Drifting with the winds...

Ouch, just hopped on the site and realized that it's been a month since I posted.  Where did the time go??

Our last entry had us leaving San Antonio and heading west.  We took three days to get to Santa Fe via Las Cruces and Hatch NM.  Ahh, Las Cruces... home of La Posta restaurant.  This has become one of our favorite Mexican restaurants and it's always worth going 200+ miles out of your way to eat some enchiladas and sip on a margarita :)  While there, we also took a drive out to Hatch NM, home of the best peppers grown by humans.  Hatch chiles have become very popular, but are limited in distribution outside of New Mexico, although our daughter has spotted them in Los Angeles and Suzi has spotted a VERY small amount in Kansas City in the past year or two.  I have also heard that there are places advertising Hatch chiles that are not actually grown in that region - GASP!  Your grocer should be able to name the town of origin if they are truly Hatches.  The real deal are grown in an area along the Mesilla Valley stretching on both sides of the Rio Grande river from Arrey, NM in the north to Tonuco Mountain just south of Hatch, NM.  The chiles are not one variety, but several that range in heat from very mild to very spicy, collectively known as Hatch chiles.  We usually pick up some of the medium.  We didn't make it to town this year in time to pick up any fresh chiles to roast on our own, so instead I picked up 6 pounds of already roasted and frozen at one of the chile stands in town (you can order them on line if you so desire).   Warning, if you see small cans of green chiles in the Mexican section of your local grocery store labeled "Hatch Chiles" be aware that this product is actually from a company in Brunswick, Georgia.  They are good chiles, excellent when you can't get the real thing, but NOT true Hatch chiles.  The company simply bought the rights to the name and use peppers from all over the southwest.

This year's ristras drying.

Chile Willie's, best home-made salsa in Hatch.

Chiles drying on the rooftops.

We finally made it to Santa Fe and pulled into the KOA on the edge of town.  This was a very nice campground and not crowded at all as it was off-season.  In fact, the camp closed for the winter a couple of days after we pulled out.  The night we arrived, the temperature dropped to 27 degrees.  Somehow, we have failed to grasp the concept of traveling south with the weather!

The day after we arrived, we drove back down Albuquerque so Heinz could hop on a plane back to Kansas City, for a visit with his dentist, a visit with his sister, a chance to see Joe Bonnamassa in concert yet again (third time in two years, I think the man's a fan), and take care of some other chores.  I, on the other hand, settled into Santa Fe and prepared to enjoy the weeklong Embroiderers' Guild of America's annual national conference.  

The conference was great; 600+ people (mostly women, but a few men) from 48 of the 50 states and 4 foreign countries, all walking, talking, breathing needlework (heavy sigh of contentment).  I took two design classes, both involving fabric painting and surface embroidery - but there were classes on just about any type of embroidery that can be done with a one-eyed needle.  There were also banquets, receptions, a bookstore devoted to the needle arts, and a boutique carrying all sorts of needlework supplies.  There was also the ever popular Trading Post, an evening with 45-50 vendors selling local jewelry, supplies, needlepoint canvases, stitching "gadgets" and just about anything else you might want that could be related to needlework.  It was a great week and passed way too quickly.

Class number one: Transferring a photograph to canvas, painting the fabric, then enhancing the photo with embroidery.

What a variety of fabric painting!

Class number two: playing with paints, bleeding tissue paper, fabric, construction paper, threads; 

multi-media art at it's finest.

My interpretation of the Golden Gate Bridge and the bay at sunset (in needlepoint and paint).

After a week, my conference ended, but there was a bright note as Heinz made it back to Santa Fe.  We stayed put for a few days to explore the area.  Santa Fe is a fascinating city.  It has been occupied since native Indians built the first pueblos around 1400 A.D.  The city is the country's third largest art market after Los Angeles and New York City.  There are 200+ galleries in town, many individual studios, and several major museums - all devoted to art.  In addition there is some great food in Santa Fe.  Several locals mentioned that the best breakfast in town was to be found at Harry's Roadhouse.  Luckily this wonder was located just down the road from the KOA - so we checked it out.  The locals were right, the food was fabulous.  

