All posts by travelingdad

adventure, Arizona, Attractions, featured, New Mexico, Outdoors

Cowboy Wisdom & Buckaroo Poems

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I chanced upon some cowboy wisdom in a men’s room in Holbrook, Arizona, which seems pithy and timely.  Or timeless:

Don’t squat with your spurs on.  Never smack a man who’s chewing tobacco.  Broke is what happens when a cowboy lets his yearnings get ahead of his earnings.  When in doubt, let your horse do your thinking.  Never kick a fresh turd on a hot day. The only way to drive cattle fast is slowly.  Behind every successful rancher is a wife who works in town. Poor is having to sell the horse to buy the saddle.  If you find yourself in a hole, first–stop digging.  The quickest way to double your money is to fold it over and put it back in your pocket.  Never, ever, miss a good opportunity to shut up.

We stayed a couple nights in the quiet town of Holbrook and journeyed through the Petrified Forest, and the Painted Desert.  I’ll let my two older students take it from here–budding Shakespeares:

We saw a desert painted over time

It is an ever changing desert

Made by the sun and the clouds

We saw trees mummified by time

Left to rot beneath the sand

But instead were turned into works of art

For everyone to enjoy

Son One

Son Two

photo 3(1)Happy Trails!

adventure, Attractions, New Mexico

About Albuquerque

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First thing, both Jen and I agree we could never live here because of the pain involved in typing the name: Albuquerque.  It turns out, I did live here, briefly when I was two-three years old. My brother Mike was born here. After the drive up across West Texas and through Carlsbad, to see the Sandia Mountains looming took our breath away!

But it did not bring memories flooding back. The last time I was here was the legendary Downs Family cross country trip of ’69.  Charlie Manson and Chappaquiddick. Proud Mary and Bad Moon Rising on the radio. This time an incredible wind storm that buffeted all of New Mexico greeted our arrival.  IMG_2123 We’ve been looking forward to time here in the rift valley of Albuquerque–spell it real fast three times–for weeks. Easter Week, after all, in an area of the country Catholicized centuries ago by the Spanish.  Those carriers of the Good News, as well as the Inquisition, to cover both ends of the religious spectrum.

We were joined here by Jen’s sister Kristy, her husband Chris, and of course our five-year-old niece! They were here for a week on Spring Break from Maryland, touring the rugged, harsh countryside with us. We spent hours at Petroglyph National Monument, IMG_2153where 700 or so years ago ancestors of today’s Native Americans carved intricate, sometimes whimsical, and always mysterious shapes and symbols in the desert’s basalt rock.

We also spooked ourselves on a ghost walk in Old Albuquerque and frolicked in the Explora Children’s Museum.  IMG_2185Of course, the little guys weren’t nervous at all!

We journeyed up to the northeast to Jemez Springs, where we finally caught some fish, and to Bandolier National Monument, and the ancient caves of the Indians, deep in the canyon crevices. IMG_2324 We also checked out the Saturday art scene and Farmer’s Market in Santa Fe.

Aunt Kristy got a flat from a goathead burr, and we found a great bike store to do the repair. The most amazing event occurred sometime in the wee hours of Easter Sunday morning, when the Easter Bunny tracked us down and hid baskets, and eggs loaded with prizes, all over the motor home!

Our first visit from family was a resounding success.  So! Who’s next to join us?

 

 

Attractions, featured, Outdoors

Carlsbad, Speaking of Bats…

Jim White sounds like a real-life Tom Sawyer, complete with cave. Jim didn’t have to evade Injun Joe, but the cave he explored is at least as impressive as the one Tom found behind a waterfall.   We got to see Carlsbad for ourselves, and to be honest, I am glad we saw Mammoth Cave in Kentucky first.  IMG_6768While Mammoth is well over 400 miles of, well–cave, Carlsbad is gigantic.  The basic tour, perfect for your basic four-year-old and nervous parent,  is self-guided, and covers over four miles, if you walk in or out.

Of course, with a four-year-old, we thought it prudent (and much easier!) to take the elevator that travels 750 feet from the lobby of the Visitor’s Center. Okay, it felt a lot like IMG_6793cheating, but it left time at the top for a great picnic.

