Abilene to Odessa

Time to leave Wichita Falls and head south west to Abilene. As usual I have so much work to do to get going. I'm surprised we ever get anywhere.

 

Abilene has a west Texas museum so we thought we'd check it out. Boy are things big in Texas. How'd you like a herd of these bison running through your campsite?

In the entrance of the museum is this artwork showing a cattle drive across a river. Its hard to make out but spend a bit of time. See if you can spot the various cows and cowboys. With those long horns, they look awful dangerous.

Its a great museum and has a lot of early Texas memorabilia from the Indian wars and cattle drives and buffalo hunts. Check out the horns; at least 8 feet across.

They have a few dioramas of which this one showed a lot of suspended action. I'm not sure who's winning, but the buffalo seems to have the upper hand right now. 

I thought I'd get a coffee at the cafe but no one showed up to take my order. Great ambiance though.

Time to clean the Texas love bugs off my windscreen and head on down the road to Odessa.

To our surprise, this area is big in cotton. We saw field after field just white with cotton. Lots of wind generators in this part of Texas as well. The old and the new.

For years I had heard of the Confederate Air Force and how they had the largest private air force in the world, all consisting of WW2 aircraft. When we had our plane, we always talked of coming here for their fly-in because they re-enact some of the large air battles of that war. We never made it but I couldn't pass by without stopping to see their museum and air craft. Oh Goody.

They recently changed their name to Commemorative Air Force, I guess to be more politically correct. I liked the Confederate name, it had more panache. Almost all their planes are kept in flying condition and fly regularly. In fact, it appears they all flew away. There are only a half dozen here but they keep them all over the country to spread out the risk of a disaster to them. Rats! They are doing an engine on this B-17 otherwise I'm sure it would have been somewhere else as well..

I guess cause I was so whiny they said I could fly it. But they wouldn't give me the keys. Oh well, vroom vroom. 

If you recall the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima it was dropped from a B-17 and looked just like this. It was called Fat Man, named after Winston Churchill. The second was named Little Boy and not named after anyone apparently. 

This is a very rare Russian plane called an I-16. It broke the air speed record before WWII and still flies. Stalin jailed its designer during a purge and it never advanced and German designs eventually outpaced it. 

Speaking of Germany, this is a Mercedes Benz staff car from the war. It appears to come with its own security. Who's afraid of a big black cat, a big black cat, they're hoping everyone I guess. 

Although the CAF is focused on aviation, their displays highlight all aspects of the war. This is a Sherman tank. I've always heard of them but never saw one close up before. Pretty small compared to current tanks but it was effective for the time. Bet you thought you were looking at a picture from Tiananmen Square!  

They have an area dedicated to Vietnam but don't have any flying planes from that era. I'm sure keeping propeller planes in the air must be expensive enough without getting into jet engines. I'm glad we stopped here. I was disappointed by the small amount of airplanes, but the static museum displays were so good we went through them twice. Although I had to bribe Grammie the second time.

Wichita Falls

After spending the morning driving through Oklahoma, we finally get into Texas. You can tell we're in Texas when the rest area looks like an oil derrick. Our tuna sandwich  for lunch suddenly looked much richer.

The Wichita Falls Campground has a long history of accommodating weary travelers. Although the old days were simpler, I still like our basic facilities, like running water and Air Conditioning.

Two great things happened today. Firstly, we arrived in Wichita Falls TX alive and secondly, it's Grammies birthday so we get to go out for supper! When in Rome; so we went to Texas Roadhouse for meat. Those pails are for peanuts, not in case we drank too much. You're disgusting! 

Michelle, our lovely daughter, always seems to find unique gifts and this time gave her mom a necklace with a cultured pearl that Grammie had to remove from the shell. It was a great gift; wish I'd thought of that!

In Oklahoma, it was so hot we had to run our A/C to sleep. Imagine our surprise when we had to run the heaters in Texas. Damn its cold here, and the wind! Thats not going to stop us from exploring the area. The place to visit is the River Bend center with its butterfly exhibits and natural wildlife area. Doesn't that horse look natural?

Inside the glass building was the butterfly exhibit. This road runner was running wild in the building. It let us get within feet of it before it moved away. Imagine our surprise when we saw it eating some of the butterflies. I can't believe they would put together a whole butterfly exhibit of thousands of square feet just to feed the road runner. Later we found that there was a dedicated butterfly area. Any that escaped were fair game. 

That's a real tarantula. Honest! If you knew my fear of spiders, you'd be duly impressed. I couldn't get Grammie to hold the rattlesnake though. Just kidding! 

Wichita Falls was a huge oil boom town and speculators and con men earned their share. An architect proposed building a skyscraper to rival those in the east. In the heady days of the oil boom it sounded like a good idea and he raised over $200,000. No one seemed to notice the scale was off until the building was built and the architect had absconded with most of the funds. 

Its called the smallest skyscraper in the US. It was supposed to be 12 times larger. He used inches as his scale instead of feet. 

The falls that Wichita was named after was washed away in a flood so man made falls were erected a few years ago. Very pretty.

There is a statue in town that shows the legend of how Wichita Falls got its name. Supposedly, some natives came across the river here and weren't sure how deep it was so a native woman walked across and said it was WA CHI TA, or waist deep. We've seen the river and can believe it. The river's pretty shallow.

When the first world war started, there were only 3 flying schools in the US and one was opened at Wichita Falls, called Call Field (named after a pilot who fell out of a Wright Flyer and fell 100 feet to his death). If he would have hung on, no one would know who he was. Anyway, this is an original Curtis JN-2 Jenny that flew as a trainer during the war. The first Saturday of each month, they take it out for a flight still. Its almost 100 years old, amazing. That's it. The whole museum is based around one plane. I bet they'll shoot the guy who crashes it.

