COWBOYS!

Wednesday, October 13

     Woke up in Oklahoma City, ready to go look for cowboys!!            

While eating breakfast we felt a jolt…..saw the building move. It was over as quick as it started. Did someone run into the building? Nope, no car/truck in the lobby. Earthquake? Hmmm. Everyone was looking around, so I know it wasn’t just us that felt that!  Later we found that there HAD been a 4.3 earthquake outside of Norman, OK.

WOW, we are getting the royal treatment on this vacation, all kinds of new things.

     We headed out to the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. The building has a mural on the outside western wall of a herd of horses running with a cowboy on the lead horse. What a great way to mark the way. Unfortunately my picture did not turn out....but this one did. A bronze of cowboys meeting on the trail.

We had a coupon supplied by the lovely women at the Welcome Center (one of which sounded just like Nancy, Knute’s wife!). Image our surprise when we find out that it is FREE WEDNESDAY at the museum!!! We get in today for free!  

We are living a charmed life today!

     At the end of the entrance hall, bathed in light, surrounded by windows and a water feature outside, is a larger than life plaster statue called “End of the Trail” by James Earl Fraser. This is the artists’ depiction of the Indians being pushed towards the west coast, away from their native land, to California….into the ocean….the end of the trail.

Nicole tells me (Dayna) that art is what you make of it; sometimes it moves you while other people not so much. Sometimes all I can say about a particular piece is…..its art. This particular piece was calling me. I understood this one, I get it. It was hard for me to take my eyes off of the statute. It is made of plaster and apparently was in a park in California, children playing on it, when the museum found it. They negotiated with the town and finally came to an agreement, had a bronze made of it to give to the California town that had it and brought the original to the museum. It traveled in 3 pieces. There was some repair work that needed to be done, built a pedestal and it is now on display. This was in the 70’s?

The docent told us about the museum, where to start, and what not to miss. She did say I could NOT take the statue home…..drat!

At the east end of the museum was a larger than life plaster statue of Abraham Lincoln sitting, looking down.  Apparently the same statue in bronze is at the start of the Lincoln Memorial highway. We don’t know what part plaster plays in the making of bronze statues, but they are pretty cool looking. We watched the “this is how we got started” movie narrated by Tom Selleck. Then we got started looking for the cowboys!    We found John Wayne first thing!

This is so much more than just cowboys. There are paintings of the Wild West, animals, cattle drives, Indians, cowgirls, and cowboys. Statues, leather work, saddles, bridles, jewelry, clothing, headdresses, guns, dioramas, military life, rodeo, movies…. There is too much to see it all in 1 day.

There were several marble statues, at the west end of the hall was a larger than life statue of a cougar coming down the mountain. What a beauty! The pictures do not do her justice.

The displays of clothing and dioramas and the reproduction town, are all authentic. They used antiques, real Indian clothing and jewelry, bead work, headdresses, cowboy clothing, guns, military uniforms, and more than I can remember. They had a display of cowboy art, saddles, braid work, metal – bits and spurs – chaps. It is amazing to look at the detail even in the everyday items that were used. In the show pieces the carving on metal and leather was beyond what you could imagine, so intricate! No pictures were allowed in this section. Some of the pieces had price tags, some were several hundred thousand dollars!

There is a section dedicated to the movies and telling the story of the west, a large display just for John Wayne, one of the few people that personified the west without ever being a cowboy himself. His family donated a lot of his personal collection to the museum. There was a section on rodeo, a display of several of  Lane Frost’s things given by his family. He was a young rodeo star, bull rider, that died in the ring after being gored by a bull during a rodeo in Cheyenne. There was a movie that talked about how the west was won in movies, silent and talkies, how it was not accurate most of the time but made for a good movie. This was narrated by Sam Elliot…..it sounded great!

The gardens in the back have a beautiful waterfall that winds its way through the grounds, into little koi ponds, leading you around to see the bronze statues of people and animals, benches to sit and enjoy. Several animals are buried here, their past mascot Abilene the bull. Tornado the famous bull that was never ridden for the full 8 seconds in its career. And this tombstone for a good horse.

Even a restaurant, Persimmon Hill, the food was very good and they give you a lot of it for a little price! I did take a few pictures but mostly we walked in awe and enjoyed. We highly recommend going if you can. I would like to go back!  We went into the gift shop; they had 2 sizes of bronze reproduction of the statue “End of the Trail”. I would love to have one…..but not now, I’m holding out for the original! I settled for a postcard, and a Christmas ornament. I feel like I am leaving out so much, it was such a great place, that just means you have to go….and we have to go back!   David says there was much more than he thought there would be. If you go not a cowboy enthusiast, you will leave being one.  We didn’t leave until after 4 pm.                               

