tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36834171467328914172011-08-06T05:41:09.389-05:00Barb and Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01378606820957120474noreply@blogger.comBlogger541100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3683417146732891417.post-14516790308794545512009-09-20T22:06:00.020-05:002009-09-22T22:14:31.853-05:00

Houston Natural History Museum: a lot about oil... A simulated trip down a borehole. Unfortunately, part of the 'realism' imvolves not enough light to take a good picture. Neat, anyway.At the Houston Rodeo: Chief Touch-the-Clouds; I'd never heard of him before...And, the Houston Rodeo - there's a major-league rodeo circuit, and Houston is one of the big ones.It turns out that now, Houston is all

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The Windmill Museum, Lubbock, TX: Not to be confused with the new windmills, actually wind-generators: These are south of Houston.And are BIGThi9s is the hub/generator/controller But this museum is for the old ones, which pumped water for the stock and irrigation. This is a Nichols Centennial Double-section. Note that while the wind generators have only three blades and arre thin - they

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Here we are going down the Gulf Coast of Texas: Free ferry to North Padre Island (mostly private; S Padre is mostly National Seashore).There are lots of sharks along here, but they never actually bite people (honest)! Texas State Aquarioum at Corpus Christi: They have some neat animals here - ocelot:Got him to do a few tricks: Other animals need more persuading:Turkey Buzzard. Fascinating fact:

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New Orleans: Big action is at night, so during the day we visited some old plantations: This is the Destrehan Plantation, the biggest one left. Note the cisterns, the big towers on either side The Destrehans Slave quarters Roster of the slaves: They were characrterized as 'negro' or 'mulatto', and also as 'American (if born here), Creole, African, Congo. The occupation of the first, Richard, is

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Down the way from New Orleans, there are some antebellum plantations. This one, the Destrehan place, is said to be the fanciest, at least in Louisiana (it's nice, but not quite Tara). Note the water cisterns on either side. Mr DestrehanDestrehan's bio - a mover and shaker, as you would expectWhere the guys who actually did the work lived (it's interesting that ten years ago, there was very little

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Well, the Mardi Gras parades were really something, but the place aside from the parades is also pretty interesting. Start with the architecture don't miss the whiskey sign): And the cemetaries - one thing we missed was the Voodoo tour of the cemetaries. This is best done at night, and the police don't really recommend going around some of these places at night, even in a large group.Along

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Well, after a year off, we're on the road again. New Orleans is something any time of year, but Mardi Gras is the Big Thing. It lasts several weeks, and every day or two there are one or more parades, each one put on by a Krewe. This is the Krewe of Iris. Neat mask...people work all year getting up costumes like this; sometimes they are re-used, buy yhe theme for th parqade is different

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All these travels took us to interesting places, but the travel itself was fascinating too. This ws our rig - bikes on the back, an inflatable boat on top (which turned out to be a lot of trouble; we only used it once). There are places where the road can go a long way without a road, a house (or sometimes even another car) in sight. Cotton bales in North Carolina Oil wells in Oklahoma. A lot of

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The Hermitage, near Nashville, Tennessee, the residence of Andrew Jackson. He was quite a guy - 6 years of formal education; read law, became a US attorney at age 23, delegate to the Tenn constitutional convention, 1st Tenn Congressman at 29, US Senator at 30, successful cotton planter. He was an army general; fought in four wars, including the Battle of New Orleans, which ultimately propelled

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Land of the Really Big Maple Leaves? This in Dardanelle, Yell County, Arkansas. Hometown of Mattie, "as plain as a mud fence", in my favorite Western, True Grit. Turns out there really is a Dardanelle in Yell County. But, they said the movie was actually shot in Fort Smith. Oklahoma City: Memorial to the Murrah Federal Office Building. The building itself was torn down after the explosion,

