Houston and Sirius

We had a great visit with friends and former colleagues in Houston, and I also managed a bit of shopping while SWMBO’d visited the international quilt show being held at the  George Brown Convention Centre.  This show is an annual event, and reputedly the largest in the world, with participants attending from all over the globe.  I’d wondered whether the economic situation would put a dampener on the event, and evidently it wasn’t as busy as in previous years – but it is still quite big ! There were many quilts to be seen – to the left is one example.

While SWMBO’d was checking out fabric, I managed to stop into a couple of Harbour Freight stores – my American friends on the various motorcycle bulletin boards swear by them, so I had to take a look, and it turned out to be time well spent. Harbour Freight is a chain of stores much like Princess Auto or Manitoba Tools in Canada (and it would not surprise me at all if there was some sort of connection between them all). They stock automotive tools and specialty items – often low-end stuff, but also some very good quality items – and often the prices are amazing. As an example. I picked up a battery tender (designed to maintain a wet battery’s charge over a long period of time) for $6 and the going price for a very similar item in Calgary is about $40. Another store in Houston is Northern Tool which is similar to Harbour Freight but perhaps a bit better quality. At any rate I ended up buying a load of useful stuff for much less than I’d pay for the same quality of item in Canada.

The other item I picked up was an XM satellite radio receiver. When SWMBO’d and I travel, we generally pack along a load of CD’s but then don’t listen to them – our tastes in music are quite different and I’d rather endure ants eating my eyeballs than have to listen to Celine Dion mooning about something or other for hours on end, and likewise SWMBO’d doesn’t really care for anything I like. As a result we generally travel in musical silence, broken with the occasional bit of small talk. I’d been thinking about picking up a satellite radio system for some time and so wasted no time in heading out to Fry’s Electronics in Houston as soon as I had the chance !  Fry’s is a dream come true if you are any sort of propeller head sort of person and frankly it is a must see every time I’m in the area !   They had an XM/Sirius radio for a reasonable price, and I had it up and running in the car within about and hour start to finish. Frankly we love it – there is no way we could possibly buy enough CD’s and then find the time to put together our own music compilations  which would match what is offered on the satellite radio. As a result, we have been able to listen to hours of commercial free music, and so far at least are still talking to each other – its great, and recommended. The other things I’d offer is that being able to listen to a music station for hundreds of kilometres without losing the signal still seems a bit incredible to me – yes I realise it’s a satellite transmission, but that in no way takes away any of the sense of wonder, for me at least, at how well it works.

We spent some time at Livingstone Lake where some friends of ours have a cottage (or as they call them here – a lake house). A neighbour happens to have a fairly decent collection of vintage motorcycles, and we were fortunate enough to have a private tour of his collection of about 50 bikes – mainly British but there are few  American and European ones also.

To the right is a 16H Norton which is what my Dad owned in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s in the UK, although his had a sidecar fitted. This one is a very nice example.

We had a good visit and hope to be back soon, but the next stop is New Orleans !

The Alamo

We arrived in San Antonio in the pouring rain for one reason only – to see The Alamo.  I can still remember watching the Walt Disney mini-series called “Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier” which aired in the late 1950’s – amongst boys my age it was hugely popular and at one time, I even owned a ‘genuine’ coon skin cap ! Back then, television watching was an event, with the whole family set in front of our black and white Hallicrafters TV each Sunday, watching good old Walt introduce whatever was going to be featured that week.  In the Walt Disney series, the scene that still sticks in my mind after all these years is the closing where the stockade is being over run and the sound track with that idiot, but cheerful song comes on, and Davy Crockett battles away as the scene fades and the credits start to roll. At the time of course, I was too young to appreciate that very nearly everyone including Davy Crockett died, or even why they were there in the first place, but it made a big impression on me. As we were in the area I wanted to see the actual location where the event had taken place.

Native Texans (referred to as Texians) , and many Americans hold The Alamo in a very special place – the phrase “Remember The Alamo” still is used to rally Americans – but I have to admit that for me it was actually a bit of a disappointment. What I had understood since childhood to be “The Alamo” building actually is just the small chapel, which admittedly was the location of the final moments of the battle, but which once occupied only one corner of the complex. Most of the fort isn’t there any more having been paved and built over during the past 170 odd years.

History is generally written by the victors, and for this area of the USA this is most certainly true. If you take a squinty-eyed look at the history of that period in time, one could argue that essentially it was a case of American settlers ultimately being successful in doing an illegal land grab from what was a legitimate government.  In some respects I suppose it wasn’t too much different from American attempts to invade/annex parts of Canada (war of 1812, 1837 raids along the St. Lawrence, etc.). The main difference was that in the north, the Americans lost, but in the south they won – at least they did back then. Now as you travel in the southern parts of the USA it is interesting to see that Spanish speaking folks seem to predominate in many areas, to the point that English is almost a second language. Many hotel, industry and agricultural support staff do not even speak understandable English, leading me to wonder if what was lost by force of arms may ultimately be won via the cradle, but I digress.

