A quiet week

We've had a quiet week and a busy week.  Over the weekend we just hung around the rv park here at Fort Sam Houston.  Saturday and Sunday we watched football and picked up a few caches.  Adjacent to the base there is a National Cemetery that covers acres and acres and acres.  Almost every day we pass thru there is a service or two happening.  We drove through part of it, a very moving experience.

Monday Gary and I had appointments with the dermatologist.  Gary just had a few spots frozen, no suspicious areas.  I have to have Mohs surgery on my face, after a biopsy in Salem in August I knew that I had to have it done.  We were able to see Dr. Owens, the doc the RN recommended at BAMC, they'd had cancellations so we were able to get in before the end of November.  Her partner Dr. Vogel is specially trained to do Mohs, named after the Dr. who developed the surgery.  Dr. Owens is a beautiful woman, impeccably dressed and accessorized.  She reminded me of a soap opera actress.  Dr. Vogel had a cancellation on Wed., I was were glad to get it done right away.
Tuesday we had to take Luci to the vet, she's had on and off Tijuana two step since she snagged the corn cob at Stacy's in the middle of Sept.  We Googled vets in our area, lucky enough to find a great one that didn't charge an arm and a leg.  She is doing well now.
Wednesday I had my "surgery", they numbed the area and incised an area bigger than the biopsy, then I waited in the lobby for the pathologists finding.  If she hadn't gotten it all she would have had to make a bigger incision.  All was good the first time, I went back for stitches, I asked Dr. Vogel how many stitches she's put in, she didn't know but her assistant said 13.  I thought this would be a breeze like the biopsy.  Wrong!  I felt woozy after, I was glad I hadn't driven myself to the appointment.  I felt crummy for about 3 days.  I look a bit like Frakenstein, I'm glad its Halloween.
Thursday  Gary went to the Alamo, he loves museums.  He did the audio tour and digested everything there is to know about the Alamo.
Friday  after lunch I was bored and restless.  We went back to the Alamo, I was able to just peruse it without making Gary nuts.  Later we went down to the Riverwalk again.  We found a historic little village that dates back to the 1800's.  We walked back to the river and happened upon an amphitheater.  On the other side of the river the Air Force Bank was giving a concert. It was so cool to watch the boats go by as we were sitting listening to the music.
Saturday and Sunday we watched football and picked up a few caches, we did go to the north part of town, we'd seen this area called Market Quarry so we wanted to investigate further. It is high end retail a little like Bridgeport or The Mill area in Bend.  Gary got three new t-shirts and a pair of shorts, I found a pair of sandals.  We went to Costco afterwards, we never seem to learn our lesson about going to Costco on a Sunday afternoon.
Last Saturday while Gary was vacuuming, he found an area that had been damaged in his accident last May that Robersons missed.  The awning had been bumped, causing leakage.  Of course the insurance company said it was up to the RV repair shop to take care of it, the claim was closed as far as they were concerned. Well we are over 2000 miles away and can't take it back in.  We have to get it fixed before we get into heavy rain again.  Tomorrow we are taking the coach to a RV repair shop here in San Antonio to get an estimate of how much it will cost to fix it.  To make matters worse, we changed insurance companies in September since our premium almost doubled after Gary's boo-boo.  I have a feeling we are going to get stuck with this bill.  Will keep you posted.
TTFN Gary and Pam  The first picture is of the ancient underwater sea in Carlsbad, sorry about the reflections, the next three area different area of the Riverwalk and the last one of course is the Alamo.

Fort Sam Houston

Wed. Oct 16th,

Yesterday when we arrived it was a beautiful day, today not so much.  The cold front came through but we didn't get as much rain as forecast.  It's a drizzly Oregon day but warmer.  The first thing we needed to do was find a dermatologist for Gary and me, I had a biopsy done on a spot on my face in August, we were an hour out of town starting our year on the road when I got the call that it needed further attention.  We needed to stay in once place for over two weeks to get it biopsied and wait for the path. results.  We thought it would be a snap, just visit a clinic here on base.  Well no such luck, they treat only active military at Brook Army Medical Center (BAMC).  BAMC is a very large teaching hospital and also a major trauma center in S.A.    After visiting an outpatient clinic then BAMC, a R.N. in the derm unit gave us a referral to a newly retired AF Colonel now in private practice.  After we found the commissary, bought groceries and checked out the exchange.

