Excerpts from my Colorado vacation – Day 4

21 July ‘08

6:40 am Light breakfast in the HoJo library. I had their cinnamon (packaged) bun and my tea, Majestic Morning. I’ll be hungry later.

Met National Guard Army guys, during breakfast. They’re in OKC for Search & Rescue Training. Very nice guys.

7:30 am All packed and ready to load car. Laptop still exiting.

8:30 am Off to the Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum. I took pictures of the mural on the western wall and of our hotel (HoJo0 from the museum parking lot.

1^st pictures inside: Triptych of Yellowstone. 1 to establish size, 1 for ‘close look’ of 1 of all three. There were more triptychs in the banquet/meeting room but a meeting was about to begin so I didn’t want to take too long taking pictures. If you looked at the center painting, ‘closely’ you could see two individuals on the overlook. I overheard someone pointing them out, otherwise I would never have noticed them. They were that small.

Into the gardens: otter sculpture “Ring of Bright Water”, tiny frogs, koi, koi, Buffalo Bill, water people statue (look for dragonflies on the spears), heron statue

I took pictures of the military officer’s dress helmet & great coat. I want to show Chris but without flash, I’m not certain how well the pictures turned out.

Parade saddle: I’d love to know how much it weighs.

Canyon Princess statue and End of the Trail.

Colonel Tim McCoy, early actor in Westerns. He was an actual Army Colonel c. WWI and was fluent in multiple Native American dialects. Early Westerns (pre-Depression) frequently had real Native Americans as extras, for realism. I learned this in the Westerns in Hollywood & TV section of the museum.

I got a little lost in the Prix de West section. It was art/sensory overload.

~12:30 pm we had lunch at the Museum restaurant. I had shepherd’s pie and fruit salad, which was cut up fresh fruit. I decided against the buffet because I wanted a light lunch. Then the food was so good that I couldn’t stop eating.

At the gift shop I bought a couple shot glasses for Rosemary’s collection and a t-shirt & a couple pins for myself. I found nothing for Chris, coworkers, Leela, Hailey, Anitra or Steve.

[sticker from museum: black silhouette of cowboy with yellow bandanna and belt buckle against yellow mountain silhouetted against royal blue sky, all next to ‘National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum’]

This is the sticker so that they knew that we had paid to tour the museum. If you were just going to the restaurant, you got a round green & gold sticker.

101F but it’s dry. That really does make a difference. For once ‘they say’ is true.

We left the museum ~1:30 pm and I napped. Dad woke me at 2 pm because the terrain had changed.

The wheat has been harvested. It’s very flat, more pastures with cattle or a dozen horses loose in the pastures. Lots & lots of sky.

And the state troopers use SUVs.

~2:30 pm We’re paralleling Route 66. I see a lot of streambeds, arroyos?, that are dry. Is there a drought or are they seasonal?

The grain silos are huge. They are more like silo complexes.

Before the Texas border, we passed a wind farm, big wind turbines. And a dust storm, or cloud, hit us, brief and orange.

2:45 pm I saw the 2^nd, or was it 3^rd, Cherokee Trading Post. It has gas $3.69.

Canute, OK
Gas stop

I saw a truck “soil farming” but it turned out that it was just the company name.

Clouds splatter across the sky like paint flung from a brush.

4:22 pm Crossed into Texas panhandle

Don’t see any more farms, it’s ranches. There are fewer trees, a few clumps, but they are scattered.

4:25 pm

See a barn, or shed, with murals painted on the walls. Very pretty. Wish I could have gotten a pictures.

Soon after, see my first longhorns in the field.

The travel center is 100 miles inside the border, near Amarillo. No welcome center. 1^st rest stops are picnic shelters only, no bathrooms. Texas hospitality, my sweet Fanny Adams.

At the first real shelter with facilities, we stopped. I took a panorama shot from the overlook. I also took pictures of the neat picnic shelters there.

They had a warning about rattlesnakes on the doors and about fires on the notice board. The interactive windmill exhibit was not active (couldn’t turn the display model) but it had neat info.

“Miles and miles of nothing but miles and miles.”

Texas highway speed signs have a day speed and a night speed.

Near Groom, TX (~exit 110)

Leaning water tower, used to be functioning. Made to advertise a now-defunct service station. Also saw a giant cross with a life-size Jesus Journey to Cross behind gift shop [looking back at my note, I remember the water tower and the giant cross but not the rest of that].

5:45 pm Finished 4^th round of doily, despite problems. I ran out of thread 3 rings too soon, etc.

6 pm Amarillo, Ritz Airport Plaza Hotel

The Texas Travel Center closed at 5 pm.

Dad’s not feeling well, upset stomach. About 7 pm, Kathy & I went to Big Texan for supper. Kathy & Dad went there the last time they went to Colorado. The restaurant’s claim to fame is their offer; as home of the 72 oz steak, if you can finish the whole thing, plus fixings, in an hour, they’ll pay for the meal. They charge you ahead of time, so they refund your money. Some guy finished it with 10 seconds to spare when they were there last time.

No one was trying it while Kathy & I were there. Certainly, we didn’t. We both had the 6 oz Austin Lady cut steak. Soooo good, steak sauce would have been a sacrilege.

