Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Frank made some good pancakes for breakfast.


We talked to our next door neighbors this morning. They are from Oklahoma City. They were trying out a travel trailer (rental) to see if they liked it... they said they think they decided on a fifth wheel. They had two dogs with them... a Labrador that is a pale brown (almost white and had a pink nose like Annabelle) and a little long-haired Papillon. They said that they didn't have to brush her much... that most any debris caught in her hair fell out on its own. We had only seen this type of dog on dog shows on tv. They left a bit later... they had a hard time breaking down everything... it takes a while to get it down pat.... we sometimes get it wrong after all these years of practice :-)


We took a walk before heading out this morning. We saw Chickadees, Titmice, a Nuthatch and the red bird that Frank got on tape... I'll look that one up later. There were more deer. We were hoping to see the turkeys... we could hear them.


We went into Lawton. Our first stop was at Wal-Mart. We bought gas at $4.12 a gallon (with shopping card). We had the travel trailer tire repaired. While waiting we returned the wallet. Frank told the cashier we bought it in Arkansas and we were traveling. She wanted to know if we were traveling by motorcycles.... I didn't marry a biker :-) We bought some Swimmers Ear drops, fever thermometer and suspenders. We never found the wallets in this Wal-Mart.


Next stop was the laundry. Mr. Lee at Wal-Mart (in the tire service area) told us how to find it. Frank helped me get the laundry started and then he went to the carwash next door and then to Lowes. The hot water faucet set screw in the kitchen is gone to an unknown place. He forgot to bring the faucet handle... so he got some screws and none are right :-) That is okay... I forgot the detergent and we had to turn around and come back and get it and the quarters :-)


There were two young Army wives at the laundry and they were fun to listen to. Oh my... I was a young Army wife at one time :-)


I recognized Elmer Thomas Park... we took the kids there a few times to play when stationed at Ft. Sill so many years ago. I think it was the first place that we ever saw Canada Geese. The visitor center and Great Plains Museum is next to it, so we went in and asked some questions. There are prairie dogs surrounding the museum. They are fun to watch, but they are still just rodents :-)


We ate dinner at Golden Corral... the food was about the same as at the one at home (either not seasoned or seasoned too much).


We looked for a RV repair/supply place and couldn't find one... for the antenna amplifier. We were then going to try and find the house we lived in on Euclid... on the map Euclid is not just one segmented street... it is in three or four parts and we couldn't remember which part it was we lived on.


We entered Ft. Sill. Our ID cards were scanned (with a handheld scanner) as we entered the gate... we've never had them scanned before... a new experience. We were told by the couple in the bookstore at the museum that Artillery Village (housing area) were we lived had been torn down last year. We drove past where our quarters had once stood. It was fairly easy to figure out where it had stood. The school that Sonja attended is still in use. The Post has changed so much... we were in unfamiliar territory for the most part.


We went through the old guardhouse museum and the intepretive museum. We then found the PX. Frank looked for a wallet there, but didn't find anything he liked... or would work for him. We found the commissary and bought some milk and gallon jugs of water.


We were getting very tired and we think a bit dehydrated. We could have filled our empty water bottles from the gallon jugs we had just bought, but stopped at Burger King for a coke with ice. We felt better much better.


On the way back to camp we stopped and took all kinds of pictures... b&w, color and video of buffalo, longhorns and prairie dogs. They all had young, so we stayed a good distance... the prairie dogs probably wouldn't attack us :-) but the buffalo and longhorns were close by. The prairie dogs bark when you are around (usually just one or two who are guards) and if you get too close they go underground.


We made it back to camp and put the milk away. Then we took our showers and put the laundry away. I started writing in this journal and Frank read about trees amongst my million questions of how to spell things... I'm using the Wordpad program and there is no spell checker :-)


Frank got tired of sitting and walked around a bit... he was going to stop by the restroom, but a bull buffalo made Frank change his mind :-)


Time for me to sign off for the day and see if I run into the buffalo.... I didn't meet him. Frank went back up with me. Just outside the restroom coming back we stopped and listened to the beautiful sound of a Whip-poor-will... looking in the bird book it could have been a Common Poorwill. They sound similar and I can't remember the call well enough to decide which one it was... no matter.. it was a beautiful sound to hear.