The Valley Of Fires

That somewhat enigmatic title is the name of the place we camped on Tuesday night.
Somewhere around 2000 years ago an eruption took place in the Chihuahua Desert in New Mexico. Millions of tons of balck basaltic lava spewed out of the ground. Rather than forming a volcano the lava just ran across the top of the desert, forming a giant black lava flow scar 44 miles by 4 miles across the landscape. Where there was a hill the lava flowed round it. Now the lava is being broken down and populated by a variety of plants and animals.
It is on one such rocky outcrop that our campground has been built. We have a site which rises above the lava field and gives an amazing view all round. Grey/pinkish sandstone where our trailer is parked, black lava for several miles, then the foothills and mountains of The White Sands to the West, Lone mountain to the North and the Start of the Sacrmento Mountain Range to the East.
We have taken a short walk through the lava field, looking at the lava and the variety of plants that have colonised the lava. We have sat and watched a dramatic sunset and an equally dramatic sunrise.
We have very much enjoyed our short stay at The Valley of Fires.

Route 66 - Help I Can't Keep Up

So much has happened in the last few days that I don't have the time to keep up the blog!
So I am skipping the details of Route 66, as although I have part written it is not finished.
So today we have driven for the third day on the trot. Since leaving Guthrie we have covered 591 miles without unhitching the trailer.
We set out from Guthrie and picked up Route 66 at the Capitol Building in Oklahoma City. Now you have to realise that Route 66 is not a motorway, it is a hundred main streets connected by bits of road, like a two and a half thousand mile bit of c(a)razy paving. So In OK City it was back streets, that were the main street 80 years ago. Eventually we made it out into open land and bowled along nicely, often route 66 runs alongside Interstate 40, sometimes it has been subsumed into it and disappears. The first section was 35 miles long and went through a little town (they are all little towns, apart from Amarillo) called Reno, where we had to join the I 40, but dropped off to see Hydro and Weatherford, skipping some towns we ventured into Elk City. Elk City has the National Route 66 museum, which we really enjoyed, though it was not very exciting. All along the way we have been amazed at the 'Roadside Architecture' for which Route 6 is famous for and there is still plenty of it. Motels, garages, diners, restaurants and gift shops predominate in glorious, garish colours and unlikely shapes. Mostly based round Art Deco, (or a later parody of Art Deco), moving into space age/chrome aerodynamic architecture of the 50's and 60's, often quite conservative, very little psychedelia on good old solid Route 66. Following our visti to Elk City we sped along I 40 and slipped over the border back into Texas to stop at in a sleepy little town called Shamrock.
Shamrock was the start of weirdity. We walked to a steakhouse for a meal, which was opposite one of the icons of Route 66, the Connoco Tower. At this point the restaurant owner pointed out that in the Pixar animation Cars the'U Drop Inn' was modelled on this very building, which was a cafe, gas station and service are combined. It had beautiful green tiles on the outside and at night was lit up with green neon. It is an amazing building. we returned to our trailer and watched the first part of 'The Grapes Of Wrath' on DVD, which is about a family in the 30's being evicted from their farm in Oklahoma and travelling to California on Route 66.
Next day we set out on the road again, still travelling West, we pulled off at a couple of small towns, Mclean, which was very run down but has a small but perfectly formed gas station. Then a few miles further along the town of Groom, which boasts the Leaning Water Tower of Pizza, built on an angle to attract passers by!
In Amarillo we stopped for supplies at the Walmart and meandered through the town to follow the original Route 66. As we were making good time we set our sights on getting to New Mexico, to a place called Tucumcari. First though we stopped off at some more small towns to cruise their main streets. Vega, which has some very old motels and Adrian. Now Adrian prides itself on being the Midway Point on Route 66, halfway between Chicago and Los Angeles. At the Midway point is a cafe called... The Midway Cafe! We decided that this would be a nice place for a cup of tea/coffee, so stopped in. The place was a temple to the Mother Road. All the furniture was original though it opened in 1928, though much of this furniture was original 50's tubular chairs and metal tables, vinyl booths and padded stools at the counter. ANYWAY, we started talking and I noticed that their road sign looks very much like the flash insignia used in Cars. Yes she said, but more than that the cafe was used as a model for Flo's V8 Cafe. Apparently the director had visited the place several times with his graphics crew.
NOT ONLY that, but as we talked to the owner she said that the waitress twins, Tia and Mia were modelled on their waitress Mary Jane! We had been served by the person who was the model for Mia in Cars!!!!.
We soon crossed the border into New Mexico for the first time ever. We reached Tucumcari and pulled into the Empty Saddle RV park and flopped.
Today Tuesday we were again away early marvelling at the Roadside Architecture of Tucumcari, then on to Santa Rosa, where we left Route 66 and headed south on Route 54.
So far I have said little about the countryside we have passed through, but here is a brief description -Oklahoma, red earth and rocks, flattish, grass prairie with trees. Texas - Flattish, grass prairie, no trees. West Texas, grey or pink soil, it becomes really dry, the scrub gives way to bush like cactus and the grass is very crinkly and brittle. All the way from Okalhoma we have been steadily climbing, from 1900ft to about 300ft. On the border with New Mexico, we suddenly drop down an escarpment to flat desert with grass and cactus as West Texas. We are still climbing, when we turn south at Santa Rosa we are hitting 4500ft, but continue to climb. at 5000ft we start to get Juniper and some sort of pine. The road is dead straight form 10's of miles. By the time we reach Corrizozo we have hit 6500ft. Our destination is Valley of Fires Recreation area, we reach there by about 4.00 We feel that we have put in a good three days travelling and we are knackered!

