On Safari? No Way!

Pine Mountain, Georgia
March 19, 2013

Today’s highlight is a visit to Wild Animal Safari right here in Pine Mountain.

Anticipated experience:  perhaps a warm-up for our Africa trip. 
 

Actual experience:  we struggle to protect our camera lenses from the slimy saliva of more species, domestic and domesticated, than we can count.

Here is how the Wild(?) Animal Safari works.  The very cheerful and helpful person at the ticket counter convinces us that we need to rent a safari vehicle from their fleet of beaten up old vans spray painted white with zebra stripes, their windows chopped out and replaced with bars--she explains that the management cannot be responsible for any damage to our vehicle from incidents like a longhorn denting our door panel.  The minute we drive through the gate and  are charged by a herd of animals with big horns sticking their heads into our vehicle in search of food, we are grateful for her wise counsel--even more grateful later  when a bunch of goat-like animals rise up on their hind legs and rest their big front hooves on our window frames, sticking their slender heads deep into the interior of the vehicle.

    

By now, you have guessed the other critical aspect to a quality safari experience--purchasing plenty of food for the wild(?) animals that we will encounter again and again along the serpentine road through the wildlife park.  We buy the safari package that includes four hefty bags of food pellets, so we can each have our own bag.  We spend $3 extra to rent a big van, so we can each have our own seat, with free access to both sides.  We think we are doing this to optimize photo opportunities, but within a few minutes of entering the gates, we realize the key advantage to each having our own wide seat is so that we can freely move away from the window when an animal with an especially long and slimy tongue is trying to squeeze his head between the bars in search of food.  

The park is an ugly expanse of Georgia red clay covered sparsely by mostly scrubby deciduous trees that haven’t leafed out yet, with a big red mud wallow lake in the middle.  The animals roaming freely around the property include lots of deer-like and goat-like domestic and exotic species, a bunch of deer that look just like the ones in our back yard, some moose and buffalo, burros, horses, and zebras.  The giraffes are in an enclosure close enough to the road to stretch their necks over the fence and stick their heads in the van.  The experience of driving through this menagerie handing out food is so absurd that we cannot stop laughing for more than a few minutes during the hour it takes us to traverse the course.  

But we do learn something from the experience.  Giraffes have the softest lips, and gentle purple tongues.  Zebras are way nore nippy than horses--dangerous to feed from the hand--and their breath is vile. The tongue of a buffalo is very long and exceedingly slimey.  The nose of a moose is smoother than you could imagine.  
 

 

Joyce says, “I’m so glad I brought my gloves.  Do you think I should wash them now or throw them away?”   The rest of us wash our hands very well immediately upon exiting from the van.  



a sad and skinny rhinoceros

Afterward we wander through the walk-through area--in other words, the zoo, where the animals that are too wild to run free are in cages.  It makes us sad to see the lions, tigers and ligers, baboons and hyenas (scary!) and all the other wild things behind bars. So we leave.  

After lunch we visit the butterfly house in Callaway Gardens, where the temperature is 81, the humidity is 85%, and 65 species of butterflies flutter about the flowers.  Some even land on us when we stand still in the sun.  The legs of a butterfly upon your cheek tickle, even if you are not one to be ticklish. 

 

Next we drive to the Callaway Chapel, built in 1961-62 as Cason Callaway’s memorial tribute to his mother.  He wanted the chapel to be non-denominational, so he commissioned the stained glass windows to celebrate nature.  The four side windows are inspired by the four seasons, and the glorious front and rear windows are inspired by deciduous and coniferous trees.  Joyce and I thought they were very much like artful quilts, and could be inspirations for our work some day.  We documented these windows well with cameras and I-Pad.  Joyce sent pictures to her friend who was married here.  (What a wonderful place for a wedding!)

 

 

On the Road Again . . .

March 18, 2013

Savannah to Pine Mountain, Georgia

Hooray!  Two months of daily radiation treatments in the rearview mirror, we are no longer tethered to Savannah.  It’s time to celebrate with a road trip.  

