Nature – Page 10 – Birding Boomers

Guilty Pleasures in Florida

August 7, 2015joannie65354 Comments

Last month’s post on our visit to Fairbanks (here) put me in mind of a couple places we visited in Florida last winter that I think of as “guilty pleasures”. You know the kind of place I’m talking about – places you do not necessarily tell your friends you’re going to visit but you go anyway just because it’s fun or quirky and, what can I say, it’s American.

Now, I’m not including the Fairbanks stops in that category….just meant that writing the blog reminded me of the places in Florida.

So, I’m not talking about museums or historical sites or places of cultural significance that are “good” for you. I’m talking about all the other places we humans tend to love so much. Think about it. These are the places that lure you in with a thousand and one roadside signs and billboards tell you that you absolutely must stop and see them when you’re on the road.

On the one hand, if you have traveled at all in the south, you will have had to have seen a few barns painted with “See Rock City” on the side (or roof) and you know you wanted to go. Admit it.

But Rock City is actually a very lovely garden on the top of Lookout Mountain near Chattanooga in Tennessee and you really should go there…and you don’t have to feel the least bit guilty…there are scenic views and geology and flowers and birds and nature and history….nothing chintzy at all (at least when I was there about 30 years ago).

But let’s take it down one level – remember the last time you traveled down Interstate 95 between North Carolina and South Carolina. Yep, you guessed it – South of the Border!

Some years ago, I used to run that route regularly on my way home to Georgia and every time, I’d see those signs…for miles I’d see those signs telling me I just had to stop at South of the Border. They really must put those signs up at least fifty miles in advance of the place because you cannot possibly miss them. If you’ve been on 95, then you’ve passed South of the Border.

And the signs were all “Mexico”. You couldn’t be any further away from Mexico (physically or culturally) but you’d have thought you were right there getting ready to cross the Rio Grande in Texas. And it would be a totally kitschy Mexico. Now, every time I’d get taken in by those signs and I’d promise myself that one day I was gonna take that exit and I was going to see what all the hubbub was about there just over the South Carolina line. And, so I did. And, it was just exactly what I’d expected…giant souvenir shops and a couple restaurants all decorated very badly with plastic cacti and lots of sombreros. I bought a bunch of tacky things (made in Japan at that time but probably Malaysia these days) with a southwest motif. I also ate a few bad tacos and just about had a good time. It might have been a little better if there at actually been something real there to see…..you know a museum or a battlefield or something…but there wasn’t (at that time). But, you can bet that, when I got back home, I told everyone all about my trip down south but somehow never quite mentioned that little foray “South of the Border”. It’s just the way it is with guilty pleasures…you do it, you enjoy it for what it is and forget about what it isn’t.

Now, you know the truth. I’m easy prey (like many others I’m betting) for any of these places – roadside petting zoos, giant balls of twine, fake dinosaurs, huge rocking chairs, big rocks with names painted on them…..you name it, I’ve probably found myself heading in that direction. At least I did when I was younger and looked for such wonderful quirky things at every bend in the road. Now, I’m older and I am much more sophisticated and I go only to the best places and spend most of my time pondering the mysteries of the universe and gazing thoughtfully at works of art at only the best museums. Right?

Wrong! I’m still a sucker for a little kitsch now and then.

So, last winter, I had a long list of places to visit while we were in Florida sweating out the days until it stopped snowing back home. My list mostly included preserves and refuges and wetlands where the birding would be awesome and I’d, no doubt, see amazing birds and I would learn so much about wildlife and all things natural in Florida. But right smack dab in the middle of my list were a couple of places that just didn’t quite fit into the category of “learning experiences” or “nature excursions”. These were my guilty pleasures of the trip.

The first place involved birds so I can take a little bit of credit. It did involve us “seeing” the birds so I suppose I could call it “bird watching” but I’d never get away with calling it “birding”. And it involved this beautiful pink bird that is native to Florida….well, sorta.

If you want to see flamingos in the wild, you might have to go to South America or Cuba and do a bit of roughing it in Eco-lodges……at least you’d stay in places a tad bit more rustic than Sarasota…which is where we were going to see flamingos. Yes, I know there are some wild flamingos in Florida and I intend to go looking for them the next time I visit the state but, that would have to wait. I had other plans related to flamingos. I mean, seriously, why wait? You cannot just go anywhere and feed the flamingos, can you? Well, yes you can…..if you go to Sarasota Jungle Gardens.

