The Adventure of the Gas Refrigerator

RVs come with a special type of fridge that doesn't need electricity — it runs on propane gas, so it can keep running while you're driving down the highway or parked overnight somewhere without electricity. That much is actually quite handy. However, a gas fridge is fussy — in order to function, it has to be nearly perfectly level, and since it's attached to the RV, that means the RV must be quite level. So each time the RV is parked, it must be shimmed with boards under its wheels until it's nice and level (a real pain).

The fridge built into the RV was as old as the RV itself, 29 years, so it was pretty amazing that it still worked, continuing to perform for us. Until, one June day, it quit. After having a fridge for a year, it was a bit of a hardship not to have one, since we couldn't keep milk or cheese, and I was forced to drink warm beer.

What to do?

When a gas fridge stops working, one option is to replace it with a new one, but they're expensive — over a thousand dollars. Even having the old one rebuilt would cost over half that, if I could find someone who knew how to do it. It would cost much less to replace it with an ordinary electric refrigerator, but that would work only when we were stopped and plugged into electricity, not when we're driving down the road.

I scoured the web for other ideas and came across one, an "iceless" ice chest — just like a regular camping ice chest, except you don't fill it with ice, you plug it in to twelve volts and it gets cold. This seemed like a possible solution, since it would run off the battery when we were on the road, and plug into an adapter when we were parked. I searched Minneapolis stores but couldn't find it, so I investigated ways to order it and have it shipped. I was about to order it when I stumbled upon one.

One July afternoon I was wandering the aisles of the Pamida discount store in Two Harbors, and there it was, sitting on a shelf in the camping department, the very brand and model I'd picked out. It was the last one in stock, and it was (marvellously) marked down for seasonal clearance. After the cashier took another 10% off because it was Tuesday, it was ours for a pittance. It has worked flawlessly for us ever since, keeping cold all the milk, cheese, yogurt, beer, and apples we could want, on the road and when we're parked. Without propane and without all that levelling!

The old fridge

Then there was the question of what to do with the old fridge. It could just be left in place, built into the RV, but it takes up a lot of space that could be put to better use. Unfortunately, it's big and heavy and awkward to handle, not to mention totally fastened to the RV with screws. Back in the Twin Cities, my friend Judy was optimistic about the project and willing to help with it.

One Saturday afternoon we removed all the screws we could find and tentatively wiggled the fridge. It moved an inch, so it was loose and we knew we could get it all the way out. By this time it was 4:30, and the recycling center would close at 5:00, so I suggested waiting for another day. But Judy was optimistic that we could make it, so we decided to make a mad dash for it.

Now, the fridge being loose, we didn't want to make any high-speed maneuvers that might topple it onto the floor, so we gingerly drove thirty blocks south on surface streets. We arrived at ten minutes to closing time and got in the door, which was good. We paid the $15 recycling fee and got a receipt, which was also good.

Then we drove over to the drop-off spot where some men were working. They explained that they were prohibited from entering the RV to help us with the fridge, so it was up to Judy and me! We picked up the fridge and staggered with it down the aisle and around a sharp corner to the RV's door, but it wouldn't fit through.

At this awkward moment, they informed us that since this was a gas fridge, we'd have to pay another $15, so I did. By now it was 5:00 and they were officially closed, and the situation looked glum, but we were in the door and had paid the proper fee. What would happen next?

Thankfully, they didn't kick us out, and were actually quite accommodating. They peered in through the door and suggested unscrewing the trim around the front of the fridge, so we did that. No luck. Next they suggested rotating it ninety degrees and it just barely squeezed through the door! They lifted it down, put it on a forklift, and drove it away. We waved goodbye to it and breathed a big sigh of relief. Many thanks, Judy!

Autumn in Minneapolis

When Labor Day had come and gone, and after thousands of convention Republicans had left the Twin Cities, we returned for the month of September. The weather was beautiful again, we settled back into the comfortable life parked in a suburban driveway, and Menominee resumed her quest to find mice.

One day, Menominee wandered away. Now, she's a good cat, and isn't inclined to run away from home, but she is interested in exploring. And I'm not a bad kitty dad, either — Whenever she goes out, I buckle her harness and attach her leash. This time, her leash was anchored to a stake in the ground, but evidently the leash slipped off the stake, and in the middle of the afternoon she wandered off, trailing her leash behind her. I wasn't too concerned, as I figured she was still nearby and would be easy to find. I walked up and down the block, calling her name and talking to her, without luck. Then I did it twice more, with the same result. When it got dark, I gave up and decided to wait for morning.

