Our 2015 Travels

Betsy "sits out" from the crowd.

For some reason it has been a struggle for me to put up the first travel blog post of the year…perhaps because I haven’t been home very much?

So let’s get started with where we are going and then I’ll circle back to re-cap where we have already been.

In early June we will drive (together, but in separate cars) from San Antonio to Apostle Islands National Lakeshore in Wisconsin (via Denver); timed so that we will be in Denver for Tex's birthday (he’s working this summer for Colorado Legal Services).

From June 18 to July 8 we will be the volunteer rangers living on Sand Island (one of the 21 islands in AINL). This is the same gig we had last year. So, for three weeks we will once again be the King and Queen of our own island!

Beautiful Bishop

From Wisconsin I will drive to Bishop, California (via Denver) where I will stay for a month or so (in our travel trailer) while I try to climb as many of the 12 California 14ers as possible. Betsy will head east from Wisconsin to attend the Baseball Hall of Fame induction ceremonies in Cooperstown that will include Craig Biggio, the first Houston Astro elected to the BHoF.

Afterward Betsy will drive down the east coast visiting friends and relatives before making a brief stop in San Antonio en route to Buena Vista, Colorado where she and I will meet up in mid-August (unfortunately, Tex will have left by then to return to Virginia). We will stay in BV (in the trailer) until the end of September.

We'll get home just in time to take off again - to Austin for the Texas Book Festival in mid-October – after which we will recuperate at home for the remainder of the year.

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Now I’ll "briefly" (?) recap where we have already been this year.

After hunkering down in the house all winter we dusted off the travel trailer in March with a short “shakedown cruise” to Texas’s oldest – but most recently-renovated – state park.

Mother Neff State Park is so named because the original land was donated by the mother of Governor Pat Neff. Pat Neff was governor from 1921 to 1925 and is generally considered to be the “father” of the Texas State Park system.

Somehow the cash-starved park system was able to cobble together some funds to do a major upgrade of the facilities at Mother Neff, including a new area for RVs, fresh black top on the only road in the park, refurbished hiking trails and a new visitor center. It was all very nice (and a stark contrast to many other state parks that are badly in need of some TLC) and we chilled there for three nights in March (MNSP is just outside the northeast corner of Ft. Hood, about 200 miles from San Antonio and about 30 miles south of the G.W. Bush Ranch near Crawford).  

We got back from that trip just in time to drive to Columbia, Missouri (900 miles) with our friend Bill Montgomery for a memorial service for a longtime friend; Trinity professor and former member of our jogging group David Oliver.

We stopped at the Missouri State Capitol to take in the the Thomas Hart Benton murals.

Oliver was a dynamic and unique individual; a gerontologist who turned his cancer diagnosis a few years ago into a teaching platform for palliative care that included numerous speaking engagements, a book, an appearance on the Charlie Rose show and more Mizzou “bling” than you can shake a stick at; balls and photos autographed by Missouri sports teams (some of it presented by Gary Pinkel himself), etc.

Bill, Oliver, Betsy and Dave; in a photo taken "recently".

To say the least the bar for this memorial service was set very high but David and his widow Debbie managed to "live" up to it; starting off with Oliver himself speaking (via video tape) to the crowd gathered in an auditorium at the MU Medical Center.

Betsy was one of several speakers and did a fine job representing the “Texas segment” of Oliver’s life. The three of us (Bill, Betsy and me) spent three nights in a downtown “boutique” hotel and had a helluva good time poking around the Mizzou campus and its many nearby watering holes.

We were home only a few days before we ventured out again on the “Texas Triangle Trip”; an “Astroavaganza” to celebrate Betsy’s 60^th birthday. First we watched Betsy’s beloved Astros win an exhibition game against their AA farm team, the Corpus Christi Hooks in Corpus; then we watched them lose an exhibition game in Houston to the defending American League Champion Kansas City Royals (sounds weird doesn’t it?); two nights later, still in Houston, we watched the ‘Stros whip Cleveland in their home opener (on Betsy’s birthday) and, finally; we watched Houston spoil the Texas Rangers home opener with an Astros win in Arlington.

Amazingly, at the time this was posted, the “Lastros” of 2014 have transformed themselves into the “Firstros” of 2015, perched atop the American League West.

When we were not watching baseball in Houston we found time to do some visiting and sightseeing.

Our college buddy Spencer Siemens treated us to the Astros-Royals game on his birthday and he and wife Karla hosted us the next day at their house for barbecue and beers. We also attended the Easter service at Betsy’s childhood church, checked out her old neighborhood (which is aging quite well, BTW) and stopped by for a nice visit with her 85-year-old uncle.

Houston is such an incredible, huge, diverse, dynamic city. I never go there that I am not amazed that the place even exist, much less manages to not only survive but to somehow thrive.

