IDYLLOPUS PRESS IS A VALIANT LITTLE ROWBOAT

We are back–and no we didn’t listen to Jackson Browne. Sorry. We don’t have any of Jackson Browne’s CDs. Co-adult says there are some he’d like to get but I have to admit I’m not very familiar with Browne’s music.

Need to get an USB cable for the camera I was using the first couple of days of the trip before I can upload some of those images. In the meanwhile I’ve started work on some photos I took on Thursday going through New Orleans (where co-adult was born) and Gulfport (where co-adult spent some growing up time). We’ve a number of relatives down on the Gulf, some of whom are rebuilding or still displaced by Katrina, and had been told how badly Gulfport had been hit as well and how the news hadn’t reflected this. And Gulfport was indeed something else. We knew that it had been hit hard but it was distressing to see over a full year later how it still looked bombed out, debris lying everywhere, not even the piers and boardwalks rebuilt yet. I’ve only gotten about 18 photos of Gulfport done and have about 150 more to sort through and work on, but I’m hoping that the images will give, when viewed in total, a bit of what it’s like now to drive the beachfront highway.

The gulf parks in Mississippi off I-10 are still closed.

Thursday was a pretty bleak day, going through first New Orleans and then Gulfport. We drove in from Baton Rouge and had intially planned on spending the night in New Orleans but after seeing that all are favorite haunts in the French Quarter in New Orleans are gone, we decided to just make a stroll through and move on. The bookstore that I like to hit is still up and running and we did drop some business there.

And of course New Orleans is so much of it a ghost city now.

After driving through (co-adult thanked me for being kind enough to really depress him with the drive through Gulfport) it was a delight to meet up with one of Marty’s cousins and her husband in Mobile and have coffee with them. We made a vow to get together soon down in New Orleans, which would be great fun. They’re really enjoyable people and we would have accepted their invitation to spend the night at their place but we were the kind of road weary that just wanted to get that six hours between the coffee shop and home over with.

Click on the below photos to view larger at Flickr. At the Flickr page for the photos click “All Sizes” for the larger images.

Gulfport, Mississippi #1, November 2006

Gulfport, Mississippi #2, November 2006

Gulfport, Mississippi #12. November 2006. Hurricane Katrina aftermath. One year later.

My husband was born in New Orleans and spent a few years growing up in Gulfport. Seems appropriate to have a photo showing his face as he looked upon the debris. We’d heard from Mississippi and Louisiana relatives how bad the Gulfport area had been hit, and of course had seen it on the news (though it’s not been covered much) but it was still a shock to drive the highway down by the beach and see the state the area was in over a year later.

The first day of our trip was all last minute errands, like buying a camera. But first we went to get our new glasses, which were thankfully ready, and dealt with the slowest optician in the world who was very pleasant but still very very very slow and had an odd way of speaking so that one had the impression he was Bill Murray’s brother begotten by artificial insemination and neither one has a clue the other exists but every one who meets Bill Murray II has the distinct impression they’re reliving a film comedy except they can’t recollect having seen it. When fitting co-adult’s glasses he mused flatly that these were good Japanese glasses, that the Germans used to do the best but after the wall went down it changed and finally the Japanese are better. It took him a while to relate this. I know this doesn’t sound amusing, and he didn’t mean for it to be amusing, but it was in the way where you discreetly exchange a glance with your partner and you know what will be the first topic of conversation as soon as you’re out the glass doors. My new bifocals are for some reason rather longer than any of the eyeglass cases they had available and though I told the optician this he went about meticulously taking each eyeglass case and trying to fit the glasses in them, even though I pointed out I’d already done this (though I didn’t say I had done it at the speed of light in comparison). One case after another he took, even cases that were obviously duplicates just colored differently, and tried to fit them in. “Doesn’t fit that one,” he’d softly say and slowly, deliberately move to the next.

It wasn’t until we were on the Interstate that I realized my new sunglasses had several big scratches on them and that they’d done the reading prescription so that they focus 24 inches from your face. Co-adult’s are tuned to focus even closer. Which drove us nuts throughout the trip and we vowed to return them, but now we seem to be resigned and reluctant to go through the bother. Almost. Co-adult needs to be able to see the keyboard keys which he can’t through these wonderful Japanese glasses which focus at about 20 inches.

Again, the first day of our trip was all last minute errands that are a part of everyone else’s normal routine, but we put everything off until we’re going on a trip and then must go shopping, except that buying a camera isn’t an everyday event, no. Mine wasn’t out of the shop and a friend had sent a small Kodak which was sweet of her to do (and will be great for H.o.p., whose Nikon Coolpix is usually nonfunctional now) but lack of pixel quality was stressing me, especially since I planned to take enough pics of the Grand Canyon and scenery to have me deep in Photoshop doing post production for a year. I was reluctant but am glad co-adult shoved me into a Best Buys to get a digital SLR as my early Christmas present. Having read up on them I had in mind what I’d probably get, but when I told the camera saleswoman I was looking for a digital Single Lens Reflex Camera and inclined my head toward the models at hand and she vacantly but smilingly replied, “Is that a special function of an SLR?” I was thrown into an alternate universe where I felt my vocabulary was apparently not in sync any longer with the norm, for certainly a camera salesperson must have some knowledge of what they’re selling so something must be wrong with me, and my brain said bye-bye and my ability to respond intelligently vanished. Plus, I was getting ready to make a major purchase and I rarely buy anything for myself and stress out over major purchases–the kind of stressing out where it takes me years to buy anything big usually. I don’t recall saying anything in response but she groked a change in wind and promptly directed us to a salesman she said knew more (co-adult said, “He would have to…”) and he too befuddled me because information he listed on available models was about 1/1000th of what you will get in a fundamental online review. He was basically, “Do you want a Nikon or Canon or Sony?” and hadn’t much more to offer after that other than “Pick ‘em up and see which one you like.” My senses were overloading with big store stimuli and what I wanted was a prejudiced salesman who would help me make up my mind between a Nikon and Canon, as years ago I used to own a good Nikon and loved it and didn’t like Canon, but was inclined to the Canon from what I’d read as to what was kind-of affordable for a digital SLR. I wanted a salesman who would offer an opinion, but he wasn’t about to do it. I had told him we were going to be easy customers because we needed a camera now, today, as we were going on vacation. That to me is something a salesman should consider when showing us available models, because when I eventually selected the Canon XTi 400D, he replied, “We don’t have that in stock.” Sooooo, I went with an older model of the XTi, scratching my head, wondering why he had been showing us the 400D when it wasn’t in stock.

Then we got out on the road, very late in the day, and I struggled with the camera. Eventually it would turn out to be defective and would need to be returned. But I didn’t know that yet.

