Joan’s 9th newsletter – the journey home
When I wrote about big cities and small towns in newsletter #8, I forgot about Sharonville, Ohio. I needed a shower after two days of primitive camping at the Bob Evans Farm Festival. Heading west, I could see I’d be in Cincinnati around dinnertime but. didn’t want to get on a big freeway system just yet. The Motel 6 directory seemed to infer that Sharonville was a northern suburb of Cincinnati, so I headed there. The motel was in a mostly industrial area with a few fast food places and little traffic or scenery – just the bleakness I wanted.
The next morning, a Monday, there was still little traffic, and I had found the addresses of the library and a supermarket in the phone book. Although Sharonville is a suburb, it has a downtown with old historic buildings and a clean, well-cared for look. The library was next to a community center, and both were large modern buildings across from a big, well-manicured park. I didn’t encounter real traffic until I neared the Kroger supermarket in a newish shopping center, because it’s near a freeway entrance and gas stations. This Kroger, in the same family as Ralph’s, City Market, King Soopers and Fry’s (pick your state) was very upscale, with an impressive soup and salad bar and picnic tables outside. The newspaper left on the table was a Wall Street Journal, an indication of the demographics of the area. My seven-year-old van may have been the oldest and dirtiest vehicle in the parking lot. I learned later the population of Sharonville is about 14,000, and the population of Cincinnati is about 325,000. Boy, did I make the right choice!
The GPS
I just re-read newsletters 1-8, and saw a few references to my GPS but no details. At my 64th birthday celebration in late December, 2004, I was presented with a Magellan GPS, and I was numb with surprise because I knew those critters are costly. I left it in the hands of my family to figure out how it worked and explain it to me. After three of them played around with it, they realized it wasn’t user-friendly enough for me. So Kelly got a refund, did more research, and in February sent me a Garman StreetPilot and two pages of simplified instructions (including “Do not choose the offroad option!”).
Friends, the Garman was indeed user-friendly and from the time I received it, I relied on it nearly every driving day, and especially at night. Here’s how it works.
The GPS (aka global positioning system) knows where it is by communicating with two or more of the 24 satellites in constant orbit around the earth. Inside is a mini-computer containing detailed maps of the U.S. Mine has a touch-screen that I use to enter a destination, such as a town, street address, intersection, point of interest (such as a national park) or even a restaurant that can be chosen from a list in its memory. Once it has its instructions, the screen becomes a map with a wide purple line that shows the route, and an arrow that moves along the route to show my progress. It also shows estimated arrival time, plus miles and hours or minutes till the next turn, which count down as we drive along. The screen also shows me the name of the highway or street I’m on, and the exit number or street name I’m heading for.
But the best part is the voice that tells me things like “Drive 7 point 4 miles north,” “in point 5 miles turn left,” and “in 500 feet arriving at destination on right.” It’s a female voice that reminds me of Eve Arden, who portrayed a high school teacher in a radio, and later television, show called “Our Miss Brooks.” So I refer to the GPS as Miss Brooks. She sounds very much like a teacher when I’ve missed a turn – she’ll say “Off route. Recalculating … “ and gives me new directions. A friend swears she heard someone else’s GPS say “I told you to turn right!” but Miss Brooks has never said that to me – yet. She has rescued me innumerable times, especially when it’s dark and raining and I can’t read the street signs or building numbers. The estimated arrival time is very helpful too (are we there yet?). If you get one on my recommendation – and I recommend it highly to all frequent travelers – here are some caveats.
Very recently built streets aren’t in the system’s maps
Sometimes satellite reception is blocked, such as in a tunnel or in the midst of tall buildings (such as downtown Chicago)
She won’t know about local shortcuts, road work or detours
She led me over 40 miles of dirt road in northwest Arizona because it was the shortest route. But we weren’t lost!! The moral is: look at a map too, to be sure the GPS’s choice is a sensible one.
In the Land of Cotton
I have been in the land of cotton, and it was Mississippi and parts of northern Texas. Even while driving the Natchez Trace through a corner of Alabama and southwest to Tupelo, MS, I saw cottonfields interspersed among the forested areas. But they definitely dominated my route between Tupelo and the state line at the Mississippi River. My goal at this point was to arrive in Tucson one week hence, so I didn’t dawdle much after camping at Tombigbee State Park right off the Natchez Trace on October 21. I made a u-turn once to make sure the historic marker in the middle of nowhere really did say it was the birthplace of blues musician Mississippi John Hurt. I stopped soon after, at Greenwood, MS in the Mississippi delta, when I saw a sign for Cottonlandia Museum. Greenwood is at the junction of the Yazoo and Tallahatchie Rivers – don’t you just love those names? I was really in confederate territory here, and the two museum volunteers were actual southern gentlemen. When I volunteered at the Capitola History Museum near Santa Cruz, CA, I wore jeans and a tee shirt or sweatshirt. These guys, who must have been at least in their seventies, wore white shirts, ties, and dress pants. One of them was a retired cotton farmer, so as he escorted me around the exhibits he was able to explain how cotton was picked and processed. He told me I’d find a lot of cottonfields and mills around Lubbock, TX too, and I did. I stole a cotton boll from a field and, although it feels soft and fluffy, there’s a bunch of lumps (seeds) that have to be separated from the usable stuff. While driving, I saw a lot of baled cotton in solid bundles about the size of small boxcars waiting to get trucked to the gin mills before getting turned into consumer goods either in the U.S. or abroad. I was hoping to see the cotton being machine-picked, mostly to see if the plantation owners hired blacks to do that now that it’s no longer stoop labor, but alas I never did.
Another major type of farming in this area is what is nicely known as aquaculture, but it means catfish farming. The, um, product is called cultured channel catfish. I wonder if these cultured creatures have soft southern accents and wear dress shirts and ties before getting scooped out of their watery estates and sold for people food.
After crossing the Mississippi River on Route 82, I was in southern Arkansas, the sun was setting, the Arkansas Welcome Center in Lake Village was closed and the restrooms locked, no motels or campgrounds were evident, and I had to drive half-way across the state before I found a populated area with motels. Fortunately, it was less than 100 miles to El Dorado and the Flamingo Motel, another cheap but adequate place that was pointed out to me by the desk clerk at a motel across the street that had no non-smoking rooms.