I had heard all about this place and I had checked it out on the internet and I figured it was a tourist trap if ever there was one. And, it does attract quite a few visitors every year. Now, normally, we do not go to gardens or parks or zoos where animals and birds are caged…just cannot take the thought of all those beautiful creatures that are no longer free to live out their lives in their native habitat. And, no, an artificial habitat is not an animal’s native home no matter how much it is prettified up to be or how big (by zoo standards) it seems to be. A three hundred square foot enclosure is never ever gonna be the Pantanal in Africa…no arguing about it…never gonna happen.

But, I had heard that this garden had flamingos and that the birds roamed around the garden (relatively freely) and for a small fee, you could buy a bag of food and you could actually feed the flamingos. That’s right, you walk up and hold out your hand and the birds would walk right up and eat out of your hands. And, of course, you could take pictures to your little heart’s content getting extreme close ups of the birds after you fed them. So, even if you got to see a flamingo in the wild, chances are you would not get a great photo without some serious glass (birders lingo for scopes, binoculars, and camera lens….see, I do pretend to be a serious birder sometimes and I use the language when I think I might sound more impressive).

You know I had to go. And so we locked the address into the GPS and we headed into downtown Sarasota and circled the block until we found the place and traffic let up enough that we could make that left-hand turn into the parking lot and then we were there…..just like traveling in the wilds of South America.

Now, I have to admit, I was excited and ready to feed some flamingos. But Jerry was pretty cool. He’s not the type to succumb to guilty pleasures on vacation like I am and he really doesn’t like to see birds caged up but he was going to do it for me because he knew that I was totally stoked at the thought of getting that close to flamingos.

So he wasn’t going to participate when I bought the bags of food….and he wasn’t going to participate as we walked through the gardens (actually pretty nice) noting the macaws in cages and the iguana laying on the attendant’s shoulders….

…..and he wasn’t going to participate as we went looking for the flamingos…..and he wasn’t going to participate when we found the birds and I started feeding the flamingos or, as they surrounded me and queued up for the food…….

…..and he wasn’t going to participate as I took photos of them sleeping standing up or, as I talked to the birds and tried to pet them (they drew the line at my trying to pat them on the head, etc.)…..and he wasn’t going to participate almost up until I was just about out of food…

…..then, he shrugged and said, “what the heck”, gave into the urge and said that maybe he might just feed a bird or two….you know, as long as he was there anyway.

So, I shared some food from the last bag and we spent some peaceful and happy moments in the warm Florida sunshine surrounded by pink flamingos (and a few white ibises) nibbling at the food from our hands not caring one iota that this was touristy and somewhat tacky and not in the least up to the “standards” for seeing and appreciating birds in the wild. It wasn’t superb or marvelous or educational….it was just plain fun.

Fun… like my second guilty pleasure of the trip. This one would be the last place we visited in Florida and involved orange groves and a swamp buggy.

Like everyone else in the US, I have consumed gallons of orange juice and eaten a many an orange in my time and most of them came from Florida. Since I grew up in Georgia, and, while we could certainly get oranges from California, most of the ones we bought came (and still come) from Florida. When I had visited Florida in the past, we had driven past orange groves and I thought it would be nice to just leave the road and drive off down through the groves, just meander thought the fields and check things out…maybe pick an orange or two and enjoy the good Lord’s bounty in a garden.

But you cannot just go free wheeling down through someone’s farm without violating some property laws and maybe even getting yourself shot at by some farmer who just might not understand your need to meander and see where the oranges are grown.

Now, on to the swamp buggies. Down near the Everglades, back in the day (who’s day I am not sure but it was way before my time and maybe around the time they started building the Tamiami Trail), a mode of transportation was developed for riding through and working in the Everglades. The vehicle they came up with sort of looks like a jeep with big, big wheels – humungous wheels….you know, tall enough and thick enough for driving through the tall sawgrass and swampwater in the ‘Glades (aren’t you now impressed with that?…just picking up the local slang). So I had seen these behemoths and I wanted to ride one of them. It was right up there on my list with riding on one of those flat john-boats with the big fans on the back that Jerry now tells me are more properly called airboats.

