Heading Home

Our last 2 days on the road were spent driving east – from Texas to Louisianna to Mississippi on 3/6 (Thurs.) with a stop at the Mississippi Welcome Center in Vicksburg to view the mighty Mississippi. We spent the night at Walmart in Meridian, MS, and drove the remainder of the trip on Friday. It was amazing how green everything suddenly was when we crossed the state line from Texas to Louisiana – grass and trees – and “spring things” blooming – daffodils, irises, and redbud trees. It was beautiful and felt good to these home-grown southerners. As we head to Rome, we’ve been reflecting on our trip – our winter exodus for 2008. – and it’s been a good trip. We enjoyed the Blue Grass Festival at Jekyll Island (in spite of the cold weather), our stay at Lazy Days Rally Park in Tampa with meals at the Crown Club and our meeting of another Country Coach couple who are full-timers, and of course, Key West with good seafood and bicycling. Then we headed up the Nature Coast to Crystal River/Old Town and enjoyed Florida’s biking trails there, one to the coast and one on an old railroad bridge across the Suwannee River. From there we went to Santa Rosa Beach’s Topsail Hill State Preserve Park, an excellent park and beautiful area of sand dunes and pristine beach. Then we headed to Bayou Country around LaFayette, LA, where we met up with Jan and George from Birmingham who would be our very enjoyable traveling companions for 18 days. We enjoyed Cajun cuisine and music at PreJeans and Mulates, and then headed to San Antonio where we enjoyed Mexican food and music as well as the River Walk, Alamo, and other areas including the German settlement of Gruene, TX. Then we began our last leg of the trip to Tucson, AZ, to the Country Coach Winter Rally with an overnight stop at Las Cruces, NM, where we ate Mexican food at La Posta Restaurant in the old settlement of Mesilla. The rally was highlighted by seeing old and new friends, a day trip to San Zavier Mission, Tubec artists community, and Nogales, Mexico, visiting Sabino Canyon with its amazing assortment of cactus, and complimentary service on our motorhome from Country Coach. Then it was east to Silver City, NM, where we toured the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument and hiked the beautiful Catwalk of Whitewater Canyon. From here Jan and George headed to New Orleans and home to Birmingham, and we headed to Midland, TX, to tour the Petroleum Museum and George W. Bush’s Childhood home – as well as enjoy Texas beef brisket BBQ. Then we began our “LBJ tour” visiting the Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park including the LBJ ranch, cemetery, and childhood home, and also the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library and Museum in Austin, TX – an interesting and impressive array of history of that era, much of which we remember. We were impressed with the amount of legislation Johnson was able to pass including consumer and environmental legislation and public TV. Austin was also where we attended a Hillary Clinton rally and saw Chelsea who accompanied her mother. Hillary was warmly received by the large crowd, and we felt a sense of history at the prospect of a woman president. This was the second of our “political events” of the trip, having seen Bill Clinton at a rally for Hillary in LaFayette, LA, where George shook hands and spoke with him. At Austin we discovered we had an engine oil leak so detoured north to Dallas to a Cummins service facility for repairs. Since we were in Dallas, we visited the downtown area, the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealy Plaza recounting the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and ate a steak lunch before again heading east toward Rome. After 67 days, we’re approaching Rome – having had a great trip and glad to be coming home!

Dallas, TX

We awoke to sunshine and warmer weather but dsicovered that the motorhome had an engine oil leak. George called Cummins and learned that Dallas was the closest Cummins service facility so we drove there, arriving in late afternoon. We spent the evening in the service bay getting repairs done: A hole in dipstick tube was repaired, oil pan gaskets were replaced, and a turbo oil line that was chafing was rerouted. Finally, at 12:15 a.m. the job was finished and we were parked for the night at Cummins with 50 amp electrical service. Since we were in Dallas, we decided on Wednesday to visit the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza located in a warehouse known in 1963 as the Texas School Book Depository. “John F. Kennedy and the Memory of a Nation” is the permanent historical exhibition that examines the life, death, and legacy of the 35th president of the U.S. The exhibit features documentary films, historic footage, hundreds of photographs, and artifacts. It is both informative and very moving. We both recalled where we were on the day Kennedy was shot and the strange events that followed. After leaving the mueum, we walked around the area and ate lunch downtown. We walked to the convention center to see the longhorn cattle and cowboys on horseback presented in bronze sculpture - a look at the origins of Dallas. The clock was ticking and we wanted to leave before rush hour began, and since our coach was still parked at Cummins on the west side of town, we headed back to Cummins, hooked up our tow vehicle, and headed east. Our motorhome was repaired and we’d taken a glimpse at Dallas.