Our destination is Callaway Gardens in Pine Mountain, where we are hoping that spring will have sprung in joyous bloom, and our friends Joyce and Fred will be awaiting us in a cabin in the woods stocked with lots of wine and snacks.

But first, a stop along the way at the Warner Robins Museum of Aviation, where Dick yearns to get up close and personal with some of his most admired aircraft.

He waxes eloquent on the SR-71 Blackbird, a plane that flies at three times the speed of sound 85,000 feet in the air, its “skin” reaching temperatures in the range of 1,200 degrees:  “Form follows function, and something made to fly like that has to be beautiful, like a bird.”  Unfortunately, although it is awesome to look it--up close, from above and below--we are disappointed that there is no way we can figure out to capture the Blackbird’s majesty photographically, given the way it is displayed in the crowded hangar.

I find my muse in the plane nose art (but manage to resist buying the book on nose art in the gift shop, displayed just like a Cosmopolitan magazine in the Publix checkout line--a piece of poster board covering the racy cover shot).

We arrive at our Callaway Gardens cottage in the woods just in time for cocktail hour on the porch, thunder rolling in, then rain plashing with increasing intensity, until we hit the ultimate moment of drama--a power failure plunging us into dusky darkness.  An hour later, now in deep moonless darkness, we give up on waiting for the lights, and find our way to dinner at a place that still has power. All the lights are blazing in our cottage upon our return, allowing us to cap off the evening with a few rounds of Rummikub.  

Anniston: Our Doorway to the World

March 2, 2013

Anniston, Alabama

Our African Safari Meet and Greet isn’t until 2 this afternoon, so we have some time to kill, and Dick has found the perfect diversion--a visit to the Berman Museum of World History, just a couple miles down the road.  The Museum houses an extensive and eclectic melange of stuff that Colonel Farley Berman and his wife Germaine picked up over several decades of world travel and intensive collecting in their areas of special interest. 

 

If you depended on this museum as your primary source of World History information, you would come to the conclusion that weapons, especially guns, are the focal element around which history unfolds, and the American West is the apex of historic development.  Come to think of it, he may be onto something there.

 

One of many Remington bronzes on display

Among the hundreds and hundreds of guns on exhibit, my favorites were the ones that you would think only existed in James Bond movies and old Get Smart episodes--one in a flute that really plays, and shoots a 22 caliber bullet when you hit one particular note; single shot guns in a match box and in a throat lozenge tin (complete with a foil pack of lozenges for camouflage on top of the gun); a gear shift knob gun used by members of the French Underground posing as taxi drivers; and one in a tobacco pipe with this label--“If one is not carful with this pipe--well, keep in mind the old saying about shooting your mouth off.”  (There were lots more, too--pens, belt buckles, a screw driver, a tire gauge . . .)

 The most awesome weaponry, though, was a Royal Persian Scimitar paid as tribute to Catherine the Great when she ruled Russia in the late 1700s.  It is encrusted with jewels embedded in three pounds of gold--1295 diamonds, 31 rubies totaling over 50 carats, and a ten carat emerald on the hilt.  How did Colonel Berman ever get his hands on this?

 

There are lots of other things that we wonder how he ever managed to acquire for his collection:  the coronation crown, orb and scepter of a Czech king crowned in 1346, at least ten large Chinese ceramic vessels in perfect condition dating back to the Han Dynasty (making them about 2000 years old), and Adolph Hitler’s monogrammed silver service, to name just a few.

 

 

Later we found an article about the Colonel and his museum from the Emery alumni magazine.  The article said experts had estimated the worth of the collection at over $100 million. The pieces on display here today are just a fraction of the works the Bermans amassed.  (We wondered where they got the money and time to travel the world collecting--the Colonel's family owned a department store in Anniston, and he was an attorney and real estate developer.)  

Given the obvious value of the items being exhibited, I couldn’t get over the lack of security--after we walked past the ticket seller at the front desk, we never saw another museum employee, and when we left, there was no sign even of anyone at the front desk.   

