On the road again - Oklahoma and Texas

I noted that "We've been on the road again...travelling from Florida, to Georgia, to Tennessee, to Arkansas, to .... would you believe Oklahoma?"

Why would we go to Oklahoma? It's not a bad state or anything but we don't have any family / friends there.  (That I know of...if someone has moved, let me know!)

So why Oklahoma?

Two words.

Oklahoma Aquarium

No, wait..I mean...a different two words.

Bull Sharks

So, you have to understand - Shanon loves sharks.  She has watched (and gotten her husband to watch) more shark documentaries than he ever knew existed.  He can now name and recognize over a half-dozen types of sharks...and occasionally even knows facts about them.

So...why Bull Sharks and not say, Great White Sharks?

Well, let's start on a few details.  First, Shanon wants to see Great White Sharks - but they are rarely found in captivity.  Monterey Bay Aquarium in California was the only aquarium that even tried to display Great Whites for extended periods of time.  However, they ended displays back in 2013.   So, they're cool but difficult to see.  (A number of groups have argued that it's impossible to keep Great White Sharks in captivity at all)

Bull Sharks are not easy to see either.  We've been to a number of aquariums:  Georgia Aquarium (Whale Sharks!), Florida Aquarium, Mote Aquarium, etc.  Only Oklahoma Aquarium - with no access to oceans had Bull Sharks (Nurse Sharks are also in the tank).

A few details of Bull Sharks:

• Bull Sharks  have the highest testosterone level of any animal.
• Bull Sharks are known for being aggressive. 
• Bull Sharks were likely responsible for the Jersey Shore attack of 1916 - the inspiration for Jaws.
• Bull Sharks - while not a true fresh water shark - can tolerate fresh water well.  They have been known to travel up the Mississippi River as far as Alton, Illinois.

I'm still trying to upload my bull shark videos.  (YouTube is taking forever)  :-(

What was that about Texas?

Well, there's a Dallas Aquarium as well.  Well, it's not JUST an aquarium.   They have LOTS of things there.

But first and foremost - they have Penguins... specifically Little Blue Penguins.  (This is actually a species of Penguin and not something that Thomas just made up...this time.)

Little Blue Penguin

Actually they had LOTS of Little Blue Penguins

They also had a lot of other stuff as well...

Crocodile

Vampire Bats

Even Burrowing Owls

There was also a large tank with a manatee, elephant turtles, and lots of fish.  Alas, no photos though.

Also in Texas...

We traveled down to San Antonio to visit David, Francesca, and CJ  (waive hi!).  San Antonio was amazingly hot - but we also visited Riverwalk (no photos, sorry) and the Alamo.  (We didn't enter the Alamo, given the heat and the lines)

Alamo

Where to from here?

We loved visiting Texas (even given the heat) to see friends and sights - but we're going to be travelling the next couple of days.  Stay tuned - it's about to get interesting.

On the road again - Tennessee

So in our travels - we detoured off to Lynchburg, Tennessee to see the Jack Daniel's Distillery.

I found it interesting that Jack Daniel's is only produced in Lynchburg, TN, yet it's shipped around the world.  Why is that interesting?  It's interesting because Moore County (Lynchburg is located in Moore County) is a dry county. We were able to buy in the company store (White Rabbit) quite easily though.

We did the tour where they talked about Jasper "Jack" Daniel. Jack was short - a mere 5' 2" and never married.  Rumor has it that he came to work early one morning, tried to open the safe in the office and it refused.  Eventually he kicked the safe in frustration - resulting in a broken toe.  Eventually that broken toe got infected and killed him.

Moral: Don't go to work early - it'll kill you.

Jack Daniel's whiskey is known for being filtered through charcoal and stored in barrels.   They make both their own charcoal and barrels.

We couldn't get photos of the barrels. :-(   Theres's a lot of barrel-houses.  They store the whiskey in the barrels for 4-7 years.

They were starting to make charcoal while we were there.

They stack the wood and burn it - allowing it to only burn long enough to become charcoal (and not ash).

Burning stuff requires a fire dept.  They've had one for years....

And finally, I liked that they had teamed up with Indian Motorcycles to get a custom motorcycle.

On the road again...Georgia

We've been on the road again...travelling from Florida, to Georgia, to Tennessee, to Arkansas, to .... would you believe Oklahoma?

We stopped off in Georgia to see Jimmy Carter's boyhood farm and to visit family  (waving to Christopher, Sandy, Rebecca and Joshua).

( BTW: Do NOT listen to your GPS when it says that it has a short-cut to the farm. 
      The route is shorter....   it is not necessarily safer. )

It had no electricity or running water (initially), so all the water had to be hand-pumped.

Eventually they installed a windmill pump (ordered from a catalog, of course).

Which gave them running water - for showers for example.  Yes, that is a bucket with holes in it....and it's at the farm. (I didn't make it up)

No electricity, so wood burning stoves were key.

Of course that was for the owner.  If you were a worker, your stove might have looked like this.

And the Carter's (besides running a farm) also had a small company store.

No postings! Why?

We haven't been posting recently - and I wanted to give you a breakdown on why.

So, we picked up Moriarty in New Mexico... but our base-of-operations is in Florida.  While we could have registered Moriarty in New Mexico, we like to keep things simple. 

So we took 4 days and traveled back to Florida.

This worked out amazingly well.  First, we found we can quickly move across this country.  If we need to be somewhere - we can be there in just about a week.  (This involves long travel days - and for a REALLY fast trip -- driving in shifts)

More importantly - it allowed us to :

1. add a Truck Topper to Watson (yay, more storage!)
2. register Moriarty in Florida (yay, we are completely legal!)
3. check in with family (yay, family!)

We also moved some of Watson's cameras around (had to move one because of the Topper and one was removed from the back of Tiny-Holmes.  We're still not completely setup with camera yet though. Sigh).  

We could also outfit Moriarty.  Lots of security items including: 

• a battery box is a cage that prevents our batteries from (easily) being stolen. 

• Hitch locks (both for the hitch and the locking mechanism on the trailer)

• A true "hitch" lock

• A bicycle lock to allow us to remove the hitch and lock it to the trailer.

We also added :

• footstools for our couch (and even got the colors to match)

• covers for the vents 

• decorations for walls

• All kinds of other stuff I've probably forgotten.  :-)

On my side of the fence: this allowed me to carry a much larger (and more complete) tool box for those emergencies that crop up.

Not a whole lot of exciting things - but we are back on the road.  More posts to follow!