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Friday, October 15, 2004
what we saw in clarity tunnel - quitaque, tx - by woody and maggie
we took bernie through a big hole today.
it was tall hole. but he got off because it took his head away from the peeping noises on the ceiling.
he should spend more time outdoors at night. we hear those peeping noises most every evening. it comes from a bat. they make us feel better when there are lots of mosquitoes out.
bernie needs a light at night. when we got in that hole, he thought we needed on too. every time he heard a peep he turned around and said woody, maggie come on and then he flashed a bright light in our eyes. then he said boy that's a good picture.
finally all we could see where white flashes and then there was a really big long light ahead of us.
he pulled us toward that and then the air smelled better and we were standing under the sky again.
but now bernie stinks and there's no water to wash him off in so we have to stand down wind until we find a puddle for him.
woody
maggie
our trip through the hole
maggie. what's that funny smell?
woody! i hear something!
relax maggie, it's only a mexican free-tailed bat.
look, the light bernie's always talking about...
bernie, are you coming?
posted
by Bernie at 2:46 PM
Into Palo Duro Canyon - Estelline, Texas
I showed up in Estelline an hour before dark with 2 empty Very Fine juice bottles, a slack feed bag and two hungry horses. By night, I'd been donated a fifty pound bag of grain, two sacks of groceries, a gallon of water and a bottle of Gatorade, flavor blue. Thanks Rick and Sherry Manley.
I'd come to Estelline so I could get onto the Cap Rock Plateau. I was planning to take the Cap Rock trail.
The Cap Rock State Park is part of the Rails to Trails program. The old rail line used to run 64 miles from Estelline, TX to South Plains, TX, atop the Cap Rock Plateau. When it became unprofitable, the tracks were taken up and the right-of-way converted to a hiking trail. Now hikers and horse back riders can climb onto the Cap Rock Plateau via grades gentle enough for those old steam engines.
The last drink before entering the canyon.
The next morning I watered the horses for the long dry stretch ahead.
Palo Duro Canyon vista
Soon cotton fields give way to mesquite country.
Then the red ravines show up like something a giant would claw out of a chocolate velvet cake. The land goes dry. There are supposed to be watering stops along the way. We find them alright but the water barrels are empty.
woody, should we be nervous that he's making us drink out of puddles?
By the second day, Woody and Maggie are drinking from puddles.
Then we come across the tunnel with the Danger signs.
It's the Clarity tunnel, home to more bats and warnings than the Lion's Club haunted house.
"Do not touch bats - alive or dead!" reads the flyer posted at the tunnel's mouth. "PREGNANT WOMEN should use caution when walking in the tunnel area because of the risk of contraction toxoplasmosis... which can cause BIRTH DEFECTS to unborn children".
I don't aim to gather up bats and I'm not with child so we step toward the black hole in the hillside.
Woody and Maggie will tell you what happened next...
posted
by Bernie at 2:36 PM
Making Texas - Route 62, 5 miles West of Hollis, OK
Maggie enjoys a Lone Star dive into the grain bag
We made it!
Well, to Texas at least and then the water started drying up.
"Boy, it's going to be hot and dry over there in Texas" I was told. "Nothing but mesquite and dust".
Then I stepped across that line and finding out what they meant. But first I had to learn how to say "mesquite" right.
For years I'd called it "mes - keet" with the stress on the first syllable. Then just West of the Texas state line a rancher informed me it was "mus - keet" like "mosquito" without the "o".
They pronouce "mexican" funny over here too. So while I was at it I learned how to say that right. It's "mescan".
Then came the matter of water.
The Texas panhandle really is arid, that's why it's so full of mesquite and cattle. No more brooks and creeks like the Great Smokey Mountains. No, out here your priorities are water, horse feed, and then human food, in that order.
Where once I searched Texaco gas signs for spigots, I now looked for windmills. It's how they jerk the water from the land.
How they jerk the water from the land
An hour before the sun hit the dirt, I hit the mesquite for the nearest windmill. As I got closer, the crush of brush gave way to the clank of the old steel lifting that precious water.
The gamble paid off. There was a stock tank full of ground water. Woody and Maggie took their fill.
Then I pitched my tipi and listened to those coyotes debate the night. The old wind mill just clanked the night away, using that black Texan breeze to pull life from underground.
I never saw nary a mescan.
Bernie
RiverEarth.com
posted
by Bernie at 2:29 PM
Thursday, October 14, 2004
Biker Weddings and Sink Drinks - Pink, OK
I went from a mansion to a biker ranch in a day. Maggie went from drinking water from a trough to a sink. None of us minded it one bit. In fact, we loved it. Al and Lisa Stillwell make a mule man feel that way.
Big Al and Lisa
After all, what do you expect from a couple in a place called Pink, OK?
