Chapter 17

Armadillo, it's South ... it's NOT deep south. Oklahoma should have been straight across the bottom. The panhandle has as much business being in Texas as Mexico ... and Mexico isn't in Texas.

As far as latitude, it's about the same as Knoxville, Tennessee ... it has been known to snow like a motherfucker in Knoxville. Knoxville has the benefit of Gulf winds. It gets cold in Knoxville ... but it doesn't stay cold.

Armadillo, on the other hand, has nothing between it and the North-pole except a barbed wire fence or two and some of those fences are down. Armadillo ... where diesel fuel gets so cold, it gels. When Amarillo gets cold, it stays cold.

Llano Estacado (meaning Palisaded Plains), commonly known as the Staked Plains, is a region in the Southwestern United States that encompasses parts of eastern New Mexico and northwestern Texas. One of the largest mesas or tablelands on the North American continent, the elevation rises from 3,000 feet in the southeast to over 5,000 feet in the northwest, sloping almost uniformly at about 10 feet per mile (1.9 m/km).[2] At such a gradual slope, however, the elevation change is imperceptible to the human observer. (Thanks Wiki)

Armadillo is in the northern edge of the Staked Plains. Flat takes on new meaning when it comes to the Staked Plains. Just north of Armadillo, the plains are intruded by what can only be called the foothills of the Rocky Mountains ... it's a spike in the middle of flat!

The eastern edge of the Llano looks for all the world like the edge of a Tectonic plate. A three hundred foot eroded uplift that could have been caused by geologic forces. A torn and sundered earth. Unless it was the meeting place of two kinds of rock ... the soft rock of shallow ocean bottom and the hard basalt of volcanism.

Well, you say, how did the edge appear? Runoff, baby, runoff ... lots and lots of rapid glacial melt seeking the easy way out ... BILLIONS of acre feet of melting ice: the Hudson's Bay ice cap was fifteen THOUSAND feet thick, and that's the Ice Age we know best because the evidence of previous glaciations were erased by the most recent one.

Runoff water cutting a swath a third of a continent wide, rooting out the soft sedimentary bottom of an ancient multi million year old sea.

Unless you're a Creationist and it's like that because 'God said it and I believe it and that settles it.' There's that too.

And the Sun revolves around the Earth.

Bill and Mina spent a pile of money learning to fly ... the 'Visual Flight Restriction only' license was cheap, compared to the Instrument Rating, the Multi Engine, Jet engine, the Instructor, and the Commercial Pilot.

On an irregular basis and only at need, money appeared in their account. Nobody ever claimed it was a mistake, Megan's mom was always impressed by the amount, and the twins were always surprised. They were learning.

Armadillo Junior College had a pair of high school geniuses for a semester and that, and the emancipation issued by the Great State of Texas, kept the truant officer off their backs.

The few times they were called into Dr. JimJim's office it was always a friendly request...

"How you doing?"

"Well as can be expected. We're not bored."

Chit-chat ensued. Eventually, chit-chat wound it's contorted and convoluted way around to the subject of...

"How's DD?" Dr. Jim asked.

"You know, we'd like to talk to you about that..." said Mina, as Bill held up an electronic instrument that exposed the presence of other electronic instruments ... that JimJim had NO idea were present in his office.

When ever that happened, Dr. James J. James, Ph.D. would call black headed Betty, Miss Paige of the piercings and pagan leanings, at the front desk and...

"Betty, I'm going out for lunch ... or donuts ... or coffee ... whatever." and the three would repair to Visitor Parking, where either the giant muraled Dodge, with Bill driving, or the Green Jeep, with Miss Mina behind the wheel, drove off into the sunset or sunrise, or even north or south as the mood or information struck them.

Today, the information was, as they say, Top Secret. They went to the Airport and Mike.

"Sure ... let me check out a plane for you ... lessons you say?" Mike was on the Sutherland side of local politics. The 'Ace' mechanic was a phony, and the FAA was extremely glad to come arrest him in the process of an aircraft repair. A repair that would have sent the occupants and plane spiraling into the ground.