LBJ’s Texas

From Midland we drove the back roads of Texas to Stonewall where we visited the Lyndon B. Johnson State and National Historical Park which includes the LBJ ranch, replica of the home where he was born, family cemetery where LBJ is buried, Junction School which he attended at age 4, and the visitors center. Johnson’s mother was one of the few college educated women in the area and she impressed on him the importance of education and a compassion for human needs, and from his father he learned about politics in the tradition of agrarian liberalism. At the Johnson City District of the park, we visited Johnson’s childhood home where the family moved when he was five after a flood destroyed the cotton crop, resulting in loss of the farm. The visitor’s center had an excellent display of events of Johnson’s life, especially his political life, along with a world timeline. There were also exhibits about Lady Bird Johnson and films about their lives. From here we drove to Austin where we stayed at McKinney Falls State Park and checked out the kite festival in Zilker Park on Sunday afternoon. Monday was cold, rainy, and very windy, but it was a full and interesting day. We began with a visit to the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library and Museum where we spent far longer than we had expected. It was a very well presented, varied exhibit depicting LBJ’s life and presidency and included exhibits of gifts given to the U.S. during his presidency, a replica of his Oval Office, and a First Lady exhibit about Lady Bird Johnson. We were awed by the sheer volume of legislation he got passed through his skills of persuasion. We were not aware of the consumer protection legislation and environmental legislation that he passed. We enjoyed his humor presented thru exhibits, an actor representing him as Senator, and a Disney-esque lifesized figure of LBJ telling spinning Texas tales. After visiting the LBJ Libray, we took a brief tour of the Texas Capitol which is an outstanding example of a mid-19th century Renaissance Revival building made of Texas red granite. Of note in this year when a woman is running for U.S. President is the fact that a Texas woman served as governor in the 1930’s. And speaking of a woman running for President, we attended a rally for Hillary Clinton held at the Burger Center in Austin. We learned of the rally from a Clinton volunteer at Zilker Park on Sunday afternoon and later that evening heard about it on TV news. Having attempted to attend her rally in San Antonio a few weeks earlier, we decided to try again. The cold winds may have kept some people away, thus shortening the line, and so the arena didn’t fill up before we got in. Standing in line we met 2 young men who are active Democrats who are enthusiastic Hillary supporters. Irene was impressed by a family of 6 women from grandmother to granddaughters attending the rally together, proud to be supporting a woman for president. A number of local politicians spoke first and finally Hillary, along with Chelsea, took the stage. She spoke to a very enthusiastic audience with lots of cheering. We felt we were living a significant part of history whether Hillary Clinton receives the nomination or not. To see more pictures of the Hillary rally click on http://picasaweb.google.com/gharpercomcast/HillaryRally

