Our RV Adventures

This morning started off with coffee for breakfast and then the last of the leftover Stromboli’s pizza for lunch.

I spent most of the morning getting stuff together for my taxes. I thought it was due tomorrow, but found out it’s not due until Monday the 18th, because Friday is a Washington, D. C. holiday called Compensated Emancipation Day. It’s the day President Lincoln freed the approximately 3100 slaves in Washington, D.C. by basically buying them from their owners.

Maybe if they’d offered to do that with the southern slaves there wouldn’t have been a Civil War.

Just thinking . . .

Actually it’s even more confusing because the real holiday is April 16th, but because it’s a Saturday they moved it to Friday. Which of course moves Tax Day to Monday.

Got it now?

Ok, good. Now explain to me why a city holiday in Washington, D.C. means the entire country files their taxes 3 days later.

I know when I worked for NASA, if the city of Houston had a holiday, we didn’t get off for it.

Of course, any reason to keep my money from the government for a few extra days is fine with me.

They’re just going to spend it anyway.

About 1 pm I went down to the Thousand Trails Gate House to re-up for the next six days. We plan on leaving here on the 20th and heading over to Show Low, AZ for a while.

After I got back, I worked on the taxes for a while longer, until Nick called about 5 pm to see about supper. They were already in Cottonwood getting the oil changed on their Ford Explorer, so we decided to meet them at the Sizzler. Once again, Nick and I had rib-eyes, while Terry and Jan had the salad bar.

After dinner we talked about making a day trip tomorrow over to the Prescott area for a little sight-seeing.

More about that tomorrow.

I’ve reposted our day trip last April from Las Vegas to Trinity Site, near San Antonio, NM, the location of first A-Bomb explosion in 1945.

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Thought for the Day:

$100 placed at 7 percent interest compounded quarterly for 200 years will increase to more than $100,000,000 — by which time it will be worth nothing. – Lazarus Long

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“The light of a thousand suns”…

Originally posted on April 3, 2010

We got up at 6:30am this morning (man, that’s early!) and after grabbing breakfast at the hotel, we headed about 85 miles south of Albuquerque to the town of San Antonio, NM. San Antonio is the jumping-off place to Stallion Gate, the northwest entrance to White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) and Trinity Site. I used to enter WSMR thru this gate back in the early 80’s when coming back from White Sands Test Facility (WSTF) in Los Cruces.

But before we left San Antonio I stopped and filled up at the one and only gas station in town. We had read that they also have fantastic homemade fudge, and it looked great. So we decided to stop back by on our way out of town.

After making the 12 mile drive out to SR 525 we turned south and entered Stallion Gate about 3 miles later. They had people handing out directions and security guards checking I.D.

Then it was another 14 miles out to Trinity Site itself.

Along the way we came across this sign several times.

If I hadn’t seen this sign in 2007 when we visited the WSMR Missile Museum I would have been very confused. This is an Oryx. And Oryx are native to Africa, specifically the Kalahari desert area. So what the heck were they doing here?

To refresh your memory, here’s an Oryx at the Out of Africa Wildlife Park I took yesterday.

It turns out that in late 70’s, 93 Oryx were brought over from Africa and their offspring were introduced into the White Sands Missile Range. They were expected to stay on the Range, but apparently the Oryx didn’t read the signs and they began to wander far and wide as now animals have been spotted from 60 miles south of Albuquerque all the way down to West Texas.

And without any natural predators their population exploded. The coyotes and mountain lions in the area were no match for the large antelope with their razor-sharp horns.

Someone then looked at importing the Oryx’s natural enemy. But this came to a screeching halt when it was discovered that the Oryx’s natural enemy were lions. And no one could get the lions to promise to stay on the Range either.

So now there are over 5000 Oryx in the White Sands area, more than there are in the Kalahari.

It’s not smart to mess with Mother Nature.

Arriving at the Trinity Site parking area about 10 am, we found a large number of visitors already there.

Making our way to the entrance, we encountered Jumbo.

Originally it was 25 feet long, 12 feet in diameter, and weighed 214 tons!

This is what it looked like 1945.

Before testing the first A-bomb, called Fat Man, scientist were worried about whether the bomb would actually work the first time.

The bomb was to be triggered by a large conventional explosion which would then trigger the chain reaction. But, if the chain reaction didn’t occur, they didn’t want the precious plutonium scattered all over the area. But by the time of the first test, scientist were more confident of the bomb’s success, and Jumbo wasn’t used. Later the Air Force detonated 8 500 pound bombs in Jumbo, blowing out the ends as seen here.

