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Lest We Forget

2/29/2016

Neither of us were big supporters of George W. Bush but we are fans of Presidential libraries and museums. These institutions not only give a close look at the individual president but also at the context in which he served. We live close to the Hoover Museum and try to get to their special exhibits and a couple of years ago really enjoyed the Truman Museum in the Kansas City area. So yesterday we spent the afternoon at the Bush Museum on the Southern Methodist University campus in Dallas.

Of course, the defining event of the Bush presidency was the 9/11 attack and a considerable part of the exhibit area is devoted to that. It is an important but disturbing reminder. Twisted beams from Ground Zero anchor the display and excellent media presentations set witness memories against the overall events. The surrounding grey wall in the photo is engraved with the names of every person who died that day in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania.

Other exhibits focus on the campaign to conquer AIDS in Africa, the financial crisis, and First Lady Laura Bush's interest in literacy. There is a replica of the oval office and displays chronicling winners of the Medal of Honor, Medal of Freedom and the National Humanities medal during Bush's presidency. I was gratified to see the Iowa Writer's Workshop listed in 2002 for the humanities medal.

All in all, a very worthwhile afternoon. The weather is pretty good and we returned to our camper and a crockpot of soup to nurse our colds and whine a little.

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C'mon Lavon

2/27/2016

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Lake Lavon is a Corps of Engineers lake reasonably close to where our son Pat and family live in the Dallas area. We are at the East Fork campground, where we stayed last year at the same time. We have been big fans of the COE campgrounds for years because they are usually very well maintained with beautiful spots, plus at our age we qualify for half-price rates. But East Fork is the exception. First, it is the most expensive COE campground we have ever stayed in--$30 a night compared to $16-$24 for others ($24 being for full hook ups.) On the plus side, the campsites are spacious and fairly level. There isn't much shade, which isn't really a factor this time of year, and the picnic tables do have shade structures over them.

But the campground road has chasms too big to be called potholes that would swallow a smart car. The shower house is probably the worst I have ever seen. There are only two toilet stalls and one shower each for men and women and on the women's side the same toilet is out of order that was when we were here a year ago. The sink faucets spray horizontally, which might be considered good because you don't want to use the shower.

As I said, we are here because of family. Yesterday afternoon, we had great weather to take in one of grandson Jack's soccer games. He is one of two goalies for the Allen freshman team. Compared to the Allen football games we have been to when his sister Jessi was a trainer for that team, the soccer games are pretty low key--more what we're used to. Allen won over a higher rated team yesterday and although the Goodyear blimp didn't make it, we did enjoy a beautiful hot air balloon going over.

Earlier in the day, we discovered that a model of a trailer that we are interested in was on a dealer's lot in nearby Rockwall so we took a little roadtrip to check that out while the family was tied up with work and school. Today we will probably avail ourselves of Pat and Jill's laundry facilities and then join our son's in-laws for supper.

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At Last

2/25/2016

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Yesterday, we awoke to a funny color in the sky. I think it's called blue. There was a bit of a wind but really a very pleasant change from the clouds that pervaded since last Friday.

No snakes so far, but we did see evidence of some wildlife. The digging around our picnic area we were told was the work of feral pigs--some of it quite fresh.

Our neighbors had also made friends with the area ducks and they would frequently waddle up looking for handouts but their small dog would valiantly warn them off and they would waddle over to our place.

The dog's name is Stanley but I don't think he has any ownership in Stanley's BBQ where we went with the Petersen family for supper. Great food, live music, and our own entertainment watching Rasmus hanging out under the weather curtains of the deck and flirting with approaching customers. A lovely day.

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Safe and Sound and on the Ground...

2/24/2016

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Which is more than the people in a southern Louisiana RV park can say. While we were heading west yesterday across the northern part of the state, an RV park in Convent, LA was hit by a very destructive tornado. One person died and at least 29 were taken to the hospital. Over 100 RVs were damaged. Apparently many of the residents were traveling for work, which we have encountered every place we stayed. Most seem to be working on pipelines. My heart goes out to these people and what they are facing in the upcoming days and weeks.

We arrived at Tyler State Park without incident, although the driving rain meant it was not a fun trip. The daughter-in-law of one of Butch's cousins, Shannon, is the assistant park manager here and her husband Josh is a former student of mine. They have three adorable boys and we visited with them several times when Shannon was the manager at Bellevue State Park in Iowa.