About 11:30 pm I walked out the door into inky blackness, in sandals and shorts. I felt something... it was fur rubbing against my ankle. Without even looking down, I knew Menominee had returned. There she was, minus her harness and leash. Probably her leash had caught on something, so she wiggled out of her harness and left leash and harness behind. And now there she was, her tail in the air, pleased to have gone exploring, proud to have found her way home, hungry and thirsty, ready for bed, happy to be home. I was happy too.

One of the high points of September was taking the motorcycle driving test. I made an appointment and showed up at a DMV site where a course was laid out on a parking lot. One by one the examiner tested the applicants, explaining how to ride through the maze, what to do, where to stop. We gave it our best shot, and although it was a difficult test and I didn't make a perfect score, I did pass, and am now officially a Minnesota-licensed motorscooter rider.

Summer in Northern Minnesota

Midwestern summers are hot and humid. By July, Minneapolis was becoming uncomfortable, so we headed north to Lake Superior, way up in northeastern Minnesota and not all that far from the Canadian border.

Our first stop was Two Harbors, a small town on the lake, where we found a private campground we liked so much, we stayed for a month. Two Harbors has a decent grocery, a good hardware store, several restaurants, and enough local people that tourists don't obscure the genuine character of the town. I walked out to the end of the breakwater between the harbor and the lake, and one day toured an old, retired tug boat, the Edna G, with its coal-fired boiler and steam engine.

Next we spent a week in Grand Marais, an even smaller town, even farther north on the lake, whose principal business is tourism — it has the kind of restaurants that tourists can afford but locals can't, souvenir shops that sell fudge, and a picturesque bay that draws tourists like a magnet.

Our last stop was Duluth, an old and busy terminal for Great Lakes shipping. I walked along Canal Street, visited Duluth's iconic lift bridge, and toured the William Irvin, a retired Great Lakes freighter that had seen decades of service.

The scooter came right along with us, pulled behind the RV on its tiny trailer. Wherever we stayed, I really enjoyed the convenience of using the scooter to buzz into town for lunch or shopping.

Springtime in Minneapolis

We spent two glorious months, May and June, in a southern suburb of Minneapolis.

Green was everywhere. In spring and summer, Minnesota's default color is green. The grass, the trees, the shrubs, the flower beds, the vegetable gardens, all lush and green. (It was a welcome sight for us, having spent the previous six months in the southwest looking exclusively at the earth tones of sand and rock.)

Menominee spent many enjoyable hours patrolling the shrubs in the yards, proving time and again what a Great Hunter she is.

We marvelled at the magnificence of an apple tree in full bloom.

We saw baby ducks and geese paddling in the lakes.

Especially, there was the bliss of riding the new scooter. The scooter turned out to be ideal for buzzing around the city and ran perfectly, right from the start.

Now we needed some way to bring it along with us on our travels. So we ordered a trailer kit on the web, and eventually seven cartons of steel parts arrived. They provided many days of amusement with wrenches (like a giant Erector Set) to get it assembled into a tiny trailer with just enough room on it for one motor scooter. Exactly what we needed!

Minnesota

When we crossed the border into Minnesota, it felt momentous to be back. Eleven months. 24,000 miles. That's a long time we'd been away, and a long, long road we'd traveled.

We started noticing familiar sights and sounds — cardinals singing in the trees, Canada geese honking overhead, mosquitoes, metered on-ramps, tornado warning sirens, and all the familiar stores where we used to shop. Tulips were blooming, the grass was green, trees were beginning to leaf out, and all the snow had melted. Springtime is a beautiful season in Minnesota.

We stayed overnight in a campground in a far suburb, far enough out in the sticks that it abutted a woods. I unhooked Menominee's leash and let her roam a little way into the woods. When she became very still, I looked where she was looking and saw a chipmunk frolicking around, unaware of her presence, and a little naive about the dangers of the woods. Menominee saw her chance, pounced, missed, and chased it. The chipmunk dashed helter-skelter with Menominee right behind her — it was like watching a Tom & Jerry cartoon! Then Menominee caught the chipmunk, brought it out of the woods in her mouth, set it down and played with it. The chipmunk kept trying to run away and Menominee kept knocking it down with her paw. Finally, the chipmunk became desperate and began attacking Menominee! It bared its tiny teeth and lunged at her! Menominee was momentarily taken aback, giving the chipmunk just the opportunity to dash over to a tree and up it to safety. The chipmunk's survival strategy had worked, and the Great Hunter had learned another lesson.