Looking for lunch the next day, I passed a lot of Sonic Drive-Ins that look cool and retro but have no food for me – not even a salad. Finally I spotted a Burger King. In this part of the country, I brake for Burger Kings because they have veggieburgers and their senior citizen deal is usually a free beverage. (Cheap travel hint: if you’re age-eligible for a senior discount, always ask. I was never asked to show proof of age – darn.) It was Sunday, and several elegantly dressed black couples were dining there after church. Black folks sure have a sense of style – a portly broad-shouldered black gentleman looked really good in a navy pin-striped suit, impeccably tailored with the coat longer than usual.
If you look at a map, you’ll see my route went along Southern Arkansas directly into northern Texas at Texarkana. That city is in both Arkansas (pop. 26,448) and Texas (pop. 120,132). The state line is a street named State Line Street, and the federal building there straddles the state line. An intriguing listing in the AAA tour book for the Ace of Clubs House led me there even though I knew it would be closed. It couldn’t be hard to miss, I thought, and I was right. Yup, it looked like a club from a deck of cards, with three round clover leaf-shaped corners. Built in 1885, the local legend is that an area lumberman and Civil War veteran (confederate side) built it with his winnings from a poker game won with the draw of an ace of clubs. (http://www.texarkanamuseums.org/ace_of_clubs_house.htm) I also happened upon a mural celebrating Scott Joplin, the king of ragtime piano music. He was born nearby in 1868 and received his early musical training in Texarkana – the Texas side.
Texas, Texas, and more Texas
I spent two nights in Texas. Days, I just drove, staying on US 82 just south of the Red River which is the border between Texas and Oklahoma. Texas didn’t look any different than Arkansas until I got past Paris, when it really began to flatten out and open up. Trees disappeared, and grazing cattle and ranch entrances took over. The ranches were huge – I seldom saw any buildings. The standard formal entrance to a ranch is a tall arch over the driveway, with the name of the ranch across the top. One name I saw ended in .com, although I think that was really for a business. I drove on a highway rather than an interstate to avoid Dallas, and besides, I was headed to Albuquerque which is further north than Dallas anyway. But US 82 went through very small towns with no motels, so I was happy to see some signs pointing to the Nokona Inn when I got to that city around dusk. Although Nokona is home to leather goods factories that make baseball gloves, belts, and western boots, and Justin boots started here, it is still a small town with a population of just over 3,000. The very thin phone book covered five towns and had just 22 yellow pages. But the Nokona Inn, on the main street rather than along the highway, was luxurious. My room was large, with a king size bed, two sinks, a microwave and a mini-frig. The Inn was two stories and all rooms had inside entrances onto a wide hallway gussied up with plants, pictures, chairs and small tables, a magazine rack, and coffee in the morning. I think I was one of two customers, and it was the most expensive since the Best Western near Joshua Tree National Park, California in March. I paid $50.85 including tax. I used the microwave to heat up the last of the leftover vegan food my hostess at The Farm sent with me. The next morning, I used a plastic fly swatter to scrape the frost off the windshield of the van and started out for Lubbock.
My intention in Lubbock was to search for Buddy Holly. I knew there was a Buddy Holly museum, but didn’t know where. I hoped to see billboards or signs, but alas, saw none. I came into town on US 82; I guess tourist destination signs are only erected along interstates. It was also late afternoon when I got to Lubbock (I had stopped to photograph some cotton gins), and it was Monday, so I told myself the museum might not even be open and headed north to Amarillo.
Rip-off in Amarillo
By now Amarillo was my only choice for the night, and the motel coupon books led me to the Fifth Season Inn on the west side of town. I was grateful to have an address for the GPS to aim for, because I was driving in rush hour traffic facing the setting sun and had to depend on Miss Brooks telling me when to turn. The Fifth Season Inn was a three-story building with an elegantly furnished reception area, a “tropical atrium and unique fountain” (their words), nice big indoor swimming pool and spa, glass-walled elevators, and free hot breakfast – all for just under $35. How could I resist!
But appearances can be deceiving. The room was a different story after first glance. The carpeting, drapes, and bathroom fixtures were a little shabby, one window was cracked and taped, and the TV remote was missing. And worse yet, the next morning all my camping gear was missing from the top of the van.
I carried all my camping gear in a large gray waterproof bag sort of thing called a piggyback rooftop carrier, and it was attached to the roof rack with strong black straps. The thief (or thieves) had cut the straps and lifted the whole thing off. When I told the hotel manager and Amarillo policeman that I thought I was in a decent part of town, they said it was – had I chosen the east side, I wouldn’t have been. Whew! However, they said drug dealers had been working out of the Fifth Season until new management recently took over and got rid of them. Apparently some of the riffraff was still prowling around. I just googled the Fifth Season Inn and it looks pretty posh, with some rave reviews. So how the heck can you tell what’s safe and what’s not?
I didn’t let the theft spoil the rest of the trip, as I still had my cot and sleeping bags in the van, as well as all my cooking gear. To cheer myself up, I bought a new fancy camp chair with a footrest.
Why I Didn’t Stop in Albuqueque
Albuquerque was another one of those places I approached at rush hour and sunset, and the freeway warning sign said “Albuquerque Next 17 Exits.” Enough said. An hour later, I was in Grants had my choice of many big costly chain motels and locally-owned cheaper ones. So of course I chose the Desert Sun Motel, $19.95, with a very well lit parking lot where I could park the van right outside the door of my room. Here again, first appearances are deceiving. There were three fancily folded washcloths in the bathroom, one in a basket and one in a glass (and the other, if you’re counting, on the towel rack), and a black triangle-shaped corner table Frank Lloyd Wright could have designed.
Exploring Again in New Mexico
After so many days of just driving, it felt good to be somewhere with interesting places to explore. I began at the New Mexico Mining Museum in Grants. It’s a replica of – are you ready for this – a uranium mine. Yup, that radioactive stuff used for nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants, that causes lung cancer, pulmonary fibrosis, silicosis, tuberculosis, birth defects, and more. But it’s the only uranium mine museum in the world, and the way the mine tour is designed is really interesting. I was the only visitor in the dimly lit underground mine, but so many of the real miners were with me that I didn’t feel claustrophobic at all. At each tour stop, I pushed a button and heard the recorded voice of someone who had worked there for 25-30 years (and survived, obviously) explaining what was done at that particular spot. My strongest memory today is the lunchroom, with the dogtag bulletin board system of keeping track of where every miner was so they’d be sure not to blast when someone was still in the mine. I also got a kick out of the miners microwave circa 1950s – a metal box with high-heat light bulbs inside to warm up their lunches. Interesting that real microwaves use another radioactive metal, radium. I did some research and learned that the first microwave oven was called a radarange, was the size of a refrigerator, and cost $2,000 to $3,000. That was in 1947. By 1967, they’d shrunk to today’s large countertop size and cost $500.
