Aaaaaaaand, I'm back in Montana, and already I have done two new things.

Yesterday for lunch, we had deer-meat hotdogs.  They were very good.  Much fatter than ye old normal hotdogs, and for some unknown reason the skin was tougher, but quite tasty.

And yesterday after lunch, Jeff took me for a ride on some manner of 4-wheeler with rollbars and mesh tie ins on the sides.  We went way up into the hills; and on the way back, I drove.  It was fun, but noisy. 

You'll never guess the exciting things we have seen on our flight across southern NM!

Tarantulas!  Big black and white hairy ones crawling across the road!  I saw about 4 or 5, and finally managed to find one where there were no cars coming, and that was crawling slowly enough that it hadn't vanished by the time we got back to where we'd seen it.  Dad took a picture and we continued on down the road.

Also fields and fields and FIELDS full of oil wells.  (Are they called derricks when it is just one of those double-hammer-headed creations that go in slow, incessant circles?)  I've seen them before, of course, but never in such profusion!  It was like looking at a herd of strange, mechanical, and somewhat standoffish cows.

Speaking of cows... whilst still in TX, I noticed that we were driving through acre after acre of unhindered, uninhabited, lushly growing grass... and here and there were tiny little fences enclosing no grass at all, yet thickly clotted with cows.

What's wrong with this picture???

It was pointed out to me that I neglected to say where 'here' is.  We're in Euliss, between Ft. Worth and Dallas.  :)

The aquarium is in Dallas.

Tomorrow morning, we leave for Nevada.

It is very easy to imagine that there are longhorn cattle shaking their horns in a cloud of dust just down the street and around the corner.  Cowboys spur their horses keeping strays in line.  

There are lots of small trail towns in Texas, and I keep imagining Louis L'Amour stories happening around me... subtract the cars and trucks, and it really does look like it could be happening today instead of 150 years ago.

We went to the aquarium here, which was absolutely stunning.  I think the one in Las Vegas has a bigger shark tank and more sharks, but this one has more everything else.  Picture a building about 4 stories high and open all down the center for the first 3.  You go in and climb up the stairs to the top while it becomes more and more jungly around you, and then go inside.  Just across the way, there is a waterfall that falls down to a 'river' below, and all around on every level are plants and trees and flowers, and birds.  There are glassed in cages tucked here and there, and wired-fenced cages, all along the way.  And some birds and monkeys just live free in the center.  You wind your way down through all of this, until you reach the river, where there are otters and turtles and frogs and toads and bats and more birds and still more birds and crocodiles (separate from the otters!) and many fish.  And more monkeys, did I mention them?  Then start going underground - first there are the deeper river denizons:  giant freshwater fish and manatees and catfish that are at least 6 feet long.  The catfish were lined up, very oddly - they all faced the glass and trailed off one behind the other as if they were waiting their turn for something.  Then you go around into the salt-water areas; then begin to climb back up the other side, which is a repeat of the descent, only with different animals and birds and amphibians and fish.  Also little tiny penguins who apparently love hot weather instead of icebergs.  It was great.

In all this, I finally have managed to figure out how to take low-light photos with my camera.  :)