We stayed at a “boutique” hotel in the heart of downtown that is walking distance from the stadium. There are construction booms and jack hammers everywhere; busily adding to what is already one of America’s most robust and impressive skylines.

We enjoyed long walks/jogs on the beautiful new pathways and bridges along Buffalo Bayou and Allen Parkway that offer spectacular views of that skyline and walked (from the hotel) to both of the games at elegant Minute Maid Park; one of the best ballparks in the Majors in my opinion.

The drive to Dallas on I-45 was a thing of beauty and allowed me to, fleetingly, pretend that Texas was still the Texas it used to be before all of these mother******* people moved here.

Which reminds me; what an incredible year this has been for wildflowers. On every trip this spring – Mother Neff, Missouri, The Triangle, I-10 west of Kerrville– we were treated to spectacular displays of bluebonnets, paintbrush and redbuds.

We had a lovely four-night stay with Betsy’s sister Kathy and her hubby Gary in Bedford. While they went to work every day we spent, for maybe the first time ever, some quality time in Dallas. We went to the Kennedy assassination site, the G.W. Bush library, the arboretum at White Rock Lake, the Dallas Art Museum, the Nasher Sculpture Center and the gallery where our friend Jim Stoker has his spectacular art works for sale (for, unfortunately, more than we can afford to pay). Fortunately Kathy was able to break away from the awful clutches of that thing called “work” to join us in watching the Astros spoil the Rangers home opener.

We also picked up some barbecue from the Lockhart Smokehouse, one of the few North Texas establishments to ever make it on the Texas Monthly Top 50 list. The brisket was pretty good but the real culinary discovery on this trip was serendipitous; Ellen’s Southern Kitchen in the West End Historic District where they specialize in grits. We ate there twice, once for supper and the next day for breakfast (Shrimp and Grits for supper, Grits Hollandaise for breakfast).

We discovered Ellen’s on the wonderful day we spent walking around downtown Dallas after taking the train in from Bedford (yes, the train and yes, in Texas).

Participating in the art at the Nasher Sculpture Center was a heady experience for Betsy.

Time, space and prudence don’t allow me to discuss in detail the George W. Bush Library. So let’s just say that it is a very nice, functional structure that makes excellent use of technology to present his presidency in the best light possible.

Oswald's view of Elm Street.

For our generation the images and events surrounding the Kennedy assassination are burned into our memories and what really struck me on our visit to the Sixth Floor Museum is that there has been very little change in and around Dealey Plaza since 1963. The streets, the Book Depository, the adjacent buildings, the Grassy Knoll, the triple underpass beneath the railroad tracks; all of those iconic landmarks are virtually unchanged from the way they were on Nov. 22, 1963. 

You can stand were Zapruder stood, you can see what Oswald saw.

X marks the spot where the "Magic Bullet" hit.

The Book Depository building has seven floors and Oswald fired his shots from a corner window on the sixth floor. Dallas County offices now occupy the first five floors, the entire sixth floor houses an excellent museum and the seventh floor is also part of the museum but mostly vacant. Although access to Oswald’s sniper perch on the sixth floor is restricted you can look out a nearby window to Elm Street and get a very similar view from the one he had. Also you can look out the window on the seventh floor directly above his perch and get another view that is very similar to the one he had 52 years ago. Down on Elm Street an X marks the approximate spot where the fatal, third bullet - the so-called "Magic Bullet" - hit Kennedy in the back, exited through his throat and then wounded Gov. John Connally who was sitting in the jump seat in front of Kennedy.

Clothing manufacturer Abraham Zapruder stood on this concrete abutment to record the motorcade and the fatal shots with his Bell & Howell eight mm home movie camera. The abutment is part of a pergola that honors John Neely Bryan, the founder of Dallas. The pergola was and still is located on the so-called "Grassy Knoll" above Elm Street, exactly as it was in 1963 when Zapruder's secretary Marilyn Sitzman, who had convinced him to bring his camera to film the President's motorcade, steadied Zapruder, who sometimes suffered from vertigo, as he shot his historic and controversial 26.6-second, 486-frame movie.

A week or so after we returned home from Dallas I took off with the trailer in tow and, after four days of hard driving, made it to Bishop, California where I chillaxed a few days while checking out the place where I will be living in July and August while I tackle the California 14ers.

En route to California, the sun sets near Winslow, Arizona.

After three days on the road California was finally in sight across the dammed up Colorado River (photo taken at Lake Havasu State Park, Arizona).

Then I put the trailer in storage and headed for home via a route that took me to several Utah national parks; Zion, Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef, Natural Bridges National Monument and Hovenweep National Monument; plus Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado.

Ahhh, Nevada! Wide open spaces; clean, fresh air; great roads and no traffic.