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As we left the California desert, one last chance to Buy Things - for once we didn't... Then, out of townIn the trusty Great White WhaleOverflowing with purchases, museum guides, food, plants, books etc.This sign means 83 miles to the next chance to get gasoline. Imagine only one gas station in the whole state of Connecticut, and you get an idea... To complete our collection of deserts, we passed

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Starting to head back East: incredible that having a whole summer, we didn't leave much time for Los Angeles - just the Getty Museum. Quite a place: the consensus is that the works of art are all right, but the big thing is the museum itself: Long walkway with these little water jets - very peaceful. Built on a hill-spectacular views Lots of unifying themes. One of these was that almost all the

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Solvang, California - settled by Danes originally (Apparently not quite of the Hagar the Horrible persuasion). No cliche left behind: Did Hans Christian Anderson really look like Danny Kaye? The Little Mermaid... A store window: Mission Santa Barbara, called the Queen of California Missions They all have a courtyard - wonderfully peaceful. The Japanese have Zen gardens with nothing but rocks, but

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A fond farewell to San Francisco; we wander on southward along the California coast. Palo Alto-Stanford University: Stanford has a magnificent outdoor collection of Rodin sculptures: Angst in Bronze (my title)Rodin is instantly recognizable. Also equal-opportunity; it seems most modern sculptors do only female nudes; Rodin does both. The Gates of Hell: And who should be perched atop those gates

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The Golden Gate Bridge: Yes, it is impressive. Goes from SanFran to the north shore of The Bay. ...and is not to be confused with the San Francisco Bay Bridge, which goes from SanFran to Oakland, further inland...On the other side of the Bay: Sausolito...and the famous houseboats, where Beatniks and such riffraff used to hang out The houseboat in the middle has three other boats. Must be a

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The California Redwoods are a rainforest thing, like the trees in Washington - They need a lot of rain and a mild climate. They are magnificent, in a different way than the giant Sequoias; the Sequoias overwhelmk you with their sheer size. The Redwoods just are - impossibly tall; not even trying to be majestic because they don't care whether anybody is in awe of them or not; silent and solemn. We

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California - these are Monterey Cypress. Originally grew only here and in Monterey, but being a sort of charismatic tree, they have been transplanted all over the world. They were at...Fort Ross. it seems the Russians, under Peter the Great, got very interested in exploring their western end (partly, they were afraid the Chinese would get there first). They made something like 250 trips in the

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More of the Oregon Coast: us. It's always pretty coolish, and blowy here. If you want to live on a bluff, you need a lot of stairs. Horses on the beach. Question: If you're walking your dog, you carry a pooper-scooper and a small bag. What do these people carry (if anything)? Port Orford: Launching a crab trap Some other people caught a whole mess of crabs, and are cleaning them. ...and throwing

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Off down the Pacific coast: Neat fallen tree next to our campsite - found art. The oregon coast - the mountails come right down to the sea; lots of windey roads... And wind: they call these flag trees. The wind is always blowing. Beautiful. Sea anemone. Sitting there, looking all pretty and innocent, until some little critter gets close enough for it to grab and digest.Kelp heads: The kelp are

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The Oregon Trail ended - surprize! - in Oregon, in the Willamette River valley, in the northwest part of the state. This is the End of the Trail Museum. Intrepid pioneers Manifest Destiny sounds a bit Politically Incorrect nowadays, but it was one reason for people to go west. The others, mainly, were economic opportunity, wanderlust and just plain excitement. Here's how they went: You could get

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In due course, we got to the mouth of the Columbia River, where Lewis and Clark spent the winer of 1805-6, after having traversed the American continent. This is a bay behind Cape Disappointment, so-called because a Capt Mears of Capt Cook's expedition (after Cook himself was killed in the Hawaiian Islands), looking for the mouth of a large river that might be the entrance to the (Non-existent)

Barb and Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01378606820957120474noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3683417146732891417.post-34503992524671795542007-09-29T00:56:00.000-05:002008-12-11T03:17:26.047-05:00