There are no bears here but Josh warned us about cottonmouths, water moccasins, and armadillos. Shannon said there are also a lot of feral pigs. All of that aside, this is a beautiful park and our campsite is a nice level space right on the lake. I realized this morning as it started to get light that this is the first time we've seen the sun in several states.

Josh and Shannon had us over for supper last night and it was fun to reconnect with them and their boys. Rasmus, the youngest, defeated Butch in a couple of arm wrestling contests, although his two handed technique might have been cheating.

We will explore the park facilities today, watching where we step of course, and perhaps make a trek into Tyler. And we made plans to hit one of the local BBQ joints with Josh and Shannon tonight. Tomorrow, it's on to Dallas and the COE campground at Lake Lavon. When we were there last year, the shower house was a definite D- so we're hoping that's improved.

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Six Days, Six States

2/23/2016

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Yesterday, when the rain finally quit, we were almost surrounded by huge puddles. Fortunately, the pad is asphalt so we didn't sink into the bayou. So late morning we trekked up to the Poverty Point Heritage Site, the location of huge earth works built three or four thousand years ago. The amazing thing is that the building went on for several generations by a people who didn't have a written language. The biggest mound in the center, 70 feet high, is estimated to contain about 27 million cubic feet of dirt, all moved by baskets.

They also built miles of ridges in rows to form a semi-circle and built their homes on top of the ridges. Unfortunately by the time of white settlement, when the land was being converted to farming, many of the ridges were plowed over. The extent of the site was not known until aerial photos revealed it in the middle of the last century. Because of the weather and time of year, we were the lone visitors but it is well worth a stop.

We returned to the town of Delhi near the interstate for gas and groceries and visited a more recent bit of history. Thomson's Pharmacy is the oldest drugstore in Louisiana continuously operating in the same location since 1873. We stayed for lunch and were very entertained by the menu. On a display board above the soda fountain, breakfast offerings included " a cup of tuna, a cup of chicken, or a cup of pickles." No prices were listed.

Today we will attempt to continue on to Tyler, in Texas--our sixth state on this trip. The orange and red blobs on the radar are a little scary so who knows how long it will take us. Haven't seen any bears yet but there's plenty of hooks in the showers here. I would have to give them an A.

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Movin' On

2/22/2016

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We are at Poverty Point Reservoir State Park in Louisiana, which has a great campground and black bear warning signs every few feet. Being in the Delta, the whole place is very flat and all of the sites are paved and level. I haven't tried out the shower yet but it looks very nice.

I forgot to mention that the campground we stayed in at Vicksburg was a private one, also level sites and showers with not one--not two--not three- but FOUR hooks in each one. It wasn't a fancy place--cement floors and walls --but very clean with excellent hot water and pressure. And hooks.

We arrived here shortly after noon yesterday and debated our plans. We want to visit the Poverty Point National Monument, site of the largest prehistoric earthworks in North America. It was the center of a culture 3000 years ago. But the forecast for the afternoon was rain moving in about 2:00 so we decided to save it for today. We had our lunch and went for a bike ride along the lake, watching out for bears of course.

We then kicked back the rest of the afternoon--Boo was able to get the golf tournament on TV and I read and napped. It never rained. We had supper and settled in for Downton Abbey. It still didn't rain. But I woke up in the night to hear rain pounding the roof and it hasn't quit since. My official estimate is A LOT. There is a lake around our fire ring and picnic table. No bears, though.

Accuweather says the rain will end in about 2 hours. We'll see how 'accu' that is. Hopefully we can visit the site this afternoon.

Tomorrow we are scheduled to head west again to Tyler, Texas and the forecast is for severe storms with hail, high winds and a possible tornado. Maybe we'd rather have bears.

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Battle Scars

2/21/2016

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I have been to Gettysburg several times but have always wanted to see Vicksburg, the site of the other Civil War battle that also took place in July of 1863. Together they were considered the turning point of the war. Since I taught four classes a day of American History for 17 years, I felt I had been through the siege of Vicksburg 68 times but have never seen the actual site. This weekend we are in a campground south of Vicksburg and spent the day yesterday touring museums and the battlefield,

We started at the Old Depot Museum, a private restoration of, as you can guess, an old depot. Dave, the man in charge on Saturday, is a retired nuclear engineer from Boston whose hobby is all kinds of models--trains, ships, battles, etc. He made many of the models of 19th and 20th century ships found on both the first and second floor. We had to navigate piles of sandbags to get into the museum; he said they had expected flooding in December, which fortunately didn't materialize, but since they'd had five feet of water on the first floor in 2011, they had completely emptied that level in December and had just finished putting it all back. Some model train displays are not fully restored yet.

