Author: mchazen

The morning was clear, cool and perfect for a workout.  We ran along a quiet road that stretched into the Texas prairie, scaring up dove and quail along the way.  After cleaning up and a quick breakfast, we were ready to hit the road.  The destination was the outskirts of Amarillo about 200 miles away.

Picture of coach at rest area on the way to Amarillo, Texas. Picture does not show how 35 mph wind is rocking the coach.

This is what nothing looks like in Northern Texas.

Departing, there was not a cloud in the sky.  The farther west we traveled, the flatter and dryer the terrain became.  At times, we were surprised to see cotton growing in well-tended fields.

The highway was deserted and for the first time during out travels, Jeanne got behind the wheel.  She did o.k. and was starting to get the feel of driving something the size of a small house when the wind kicked up and pushed her all over the road.  The lesson ended and we traded back.

As the day wore on, the sky darkened and the winds increased.  When we stopped for lunch, the coach was rocking from gusts estimated at 30-35 miles per hour.  The last 60 miles was a real test of driving skill.  Fortunately, we found the RV park and settled in up just before the rain started.  By this time the wind was howling and the rain was coming in horizontal; one side of the coach caught the rain while the other side was completely dry.  It also got cold, really cold, and for the first time in months the furnace kicked on.  There was only one thing left to do; snuggle up and watch the last presidential debate on satellite TV.

The partly cloudy skies and light winds promised a good travel day and we hit the road around 9:30.

The route Jeanne mapped out has us traveling for the next four days, each day averages around 200 miles.  This is a leisurely pace that allows for some schedule ‘wiggle room’ if we need it.  We found each travel day presents a unique challenge and there is no sense in pushing ourselves.

Our destination was the small town of Vernon, Texas, which is between Fort Worth and Amarillo.  Our route was US287, which is a good highway.  The terrain really flattened out after leaving Fort Worth.  It looked like the large ranches were mostly used for raising cattle.  There is little else.

Around 2:00 we pulled into the campground, began to set up and immediately got attacked by hungry mosquitoes.  A quick check of the area revealed drainage on three sides and we quickly set up and retreated to the interior of the coach.

Right next to the campground was a brand new Walmart Supercenter.  For travelers, this is Nirvana and we took advantage of our good fortune.

Aside from chatting with our neighbor who uses his rig to travel for work, we kicked back for the rest of the day and got to bed early.

The morning was blustery, but no rain.  Mercifully the weather is cooling down.  I would have been happy to stay snuggled in bed, but Jeanne shamed me into doing the workout.  We will be traveling the next few days and may not have a chance to run.  We were glad to get it over with.

After cleaning up, we headed for Borders Books to update the computers and buy some magazines to read while we’re on the move — no telling if we’ll have satellite TV reception.

On the way back to the coach, disaster struck in the form of rock-meets-windshield.  A construction truck changed lanes and kicked up several large stones in the roadway, one of which cracked the Jeep windshield.  It was bound to happen sooner or later.  We tried to get it fixed, but all the glass places needed at least a day advance notice.  We’ll take care of it when we land in Albuquerque.  At least it wasn’t one of the massive windshields on the coach.

We hid out at the coach for the rest of the day.  Jeanne read and did laundry while I did some preparation to leave and worked with the computer.

On our visit to Fort Worth, it was good seeing Leo and Grace, but it was sort of like camping in the city and we’re looking forward to moving on.

We woke to the sound of rain; finally the weatherman got it right.

After stumbling out of bed later than usual, we grabbed a light breakfast and headed out to run some errands.  Updating the computers at Borders Books was simple enough, but things got complicated when we stopped at an Albertson’s for groceries.

Albertson’s was NOT a pleasant consumer experience.  Upon entering the store, we were greeted by an arctic blast of air.  It was cold, really cold.  It was a true shopping-in-Norway experience.  I wanted to do some jumping-jacks to keep warm.

The highly compartmentalized layout of the store was weird.  For example, bread was sectioned off but included peanut butter and jelly.  A small cold-box of refrigerated pasta was right in the middle of the dry pasta isle.  You usually find potato chips in a separate isle, but all the salty snacks were grouped together — crackers, peanuts, chips, etc.  Who came up with the idea to put Wheat Thins and Fritos together?  It was just weird.

