Durango Puerto Rico Has A Nice Ring To It

This morning I told Spencer Jack's dad, my Favorite Nephew Jason, that my mind has changed and I no longer currently planning to leave Texas to return to the Pacific Northwest.

To which Spencer Jack's dad replied....

I suppose you are going to wait until the general election is over to see if your move will be outside the U.S. borders.

Well, I actually had not given much thought to leaving the United States.

I had thought of leaving Texas as sort of returning to the United States.

In recent days leaving Texas and heading west to Arizona seemed like a good idea. My mom and dad, sister, brother, brother-in-law and two of my favorite nephews are in Arizona.

And then today, out of the blue, I was told I could move to a currently unoccupied house in Coamo, Puerto Rico.

This appeals to me.

Mangoes grow in the backyard. Seafood abounds. Caribbean beaches are a short distance south. The entire island of Puerto Rico is about the same size as the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex.

I would need to start yet one more blog,

Durango Puerto Rico. Or maybe just Durango Rico.

I suspect I would have a lot of material to write about.

I must brush up on my Spanish speaking skills....

Exhausted From Too Little Sleep From Too Many Booms & Nightmares Of Dinner Roll Attacks

Even though I am exhausted I managed to go swimming in the rain early this morning.

Excess drippage has the pool almost overflowing.

I have pretty much been awake ever since the thunder began booming sometime around two this morning.

The booming continues. As does the drippage, but not as copiously the last hour or so.

I just found out I am having lunch with Nurse Martha on Friday, across the street from my abode, at the Pizza & Pasta restaurant.

I have not had lunch with Nurse Martha for about a decade, that being a Thanksgiving lunch where Martha's daughter memorably threw a dinner roll at me. I do not remember what I did to provoke the dinner roll attack.

Tonasket's Texas Family Diner Is Open For Business

Aunt Alice, also known as Tootsie Tonasket, lives in her namesake town of Tonasket in Eastern Washington, a short distance south of the Canadian border.

Tonasket is a small town of around a thousand people. A lot of tourists pass through Tonasket.

This morning on Facebook, via Aunt Alice, I saw a new restaurant had opened in Tonasket.

Texas Family Diner.

With the Lone Star state flag and the Alamo.

I must ask Aunt Alice if she knows the story behind the Texas Family Diner. Are the owners transplanted Texans?

Fort Worth Star-Telegram Editorial Board Did Not Recommend Kasich & Sanders

I guess this falls into the category of something I see in a west coast online news source that I would not expect to be seeing in one of my local Texas online new sources, such as the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

In this instance it is the Seattle Times recommending voters vote for John Kasich and Bernie Sanders.

I don't remember if I saw who the Star-Telegram endorsed for the recent primary. I'll go see if I can find that information.

Well, near as I can tell the Star-Telegram endorsed Marco Rubio.

I could not find who was endorsed by the Star-Telegram on the Democrat side. I would hazard to guess it was likely Mrs. Clinton.

On the Republican side John Kasich is the only one remaining who seems like a normal person to me, who does not seem to suffer from some mental health issues.

Did Ted Cruz Model For Big Tex Along With Auditioning For The Simpsons?

Earlier this morning I was reading the hard copy version of this week's Dallas Observer, when looking at the cover article about Fair Park in Dallas I looked at the photo you see here of Big Tex and thought he looked uncannily like Ted Cruz.

Big Tex got a makeover a couple years ago after an unfortunate fire incident. Did Ted Cruz model for the makeover?

Speaking of Ted Cruz, and who isn't? That is Ted Cruz at the lower left part of the screen cap from the Dallas Observer.

Ted Cruz at the lower left is a link to an article titled LETTER FROM TEXAS: LISTEN AMERICA, TRUMP IS JUST EMBARRASSING. CRUZ IS SCARY.

There has been so much embarrassing, scary video material with Cruz showing his reptilian-ness. I would have thought those videos would have laughing stocked him long ago. I thought the Cruz audition tape for The Simpsons would have been the end of him, but it was not.

I blogged about the embarrassing Cruz audition for The Simpsons on another of my blogs, with that blogging titled Ted Cruz Unfortunate Embarrassing Audition for The Simpsons.

The embarrassing audition video is watchable on the blog for your viewing enjoyment.

Finding A Long Lost Trinity Uptown Protest T-Shirt

I think I already mentioned that during the course of rummaging through locations I've not rummaged in for years I am finding stuff I did not remember having

A Trinity Uptown t-shirt?

It seems like a decade or longer ago that what is now known as America's Biggest Boondoggle was known as Trinity Uptown.

I think the current full name of the Boondoggle is the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island Vision Boondoggle.

Did I get this t-shirt whilst manning a booth at the Prairie Fest with Granny Grassroots the time someone thought I was Elsie Hotpepper's papa?

Or did I get this t-shirt at the massive anti-Boondoggle protest at the opening of Tim Love's Woodshed Smokehouse that The Boondoggle gave him in a sweetheart deal?

I sure have a lot of memory issues....

Finding My 10 Year High School Class Reunion In Anacortes Washington

As I look in locations I've not looked at in years I keep finding things I did not remember I had. Such as the group photo above. It took me a second or two to figure out this was taken at my 10 year high school class reunion.

I recollect this reunion took place in a clubhouse at the Skyline Marina in Anacortes. I have no memory of the group photo being taken.