Santa Fe house and gate

We drove up to Taos to see the Taos Pueblo, a place that's been on our list of "gotta see" for years.  The pueblo is considered to be the oldest continuously inhabited community in the U.S. - well over 1,000 years.  The two main structures are called the North House and the South House.  The buildings are many individual homes built side by side and in layers with common walls and no connecting doorways, the original American apartment houses.  The buildings are made of adobe, owned by individual families, and passed down through generations.  Families still live in the buildings, some continuously, others occupy their pueblo homes only during feast days.  There is no electricity or running water in the sacred village.  Water comes from the Red Willow Creek that runs through the village from its source in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, 30 miles away.  The wilderness area that the river runs through is sacred to the Taos Pueblo people and non-tribal members are not allowed to trek into the area, thus the water is crystal clear.   

Taos Pueblo, North House

  

Rio Grande River between Taos and Santa Fe

Cottonwood tree, the golden color was everywhere.

Leaving Santa Fe, we headed east once again and are now back in the Kansas City area.  Heinz has installed a motorcycle lift on the rear and is in seventh heaven as the GSA gets to come along from now on.  While in the area we enjoyed several Veteran's Day offerings by a variety of local businesses including free massages, free donuts, and discounted gasoline.  

Ready for action.

We're currently in Lawrence KS, where Heinz's uncle is coaching him through the repair of some rust damage to the basement and replacing the ball joints.  We'll keep you posted as to when we will be hitting the road again.  In the meantime, Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Our friends of the day are:

Checking out the pueblo.

Chilling out after getting my mohawk groomed.

Tennessee to Texas

You may have noticed a couple of format changes on our blog.  Don't panic.  If you prefer things the way they've been, simply go to the upper left hand side, click on "Flipcard", chose "Classic" from the drop down menu, and you'll be back to the old format.  On the other hand, there are several other options for exploring the blog.  Clicking on "Snapshot" will allow you to view all the photos we've posted since the beginning.  Have fun!

Things have not been very eventful lately, and I have been extremely lazy, but a few people have pointed out that it's hard for them to live vicariously through us when there's no posting going.  So the guilt trips have finally worked and here you go.

We ended up spending a total of nine days in Memphis, the two we planned on, and an additional seven waiting on the car to be repaired after getting hit.  But as you probably figured out from our last blog entry, we didn't let the time go to waste and continued to enjoy seeing the city.  On our last full day we stopped in at a quirky little museum I found on line...the National Ornamental Metal Museum.  The museum is the only museum in the U.S. devoted exclusively to the art and craft of fine metalwork.  There are rotating exhibitions devoted to master metalwork artists (the jewelry of Eleanor Moty when we visited) along with permanent installations.  In addition, the museum offers consulting services, metalwork classes, internships and artist residencies.  Each year the Museum hosts "Repair Days", a fun-raiser during which volunteer metalsmiths travel to Memphi from all over the world to repair metal items from sculptures to candleholders to raise money to support the Museum.

The museum is located on the grounds of a former US Marine hospital.  The hospital was opened in 1884 and the original executive building now houses the museum's library and permanent collection.  The nurses dormitory houses the rotating exhibitions and gift shop.  The hospital closed in 1965 and the properties were donated to the city of Memphis.  In 1976 the originators of the museum obtained a lease from the city, $1.00 per year in exchange for 3.2 acres, 2 buildings and a killer view of the Mississippi River.  The museum itself opened in 1979 after building renovations were completed.

Brooch by Eleanor Moty

Hanging out in the blacksmith's shop.

View of the Mississippi River from the museum grounds.

Garden installation.

Metal basket.

One of two museum entrance gates - each disc is different.

Gate detail

Gate detail.

We also got in one more great meal before leaving town.  This time we checked out Gus's World Famous Fried Chicken.  Does Gus's really serve the best fried chicken in the world.  I don't know, but this was some of the best we've ever eaten.  The sides were nothing to write home about, the slaw was sweet and the beans seemed like plain old pork and beans straight out of the can and heated up, while the fried green tomatoes had way too much coating.  But, oh that chicken!  Butter, chicken, flour, spices, and a deep fryer full of oil.  Wholesome? Probably not, but worth it if you make it to Memphis.

Gus's, packed at 2:00 in the afternoon.

The morning after retrieving our car from the auto body shop we were up early and heading south.  We had planned on spending a couple of days in Little Rock, Arkansas, but decided that we needed to move on instead.  Next stop: back to Barksdale AFB and a visit with my family.