Midland TX

Today (2/28) was a travel day. We stopped at a rest area at Las Cruces where a huge roadrunner metal scupture overlooked the highway. We had seen this sculpture on a previous trip but didn’t remember where it was located. Later in the day we saw a real roadrunner while we were stopped for lunch. We crossed back into the Central time zone and spent the night at an RV park in Pecos, TX, that had the narrowest sites we’ve ever seen. With our slide rooms out, we were uncomfortably close to the adjacent RV. On Friday we drove to Midland, TX, and toured the Petroleum Museum which gave an excellent history of the petroleum industry of west Texas and its technology. Outside on the grounds were 2 working oil wells, modern drilling rig, old equipment and vehicles, and a variety of pumps. Also at the museum were marvelous paintings depicting scenes of the oil industry. In the same building was a gallery of Tom Lovell oil paintings showing life in west Texas. In an adjacent gallery were huge photographs showing the Rio Grande from its birth in NM and scenes along the way, ending in Mexico. We enjoyed seeing photos of the Big Bend area which we visited on a previous trip. We also visited the George W. Bush Childhood Home in Midland. Our tour was led by a mature, impeccably groomed staunch Republican lady originally from Kansas. She expressed the town’s pride in the Bush family and showing their home where 2 governors, 2 presidents, and a First Lady had lived for 4 years in the early 1950’s. It was a modest home with 3 bedrooms and one bathroom and had been furnished as much as possible as it was when the Bushes lived there though there was little that was original. The guide told us that it cost $1000 a roll to get the 1950’s wallpaper recreated.. Some of the rooms were not furnished but had exhibits and photographs in them. For dinner we got take-out beef brisket BBQ from K D’s BBQ, recommended by our tour guide. The dinner came with sliced raw onions and dill pickles, red and green sweet peppers, pinto beans, cole slaw, and sliced white bread. The tomato-based BBQ sauce was very sweet but had a strong flavor of black pepper – quite different from Georgia BBQ. We parked overnight at Wal-Mart where we shopped for supplies. To see more pictures click HERE: http://picasaweb.google.com/gharpercomcast/BushChildhoodHome

Silver City - The Catwalk

Wednesday morning we said goodby to our traveling companions, Jan and George, who headed to New Orleans to visit friends and then back home to Birmingham. We drove northwest to the Catwalk of Whitewater Canyon which is the site of an 1880’s mining area. At that time, large pipes took water back to the mining operation. In the 1930’s the CCC built wooden platforms on the pipeline for recreational use. The present metal grid catwalk, hanging off the side of the canyon, was build by the US Forest Service in 1961 with a one-third mile accessible trail at the beginning constructed in the 1990’s. This was an awesome hike of about 2.4 miles through a multi-colored canyon with beautiful rose/lavender/purple stone accented by green lichen (I think it was lichen). There were also sections of volcanic rock. A segment of the canyon was narrow with rocks curving over the stream and reminded us of the Narrows in Zion National Park. To see more pictures go to: http://picasaweb.google.com/gharpercomcast/TheCatwalk

Silver City - Cliff Dwellings

Leaving Tucson Monday morning, we headed to Silver City, NM, along with Jan and George. We arrived around noon and explored the downtown area in the afternoon and went to Pinos Altos where we had dinner at Buckhorn Saloon, former bordello, and drove around the area to see historic buildings. On Tuesday we explored the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument north of Silver City after driving 42 miles of very curving, hilly, narrow forest service roads. We took the docent led tour of the 7 natural cavities on the face of the cliff where the Mogollon Indians had built 42 rooms. The docent, a philosophy major and former teacher in Indian schools, had many theories of his own about the Mogollon culture and history. The tour included a one mile loop trail which had great views of the cliff dwellings and adjacent cliffs. We were fortunate to have a pleasant sunny day for our visit; snow remained alongside the road from a 3 inch snowfall the previous week. To see more pictures click HERE: http://picasaweb.google.com/gharpercomcast/SilverCityCliffDwellings

Country Coach Winter Rally, Tucson, AZ

We enjoyed the Country Coach rally held at Beaudry RV Park in Tucson, a nice park with lemon and orange trees and marvelous views of the mountains. The entertainment at the rally was varied – a mariachi band, Broadway tunes, and a country music band. We attended some seminars, checked out the vendors (fewer than at the Oregon rally last summer), and appreciated complimentary service on the coach from Country Coach. George attended the CC Yahoo Forum meeting and met some of the members that he had met online in the past few months. We took a day tour to Mission San Xavier del Bac in Tucson, Tubec (an artist’s community), and to Nogales, Mexico, where we had lunch and walked around the shopping area with Jan and George. Another day we went to Sabino Canyon with Glenn and Janet whom we had met on the Copper Canyon trip in 2004 and had seen at the Oregon rally last summer. Sabino Canyon was an amazing array of cactus, but the area was greener than expected because of the river flowing thru it. We took the tram as far as it could go because of damage from extreme flooding a few years ago, and then we walked back to the visitor’s center. On Sunday Jan and Irene visited a couple of the barrios in Tucson where we enjoyed seeing the brightly colored homes and businesses.