Sunday, April 9...Homeward Bound

Rapunzel is telling us it’ll take over 2 hours to drive the 106 miles to Ironwood…lots of turns and 55 mph roads. Not a lot to see except trees but that’s okay. Iowa was starting to get its spring green going but we’ve been back in the land of leafless trees and brown grass up in the upper reaches of Wisconsin. Temperature is 67o but the skies are cloudy. That’s one thing about the southwest…it has sunshine. Sure we encountered whooping hot temperatures but hey, it was a dry heat! 😉Arizona and southern New Mexico is straight up desert landscape and I’m not sure if that changes as the seasons change. As we traveled into Texas, where life became green and the temperature was cooler than AZ and NM but still warm, it took a conscious effort to remember that it was early spring and not middle of summer. Minnesota, Wisconsin and into Michigan is more ambiguous…the season of the landscape could be late fall or spring, especially with snow still hanging around. 

---------- 

We had lunch with the U.P. grandkids….Kevin and Brittany and Tia and Mavis. A little cutie named Jacob joined us also. He’s the 2 year old son of Tia’s boyfriend Matt, who didn’t join us because he had to go to work; however, we did get to meet him. It was good to spend time with them…we didn’t have as much time as we might have wanted but we gave them short notice and we’re grateful that they made time for us. 

---------- 

Back in the upper reaches of the Mitten State!! There is still snow in the ditches and ice on the smaller lakes and ice along the shore of Lake Superior near Munising, where we ran into rain. I believe it’s the first rain we’ve driven in during this whole trip. However, the temperatures have been in the mid-60s all day so it won’t be long before the white is gone and the green takes over. Jumped back into our own time zone shortly after leaving the Ironwood area, so we’re on real time once again. We’ve been in Central Time for about 10 days; hopefully jumping ahead only one hour won’t make for a difficult sleep adjustment. 

---------- 

In total we’ve been away from home 45 days and have ridden just under 3,500 miles already in the 2017 season. I don’t have an exact count of the miles because the trip-meter I was using to keep track of total miles was a little screwed up after the big rain in Texas. We slept in a 10’ x 16’ tin box on an air mattress for most of those 45 nights, which isn’t glamorous but suits us. Except for the few days with Bryan and Linda Shumaker, it’s been just the two of us, wandering around the country together…seeing the sights, meeting interesting people and having a good time. 😊

---------- 

It happens every time a vacation is nearing its end…my mind starts buzzing with things to do when I get home. First off, I have to get to Petoskey to pick up my sewing machines…took them in for a maintenance check/service while I was gone. Then, it’s getting down to the business of work but I always come back from time away with the intention to not let work become life. This time is no different…my resolve is that life is too short and there’s too many adventures awaiting us to let work consume too many hours. 😏

---------- 

Crossed the Mackinac Bridge at 10 p.m….arrived in Charlevoix before midnight. It’s good to be home!! 

----------

The journals I keep while traveling sometimes seem full of crazy details of the little moments, thoughts or results of research. But those are the moments/things that I want to remember. The days can run together when we’re on an exploration vacation…well, I suppose the days could run together if we were on a beach chair vacation, too. Anyway, it’s way too easy to forget the little moments that contribute to the whole experience. When reading a journal a year or so after the trip, it’s those glossed over forgotten details that pop up and make me say, “Oh yeah, I’d forgotten about that! Hey, Kim, do you remember when we…?” I enjoy learning and with the advent of smart phones and the ability to connect with Google almost anywhere anytime, researching to satisfy my curiosity is so much easier than it used to be. In the old days, I’d make a note in the margin of my handwritten journal and when I got home from vacation, the intent was that I would remember to look it up on the desktop computer. Now I carry my laptop with me for typing up my journal and I can get information on my phone and save it to refer to later. And when we’re out riding, I keep a notebook handy to make notes about the day or to note topics I want to research back at camp or in the Walmart parking lot, as the case may be. 😏Whenever we touch down for the evening, I check my notebook and then record the day’s events, thoughts, conversations or whatever. It creates a detailed timeline and memory for the trip. 

---------- 

This trip, to challenge myself, I decided to use a song title to label each day’s journal entry. I picked out a detail from the day, sometimes big and sometimes small, and would find a song title that spoke to that detail. I wasn’t looking for song content, just a relevant title. It became a fun game to find just the right one…between the two of us we have a library of music stored in our heads, but sometimes I’d have to turn to Google for help. The only time we were stumped was Thursday, April 6…I went to bed thinking that some song title connected with the day’s events would occur to me in my sleep. Well, that didn’t happen but I did come up with a song title that spoke to not being able to find a song title: I Got Nothing, a song by Darius Rucker. 😉 Kim considered that a little obscure so I gave it one more try…and found the song Waterfalls by TLC. It was acceptable to both of us. I bent my rules a little bit right at the beginning with My Way…I entitled it ‘Our Way’ to reflect that I changed the words of the verse. 

---------- 

And yes, there is a song called Marion Michael Morrison. It’s sung by Ray Stevens, one of the masters of oddball songs.

                                                                         --------------

One more adventure behind us but more Kim n Karen adventures ahead……

😎

Be it ever so humble...there's no place like home!!

Saturday, April 8...Marion Michael Morrison

Woke in the comfort of a regular bed…not a mattress on top of a board that felt good at first but ultimately made my shoulder and hip ache. The convenience of the cabin in OKC was appreciated but it took a hot shower to soothe my aching muscles. Not so this morning…muscles were refreshed and joints were only slightly achy. Easily remedied by a walk around the room. 

---------- 

We’ve chosen a route home that will take us through the Upper Peninsula. We want to see the U.P. grandkids and great granddaughter Mavis….so reaching Ironwood, MI, sometime tomorrow (Sunday) is our first goal…second goal would be arriving in Charlevoix sometime on Monday or Tuesday. 😊 On the road today by 9:30 a.m., aiming for Ironwood. We have a little more than 600 miles to go…all the KOAs in upper Minnesota aren’t open yet, so it’ll be a hotel night again. We can go until we get tired and then start looking for a room. Or maybe go all the way to Ironwood…just depends on how the ride goes.