Thur. Oct. 17th

Our day started out pretty sad,  our friend Ed Casciato passed away after battling colon cancer for 2 1/2 years, Carol and the kids were at his side.  We decided to venture off base today, San Antonio has a population of well over a million, a little bigger than Buffalo Gap.  We found the Tower of America's, built for the 1968 world fair.  We decided to splurge on my birthday and have dinner at the Charthouse up on top.  We walked along the famous Riverwalk, stopping at a Mexican restaurant with outside seating to have an adult beverage.  We made a toast to Ed.  After dinner we watched the Seahawks beat the Cardinals.  Go Hawks! Today was daughter Talena's birthday, we missed her so Gary sang Happy Birthday to her voice mail.  We did talk with her later.

Fri. Oct. 18th,

Another sad day for me, my Red Cross "bud" Gordon Allen passed away this week too, he was quite a character, he was always filling in for me for on the Emergency Shuttle.  One thing about Gordon, you didn't have to worry about saying much, he always had lots to chat about.  He was in his mid eighties.  We took Luci to James Park, adjacent to the zoo, for some geo cacheing and walking.  The day was a bit overcast after another "cold" front went through.  We've decided to hang around the base this week-end to avoid all those tourists.

TTFN Gary and Pam 
  Our home in Fort Sam Houston RV park; a creek in James Park, notable because we couldn't find geo cache along the bank and Luci and I at a pedestrian bridge in the park, made from concrete to look like wood

Our week at brother Johns'

October 10-15,

I learned more about Buffalo Gap then I ever expected to know, a town of 466 you wouldn't think much would be going on.  John lives next door to a Church of Christ with a large empty space, we were able to park there under a canopy of live oaks and ran a three power cords out to the coach.  We managed to conserve water and waste water thru the week.  Lots of "spit" baths.  Buffalo Gap was aptly named because of a gap between a mountain divide that the buffalo travelled through.  It is called Callahan Divide, the mountain is more of a big hill to us Northwesterners.  BG is a very old town, there were many historic homes still there that were built in the 1800's, John and Jackie's house was built in 1902, originally a constables house one side being the office and the other the residence.  A famous NFL football player grew up in the small town of Tuscola, less than 10 miles down the road, maybe you've heard of him, Tim Tebow.
We drove into Abilene (10 miles down the road, about the size of Salem) to check out all the tourist spots.  Frontier Texas was an amazing historic museum (yes I said that).  Even I could spend several hours there. They had several exhibits that use holograms of people acting as characters of the old west Texas. The talk about the buffalo hunters made me just feel sick, millions of bison were killed by hunters for their hides.  One fact just blew me away, you could spread the bones from the dead from Abilene to Buffalo Gap, walk the entire way (over 10 miles) without stepping on the ground.  Gary went to the 12th Armored Division Museum, I enjoyed the lovely weather in the park beside a historic rail road station.
Just down the road from J&J's we had lunch at a quaint Mexican restaurant in a very old building.  On the wall was a list of the rules; order what the waitress tells you to eat, if you want coffee, it's in the corner., etc.  The food was authentic Mexican especially the salsa.  Later in the afternoon we visited Buffalo Gap Historic Village.  There's too much history in West Central Texas!  There is a famous treatment center in town, Wynona Ryder was there at one time, you could tell when she was in treatment there by the  fancy cars mom and sis drove.  There were many Bed & Breakfasts in town, supposedly to house visitors to Shades of Hope Treatment Centers.
An Air Force Base is in Abilene.  John told us when we were bombing Bagdad, jets would leave from here, refuel in the air, drop their bombs and return to Abilene., I thought all the bombers came from ships or countries if the vicinity.
And of course, we did some geo cacheing.  A state park close by netted us 12 caches.
We left Tuesday morning in the rain, a cold front was on the way.  Our drive was about 250 miles, the country side changed from low shrubs to taller trees, hills as we closed into San Antonio. 
We are staying at Joint Base San Antonio, we will be here for a month.  As we pulled in it was about 85 with seemingly high humidity, after we stripped off our long sleeved shirts and jeans it felt delightful.  A torrential rain and thunder and lightning storm was forecast, as it turns out the front skirted San Antonio, we have had rain and cooler weather today.
Will try to send blogs more often. TTFN G & P  The gap in Buffalo Gap, a couple of miles across.