So, in my research and planning, I had found a place on the internet (Farmer John’s Showcase of Citrus) that offered swamp buggy rides through citrus groves. See, I could kill two birds with one stone or, at least, see two birds in one bush or something like that. Of course, you know the place was right outside Orlando and catered to all those folks who just couldn’t spend another day with Disney and were looking for something different to do. Farmer John’s was the place. You gotta know that I knew this place was not going to be a visit to a working organic farm where you could pick your own oranges (although you can if the season is right and the oranges are ripe) and work the earth and end your vacation feeling that you had given a few hours labor that somehow contributed to the gross national product and the economy of Florida. Nope, it was gonna be and, in fact, is another tourist trap…..and it was right there at the top of my list.

Well, the “tour” turned out to be just as expected. The swamp buggy turned out to be more like an old school bus on gigantic wheels…which was just as cool as a jeep in its own way. The farm was a real working cattle farm with citrus groves and we did, indeed, get to ride out through the orchards and see hundreds of trees, some of which still had fruit from the last season waiting to be harvested, and some of which were blooming and smelled wonderful.

And to make it educational, the ride came with a tour guide who entertained us with a history of the family-owned farm and what color oranges really are in their native land (green) and a few bad jokes like, “Orange you glad we didn’t get stuck in the swamp and have to walk through the water back past that big ole hungry alligator?”

Yes, there was a nice wide creek/swampy area right in the middle of the property complete with its own resident alligator that we rode through slowly swaying from side to side as the tires cut through the mud and got stuck (momentarily) in holes here and there along the way.

But it wasn’t my birthday and I didn’t get to drive the buggy through the fields like the one lady did because it was, in fact, her birthday. But you had better believe that next time anyone asks me on a tour if it is my birthday, I’m gonna say, “Yes, why yes it is”, loudly and strongly just in case it might mean I get to drive a tractor or swamp buggy.

But this time I didn’t so next time I’ll know….if you go to a tourist trap and you want the full experience, you should volunteer. Now, you might end up on stage doing something totally embarrassing but, then again, you might just get to drive a really cool swamp buggy. Okay, let me change my plan on that – if I’m outside in or on a cool vehicle like a tractor, I’ll volunteer; if I’m inside and there’s a stage, then I’ll just keep my hands down and my mouth shut……but I’ll keep my memories about my all those guilty pleasures.

Alaska Tour Part 2 – Fairbanks

July 25, 2015joannie65355 Comments

I’d like to say we explored Fairbanks…to say that we found all those special places you find when you have the time to explore and really get to know a place. But I cannot. Our time in Fairbanks (and every other Alaska city we visited) was way too brief and mostly spent with the tour group at the usual tour sites. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’ve been around enough to know that the tours pretty much hit the hot spots and make sure you get a good taste of the city and a boatload of information about the city you’re visiting. And, I have lived within a 50 mile radius of Washington, DC for some years and, yet, I still have not been to all the Smithsonian museums; I will also say that it is a curious fact that, while we (humans) do not always take the time to fully explore our own neighborhoods, we feel like we’ve messed up bigtime if we go somewhere on vacation and do not run ourselves ragged trying to see every little thing.

But this time, I wanted to at least see a little more of this city and maybe get in a little birding since Alaska is known for the birds that migrate there in the summertime. So, we had a plan to get there at least twenty four hours before the tour started and do a wee bit of exploring. But, if you have followed my blogs in the past, you know that my plans do not always work out as planned. (Why is that so, do you think?) Things do work out eventually and mostly for the better but rarely ever the way that I planned them. But this time, I wasn’t too detailed in my plans. I was gonna be flexible and laid back….just take things as they came….just play it by ear….just roll with the flow. I figured we’d get there, we’d settle into our room, we’d check with the concierge, we’d figure out the lay of the land as it were, and then we’d mosey around a bit and see what we could see. I was doing good…….right up until we got to the “get there” part.

It seems that Mother Nature had other plans. It started right here in Maryland at BWI. We just couldn’t get out of the airport. We loaded onto the plane right on time…everything looking good…all copacetic and then they off-loaded us. Seems there was a thunderstorm somewhere in the Midwest and the FAA had decided to ground all the planes to the east. Understanding quickly that we were not going to make the Fairbanks connection in Minneapolis, we desperately called the airline and tried to switch out our connecting flight to another. It took about an hour or maybe two – just shy of the amount of time before the thunderstorm out west ran its course and the FAA allowed us to load up again. Unfortunately, the small delay cost us the flight to Fairbanks and we had to switch to Anchorage instead which meant we would leave Minneapolis sometime around 11:00 PM and arrive in Anchorage at maybe 1:00AM (their time) dog tired in need of a place to sleep for a few hours before we could continue on up to Fairbanks at mid-morning.