We are approximately 500 miles from St. Louis, MO.

We ended up driving into Missouri, I can’t remember the name of the town we stopped in…but they had a Waffle House!!  We went to dinner at Waffle house and had a ball. We joked with our waitress Shelby Shelby. Honest! That was her name! She was a riot. At one point a Domino’s pizza delivery guy walks up to the door, Shelby & I looked at him and each other and started laughing!!!  He asked her if he could plug in his GPS for a few minutes. I told Shelby I thought someone had ordered pizza, she laughed and said she had thought the same thing….it was pretty funny! I think it was one of those “you had to be there” moments. We left in a fine mood with a full belly.

We had such a great time, and had not eaten at any Waffle House on our whole trip, that we had breakfast there the next morning!! 

Yeah, we know.

Weird hotel room!

Monday evening, October11

After leaving Texas and driving in Oklahoma for a while....

We arrived in Oklahoma City.  I know we are stopping at the Cowboy Museum the next day, but we had no plans for tonight.  We looked around and found a hotel to stop for the night.
By now we have stayed at quite a few different hotels, some really nice and some nice, but we've not had any real problems. No bedbugs, no smelly rooms, no dirty rooms. Some of the rooms had desks, some had a sitting area with a chair or a table and chair, all had a TV. Of course, we do feel some were over-priced.        But the room in Oklahoma City was.......odd.
The room had a front wall of windows with thick brown drapes, the entrance door was at the right and you walked straight through past the foot of the bed to the vanity area and the bathroom. Desk and TV were to the right of the foot of the bed. The bedspread is brown, walls are brown, furniture is brown. When you walk into the room and flip on the light this is what you see.......to the left is a small little table with a chair on each side facing the bed, the bed is "center stage" in the middle of the room, the light that came on first is a large single track light which shines on the bed.

I looked at the bed, I looked at David, and then I started looking for the cameras!!    David said he didn't see anything wrong. I just thought that was one of the oddest settings in a hotel room, that was not in a porno movie, I had seen.  So if any of you travel and get "those" movies in the room in Oklahoma City and it looks like David and I........ sleeping......it is!!!!!   LOLOL

After I quit laughing we went to dinner at The Spaghetti Factory downtown, had a nice dinner. They have a street car in the restaurant, which we ate in, and in one corner was a large brass canopy bed, where the mattress should go was a table and chairs. There was a lot of old signs, old neon, old local advertising on the walls, old quarter games - like a fortune teller - and a bar in one corner. Neat place.  We went back to the odd room and tried to sleep. The heater/air conditioner was making alot of noise. We needed no alarm clock in the morning due to the housekeeping staff starting at 8:00 am pushing the heavy linen carts down the concrete sidewalks that had expansion joints every 3 feet. It sounded like a train was at our door!!!!   WE'RE UP, WE'RE UP!!!!!!!



The Wild West

After leaving the Grand Canyon we headed south to pick up I-40 and then start east.
David was still feeling punky, and still whining a bit, but of course he wanted to drive!
We got into New Mexico and things were a little of the same, the red and striped rocks were thinning out but still present. I feel like we are in a western.....it is just so very different than anything I have ever seen, other than in the movies. We spent a lot of time going.....OH, look at that...did you see those rocks? ....WOW, wasn't that pretty. There was still alot of miles between exits and alot more entrances than exits. Driving made it difficult to take pictures of some things, I couldn't get a shot or get focused. Or David would be looking one way while I was looking another and would say....OH WOW, LOOK AT THAT!! And I wouldn't have time to look AND take a picture, sometimes I didn't even get to look before it was gone. We wanted to slow down and see everything but we wanted to go home, and with David not feeling well he REALLY wanted to go home to his own bed. We could just stop and stay in a hotel for a night or 2 until he felt better or died or I offered to drop him at an airport so he could get home quicker  - nothing was going to make this trip faster driving - and I could bring the truck home, when I felt like it!!!   He opted to suck it up and stay with the truck. We both were a little crabby at this point. David because he felt like crap but wanted to see and do and enjoy and not feel like crap. Me because I wanted David to feel better so he could see, do, enjoy, stop whining, and we could enjoy this together. Ahhh, in sickness and in health......
New Mexico was flatter land, a little greener

One of the things I noticed in New Mexico was the overpasses were painted, or possibly they were dyed concrete, pale terracotta with designs of flowers, Indians, or horses in turquoise. It was really nice looking......but too quickly passed for me to get pictures, darn it!

