Three Tumbleweeds, Festus and Some Wyoming Facts

****Breaking News****

There is a new Tumbleweed in the truck. Her name is Jasmine and she is awesome. A 3 year old brindle Boxer who has been in foster care for 6 months after being surrendered by people who starved her because crack is expensive they could no longer afford to feed her. 

Deep thoughts.

Serious face.

It's been a year and a half since we lost Harley our first Boxer. I have written about her some, but she died before I started this blog so she never really got to be a famous Tumbleweed like us. Now that there are at least 3 people who read this who aren't related to me I'm sure the movie of our lives is being planned in Hollywood right now. I'm sure they'll want Festus to play my part. *fingers crossed*

We got her from the angels at  Black Hills Boxer Rescue in South Dakota, which is about 3 hours from where we live in Wyoming. We picked her up last Wednesday while we were home for a week and I forgot my #1 rule for driving around Wyoming and it's neighbors, which is to always bring food.

We had a light breakfast and a busy morning and left around noon, excited at the prospect of getting our four-legged daughter. In the first 100 miles we had passed a gas station and a Subway but held out because we thought we could wait for something a little better; we eat so many sandwiches in the truck that I avoid them when I can in our off time.

One of the sprawling urban areas of Wyoming.
Yes. Population 1.

You know how in cartoons one character looks at another and sees a steak dinner? That was how I was beginning to feel. We found a Taco John's around the 200 mile point, before Himself lost a finger, but I won't make that mistake again. I love the sparseness and open spaces of Wyoming and the fact that it's not very populated but it's not a good state in which to have low blood sugar!

Sidebar:

Did you know the population of Wyoming is only 563,000? The New Jersey Turnpike has more people on it at any given time than we have living in the whole state!
Wyoming was the first state to give women the vote, the first to appoint a female justice of the peace and elected the first female governor. Wyoming is so friendly to women that even in our small town of Douglas (pop. 5,000) there are no fewer than 14,987 hair salons.

Can you believe she wants her seat back?

This is our first week in the truck with Jasmine. The truck is a little more crowded, a little more stinky but there's a whole lot more love and we are tickled to have her!

One Man, One Million Miles.

I have been remiss in giving Himself props for passing a trucking milestone. He has driven 1 million safe miles in his second career as truck driver. One Million!!

Uh. Your champagne is on fire.

Actually it is 1,082,941 miles and counting. That's a lot of driving! No accidents or incidents and only a couple of dirty looks from people in New Jersey, but really that's to be expected.

Here are some facts:
*You would have to circle the Earth 40 times at the equator to travel 1 million miles.

*You would have to go from NYC to LA over 3,000 times to travel 1 million miles.

*You would be far short of the sun if you traveled 1 million miles from Earth because it is 93 million miles away and you would be in the middle of nowhere and besides you would melt before you ever go there anyway. Sheesh, what were you thinking?

* I have been with Himself in the truck for 432,941 of those miles, which is roughly 876,000 hours and he has several times not even once threatened to leave me on the side of the road. The man is a saint.

Way to go!!

(and thanks)

Road Runner and the German Air Force

This picture is courtesy of the
Desert Expo
Some people don't have to make sandwiches.

We have driven past by this roadrunner sculpture several times and somehow always manage to *forget* to stop. I must be making sandwiches when we go by. Himself likes to point out things at the last minute so he can watch me scramble to get the camera out and try to take a picture. A lot.

His head pokes up on the horizon like the Lochness Monster and you can see the 20 foot tall bird off of I-10 going east. If you aren't making sandwiches, you can get to it from a rest area just before Las Cruces. It is made of trash and landfill finds. The white belly on the bird is mostly tennis shoes. I think all art from now on should be made of trash. In fact I am going to go the trash can and deposit some art right now. As Kermit says, It's not easy being green.

An action photo taken by me at the
last possible second.

They are so revered they get their own parkway!

THE Roadrunner

A roadrunner

This should be the part of the story where I tell you all the nifty things about the roadrunner, the real bird and the cartoon, but I can't because we have been invaded by Germany and that is a much bigger news story.

Oh, wait. Never mind. False alarm. The Google says that it's legit but

it's not every day that you get passed by a bus from the German Air Force Flying Training Center while drive through the American desert. They have been using our airspace to train their own Air Force at Holloman AFB in New Mexico since 1996. 

German Tornado fighter jet

See how they're sneaking in their stuff in our stuff??

First their Air Force comes creeping over here, what's next? Before you know it we'll have every other week off for a national holiday, a woman for president and beer for lunch. Wait a minute...how is that wrong???

I'd Like to Thank the Academy...

I won! I won! I shot the BB gun.

You lost! You lost! You ate tomato sauce!

I have no idea what that means, but it was a saying when I was in elementary school and I did win a very prestigious contest.

Life is looking a little brighter today now that I'm famous. Please, don't look at me directly, I'm way too shiny.

I have been following Brütalism on her crazy artistic journey of Peeps Diorama stardom. You see, every year, she and her demented friend, Hillary create a masterpiece of marshmallow art to compete among other insane creative people in a contest sponsored by The Washington Post. 

Blue Peep Group
Last year's creation

After years of being ignored by the snobby Washington Post, they branched out and submitted their creation to the Chicago Tribune and now they are finalists in the Peep Diorama Contest.

