Review: Ranch of Dreams

The Country's Most Unusual Sanctuary, Where Every Animal Has a Story 

I thought it was going to be a heartwarming story about the animals at Black Beauty Ranch, a rescue and retirement community for animals in East Texas. And it was--a little bit. It started off autobiographically, then jumped into the individual animal stories. And those were pretty interesting, especially that of the famous chimpanzee who learned sign language. And the cats were interesting.

But after that the book devolved into interminably long and painful stories about animal "massacres" of burros, horses and bison. The stories of the burro rescues were fairly interesting (or was that the horses?) on account of the logistics of tracking down, capturing and transporting a big, wily creature.  But the bison chapter was simply a tedious retelling of how humans nearly exterminated the creature from the American West. Which was nothing to do with the ranch and very little to do with the two or three bison they eventually acquired. That part could have been deeply interesting, but it just wasn't there.

And then he got off into elephants. If you really want to read about the cruel treatment of elephants in all its gory detail, and the attempts of the San Diego Zoo and others to cover up their evil acts, fine. Read this.

But again, that's nothing to do with Black Beauty Ranch. I skipped most of it and jumped to (and enjoyed) the description of how they socialized the three elephants that they have.

It's a pretty old book, published in '97, about 25 years ago. I hope it's not still relevant. Maybe the author's intent was to draw his readers in with a promise of a unique and fascinating story of a ranch...and then blast them with the reality of animal abuses. But I know the reality and didn't appreciate it being thrown in my face.  I have enough nightmares already,

Review: Ellie Dwyer's Olympic Moment

Ellie Dwyer's Olympic Moment: Book 6 of the Ellie Dwyer Series
by Diane Winger

Very much in the same pattern as the others in the series, but if you're hooked, you're hooked. And I'm hooked.  I wouldn't recommend this for everyone--nothing much really happens and although there's a teeny tiny bit of plotted uncertainty that runs through them all, it's not what makes the stories enjoyable.

Sure, there's a woman with an oddly unpredictable memory problem. Sure there's an accident that puts normally indefatigable Ruth out of commission for a while. And of course there's a strange weirdness with Ellie's daughter that keeps her guessing. But none of those are enough to make a story worthwhile.  What does that, for me, is the day-to-day story of a life I'd love to be living. Traveling around the country in a camper, seeing new places and things, hiking a lot of trails, and hanging out with a true friend.  That's the life for me!

Review: Can I Kiss Her Yet

 Can I Kiss Her Yet?: A True Tale of Love, Marriage... and Camels
 by Tony James Slater

Maybe not as funny as he wanted it to be. But amusing throughout even though it seemed to drag on long after the wedding.  I guess two honeymoons count as part of the the whole "marriage" story. And I didn't mind reading about them, they just surprised me.

I hadn't read his other book--A Bear Ate My Pants--but I might, now. He's a decent writer with an amusing turn of phrase and certainly some serious adventures of the comically absurd nature.  So absurd, in fact, you think they couldn't possibly be real.

But I expect that they are. You don't go setting out on a trip with no money and very limited supplies and not expect some wild and wooley things to happen.

Review: Snowman

 The Eighty-Dollar Champion: Snowman, the Horse that Inspired a Nation
by Elizabeth Letts

Sorry to admit that I quit on this, about three-quarters through.  But I read the ending.  It's a good book and well-written, but after that first or second competition, it was the same thing over and over. Snowman is up against horses from farther and farther away; the owners and jockeys are better funded and the horses all look better on the way to the field. Snowman wins.

And that's a great thing.  There just didn't seem to be any enjoyment in reading the same thing again and again.   If you're really into horses and jumping, you'll rejoice over every single page.
 

Review: Walk on the Wilder Side

The Wilder Widows: Walk on the Wilder Side
by Katherine Hastings

Someone reviewed this book poorly, saying it was just like the previous one. Not true!  I didn't find that to be true at all, and I very much enjoyed the adventures of the four fast friends in pursuit of a bucket list trip for each of them in turn.  Only one of the adventures seemed a little bit predictable near the end, but I have no complaints. About that.

But, oh! As much as I want to recommend this with all my heart, and I do recommend it highly...but only to the stoic person who can put up with a near-endless inner dialog of soppy sentimentality. I've complained about this before and here it is again. A husband is not just a husband--gotta love 'em--he's the greatest husband ever created and so very, very loving and thoughtful and brings her to completeness and she's so very, very, very happy and her life is so wonderful and--

Well, that goes on. On various topics, like friendship, romance, love, spouses, children. I was listening to this on audiobook, and even then I had to skip forward a time or two when one of the ladies went into an endless monologue about how great something was.

What I wouldn't give for an editor.