After playing treasure-hunt for our short list of items, we stood in the check-out line for 20 minutes.  None of the checkout lines had baggers and the checkers were using recycled plastic bags.  I’m not making this up.  At least Walmart has a carousel arrangement for checkers to bag your order, but here the checkers had to manually open and stuff each bag.  The process would have been inefficient by Soviet standards.  Our club card saved us $2.23 on items that were overpriced to begin with.  Obviously, the store is caught between a cost-reduction program and experimental layout scheme.  It  worked, we spent more time in this glacial environment than we intended and would have used the self-checkout if we had known how long regular check-out would take.  But we ain’t-a-com’n back.  No wonder the grocery chains are scared to death of Walmart, which is where we’ll shop from now on.

The rest of the day was spent hanging around the coach, reading and working with the computer.

We watched a movie on TV before going to bed.

The morning was cool, overcast and perfect for a workout.  Jeanne ran in the RV park while I headed out along the I-35W frontage road.  The frontage road is lightly used and straight as an arrow.  The terrain is low rolling hills with long challenging grades.  The noise from I-35W was a little distracting and reminded me of the ambient roar of West Los Angeles.  After cleaning up, we grabbed a light breakfast and waited for Leo and Grace.

Leo is an interesting guy and having him as a boss for my first job after graduate school was a stroke of luck.  His talents can only be described with words like intelligent, astute, diligent, and truthful.  The things he unselfishly taught me were invaluable and regularly applied.  I used his mentoring model throughout my career to develop the skills younger employees, hoping it would help them as Leo helped me.

Like us, Leo and Grace became disillusioned with Southern California and eventually decided to leave.  After looking around, they settled near Fort Worth to be close to family.  We talked about the reasons for leaving California and they cited the usual issues of traffic, overcrowding, taxes, government, etc.  It all sounded familiar.

They stopped by around 10:30 AM and were conducted on the usual tour of the coach.  The highlight always seems to be the driver’s seat and anyone who sits there takes the oversized steering wheel in their hands and daydreams about cruising down the highway.  Little do they suspect that driving this thing is not all that easy; it is like being six inches from disaster all day long.

The four of us spent the day together.  After lunch at the local Cracker Barrel, Leo took us for a long drive through the surrounding area.  We stopped by their new home which is currently under construction just outside of Cleburne, Texas.  It is a really nice home in a nice neighborhood and is perfect for their semi-retired lifestyle.  Completion is just weeks away and they are eager to move in.

Driving through the area, we could see the terrain was low rolling hills mostly used for cattle.  Shortly after crossing the Brazos River, Leo asked if we wanted to visit a wild animal park and we cautiously agreed, not knowing what to expect.  It turned out to be a very enjoyable and unique experience.

In the middle of nowhere is the Fossil Rim Wildlife Center, a 1,650 acre special management area with over 1,000 exotic, threatened and endangered animals in a free-roaming environment.  The non-profit center is accredited by the American Zoo and Aquarium Association (AZA) and maintains a managed-breeding program.  The center is self-supporting and the entrance fee allows visitors to drive along ten miles of roads to view the animals.  For $5.00, you can buy a bag of feed to bring the animals right up to your car.  Slowly driving along, we took pictures, fed the animals and chatted with Leo and Grace.  It was a great experience.

Jeanne and Marty pose with rhino in the background at Fossil Rim.

This little guy, a Thompson's Gazelle, can run up to 65 miles per hour and leap straight into the air.

A Grant's Zebra, about the size of a pony.

The addax on the background are desert-adapted antelopes and lives without drinking by getting moisture from the plants it eats. The Gemsbok in the foreground is one of the few antelope able to protect itself from lions.

For our friends at CHFC, this Sika Deer is an endangered species from eastern Asia.

A wildebeest quietly grazing at Fossil Rim, a former cattle ranch near Fort Worth, Texas.

On the way back to town, we had some authentic Texas BBQ for dinner that was delicious and reasonable.  Around 7:30 PM, Leo and Grace dropped us off at the coach.  It was a perfect day spent with old friends.

We read a little before falling asleep.

It was a tough night and for some reason neither of us slept well.  After stumbling out of bed around 7:30 AM, we decided to have breakfast at one of the local places in Kingston, about three miles down the road.  Eating breakfast out is unusual for us and reserved for those mornings when doing anything is a major effort.  The hot food and coffee gave us courage to face the day.

Making the final preparations to leave, I chatted with the neighbor who is a recently retired teacher.  For 30 years, she taught art to junior high school kids. There is no doubt she was a good teacher and popular with her students, but the retirement thing was new and she had not yet made the mental break with work.  I told her teaching junior high school would be good training for corporate middle-managers.  I wished her a long and happy retirement then fired up the coach and drove off.

