Aylmer Express "MoHo" Extravaganza 2006

Ian and I had exchanged a number of emails over the last few weeks in preparation for today. Our plan was to have Ian take the kids up for a glider ride. Ian is a glider pilot and I have been up for flights with him in the past so I knew that the kids would love it. Everything was looking pretty good right up until we arrived at the rural airport to find that the tow pilot was not there. For those of you less familiar with gliding, or soaring as it is properly called, it can only be done with the help of some type of tow system to get the glider into the air in the first place. Gliders require a tow because they are basically planes without engines. They are designed to soar through the air on their own, much like a hang glider does. So to get started you typically need an airplane with an engine as well as a tow pilot. Ian had called the tow pilot earlier in the day to confirm that we were going to the airfield and that we would need his services. Apparently this message was misunderstood and the person though he said he was NOT coming out for a flight this afternoon. Hence, no pilot. Actually, when we arrived, there were no people at the airfield at all. Bummer. We had kept this a secret from the kids up until now so they were really wondering what the heck we were doing all by ourselves at a grass airfield. We told them what we had planned to do and that we would not be able to do it unless we could get a tow pilot. We decided to have our picnic lunch at the airfield anyway and think over our options. Then an option materialized out of thin air … literally. A plane was flying by and then turned and landed. Unfortunately, it was not the tow pilot but it was a fellow pilot, Jim, who was a friend of Ian’s. Although Jim was not certified to give us a tow he could see the disappointment in our faces and asked Ian if he would like him to provide a tow anyway since he had done it in the past. Jim and Ian agreed that it would probably be best not to bend the rules in this case. Then Jim generously offered to take the boys up in his plane for a ride. Cool! They both jumped at the chance to take advantage of this felicitous offer. And the best part is that since there was an extra seat, I got to tag along for the ride too! He took us up for a little spin and the kids and I loved it. I couldn’t believe that this gentleman, who barely knew us, offered to take the kids for a little spin in his plane. If you have an interest, you can check out the video I took while we were landing. So a good time was had by … well, at least the three of us. Then, on our way home, we passed a field with some long-horn cows, and a horse to boot (that’s an expression, ok) so we stopped to take some photos. We even got to pat the horse thanks to Ian’s actions to get them to come over. You know, free grass. Then we made our way back to Ian and Kristi’s place for a lovely meal and a mellow, relaxing evening before retiring to a “real” bed for the second night in a row. Talk about the lap of luxury!

Today’s word:

felicitous \fuh-LIS-uh-tuhs\, adjective:
1. Suitably applied or expressed; appropriate; apt.
2. Happy; delightful; marked by good fortune.

So it was another day of driving ahead of us again today. It turned out to be much less desolate than yesterday’s tour through the barren plains of west Texas. And yes, in case anybody was wondering, we did see some tumbleweeds blowing across the highway in front of us. Our trip to Austin took us through a city that sounded like it must be close to paradise. Of course, I am talking about Johnson City! Turns out that this was the hometown of the former president of the United States of America named, coincidentally enough, Lyndon B. Johnson. Now it was a small town and we did not get a chance to spend much time there. To be more precise, I did not even slow down enough to get a picture of the sign. However, the little that I did get to see seemed to indicate that this may not be the paradise that I might have imagined upon hearing the name. I’ll just leave it at that. Pulling out of Johnson City meant that we were getting close to Austin and we did manage to make it all the way there eventually. We arrived just in time to enjoy some locally brewed Austin traffic jams. But if that was our biggest set back so far on this, Friday the 13th, then I can live with that. As I mentioned yesterday, we were planning to stay with and visit our friends, Ian and Kristi. What we had not expected was that there would be a third person involved. Kristi was expecting! As in baby. Yes, these two relatively newly weds had a bun in the oven. And I must say that Kristi is doing extremely well for someone who is on target to welcome a bouncing baby girl into the world this February. And what is the most important thing to an expectant mother? Well, food, of course. And that brings me to our next activity, which was dinner. Ian had mentioned a Texas BBQ restaurant to me via email and I have to admit that I had been salivating since we left Ozona this morning. Good southern BBQ is not readily available in the great white north so I do love taking advantage of the opportunities when they are presented. So off we went to “The County Line” where Ian and I shared a plate of beef ribs … yes, you read that correctly. We shared the plate because it was definitely a Texas-sized portion. If you have ever watched the Flintstones, you’ll understand why I referred to this menu item as the Brontosaurus Rack. The ribs were juicy and I made sure they were thoroughly soaked in as much BBQ sauce as humanly possible. These succulent and saucy strips of heaven brought the succor for which I was looking. Not surprisingly, I ended up getting some BBQ sauce on my shirt. My buddy John in Kansas City had once told me that if you are eating really good BBQ, it was pretty much a given that you are going to get some on yourself. I figure that it is just a sign of the quality of the BBQ. I got good and messy and I loved every minute of it.