Review: Find More Birds

 Find More Birds: 111 Surprising Ways to Spot Birds Wherever You Are
Heather Wolf

What a great and amusing way to present some valuable birdwatching tips!  Broken into three or more sections, she starts with basics, then proceeds to offer tips on "finding birds at their favorite restaurants," "...by the clues they leave," "using tech support," and so on.

Some clue are very obvious--to a bird watcher--but others are great reminders of things we sometimes forget to do or never even thought of.  For me, a few that were unexpected were "search for an open patch after a snowfall" or "creep up on cattails" or "check out dusty spots for dust baths."

Absolutely recommended for all bird enjoyers. Any tips you don't need, just skip 'em. But you'll probably find yourself reading them anyway--I did. There's just too much information you might be missing.

Magnus Goes to the Red Rock Country, Day 18

 Friday, September 26
And return Saturday

We spent the night at another RV Park, this one the Back Forty RV Park in Quanah, Texas.  Very not memorable.  I have no notes and I honestly can't remember a thing about it, good or bad. From my pictures it's just a flat spot with gravel and RV hookups. Blah.

Returned on Saturday, taking the google maps recommended route of I-35 South in Denton to Lewisville, where we pick up the 121/Sam Rayburn Tollway to home.  It's like the two sides of a right triangle instead of the hypotenuse.  But it's faster. Really faster. And NO traffic lights.
 

Trip notes:
1. Current drive times indicate that for every three hours google time, add an hour for our time. And if the road is up mountains, add a another hour.

2. Always stay in Tucumcari (or nearby, at the State Park) and eat at Las Chaparitas.  

3. Go back to Canyonlands someday and take the Jeep down the dirt roads.

4. Avoid private RV parks like the plague.  A few that we've stayed at have been very nice, but in general they suck.  KOAs maybe be the exception to this--we've stayed at some pretty nice KOAs--but even those were crowded and uncomfortable.  Remember--anytime you're staying at a private RV park that has permanent or seasonal dwellers, you're basically staying at someone's home.  You have to be on your best behavior at all times; very careful not to upset the locals. And who wants that?

Magnus Goes to the Red Rock Country, Day 17

Thursday, September 26

 

 

Cochiti Lake, farewell.

Good-bye to parks and lovely views. We returned to Tucumcari for the night at an RV park--Blaze-In Saddle RV Park, to be exact.

It was a nice place but very crowded and cramped. The manager was very nice.
Little or no shade, which is to be expected in the desert. It was convenient, but had some road noise.  There was a dog run but no place else to walk dogs.  I noticed one of the permanent residents come home, let out their dogs--loose--to run and take a quick dump outside the dog park.  They called the dogs back and, I guess, went inside. I didn't see them again. And luckily, Molly didn't see them at all.

I don't remember anything else about the place. It was just blah.  But for supper, we returned to Las Chaparitas restaurant. Yummy!  This time I had Camarones Diablos (or some such thing.)  And I asked for charro beans instead of the rice, so they brought me out two bowls of beans. What they called a salad was pretty lame, but with $1.95 of avocado topping it, it was better than most restaurant salads.

Magnus Goes to the Red Rock Country, Day 16

Wednesday, September 25

For our second day at Cochiti Lake, we decided to risk the long drive without Molly to see Bandalier National Monument. We left at about 10:30 and did not return until after 3:00. Which sucked. Except it was such a very great place!

The drive to get there--and back--was horrid.  We had to go up a huge hill to get to the suburbs of Santa Fe; I was driving and I didn't get a good start on the way up, so by the time I reached the top my speed was down below 50. In a 75 mile per hour zone!  Bad driving, I say so myself.  (Luckily I was in the truck climbing lane, stuck behind a big truck that wasn't doing any better.)

The parking lot was full but we were able to squeeze into a spot in the overflow parking area. The visitor center was so crowded that all we did was visit the restroom and show our pass. But when we got onto the trail to the ruins, the people thinned out nicely. And everyone was very polite.

 

There's a long canyon wall where there are dwellings all down it. So cool. And ladders you could climb up and look in.

Next to the canyon was a mostly dry creek and a wooded area, then the opposite wall. And in the wooded area, very close to the visitor center, I saw a Hepatic Tanager!   New life bird!

 

Later I took Molly for a long walk, almost to the boat ramp. The only reason we didn't go all the way is there were warnings about blue-green algae in the lake and I didn't want Molly drinking out of it.  Stupid me forgot her water dish!

We saw an interesting animal down there. It was a little larger than a squirrel, thicker bodied, and with less tail. But it was nowhere near the water, so I don't think it was an otter.  Maybe just a squirrel.  No good picture.

Magnus Goes to the Red Rock Country, Day 15

Tuesday, September 24

Leaving Ruins Road for Cochiti Lake COE Campground. We got a late start on purpose because it was only a 3-hour drive but the check-in time was 3pm.

