The Cowboy Mystery Tour- Vacation 2015

 

Why "The Cowboy Mystery Tour"?
Mystery because
usually we leave for truck-camper travels in June,
our destination and route decided,
applicable books read,
notes taken,
music chosen.
This year
we left as soon as Paul's family moved to Taiwan,
the last week of July,
with absolutely no idea of destinations
except that we would end up
at Uncle Jack's kitchen table
to drink coffee
and talk.
The routes there and back again were a mystery.

Uncle Jack is my dad's oldest brother,
a Korean War veteran
who fell in love with my Aunt Shirley
and his job with Utah's Department of Fish and Game.
Now retired,
he helps run the Ogden Nature Center,
drinks coffee,
goes birding,
and cruises Costco.
He is one of our favorite people
and regular phone conversations were not enough.
Seeing Jack and Shirley was a priority.

Our first stop,
the Altoona AAA office for maps and tour books,
aimed us south,
so we continued to West Virginia,
the Blackwater Falls environs,
places about as far from civilization as you can be
and still be east of the Mississippi River.
That night when I looked at the map
I decided I wanted to see Arkansas's Crater of Diamonds State Park
as every year I tell my first graders
that you can hunt for real diamonds there
and keep whatever you find.
Our journey to Arkansas went through Kentucky,
a place of caves and cookies,
Lincoln's boyhood
and Ale-8
and the George S. Patton Museum in Fort Knox.
(Note: You cannot visit the Patton Museum
if you have a gun in your vehicle.
Ironic.)
Tennessee was front row seats at the Opry,
the Gibson Guitar factory,
Martin Luther King
and Beale Street
and Memphis barbecue.
We crossed the Mississippi River
and entered Arkansas,
and after a tour of Hot Springs,
rib-and-fry at McClanes
(Oh! McClanes!)
and a stop at the hardware for a bucket and trowel,
we pulled in to Crater of Diamonds.
It was 97 degrees and mostly sunny.
The truck's dash said it felt like 106.
Den opted for a nap in the shade
with the cat
(Did I mention we are traveling with a Siamese?)
while I went diamond-hunting.
Crater of Diamonds is an actual volcanic crater,
plowed to expose new rocks.
The introductory movie I watched
said that most diamonds are smaller than matchheads
and that they shine in the sunlight after a rain.
Just weeks before,
a Colorado woman had found an 8.52 carat diamond,
slightly smaller than an inch-long pencil
which is huge for a diamond.
I joined about eighty people sparcely scattered in the 38 acre field
and soon realized that it hadn't rained for weeks,
that trash shines even when it hasn't rained,
that the dirt was in hard clumps,
and that matchhead-sized objects are beyond my focus.
I quickly broke my trowel blade off by smacking it on the dirt clumps--
three dollar trowels are apparently not meant for smacking--
and decided to walk the perimeter of the field
smacking clumps with the trowel handle instead.
If I'm going to find a diamond,
it's going to be a big one!
At the far edge of the crater
I asked a middle-aged man
if he wanted to jump up and down
and yell "Wow!" with me
to see if we could get anybody to run over.
He declined.
I ended up at the shady sluice trough with the park ranger
and a Serious Diamond Hunter.
The Serious Diamond Hunter had a screen
and was sluicing
and swirling
and using a scalpel to examine his bits of gravel.
They looked with amusement at the colorful fist-sized rocks in my bucket
and told me they were mostly jasper.
After a geology lesson
and a history lesson
and a trade with the Serious Diamond Hunter--
his old working trowel for my broken new trowel blade--
and a discussion about how armadillos are startled
and kill themselves
by jumping up when a car passes over them,
I left the crater with a new reason for the chicken to cross the road:
to show the armadillo it could be done.
A girl sat at the counter with her tweezers and eyepiece;
I dumped my bucket of fist-sized mostly-jasper in front of her.
"I don't think I have any diamonds here," I said.
"Ummmm, no," she replied
and gave me a strange look.

A bucket of jasper

An hour later it rained.









We then re-aimed for Utah,
choosing the roads not taken before:
The Oklahoma panhandle.
A south-to-north trip through Colorado.
Enroute we sang "This Land is Your Land" at Woody Guthrie's birthplace,
hiked Capulin Volcano's rim in New Mexico,
went to a square dance,
had breakfast with Den's cousin,
and started to notice a pattern
that we then focused on:
cowboy stuff.

Oklahoma City Cowboy Museum

Oklahoma City's Cowboy Museum started it,
with original Remington and Russell art
and Tom Selleck's gun
and Hoot Gibson's chaps.
We then had a Colorado adventure to the end of a road
where we met four dogs
and three cowboys
who invited us to sit on their porch
and listen to stories of
Great-granddad's acquaintance with Butch Cassidy
and how Butch shot up the saloon in Baggs,
then covered each hole with a gold piece.
We visited cowboy museums in Craig, Colorado
and Baggs, Cody, and Sheridan, Wyoming.
We went to a rodeo,
ate a cowboy dinner,
went to a cowboy concert,
bought cowboy books
and cowboy boots
($5 at Sheridan's Salvation Army Store)
and bandanas
and a picture of Lonesome Dove's Gus McCrae,
went to a saddlery
and a rope maker,
and visited locations where Teddy Roosevelt,
the Cowboy President,
had been.