Today’s word:

succor \SUH-kuhr\, noun:
1. Aid; help; assistance; especially, assistance that relieves and delivers from difficulty, want, or distress.
2. The person or thing that brings relief.

transitive verb:
1. To help or relieve when in difficulty, want, or distress; to assist and deliver from suffering; to relieve.

Today we said good-bye to the horses, goats, and iguanas at our campsight as we were leaving Carlsbad on our way to Austin to visit our friends Ian and Kristi. However, today’s drive was only going to get us halfway there. The expected straight and happily boring drive ensued as we crossed more of west Texas. Man, that is some desolate country. I am just glad we didn’t make the drive at the height of the summer. As we left I managed to pick up yet another interesting gas station story. Well. Interesting to me. Mildly. It appears that we pulled up to the slowest pumping gas pump in the US, by far. It was so slow I should have taken a photo of the pump. I certainly had enough spare time to do so. Or perhaps I should have taken a video of its performance so you could see for yourself. It pumped gas at about the same rate you would fill a glass of water. It did, however, give me a chance to practice my ability to remain patient. How’s that for positive thinking? We did finally get the tank filled and we were on our way. As I recorded the amount of fuel required for this fill-up, I noticed that we must have experienced rather more terrible than normal fuel economy. Then, about 150 kms (94 miles) into our day, I noticed that the gas gauge had not moved and was still showing over Full. The gauge usually registers above “Full” for about 70 to 100 km (42 to 60 mikes) and then the needle starts to drop … fast. I figured that the gauge must be broken which was a bit of a bummer. But then I figured that it shouldn’t matter too much since I am very familiar by now with how far I can go on a tank of gas. So no big deal. Then a few kilometres down the road I noticed that the fuel gauge seemed to have moved ever so slightly. Then a few more kilometres shows it having moved some more. Then I thought perhaps the gauge got stuck at the top but has now worked itself free. But after a few more kilometres I realized what had likely happened. The gauge had been working fine the whole time. It was that flippin’ slow pump. It was so slow that the normal shut-off mechanism did not kick-in until the tank was almost overflowing. That also would explain why I ended up putting in more fuel than I had expected to. The fuel economy was not that bad on my last tank after all. But I must admit, this slow-pump-over-fill was going to pretty much put this tank of fuel into the gas mileage record books! Well, for a MoHo. On our way we past about the only landmark of note, which was miles and miles of wind farm. It was quite incredible to see all these wind turbines along the highway and off in the distance (click on the small pic to the left to see what I mean). Strangly enough, out of all of them I believe we only saw two actually moving. I have a feeling they don't run them unless the electricity is needed and it certainly wasn't a very "air conditiony" day when we drove by. We made it to our intended stop-off point, Ozona, by dinner and set up camp there. This place is essentially nothing but a Truck Stop and an RV park. Seriously. But the guy who owns this place must have a few bucks because he had a glass-walled building with a sign that said AUTO MUSEUM and it was filled with an amalgam of past race cars. He had Indy Cars, Nascar series, Craftsman Truck series, as well as an AC Cobra replica, a hot rod and even an original Ford GT 40! All of this on display in basically the middle of nowhere Texas … bizarre! And the other thing that cracked me up was the fact that this guy must have sponsored all these race cars as they all proudly displayed his “Circle Bar Truck Stop and RV Park, Ozona, TX” logo. Like somehow people watching these race cars are going to see this ad and say, “You know, maybe we should check out the RV park in Ozona.” Then again, I was staying there, wasn’t I? Had I seen one of these cars in the past and subliminally I was drawn to Ozona? The world may never know.

Today’s word:

amalgam \uh-MAL-guhm\, noun:
1. An alloy of mercury with another metal or metals; used especially (with silver) as a dental filling.
2. A mixture or compound of different things.

