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  We got an early start Wednesday morning because when I talked to my boss Ken the previous evening, he informed me that the alpaca needed to be back at the farm for sheering. You see, alpaca sheering skills are not common. Anywhere. These particular practitioners of the sheering arts hail from Australia and they travel the globe doing their thing, but we will get to that another time. So my marching orders(driving orders?) were Cleveland Ohio to North Yarmouth Maine that day. Julia and I had planed to spend the night around Albany and get home Thursday just to take it easy, I forgot that this is/was work. Lots of rolling highway and trees, lovely lovely trees. I will admit to getting vertigo as often the ground along the road dropped off quite precipitously. Traffic picked up once we hit the Mass Pike and the second bit of irksome stop and go delays were met on 495 North around Acton Massachusetts. After a stop at home to drop off my delightful traveling companion, Julia had had quite enough of the road, thank you very much, I pulled up to the barn around 8:00 to disgorge my charges. There was a festive mood at the farm that evening not for my return but because it was sheering day. I learned sheering day is an spectators event, and if you make it a party, you can get some free labor. As I made my departure for home and not being able to ask the alpaca directly, I gathered that the running, leaping and general frolicking, that the mules were as happy to be off the road as I was.

The Road Less Traveled

Tuesday dawned bright and sunny - nice. Water and hay for the mules, apples from the front desk for the humans - nice. WAGONS HO! Too much? Whatever. We chose to stay north, wisely as it turns out, because there were so few cars on the roads. Passing south of Chicago,(Chi-town, The Windy City, The City of Big Shoulders) was one of two incidences of irksome traffic encountered by our intrepid travelers. The Illinois Highway Commission in their infinite wisdom decided to work on all the bridges on both sides of the road at once. Clearly the members of said commission do not travel by automobile, or perhaps they are inept as well as corrupt. Funny fact about the Land of Lincoln or The Prairie State, is that if you have been elected Governor of Illinois, the odds of your going to prison are greater than if you commit the crime of murder. I suggest you, the reader, do neither, however that is just my opinion. Many of the rest stops have facilities for R/S which include  water, in our case the alpaca and only twice did I require the kindness of the maintenance staff to provide the life sustaining liquid. As the afternoon wained and the miles ticked past, we flirted with the thunder storms that had been shadowing our journey across our fruited plains and happily they graciously chose not to dampen our path or spirits. Running out of steam for the day we exited in Willoughby Ohio where among the room renting establishments listed was one of the partners in the Choiceprivileges thingy mentioned in a previous entry and we were keen to find out if our third night was in fact free. Fate intervened in that the hotel was farther from the highway than out comfort level allowed compelling us to select better situated lodgings in an unaffiliated inn. The quality of the hotel was slightly less than the first two, but I assure you my friends we have stayed in much worse. [a shudder passes through the soul of the author] The restaurant next to the hotel in question was wicked half decent, the house made gnocci were palatable and how far astray can one go with pizza? After a post repast nightcap it was into the rejuvenating arms of Morpheus for us indeed! Too much?

Windmills, road work and more road work

Monday we stopped for the night outside Iowa city in a town called Williamsburg, at least that's what it said on the hotel bill. Each day started out with filling gallon jugs with water from the bathtub and topping off hay and water for the mules (it's an affectionate term) before hitting the road. Every two or three hours we would stop to water the animals and get gas. As the title of this post suggests there were lots of wind mills and lots of road work. It would be a theme all the way home, the road work not so much the wind mills. Fifty miles of open highway than fifty miles of road work or at least thats how it felt. Summer work season and stimulus money I suppose. The hotel in North Platte did not have the laundry facilities we had hoped for so we stopped at a Target around Des Moines for a few clothing items and snacks. Through no planning on our part, the hotel in Williamsburg was a "spa/indoor water park". It has nothing do to do with the story but I just thought I'd mention it. We ate some not very good dinner in the hotel eatery, did some laundry (thank goodness) and went to bed.