Live on Larry Peep
Vote for this
Here
(a Peep with ear hair!!)

How does all this make me a winner, you ask? Well, first of all, it opened my eyes to a world I never knew, where people make beautiful art out of tasty marshmallow. Also I WON A CONTEST AND NOW I'M QUEEN OF THE INTERNET!

This is my prize package!!

Because I am a creepy stalker witty genius (wenius??) I get a bunch of cool stuff.
Go here and read all about it. And see my wenius at work.

The voting ends Thursday at noon so don't delay. Go vote now for Larry Peep Live. And do it more than once. Thanks Brütalism! May the Peeps be with you.

NASA, Copper and Dead Tumbleweeds

The Tumbleweeds are in the dust bowl of the southwest. There cannot be any dirt left between Arizona and New Mexico because it's all in our truck, my ears and the computer keyboard.

Why does the tumbleweed cross the road?

We couldn't see ten feet in front of us in some places, it was like a dust blizzard. It was so windy that hordes of tumbleweeds were being forced from their hiding places and swept across the road in front of us without warning. We may have killed one. Or twenty. If we are Tumbleweeds and we killed a tumbleweed is it homicide? Tumbleweedacide? Herbicide??

                                                  **News Flash**

We did not get murderlized or kidnapped on the Mexican border. Nothing exciting ever happens to us! We made it in and out of Nogales without so much as a dirty look.

Copper mine tailings south of Tucson.
I took this picture on I-19 from
the truck window.

Arizona Facts:

*Arizona is the top copper producer in the US.

*The star in the middle of the Arizona state flag is copper in honor of all that, well, copper.

*I-19 in Arizona goes from Tucson to Nogales at the Mexican border and uses the metric system on their signs. It's only a 63 mile (or 4,127 kilometer) stretch of road and the rest of the interstates in Arizona don't do this. Who says we aren't welcoming to immigrants?

*Arizona does not believe in Daylight Savings Time (making the time-zone challenged Tumbleweeds very confused when we have an appointment in this state).

*We saw a car dealership in Phoenix with a sign that read:

Buckle up! Make it harder for aliens to abduct you.

NASA took this picture of an open-pit copper
mine in southeast Arizona. From space.
Show offs.

<<  See the copper star? The dirt we saw around the copper mine tailings was kind of turquoise-ish, like the Statue of Liberty. I'm sure there's some science behind that, but I'm kind of bored with Arizona now and my internet is spotty so no more facts for you!

Picture of mineral spirits and aluminum paint in
a bucket. Taken while standing up.
Take that NASA.

Good Food and Goofy Signs

Juniors Seafood
9349 Main St
Jacksonville, FL

As the Tumbleweeds left Florida, we stopped by our favorite local seafood joint in Jacksonville. Juniors is in a nondescript building in the middle of nowhere; they are good and have truck parking. Sometimes we're stuck with only the truck parking part and have to eat whatever is there, so it's a real treat when the food actually tastes good.

They really know how to fry shrimp here and only in the
south can you get black-eyed peas with seafood!
nom nom nom..

The Tumbleweed Holiday is officially over and now we're headed west to Arizona. 

***Weird Sign Alert**

Rest area in Texas. He's looking for
motorcycles. And a meth dealer.

A series of signs in New Mexico proclaimed:

Caution Dust Storms May Exist  *also BigFoot and global warming*

Use Extreme Caution  *not just the regular kind*

Zero Visibility Possible * if you're Stevie Wonder*

That is one tiny bull.

Hmm...not sure what they are they trying to say here?

This is at a rest area with about two "real" spaces for trucks, so we ended up parking here because:

1. We're rebels like that. Always fighting the Man.

2. I would have peed my pants otherwise

Go west young (ish) Tumbleweed

A Tumbleweed Holiday

Last week the Tumbleweeds were off the road and out of the truck. We spent a few days with family in Sarasota, where we swam right after eating during a tornado because we're rebels like that. We had our own bathroom and we saw lots of old people, but not in our bathroom. That's just creepy.

Turtle Beach on Siesta Key

Sarasota, Florida has more old people per square mile than anywhere on Earth. Restaurants are crowded at 4pm and if you come here during Snow Bird Season, any point between Labor Day and Easter, you will hear more wise-guy accents than in Jersey or Brooklyn. No one is from Sarasota; to move here you need to have lived in the North East or at least been an extra on the Sopranos. I think it's a law.

The sand here is very shell-y and coarse while just a couple of miles north the sand is powdery and white. The white sand is soft and cool but the Tumbleweeds like the rough, scratchy feel of the shells on our feet.

It was a beautiful stormy day, my favorite time to be at the beach. Just up the coast they were having tornado warnings, but here it just made lovely clouds and kept away the crowds.

Himself and Mr. Blue. The bus has been in the family
since 1978 and is all original.

Great Blue Heron giving me the beady eye.

These birds stand guard all along the beach and will let you get quite close before taking off. 

The other bird that is common here is the Snow Bird. They arrive in great swarms during the winter months, drive their Buicks 20 mph under the speed limit, make left turns from the right lane and wear sweaters when the temperature dips below 80 degrees.

Tumbleweed Toes

Bird Toes

Himself and a Great Blue Heron in a staring contest.
Do not engage in a staring contest
with a Snow Bird. They will
call the police.