Our activities today probably come as no surprise to anyone who knows their caves. I say this because we have been told by many people that Carlsbad has some of the most amazing caverns in the world. Of course, the problem with this is that now it is going to be difficult for these yet-to-be-seen caverns to live up to the very loft expectations I have now associated with them. However, as you will find out, today brought some other unexpected surprises. The caverns themselves did not disappoint. We spent more than three hours underground checking out the tunnels and chambers that were carved out thousands of years ago. An interesting fact about these caves is that they were formed by virtue of sulfuric acid eating away the limestone rock underground rather than by water flowing through underground passageways. But to the untrained eye, say mine, they looked pretty much like I would expect any other extremely grandiose caverns to look, complete with both massive, and petite, stalagmites and stalactites as well as other impressive underground formation. We started with a guided tour of one of the subterranean areas. It was fascinating to hear all about these caves as we were walking through them. But for me personally, I really enjoyed hearing the stories of the person who originally explored these caves, Jim White. As far as I can tell, this Jim guy must have been a little insane. Or maybe he was just one of the first extreme sport guys. You see, one day he thinks he sees smoke so he heads over to find out what is going on. It turns out that it is not smoke that he sees but rather a huge number of bats exiting a hole in the ground. As he investigates further, he realizes that there are some caves further down. So Jim decides to head further into these caves to find out more. Mr. White found these caves back in the late 1800’s so, if you think about that for a second, you might wonder, what in the heck was this guy using to see where he was going while he was exploring these caves? A flashlight? Not likely. Jim was using a kettle filled with kerosene with a piece of rope hanging out of it as a wick. Sure, that sounds safe and reliable. At this point I was starting to wonder what would drive a person’s curiosity so much that he would walk into an unexplored dark hole in the ground. I already knew half the answer. I had just spent the better part of a day driving across the most barren landscape this side of the moon, so I guess if you lived in this area just about anything different may have held some allure. But I found out the second part of the answer when the tour guide told us that Jim was a teenager at the time. Ohhhhh, why didn’t you say so. I suppose I really should have guessed that, eh? Anyway, Jim continued to come back to these caves and expand his explorations over the next days, weeks, months, and ultimately years. I cannot even imagine heading into these caves on my own with about the same amount of light you get from a pen light. Well, maybe I can because at one point on our tour, the guide brought us into one of the larger chambers and then turned out all the lights. Talk about pitch black. I, quite literally, could not see my own hand in front of my face. He then lit a single candle to give us an idea of what it must have been like for Jim. The thought of searching through these unknown passageways and tunnels, on my own, not knowing what might be in there is a little too much for me. That Jim must have had huge … wait, this is a family blog, right? Let’s just say, Jim must have been fearless. After our guided tour we took a self-guided walking tour of “The Big Room”. And that name is not just hyperbole. This room is over 8 acrces large and the path you take to check out the entire underground room is over a mile (1.6 kms) long! It actually took us over two hours to make it all the way around. Like our guided tour, the cave highlights where lit in such a manner as retain the feeling of being in a cave while at the same time allowing you to see the impressive formations created over thousands of years. And not unlike Bryce Canyon, it seemed that every few steps presented a totally new and spellbinding view. The lighting was actually so well done that you felt like you were viewing items at an art gallery. This same muted lighting, which did such a wonderful job of preserving the natural feel of the caves, also made it rather difficult to capture these otherworldly views with my camera. Near the end of our self-guided tour, just after swinging by the “Bottomless Pit”, we finally had to call it a day to get some food. One regret is that we did not enter the caves via the “natural entrance”. You have the option of walking down into the caves using the same entrance as our old friend Jim, however, due to our arrival just prior to our guided tour, we had to take the elevator to get down in time. Oh well, we’ll have to go back again, I guess. Once we emerged from the depths and grabbed some lunch, we had one more location we wanted to hit today. This happened to be a place called Sitting Bull Falls. We were told that this cataract sported an impressive 150 foot (50 metre) drop, seemingly out of nowhere, which then drains back into seemingly nowhere. It sounded so enchanting we just had to see for ourselves. And we were told it was only about a 30 mile (50 km) drive. To be precise, it turned out to be a 36 mile (60 km) drive through some very desolate landscape of twisty and undulating roads complete with “judder bars” or “cattle traps” every few miles, all of which tended to keep your speed down. You really felt like nobody on the face of the earth would find you if your car broke down. We finally made it to the parking area for the waterfall and found we were the only ones there! Hmmmm. After a short walk to the viewing area for the falls you could see our jaws drop. But that was about all. There seemed to be barely enough water to make it over the edge of the cliff. Sure it was a 150 foot (50 metre) drop but it was more of a water “drip” than a full fledged water “fall”. However, I do have to admit that it was certainly a picturesque location even if it was lacking the pizzazz we were expecting after having seen Burney Falls in northern California. But on our way back, I realized why I was meant to take this trip out to the falls. Just as we left the parking area in the car we saw a freakin’ tarantula walking across the road !!! You read that correctly, a big, hairy, scary tarantula. I have never seen anything like this other than at a zoo or museum. Not exactly being a fan of spiders, (ok, they scare me to death) I’m glad I didn’t see that until AFTER I had toured the caverns and taken the walk to see the falls. Just another excellent example of how timing is everything in life. After me getting Chantal to turn around so I could take some pictures of our hairy friend (from the safety of the car, of course!), it was back to our campsite for dinner and another rented movie. The campsite had a huge selection for $1 each so we couldn’t resist. Last night we saw March of the Penguins (Thanks Louise and Brian!). This time we chose Hidalgo in honour of the name of the road the Sprint Family Locator had tracked us down to. After the movie I wanted to step outside to check out the stars as New Mexico is supposed to be one of the best places for viewing the night sky. You can just imaging, after the sighting I experienced on the road today, how comfortable I felt standing outside in the dark looking upward. But believe it or not, I actually managed to do it … with my heart rate at about 120 the entire time. Unfortunately there were a number of lights in the campground itself that rather ruined the benefits of being in this desert location. But I have to admit that I was not so disappointed to head back in to the relative safety of the MoHo. Somehow, standing on the dirt ground, in the dark, less than 30 miles from a wild tarantula sighting, I kind of felt like bait. I mean, how many more of them were out there in that no-man’s-land between our campsite and the falls?