Barksdale and Shreveport haven't changed much since our last visit.  We visited, ate, visited, ate, and ate and visited.  You know, the thing you always do when you go home.  My sister and I also took some time and checked out the traveling Titanic exhibit.  The exhibit features more than 300 artifacts, stateroom and 3rd class accommodation re-creations, and videos on the submarine explorations of the wreckage site.  As you enter the exhibit, you are given a boarding pass with a short biography of an actual passenger.  My sister was given a card of a young woman running away from England with her married boss and lover.  I was given one for a widow moving to America to train as a missionary.  Another unique feature of the exhibit is the wandering actors playing the roles of actual passengers who interact with exhibit viewers.  On the day we were there we "met" Lucy Cristiana (Lady Duff Gordon),  a haute couture designer,  Madeleine Astor (wife of John Jacob Astor), Carl Asplund (3rd class passenger), and Charles Joughin (Chief Baker).  At the exit of the exhibit there is a listing of all the passengers and crew where you can find the name on your boarding pass (both of ours survived the sinking).

Annette (sister-in-law), Kathy (sister) and me choosing lunch at Copeland's.

Bayou by Barksdale's FamCamp

Cypress trees.

We are now in San Antonio, hanging out, relaxing, and catching up with old friends and some relatives and once again eating some great local food.  This past weekend we took in the annual Chalk It Up!  This is a one day art's festival sponsored by Artpace, a local modern art museum and artist's collective.  The city seals off 4 city blocks downtown and opens it for sidewalk art for everyone from kids to professionals.  There are also food booths and a musician stage.  It was fun watching the kids in action.

We'll be heading west at the end of the week drifting toward Albuquerque and Santa Fe so stay tuned.

Our friends of the day were all hitchhikers:

Memphis, TN

Shreveport, LA

Barksdale AFB

This little guy decided to join Heinz in the shower in Houston.

Indiana to Tennessee...with a squirrel chase to Colorado

We've now wandered down to Tennessee and are spending a few extra days in Memphis than expected, but I'll leave that story to the end of today's entry.  So stick around, it's an interesting life.

While still at the American Coach repair facility in Decatur, IN we took a tour of the Fleetwood RV factory (sorry, no photos allowed).  It was interesting, but as Heinz says, it made us appreciate the quality of our 12 year old coach even more.  The Fleetwoods are certainly good products, but a lot of the little things left me loving my older home more and more.  Little things like real wood instead of pressed lumber, rich varnishes instead of thin coats of varnish with lots of lacquer on top, evenly spaced and flat floor tiles instead of uneven tile placement, and I'm sure Heinz noticed lots of things in the "innards" of the coach.  I kept remembering the gentleman who told us that our model year coach was from "when we knew how to build them".  I agree!

As long as we were hanging out in the middle of Indiana, we took an afternoon and drove up to Auburn, Indiana to check out the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Automobile Museum.  It is housed in a beautiful, fully restored Art Deco building that originally served as both the former Auburn Automobile Company's national headquarters and it's dealer-only showroom.  The collection contains vintage Auburns, Cords, and Duesenbergs from 1925-1937, other Indiana made automobiles of the era, and automobiles of what the museum calls "special interest"--automobiles that represent the best examples of luxury, styling, performance, or engineering.  In addition, the museum has artifacts of automobile manufacturing such as design concepts, blueprints, full-scale drawings on aluminum sheets, wooden bucks for beating/shaping the panels, promotional materials, etc.  If you make your way to Indiana, be sure to stop in at this great museum - we spent hours!

The Auburn Automobile Company started in 1900 with a design for a one-cylinder car that reached showroom floors in 1903.  By 1905 the company was making two-cylinder cars and by 1912, six cylinders were the norm.  In 1904, E. L. Cord joined the company as general manager and purchased the company from the owners in 1926.  That same year Auburn bought out Fred Duesenberg and commissioned him to build the world's finest motorcar.  1928 brought the introduction of the Duesenberg Model J (the nation's most expensive luxury car).  The Cord motorcar, America's first front-drive production car, was unveiled with Auburn's 1929 models.  Despite the Great Depression, Auburn broke all previous sales records in 1931 with over 32,000 luxury units sold (average price $15,000 when the average worker made $4000 annually).  Manufacturing ceased in 1937 due to changing tastes, hard economic times and internal corporate turmoil.

