The Great Southwest

Friday, October 4, 2013

The last time we blogged we were driving across Arizona. Thursday and Friday we drove through Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. In Arizona we drove from the desert to rugged mountains. Each was beautiful in their own way. In New Mexico we experienced terrain similar to Nevada, huge valleys that stretched for 20 or 30 miles between mountains. We spent Thursday night in Roswell, New Mexico. Roswell is famous because of a supposed UFO sighting years ago. There was a museum dedicated to Aliens and several of the fast food restaurants had blowup dolls of green aliens standing outside their entrances. On Friday we stopped at the Very Large Array (VLA) that is part of the National Radio Astrology Observatory (NRAO). There were 27 extremely large satellite dishes, 230 tons each, that were actually radio telescopes. They were aligned in the shape of a “Y” over a huge area. This telescopes read heat rather then light so that pictures of the same object from each telescope will look totally different. It was fascinating. Frankly we were surprised they were open because of the government shut down. We were told that they expected to be closed down the next day. As we drove into Texas the landscape changed markedly. We were now seeing field after large field of sunflowers, cotton, and what we believed to be sorghum. These fields gave way to the big ranches that we all associate with Texas. Surprisingly, the cattle we saw were not Texas Longhorns. As some of you know, football borders on being a religion in Texas. It was Friday when we were entered Texas and each town we drove through was obviously gearing up for that evenings game. We found this interesting. Hamlin, Texas High School’s nickname is the Pied Pipers. Never thought a Texas high school would have such on interesting literary reference for a nickname.

Friday night we arrived in Fort Worth. Our plan was to find a hotel in Arlington because it was half way between Fort Worth and Dallas. Before finding our hotel we decided to stop at the Fort Worth Stockyards. At one time this area was the stockyards where all of the cattle were brought to be sold. It is now a wonderful area of restaurants and shops. There is also a maze that was featured on an episode of “The Amazing Race” and several places to ride a mechanical bull. While Lynda was encouraging Tim to try his hand at a mechanical bull, Tim thought it safer to actually sit atop a Texas Longhorn. Hopefully the picture Lynda took can be added to this blog posting. What an impressive animal. While we were having dinner on the patio of a wonderful barbeque restaurant we notice many people in Denver Bronco, Notre Dame and Arizona State shirts. Tim knew that Denver was in Dallas to play the Cowboys. What he found out in talking to some people was that Notre Dame and Arizona State were playing in Cowboy Stadium on Saturday night. We decided that hotels in Arlington, the location of Cowboy Stadium would undoubtedly be full. After a few phone calls we finally found a room in Irving, about 10 miles north of Arlington, right by the Dallas-Forth Worth airport. Saturday morning Tim had an unfortunate encounter with a Notre Dame fan that ruined his breakfast. Notre Dame fans are the equal of Michigan fans on the arrogance meter!

Saturday, October 5, 2013

Lynda found a premium outlet mall in the south part of Arlington so after breakfast we went there. Those of you who know Lynda well know that she is not really much of a clothes shopper. But when she shops, she shops and she really shopped Saturday. Tim readily agreed that all of her many purchases were much needed. After the shopping we found a restaurant where Tim was able to enjoy watching the second half of the MSU-Iowa football game. The main attraction of the day was the 6^th Floor Museum in Dallas. It was from a window on the 6^th floor of the Dallas Book Depository that Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated President John F. Kennedy. The building is no longer called the Dallas Book Depository but the 6^th and 7^th floors are maintained as a museum. The corner of the 6^th floor where Oswald holed up to commit this crime is maintained as it appeared in 1963. Plexiglas surrounds this area and, unfortunately, no picture taking is allowed. There were exhibits along the way that describe in detail Kennedy’s movements and the atmosphere in Dallas leading up to the shooting. There were several moving films with video from those terrible moments in Dallas. We learned several interesting things from the exhibits that we did not previously know or had forgotten. Before we went into the museum we had spent a few minutes outside looking down the street that Kennedy’s car traveled. Watching the event in the museum the street seemed so much bigger then it looks in person. We were not able to stay as long as we would have liked because they closed the museum before we had gone to the 7^th floor exhibit. Neither of us felt that we had missed anything by not seeing the 7^th floor. While this was a somber experience, it is one that we would not have wanted to miss.