Guthrie

I know that any interested follower of our blog will at this moment be asking themselves "Guthrie? Why Guthrie?" The centre of Oklahoma activity is Oklahoma City, or Tulsa, go there and enjoy the sites of Oklahoma. But no, as we have found out, and are eternally grateful to Sandy and Don, Guthrie is at the centre of all that Oklahoma was and is today.
On first inspection Guthrie is a small town (only 10,00 popn.) in the middle of the state. It has a fine town centre, in fact it is a National Heritage Site, as it has one of the largest collection of late Victorian buildings anywhere in the country, ranging from stores to private dwellings.
Our trailer is parked about a mile East of the town centre, so drove into town in order to see some of the buildings on our list.
Now for those of you who just want to know about places and food: The weather was cold and damp, we went to the Drug Store Museum, then took a nice trolley ride, after that we had a scrummy late breakfast in Kates Diner. In the afternoon, because it was cold and damp, we went round the local Oklahoma Territory Museum. After that we went back to the trailer had tea, a few rounds of Rummicube and went to bed early because we were tired.
For those of you who want literary punishment, read on to find out how we learned of the amazing story that made Guthrie what it is.

The Drug Store and Pharmacy Museum
First stop the Drug Store Museum. It was supposed to have been the Tourist Information Office next door on West Oklahoma St, but seeing as it was Saturday it was closed. So we called in to ask for info about Guthrie. This is where it got a bit like 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest'. The Museum is a an old Pharmacy, still complete with its Soda Fountain, ice cream parlour and high stools at the counter, but it is also filled with Pharmacy Stuff from the last hundred years. The lighting was poor and the walls were covered with old wooden shelves, some glass fronted and drawers which were full of bottles of every conceivable chemical and preparation. Having taken in a quick summary of the place right at the back of the store I saw a young lady sat at a table reading a book. Thinking that she was the curator I wandered down the long store ready to ask about information on Guthrie. At this point a couple of other young people appeared. This is where it got weird! When asked a general question they immediately informed me (very nicely) that she was not the curator, neither did she know anything about Guthrie. She was student. They were all students. They were students doing a Pharmacy degree in Oklahoma City Univiersity and were volunteering to supervise the museum. However they had no experience of curating and simply said "Hey just look round, go anywhere and enjoy the place, do you want a Sarsaparilla? They have some really nice ones here." Well that was really like getting an invitation to a party in the morgue. Sally and I had great fun, I wandered round the shelves discussing various preparations and chemicals with the two girls (who though they had been there for some time had not even looked a the shelves, stupidly enough they had brought text books to study while they did their volunteering, when they had a whole apothecary to study! There was no apparent order to their display as I found a bottle of D.D.T. next to a preparation for a sore throat. Strychnine next to 'Pink Placebo'. But it was fascinating to wander amongst the chemicals and just read their names. As we walked round we discussed whether these chemicals were still in use or not, cast an expert eye over various medical aids and implements (though what you would have used a Rectal Dilator for I could only guess, but back at the turn of the century you could buy a box of them for a couple of dollars). Sally meanwhile was happily sharing tales of the English Pharmaceutical industry and swapping rare medication information with the two lads. It was quite bizarre really, but loads of fun and one of the most absolutely fascinating hours we had spent in America. Still all good things must come to an end and we bid fond farewells to the sutdents and the Museum in order to go in search of The Trolley.

The Trolley Ride
We find that a tour round a town is a good way to find out more about it, so we determined to take the trolley tour. Leaving every hour, on the hour and costing an impressively small $3.00. This was a very good move, as the narration was excellent and we were able to get great views of the main streets with great late Victorian Frontages, past the site of the Opera House, the Court house, where the State Seal was removed from, the Carniegie Library where Oklahoma Statehood was declared (oh yes, a small factoid, Guthrie was the first Capital of Oklahoma, but they didn't have time to build a Capitol) and a huge number of turn of the century houses, as well as information about the people who had them built. Lots of stories about doctors, judges, the original owner of the Drug Store, the Sooner who was the owner of the Printing Company on Harrison and 2nd. The residence of Mr, Mrs and Jane Haskell, the first State Governor.
As these stories were revealed it started to become clear that Guthrie was a special place. It was special for two dates - April 22nd 1889 and June 11th 191o, for like no other town Guthrie was born on April 22nd 1889 and died on June 11th 191o. The trolley also took us across Cottonwood Creek and past the railway station, which was owned by the Santa Fe Railroad, complete with a Harvey's Restaurant and rooms upstairs for the staff to sleep in. Thus completing a very interesting circuit of the town and depositing us back at its terminus outside the Oklahoma Capital Printing Museum on 2nd and Harrison (named after the President in 1889).
Having quizzed the Trolley driver we now retired to Kate's Diner - Country Griddle to have lunch and digest what we now knew of Guthrie. Incidentally Woodie (and hence Arlo) Guthrie was born and raised near here, is that merely a coincidence?
Over tea and coffee (which kept getting refilled), Sally's excellent Char grilled Chick and Fries and my All Day Breakfast of pancakes, over medium eggs, bacon and sausage, (for which I was very appreciative that she had put on extra butter, the maple syrup was warm and the plates were hot) we made the momentous decision that we would visit the Oklahoma Territorial Museum on East Oklahoma Ave that afternoon.

