Well, heard from the wife this morning. Apparently, they decided to forego any further time in Texas, and headed straight for New Mexico several days ago. They were camping in White Sands Monument, after which they decided to go to the White Sands Museum yesterday. They took a wrong turn. They ended up on the access road to the missile base and tried to drive through, why? because the GPS told them they could.

Well, you can probably guess the rest. They were, of course, stopped at the guard post. The officer of the guard told them they were in a restricted area, he asked them to get out of the truck(politely, according to my wife) and asked them for identification, registration for the car etc. He went back to the guard house, and after several minutes, apparently satisfied that my wife was indeed, who she said she was, returned to the vehicle. My wife said he asked her what part of Tennessee she was from, and after a few minutes of cursory chit-chat he said: "Oh, by the way mam, are you carrying any weapons today?" Now, my wife didn't reply right away. You would have to know my wife, she didn't want to lie, but she didn't want to give anything away either, so the following is the exchange that took place:

Officer of the Guard: "Oh, by the way mam, are you carrying any weapons today?"

My Wife: " Why no sir, I have no weapons, just a small 38 caliber
revolver, you don't consider that a weapon, do you?"

She said she could detect a slight chuckle from the guard, he told them to remain there, returned to the guard house, whereupon my wife noticed that three of his compatriots appeared to be laughing. He returned to the car with two more soldiers. All three had their "guard faces" on. My wife thought at this point, that she probably wasn't going to have to worry about finding a place to camp that evening. This is the conversation that took place:

Officer of the guard: "Now mam, I'm going to ask this question again, and the
correct answer to the question is NO. Do you understand?"

Wife: "Yes sir, I place a high priority on answering questions
correctly."

Officer of the guard: "Mam, are you carrying any weapons or guns today?"

Wife: "Why no sir, thank you for asking."

Officer of the guard: "Mam, that answer was outstanding. You just made my day and
yours, a whole lot easier."

After which my wife and daughter got back in the car, he got them turned around and told them how to find the Museum. He had one more tip for them.

Officer of the guard: "Mam, should you ever find yourself in this predicament again,
and someone like me asks you if you have any weapons, the
correct answer is always NO!"

Wife: " Why, thank you young man."

Now, I'm sure these guys and gals hear it all, still in all, I'd say they had a few more chuckles over this one, before their day was through.

They're presently in Tucson. Apparently there is some famous mission there, that after Sunday mass, they have a Mexican buffet in the fellowship hall that is to die for. I think they are going to stick around for that.