Really, our first day of the trip was shopping day. We shopped clear across Alabama. So it’s nice that some towns consist of a mall on the side of the Interstate. And the malls and shopping centers don’t leave much to the imagination as far as the interests of people living in the area. In Oxford, a Best Buys is located next to a Hobby Lobby that’s just as large, and across from a huge LIFEWAY Xtian bookstore.

From the town’s lamp posts hung banners reading,

WELCOME TO OXFORD ALABAMA
TRUTH RADIO/XTIAN RADIO

But the people at the Oxford mall were nice, and if I note this like it’s something deserving to be mentioned in a vacation post, it’s because I so loathe malls that I only step foot in them once every blue moon when I’m on vacation and have forgotten something and must resort to a mall. For which reason I was in the mall at a Gap store in Oxford Alabama looking for a pair of jeans. A salesman was immediately at my service and very nice and helpful trying to find a size 28 in a boot cut, but when I pointed out they seemed a lot lot lot bigger than my several month old Gap boot cut jeans that I like and that I was wearing, and I asked if it was my imagination or not, he would offer no opinion. I asked again because I wear loose loose loose jeans but I didn’t want this pair falling down to my knees. No matter how I phrased my question the helpful salesman would offer no opinion as to whether or not they were bigger and as these were the only boot cuts I went ahead and purchased them and he helpfully directed me to where I could get some good coffee. When I was leaving the Gap store another salesman literally leaped from six feet away to cheerfully wish that I would have a Good Evening! so surprising me that I jumped back a foot, but recovered, thinking, “Wow! Aren’t we all cheerful and friendly in Oxford without seeming strained about it?!” and wished him a good evening as well. I wondered if everyone was so cheerful because they’d had a big prep talk about the Christmas season, Christmas music already playing and Christmasy things decorating the place.

Anyway, the jeans, which I thought were much larger than my other Gap boot cuts (but which I purchased anyway thinking they couldn’t be that that that much bigger), turned out to be so big they fall straight to the floor. And yeah I could have tried them on at the store but I’m one of those people who never does.

At Anniston we passed LUCKY’S GUN TACKLE and the INTERNATIONAL MOTOR SPORT HALL OF FAME. The hot pink evening sun had dropped behind the horizon. We switched the satellite radio to a French station. And that felt odd, driving through Alabama listening to a French-speaking DJ rattling off names of American bands.

We passed huge BASS PRO SHOPS that seemed as big as a shopping center and lots and lots of RV sales places. Where else are you going to set up your recreational vehicle shop but on the Interstate. Only makes sense.

I thought about how in some places architecture is so generic that the BASS PRO SHOPS look like giant versions of middle-upper middle class suburban homes look like hospitals look like big hotels look like malls look like professional office parks.

Billboards in Birmingham tended to messages like LEAD PAINT CAN POISON and help for alcoholism and advertising vendors of beauty supplies.

Lots of billboards across the country with emblems like the cross alongside hopeful promises such as WE RESTORE LIVES. Back in the mid 20th century such religious billboards tended to be seen only in certain out-of-the-way areas in the Bible Belt South. But something happened (somethings such as Jim and Tammy Fay Baker and Pat Robertson) and the billboards went mainstream and are now everywhere offering restoration through faith, which suggests a lot of people are not happy with their lives. And that churches make big bucks promising to make you feel better.

The factory side of Birmingham instead had rundown billboards reading PLACE YOUR AD HERE.

A lot of the comedy on satellite radio was concerned with people going to the mall and Costco.

I have never been in a Costco.

Tuscaloosa! What was it with the miles of nearly standstill traffic at Tuscaloosa? Ah, Game Day! Sports. Football! In the meanwhile, Grouch Marx was singing about Omaha Nebraska on the radio.

WELCOME TO TUSCALOOSA, HOME OF ALABAMA’s #1 TUSCALOOSA TOYOTA DEALER.

I thought about that proud billboard for a good ten minutes because it seemed to me a given that Tuscaloosa is going to be the home of Tuscaloosa’s number one Toyota dealer.

The sports stadium was huge and bright as ten suns far off to the right of the interstate. CRIMSON TIDE.

We passed the MOUNDVILLE ARCHAEOLOGICAL PARK exit, one of those places we keep intending to go visit one day but haven’t gotten around to it.

Having started out late in the day, we were in Meridian, Mississippi when we decided dinner was in order. Because we’d started out late in the day there would be no fun doings, and in lieu of any fun doings we stopped at a Pizza Hut for H.o.p., because he loves Pizza Hut pizza.

Meridian, Mississippi is the home of of the Peavey musical equipment company. Because co-adult is a musician and PEAVEY is a name I’m well-acquainted with, I always expect Meridian Mississippi to be a PLACE, to have presence. I read there’s a lot to see in Meridian…I just haven’t seen it yet.

So, passing through Meridian (and wondering again just where this town is), we stopped at Pizza Hut for dinner because we knew H.o.p. would like pizza. We went in and there was a hostess. We are particular about our pizza at home and never eat at Pizza Hut (we only do take out from it once a year when a brother of co-adult visits who happens to like Pizza Hut), so is this normal that Pizza Huts have hostesses now? I didn’t know, but was surprised. I’m endlessly surprised while on vacation–by things like this. Other people will know that Pizza Huts now have hostesses. Me? I know nothing about this kind of stuff. It was only about 10 pm and the establishment was supposed to be open until midnight but they were already empty and cleaning up for the night. The hostess sat us down and brought us water and announced she would be our waitress and then never returned. In the meanwhile of waiting for her never to return, I told the co-adult I’d have salad. Eyeing the salad bar, he said he thought I was taking my life in my hands. Though I knew what was in the salad bar would be what’s in the kitchen, I said I’d go with a salad from the kitchen, because I am, by and large, irrational, and so is co-adult. We were cheerful vacationers still and after about 15 minutes (maybe more) of waiting for our waitress to stop mopping the floor over yonder, I felt my cheeriness evaporating and would have been long since ready to leave but I was determined to remain cheerful and co-adult got another woman’s attention and we were polite and nice about it all and she profoundly apologized and offered us free salad bar along with our pizza, which I turned down and went with a salad from the kitchen because co-adult had insisted I’d be taking my life in my hands to touch the salad bar and I was being agreeable with him by not doing so, and then co-adult goes over and gets a big salad from the salad bar and I sat and stared at it and wondered why I’d just ordered a salad when I could have eaten the salad bar for free. While eating, we watched a bit of some of the television shows on the three televisions in the place, which is an exceptional event for me because we don’t have cable and I never watch television shows anyway.

H.o.p. loved the Pizza Hut pizza.

We stayed the night in Jackson MS which was all abroil with football and the hotels pretty much packed out.