Oklahoma Territorial Museum
Here was another $3.00 each well spent.
This museum explained in great detail the events that took place in Oklahoma, majoring on the years between 1889 and 1910.
Well for those of you who are still awake I can (having visited the Museum) explain what made Guthrie special.
Preamble:
The Mid West had been bought for $15m. in 1804 in the Louisiana Purchase, but from early reports was of very little value. So was basically left alone. However it was useful as a place to put Indians. Indians were often in inconvenient places (places white men wanted to be) right across the Eastern USA, so by a combination of forced removal, government laws, state law and Indian Tribes wanting to get away from White Men, almost all the American Indian nations ended up in the area where Oklahoma would be. In all 167 tribes moved into land given or sold to them in Oklahoma. Many Indians were educated and took on white men's way of life, though many others did not. So the arrangement was not altogether amicable, but it seemed to work out OK. I do not remember all the nations, but the Seminole and Creek had land to the south and in the centre.
As the railroads and people moved West this large area was now becoming a usable asset, but protected by the Government. Big business started to band together to drum up support for developing these areas, to the extent that armed groups would stat unofficial settlements, only to be removed by the government troops. The troops used were the now famous Buffalo Soldiers, so called by the Indians because of their dark and curly hair. The Buffalo Soldiers were a black troop set up during the Civil War, but not really taken seriously, hence ending up doing border patrol work. The early settlers and people stirring up trouble to take over the Indian lands were called 'Boomers' (banging their own drum).
Now Sally and I had discussed Oklahoma a bit and made the comment that it was unlikely that the Civil War would have much effect on the areas we were going to visit this time, because they were all settled long after the event - Oh How Wrong!
During the Civil War some Indian Tribes had supported, or even fought, on the side of the North, and some on the side of the South. Now the South lost and there were war reparations to be made. The Seminole and Creek had supported the South, and so forfeit their lands ( a couple of thousand Sq miles) in the Oklahoma area (not even a territory then). These became known as The Unassigned Lands. The Boomers wanted very much to settle in them, The Buffalo soldiers job was to keep them out.
The big business people continued to apply pressure to the government, as by now the railroads ran through the Indian and unassigned lands. Then in March 1889 President Harrison announced the Unassigned areas should now be settled and a Land Run would take place on Friday April 22nd (barely a month away). Everyone who entered and won would able to claim 160 acres of wilderness, or a parcel of land in areas designated as towns.
Guthrie as a town did not exist at this point of time, it was merely the last water stop on the Santa Fe Railroad before Oklahoma City (itself just another water stop on the railroad). However Guthrie was chosen as a Claim Filing Station and designated a town with several thousand parcels of land marked out by the government.

The Land Run of 89
This was the exciting part. Imagine, Unassigned Lands, the central part of Oklahoma had been ripped from the Indians by a political ruse. An area of several thousand Square miles. To become an instant territory. The Land run was announced, people had a month to prepare. To get to the borders of the Unassigned Land, any way they could, bringing whatever they could. There were farmers, cattlemen, blacksmiths, shop keepers, bankers, lawyers. People on their own, whole families, company men. Honest men and women, cheats and liars, hard workers and crooks. They brought horses, wagons, mules, or just walked. Some would come by train, as there were already railways running through.
In side the borders were patrolled by the famous Buffalo Troops. U.S. Marshall's and troops patrolled the land. Troops and government agents had marked out the land with stakes.
No one could enter the land before midday on the Friday, then it was hell for leather for everyone to claim the best land for themselves or their family. There are several reports of 60,000 people, one report of 100,000 people in the Land Run. Some literally lined up and started when a gun was fired, racing across the countryside. Many wagons were damaged or overturned. Trains packed full of would be claimants waited at the boundary for the start and then moved at 15 miles per hour, so as not to give the riders an unfair advantage, these were mostly people who planned to find a stake in the towns being set up. Though many others took the train and jumped off when they saw a likely looking piece of land.
As soon as the trains stopped at the stations people swarmed away to find the best piece of land, many of them businessmen. Only to find that swindlers, cheats, government and local officials had grabbed all the best plots.
The people who came in early to grab a stake were called 'Sooners', those who literally jumped the gun by staking their claim early, by entering the land during the night, by the light of the moon, and were called 'Moonshiners', this was well before prohibition.
Even though everyone was in a rush to stake their claim only three claims were registered on that first day. Overall only a third of the Land Runners managed to stake a claim. In the first year 50% of the claims lapsed. This was partly due to a drought, also April was too late to plant a crop, so many starved. Those who thought they could make some quick money soon found the it was very hard work. The land was poor and 160 acres was not enough to support a family farm. Many of the Soonere were found out (official sources) and they were punished, often by having their claims removed. Lawyers were busy for years settling disputed claims. Surprisingly the ethos of the Sooner was admired by people in Oklahoma as being sharp and clever!!! and Oklahoma adopted it as its nickname as the Sooner State.
It is famous for its 'Sooners and Boomers'
There were many stories of success, failure and intrigue. The setting up of an instant territory was fascinating. In one month Guthrie became the largest town west of the Mississippi, with more than 10,000 people. It had 40 doctors, 6 banks, a newspaper, shops, trains and a telegraph. For several years after it had its problems, out of which grew the stories of cowboys, bank robbers, gangs and famous lawmen.
Guthrie continued to grow and prosper, and was the most important town in the area, it also had the Oklahoma University. In 1906 Oklahoma became the 46th State, with Guthrie as it's State Capital.