Grants (population 8,800) was also where I found a real Internet café, with a row of computers available for the use of paying customers. For me, this was what you call a no-brainer – I would have eaten there anyway. I had delicious vegetarian minestrone soup, a big dense muffin, and strong iced tea made with espresso (after I explained how to make it). After checking my e-mail, I studied some brochures I’d picked up at the Mining Museum and realized I was so close to two national monuments that I could see them both that afternoon.
El Malpais, which means the badlands, was the second area of lava flows I’d seen this year, and if my balance were better, I could have walked through a lava tube. But lava is not easy to walk on, so I just hiked three miles round trip along mostly dirt paths to El Calderon cinder cone overlook. On the way back I saw what I thought were two tarantulas (solo, not together) very purposefully crossing the path – they didn’t even pause when I bent down for a closer look. At just over two inches across, hairy legs and all, they were smaller than the only other tarantula I’ve seen so I wasn’t sure. Later, back in California, I consulted two experts. A biology instructor said the area was right and fall is tarantula mating season, so they probably were guy tarantulas looking for sex. And when Peter reached into his freezer and got out the frozen corpse of poor dead Doris, his dear departed pet tarantula and the only one I’d previously been acquainted with, I looked closely and knew that I had indeed seen two smaller male tarantulas that would have been delighted if they’d met Doris when she was alive. http://www.desertusa.com/july96/du_taran.html has the most relevant photos and information for U.S. desert tarantulas.
When I got to El Morro National Monument, I found I could camp there for free because it was late in the season, the water was turned off, and it got down to the 30s at night. The price was right and I knew my sleeping bag would keep me warm, so I chose a spot that would get morning sun and settled in. Earlier, I had hiked around El Morro, which is a tall mesa-point with inscriptions carved into it dating back to 1605. This was before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. The earliest inscriptions are in Spanish, as Spain governed New Mexico then. Emigrants to California added their inscriptions in the 1800s, and all were mostly the “I was here…” type, for example:
The 18th day of September of 1737, arrived here the illustrious Senor Don Martin
de Elizacoches, Bishop of Durango, and the day following, went on to Zuni.
There are also undated and untranslated petroglyphs. On top of the mesa lie the ruins of a pueblo built about AD 1275 by early Zuni Indians. The following morning I would have attempted the two mile round trip hike up there if there hadn’t been a cold wind. Too bad – the view from the top must be stunning. Maybe another time, another season. Besides, I had the Petrified Forest in my sights.
Painted Desert and Petrified Forest – Finally
Ever since I was a child, I was intrigued by a smooth piece of petrified wood on my grandmother’s whatnot shelf and wanted to see where it came from. So it was thrilling to finally get there, but I didn’t see the same place Hazel and Ernie Henline saw. People keep stealing petrified wood for souvenirs, and there are guards at the entrances who have the right to search visitors. Still, there was enough left to amaze me.
I was unprepared for the size and simplicity of the Petrified Forest National Park, which includes the Painted Desert. Everything you need to, or can, see or hike to is near a single 28-mile drive-through road, and it takes one day max. Besides trees turned to stone, there are two visitors centers, a commercial gift shop and restaurant, lots of Painted Desert overlooks, ruins of an 800-year-old pueblo, and several places to see petroglyphs from afar (to protect them from further defacement). I learned that Arizona’s petrified forest isn’t the only one – a display in one visitors center had examples of petrified wood from all 50 states.
One last cheap motel, this time in Holbrook, before I got to Tucson. The only thing memorable at the Western Holiday Motel was the multi-use continental breakfast area. Tables and chairs were set up in the lobby, and when I checked out they were occupied by men from India socializing over tea. The motel was run by Asian Indians (not an uncommon occurrence in the west) so I wasn’t surprised.
Fort Apache
I was aiming for Fort Apache now. I had been there in March but the Fort Apache Museum was closed so all I could do then was walk the meditation labyrinth and vow to return. I passed through two towns with interesting names. Snowflake was named after two Mormon bishops, Snow and Flake, who founded the town. I learned this from a descendent, Rolf Flake, at a cowboy poetry gathering in Sierra Vista, AZ in February. Show Low has a less holy origin. It was named after a winning hand in a poker game and the town’s main street, Deuce of Clubs, was named after the winning card. South of Show Low is Pinetop, which reminded me of Bass Lake or Lake Tahoe in California, or any other scenic wooded area where people with excess money buy second homes behind long walls and security gates. A small shopping center catered to their needs, with a gourmet food store, expensive deli, and other upscale shops.
You can bet I saw quite a contrast driving into the town of Fort Apache, on the White Mountain Apache Reservation. The first sign of commerce was a supermarket in an aging building, with what looked like a flea market going on around the perimeter of the parking lot. Naturally I stopped. Along with the used clothes and household goods, people were selling roasted and salted pinon nuts, and homemade food items kept warm in Styrofoam containers, such as tamales, burritos, and frybread and beans. One vendor offered a friendly “Hi, how ya doin’,” so I asked if this happened every Friday. She said yes, but on tribal paydays it started on Thursday and lasted through Sunday. Of course I bought frybread and beans.
At the Fort Apache Museum, employees spoke in their native tongue to each other. So did the storyteller in a video I watched. He told the Apache creation story. My sister, a storyteller, tells me every culture has a creation story, some involving turtles or other animals. In the Apache version, creation began with a man and woman made of mud. Now that’s poverty, and a great imagination.
The fort itself began as a U.S. Army installation in the 1870s. Apache scouts were engaged to help the Army fight other Native Americans, also Pancho Villa in Mexico in 1916. The Army left Fort Apache in 1922, and a year later the Theodore Roosevelt Indian Boarding School took over. The White Mountain Apache Tribe-produced tour guide says “… thousands of Native American children … were often involuntarily taken from their families and brought here to be indoctrinated into Anglo-American society.” The school remains active, hopefully on Apache terms today.
