Carl Henning

I wonder about some of these road signs.

Fort Lancaster was fairly short-lived, opening before the Civil War, abandoned during, and re-manned as a sub-post of Fort Stockton. After the Civil War, it was manned by Buffalo Soldiers (black troops, white officers).

In Texas you can go from Easter Island to Stonehenge is just a few steps. The replica of England’s Stonehenge is dubbed Stonehenge II and it is not broken like the original. Of course, those aren’t real stones either – there plaster on wire mesh. Everyone asks how I find these memorable locations. OK, one person asked once. There’s an app for that!

San Antonio’s Witte Museum was an interesting diversion. Not pronounced WIT. Not pronounced WITTY. It’s WITT -E. There was a room stuffed with Texas animals. Right, the animals were stuffed, too.

The Texas Transportation Museum in San Antonio is mostly about trains. We visited between shuttling Mark between baseball venues. One of those trips involved a pleasant conversation with a police officer.

Ok, not Mount Olympus, Olympic National Park. There were animals, waterfalls, gift shops, but no view from the top.

Northwest Trek features animals native to Washington. A short drive from Kim and Bob’s, Northwest Trek includes over 720 acres of free roaming and exhibited animals. The fox, bobcat, and cougar did not come out of hiding, but there were plenty of other critters to see.

April is tulip season in Washington’s Skagit Valley. The weather was great so we didn’t have to tiptoe through the tulips… with apologies to Tiny Tim. (Actuality I listened to his rendition of Tiptoe through the Tulips and concluded that no apology is merited.) We drove through the area a bit and visited Tulip Town.

Phoenix has two zoos: The Phoenix Zoo and Wildlife World Zoo, Aquarium, and Safari Park. We have an annual membership to the former, but this time visited the latter (it’s expensive and 45 minutes away). Lots of photos and one video.

We took time out from planning a bunch more trips to take a trip all the way to downtown Phoenix and the state capitol. The old territorial, then state, capitol building is now the Arizona State Capitol Museum. The executive branch is now in a tower behind the old capitol building and the House and Senate are in modern buildings adjacent. (Well, the buildings were modern when they were built in the 60’s.)