We hit the gift shop. I found a perfect lunchbox tin for Gretchen. Yes, I am enabling her storage container addiction. But it’s such a cute tin, the perfect size for tatting.

We came back to the hotel room and I watched Hogan’s Heroes while catching up on email, etc. Dad was feeling a little with judicious application of ginger ale and crackers.

Hotel pro’s:
Wifi
Very good towels

Cons:
No iron in the room, had to ask for it
Breakfast had been canceled with no recompense
2 lamps unplugged (of 3)
Entry light almost burned out
Alarm clock not plugged and never found an outlet for it

Once a great hotel, lobby chandeliers are gorgeous. Gift shop was closed. It has an interior garden/atria but showing signs of neglect.

Colorado Vacation, excerpt 3

Excerpts from my Colorado vacation – Day 3

20 July 2008

6:47 am CDT, Memphis, TN

La Quinta

Dad woke up and turned on the lights at 5:52 am. That’s 8 minutes early. At 5:55 am, I gave up and got up.

I’ve showered and other ablutions and repacked my bags. I’m not used to living out of a suitcase.

8 am and we are leaving the hotel. I have left Planet of Whispers at the hotel for Bookcrossing. There’s a couple Little League Teams in the hotel & I feel that DeSade’s Valet is not a book for 13-14 year olds to find. Not a book that I wanted to read, myself. It came for free in a bag of books.

Leaving town, we passed St. Jude Hospital Complex. That includes the Memphis Grizzlies House (housing for families of St Jude patients, funded by professional basketball team). Visually striking is the Pyramid, the glass & steel pyramid arena.

8:20 am Arkansas border

Skipped the Arkansas welcome center.

12:30 pm Oklahoma border

Ozarks look like the Blue Ridge Mountains, but spread out.

On 3^rd round, got a knot in the thread & can’t close the ring.

1:26 pm arrive at Sallisaw, OK and have lunch at a Taco Bell/KFC.

In town, I saw a carwash converted to a barbershop. Small town, with some historical sites.

~2 pm stopped for gas at a Phillips 66

2:30 pm McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System – transportation & flood control

[I’ve had to start keeping memo notes to look things up and then write in my journal later]

~2:40 pm We hit road construction, about 10 miles of it, ending at McIntosh County line.

3 pm Passed Lake Eufaula

3:30 sun behind clouds and the temperature dropped by 4F, from 101F to 97F

Soon after saw first oil well, then two more soon afterward.

~3:50 pm I took a picture of clouds, once with sunglass lens over camera and then once without.

4:54 pm Howard Johnson in Oklahoma City, next to the Cowboy Museum. Formerly the hotel was a Gardens Inns & Suites

6 pm off to supper at County Line, next to hotel. Took pictures.

Formerly it was the Kentucky Club and it’s been around about a hundred years. It was a dance and gambling club, run by the Mob. It still has some of the old fixtures and lots of old posters & ads.

It’s also haunted. “Russell” haunts the fireplace; he was killed there. A medium said that a female presence was in the women’s bathroom. The medium would not go into the basement; ‘not happy’. Our waitress doesn’t like to go down there either.

The food and service were great. Our table was in one of the old gambling niches. From the windows in the bar you could see the Capital dome.

So far, the trip looks a lot like NC, but without the kudzu.

After supper:

I downloaded videos from Dad’s camera and we watched them. I wasn’t able to erase the disk, though.

I did the first tat demo for Kathy. I just showed her the knot. We were both too tired after futzing with the videos to do any more.

Never got a good internet/wifi signal, despite the hotel clerk’s attempts. She reset the router twice.

Oklahoma highway speed limits have one speed for cars & another one for trucks.

3rd full day of vacation: and the 3rd city, not including the original departure. I made it to Dad's & Kathy's Friday night, only about 2 hours or so late. Dad spent time packing the van & I got to bed later than comfortable for me. Which wouldn't have been so bad but we were up at 3:30 to leave Pleasant Garden by 4:30 am.

Day 1: to Memphis. It was a long day of driving, I spent most of it sleeping. I got a little reading done, a little tatting done. We had supper at Corky's. Absolutely delicious barbecue.

Day 2: to Oklahoma City. Our hotel was next door to the Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum but we got to town after it had closed. We went to supper almost next door, on the other side of the hotel. We went to County Line, a great local restaurant. It has a lot of history; shame that the overlook just 'overlooks' the hightway. You can see the dome of the capital building though.

Day 3: the next day we went to the museum. Wow, it's a great place. 3 plus hours was not enough. The Prix de West was there and we sampled that, until we ran out of time & I was suffering from over stimulation. We had lunch in their restaurant. The food was really good, I had the shepherd's pie and fruit salad (cut up fruit). I overate, just a little. I couldn't even manage to dessert, luckily the fruit was enough.

Then we left for Amarillo. Dad has an upset stomach but we managed the drive anyway. I napped a little but kept getting woken up. I did more tatting, despite some hinderances *grumble* The scenery has definitely changed.

Dad wasn't up to eating supper, so Kathy & I went alone to The Big Texan. It was a really good steak.