Antique puppets, from a collection of well over 100

Then there were the lady bugs in a bunch of the exhibit cases.  Dead ones on the bottom of the cases, and live ones crawling on the artifacts inside.  Lady bugs usually are a symbol of good luck--but not in this case.
 

We could go on and on about this odd little Museum, but let's just close with the recipe the museun offers for Buffalo Bill Cody’s favorite drink, the Stone Fence: add a shot of rye to a glass of cider and garnish with a lemon twist.

 After a quick lunch it was time to meet our future safari mates at Larry Martin’s Wren’s Nest Gallery.  We were impressed with the organization, thorough preparation, and unbridled enthusiasm of our tour leaders, Larry and Crystal, and we enjoyed meeting our fellow travelers, including some who have been on safari with Larry before and can't wait to travel with him again.  It was a long drive to Anniston just to attend this meeting, but we wouldn’t have it any other way.  And so the excitement builds . . . .

 

 We are not the only ones excited now--the whole town of Anniston is in a tizzy, because we are experiencing "snow flurries."  The snow is very fine, barely visible in the air, and showing no signs of accumulating on the ground.  It wouldn't even be worthy of notice above the Mason Dixon Line, but we hear that the grocery stores hereabouts have sold out of milk and bread, as folks prepare to be snowed in.  We can't imaginie it will keep anyone from getting to church tomorrow.

March 1, 2013

The Victoria

Anniston, Alabama

Elections in Kenya are next week, with murderous rampages expected to follow, if the past is any predictor of the future.  Meanwhile, here we are in Anniston to meet with our fellow travelers to Kenya in May, should luck be with us and the political situation stabilize enough for us to feel safe on safari by then.

 
It is Friday night, and there are only 18 people dining at The Victoria Inn, which offers one of the finest dining experiences to be had anywhere in Alabama.  Tonight is no exception--beginning with our fois gras and buttered pear appetizer, which we remember fondly passionately from our last visit here, back in November.  Our waiter tells us that fois gras is rarely on the menu--they only have it tonight because regulars at another table asked Chef Alan Martin to prepare it for their visit this evening, and he of course obliged.  Last time we were here, we were the only diners, and Alan came out to talk food with us between courses--the fois gras we had then was extra from an order for a very fancy party he catered.  We wondered why someone so talented would choose to practice his art here, and he told us that he grew up in Anniston, and after working in fine dining restaurants in larger markets he was happy to have the opportunity to return to his home town to open his own restaurant and be near his aging mother.

 

We got to know Jimmy the bartender pretty well during our last visit, too, since we were the only people patronizing the bar that night. This time, I was the only one at the bar again, and he gave me the most generous pour ever, almost overflowing my glass, figuring the bottle didn’t have enough left for two glasses, then he told me to drink it down a bit and he would top me off, since there was still some left.  While I was making room in the glass for more wine, he told me how he ended up in Anniston:  “After three divorces, if I moved again it would have to be someplace where I was sure there was a woman there who loved me. My mama lives here.”

 

To Alan's and Jimmy's mamas we extend our very sincere thanks.

 

Something Old, Something New

Socorro, New Mexico

December 7, 2012

 This is our third early morning at Bosque del Apache.  Even with long underwear, multiple sweater layers, a down parka, hand warmers in my gloves and toe warmers in my boots, you can see that I am not feeling comfortable standing around out here with a temperature of 25 degrees.  Fortunately, once the brutally bright sun is up for a couple hours, the temperature starts to soar to somewhere in the 60s, and we can shed most of our many layers. 

Although we can’t seem to get enough of the birds, we are also taking time in the heat of the day to explore a bit around the town and countryside.
 

Something Old
Our base of operations for our Bosque adventure is a Super 8 Motel in nearby Socorro, New Mexico. “Socorro” means help in Spanish.  The town was given this name by Spanish explorer Don Juan de Onante back in 1598 when the Piro Indians here were kind to him and his men, providing them with corn and shelter when they were cold and hungry in 1598. 

