Three States and a Hidden Reservoir

We got on the road before 8 AM, and left the beautiful Caprock Canyon State Park. We headed West, and watched the Sandhill cranes fly in the distance.

After refueling in Amarillo, we continued north, towards Oklahoma.

The area is pretty empty, with small towns 20 miles apart, and not much else. The winds were bad much of the day, including some heavy buffeting from passing Trucks. We drove across the panhandle of Okahoma, about 50 miles, and then entered Colorado. We took the opportunity to take photos of the signs greeting people crossing the state line. The roads in Oklahoma were terrible, very bumpy, while the roads in Colorado are new and smooth.


Our destination was Two Buttes reservoir, a Colorado State Wildlife Area between Springfield and Lamar. After stopping at the Thriftway supermarket in Springfield, we drove 18 miles north, and then turned East. We turned south at the first State Wildlife Area sign, which turned out to be a mistake, as the road got pretty bad. We were able to get turned around and ultimately found the reservoir. We camped next to a pool surrounded by cliffs. Although there were fire rings and some beer cans, no one was here, and our rear window faced the pool.

Late in the afternoon, a flock of more than a dozen turkeys came by and drank from the pool. Pretty cool.

All in all, a kind of magical place, at least when no one else is there.

When we got up on Wednesday, we were surrounded by turkeys, around 30 of them! Nice.

We drove home without incident. We saw some snow in the shade as we got closer to Denver, but the roads were dry.

Caprock Canyons State Park

We decided to get up early on Monday morning, so we were on the road before 8 AM, good for us. We got through rush hour smoothly, with minimal delays. We made it to Caprock Canyons State Park mid afternoon, so we got to see a bit of the park, very quiet and beautiful.

The stars at night were beautiful

We plan to drive hard to get home Wednesday to beat the weather.

Dallas Art Museum

On Sunday, we decided to head into the Denver Art Museum. We especially enjoyed "The Mourners", small medieval tomb sculptures. Amazing work. The photo is of one of the sculptures that we liked.

Tour of Dallas

We drove to Dallas on Friday, and settled in at Cedar Hill State Park.

On Saturday, we drove into Dallas to meet Susan and Mark at Fair Park. Fair Park is where the Texas State Fair is held. Fair Park is a Texas size facility. We went to the African-American museum, where we saw an interesting exhibit on the Freedman's cemetary, which was recently rediscovered. A large group of motorcycles drove up to visit the Vietnam memorial wall at the fair. We received a detailed tour of the Texas building from the proud guard.


Most of the buildings were built for the 1936 Centennial, in which Texas commemorated the 100th anniversary of the independence of Texas from Mexico. The buildings are, as one would expect, in the Art Deco Style, and have been restored in recent years. Susan says that this is the largest collection of monumental Art Deco murals in the world.

After the fair we went to an excellent Mexican restaurant in a funky neighborhood. Then we headed out to White Rock Park and Lake, a beautiful area in the big city.

We ended the day in Downtown Dallas, where we saw the monumental bronze herd of longhorn cattle, as well as a group of young people dressed up for a quinceanera.

A long day, but a good day.

Houston Quilt Show

Wednesday morning, Michael went out and bought Kolaches. Kolaches are sausages in a bun, not health food, but they are tasty. We then hit the road towards Houston.

I had clipped a sewer drain on a corner with the trailer, and damaged a tire. We needed new tires anyway, so we stopped in Rosenburg to get new trailer tires. Good to get new tires on the trailer, the old tires were made in 2003, and becoming questionable.

The rain continued most of the morning, sometimes raining hard. We arrived at the same campground in Houston, but unfortunately did not get a great campsite. Our campsite is on a busy road, a far cry from the lakeside campsite we had last time.

Thursday, we headed into downtown Houston. We drove around near the conference center, and luckily got into a parking lot a couple of blocks away. The parking was only $7, better than the $20 right 100 feet away.

As we walked to the convention center, we joined a sea of women quilters. There were a few men, but not many.

