Texas - Part 2

AUSTIN Continued

Our journey continued in Austin with a Segway tour in the morning. Austin has a nice feel to it, lots of bars, restaurants and music venues. We didn’t feel like Austin had any special sights to see so the Segway was more like a burn through the streets down to the Lady Bird lake and back. I didn't fall off the segway which is always a good thing. We saw the bridge where the bats live but no bats to see that morning - something to do with the rain and weather? We saw the Austin State Capitol building which looks like most other US Capitol buildings – they all have that dome shape on top like the one in DC. We grabbed a coffee at a trendy café before heading off to Waco. Upon reflection, the best thing about Austin was the donut shop we went to the night before.

WACO

We decided to take the 'country' roads to Waco in order to explore a little bit. It was a nice break from massive highways but remember, everything is big in Texas so the country roads were like our freeways! The towns were nothing out of the ordinary but I'm glad we took that drive. There were so many churches in each town despite being small towns of about 2000 people. We stopped for lunch at the Sonic burger joint which is a drive-in. They bring your order to the car, kinda reminded me of the Happy Days era. It was an impulse decision that seemed a fun thing to do (when you're in your late 40's). I’m reaching my limit of junk food and will be glad to resume healthy eating when we get home.

There really is not much in Waco – mainly the famous Baylor university which is known for its football stars and scandals.  The only reason we stopped here was to visit the Magnolia Silo’s bakery and shops - more on that later. The only other thing we know Waco for is the Branch Davidians religious cult where back in 1993 the Federal and Texas state law agencies (and military) raided/sieged the compound. The group were suspected of weapons violations in addition to allegations of sexual abuse and misconduct. The siege standoff lasted 51 days with the FBI eventually launching an assault with tear gas in an attempt to force the Branch Davidians out of the ranch. Unfortunately, a fire broke out in the Mount Carmel Center and 76 people died. The guy who did the Oklahoma City bombing (killing 168 people) a year later cited Waco as his motivation as he was an anti-government sympathizer. It was interesting to read about these incidents now because I was much younger and ignorant back in that day. The compound is about 15 minute drive out of Waco, down some farm road. We stopped at the open gate but did not enter – you are allowed to enter and visit the church area but we chose to look from the distance. I was worried the gate would close behind us if we drove in or the car would stall or get a flat tyre. There is a memorial inside the gate for the people who died in the siege. 

 

Now back to those Magnolia Silo's Markets. These are the shops owned by Chip and Joanna from the hit TV home renovations show Fixer Upper. Deb is a huge fan and she was super excited to visit here. No, we did not see Chip and Joanna and if we did, I would have been coming home alone. Someone has a little crush on Joanna!! It gets really really really busy here, elbow pushing busy – it’s a very clever and successful business venture and everyone comes to Waco pretty much to see this place. It's closed on Sundays so we arrived at opening time on Monday which was also Deb’s birthday. We enjoyed a morning breakfast sugar rush of pastry and cupcakes and wandered the grounds waiting for the shops to open. We gave the Visa card a good bash and Deb left happy with a few bags of goodies. I keep thinking of how well Chip and Joanna have done and those Silo’s markets have really done a lot for the city. I also keep thinking of that chocolate cupcake - never too early for those.

 

DALLAS

After our Magnolia Silo’s visit we headed to Dallas. Many of you are probably like me and think of the 80's TV show Dallas with the Ewing family, Southfork Ranch and the Who Shot JR? mystery. Wasn't it Sue-Ellen? I can still hear that theme music in my head now.

In Dallas we enjoyed a full afternoon of JFK history. This was definitely a highlight of the trip as we are history nerds and JFK’s assassination is a significant event in recent history albeit 54 years ago. We arrived early at Dealey Plaza which is the general area surrounding the site. The route that JFK drove is still open to traffic today but the grassed areas, sidewalks and the famous grassy knoll are all there for you to walk around, look and reflect. The Texas Book Depository is right behind and is now aptly named the Sixth Floor Museum – more on this later. There were several conspiracy people setup on the sidewalks with their stuff to buy and convince you of a conspiracy but we dodged them safely. There were two X’s on the road to mark the spots where the car was when the two shots hit JFK (the third shot missed). I have watched so many videos and movies of JFK’s assassination and to actually be standing there on that grassy knoll and surrounds was an absolute surreal sensation. It was just like you see in the videos – and of course it would be, nothings changed.