The Day Guthrie Died

However, not all was well. Guthrie had to choose University or Seat of Government (laws at the time), it chose to be the Capital and the university moved to Oklahoma City. Oklahoma City and Tulsa were also growing fast. Oklahoma City was getting rich on big beef contracts with Texas.
In June 1910 a referendum was held to decide the capital for Oklahoma. On 10th June 1910, the day before the results were known, Governor Haskell gave instructions for the State Seal to be removed from Guthrie to Oklahoma City in the middle of the night, amidst a huge cry of outrage from Guthrie people when they found out. However to no avail - Oklahoma City had outwitted Guthrie and became the capital, which it still is today.
From that moment on Guthrie declined, it was estimated that in the year after losing the capitalship house values dropped by 80%. The whole town went into recession, banks moved to Oklahoma City, newspapers and businesses closed down. Although bad for the town at the time it meant that the town stayed almost exactly the same from 1910 until the present day, only in the last thirty years the old buildings have been renovated and it is a wonderful example of what a town looked like in the time period from 1889 to 1910.
We loved our day in Guthrie, we loved talking to the poor curator of the museum, who had to answer all our questions (I think she enjoyed it really).

Ruminations

We had both thought that Oklahoma was the big bit of country that fills the gap between the East and the Rockies. That as it didn't exist before 1906 that it had no history. Only to find once again that every state has the capacity to amaze us. Here is the coming together of all the Indian Nations of North America (we didn't even start on Indian Culture) into one place. Here we find a fascinating story and amazing history, which is the quintessential heart of the growth of the American Nation, in its pioneering spirit, the depth of political intrigue, the homogenisation of people in taking part it the Land Run. Just doing it!
We also found that because of the make up of people, the land having been given, people being rootless, enabled 'dormant hoboism' (my phrase) which was one of the factors which enabled the people to pack up and leave in the depression of the the 20s/30s. When many thousands of families could no longer live in the Dust Bowl of America and set out on the long trek along the newly built Route 66, which was on their doorstep, knowing that California was just at the other end of the road. (please now go and read Grapes of Wrath).
We also discovered that Oklahoma was a land of greater equality, land was apportioned without heed to race, sex or nationality (as long as you intended to stay and improve the land you could have it). The only discrimination was if you had been a Union soldier you could own the land straight away, all others had to wait till lthey had worked the land for five years, or else could buy it.
After we left the museum we went back to our trailer feeling as though a whole new understanding of Oklahoma had been give to us. We had learned so much, so unexpectedly. A great day!

Friday 25th - Meridian

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Having made good time we decided that we could achieve our first Oklahoma Objective this evening.
That objective was to explore a Ghost Town!
I have always been fascinated by the idea of Ghost Towns, places which no longer can support a community and have been abandoned. In England there are very few of them, mostly because we value the land too highly to be able to just abandon it. In the States land must have a use to be lived on, if there is no use for the land people leave. One of the things we often remark on is that Americans do not dispose of things, they just leave them (I wrote a blog about it a couple of years ago), so when driving round you will often see houses with old cars, lawn tractors, boats just abandoned, because people have moved on. The same with houses, you often see a new house alongside a complete wreck, they have so much land that it easier to leave an old house to fall down and simply build a new one than it is to have it cleared away and reuse the land. So Ghost Towns are more common in the States and Oklahoma has a whole pile of them, for which there are a lot of good reasons (perhaps explain later).
I suppose the 'Ultimate Ghost Town' would be to have complete buildings abandoned, with no people living there at all, but that is very rare. There are also many documented Ghost towns (http://www.ghosttowns.com/) etc. But we were on our own mission, to explore a ghost town which is not in the Ghost Town Register, our very own Ghost Town! It is a town called Meridian (I shall speak more of the significance of the term Meridian in a later blog). In its Hey Day it had more that 200 inhabitants (1940).
We had been told of this town because it was where our friend Don had been raised.
We first had to find Meridian, it was an 8 mile drive to the East of our trailer park on route 105, across gently rolling hills, with plenty of creeks (a lot appearing very dry) and then 2 miles south down an old and bumpy road.
The road was red, because the earth was red and mud and dust had blown on to it and never been cleared. We had not appreciated this until we were driving north from Texas, but everywhere the earth is red coloured. We approached the village, which was eerily quiet, the first building we came to was a modern looking school and a church. To the right was a sandstone building, which Don had told us had been the original school, now a community building, then... well that was it really. There was a grid of roads, running North to South was Meridian and Horner, running East to West was 5th, 4th, Main, second and Prairie Grove. There were some houses that were occupied, but they were quite far apart, in between were big grassy spaces, or a concrete area where a house had been and been removed. Many lots were overgrown with various vehicles left on them, old cars, farm stuff. Sometimes you could make out what had been a wooden building, but was no more.
Don had given us information about his old house and the family stores his Dad had owned, a General store, which we think we found, although it is now just a pile of rubble, where you could make out the apex of a store front, across the road a shell of a store, with three arch ways, what would have been a window, a door and another window, now just spaces that showed the tangle of weeds inside. Next to that a store which was just four walls, at the front, at the top, the name W. KINCAID 1911 had been carved into the stonework. there was no woodwork left to identify the nature of the store. At this point we jumped when three ferocious dogs ran out of the one house we could see and jumped up barking wildly, as we drove round the block they followed still barking wildly. We drove along 2nd st to find the house Don grew up in, which was still there, but quite dilapidated. Driving back to Meridian st a the south end of the village was a gas station. Though sheet metal it was twisted and buckled, you could only recognise it as a gas station because of two old and rusted gas pumps (I suppose it may not have been a gas station, just someone had left gas pumps there). By this time we were feeling a) quite depressed, b) wary of the dogs and c) nervous that someone may approach us in a hostile manner, because we were 'poking around', however we saw no one, apart form the dogs the place appeared deserted. It was faintly disturbing to see buildings with no life in them, to drive through a community which had only left echoes of its past.
Fairly quickly we returned up Meridian St and left Meridian by the only road, the one we had come in on. No Tumbleweed, but a rarely disturbed layer of red dirt on the road betraying the thought that here was a road that went anywhere.
I have published some pictures below, Thank you Don for letting us share your story, I hope that they are not too painful.