Entering an open door in the adjutants office building (1876, adobe), I found an operational post office so bought stamps – with Navajo rugs on them; very appropriate. I also walked the labyrinth again, mostly to see if I could figure out the pattern after recently finishing a book, a novel called “Larry’s Party,” in which the main character designs mazes. I figured it out, and I’m not telling.
Since admission to the museum included a pass to nearby Kinishba Ruins, I went there even though it was early afternoon and I still had about 200 miles to drive to Tucson. Fort Apache is really off the beaten path and I might never get there again (even for frybread and beans). Ancestors of today’s Zuni and Hopi Pueblo tribes built and occupied the village at Kinishba between 800 and the 1400s AD. In the 1930s, faculty and students from the University of Arizona, as well as Apache workers, excavated and rebuilt portions of the village, as well as built a new museum and later a guesthouse. All are now abandoned and falling into a state of further decay. The village rebuilding “made liberal use of cement, saw-cut lumber, tin, and imagination” so it’s not exactly authentic and the visitor guidebook is a necessity.
In retrospect, I was here on just the right day, a Friday when both the museum and flea market were open. If you decide to visit, I recommend you plan for a Friday and visit both.
Tucson at last!
I had two reasons for visiting Tucson and friends Merlin and Lee again. Lee, a diabetic, had some recent health issues, causing them to cancel a trip, so I thought my visit would cheer them up a bit. Also, my sister and her husband, who live near LA, would be in Phoenix in early November and we planned to get together.
The two weeks I spent in Tucson went by very quickly. Merlin and Lee, also retired and loving it, are deeply involved in an organization for gay men called MSN (Mens Social Network) and I tagged along to activities such as charades and Scrabble night, a discussion group at a coffeehouse near the University, and we were invited to two dinners and one lunch at homes of friends of theirs. If only straight older women had such a network! Although I attended one meeting of a group I thought would be similar, the Tucson Desert Crones, the discussion topic was way unbelievable to me (healing by holding the correct finger, or jin shin jyutsu) and I was really disappointed.
Although Glenn the astronomer had left Tucson for greener pastures in Hawaii, Dave the astronomer was still there and suggested we take in an event at Tucson’s independent movie house. Award-winning animator Bill Plympton was present for a screening of some of his short films, a talk, drawing demo, and Q&A session. I had never heard of him, but am now a fan. His animation is like nothing I’ve seen before, and he has a very active and odd imagination. His topics are certainly not Disney, but his “The Fan and the Flower” film is family fare. It’s a love story about a ceiling fan and a potted plant. Check out www.plymptoons.com.
On November 4, Merlin, Lee, I, my sister Marsha and her husband Terry met in Globe, chosen because it’s roughly halfway between Tucson and Phoenix, and we all wanted to visit Besh-Ba-Gowah Archaeological Park nearby. However, it’s been at least 15 years since we’ve all been together so we spent most of the day talking. First we wandered and talked through the Cobre Valley Center for the Arts, housed in the 1906 Old Gila County Courthouse. Then we ate and talked through a lunch of Indian tacos ($5 each). FYI, Indian tacos are made with the usual taco ingredients but served on a big piece of flat, puffy frybread. Then we visited Besh-Ba-Gowah, watched the video, went through the small museum, and walked through some of the 300 rooms of a pueblo inhabited AD 1225-1400 by Salado Indians. But mostly we sat at a picnic table, talked, and showed vacation photos. Marsha and Terry hiked 50 miles along the Rogue River in Oregon this spring on a five-day Sierra Club trip, and more recently had driven to the Grand Tetons in Wyoming. You know how children often rebel by doing the opposite of what their parents did? Well, Marsha and I seem to do that by traveling, because our parents never took us on any vacations. (Well, our dad worked a lot, even on weekends.)
California Here I Come
I drove the approximately 800 miles from Tucson to San Jose in two and one-half days, leaving Tucson about noon and spending the first night at Burro Creek Recreation Site, a BLM facility about 100 miles north of Phoenix. It felt really good being out among mesquite and palo verde trees, Saguaro cactus and Joshua trees. The campground hosts, the Broussards, had just retired from teaching in Louisiana this year, selling their home 50 miles north of New Orleans in May. Mr. Broussard last taught on one of the islands outside New Orleans in the gulf, and talked about how Hurricane Katrina had interrupted his former students’ education. He had promised to return for graduation in 2006, but now the big questions were how many students were still there, and could they catch up and graduate on schedule. Mr. Broussard was an authentic Cajun, whose ancestors had been forced out of Acadia, Canada and ended up in Louisiana with many other refugees.
After leaving the Burro Creek camp, Miss Brooks the GPS decided to take me over about 40 miles of dirt road because it was the shortest route to I-40. She didn’t know I’d only be going between 15 and 40 miles per hour. Some of the desert area I passed had for sale signs and real street signs at the crossroads. Apparently someone hopes to develop the land. If you’ve bought any real estate between Wickieup and Yucca, AZ, I’ve seen it and it’s dry, windy, and barren. Sorry.
This may sound sad, but I would say the highlight of the rest of the trip was the Burger King in Mojave, CA. First of all, I knew I was definitely in California because they not only had veggie burgers, but a veggie burger meal deal. Of course I got the Star Trek watch, with Yoda on the watchband, for an extra $2.
After a night in a Mojave Motel 6, it was all Bakersfield, I-5, Hecker Pass and 101 into San Jose. Once a truck honked gently as it passed me on I-5, and I saw the name on the door was Juan Manuel Trucking. Then I remembered my “Honk if you’ve seen La Llorona” bumper sticker. Briefly, La Llorona, or the weeping woman, is a Hispanic folk tale about a woman whose unfaithful husband wants to leave her, so she takes her rage out on their two children and drowns them in the river, then jumps in the river herself and drowns. Her ghost can be seen sometimes at night, weeping and wailing for her children. Maybe Juan was telling me he’d seen her. My sister, who tells this story to groups of children and adults, says sometimes a Mexican child (or adult) will; tell her they’ve seen La Llorona.
End of Sermon
These newsletters have been fun to write, even though I’m a very slow writer. That’s because I go through the tourist information I’ve gathered up, and my journals, and do Internet research, before I even begin a draft. But this is good for me, because it provides valuable documentation for me of my first year of retirement travel, which is a darn good thing as my memory isn’t that good! This is my last newsletter of 2005, except for the oft-promised music festival special edition that I’ll work on next. I haven’t planned next year’s adventures beyond a two-week study abroad class on the Natural History of Costa Rica in early January. Yes, I’ll be getting out of the U.S., finally!