I took no pics the first day. Here are a couple more of Gulfport, MS.

What do you do when you’re racing cross country and back on a two week vacation and want to give the eight-year-old huddled in the back seat the impression you’re providing him extra-exceptional entertainment by doing this? Flying through Louisiana on I-20, the co-adults spotted a billboard for a gator park and discreetly consulted with each other then pulled off the interstate to go searching for said park, first in the wrong direction then hopefully in the right one. “Where is it? Where is it? You’d think they’d have more signs. Wonder how many people get lost and return to the Interstate,” we mumbled low so that if we did find the park it would be a surprise for H.o.p.

And that’s what we did on the second day of our trip. Looked at gators and cute little African goats. And ostriches. Finally finding the park we entered a medium-sized green building which had a few souvenirs on shelfs, not stocked to the gills, and purchased tickets from a rather desultory but not unagreeable young teen or preteen sitting behind a long counter. He just had the kind of manner that teens have who would prefer to be most anywhere else in the world than where they are and would prefer in particular to be residing in someone else’s skin, but not yours, no, because you’re you’re a stupid old tourist and he at least ten times a day fantasizes about one of those old tourist fools falling into a gator pond, getting their due and livening things up at the same time.

Having purchased our tickets, we went for a $2 cup of animal feed and I read for H.o.p. the instructions on the counter detailing what not to feed the feed. I forget what I remarked about what not to feed but it was unremarkable and drew a reluctant laugh from the young teen at how unremarkable it was, he also thinking, “I hear that ten times a day”, and I was aware when I said it he heard it ten times a day but H.o.p. hadn’t. Co-adult followed up with another comment that drew another reluctant laugh, and feeling we’d done our duty proving how unimaginative and repugnant tourists are we stepped out back onto a wooden walkway overlooking what appeared to be really really really big painted concrete lawn ornaments of alligators, something not communicated in the below picture.

Alligators can sit impossibly still for long periods of time waiting for you to get close enough to eat you. I was aware that gators do this and have observed them at the Atlanta Zoo, but these gators were HUGE and so still and unblinking that they looked like statues. I had to look three and four times before my eyes acclimated and understood them as living flesh. Co-adult, who grew up in Mississippi and has apparently been to his fair share of alligator farms as a child, went high-brow on me when I remarked on how they looked like statues and proceeded to educate me on everything I already knew about gators, reminding me that though we’ve been married for decades he will always be Gulf-Southern and I will always be that foreign lady from the Pacific Northwest that he brought into the family, the death knell to generations of solidly Gulf shores breeding.

“One of your dad’s great-uncles was an alligator trapper in the bayou,” I reminded H.o.p.

H.o.p., being a city boy, picked up a few fallen leaves and tossed them in the brown waters, hoping to get one of the floating, log-resembling gators to move, but the gators resolutely ignored.

We overheard another family of tourists talking about how much they liked Okefenokee Joe, who we’d seen at the Georgia National Fair this autumn.

The gator park turned out to be new, about three years old, and doesn’t have the cutesy stuff that I see in pics for some of the other big tourist gator park attractions in Louisiana. It had a nice feel to it, wasn’t shrill and gaudy and demanding, and the animals seemed well-tended and the goats were happy goats and even the camels were pleasant, happy camels surprising the few visitors with how pleasant they were, but what do I know about gator parks and petting zoos.

The first-encountered mammals, which were little deer, ate every bit of H.o.p.’s big $2 cup of feed and I realized we should have purchased several cups as we now had nothing to reward the cute African goats for being cute and convivial.

One of the ostriches was walking around with its wings all fluffed out to the side like a muscleman doing that arms out pumping down to the side, really projecting the veins thing, which looked pretty odd and might have been intimidating but its head was down and so though it was definitely some show of some sort it didn’t seem to have anything to do with bullying the humans.

I can say that if this gator park had been the subject of a movie I was doing then I would have the proprietors as people who were dazed to find themselves running a gator park and ambivalent about whether they wanted tourists to be treking through. Because though the proprietors were nice they were not show people, quietly going about their business of tending the animals. When co-adult stopped the proprietor to let him know he thought it a nice little park, the proprietor looked a little surprised that one of the tourists was addressing him, and as if he wasn’t too accustomed to this kind of interaction he mumbled a few words in a soft, low, deep Cajun drawl, so soft and low and distant sounding that standing on the other side of co-adult, who’d struck up the conversation, I couldn’t hear a thing he said. But this was how co-adult learned the park was three years old and that they were still having problems with the driveway.

“You’ve got a nice place,” co-adult said.

“We’ve been here about three years and are going pretty good. Still having having problems with the driveway though. It just isn’t right,” the proprietor said. Then he mumbled something else about the driveway and staring off at the animals he fell silent and was done with talking for the day.

Of course we visited the gift shop on our way out and H.o.p. chose a small model of a mountain goat for his purchase as we already have for some reason a couple of big plastic gators at home and one concrete ornamental gator though we’ve got no yard. In our old place I had the idea I would fashion an indoor swamp installation for the ornamental gator but never got around to it.

So back on the road and away we drove to Shreveport where, the sun in our eyes, we were surprised to come around a turn and see a nice-sized wrought iron table sitting in the middle of the Interstate. We swerved and avoided. Everyone else behind us was swerving left and right to avoid. I called 911 on the cell to let them know exactly where the table was, which was going to really mess up someone if they struck it. I made a point of this. “It’s really going to mess up someone if they hit that table.” And I felt very much like I’d done my civic duty for the day though every other car that had swerved to avoid the table had probably made the same call. Hopefully no one did strike the table.

We spent the night in Abilene, Texas. And that was pretty much it for the second day. The gators and successfully avoiding the table in the middle of the road were the big news.

Oh, and I realized we were seeing across country a lot of billboards advertising abstinence.

Our adventures thus far must sound like they would have been very dull for poor H.o.p., but all he really cared about was what toy he was going to next get in his McDonald’s Happy Meal.

And I had in mind an adventure bonanza for H.o.p. come New Mexico so I wasn’t feeling too guilty about not making it to the other fine entertainments I’d designated as possibilities but were in ciities we kept passing through right at closing time.

So there we were gassing up on Monday morning, November 20th, somewhere on the fringe edges of Abilene but right off I-20. We were at a lonely little dusty convenience store on a road that appeared to get very little traffic yet here in this place surrounded by big long stretches of brown grass and an occasional falling down building were what seemed to be some of Abilene’s homeless, one loitering at the gas station looking like he hadn’t bathed or changed clothes in quite some time and later there came a woman wandering down the road and passed by, but I was uncertain if they were homeless as they were porting backpacks and big branches as walking sticks and that’s something I just haven’t seen in Atlanta. The homeless here tend to live out of plastic bags and grocery carts, not backpacks. They didn’t look like the hitchhiking homeless we get through Atlanta either.