An Ongoing Journey

As we work our way across country not every place we stay has some earth shattering news worthy info but we do get to see some really nice campgrounds. You've got to admit, this is lovely. 

A short walk around the area took us to this lake. Signs talk about fishing, boating and canoeing, but NO SWIMMING! All we could assume is there are piranhas or something. Otherwise, tranquil and lovely.

If you've driven past Effingham Illinois on I-70, you've probably seen this huge cross so I'm not going to tell you about if you've already seen it.

Our trek west then takes us to Missouri. In this case, Boomtown Campground in Charleston MO. I'll bet from the name you'd never know they sold fireworks! A bang up spot.

On our trip west in 2010, we stopped at Fort Stockton and complained about the pervasive burrs. Well, we've found them again, at Charleston MO. Check the photo carefully and you'll see that Yosemite has gotten himself into a bad spot. Walking through the campsite hooked you up with 30 to 50 of this little buggers. I spent more time picking them off my shoes; I should have thrown my crocs away, it would have been quicker. 

Only a couple of miles away on the other side of the Mississippi (big bridge, huh?) was Cairo, IL. It used to be a real river barge destination but now is almost a ghost town. 

A lookout point shows barge activity on the Mississippi.

This is one of the beautiful homes that was built in Cairo during the heydays of the area. Now its a museum a midst the ruins and squalor of the town. Part of the main street had collapsed years ago, perhaps a sinkhole, and there are road barriers around the hole. The weird part is that trees have grown in the hole to over 20 feet above ground level. How many years of neglect would that take? Sorry, I forgot to take a picture. By that time we were getting hungry and there were no restaurants in town so we were in a hurry to leave.

After leaving Charleston, we stopped in Searcy Arkansas for a day to get our window leaks fixed and then headed to Idabel Oklahoma. If you get a map, you'l see that our trip actually makes sense as far as getting to California, eventually. Anyway, we stopped at Golf Course RV Resort in Idabel. Trust me, there was no golf course and it certainly wasn't a resort. My philosophy is that every area has something unique about it. Idabel may be the exception. Although, a first for me, I was given the finger for offering another driver the right of way. Apparently, courtesy is frowned upon here. No problemo. I'll just clean the bugs off my window and head for newer pastures.

Have you heard of Fairmount, IN.

Well, after all that hooking up, comes the unhooking. We've arrived at Gas City IN and if I can figure all these things out, we'll take a look around. Isn't this exciting!

Its a beautiful time of year. The air is cool and sweet, the colours are magnificent and the roar of traffic 100' away reminds us of the commerce that makes this nation great. A little quieter overnite would have been great but it just makes us more eager to go visit somewhere else. 

10 miles from our cacophonous respite is the town of Fairmount. Have you ever heard of it? Neither had we. Fairmount is the birthplace and final resting place of James Dean, or as we locals call him, Jimmie. If you've never heard of James Dean, shame on you, look him up. He was the quintessential rebellious teenager in the early 1950's. In one year he made 3 movies, Giant, Rebel Without A Cause, and East of Eden. He was nominated for an Oscar in East of Eden and voted best actor in 1955. He died in a car crash on Sept 30, 1955. His burial site in Fairmount is a shrine with thousands of people visiting each year. And we're among them. 

White stones are used to mark the side of the road. The one in front of his burial site has signatures and comments from people around the world. The "SINDELAR" is from India. I think I talked to him about a computer problem.

In town is a great museum about his life. He was a top athlete and a great artist at his school. A case featuring his award ribbons shows how athletic he was. His uncle bought him a motor cycle to ride to school and he had many over the years. This was the one he rode around Hollywood on.

This is his original script for Giant which was his last movie. He starred with Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson. The day after filming ended, he was on his way to race his Porsche Spyder at a local race when he was killed. He was 24. 

On a much lighter note, the creator of Garfield, Jim Davis was born and raised in Fairmount as well. Now I know everyone's heard of Garfield so I won't go into details except to say he's got to have one huge litter box. We used to celebrate Garfields birthday, the end of June, by Grammie making a lasagna with candles, and all of us singing happy birthday to Garfield. Those were the days.

We spent a lot of time in the Fairmount museum which features artifacts from James Deans life as well as Garfield memorabilia. I have said in the past, the cool thing about what we do is you never know what you'll stumble upon in your travels. I've been proven right again.

Well, its time for annual migration south. Before we can head out toward the great unknown, we need to say goodbye. McKenzie is the only one to see us off.

Probably because she needed to get on the bus anyway. The neighbours seemed especially happy to see us go!

After our fond goodbyes and the uneventful trek through Ontario we arrive at our nemesis, the US border. Now, if you've been following our previous adventures, you know that the border holds a certain spell over us.

As we wait patiently in line for our turn at the inquisition we admired the US town on the other side of the bridge. It almost looks like a welcoming place.  

Through astute verbal jousting and abject terror, we make it through the inquisition in one piece and pass through the veil to the land of plenty. Plenty darn cold. At our first stop in Michigan, the water in the fountain was blue from the cold. Thank goodness we're heading south. Soon, no more cold! Now if only Harvey will start tomorrow.

Now, although it looks like I'm going to jump start Harveys 6 deep cell batteries with the Saturns 12 volt flashlight battery (relatively speaking), I'm actually just getting ready for the days travel by doing the hookups necessary to keep car and RV together safely for a days journey. You know, the hitch, safety chains, connecting wiring, breakaway switch, tire sensors, inertia actuated safety brake, and car defense shield. Now, we're on our way. What adventures await? Stay tuned.