Tascosa, we love you (September 21, 2019)

Tascosa High, 50 years later

Tom with the Tascosa Rebel

Tom with the canon that's shot at football games

Old friends (September 20, 2019)

Tom with high school buddies from Tascosa High School class of '69. Good times playing thousands of hands of poker, shooting guns in the Canadian River bottom, pedal to the metal in muscle cars.  Left to right: Bob, Tom, Tim, Kerry, Marshall, Pat, Dave.

I wish we had a photo of the guys from 50 years ago. The photos were taken at our HomeAway on historic Route 66. Left to right: Dave, Bob, Tim, Marshall, Tom. 

Historic Route 66 (September 18-21, 2019)

The nearly 2500-mile Route 66, opened in 1926 and closed in 1985, ran from Chicago through the Amarillo to California.  Many of the old buildings remain, renovated as restaurants, for instance. 

The former real estate office/hardware store behind me is now the Blue Crane Bakery.

The Route 66 antique store has an arbor exactly like ours!  The owner found hers at an antique store; we found ours at an Austin antique store.  Claim to fame:  the punk band Cottonmouth Kings used our arbor (before we bought it) as a stage entrance.

Great name for a convenience store

This photo is for my Asheville co-grandmother Mimi

Hiking Palo Duro Canyon (September 19, 2019)

We hiked the Upper Comanche trail in Palo Duro Canyon, about 30 miles south of Amarillo.  The canyon is the second largest in the US, at 120 miles long and up to 20 miles wide. Late in the summer of 1874, Comanche, Southern Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Kiowa warriors led by Lone Wolf left their reservations and sought refuge in the canyon.  They laid in supplies for the winter.  On September 28, 1874, in one of the last battles of the Texas-Indian wars, the US Calvary forced the warriors from the canyon, back to their reservations.

So dry! The Panhandle drought conditions are evident.

Do you see the turkey?

On the trail

Strange formations of heavy rocks on top of crumbling red soil

Papa Tom on the trail

Old windmill and cistern.  See the pipe running from the well to the cistern?

Big Texan Steak Ranch, Amarillo (September 18, 2019)

Had to eat at the Big Texan Steak Ranch in Amarillo.  We were probably the only diners who ordered only veggies: great beans, fried okra, tomatoes and red onions, mashed potatoes.

If you eat a 72 -ounce (4.5 pounds!) steak, baked potato, salad, roll and butter, and three shrimp in an hour or less, the meal is free.  Contestants sit on a platform at the front of the restaurant.  This guy had 6 seconds to go.

He did it!  You can't see it, but he was wearing shorts and cowboy boots, classic summer combo.

These two contenders couldn't do it.

The restaurant was on historic Route 66 in Amarillo until Interstate 40 was built and business dropped drastically.  The restaurant moved to its new location on I-40 in the 1960s and expanded to include a hotel.

You know you're in West Texas when....(September 18,2019)

On our way to Amarillo for Papa Tom's 50th high school reunion, we passed miles and miles of wind turbines. You know you're in West Texas when you're greeted by a "grasshopper" pumping oil, turning turbine blades, and hay bales for cattle. We've opted for Austin Energy's GreenChoice, getting our electricity from 100 percent Texas wind energy. Nice to see the source.

Midnight moonbow over our house (September 11-12, 2019)

A moonbow (also known as a lunar rainbow or white rainbow) is a rainbow produced by moonlight rather than direct sunlight. Moonbows are much fainter than solar rainbows, due to the smaller amount of light reflected from the surface of the moon.  I took this photo with my Samsung Galaxy S10+ on the "night" setting.

Tom used the telephoto lens on his Nikon for this photo.  We were amazed that, with all the cloud cover, the moon was clearly visible.  The moon would be full two nights later, on Friday the 13th. 

Dakota, Corsicana's K-9 star (August 30, 2019)

Shades of Clint Eastwood's latest film, The Mule.  Did you know retirees in rental cars are profiled as drug runners for the cartels?  We found out in Corsicana, Texas, when Tom was pulled over after going through a yellow light that might or might not have turned red.   Circumstantial evidence: 

