To donate to Ryves Youth Center (all money goes to them, none to me:) https://secure.qgiv.com/for/ridacrame/
For more information on Ryves Youth Center: https://ccthin.org/ryves-youth-center
This morning I got up early and left El Paso. It’s a beautiful city during the day, with the mountain looming in the background (see picture below that I took while eating my dinner yesterday afternoon). During the night the city is lit up with a million lights that shine brightly as you look down upon it when you are moving from the higher ground down to the lower ground. It was very lovely.
While I was in El Paso I thought of a little girl at a “Head Start” preschool class that I worked at in San Antonio, before I was a teacher and when I was just a classroom helper. Her family moved to El Paso while I was there and I never saw her again. But I can still remember a picture of a bear and a rabbit that she drew. I also remember that she would tell me about things that made her sad sometimes. Who do you talk to when you are sad or mad? I hope that you have someone you trust who will listen. But anyway, back to the little girl… that little girl is not little anymore…she grew up and is 17 years old now, just like all of you will be some day. And it’s OK to grow up; it happens to everybody and nobody stays little forever.
Here is a picture of a Bear and a Rabbit that the girl drwe when she was 3 or 4 years old:
While I was riding I passed by an old jail! I have worked with kids in preschool for a long time, and I know that a lot of preschoolers like to play jail and even pretend to be the “cops” who put their teachers in “jail.” When you pretend to be the cop, you can have the power to decide who goes to jail and who doesn’t when you play. It’s fun to play games where YOU get to be the one to decide what happens—even though you’ll have to take turns being the “boss” or the “cop” if you play with other people. But one important thing to understand about real jail is that it’s a grown-up place for grown-up decisions. As a little kid, you can never go there no matter what you do. But sometimes when a grown-up makes decisions that hurt other people, they have to go to jail to learn a lesson so they can try to make better choices later on. The jails we have now look a lot different from the jail in this picture—for example, they don’t always have bars like this anymore. (4 pictures follow, blog continues after them)
Guess what Cherry Chicken and I found when we were riding: Chicken Ranch Road! Cherry made me stop and take her picture by the sign. Zoom into the sign if you can. What letters can you see? The first letter should be a C, that’s the first letter in the word “Chicken”. The word that starts with an R is “Ranch” and the next word that starts with an R is “Road.” And guess what we heard on Chicken Ranch Road? A LOT of roosters crowing! Roosters are boy chickens, and they like to crow (“cock-a-doodle-do”) in the morning. But my favorite part was when I got a picture of Cherry with another chicken on that road. You’ll have to zoom in, as the chicken is waaaay behind Cherry next to the white wall. (2 pictures follow, blog continues)
I’m still out in the desert but there are at least some small trees out here, whereas back in Arizona last week there wasn’t much of that! I’m resting right now in the town of Fort Hancock, Texas, as it would be too hot right now to try to rest out in the country near Sierra Blanca, where I’ll be camping tonight. There are no stores close by and no place to stay cool. I’ll ride out there later and set up my campsite around sundown so I can get some sleep. Tomorrow I’ll ride out to Marfa, Texas where I have a Warmshowers host who is going to let me stay at his house Saturday and Sunday night!
Enjoy the rest of the pictures, and please send me any questions or comments that you have: Jack D0T DisPennett AT gmail d0t c0m
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