Go! Go! Go!

So today we decided that we would leave Hickory Creek, no matter what. On a glorius spring morning we packed up and drove down to the Post Office to check the mail one last time, fully prepared to leave a self addressed envelope to have the papers posted back to England when they turned up. The lady went to the back of the Post Office to check, no joy, but said she would just check one more time the latest mail. Joy of Joys, Relief of Reliefs, she came back waving our letter, it was as the bootom of the box, yes it had arrived, like the Fifth Calvary, at the last possible moment for us to continue on our way.
Having now retrieved our mail we scurried back to our trailer, hitched up and headed north, into Oklahoma, bypassing Oklahoma City and arriving in Guthrie by about 4.00, on a lovely sunny afternoon. Why of all the places we could go to in Oklahoma did we choose Guthrie? Well our good friends Sandy and Don suggested that it may be a good place to find out more about Oklahoma that it was quintessentially Oklahomaian! (my word). Besides which Don had been brought up near there in a tiny place called Meridian and knew the area well.

Waiting, Waiting, Waiting

Well, we have been stuck here in Lewisville since Sunday as we have been waiting for some important post (mail) which has been sent to us from the UK. It arrived in Texas last week and was misdirected to Jefferson,TX arriving there last Friday,18th March (heaven knows how they sent it to the wrong place!!!) and it was immediately redirected to here in Lewisville. We have been to the post office every day this week but it seems to have disappeared off the face of the planet - tracking it up to last Friday and then silence!! We cannot move on without it so we are biding our time here and filling in our time with shopping trips - too expensive - and enjoying the wonderful weather we are having at the moment. It's very frustrating as we have seen everything we want to see in this area and our planned itinery is in jepardy as we are now 4 days behind schedule!! We may have to curtail our proposed plans and miss something out !! I'm sure Terry will be adding his take on this situation - with his usual wry sense of humour!

We have been doing jobs, like getting the oil changed on the bus, renewing the insurance and some shopping which are quite difficult to find the time to do when you are on the move.

Anyway, the weather is really beautiful and we are in a lovely campground, next to a lake and we have been watching the trees and bushes bud and green up this last week. There was no greenery on the trees at all when we arrived and they are now sprouting catkins and fresh green leaves. The Myrtleberry trees have been in full bloom - wonderful purple blossom but that's dying off now and the leaves are appearing. We have been spider watching - Terry has a fascination with American spiders as they are so varied and some are a lot bigger than English ones. We are looking forward to seeing the bluebonnets when they come out here in Texas - any time now - they are a bit like our bluebells and make huge deep blue carpets of colour.

We will make another trip to the post office tomorrow and keep our fingers crossed the letter comes in.

Change for the Better?

A number of people have contacted us to say they cannot seem to view our blog, so I have tried a couple of things to help. One of them is to change the template I have been using, hence the change to the page layout.
On the activity front, yesteday was a rest day. After nearly two weeks of activity we tried very hard to do nothing, to the point where Sally said she was bored and I said 'Good, then relax some more'.
I was pleased to get some photos on to the blog, as we had really had a blast in Dallas and Fort Worth.
I could not believe the range of possible explanations for the assassination and the muck ups that happened subsequently. If they run the country like that no wonder the world is in deep do-do.

Fort Worth

Today is a day we have looked forward to for some time. We are going to meet up with Charles and Tange, a lovely couple we met on the River Walk in San Antonio at the Boat Festival in November. They live just outside Fort Worth and said they would like to show us the highlights of the city. We arranged to meet them in the car park of a Chili’s, just off I35W. We lost our way in the very complex road system, which led to the air turning blue. Fortunately they were late as well because of heavy traffic. We decided to take just our van into Fort Worth, as it carries Sally’s Electric wheelchair. The plan was to visit the downtown area of Fort Worth called Sundance Square and eat lunch, then explore the Stockyard area, watch the cattle run and eat dinner in that area.

