RANCHO TRAVELLO

Dear Everyone,

We had a great time but are exhausted. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

The end.

Of course, I'm exaggerating but not by much. It has been a productive but exhausting month long period. We were busier than a pick pocket at Mardi Gras to start with and not much has changed after returning. We had to hit the deck a'runnin' (well....a'shufflin' anyway. We plumb ran out of "run" because we had none).

The ranch hands had to ready for the yard sale, conduct the sale, and clean up the yard sale. All of this was done while totally physically trashed and under the gun of an inclement weather forecast.

Then, after beating the rain, we immediately had to prepare for our vacation trip. We went from racking, packing, loading, and stacking to…..racking, packing, loading, and stacking trying to beat the clock this time instead of the weather. We could see ourselves getting into the van and just sleeping the entire first day in the driveway prior to even moving a tire.

With all four tires moving, we had hoped to make it to Redding the first day. That didn't happen. So, we settled in for the night at Williams which is a small town that's about an hour north of Sacramento and the end of about 6  hours of driving for us (hauling a trailer). I knew from experience that an hour or so past Redding (about 1 1/2 hours north of Williams) was the half-way point to Longview, WA but didn’t mind that we would be getting there a little later in the evening than planned.

The next day, after an uneventful nice drive, we got to see son, Michael, who is doing well despite the recent loss of his wife, Roxanne. She was only 38 years old when she collapsed from a cardio-pulmonary embolism. Mike is holding up well and staying in church and connected with his church family. We didn't get to spend as much time as we had desired but at least got to visit on both days we were there.

On Tuesday at 6PM was Roxanne's memorial service. It was a very nice service, indeed, and many of Mike and Roxanne's friends and some of his family was there (her dad was unable to make the long trip from NV or would have been there). There was a pot-luck afterwards and folks had the opportunity to sit and visit. Mike got to see his mother, Vicki, and brother, Jason, whom he hadn't seen in several years. 

It was good to see old friends at the service like Linda Shepherd who I had known while living there. She and her husband, Jim, were on staff at the Community House on Broadway when I worked there and she has remained a dear friend. 

Also in Longview is Jeff Edgecomb who is a long time friend and fellow ham radio operator. He showed us the awesome com-van he is building for local search and rescue use. The local Ham Radio club is heavily involved in emergency communications with the Sheriff's Dept. Jeff is very prominent in that project and service.  

We all got to go out for lunch at my favorite chicken place, "Speedy Chicken" there in Longview. I'm not sure what they do to make their chicken so marvelous, but I'm thankful to have found it and head straight there if possible. I did not leave the place hungry.

Unfortunately, after two days, we couldn't spend any more time there and had to be in Marysville, WA that evening. It seemed more like a drive-by hugging than a visit. Jeff recommended that we depart a bit early so as to avoid the fast approaching storm. We did and we beat the storm (by being north of it) while Longview got clobbered.

In Marysville, we met up with Connie's daughter, Brandi, and Brian, Brandi's long-time special gentleman, and Brandi's son, Cade (“Cade-ster” or “Turbo” depending upon the source). Cade’s grandma, “Honey”, had promised to help him host his first ever yard sale (he’s 8 so he may as well start sooner than later, eh?). That, actually, was half the reason we took “Dumbo”, our 5’ x 8’ covered trailer, so we could haul yard sale stuff to sell (the other reason being to haul stuff to Connie’s brother’s place in Kingsbury, TX).

Connie got everything ready and put the tables on the front porch and staged stuff for the dawn set-up. The next morning, “Californy Connie” got a rather non-California shock (unless, of course, you live in Truckee or such); it was 17 degrees out there! There was ice on her tables too! Despite the rather chilly environment, they made nearly 50 bucks so that got his attention.

The next couple of days and nights were spent more or less concurrently with Connie's son, Tracey, his wife, Erika, and their sons, Jeffrey, Evan, and  Ethan, and with Brandi, Brian, and Cade as her work schedule allowed. We had only seen Tracey's 2 year old son, Evan, but once since he was born so grandma Connie got to hold the little guy a bit.

Brandi hooked all of us up with an unreal eatery called, "The Flaming Onion" where they make hamburgers to die for served with....hang on to your buffalo blanket, chief....unlimited fries! We knocked over that place the two nights that we were there and managed to wreck a couple of great pizzas at local pizza palace while we were in the mood to chew.