---------- 

Shortly after leaving Cameron, MO, we crossed the Grand River, which made Kim wonder how many rivers were named Grand River. It only took a quick search on the phone to come up with this: Michigan, Ohio, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Missouri, Iowa, South Dakota and North Dakota all have a Grand River. Louisiana has a Lower Grand River and prior to 1920, the river we now call the Colorado River was called, within the states of Colorado and Utah, the Grand River. Only after it exited the Grand Canyon and met with the Green River in Arizona, was it known as the Colorado River. In 1920 the Colorado Legislature renamed its portion of the Grand River to the Colorado River, which made for some confusion. It was the Colorado River in Colorado, then it was the Grand River through Utah into Arizona and became the Colorado again after meeting with the Green River. Not long after, Colorado’s U.S. Representative Edward Taylor petitioned a Congressional committee to rename the entire 1450 mile length to the Colorado River….and in 1921 the name change was made official by the U.S. Congress, despite objections from Utah, Arizona and the Geological Survey. So that's how the Grand River became the Colorado River.

----------  

Best I could do without getting
into trouble. 

So we wanted to make good time today and put some miles behind us but all travel and no breaks makes for a very boring ride. Not a lot going on in the realm of Roadside America when you’re heading up US 35 through southern Iowa. But lo and behold, a roadside sign provided a diversion….the next exit pointed the way to Winterset, IA, the birthplace of John Wayne. Sign said 14 miles but the curves and hills made it seem longer. Anyway, Winterset is the home of ‘the only museum in the world dedicated to John Wayne’. I’m a fan although I’ve only seen a fraction of his movies…and truth be told, I thought his acting was a little wooden when he was younger…his acting got much better as he got older. Despite being a fan and making a 14 mile detour to get to the museum, I had a moment’s pause when I saw the $15 entrance fee but would I regret it if I passed up this opportunity? Afraid so...😕 Paid our money, got our sticker and wandered into the room that contained memorabilia from his life and career. I enjoyed looking around and the only thing that kept me from going through the swinging gates of a display in the corner and standing next to the life size figure of him for a quick picture was Kim saying that he was sure they had video cameras. Dang! So I had to settle for a picture with me in front of the fence that separated wax figure John Wayne from his fans. Not optimal but it kept me out of trouble. I noticed during many of his films that his pants were rolled up and seemed short. The sculpture out front, the figure on display, and some of the outfits from movies had the pants rolled up, too. Always wondered why that was, so I googled it and found that other people have wondered the same thing. I came across a fan site (yes, there are John Wayne fan sites) where people discussed the topic; the consensus seemed to be that that was the way cowboys wore their pants back in the day and it was guessed that he must have liked the look since a lot of his westerns show him wearing his pants rolled up. Also I noticed today that the wax figure and the sculpture out front had on the same belt buckle. Was this a favorite of his? Again, I turned to google and redriverbeltbuckle.com came up first. I have no idea who is responsible for the content of the site but here are excerpts from the article: 

   In 1948, United Artists released Red River, the story of visionary rancher Tom Dunson (John Wayne) and his creation of a cattle empire from the early days of the settling of the west to later years when his ruthless individualistic values clash with those of his adopted son, played by Montgomery Clift.

   In Red River the cattle brand for Wayne’s ranch is a D with two wavy lines representing the banks of the river. Howard Hawks the director of Red River had silver belt buckles with a twisted silver wire rope edge, a D and two wavy lines in solid gold, the words “Red River” in gold wire and various initials and the date 1946 in cut gold made up as gifts for some of the cast and crew. These buckles have been known since as the Red River D belt buckles. John Wayne wore a Red River D belt buckle in a number of his later westerns including Rio Bravo, El Dorado and Rio Lobo, all directed by Howard Hawks. In total Wayne wore a Red River D belt buckle in nine films.

Buckle worn in the display

Buckle on the sculpture

   I spoke to David Hawks, son of Howard Hawks, director of Red River, about the history of the buckles. When I asked about the supposed exchange of belt buckles between Howard Hawks and John Wayne, he said that they indeed did exchange buckles as a sign of mutual respect and admiration for each other. So the buckle that Wayne always wore had the initials HWH in the circle in the bottom left corner and Hawks’ buckle had the initials JW on it.

   Michael Wayne (John Wayne’s son) told me that Howard Hawks’ and his father exchanged their buckles out of mutual respect and admiration, and also he said his father didn’t like wearing any kind of apparel or accessory with his initials on them.

The sculpture in front of the museum was wearing the belt buckle with HWH….the figure in the display had a buckle with JW.  Also, despite having been called ‘Marion Michael’ or ‘Marion Mitchell’ Morrison, it seems John Wayne’s real name was Marion Robert Morrison. 

---------- 

Hogback Bridge

As Rapunzel was routing us back to the highway after our John Wayne detour, we noticed signs for covered bridges and since we were in Madison County, it made perfect sense to see some ‘Bridges of Madison County’. As it turns out the only bridge we caught was the most northern and last bridge on our route; it was 3 miles off the route but it was interesting and worth the detour. The bridge we saw was the Hogback Bridge, a wood truss covered bridge built in 1884. I was curious as to why the bridges were covered. Wikipedia had the answer: A covered bridge is a timber-truss bridge with a roof and siding which, in most covered bridges, create an almost complete enclosure. The purpose of the covering is to protect the wooden structural members from the weather. Uncovered wooden bridges have a lifespan of only 10 to 15 years because of the effects of rain and sun.

----------

Then as we were heading down US 80 to reconnect with I-35, I noticed that we were so close to the traffic circle that had a cemetery in the middle of it. Only a couple or so miles off the highway but in the same direction as we were going, so why not? It was just a drive-by photo shoot and Kim proclaimed it to be one of the easiest side tours yet. 😏 It’s the Huston family cemetery and contains 11 graves, some dating back to 1847; and the cemetery, along with a couple of pine trees, completely fills the center of the traffic circle. Apparently there have been rumors of moving the road because people were crashing into the cemetery instead of making the roundabout. 

