (the first in Texas) and a possible sighting of a Bush family member (this is a leaping guess, but he looked like Bush). After some soggy spinach on tortillas and cheese we headed off to find another place to grab a drink – someplace Texan this time.

We rode downtown with the expectations that a weeknight would not keep Texans out of the bars but found only a completely dead downtown. All the bars and restaurants on main street were closed and it was only 8pm. We quickly scoured the annals of our iPhones in search of nearby late night beverage sales and came up with Buck O’Brians – an “Irish bar” who was close and open. We walked in to a bar full of cowboys and hunters listening to country music I haven’t heard since I was 12 in Montana and my mom worked in bar. The ride home was cold but at least downhill and we didn’t go out again til this weekend.

Xmas obsessed Fredericksburg:

Santa-Garlic in Fredricksburg Texas

santa on crutches

Spunky Monkey and the Xmas dog

We will be here until Christmas and 2 days after. We don’t expect to do much on, around or after Christmas but I guess that all depends on our willingness to face the highway, pack up and drive somewhere or socialize. I’m sure something will drag us out before then.

California is expensive and it doesn’t seem to matter which part you are in. All the state parks were $30 a night with hookups and $20 without ($20 for what? a toilet and a parking spot? jerks). We didn’t stay in a single park in California the few weeks we were there (Walmart’s, behind abandoned buildings and at Slab City). RV parks were even worse, usually costing $45 a night and up – + the lovely California tax. Some RV parks on the coast were charging as much as $250 a night in places like Newport Beach. After Yucca Valley and ditching the Death Valley idea, we went to see my friend Lisa in Santa Ana then headed towards Mexico. Once in the San Diego area – a place with several state parks, we found our luck was definitely not going to change. We ended up on the verge of breaking down in a town with an “no overnight stay” ordinance and “cant check into hotels after 10pm” ordinance to compliment the first.

After the new U-joints we had to get installed at Sears on a Sunday, we headed to Arizona – Catalina State Park again (GPS: 32.4439, -110.9188), trucking it through the night without stopping (except for gas and pie). Weather was nice the whole 2 weeks we were there and we got allot done – then we left. Ever since we’ve been cold as hell!

Oliver Lee State Park

Our next stop was New Mexico. We left on a Friday and made it to Las Cruces where we stayed a couple nights in the Walmart there while we figure out our actual plan. Finally deciding on seeing the white Dunes outside Alamogordo, we found Oliver Lee State Park 15 miles south of Alamogordo on the 54 (=GPS: 32.7358, -105.916). The first night at Oliver Lee was cold and raining steady. We had lots of propane so we cranked the heat before bed and when we woke up – then abusing our power of fire through most the day. The next evening we were surprised to learn that mountains are mountains everywhere in the world and elevation always means there is probably snow. By morning the next day we had a foot of snow and temperatures in the 20s.

Our first issue was water, before we even thought about stuffing pillows in crevasses or taping vents shut outside, I was reminded quickly of growing up in Montana and having pipes freeze quickly without the proper preventative measures. Before the pipes froze fully they gave us a hint what was happening by slowing to a trickle. We quickly went (aka I sent Ross) outside to bend and twist the hose (connected to the state park water) to break free any ice chunks then wrapped it enough to keep it off the ground. We then left the tap running at a small steady stream the rest of the time we were there – while temps were below freezing. We never saw a Ranger or went into the visitor center so we never knew if maintenance, if any, existed. The bathrooms always seemed clean but after the first foot of snow the electricity went out and no one did or said a thing. We weren’t the only ones in a the park and just like us, no one complained, just pulled out their generators and went on with their lives. It was kind of refreshing to see a bunch of people not whining about snow, weather or lack of electricity. When it snows in Portland I swear the reaction is as bad as if there had been an earthquake.

Oliver Lee State Park

It took a few days for the snow to melt and the roads in the camp stayed pretty well used by people who had trucks to haul their trailers, but we were fairly confident after being unable to stop dependably in just rain, that the snow wouldn’t be any more forgiving. We were stuck as far as we were concerned but it wasn’t really a bad thing. We had food and didn’t have anywhere to go. We tried to go get more Propane before the snow hit, starting the week at 40%, but the battery had pretty much died during the night and we had to spend the rest of the day charging it. Chena was pissed about being stuck inside every day but other than that we survived. We had paid till Thursday and by Thursday afternoon the snow was mostly off the roads and the drive to the highway would be dry. We were at 10% propane, less than a day of steady heat and cooking, and there was yet another snow storm on the way. We left Thursday afternoon racing against a pretty nasty storm, trying to make to El Paso, TX.

On the way to El Paso we stopped at white sands for a break from driving – we hadn’t gotten to see it during the wintery week. While we were there the snow started to fall, making for some cool photos but pushing us out for safety pretty soon after arriving. On the way out they were closing the park an hour early and a ranger was on his way in to check for any stragglers. It would be in the teens in no time and anyone stuck inside would suffer pretty bad – good thing it wasn’t us though! We made it to Las Cruces, NM in once piece, literally feeling like the storm was on our heels. We came out of a cafe after sharing New York Cheesecake Pancakes at IHOP for lunch to find it snowing once again. The chase was on. We made it to the El Paso Walmart by 8pm, El Paso time, and just as we setup camp, it started to snow again – at least this time we didn’t have to drive and were near resources.

Chena was in love with White Sands, NM

Brouham in White Sands and Snow

Almost as soon as we got to El Paso we got an electric heater so we wouldn’t have to worry about staying warm in a situation where we were that low on propane – as long as we were plugged in somewhere at least. We did use the heater with the generator but it pretty much has to be running while the heater is running because it uses too much power. It was definitely a purchase we wont regret.

It’s really difficult to get propane in Texas so far. We haven’t seen a single gas station that will refill an RV, even having called about 10 in the area – everyone seemed completely baffled at the idea. They refill tanks – like the ones you can carry – but not ones attached to an RV. We had to wait till Monday (today) to go to an actual gas company and get filled up. At least with electric heat and being plugged into a site we can save the majority of our propane and make sure not to run out for cooking this time. While I was in Spokane, cooking everyday for 5 weeks and using the heat before bed for about a week, I ran out of propane the very last day I was there. It goes a really long ways if you’re not heating a drafty RV all day long.

We left El Paso Friday night heading for Monahans. The roads were clear with only a little snow on the ground. We saw from the google maps topographical layover that we would be crossing some mountains at up to 5000 feet which meant even more chance of snow and low temps. After seeing the Fantastic Mr. Fox on the way out of town (awesome film), we made it to Van Horn Texas where it was 15 degrees. We were well below 10% propane by the time we got there and the prospect of trying not to freeze to death – huddled with Chena in the single bed (having to wake up and function in 20 degrees ‘maybe’) was not sounding so good. If Van Horn had anything to offer it was a Motel 6, gas and truckers cafe’s. We checked in about 1am Texas time and slept till noon of the same (we were up late showering and downloading movies on their free wifi I swear). Checkout was also noon – so a disaster I will blog about later was caused by our scrambled rush to get our things out of the hotel and turn in our keys. We checked out without being charged for staying late and headed to the nearest cafe, Sands Restaurant and Inn, where we had warm sweet rolls and weak coffee. It was our first experience in a ‘Texas Cafe and it didn’t disappoint. Our waitress had a thick accent and a bit of a ‘wise southern woman/waitress’ attitude and we dined near men in cowboy hats, truckers, hunters, old cowboys and an old baptist couple who handed me religious pamphlets before we left the cafe.

I could tell that overall, no matter what people have told me about Texas, I would probably find it pretty interesting.

Showtime – Pecos, Texas