A man was gassing up his car that was more rust than anything else and he’d caught my eye as he looked as rough as the countryside and gave the appearance of being somewhat confused. Then he climbed into his car and proceeded to begin to drive off with the gas pump still lodged in the tank and we yelled and honked and caught his attention and noting this he looked even more confused but then realized what was happening. And we figured we’d kind of done our good deed for the day.

We asked for the best route to get to highway 180. As with everyone else we asked on this trip, we were given wrong directions (but that was OK because I had the map in hand and knew their route was impossible) and someone else at the convenience store spoke up and said the directions we were being given were wrong and that we were right. So we drove up to 180 and we rode 180 and then 380 through Texas into New Mexico. And we had a great time.

I’ll go ahead and now note that Honda Elements don’t appear to be very popular cars in the South outside of GA, because between Atlanta and New Mexico we only spotted two other Honda Elements on the interstates and highways. Both of those Elements were bright orange, the color we would have liked but they didn’t have when we got our Element. I have read that psychologists say people choose silver and gold cars as expressions of status and wealth. Maybe for some, but we got our Element in silver because for a great price it was either that or blue, those were the only two colors the dealer had available, and I wasn’t going to have a blue car. I just don’t like blue cars. Dunno why.

I don’t know what town it was but at one point we came upon a sign that said to watch for ducks and geese crossing the highway, and I looked and saw a park and water and had co-adult turn into it, thinking it would be a nice place for H.o.p. to get out and burn some energy. I guess it’s some kind of migration point because there were hundreds of ducks and geese there. More ducks and geese in one spot in a town (a very small town) than I’ve ever seen in my life. There were so many ducks and geese that the grounds were spotted all over white with bird droppings and feathers and the playground equipment looked long abandoned to the birds, also covered with droppings.

There were about three large connected ponds. We were the only visitors and some of the geese and ducks, seeing us, expected a meal and came running. A park service guy pulled up and watched us from a distance for a while then finally drove off. We stayed for a while, long enough that we were still there when he later returned.

H.o.p. had entertained himself the day before tossing a few leaves into the gator ponds hoping to get the gators to budge. Here he entertained himself pitching rocks into parts of the ponds free of the ducks and geese.

There was one lone, battered butterfly on the ground near the play equipment. Its wings occasionally fluttered but it was clearly at the end of its journey. H.o.p. was at first happy with this butterfly who sat quite still for us, then learning it was at its end he tried vainly to think of ways we could help it out. He ended up just watching out for it while we were there, making sure it wasn’t stepped on.

Here’s the lone butterfly surrounded by duck and geese droppings.

They grow cotton back in this area of Texas. Lots of cotton. And they were in the middle of harvesting it. Some places there were huge fields of cotton unplucked. Other places, bits of cotton covered the sides of the road and mega-huge oblong modules of it sat on the far edges of the harvested fields. I would have called them cotton bales but today H.o.p. and I were studying cotton since we’d seen it in Texas and I learned those big things in the fields are not bales but called modules.

“Look, cotton!” I pointed out to H.o.p.

“Look, cactus!” I pointed out to H.o.p.

“Look,” I pointed out to co-adult, “there’s a cactus and tree that always seem to grow together, I wonder what they are and why that is?”

Maybe someone who reads this post will know what I’m talking about and will be able to answer me.

“Look, oil pumps!” I pointed out to H.o.p.

“Look, cows!” I pointed out to H.o.p.

“Where’s McDonalds?” H.o.p. periodically inquired. “I’m hungry. I want a McDonalds.” What he really wanted was a certain toy from McDonalds that he’d not collected yet.

After a while this became kind of irritating.

“Look around you,” we finally would say, “what do you see?”

“Nothing,” H.o.p. would reply, peeved.

“Right, no McDonalds. We are in the middle of nowhere. There is no McDonalds here.”

“I’m hungry!”

“We have peanut butter and graham crackers and peanut butter crackers and cheerios.”

“I want McDonalds,” he’d reply, determined.

“Look! Tell me what you see!”

“Nothing.”

“Can we go to a McDonalds when there is no McDonalds?”

“No.”

“It is impossible to go to a McDonalds when there is no McDonalds. We are on Texas rural back roads surrounded by cotton fields. We are not in the city. We can’t make a McDonalds magically appear on a street corner that isn’t there. We will go to a McDonalds when we can, but there is no McDonalds for miles and miles.”

“Oooooh, all right!”

We drove into every small town, all only about a few blocks wide and long, to ogle their courthouses and little bitty town squares. They were mostly little towns that are very near dead and thus still have some character to them because not even a Wal Mart considers them lucrative.

I didn’t know quite what to think of this area of Texas, if it was the kind of place where you have mega-rich hidden away in ranches behind the cotton and the towns were repositories of workers for the mega-rich and the mega-rich didn’t mind the towns falling to seed because they could go elsewhere for goods and entertainment. I don’t know.

“H.o.p., look, more cotton! H.o.p. look, a school! This is where kids around here go to school. H.o.p. can you try to imagine what it would be like to live out here?”

Yes, yes, lame of me, but I was wearing out on trying to find something to point out to H.o.p. in my effort to make things kind of interesting on our way to what I knew H.o.p. would really enjoy, which we wouldn’t get to until after hours that night and wouldn’t be able to explore until Tuesday. Though the back roads in Texas were a great break from the Interstate, we had started out on the trip tired and were already fighting not to fall out on the side of the road and lie there for days gazing at ants, listening to H.o.p. wail for McDonalds, and this despite the fact we were this trip spending every night in really honest to god hotel rooms with cushy mattresses and real sheets, which was quite nice except each night would find the hotels getting pricier and the quality steadily falling though we were sticking with the same chain throughout. It didn’t help that we were dining already on crap food that we didn’t want and because we didn’t want it every time we drove up to a McDonalds we’d quite often get H.o.p. something but opt out on anything for us and munch on packages of peanut butter crackers. I was deep into rereading Tom Wolfe’s “Electric Acid Kool-Aid Test” about Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters and the speed that propelled Cassady’s ability to drag the Prankster bus across country in the early 60s was starting to sound pretty good.

Ray Charles helped out. In Texas I plugged in a Ray Charles CD and for several hours I felt no pain. I sang and beat time on the car and occasionally stopped and apologized to co-adult for being annoying, because co-adult is a musician and for some reason three decades into our marriage I was suddenly, for the first time in my life, feeling self-conscious about singing along to music and beating time.

H.o.p. and I were having skirmishes over music. He wanted to listen to Tom Waits. “I’m Tom Waits’ greatest fan,” he’d say.