----------

We found the museum because of a road sign and then discovered the covered bridges as we were driving away from there; after the fact I discovered that they were both on Roadside America. Add the traffic circle and that was three Roadside America detours in one day…I told Kim I wouldn’t look the app again today. However, we did do some quick geocaching when we stopped for lunch at the Boondocks Café near Williams, Iowa. Sometimes you look at an area and think ‘I betcha there’s a geocache somewhere nearby’…this was that kind of area. So I opened the handy dandy app and Bonus! There were two! Scouted those out and then it was on the road again. I realized I had to quit playing or we’d never make it to our destination. Relieving boredom is one thing…being ridiculous about it is another. 

----------

Only have about 100 miles until Ironwood, MI,…about 8:30 we got off the road and into a hotel in Spooner, WI.

Friday, April 7...Ring my bell

Stayed in the same cabin as we did on our way through about 5 weeks ago. Up at 8 a.m…packing up was minimal because we only needed our t-bags and sleeping bags in the cabin with us. Certainly was more convenient than camping in the trailer or a tent...and once in a while convenience is worth the extra money. 😊

---------- 

We didn’t leave right away because I wanted to post the blog. Couldn’t get a signal in the cabin last night so I decided to go up on the porch of the office building…figured the signal would be strong up there. Yes, it was strong, but it wasn’t fast. So it took me a bit to do what I wanted to do online. But still we were all showered, shaved, posted and in the truck by 10:15. 

---------- 

In all likelihood the bikes are not coming out of the trailer until we’re home. Our extended riding season has come to an end…now we’ll have to deal with Michigan’s riding season. Now it’s all about getting home but not wanting to overdo it like we did on the 1st day of our trip. Four hundred miles or so is a bit more doable for the body than 780. Plus there are oddball things to stop and see to break up the monotony of the road. Although that’s probably more for my benefit than Kim’s...that’s something my goal oriented husband has learned about traveling with me…life out on the road is full of stops.

----------

Street musician sculpture

Farm animals on the corner

Not a lot of Roadside America stops on our route out of Oklahoma…or at least stops that interested me. I’m not a big fan of the huge Muffler Man statues…he just looks creepy to me. So I set my sights on Kansas. Oh look, there’s an Early Civil Right Sit-In Lunch Counter in Wichita. Okay so it’s not the actual lunch counter…says here that “The sculpture actually honors a 1958 Wichita civil rights lunch counter sit-in. It got no press coverage at the time and was forgotten for years---until Wichita built the sculpture.” Looks easy to get to and it’s not much of a detour. What do you think? Well, Kim being the giving sort of man that he is, agreed to my plan…but the written directions were slightly messed up and Rapunzel didn’t have a clue what to do when I told her to take us to the Civil Rights Lunch Counter. So I enlarged the map and directed us in that way. Not as easy as I had thought but still we got there. I got my picture taken sitting at the lunch counter and then we walked around a bit looking at the random statues on the sidewalk and street corners. Random statues as in a couple of dogs in mid-stride on the sidewalk…a street performer playing a guitar with a dog listening in appreciation…a cat lounging in the sun with a little bird in front of it…a cow, a pig and some ducks…a little boy pulling a wagon…and a little girl playing with a cat. Those were just some of the sidewalk statues.  Also there were two little ‘pocket parks’…little spaces where a building had once stood…filled with more sculptures of children. And in one of these little parks was the Early Civil Rights Sit-in Lunch Counter.😊Wikipedia has this to report on the event:

The Dockum Drug Store sit-in was one of the first organized lunch counter sit-ins for the purpose of integrating segregated establishments in the United States. The protest began in July 1958 in Wichita, Kansas, at the Dockum Drug Store, a store in the old Rexall chain, in which protesters would sit at the counter all day until the store closed, ignoring taunts from counter protesters. The sit-in ended three weeks later when the owner relented and agreed to serve black patrons. There’s more on the background of the sit-in but it’s too lengthy to include here.

---------- 

When we parked to go see the lunch counter sculpture we were right beside something called ICT Chalk Talks. I didn’t pay much attention to it until we came back. There were two huge chalkboards on the sidewalk side of a building…and based on the questions posed at the top, my guess was that it was a way to promote the sharing of ideas/information. I knew there had to be more…I looked up    ICT Chalk Talks and an article from the Wichita Eagle popped up:

Wichita, Kansas 

   ICT Chalk Talks will kick off its public engagement initiative with a lunchtime launch party Friday.

  The initiative has taken over the Douglas facade of the Caldwell Murdock building, 111-113 E. Douglas, turning it into a community chalkboard. Organizers will post questions, then collect the responses before erasing them and adding new questions.   

  On Friday, the first question will be posted, and eventgoers can write their own ideas and responses on the chalkboard while enjoying food from local food trucks set up in the Pop-Up Urban Park at 121 E. Douglas from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.

 ICT Chalk Talks, funded through the Knight Foundation Fund at the Wichita Community Foundation, aims to “engage the public in meaningful conversations in a fun and inspirational way,” according to a news release. The project has also extended to vacant storefronts along Douglas, where local artists Delilah Reed and Maggie Gilmore were commissioned to create artwork for the chalkboards.

----------  

Next I set my sights on the Liberty Bell made of wheat in the little town of Goessel, KS. It wasn’t a huge detour so Kim was on board. It is located in one of the buildings at the Mennonite Heritage Museum. While it was not my intent to spend time looking through an immigration museum…I just wanted to see the bell…the lady at the museum was so enthusiastic to have visitors that I felt obligated to give it a token walk through. This museum is filled with various family displays…each case filled with actual family artifacts that ancestors used after they immigrated either from Russia or Germany. One interesting thing we noticed: there were a lot of old photographs, but there were also pictures of people that looked like hand drawn copies of photographs. They were well done but there was something just a little off that drew attention to the fact they weren’t photographs. We asked the ‘curator’ about that and she said it perplexed her, too. In fact, there is a display for her family with a picture looking photograph of her great grandparents; she said she had the original photographs at home and knows that the one in the museum is not real (it’s a product of two separate photos and an adjustment was made on her grandmother’s height). She’s not at all sure of the process used but finds it interesting that it seemed to be a popular thing during a certain time frame. What I took from my time in the Immigration museum is that what is on display is a lot of family pride…these people are proud of their roots. 