Happy holidays, everyone –
The next morning, a Monday, there was still little traffic, and I had found the addresses of the library and a supermarket in the phone book. Although Sharonville is a suburb, it has a downtown with old historic buildings and a clean, well-cared for look. The library was next to a community center, and both were large modern buildings across from a big, well-manicured park. I didn’t encounter real traffic until I neared the Kroger supermarket in a newish shopping center, because it’s near a freeway entrance and gas stations. This Kroger, in the same family as Ralph’s, City Market, King Soopers and Fry’s (pick your state) was very upscale, with an impressive soup and salad bar and picnic tables outside. The newspaper left on the table was a Wall Street Journal, an indication of the demographics of the area. My seven-year-old van may have been the oldest and dirtiest vehicle in the parking lot. I learned later the population of Sharonville is about 14,000, and the population of Cincinnati is about 325,000. Boy, did I make the right choice!
The GPS
I just re-read newsletters 1-8, and saw a few references to my GPS but no details. At my 64th birthday celebration in late December, 2004, I was presented with a Magellan GPS, and I was numb with surprise because I knew those critters are costly. I left it in the hands of my family to figure out how it worked and explain it to me. After three of them played around with it, they realized it wasn’t user-friendly enough for me. So Kelly got a refund, did more research, and in February sent me a Garman StreetPilot and two pages of simplified instructions (including “Do not choose the offroad option!”).
Friends, the Garman was indeed user-friendly and from the time I received it, I relied on it nearly every driving day, and especially at night. Here’s how it works.
The GPS (aka global positioning system) knows where it is by communicating with two or more of the 24 satellites in constant orbit around the earth. Inside is a mini-computer containing detailed maps of the U.S. Mine has a touch-screen that I use to enter a destination, such as a town, street address, intersection, point of interest (such as a national park) or even a restaurant that can be chosen from a list in its memory. Once it has its instructions, the screen becomes a map with a wide purple line that shows the route, and an arrow that moves along the route to show my progress. It also shows estimated arrival time, plus miles and hours or minutes till the next turn, which count down as we drive along. The screen also shows me the name of the highway or street I’m on, and the exit number or street name I’m heading for.
But the best part is the voice that tells me things like “Drive 7 point 4 miles north,” “in point 5 miles turn left,” and “in 500 feet arriving at destination on right.” It’s a female voice that reminds me of Eve Arden, who portrayed a high school teacher in a radio, and later television, show called “Our Miss Brooks.” So I refer to the GPS as Miss Brooks. She sounds very much like a teacher when I’ve missed a turn – she’ll say “Off route. Recalculating … “ and gives me new directions. A friend swears she heard someone else’s GPS say “I told you to turn right!” but Miss Brooks has never said that to me – yet. She has rescued me innumerable times, especially when it’s dark and raining and I can’t read the street signs or building numbers. The estimated arrival time is very helpful too (are we there yet?). If you get one on my recommendation – and I recommend it highly to all frequent travelers – here are some caveats.
Very recently built streets aren’t in the system’s maps
Sometimes satellite reception is blocked, such as in a tunnel or in the midst of tall buildings (such as downtown Chicago)
She won’t know about local shortcuts, road work or detours
She led me over 40 miles of dirt road in northwest Arizona because it was the shortest route. But we weren’t lost!! The moral is: look at a map too, to be sure the GPS’s choice is a sensible one.
In the Land of Cotton
I have been in the land of cotton, and it was Mississippi and parts of northern Texas. Even while driving the Natchez Trace through a corner of Alabama and southwest to Tupelo, MS, I saw cottonfields interspersed among the forested areas. But they definitely dominated my route between Tupelo and the state line at the Mississippi River. My goal at this point was to arrive in Tucson one week hence, so I didn’t dawdle much after camping at Tombigbee State Park right off the Natchez Trace on October 21. I made a u-turn once to make sure the historic marker in the middle of nowhere really did say it was the birthplace of blues musician Mississippi John Hurt. I stopped soon after, at Greenwood, MS in the Mississippi delta, when I saw a sign for Cottonlandia Museum. Greenwood is at the junction of the Yazoo and Tallahatchie Rivers – don’t you just love those names? I was really in confederate territory here, and the two museum volunteers were actual southern gentlemen. When I volunteered at the Capitola History Museum near Santa Cruz, CA, I wore jeans and a tee shirt or sweatshirt. These guys, who must have been at least in their seventies, wore white shirts, ties, and dress pants. One of them was a retired cotton farmer, so as he escorted me around the exhibits he was able to explain how cotton was picked and processed. He told me I’d find a lot of cottonfields and mills around Lubbock, TX too, and I did. I stole a cotton boll from a field and, although it feels soft and fluffy, there’s a bunch of lumps (seeds) that have to be separated from the usable stuff. While driving, I saw a lot of baled cotton in solid bundles about the size of small boxcars waiting to get trucked to the gin mills before getting turned into consumer goods either in the U.S. or abroad. I was hoping to see the cotton being machine-picked, mostly to see if the plantation owners hired blacks to do that now that it’s no longer stoop labor, but alas I never did.
Another major type of farming in this area is what is nicely known as aquaculture, but it means catfish farming. The, um, product is called cultured channel catfish. I wonder if these cultured creatures have soft southern accents and wear dress shirts and ties before getting scooped out of their watery estates and sold for people food.
After crossing the Mississippi River on Route 82, I was in southern Arkansas, the sun was setting, the Arkansas Welcome Center in Lake Village was closed and the restrooms locked, no motels or campgrounds were evident, and I had to drive half-way across the state before I found a populated area with motels. Fortunately, it was less than 100 miles to El Dorado and the Flamingo Motel, another cheap but adequate place that was pointed out to me by the desk clerk at a motel across the street that had no non-smoking rooms.
Looking for lunch the next day, I passed a lot of Sonic Drive-Ins that look cool and retro but have no food for me – not even a salad. Finally I spotted a Burger King. In this part of the country, I brake for Burger Kings because they have veggieburgers and their senior citizen deal is usually a free beverage. (Cheap travel hint: if you’re age-eligible for a senior discount, always ask. I was never asked to show proof of age – darn.) It was Sunday, and several elegantly dressed black couples were dining there after church. Black folks sure have a sense of style – a portly broad-shouldered black gentleman looked really good in a navy pin-striped suit, impeccably tailored with the coat longer than usual.