Casting about for a place to stay, we found RV parks neither conveniently located nor affordable, and we ended up in the driveway at a friend's house in a near suburb. It turned out to be convenient and friendly. Ideally, we wanted to park the RV there and get around by some other means. Such as a motor scooter.

So we shopped for a Yamaha Vino 125, the scooter we had tried to buy last June, when we couldn't find a salesman to buy it from. This time, shopping at a different dealer, we found a friendly, middle-aged salesman who walked over to us and struck up a conversation — a salesman who liked scooters, enjoyed selling them, and wanted to sell me one. So I bought it from him! My dream of owning a motor scooter had come true! The blue Vino 125 was mine!

Eastward and Northward

The Texas Panhandle

Crossing the Texas Panhandle, we stopped in Amarillo for a meal at a Route 66 landmark, the Big Texan Steakhouse, famous for its beef, its old-time decor, and its sassy attitude. They offer a free 72-ounce steak (that's four and a half pounds of meat!) to anyone who can finish it in one hour, and for every six who have tried, five have failed. They brag, "This ain't no franchise or chain," and will even pick you up at your hotel in a stretch limo with a longhorn bull's horns mounted on the hood! I chose a modest portion of prime rib and found it delicious. Recommended.

Oklahoma

After watching so many miles of desert, cactus, and tumbleweed, our eyes were soothed by the green grass, green bushes, and green trees of Oklahoma. Our travels followed historic Route 66, the U.S. highway that once ran from Chicago to Los Angeles, a single ribbon of asphalt that guided so many migrants to California. Route 66 is still remembered and celebrated across Oklahoma.

At one RV park, we parked next to a small travel trailer which turned out to be occupied by Jeb, a 76 year old man in well-worn bib overalls who grew up on a farm in Arkansas and had a lifetime of experiences working outdoors, including drilling for oil in Texas and harvesting timber in Oregon. His gentle drawl and and the stories he told about himself were delightful.

We noticed that we were entering Tornado Alley, famous for the number of tornadoes each season, and were headed for Oklahoma City, which has been hit by more tornadoes than any other city. But this wasn't tornado season, and we made it out of the state without seeing so much as a funnel cloud.

Iowa

The curious thing about Iowa was that the price of mid-grade gasoline (89 octane) was actually less than regular (87). As we drove across the state, I kept my eye on the prices at gas stations, and mid-grade was always less, usually by ten cents a gallon. Now, this seems to somehow contradict a law or nature (dusk comes after sunset, not before), or at least a business rule (you put the scoop of ice cream on top of the cone, not the cone on top of the ice cream). After some web research, it turned out that Iowa mid-grade gas contains ethanol, but regular doesn't. Why? Good question.

As we continued north, we got closer and closer to the Minnesota border.

The Arizona–Utah Border

Bright red mountains, bright red dirt. This is Ed Abbey's territory — sunbaked, windswept, harsh, and unforgiving. Have you read about it in his Desert Solitaire ? Or The Monkey Wrench Gang ?

At a small, desolate Utah state park campground, as we were taking a morning walk across the sand and scrub brush, Menominee suddenly leaped and caught a lizard — her first! She's a Minnesota cat, and didn't grow up learning about lizards, but somehow her hunting skills include lizard-catching, subduing, and playing. The legend of the Great Hunter lives on.

Continuing east, we came to Four Corners Monument, where Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico all meet at one point, at right angles. You can walk right up to the very point, stand on top of it, with parts of your body in different states, and pose for pictures. Nearby, friendly Navajo Indians sell jewelry, pottery, and made-to-order Indian Fry Bread.

Cartographic trivia: The monument's location was set by an early survey which determined the state boundaries. Decades later, the survey was found to be in error. What to do? The Supreme Court ruled that the incorrect survey results would continue as the legal boundaries between the states!

We checked the weather forecast and found that Colorado was too cold and snowy for our taste, so we continued east across New Mexico.

Nevada

Way down in southern Nevada, on the border with Arizona, lies Hoover Dam. It creates Lake Mead, supplies water to Las Vegas, and produces electricity for Nevada, Arizona, and Southern California. It was a huge construction project (the largest concrete structure in the world at the time), built in the depression of the 1930s. Laborers flocked to the project, even though the work was hard, summer temperatures were extreme, and wages were slim.