Cochiti Lake was almost the exact opposite of the RV park we'd just left. It was quiet, with few people. No road noise. Birds. Lovely.

 

 

 

 

 The lake is very low but we could see it off in the distance from our camp site. It's a Corp of Engineers campground, built when they built the lake, and a little aging but well kept up.  It's very large and spread out, with lots of camping loops. Not excessively crowded, but enough people that I had to keep Molly on a close leash.

There was plenty of walking along the roads, which is usual for a Corp Campground, but there are also a couple of trails. I didn't find them until the second day, so we never took one.  Sadly, it was very hot. We did a good bit of walking, but we didn't especially enjoy it.

Magnus Goes to the Red Rock Country, Day 14

Monday, September 23

Long drive but maybe not as long as we were expecting. Actually in distance it wasn't that bad, but the slowdowns and all the shitty little towns with speed limits pushed our drive time up to a little over four hours.  We ended up not taking a lunch break because there were no rest areas expect the little one way back in the Ute Mountain Indian Reservation.

Always mountains ahead and in the distance, but the only significant elevation change we experienced was at the beginning, getting down out of the Canyonlands and Moab rocky scenery. We went alongside El Sal Mountains, but not close enough to have to do their ups-and-downs.

And so we arrived at Ruins Road RV Park. It's smack dab in the middle of the little town of Aztec; it has no view; not great as far as amenities and lot spacing, and it's 99% permanent dwellers so it feels like you're in someone's back yard.  But it backs right up to the Animas River and has a tent area there, somewhat private from the RV sites.  Molly and I will go walk back there in the evening.

The river:

 

After getting set up, I tried to go jogging with Molly on down Ruins Road to the Aztec National Monument Site.  Note right now: although it's called "Aztec", it was not built by the Aztec peoples of South America, nor did they ever come anywhere near this area.  Apparently that term was indiscriminately applied by the Spanish explorers to cover all native sites.  It was built by ancestral Puebloans, the same ones who created Chaco Canyon.

(Apparently the modern day tribes don't like their ancestors being called "Anasazi"; it's somehow a deragatory term.  So the correct term is "ancestral Puebloans")

Molly and I jogged cautiously down the city streets and onto the monument, where we found prairie dogs galore. They had a town just outside the visitor center and another over by the picnic area.  A nice park employee told us it was okay to have dogs in the Picnic area and parking lot, and also--I think--on the bike trail. But we only went a little way on the bike trail before I got worried that we should be there and turned back.  There were interpretive plaques alongside the trail and it was clear that we were on the monument's grounds.

But as we went back, I was able to see over the fence to the Archaeological/Restoration site--it was huge and looked really cool. So we jogged back to the RV, avoiding getting attacked by a home dweller's loose dog who fortunately responded well to the word "NO" and never left his yard. Maybe he was on a shock collar or maybe just well-trained, but whatever the reason, it was a nightmare to see an unleashed dog running right toward us. The owner came out of the house, but I ignored her and went on with a snarl.

In any event, we won't be going back to that RV park again. Leaving Molly behind, Ed and I walked the 1/3 mile stretch back to the monument.  Great place. Some of it was recreated by the archeologist Earl H Morris in 1916, who spent seven seasons excavating Aztec West and the great Kiva. In the 1930s he returned to supervise reconstruction of the great Kiva. It looks much like they think it did originally. Most of the (many) other rooms are pretty much in their original state or else the restoration was so skillful I couldn't tell old from new.

Great place and I'm incredibly happy we went to see the ruins.

Magnus Goes to the Red Rock Country, Day 13

 Sunday, September 22

Last day at Sun Outdoors Canyonlands Gateway, thank heavens. It's a nice place but simply too crowded. I chose it because it was away from town and close to Arches National Park, and I don't regret that choice. But the many millions of people and dogs all over the freaking place are driving me batshit crazy.

Pretty nice day. Got up early-ish and went for a short drive into Canyonlands National Park. We only had to wait in a 2-3 car line to enter, but when we left at 10:30 or so there was a significant line building. And more cars on the way.

Lesson learned: go early. If you want to see wildlife, go very early.
Add to places-to-go list: Definitely want to come back to canyonlands and drive dirt roads down into the canyon.
Then we took a break and headed back to Arches for our 12-1 entrance time slot. The way it works is that you pre-reserve an entrance time and then once inside, you can stay as long as you want.  This is supposed to reduce congestion on the roads and prevent the parking lots from filling up. For those purposes, it seems to work pretty well. But the wait to get inside the park was over 30 minutes, on account of all the people who needed to pay fees, ask questions, or be turned away because they hadn't reserved a time slot.