2nd Top Floor - far right window, Oswald's Window

We then took a one hour JFK trolley tour and Texan Mike the guide was pretty vocal, confessing that he used to be a conspiracy theorist. But he has since asked questions, read a lot and realized, the facts speak for themselves. Funny that – ignorance can be bliss I guess. I wonder if he believes the moon landing? Anyway….he was super knowledgeable and passionate to say the least. He explained the lead up to JFK's Texas tour, the tense relationship with his vice-Pres Lyndon Johnson and re-election focus for 1964. We drove JFK’s parade route and then continued on the route that Oswald took (walking) after he fled the book depository. I never fully understood those events but it was great to see and hear it all. The cinema where he was captured hasn’t changed a bit since that day. We drove past Oswald’s house and the location where he shot dead a policeman who approached him as he was on the run. It was a very informative one hour and totally well worth taking this tour. There was a thunderstorm and pouring rain on the tour and it added to the eerie effect of this experience.

Our last visit for the day was through the Sixth Floor Museum which is the former Texas Book Depository. No photos were allowed in there except for the 7^th floor where you can take a photo just above where Oswald took the fatal shots. This museum is excellent. The photos, information and layout were fabulous. They give you audio headsets to further explain the exhibits. We thoroughly enjoyed the museum and managed to read a fair bit despite rushing as it was approaching closing time. This is a must-see in Dallas.

I’ve never been a conspiracy theorist and believe the events are all explained including Jack Ruby shooting Oswald. JFK was a remarkable man and his assassination was a tragedy for the world, particularly at a time when positive change was needed. I’m not sure Dallas would be as prominent if it were not for JFK’s assassination there because we also did a trolley tour of Dallas that afternoon and it was nothing to rave about. We heard comments that Austin and Dallas were average and our thoughts are the same.

FORT WORTH

Fort Worth, the gateway to the West. In the late 19^th century it became an important trading post for cowboys at the end of the Chisholm trail. Texas ranchers using the Chisholm Trail started on the route from either Rio Grande or San Antonio, joined the Chisholm Trail at the border between Texas and Oaklahoma and continued to the railhead of the Kansas railway in Abilene, Kansas, where cattle would be sold and shipped. Fort Worth was originally established in 1849 as an Army outpost and named after it’s General (Worth). The fort was abandoned in 1853.

Fort Worth was stimulated by the business of the cattle drives on the Chisholm Trail and became  a brawling, bustling town. Millions of head of cattle were driven north to market along this trail and it became the centre of the cattle drives and later the ranching industry. It was given the nickname Cowtown – yee ha giddy up.

 We had a private walking tour of Fort Worth which was excellent. Our guide was very knowledgeable and also drove us around town to see some interesting sights in museums, botanical gardens, buildings and the city streets. We finished up at the Stockyards to see the daily cattle drive (just for tourists) and those cattle were definitely big with horns to match. They have a rodeo every Friday and Saturday night and I am keen to do this later in the year when my sister visits. I didn’t get to buy my 10 gallon Stetson hat but I will try again on my next visit – gotta get something to match my cowboy boots from Nashville.  We definitely enjoyed Fort Worth and there is plenty to see there, more so than Dallas. The town has forever had strong rivalry with Dallas and the guide gave us great stories about the oil barrons who have built Fort Worth and made it the town it is today.

This wrapped up our Texas adventures and we took the afternoon flight home back to DC. We were exhausted and I slept the 3 hour flight home. I certainly had expectations for Texas and while some of these were probably unrealistic, I enjoyed the great state, found the people super friendly, the food to be amazing and the history very interesting. As a kid, I watched cowboys and indian movies but never realized that it was real life for the people here. I now appreciate what those movies were all about.

So that now makes 16 states touched.

 

 

 

Texas - Part 1

We spent our time over Easter exploring the great state of Texas. As always, we jammed a fair bit in and saw some some fantastic sights, ate fabulous food and learnt more about US and Texas history. No guns were seen but lots of hats and boots were counted.

We flew into Houston and hired a car to drive our way up to Dallas/Fort Worth. The map shows our route map and we stayed one night each in Houston, San Antonio, Austin, Waco and Fort Worth (Dallas).  The weather was warm, mid 20s C.

HOUSTON

We took the early morning flight into Houston and spent the day at the NASA Space Centre – this was 'a day for me' as Deb had seen enough space stuff in Florida at the Kennedy Space Centre. The Houston Space Centre was not as extensive as Kennedy but I still enjoyed it. The space center is very educational focused for kids so there were lots of activities and hands on things for kids to do. We looked around at the various exhibits and I can imagine how fantastic this would have been to see as a kid.

 

One highlight for me was seeing the shuttle on top of the shuttle carrier Boeing 747 aircraft. The shuttle is a replica of the Indepedence shuttle and together they are a huge couple of beasts. We climbed the stairs to walk through the aircraft and shuttle to read information about how they were designed and used. The aircraft carried the shuttles from its landing sites after space flight back to the Kennedy space centre and was also used to test the shuttles as they were being designed. I am always in awe of these achievements and love having the opportunity to see them.