Next we made the 1/2 mile walk to the fenced-in area of Ground Zero itself. There in front of us was the marker commemorating the first A-bomb.

Nearby are the remains of the 100 foot tower that held the bomb before the test.

This shows what a 10 million degree fireball will do to solid steel. And here’s what the tower looked like before.

Also inside the fenced area was a mockup of the Fat Man bomb itself.

There’s a joke here, but I won’t go there.

Ground Zero is littered with Trinitite, a green rock/glass, created by the searing heat as it fused the sand into glass. It is a Federal Offense to remove any of this from the area.

Trinity Site is an eerie place to visit. It’s hard to imagine the destructive forces unleashed here, even hotter than the surface of the sun. On the other hand, it’s hard to tell anything ever happened here.

The scrub grass looks the same here as it does miles away. There is no crater remaining. In fact the original crater was only about 4 feet deep and 240 feet in diameter, more of a small depression, rather than a distinct crater.

The observers were in a bunker about two miles away when the bomb went off. Windows were blown out 120 miles away and the shockwave was felt 160 miles away. Other observers, 10 miles away, said they could feel the heat, like opening up an oven door.

To conceal the test, the Army said that a munitions storage area had accidently exploded at the Alamogordo Bombing Range. The secret wasn’t revealed until the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6th.

Leaving the site about 11:30 am, we were glad we had come early. There was a solid line of cars, about a mile long, lined up at the gate waiting to get in.

Arriving back in San Antonio, we decided to eat lunch at the Owl Cafe and Bar, one of only two restaurants in town. I had read about their great green chile cheeseburgers and we wanted to give them a try.

The place was already pretty busy and we waited about 10 minutes to put in our orders. A little later waiters were telling their tables that the food would be a “long” time, as a tour bus had come thru and they were being served first. Well, didn’t we feel special!

While waiting, I pulled out my Blackberry Storm 2 and started checking the Internet for recent reviews of this place. And they were uniformly bad. After talking it over, I left a $5 bill for my ice tea and we hit the road.

To the gas station right next door with the great fudge. And this time the reviews were right. The fudge is fantastic.

About 10 miles down the road we stopped at K-Bob’s Steakhouse, a western chain of restaurants. And I had a fantastic green chile cheeseburger, so there!

After topping off the tank at the station next door, we headed for Gallup, NM where we are going to spend the night.

Tomorrow, on our way back to Las Vegas, we plan on stopping off at the Petrified Forest National Park about 65 miles west of Gallup. The Painted Desert is also part of this, so we have a lot to see.

And now I have some sad news to report.

Moose is gone. Or rather, Moose 2 is gone.

This is 2nd Moose Antenna that has been stolen by nefarious moosenapping thieves, probably to be stripped for parts and sold on the black market.

He will be sorely missed, but quickly replaced by Moose 3. Or maybe Mickey Mouse, or an M&M.

Fame is fickle.

Later…

Today got off to a little earlier start than usual, since we were going to the Out of Africa Wildlife Park, which, lucky for us, is just right down the road from here.

So, after a quick breakfast of Miss Terry’s bread, toasted with butter, we went outside to say a temporary goodbye to Nick and Terry.

‘Goodbye’ because they’re leaving us here at the Verde Valley Thousand Trails RV Resort, and ‘temporary’ because they’re just going about 10 miles away to the Resorts of Distinction – Camp Verde RV Park. Their two weeks are up here so they’re moving down there. We’re not yet ROD members so we’re just going to stay here.

Then on our way out of the park we stopped by the office to re-up here for 6 more days, leaving on the 20th.

It only took us about 15 minutes to get to the Wildlife Park and get parked.

After getting our tickets, and finding out we had a little while before our Safari Ride, we walked over to the Critter Feature to check out the Pacu lizard, baby python, and several other animals they had out for the guests to handle

A few minutes later we boarded our bus and headed out onto the Serengeti Plains, or at least what passes for them in Arizona.

One of the first animals we saw was this male African Lion sunning himself on top of his enclosure. Our guide Courtney said he’s a happy lion because he has his own little harem of 4 females. But I think the guys on the bus figured he was hiding out on the roof to get some peace and quiet.

Our next stop was a tour favorite . . . giraffe feeding, using the carrot sticks we were given as we boarded the bus.

As you can see, it gets very up close and personal.