This is the Washington seacoast. You see these vertical rocks, "Sea Stacks", all along. Proof that seeds are carried by the wind, or birds: Considering that all of these formations are due to soft stone getting eroded away while hard stone stays, it's not that surprizing that sometimes you get hole in the rock. Neat, though: Lots of driftwood. They say it comes from rivers undermining the trees

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If you're in Washington, of course you've got to visit Mt Rainier. This is it. 15 minutes later, it was in the clouds, and stayed there. Magnificent, anyway. So, on along the north coast - this is Port Townsend Big thing is Victorian cottages. The whole town had them, very quaint, beautifully maintained, lots of flowers. Aand woodcarvings Nearby, Fort Worden. This Persian rug was in the

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South Dakota - the Badlands and the Black Hills and all those presidents - were well worth going so far for; but now we had to wend our way back to the West Coast.By this time, we are pretty adept at getting meals; but it's still pretty involved. A place for everything, and everything in its place: One last stop in South Dakota: Sturgis, where during the first week of August 500,000 motorcyclists

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Seattle - quite a place. We were here two weeks, busy every day, didn't get to see half of it.We started out staying near Seattle Center Park to meet son Ben, who'd just finished a one-week mountaineering course on Mt Rainier - learning what to do if you fall into an ice cravasse, and such. We went up the Space Needle, of course, in addition to the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame andthe

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South Dakota is a bit hard to get to, but there's a lot of stuff there. First off, the Black Hills Mining Museum in Lead, SD (Pronounced 'Leed', as in the direstion you lead off a mine shaft with), home of the Homestake Mine: The Homestake Mine started out as an open pit - The Big Cut: When that played out, they started digging and drilling: The first ore was often pulled out by donkeys or mules,

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Lavabeds in Oregon: Lava upwellings of various kinds are all over the place; they're all a little different. These are flat and the result of a lot of lava flowing out of a cone, not real fast:These are pressure ridges: the lava flowing from upper left to lower right has made waves -This is a crack, caused by the laver cooling and shrinking after it had solidified.Wider pressure ridges: Nearby,

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The Columbia River -- Bonneville Dam -- Mt Hood:Note the sharp escarpments in the valley leading down to the river. Mamaloose Island: It used to be a sacred burial site for the Indians; after the Columbia was dammed, the parts of the island with Indian burial sites are all under water. One foresighted American had himself buried high up on the island, so his gravesite is still visible.This

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Lassen Park, in eastern California - one of a number of volcano-related places. It's all the fault of reckless driving by the Pacific Plate, which keeps bumping over into the North American plate, trying to slide underneath it, and causing volcanic eruptions and such. Mt Lassen - looks peaceful...In this particular case, the eruption happened on several days in 1915. The area not being that

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Lake Tahoe, in northeast california, is a very popular resort, complete with gorgeous scenery, crowds, high prices, real estate developments... One of the older summer cottages. The car, 1911 Winton, was owned by a guy who actually drives it; he got 8 of his family and toured through Yellowstone, and then Tahoe. What a way to go...Lake Tahoe being such a happening place - upscale summer places,

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The Devil's Postpile - What a name (They told us that there are, in California alone, 150 geographical features that are blamed on the Devil - quite a record for a guy who isn't even supposed to exist). Note that these pieces of rock are quite long, regular and all about the same size. Sometimes, after being formed, they get bent... And they're three-dimensional: Here's the top. It seems that if

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On the way: These are soome kind of cedar - the most tree for the real estate, good windbreak. Solar array: the camp Host at the Datil Spring Campground had his own 3 x 6 ft solar array; it cost $300, on sale. It generates about 400 watt-hours of power in a day (he has to get up once an hour and re-aim the array at the sun); it runs his lights at night. (But the average house uses 20-30