Did I mention my kids haven’t been to McDonald’s in 33 days? Please don’t tell them–we’ve been trying to keep them distracted!

Back to Jim White, the one-man P.T. Barnum of the Carlsbad Caverns: you would be pleased to see how well the National Park Service is stewarding your find. Like teachers, the underpaid staff and the sea of volunteers at national parks and monuments across the states have been unbelievably dedicated, knowledgeable, and champions of their particular natural or human site. They are not all trained docents or presenters. Most of them are neighbors nearby or retired women and men who are thinking of legacies, and as Ronald Reagan once said, “…just want to leave the woodpile higher than I found it.”

We didn’t see any bats IMG_6752while we were at Carlsbad.  Wrong time of year.  But we did see bat guano that was roughly 45,000 years old.  By far the youngest cave feature we saw.

Sometimes it’s nice to be somewhere where you’re not the oldest thing in the room!       .

adventure, Attractions, Outdoors, Pennsylvania, Texas

Bridge Bats and River Walks

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We traveled up to Austin, to see Zilker Gardens and the close-by Barton Springs, as well as the famous Congress Street bridge.  The night we returned to San Antonio, we met our guardian angel, Rebar.

But back to Austin. What are all these people doing, on a bridge at dusk on a weeknight? photo(25) An unintended consequence of a bridge improvement project years ago yielded a habitat ideal for migrating bats, that is now the largest urban bat population in the country.  The Bat Flight. From the end of March, locals and tourists gather for a dazzling natural display, as the bats take wing at dusk to feed.

On the advice of a camping friend from Michigan, we also dined at the Casa Riophoto(26) on the famous Riverwalk in San Antonio, accompanied by mariachi music, and hundreds of grackles and other birds, dive bombing for scraps! An enchanting setting in a jewel of a town!

We also caught up with a former Greenbelter and member of the Crescent-Ridge Playground Gang, Sherry.  She has made a life in San Antonio, and genuinely loves her adopted town.

Our car is now safely back with us, and seems to be running fine again.  Next stop, Carlsbad!

Attractions, People, Texas

Where the Ghosts Dance

San Antonio is an interesting oyster–not much to see from the outside, dazzling on the inside.  We took the kids down to experience the Alamo. You round a maze of parking garages and high rise hotels and wham! It’s just there. The iconic front wall of the simple church that was never meant to fortify anything.photo(22)

Like Gettysburg and Antietam and other geographic accidents of history, it’s a place for reflection and pause. The signs remind you: no hats on men, keep your voice low, no photographs.  Here is the place where, as Colonel William Barrett Travis said to the “People of Texas & All Americans in the World”:

   The enemy is receiving reinforcements daily & will no doubt increase to three or four thousand in four or five days.  If this call is neglected, I am determined  to sustain myself as long as possible and die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honor & that of his country. Victory or Death.

It is hard to imagine in 2014 a former Congressman stepping over the line in the sand to stand alongside him facing certain death.  But Davie Crockett did just that, after an election loss where he famously told the people of his district, “you might go to hell, but I am going to Texas.”

And it raises questions in older men’s minds about what one might have done in a similar situation. Travis was 26, his whole life at his feet. What is worth offering a life dearly for?  Having once been admonished, “Don’t tell me what you believe. Tell me what you do all day and I’ll tell you what you believe,” would I have stepped across the famous “line”?  It’s good to think on these things occasionally.

It seephoto(24)med so fitting that our last night in San Antonio was a party in the shadow of the Alamo. It is a place one can easily imagine the  ghosts dancing.

adventure, People, Texas

San Antonio, City of (At Least One) Angels

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Last night we were on our way back from Austin, after watching a bat exodus (more to follow), and our Dodge Caravan overheated about three miles from our KOA in San Antonio.  What followed was a series of events alien to my grown-up life: summoning a tow truck, trying to locate a taxi, trying to figure out where we were at an unfamiliar exit ramp in an unfamiliar town, and this morning, trying to decipher the baffling code of a city bus schedule.

Enter Rebar.  Rebar (I checked the spelling) is a tow truck operator in San Antonio.  When he arrived on scene last night, first he made sure that we would get back to camp ok  . Us being me, Jen, our three boys, and Shadow, our faithful dog.  Rebar said if we needed a place to stay, we could crash at his apartment.  He offered the kids chips from a bag he had in the cab.