If you look at a map, you’ll see my route went along Southern Arkansas directly into northern Texas at Texarkana. That city is in both Arkansas (pop. 26,448) and Texas (pop. 120,132). The state line is a street named State Line Street, and the federal building there straddles the state line. An intriguing listing in the AAA tour book for the Ace of Clubs House led me there even though I knew it would be closed. It couldn’t be hard to miss, I thought, and I was right. Yup, it looked like a club from a deck of cards, with three round clover leaf-shaped corners. Built in 1885, the local legend is that an area lumberman and Civil War veteran (confederate side) built it with his winnings from a poker game won with the draw of an ace of clubs. (http://www.texarkanamuseums.org/ace_of_clubs_house.htm) I also happened upon a mural celebrating Scott Joplin, the king of ragtime piano music. He was born nearby in 1868 and received his early musical training in Texarkana – the Texas side.
Texas, Texas, and more Texas
I spent two nights in Texas. Days, I just drove, staying on US 82 just south of the Red River which is the border between Texas and Oklahoma. Texas didn’t look any different than Arkansas until I got past Paris, when it really began to flatten out and open up. Trees disappeared, and grazing cattle and ranch entrances took over. The ranches were huge – I seldom saw any buildings. The standard formal entrance to a ranch is a tall arch over the driveway, with the name of the ranch across the top. One name I saw ended in .com, although I think that was really for a business. I drove on a highway rather than an interstate to avoid Dallas, and besides, I was headed to Albuquerque which is further north than Dallas anyway. But US 82 went through very small towns with no motels, so I was happy to see some signs pointing to the Nokona Inn when I got to that city around dusk. Although Nokona is home to leather goods factories that make baseball gloves, belts, and western boots, and Justin boots started here, it is still a small town with a population of just over 3,000. The very thin phone book covered five towns and had just 22 yellow pages. But the Nokona Inn, on the main street rather than along the highway, was luxurious. My room was large, with a king size bed, two sinks, a microwave and a mini-frig. The Inn was two stories and all rooms had inside entrances onto a wide hallway gussied up with plants, pictures, chairs and small tables, a magazine rack, and coffee in the morning. I think I was one of two customers, and it was the most expensive since the Best Western near Joshua Tree National Park, California in March. I paid $50.85 including tax. I used the microwave to heat up the last of the leftover vegan food my hostess at The Farm sent with me. The next morning, I used a plastic fly swatter to scrape the frost off the windshield of the van and started out for Lubbock.
My intention in Lubbock was to search for Buddy Holly. I knew there was a Buddy Holly museum, but didn’t know where. I hoped to see billboards or signs, but alas, saw none. I came into town on US 82; I guess tourist destination signs are only erected along interstates. It was also late afternoon when I got to Lubbock (I had stopped to photograph some cotton gins), and it was Monday, so I told myself the museum might not even be open and headed north to Amarillo.
Rip-off in Amarillo
By now Amarillo was my only choice for the night, and the motel coupon books led me to the Fifth Season Inn on the west side of town. I was grateful to have an address for the GPS to aim for, because I was driving in rush hour traffic facing the setting sun and had to depend on Miss Brooks telling me when to turn. The Fifth Season Inn was a three-story building with an elegantly furnished reception area, a “tropical atrium and unique fountain” (their words), nice big indoor swimming pool and spa, glass-walled elevators, and free hot breakfast – all for just under $35. How could I resist!
But appearances can be deceiving. The room was a different story after first glance. The carpeting, drapes, and bathroom fixtures were a little shabby, one window was cracked and taped, and the TV remote was missing. And worse yet, the next morning all my camping gear was missing from the top of the van.
I carried all my camping gear in a large gray waterproof bag sort of thing called a piggyback rooftop carrier, and it was attached to the roof rack with strong black straps. The thief (or thieves) had cut the straps and lifted the whole thing off. When I told the hotel manager and Amarillo policeman that I thought I was in a decent part of town, they said it was – had I chosen the east side, I wouldn’t have been. Whew! However, they said drug dealers had been working out of the Fifth Season until new management recently took over and got rid of them. Apparently some of the riffraff was still prowling around. I just googled the Fifth Season Inn and it looks pretty posh, with some rave reviews. So how the heck can you tell what’s safe and what’s not?
I didn’t let the theft spoil the rest of the trip, as I still had my cot and sleeping bags in the van, as well as all my cooking gear. To cheer myself up, I bought a new fancy camp chair with a footrest.
Why I Didn’t Stop in Albuqueque
Albuquerque was another one of those places I approached at rush hour and sunset, and the freeway warning sign said “Albuquerque Next 17 Exits.” Enough said. An hour later, I was in Grants had my choice of many big costly chain motels and locally-owned cheaper ones. So of course I chose the Desert Sun Motel, $19.95, with a very well lit parking lot where I could park the van right outside the door of my room. Here again, first appearances are deceiving. There were three fancily folded washcloths in the bathroom, one in a basket and one in a glass (and the other, if you’re counting, on the towel rack), and a black triangle-shaped corner table Frank Lloyd Wright could have designed.
Exploring Again in New Mexico
After so many days of just driving, it felt good to be somewhere with interesting places to explore. I began at the New Mexico Mining Museum in Grants. It’s a replica of – are you ready for this – a uranium mine. Yup, that radioactive stuff used for nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants, that causes lung cancer, pulmonary fibrosis, silicosis, tuberculosis, birth defects, and more. But it’s the only uranium mine museum in the world, and the way the mine tour is designed is really interesting. I was the only visitor in the dimly lit underground mine, but so many of the real miners were with me that I didn’t feel claustrophobic at all. At each tour stop, I pushed a button and heard the recorded voice of someone who had worked there for 25-30 years (and survived, obviously) explaining what was done at that particular spot. My strongest memory today is the lunchroom, with the dogtag bulletin board system of keeping track of where every miner was so they’d be sure not to blast when someone was still in the mine. I also got a kick out of the miners microwave circa 1950s – a metal box with high-heat light bulbs inside to warm up their lunches. Interesting that real microwaves use another radioactive metal, radium. I did some research and learned that the first microwave oven was called a radarange, was the size of a refrigerator, and cost $2,000 to $3,000. That was in 1947. By 1967, they’d shrunk to today’s large countertop size and cost $500.