Eventually we got H.o.p. to agree to an arrangement of each one of us taking turns selecting CDs.

Dusk had fallen when we drove into Roswell, New Mexico. And if you can’t guess why I thought H.o.p. would love stopping here and what we planned on taking him to see then maybe this will help. I took the same exact photo but I was using the Kodak camera those first few days of the trip because the new Canon was a dud and had yet to be returned (I did eventually take pics with it out of desperation, before exchanging it).

So, even the McDonalds at Roswell, New Mexico is tricked up to let you know Roswell is all about alien legends and flying saucers. The streetlights all had alien faces.

It was perfect. More than I’d hoped for. H.o.p. was loving it.

If you’re going to Roswell, New Mexico ever and entering from the east, around 20 minutes or so out of it you crest a hill and come upon a spectacular view of the valley. I didn’t even try to get a shot as it was dark twilight, and even in the twilight it was breathtaking. (Well, co-adult says it was about 20 minues. I think it was a shorter time.)

We got ourselves a room and the co-adults decided to spend money on a real dinner. This was great. It was only 7:30! We weren’t checking in after midnight like we had been the previous nights. We would go get a good meal finally and come back and veg for several hours before going to sleep. Rest time!

We never visit places like steak houses but for some reason we decided we wanted steak and we were directed to a steak house that was said to be good. We also went there because the person at the counter at the Inn told us the Mexican place next door wasn’t so good. She didn’t tell the people before us it wasn’t so good. They were grouchy with her and she told them it was fine. Us, she said don’t bother with the Mexican restaurant because it’s not so good, go to the steak house instead.

The steak house was jam packed with people. It was a chain, I realized, looking at pics on the wall of old cattle driving routes. The large party before us went elsewhere because they wouldn’t be able to get a table for 30 minutes, but we were a party of 3 and were sitting at our table in ten minutes.

We ended up with the waitress who looked overloaded and confused. She kept forgetting to bring us things. We tipped her well anyway because everything about her service reminded me of nightmares I used to have of waitressing and being overloaded and realizing I’d forgotten customers–nightmares that had a deep, panicky Twilight Zone feel to them. Because we were her nightmare customers that she kept forgetting to attend to we tipped her well so she wouldn’t go home feeling like it was too much of a nightmare.

And we went back to the hotel and our intestines immediately started making strange wretched grumblings and we spent all night being totally wretched in the bathroom because the overly tenderized meat made us really, really sick.

Except for H.o.p., because he’d opted to eat at McDonalds first and ate nothing at the steak house and was therefore just fine.

The first museum we went to see in Roswell was the Roswell Museum and Art center…which is incredible. For every single painting in every exhibit, I could sit a day examining each one and soaking it in. That’s how remarkable this museum is. And, amazingly, admission was FREE. What? Free? So we visited the gift shop and bought some books, which I can’t find right now and hope I didn’t leave them somewhere and that instead Marty was the one who put them up when we got home. And we dropped some money in the plexiglass “help us out” container at the museum’s entrance. Anyway, if you live within driving range of Roswell, head there for a day at the museum. And if you are driving through Roswell on vacation, make plans to visit it. One of the primary exhibitions is of the artwork of Henriette Wyeth and Peter Hurd, but there were a number of rooms and every one of them was full of wonderful surprizes, such as the “Las Artes de Mexico” exhibit showing works by Miguel Covarrubias, Jose Clemente Orozco and Diego Rivera.

We should have saved the Roswell Museum and Art Center for later, after the alien museum, but we had no idea what was going to be there and had only made it a stop because I’d read they had a full reconstruction of the workroom of rocket pioneer Robert H. Goddard, and we thought it would be nice to get in a dose of tangible real space adventure for H.o.p. before heading to the realm of myth and legend.

We should have taken some photos (photos without flash are permitted) but I knew the Kodak couldn’t handle it and the new Canon, being a dud, I didn’t think would do well either. So we took no photos and I really regret it, because I would have loved to have something of the Las Artes des Mexico paintings, and the Goddard rockets that looked like sculptures, and several of the Wyeth and Hurd paintings…though no photo could possibly capture their shimmering magic.

The Goddard rockets which looked like metal sculpture reminded me of a shop some distance outside Roswell, that was all metal sculpture, which we’d stopped at the previous day, but it had been closed. I took some pics of what was on display outside but I’ve not come across them yet and suspect they are on H.o.p.’s camera. Or I hope they are.

I would have spent years at the art museum but time was pressing and H.o.p. was anxious to get onto the International UFO Museum and Research Center, so anxious that he was just about no longer resident in his skin, which was frying me, so off we went. (And leaving the art museum I wanted to turn and cling to its doors and cry, “No, leave me here! I want to live here, please!”)

But our mission to Roswell was in fact to go the Internatonal UFO Museum and Research Center. I had planned this from Day One, knowing H.o.p. would be crazy about it.

H.o.p. was beside himself with excitement. Aliens! UFOs! It was one of those “This is the best day of my life!” days. He has those quite often, but this was super so.

This was a metal sculpture at the entrance to the museum. Cowboys and cactus equals strange new worlds, I guess.

H.o.p. only looks a little apprehensive meeting this alien. Actually he was probably distracted by yet another alien. The place was full of alien models and alien paintings. He wanted me to take photos of them all. I didn’t. I would have been taking pictures for hours if I had.

Here is a model of the Roswell UFO crash landing. I don’t know about you but I was delighted with it. So was H.o.p. He asked for a picture of it.

“Mom, take a photo of this! Mom, take a photo of this! Did you take the photo? Mom, take a photo of that! Of that! Mom, here, take a photo of this!”

This is, I guess, the disco, glitter flying saucer. They even had a quilted flying saucer. And dioramas of Barbies encountering aliens. If it has to do with aliens, I think you can get it put in the museum there. The museum had a number of such contributions. I’m seriously considering doing something alienish in a digital painting and sending it to them because of this. Or so I say. H.o.p. will probably beat me to it.

And so H.o.p. directed me through sections of the museum, requesting photos. Here he gives me a big thumbs up after I take a requested photo, because he was just so damn excited about it all.

I’m not exactly crying to have this painting that was in the research area at the UFO museum, but I wouldn’t mind it. Would go well with our velvet Elvis Presley.

Of course, we visited the gift store. H.o.p. left with several new alien friends that he introduced to a new astronaut friend.

We then went to eat at the Cover Up Cafe which was located just half a block over. We had been looking just for coffee and someone directed us to the cafe. At first we went, hmmmm, don’t think so. But we were craving coffee and realized we were hungry. So, we ate there as well.

