Queen of the Wild Frontier

Greetings from a small town in the middle of Texas, where the locals are friendly, yet slightly obsessed with Davy Crockett. The Lone Star State redeemed itself a bit on the drive from New Mexico with continued desert, mountains and the all important semi-clean rest areas, complete with large, blinking signs warning patrons to watch for snakes. Also, the speed limit in these parts is 80 mph. Fun!

We pulled off the highway and found a playground for Max. Unfortunately there were no kids for him to play with, but there was a purple dinosaur and lots of aging metal structures to climb and get tetanus on.

Speaking of tetanus, next to our hotel is a colony of feral kitties. Poor things. I walked over to have a look,crumbled up a few dog biscuits I had in the back of the car, and noticed half-a-dozen cats perched on rocks and garbage.

So we drove down the street and bought some water and a bag of cat food. As I walked towards the brush, I noticed the colony was probably closer to a dozen cats, most of them still kittens, wild-eyed gaunt and scared. This little grey tiger is a total sweetheart. His friend the black long-haired was also friendly, so I can only assume between their demeanor and the empty, open pizza boxes laying about that other people have left food for the cats as well. The other kittens hid in the brush behind the fence, and only came out to eat and drink when I backed away.