Two Franciscan priests from Onante’s party stayed behind with the Indians, and eventually built a mission here from 1615 to 1626, when they renamed the village Nuestra Senora de Perpetual Socorro (Our Lady of Perpetual Help). 

 This Mission church was rebuilt on the site of the original mission in 1821. Its adobe walls are five feet thick.  The story is told that shortly after its completion, Apaches were advancing to attack the Mission. They saw an angel with a brilliantly shining sword hovering over the church, and retreated in fear.  The Mission was then renamed San Miguel to honor St. Michael the guardian angel.  It is still very active today.

Something New

Our little group of five photographers took an afternoon field trip to the Very Large Array  Radio Telescope (VLA, to those in the know), way out on a 7,000 foot high desert plain fifty miles west of town.  The telescope has 27 antennas, each with a dish as large in diameter as a baseball diamond.  The dishes sit on railroad tracks that are in a Y configuration--two of the tracks are thirteen miles long and the other is nine miles long.  Depending on the research project, the antennas can be placed far apart or close together.  On our visit, they were spread out about as far as they could go--with about a mile between each antenna.  When they are spread out that much, they equal the power of one antenna with a dish seventeen miles in diameter!

The VLA has collected radio wave information that helps scientists understand cosmic objects as close as our own sun and planets, to galaxies billions of light years away.  Hundreds of astronomers use the VLA every year. The data they collect is sent to an analysis center on the campus of New Mexico Tech in Socorro where the radio waves collected are processed by computers and turned into images that help to solve the mysteries of the cosmos. 

As we were leaving the VLA, the antenna dishes all slowly changed position in unison. Cosmic! 

Refocussing us from the extraterrestial to the terrestial, a herd of antelope were grazing on the grassy plain around the VLA.  

 

Bosque for the Birds

December 4-7
Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge
The Crown Jewel of  our Winter Wonderlands Tour
There are 52,500 snow geese, 27,800 ducks, and 6,890 sandhill cranes spending the winter in the ninety square mile Bosque de Apache National Wildlife Refuge.   Just about all of the geese and the cranes roost together overnight in two ponds on the refuge.  

In addition to the birds, there are hundreds of photographers on the refuge.  Just about all of them gather before sunrise along the muddy shore of the pond where the geese roost. The prime view spots are precious few, and they go quickly to those who arrive well over an hour before the sun rises.  The photographers shiver in below freezing temperatures, long lens cameras poised on their tripods, waiting for the magic moment known as "the blast-off," when the geese all decide to fly out together.

This is our reward for getting up at 4 a.m. each morning.

(What these pictures cannot capture is the intensity of the moment when the geese begin to fly, as their random burbled calls rise to a unison babble, and the beating of their wings is percussive in the air.)

After the geese are mostly gone, the photographers rush to the pond where the cranes roost overnight, to photograph them leaving to forage for food in the fields throughout the refuge and the nearby countryside.

As the sun is getting low in the sky, the photographers are back around the ponds, photographing the birds returning for the night. 

Then they all return to their hotel rooms to download their hundreds, or thousands, of pictures from the day, to sort through them, to recharge batteries and prepare for an early wake-up call the next day.

Dick has wanted to photograph the geese and cranes here for years--Bosque del Apache is a pilgrimage site for bird photographers.  We feel fortunate to be sharing this wondrous experience, and to have such "mild" weather and dramatic sunrises during our little window of time on the refuge. 

P.S. Four of the pictures above are mine (Gayl's).   I love my little Panasonic camera with its big zoom, and I love Dick's post processing talents. 

Just One Mistake--A Chili Shake

Day 10: Sunday, December 2
Las Cruces to Truth or Consequences
This looks like a typical winter wonderland, doesn’t it?

 Until you notice some of these sledders have no shoes on.