After having grand fellowship with the folks in WA, we saddled up and headed diagonally across the nation 2,000 miles to Abilene, TX. Taking that route saved us at least one full day of driving. I had been some of that route in ’91 when I moved from OR to Tulsa. That particular route diverted at Salt Lake City. Instead of heading east from SLC and into WYO like I did in '91, we headed southeast directly for I-40 at Santa Rosa, NM from Provo (a right fer piece at about 670 miles).

That entire route is “high desert”. I didn’t know that but quickly discovered that fact and just as quickly understood that the “high desert” in November is also “colder’n a well digger’s destination”.  In Farmington, NM, we awakened to a rather crisp -2 degrees day. My hot coffee surely did me much good that day.

Anyway, we saw a lot of Utah's and New Mexico's rocks, tumbleweeds, mesquite, and such for a long long time. Still, I had never been to that exact part of those states and wanted to see that part of our country. I had been across part of the top of UT in '91 and had been from Salt Lake City to St. George (SW from SLC) when returning to CA from Rawlins, WY in ’59. We spent the night in Santa Rosa after almost eleven hours of driving and were absolutely bushed. 

The next morning was also a rather brisk one but the hot breakfast of biscuits and gravy, sausages, eggs, and toast helped to assuage the chill, don'tcha know. We loaded up our gear and headed south towards Clovis and then Lubbock. 

With that much driving time and with so little to look at, we spent a lot of time listening to tapes of the Old Testament. We always learn a lot from listening to the Bible on cassette but this time we got a lesson in "smiting". Man! There was a whole lot of smiting going on back then! Og, king of the Tushbites, would smite Haydad the Hodad, king of the Troglodytes and haul off all kinds of booty including the women (am I being redundant?). Then, later, the Cellulites would be tired of being slaves to the Acolytes and they would start a rebellion that included a lot more smiting, looting, and trying to get the other guy's booty (seems not much has changed in three thousand years, eh?).

If that's not enough to make you hug a Hittite, King Jehoshaphat (you may remember him as the "jumping king") had a run in with the old prophet Kawlijah (you know; the one that Hank Williams' wooden Indian was named after) who called fire down from heaven and roasted a hundred arrogant and armed soldiers where they stood.  Of course, the queen, Jezzy Belle, was infuriated because the event had fused her two platoons into ponds of molten grease with sandals floating in them. She was fried that her soldiers got fried and ordered poor Ol' Kawlijah killed. He escaped but later had to contend with the Electrolytes (hmmmm..... maybe it was the Parasites). They were the ones who worshipped the idol, Sudoku, about whom we know very little and even that is puzzling.

Anyway, the Children of Israel ended up in being led into captivity by King Neebookaneezer to Babylon. That's where they grew hanging gardens because land prices had skyrocketed. They just had to improvise by growing everything in pots on the walls suspended by camel hide ropes. Very creative, those Babylonians. 

 Now, by about that time, everyone was clean out of booty because Neebookaneezer had it all and he wasn't about to share any of it or give any of it back. Never had there ever been such a lack of booty in all the land. In fact, the shortage was so severe that they were actually sacrificing animals to the booty gods to rectify the matter. My guess is that they had to send their own army led by Captains, Urshack, Myshack, and Tobedwego,  to some far away land and get some booty for the folks back home hoping that their gods would help smite their adversaries. 

Moving along (thankfully).....Santa Rosa, NM to Abilene was the last leg at the end of that new day. I had miscalculated our arrival by a tad or two (I'm usually off by somewhere between tad one and tad two) so had to re-text Jeff about our ETA. Well, come to find out, I had miscalculated by a third tad (I hate it when I do that) and had to re-text that we would be there even earlier than anticipated. We rolled into Jeff and Sandra's later in the afternoon and limped to the door with a bunch of tired and achy muscles.

We instantly set off Jeff's 160 lb home alarm system. "Izzy", the great Dane, heard and smelled us from her watch post in the garage and alerted the neighborhood (and the city, and the county....biiiiig dog) that we had arrived. She had checked us out but the one time a few years ago so didn't remember us.

It was great to see everyone! Our grandson, Randall Lee Minnick (has kind of a ring to it, eh?), had grown to the 6’ mark. Despite my warnings of the hazards of allowing teens access to a fork, seems someone has been feeding him. He's not merely tall; he's also quite the sharp Ginzu knife and very very talented. Among other things, he's a "Yugio" champ and is quite respected in the local gaming circle. 