The second highlight was taking the little tram trolley tour to see the former mission control center. This was used during the Gemini, Apollo and many space shuttle missions until 1992 when a new extension was built to control future space missions. The room was retrofitted back to the equipment used during the Apollo missions and it was cool to see the room where they controlled man landing on the moon and many other important space flights such as Apollo 13 "Hey Houston, we have a problem here". The memorabilia on the walls was impressive and again, I just looked at everything in awe.

We stopped by the Saturn V rocket display on the way back to the visitor centre. We saw this rocket in Florida and it is the biggest rocket made and was used for the Apollo missions and launching Skylab. This is a bloody HUGE rocket, massive. Pictures cannot justify its size that is overwhelming in real life.

We stayed the night with one of Deb’s work friends who lives in Houston. We enjoyed a Tex Mex dinner down the road from their house and it was the best mex food I’ve eaten so far. It was sensational and the guacamole was mmmm mmmmm. I love fajitas and these were the best ever. They say Tex Mex is the best Mexican food and that tastes pretty right to me so far. We didn’t see anything more of Houston and friends didn’t seem to rate it very high of interest so we just enjoyed the relax time.

SAN ANTONIO

It was about a three hour drive to San Antonio and our little car felt like the car ‘marker’ from the Monopoly game as we drove on the huge freeways amongst RVs, trucks and SUVs on steroids. We were in Texas after all - everything's big in Texas. We arrived late afternoon and walked around the Riverwalk area which was quite beautiful and unexpected. There were lots of cafes and shops and it was a nice few hours to browse around. We had an early Tex Mex dinner again but it was not a good as that in Houston. A margarita went down nicely and proved my inability to hold more than two sips of alcohol.

The key attraction in San Antonio is the Alamo. Note that Texas was not part of the US at this time - it was occupied by Mexicans and immigrants from the US at the time (Texians).

The Alamo is a former fortress and battle that played a critical role in the Texas Revolution. My brief summary is that the Alamo mission was first built by the Spanish as a mission to educate Amercian Indians after conversion to Christianity. Ten years later it became a fortress around 1803 and housed the Mexican para military. During the Texas Revolution the Mexicans surrendered the fort to the Texian Army in December 1835 following the siege of Bexar. The Mexicans were not happy and later attacked the fort in the six day Battle of Alamo (23 Feb – 6 Mar 1836). All 200 Texians defenders were vastly outnumbered and killed and the Mexican president was especially cruel. Famous names of those 200 Texians were beaver tail hat man Davy Crockett, James Bowie and William B Travis. 

In April, Texians were driven by revenge to drive all Mexicans out of Texas and joined the Texian Army to defeat the Mexicans. In April, the Texan Army attacked and defeated the Mexicans. The Texians were heard to yell ‘Remember the Alamo’ as they fought. The Mexican President was forced to order his troops out of Texas ending their control of the province. It’s been an interesting history lesson and I only have the learned the express version. But I finally appreciate who Davy Crockett is and what/why the Alamo is so important in Texas history.

We took the one hour guided tour throughout the Alamo and it was well worth it. There are lots of exhibits and information to read and look at and the grounds are quite big. The Alamo was a heroic struggle against overwhelming odds – a place where men made the ultimate sacrifice for freedom. For this reason, the Alamo remains hallowed ground and the Shrine of Texas Liberty.

After the Alamo, we took one loop of the hop on/off bus around the city and it was not impressive. San Antonio doesn’t have much more to look at besides the Alamo and the Riverwalk. I didn’t feel like we were in Texas but more like Mexico as the cultural influence is quite strong.

The Alamo

SALTLICK BBQ

Some of our US friends kindly offered some tips for our Texas trip and one big recommendation was the Saltlick BBQ. This was a must-see. It was about half hour before Austin so we arrived late afternoon and planned this as our early dinner. Crikey, it was busy. It was in the middle of nowhere and the wait was 2 hours for a table, or, we could order takeaway and sit in the grassy picnic area – we chose the latter. It was about 45 minute before we got food but it passed quickly as we took in the atmosphere, smells and conversation with local Texans. Thankfully, the BBQ was excellent. I love Brisket, Deb loves ribs and we got our carb and protein overload in spades today. I’m glad we were told about this place cause it was pretty nice food. Texas BBQ is different to BBQ in the south but it was still nice.

AUSTIN

The capital of Texas. 

We were full from our BBQ feed but I was scratching to go out and explore. I noticed a trendy 24hr donut place called VooDoo Doughnuts. I was laughing at the donut names – Gay Bar Donut (coloured accordingly), Cock and Balls (shaped accordingly), old dirty bastard donut, dirty snowballs donut. I couldn’t decide which ‘one’ so I got a few and ate a bit of each. Total sugar rush but worth the experience. 

