Our travels through the
Southwest March 29 to April 15, 2016
Before we left Las Cruces, NM, we made our way to Mesilla,
NM, a little town just to the south.
This little town had done a good job of preserving the “plaza” with
shops on all four sides. Even the many
of the original adobe buildings were still in use, including this building
built in 1850. It was once a courthouse,
the capitol of New Mexico, and the jail in which Billy the Kid was briefly
incarcerated.
One of the shops on the plaza in this little town was a
bookstore packed to the rafters with every title imaginable. What a find!
We liked to learn about the geology of the area in which we travel (you
may have noticed that!) and I found Roadside
Geology of New Mexico to add to our collection. Score!
Of course we had to search out the local microbrewery, which
jut happened to be down the road from the University of New Mexico at Las
Cruces. It was a very small place on a
busy corner and very popular! I don’t
know why it had this name, but they certainly knew how to brew beer
We left Las Cruces, NM, on March 29 to make our way to Odessa/Midland, Texas. This was a part of Texas that we had not explored and we were curious to learn a little bit about the Permian Oil Basin in this part of Texas. Our RV park was perfect…”Midessa Oil Patch RV Park” and, although adequate was not ritzy by any means. It was located between the two cities, in the middle of businesses geared to the oil industry.
Wednesday, March 30, we hopped in the pickup
and drove to the Permian Basin Oil Museum, just down the road. Fascinating place…we spent four hours there
exploring the outside exhibits, reading a out the geologic history of the area,
and learning how to find and drill for oil.
The outdoor displays fascinated Jerry, who applied his engineering brain
to figure it all out.
Who knew there were so many types of pumpjacks, oil
drillers, and oil wells!?! We did learn
that the oil “pockets” are not made up of lots of dead dinosaurs and ancient
flora, but made up of zillions of one-celled diatoms that lived in the ancient
seas! Someone needs to tell Sinclair Oil Company.
One would think that west Texas country full of oil drillers
would have a microbrewery or two, but nope!
The only purported microbrewery was called Garden View Beer Garden.
Behind that sign was a greenhouse!
One of the greenhouse buildings had been “converted” to a beer
garden. Not great! Sadly, the server had not knowledge of beer
and thought we should try their Budweiser products. I don't know who was more disappointed!
March 31, our last day in the area took us to University of
Texas, Permian Basin in Odessa. The school was founded in 1969, has about
7,000 students and exists to support the oil industry. The city fathers had built a replica of
Stonehenge on the campus to “draw the tourists into Odessa from I-20.” We were certainly curious. The replica had the same footprint but was
only 70% as tall as the original in England.
Someday, when we travel to Great Britain, we’ll see the real thing.
Also on the UTPB campus was the Presidential Archives and Leadership Library. After the assassination of John Kennedy, the
folks of Odessa began developing an archive (museum) dedicated to the office of
the Presidency. It was quite impressive! The best part was the
docent, a lady in her
70’s, who loved the museum and had all sorts of facts to impart. Her favorite president was Dwight Eisenhower
and she made sure his display in the library was the best.
The first home of George H W and Barbara Bush had been
placed on the library grounds. It was a
very modest home for a little family of 3.
George said it was here in Odessa that he and Barbara learned to be
Texans. We also visited the boyhood home
of George W Bush in Midland. This house,
a little more robust, was still quite modest.
These Texans are proud of the Bush’s!
Friday, April 1, we departed Odessa in the middle of quite a
rainstorm. Can you see how deep the
water is on the pick-up coming toward us?
Fortunately Abe is nice and tall and we didn’t have any problems.
We headed south on US 87 and eventually US 83 to get to San
Angelo, TX. We had reservations at San
Angelo State Park for 3 nights. We don’t
often stay in state parks because Abe is pretty big and we don’t want to dodge
tree branches, but we took a change on this one and we were glad we did! We had a huge site with a view of the (dry
and distant) lake. We were about 5 miles
from town so it was even convenient!
One of the reasons we chose to stay here is because this
park is home of a bison herd and the official Texas state longhorn herd. One morning the longhorns were right up at the
fence by the road. Those horns are
amazing! This young man posed nicely!
One of the barracks housed a Telephony Museum, including these early
wall models. Jerry and I both remember
having something like the middle one in our homes on the farm.
We wandered through the park along the river near the fort
and found this working Aeromotor windmill.