Gorgeous place, with at least one dirt road that Ed really wants to come back and take someday. We--and the paved road--stayed mostly up at the top of the cliffs for the scenic views, but the dirt road went way, way down. Maybe to the canyon floor. Nice.

No matter, though--we were prepared for it.  Once inside, we proceeded all the way to the end to walk the little trail to Landscape Arch, Devils Garden, plus a few of the others. It was a nice dirt trail, well worn by innumerable feet. But with some significant ups and downs that tired us out after a while.

Awesome views, all day long. I'm overcome with bug-eyed wonder.

Also I saw a whole conglomeration of Bushtit.

I couldn't identify them at first--my only thought was Verdin which I've seen out in the desert. But this didn't seem to be the place for them, plus Verdin don't usually flock like that. Merlin ID'ed the call for me, and after looking at the bird book, I agree.

And home, after a quick stop at the City Market grocery to pick up some perishables.

Magnus Goes to the Red Rock Country, Day 12

 Saturday, September 21

It was a pretty short drive to the next campground, Sun Outdoors Canyonlands Gateway. Which is good, because we had a timed entrance permit to Arches for 2pm, which was the earliest I could get at the time I reserved it a month or so earlier. But it turned out that 3pm might have been better.  By the time we arrived and had lunch and Ed did his exercise and Molly got her walk, it was time to book it over to the park.

The line to get in was horrendous. We probably left the RV park at 2-ish, but by the time we were inside Arches it was nearer to 2:45. And then we hit a road construction one-lane road with a pilot car delay to get up the first big hill inside the park.  That took another 10-15 minutes or so.  

 

But little matter--the place is so gorgeous that there is no bad place inside  to be at.  No arches up there in the front, but rocks and slopes and views and...pretty much everything you could want except birds. Ah, well, I knew I was taking a chance when we came here in September. By the time I get home, fall migration will be about over. 

And then back to the campground.

Review: Sun Outdoors Canyonlands Gateway
All about the location

It's a nice, family run place, but very, very crowded.  We were squashed in like sardines in a spot only barely long enough for our 35-foot motorhome and toad.  The hookups and all worked fine, and I even think we had a little picnic table squeezed between our side door and the next neighbor's sewer line.

I noticed that back away from the road there were some sites for larger RVs that were much more spacious. I should ask for one of those next time.

The place was set up nicely for dogs, and when we went for a walk the maintenance man (maybe owner?) stopped to warn us about the goat's head stickers around the sides of the park. They weren't as bad as he said, but we did pick up a couple.  The dog park--a double one--was big and dusty but more than adequate. And there were baggie stands here and there.

All that said, it's in a prime location to access both Arches and Canyonlands.  You can go to either one without encountering Moab traffic.  So I'd recommend it--just don't expect peace and quiet or starry night views.

We ate supper that night at The Broken Oar. Even though we arrived just as they opened (at 5pm), the food took a long time to come. My food was okay, but the French Dip Sandwich was excellent.  

Magnus Goes to the Red Rock Country, Day 11

Friday September 20

Second day at Offroad RV Resort.  We went back to Capitol Reef--in the Jeep this time--so we could enjoy it. Our first stop was the pictograph site, where there were a surprising number of pictographs (petroglyphs?) on the cliff wall under a slight overhang (or sometimes not).  At the foot of the cliff the park service had constructed a little boardwalk for easier viewing and to keep people out of the mud of the creek.

 

Most of the creek was on the other side of the road, where orchards were planted many years ago and still irrigated. They allowed u-pick-it fruit for $2 a pound although there was no one there to measure the pounds and no place for a scale.  But the trees were mostly bare other than some late apples.  I should have brought one back to the motorhome, washed and ate it.

Then we took one of the short hikes to see scenic views.  Sadly, I didn't make a note of which one.  But it is certainly a lovely, lovely place.

review: Offroad RV Resort
A little expensive but worth every penny
Site 31, surface gravel

The owners were very nice, the view of big rocks and mountains in the distance great.  Though this was desert, its proximity to the Fremont River brought out a swarm of little bats at sunset.  We didn't see any other wildlife except lizards and a small flock of turkey, but there were some very interesting tracks over by the water.  The owners had a lot of little trees planted and I expect the place to be gorgeous in a year or two.

We had full hookup--50-amp, water, sewer although the owner did asks us not to do an excessively large flush of the septic system. Just the usual dump and a quick clean out--their water was reverse osmosis filtered and not to be wasted.

There was firewood and ice for sale at the office. No other amenities, but I can't say we needed any. A couple of short trails for dog walking. Great night sky views.

Other than the price ($65/night) I'd say the place was nearly perfect.

Easy drive to Capitol Reef--petroglyphs, historical places, and gorgeous red rocks.