In the morning we will hit the segways for a city tour and explore a bit more ourselves before heading to Waco.

I'll continue the Texas report in my next post but here's a few pics to finish with.

 

 

 

Baltimore Aquarium

I had the pleasure of taking a trip to the Baltimore aquarium (known as the National Aquarium) with the school that is being hosted by the Embassy this year. I've previously given them a presentation and had other activities with them. Baltimore is about 45 minutes away and the aquarium is huge and quite well regarded. Of special note, it has an Australian exhibit called Wild Extremes. It's a permanent display and the Embassy takes the kids here to see a small taste of Australia. The website says...

This exhibit depicts a typical northern Australia river gorge. This slice of Australia in Baltimore offers visitors a truly immersive experience: as you walk through the bottom of the gorge, get close to 1,800 individual native animals representing 120 species, including freshwater crocodiles, turtles, fishes, snakes, lizards, free-flying birds, and flying foxes. Many of these unique and unusual animals are found only in Australia.

I haven't seen a snake since I left home so I wasn't keen to see them again. The kids were amazed and loved the crocodiles and turtles. There is a kookaburra somewhere in there but we didn't get to see it unfortunately. I checked out the jellyfish display and oh my god, how beautiful that was. There were so many different types of jellyfish and they are very captivating to look at.

 

And another great part of the trip was that we travelled on a YELLOW school bus. American's don't understand our fascination with YELLOW school buses - we don't have anything like it in Australia so this is an icon for us. I thought the kids would break out into singing the 100 green bottles, hanging on the wall but no, these kids are much younger than me and instead, they were singing the latest pop music. I was quite shocked really. They just sang bits and pieces and all joined in. They get on quite well. I noticed when I got off the bus though that my hips were a bit stiff - the seats were a bit smaller than normal but I didn't appreciate that until the end. Over all, a great day out and I was thrilled to be the ridgey-didge Aussie for the kids on their day out.

Another highlight this week was that I made my very first pavlova !! One of the ladies at work had a 60th dinner party at home and it was a potluck = bring a plate. Many of the ladies were Phillipino, Malaysian, Singaporean so the food was just A-mazing. There were some very authentic dishes and it was such lovely food. There were empanadas, lamb curry, special pasta and other fried delights. So my pavlova was a huge hit at the end and I was very pleased with it. I loaded it with heaps of berries and mango and lashings of cream so who wouldn't like it. 

I thought these work ladies were quiet, reserved and mild but holy dooley, a glass of wine unleashed the real women and there were some great laughs and stories. We enjoyed the night and these ladies have become wonderful friends to me. They have worked at the Embassy for many many years and it was interesting to hear the tales of early days. 

 

We have both continued our healthy eating and the results are showing. We've both been searching the cupboards for clothes that fit again and it feels nice to just feel better about ourselves. We are both running strong and I am training hard for this relay race end April. I've probably talked about it before but it's a 200mile (316km) race from Gettsburgy to DC over about 36 hours. Most teams are 12 man but we couldn't get one organised so I opted for a 6 man team which means 6 legs each which totals about 50km each. Or strategy is to run single legs but a double in the night so that will make some hard distances to back up. Our team van will leapfrog as we run along and we will be running every 6 hours or so which will make it hard work to back up so soon after the previous run. It will be a hard struggle for me but I love a challenge and those who know me well, know that I like endurance and tough challenges. There are 4 men and 2 women on the team and we are all Aussies - at this stage our Team name is Aussie Drop Bears and we are hoping to get a team singlet made. I'm really looking forward to it and ramping up the training each week by running solid miles and sometimes twice a day and many consecutive days.

Funny story, we convinced our gym PT lady to watch The Dressmaker. We explained to her what a 'dunny' was and I'd made her lamingtons recently so was happy to recognise some Aussie lingo. She enjoyed the movie but said she didn't want to visit a town like that !

This week I bought tickets to see Aretha Franklin in July and Hall and Oates in June (who have Tears for Fears supporting them). I am so excited. Aretha Franklin is retiring after this tour and she's about 75. And I love Hall and Oates - seeing high caliber musicians is one of the big benefits of living in the US. The choice is huge and the venues are fantastic.

Baseball season has started to I'm very excited to start going to games again. I am quite sad though to not have my dear friend Aussie Bob with me as he's returned home. I had the best times with him and it won't be the same without him to enjoy a beer with and chat game stuff. He got me going to the baseball last year and I am forever thankful for the games we went to and the fun we had. I will miss not having someone to dance with as we try to get our faces on the big screen.

Well, not much else to report. We go to Texas in 2 weeks so the next post will likely be from there.