Carlsbad, NM & Buffalo Gap Tx

Sunday, Oct. 6th

We left Roswell about 10, 61 degrees lovely day.  We had a short drive down to Carlsbad, just 81 miles.  Our luck of just missing things has  continued from last spring.  The caverns were closed due to the government shut down.  Everyone says they are amazing, we'll have to wait until next time.
Carlsbad has a lovely Riverwalk on the Pecos river in the downtown core.  We rode our bikes up one side, crossing the street, since there wasn't a path under the bridge on our side.  We were geo cacheing of course, found one that had "caution" small rattlesnake seen in the area. I let Gary find that one. Went under bridge on other side to find several more.  For some reason I fell down three times, sure causes nasty bruises.  The recent flooding had caused them to move the walkway to one side to keep it from going over the little dam.  You could see signs of high water clear up over the walkways.  We picked up our 1500th cache.

Monday, Oct. 7th,

In the morning we did some housekeeping before heading off to the visitor center.  There is a state park 12 miles north of town on a lake (reservoir on the Pecos).  The park was lovely, each site had a canopy over the picnic table with views of the lake.  Of course we found a geocache.  We have been looking (since Borrego Springs last Feb) for a metal cactus to put out front of the coach while parked.  We kept saying they were to expensive, well we finally found one.  Still more than we wanted to pay but we gave up the search.

Tuesday, Oct.8th,

Thank goodness the state parks weren't closed.  We went out to the Living Desert Zoo and Gardens State Park.  This park allows visitors to learn about the plants and animals that live in the Chihuahuan Desert, which runs down into Mexico.  Our favorite plants, the Ocotillo and prickly pear cactus were in abundance.  they had pronghorn sheep, elk, wolves, javelinas (part of the hippopotamous specie) even though they look like ugly pigs, a mountain lion that was raised in a private home so she came up to the fence and purred, Maggie the black bear that paints with her paws, they sell the pictures in the visitor center.  All the plants and animals are native to the Chihuahuan desert.  Near the state park we found a road that had 5 geocaches in a row.  They have to be a tenth of a mile apart by rule.  The road was gated so off we went on foot at midday.  The road was a gentle decline, after a half mile and 5 gc's we turned around to walk back, all of it uphill of course.  The slope was so gentle it was an easy walk.    After we had a nice lunch at the Yellow Brix  a historic building that started out as a private residence.  We kept seeing trucks hauling huge white tanks, we were baffled as  to what they were.  They haul nonpotable water to the oil wells.  That was all we learned, we don't know what they use the water on.

Wed. Oct, 9th,

Off today to go to brother John's house in Buffalo Gap, Tx, we haven't seen John and Jackie for 14 years, it is amazing how time flies.  We left the RV park around 9:00 to get the chip in the windshield repaired.  It has to be replaced, the chip was too big.  We'll wait until we get to San Antonio for repairs since it takes 4 days to order the glass.  We had a long drive ahead of us, over 300 miles.  The wind wasn't too bad, a crosswind until we reached Abilene a short 10 miles or so from Buffalo Gap, a quaint small town.  The road thru New Mexico was boring, low sage brush on flat land.  When we entered Texas we started seeing some agriculture, cotton plants and some crop that looked like scrawny short corn.  There weren't many rest areas along the state highway we were on, finally happened upon a "picnic area" alongside the road.  It should have been called a city dump instead, trash everywhere.  Texans don't take pride in their highways like Oregonians.  As we pulled into Buffalo Gap we spotted a gas station selling gas for $2.99  J  & J have three little dogs that were a bit overwhelmed by Luci's exuberance.  Top:  Gary decided against this hat in the gift shop of the Living Zoo, second: a turtle in the zoo, third: City Hall in Buffalo Gap and bottom our new cactus.