Grants (population 8,800) was also where I found a real Internet café, with a row of computers available for the use of paying customers. For me, this was what you call a no-brainer – I would have eaten there anyway. I had delicious vegetarian minestrone soup, a big dense muffin, and strong iced tea made with espresso (after I explained how to make it). After checking my e-mail, I studied some brochures I’d picked up at the Mining Museum and realized I was so close to two national monuments that I could see them both that afternoon.
El Malpais, which means the badlands, was the second area of lava flows I’d seen this year, and if my balance were better, I could have walked through a lava tube. But lava is not easy to walk on, so I just hiked three miles round trip along mostly dirt paths to El Calderon cinder cone overlook. On the way back I saw what I thought were two tarantulas (solo, not together) very purposefully crossing the path – they didn’t even pause when I bent down for a closer look. At just over two inches across, hairy legs and all, they were smaller than the only other tarantula I’ve seen so I wasn’t sure. Later, back in California, I consulted two experts. A biology instructor said the area was right and fall is tarantula mating season, so they probably were guy tarantulas looking for sex. And when Peter reached into his freezer and got out the frozen corpse of poor dead Doris, his dear departed pet tarantula and the only one I’d previously been acquainted with, I looked closely and knew that I had indeed seen two smaller male tarantulas that would have been delighted if they’d met Doris when she was alive. http://www.desertusa.com/july96/du_taran.html has the most relevant photos and information for U.S. desert tarantulas.
When I got to El Morro National Monument, I found I could camp there for free because it was late in the season, the water was turned off, and it got down to the 30s at night. The price was right and I knew my sleeping bag would keep me warm, so I chose a spot that would get morning sun and settled in. Earlier, I had hiked around El Morro, which is a tall mesa-point with inscriptions carved into it dating back to 1605. This was before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. The earliest inscriptions are in Spanish, as Spain governed New Mexico then. Emigrants to California added their inscriptions in the 1800s, and all were mostly the “I was here…” type, for example:
The 18th day of September of 1737, arrived here the illustrious Senor Don Martin
de Elizacoches, Bishop of Durango, and the day following, went on to Zuni.
There are also undated and untranslated petroglyphs. On top of the mesa lie the ruins of a pueblo built about AD 1275 by early Zuni Indians. The following morning I would have attempted the two mile round trip hike up there if there hadn’t been a cold wind. Too bad – the view from the top must be stunning. Maybe another time, another season. Besides, I had the Petrified Forest in my sights.
Painted Desert and Petrified Forest – Finally
Ever since I was a child, I was intrigued by a smooth piece of petrified wood on my grandmother’s whatnot shelf and wanted to see where it came from. So it was thrilling to finally get there, but I didn’t see the same place Hazel and Ernie Henline saw. People keep stealing petrified wood for souvenirs, and there are guards at the entrances who have the right to search visitors. Still, there was enough left to amaze me.
I was unprepared for the size and simplicity of the Petrified Forest National Park, which includes the Painted Desert. Everything you need to, or can, see or hike to is near a single 28-mile drive-through road, and it takes one day max. Besides trees turned to stone, there are two visitors centers, a commercial gift shop and restaurant, lots of Painted Desert overlooks, ruins of an 800-year-old pueblo, and several places to see petroglyphs from afar (to protect them from further defacement). I learned that Arizona’s petrified forest isn’t the only one – a display in one visitors center had examples of petrified wood from all 50 states.
One last cheap motel, this time in Holbrook, before I got to Tucson. The only thing memorable at the Western Holiday Motel was the multi-use continental breakfast area. Tables and chairs were set up in the lobby, and when I checked out they were occupied by men from India socializing over tea. The motel was run by Asian Indians (not an uncommon occurrence in the west) so I wasn’t surprised.
Fort Apache
I was aiming for Fort Apache now. I had been there in March but the Fort Apache Museum was closed so all I could do then was walk the meditation labyrinth and vow to return. I passed through two towns with interesting names. Snowflake was named after two Mormon bishops, Snow and Flake, who founded the town. I learned this from a descendent, Rolf Flake, at a cowboy poetry gathering in Sierra Vista, AZ in February. Show Low has a less holy origin. It was named after a winning hand in a poker game and the town’s main street, Deuce of Clubs, was named after the winning card. South of Show Low is Pinetop, which reminded me of Bass Lake or Lake Tahoe in California, or any other scenic wooded area where people with excess money buy second homes behind long walls and security gates. A small shopping center catered to their needs, with a gourmet food store, expensive deli, and other upscale shops.
You can bet I saw quite a contrast driving into the town of Fort Apache, on the White Mountain Apache Reservation. The first sign of commerce was a supermarket in an aging building, with what looked like a flea market going on around the perimeter of the parking lot. Naturally I stopped. Along with the used clothes and household goods, people were selling roasted and salted pinon nuts, and homemade food items kept warm in Styrofoam containers, such as tamales, burritos, and frybread and beans. One vendor offered a friendly “Hi, how ya doin’,” so I asked if this happened every Friday. She said yes, but on tribal paydays it started on Thursday and lasted through Sunday. Of course I bought frybread and beans.
At the Fort Apache Museum, employees spoke in their native tongue to each other. So did the storyteller in a video I watched. He told the Apache creation story. My sister, a storyteller, tells me every culture has a creation story, some involving turtles or other animals. In the Apache version, creation began with a man and woman made of mud. Now that’s poverty, and a great imagination.
The fort itself began as a U.S. Army installation in the 1870s. Apache scouts were engaged to help the Army fight other Native Americans, also Pancho Villa in Mexico in 1916. The Army left Fort Apache in 1922, and a year later the Theodore Roosevelt Indian Boarding School took over. The White Mountain Apache Tribe-produced tour guide says “… thousands of Native American children … were often involuntarily taken from their families and brought here to be indoctrinated into Anglo-American society.” The school remains active, hopefully on Apache terms today.
Entering an open door in the adjutants office building (1876, adobe), I found an operational post office so bought stamps – with Navajo rugs on them; very appropriate. I also walked the labyrinth again, mostly to see if I could figure out the pattern after recently finishing a book, a novel called “Larry’s Party,” in which the main character designs mazes. I figured it out, and I’m not telling.