 Here at White Sands National Monument, sliding down the dunes is a year-round activity, and there are an endless number of dunes to slide down--at 275 square miles, this is the largest gypsum dune field in the world.  The unique qualities of gypsum make for powdery soft sand that does not get hot from the sun, and that packs hard with a bit of pressure or moisture--perfect for barefoot walking, dune sliding, and for creating roads that drive like pavement.

 

There are many amazing aspects of this park.  These dunes have formed over just the last 4,000 to 7,000 years, just infancy in geological time that cast the mountains around the park in about a million years.   Animals have adapted to the desert in amazing ways--brine shrimp larva can lie dormant in the sand for up to 100 years, waiting for the moment that rain water gathers in a small pool and brings them to life within hours.

 

 

 

 All these mind-blowing geological and biological idiosyncrasies are fascinating, but, really, the best part is just messing around in the sand.  There are no set trails and no rules about not disturbing the dunes--in fact the rangers here encourage you to get out there and have fun (just don’t pick or collect anything).  We walk up and down and all around the dunes in search of spots where we cannot see evidence of anyone else’s passing.  It ends up being quite a lengthy walk--clearly there has not been major wind or rain rearranging the sand in a long while.  We don’t see any animals, not even bugs or birds, but we find lots of animal prints in the sand, evidence that this place is naturally hopping when the sun goes down.  We wax up our saucers and race each other down a steep slope, then picnic in a nifty shady shelter at dune’s edge.

 

 

We are having so much fun we can almost forget that we are playing in the middle of a nuclear missile testing facility.  That’s right; White Sands Monument is in the Middle of the 100 mile long 40 mile wide White Sands Missile Range.  A Nike Hercules Missile draws curious drivers into a roadside turnout overlooking the range.  There displays tell the story of the missile (a cold war defense weapon tested here 650 times between 1955 and 1967) and of the range (with over 45,000 missile launches to its credit and still active).  Sometimes they have to close down White Sands Monument to visitors for a short time while they test missiles.  The coexistence of such great family fun with the horrors of nuclear war makes us a bit dizzy (or maybe it is the altitude).

Heading north to Truth or Consequences, we make a slight detour off the highway to stop at Hatch, which bills itself as the Chile Capital of the World.  The main road to and through Hatch is lined with shops selling every kind of chili product imaginable--dried chili ropes and wreaths, chili preserves and jellies, powdered chili spice mixes, and more. 

We stop at Sparky’s World Famous Barbecue Burgers and Espresso in Hatch, where a huge fiberglass Uncle Sam out front holds a big old chili pepper in his hand. In the spirit of the moment I order Sparky’s chili shake (which has lots of diced green chili pieces suspended in it and a generous scoop of diced green chilis garnishing the whipped cream on top), while Dick more wisely chooses a vanilla shake (which merely has pretty multi-color sugar sprinkles on top of the whipped cream).  No worries about the number of calories in the chili shake--three spoonfuls confirm it is a gastronomic nightmare, and I fail to consume it.

 On to our final destination today--Truth or Consequences.  Originally called Hot Springs, the town was home to forty hot springs spas before World War II.  The city changed its name back in 1950, when Ralph Edwards, host of the radio quiz show Truth or Consequences, announced he would air the show live from the first town to rename itself after the show.  Hot Springs won, and Ralph Edwards continued to visit here during Cinco de Mayo weekend for the next fifty years. 

 Now there are only ten hot springs spas in Truth or Consequences (or TandC, as it is known hereabouts).  We are staying at the only one with spa tubs along the Rio Grande River, Riverbend Hot Springs. Originally a bait shop, the current owners saw potential in the property, and turned the three tanks that held live bait into spa tubs now known as the Minnow Baths.  We prefer the two large stone pools built riverside, where the water is a bit cooler--just 100-104 degrees--and the view of the mountains silhouetted against the evening sky is bigger.  One notable quality of the mineral water here is that it has no sulphur, so it smells great as well as feeling great. 

 

Ahhhh, this is a grand relaxing way to end another very full day.