Sundance Square is a small area in the middle of Fort Worth which has be cleaned up and has become an eclectic mix of condominiums, high brow shops, eating places (not chains) and bars, most of which seem to be pub style. This area was recently seen on TV as it was the residence of the Green Bay Packers Team during the Superbowl. TV set up an outside studio in the square and broadcast many hours of TV from there in the build up to the big game. Most notably there are many large restored buildings dating from around 1900 – 1940 which feature some excellent Art Deco facades. It was fascinating to explore. The backdrop to these buildings were some modern skyscrapers, all glass style, which gave a cosy closed in feeling (not hemmed in) to the area. We stopped at a eating places called Risckys for a BBQ lunch where we had one dish between four of us! I then had to carry the remaining food back to the car in a box.

The Highlight of the the shops was looking in the very, very expensive western shop (Tange selected a lovely leather handbag; its price was over $5000, so she put it back).

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Following an excellent wander round the Sundance Square area we moved out of town to the Stockyard Area on Exchange Street. Fort Worth is most known for its cattle industry. It was the home of two of the largest meat canning companies Armor and Swift, sadly no more in Fort Worth. The canning industry needed meat and lots of it, so the stockyards round the factories were built to handle literally thousands of cattle, sheep and pigs daily. Exchange Street has become a tourist area of bars, shops and eating places, but many of the original buildings are still there, including a huge stables, the most amazing station and the stockyards themselves. The highlight of the Stockyard is the twice daily cattle drive through the street, a remembrance of the cattle drives that used to happen in its heyday. Twice a day the road is cleared, visitors (including us) wait on the sidewalk and a herd (15) of Longhorn Cattle are driven along the road. All great fun. Many people come to the area dressed as wranglers or cowboys, some to pose with tourists for money, others just because! We really enjoyed visiting the railroad station, it is like no other we have seen. It is a turn off Exchange Street and is a narrow brick road, with shops on both sides, almost completely closed in roof with a rail track running down the middle, no platform of course. When we arrived it was jam packed with people and a full size train, more like I think Calcutta station would be like than USA. Conductors at each carriage, with lots of shouting of all aboard added to the atmosphere, as did the Western Country band playing on the sidewalk. As we watched, the final whistles blew and the big diesel loco pulled the train way from the station to much waving by both passengers and passers by.

Following our exploration of The Stockyards it was time to eat again, Charles and Tange wanted to take us to a Joe T Garcia’s, which is more of an institution that a restaurant. It is simple Mexican food; you can order either enchiladas or fajitas. However it is the place itself that is fascinating. It occupies a complete city block, with a good sized indoor restaurant. However everyone comes the to eat on the patio, which is a huge garden with lots of small areas with ponds and fountains . When we arrived there was a line which ran out of the building, so we decided to eat indoors as there was seating available. However when we left we looked round the garden. The restaurant has seating for 1600, and is mostly a very lovely area of gardens. When we left, about 6.30, the line had grown to around 100 metres of people waiting to eat in the patio area. The streets around were packed with cars parked and there was even a line of cars waiting to get into the street area round Joe T Garcia’s! The food was very nice, with lots of bits brought to the table, nachos, tacos, tortillas and dips. A really fun place to eat.

Following our meal it was time to say goodbye to Charles and Tange who had been the best possible guides and friends on our day out in Fort Worth. Another day that am sure we shall never forget.

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Dealey Plaza and South Fork

Dealey Plaza has been one of the items on 'Our Most Important Places toVisit' list since starting our travels. Strangely, although everyone in England knows the history of the assassination of John F Kennedy, the place associated with it is The Book Depository and the name Dealey Plaza is not so commonly used, whereas in the USA Dealey Plaza, quite rightly, is the focal point of the event.
We did our tour of the Sixth Floor Museum, which refreshed a lot of the information we had learned over the years. It was interesting to see the reconstruction of the 'Sniper's Nest' in the corner of the Sixth Floor, disappointingly no photography was allowed. I don't quite know what they would lose by it, still they ain't gonna change because of me.
The assassination by Lee Harvey Oswald seemed straight forward, with only a couple of question marks. However, it is afterwards that I have been set thinking. Like so many other assassinations there are only facts, possible facts and questions, no objectively true answers. The biggest question to me is: why did he not shoot the president on Houston Ave - where he had a much clearer, closer shot, with the car coming in a straight line towards him? The trouble is that once you start looking for conspiracy, you find all sorts of things which can be conspiratorial. Whatever happened it was a sad day for the USA.

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We then drove round the inner ring road of Dallas, which is truly confusing unless you are really on the ball, and by mistake we had to drive into Dallas along the road which features in the opening credits for 'Dallas'. We skirted the city and drove to the north of Dallas to visit South Fork Ranch, the home of the TV series 'Dallas'. It was fun to see the house where the series was based, although all the inside shots were done in a studio in California. It was a lot smaller than we remembered from the series, but they apparently used wide angled lenses which made the place look bigger than it actually was. Inside was still as it was when it was the home of a Texas Millionaire and it was very, very plush. Most striking was the master bedroom, which is huge, with a walk-in washroom, 2 toilet rooms (his and hers we assume), a walk in shower room and a large sunken bath room. We also saw 'Daddy's' Lincoln Continental, which was very nicely looked after.