The quilts on display in the show were amazing, incredible workmanship, great designs, the best of the best. Good to see quilts from Colorado and Wyoming. We walked past some of the hundreds of booths. Marianne managed to spend less than $100, buying a few things cheaper than she could buy them at home.

We sat down and watched Eleanor Burns, the quilt for a day lady, give an entertaining talk on her barn quilts. A good chance to get off our feet. By five PM, we were ready to go. The photo was of one of Marianne's favorite quilts; she bought an autographed book from the quilter.

The Houston Quilt show is amazing. Attending it was a dream come true for Marianne. Tomorrow we head out towards Dallas.

Goliad and Bay City

We started Monday by walking on the beach, and then headed inland. Our destination was Goliad State Park. Goliad is famous for the massacre that occurred there during the Texas war of Independence. It was extremely hot, so we mostly stayed in the air conditioned camper.

Tuesday was a much cooler day, so we toured the restored Bahia mission that is part of the state park. After that we headed over to the Presidio, the nearby fort, which is where the Goliad massacre took place. For those of you not knowledgeable about Texas history, more than 300 Texans were executed at Goliad after they had surrendered to the Mexican army, more than were killed at the Alamo. A sad story. The Presidio had also been restored, and had a good museum explaining the history.

We headed into the town of Goliad for lunch. The town has a historic courthouse and other buildings. We had a good lunch at El Empressario restaurant on the town square.

We proceeded on to Bay City, where we went to Michael and Kathy's house. Unfortunately, we clipped a sewer drain on the way there, damaging a tire, so the first order of business on Wednesday will be replacing the trailer tires.

We waited for Kathy to get home from work, and then we headed to an excellent seafood restaurant. The fried pickles and jalepenos were especially good.

Port Aransas and Paddlefest

On Wednesday we left Austin and headed for the Aquarena in San Marcos, a natural spring, previously a theme park, but now an environmental education center. We took the glass bottom boat ride, seeing the fish and the springs. The low pressure springs were like a mini sand geyser, while the high presure springs were more like a fire hose. A very pleasant stop.

However, it did put us somewhat late arriving at the beach in Port Aransas. We usually stop around 4 PM, but ended up driving almost to 6 PM. The I.B.MaGee beach park was pretty basic, but really OK. We were there because the paddlefest is there.

Thursday was a relaxing day, doing laundry and visiting the University of Texas Marine Science Institute.

The paddlefest started Friday with an 8:30 AM meeting. We headed out to the old lighthouse, in what turned out to be a long paddle, about eight miles round trip. Richard was lagging behind, but did get some tips that helped him keep up on the following days. Richard and his sister Diane went out to dinner in the evening. Saturday we paddled out to Shamrock Island, a bird sanctuary, a shorter trip. Sunday we did a variation on the Saturday trip. Richard enjoyed taking demo rides in various kayaks.

Sunday evening we went to mass with Diane, and then went out to dinner with Diane and Patrick. We had a nice visit.

Off to Austin

On Sunday, we went to the 9 AM mass at Corpus Christi, with a very mulicultural congregation. The Roman Catholic church says that it is the universal church, and it sure looked universal. A nice mass.

We relaxed around the pleasant and quiet Lakeside campground, enjoying the cool gulf breezes, until the noon check out time. We drove to Austin, and arrived at McKinney State Park around 4 PM. It is hotter here than in Houston, luckily our campsite is shaded by big oak trees. We listened to the cicadas in the evening.

On Monday, we started by driving to the State Capitol. We caught up with a tour guide, who told us that the Capitol in Austin is higher than the US capitol in Washington DC. There are some historically incorrect paintings depicting the events of the Texas war of Independence from Mexico. We had lunch at the Capitol.


We proceeded on to the LBJ Presidential library, which was very interesting. There was a large retrospective of Walter Cronkite's career, as well as many exhibits depicting the turbulent 60's. It struck me that they were playing the music of my youth, including the Jefferson Airplane. Interesting to see a historical presentations on an era that we remembered, instead of an era before we were born. The photo is of one of the pens with which LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act of 1965, one of his most important accomplishments. But of course the good things that LBJ did were overshadowed by the Vietnam War.......