And H.o.p. had me take a picture of his new very transportable alien friend studying the menu with him at the Cover-Up Cafe.

The meal and service at the Cover Up Cafe were the best we experienced the entire trip. They have great fries!!! I had a giant chicken salad and it had real vegetables and tomatoes that tasted like real honest-to-god tomatoes. Co-adult had southern fried something smothered in gravy, I think, and he said it was cooked just the way he liked it. And the waitress! She was wonderful. Whatta pro. At the side of the table was a print-out in a number of different languages alerting international visitors to the fact a gratuity is not included in the bill.

Then we left Roswell and proceeded to drive to Alamogordo.

But that’s enough for this post.

Outside Roswell, in Hondo, is the Peter Hurd Museum. Keep this in mind if you ever get to Roswell. Having seen some of Hurd’s paintings at the Roswell Museum and Art Center, we would have loved to have stopped, but we didn’t have the time.

As for pics of the stretch from Roswell down to Alamogordo, there basically are none. Not that I didn’t take any, for I did, but the Canon, like I’ve been saying, was messed up and so of the spectacular scenery we passed through that day we have pretty much no images. Which is disappointing. Also, as with our drive through Texas, the skies were resolutely blue with no trace of clouds and the sun shining relentless in our faces pretty much all day. Not good conditions for photography and certainly not for on-the-run photography, which all of mine was. I’d the same problem last year on the day we were traveling from Kansas into Oklahoma. We traveling through the Flint Hills country where beautiful photo ops abound, but the skies were all unending brilliant blue.

And as for Alamogordo. I’m not a morning person, but I can be if it’s necessary and so I was up early every morning…trying to get H.o.p. up, who is not a morning person at all, for which reason we never got out of a hotel, I don’t think, before 10:30 AM, and usually not until 11 AM. Because of this my plans for each day were thrown off and we missed a number of things I’d wanted to do. Such as Alamogordo. My plan had been to hit the museums early and get out of Roswell in time for us to visit Alamogordo in the very late afternoon but before it closed. Which didn’t happen. We got out of Roswell pretty late, and then co-adult decided at one point to do a full wash of the car, which was nice and all (the Element was by now covered with bug goo) but ate up even more time. So when we got to Alamogordo and White Sands it was already closing time.

But it was an experience driving through. All my life I’ve seen paintings and pottery of the southwest showing the colors of the sunset in distinct, divided layers, which is what we saw that early evening. And the air…though there wasn’t a single cloud in the sky, the air was like velour overhanging us, thick and plush. Which would have something to do with the distinct layers of sunset color, I imagine, and perhaps has something to do with dust in the air? I don’t know. Whatever causes this, it’s unlike anything I’ve seen anywhere else.

This was the second time in many many years that I’ve attempted to get to Alamogordo. Second time I’ve missed seeing it. At least this time we drove along the edge and had glimpses.

We drove down El Paso way and began our swing up to Phoenix. We passed through a border check point that wasn’t on the border. They pulled over the guy before us and the guards walked away to attend to that car and I guess that was going to be it for a while because the guards busying themselves with him left no one to to even bother waving the cars behind us through, they just let them all go on by without even a glance as far as I could tell. But it was bizarre anyway. I’ve not been down near the Mexican border in years and it was strange to be as distant as we were from it and have to go through a check point on the Interstate.

We drove and drove and drove. And drove and drove and drove. It was perhaps somewhere along this stretch that we got the coffee that beat the bad coffee we had in Oklahoma City last year, which was the worst coffee we’d ever had in our lives and which we thought would be the worst coffee we would likely ever have. We were wrong. This coffee, Marty took a sip of it and told me it beat out the coffee in Oklahoma City by far and not to bother tasting it. So I let it sit there for a long while and then forgot what he’d said and picked it up my cup and took a sip…and spat it right back out in the cup. Hideous, foul tasting stuff. I’ve no description for it. Briney, acrid, repugnant, bleech bearing no resemblance at all to coffee. Out it went. It was so startlingly foul that I ate up about half a bag of little Snickers bars trying to get rid of the aftertaste.

Late, late, we got into Phoenix where that night police seemed to be at ever Interstate exit stopping cars..and we got lost. Lost by miles and miles. About an hour’s worth of lost. We stopped finally and asked for directions and the person at the convenience store gave us wrong directions. Finally, I pulled out the map and divined a route different from what anyone told us but which got us where we wanted to be.

And it was quite all right that we had gotten lost…actually, we were fortunate it had happened…because the day that began with the visit to the UFO museum ended with a spectacular meteor. We had finally found our way and were one of the few cars on the brightly lit city avenue and there brilliantly streaked through the sky right before us a meteor, falling earthward and evaporating. We’ve seen a few showers of falling stars and it was larger than anything I’ve seen before so I’m calling it a meteor fall.

The 5th day was H.o.p.’s early 9th birthday party, thrown for him by his grandparents.

He loved it. We had a lazy, easy time batting balloons around. He carried one last balloon with him all the way to Yellow Horse, on our way home, when the wind grabbed it out of the car and whisked it away. He was heartbroken by that.

We found a Best Buys and my new Canon declared by them to be a dud, rather than simply replacing I upgraded to the Canon XTi 400D, which is what I’d kind of wanted in the first place but had been out of stock at the store when I’d initially purchased the camera.

The drive out had been plagued by blue skies and no clouds. What I’d been most concerned about was having some clouds in Phoenix and at the Grand Canyon and in Sedona, so all the way out on the trip I’d been wishing for clouds in Phoenix. “Phoenix, please have clouds, please have clouds. Phoenix please have clouds, please have clouds.” I was a lucky person as they came sailing in that Wednesday. I grabbed a few mintues for myself and went out and took pictures of palm trees and cactus, some of my favorite subjects. There’s lots of palm trees and cactus in Phoenix, Arizona.

Palm Trees and Cactus - Pool

Palm trees and Cactus - Tarantula spines
If anyone has any idea what kind of plant this in the foreground, I’d appreciate knowing.

Palm Trees and Cactus - Orange Tree

Well, can’t say exactly that “we” burned the turkey. Rather, the oven decided to go haywire and burned the turkey my dad, mom and Marty (and me too) had gone through the trouble of preparing. It cooked the turkey to a blazing hot black crisp in like 25 minutes rather than to a nice golden brown in several hours. There was no working our way around this as the turkey was housed in a plastic cooking bag and the plastic cooking bag adhered to the turkey, in which was all the stuffing which would also end up in the trash. So a to-go place serving turkey was found and it turned out to be rather tasty, slathered in one of our cans of cranberry sauce, and we pretty much polished it off. They, like every other restaurant on the trip (except for the Cover-Up Cafe in Roswell) had trouble getting things right and we were back at my dad’s place before we realized they gave us completely different orders of side dishes than what we’d asked for, which necessitated a run back to the restaurant to get the right ones and we also got to keep the containers of macaroni and cheese that they’d initially given us instead of our choices of vegetables and stuffing.

