The World's Biggest Cave Found in Viet Nam - Simply Astounding!

That's a man with a miner's hat on in the lower center of the photo.

The best blog on the internet, in my opinion, is Ace of Spades HQ . Ace is one of the best writers on the web and offers keen insight on matters political. But, Ace is not all about politics. There's no tellin' what you'll find at the HQ, other than politics, at any given time, but you can count on always finding something good. I paid Ace a visit a few minutes ago, and I found one of the most amazing things I have ever seen anywhere! The biggest cave in the world has been discovered in Viet Nam. I'm serious, this is absolutely out of this world. Ace has a link to National Geographic that shows a series of photos that will leave you dumbfounded. Head on over and be prepared to be left slack jawed.

Texas Tidbits: Going to the Birds - Lots of Birds

Red Tailed Hawk - Hunter Extraordinaire

I wanted to do something a little different today on Texas Tidbits, something I'd like to do more of, and that is to put out there for all to see and discover the abundant wildlife found in Texas. From hunting and fishing to birding and observing wild animals in their natural habitat. Texas is one of the premier destinations in the world for all those activities, with its nearly 270,000 square miles of God's handiwork acting as home to thousands of species of all things wild.

I want to focus today on birding. Texas is one of the must-be places for birders from around the globe eager to spot one of over 500 species of our fine feathered friends waiting to be seen and photographed. As I type out these posts for you each day, I love to look out the back windows of the living room and watch for the next species of bird to land on the bird feeder I have hanging outside. This time of year in Maine, we are limited to chickadees (the State Bird), blue jays, dove and sparrows, but the spring and summer bring dozens of bird types to us. Back when I lived on the outskirts of Tyler, I had several bird feeders set up plus I had a very wide driveway, where each morning I would toss out handfuls of bird seed and watch the parade of feathers come and go. There were literally hundreds of birds that visited me daily, not including the birds migrating through. One morning, I counted 88 dove and 67 cardinals on my feeders and in my driveway - all at the same time! It was amazing! A veritable carpet of gray and red. My knowledge of bird identification is severely limited, so I kept a notebook and jotted down descriptions of any new birds that stopped by. I think I stopped at around 40. Not too bad, considering all that bird activity took place in my driveway and front yard.

Now as far as finding a great place to do some birding in your area of Texas, look no further than the Texas Parks and Wildlife website. The page is loaded with links to all kinds of information about where and when to get some optimal bird watching in. The World Birding Center is a network of nine locations in South Texas where you can experience an outstanding trip into the world of laying your peepers on the peepers.

The Great Texas Birding Classic is an annual event that brings together birders from all over the world to compete in a week long team birding event all along the Gulf Coast during the unbelieveable spring migration in that area, in which the teams identify as many species of birds as possible during the event. The Gulf Coast Bird Observatory is another outstanding resource to assist you in your birding endeavors. If you prefer a more local/hometown approach to birding, my main man Bob at Texas Tweeties has a list of over 200 indentified bird species and photographs of many of those birds in the archives of his blog.

I know that I have left you with many options in your pursuit of the legendary and elusive yellow belly sap sucker (thanks, Miss Jane!), so take your time and soak up all the information that you want. The birds will be there. And they'll be waiting for you.

Texas Tidbits: One of the Greatest Texans

Sam Rayburn

There are many legendary Texans. That fact is not in dispute. The degree of legendary status may be open to discussion, but there are certain Texas Legends where anything that open admiration and due reverence are all but expected. Men in this category include Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, Sam Houston, Earl Campbell, Bum Phillips, Tom Landry, Darrell Royal...you get the idea. One of the most powerful Texans ever is a name that many will recognize only as the name of a lake - Sam Rayburn.

Samuel Taliaferro Rayburn represented Texas in the US House of Representatives from 1913-1961, three times serving as Speaker of the House. For perspective, he was in the House for every president from Woodrow Wilson to John F. Kennedy, a span of forty-eight years. Another way to look at Mr. Sam's length of service is that he was elected to office before World War I and served until after the United States sent Alan B. Shepard into space in May, 1961. Wow!

In doing a write-up of a man like Sam Rayburn, it would take hours for me just to look up the man's accomplishments. In lieu of that, I'll link to a couple of pretty dang good sources that detail much of Speaker Rayburn's life, private and public. I first went to famoustexans.com and came up with a nice piece. It's a long but very informative article, so make sure you have a few minutes to spare before diving in. And, of course, there's the old stand by, Wikipedia.

As you can see from those two resources, Sam Rayburn was a powerful man in American politics for almost half a century. Few, if any, men or women have had such a profound influence on the policies affecting every day Americans for such an extended period of time as Mr. Sam. I think it's safe to say that Samuel Taliaferro Rayburn earned every tribute paid to him and then some. Hit that link and scroll down to see some of the honors bestowed upon this great man.