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The Sequoia!! The Biggest Living Thing in the World!!Wellll, define biggest... But they are pretty big. Also, they live a long time (Sequoiadendron Sempervirens is the ful name). One of the consequences of this is that they all have to live through a forest fire, or two or ten. Having very thick and pretty fire-resistant bark, this doesn't bother them too much. The rule is, as long as there is

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So, all thru 2006 we were aiming for California, but kept getting sidetracked in Arizona/New Mexico/Colorado/Utah etc. This year, we finally made it. These are California Fan PalmsWhich can get really shaggy unless someone prunes them... . A train with four locomotives - lots of these trains are over 100 cars long. There's a tunnel right thru this mountain, to bring water from the rainy side to

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In 2006 we caught the tail-end of the 200th reenactment of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. They were sent off by President Thomas Jefferson in 1803 after the Louisiana Purchase and returned in September 1806.They started off from just north of St Louis, up the Missouri River: Capt Merriwether Lewis, Capt William Clark, Clark's servant York, and Clark's dog Seaman, a Black Newfoundland

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New Mexico, Land of Enchantment. It is different, somehow. Gorgeous scenery, of course ---Mesilla, NM - a lot of old buildings. Billy the Kid is a mainstay of te tourist trade, out here. He was a ruthless killer, a halfway retarded, an honest but misguided guy who stood by his friends and got in trouble for it, a hero to the Mexicans, or maybe an early fighter for social justice - take your pick,

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Dallas: About the first thing we thought about was, of course, where Kennedy was shot. This is the Texas School Book depository. The entire sixth floor is a museum; very poignant, but they wouldn't allow pictures. Where he was shot: the X on the street doesn't have any explanatory sign. Doesn't need one. But there's a lot more. For one thing, the oil. They had this old Mobil sign, just uncrated,

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Houston: A city that doesn't mind mixing industry with urban life (unlike some of us wimps in the Northeast). And off to the Battle of San Jacinto, arguably one of the most important in our history, since it resulted in Texas being independent instead of a part of Mexico (which could easily have happened, as we'll see). Re-enactors Juan Seguin (with Barb). He led a group of Mexicans who wanted to

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Well, here we are on the Open Range. Open it was; every so often a cow or three would wander nonchalantly near or across the road. Our job to miss them (reminded us a bit of India). Fortunately, you can see the critters a long way off. Cliff country near Cody, Wyoming. And, yes, it was named for Buffalo Bill. Bill was quite a showman; he ran his Wild West Show and Congress of Rough Riders of the

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Glacier National Park - a beautiful place, in Montana just up against the Canadian border. And a must-see, since the glaciers have been disappearing for the last several decades; theyy figure they'll be all gone by 2026 or thereabout.One of the must-dos is to see exotic wildlife. After looking all over for bears, guess where we find them?These mountain goats appeared about 100 yards along the

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The Big Easy - New Orleans is back! New Orleans has been called The Big Easy all along. The name fits. They seem to work at it. The Sternwheeler Natchez does cruises, as well as sitting there looking pretty. The MississippiThis should keep somebody eating for a while... One of the better satirical rags we've seen. Note the motto just underneath the title. Actually, as the locals will

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Band Instruments: The Pine Bluff, Arkansas Musical Instrument Museum was a rather out-of-the-way place; there was only oneother party of visitors while we were there. The proprietor. He also had a real old-time ice-cream parlor. There are three valves, which direct all the wind into one of the four mouths.

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2007: On West-and-Southward Ho: Alabama, down to Mobile. A minor 'sleeper' in Northern Alabama, Russell Caves, where Paleo-Indians (like 8,000-10,000 years ago) hung out. Alabama is big on birds; these 'Birding Trail' signs appear everywhere.Below: A gouge on what those big birds soaring over your head might be... Paleo-Indians. The girl is holding a string of turkey bones, which seem to have

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Starting Out Again II: Virginia, North CarolinaSea Grove, North Carolina is a center of pottery-making; one specialty is Face Jugs. This is Dave's brother Jim & Ann's collection. (They're in Charlotte, NC).After visiting Barb's cousin Stephanie and Mark Hudy and Uncle Adolf, in Harrisonburg VA, we stopped at Staunton (still in VA, in the Shenandoah Valley; please to pronounce it "Staantn").