• We are retirees
• We were in a rental car
• We took "back roads" from Austin to Shreveport instead of I-35 and I-20 (The officer claimed to be unaware that it was Labor Day weekend and traffic could be heavy on the interstates)
• We are from Austin, where "drug laws are lax," according to the officer. He asked if we "like to toke a little weed" (No, and what decade are you from?)
• We had been to Big Bend and Terlingua--right on the US border with Mexico!--the previous day
• The day of the stop, we had traded in our rented 4-wheel drive Nissan Pathfinder (good for flooded roads, as it turned out) for a smaller Kia Sportage (better mileage; no need for 4-wheel drive between Austin and Shreveport).  The officer explained that cartels use rental cars retrofitted with special compartments for the goods. Retiree drug runners switch out an empty car for a loaded one, then make another run.  I learn something new every day.  Seriously.
• We agreed the officer could search the car, which meant opening our suitcases. We had taken the Pathfinder and our luggage to the rental place to switch vehicles, transferring our luggage to the Sportage. When we hike in remote places like Big Bend, Tom carries a machete in case we encounter a bear or mountain lion. The machete was still in his suitcase and was partly  unsheathed.  The officer nearly sliced his hand on it!
• We agreed that Dakota the drug dog could check the Sportage.  Then I wondered to myself if the previous renters had been retirees who might have left some evidence behind.  Luckily not.  Dakota was an adorable black Labrador who pranced through her paces.
• 
  

At the end of the 45-minute process, Dakota declared us clean and the officer forgot all about writing a traffic ticket.  I explained about the blog and asked if I could take a photo of Dakota.  She put on her best "scary drug dog" face for me.  Good dog!

Our friend Roy, moving on (August 2019)

Our friend Roy has lived around the corner from us for years.  But his home was sold to a developer this summer and destroyed in August.  We're happy that he only moved about 8 blocks away.

All gone, including a huge pecan tree whose circumference was 1/16 inch too small to be saved as a heritage tree per the city's building code. More than likely, two houses will go on the lot.

Roy's gorilla friends, who've lived in the tree through rain, sleet, hot summer sun and a couple of light snowfalls for at least 5 years, have so far survived the demolition.  If you look closely at the above two photos, you'll see them watching over the property.

Great-great-grandfather Swenson

Your Great-great-grandfather John Swenson was an agile gymnast and tightrope walker too.  This photo is from your Great-aunt Jan.  John Swenson's daughter Cherry Ann Arlene Swenson Lewis, your great-grandmother, was the mother of Jan and your grandfather Lee.

Fox on the balance beam (August 2019)

Piper with all her gymnastics medals (August 2019)

Mya's jelly roll (December 2016).  I was too slow with the photo so Ryder helped Mya hold the pose until I could focus the camera.

Sustainable then, sustainable now (August 29, 2019)

Wind plus solar energy outside Alpine, Texas

Chinati Foundation, Marfa, Texas (August 28, 2019)

The Chinati Foundation is a contemporary art museum.  We viewed 15 concrete works by founder Donald Judd.  The works are on a one-kilometer axis along the border of the Chinati's property.

Not a customary sign for art exhibits

"But they're concrete!" I can hear visitors protesting.

This plateau spotted whiptail lizard paused long enough for a photo.

Marfa, Texas (August 29, 2019)

The old Marfa jailhouse, now used to store county archives.  See the Budlight truck at the corner?  We had to move our SUV so the truck could park in front of the jailhouse to set up for the Marfa Lights Festival.

Downtown Marfa, including an Art Deco bank building on the left

The film Giant was filmed near Marfa.  Cardboard James Dean, meet cardboard Beto.

This photo is for Joyce, who recommended we stop by the Hotel Paisano.  We were on the backside of the hotel sign but the camera switched the letters in our selfie.

Terlingua, Texas (August 28, 2019)

From 1903 to the beginning of the Great Depression, quicksilver was mined in Terlingua.  Now, each November, the ghost town is the site of two chili cook-offs attended by 10,000 people.  The annual event, now in its 51st year, features serious chili cooking, costumes, and music.

Overview of Terlingua from a nearby hilltop

An old dog on the porch of the Terlingua Trading Company, location of the the former company store of the Chisos Mining Company

Oops!  No dogs allowed on the porch.  I guess he's allowed inside though.

Bar stools outside the Starlight Theatre Restaurant.  I did sit in one.  Trust me, you don't want to see the photo.

Papa Tom

Terlingua cemetery

Flooding in the desert (August 28, 2019)

The only road out of the park flooded after a thunderstorm.  The people on the other side turned their car around rather than risk going through the rushing water.  We finally inched forward and made it through, reluctantly.  We'd encountered very few other vehicles during the day and had no cell phone service should we need help.  But it was still raining and we thought the water would only get deeper.

Aptly named Mule Ears mountain in the background. Or Batman? Or angel wings?

Papa Tom

Papa Tom's view of mountains and the road we'd just traveled