Zion Canyon in Zion National Park

Bryce Canyon National Park from one of the many viewpoints on the rim drive.

Bruce Canyon National Park from the spectacular Fairyland Trail.

The view from aptly-named Panorama Point in Capitol Reef National Park

In theory that is the northern end of Lake Powell down there but it has not been that for many years. Because of climate change and the over-prescription of the impounded waters of the Colorado River the northern end of the lake has reverted to what it is supposed to be, the Colorado River. To the left (and also in the photo below) is the mouth of Cataract Canyon, one of the longest and fiercest stretches of white water in the country. In 1869 one-armed Civil War veteran John Wesley Powell and nine other men set out from present-day Green River, Wyoming on an epic adventure that made them the first people known to have navigated Cataract and Grand Canyon and lived to tell about it. Powell and six others survived the trip.

Over the years I have had many memorable experiences in the national parks and my early May day in Natural Bridges National Monument might rank up there in the top ten.

All bridges are arches but not all arches are bridges. Like arches bridges are formed in part by erosion caused by rainfall and freeze-thaw. But unlike arches stream flow is a primary factor in the formation of a bridge, with the water eventually wearing a hole in the rock, breaking through and forming the bridge.

It was a cool and occasionally stormy day when I hiked the eight-mile loop trail that takes you to the park's three largest bridges. All of them are huge and one is the second-largest in the world. 

I had asked the ranger about pictographs and he had told me there were many "undisclosed" sites in the park where the "Ancestral Puebloans" had carved and painted images in the rocks when they lived there more than 700 years ago.

Incredibly, on my hike, I stumbled upon two of these "undisclosed" sites. Of course, the bridges alone were amazing, hiking through the maze of canyons was awesome and to top it all off, when I got back to my campsite, the biggest, most complete rainbow that I have ever seen appeared in the sky above me. It was so big I had to use the panorama feature on my phone/camera to get all of it into the frame.

So, yeah, I'd say it was a pretty good day. The following photos from that hike are displayed chronologically.

Sipapu Bridge is the world's second largest.

When I came upon these hand prints near the trail I thought it had to be some jokesters trying to make people like me believe they were made by the ancestral puebloans. But when I showed the photo to the ranger he said nope, these hand prints were placed on this rock face of the canyon wall by ancestral puebloans at least 700 years ago.

Kachina Bridge is the "youngest" of the park's big three bridges, meaning that it is the thickest and the opening the smallest. Because of that and because of the surrounding topography and vegetation is was difficult to get a photo that does the bridge justice. This bridge is so massive that the air temperature underneath is noticeably cooler and sound echos, not unlike being in a tunnel.

On the trail through the canyons there are tons of interesting features like this...

...and this.

This is the view from the trail of the pictograph panel that I "discovered". Not everyone who hikes the trail notices it and many that do are unwilling to climb up to view it up close. However, there were two people up there when I walked by and a register indicated there have been many others over the years.

Seconds after I took this photo of Owachomo Bridge I had to duck under the rock ledge for shelter from a thundery rainstorm. Owachomo is the oldest bridge in the park and, in my opinion, the coolest-looking because it is thinner and more distinct.

Climbing on top of the bridges is prohibited...but it was all I could do to restrain myself.

I talked to some fellow hikers who complained about having to hike two miles across the mesa to complete the loop and get back to their vehicle...but I was not complaining.

Up on the dry mesa there is a so-called "Pygmy Forest" of pinyon and juniper. Although small in stature (because of the poor soil, limited rainfall and 6,500-foot elevation) many of these trees are 300 to 600 years old.

My faithful truck waited patiently for my return.

A nice way to end the day.

Mesa Verde National Park

I went on a ranger-led tour of the pueblo called Balcony House. For unknown reasons sometime around 1200 the ancestral puebloans became much more defensive in their housing, clustering together in larger groups and making access more difficult. The ladder in the next photo was added by the park service and is used for access at the start of the tour. However, the puebloans had only one entrance and exit, the narrow tunnel in the photo below that features some lady's butt. By 1300 the puebloans were all gone from the area and the structures were abandoned. There is no indication that non-natives knew about them until a rancher looking for stray cattle happened upon them in the late 1880s.

This is a cool photo but it makes it look worse than it really is. The person in pink is an eight-year-old girl and everyone on the tour negotiated the ladder without incident.

Balcony House is north-facing and would have been a cold and damp place to live compared to other nearby pueblos. However, one of its attractions is a spring that provides water year-round without having to leave the pueblo.

I asked the ranger what the puebloans did with their solid waste and he said that, probably, they heaved it over the wall of the pueblo into the canyon below. This practice alone may have dissuaded potential attackers.

This was the only way to get in or out of Balcony House until the park service constructed the ladder entrance in the 1960s.

With an early start from Santa Rosa Lake State Park in New Mexico, I was home before dark.