Lake Mead is currently only fifty percent full, and has been dropping ten feet a year since 2000, due to reduced flow of the Colorado River, which in turn is a result of diminished snowpack in the Colorado mountains. If the drought continues, Las Vegas will soon suffer a severe water shortage, and Lake Mead — the largest man-made reservoir in the U.S. — will dry up entirely by 2021, according to researchers.

Political trivia: The dam was originally named Boulder Dam, after a planned location in Boulder Canyon. The name stuck, even when the project was relocated to Black Canyon. Then, as construction began, the name was changed to Hoover Dam to honor then-president Herbert Hoover, who had played an important role (as Secretary of Commerce) in getting the project started.

But Hoover lost the 1932 presidential election to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whose Secretary of the Interior, Harold Ickes, quickly removed Hoover's name from the dam and reverted it to Boulder Dam. It was fifteen years later, after Ickes had retired, that Congress, by near-unanimous vote, restored the name Hoover Dam, the name by which it has been known ever since.

California

Early in April I arrived back in my home town for my high school class's reunion and was delighted to be there. It was three days of joyous partying, eating, drinking, reminiscing, taking photos, and posing for photos, accompanied by music from our high school years. It was a blast.

Arizona

South of Tucson is the Titan Missile Museum, the only Titan missile silo open to the public — a real 1960s missile silo with a real Titan missile (sans fuel, sans warhead) in it. A guided tour takes you underground to the control center, which was staffed 24/7 and was always ready to fire the missile if the order from the president ever came (and thank goodness it never did). They even demonstrated how to launch it — one officer turns this key over here, while simultaneously another officer turns that key over there. Then there's the walk down the underground tunnel to the silo itself, where you can look in and see the Titan, poised for takeoff. The missile is huge — a hundred feet tall, ten feet in diameter — and the payload was a nine-megaton atom bomb, the largest used in a missile, targeted somewhere in the USSR. You can understand the part Titans played in the Cold War's "balance of terror" or "mutually assured destruction" policy which successfully kept us and Russia from firing a single missile.

Heading north, we drove Interstate 19 and noticed that the road signs show distances in kilometers, not miles!

East of Flagstaff we came upon the Arizona Meteor Crater. Have you visited it? Even heard of it? No? Well, it's worth seeing, because it's four thousand feet in diameter, and five hundred feet deep. In human terms, there's room for 20 football fields in its bottom, and if the Washington Monument were placed in it, the top would be level with the crater's rim. They figure the meteor was 150 feet wide, weighed a million pounds, and came screaming out of the northeast sky at 40,000 miles an hour when it impacted with the equivalent of a 20 megaton bomb. Formed fifty thousand years ago, it's quite well preserved, with little erosion (this part of Arizona has little precipitation) and no glacial bulldozing (Arizona wasn't overrun by glaciers as Minnesota was). Recommended.

New Mexico

Carlsbad Caverns

I've wanted to see the Carlsbad Caverns for a long, long time. My parents never took me there as a kid, and none of my own travels had taken me close — until now.

The Carlsbad Caverns are way down in southeastern New Mexico, and, in my opinion, are a real gem of the National Park system — well presented, well preserved, well staffed. You follow a path that leads down, down, into the huge mouth of the cave, enter the cave, and gradually leave daylight behind. Ahead are the famous stalactites and stalagmites, softly lighted for your viewing pleasure. On and on you walk, with something new around each bend in the path. Finally you arrive at the Big Room, which really is big — a quarter of a mile from end to end, with a high ceiling — and it feels so astonishing to realize that you are there, seven hundred feet underground, in such an enormous cave filled with such amazing stone formations. When you've had enough amazement, they let you ride an elevator back up to the surface.

Roswell

Why did I visit Roswell? To see the UFO museum. You see, on a summer day back in 1947, something landed in the desert outside Roswell. A rancher found the wreckage, and brought people to see it. The local paper reported on the front page that a UFO had landed. The Air Force took charge, cordoned off the area, confiscated all the wreckage, and whisked it away for examination. The official announcement was that it was just a weather balloon that had crashed, but people who had seen the wreckage (and even handled it) said it didn't look like a weather balloon to them. Then everything about the investigation was classified Top Secret and anyone who had seen the wreckage was visited and sternly warned never to talk about it. No one has been able to pry loose any information from the government — even though it's been sixty years since it happened. So the big question remains: Why the secrecy? What did they find that they still can't release to the public? Roswell folks continue to believe that it really was a UFO, and folks everywhere else believe the "weather balloon" story and chuckle about the whole affair.

