Update

Sorry I've been so weak with the blog updates in the past few days. The rafting trip was cancelled in the end but it has been good hanging out here in Oklahoma City anyway. I'm heading to San Francsico tonight.
It looks like I will get to go to Yosemite afterall, for one day only! Joe and his cousin (who has a car) are going so I'm getting in on that trip. We're going to leave San Francisco early in the morning on the 4th of July and not return til late at night. 4th of July in America's first national park. Wicked!
Ok there will be more from San Francisco tomorrow, if I have some good photos I'll try to do a blog update in the late afternoon.

Oklahoma City

Not the best photo taken from a moving vehicle, but shows a working oil well directly in front of the Oklahoma State Capitol!

Slight change to the trip itinirary. From Denver instead of going straight to San Francisco I have come to Oklahoma City to take up a kind offer from a new friend I met along the way who invited me to go rafting on the Illinois River near Tulsa with her and her friends. I have scrapped the Yosemite National Park segment of the trip (will have to do that next trip) in order to fit it in.

I don't know why, but it seems whenever I have the need to gather all my worldy belongings on my back and walk several miles to the train station or bus station to move on to a new city, it seems thatthe skies open as soon as I set out on my long walk. That has happend at least 3 times on this trip so far. Very annoying. This occured in Denver on Tuesday as I prepared to make my way to Oklahoma City.

I had to travel to Oklahoma City by bus, as an airfare was going to be $200+, and a train would have to go all the way to Chicago to connect before heading down to OKC. I cast my mind back to the last time I travelled by Greyhound bus, it was a few years ago on a relatively short 12-hr hop between Salt Lake City and Denver. I remember swearing that I would never travel by Greyhound ever again, it was so unpleasent. But necessity would make me eat my words. Never again.

Greyhound stations are almost without fail always in the worst part of every city, and even inside they are not nice. I had a couple of hours to kill at the Greyhound station in Denver. There was an obvious pickpocket hanging around. He kept trying to get people's wallets, and he kept failing. 3 people complained about and eventually some security gaurds came over, who were of course armed, and warned him and stopped him from boarding the bus he was ticketed for. Now he was stuck in the station, and he kept trying to pick pockets. Another security gaurd came over, warned him, and let him stay in the station. At no point did anyone ever call the police.

If the station was bad, the bus was no better. I think I was the only grown adult on the bus who knew how to pull my pants up above my ass. There is barely any legroom. The driver keeps stopping for his cigarette breaks every 45 minutes. And it was a 17hour ride to Oklahoma city, with a 2 hour layover in Amarillo, TX in another scummy Greyhound station.

Finally arrived in Oklahoma City. Went to a pool party my host Elyse was running for the youth group she runs, and then stayed up late drinking beer on the porch. The next day went to the Oklahoma City bombing Memorial. (see photos below)

After the memorial, we went to the Oklahoma History Museum, which was really good and included a brilliant exhibit on Oklahoma rock music. I was surprised by how many big name acts have come out of Oklahoma, including Hanson! They are still around and I was able to take these photos of original Hanson instruments:

Zac Hanson's drum

Isaac Hanson's Guitar

Taylor Hanson's Keyboard

Remember, you saw them first on Beggsblog!!

After the History museum, we went to the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum where among all the museum exhibits was an amazing art gallery with some really brilliant paintings and sculpture. It wasn't your standard art gallery. These items were priced for up to $100,000 each.

Then I went to a ballgame at Red Brick Ballpark. A minor league game so tickets were only $10, and beers were $1. I didn't have my big camera with me so this is the photo you get:

After the ballgame went out to a bar in the Red Brick district. It was late but still very hot, over 90f outside. Like a lot of places here it seems, the bar's method of combatting the heat was 'misters'. I had never seen such a thing before, but they are like hoses that run along the length of a veranda and spray a light mist over patrons.

New Mexico (cont'd) and Colorado

White Sands National Monument, New Mexico

The International UFO Museum and Research Center in Roswell, New Mexico

Starting off where we left off last posting... After Carlsbad we headed north through New Mexico in a zig-zag fassion, visiting Roswell to learn about UFO's, White Sands - an astonishing environment that provides vistas i imagine are similar to being on the moon, finally arriving in Santa Fe for the night.



In the morning we explored dowtown Santa Fe:

It must be some kind of local town planning law, because every building (even modern ones) are made in the adobe style.

This is the oldest house in America, circa 1646. Although it is a disputed claim that it is the oldest in America, its still pretty old so I thought it worthy of being blogged.

This is me at the ruins of a 16th century Spanish mission and an old indian Pueblo at the Pecos National Historical Park. Avid blog readers will note that I have been here before, but this time is the first time I have had a really good look around.

Dad going underground in the pueblo, to a room used by the puebloans for working - it is much cooler subsurface than the 100 deg f temperatures above ground.

We ended up that night east of Canon City, Colorado visiting our family friend Neil who was running a summer camp for geology students and very kindly invited us to stay for the night.

The next day we drove up to Denver, where Dad flew out of. Now I am just chilling down in Denver. I shelled out for a motel so that I could chill down and swim in the pool for a few days before heading to Oklahoma on Wednesday or Thursday. Today has been the first real quiet day I have had since the beginning of the trip! Today is Fathers Day in America, but my dad is aboard an international flight and by crossing the dateline he skips Sunday, so that avoids an awkward situation - no Dad deserves 2 fathers days a year, even one that was cool enough to come over here to travel with his son for a week!! But seriously, thanks to Dad for an awesome week exploring the west.

Snakes, Bats, and Caverns...

For most of this trip I have been actively seeking out snakes as I had never seen one in the wild before. I have been stomping through long grass in dry areas, overturning rocks in the desert and had no luck at all until yesterday morning. Alongside New Mexico state highway 176 enroute to Carlsbad, I finally found what I was looking for. I have no idea what kind of snake this is, all I know is that it is not a rattlesnake. For the purposes of the blog we can imagine it is highly venomous and aggressive.

Earlier in the morning we visited Fort Davis, an old US government post that protected emigrants heading west in the 19th century.

And then... Carlsbad Caverns national park where we took an elevator 750ft below the surface to a huge cave system.

Once back on the surface, we went to the amphitheater to watch hundreds of thousands of bats fly out of the cave together at dusk. This sign in the parking lot had us packing water and scroggin for the journey, only to discover that the 10 minute walk to the amphitheater, all on paved tracks, was anything but strenuous. Cameras are banned during the bat flight, so you'll have to take my word for it that it was cool.