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Heading West (Part III, Page 1)
November 11th - 20th, 2024
The Lincoln La Paz Meteorite Collection

Also: Trinity the Rescue Kitten - Odessa Meteor Crater - Concho, Arizona and Navajo Lava Rock and a little more DoBell Ranch Petrified Wood.

It took me several months before I returned to see my friends, Harry and Mary. I had the La Paz trinitite collection from my previous two trips. It was huge and I was still in the process of sorting out what would remain in the museum and what would be offered to the collecting public through my website; www.trinitite.net. I had decided that I really needed to acquire the La Paz meteorite collection. Not to sell, but to preserve. La Paz was a historical figure in the study of meteors and meteorites and his collection was history.

I planned my next trip to align with the Trinity Site Open house that is now held only once a year at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. It was to be open on October 19th, 2024. I had a gem show in Swannanoa, North Carolina at the end of September, and after the show, I planned to get everything together and head west once again. I would hit the Odessa Meteor Crater, then White Sands before heading on to California. Nature had other plans for me. At the beginning of my gem show, it started raining. The hurricane (Helene) that had been reeking havoc in the south had made its way into the mountains of Western North Carolina. Never in my life did I think I would see a full scale hurricane in the mountains, but here it was. Power was gone, water systems destroyed. Whole towns washed away from the flooding and thousands of peoples homes destroyed and hundreds of people and animals missing in the floods. Needless to say, my plans were put on hold. I spent the next few weeks cutting trees and hauling clean water and supplies for my relatives who needed help. I didn't want to leave to go anywhere until at least people had clean water again. The area is devastated and it will be many years before anything is ever back to normal. As I am writing this report, many rural areas are still without power and water and it has been three months since the storm!

After several weeks, water was restored and power returned to some places. My family was okay, so I began re-planning my trip. Once again I prepared for some truck stop and off road camping. I was on the road by mid November.




If you ever get a chance to visit, check out the Oak Ridge Tennessee Nuclear site. It played a big part in the Manhattan Project during WWII. I hear it has a nice museum too. I have not had a chance to visit yet.


The bridge over the Mississippi lit up in red white and blue to celebrate America.


My first un-expected adventure happened in Texas while I was traveling down I-30. I was on my way to visit the Odessa Meteor Crater since the goal of this trip was to acquire the La Paz meteorite collection.

I was in the left lane running around 85-90 mph when I thought I spotted a very tiny kitten leaning against the cement barrier in the left lane. I couldn't believe that was what I saw, but I moved to the right lane and onto the shoulder as quickly as I could. By the time I made it out of traffic, I was probably a half mile from where I saw the kitten. I backed up the shoulder a long ways, then got out and crossed the highway to the barrier. The trouble was, I am big and there was not a lot of room for me. I spent the next 20 minutes looking for the kitten. I finally decided it must have been my imagination and crossed back over and began walking back to my van.

Then I got to thinking. What if the kitten had crawled under one of the drainage openings under the barrier? As I walked along, I looked across the highway at each drainage hole. Sure enough, after a few hundred yards, I spotted the kitten huddled under the cement wall.

I crossed over again and retrieved the kitten and took it to my van. Once in the van, it immediately ran under my coat and fell asleep. I had a new pet!

I googled pet stores in the town I was near, stopped and got a few items. Cat food, water bowl, small litter box, litter, etc. I set it up in the back of the van. The kitten ate for 10 minutes straight and fell asleep with it's head in the food bowl. It's ribs were showing. Who knows how long it had been out there.



With the kitten safe. I proceeded on to the Odessa Crater in Odessa, Texas. It was a short drive off the interstate. The site has a nice visitor center and a walking path around the crater. You can take photos, but no access to the crater is allowed. I had brought them a photo of Lincoln La Paz's vehicle pulling his camper trailer. The vehicle was sitting in the bottom of the Odessa Crater in the 1930s.



The crater, which at one time was over 100 feet deep, was now maybe 15-20 feet deep. Once there, I could see how La Paz was able to drive down into the crater.


The visitor center hosted several displays with a variety of meteorites from all over the world.





Above is the photo that Harry and Mary had mailed to me. The 8" x 10" original was badly aged from being rolled up for many years. I carefully unrolled it, scanned it and did a couple hours of photoshop repair to restore the image.

I presented the restored, framed photo with a description of the La Paz camping trip to the man running the visitor center, then I went outside to get some photos. By the time I came back in, he had already mounted the framed picture in their display. Awesome!




After leaving the Odessa Crater, I found a hotel to spend the night and snuck my new friend inside with me.


Once inside, the kitten, who I had named Trinity, (I had a feeling she was a she) got her first bath. The bath lasted over 30 minutes and the poor critter was loaded with fleas. Once done, I dried her with the complimentary hotel hair dryer and made her a bed.


The next day, we were on the road early. I stopped in El Paso at a vet clinic and they checked out the kitten. They confirmed 'she was a she' and gave her another flea bath and some flea medicine. Trinity only weighed 15 ounces and was maybe 4 weeks old.




We continued on through New Mexico, no stops there since I had already missed the Trinity Open House at White Sands. We stayed on the road until late that night and made it to Yuma, Arizona, where I once again got a local hotel room and snuck Trinity into the room with me.




Yuma, like El Paso, is a city that never sleeps.



Once in the hotel room, Trinity and I spent some time running around the room and playing. (She did the running around, I watched.)




This is the last photo I took of Trinity. We were up early the next day. We got loaded up and I was maybe two or three hours from Harry's. As I was traveling over the mountains in California, I pulled over to check on her. She had been asleep in her box since we left Yuma. I picked her up and she was very limp and disoriented. I called a vet. They sent me to a location that turned out to be closed. I then took her to the vet I called the first time and they refused to treat her and sent me to another vet in Chula Vista. She passed away before I got there. I don't know why. Some underlying problem from the fleas, or maybe she was injured inside from being thrown out on the highway. At least she didn't spend her last days terrified on the side of a highway alone. She ate good and had a friend.

The La Paz Meteorite Collection

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