Mr. Sam. A great American. A great Texan.

The Most Viewed Post of 2010! Happy New Year!!!

I have published almost four hundred posts on Three States Plus One. I considered a few of them to be pretty damn good and funny, but the most popular post of 2010 turned out to be one of, if not the easiest, non-funny posts of all 388 of them. Goes to show what I know. Sheesh. LOL
The post was written a week before Christmas and it detailed what Heather, the girls and I had planned for Christmas weekend as well as what Heather was whoopin' up in the kitchen. I think one post from early on in the life of this blog garnered a little over 200 page views. That's a real good day for Three States Plus One. As weird as it may seem, this blog is still only six months old. Anyway, the post below received almost 900 page views! Wow! Talk about knock me over with a feather! That's about half a month's traffic on one day! 
Without further ado, I present to you the Most Popular Post of 2010 on Three States Plus One!

Not Heather's Stove

 I hope this post finds you all well and ready for Christmas. You've got only a week to get all your shopping done and plans made for Christmas lunch or supper with your family and friends. Here at the Shoe Box (our house), we've got everything done, except for one more gift we've got to buy. The kids have their Santa Claus lists all done and Heather and I have put their orders in to Santa's Workshop. I gotta tell ya that by the time Santa arrives next week, it'll look a lot like Toys R Us in our living room.

We have plans to travel to Heather's hometown of Eastport for a visit with all the in-laws for a day or two. There will be snow on the ground as usual, but it may actually snow on Chistmas Day! I guess we'll just have to wait and see what Mother Nature has in store for us. Yesterday, the weather guy said that we were due for a nor'easter late next week. That means it could dump a boat load of snow on us. For those of you in Colorado and points West, think "up slope".  If that happens, we'll just stay home. I am not too keen on being stranded along side the highway in a blizzard with two young children and a wife. I'm just sayin'.

Heather is busy in the kitchen right now and will be all day long. She's making Christmas presents for friends and family. What? Instead of buying gifts for some folks in the family, Heather gets busy cooking her homemade spaghetti sauce, which is restaurant quality by the way, cookies and homemade Whoopie Pies. It's pretty cool to watch her do what she does in the kitchen. Besides, I am the Official Quality Control Taster. All the treats Heather makes must pass muster, and I am the muster passer. Sometimes I have to taste stuff 3 or 4 times to make absolutely sure that it is good enough to be given to the family. It's a tough job, but somebody's gotta do it.  :)

That's the short version of what's happening with us as of this moment. These plans are subject to change, depending on the weather and road conditions between Augusta and Eastport. If you've Christmas plans you'd like to share with us, just post them in a comment and I promise to get back to you.

Seven days and counting. Merry Christmas!

That's it. the Most Viewed Post of 2010. Thanks for stopping by and spending part of your New Year's Day with us. Live long and prosper. Happy New Year!!!

2011 - Happy New Year!

                                              HAPPY NEW YEAR!
2010 was a great year for Three States Plus One and I owe it all to you! Your continued unwavering support
has made writing this blog more fun than a middle aged white guy is entitled to. Since I started this gig back in mid-June, you, the readers, have viewed it more than twelve thousand times! That's way more than I ever expected a mere six months ago. In that vein, Three States Plus One is now read in forty-eight states in the Union and fifty-nine countries around the world from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, and all places in between. I am confident that Three States is set to have a breakout year in 2011 and that, too, I owe to you. Earlier tonight I was reading some analytics of this site and found out that on December 29, the day I wrote about Texas History, one of my posts went viral. As far as I know, that's a first for me and I am damn proud of it. But, it wasn't my brilliant writing and biting satire that propelled that post to go viral, it was you, the reader, who generously recommended it to your friends and family. I could write with the eloquence of Shakespeare and if nobody read it, this blog would go belly up pretty quick. Every time I write a post, I try like hell to make it better than the last one. I do that for a couple of reasons. One reason is that I am a proud man. If it's got my name on it, it had damn well better meet my own expectations, or it isn't fit to post. The second, more important reason, is because you give to me the gift of your time to read what I write. The very least I can do for you, is to make it worth your time to visit Three States Plus One. Please understand that I take the gift of your time very seriously and I am grateful and humbled that you give me that gift on a regular basis. I only hope that I give something back to you in return. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you. Now it's on to 2011 and time to kick ass and take names!

Happy New Year and God bless,
Toby

More of the Best of 2010!

Church

We'll continue our look back at 2010 with some "Best of..." posts today, but first I want to remind you of what you missed if didn't get a chance to read yesterday's entries about my hometown and some other of 2010's best and most popular posts, including a very emotional and powerful post on the anniversary of 9/11. Sit back with a hot cup of coffee and enjoy a recap of what you, the reader, determined to be our most popular posts of 2010.