Today’s word:

cataract \KAT-uh-rakt\, noun:
1. A great fall of water over a precipice; a large waterfall.
2. A downpour; a flood.
3. A clouding or opacity of the lens or capsule of the eye, which obstructs the passage of light.

Today we woke up to a very welcome sunny sky. Now that is more like it. It was to be another day of driving through areas we have never traversed. I have to admit that New Mexico has some unusual places. I already mentioned Roswell, which is famous for the infamous 1947 UFO incident. And it is also lesser known as the hometown of Demi Moore. Really. Then today I also had some rather unusual conversations. As we were driving down the highway today I hear A-P tell me that the guy who just past us in the truck had a huge antenna!?!? An antenna on the guy? Oh, the truck. Right. If you don’t know what I am taking about, do a Google search on Roswell. Also today I was listening to the radio and I hear them say they are broadcasting from Truth or Consequences, NM. Oh, I didn’t realize that they had contracted the naming of cities in New Mexico out to someone from Newfoundland. If you don’t know what I am talking about, take a look at a map of Newfoundland. Although most of our drive was pretty boring we did have a couple of highlights, the first of which was El Paso, Texas. We swung down through Texas on our way to Carlsbad, NM since that seemed to be the shortest and least mountainous way. Now El Paso is right on the border of Mexico, the country, so we purposely took the highway that passed closest to the border (read: we ignored the GPS) in hopes that we might see some of Mexico. We need not have worried. As we were driving along the multilane I-10 through downtown El Paso I told the kids to look out the window to the right since they should be able to see Mexico on the other side of the Rio Grande. It was difficult for me to take my eyes off the busy, winding highway to check out what it looked like but then I heard Morgan asking if the buildings that looked like shacks was Mexico. I looked a little closer and sure enough, the buildings on the Mexican side of the border were shabby looking, beaten up shacks in comparison to the buildings in El Paso which did not look much different than those found in any other medium-sized US city. All the buildings we could see up the side of the hill across the Rio Grande would have had a clear view of what things look like in El Paso. I is hard to imagine what it must be like living just across the border and being able to see the difference in affluence just across the border in the US. I have to admit I was a little shocked at the stark contract. I guess I just figured that the parts of Mexico that are close to the US border would be more developed or better off than what I saw. No wonder the US is dealing with a very large illegal immigration problem. Anyway, we made our way through El Paso and back out into the Texas desert this time. The best way I can describe our drive through west Texas would be … lonely. It somehow managed to look and feel more barren, desolate and secluded than any other area we have been through so far. For much of the trip we did not even have telephone poles to keep us company. This would not be a good place to have a mechanical failure, and luckily we didn’t. Then we had to make our way across the tail end of the Guadalupe Mountains but the MoHo, getting used to this type of abuse, was equal to the task and made it look facile. We ultimately made it to Carlsbad, NM. Why are we here? Good question. In a word, the answer is caves. Now you have two choices. You can wait until tomorrow when I fill you in more on that, or you can head back to Google. It is up to you!

