Family and friends.

The 4th of July was great.  We had a break in the heat wave (highs in the upper 70's) and wind and got to spend some really good time with family and old friends.  In some cases there were years of catching up to do, one bull session went on for almost eight solid hours.

I was also able to make arrangements with a body shop to do some work on Big Gulp.  Clay Garrison at Body Shop, Inc. got me in on short notice and fixed one fender flair that was barely hanging by a thread and beefed up the other so that it would not do the same thing.  Thanks, Clay.

When Saturday the 6th rolled around and we found ourselves needing to get packed up for traveling on Sunday, it seemed all too soon.  If our plans stay on track, it will be a year before we pass this way again.

By Saturday afternoon the wind and heat were back.  Our little spot in the park was broadside to the wind and it was shaking the camper like it was rolling down the road.  We got everything squared away for a quick departure in the morning, nice and early before the heat takes over.

But before I conclude my posts from Borger I have some pictures from our old stomping grounds.  Just north of town is the Canadian River.  It transects the Texas Panhandle as it enters from New Mexico on the west and departs into Oklahoma on the east.  Borger is perched on the south side of the river atop what are known as the Canadian River Breaks, it is where the table-flat farm fields give way to rugged little canyons that are tributaries that feed the river.  It is essentially a shallow, and dry Grand Canyon.

For those of us growing up here, the Canadian was to us what the Mississippi was to Huck Finn.  Every hour we could steal away would be spent hiking, riding motorcycles or driving stripped and modified cars and pickups that we called river buggy's, in those canyons.

These things looked like holy Toledo but they would boogy on down the sandy river bottom.

Yep, that's me on the rare occasion of a little water being in the river on the downstream side of the lake.

Cyndee and I in one of the side-canyons of Lake Meredith. circa 1973.

The variety of spiders and insects down in the breaks is unbelievable.

This little guy was hot footin' it across the asphalt when we were practicing for the driving test.  These horned toads were abundant when I was a kid but are now endangered.  We got him over to the other side of the road and sent him on his way.

The mound you see here had the top of it opened up in the late 70's by an archeological team.  They recovered artifacts from a small village that was estimated to have been inhabited 10,000 years ago.

Sunrise on the Canadian

Remember me opining about sunsets in previous posts.  Not any more, it is like this every evening.



This is not Borger on the horizon, it is the refinery and chemical complex that is the economic engine of the area.

Upstream of Lake Meredith there are organized weekend sand drag competitions.



On this end of the river, above the dam, there is a little more water to play in.