Another thing I noticed were picnic areas on the side of the road, out in the middle of nowhere. 6 or 8 Covered picnic tables with a grill and a couple of small dumpsters. The areas were clean and back a little way ways from the road, easy off & easy on, like a rest area, but no restroom facilities. I did see them in several more states, but they were the nicest in New Mexico.

And then we were out of New Mexico  (we entered at night & I didn't get that picture)

Then we were into Texas

David had always told me that he would never go to Texas with me because I had heard, a long time ago, that in Texas you could kill a man because he needed killing - that was a legal defense. He said he was always afraid he wouldn't come back from the trip!  So I was impressed that he would willingly drive into Texas with me in the truck.....lol. He was feeling sickly, bless his heart, I had to leave him alone.



We continued on in the big state of Texas, we noticed a lot of Moo along side the road

We were planning on eating some good Moo while we were here!



I'm resting my eyes as David is heading towards Amarillo, that's gonna be a good spot to stop for the night, get some tender, cooked just right moo.........and relax.

Next thing I know David is hollering, LOOK AT THAT, WE GOTTA TURN AROUND!

He has spotted the next photo op for us.

The Cadillac Ranch.     For some reason some guy has planted quite a few Cadillacs in the ground with their butts in the air. This has been in movies, magazines, and the Internet. So we turned around.

You can park and walk back to the cars.

He was not the first to use a rattle can here

All different years of Caddy's

 A few other people were visiting that day

This was above the gate going into the corn/caddy field.

As you can see from the above pictures, with fencing showing in the foreground, no one paid attention to the sign. I didn't realize until we had already left that we didn't get a picture of the dumpster, on this side of the fence, totally covered in graffiti. It was amusing to me!

We went on into Amarillo and stopped at the Hoffbrau Steakhouse for some great steak. The manager and our waitress were friendly and helpful. We now have an appetizer we are going to try to duplicate, Sweetwater shrimp!!!! OH MY GOD. It is yummy, we'll let you know how it goes in the test kitchen!

My favorite beef is brisket, that was not on the menu. The manager was the one that seated us, came over and talked with us for a little while, asked how we enjoyed our meal...so we asked him were we could get some great brisket while we were there, he said they had a new Famous Dave's just down the road. We laughed and said we can get that back home, we want to know where the locals eat brisket.

Ahhhh, the joys of being in the friendly south.

He recommended we go to Dyers, not too far down the road, they were local and had great everything. A few minutes later he came back to the table with a computer print out of Dyers name, address, and phone number along with mapped directions! He even gave us a recommendation on which hotel. Nice place, great food, great people. If you're in Amarillo, stop at Hoffbrau's steakhouse.

We went down to the hotel, told her we were recommended and got a reduced rate! Damn, people are nice here!   David started running a fever again after getting into the room, no heater needed in our room tonight! He got shaking chills, was beet red. He took some ibuprofen and a shower. I was wondering if I was going to have to take him to an emergency room somewhere. I knew if he died I would be blamed since I kept teasing him about pushing him off in the Grand Canyon. But I was getting a little worried about him. I don't want him real dead...just the cartoon kind, you know where he pops back up unharmed in a little bit!  He felt better after the shower, watched TV for a little while and then went to sleep.  He told me the next morning that he woke up around 3 am in a pool of sweat, pillow and bed soaking wet with no fever. The rest of the trip he felt fine and never ran another fever or had chills. I don't know what was making him sick, but it was done with him finally!!

The next morning we got up late, putzed around a little, David got some paperwork done and in the mail, still working on getting the house in Carbondale closed. Then we headed to Dyers for BRISKET...YEA!  I must tell you.......it was SOOOOOO very yummy!!!!! It was worth getting a late start.

Next on the agenda was:

Just outside of Amarillo.

A cave in the red rocks

Of course David had to play a little bit

This was the road we took going in and out. It's steeper that it looks..trust me!

Near the front we saw this sign, so we were paying close attention

There were 4 of them, not all wanted their picture taken.

David thought those horns would look good on the front of the Cadillac...I'm not going in for them!

