Firstly, I always re-read my previous post before beginning the next in an effort to ensure some form of flow and continuity! Having done this, I felt it came across with an air of negativity toward our time in the US to date – polar opposite from the reality of it… In an attempt to dissect why that may have been, I can only surmise that with such strong similarities between our two nations (Australia & USA), I’ve found the most fodder in those experiences that differ, hence providing an edge to pick at and muse about, not forgetting my love of sarcasm!

So for my American friends out there, of which the number is growing exponentially, I hope you can laugh along with the observations from a convict descendant that calls an island a long way away his home as we indulge ourselves in the fabulous land you call home.

Now for the close encounters!

On the aforementioned island home of ours, we’re no strangers to out of this world contact. Unfortunately, these remarkable happenings generally seem to occur to people whom don’t like to visit a dentist and for some reason are always on a lonely stretch of highway where along with their toothless kin and unfortunate lack of skill with a camera they become first point of contact for these interstellar visitors. Travelling distances that we are unable to comprehend, I imagine there must be a rather large collective sigh and shake of the head and/or appendages within the cockpit as a gloomy acceptance dawns –“what a waste of time and wear and tear on the warp drive that journey was!”

So now in East Texas, we found ourselves camped on a fishing lake with a boat ramp and enjoyed watching the local comings and goings.

They launched their craft and opened the throttles as wide as they would go, heading off to their secret fishing spots. The noise of the outboards and Airboats on their rev limiters, the local landholder about a hundred metres in the other direction with stereo blaring and unloading every firearm he had in rapid succession, really made for a lovely relaxing atmosphere!  It was pretty relaxing actually!!

With a few lines baited and taught in the lake, a couple fishing just near us made comment that it’s illegal to shoot out onto the lake as they had also noticed the D-day re-enactment close by! That comment provided the catalyst for them to engage us in conversation! The first question was:

Where are you from?

“Australia”

Question number 2 – “Y’all Christians?”

I did think about responding that well… “We’re people of Science, really” (as taken from the movie “Paul”) but hey, we were in East Texas with D-day playing out in the background so…

“Yes! Absolutely” was the appropriate answer!

Anyway we chatted for quite a while and at the conclusion of the discussion, I made for the Mac and quickly typed the general content of the conversation so as not to forget anything! It’s a bit wordy and excuse the lack of flow, but here it is roughly verbatim! Whilst I found it fascinating you may not! So if you’d rather move on, then scroll down to the dot point to skip!

Lake Limestone Experience!

Met a couple fishing, he is 63 (2016)

When he was 15, he got up early to go hunting between the house and the barn. (Liked it more than his brothers and they wouldn’t get up early) He heard the chickens going nuts and looked around – a bright light appeared like a beam of white along the ground but you could look right at this really bright light and it didn’t hurt your eyes. It was 3 UFO’s; as they flew above him absolutely silently he could see the upside down triangular shaped windows and lights that appeared from a control panel inside. Couldn’t make out the occupants however and after a brief period of time, the light disappeared and they flew away absolutely silently.

*****

Down along the river one night they were fishing. Upstream a little, there was some chanting coming from a group of people around a massive fire – Satan worshippers most likely – (apparently there are huge trees in the area and they were burning one or more) and they were speaking some sort of foreign or other language.  After a while the massive fire was extinguished absolutely instantaneously – I mean instantaneously! Then suddenly a huge UFO around 100 yards long rose from the site and hovered in a spot in the sky absolutely silently for some time before he noticed another UFO coming from the opposite direction and they both met and joined in mid air before instantaneously, silently departing together.

*****

The Giants mentioned in the Bible have been breeding! Each time they breed, their offspring are smaller and smaller until they are able to mimic humans, then they breed with us and slowly they have been able to dilute our pure blood – this is Satan’s army of sorts, for God needs pure human blood to defeat Satan. Any contaminant in our bloodline renders us unable to fight Satan’s army.

Aliens are fallen angels! They are also the offspring of the Giants and that’s why the ones found at Roswell are so small – it’s taken generations of giants breeding to create such small alien looking offspring. The only reason they are able to die is because they are part human due to their interbreeding with humans and dilution of their blood with human blood. Otherwise we would not be able to destroy them. He has seen thousands of UFO’s flying in Vic formation across the skies!

*****

Satan’s goal is to suck the power out of the United States.

Barack Obama is a Muslim and sits on some sort of iron throne along with some sort of chalice – (he was losing me by now…)

*****

God flooded the earth to kill the fallen angel half-breeds (Noah’s ark)

Apparently the word Giant hasn’t been translated correctly from (we think she said Hebrew Bible) but it actually means fallen ones – ie – Angels.

Webbed feet and suction cups on the hybrid Angels by the way (i.e. aliens in the spacecraft).

The UFO’s are demonic activity (hence piloted by fallen angels).

