I’m getting behind on these posts. We’re seeing so much country and driving so much that I’m starting to get confused.
At the end of the last post we found a motel in San Angelo which, by the way, is where I send my wool samples for micron testing. When driving into town late that night we passed the Texas Agrilife Research Center and that’s when I realized why the name San Angelo seemed familiar. Had we had a plan I might have called ahead to see if I could come see their facility.
The map showed that it was only about 3-1/2 hours to our destination between Wimberly and Blanco. The landscape changed from the oil fields of West Texas to ag land.
We drove through a lot of small towns, some of which were essentially ghost towns and some of which seemed to be keeping up.
There are lots of beautiful old buildings in the downtown areas. In many of those towns that are thriving the downtowns center squares are more touristy than they would have been originally, But the cute shops and diners entice one to stop and spend some money…however we didn’t. We’re usually not that kind of tourists.
I don’t have many photos. I snapped several from the moving truck, but although some of the scenery ones are passable, it was hard to get much in town when driving through.
I must say that the iPhone has given me a new way to travel. We like our big map books with one book for each state. I kept that open on my lap but I continued to look up towns we passed or things listed on the map that weren’t there anymore. We garnered a lot of history that way. Here is one place at which we stopped. It turned out to be a small supply and feed store that has some wool items (sheepskins, blankets, socks), but they are not locally grown with the exception of some socks–sort of. The mohair in the socks is from Texas but the manufacturing is done in South Africa. The business also serve as a depot for area ranchers to drop off wool to be picked up by a commercial buyer.
We got to Fredericksburg, about an hour from my daughter and son-in-law’s house and planned to spend a couple of hours there so that she could finish her work day. We stopped at the National Museum of the Pacific War, a place I was aware of from a visit to the area a year ago . Why a museum about World War II and the Pacific in Texas? Fredericksburg is the birthplace of Admiral Nimitz who played a major role in the naval history of World War II. If you find yourself in this part of Texas I highly recommend this museum but you really need to allow a whole day to see it. Let me tell you up front that I am not a war buff and I am not a history buff. My eyes glaze over when I hear too many dates and places and although I get the general idea I am sorely lacking in detailed knowledge about World War II. I was fascinated and very moved by this exhibit. It is incredibly thorough, beginning with the Chinese/Japanese tensions in the 1930’s and ending with, well the end of the war and the aftermath. You go through a maze of displays that include not just artifacts, but lots of interactive exhibits, film, first-hand accounts, and photos in order of the action in the Pacific. I can do it justice in this brief description. It is very moving and a powerful presentation. We were totally immersed for over three hours and barely got through this one museum. There are five others as well as the outside area in the complex. Part way through I saw a sign above that showed concurrent events in Europe and I realized that we were seeing only the action in the Pacific and of course there was just as much going on in Europe. The depth of the horror and misery on both fronts is unimaginable. This is just another reminder (as if just driving through our fabulous country isn’t enough) of how lucky we are to live where we do and with the freedom we have. Although World War II ended long ago and most of us aren’t directly affected by war the horror is still going on for so many people in this world.
These plaques are some of the memorials to those who served or commemorating ships or crews.
We had planned to get to Katie’s house earlier in the afternoon but were so overwhelmed by this exhibit that we were there until it closed. We were in Texas Hill Country at this point and, as we’ve seen on our whole trip, the land was lush and green from the unusual amount of rain this summer.
This photo doesn’t look especially green because the field has just been baled but there is a bumper crop of hay.
We got to our destination about 5 p.m. and this is why we came:
The bats roost inside the cave in an area closed to the public. Cave swallows roost in the entrance.
According to the sign we were standing on the rim of a collapsed super-volcano, 12 miles in diameter and magma is only 5 miles beneath.
We had been lucky with the weather the whole day. Other than the previous night we hadn’t been rained on. But we could watch the weather while we were driving. There is lots of flat landscape on the drive through central New Mexico, but I am just glad to see that there is so much unpopulated land in our fabulous country. The tune “wide open spaces” continued to run through my head (as did “standing on the corner…” from yesterday).
Another train view but this is a train made up of a dozen engines. We saw this the previous day also. Mulitple engines are used to pull (and push?) trains up the long grades and I guess they send those engines back to be ready for the next train. Many hours of driving later and about dusk we got to Roswell, 
After stowing our gear we set off north to see what the town of Kelso looked like. Have you ever seen a sign with a flashing light that cautions you to watch for tortoises? I never had and I wish I had stopped for a photo. It was one of those things that I thought I’d do on the way back but we ended up making a loop through the preserve.
When I walked out there I saw that one electric fence wire was spiraled across the pen and Ringo wouldn’t cross it. I had been fixing the fence a couple times per week, tightening the wires, or replacing insulators, and once in awhile fixing a break. 
That evening I found this–Foley with wires wrapped all around his horns and his feet. It was worse than it looks in the photo. I had to cut the wraps of wire off of him. I knew that I had to do something better. The goal of this electric wire is to keep the sheep away from the field fence on the south side and the welded wire panels on the north side, both of which the rams can easily destroy. It works well for the ewes and it works for the rams to the extent that they don’t try to eat something on the other side or put their heads through the fence. But it is obvious that the charge is not felt through the horns. The rams actually spend time trying to scratch on the insulators and bash the tree that holds some of the fence. Then their horns catch on the wire and I think they like to fight with the wire just because it’s there.
Here is bide a wee Bea, who just happened to get in the truck with the other sheep when I left. Mavin stayed behind to take her place at the bide a wee farm.
It’s always good to come around the last mountain in Oregon and see Mt. Shasta. However, the lack of snow on this 14,000+ foot mountain is very discouraging. But that’s a thought for another time. It was nice to be with my friends and other sheep enthusiasts and forget the rest of the world’s problems for a few days.
When we get there everyone is ready to get out of the truck. Farm Club members and other friends also drove to BSG. They were always ready to help with the sheep.
Nevertheless, I was pleased to win Champion Jacob ram with my ram lamb, Meridian Nash and…
For us Black Sheep Gathering isn’t just about the sheep and the shopping and the food. It’s also about spending time with friends.
Meridian Jacobs' Blog 