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To Dallas

On Monday morning, minute by minute precision planning took over and we swung into action. We had to leave at 9.00, to return the RV by 11.00 (we arrived at 10.45). Having spent $45 on a taxi to the RV rental the previous Tuesday we had decided to rent a car for the day, so we were then collected by the Budget Rental driver and taken to collect our Budget Rental Car. Because of the late notice, I had to rent the car for 8 days in order for the Budget Computer to think we were worthwhile bothering with (it is spring Break and a lot of cars are already hired out). This meant that we had to return it early, like by about 7 ½ days, still it worked out OK. As we had about 5 hours to kill we went up to Downtown Orlando, as we had never been there. We found a lovely park and a historic district to have our lunch in, then we went for a wander round the Florida Mall, avoiding all the temptations (apart from a Goodie with our tea and coffee in Panera Bread) . We then drove the 15 minutes to the airport, dropped the car, did a Bag Drop, had some tea and arrived at the gate just in time to go straight onto the plane. The plane was more than on time – it landed 20 minutes early. We took the shuttle to the car rental, picked up the car. Interestingly using the Fastbreak programme with Budget the guy at the desk swiped my card and then said to choose any car in section 1 of the car park, which gave a choice of about 5 different compact cars; we chose a Nissan. We arrived at the Motel 6 by about 10.20 and flaked out. Next day we jumped up early and drove north to Sanger, where the trailer was stored. Lo and behold, the trailer was clean and bug free and the Chevy started first time. Having read the small print on the budget rental car we find that Sally can drive it at no extra cost, so Sally drove the car and I drove the Chevy and we returned the hire car. We then drove back south to the Corps of Engineer lakeside campsite at Hickory Creek Campground near Lewisville that I had booked a couple of weeks ago.

This evening we went out for our first Steak of the trip at the Texas Cattle and Land Roadhouse Grill. It was excellent. We also had a great conversation with our waitress, Stephanie, who had just returned from a 6 months tour of Europe.

Party Party Party

Inevitably communications with the rest of the world ceased for the weekend, as we have done nothing but eat, play bluegrass, eat, talk with our friends, eat and laugh.

It has been a wonderful weekend, one of the best that Connie has orchestrated. Only the very cold nights were able to put a stop to the jamming.

I had a great time with the band scramble, as I was fortunate to be with a group of really great musicians, so we had some really good ‘instant music’. Well done to Jan and Marilee for organising the Band Scramble so efficiently.

Saturday afternoon and evening saw the concerts by regular bands, again I was really honoured that a band called the Haines City Good Old Boys asked me to join them on stage for a great set.

The highlight though of the evening was the performance by the ‘Hideaway Hooters’, a relatively unknown (thank goodness) group of swinging girls(?) who move everything in an effort to please their audience. Somehow Connie had persuaded some of the men to dress provocatively as women and sing for us. It was a hilarious performance. Connie thinks that there may well have been 500 people for the pot luck supper on Saturday.

Sunday: in the Gospel hour Sally and I had the chance to sing our latest song, In Times Like these. A very simple song which was well appreciated by the group gathered there.

All things must come to an end and through Sunday afternoon people packed up and left, we again had to say farewell to friends old and new. We ourselves stayed over until Monday morning.

Thursday

Things are really winding up now. There is a team of cooks who help Connie to prepare food and they have been bustling round all day, making pies (chocolate, banana cream, lemon meranguie), soup (any dish vaguely damp is pronounced ‘soup’ in America, from chilli to goulash to clam chowder, this happened to be goulash) in 5 gallon boilers and enough macaroni cheese to feed an army. Lots of signs have gone up, the registration tent is now active and the sound system has been put in place. We awaited the arrival of Don and Sandy and they turned up just after 12.00, having set out at 6.30 from West Palm Beach. Meanwhile the music has started, Sally and I practiced for an hour, trying to make up for 6 months of doing nothing. There was one big jam session in the evening, which moved further and further into the Pole barn as the evening got progressively colder, finally ending up in the food store, which was delightfully warm from all the fridges in there. I bowed out at 12.55, which in jet lag terms was 5.55 a.m. U.K. time. Sally made the sensible decision and went to bed at about 10.00. Really good fun though.

Wednesday

Today was a good day to visit Walmart.

Our Friends Jim and Kath took us to the Oxford Landing Walmart so that we could stock up on goodies for the week we are in Florida. Oxford Landing serves The Villages, which is a massive development for the over fifties (more than 100,000 people). Without her electric wheelchair Sally is dependant on using one of their handicapped electric carts(scooters). While waiting, I idly asked how many carts they have. He told me he has 35 for the one Walmart store! He also thinks that is the largest number of electric carts in any store in the country. That is a piece of trivia that you may want to drop into the conversation at your next dinner party.

Today is Oakwood day, 30 of us went to the local Pork Rib Joint restaurant for dinner. Sally and I each had a very nice full rack of pork ribs (half of which is now residing in our fridge for lunch tomorrow).

As I sit here now a storm has been blowing up, we have had to take down other sides of Jim’s marquees and store all the plastic chairs out of the wind, now the rain is starting.

We travel to Connie's

Once again we have achieved the minor miracle which is moving ourselves a fifth of the way round the globe without mishap or disaster. We made very connection with the minimum of hassle. I am constantly amazed that the four big engines on the 747 can work constantly for 9 hours without a single falter (they can’t misfire).

For those who are sad enough to like the details of journeys and for our own records the following is a description of our journey. For those not so afflicted they may pass on to the lower part of the page.

You can skip from here……………….

