Big Bend National Park

Room With A View

We had big plans this morning to do the 2 mile walking tour of Fort Stockton and grab a half dozen caches around town before heading down to Big Bend National Park, but twenty mile an hour winds and the low 40’s temperatures dissuaded us from it. We also had big plans to eat breakfast at a local joint, but they’re not being open prevented that, so opted instead to eat breakfast at McDonalds and shop for provisions at Wal-Mart.

For the hundred and something mile drive to Big Bend I had mapped out a few more caches, after two failures we gave up on that. The first was an interesting two stage earthcache. Stage one was right on US385, but stage was 3.84 miles into what the GPSr showed to be nothing, with no roads to it. The second was at a roadside picnic shelter. After stopping and the direction it indicated seemed not be appropriate, so I read all the cache instructions and noted it said, “Hop the fence and 100 yards in it will be under a dead cactus.” The fence in question was a 5 foot high, 4 strand barbed wire one that we weren’t even thinking of attempting.

I know it seems like I have been writing about nothing but negative things that have been happening to us, but we are having a great time (except for that drive from DFW to the hotel on the first day.) The roads are uncrowded, the people are friendly, the weather good and the scenery sublime.

The photo above is from the balcony of the room we are in for the next three days and it is probably the worst view for miles.

We Really In Texas

Texas Shaped Waffle

This breakfast waffle at the Microtel Inn wasn’t the usual round shape…

After eating we spent the rest of the morning over at San Angelo State park doing some geocaching. There were a total of 56 caches in the park, but there was no way we would try and get nearly that many. Ended up grabbing 8 and DNFing one. The park was touted as having a large lake, but because of the lack of rain in these parts it is bone dry. Maybe someone should tell the state of Texas to amend their description of the park. Also the geocache’s descriptions could be made more truthful. It was still worth the 4 bucks a head to get in as we got to see some prairie dogs (got a photo) and bison (no photo) to go with a couple small hikes in some very different terrain than we can see in SC.

The afternoon was spent driving to Fort Stockton where we are spending the night. Along the way we stopped and briefly visited the Santa Rita #1 which turned the University of Texas into a very rich school when it became the first major discovery of oil in West Texas. A couple things we found out today, Texas isn’t big on postcards, can’t seem to find them anywhere and you can legally go 75 MPH on some of the 2 lane roads here.

We Still In Texas

TexasToday was an awesome day, but nearly any day would be that way compared to yesterday. After arriving at DFW a half an hour early, things went downhill in a hurry. The 35 mile drive from rental car center to our hotel was awful. Driving around any big city is always fraught with peril, but this was worse than the I-285 loop around Atlanta. The intersection of TX360 and I-20 in Arlington was 2 lanes merging into two more followed by two more which was immediately followed up with an exit to a giant shopping area. Three miles of creeping and trying not to get crushed by big bully pickup trucks. 15 miles of 4 to 5 lanes of crazy Texas drivers. Later we got to our exit to find it under construction and closed. No, wait a minute, it pops up behind a bunch of orange reflective signs. Two left turns after sitting in two long traffic lights we pull into the HIE parking lot.

It is now 7:00PM (our body time) and we have had nothing to eat besides some apple slices since Chick-Fil-A at noon. Our blood sugar is low, we are frazzled with the traffic and short on patience for each other, let alone a prospective guest at the hotel who is trying to check in without a reservation or a credit card. We decide to eat first and check-in afterwards. The reason we picked this particular hotel because it is right across the street from a Razzoo’s, my favorite restaurant in the whole world. After risking life and limb crossing the busy street to get there, we find that a lot of other people think it is their favorite too. The wait is 25 minutes. Back across the busy street is a strip shopping mall with a couple of likely places to eat. The first was a pizza place, but when we get to the door it has changed into a tofu and lawn clippings place. A few doors down is a Jimmie John’s sub place. Now we are sinking to a hunger place where something that might have been marginally acceptable before no longer sounds even appetizing.

Hey, there was a steak joint just down the street from the hotel, let’s go there. As we get closer to the place it starts appearing like this is not going to work at all, the parking lot is jammed and there are cars parked in the dirt field next to it. I volunteer to go inside and see how long the wait is. We agree on 15 minutes max. As I weave my way towards the door through the throng of people, I can see inside and see it would take a couple of NFL linemen to clear a path to the hostess station, I find a gap and retreat. There is an IHOP with a mostly empty parking across the street. We head over there, admitting defeat and accepting that dinner will probably suck. We were not disappointed.

We had asked for a top floor room and away from the elevator. Our requests were granted and we are assigned Room 427. We drag all our bags inside and start to make ourselves at home. Donna starts unpacking and I fire up the laptop to check the WiFi. Everything is peachy until I turn on the TV. The picture is all snowy on the movie menu page, and when I exit to get to the regular channels the screen goes black. I shut off the TV and turn it back on. The menu screen is better this time, but a black screen shows up for the regular channels again. I go back down, tell the clerk my problem and ask for another room close by so we don’t have to move our stuff too far. He gives me a key to Room 428. The first thing I do upon entering is hit the power button on the remote…nothing happens. Figuring it might be dead batteries in the remote I find the power button on the TV itself. Pressing it has no effect. Back downstairs I go. I tell the clerk, “Very funny. That TV doesn’t even turn on.” “I’ll give you one more shot, if the next room has a non working TV I want me money back.” This time he comes with me up the elevator and we try the TV in Room 426. It works. The clerk goes back to his desk and we I gather our stuff and cross the hall to our new room. Third times a charm…

So today was spent basking in low traffic back roads where between towns the speed limit is 70 MPH. We found 8 or 9 interesting caches while exploring a few small Texas frontier towns. Tomorrow we are planning on geocaching in San Angelo State Park before a short drive to Fort Stockton to spend Monday night.

