Travels with Pookie
A humorous e-mail diary of RV travels to National Parks and other attractions in the US & Canada
by
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Date: Monday, April 06, 1998 9:20 AM
Subject: Deception Revealed
Driving here (Alamogordo) from Carlsbad, Pookie figured it out. She said I had planned this whole trip around being here on April 4 when the Trinity site would be open. Well, it had crossed my mind that if we were coming this way anyway, why not? She also wanted to know why I didn't write another episode Sat. or Sun. That's easy--those are my days off.
We drove here on highway 82 which also goes thru my hometown of Greenville, MS. I've nearly been killed several times on this highway before, so the odds are in our favor. We climbed for about an hour while Pookie read a magazine. I told her to look up when the snow got pretty deep and we were passing ski lifts. We crossed the pass thru the Sacramento Mountains at Cloudcroft, elevation 8650 feet. The Blazer thought it was a piece of cake.
The descent was 4300 feet in 12 miles and I don't yet trust the electric brakes on the trailer. There is a gorgeous view coming down with Alamogordo in the foreground and what I first thought were clouds in the background. Pookie deduced that it was the White Sands Nat. Monument after awhile. We didn't do much Fri. afternoon except go by the Visitor Center and get the scoop on the caravan to Trinity.
About 200 vehicles of all types left at 8 the next a.m. Pookie said it was like going to Woodstock or a "trekkie" group as we left with sirens flashing from the escort cops and military police. The White Sands Missile Range doesn't show any roads on the map, but it has better and more paved roads than the state. The signs encourage you not to leave the road, such as "Danger--Unexploded Munitions" or "Missile Impact Zone" or something about lasers, but my favorite was "Zurf Area" (I didn't make that up)! They say no pictures till you get to Trinity and Pookie wouldn't let me take any. We did see a herd of Oryx or Gemsbok up close. That's a very large antelope with 2 huge horns like unicorns that's native to the Kalahari desert in southern Africa. They are a pest that thrives like kudzu and should not have been introduced here. This place is so remote, that we could set off a few more bombs here and nobody would notice.
When we got to the site, it was overrun with people who came on their own or in caravans from other locations. T-shirts, books, postcards etc. were available as well as about 50 porta-pots. The actual site is fenced in and we got to ground zero just as a tour guide with a large bus group was finishing his talk. This is where "Fat Man" the plutonium bomb was tested. The uranium bomb was a much simpler design and didn't need testing. Fat Man was dropped on Nagasaki and "Little Boy" on Hiroshima. Talk about bad luck, Nagasaki was a secondary target and the bomb was diverted there because of bad weather over the primary target. The tower here (100 feet tall) was vaporized and the crater was only about 6 feet deep, but it's almost unrecognizable now. The Army cleaned up the site a number of years ago and it's different than the old pictures. The explosion did create a few acres of green glass fused from the sand. The stuff is called "Trinitite" and most of it is gone, but Pookie and I managed to collect about 10 small pieces. It's only mildly radioactive and Pookie smuggled it out undetected. We let her carry the contraband for several reasons:
1. I've got a long enough rap sheet already and this has to be a federal offense. 2. She didn't object and looks better wearing orange than I do. 3. She's already sterile. 4. That stuff looks like (and may be) kryptonite and might negatively affect some of my extraordinary powers.
The Army provides buses at the site that take you 2 miles to the McDonald house, an old ranch house where the bomb was assembled. Only the roof was blown off in the explosion and it's been restored to 1945 condition. It was originally called the Schmidt house for the original owners. You may know some of their children, Aw Schmidt, Tough Schmidt or No Schmidt.
We ate a true sand--wich off the hood of the Blazer during a duststorm (Pookie's idea) and came back the long way thru Carrizozo. I hate riding in a caravan where you're always speeding up and slowing down. We stopped at 3 Rivers Petroglyph site where there are 21,000 designs carved into rocks by natives 1,000 years ago. We ended the day by seeing "Antarctica" at the local Imax Theatre. That's appropriate since Antarctica is the only place on earth more arid than the desert. There's plenty of water there, but it's all frozen. The guy operating the movie had a captive audience and at the end showed the night sky and gave a lecture on the constellations. Heard a lot more than I want to know about the big and little dippers, Orion, the dog star, the great bear, etc. This guy was the polar opposite of Ranger Bob and almost as boring.
Sun. my laundress did the wash and provided me with clean underwear! In her honor, I treated us to lunch at the Golden Corral which is like a self-serve cafeteria. Pookie's buddies call it "The Golden Trough". Got my veggies at last. We also did a sunset walk through the sand dunes at White Sands Monument with an excellent tour-guide ranger who is an ex-schoolteacher. Best guide we've had yet. Tomorrow, we're going back through Cloudcroft to Sunspot, NM to a solar observatory on top of another mountain
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About the Book
Hilarious musings delivered by e-mail, from an author who interweaves specific, detailed descriptions and observations about natural and man-made attractions and people met, all over North America, with his own original and unusual take on them. A combination of history, fact and fantasy that is most entertaining and informative. The author maintains fiercely his Southern heritage and his conservative philosophy (he refuses to capitalize yankee or democrat), while possessing close personal relationships with friends and acquaintances in both categories. The humor is self-deprecating at times and pointed at others on occasion. He also conveys the good humor and mutually enjoyable repartee between him and his soul mate wife. His description of the antics and behavior of their dog, Duke, will make you want meet the dog, just to be sure he’s a dog. There are also described a few quite poignant moments and events that occur in their travels. You’ll also be tickled at his comments about some of his friends and family; some of whom correspond with him by e-mail during the travels and whose responses are sometimes included verbatim. A different kind of travel book than you will normally see.
About the Author
The author was born in 1941 in Greenville, Mississippi, the hometown of more than 50 published authors. They say it’s the water. As a youngster, he routinely won the annual prize from Greenville’s William Alexander Percy (another author) Memorial Library for reading the most books. He earned a BBA degree from Tulane and a JD from Ole Miss. He took early retirement from a banking career at age 55, due to health concerns. Since 1998, he and his wife, Pookie, have traveled 70,000 miles in their travel trailer, all over North America, north of Mexico. This is an informative, entertaining and hilarious account of those travels. They reside just outside the city limits of Pulaski, Tennessee with Duke, their dog.