A rare experience for us is to travel through Middlesbrough by taxi. Fortunately we gave ourselves half an hour to travel the mile and a half to the station, since the driver told us a) that the would take the quick route through the town, using the bus lanes and then 10 minutes and three quarters of a mile later, that b) he normally worked in Thornaby. Our journey of no more that 7 minutes took him nearly 20!!!! However we arrived on the platform as the train pulled in. The train journey went very smoothly, the only hiccup being that because of signal failure the train terminated at Manchester Piccadilly. However we only had to get off the train and move to the other side of the platform to catch a connecting train to the airport. A quick call summoned the Hilton’s shuttle bus, which transported us the estimated 100m (as the crow flies) to the hotel and we were safely installed in an upgraded ‘deluxe room’ (no provision for disabled access room, even though it was on the booking form). Because they never have anywhere comfortable to lounge I like a couple of extra pillows and because Sally doesn’t like to feel left out she has a couple as well, so I returned to the front desk to ask for four extra pillows, “That would be fine Sir” the lady said with a refined, but definitely Latvian accent. About an hour later a knock at the door and a slightly confused housekeeper brought two more pillows. She gave them to us and made a move for the bed and started to pickup our pillows, saying something in a definitely unrefined Polish accent “ Ghare R you pheorm pelos”. At this point confusion reigned as I was not about to give up my pillows because this lady could not count. Clarity arrived through repetition as she eventually made clear these were foam pillows. She thought we wanted hypoallergenic foam pillows, so was replacing our pillows with foam pillows. To be replaced by eye popping expressions of disbelief that we would want four pillows each! Fortunately Sally said that she would be happy without any extra and every thing was sorted (except of course Sally stole one of my pillows, not that I would complain about that).

That evening we splashed out on the three course set menu in the Hilton’s restaurant and justified it as being Sally’s Birthday Meal! It was very nice, Sally had a char grilled chicken salad followed by Salmon with new potatoes and green beans and finished with fresh fruit salad. I had mussels in lemongrass and chilli cream sauce, followed by rump of lamb pan fried with chips and a jus, with green beans. I finished off with a lemon tart and cream. Overall it was a very enjoyable, well presented and tasty meal, leaving us feeling pleasantly full.

We woke early and unfortunately could not do justice to the breakfast buffet, though we did our best. The shuttle delivered us to the Terminal, there was no line for the bag drop – straight through, the aircraft boarded early, there were plenty of spare seats on the plane (unusual) and a favourable route delivered us to Orlando airport 30 minutes early. A slight hesitation on our smooth passage was the immigration officer! She had been annoyed by another employee who had ushered us to her desk before and American Resident (two different lines)! So she relieved her annoyance be giving us the third degree on why we wanted to be here, why I had a visa but Sally didn’t, why I had a visa, full stop, how much cash we had, etc. very petty, but after reading all the small print on our passports very closely, she allowed us to enter the nation proud of it’s freedom. A rapid transit through the airport followed by a short taxi dirve (which didn’t stop it costing $45) to the premises of Cruise America. A quick walk around our RV, which is adequate, though basic and looks t be about 5 years old and held together with duck tape, and we were underway. One minor slip of direction (going the wrong way on the Expressway) meant half an hour extra on our journey time and we arrived at Connie and Jim’ just in time to get parked up in our usual spot before it got dark.

…………..To Here

As we drove up Connie and Jim’s drive we could see that about a dozen RV’s were already here and when we pulled up at the Pole Barn we got a very warm reception from everyone and within seconds felt we had never been away.

Kathy and Jim have been wonderful and loaned us a whole heap of stuff like cutlery, bedding and Jim has even loaned me a coffee maker. I left Sally to unpack the cases into the cupboards and drawers on the RV, while I went and had a short jam session in the Pole Barn.

As we crawl into our bed in our little RV we give thanks once again that we have arrived safely on the start of our next adventure.

The Waiting

The list is progressively getting shorter as we slowly do all the things on it and then tick them off. We have sorted insurance, printed off all the tickets and bookings, done last minute shopping, cleaned the house, done washing, tidied the garden, loaded up our English caravan with the bedding etc. after it was emptied for the winter, done the list of birthdays and made sure we have all the addresses, put checks in the bank and Sally's had her hair done (thanks girls) and is trying to catch Terry to do his!!

There are still a few things to do, but we are well on target.This is good, as this means that we can rest in between doing things as we are both still trying to recover from various viruses we have had.

We have had to load up our caravan before we go to the USA as we plan to take it away a couple of days after we return home so we can camp with our friends from the Ridings Folk Group for summer half term week. Trying to load up when jet lagged is not a good idea so we have got it done, ready just to put our food and clothes in it and set off. We can sleep when we get there!!

Why do you always lose something that you need? I cannot find a folder which contains all my songs and music and Terry cannot find the English dongle to connect the laptop to the internet. We have looked everywhere, but I'm sure they are in the cavernous region of the GARAGE - where most things not in use are stored! We even checked the caravan to see if we left them there. No joy!! So today, I'm having to make a new music folder.

We are beginning to get excited and are really looking forward to some warm weather. The temperature in Orlando is around about the 80's F - lovely!!! It's really cold here today - the sort where you need gloves, scarves, thick coats, hats and thermals! But the garden is already beginning to bloom and grow. The crocuses are out in all their glory and the miniature daffodils are budding. The bushes are all sending out new shoots and the heather is in full flower. Very nice to see this after such a long, cold and dark winter.