Aside from Oklahoma University football fans making their way to Texas for the big game, the drive to Burleson was mostly uneventful.  The route took us through the middle of Fort Worth, but traffic was light.  Shortly before stopping we filled the tank at $2.07 per gallon for diesel — a painful experience.

The RV park is just south of Fort Worth and is set up for big rigs.  Each site is a pull-through with full hookups and 50 amp electrical service.  The park is relatively new with paved roads, good drainage and open sites to accommodate satellite TV.  This will be a good place to hide out for a few days.

After setting up, we called Leo to make plans and headed for the Borders Books to update the computers.  It had been two weeks since we downloaded messages and there were over 500 e-mails waiting.  95% of it was e-junk that ranged from annoying to offensive.  It took a while to sift out the few legitimate messages.  Before signing off, I updated this web site — a chore long overdue.

We had an underwhelming dinner at a Mexican buffet before returning to the coach to watch the second presidential debate.  It was like watching reality TV where the outcome really mattered.  Some of it was strangely familiar; I seem to recall the last presidential candidate with a secret plan to end a war was Richard Nixon.  We’re tired of all the politics and want the election to be over.

After watching the debate, it took a while to calm down enough to fall asleep.

We woke expecting hear the patter of rain on the coach, but all we got was silence.  The skies were overcast and the air was heavy, but no rain.  It seems predicting the weather is the only occupation where you can be wrong 70% of the time without being fired.

Without rain as an excuse, we were forced into our morning workout.  The humidity offset the cool air and the run turned into a sweatfest.  This is our last run at this place and we’ll miss it.

After cleaning up, there was still no rain and we decided to clean the inside of the coach.  Jeanne dusted and vacuumed while I got after the windows and screens.  The screens and insides of the windows had not been cleaned in a long time and they were beyond tolerance.  We were amazed when a 5-gallon bucket of water was turned to mud; obviously the chore was long overdue.

About midway through our fall cleaning, one of our fellow campers approached and enthusiastically demonstrated a piece of exercise equipment he purchased at Walmart.  It was a cleaver device and looked like a three foot bar with a spring in the middle.  The object was to exercise your upper body by slowly bending and releasing the spring.  It sort of reminded me of the Wiley Chest Pull my brother and I used when we were kids, which was sort of a bungee cord arrangement.  Anyway, this guy saw us doing our warm-up routine and wanted to share this with us.

The demonstration passed and we returned to our coach cleaning.  We finished about 2:00 PM and hid out under the air conditioners for the remainder of the afternoon.

In the evening, we grilled a ham steak for dinner, watched some TV and then sat outside for a while.  The coach was ready for the trip tomorrow and we were eager to get started.

Contemporary note:  Upon reflection, our exercise routine frequently attracted the attention of nearby campers and their reaction just about covered all human emotion — curiosity, envy, amusement, hostility, skepticism and approval.  On this occasion, the guy with the exercise gadget was actually motivated to do something and I hope he kept with it.  

We woke expecting hear the patter of rain on the coach, but all we got was silence.  A quick check of the Weather Channel showed the expected rain has been delayed a day or so.

There is more to this than you would expect.  We regularly watch the weather report and try to plan our travel days accordingly.  After that terrible storm in Ozona, Texas, we usually opt to sit out bad weather.  But when weather disrupts our plans the burden of schedule change falls on Jeanne.  This time it was not too bad and Jeanne was able to switch thing around with a few phone calls.

This whole weather thing is new to us.  Aside from traffic issues, weather is not a big deal when living in the city.  Your permanent residence is cemented to the ground, drainage systems usually work and you spend the day in a climate controlled building.  There were times when terrible storms passed by unnoticed while I was sitting in some windowless meeting room trying to stay awake.  But things are different now and a sudden change in weather can rip off an awning, flood a poorly drained campsite or turn a nature walk into a survival challenge.  Bottom line:  Sunny days are good, anything else is bad.  Now I know why farmers obsess about the weather.

After lunch, we drove to the Walmart Supercenter in Durant to pick up some groceries.  Returning to the coach, we spent the rest of the afternoon taking walks, visiting with some of the locals, reading and working on the computer.  We grilled some chicken for dinner.

Our quiet evening was interrupted by a phone call!  Nobody calls us anymore!  It turned out to be Bob and Phil, two friends from the club that are camped in Albuquerque, New Mexico for the balloon festival.  There had been an outside chance we would be there, but by the time we got around to making plans, the place was booked solid.  It was good hearing from them and we pledged to connect when we are in Southern California.