We weren’t at all disappointed in the meal. Reminded us all somewhat of “A Christmas Story”, an abbreviated version.

Later, we went to Papago Park where there was a blazing hot pink sunset going on that I was unable to get a good shot of on film. But I did get a couple of other pics.

Portrait of H.o.p. at Papago Park

H.o.p. had fun running up and down some of the hills at the park. I also have a pic of him sprawled flat on the ground, looking for a little pebble to take home.

And because this was turning into our UFO-meteor-and-other-things-from-the-sky-trip, serendipitosly, a black unmarked helicopter (for all we know it was dark green, it being twilight, but let’s not quibble) arrived at Papago after we’d arrived and stayed there, hovering above the lake, as long as we were there, then left when we left. So co-adult was able to capitalize on this with H.o.p. “Look! An unmarked black helicopter!” Except H.o.p. knows nothing oaf American legends concerning black, unmarked helicopters.

At Papago Park, on one of the high high hills overlooking the city, there is a white pyramid mausoleum for George W. P. Hunt, Arizona’s first governor. More his desire to be remembered pharoh-like for a long, long, long time than any association with masonry, I imagine. Well, it didn’t work with me because I scarcely noticed it and might not have noticed it all if it had not been pointed out to me. Instead I would only have sensed it as an impediment to the view.

My dad then took us to the Phoenix Zoo which was having its grand opening of their annual Zoolights. There were lit sculptures of flamingos and penguins and monkeys and a number of other animals.

There was also a peculiar installation of a white room that was fairly large, which had on one wall some odd video of something I guess that was supposed to be like crystals forming?, odd sounds accompanying and strange lightings or something on the side walls…I don’t recollect exactly what now. The reason I don’t recollect is it was impossible to tell what this was all about. Everyone who entered stood befuddled, wondering, too confused to even voice, “What is it?” I suppose it was supposed to be something by which you were supposed to experience something of the cold North Pole and snow…thus the blue-white walls. I dunno. But it added a…sense of adventure by way of mystery.

“What are we standing in?” is not a question you often get to ask in your life time, after all.

On the 7th day we went to Montezuma Castle on our way to Phoenix to my mother’s home.

Montezuma Castle National Monumet, New Mexico, 2006

Not very good pic but am putting it up for now.

Tourists at Montezuma Castle National Monument, New Mexico, 2006

You know how it is when you’re snapping pictures and if people don’t have time to get out of your way then they vaguely try to become invisible by going stock still and looking anywhere else but at you…except for men who are holding their children’s dolls who suddenly feel a bit self-conscious and stare your camera down wondering if maybe you are shooting past them, hopefully.

On this trip there was only one person who saw me with the camera and put on a show for me, a very tattooed guy with his girl friend exiting a convenience store. He looked interesting and I had gotten out of the car under the excuse of taking flicks of H.o.p., hoping to get a pic of the guy and his girl friend when they exited the store. Coming out, he saw me and put on a big smile and dropped to his knee and opened his arms wide. Sadly enough I was using the Kodak and it was night and the pic didn’t work out.

At the Grand Canyon I ended up taking tons of pics of the tourists this time around.

Boy Meets Tree, Montezuma Castle Monument, New Mexico, 2006

There we met a woman who first struck up a friendly conversation with co-adult and then on our way out in the Visitor’s Center she struck up a friendly converstation with me about touring National Parks and how she used to do it with her kids and showed me the book of National Parks you can get in which you stamp every park you’ve been to. I decided for some reason she must be a school teacher. I asked her what her profession was. She used to teach school.

There’s a casino at the pull-off for Montezuma Castle National Monument. At that casino one of my brothers won on the slots enough money to pay for one of his trips out to Arizona. Another sister of mine, who only time in a casino, promptly won $3000 on the slots. I decided not to try my luck.

Here are two men who had some magic going of their own going that day, and we happened up as some of the very few bystanders, unrelated to that magic, who had the pleasure of witnessing it.

A chance meeting of bagpipers. We drove up and the man on the right was out with his pipe, and the other man had come up and turned out as well to be a bagpiper and played it. When he was done he was asked by the man on the right if he had brought along his own pipes. Indeed, he had and went to his car and and took out his pipes and the men played several songs together.

Before coming upon the bagpipers, we had eaten lunch at the Maswik Lodge (for some reason I keep calling it Mesaki), as we did last year and is a rather amusing place to dine. The woman making the sandwiches cheerily went on about how she was going on vacation herself in a couple of days and would be going “any place but here”.

I like the apparently sullen or bored teen or preteen on the left in the photo. That “do I really have to be here with my family” look.

Then we started looking for a particular viewing point we’d been at last year and got lost and by the time we began to find our way there were the bagpipers who we would not have seen had we not gotten lost.

The above woman was having too much fun, setting up the camera and running to stand with her partner. Very excited. Some tourists smile and show their excitement, not minding that others see it and not minding sharing a bit of it and spreading it around. Then there are those who won’t smile at all no matter what and it seems to be a studied, intentional aloofness to the situation rather than just one of those days.

It being Thanksgiving, the place was jampacked. There were a number of Chinese and Japanese and East Indian. And we heard Russian and German. Last year when we were at the Grand Canyon there were a lot of German tourists.

Because we came upon the bagpipers and I elected to stand and listen to them a while, we didn’t make it in time to the viewing point I was hoping to get to. I knew that would happen, as I stood watching them. But I figured this was the only time in my life I’d happen on two bagpipiers playing who’d happened upon each other at the Grand Canyon and was an event that demanded some respectful appreciation.

We returned to my mom’s place and I believe it was this night we watched “Holiday Inn”, which I’d not seen in many many years and really is a pretty incredible movie with some great dance numbers and costuming. I’m tempted to rent it some night soon and dress up the viewing with cookies and eggnog.

The 9th day we strolled Dead Horse Ranch Park.

Dead Horse Ranch Park, Arizona

And drove to a few look-out points in Sedona that we’d not been to last year.

Sedona

Co-adult likes the above photo. I’m not sure about it.

The T Wrecks (alias H.o.p.) takes a break from T Wrecking to meditate upon which rock to take home to his collection

Absolutely no post processing on the above photo of H.o.p. finding a rock to take back home for his collection. Beautiful color.

We ate that night at a Chinese buffet as we knew it would have pot stickers and H.o.p. likes pot stickers. Co-adult and I had never eaten at a Chinese buffet before as we figured the food wouldn’t be very good. This one was uneven in quality but had a couple of nice surprises. And it had great service as we were serving ourselves. We stuffed the food down.