What would you expect about a tiny Oklahoma town where the mailboxes are pink?
Certainly not Harleys.
Al and Lisa run Winding Creek, a gathering point for biker concerts, biker weddings, and all things motorcycle and leather related.
Welcome to Pink
I met Al down at the convenience store just after wonder-where-we're-going-to-sleep-tonight-o'clock.
Al walked up to me wearing a sawed off t-shirt and black straw hat with the silhouette of two nudes sitting back to back. Like the ones you see on eighteen-wheeler mud flaps.
"Hey, come on out to our place" he said and then told me about the hot showers.
I rode on out to Winding Creek, Al's farm, and learned about bike runs.
Al hosts them twice a year. It's just a big biker get together with music and road trips and lots of beer and probably more nudity than I've been exposed to since I sailed naked from Africa.
After I squared Woody and Maggie for the night, Al showed me his ride and a Bud.
Here's one for the road
Al wants to "to make it more a family thing" by adding some cabins. While we stood down at the music stage drinking beer, he waved his arm across the field turning gold under the falling sun.
"Man it's a sight when you can't see the grass for the people".
Then his arm follows down the slope of the hill. "Next, I want to build some cabins. I'm just going to use old building materials. I'm going to call it "Nothing New"".
"I just want to use old stuff. 12 volt stuff I can get off old RV's. I can run them with solar panels. 'make it a nice place for a family to come hang out for a weekend."
The showers are already there. As are the two sinks. So far, Al's kept his promise about nothing being new.
The next morning Maggie, in a bout of domestic confusion, mistook the sink for a watering trough.
Maggie re-adjusts to the rustic life after the mansion stint
Out here in Pink, they come on steel hogs and sink drinking is forgiven.
(Al and Lisa, good luck with "Nothing New". Oh, and thanks for that black "Winding Creek" t-shirt! Bernie)
posted
by Bernie at 11:11 AM
Big Bugs Oakie Style - Lexington, OK
There it was in the Oklahoma grass, the biggest spider I'd ever seen.
Guys, don't look up!
They say spiders aren't bugs but in this case they're wrong. Out here, they're Bugs.
But there it was, looking like a "War of the Worlds" extra.
Woody and Maggie were hungry though. They've never heard of H. G. Wells either so I let them munch Bermuda grass in the shadow of that giant Black Widow spider.
Cheers travel mates!
Bernie
RiverEarth.com
posted
by Bernie at 11:10 AM
Crossing Bridges - Lexington, OK
Crossing rivers is easy in the wake of Gus and Call and "Lonesome Dove".
All kinds of things went wrong back then. They drowned the chickens that were cooped under the wagons. Newt lost his favorite mount Mouse to a ball of water moccasins. So yes, I tightened up a bit when I saw "Canadian River" on my road map.
Wimp.
Very un-cowboy like, I strode to the nearest payphone in Lexington and called the cops.
Police escort. What would Gus say about the blue light between Woody's ears?
A most polite officer Sevier rolled up and motioned me ahead. "You walk ahead and I'll go behind".
And so I rode ahead, Magnolia in tow.
"woody! bernie! hurry up! there's a cop on my tail...!"
We crossed the mighty Canadian without wetting a hoof.
It's cars, not water moccasins, that snarl up rivers these days.
(Thanks to the Lexington, OK police department for the slow-speed escort. Bernie)
Bernie
RiverEarth.com
posted
by Bernie at 11:01 AM
The Wheel Lady - Eufaula, OK
The Wheel Lady
The Wheel Lady graces Highway 9 just outside Eufaula. I took a break across the fence from her for some orange juice and Lance peanuts.
She lives in front of a tire store where you can also rent a U-Haul. I can't use either these days but even an iron lady makes for good lunch company.
I feel like John Travolta in "Michael". Just cruising around the country looking at giant balls of twine and sculptures with hubcap bikinis.
posted
by Bernie at 10:29 AM
Tuesday, October 05, 2004
Rick's Rodent Ranch - Lexington, OK
"You've got different rat sizes" Rick explains as he gently lifts a young rat onto his lap.
Is that a fuzzy or a hopper?
"You've got your fuzzies, hoppers, smalls, mediums, larges". The rat scrabbles across his leg. "Oh, you've got your jumbos too. But they bite".
Rick got into the feeder rat business with "four rats a friend gave me". Now he has over 1200 and he's been in business only about a year. He even has business cards. They say "Rick's Rodent Ranch" on them and feature a whole line of blue rats running single file across the top edge.
"After I retired, I had to do something so I decided I go into the feeder rat business". Feeder rats are what snakes eat. "Some people just buy them for pets."
Rick shows me how the cages are cleaned. How new bedding is put into trays. How the rats are fed and watered. "They eat dog food".