We learned that Aeromotor windmills were developed by a man from
Chicago, at one point produced in Argentina, but have found a permanent home in
San Angelo. They are still being
produced and the West Texas cattlemen rely on the windmills to water their
stock to this day.
The other structure that caught our eye in the Concho River
Park was the San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts.
The dramatic roof line is visible from quite a distance and we were
sorry it was closed while we were there.
The state park was full of wild flowers and cacti and both caught
my eye.
Sunday, April 3, we found Calvary Lutheran Church in San
Angelo. We weren’t surprised to find
that we had several Lutheran churches from which to choose. This area of Texas along with the Texas hill
country, was settled by German immigrants in the mid-1800’s. This was another pretty church with a small,
aging congregation. They had a band that
led the music and projected words of hymns on the screen…neither was very
effective. We’ve come to expect coffee,
goodies, and conversation following the service, but not this time. We did visit with a man maybe even older than
us who was from the Fredericksburg area.
That’s where we were headed next and we gladly made notes on his
advice. I’ll tell you how that all
turned out later.
Monday, April 4, we were off to Kerrville, TX, and Buckhorn
Lake RV Park Resort to spend a week with RVing friends, Larry and Kathy, we had
met in California. In fact, Larry and
Kathy had asked us to join an informal RV group called “Jello Travelers”. Other Jello Travelers would be at the RV
Resort also. In the photo we’re having
breakfast at “Cracker Barrel”. We
quickly learned that this group likes to eat!
They took us to a little lunch place out in the middle of nowhere (and
that’s saying something in Texas!) called “Alamo Springs Café”. We had the best burgers on the planet!!!
We explored the town of Kerrville, on the Guadalupe
River. This view of the riverpark from
downtown gives you a glimpse of a pretty bike path that follows the river for
about 8 miles. We had a great ride!
One of our primary targets in the area was this museum in
Fredericksburg, hometown of General Nimitz.
The museum was absolutely amazing, giving the history of the struggles
between China and Japan, the bombing of Pearl Harbor and every major battle in
the Pacific. It took us two days to see
the museum and take it all in. The
museum is housed in part of the Nimitz family’s old hotel, which is the building
you see on the right in the photo.
I’m
standing by a statue of General Nimitz in the courtyard.
Fredericksburg was settled by Germans in the
mid-1800’s. We found a German restaurant
on main street to have Jager Schnitzel (veal cutlet with mushroom gravy), one
of our favorite dishes when we lived in Germany.
We were impressed that the museum acknowledged all the
branches of the service and their efforts in the war in the Pacific, including
the Merchant Marine, in which Jerry's dad Jim served. Although I didn’t
see much mentioned about P-51s specifically (Dad’s airplane), of course there
was a lot of discussion about the Army Air Corps’ contribution to the
effort. Obviously it was a lot to take
in, and I think both Jerry and I realized how much we didn’t know about this
important piece of history. 
Back at the RV resort, the photo above was a shot of some of the motor homes parked
along the RV park lake. This was quite a
place! There was even an “adults only”
section, where people younger than 16 could not go! Maybe we’ll stay in that section next
time! Our site was too small for
us…barely had room to park the truck…and we backed up against the maintenance
building. Twice the garbage truck came
at 5:30 to empty the dumpsters.
Seeing the Texas bluebonnets was also high on our list. We took several drives in
the area to enjoy the color
display. Because this part of Texas had
had a wet spring, all kinds of flowers were out in profusion. This silly photo was taken on the Willow City
Loop drive. For about a mile along this
little road, each fence post was topped with a cowboy boot. The one in the photo was particularly fancy.
I could bore you spitless with all of the flower pictures that
I took, but I won’t. I will show you this
one of Jerry and both blue-bonnets and Indian paintbrush. These two
flowers were in abundance along the roadsides. We saw pastures full of bluebonnets with a
few trees, cacti, and farm equipment added.
After we finished up with all the museums in Fredericksburg,
we drove further east to see the Lyndon Johnson Ranch. We had been here years ago with Jill and Joy
and elected not to go through the ranch house again, but took the drive through
the ranch. These huge trees along the
drive created such a pretty shady archway.
The Johnson ranch, in the middle of the Hill Country, was quite a place
to bring all those dignitaries years ago!