For some reason throughout Arizona I had this thing going on the trip where I kept watching to see who had lamp posts that cut down on light pollution. As we drove places I carried on lame conversations with myself out loud. “Oh look, that neighborhood has the lamp posts that cut down on light pollution. Oh look, that Toyota dealer has the lamp posts that cut down on light pollution.” And yes I was boring even myself.

Forgot to mention that we ate again at Hobo Joe’s. Had breakfast there one day last year as well. They still have great, giant biscuits. And excellent service. No befuddled, neglectful waitrons here.

The picture below shows the famous Hobo Joe statue. Mine was a quick capture and I was pleased to see afterwards I’d positioned myself so Hobo Joe appears to be looking straight at me.

The restaurant is two rooms, the first one smoking and the second one not, separated by glass. I was in the non-smoking area taking this photo and the christmas lights in the room are reflected on the window. I also took a pleasant photo of a woman and her little girl that is up at Flickr.

My dad says that since we were there last year a car went through the front of the restaurant, he believed on the smoking side, and that area was rebuilt. There was no enclosed porch area out front last year and now there is. I guess a buffer zone against the next car (though one should hope it doesn’t happen again).

Yes, co-adult and I are the kind of people who will drive a couple thousand miles with happy intentions of visiting again cafes we’ve enjoyed. I still remember fondly one in Seattle, Washington that we breakfasted at a couple of times during a stay there.

Hobo Joe’s, Cottonwood, Arizona

And this is a photo I took of H.o.p. at Hobo Joe’s last year.

The 10th day we began our drive back home.

Nearly 20 years ago we attempted to go to Meteor Crater but it was closed. Finally we saw it but the winds were blowing so ferociously that there were no tours that day. We stepped outside to view it briefly. The winds were the kind that literally blow you off your feet. Several great gusts from out of the blue would nearly knock me over, then the wind would abate long enough to walk a few steps and then again would come this wind and I’d stand and brace myself against it, wait for it to pass, then walk a few steps more. Interestingly enough, it raised no dust that you could see at least. Going back inside I did find myself picking a few bits of sand out of my mouth but there was no abrasive grit sting in the wind.

These were the guides. As we were leaving I asked if I could take a photo. They nicely consented.

We visited the gift shop. They sell sand from the area there. They also sell little meteorite chips. We bought a couple of the chips.

I took miserable photos at Meteor Crater. Not a single decent one in the bunch. But I played around with a couple. Below is the rim as you approach Meteor Crater.

The Road to Meteor Crater

I took pics of things like trailer homes we passed on the interstate. A couple turned out OK. I’ve always been fascinated by trailer homes you can see from the interstate. They seem fairly vulnerable and exposed. Peel away a layer of aluminum and there’s someone’s life.

Somewhere in Arizona, The Blue Trailer

The boat in the above pic reminds of how when we were going through 180? in Texas, in the middle of nowhere we came upon a hill with a boat sitting discarded on the side of it.

Cholla Power Plant

I took a lot of pics like this and of signs and places that I think are mundanely wonderful.

I don’t remember anything about the drive from El Paso to San Antonio, if you can believe that. That part of Texas is just a blur.

Co-adult wanted to visit the Alamo, which he had been to years before during a band tour.

Tourist Inscriptions on Cactus at the Alamo

My great-grandmother on my father’s side was a Crockett and though only distantly related to Davy Crockett (I think all American Crocketts are related) I thought well sure, the Alamo, I’d never seen it and H.o.p. would have thus visited the Alamo, and we could listen to their presentation and then later at home we culd have talks over the “really” of it and what the Alamo meant to who etc. H.o.p. couldn’t have been less enthused but he suffered it through, kind of, complaining that he was tired, which he was. I have a pic of him standing wearily beside a fountain on one side of which is inscribed Crockett and the expression on his face is one of disinterested weariness.

For the life of me, I don’t understand what the fuss is over the idea that Davy Crockett may have been among those executed rather than dying in battle.

They don’t allow picture taking in the building at the Alamo. None. Not even without flash. Why not? If they did allow it I’d have a pic of Davy Crockett’s purported vest to put up, which was leather and interestingly decorated with Indian woodlands style beading though not very elaborately, just a few simple motifs.

So why can’t you take flashless pics in the Alamo?????

I signed my name in the registration book. I signed my name at the International UFO Museum and Research Center as well. What do places do with these registration books?

I considered signing myself as a Crockett but decided against it.

There was some marvelous jewelry on display that the Catholic priests gave to the Indians who were catholocized. Putting aside for the moment the history of the church as far as assimilation and ethnocide, that jewelry sure was beautiful and distinctive. So when we went to the gift store (of course we are going to the gift store, especially if they don’t charge for you to tour, which they don’t) I asked if they might have reproductions of the jewelry on sale. That’s how interesting the jewelry was, because I’m not even Christian and I still was curious. The clerks at the gift store hadn’t a clue what jewelry I was talking about however, and looking around the QUITE LARGE gift store that was packed with stuff, it was obvious after a while there were no such reproductions.

If I were them I’d put together a line of reproductions.

We dragged ourselves back to the car (we were all pretty tired) which was parked behind a car proudly announcing via bumper stickers that’s owner was a bagpiper. This vacation had several themes going, one being meteors and another being bagpipers. I bet if we’d stood around long enough we might have met up with the owner and been entertained with bagpipes in the parking lot near the Alamo, just as we had been entertained with bagpipes at the Grand Canyon.

Oh, oh, oh, I can’t forget to mention Sparky.

Co-adult insisted I buy a pair of black cowboy boots in Texas. Doesn’t matter to him that they’re made in China, he wanted me to buy some boots in Texas proper as every trip through Texas I’ve made in the past 20 years I’ve talked about buying cowboy boots there but never did it. So he made me get out at a store called Cavender’s Boot City (a chain) to look for some boots. And I did indeed buy some fairly comfortable black Ariats. I probably wouldn’t have though if it hadn’t been for Sparky, the saleswoman. She was so enthusiastic and committed to helping anyone and everyone and you that it was impossible to say no to this woman.

“I’ll devote my complete attention to you as soon as I’m through with this customer,” she said, and she meant it. When she was done she came back and devoted herself purely and totally and offered opinions. I may pass over a salesperson’s opinion but I generally like a salesperson who offers an opinion along with information.

Sparky wrote her name on the back of a card and said if we had any trouble or needed anything to be sure to call (she knew we were from out of state) and it certainly seemed like she meant it, just like she had meant she would devote her complete attention to assist in selecting a pair of boots. Anyway, here’s to Sparky, I thought she deserved a mention in the blog.