Texas! Galveston, Houston, San Antonio

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 H.W. Bush (I believe he founded Zapata Offshore Drilling) - but not Dubya.




Sea birds






Then, Houston.


Here, a victim of Hurricane Katrina; this was 6 months later, and all up and down the coast a lot of stuff was not repaired. I mean, a lot.







Below, River Bend, the estate of Ima Hogg (her real name), a noted Texas socialite.














Note the Butterfly Garden.

















Now, if my daddy had left me a few oil wells, I could learn to live like this...
















San Antonio - anold Spanish Mission.


The Alamo - remember?




A frieze of the defenders.

Dave with an early Spanish governor. A chest in the gov's house.

The Riverwalk. Goes for a couple of miles along the San Antonio River. Wonderfully peaceful.

O. Henry lived here for a couple of years, working for a newspaper. Later on, he lived a bit higher on the hog.

market place in San Antoinio

The Natchez Trace

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 what? The technology of steamboats hadn't yet progressed to steaming upstream against the current of the Mighty Mississip'. So, they had to walk.

The Trace starts near Nashville - beautiful city; its defining image is Hank Williams, the Grand Ole Opry, and country music in general. Then, it goes off to the southwest, cutting a corner of Alabama, thru Mississippi to Natchez on the Mississippi River.

In its time, the Trace was full of hostile Indians, bushwhackers, British French and Spanish officials and soldiers - who were still jockeyeing for control of the territory, this being before the Louisiana Purchase - and assorted characters trekking back north. About 1812, after steamboats were developed that could run upriver, the trace was abandoned; Now, it's a national park for its whole length. It's beautiful, and peaceful - not a lot of people or traffic. The two picture on the right are of the Trace as it actually was, only a bit overgrown.

N

At Vicksburg, we saw the USS Corinth, a salvaged Civil War Ironclad; then a side trip to Pine Bluffs, Ark to see Barb's college friend Celeste Jackson-White, and discover a little musical-instrument museum with some really strange instruments.

An old mansion near Natchez, added to some since the days of the Trace.

Tombstone

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 reprehensible.

The Gunfight was actually pretty small and quite quick. There were four on each side: the Wyatt, Morgan and Virgil Earp vs Billy & Ike Clanton and two others. The Earps opened fire first, and killed thrree of the four; the fourth,not having a gun at all - because the sheriff had taken it away earlier in the day - ran away, and lived. Morgan Earp was US Marshall; Wyatt at that moment held no office.

They were also right next to each other - no hiding behind barrels or on roofs.

Then, Boot Hill. Obviously, the tombstones have been enhanced. Nice of them to apologize to Mr Johnson for hanging by mistake.

Tombstone was founded near a rich gold mine. The discoverer was an army lietenant; the area was infested with hostile Indians and badmen, and his friends all said "This'll be your tombstone". A newspaper editor came by and said Every tombstone needs an epitaph; hence the Tombstone Epitaph.

Rafting the Grand Canyon

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 led two expeditions rafting down the Canyon. Having only one arm, he got to steer. He was also the first to suggest that rather than complaining because the Canyon blocked the way going to other places, it was a really neat thing to just look at), to Bright Angel Trail, which leads up to the Grand Canyon Village/hotel/tourist trap. The Bright Angel Trail is 10 miles long and 1 mile straight up, and hot.

Here We Go!

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 2007.