12-3-07

Florida to AZ Camp

My friend Ted Thompson, that I met when I went down to Creel, Mexico on my way to South America came down out of Alabama and stayed the night at Tova’s place after Anna left to go home. I met Ted at the border town of Presidio and we rode on down to Creel together. At the time he was riding his R65 but has since upgraded his stable of BMW’s with a1995 R100RT that is just beautiful. It only has 24 thousand miles and purrs like a kitten. Ted wanted me to go see the Naval Air Museum in Pensacola which was on my way back home. We left in the morning and had a wonderful sunny day for our ride.

Here is an exciting part of the ride. This is sort of like rafting when you get to the part of the river where there is white water. You will notice that the road actually makes a bend. It is still flat and lined with trees but wow, an exciting corner!!!

We took a side road that went out in the gulf that was a spit of sand. There were several huge condos that you can see here as well as smaller homes further down the spit. The last big storm that came through wiped a lot of the homes off. We rode down part way but had to turn around as the road was gone and there was big construction equipment working trying to rebuild the road. It seems just so stupid to build in such a place. The high ground must be only a few feet and there is no protection from the storms. I hope us (tax payers) are not footing the bill to rebuild this like I guess we are in Louisiana. Actually the storm damage is all along the gulf coast in Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. Dumb bastards.

There was quite a bit if new construction as well as buildings that hadn’t completely been destroyed that were rebuilt. All the ‘ground’ is sand, white sand.

It seems like these dome houses might weather the storms better than the hard vertical sided ones. It sure seems odd to build someplace where you know that the ocean will come crashing under your house while the wind whips the shit out of your house.

We finally made it to the Naval Air Museum in Pensacola, Florida. Admission is free, well, I paid some income taxes over the years so maybe this is payback.

There are plenty of planes in here. They had a tour started when we just got there and I tried to listen to the guide but my ears are just not good enough to hear in that huge building. I did my own tour and mostly just looked at what I wanted to look at. There were a lot of planes. Ted has been here a dozen times but didn’t seem to mind another visit. I wish I could have heard what the tour guide was saying.

This was a huge three motor Biplane that was the first plane to fly from North America to Europe.

A Ford trimotor. One of my favorites.

you can see that huge biplane that went across the ocean in the rear.

They had these little cockpit things that you could get up close and look in and even get in if you wanted to.

I’ll bet this sucker is loud.

The wood construction work on this plane was fantastic.

They somehow timed the machine gun to not hit the prop as it went around. It sure would make a bad day if it got out of time while up in the air.

Sort of a fat stocky little plane eh?

This looks like a nice fishing plane.

The Blue Angles plane display. The Angles used to practice at Indian Springs just north of Las Vegas. Sometimes we could see them practice when we went down that way to LV.

This plane could land on water or land. Sort of a dual sport airplane?

The Presidents plane. Did you notice that the sign says that he flew it in combat? Must be the first George Bush.

This is a 1941 Restored Ford that they had on Raffle.

The business end…….

This shows how the props were built up of different pieces of wood. The wooden props are just so beautiful.

I really like the fold up wing types. I think they were made for aircraft carriers so they could stuff more planes on the ships deck and below.

A Jap Zero and a nice big sea plane above.

This is a Mig. They didn’t say what country but maybe Russian?

The metal work on these old birds is fantastic.

This was a high altitude spy plane.

I forget just how much this prop weighed but it seems like there were four on a ship and they each weighed around 33,000 pounds. One ship has a prop they said weighs 66,000 pounds and the ship has five of them. We could see where it had been repaired several times.

I am back on the road here headed WEST!!! Ah, it feels so good to see those signs that say WEST. I decided that I needed to get back to the desert as quickly as possible, so I kept to the freeways. I took interstate 10 almost all the way back.

I saw several of these ‘pods’ on the road for delivery. This one seems to have a delivery module so a person can maneuver it where it is needed.

What the hell, some kind of Racist? What State flag is this? They seem to be damn proud of it……

I liked this pelican on a sportsman plate. Do they hunt them down here?

Just coming into Huston there is a huge chemical or electric plant.

The freeway system was being remodeled. I just stayed on 10 and had to watch very close as these folks travel fast and loose on these roads. The speed limit was 55 but everyone was going 75-80. I just tried to not get run over or squeezed off the road.

There were some really cool little houses but I couldn’t get over to see them easily.

I stopped for gas and saw these guys unloading sacks of corn that are used for deer feed. They use the corn to lure the deer to a feeding station and then they set up there and blast them when they come to eat. At least they get corn fed deer to eat.

I stopped at a rest area and this tile wall was inside the mens restroom. I thought it was interesting that the soldier is black.

The freeway cuts through this dolomite rock that is what western Texas is made of. There is very little dirt in this country and what is there is down in little cracks in the rock. Essentially there is no top soil.

After going through El Paso I came across several miles of dairy cow lots and lots of these sheds filled with hay for the dairy operations.

I met this interesting guy while using the restroom at a McDonalds. You cant see in this photo but he has a spare tire and spare saddle on this rack and I told him that that was pretty cool idea. He said the spare saddle was his roping saddle so he needed to carry two saddles. He said that it was a little difficult to get the horse loaded. I told him that I saw lots of horses loaded that way down in Mexico and Central America. He then said that the horse was really a Mexican horse but they were costing a lot to get them across the border now. He said it cost about $700 to import them. He said that he had been to Costa Rica and Peru. I thought that was rather odd but he said that he wasn’t only just a cowboy but was a mountain biker and took his bike to ride in far away places. He rode in Madagascar and Turkey. You never know about these cowboys nowadays. This is a New Mexico variety.

There must have been a hundred Sandhill cranes in a field right along this little road near Safford, AZ.

Here is a nice picture for my alfalfa growing friends. I have no idea what cutting this is but it was about ready for cutting. How would you like to get a cutting first of December?

I liked this little ‘canned ham’ travel trailer married to this little van.

Safford is cotton country and the cotton was all picked and most of it was still stored at the edges of the fields.

I have no idea what they are irrigating here but the mounds appeared to be planted with three rows of something. Farming year around just like California.

When I got back to the Deep Springs wash where I had my truck and trailer parked, I found this rose in bloom.

It is really good to be back in camp. There has been a pretty good rain since I was gone and the roads have little muddy patches that can sure be slick down here.

I rode back on the freeway and made really good time compared with ridding the smaller highways like I did going back. The only problem with the damn freeways are that you can go from coast to coast and not see much. I hardly took any pictures while on the freeway but on the little roads it seems like I was always stopping and going back to snap one. I met interesting people along the way and I will have to say that the people in the south are very gracious. I was often told to have a safe trip and be blessed. The blessed part was odd, I have never been blessed in the west but often they say to have a safe trip. I met a guy in Mississippi rest stop that offered me an apple and then his wife came over and gave me several cracker snacks. He was an iron dealer and when I asked how the iron business was he said it was about to go down the tubes as the government was going to impose a 30% tariff on all Chinese steel imported. Jeez, with the price of steel doubling recently, it will really be expensive to build using steel.

When I was with Tova and Anna they asked me one night what I liked best about the South. Humm, I couldn’t think of a thing at the time and after thinking about it all the way back I came to only one thing that I could think of. I guess I like best that all the people in the South seem to like it there. They always kept saying that if I really wanted to see what humidity was like I should come down in July and August. Well, I am not as stupid as I look and I never want to be down there in the summer. I guess I am pleased that the Southerners like it there and are not up in Montana or over in Nevada, so what I like best about the South is that it is crowded.