We went over to visit John and Judy for dinner. John is one of the art metal folks that Richard hangs out with on the internet. We had a nice chat and dinner. Interestingly, three of the four of us worked in the electronics business, and ended our working career on or about 2001, during the recession, so we had a lot in common.

On Tuesday we visited the Mexi-Arte museum, which had a special exhibit on the centennial of Mexican independence, lots of photos from the 1910 celebration, which occurred right before the Mexican revolution ousted President Porfirio Diaz. Definitely worth the stop. After lunch at Manual's Mexican restaurant, we headed to the Texas History Museum, which tries to tell all of Texas history in one building. It does a pretty good job, but I wanted more information, so we bought a book.

Wednesday we plan to head for the beach.

Ryan and Cindy's wedding

On Saturday, Richard went out to visit the Contemporary Craft museum, a gallery with dia de los muertos retablos, the Rothko Chapel, and the Holocaust museum. Richard enjoyed the contemporary craft museum, but would have enjoyed it more if the resident artists had been around. The retablos were somewhat interesting. The Rothko Chapel left Richard cold, with the large paintings black on black. The Holocaust museum included a railroad car, like the one's used to transport Jews to the death camps.

In the evening, we arrived early at the church, sat down, and noted how much an Episcopal church looks like a Catholic Church, including the tabernacle and the stations of the cross. The priest was Cindy's father, Jim, and with only eleven people in attendance, the ceremony was a very intimate affair. The ceremony felt very familiar, and included the traditional "in sickness and in health." They made a very nice couple. Patrick, Ryan's brother, was the best man. Becky, Cindy's sister in law, was the matron of honor.

After the ceremony, we went to a fancy steak restaurant for dinner, where we ate very well and chatted with the family. Cindy and Ryan were leaving for Ireland the following day.

All in all, a very nice wedding.

Fort Richardson

We got up early, and were on the road by 8. We stopped in Amarillo to pick up fuel and a generous supply of tourist information, and headed southeast.

By midday, we had concluded that we did not want to drive through Dallas-Fort Worth during the afternoon rush hour, and Marianne selected Fort Richardson State Park for the evening. This fort was one of the forts active during the indian war period. Colonel MacKenzie, the same colonel who fought the indians in Palo Duro Canyon, was the commanding officer here, and used it as a base for pursuing the hostile indians.

Pretty amazing that these stories keep tying together, between Palo Duro, Fort Richardson, and the book "Empire of the Summer Moon". At this rate, we might start to understand the indian wars in this area. One key part of that history was the decision by President Grant to end the "Quaker Peace Policy", and unleash the army on the indians. Up to that point, the indians were able to raid and then retreat to the reservations, where the army was not allowed to chase them. The indian raids soon ended after the army was able to work freely.

Amarillo and Palo Duro Canyon

We got on the road Tuesday about 7:45, early for us, and headed south on US287, a big truck route.

When we arrived in Amarillo, Richard had to go see the Helium monument and sculpture. Amarillo was the world capital of helium until the US government decided that we did not need a strategic reserve of helium.

Then we headed over to West Texas A&M, to the Panhandle Plains Museum, in Canyon. They threw us out at the 5 PM closing time; our two hour visit did not let us see all the interesting things. One of my favorite exhibits was the one comparing flint arrowheads and a semi-automatic pistol. Another interesting exhibit was the Daisy Red Ryder BB gun; Marianne remembers seeing Red Ryder and his sidekick, Little Beaver, ride in the parades in Durango. The AK47 rifle was captured during the first gulf war. Marianne enjoyed the indian clothing. There was also a large Western art exhibit, but unfortunately we were not allowed to take photos of the art. Other exhibits included a pioneer village, an oil rig, cars, you name it. A great Museum.

We then headed to Palo Canyon State Park, the biggest canyon in Texas. Very pretty and quiet. We stood outside after dark and admired the almost full moon, pleasant temperature and a beautiful night.