Reflections

Reflections in car fender

Sitting in an early automobile

1929 Auburn

A prototype for a post-WWII American sports car that featured the world's first T-top roof.  Gordon Buehrig designed the car and patented the T-top idea.  He later sued GM when they used the design on the 1968 Corvette.

Clay model for an early Auburn.

Painted aluminum design panel.  These were recycled - when no longer needed, they painted over the metal, and scribed new lines for the next design - so very few exist today.  Designs were drawn on the panel at full scale and used on the production line.

Painted aluminum design panel.

1932 Auburn.

Art Deco showroom floor.

As long as the motor coach was having some maintenance work done, we decided to chase a squirrel and head over to Colorado for an impromptu reunion of Heinz's family.  The event was planned around the Scots Festival in Estes Park, but we were having so much fun hanging out with each other, that no one ever made it to the Festival!

Maureen and Annelee checking out the family shots.

Reunion over, it was back to Indiana to pick up the rig and head further south.  Plans were made: Memphis, TN for two nights, followed by two nights in Little Rock, AR, then back to Shreveport and some time with my family.  We stretched the drive to Memphis over two days simply to avoid a long 12 hour drive.  

Memphis held a few too many sights to see for only a two night stay, so we extended by a night and mapped out our agenda.  Day one: Graceland, STAX Records Museum, and the Gibson Guitar Factory.  Day two: National Museum of Civil Rights, Rock-n-Soul Museum, and Sun Studio.  Both days: killer BBQ.  Success!!  For once, we actually completed all points of interest as planned!

Neither one of us are big Elvis fans, but really, we're in Memphis... home of the King... you gotta go to Graceland - right?  So we did!  Graceland is considered a "mansion", but compared to today's houses, it's kinda small - and decorated in vintage over-the-top 1970s.  If you listen well, you can hear his ghost wandering around, singing the songs you've heard all your life.  Oh, sorry... that's not his ghost... that's the sound system playing Elvis non-stop everywhere you go.  We bought the Platinum ticket that lets you into six sites/events, from Elvis' house and gardens; to his airplanes; to his cars; to a walk up the street to a strip mall containing a gift shop showing a movie about his '68 tour, and another cubicle  containing some of his costumes.  If you make it to Memphis, by all means, you can not NOT go to Graceland - for crying out loud... it's a cultural icon.  But consider only doing the house and garden tour - the rest was (to us) somewhat underwhelming.  It is however, still immensely popular - 35 years after his death, 600,000 people still travel annually from all over the world (we followed a group from Portugal) to visit Graceland.

The King

Graceland 

Living Room

Pool Room

Gold records on display in an outbuilding behind the house.  It's estimated that there have been greater than 1 BILLION Elvis records sold worldwide.

More gold records on display.  In the U.S. alone, Elvis had 150 different albums and singles with gold, platinum, or multi-platinum sales.

Elvis' grave.  He is buried on Graceland's grounds along with his mother, father, and grandmother.

For a different view of early Rock and Roll, we headed across town to the Stax Museum of American Soul Music.  Stax Records was founded in 1957 as Satellite Records and the name Stax adopted in 1961.  The label was instrumental in the creation of the Memphis sound, a mix of gospel, funk, jazz, and blues.  Some of the labels best known artists were Booker T. and the MGs, Otis Redding, and Issac Hayes.  In 1975 the label went bankrupt and the studio closed.  Over the years the building deteriorated and was finally torn down in 1989.  In 1998, a group of concerned citizens and anonymous benefactors spearheaded a community revitalization effort.  Construction began on the Stax Museum and the adjacent Stax Music Academy in 2001.  The Museum is a replica of the Stax recording studio and houses more than 2,000 videos, photographs, musical instruments, stage costumes, and other memorabilia.  The museum is one of only a handful of museums in the world dedicated to soul music and celebrates the legacy of Stax Records along along with featuring other soul music labels such as Motown, Hi Records, Atlantic Records and Muscle Shoals.     

The Stax Music Academy is a state of the art facility where primarily at-risk youth are mentored through music education and unique performance opportunities.  The building also houses the Soulsville Charter School, an academically rigorous, musically rich school.     

Kind of says it all, doesn't it:)

Reconstruction of Stax Records facility

Heinz checking out the guitar of Steve Cropper of Booker T. and the MGs.

Hallway lined with albums recorded at Stax Records.