Speaking of "food", one place that I always head to when in Abilene is "Grandy's". Son, Jeff, Connie, and I made sure that we made it to the all you can eat breakfast buffet. Their buffet is hard to beat despite their scrambled eggs qualifying for either land fill or EPA Super Fund Clean Up services. Scrambled eggs are not supposed to rattle when you swallow them and bounce when they hit bottom. But........I'll be back.

Since daughter-in-law, Sandra, was booked at another event/dinner (Sandra is one busy lady!), Connie, Jeff, Randall, and I made it to "Fuzzy's Taco Shop" for dinner where I ate my first crawdad taco. It was quite tasty though a bit short of substance. The meat was hidden in a mass of filling but was otherwise good. The Lord willing and the Creek don't rise, on our next trip, we'll take on one of the local roadhouses and stick a knife into a steak.

I had hoped to catch up to a couple of other marvy places while on this trip. Sadly, Harlain's and Howard's eateries are no longer part of the Abilene scene and I sorely miss them. They were both part of my early "Abilene experience" and they had made a great impression upon my palate and tongue.

Wouldn't you know that someone would park an estate sale right in front of us as we traveled one of the main drags there. As you may suspect, we cleaned up! Connie was trying to buy stuff and the nice lady would keep lowering the price until the lady thought it was fair enough. I saw a stack of 6 rods and reels and 6 rods for sale for 5 dollars each. I asked the gent in charge, "If I promise to buy a lot of other stuff, would you sell me all of those rods and reels for 20 bucks?". He advised, "Yep. Sure would". So, I hauled them off and stuck them in the back of Dumbo. Always take a trailer to an estate sale, I always say. We got fishing gear, fabric, vintage pyrex kitchenware, bric-a-brack, tools, hardware supplies, Corningware, and what all! It was great!

After two days of fellowship, foodship, and getting caught up on family things, it was huggies all around  time. We loaded up and were BOI and headed out for Kingsbury, TX. Kingsbury is 5 hours of driving further south (keeping in mind we're still pulling Dumbo which makes the air much more difficult to push aside).

We rolled into Roger's place that evening around 9PM. Roger and his very special lady, Charlotte, met us. It was really cool to get to finally know her. We had talked to Charlotte on the phone many times but had not had the opportunity to meet her. So, when we did, we just adopted her and she adopted us! It didn't take long at all! We're all family now!

As a quick aside: Roger's place is also the site of the "Pioneer Flight Museum" which is an excellent and extraordinary parcel of Texas soil!! Antique and vintage aircraft are displayed and operated alongside period autos. You haven't had fun until you've driven a Model T Ford! This place is a sight to behold when they have their semi-annual air shows (more on this subject later)! Check'em out!: http://pioneerflightmuseum.org .

We could only visit a short time that night since Rog and Charlotte are early risers. That worked for us since it had been a long trip and we were ready to head to the bunkhouse too. We advised ahead of time that we would not be early risers but to leave the coffee pot on anyway and we'll catch up whenever our bodies decided to cooperate with our agenda.

The bunkhouse was brother Chris's FEMA castle. He and other brother, Steve, purchased two nice large trailers from the government and moved them to the airport. We stay in one or the other when we're back there. They sit out quite a distance from anyone so it's really nice and quiet. It so quiet most of the time that you can hear a frog hiccup at a hundred yards. 

In the morning, after cracking our eyelids and redirecting our duck back to his assigned row, we finally got to visit and get caught up. It took the next two days and we weren't even close to being finished. It was a great time! It's just such precious time with our family that makes our efforts worth it all.

Some of our visiting, of course, included reacquainting ourselves with the great Chinese buffet in Seguin about ten minutes away. They have those excellent spicy steamed crawdads that I’d been wanting to re-engage for quite awhile. I don't recall that we've been here but once that we didn't go there and I think it's because they hadn't built the place yet! There's another Chinese buffet down the street which does a great job but this newer and rather larger place seems to be a magnet for hungry folks.

Though we missed all inclement weather while driving, there was a beautiful T-Storm on the Saturday that we were in Kingsbury. I love T-Storms (please don’t tell my psychiatrist). Anyway, when Sunday rolled around, the skies were clear and bright and the temp was warm and comfy. I would have been somewhat disappointed not to have experienced a nice thunder-buster even if it was only a small one.