Cows & Road kill

We made it to North Platte that Sunday. Traveling along Route 80, a two lane highway with light traffic, what you see are rolling plains dotted with cows. Darting always across the road are Red winged black birds, some times called "Sargent Major" birds for their shoulder stripes. And yes, there was road kill, lot's of it, all the way and not just out west but the whole way home. The game of "guess the carrion" got old after just the first few hours as it was mostly raccoon. Mixed in were deer, opossum, various birds, skunks, porcupine and beavers; that's right, beavers. That was about all the excitement there was. Julia passed the time looking for National Public Radio shows on the terrestrial, satellite or i-phone radios. What?...we happen to enjoy most of NPR programs, but they can keep their opera, thank you very much. I don't like to drive at night as I have only one eye that functions for sight, due to a childhood accident, so as we neared North Platte we spotted a Comfort Inn right off the highway and checked in. Before leaving home Julia had found a "choiceprivileges"membership I had joined which is a group of eleven hotels that offers discounts to card holders, the Comfort Inn is one of those hotels. I have no idea when or why I signed up for this membership. As it happens the group, undoubtedly owned by the same corporation, was running a special; stay in two separate properties get a night free in a third. Sweet. After topping off the water and hay for the alpaca, we walked around the immediate area looking for food. A chinese restaurant (closed on sundays), a Taco Joe's fast food place (about to close) and gas station/convenience store/bank(go figure). Burgers in the hotel room microwave, a glass of scotch and good night.

Tardy Update

It's like this. The journey from Denver to Maine with ten alpaca was wholly uneventful, smooth as silk, nice like rice and dandy like candy. Oh yea, internet access is a bit sketchy across the vast country that is the USA. That being said here is how it went.

It was nice seeing cousin Andrew and catching up with our lives, some happy some not so much. I did not much care for the high desert plains but Andrew assures me the climate is quite pleasant. On Sunday we went to the Western National Complex to collect the alpaca. After arriving by taxi I phoned my boss, Ken, to find out if we needed passes or anything to get in. His instructions were to act like we knew what we were doing, so we did. I am sure the event was open to the public but it was not heavily attended, but to be fair it was the end of the last day of the show. The beasts were housed in an unadorned cinder block and cement low ceilinged space. Hundreds of alpaca both Suri and Huacaya held in small fenced-in temporary pens with a bedding of corrugated cardboard "straw, glitzy it was not. Many of the alpaca were being shorn, which involves tying them down for everyones safety, more on that later. We located the Suripaco Farm stall and I was handed an animal and instructed to accompany Ken into the ring to show three of our contestants, Adella, Dania and Eva. They are all about eight months old. As with much of my animal husbandry education it was sink or swim, I swam but it was not rocket science. We won sixth out of twelve and third out of six in a category called Get Of Sire, three offspring from the same sire(daddy) as a show of consistency in quality. Its all about the fiber baby. Suripaco farm also got an honorary award for longest distance traveled. Some time between 3:00 and 3:30 we collected the trailer, broke down the show booth, loaded up and rolled out. We had our original seven animals, two more that were purchased in Denver and we stopped to pick up Silken some thirty miles down the road.

disclamer

I seem to have co-opted Julia's blog, however I leave it to the readers to determine who's entry is who's

Denver

Nothing of note to report on the flight out, although we upgraded to business class. I fear I am ruined for economy class. We'll be "mucking around" in Denver today and lunching with my cousin Andrew. We learned of a lounge in a Hyat on the 27rd floor, should be some nice views... perhaps the i-phone is not the best source for panoramic photos.

It begins

Okay, we are at the Portland International Jetport awaiting our flight to Denver and already things have changed. Due to an outbreak of equine herpes virus, deadly and incurable, we will not be taking on camelid passengers in Ohio as planned. While there is no direct evidence of cross species infection, alpaca are susceptible so why take the chance.

First stop Atlanta!

Back Story)

Ok, here's the skinny, I have unwittingly been employed in "old timey" jobs for almost my entire working life. By the way, I am Julia's husband Peter. Along the way I have built houses, been a commercial fisherman (sea urchins and lobsters) and boat builder. Mostly I have been a carpenter/wood worker and figured that would be that. Man plans and the universe laughs. One year almost to the day after I was laid off due to the most recent recession, with my unemployment benefits at an end, I was offered a job on an Alpaca farm. Animal husbandry had not been on my radar screen but what the 'hay', why not. There is also, by the way, an 800 vine vineyard on the Suripaco farm (suripaco.com) which it seems is now my baby. So, but for fossil fuels, all work that has been carried out for thousands of years. Old timey, yes?

Beginning the Blog

Hi - May 10th.   This is the first blog I have ever attempted.  Be patient and I will gladly accept any insight, suggestions and help that anyone can offer.

Very soon we will be embarking on an adventure with some adorable and silly Alpaca traveling 2100 miles across the country.  I hope to detail and share pictures and stories as we make this wonderful trek.