Wednesday was a rest day, we slept in and later took an afternoon nap in the heat of the day. We had a nice chat with an older lady in the visitor center, who explained that the "llano estacado" is the "staked plain"; the story is that the area was so flat, with few identifying features, that people placed stakes in the ground to help them find their way around. I later found a different story, in which Coronado named the staked plain referring to the escarpment where the plains dropped off into canyons. We went up to see the feeding of the official Texas Herd of Longhorn cattle. One of the cattle was 29 years old! Pretty impressive horns. We saw a flock of wild turkeys, a cardinal, and a red bellied woodpecker, kind of like a ladderback woodpecker with more red on the head. Overall, not too many birds, however.

We reread part of the "Empire of the summer moon", in which the author described Colonel MacKenzie's search for the Comanches, which culminated in an Army attack on the indian's secret hideout in Palo Duro Canyon. While this attack did not kill many indians, the Army did destroy their camp and take 1500 horses, helping to force the indians back on the reservations. It meant that the indians had no place to hide, that the soldiers would pursue them wherever they went. This was one of the last major battles of the indian wars.

A visit from Tim, then heading for Texas

Tim came down for the weekend. His nominal reason for the visit was to help Dennis fix his car. But he also wanted to see his mom and his brother. We had a nice lunch with Tim, Dennis, and Judy on Sunday. Ron, Ari, Erica, and Ari's friend Domenic also joined us. Marianne fixed meatloaf and cole slaw.

On Monday, Richard voted early, and we hit the road about noon. Highway 287 goes from Denver to Fort Worth, so all we needed to do was stay on 287. Once we got past Denver, the landscape changed to the empty plains, beautiful if austere. Highway 287 has been rebuilt as a major truck route, so is in very good condition. About half the vehicles were large trucks.

We stopped around 4:30 at a "Campground and Horse Motel" in Lamar, after driving a little more than 200 miles. We plan to drive to the Amarillo area on Tuesday, and stay in the historic and scenic Palo Duro Canyon State Park.
The kayak will be used later in the trip, when Richard attends the paddlefest in Corpus Christi.

A quick trip to Durango

We took a quick trip to Durango this past weekend. We left home Friday morning, and arrived at the lake 8 hours later. Eileen and Charlie were there. We enjoyed meeting Charlie's friend Chelsea, who is very nice.

On Saturday, Jim and Karen joined us, good to see Jim. Jim has just retired from teaching.




Saturday evening we went to the lake clubhouse, where the trio was giving their annual concert. We very much enjoyed the excellent concert. On Sunday, we went to Church and then came home. Vince came to the lake to do a little fishing.

Charlie and I worked on the ski boat a bit. I split a couple of boxes of kindling, and fixed a leak under the sink, so I earned my keep a bit.

Monday morning we left for home, as did Charlie and Chelsea.

A day of rest and a drive home

We decided not to leave Sunday, but instead took it as a day of rest. We had worked for eight days in a row, cleaning house, and we were mentally and physically exhausted. We went to church, went out for lunch, and decided what we were going to take with us.

We got on the road fairly early on Monday, heading down I-64 for St. Louis and I-70.

Cahokia Mounds State park is a UN World Heritage Site, outside of St. Louis. It is perhaps the largest representative of the Mississipian culture, a mound building culture that flourished in the central US. It's greatest period was around 1100 AD.


The park has a very good museum, showing many of the artifacts that they found in the mounds. The mounds themselves, except for the largest mound, Monk's mound, are not terribly impressive, so it was good that we visited the museum first.

After a couple of hours at Cahokia Mounds, we pressed on through St. Louis, ultimately stopping at at commercial campground near Danville Missouri. It was hot, and we were happy to plug in the camper and turn on the air conditioning.

Tuesday was a driving day. After lunch, we decided that the camper was too hot for the cats, so we put them in a cat carrier and put them in the truck. We stopped at Wilson Lake, Kansas, in a Bureau of Reclamation campground that we have used before. Air conditioning was again necessary.