Sometimes it takes a burp in one’s plans to realize how much goodness there is in the world.  Rebar is four months in the country from Kurdistan.  He speaks four languages, and his formal English is much better than mine. He fled Iraq finally, where he’d worked as an English translator for the U.S. Army.  Something about extremely short career expectations.

Now he is in San Antonio, learning his way around, and grateful to be here.  And so, need I add, are we.  At this hour, I don’t know what will become of the work on the car.  Will we have to end the trip to pay for a new engine? Were we mistaken to tow our car? Will we have to drive it from now on, and try to sell a tow dolly?  I hope not.

But we met an angel last night, in the midst of trying and failing to find a cab to come to the part of town we’d broken down.  I had the sensation, talking to Rebar, of reading The Life of Pi, and wondering, at the end, how much of Piscene’s tale was true, and how much was fanciful fiction designed to weave a more exciting tale, and in the case of Rebar, to maybe reap a better tip.

I prefer to believe in angels. Rebar is one.  That’s what my kids remember about our cramped, late-night drive,  and there is more than enough danger in the world for me to worry that they’ll arrive as adults overly innocent.  So thanks, Angel Rebar.  Welcome to America, and I hope you continue to be yourself here, for our sake.

adventure, Attractions

In Dallas, Cowboys Out, Perot In!

We fervent Washington fans (and one rogue Vikings fan, a birth anomaly) actually looked into doing a tour of Texas Stadium in Dallas.  Officially known as AT&T Stadium, it is, apparently, the largest domed structure in the world.  What else would you expect in Texas? And ever since I read Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, I’ve had a morbid curiosity about seeing the inside of the Cowboys locker room.  That was my rationale. 

What tipped the scales was the price tag for the tours–$17.50 for adults, $14.50 for kids. For the self-guided tour.  Granted, it would have included access to the locker room.  The Cowboys organization made it easy to Just Say No.

Okay, the week was also blacked-out for tours of any kind.

Instead, we took advantage of the singular accomplishment of another towering Texan–the five-foot, five-inch Ross Perot.  Many of us know him as an unsuccessful, but compelling independent candidate for president in 1992 and 1996.

He is also the major benefactor of the Perot Museum of Nature and Science in downtown Dallas.  Just opened at the end of 2012, this may be the single coolest museum we’ve ever seen.  Hiphoto 4(2)ghly interactive and geared to kids of all ages, the museum’s biggest challenge for us was to keep the kids moving through the four floors.  Each stop captured their attention and imagination, and wouldn’t let go!

We only had four hours to spend, and we could have easily stayed threphoto(19)e times as long.  The staff was helpful, and manned special-activity tables to entertain and educate.  What a gift–to educate while mesmerizing. Now I know why magicians loves schools! We dug for dinosaurs and raced cheetas and professional athletes in a footrace and built our own biphoto 5(3)rds!

We joined the Perot Museum to gain access to partner museums across the country. It also got us into their special Dinosaurs exhibit in advance of non-members!

In the museum’s Sportscenter, I stumbled across this–signed by Roger Staubach of the Dallas Cowboys, the man every ‘Skins fan loved to hate back in the day.  And we didn’t even have to tour Texas Stadium to see it!

 

featured, People

The Mystery of Family

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One of the main goals of traveling for us is to catch up with family scattered like dandelion seeds over the country.  From  Texas to Arizona to California to Colorado to Montana to New York.  We will miss Alabama and South Carolina and Florida this trip, but we are, after all, moving to Florida…IMG_20140330_194246_371

We talked over the picnic table last night about how strange it is that there are people in the world mommy and daddy have no relationship to, but when our kids are born, they instantly have uncles and great-aunts and cousins they will have for life.IMG_20140330_194304_377

My wife and kids have been meeting relatives, in some cases for the first time here in Dallas.  Strangers from a shared tribe open their homes and their emotional lives, and share all sorts of things, ask the most probing questions,  They are, after all, family.

Family often leaves clues.  My oldest is told affectionately that he has the mannerisms of Uncle Sandy, by a woman who’s not seen Sandy in decades.  Men who are grandparents are referred to by the names ten-year-olds carry.  Billy. Richie.

