This mornings jaunt up the north coast... was a very stormy morning but theres something nice about standing in the thick of it. You can see one of the many heavy showers just passing in the second image
I was listening to Radio 4 yesterday (yeah I know, it's an age thing) and they had a piece about strangest place you've spent the night, made me think of this-i was on a solo trip around the States in 2015, seeing a few places I'd always wanted to see and missed on previous trips. Anyhow after visiting the The little big horn battle field, I headed north to travel through a couple of the Sioux reservations, it was pretty late and I stopped for fuel at a gas station come store beside the road, just inside the sioux reservation. The lady said "I only get as much fuel as I can sell in the day, and I have none left, Anyhow you shouldn't be travelling the 'Res' at night, its not safe" I was stuffed because the hired sportster had the fuel light on and there was no other gas station for 40-50 miles, so she went to the back of the store and pulled out an old wire framed camp bed and I spent the night locked in trying to sleep next to a very loud ice making machine, she warned me that if anyone tried to break in I should try to hide as I could be in "real danger"
I went down through the Pine Ridge reservation next day hoping to take some pictures but to say the atmosphere was "tense" would be putting it mildly, they had/have a very bad drugs problem all along the route there were random white crosses dotted along the verges which mark places where bodies have been dumped or fatal car wrecks have occurred its a pretty sad sight, fortunately I had no issues.
I wasn't sure whether to post these photos in the Our Pets thread or this one. But I thought these were more "random photos" than pet photos.... Mr. Sandi and I had a lovely walk with Ellie, the Boxer yesterday. Our dog walks take us past an historic (for the U.S. anyway) horse racing track called Rillito Park Racetrack which is only a five minute walk from our back gate. The racing season begins this coming Saturday and there has been more and more activity daily in preparation for opening day. Ellie is fascinated by these "big dogs" and today she was particularly curious about all the practice around horses entering and departing the starting gate. She kept it together (albeit with great effort) and behaved very well, letting out only one sharp bark at one point. We had a chat with one of the guys manning the gate who commented on Ellie. He told us that his family had had boxers when he was a kid. And now he has two sons--and three french bulldogs. It's great fun to walk over to the track and spend the afternoon both watching the races...and watching the people. The races draw an incredibly diverse cross-section of spectators from all over Tucson and Pima County. The 2020 season was about a third over when Covid shut it down. Then in 2021, racing was cancelled altogether. So everyone is quite excited and eager for the 2022 season this year! I'll be sure to post some photos when we head to the track. Oh, one interesting tidbit about Rillito Park... Both Thoroughbreds and Quarter Horses race at Rillito. I love to watch the Quarter Horses run--especially from a vantage point right on the rail. It's like drag racing on four legs. Very exciting!