Alamogordo

White Sands is home to the Air Force's missile test range, where missiles have been launched since right after World War II, when captured German V2 rockets were shipped there for examination and testing. There's a nice space museum with lots of artifacts from the missile and space programs. A photo on display captures Dr. Werner von Braun at the moment of his surrender to the allies at the end of WWII, and he's relaxed and smiling. A full-size model of Sputnik, the size of a basketball, is pretty underwhelming today, although it was quite something in 1957, when Russia put it in orbit. (You remember, don't you? The Missile Gap, the Space Race?)

Feeling well rewarded for the time we'd spent in southern New Mexico, we wandered off toward Arizona.

A Romp Across Texas

We left behind the Midwestern snowbird's winter nesting grounds, the Rio Grande Valley, and set off on a tourist's romp across Texas.

Heading north along the coast, we came to Corpus Christi, a city with its own aircraft carrier, the Lexington. Launched during World War II and long since retired, it's now a popular tourist attraction. I walked its decks, climbed its stairs, toured its bridge, and thoroughly enjoyed the experience, knowing that thousands of sailors and pilots had been there before me — this wasn't Disney, this was real.

We stopped for a couple of days in Victoria, a thriving medium-sized inland town. On Sunday I attended the only UU church there, where twelve of us sat and listened to a recording of a sermon that had been delivered twenty years ago. It was an interesting sermon, about Michael Servetus (take-home point: he was burned at the stake by Protestants, not by Catholics) and afterward we turned our chairs into a circle and discussed. The members, although few, were friendly and welcoming, and I joined them later at a benefit lunch where we all ate wonderful soup and talked some more.

Near Edna we stayed overnight in an RV park nestled up against a forest, and before nightfall a half-dozen deer came out to feed. Menominee took interest in the deer, instead of sensibly watching from a distance — she walked directly toward them! The deer took one good look at her and ran back into the forest!

When we reached Houston, the Real Big City On The Coast, we enjoyed the hospitality of my old college roommate, Andrew. For two days he and I talked and talked about our old classmates and professors, and one afternoon we ventured onto the Rice campus. The familiar old buildings were still there, but we were perplexed by all the new buildings — new, that is, since we graduated forty years ago! One evening we went to an Italian restaurant where I ate, for the first time, Saltimbocca, which (Al Sicherman once wrote) translates "jumps in the mouth." I didn't notice any jumping, but my mouth did savor the rich mushroom sauce over veal and spinach.

This was late February, and already the azaleas were beginning to bloom. On the road west, the grass beside the roadway was green, wildflowers were budding, birds were singing, and cows grazed with their calves.

In Lockhart I had lunch at Smitty's Barbecue, where you can see the fire that smokes the meat and the barbecue is authentic Texan — it's served without sauce, so you can fully appreciate the flavor of the meat. Another day I had a wonderful lunch at Friesenhaus, a German restaurant in New Braunfels, a small town settled by German immigrants beginning in 1845. Over in the tiny town of Shiner, I toured the brewery that makes what some say is Texas's finest beer, Shiner Bock.

San Antonio is a big city with a charming old downtown. As we drove around, sightseeing, I spotted the famed Riverwalk out the window and longed to walk it myself. But there was no place to park the RV on the narrow streets, so we just continued driving around. (Perfect occasion for a motor scooter — ride downtown on the scooter and park it easily. I still want a scooter!)

Then we left civilization behind and headed west on a long and desolate road. As I gazed out through the windshield at desert and sky, hour after hour, I pondered the similarity with the pioneers who passed this way long ago — we both carried our belongings and lodging with us and sat up front, doggedly following the trail west. Besides, the road I was on was probably built on their trail.

We were headed for southern New Mexico.

Texas — The Rio Grande Valley

After hundreds of miles of lonesome roads, we came upon a fertile valley, a series of small and large towns strung like pearls on a necklace — the Rio Grande Valley, way down at the southern tip of Texas.

The average high temperature here for the winter months is around 70°, which we found hopeful, but we experienced wide swings every few days, from the fifties to the eighties. It all depended on which way the wind was blowing, whether we got cool, dry air from the north, or warm, most tropical air from Mexico.