Does he have a rat problem? Do they escape? "No, the cat usually catches the ones that get loose".
I'd met Rick and Taraz Pariseau while riding down the road. They just pulled up in their van and before I knew it I was being showered, laundered, even fed.
The next norning, when it came time to leave, Rick gave me a saddle bag, a pair of spurs, a pile of feed. And best of all, a new bridle.
Woody had stepped on his back in Fort Smith and had broken the head stall. I used baling twine and duct tape to keep it together for the next few hundred miles.
Lo and behold, Rick pulled out a beautifully studded and conchoed head stall. I mean gorgeous, almost over the top for an old Amish plow mule.
"Here, take this" he said and I gladly accepted. My baling twine bridle was fraying.
(Thanks guys, for patching us up and getting us on our way! Bernie)
posted
by Bernie at 7:12 PM
The Problem with Rick's Bridle - Apache Warriors Infield, Apache, OK
I put Rick's bridle together a few days later.
That's when I discovered that the leather cheek pieces were too wide for the bit. I sure wasn't going to carve away at it like a Boor with my Leatherman.
So I made tea.
When things go wrong or I need to think, I resort to tea. I break out my old Optimus gas stove, brew up a cup, and survey life through the swirl of brown.
Halfway through my Lipton, it dawned on me that if I steeped my bridle in hot tea I could soften the leather enough to make it pass through the bit.
Tea time
It worked.
A few days later one of the conchos feel off. The conchoes are what keep the bit fastened to the bridle.
I was tacking up Woody in the Apache Warriors infield. I'd slept in the left field dugout. The bit was in his mouth when it just fell out and hit the ground.
Hmmm. I searched and searched but couldn't find the missing concho fastener. No dice.
So I grabbed a pair of sun glass frames off the foul line. It was one of those cheap brass wire jobs. I cut off the left eye-piece and wired my bit back on with that.
Shady bridle repair
Then I rode into town proud as an airliner pilot who'd just saved the747 by patching the windshield with duct tape.
I rode Woody up to the Apache Farmers' Coop for some grain. Full of swagger, I bragged about my slip-shod repair.
It must have shocked them because Keith McGraw gave me the grain for free and the fine folks even repaired my bridle.
This time with twin matching conchoes.
And Locktight thread fastener
(Thanks Keith and Debra and Barbara for the grain and the concho and the silver dollar! Bernie)
posted
by Bernie at 7:11 PM
Crossing Bridges - Lexington, OK
Crossing rivers is easy in the wake of Gus and Call and "Lonesome Dove".
All kinds of things went wrong back then. They drowned the chickens that were cooped under the wagons. Newt lost his favorite mount Mouse to a ball of water moccasins. So yes, I tightened up a bit when I saw "Canadian River" on my road map.
Wimp.
Very un-cowboy like, I strode to the nearest payphone in Lexington and called the cops.
Police escort. What would Gus say about the blue light between Woody's ears?
A most polite officer Sevier rolled up and motioned me ahead. "You walk ahead and I'll go behind".
And so I rode ahead, Magnolia in tow.
"woody! bernie! hurry up! theres a cop on my tail...!"
We crossed the mighty Canadian without wetting a hoof.
It's cars, not watermoccasins, that snarl up rivers these days.
(Thanks to the Lexington, OK police department for the slow-speed escort. Bernie)
Bernie
RiverEarth.com
posted
by Bernie at 6:39 PM
Wichita Mountain Sunrise - Cooperton, OK
The days are shorter now. The sun comes up late. Even later when it climbs over the Wichita mountain range.
I looked back and the day had begun
I stand and face East while that old star climbs the local hills.
Maggie's spots turn orange.
The road ahead Then the day turns white and I walk West.
Bernie
RiverEarth.com
posted
by Bernie at 6:30 PM
Monday, October 04, 2004
Oklahoma Oil Well Basics - Wetumka, OK
We're in oil country now. There's clanking in the bushes where the crickets buzz at noon.
If you take closer look, you'll find an oil well.
Woody inspects your basic "stripper" well
They call them "stripper wells" around here. They get four or five barrels up per day. Some more, some less.
But most of them make that clanking noise.
I take Woody and Maggie closer for a look.
An electric motor powers most of these rigs. It spins the counter weight that hoists the hammer-looking head up and down. The counter weight spins in a circle and the head bobs up and down like one of those water birds they sell at gas stations. Or a bucking donkey.
The clank comes from a bar that hits the hammer-head dead between where the eyes would be on a real burro.
Woody listens for that clank
"The bigger the counter-weight, the deeper the well." Windell Shockey of Chickasha informs me. "Some of those wells are over 14,000 feet deep."
That's an hour's walk for a mule.
posted
by Bernie at 3:35 PM
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