We visited a United Methodist Church with Charlotte and had an excellent time. They are a bunch of super nice folks that I would love to be neighbors with. They are just as super nice as the folks at the other Methodist church in Prairie Lea ( about ten minutes or "just short of an axle greasin'" from Kingsbury). We visited that church three years ago when there.

After church, we had lunch (have I mentioned that food is my friend?) then visited as much as possible. Charlotte whipped up a batch of lasagna for the crowd which we quickly disposed of (have I mentioned that lasagna is my friend?). It seemed like the clock was spinning like a fan because, in short order, our time there had ended. 

Monday morning after breakfast, Connie and I packed up the mules and departed. It was “hugs all around” and we were BOI (back on the Interstate). We were just 1,500 miles from home. 

We took the same route out as we took in because it is the shortest distance. In between Abilene and Kingsbury is a smallish town called "Fredericksburg". Though out in the middle of nowhere and a bit beyond, it is a "hub of happening" all of the time. Make a quick note that Fredericksburg is far far away from any sizable amount of water. For now, I'll spare everyone the details but this is the hometown of Fleet Adm. Chester W. Nimitz, the commander of the Navy's Pacific fleet during WW2. Guess where they parked the museum that is named after him? Yep....right there in Fredericksburg pretty far from any significant body of water. So, guess what Ol' Ran and his trusty side-cook, Connie, did? Yep, again.....we visited this excellent WW2 museum and even took a few pictures.

It took the usual 3 days to get home. It was our “day off” and we were not in a hurry. Nevertheless, we stayed in the saddle for ten hours or so per day so we could ensure arriving home somewhat early (so we could get ready for church and such). The first night on the road was spent in Grants, NM and the second in Kingman, AZ. 

 The entire drive was uneventful until we hit Bakersfield where we created an “event”. We laid waste to the  “Golden Corral” buffet for our Thanksgiving dinner. That was nice. They put on a feast not to be equaled even by “Home Town Buffet”. We celebrated T-Day at a HTB in Riverside, CA a few years ago on an even longer return trip from back east. But, "Golden Corral" is my favorite regardless of holidays. I’m going out of my way to go back down there…..soon.

I’ve driven “straight through” to Abilene from Porterville once…just once….and that being the last time. In 2000, my shiny new A/C compressor locked up on Highway 58 directly across from Edwards AFB. It was the middle of June and more than 100 degrees out there in the middle of Nowheresville. There was no way I was going to drive through the deserts of the southwest any more than I had to during the daytime in the summer! I simply had to drive at night and bear up under the brutal daytime conditions by keeping my soda cup filled and the windows open. I made it to Abilene just in time for a long nap.

The van rolled into the driveway at home at about 6:40 PM or so. It may sound goofy but we were in bed at 7:30 PM. That has never happened before and I hope that it never happens again. We were simply exhausted. I slept for two days and nights; I didn’t even do that when in the hospital!

We’re still unpacking and such. I’ve got a ton of stuff to do and a ton of computers to work on (not a complaint) in addition to overhauling my computer which crashed. Connie’s computer needs to be tinkered with and I have two other personal boxes that need attention. We have clients calling and that's a good thing. Things should be back to normal but who knows how soon.

Springville has seen a bit of rain so our region is starting to green up. That is a most welcomed relief for us who have simply tired of living in an area that looks like a pizza that has been left in the oven for a couple of days. The forecast shows at least some small amount is due here soon. I can set out my new fruit trees and a few new vines because the ground will be soft. As it is, it's harder than concrete. Given enough rain and a bit of preparation by the old folks, Rancho Relaxo should be braced and ready for the next summer which will be here in only a few months.

That also means that we are "winterizing" the ranch and that also means that we're "Christmas-izing" the ranch. Connie has taken to the task with a vengeance and has started stringing lights and pulling the decorations from their nesting place in the barn. This is concurrent with stowing stuff..still...from the yard sale (*SIGH*). It's a never ending battle to preserve the "Rancho Relaxo Way" (which, you'll be pleased to know, is close kin to the "Cowboy Way").

There you have it; the latest adventures of "Ramblin' Ran and Cruising Connie". Stay tuned as you just never know where our Pirelli Tires will take us. Things could get ....interesting.