---------- 

Liberty Bell made of wheat

The building with the bell was called the Turkey Red Wheat Palace. It contained not only the full sized wheat replica of the Liberty Bell but also various farm implements from back in the day of actual horses being the horse power. It doesn’t take much imagination to see the joy on a farmer’s face as he hitched up his horse to his new riding plow, tiller, combine, thrasher, corn planter or whatever else he used. It must have been a real luxury to be able to sit on instead of walk behind or even doing some of the work by hand. The Turkey Red Wheat Palace was a walk through time that makes one wonder what old treasures are rusting out there in Grandpa’s barn. 😏 The bell was enclosed in a big display case…lots of reflections from the overhead lights in the building. Not the best for taking pictures but I managed. Getting up close look showed what a work of art it truly is. The sign in front of the display reads:

Liberty Bell

Made of Turkey Red Wheat Straw.  Made by 200 Mennonites in Kansas.  Over 2000 man hours consumed.  The bell measures six feet by six feet. The weavers range in age from 10 to 80. The Bell’s five and a half foot clapper was made by the spiral weaving of wheat, with the wheat heads forming the hammer.  The crack and the inscription are made from grains of wheat.

Couldn’t see the clapper and hammer until I stood at a distance. As I looked at the intricacy of the crack and inscription, I could imagine someone hunched over using a pair of tweezers to painstakingly apply all those seeds. Think Corn Palace in South Dakota.

----------

I’d been looking at KOAs in the general direction we were heading but I didn’t know the specific route we were taking. Kim had the bluetooth speaker in his ear so he was getting directions straight from Rapunzel which left me free to figure out which roadside attraction I wanted to see. So I didn’t try booking a KOA cabin until it appeared everything had closed. Oops! So tonight was a hotel night…1st one of the trip. We stopped in Cameron, MO, because it had a number of hotels…struck out the first 4 places we stopped. Two only had smoking rooms left, 1 had no vacancies at all, and the fourth didn’t have anyone at the desk…there was a number to call if you needed help. Really?? But we found a room at the fifth place we stopped…there were other options but they didn’t have good reviews. I realize everyone has different standards and that’s got to be taken into consideration when reading reviews, but when there’s more negative than positive, it’s a sign…it’s truly a sign that you should look elsewhere. 

----------  

This afternoon, in the middle of nowhere Kansas, the area started looking familiar. Drove through an area where fields had been purposefully burned off. In fact some were still burning and for miles the horizon had a smoke haze to it. Anyway, the burnt fields, the hillside with a town name in white stones, and some of the town names on the signs rang a bell. It wasn’t until we passed a sign for the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve that we knew we had been on this road last year. It’s crazy that we just gave Rapunzel our preferred destination and part of the route she picked was a fifty mile stretch we’d been on last year. I mean there’s a lot of roads out there heading in the same direction…

Thursday, April 6...(Don't Go Chasing) Waterfalls

Woke to a crisp 46°….hard to get out from under the covers even with the heater running. But it didn’t take long for the sun to start warming things up. I woke up the morning of the rain/hail storm and looked at the trailer ceiling to assess the hail damage. Couldn’t see any indents….however, yesterday sitting on the end of the mattress, I looked up and yes, indeed, there are indents from the hail. We’ve been buying stickers from the various places we’ve visited and putting them on the ceiling…didn’t buy any stickers in Uvalde, TX, but we’ve got hail dents to remember our time spent there.😏

---------- 

Moving day again….we’re heading to the Oklahoma City KOA. This will be our third separate time staying there…getting a cabin tonight. A bit more expensive than a tent site, but we won’t have the work of converting the bike trailer into a living space and it’s cheaper than a hotel…and we plan on hitting the road again tomorrow morning.

---------

I was in the bathroom drying my hair when Roseanne came in. Yesterday when I greeted her, she just looked my way and didn’t say anything. Today, she responded to my greeting and we had a brief chat about what it takes to get going in the morning. I was surprised to find that in a normal conversation, she didn’t sound shrill at all. But she did say that her dad used to wake them by barking orders in a military fashion. Maybe that’s a little insight into why she sounded like a general, ordering the man and the dogs around…maybe it was a learned behavior and her voice got shrill in the process. 

----------

Texas is known for its cattle but there have also been a fair amount of goat farms on the route we’ve been traveling. And most of the goats have white bodies with a brown neck and head. So this is the story I came up with: these are milking goats and this breed is known for the quality of its milk and cheese. But I also found out that there is a specialized market for goat meat. Hmmmm……

----------

Left our signature at 'Bedlam' in Stamford, Texas

When we get on the road going from Point A to Point B, I turn to my favorite travel companion…Roadside America. Well, favorite travel companion of the non-person type. About 40 miles north of Abilene is Stamford, home of Johnny Anders, the town’s artistic and ingenious mayor. He created a 22 foot T-rex sculpture out of junk car parts….it’s right there next to his auto body repair shop. And according to Roadside America he was inspired by the Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo to create ‘Bedlam: Pickup Truckbed Henge’ (took me longer than it should have to realize that the name was a take-off on Stonehenge)…it’s a ring of pickup truck beds sunk in the ground ready for people to stop by and do some spray painting. Because these quirky things are out there for people like me, we bought some spray paint, hunted down this opportunity to legally spray graffiti on something, and left our mark. Oh, and Johnny Anders also made a cross of chrome wheels and put it in the center of the truck beds. Personally, I thought the cross could have benefited from a different location. Seemed out of place among the Bedlam graffiti. We got a bit creative and left our mark in two places…KB2 with a smiley face in one spot and Kim n Karen, Charlevoix, MI in another. And across the road from the Bedlam site is a spider sculpture made with a small car as the spider body. Never would have known about this opportunity if it weren’t for a smart phone and the Roadside America app…just part of the fun of travel! And just in case we come across another opportunity for legal graffiti, we have paint. 😊

----------

Next up on the Roadside America tour was Wichita Falls, home of the World’s Smallest Skyscraper. It’s hard to pinpoint the real story behind the building because every site I found had most of the same information but a detail or two was different. And most of the articles use the ‘legend’ in the recounting of the history of the building. The back story is that there was oil boom in 1912 and settlers flocked to the area. Office space was badly needed and this is where J.D. McMahon, owner of an oil rig construction firm, stepped in. These are excerpted paragraphs from Wikipedia: 

    According to local legend, when McMahon announced in 1919 that he would build a high-rise annex to the Newby Building as a solution to the newly wealthy city’s urgent need for office space, investors were eager to invest in the project. McMahon collected $200,000 in investment capital from this group of naïve investors, promising to construct a high-rise office building across the street from the St. James Hotel. 