After rocking out for a couple of hours at Stax Records, we headed a few miles over for a tour of the Gibson Guitar Factory, Memphis.  We got a behind the goggles look at all the shaping, binding, neck-fitting, painting, buffing, and fine tuning that ends up as an electric guitar.  Sorry - no photos were allowed on the factory floor itself.

Factory store, choose your fun.

We ended up day one in Memphis with some knock-out BBQ at The Pig on Beale.  This restaurant specializes in pork shoulder and ribs and their motto is "Pork with an Attitude".  The menu has around 15 BBQ awards listed for last year alone (not like the restaurant across the street that won something back in 1991) and the front windows are filled with trophies.  My take on the place--yum!!

Trophies in the window of The Pig on Beale, in lieu of pictures of the baby back ribs.

Late afternoon on Beale St., home of Memphis blues.

Day two and we were up and running again.  First stop: The National Civil Rights Museum.  The museum is located in the Lorraine Motel, site of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  The museum also encompasses the rooming house across the street where James Earl Ray stayed and from where he fired his fatal shot.  The museum is devoted to chronicling key episodes of the American civil rights movement and its impact on human rights efforts globally.  The main focus of the museum is education.  

February 1st, 1960, Greensboro, NC.  Four students from North Carolina A&T sat down at a "whites-only" Woolworth's lunch counter and ask to be served. This action ignited a wave of student sit-ins and protests that flashed across the South.  This is the actual counter.

Lesson plan from a 1960s Freedom School.  Still important concepts today.

You can spend all day in the Civil Rights Museum - but we didn't have that long... so off we went to the Rock-n-Soul Museum.  This museum was created by the Smithsonian Institution to tell the story of "musical pioneers that created the music that shook the world".  It offers a comprehensive look at the Memphis music experience from the rural field songs of the 1930s, through the explosion of the 1950s and, on to the heyday of the 1970s.  The museum has a digital audio tour packed with information and music.  You stroll the galleries and look and listen (and perhaps dance) at your leisure.  There's approximately 5 hours of information and music on the audio tour, so kick back and roam to your heart's content.  We opted out after about 2 1/2 hours and headed off to our next stop.

Heinz groovin' to the sounds on a 1947 Wurlitzer "bubbler" jukebox.

After rocking out for hours to the Memphis sound, it seemed only appropriate to finish up at Sun Studio.  The recording studio was opened by Sam Phillips in 1950.  Over the years it was the recording home of Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Ike Turner, Howlin' Wolf, B.B. King, Rufus Thomas, Roy Orbison, and Charlie Rich, among others.  In 1969, Sam Phillips sold the label and there was no recording-related activity in the building until the September 1985, Class of '55, recording sessions with Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Johnny Cash.  In 1987 the studio was re-opened as a recording label and tourist attraction.  A tour stop in the daytime, the studio is still an active recording studio at night, by artists as varied as U2, Def Leppard, Bonnie Raitt, and Ringo Starr who come to get the vintage sound caused by the original ceiling tiles that are still in place.

Sun Record, remember those days of partying to your 45s?

Heinz in the studio, recording home of Elvis and the rest.  Check out those ceiling tiles, circa 1954.

We ended up our day with more stellar Memphis BBQ at Germantown Commissary.  Commissaries were small country stores located throughout the South.  They sold everything from horse collars to hamburger.  The original Commissary in Germantown, TN was a store for over 90 years, until it was bought by the present owner in 1981.  He turned it into a dynamite BBQ joint.  We enjoyed some wonderful hickory-smoked ribs to top off our time in Memphis.

Or at least we thought that meal would top off our time in Memphis.  After getting back to the rig Heinz decided to run a late evening errand and headed off to the store.  An hour or so later he returned home, in a police car.  Seems that on his way home he was hit broadside at an intersection by a woman who ran a stop sign.  Luckily there were no injuries, but here we sit, waiting on the auto body shop to report give us a heads up.  The accident happened on Saturday night and with waiting to communicate with the insurance company on Monday, taking a day to move the car to the auto body shop, taking a day to assess damages, and getting it fixed, it's now Thursday night, we're watching a lame Giants/Panthers game, and hoping the car will be ready by close of business tomorrow.

Oh well, here's our friends of the day from Colorado:

Mule deer at Rocky Mountain National Park

Elk at Rocky Mountain National Park

Dinner time

Oscar, King of the Marsh household