His wife wasn’t afraid of Satan’s army because her belief in God protects her from Demonic activity and that the Masons believe that Lucifer is the true Son of God!

*****

The aliens have been abducting thousands of Americans and impregnating them with their demon babies before re-abducting them to remove the foetus so that they are able to dilute the pure human blood line and reduce the amount of warriors against the small giant fallen angel demon army.

*****

US Air Force Colonel Willingham, on an escort mission in 1955 in Langtree (“the second Roswell”), was alerted to an incoming aircraft travelling at 2000 miles an hour and was tasked with observing it – he saw it crash and was told to break away from the bomber escort and investigate. He saw a half buried disk that had crashed and went on to report that. His life was threatened in order to maintain the secrecy. However he and another pilot took a private aircraft and landed at the site but there were Mexican military all around the crashed craft with guns. He managed to talk his way out of being shot and even managed to souvenir a small piece of the alien craft along with a quick glimpse of the small large-headed, thin-armed dead creatures in the craft! He later tried to destroy this small piece he ‘d souvenired by burning and angle grinding with no success (I’m not sure how he managed to obtain the piece! If it was that strong how did it separate from the main craft???) Anyway later on in 1969, he was in Japan with the Air Force and decided to make everything public and subsequently had his military records expunged as if he’d never existed along with him losing his entitlements and pension. (It’s worth a Google!…)

*****

Those con trails you see appearing behind jet aircraft – well, they are actually trails of chemicals being sprayed all over the population in order to control and manage them. Along with fluoride, it is another contaminant designed by the government to poison us! Even with a filter you soak it up when showering!

*****

Well that’s a quick assessment of our chat! They were really nice folk and invited us back to their ranch to stay with them, a lovely offer! Unfortunately we weren’t going in that direction – I don’t know which direction their ranch was, but it wasn’t where we were going!!

• Phew!! That was intense!!!!…You can Rejoin Now!!!

Departing Lake Limestone it was easy to forget where we were, with flattening dry terrain and long stretches of empty tarmac you could easily have been forgiven for confusing our location with outback Western Australia or Central Queensland!

I’d been noticing for a while now that our solar charge was down quite substantially and with full sunshine there was obviously an issue somewhere! That’s the problem when you build things yourself – you can’t blame anyone!!

After spending some time diagnosing the problem, we found the fault. With diagnosis complete, it took about 2 minutes to sort it out and electricity from the sun flowed freely again! A mandatory requirement if you like cold beer and prefer to camp quietly…

Palo Duro Canyon State Park for a night was our next stop before heading into Amarillo.

Amarillo is famous for wind and we weren’t let down. I was expecting to see children flying vertically towards the ionosphere given the strength of the gusts, but after enquiring with a local, he replied that it wasn’t really windy, just normal and pointed out that if it’s not windy in Amarillo, you should be worried!!

An unusual city – it has the feeling of having been plonked in the middle of a very big and extremely flat paddock – guess that’s part of the reason for the windy lifestyle.

Checking out “Trip Advisor” and looking at the top 10 things to do as we enter a new area, generally reveals “visit the Museum” as number 1 followed by “the Aquarium” then the “Old Town Centre” and generally goes down hill from there! Well we chose to visit the “Jack Sisemore’s RV Museum” in Amarillo and whilst it might not be to everyone’s taste, it proved to be quite an outstanding collection!

Leaving Amarillo we went west on Old Route 66 and completed the mandatory graffiti session visit at “Cadillac Ranch!“

The skies looked extremely ominous and a check of the forecast revealed active tornado warnings further east and that was the only catalyst required to get us moving west!

A visit to Fort Sumner and the Grave of Billy the Kid! An odd thing to do possibly, as I was under the impression he was a rather ruthless murderer, but sometimes you have to be tourists!

We detoured a considerable distance south to visit Roswell and while you’re probably over alien stories by now, I’ll throw in some pics and stop typing for a minute.

Roswell is certainly a city living vicariously through its past but it was a hoot!! Reminds me of Silverton in NSW where Mad Max was filmed – draining it for every last dollar!!

We had a couple of really interesting campsites around the area however and one night in particular ,we were enthralled by the howling of Coyote’s, quite spooky in the darkness!

We continued on to the touted “most original wild west town in the US”of Lincoln, New Mexico and we were still on the trail of “The Kid!” Lincoln is the town where the young outlaw began to achieve his notoriety.

As you wander the town, information boards provide great insight into the goings on during those days. It would seem that “Billy the Kid” was rather harshly dealt with by an extremely corrupt system back in those days and may well have been justified in some of his actions – in my quick assessment anyway! Certainly a much deeper background to his story than I was previously aware.

Leaving Lincoln, we made west then north through New Mexico and while sticking to dusty trails, you could almost feel the gunslingers presence as the odd ruin appeared on the landscape. Colourful streetscapes, ancient ruins and even a lava field were to feature in our travels.