World's smallest skyscraper

    The key to McMahon’s swindle, and his successful defense in the ensuing lawsuit, was the he never verbally stated that the actual height of the building would be 480 feet. The proposed skyscraper depicted in the blueprints that he distributed (and which were approved by the investors) was clearly labeled as consisting of four floors and 480 inches.

    McMahon used his own construction crews to build the McMahon Building on the small, unused piece of property next to the Newby Building, without obtaining prior consent from the owner of the property, who lived in Oklahoma. As the building began to take shape, the investors realized they had been swindled into purchasing a four-story edifice that was only 40 ft. tall, rather than the 480 ft. structure they were expecting. 

    They brought a lawsuit against McMahon but, to their dismay, the real estate and construction deal was declared legally binding by a local judge—as McMahon had built exactly according to the blueprints they had approved, there was to be no legal remedy for the deceived investors. There was no stairway installed in the building upon its initial completion, as none was included in the original blueprints. Rather, a ladder was employed to gain access to the upper three floors. By the time construction was complete, McMahon had left Wichita Falls and perhaps even Texas, taking with him the balance of the investors’ money. The building was abandoned, fell into disrepair and in 1986 the city gave the building to the Wichita County Heritage Society (WCHS) with the hope that it would eventually be restored, making it a viable part of the Depot Square Historic District. By 1999, it had proved to be an excessive financial burden on the WCHS. The architectural firm of Bundy, Young, Sims and Potter was hired to stabilize the structure. Dick Bundy and his partners became fascinated with the history and legacy of the building; they arranged a partnership with Marvin Groves Electric, another local business , to purchase the building. In December 2000, the city council voted to allow the WCHS to sell the building to Marvin Groves for $3,748.

--------------------- 

Took us way too long to find the Artificial Falls and truth be told, we never did find exactly how to get next to it. But we did see it from the highway as noted, and it wasn’t running…as in there was no water falling down the man-made waterfall!! This is what the website wichitafallstx.gov has to say: The city’s original falls (the namesake of the city) washed away in a flood in the 1800s. In 1987, a new falls was constructed upstream. The present 54-foot man-made waterfall is a multi-level cascade on the south bank of the Wichita River. The Falls can be seen by southbound motorists on I-44 as they cross the bridge over the river. The Falls provides many wonderful photographic opportunities, and blah,blah, blah. (My way of saying there’s too much to type and it provides no information of substance.) 

------

These are a couple of paragraphs from a very long article written by William Hauptman, published in The New York Times on Aug.7, 1988. He is from Wichita Falls and in this article about going home, he included a snippet about the falls. I found it on the nytimes.com site: 

    So Wichita Falls built an artificial waterfall to ''put the falls back in Wichita Falls'' and give the city what then-Mayor Charles Harper called ''a symbol of hope.'' The new falls were inaugurated on June 5, 1987, during a three-day ''FallsFest,'' which organizers called ''the biggest turn-on in North Texas.'' The entertainment included the country-rock singer Joe Ely and the United States Army's Golden Knights parachute team. Willard Scott of NBC's ''Today'' show even broadcast the weather from there.

    The notion of rebuilding the falls had been around for a long time. In 1985, a local group called Streams and Valleys decided the time had come to do something, and offered to raise $250,000 by public subscription. Not everyone was for it. Many people, especially older residents, were stubbornly opposed, for various reasons - it was a waste of money, it was in the wrong place. I spoke to one of these older residents, whom I'll call Mr. Bud Stone, to protect the anonymity he requested. 

    The last thing he told me was, ''You see, the real falls was in colored town, and that's why people pretend they don't know where it was.''

-----

The statement that the ‘original falls washed away in a flood’ certainly caught my attention. Didn’t know such a thing could happen. I’m sure it’s a wonderful site as an entry point into the city…when the water is running, that is. The way it is now it’s just a bunch of rust colored rocks…nothing special there. Interesting to find out what factors into the decision to turn them off on any particular day…because I know that if I had a town with falls in the name and I made a waterfall to play into that, I’d make sure they were running. Do they only run on weekends? Is electricity too costly? Seems like the city could give itself a break on that one. The water of Wichita River is a nasty reddish brown which would account for the rust colored rocks…I’m assuming that they use the water from the river to create the falls. Anyway, we gave it a good try to get to it so I could take a picture of the non-running fake falls, but the way in was too elusive so we drove on our merry way. As we were leaving the area, Kim said he was feeling like we were caught in some freakin’ Chevy Chase vacation movie. 😏

---------- 

The chairs are lit up at night...OKC memorial

Made it to the KOA about 6:15 p.m. Got settled in the cabin and then headed out to see the Oklahoma City Bombing Memorial at night. I’d read that it had a whole different feel to it at night and since we had the time, we unhooked the trailer and took just the truck this time. Wandered around the whole area, which we didn’t do before in our haste to get the truck and trailer out of a parking lot we shouldn’t have been in.  Stood there thinking about innocent people going about their workday, never realizing the evil that was literally outside the building.  This is a very well thought out memorial...it's worth a stop if you're going through Oklahoma City. 

Wednesday, April 5...At the Zoo

Last night at 11, on my last bathroom run, the air was chilly and as I climbed into the trailer, I was hoping that Dan and Roseanne had plenty of blankets or a heater in their tent…from experience I know a tent at those temperatures can be cold. Heater might not keep a tent warm throughout the night but it can take just enough chill off that it’s easier to get out of the warmth of the bed. We were snuggled in our little tin box with a heater going and I was still cold in the morning. Woke to a chilly 43^o at 8:30 a.m. But the sun was out and the temperature started rising. High today was predicted to be 68^o…not quite what we’d been used to but still good with the sun out. However, it would take into the afternoon to get that high.