Not great but still moving westward…in the right direction. We had departed from Minneapolis in the dark – fully night time but, as we flew, we found the famous Alaska midnight sun…or at least the Canadian/US version of it such that it felt like we were continuously flying into the sunset even well past midnight. I was sitting on the US-lower 48 side of the plane but could look across the aisle and see the Canada/Alaska side. On my side, dark; on the other side, light (well, pinkish sunset light). I amused myself playing a little game by looking back and forth and thinking, “daytime” when I looked to one side of the plan…then, “nighttime” when I looked on the other. (Lack of sleep and flying all day will do things to you and it really doesn’t take much to amuse me.) And I thought it was a pain to have the delays but it meant we’d be flying from Anchorage to Fairbanks in broad daylight so would get great views of Denali Park and Mount McKinley/Denali from the air. Silly me.

The view from my seat on the Alaska Airlines commuter plane – prop plane – was, you guessed it, was a view of the propeller. Most everything I saw was, well, airplane.

But, I was headed in the right direction so it was all good.

Just a note on a couple things I noticed about the airports in Alaska that you just do not see at any other major city in the US. First, at 1:00 AM, the Anchorage airport is pretty much empty. Likewise, it was empty when we went back at 8:00 AM. And, while we got a hotel room for the few hours we were in Anchorage, many people apparently didn’t.

So there were “sleepers” scattered around the airport. Yes, I have seen people sleeping in other airports when flights are delayed around holidays and such but rarely do I see them so much anymore. In Alaska, they really settle in and get comfortable….not just slumped over in those uncomfortable seats….but boots off, laid out comfortable. Well, if you’re delayed and need the rest, might as well join them.

So, after almost twenty-four hours in the air and airports, we arrived in Fairbanks. When we arrived, the sky was cloudy and a bit overcast but the temperature was good and, while most of our extra day was gone, we still had a few hours before we met up with the tour group. Great! We got to the hotel, got settled in, and grabbed lunch. We met a great couple from Cape May, NJ at lunch that had just finished up a tour and were taking a couple days before heading home. They turned out to be birders too (of course, considering they were from Cape May) and regaled us with stories about the birding and adding thirty-three life birds to their list while on the tour and cruise and gave us some info about a couple sites right there in Fairbanks and how to catch the shuttle bus to get to the sites. All good….so far. By the time, we got back to the room to get our binoculars and cameras, the rain was falling……and falling….and falling….steady, hard, and continuous. So, the birding and most exploring outside was out for the day.

For those who may be planning a trip in the future, the two places to go birding in Fairbanks that were recommended are the water retention ponds near the airport (relatively easy to find although not so easy to get a taxi to) and an old farm that has been turned into a bird sanctuary (particularly for Sandhill Cranes) called Creamer’s Fields. For me, it’ll have to wait for the next visit.

So, we watched the rain and took a nap…after all, we were tired. We met up with the tour group for dinner and from then on, traveled with the group. We got lucky and got a great tour guide (Randy) who was experienced and well-informed and well-organized. He took care of everything and did it so well that the pain of going from place to place and keeping up with your luggage was minimalized to the point of being non-existent.

As for Fairbanks, all was not lost. The tour group would spend another day in Fairbanks doing a riverboat tour and visiting a gold dredge. I woke that morning with a million things running through my head…the usual stuff….what to take on the day tour and what to leave behind in the hotel room. I am not sure why I fret over these things…..the answer is always the same – wallet, cash and/or credit card, light jacket, sunglasses, camera, binoculars, extra camera battery, phone, husband….you know, the usual things. I expected it to be a long day and it was but I went out with my pockets loaded…with stuff…not cash.

We started with the riverboat cruise. The “Discovery” is a family owned and operated concession that starts you off in a big ole souvenir shop (well, duh!!!) and brings you right back there at the end of the cruise. This cruise would be on the Chena and would go up to the intersection with the Nenana, or was it the Tanana? As I’ve noted, the boat has been owned and operated by the same family for more than fifty years. And, the riverboat is a real riverboat in that the paddlewheel actually drives the boat…although the paddlewheel is not driven by a steam engine….but, bottom line, the paddlewheel is not just for show. The boat tour guide was great and related to the original family although I forget how…maybe an uncle or something. He turned out to be a great example of how best to do these things. He had taken time on his own over the years to go up and down the river and meet and get to know the people who lived there on the river.