The valley is a major winter destination for Midwesterners — most of the license plates we saw were from Minn, Wisc, Ill, Iowa, Kansas, and Missouri — and Midwesterners are greeted with signs of "Welcome Winter Texans!" There are lots of RV parks here competing for winter visitors with heated pools, Jacuzzis, and free WiFi Internet. I enjoyed the variety of restaurants, from national chains to local cafes serving Texas barbecue. We were glad to have the benefit of large supermarkets and major retailers we hadn't seen in weeks — the likes of Barnes & Noble, Best Buy, and Home Depot. Being in this welcoming valley among friendly Midwesterners felt good, so we lingered there for a month.

It was in our RV park there that Menominee climbed a tree for the first time. She felt frisky one warm night, out late under a full moon, and right before my amazed eyes she jumped up on a tree trunk and climbed it to the first branch, high above my head. She seemed quite unfazed, as if she climbed trees every day, but I worried how to get her down. I had no ladder; where could I borrow a ladder late at night? Then I waited a while and what do you know, she got bored and came down, all by herself, with a modesty that belied her achievement.

I researched UU churches and found two congregations, one each in Brownsville and San Juan. I went to the one in Brownsville one Sunday and liked the minister there. Next Sunday I went to the other one and was surprised when I walked in and saw same minister, who turned out to work half-time in each church.

Brownsville was the southernmost point of our adventure, 26 degrees of latitude, which is south of everything in the continental U.S. except the tip of Florida. That's 30 degrees (or 2,000 miles) south of our northernmost point in Canada, last August.

From here, of course, we headed north.

Texas — Big Bend National Park

You may never have heard of Big Bend National Park, off in southwestern Texas, far from any city, nestled in a bend of the Rio Grande river. It has pretty mountains, and Texans flock here, even in mid-winter.

The Rio Grande, which means "big river" in Spanish, is surprisingly small here because water is removed upstream in New Mexico and El Paso. Being narrow and shallow, it would be easy to wade or swim across, but of course crossing the river into Mexico is highly illegal and would result in your being caught, prosecuted, fined, and thrown in jail, so no one does it. It's even illegal to do business with a Mexican who swims over to the U.S. side bearing tourist trinkets for sale (your trinkets would be confiscated). As we all have heard, patrolling our borders is a top priority these days.

I stayed in an RV campground and drove around the park sightseeing each day. I enjoyed a couple of good meals in the park lodge's nice dining room, where I first tasted and came to like Shiner's Bock, a beer brewed in a little brewery in a little Texas town.

It was in the lodge's lobby that I overheard a woman talking — she was so loud, I couldn't tune her out. "When my daughter grew taller than me, she mouthed off and said she didn't have to listen to me any more. I grabbed her and threw her against the wall and she looked at me, terrified. After that, my word was law." I paused and reflected on this description of domestic violence. How typically Texan, I thought — the legacy of the state's legendary past, from the battle of the Alamo to child abuse today. But I was wrong. If I had been paying better attention, I would have noticed that the woman's accent was not Texan. Further listening revealed that she lives in Maple Grove, Minnesota! So much for easy stereotypes and hasty conclusions.

Just north of the park are three unexpectedly distinguished little remote towns. Alpine and Marathon each has an independent bookstore on its main street. So excited was I to see one that I parked the RV, went in, found three books I wanted to read, and gladly bought them at full retail price. The third town, Marfa, not only has a swanky independent bookstore but its own public radio station, as well as mysterious lights in the night sky which some people have seen. (I'll have to come back in warmer weather to look for them.)

Driving down a state highway, I came upon a ranch with a small roadside shack selling barbecue. Food lover that I am, I pulled off the road and parked the RV. Simultaneously, the rancher came out of the house and over to the shack. He turned out to be a happy, garrulous Texan who joked as he sold me some barbecued beef. (Having trouble opening a plastic bag, he remarked, "I guess you have to be smarter than the bag.") He introduced me to his new ranch dog, Blackie, a stray who had shown up just the previous week. A medium-sized mongrel with plenty of pep and a happy disposition, he had already made himself at home on the ranch.

We continued down the two-lane highways east and south toward the Rio Grande Valley.