We were also told to NOT feed the carrot sticks to any of the many zebras around. Courtney said the zebras cannot tell the difference between a carrot stick and a finger.

And if they get a finger, they will not give it back.

Ever!

This is Courtney with Tika, a white tiger. She says that Tika has bonded with her and will come when she calls, and allows herself to be petted and groomed thru the fence. But she pretty much ignores anyone else.

We also saw a number of different species of antelope.

Elands.

Oryx.

And a Sable Antelope.

And also some African Watusi cattle, kind of like Texas longhorns.

We also saw this nest of unfertilized ostrich eggs, which equal about two dozen chicken eggs. That would be a hell of an omelet.

Our guide Courtney went to get an egg for us to pass around and look at. About that time, Kristen, the guide for another tour bus also came over and got an egg for her group.

But she also took our ostrich with her. She just walked up behind and started pushing her toward the other bus. That was just rude.

After our Safari tour ended, and we had a really good lunch of grilled chicken sandwiches with green chilies and cheese, we headed over to what was probably the highlight of the day, the Tiger Splash pool.

There were seven people inside the pool area playing with the two tigers. And they emphasized they were ‘playing’ with the tigers, and that the tigers were not trained. But that they love to play.

They also said the tigers get to decide if they want to do Tiger Splash or not. They have 9 tigers they rotate thru for the show. They open the cage door, say “Tiger Splash”, and if the big cat wants to participate, out he comes. And they usually do.

The guys, and one girl, spend some time hugging and roughhousing with the cats before they start the show.

They use sticks or ropes with bags of balloons on them to lure the tigers to run around and chase them. And as soon as the tigers catch the balloons, they seemed to take great pleasure in popping them with their claws and teeth.

And somehow they have learned not to ‘pop’ the people they catch. And also not to lay on the people they catch with their full 500 pound weight.

I think this one is saying, “MINE!”

This tiger, ‘Liberty’ looks like he’s tasting this guy.

What was really amazing is how high the tigers can jump. We began to appreciate the 20 ft high fence between us and them.

The cats also spent a lot of time swimming around the pool, jumping in and out.

In fact when the show was over, ‘Akasha’ the other tiger, refused to come out. So after spending some time trying to coax her out, they just left her there, saying she’ll come out when she’s ready.

After the Tiger Splash we spent some time walking around some of the other enclosures. When I came around the corner and saw this, at first I didn’t know what it was.

Then I realized it was a Grizzly Bear spread out on a picnic table, just catching some rays.

This beautiful female while tiger is in the same enclosure with a female African lion.

Here they are together, nuzzling and licking one of the workers.

Here’s a African black leopard who is paired with a Bengal tiger. Apparently the big cats get along better with other species of cats than their own.

These are Serval cats, that look like a small ocelot.

Our next treat was due to the fact that today, Wednesday, is Predator Feeding Day, along with Sunday and Friday. So we got to see them throwing big chunks of beef, whole turkeys and chicken parts to the animals.

What was really amazed me was how many of the large animals were being feed from INSIDE the enclosures, like these black bears.

Walking back to the entrance we stopped off at probably Jan’s favorite, the prairie dogs. They had a vending machine where you could buy food, and these guys were very well fed. They would come waddling over to you as soon as you came up to the fence.

This guy was so fat and lazy, he wouldn’t even come all the way out of his burrow. He just waited for me to throw it to him.

Our last stop was to see “Boom Boom”, the white rhino, the ‘white’ part being relative I guess, compared to the black rhinos.

Rhinos are supposed to be pretty mean and ill-tempered, so I was surprised to see someone get right in the enclosure with him.

We certainly enjoyed our day at Out of Africa, and heartedly recommend it to anyone in the area. We’ve been to zoos and wildlife parks all over the country and have never seen one where the keepers so closely interact with the animals, especially the big, dangerous ones.

My only disappointment was the fact that I couldn’t get my Panasonic Lumix camera to go into Manual Focus, so my photos show a lot more chainlink fence than I would have liked, since the Auto Focus sometimes wanted to focus on the fence rather than what was behind it.

Leaving the park about 4:30 we drove over to Nick and Terry’s new site and spent some time talking over our travel plans for the next few months, before heading out for supper, once again at La Fonda, which was really convenient since it’s right outside their new park.

Getting back to the rig about 7:30 we were down for the night, after a long, but fun day.

See you tomorrow.

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Thought for the Day:

“Those who know, don’t talk; those who don’t know, talk.”

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