Here we came head to head with an old 45 Series Land Cruiser from Queensland, imported to the US by it’s current owner, Carter, whom was just as surprised to see our Aussie registered Patrol as we were to see the US tag on his old girl!

We found some great campsites as we ventured northward, but it was quite early in the day and with a harsh wind laden with dust, we decided to move on!

What may be obvious to those of you whom live in the shadow of snow and the weather that creates it, was not overly obvious to us sun bathed Sand Gropers!! Gaining in altitude and noticing quite unusual cloud formations cutting our path, we carried on none the wiser and even decided to head up into a mountain range to camp! In fairness we were looking for a little cooler mountain weather as who doesn’t prefer the “snuggled up under the doona” feeling to the musky odour of sweaty pheromones all night!

Anyway no sooner had we arrived at a suitable campsite and the small hail began! Very blue sky and shorts an hour earlier, we were now looking for thermals whilst the dusty wind of the lower lands a few hours earlier, now seemed a little more alluring.

By far, however, the most interesting part of the evening was at the point we were about to retire. With the heater running, we’d been engrossed in our little habitat and remained completely ignorant to the state of affairs outside our little house and upon opening the curtains and flicking on the outside lights, were staggered to see what was nearing a blizzard of snow swirling around in the light! With a couple of inches of snow now on the bonnet and the land taking on the appearance of an Alpine Mountain in mid winter, closing the curtains and worrying about it in the morning seemed the best option!

We stopped by Albuquerque for a wander of the old town! Turning right at an intersection here and having right of way (I checked the rules again afterward to make sure I was in the right) a rough looking pedestrian walked straight out in front of us and proceeded to pull a hammer from his slightly stained gym shorts and began brandishing it toward us! I guess he felt empowered to cross at will regardless of the lights and I was more than happy to let him have his way! Maybe he thought better of it when he saw the crash camera recording his actions!!! It’s quite amusing to watch back!

The old part of Albuquerque was rather attractive with strong Mexican influence in the architecture and in many of the food options on offer. Flat roofed earthy buildings with exposed beams protruding from the render. I suppose why it’s called “New Mexico”

A visit to the acclaimed petroglyph site near town proved utterly disappointing but was soon made up for after we departed Albuquerque.

After quite a few U-turns and some creative map reading, we managed to locate an old section of Route 66 – a lesser known set of switchbacks dating to 1928 that ascended the ….. plateau. It was an extremely eroded track that had the Patrol doing what it does best! A real bonus to visiting this area was the discovery of vast numbers of awesome Petroglyphs just off the side of the trail!

Santa Fe saw us negotiating more airborne snow and further north, the beginning of the Colorado Plateau! Departing the red and brown hues of the landscape, the ascent north into Colorado quickly captivated the eye with a hint of snow once again sitting upon the mountains and the beautiful green that only dense forest can provide.

Mesa Verde National Park in Southern Colorado was truly outstanding! Ancestral Puebloan Indian houses and cliff dwellings litter the landscape all through the Four Corners region of Colorado, Utah, Arizona and undoubtedly elsewhere! Generally thought to be around 800 years old, these sites were not discovered until the mid to late 1800’s and were built under naturally eroded cliff overhangs. Due to their sheltered locations and frequent orientation away from the prevailing weather, many of the structures have been protected from the harmful erosive effects of the elements and are in absolutely remarkable condition.

BLM (Bureau of Land Management) and National Forest lands encompass an exhilarating range of terrains and in most cases allow what is called dispersed camping (camping in nature, on your own, with no facilities!). Finally we can once again free and wild camp in the manner that we love most, connect with the environment, spot the wildlife and soak it up! It is also a pleasant break from having to listen to other people’s generators (which I have a passionate disdain for), music and morning rituals in an RV park!

Praise where it’s due, almost every campsite we’ve used in areas belonging to the BLM or National Forest (the Australian equivalent would be State Forest or Crown Land) has been absolutely pristine, which gives way to an understanding that the American traveller is very respectful of his environment, which is really wonderful and heartwarming to see.

With such a strong ethos of pack it in and pack it out and leave nothing but footprints, I found it a little odd, however, that when you purchase groceries at an outlet such as Wal-Mart, the checkout operator will pack your bags for you and, should you not intervene, you’re likely to depart with close to a plastic bag per item! I’ve no doubt that, eventually, the US will fall in line with the no bag policies of Europe, as we’re doing in Australia!

Overland Expo was sneaking up on us and required our attendance in Arizona in the coming weeks. With no desire to rush our travels, we began to curve southwest so as not to be left with a last minute dash to meet the deadline, but not before we got our first taste of Utah!!! WOW!!!

Next – Landscapes that defy description as we make for Overland Expo and an unexpected rendezvous!

For now Justin…