We had met a retired gentleman at the church in San Angelo,
who had grown up in this area. In fact,
he had attended the little Lutheran Church just across the Perdenales River from the LBJ Ranch. He encouraged us to make his old church our
Sunday morning stop, and so we did. The
photo is taken from the ranch drive, just across the river. It was a pretty church indeed (note to family
– the altar area reminded me of First Lutheran in Monmouth.)
Once again, we found a friendly welcoming church to
visit. Every church “spins” the service
a little differently and this one was no exception. Just before the sermon was “T-time”. Not tea time not golf T time but testimony
time! Rather unique for us
Lutherans! Anyway, a local vet spoke
about his experience meeting God while he treated his very sick mare. It was quite an emotional story, as you might
imagine. I felt sort of sorry for the
Pastor who had to deliver a sermon after that, but he did ok.
Tuesday, April 12, we were off to Abilene, TX, as we started
to make our way northeast toward Illinois.
We had not been to Abilene before and it seemed like a good place to
explore. We quickly learned that Abilene
is home to the museum of the 12th Armored Division. Can’t get enough of those museums! This armored division was only in existence
to fight World War II and saw action in both the Pacific and European theaters. One of the staff members told us that the
veterans from this division, now in there 80’s and 90’s, have had a very active
group to maintain the archives. We were
amazed to see so many personal pictures of these GIs during WW II, personal
letters, and uniforms of all kinds. It
was another very well done museum and we would certainly recommend it.
Thursday, April 14, we left Abilene and made the long
journey (200 miles!) to Lawton, Oklahoma, where we once lived. While Jerry was in the army in 1970 and 1971,
he took advanced training here in Fire Direction Control. Instead of using his new knowledge in Viet
Nam, he became the gardener for the commanding general of Fort Sill, Roderick
Wetherill for awhile.
We easily found the general’s house and were shocked and
appalled at the sad state of his yard!
GI Jerry would never have permitted the grass to look this shabby!
It had been a day or two since the last museum so we found
some of those to visit in Lawton/Fort sill, too. Jerry is standing in front of the field
artillery museum on the post. Apparently
it has been here for years, but we had not seen it before. This was another impressive museum,
delivering the history of artillery back to Biblical times!
Following Jerry’s stint as General Wetherill’s gardener (you
should ask him about the back story sometime!) he was sent to Babenhausen,
Germany, and was assigned to an 8-inch artillery unit. We found a similar artillery piece among the
numerous pieces of artillery displayed on the grounds of the museum.
Lawton was home to the Museum of the Plains, and, of course
we had to see it! I’m standing by a
life-sized replica of a prehistoric bison that once inhabited this area. This museum would be the perfect place to
bring our granddaughter Lauren when she’s a little older. There were many hands-on activities to engage
kids as they learned the history of the area.
They even had a tornado simulation, in which we sat in a “basement” as
an F-4 tornado raged above our heads. In
the 1979 an F4 tornado 1.5 miles wide tore through Wichita Falls, TX, and then
came north to Lawton, OK. Millions of
dollars of damage occurred, as well as the loss of many lives.
When we lived here I worked as first an ER nurse and then a
general duty nurse at Southwestern Clinic Hospital. I have memories of a sweet little hospital,
founded by a group of doctors at the turn of the last century. I worked on the first floor, which was a
combination medical-surgical, and obstetrics unit. A graduate nurse, Brooksie, was on call for
all the laboring moms. Wow unto the
floor nurse who had a mom-to-be admitted on Brooksie’s night off! Yep, happened to me. I was never so scared in my life. Fortunately the OB on call came in and baby-
sat the mom-to-be!
Imagine my shock when we drove by this old hospital! It had stood empty since 1979! It had trees growing out of the chimney, the
windows were boarded up, and the entrance (above) was overgrown with weeds. Very sad!
Happily, a new hospital had been built on the southwest side of town and
it looked amazing!
sat the mom-to-be!
Imagine my shock when we drove by this old hospital! It had stood empty since 1979! It had trees growing out of the chimney, the
windows were boarded up, and the entrance (above) was overgrown with weeds. Very sad!
Happily, a new hospital had been built on the southwest side of town and
it looked amazing!
We did find our old house, or we think we did! Some of you reading this have visited us when
we lived in this house. Does this look
familiar!? We remember this house
looking a lot cuter but 1970 was a long time ago!
We will soon be in
Illinois with lots more adventures to report.
Until next time….
