Change for the Better?

A number of people have contacted us to say they cannot seem to view our blog, so I have tried a couple of things to help. One of them is to change the template I have been using, hence the change to the page layout.
On the activity front, yesteday was a rest day. After nearly two weeks of activity we tried very hard to do nothing, to the point where Sally said she was bored and I said 'Good, then relax some more'.
I was pleased to get some photos on to the blog, as we had really had a blast in Dallas and Fort Worth.
I could not believe the range of possible explanations for the assassination and the muck ups that happened subsequently. If they run the country like that no wonder the world is in deep do-do.

Fort Worth

Today is a day we have looked forward to for some time. We are going to meet up with Charles and Tange, a lovely couple we met on the River Walk in San Antonio at the Boat Festival in November. They live just outside Fort Worth and said they would like to show us the highlights of the city. We arranged to meet them in the car park of a Chili’s, just off I35W. We lost our way in the very complex road system, which led to the air turning blue. Fortunately they were late as well because of heavy traffic. We decided to take just our van into Fort Worth, as it carries Sally’s Electric wheelchair. The plan was to visit the downtown area of Fort Worth called Sundance Square and eat lunch, then explore the Stockyard area, watch the cattle run and eat dinner in that area.

Sundance Square is a small area in the middle of Fort Worth which has be cleaned up and has become an eclectic mix of condominiums, high brow shops, eating places (not chains) and bars, most of which seem to be pub style. This area was recently seen on TV as it was the residence of the Green Bay Packers Team during the Superbowl. TV set up an outside studio in the square and broadcast many hours of TV from there in the build up to the big game. Most notably there are many large restored buildings dating from around 1900 – 1940 which feature some excellent Art Deco facades. It was fascinating to explore. The backdrop to these buildings were some modern skyscrapers, all glass style, which gave a cosy closed in feeling (not hemmed in) to the area. We stopped at a eating places called Risckys for a BBQ lunch where we had one dish between four of us! I then had to carry the remaining food back to the car in a box.

The Highlight of the the shops was looking in the very, very expensive western shop (Tange selected a lovely leather handbag; its price was over $5000, so she put it back).

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Following an excellent wander round the Sundance Square area we moved out of town to the Stockyard Area on Exchange Street. Fort Worth is most known for its cattle industry. It was the home of two of the largest meat canning companies Armor and Swift, sadly no more in Fort Worth. The canning industry needed meat and lots of it, so the stockyards round the factories were built to handle literally thousands of cattle, sheep and pigs daily. Exchange Street has become a tourist area of bars, shops and eating places, but many of the original buildings are still there, including a huge stables, the most amazing station and the stockyards themselves. The highlight of the Stockyard is the twice daily cattle drive through the street, a remembrance of the cattle drives that used to happen in its heyday. Twice a day the road is cleared, visitors (including us) wait on the sidewalk and a herd (15) of Longhorn Cattle are driven along the road. All great fun. Many people come to the area dressed as wranglers or cowboys, some to pose with tourists for money, others just because! We really enjoyed visiting the railroad station, it is like no other we have seen. It is a turn off Exchange Street and is a narrow brick road, with shops on both sides, almost completely closed in roof with a rail track running down the middle, no platform of course. When we arrived it was jam packed with people and a full size train, more like I think Calcutta station would be like than USA. Conductors at each carriage, with lots of shouting of all aboard added to the atmosphere, as did the Western Country band playing on the sidewalk. As we watched, the final whistles blew and the big diesel loco pulled the train way from the station to much waving by both passengers and passers by.

Following our exploration of The Stockyards it was time to eat again, Charles and Tange wanted to take us to a Joe T Garcia’s, which is more of an institution that a restaurant. It is simple Mexican food; you can order either enchiladas or fajitas. However it is the place itself that is fascinating. It occupies a complete city block, with a good sized indoor restaurant. However everyone comes the to eat on the patio, which is a huge garden with lots of small areas with ponds and fountains . When we arrived there was a line which ran out of the building, so we decided to eat indoors as there was seating available. However when we left we looked round the garden. The restaurant has seating for 1600, and is mostly a very lovely area of gardens. When we left, about 6.30, the line had grown to around 100 metres of people waiting to eat in the patio area. The streets around were packed with cars parked and there was even a line of cars waiting to get into the street area round Joe T Garcia’s! The food was very nice, with lots of bits brought to the table, nachos, tacos, tortillas and dips. A really fun place to eat.