What invariably begins as the most awkward of conversations between complete strangers soon becomes surprisingly comfortable, after all.  Connections are discovered, both in the past and the present.IMG_20140330_183208_359

People spark friendships over the oddest things.  Dogs and campfires and roasted marshmellows. And tentative emails.  This is your niece.  We’ll be passing through in several weeks, and would like to see the gang…

Strangers become comrades, and partings are more genuine sadness than relief. Until next time…

 

Attractions, featured

The Sixth Floor

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I paid a pilgrimage yesterday, to the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository.  And to Dealey Plaza visible out its windows.

Everything’s been said about November 22, 1963.  And still so many questions linger.  I looked for something new, for me, and found it. In listening to the inventory of items found at the window, I heard, for the first time, something I’ve probably heard a hundred times before: “…a partially consumed lunch.” Let’s see…maybe eat half my liverwurst and cheese, set up the boxes in the window…” If I live to be a hundred, so many elements of that day won’t compute.

Suffice to say if and when I ever make it to heaven, one of my first five questions will be, “…about Dallas, 1963….” and judging by the respectful crowd on a Tuesday morning in March 2014, I won’t be the only one.

As I walked the solemn exhibits, I wondered if the seniors around me in the museum were split as I was, so viscerally between the present and the past.  I have never been so emotionally impacted by a place before, and at my age, I have seen a lot of places.

I know how arrogant this next part will sound, but it’s the truth.  I had to come to the museum to make sure they got it right.  It is one thing to study history–the noble and the shameful elements that make up our today.

But Dallas is my history.  Just like millions of others my age and older, it happened to me.  I know that because images of those four days are poised in the wings of my mind, clear and young and indelible.  I lived it and live it.  And so I wanted to be sure they got it right.  For myself, and for my kids, about which 1963 is to them what World War I was for me: a chapter in a book.

Amazingly, they did get it right.

No display calls attention to the fact that Jack Kennedy was no saint. The exhibit is a shameless tribute to the man.  But it avoids the temptation to sidestep the host of  questions that linger about the many factions that both revered and reviled Kennedy, and how one young, career loser leans forward at the end of a chain of dark coincidences to set aside his sandwich and obliterate Camelot.

 

A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on.

John F. Kennedy

February 8, 1963

 

adventure, Attractions, featured, Outdoors

No Fiery Diamonds in Hot Springs

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Sunday we packed up after a great week in Hot Springs, AR at the Catherine’s Landing RV Resort on Lake Catherine.  It still felt like a campground in many respects, but there were some new twists–at least for us novices.

One one side of the complex is an open-air pavilion that covers probably two acres.  In addition to a bathhouse that takes up a small bit of one corner, it has a host of picnic tables, and some large fire pits.  Since we had rain pretty steady for several days, it turned out to be the perfect place for the kids to ride scooters and meet other kids.  The resort included a frisbee golf course, which the kids also loved!

One evening my youngest and I shared a campfire with the Walker family from southern Arkansas.  Mike is the principal at Star City High School, and gathered with wife Jennifer and kids Emily and Caleb for a spring break gathering with family.  My youngest developed his first crush, on Miss Emily.

Can you guess what the assembled are up to here on a field in Murfreesboro: The Hunt ? We journeyed on a day trip to Crater of Diamonds State Park to stake our forIMG_20140328_154734_736tune.  Midway through it rained,  hard, so happily we’d not done the week’s laundry yet.  When the boys got bored panning for diamond chips, they moshed in the 37 acres of muck.

We wandered through the Fordyce Bath House Visitors Center in Hot Springs National Park and “quaffed the elixir.” Touring the basement for some reason reminded me of scenes from the Overlook Hotel in Stephen King’s The Shining.

On Saturday, the first sunny day, we loaded up the fishing gear and lunch on a pontoon boat out of Lake Catherine State Park.  Jen waphoto(14)s our captain, without complaint in the morning cold, until we realized she was frozen to the boat’s wheel.  Can you spot the turtle on the log behind Jen?

We are now in Dallas.  At 10:30 this morning, we are touring a place that I’ve known about since I was almost ten years old, but never seen in person: the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository.