Sun City West – Home is the Sailor, home from the sea

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Spent the night of 9/1 in Gallup NM, a nice city with a lot of rich Navajo heritage and that I’ll visit again, but you can’t get a good night’s sleep in Gallup because the town runs West <-> East on both sides of major railroad tracks that are busy 24-hours a day.

On the last leg to home I stopped at the Petrified National Forrest and the Painted Desert, just short stops because I was really getting tired of sightseeing and wanted to get home and relax.

Ending mileage 18,198, and enjoyed it all the way because setbacks were really only minor.

Palo Duro Canyon & Cadillac Ranch

WED September 1

Before this stop in Amarillo TX the picture that came to mind was of lots of flat land; the Spanish explores called the area Llano Estacado or the Staked Plains because there were no landmarks to set your bearing on so they put stakes in the ground as course markers. Also to me Amarillo was a place to fill up with gas and in 1965 on my way from San Antonio to Denver a place just outside of Amarillo where I took a short-cut and got caught in a flash-flood of the Canadian River and was washed into a cotton field. That soaking ruined the electrical wiring on my Alfa Romero and I had to stumble into Denver where high school friends, the Carlins, worked on it for me.

Anyway, on this trip I discovered Palo Duro Canyon and Cadillac Ranch. I knew Palo Duro was there but I had never been there and it is truly a beautiful canyon system and I’ll have to go back sometime for about a week and do some hiking.

And Cadillac Ranch is so Texas, loved it.

Lake of the Ozarks & National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum

Monday August 30, 2010

Driving south through Missouri past the capital at Springfield and past Ft Leonard Wood which as I remember was Forrest’s first stop in the Army in where 1997 they were going to make him an engineer, read “how to blow up things” and other assorted support tasks, before he convinced some Sergeant to have him transferred to Ft Benning NC for Airborne training.

The Missouri Lake of the Ozarks area is BOAT COUNTRY; offshore racing boats, drag boats, ski boats, bass boats, house boats, pontoon boats, canoes and kayaks, lots of boats. And if wives don’t want to join in on all the testosterone there are the outlet malls and at night there are the casinos. Lake of the Ozarks is a happening place.

Also the guys around here like high-rise diesel pick-up trucks with twin chrome dump exhausts going straight up in the truck-bed.

Close to Springfield MO I stopped at the Historic Route 66 Welcome Center and I got closer to Oklahoma City I started seeing and hearing names I remembered for my childhood when I played cowboys and Indians all the time.

It was hard to find a place to take a picture of the St Louis Gateway to the West.

Tuesday August 31st and today I am in Oklahoma City at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. This museum presents a history of the west through the Mountain Men, the western Army and the cowboys. There are also beautiful sculptures and paintings. I would rank this museum very high and recommend a visit if you are in the area; but watch out for the rough roads in the OK City area.

Massena NY & Niagara Falls NY

FRI August 27th

Massena is a town in northern NY State and is nicknamed "The Gateway to the Fourth Coast". The population was 13,121 at the 2000 census. The town of Massena contains a village also called Massena. The town and its village are named after a hero of the Napoleonic Wars.

Drove over to Massena NY and to the Saint Lawrence Seaway and the Eisenhower Lock where Dad had a job in 1957-1959 as Marine Superintendent. They only had half-day school in Massena at that time because of the large influx of workers for the Seaway and Mom said I needed the benefits of full-day school so off to Denver I was sent for my last 2-years of high school. [And the recent 50th anniversary celebration was a hoot!]

The Seaway was/is a big engineering feat and unfortunately ocean cargo carrying ships have gotten larger and larger and so now only the smaller ships and ships specially designed for the Great Lakes use it; but still a lot of tonnage pass through its locks.

Forgot, on my way to Massena, I drove over the Erie Canal, another example of how important moving material by water is.

There are a lot of hippies in northern NY, long hair & headbands, clothes right out of the 60s with the women in peasant blouses.

Listening to the radio you don’t want a DUI conviction in NY State. The announcement on the radio said if convicted, every car you owned, or drove, had to be equipped with installed breathalizer connected with a no-go switch for the car’s ignition; passed the breathalizer and you can turn the car on and drive, don’t pass and you can’t start the car. Plus you are subject to random checks and at anytime you are found in non-compliance it is back to court. Don’t drink and drive in NY.

From Massena drove southwest to Niagara Falls roughly paralleling the St Lawrence River and through the Thousand Island area, very pretty but I also saw lots of firewood stacked for the winter.

Niagara Falls was pretty awesome also; lots of water and the noise broadcast the power and might of the moving river.

It has been cool with off/on showers the last two days but luckily the showers have been when I was asleep or driving the car.

When passing through Buffalo NY I noticed figures of Buffalo at the Interstate exit to the airport and I remembered the Bronco statue at the Denver airport. Is this a thing that I am not aware of re the NFL teams or is it just these two cities? And what came first, the chicken [Buffalo] or the egg [Bronco]?

SAT 8/28. Shawn, in Columbus OH on I-270W about Exit 17B there is a big Cardinal Health building; in case you need that information.