We left the park and headed east once again. We stopped at a rest area, and they do things a little different on Route 66!

Even the bathroom was cool with a mosaic on the wall. David said the men's was bare.

The rest of the interior was a wealth of pictures and information on Route 66 

Outside they had really nice picnic areas.....

But the sign in front was a little off-putting

We stayed away.....I promise!

David did a little maintenance and we were on our way

Just so you know.....we did see other things while in Texas, besides moo.....

A cotton field!

David spotted this as we were driving....

I swear he could smell it before he saw it!!

We saw alot of fields that had vehicles parked in them, old, rusting, left for dead. They were in peoples yards/fields. Occasionally we would see a junk yard.....full of cars/trucks from the 50's or 60's, some older. There was a couple of times I thought David was gonna run through the median and stop. He kept muttering ....... if only I had brought the trailer, I wonder if I can rent a trailer here, I wonder if I can just get a semi and trailer,  too many, too many........I noticed a little drool on his chin, but I didn't mention it.

We left Texas behind.

Back to the Grand Canyon

October 10th Sunday,

We are on the road again, this time we back track instead of forging a new route, as I mentioned a few days ago we got fogged out of the Grand Canyon.
The whole day was spent sight seeing from the windows, the weather was perfect, sunny, warm and we really are getting used to that! David had the chills and was not feeling good all day and as we got closer he got whiny...real whiny. We made it to the south rim canyon entrance, and there were about 6 hotels and a few restaurants, and we saw the I-Max Grand Canyon movie (the history of exploration and discovery of the area) which was shown at the visitors center in this town. It was real interesting, plus when they were showing the soaring like a bird over the canyon shots....whoo hoo, talk about heights! We felt like we were on our favorite ride at Disney World.
After the fun we checked into a very overpriced hotel and David went to bed, I ate dinner alone.
I did enjoy the time to reflect - on all the great things we had done and seen so far, on how fortunate we are to be able to take this time to spend together and that we want to be together, how I hate when people stare at me when I am eating alone like I must be demented or a serial killer.....and on how nice it was to not listen to David whining!!!! 
He really was feeling puny though, running a temperature and chilling around. I brought him back a bowl of soup & the rest of my dinner - that was yummy - and he mustered enough energy to wolf the food down and complain about nothing on TV and went back to sleep.
I couldn't connect to the Internet, so I watched some TV and then finally fell asleep, hoping David would feel better in the morning.

October 11th Monday,

Feeling a "little" better David said lets head out. We stopped at McDonalds for a quick "cheap" breakfast, HA! I never knew they changed prices depending on where you were. Our breakfast of 2 breakfast biscuit sandwiches, 2 large drinks and AN EAT-IN FEE cost us just under $20!!!!!  We coulda eaten at a restaurant for that price!!!!!!!!!!!
 The weather --  43 degrees when we left in the morning, up to about 68 mid day, sunny and beautiful.

ONLY YOU CAN PREVENT FOREST FIRES!!!!!

WELCOME BACK SAID SMOKEY DA BEER!!!



We drove the entire south rim from the west to the east, and took some of the most beautiful snapshots along the way, we even stopped in Old Town Grand Canyon for lunch.

How this gentleman got out on this point I have no idea. After watching him for a little bit, I realized he was spreading ashes. David took this picture while I was at another area, he didn't realize what the man was doing out there.

Old town was full of cabins, stables and restaurants. Old clay buildings with wood timbers, nothing seems to rot in this climate and elevation.

Warning, loose tourists!!!

A herd of loose tourists!  There is a 3 hour Mule tour that originates here, they were just coming in.

They can't, they are waiting for the train to get outta the way

The Grand Canyon train is all window seats, I'm sure it is a beautiful ride, this is the end of the tracks in old town.

Looking down at the Colorado river, about 2000 feet lower than the photographer.

There is an Indian reservation down there if I'm not mistaken.

Goes on forever

another shot of the Colorado River from 2000 feet above

Guess this critter and win a prize!!!

If you remember when we posted the pictures from our fogged out trip to the south rim of the canyon a couple of days previous, this is a shot from the same area. The big difference now is you can see the canyon!!!!!  LOL It looked pretty....and deep....with no clouds to block our view.



Guess that is enough pictures for now, you see one Grand Canyon....you seen 'em all.

We headed west out of the area then south to Flagstaff, to catch I-40 (old route 66) westbound and start the adventure back home to Michigan.