• The Rio Grande Starts Here - I was kind of surprised when I looked at the blog archives and noticed that this was our most- read Colorado Chronicles post of the year, but it was. 
• Caught - This was, without a doubt, my personal favorite post of the year. It's about "going to church" with a fishin' pole at a pond way up in the Rockies. A place where God and I have a Father-Son talk amongst the majestic Rocky Mountain peaks, the brilliant sunshine and of course, a fishin' hole. To me, that's "church". Can I get an amen from the readership?
• Tomah Joseph - Another personal favorite and you guys liked it, too. Tomah Joseph was an Indian who lived in the early 20th Century near where my wife grew up in Eastport. He was an amazing man with an amazing life story. When you click over to the story, be sure to click the links embedded within the story. it really is a great read.

The three posts I listed up there ^^^, are well worth the time to take a look at... not because of my legendary literary skills ( I just made that part up...), but because the subject matter is something that you won't find anywhere but where I found it or right here on Three States Plus One. Thanks for making these posts easy choices to be in the "Best of 2010". You done good.

The Best of 2010 - Irving, My Hometown

The Mustangs of Las Colinas

Back on July 28, I wrote a post about something I was very familiar with - my hometown of Irving, Texas. Although I hadn't been home in a million years, I still had memories of my childhood and high school years as fresh as the day they were made. A lot of my readers, who happened to friends as well, enjoyed the ride back in time also. I got some good feedback in the comment section of the post and a ton of feedback on Facebook with other people's memories of Irving.

Here is that post, reprinted in its entirety.

I know many of my friends back in Texas will relate to this post. So many of them, like me, grew up or lived in Irving long enough to call it "my hometown". I moved to Irving the summer before my 10th birthday in 1966, and the population of Irving was, if I recall correctly, about 40,000. Now over 200,000 live in the City. Wow! My little town has grown up! Irving was founded in 1903 by J.O. "Otto" Schultz and Otis Brown (who was later mayor of Irving) and is believed to be named after author Washington Irving who was a favorite of Mrs. Brown. I haven't been to Irving in at least nine years, therefore I can only guess how much it's changed during that time. However, I do remember how Irving was when I was a little boy riding my Schwinn 5-Speed Stick Shift bike (even then the chicks dug a cool set of wheels :) ) literally all over town - from near Wakefield's Grocery and Mr. Wood's Barber Shop on Shady Grove all the way to the 183 Apartments where my Dad lived. As a kid , that was as cool as riding a Harley, pure freedom. Here are some other things that come to mind when reliving the '60's in my hometown, in no particular order...

• Cliff's Donuts (and later next door Cliff's Pizza). Mr. Shasteen was a very nice man who on occasion let a group of young men of drinking age have all night get-togethers with FREE pizza ! Almost 40 years too late...thanks, Mr. Shasteen. Oh, yeah...Cliff's Donuts were a Sunday morning tradition for Sunday School at the Baptist Church just up the street on Story Road.
• Denny's on Hwy.183...I spent many after partying hours eating chili there with Tommy Thompson and Mark Hardesty. Tommy's now dead (RIP BROTHER) and last I heard, Mark is a long-time guest of the State.
• The 183 Drive-In - Where The Duke his own self, John Wayne stood on top of the concession stand with rifles a-blazin' for the World Premier of True Grit, in which Wayne won an Oscar for his role as Rooster Cogburn.
• Texas Stadium - not only for all the Cowboys' games I attended there with Randy Randle, but for the thousands of fellow Nimitz High graduates who walked the stage passing from schoolkid to welcome-to-the real world young people.
• Dar Roedel and Linda Staggs - These two ladies were more than teachers or counselors, they were friends and second Moms to an untold number of kids, me included. I love them dearly and will never forget the impact they had on my life. 

• Friends - too many to mention, because there were/are so many of you. From waaaaaay back : Keith Story and Mark Warren. I have known those guys for over 40 years and I'll never forget them. Randy Randle, Marvin, Dee Dee, Dewayne, John and Marty. They treated me like one of their family and to this day, I consider them my family. Tommy Thompson...maybe the best friend I ever had, and that's saying something. I loved Tommy like a brother and wish I could have just one more beer with him. I hope I was half the friend to him that he was to me. Mark Hardesty... Mark was, shall we say, "rough around the edges", but he was a great friend. I would say more, but I'm not sure the Statute of Limitations has run out. All the friends I have re-connected with through Facebook. I love you guys and I can only say "It was fun" or "I'm sorry". You decide which camp you are in. :)

I could carry on for hours, but that will be for another time, perhaps. What are your memories of Irving? Or your hometown? Tell us in the comments, we'd love to know