Following our meal it was time to say goodbye to Charles and Tange who had been the best possible guides and friends on our day out in Fort Worth. Another day that am sure we shall never forget.

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Dealey Plaza and South Fork

Dealey Plaza has been one of the items on 'Our Most Important Places toVisit' list since starting our travels. Strangely, although everyone in England knows the history of the assassination of John F Kennedy, the place associated with it is The Book Depository and the name Dealey Plaza is not so commonly used, whereas in the USA Dealey Plaza, quite rightly, is the focal point of the event.
We did our tour of the Sixth Floor Museum, which refreshed a lot of the information we had learned over the years. It was interesting to see the reconstruction of the 'Sniper's Nest' in the corner of the Sixth Floor, disappointingly no photography was allowed. I don't quite know what they would lose by it, still they ain't gonna change because of me.
The assassination by Lee Harvey Oswald seemed straight forward, with only a couple of question marks. However, it is afterwards that I have been set thinking. Like so many other assassinations there are only facts, possible facts and questions, no objectively true answers. The biggest question to me is: why did he not shoot the president on Houston Ave - where he had a much clearer, closer shot, with the car coming in a straight line towards him? The trouble is that once you start looking for conspiracy, you find all sorts of things which can be conspiratorial. Whatever happened it was a sad day for the USA.

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We then drove round the inner ring road of Dallas, which is truly confusing unless you are really on the ball, and by mistake we had to drive into Dallas along the road which features in the opening credits for 'Dallas'. We skirted the city and drove to the north of Dallas to visit South Fork Ranch, the home of the TV series 'Dallas'. It was fun to see the house where the series was based, although all the inside shots were done in a studio in California. It was a lot smaller than we remembered from the series, but they apparently used wide angled lenses which made the place look bigger than it actually was. Inside was still as it was when it was the home of a Texas Millionaire and it was very, very plush. Most striking was the master bedroom, which is huge, with a walk-in washroom, 2 toilet rooms (his and hers we assume), a walk in shower room and a large sunken bath room. We also saw 'Daddy's' Lincoln Continental, which was very nicely looked after.

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To Dallas

On Monday morning, minute by minute precision planning took over and we swung into action. We had to leave at 9.00, to return the RV by 11.00 (we arrived at 10.45). Having spent $45 on a taxi to the RV rental the previous Tuesday we had decided to rent a car for the day, so we were then collected by the Budget Rental driver and taken to collect our Budget Rental Car. Because of the late notice, I had to rent the car for 8 days in order for the Budget Computer to think we were worthwhile bothering with (it is spring Break and a lot of cars are already hired out). This meant that we had to return it early, like by about 7 ½ days, still it worked out OK. As we had about 5 hours to kill we went up to Downtown Orlando, as we had never been there. We found a lovely park and a historic district to have our lunch in, then we went for a wander round the Florida Mall, avoiding all the temptations (apart from a Goodie with our tea and coffee in Panera Bread) . We then drove the 15 minutes to the airport, dropped the car, did a Bag Drop, had some tea and arrived at the gate just in time to go straight onto the plane. The plane was more than on time – it landed 20 minutes early. We took the shuttle to the car rental, picked up the car. Interestingly using the Fastbreak programme with Budget the guy at the desk swiped my card and then said to choose any car in section 1 of the car park, which gave a choice of about 5 different compact cars; we chose a Nissan. We arrived at the Motel 6 by about 10.20 and flaked out. Next day we jumped up early and drove north to Sanger, where the trailer was stored. Lo and behold, the trailer was clean and bug free and the Chevy started first time. Having read the small print on the budget rental car we find that Sally can drive it at no extra cost, so Sally drove the car and I drove the Chevy and we returned the hire car. We then drove back south to the Corps of Engineer lakeside campsite at Hickory Creek Campground near Lewisville that I had booked a couple of weeks ago.

This evening we went out for our first Steak of the trip at the Texas Cattle and Land Roadhouse Grill. It was excellent. We also had a great conversation with our waitress, Stephanie, who had just returned from a 6 months tour of Europe.

Party Party Party

Inevitably communications with the rest of the world ceased for the weekend, as we have done nothing but eat, play bluegrass, eat, talk with our friends, eat and laugh.