Western Texas

Crossing from New Mexico into Texas, we immediately found ourselves in El Paso, a city of over half a million people. There was only one UU church, and it had less than a hundred members — one gets the feeling that these UUs are special, in their isolated outpost. Since we were there on a weekend, we went to their Sunday service (topic: Animal Rights; take-home point: Jeremy Bentham) where we met some friendly people and went with them to brunch at a Mexican restaurant.

The state of Texas is enormous. It's about 800 miles tall and 800 miles wide. For comparison, Minnesota is about 400 miles tall, so just think of how far it is to drive across Texas. Not many people live out in Western Texas. These are the wide open spaces, where the wind blows hard and we saw tumbleweed blowing across the road ahead of us. Some days, we'd drive miles and miles until we came to a little place with a gas station and a cafe, and if it had an RV park too, we rejoiced and stayed overnight.

Van Horn (pop. 2,000) has a lot going for it, located on Interstate 10, the main east-west highway for hundreds of miles. But all up and down the main street are vacant buildings and sites where buildings have been torn down. The place is withering away, part of the great migration from rural to urban.

We headed up to Pecos, just because it had a supermarket and because we liked the name. The name is shared by the river, made famous by Judge Roy Bean, "the law west of the Pecos." When the first railroad was put through Western Texas, outlaws made it difficult for the workers, and Bean was appointed judge to help civilize the territory. He was an uneducated bartender who held court sessions right in his barroom, and was famous for his drinking and thieving as well as his legal decisions.

From there we drove south through the part of Texas that actually has mountains, clear to the Mexican border. We stayed in the small town of Presidio, and although it's on the U.S. side of the border, you wouldn't know it. It exemplified what we'd observed in other border towns in other states — You don't have to actually go to Mexico to experience it, just visit a small border town on the U.S. side. The culture somehow leaks across the border — All the restaurants serve Mexican food, Spanish is heard more often than English, and if you leave the main street you find yourself on a dirt road, patrolled by a small skinny dog running loose.

The RV park in Presidio had an interesting tradition. Each afternoon at 4:00, fire crackers were set off and everyone headed to Happy Hour at The Lounge, a simple outdoor seating area. Beverages were bring-your-own and hors d'oeurves were pot luck. It was about the most interesting event in town.

From there, we headed southeast, bound for Big Bend National Park.

Arizona

Leaving California, we entered Arizona at Yuma, way down south on the border with Mexico. A local laughed, "It never rains in Yuma, it just sprinkles a little," but our first night there, two months worth of rain fell overnight. We were drenched by the downpour and buffeted with winds that rocked the RV. It was a tropical storm that came up from Mexico and continued northeast directly to Minnesota, where it provided the first big snowfall of the season.

Another night, in a state park, a burro wandered through our campground. A burro is also called a donkey or an ass, and has been a beast of burden for thousands of years. Burros living wild in the desert are descendents of pack animals used by prospectors and other early settlers.

North of Yuma, in Quartzsite, we paid to park on barren land where RVs formerly parked for free — the feds now require a permit to park there, on what is unimproved public land anyway. Snowbirds flock here by the thousands to enjoy the mild winter weather and the huge permanent flea markets, but we were too early for the high season and were just as happy to find the place comparatively empty.

Headed for Phoenix, but still many miles away, we noticed a huge white cloud rising into the sky. We drove toward it and found that it came from the Palo Verde nuclear power plant, the largest such facility in the country, supplying enough electricity for 4 million people. All the other nuclear power plants in the country are built on large rivers, lakes, or oceans, to supply them with their enormous need for cooling water. This plant, in the middle of a desert, is the only nuclear power plant in the country to cool its reactors by evaporating water. Each day it takes in 55 million gallons of water and turns it into steam, which is what we saw climbing into the sky. The facility is located only 40 miles from Phoenix, and only one mile from the nearest public school. One fervently hopes that no nuclear incident (remember Three Mile Island and Chernobyl!) ever takes place here.

One day, while pumping gas into Cruisemaster, a fellow wandered over and introduced himself. "I see by your license plate you're from Minnesota," he said. Turned out he was from Burnsville and had moved to Arizona a couple of years earlier. He was unhappy with the move, complaining about lack of employment, and, of course, the heat in the summer.

By the time we reached Tucson, cold weather had arrived — frost on the ground! We hurried on, leaving to another time to visit Bisbee and the surrounding area in Southern Arizona.

New Mexico

Because the weather continued cold in New Mexico, we decided to postpone visits to the Carlsbad Caverns, Roswell, and White Sands, and instead headed directly south into Texas.