The Alamo site is maintained by a group called ‘The Daughters of The Republic” and it is now regarded as an official state shrine. As such, when you enter the chapel  you are directed to remove your hat and not take any photos – inside the chapel people tend to talk in whispers amid an attitude of reverence and (almost) awe as you walk the “hallowed” ground. Naturally as many of the locals still carry firearms just in case the government gets out of hand, one complies with this behaviour !

Roswell and Carlsbad

We continued our journey onwards from Yellowstone Park in Wyoming, through Teton National Forest and then the high plains desert areas in the south of Wyoming. While the area through to the Colorado border has a stark beauty, it is difficult to see how what few people there are manage to support themselves. Of course in the past, the area around Rawlins and then north and east of Lander was where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, operated so I suppose earning a living in the area has always been a challenge !

After passing through the fabled old west towns of Laramie and Cheyenne, we left Wyoming and entered Colorado, specifically the town of Colorado Springs where the intent had been to go up to the top of Pike’s Peak.  There are not a lot of place where you can drive to the top of a 4,301 M (14,110 feet) mountain peak, and once up there, the view is spectacular – I drove it previously many years ago and had been looking forward to a second visit, but it was not to be. When we arrived, the area, at ground level at least, was shrouded in freezing rain and sleet, so prudence overcame enthusiasm and we decided to save that experience for another time.

Continuing south from Colorado, we passed into New Mexico and made our way down to Roswell, the object of much X-Files style speculation by conspiracy theorists and part time crazies, around a supposed UFO crash site and subsequent US Army cover-up which is alleged to have happened in 1947.  I found it interesting that the welcome marker for the town of Roswell doesn’t even mention the supposed UFO incident, which is largely the only reason most folks have ever heard of the place, so perhaps there is a conspiracy after all ! The local residents at least do seem to have a sense of humour, or at least a keen willingness to take advantage of the notoriety, and there are many shops offering “genuine” alien and UFO paraphernalia as well as a UFO museum !

From Roswell, we continued south to Carlsbad which is the site of a truly amazing set of natural caverns. We have visited many tourist accessible caverns over the years but this one is special. The main cave, called the Big Room, is located about 230 M (750 feet) underground has a walkway around the perimeter of just over 1.6 km (1 mile) long, and the cavern itself has a total area of just over 6 football fields ! While this sort of tour is really tame (I admit we took the elevator down, rather than do the 2 hour walk), it is a very nice way of making something as special as this readily available to the public. Worth a visit if you are in the area.

We crossed over into Texas, and headed for Austin through west Texas desert and scrub lands – I’ve been told this is the location of one of the worlds largest oak forests, which may or may not be true although there isn’t much to see over a meter tall ! We did see one roadrunner (but no coyote !) and a few ghost towns – its a fairly bleak area.

The one really nice thing was the speed limit, in typical Texan style, was higher than anywhere else in the USA we’d driven so far – 80 MPH ! As well, I noticed that the fuel sold was 2 numbers higher in octane (93 rather than 91) than in the previous three states – not sure why that would be the case, but I’m sure there must be a reason.

Next stop – the Alamo !

Yellowstone

We recently had an opportunity to do a driving trip into the central/midwest area of the USA to attend the International Quilt Show, held each year in Houston. This show is probably the largest quilt show in the world, and it is genuinely ‘international’ in its scope with attendees and displays from all around the globe. As we had the time available to drive,  we made a list of central/midwest places we’d like to see along the way – and on that list the Old Faithful geyser in Yellowstone Park in Wyoming was a ‘must do’ !

I have no idea what other tourists think about when they drag their kids and significant others through the park, but National Geographic magazine recently featured Yellowstone  in its August issue, and in some ways I wish I hadn’t read it ! While that part of the USA is absolutely beautiful – forests, lakes, mountains, foothills and red rock hills and canyons, Yellowstone Park and its geysers,boiling mud pits and fumaroles are actually located in the caldera of an absolutely massive volcano measuring about 73 km (45 miles) across ! As per NG, half of all the geysers on the planet are actually in Yellowstone Park, so while it may seem silly, all I could think about as I photographed SWMBO’d as she watched ‘Old Faithful” , was about what was happening under my feet. There is obviously an enormous amount of pent-up energy  in the depths below you and areas of the park recently have risen several feet in recent years, sufficient to actually ’tilt’ Yellowstone Lake and drown trees on the shoreline on low side. For me, it was nice to see Old Faithful do its thing, but I sure do not want to be there if that volcano ever does decide to wake  up !