Since admission to the museum included a pass to nearby Kinishba Ruins, I went there even though it was early afternoon and I still had about 200 miles to drive to Tucson. Fort Apache is really off the beaten path and I might never get there again (even for frybread and beans). Ancestors of today’s Zuni and Hopi Pueblo tribes built and occupied the village at Kinishba between 800 and the 1400s AD. In the 1930s, faculty and students from the University of Arizona, as well as Apache workers, excavated and rebuilt portions of the village, as well as built a new museum and later a guesthouse. All are now abandoned and falling into a state of further decay. The village rebuilding “made liberal use of cement, saw-cut lumber, tin, and imagination” so it’s not exactly authentic and the visitor guidebook is a necessity.
In retrospect, I was here on just the right day, a Friday when both the museum and flea market were open. If you decide to visit, I recommend you plan for a Friday and visit both.
Tucson at last!
I had two reasons for visiting Tucson and friends Merlin and Lee again. Lee, a diabetic, had some recent health issues, causing them to cancel a trip, so I thought my visit would cheer them up a bit. Also, my sister and her husband, who live near LA, would be in Phoenix in early November and we planned to get together.
The two weeks I spent in Tucson went by very quickly. Merlin and Lee, also retired and loving it, are deeply involved in an organization for gay men called MSN (Mens Social Network) and I tagged along to activities such as charades and Scrabble night, a discussion group at a coffeehouse near the University, and we were invited to two dinners and one lunch at homes of friends of theirs. If only straight older women had such a network! Although I attended one meeting of a group I thought would be similar, the Tucson Desert Crones, the discussion topic was way unbelievable to me (healing by holding the correct finger, or jin shin jyutsu) and I was really disappointed.
Although Glenn the astronomer had left Tucson for greener pastures in Hawaii, Dave the astronomer was still there and suggested we take in an event at Tucson’s independent movie house. Award-winning animator Bill Plympton was present for a screening of some of his short films, a talk, drawing demo, and Q&A session. I had never heard of him, but am now a fan. His animation is like nothing I’ve seen before, and he has a very active and odd imagination. His topics are certainly not Disney, but his “The Fan and the Flower” film is family fare. It’s a love story about a ceiling fan and a potted plant. Check out www.plymptoons.com.
On November 4, Merlin, Lee, I, my sister Marsha and her husband Terry met in Globe, chosen because it’s roughly halfway between Tucson and Phoenix, and we all wanted to visit Besh-Ba-Gowah Archaeological Park nearby. However, it’s been at least 15 years since we’ve all been together so we spent most of the day talking. First we wandered and talked through the Cobre Valley Center for the Arts, housed in the 1906 Old Gila County Courthouse. Then we ate and talked through a lunch of Indian tacos ($5 each). FYI, Indian tacos are made with the usual taco ingredients but served on a big piece of flat, puffy frybread. Then we visited Besh-Ba-Gowah, watched the video, went through the small museum, and walked through some of the 300 rooms of a pueblo inhabited AD 1225-1400 by Salado Indians. But mostly we sat at a picnic table, talked, and showed vacation photos. Marsha and Terry hiked 50 miles along the Rogue River in Oregon this spring on a five-day Sierra Club trip, and more recently had driven to the Grand Tetons in Wyoming. You know how children often rebel by doing the opposite of what their parents did? Well, Marsha and I seem to do that by traveling, because our parents never took us on any vacations. (Well, our dad worked a lot, even on weekends.)
California Here I Come
I drove the approximately 800 miles from Tucson to San Jose in two and one-half days, leaving Tucson about noon and spending the first night at Burro Creek Recreation Site, a BLM facility about 100 miles north of Phoenix. It felt really good being out among mesquite and palo verde trees, Saguaro cactus and Joshua trees. The campground hosts, the Broussards, had just retired from teaching in Louisiana this year, selling their home 50 miles north of New Orleans in May. Mr. Broussard last taught on one of the islands outside New Orleans in the gulf, and talked about how Hurricane Katrina had interrupted his former students’ education. He had promised to return for graduation in 2006, but now the big questions were how many students were still there, and could they catch up and graduate on schedule. Mr. Broussard was an authentic Cajun, whose ancestors had been forced out of Acadia, Canada and ended up in Louisiana with many other refugees.
After leaving the Burro Creek camp, Miss Brooks the GPS decided to take me over about 40 miles of dirt road because it was the shortest route to I-40. She didn’t know I’d only be going between 15 and 40 miles per hour. Some of the desert area I passed had for sale signs and real street signs at the crossroads. Apparently someone hopes to develop the land. If you’ve bought any real estate between Wickieup and Yucca, AZ, I’ve seen it and it’s dry, windy, and barren. Sorry.
This may sound sad, but I would say the highlight of the rest of the trip was the Burger King in Mojave, CA. First of all, I knew I was definitely in California because they not only had veggie burgers, but a veggie burger meal deal. Of course I got the Star Trek watch, with Yoda on the watchband, for an extra $2.
After a night in a Mojave Motel 6, it was all Bakersfield, I-5, Hecker Pass and 101 into San Jose. Once a truck honked gently as it passed me on I-5, and I saw the name on the door was Juan Manuel Trucking. Then I remembered my “Honk if you’ve seen La Llorona” bumper sticker. Briefly, La Llorona, or the weeping woman, is a Hispanic folk tale about a woman whose unfaithful husband wants to leave her, so she takes her rage out on their two children and drowns them in the river, then jumps in the river herself and drowns. Her ghost can be seen sometimes at night, weeping and wailing for her children. Maybe Juan was telling me he’d seen her. My sister, who tells this story to groups of children and adults, says sometimes a Mexican child (or adult) will; tell her they’ve seen La Llorona.
End of Sermon
These newsletters have been fun to write, even though I’m a very slow writer. That’s because I go through the tourist information I’ve gathered up, and my journals, and do Internet research, before I even begin a draft. But this is good for me, because it provides valuable documentation for me of my first year of retirement travel, which is a darn good thing as my memory isn’t that good! This is my last newsletter of 2005, except for the oft-promised music festival special edition that I’ll work on next. I haven’t planned next year’s adventures beyond a two-week study abroad class on the Natural History of Costa Rica in early January. Yes, I’ll be getting out of the U.S., finally!
Happy holidays, everyone –
posted by Joan McCarthy at 3:00 PM
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