Wednesday we drove the rest of the way home. Again we took the cats into the truck at lunchtime. We were pretty tired when we got home. The house and the yard looked pretty good, as people had come in while we were gone.

A funeral and a reunion

We had work to do, clearing out my mom's house, so we just stuck with it. In some ways, it was therapeutic to have work to do, to be going through my mom's things. Diane planned to arrive very late on Tuesday with her boys, Ryan and Patrick. The burial was set for Friday.

Tuesday, Diane called to say that her flight was late, so she would miss her connection, and would not arrive in Louisville until Wednesday afternoon. I met with the funeral home without Diane, since decisions needed to be made in order to have it all come together. I set up a public viewing on Thursday night, with a private burial, no formal funeral, just a graveside service. The funeral home tried very hard to find a female Presbyterian minister, which was my mom's request, but they were all either out of town or at a convention. The minister was Bill Williamson, who met with us Thursday night and then met us at the grave site.

We all continued to work on clearing out the house. Pat worked particularly hard and got a lot done.

Thursday night was quiet, we had maybe 15 visitors at the funeral home. Three of the long time neighbors came by, as well as some of the people who had helped take care of my mom. The surprise visitor was the guy who owned the health food store that my mom patronized. The night was stormy, with horizontal rain.

Friday we met at the funeral home, and took the limo to Cave Hill Cemetery, a very beautiful place. Again we had rain. The minister read some scripture. Richard, Pat, and Ryan spoke. And then it was over. The five of us had a nice lunch at Richard's favorite tapas restaurant, and then back to work clearing out stuff.

Coincidentally, Friday was also the 40th anniversary of Richard's High School graduation. He had not expected to be in town, so had not planned to attend, but decided to go. He enjoyed it, just chatting with old friends from high school, many of whom he had not seen in 40 years. It was surprising how many mentioned Richard's old Corvair.

Saturday, Diane, Patrick, and Ryan flew home, while Richard and Marianne continued to fill the dumpster. Richard brought a load to the Goodwill, but they turned him away, basically said that what we brought was not good enough for the Goodwill. Richard had said pretty much the same thing to his mother, that her clothes were not good enough for the Goodwill, and it turned out he was right. We had a couple come over and help us sweep and clean, so the place looks better, inside and out. Unfortunately, there is still more to do; Richard and Diane will return in the fall.

Richard and Marianne went to Captains Quarters for dinner; this was a salute to Lavone, as she and Ed often ate there.

A sad day

On Saturday, July 3rd, the phone rang very early in the morning. It was my sister, Diane, letting me know that my mother had passed away in the night. My mother had recently moved to assisted living in Texas, near my sister. I had spoken to my sister a couple of days before, and she had indicated that our mother seemed to be suffering some, and going downhill. I purchased plane tickets to fly out to Texas in a few days, but of course too
late......

The funeral is expected to be held on Friday. I do know that any services and the burial will take place in Louisville Kentucky. My mother had made prearrangements with Hadley Funeral Home on Westport Road.

Coincidentally, Marianne and I were already in Louisville as part of our grand tour of the midwest, to continue clearing out my mom's house from 50 years of accumulation of stuff. I was cutting limbs on one of my mom's trees the day before, and neighbors were reminding me that my mom would have "whipped my britches" if I had trimmed her trees........ We will of course stay in Louisville until after the funeral.


I would request your thoughts and prayers for myself and Marianne, for Diane and her sons Ryan and Patrick, and of course for my mother, Lavone.

A visit to the Farm

On Monday, we drove from Wisconsin to central Illinois, to visit Teresa and her family.

Tuesday, we hung out at the farm and played with the new puppy. Richard spent about three hours mowing their lawn with a riding tractor. Teresa cooked us a good dinner.

Wednesday, Teresa, Grace, Richard and Marianne went to the farmer's market. Teresa cooked us another a good dinner. Nick was in the fields spraying, and Lucas was working as well.