Five dollar thrift boots

Dogs, cowboys, and stories

We did get to Uncle Jack's.
We spent hours each morning
at his kitchen table
eating Fortified Oatmeal
and drinking coffee
and watching black-chinned hummingbirds visit his feeder.
Jack showed us the arrowheads he had serendipitously found
and the trees he had transplanted
to make urban Ogden
an oasis of quiet.
Aunt Shirley prepared seafood linguine
and served it on Grandma Maud's dining table.
As I ate,
I slid my toes up the curves of the table legs
and felt like I was twelve again.
Artistic cousin Jill joined us twice a day
and brought her three affectionate Yorkies
who served as both pets and dustmops.

Morning coffee and talk

Utah Rensels-Jack, Shirley, Jill

Ogden oasis

Penny, arrowhead

We are a bit compulsive on trips.
Journaling is essential
and various items are tallied.
Here is The Cowboy Mystery Tour by the numbers:
5,927 miles travelled
$1,059 for gas
80 pounds of interesting rocks
71 pronghorns on the southern loop
        between Creston Junction and Wallcot, WY 
65 miles of Absolutely Straight Highway west of Guymon, OK
47/50 state license plates spotted (missing VT, ND, and HI)
36 hikers in Waterfall Canyon
26 beds stacked in a German bus
19 roadkilled rabbits
18 cords on the $2 Thai parachute at the Presbyterian rummage sale
17 states travelled
15 miles per gallon
10 point mule deer
9 bridges to the end of the road
7 KOAs
5 satellites and
4 shooting stars in the Medicine Bow National Forest
3 wild horses on a hilltop
2 women visited Den while Sue showered    "Cats are a chick magnet."
1 overpriced trick rope
(cue music)...and a buzzard in a dead tree.

What did we learn on The Cowboy Mystery Tour?
1. Planning can be overrated.
2. The West is more than topography.
     It's sun and shade and wind and rocks and far-off rain
     ...and an occasional historic saloon.
3.  Don't even try to count giant windmills. Or cows.
4.  If everything else is equal, travel the highest passes.
5.  Look for local cars at restaurants.
     Ask the waiter what most people order, then order that.
6.  Use a GPS as back-up, not your primary source of information.
     Our Garmin, "Carmen,"
     (as in Where in the world is Carmen San Diego?)
     gave good advice in Nashville
     but was not appreciated in Vail
     or Cody, where we followed her crackpot advice through six tunnels.
     Like a cat always on the wrong side of the door,
     Carmen was often discontent.
     If we were on a four-lane, she wanted us on the parallel side road.
     If we wanted to travel the byways, she insisted on interstates.
7.  McDonalds has free, easy internet.
8.  You can lead a cat to water, but you can't make him drink--
     and the leading is more like dragging.
9.  South Bend seems to be an iffy place to sleep.
10. Abe Lincoln's mother's last words were "Be kind to one another."

Oh, and one more thing.
Write your memories down so you don't forget them.
Done.
More pictures below....

Morning coffee in Kentucky

Chai the Cat, chick magnet

Grand Old Opry, Nashville

Den started a Gibson sales pitch

Donkey democrats in Arkansas-- Bill and Hillary?

The longest straight road in the USA is west of Guymon, OK. Sixty-five miles. The perfect perspective drawing

Ten point mule deer in Colorado

At the rim of Capulin Volcano

Collecting some of the eighty pounds of rocks

Light and shadow in Flaming Gorge

Halfway up Waterfall Canyon, Salt Lake in the background

Destination reached! Shoes off, water and snacks consumed, short nap to follow

The waterfall of Waterfall Canyon fame

Butch Cassidy danced in this Baggs, Wyoming room. So did Sue.

This ain't Butch

A mountain, a fire, clear skies, two hours to meteors

Rodeo!

German bus with front seating, twenty-six bunks, kitchen and picnic table storage beneath

Cows. Fortunately, Sue speaks Cow. It's always good to have a second language.

Big Horn Canyon, Montana-Wyoming border

We predict Big Horn Canyon to be the next place the Californians discover.

Can you spot three wild mustangs on the hilltop?

Some rocks are too big to haul home

Den talks rope...

...and admires the variety.

The back room at King Saddlery, Sheridan

Saddle workmanship

Apparently the Japanese need reminded as well

The Occidental Saloon, Buffalo, Wyoming

(cue music)...and a buzzard in a dead tree. Without the buzzard.