The centerpiece of their display is a detailed diorama of the battlefield. It takes up 250 square feet. They also have a 30 minute video about the siege and battle. Outside, along the levee is a wall covered with murals depicting important events in Vicksburg's history. One is of the Sprague paddleboat, built in Dubuque, Iowa.

We did lunch at 10 South Rooftop Bar and Grille, a delightful place built on top of an old bank building. Because of the winds, clear shades were in place, detracting from the view of the Mississippi somewhat but the food and service were excellent. Earlier, when we were viewing the levee murals, I had slipped on loose gravel, banging up both knees, and my right wrist, elbow and shoulder. So I was still moaning and groaning when we got on the elevator to leave the restaurant and I got clobbered in the right arm again by the elevator door which decided to close unexpectedly. Hence my own battle scars. The picture was taken before that incident.

The Vicksburg Military Park starts with a nice visitor's center and 20-minute video about the battle. You are provided with a driving tour map of the 16-mile road around the park. All of the states with participating troops have placed monuments at the points where various units fought--about 1300 in all. Iowa had the third largest number of Union troops, next to Illinois and Ohio, so of course I had to get a photo of the main monument. The terrain is filled with ridges and ravines and it is easy to see why trenches became necessary in this era of direct onslaughts. The Union victory came because of the siege of the Confederate army and the city rather than the battle.

We finished our tour with a stop at the USS Cairo--a Union gunboat that has been raised from the river and partially restored--an amazing structure. These gunboats were incredible. Because the models we had seen at the first museum were so varied, I had commented to Dave that it appeared there were no plans--every one was built according to the builder's whims, many just modified older ships. He said that was true, and he has written a book called If It Floats, Put a Cannon on It about the development of the Civil War navies.

Today we will pack up and head west to a place called Poverty Point, an unlikely name for a Native American culture who built earthworks and mounds in Northeast Louisiana between 1650 and 700 BCE. We always like to look at things older than us.

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Blowed Bridges, Wrestling Wreckers and Throwed Rolls

2/18/2016

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And that's just one day. As we neared St. Louis, we were directed to the left lane as one after another wreckers passed. Most were big, new, shiny wreckers and our conservative estimate was at least 50. They had a police escort and we have no idea what was going on but they were very resistant about us getting into their right lane parade so we could get off at the next exit.

Butch's brother warned us before we left home that an old bridge over the Missouri would be blown up this morning shortly before we would get that far. Apparently that was only half true--only half of the bridge was in the river. Fortunately they finished the new one first so we didn't have to ferry across the Missouri...

So we are in a small campground at Sikeston , Missouri and were told we absolutely must eat at Lambert's Cafe, "Home of the Throwed Rolls." The waiters come around with bowls of black-eyed peas, fried okra, several kinds of beans, etc--in addition to the meal. One of them carries a heated tray of rolls and if you put your hand up, they will toss you one. That would be the young man on the left above. Way too much food.

Even the beverages are huge. This is what you get if you order coffee and water.

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Dreams and Drives

2/15/2016

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It's been a long, dry spell on my blog but not much time or things to write about. I have been working with two readers getting Bats and Bones and The Time Travel Trailer produced in audio. The Time Travel Trailer is just about done and hopefully the other will be by the end of the month. It's been a great experience; it's a different perspective to listen to your writing.

Meanwhile, we are preparing for another spring trip. We'll head out sometime later this week and aim south for Vicksburg, MS. We especially want to tour the Civil War military park, Then west to Tyler State Park in Texas and Dallas, especially to watch one of grandson Jack's soccer games. After that, San Antonio and maybe New Mexico, depending on the weather,

But first we have to restock the camper and decide on clothes. Very difficult this time of year to choose wisely in the latter department without overloading the trailer. We went to a small RV show Saturday and then visited a dealer. Saw some things we liked but more than anything, really got the bug to get out there. Three inches of snow yesterday won't help the packing process but the weatherman promises warmer temps as the week goes on. And they never lie, right?

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