He knew everyone’s name and had quite a few colorful stories about the people living there on the river. Of course, he could have just made up the names and stories – how would we know if they were true or not? But he was entertaining all the same. And the people along the river all came out of their houses and waved as the boat passed…..just made you feel a bit like Mark Twain on the Mississippi…so, of course, we all waved back just like we knew them too.

There were two stops along the river. The first was at the river home (Trailbreaker Kennels) of David Monson, the husband of the late Iditarod winner, Susan Butcher. The boat pulled up in the river alongside the house and David brought out some of the dogs and gave a nice talk (which we could hear due to the technological marvels of radio transmission) on the dogs and the race and gave us a summertime version of “mushing” with the dogs pulling a 4-wheeled ATV. We were also treated with puppies from the line of Susan’s favorite dog, Granite. (Granite has a wonderful story in his own right…you can find it here.) I learned quite a bit about the race that I didn’t know although I had followed the race on television for some years.

One thing I didn’t know that surprised me was that Susan had taken her sled team up Mount McKinley. Yep, she summited the mountain with her team. Now, for the life of me I cannot fathom why anyone would take a whole team of dogs mountain climbing…especially that mountain. Okay, there’s always “to say that you did it” but, otherwise, it seems like it would be just torture for all involved to summit with dogs. Do you suppose she got little crampons and stuff for the dogs? Did she take them up one at a time or did she have other mountain climbers to help with the dogs? Did they each have their own Sherpa? (Wait, that is another mountain altogether.) Anyway, it just boggles the mind.

The second stop was a replica of an Athabascan village, the Chena Indian Village. Now, I usually stay away from these type things because they are usually too touristy and not really representative of the way the natives actually lived. But the boat stopped there so we got off and followed the group through the village. And, it turned out to be a very good stop. The village was divided into several stops with presentations at each location so that everyone wasn’t crowded at the same place at the same time.

The presentations were made by young Native Americans with representatives from several different tribal groups. The young ladies were mostly college students who had moved to Fairbanks to attend the University and, like all college students, were working during the summer. They gave a good overview of life in Alaska in bygone days as well as today since many of the cultural traditions they spoke of are still practiced at home in their villages.

After the cruise, we went back at the souvenir shop (of course) and dining hall for lunch. Lunch at the Discovery dining hall was one of the best meals we had in Alaska (and that counts the meals on the ship). You wouldn’t have thought it would be considering it was attached to a souvenir shop with all the kitsch and trappings of a joint but the food turned out to be quite delicious. There was a trapper’s stew with crusty bread and a salad with a locally made huckleberry vinaigrette that was unbelievably good. I’d have bought a bottle in the store if I’d realized it was so good and that was the only place on earth where you could get it. (Okay, I should have realized this but didn’t.)

One last note about the Discovery and the souvenir shop….they had a room (more a freezer really) that was set up at 40 degrees below zero that you could go into for a few minutes (long enough for them to take your photo to sell to you later….well, of course) so you could see how 40 below feels. Having lived in Alaska, I knew how 40 below feels and didn’t feel the need to go into a freezer but Jerry (my braver half) gave it a go. He went in without a jacket (of course) and came out with a bit of a stunned look on his face and maybe just a little swear word that only the gentleman manning the door was able to hear clearly. Yep, 40 below is just that cold.

Moving on after lunch, we headed across Fairbanks to visit Gold Dredge Number 8. I have to admit that I love the show on the Discovery Channel about gold mining in the Yukon. Last season, one of the characters named Tony Beets spent the whole summer taking apart an old dredge that he bought, moving it, and putting it back together on his claim. It was a tremendous undertaking and I had wondered if he would ever get that old dredge to work again. He did and it was a sight…I would have liked to see that old rusted up dredge operate again in person rather than just on the telly.

So, seeing a gold dredge up close even if it wasn’t functional anymore was a cool experience….very cool. There was a little train that carried you from the park entrance to the dredge that had stops along the way with replicas of different gold mining scenes that were used to tell you about everything you never knew you wanted to know about gold mining in Alaska and corrected everything you had heard on that television show that got it wrong…or so they say.