The last time Marianne had ridden the ATV was with Teresa driving when she was pregnant with Lucas; now her daughter is driving!

Thursday, Richard and Marianne went to the excellent new Lincoln museum in Springfield. Teresa picked us up for lunch at the downtown Irish pub. Thursday night, we had dinner at a local Italian restaurant, with Nick, Teresa, Lucas, Grace, Jo, Pam, John, John Ryan, and Austin.

Friday, we left about 9 AM to go to Louisville, to resume clearing out Richard's mom's house.

On Wisconsin - to the Art Metal Shindig

We slept in a bit, and then headed north to Dyersville, Iowa, the home of the Farm Toy museum and an impressive Basilica built in the late 1800s. The farm toy museum was quite large, representing farm toys, past and present, US and Europe. Marianne worked through their quiz and won the prize, a pencil that changes color with temperature.



The Basilica was quite impressive, kind of a neo-gothic style, seats 1000 people, kind of amazing for a small town.



Then we pressed on through Dubuque Iowa, across the Mississippi River, and into Wisconsin. We stopped at a tourist information center, but there was no one there and very little information. Our destination for the art-metal shindig was Rich's home, out in the country a few miles south of Madison Wisconsin.



We found it with no trouble, and were warmly greeted. It took Richard an hour or so to get the camper leveled out, due to sloping ground, but he was ultimately successful. Then we could relax and chat and watch other people demonstrate various techniques. Dinner was around 8 PM, and involved more chatting. There was even some sculpture made by arranging forks! As we say, "Oooh, shiny!". We are easily amused. Marianne thought that the people were kind of leftover hippies, which is true. The age group is roughly 50 to 70. Talented and interesting people.




Saturday, Richard started working on a railroad spike knife. Michael had given a demo on Friday, which Richard missed, but Michael was willing to walk Richard through it. More or less basic blacksmithing, hot work on a hot day. First Richard twisted part of the knife as the handle, and then he continued hammering out the blade by hand and by power hammer. We did a little grinding to clean up the knife and sharpen the blade, and then hardened the blade. Good practice, good learning. We had a good group dinner, as we did every evening.



Chris and Richard with their hand and hat, "Hat in Hand".


Sunday, Richard and Marianne drove into Madison to go to church, and drive around the town. We saw the state capitol, but did not tour it, and drove around the huge university campus. Sunday was more socializing, although Richard did a little foldforming.



Monday, we packed up and started our drive to Illinois, to visit Teresa and her family.

The Capital's Capitol is Capital

The Capital's Capitol is Capital, or to paraphrase, Lincoln's Capitol building is excellent.

We visited this Art Deco building Wednesday morning.

When Nebraska's previous capitol building started to deteriorate, they hired New York architects and artists to design a new building. The building was constructed over ten years, on a pay as you go philosophy. The building is full of symbolism, in the Art Deco style, including the sun and its energy, animals whose fossil records were found in Nebraska, and others too numerous to mention. Our guide was good and enthusiastic. Perhaps the most interesting story was the 1888 blizzard, in which a pleasant day changed to a desperate blizzard in an hour. One 15 year old teacher kept her children in their school until the storm ripped the roof off, when she tied a cord to each student and let them through the blizzard to a farmhouse. The image below is of the door to the unused legislative chamber, as Nebraska switched to a single body of the legislature (unicameral) after the building was completed.

After visiting the capitol, we hit the road. Our first stop was the Iowa visitor center, where we collected maps, brochures, and suggestions. Our next stop was to a Danish windmill, moved from Denmark to a Iowa village homesteaded by Danes. The scenery is rolling and beautiful.


We camped at Anita Lake State Park, another beautiful place.


On Thursday, we drove to Amana, Iowa, where we had a good lunch at the Ox Yoke restaurant, and Marianne visited the famous quilt store. Amana is part of the Amana Colonies, a religious settlement that was a collective until the 1930s, when they voted to separate the material from the religious. This was our 32nd wedding anniversary. We stopped for the night in Monicello, Iowa.