---------- 

Last night when we came checked into the camp, we didn’t know if we’d be staying one night or two. This morning we decided to stay another night for several reasons: we woke up late…we needed showers…checkout is 11 a.m…Abilene has a zoo, so we had something to do if we stayed. In my previous life, going to a zoo was something I did whenever I could. Traveling along with Jeff to some of his meetings, I’d take every opportunity to visit the local zoo or aquarium…if we were just driving through a city that had a zoo, I might have been known to ask if we could take the time to stop and visit. I’ve been to zoos all over the country…I enjoyed it. Still do but it’s not such a priority anymore. My mom and I were in Texas about 12 years ago…and when I mentioned to Kim this morning that we could go to the zoo, he asked if I’d been there before. Well, my mom and I were in Abilene but I don’t remember going to the zoo. So off we go and we arrived at about the same time as 3 busloads of kids. 😊 It’s fun to watch kids at the zoo…they don’t always take the time to appreciate what they’re seeing but they’re fun to listen to. So we spent a few hours at the Abilene zoo today with about 100 school children. And it wasn’t until we were standing in front of the lion’s cage that I had a flashback…I’d stood in front of this cage and listened to a lion roar! I have been to this zoo, but it was much tinier then. Still I should have remembered before being ¾ of the way through the place. I probably have a squished penny from it…I have quite a collection of squished pennies, and for years, I kept them in a smiley face jar, but I broke that so now they’re in a plain ol’ jar. Anyway, most touristy places…national parks, zoos, aquariums, etc….have a penny squishing machine. It’s a cheap souvenir and worth absolutely nothing but a memory to the one who has possession of it. Anyway, I got another one today…I’ll put today’s date on it and add it to the jar when I get home. 😊

---------- 

I stood for a long time watching a fascinating creature called Meller’s Chameleon and I could have watched it longer but there was more to see and Kim was patiently waiting. I’ve seen chameleons before but this one was active and it was right up by the glass, which meant I got to watch its eyes in action…separate action. And it’s feet…OMGoodness, this is the first time I’d seen chameleon feet up close. Each was like tongs, able to spread apart and wrap around a branch, limb or whatever. This particular fellow was trying to grab at a bar over its head with its front feet while the back were firmly grabbing the branch he was sitting on. So the feet fascinated me and I had to find out more. On the website twistedsifter.com, there is a list entitled ‘10 things you didn’t know about chameleons’. While it was all interesting, I was mostly curious about the eyes and feet:

It's all about the feet and the eyes

3. Chameleon eyes have a 360-degree arc of vision and can see two directions at once. Chameleons have the most distinctive eyes of any reptile. Their upper and lower eyelids are joined, with only a pinhole large enough for the pupil to see through. They can rotate and focus separately to observe two different objects simultaneously, which lets their eyes move independently from each other.  This gives them a full 360-degree arc of vision around their body. When prey is located, both eyes can be focused in the same direction, giving sharp stereoscopic vision and depth perception. Chameleons have very good eyesight for reptiles, letting them see small insects from a long (5–10 m) distance. 

6. Happy Feet. The feet of chameleons are highly adapted to movement in trees (arboreal locomotion). On each foot there are five clearly distinguished toes that are grouped into a flattened section of either two or three toes, giving each foot a tongs-like appearance. On the front feet the outer group contains two toes, whereas the inner group contains three. On the rear feet this arrangement is reversed. These specialized feet allow chameleons to grip tightly onto narrow or rough branches. Each toe is also equipped with a sharp claw to help grip on surfaces when climbing. 

There were many other interesting exhibits and I took lots of pictures but the chameleon fascinated me. Those eyes and feet are freakishly mesmerizing.

---------- 

I have eaten so much Mexican food in the past two weeks, most of it authentic. But no margaritas…I haven’t had any margaritas. I wonder why.

---------- 

This afternoon, we went for a bike ride. Nowhere in particular, just picked some roads that led away from the city. Rode north up Hwy 83/277 to a town called Stamford, where we found that the auto parts store did not have the brake calipers that Kim wanted but it did have a very talkative employee. Followed Kim out the door to talk bikes. Then we headed back south to go west on Hwy 180 to a town called Roby, where we turned south on Hwy 70 and headed for Sweetwater. From Sweetwater, we jumped on US 20 East to get back to camp. Sort of rode in a loop, except it wasn’t round, it had corners. 😉

---------- 

Just outside of Roby, there were 100s of acres of tilled clay fields. What kind of crop grows in clay? So I did a little research…what I found out is that it was probably ‘sandy loam soil’ that I was seeing and that there is a lot of cotton grown in the area. Not exclusively, there are other crops but cotton is the major crop in Fisher County. On Wikipedia I did find a couple of trivial facts about Roby and Fisher County:

    Trivial fact #1: Forty-two lucky residents of Roby put $10 each in a lottery pool in 1996 and won the $46,000,000 jackpot on Thanksgiving of that year, making 6-7% percent of the population millionaires instantly (before taxes). 

     Trivial fact #2: Fisher County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2010 census, its population was 3,974. The county seat is Roby. The county was created in 1876 and later organized in 1886. It is named for Samuel Rhoads Fisher, a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence and a Secretary of the Navy of the Republic of Texas. Fisher County is one of 30 prohibition, or entirely dry counties in Texas.  (Emphasis added by me.)

----------
Got back from our ride about 7 and all I heard from Roseanne was some yelling at Bear, the dog.  A somewhat peaceful evening.  Of course, after supper I was doing the laundry, so I was out of hearing range.😏
----------   

Rode 140 miles today

----------  

Who doesn't marvel at the balance of a flamingo?

Tuesday, April 4...Three Little Birds

Moving day again…this time we we’re heading north…toward Abilene. Couldn’t really make any concrete plans because of the no phone or internet service issue. We have a map to look at but that doesn’t help in making lodging plans, etc. So we’ll have to wait until we get some service before we know where we’ll be staying tonight.

----------

We had company at breakfast this morning…Nosey, the little white pony, came over for one last attempt to get a treat. She and the donkeys cleaned us out of apples yesterday, but she did appreciate the small pieces of bread Kim gave her. Hope bread isn’t dangerous for her. 