Sunday, October 6, 2013

Today we drove to Little Rock, Arkansas with the intent to visit the Bill Clinton Presidential Library. While in route we saw a sign for Hope, Arkansas and the Bill Clinton home where he grew up. We took a quick detour and drove by his birthplace. Turns out he only lived in Hope until the age of 4. We assumed we would find out at the Library where he went from Hope. It never occurred to us that the Presidential Library would be closed because of the government shut down but it was. This was probably the only disappointment on the trip. The rest of our brief time in Little Rock made up for missing the Clinton Library. We first drove to the State Capitol. It is an imposing edifice that was modeled after the U.S. Capitol in D.C. What caught our attention, however, was a memorial to the 9 black students who desegregated Little Rock Central High School. There were nine individual metal sculptures of “the 9” as they looked in 1957. The sculptures were arrange to look like what they might have looked like walking into the school building. We both noticed that there was no date for when the memorial had been placed but it must have been fairly recently because Mike Huckabee was listed as governor. He was in office from 1996 to 2007. We wondered why it would take this long to erect this memorial. From the capitol we drove to Little Rock Central High School. It is preserved by the National Park Service as a historic site. It is an immense building and is architecturally a sight to behold. One wonders if the students attending school there now understand not only its historic significance but appreciate its beauty as well. Because of missing the Clinton Library we decided to make an unscheduled stop in Memphis, Tennessee to visit Beale Street. Beale Street is not only famous as the home of the blues but is also the street where Sun Records was originally located. Sun Records is the record company that first signed Elvis Presley to a recording contract. It is where Elvis first met Colonel Parker who became his agent. And the rest was history. We enjoyed walking down Beale Street, watching the people, browsing in the many interesting and varied shops and listening to blues being played in outdoor patios just off of the street. We also enjoyed one of Beale Streets equally famous rib houses.

This will be our last blog posting. We are now on our way home and hope to arrive in Mason either late Monday or Tuesday for sure. As always we have enjoyed writing this blog. After all, as we said at the beginning of this trip, it serves as a diary for us. Thanks for reading. We’ll see you soon.

While trying to post this blog we have discovered a glitch with posting pictures. We may need to consult with our webmaster, Jilayne, for help. Check back in a few days to see if we have been able to fix the glitch.

Heading East

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

We’re back blogging from Show Low, Arizona. Show Low got its name from a poker game played over 130 years ago. The main street is Deuce of Clubs Avenue, named for the winning card. We left L.A. yesterday after spending a three day weekend with Lynda’s relatives. There was much drinking, and eating and drinking. The women went for manicures Sunday while the men watched football. Tim had a hard time getting use to football coming on early in the morning. Before leaving Los Angeles, we visited Descanso Gardens in one of the suburbs. It would have been a beautiful garden during peak blooming time. Unfortunately, there were only a few camellias, lilies and azaleas in bloom. We were also expecting our friends, Clive and Angie Morris from East Dean, Great Britain, to call us about getting together on the 2^nd for breakfast as they were flying in on the 1^st. We hung out at a park for a while waiting for a call. Not receiving one we headed east. We did manage to catch rush hour leaving L.A. We could not believe how far out of the city we went before traffic thinned out. We spent the night in Indio, California.

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Traveling this morning from Indio into Arizona towards Phoenix, we saw nothing but desert. Our original itinerary had us taking I-10 to Phoenix, heading south toward Tucson, and turning east toward El Paso and then on toward Dallas on the I-20. We had had enough desert so we stopped at a AAA office in Phoenix and changed our route. We traveled northeast out of Phoenix through the Tonto National Forest. We did not see any trees. Evidently they were furloughed as part of the Federal Government shut down. Actually, the first part of the Tonto National Forest was desert land with impressive stands of Saguaro cactus. As we went up in altitude we finally got into beautiful pine forests. Show Low was the first town since leaving Phoenix that had any hotels and a nice selection of restaurants. It was a long ways to the next possible stop so here we are. Our next blog post will be in a couple of days from Dallas.