We in TEXAS

While in the Atlanta airport awaiting our flight, Donna decided to call brother Scott to see how they were doing. He, his wife and the three kids piled into the family vehicle and left Seattle on Friday afternoon. Scott and Beth were going to take turns at the wheel so they could get to Albuquerque virtually non-stop. She called and there was no answer, so she left a message.

Just before we were getting to board our flight she flipped open the phone to give him a call and noticed we had two missed calls and a text message from Scott. She tried to call him back, but got no answer again. I suggested replying to his text. She had never done it before, so I talked her through the process and watched in amazement as it took 5 minutes to compose a couple of four word sentences. She wanted to know where the question mark and other punctuation marks were on our simple cell phone. We don’t have any, so she sent it off. I told her it was texting, you don’t need no punctuation. You don’t need all the letters in the words. Heck you don’t even need verbs.

When we landed in Dallas, she sent him another text, “We in TEXAS.”

Day Sixteen

Day Sixteen

Another not much done day. And Day 17 won’t happen until this coming Wednesday when the contractor goes over to North Augusta to get 3 of the 4 cabinets we are short. ETA on the final piece of the puzzle isn’t until a week later on the 13th. If the counter top takes a couple weeks we won’t have a kitchen for at least another month.

Day Fifteen

Day Fifteen
(wire for under cabinet light)

The two contractor guys only stayed at the house for about 3 hours today and worked some more on covering seams in sheet rock and sealing up gaps in the wall in preparation for cabinet installation, whenever that might be.

The first hour of their time was spent helping me schlep the not needed cabinets and trim pieces back to Lowe’s so I could get the refund money. They carried the big 24″ square base cabinet and the two pieces of 96″ long trim for the side of the refrigerator in their pickup truck. I put the 2 small cabinets and a dishwasher return in the trunk and then back seat of the Purple Whale. Upon arrival we piled all the items in the corner of the returns area and they went back to the house, while I got in line behind the one person needing assistance besides me.

The receipt I had was for the entire 78 item cabinet order with descriptions of each item that were sometimes long and always cryptic. The item numbers were also listed and because we had gotten the $1300 discount back when we ordered them, there was the list price, the prorated discount price, and the final price on there too. The piece of paper was over 4? long. Oh, and by the way, it was slightly incomplete as the cash register had run out of tape as it printed it. The very first step in the refund process is to scan the bar code on the bottom of the receipt to call up the invoice number, oops, that didn’t get printed because of the short paper.

She looked the order up using my phone number and we commenced to searching our respective lists, my long receipt and her on her computer screen. This process was particularly vexing as my receipt was not printed in any kind of order. For her it was difficult because she was looking at a 40 row high by 80 column wide CRT with item number and description in one narrow column that truncated it after about 10 characters. I would find my item and call out the item number and its description and she would page down, page down, page down until she found something that might be my item. After about 20 minutes she had five items for refund and printed out the receipt for me to sign. When I looked at it, it had 5 items, but one was a repeat, but inexplicably it had a separate price of 1 cent. So now I had to compare those 4 items to those listed on my 4? long receipt to find the missing fifth item. I did find it and good thing too, as it was $120 for one of those 96? panels.

We still weren’t done. I had the 24?drawer base that I needed to return to the store so they could order the replacement. The girl helping me out didn’t know how to handle it, so she tried calling someone from the cabinet department to get an explanation, but no one answered. No one answered her page either, so she called someone in the office upstairs and she was told to do a refund and have me buy the cabinet again. Of course as soon as she hit the enter key to refund my charge card, someone from cabinets showed up and said, that isn’t how it is handled, it was supposed to be handled internally. So she then had to call a manger over to override the refund internally at the store level, but it was too late for Visa, so I had to buy back my broken cabinet only to leave it behind while they contacted the manufacturer for a new one.

By time I was finished there were about a dozen, probably internally fuming, people in line waiting to return something.

Day Fourteen

Day Fourteen

Not much is happening as we are in limbo because of the cabinet reshuffle. While we wait on our 3 new and 1 replacement unit little things are going on. Today there was some sheet rock mudding going on and a light switch was moved.

The moving of this switch is small potatoes in the grand scheme of the kitchen remodel, but it will be a big deal for Donna and I. The switch controlled the overhead light in the “computer room” which is between the kitchen and garage. Because at one point, before we lived there, the garage was a carport and the computer room was a screened porch, the switch was inside the house, in the kitchen not outside in the screened porch. Now it will be on the other side of the wall, so for the next couple of months we will probably slap the smooth wall in the kitchen as we walk into the computer room before remembering it has been relocated.