---------- 

It was quite an interesting stay at Chalk Bluff Park…no phone, no internet, hellacious rain and hail, ringtail cat in the men’s room, star gazing and a bossy pony, donkeys, a cow and 2 Clydesdales that roamed free through the camp. Nightly trips to town to get online in the Walmart/McDonalds parking lot, a wonderful and safe ride on The Three Sisters, and mud…oh, the mud after the rain! The campground is family owned and run and if you’re ever in the area of Uvalde, Texas, and don’t mind being unplugged, I recommend a stay. 😊

----------

Bird in the cactus

Vermilion Flycatcher

I had a good time taking pictures of the birds around the campground. The bird guide I bought was helpful in identifying some of them but had to take to the computer to identify others. I wasn’t sure what I was watching in the cactus near our trailer…nest building, egg sitting or baby feeding. There were two birds going in and out of the nest. How do I know there were two and it wasn’t the same bird? Because I saw both of them on the cactus at one point and they took turns going in. The other day I was just trying to get a picture of a bird coming out…turns out it flies out much faster than it goes in so it was easier to get ‘going in’ pictures. I sat in my lawn chair with the camera on the tripod and set to consecutive shoot. The bird was a bit cagey when it landed on the cactus…it wouldn’t go right in. It hopped around a bit before ducking behind the ‘paddle’ that helped hide the nest. I determined after watching for a while that nest construction was being carried out…saw the bird take in a feather and maybe some fishing line another time. But alas, even though I got plenty of pictures of the bird, I can’t identify it from my bird guide. The vermilion flycatcher was a frequent visitor to our area of camp; however, what I thought was a flycatcher sitting in a tree this morning wasn't. When I looked at my pictures I realized it wasn’t the flycatcher, so I had to go online (at the KOA) to identify it...it's a hooded oriole. Yep, just sitting in a chair watching the birds…it’s a great way to pass the time.

Hooded Oriole

----------

Drove north on Hwy 83 to Abilene. There are several points on the map that have names, indicating there would be a town...well, if a Family Dollar store makes a town, then, indeed, there were several towns. However, if a person’s definition of a town include a grocery store, café, gas station, etc., then maybe these weren’t towns in the classical sense…they were just points on a map. BUT forget about any 4G Network…the entire way, to the very outskirts of Abilene, there was nothing. One time I briefly saw a ‘1x’ up by the bar signal, but it was a very brief sighting and didn’t do me any good. And for the most part we didn’t have phone service either. Got a signal somewhere along the way because suddenly 3 phone messages popped up and I was able to return one but lost the next call in the middle of the conversation. I can’t believe that in this day of technology overload that there could be 250 miles of no service….unless…unless, it’s AT&T country. Maybe Verizon doesn’t have a foothold in Texas. 

---------- 

The wildflowers sure are a bloomin’ along Hwy 83…purple, pink, yellow, red, white flowers sure make for a pretty roadside. I’m just as bad at flowers as I am at birds…the only one I recognized was the bluebonnet.

---------- 

As soon as we got a signal, I looked on my handy dandy KOA app and directed us to the Abilene KOA. Turns out they have a rewards point system, we have a lot of points so we got a really good deal on a campsite four sites down from Roseanne Barr. Seriously, the woman in that campsite sounds like Roseanne…she doesn’t talk in a quiet tone, she has a very shrill voice no matter what she’s saying. And believe me, I can hear what she’s saying…I’m sure people in RVs two rows over can hear what she’s saying. I was sitting outside at the picnic table for a while; a man was cooking dinner while she shrilled about whatever was on her mind and he seemed fairly meek to her craziness. They have about 8 little dogs and I heard her yell at ‘Bear’, who wandered out onto the road, until I wanted to cover my ears. And if I had small children, I’d be covering their ears because of the language. After supper, ‘Dan and Roseanne’ started yelling at each other…he’s not as meek as I thought but at least his voice isn’t shrill. And if I heard correctly, they’re in between homes at the moment. This is actually quite overwhelming after having the last campground to ourselves, where it was quiet except for the birds, the donkeys and the occasional staff member driving by in a golf cart. I wanted to put some space between myself and them so I headed for the trailer. Voices carry, though. 😒 While Kim was cooking supper, he put some music on for a buffer…then afterwards brought it inside the trailer, hoping the music would drown out the noise from down the way. He’s a sweet man. 👍

---------- 

On Hwy 83, we passed miles and miles of high fences…game ranches. Signs along the way promised Trophy and Exotic Hunts. Saw white tail deer, emus or ostriches, a couple of non-native deer. Where’s the sport in hunting something that’s confined inside a fence, regardless of how many acres it encompassed? Just doesn’t seem fair to the animal. Of course, that opinion is coming from someone who doesn’t hunt.

---------- 

As of right now, we don’t know what’s on deck for tomorrow. We do know that we’re on a homeward path but are never really sure of what we’ll find to do between here and there. The Mitten State is calling me, though…has been for a couple of days now. 😊

Monday, April 3...Turn, turn, turn

Visitors in camp this morning

Nosey, living up to her name

Woke to the braying of a donkey not far from the trailer. 😏  When we got outside no sign of the troops…but as we were finishing up our cereal, the parade approached from the left.  First was the brown Clydesdale, then the donkeys straggled along with the gray cow behind them and the other Clydesdale bringing up the rear.  All grazing as they moved along.  Meanwhile, the little white pony, Nosey, that visited us yesterday was walking beside them until they got opposite of us.  Then she stopped and looked our way…took a few tentative steps…stopped again and looked…then came on into camp.  Perhaps someone remembered that this was the camp that had a tasty treats.  Kim got what he thought were the last two apples for her.  Turns out she’s a trick pony…she paws the ground when she wants more...and from what we saw, she’s just a one trick pony. 😉 Then, as she was getting her treat, we saw 6 or 7 other heads turn our way and make for our camp.  No waiting to see if it was safe, just came on over.  Six donkeys and a cow…the Clydesdales just kept on grazing their way back to their camp.  Dug out some more apples for the donkeys but Nosey wasn’t willing to share nicely or wait her turn.  She would muscle her way in by Kim and we watched the bigger donkeys backed off like she was the boss.  Little but mighty!  But the donkeys got their share of apples, Nosey got a bigger share and the cow got none.  It just stood off to the side like it wanted to participate but didn’t know how.  Anyway, when the apple were gone, most moved on while Nosey and a tiny brown donkey hung around hoping for more.  Then one of the bigger donkeys turned, faced our camp and hee-hawed loudly several times…and we watched as the little brown donkey turned away from us and quickly headed out to the others.  Like a general barking orders and a private hopping to it.  Nosey went too but at a slower pace.  Then they headed back over to their pen area, but I don’t think they went in…last I saw they were having a good time chasing after each other.