It took me awhile to find me in this photo. I'm the boy in blue.

Finding Lost Tabletop Mountain In Texas

Today I found photos I thought were long lost, which I have previously searched for among my big collection of old hard copy photos.

But, today the mystery of the missing photos was solved soon after I began perusing through a file cabinet I'd not looked in in years.

The first photo you see here is one of my favorites I have ever taken. That would be my Favorite Nephew Jeremy on the left, sitting next to my Favorite Nephew Christopher, at some point in time back in the 1990s, before I moved to Texas and the nephews moved to Arizona.

Chris and Jeremy are sitting atop Tabletop Mountain. Behind them is Mount Shuksan. To their left, in the direction Chris is looking, sits the Mount Baker volcano.

Notice the piles of rocks behind the nephews, resembling what I've come to call Hoodoos when I see these type rock formations on the forlorn Tandy Hills.

Til today, all I had remaining of these photos were scanned images compressed to a low byte size suitable for using them on a webpage back in the pre-broadband days when one worried about such things. Today's newly scanned versions look almost 3-D. At least on my screen.

Tabletop Mountain is on the north side of Mount Baker. The parking lot and trailhead opens up in late summer, unless the snowpack has been light, allowing it to open earlier. The parking lot is at the end of the road that one can use to drive past the ski area when enough snow melts.

As you can see, a lot of people show up for the multiple hiking opportunities accessed from this location, including a trail on the north face of Mount Baker.

Above we are starting the trek up Tabletop Mountain, via a series of switchbacks.

I first saw this as a little kid, retaining the memory of a string of people switchbacking up a mountain. As years passed I started to think this was a false memory, too young to remember the location of the memory, til one day, years later, I found myself back at the same location, again seeing a string of people switchbacking up a mountain.

Above we are on one of the aforementioned switchbacks, making our way to the top of Tabletop.

I think this may have qualified as one of my infamous Nephews in Danger incidents, where Jeremy 'skied' down a sheet of snowy ice towards Mount Baker.

Below Jeremy watches as Christoper is the Nephew in Danger. As I remember it Christopher reached a high rate of speed and had trouble hitting the brakes when the snowy ice came to an end.

I have shown photos of Washington mountain hiking to Texans previously. Summer photos of being up in the mountains. The Texans are always perplexed as to how can one be in shorts, like it is hot, when you are on a cold snowy mountain. Well, it takes a lot of thermal units to melt massive snow packs, so ice remains even when the air is heated into the 70s, or 80s, making it quite pleasant to be in the high country minimally attired.

I don't remember why Jeremy was threatening his Favorite Uncle with a snowball. That would be the aforementioned Mount Baker volcano behind Jeremy.

Looking at these photos is it any wonder I am homesick for real mountains with real scenery and real trails trekking to see real scenery on real mountains?

I miss cross county skiing on these mountains too. Ironically, yesterday I tossed my cross country skis into the garbage. The Texas heat had de-laminated them....

Evacuation Preparations Leads To Discovery Of Lost Treasures

In preparation for Bugging out of Texas I have been looking in cabinets and locations I have not looked in or at in years.

Doing so I found the originals of photos of my Favorite Nephews Christopher and Jeremy on a hike up Tabletop Mountain, by Mount Baker, in my hopefully to soon again be my home state of Washington.

A year or so ago I looked in what I thought was every possible location for those Tabletop Mountain photos, to no avail. I have now scanned those photos for a blogging to follow this one.

Right when I found the photo you are looking at here, the nephew on the right in the picture, my Favorite Nephew Jason, called.

What a coincidence.

With that being Jason on the right, that would make that my Favorite Nephew Joey on the left.

On the back of the photo it says "Jason 6 1/2, Joey 4, 1986".

I last saw Joey in October of last year, in Grapevine. I last saw Jason in March of 2012, in Chandler, Arizona. I suspect some day soon I will be seeing Joey and Jason more frequently than I have in the first sixteen years of this century....

At The Sweetwater Rattlesnake Roundup Watch Out For Mama's Nursing Baby Rattlers

I saw this disturbing photo on Facebook yesterday.

A mama rattlesnake nursing her brood of ten baby rattlers.

The disturbing photo came with a warning....

Spring time is around the corner. Mama rattlers will be emerging with newly hatched young. They seek warm sunshine to lay in and nurse their young. Watch your dogs and children. They become aggressive and will chase you.

I am guessing it comes as a surprise to most, the idea that a rattlesnake comes equipped with ten nipples, from whence baby rattlers get fed.

I suspect the idea that a rattlesnake would have nipples would be disputed by a highly trained biologist. Or a well informed layman.

I have witnessed a rattlesnake getting milked, but not in the manner shown above. It was at the Sweetwater Rattlesnake Roundup where I saw rattlesnakes being milked for the venom which comes out of their fangs.

The very first video I ever made with my very first video camera captured, if I remember right, the spectacle of a rattlesnake being milked. You can view that video by going here.

The Sweetwater Rattlesnake Roundup starts rounding up the rattlesnakes next Thursday, March 10, with the rounding up and milking ending four days later on Sunday, March 13.

I have been to the Sweetwater Rattlesnake Roundup once. Once was more than enough.

If you are heading to West Texas, to Sweetwater, next weekend, you can find some Sweetwater info here.