Today’s word:

facile \FAS-uhl\, adjective:1. Easily done or performed; not difficult.2. Arrived at without due care or effort; lacking depth; as, "too facile a solution for so complex a problem."3. Ready; quick; expert; as, "he is facile in expedients"; "he wields a facile pen."

Today we were saying “Adios” to Tuscon and Arizona and heading toward New Mexico. Things were starting to go a little better weather wise. After the stormy night the rain had let up but there were still lots of ominous looking clouds to the south and north. However, our path and speed managed to take us in between these two nasty weather systems almost our entire way to Las Cruces. We did get a small bit of rain but typically it was just the tail end of a storm we were passing through. We were happy to be greeted with a sunny sky as we sailed into Las Cruces. We could still see some strong weather off to the north, with lots of lightening and we were glad we had arrived after it had passed through. WRONG! About 2 hours later, while we were enjoying a family game of RISK in the MoHo at the local Walmart, we heard the thunder start to roll in our way. We then heard the rain begin. It then picked up force and we started to do a walk through to make sure all the windows were closed. Then the hail began! It was so windy and the hail was coming down so hard that the MoHo was shaking and popping like a metal can cooking some popcorn. It was so loud that Chantal and I had to shout at each other to be heard and we were only about 2 feet apart! As the hail storm was starting to reach a peak I could feel a very strong wind at my feet. I was trying to ask, ok, I was shouting at Chantal to see if there were any windows or ceiling vents open but she was not aware of any. Luckily A-P said that maybe it was the bathroom window. Sure enough, it was open and the air was coming in so forcefully through that little window and then under the bathroom door that it felt like a 20 mph (32 km/h) draft along the floor. Unbelievable. Fortunately the window opens out from the bottom so no rain had made its way in but the wind was almost blowing the shutters off! And we were also lucky that the speeding hail had not cracked or smashed the window that was sticking out. The hail storm seemed to continue to rage at its peak for at least 5 minutes. Now that may not sound very long but when you are sitting in a MoHo wondering if the size of the hail is going to increase and if the two skylights might give way, it is a very long time. We were all gathered in the back watching the hail bounce of the hood and roof of the car and gather on the ground all around us. I was not looking forward to driving a car with dents all over it for the next couple of months so we waited, watched and hoped that the hail would not increase in size or duration. Finally the hail slowly subsided. The MoHo seemed to have made it through intact. It was still raining and thundering and I wanted to get a photo of the parking lot filled with hail but it was pretty dark, as you can imagine, however there was a streetlight that I though might provide enough illumination for the shot. Then, just as I was pushing the button for the picture, the clouds all around lit right up from a lightening bolt and lit the image beautifully … amazing! Anyway, once the rain let up I took a walk around to check the carnage. It was funny to see ice all piled up around the wipers. I instinctively started to remove it before the wet, icy mixture turned to one big block of ice and then I realized that I am about 50 miles from the Mexican border so that is not likely an issue I’ll have to deal with … I HOPE! One other good thing is that we happened NOT to be located near a drainage area as that is where all the hail and ice accumulated, swept there by the torrential rain. The ice packed up to about 6 inches think where the water was draining and you could see vapour rising from the massive chunk of frozen water. I took a few “money” shots to see if I could make it look worse than it was but I have to admit that it was quite surreal to see the parking lot covered in ice pellets with palm trees in the background. Once more I have to ask … what is up with this arrant weather? … am I really in the desert? Wait a second, I think I know what is going on. One look at the map shows me getting closer and closer to Roswell … hmmmmm.

Today’s word:

arrant \AR-unt\, adjective:Thoroughgoing; downright; out-and-out; confirmed; extreme; notorious.