---------- 

The Twisted Sisters...337, 336 and 335

We can now say that we rode The Three Twisted Sisters, which sounds a little weird to me, but it apparently sells a lot of t-shirts.  Three Ranch Roads (337,336, and 335) and about 10 miles of Hwy 41 form a ride route that has gained some popularity with bikers and car enthusiasts.  I thought the designation Ranch Road meant the road lead to a ranch…not so.  Apparently it means the same as the Country Road designation back in Michigan.  So we were on decent roads…along with more motorcycles than I think we’ve seen this entire trip put together.  It was a beautiful day and it seems like a popular destination.  Each road is the same yet has a unique quality…337 was more about getting up and over a mountain, so it was more about sharp curves and steep grades that really keep me on guard….336 had the curves and grades also, but there was also a fair amount long winding curves as we rode through some hills…and 335 was the closest I’ll ever get to the up and downs of a roller coaster while riding a bike.  It also had some curves but it was more about going up a hill, getting a glimpse of the view before going back down the hill…over and over and over.  Like I said, a roller coaster ride, except without the loop-de-loops.  Ate a very late lunch in Camp Wood before starting back for camp.  Decided to prolong our ride today by turning toward Bracketville, which as it turns out is the little sister to The Three Twisted Sisters…or at least that’s how I thought of it because it was Ranch Road 334. 

---------- 

Kim rides the hills, turns and curves fast than I do and eventually will pull over and wait for me.  I came around a curve today and caught the sight of something white dashing off into the trees.  I came up with only one option:  mountain goat.  I rounded a couple of more turns…Kim was waiting up ahead and he came through the headset, “Hey, was that albino deer still by the side of the road when you came through?  He almost hit me!!  He came running down the hill and was just coming onto the road when he saw me and stopped.  It was really quite exciting!”  So what I saw wasn’t a mountain goat, it was the butt of an albino deer heading back up in the trees...Kim got to see the whole deer.

---------- 

The campground we’re in, Chalk Bluff Park, is along the Nueces River. Don’t remember hearing it our first night but the river rose a bit, widened out some after the big rain of Saturday night, so we can hear it now. On our ride today, we were riding down Ranch Road 334 and encountered a Road Closed sign, which Kim almost hit because he was looking over at a field. He didn’t seem too rattled about it but it looked scary from my vantage point. Anyway, we decided to see what happened to the road to close it. We had come that way on Friday, so we figured that rain must be the culprit for a washout. Not a wash out…the Nueces River West Prong was rushing…I mean rushing…over the road. And it looked deep to me. Rushing and deep water crossing the road certainly warrants a road closed sign. We watched the power of Nature for a bit, then turned around to head back to camp.

---------- 

As we’ve traveled around the area the last 3 days, we’ve crossed the Nueces River several times in different locations. Earlier in our stay I wanted to know about the origin of the Nueces River and on one of our trips into Uvalde I was able to download some information. Here’s what Wikipedia had to say:

   The Nueces River (/njuːˈeɪsᵻs/ new-ay-siss) is a river in the U.S. state of Texas, about 315 miles (507 km) long.^[1] It drains a region in central and southern Texas southeastward into the Gulf of Mexico. It is the southernmost major river in Texas northeast of the Rio Grande. Nueces is Spanish for nuts; early settlers named the river after the numerous pecan trees along its banks.

   The Nueces rises northwest of San Antonio in the Edwards Plateau, in Real County, roughly 50 mi (80 km) north of Uvalde. It flows south through the Texas Hill Country, past Barksdale and Crystal City, approaching to within 35 mi (56 km) of the Rio Grande on the border with Mexico. East of Carrizo Springs, it turns to the east, flowing through the scrub plains of South Texas, across rural Dimmit, La Salle, and McMullen Counties. In central Live Oak County, it is joined from the northwest at Three Rivers by the Atascosa River and Frio River, then flows southeast along the coastal plain past Mathis, where it is impounded to form the Lake Corpus Christi reservoir. It enters Corpus Christi Bay on the Gulf of Mexico at Corpus Christi.

---------- 

Since we’ve been seeing a variety of birds at the Chalk Bluff Park, the other day I bought a bird guide for central Texas. Saw a vermillion flycatcher today around camp…it’s not in the bird guide but it’s one I know from our time at Marathon.  Even with the guide, it’s not easy to identify birds because who can see the yellow underbody when the sun is shining?  And I never realized how many bird species are brown, brown spotted, streaky brown or the same but in gray…it’s all the same to me when they flash by. I have to take pictures for identification purposes and then it’s all about the ends for me….beak and tail. Since so many look similar in coloring, I look at their beaks and then their tails. Who cares about little yellow circles around the eyes anyway…beaks are the true identifier!

----------

Kim did some imaging last night. The breeze moved the clouds out of the way and then the breeze died down. A little chilly out there comparatively but still better than freezing. I wandered out to use the bathroom, heard something barking and asked if those were coyotes…no, those were dogs barking. But then Kim said that there are some animals out in the dark making the craziest screaming noises that he’d never heard before. Wait...you're outside in the dark...there are screaming noises...and you're gonna stay out there?!? 

----------  

Got on my bike today and noticed a little problem caused by the rain Saturday night. My gas tank was on about half and when I checked the remaining miles, it indicated I had 534 miles left on the tank. I don’t think so! Both my tripometers (is that even a word?) were screwed up, too. I reset the Trip A to track today’s mileage and figured I’d deal with Trip B later. I’ve been using that to track total mileage we’ve ridden and had to do some math before resetting it. Gassed up in Camp Wood and thought maybe that would reset my ‘remaining miles’ number. Reset it all right…now it said I had 999 miles remaining on the tank. I really don’t think so!! But as the ride continued it dropped by leaps and bounds and by the time we were back to Camp Wood (about 100 miles later) it was back to where we figured it should be. Haven’t noticed any other problems caused by the rain.

----------

Rode 163 miles today…saw 87^o at 7 p.m.