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Our 2006 trip west was great fun, but we never did make it to the West Coast. Cowboy and Indian country - Arizona, Newe Mexico, Wyoming etc - got really absorbing. So, we took off again at the beginning of March 2007. Preceded by a quick visit to Boston to see son Dan, now in the Air Force doing space-vehicle research at Hanscom AFB outside Boston. The following from the MIT Science Museum:

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Phoenix: The Desert Museum (One of several; having a lot of desert, everyone around here seems to have the same idea). On the right, prickly pear, by far the majority of all cacti. Absolutely everything that grows here has prickers, including Prickly Pears, but lots of animals eay them anyway. In a pinch, cowmen could burn them off with a blowtorch so the cows could get at them. The fuzzy things

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We have seen a lot of museums. This is at the U of Arizona @ Tucson - Indian masks... Entrance to the University. A Puma; A Ringtail (I think). At the Arizona Desert Museum: Far right, Saguaro Cactus; Near, Baja Firebarrel Cactus.Saguaro looking vaguely like something out of Muppets. Saguaro with a Cactus Wren in residence. Kit fox; Victoria Regina Agave.A cave fish. Some of them are blind;

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The Malpais (French for Bad country, not to be confused with South Dakota's Badlands) is a miles-wide lava field left by some prehistoric volcanic eruption. Competely barren; no food or water. Indians hated to cross it; whites who did would wear out a pair of mocassins in one crossing. The lava would pour out of the volcano, sometimes in a flat flow which would solidify on the surface first and

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Texas' Big Bend country is truly beautiful, and very little visited. We particularly wanted to go in the Spring, when the cactus blooms. Unfortunately, there having been very little rain for the last four years, it didn't bloom much.But, where there is water, it's pretty neat...A Sure-nough Texas Longhorn cow. They stand the heat and dryness much better than Angus or Shorthorns, but have as

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Galveston - its on the Gulf Coast, and compared to us environmentally conscious types in New England, has a completely different view. Oil derricks, pipelines, abandoned pieces of equipment everywhere. Air quality didn't seem bad. The Ocean Star, a one-time drilling platform out in the Gulf of Mexico, is now an offshore oil-drilling museum. Among those named there as important oilmen is George

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The Natchez Trace was a busy place from about 1780-1805 or so. The Mississippi was a great way to get a lot of goods downriver; peoneers from Ohio. Illionis etc would get together all their crops and hides, build a raft out of logs, float the whole thing down to New Orleans, sell the goods, and break up the raft and sell the logs (the young Abraham Lincoln did this, a few years later). But then

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Civil War reenactors re-enact famous battles once a year; at Tombstone they do it every day. Big Nose Kate was Wyatt Earp's girlfriend, and also ran this bar/bawdy house. Wyatt's brother, Morgan's wife did the same. And these were the guys on the side of the law! The guys on the other side, the Clantons, aparently made their money by holding up stagecoaches and such, which was considered more

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Rafting the Grand Canyon We rafted only about a quarter of the way, from the left end to Bright Angel, a bit to the right of the southbound leg, just after Sockdologer Rapid...this from the back of the T shirt they gave us. We took a 5-day trip from below Glen Canyon Dam at Lake Powell (John Wesley Powell, Civil War Hero, lost an arm at Shiloh, then later

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Here we are ready to start off. The truck, a Ford Econovan, aka Moby Dick, the great white somethingorother, contains a bed plus a lot of storage space - we slept under cover, but all the eating, washing, etc had to be done elsewhere, at the campgrounds/RV parks etc we stayed at. Works pretty good, especially if it isn't raining. Trip I lasted Feb-Oct 2006; we started Trip II in March

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