But the dredge itself was the star of the show. And after a short presentation, we actually got to go onto and inside of the dredge and take a look around. Now, if you think I enjoyed this, you have no idea how much Jerry enjoyed it. After all, he is a man and most men love machines… especially gigantic machines. We looked at all the cogs and gears and wheels and buckets and talked to the onsite guy who had all the answers and inspected everything….at least once, some things maybe twice. I am so ready now for the next season of Gold Rush Alaska….I got all the information I need and then some. (If you click on that link, you’ll see a photo of Tony Beets right there on the front page and, to see the recap on the dredge relocation, click here.)

And, lest you think that we didn’t get our money’s worth, we also got to pan for gold. Well, ye-ah! They had a marvelous set up for this. We did not even have to go down to the creek and stumble around on the rocks looking for something to pan. They had a big shed set up with troughs of water available where you could sit on a bench in relative comfort and have at it. They gave us each a pan and a little flour sack filled with dirt and rocks which we were instructed to dump into the pan, add a little water, and commence to panning. After a bit of panning, if you hadn’t come up with any gold, you could call one of the helpers who would give you more personal hands on instruction. I guess I was being too gentle with swirling the water around….I didn’t want to spill out the sand with my gold in it after all….so after the second time I called the gentleman over to help me, he just took the pan (not very patient) and swish, swish, dip and swish again and there it was……gold right there in my pan.

We took our gold and headed on up to the souvenir shop (of course) to get it assayed and discovered that all together we had scored a whole $33 worth of gold for our effort. Being the good people that they were, they offered to buy it…or better yet, to sell me a lovely little locket to hold my gold with a nice gold chain….for a mere $34 dollars and some change. (Actually, they would have sold me a more expensive piece of jewelry for my gold…but I opted for the less expensive charm & chain.) This worked out to be one of those credit card commercials – you know, cost of the trip to Alaska, cost of the ticket for the tour, cost of the pan & sack of sand, etc.,…….finding gold flakes in your very own pan – priceless!

The gold dredge stop on the tour came with a little extra in that the dredge park was near the Alaska oil pipeline. So, before we hopped on the little train that would take us to the dredge, we got to hang out and take photos of the pipeline and hear all about how the pipeline was built and how big it is and how much oil pumps through in a day.…meanwhile, most of us were standing under it taking selfies and pretending like we were holding the pipeline up like Atlas so it didn’t fall down on anyone …..okay, maybe that was just me but I’m sure others would have done that if they’d thought of it before I did.

(For info on the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, try this link.)

Now, let’s see. We saw the pipeline, the old gold dredge, and took a riverboat tour. And I saw the airport on my way in. That’s pretty much the whole city of Fairbanks, right? What else could there possibly be to see there? Oh yeah, when we were on the bus, we passed a Walmart (yes, they have them even out in the boonies) and a McDonald’s – most northernmost one in the US. Hey, that’s certainly worth seeing….but, rats! The bus was going too fast and I couldn’t get a photo of either one. It is always the photo you miss that would have been the best one.

Okay, one last factoid about Fairbanks and Walmart. Now, everyone knows that it gets very cold in Alaska and one must have a head-bolt heater and a battery blanket on one’s vehicle that must be plugged into an electrical outlet at night (or when the vehicle is parked and not running for any extended length of time) or the oil will thicken up to a frozen sludge and the battery will freeze up and said vehicle will not run anymore. Now, I have heard that Walmart welcomes RV’ers to most, if not all, of its facilities in the US so that, if you do not have a place to park your RV when you’re on a trip, you can always overnight at the Walmart. Well, the same goes in Alaska and it turns out that the Walmart is gracious enough to provide electrical outlets in its parking lot for campers to use in the winter. But there are not really that many tourists in Alaska in the winter but, according to our guide in Fairbanks, some residents have campers and just hang out at the Walmart in the wintertime. As Lobo would sing it, “me and you and a dog named Boo”¹ living off the land…….. over at the Walmart. (Okay, if you’re humming the song now and want to sing along – try this link.)

“Me and You and A Dog Named Boo”; Artist-Lobo; Album – Introducing Lobo; 1971; Label – Big Tree

“Me and You and A Dog Named Boo”; Artist-Lobo; Album – Introducing Lobo; 1971; Label – Big Tree