Phil mentioned our e-mail boxes were full and there is no doubt they are.  We have not had an internet connection in about two weeks and there must be over 500 e-mails waiting for us.  It really is annoying sifting through all the e-junk to pick out the few legitimate messages.  We also have not updated this web site in several days.  However, good readers, your patience is appreciated and we will do the best we can.

The rest of the evening was spent quietly watching TV before going to bed.

Maybe it will rain tomorrow.

The past few days have slipped by with surprising speed.

On alternate mornings, we did our workout running along the many roads and paths in the park.  The long uphill pull to the water tower is now more of a challenge than a surprise.  Jeanne continues to improve her strength and stamina and can now run for several minutes without pausing.  My routine is about the same.

During the past few months, we had been doing a lot of traveling and visiting and Jeanne wanted to pick a spot for us to vegetate for a week or so.  Lake Texhoma is the prefect spot and the past days have been remarkably the same.  Jeanne is usually absorbed in a book, magazine or completing some needlework project.  During a long quiet period like this, I usually disappear into the computer.

Computers have always been a source of curiosity for me.  In college, both as an undergraduate and graduate student, I realized computers would become a big part of my life and began taking computer classes as electives.  At the time, working with computers was new and challenging, but the early 1970s was the computer stone age.  Personal computers, spreadsheets, word processing and e-mail were years away.  Consequently, most of the early computer classes were focused on the fundamentals of software development and learning how to punch a deck of program cards.

It was a good thing I paid attention, computers played an increasing role in my career right to the end.  The skillful use of computers certainly took the drudgery out of preparing worksheets, budgets, financial statements, memos and other documents a company needs.  Eventually, one accountant could move, process or sift through enormous amounts of data in seconds — something that would take months if done by hand.  Those who worked with me knew I was a skilled user — especially for someone my age.  I very much enjoyed teaching younger coworkers new computer methods but had little respect for managers who were too lazy to master data processing tools.

But, why am I writing about all this?

Well, I use several Microsoft technologies to maintain this web site.  Before departing on this trip, Microsoft released several replacement technologies based on the new .NET framework.  One day, probably sooner than later, either Microsoft or the web host will stop supporting the old technologies and I will have to upgrade the programming for chazen.net.  I might as well get a jump on the process and learn the new programming methods now.  It is interesting stuff in an odd sort of way and working on a problem can suck up a lot of time.  It also demonstrates the benefits of capitalism — for a small fee, you can purchase a user license for a product that took hundreds of thousands of hours to develop.  Is this a great country, or what!  Anyway, what could be better than reading about ADO.NET while sitting along the banks of Lake Texhoma?

Now that we had been in the area a few days, we started noticing how beat-up the vehicles and properties are.  We also noticed many of the local folks seemed to live a hard life.  In our dealings with the locals, they seem friendly and good hearted, but there is something about this region that takes a toll.  A good example is the 81 year old firewood guy who has been in the same Kingston, Oklahoma location for 24 years.  He sells good firewood at a fair price and can talk until your ears start ringing, but the property is a mess and is a work-related injury waiting to happen.  The piles of cut wood is excellent rattlesnake habitat and I was extremely careful when walking around.  That is the kind of thing we found here.  So, while this is a great place to visit, we don’t plan to make this our home.

In our final two days here, except for reading about VB.NET and a trip to the Walmart Supercenter in Durant for supplies, we have absolutely no plans.

Contemporary note:  The time finally arrived for an upgrade to the website.  The original was written and published at a time when there were few options for blogs.  If you wanted something on the internet, you generally had to also write the coding behind it.  Chazen.net was a mish-mash of HTML, VB Script, text and image files all organized in a Microsoft Access database.  It as hard finding a web hosting service to support it and in late 2017 I decided to migrate it to WordPress, a web-based application specifically designed for blogs that should be supported for many years.

I woke a little before Jeanne and enjoyed the morning coffee outside under clear skies and a cool breeze.  After Jeanne got going, she prepared a great breakfast.

Later in the morning, we decided to scout the area and headed the the town of Durant, which is about 20 miles east of our campsite.  The town is more of a commercial center than a community.  We were more impressed with the surrounding area, which was mostly ranches and woodlands.  There is not much more to report; the area and town are about what you would expect for Southern Oklahoma.  After a quick look/see, we headed back to the coach.

I spent the rest of the afternoon working on the computer while Jeanne attended to her needlework.

For dinner, Jeanne used the remainder of Ron’s venison to make some outstanding fajitas; which is probably a unique application for venison.  But, it was delicious.