Visiting Denver

October 1st

We were in Denver 5 years ago doing all the tourist things, but we didn't have reservations for the U.S. Mint, We managed to get into a tour at 11:00.  I don't get it, they are talking about eliminating pennies but they were making thousands of them a minute. Today the Denver Mint has the capacity to produce more than 40 million coins a day.  It was interesting, first they engrave it, make a casting, put in the blanks, wash and dry them and then put the edge on them.  It was interesting to watch them spit out pennies like crazy but the most interesting part was the architecture and painted ceilings.  The building itself is on the National Register.  We were on the hunt for a brew pub for lunch.  We ended up going to the 16th st. Mall, no cars were allowed just pedestrians and the buses.  We walked from the Mint, going past the capitol to the Mall.  Had a nice lunch at Rock Bottom Brewing, it dawned on us later we've eaten at the RBB in Seattle several times. Staying at a military base we always ask their mission.  They were very secretive at BuckleyAFB.  No planes took off like at Las Vegas, Nevada.  There were atleast 7 big white spheres, we thought maybe radar domes.  There was (during the 50's and 60's ) at Mt. Hebo  a big white sphere like that they said was for radar, I'm not sure if it is there anymore.  When I still lived in Lincoln City we would drive up there for crawdad fishing.  Buckley AFB was the staging area for FEMA, their recent floods took quite a toll.  We saw signs of high water but didn't see any actual damage.

October 2nd.
We dropped Luci off at a doggie day care,
we decided to go up to Golden for the day, the home of Coors Brewing.  We didn't take a tour, a huge complex on the Clearwater River.  The downtown district is historic, all the building having a old west theme.  My first stop was the quilt museum, I usually avoid museums but this was different.  Gary took off to check out the town while I was in there,  One quilt was from the 1800's another 1949 but the rest were challenge quilts, not what I expected but many nice quilts. I walked through town meeting up with Gary, there is a lovely park on the river with nice walking paths.  While we were on the bridge three young man were whooping it up, going down the small falls and getting out , doing is again.   I think alcohol might have been involved.  I did find a lovely quilt shop on the way back to the car.  Gary wanted to drive up Lookout Mt. to see Buffalo Bill Cody's grave.  The town of Golden was 5400 ft elevation.  Seemingly straight up from Golden was the grave.  Many switchbacks and tight curves, I wonder how they got the coffin up the road in 1917.  Those crazy bicyclists, riding their bikes up 2000 feet, going down sounds like a rush but I wouldn't make it a block.  We finished the day at Sam's #3 another Dive, Diners and Drive in featured restaurant in downtown Denver

October 3rd.
The weather had been so lovely in Denver but snow was forecast for Friday, we took off for New Mexico at 10:00 am it was 62 degrees.  The drive was lovely, the trees just starting to change color. (Wyoming was several weeks ahead of them)  We had lunch at a rest area just before thNM border, finding a geocache of course, it was pretty windy but not too cold.  We passed into NM at Ratton elevation 7834.  It will be nice to get to lower elevations.  We saw several herds of antelope along the road into Las Vegas, NM where we spent the night boondocking at a Wal-Mart.  It was a long drive, 330 miles.  The wind really rocked the coach during the night.

October 4th
We left LV,NM about 10, still windy but warm,  We filled up with gas, we thought $3.37 was a real bargain.  We were on our way to Roswell, NM, the alien capitol of the US. The drive was pretty, looked a lot like driving into Sisters from Santiam Pass.  A shosrt drive, we got into Roswell about 1:30 Gas was $3.02.

.  Our destination was Midway RV, recommended by Jay and Sandy as a reasonably priced park.  When we got out it smelled a lot like dog poop.  We found out later that they were spreading manure in nearby fields.  As we discovered later there were about 35 stockyards and feed lots in the area.  Gerry and Mary, if you thought the flies were bad in Boardman, it was nothing.  Other than the smell and flies it was a nice place.  At the art Museum they were having a sidewalk chalk contest for kids, some were truly amazing.  We took Luci to a doggie day care at a small dog grooming place out in the country a bit.  She played with goats and chickens.

Top: Gary at the art museum in downtown Denver, both of us at a historic bar in Golden and the arch in Golden, we found a geo cache on the post