It has been a wonderful weekend, one of the best that Connie has orchestrated. Only the very cold nights were able to put a stop to the jamming.

I had a great time with the band scramble, as I was fortunate to be with a group of really great musicians, so we had some really good ‘instant music’. Well done to Jan and Marilee for organising the Band Scramble so efficiently.

Saturday afternoon and evening saw the concerts by regular bands, again I was really honoured that a band called the Haines City Good Old Boys asked me to join them on stage for a great set.

The highlight though of the evening was the performance by the ‘Hideaway Hooters’, a relatively unknown (thank goodness) group of swinging girls(?) who move everything in an effort to please their audience. Somehow Connie had persuaded some of the men to dress provocatively as women and sing for us. It was a hilarious performance. Connie thinks that there may well have been 500 people for the pot luck supper on Saturday.

Sunday: in the Gospel hour Sally and I had the chance to sing our latest song, In Times Like these. A very simple song which was well appreciated by the group gathered there.

All things must come to an end and through Sunday afternoon people packed up and left, we again had to say farewell to friends old and new. We ourselves stayed over until Monday morning.

Thursday

Things are really winding up now. There is a team of cooks who help Connie to prepare food and they have been bustling round all day, making pies (chocolate, banana cream, lemon meranguie), soup (any dish vaguely damp is pronounced ‘soup’ in America, from chilli to goulash to clam chowder, this happened to be goulash) in 5 gallon boilers and enough macaroni cheese to feed an army. Lots of signs have gone up, the registration tent is now active and the sound system has been put in place. We awaited the arrival of Don and Sandy and they turned up just after 12.00, having set out at 6.30 from West Palm Beach. Meanwhile the music has started, Sally and I practiced for an hour, trying to make up for 6 months of doing nothing. There was one big jam session in the evening, which moved further and further into the Pole barn as the evening got progressively colder, finally ending up in the food store, which was delightfully warm from all the fridges in there. I bowed out at 12.55, which in jet lag terms was 5.55 a.m. U.K. time. Sally made the sensible decision and went to bed at about 10.00. Really good fun though.

Wednesday

Today was a good day to visit Walmart.

Our Friends Jim and Kath took us to the Oxford Landing Walmart so that we could stock up on goodies for the week we are in Florida. Oxford Landing serves The Villages, which is a massive development for the over fifties (more than 100,000 people). Without her electric wheelchair Sally is dependant on using one of their handicapped electric carts(scooters). While waiting, I idly asked how many carts they have. He told me he has 35 for the one Walmart store! He also thinks that is the largest number of electric carts in any store in the country. That is a piece of trivia that you may want to drop into the conversation at your next dinner party.

Today is Oakwood day, 30 of us went to the local Pork Rib Joint restaurant for dinner. Sally and I each had a very nice full rack of pork ribs (half of which is now residing in our fridge for lunch tomorrow).

As I sit here now a storm has been blowing up, we have had to take down other sides of Jim’s marquees and store all the plastic chairs out of the wind, now the rain is starting.

We travel to Connie's

Once again we have achieved the minor miracle which is moving ourselves a fifth of the way round the globe without mishap or disaster. We made very connection with the minimum of hassle. I am constantly amazed that the four big engines on the 747 can work constantly for 9 hours without a single falter (they can’t misfire).

For those who are sad enough to like the details of journeys and for our own records the following is a description of our journey. For those not so afflicted they may pass on to the lower part of the page.

You can skip from here……………….

A rare experience for us is to travel through Middlesbrough by taxi. Fortunately we gave ourselves half an hour to travel the mile and a half to the station, since the driver told us a) that the would take the quick route through the town, using the bus lanes and then 10 minutes and three quarters of a mile later, that b) he normally worked in Thornaby. Our journey of no more that 7 minutes took him nearly 20!!!! However we arrived on the platform as the train pulled in. The train journey went very smoothly, the only hiccup being that because of signal failure the train terminated at Manchester Piccadilly. However we only had to get off the train and move to the other side of the platform to catch a connecting train to the airport. A quick call summoned the Hilton’s shuttle bus, which transported us the estimated 100m (as the crow flies) to the hotel and we were safely installed in an upgraded ‘deluxe room’ (no provision for disabled access room, even though it was on the booking form). Because they never have anywhere comfortable to lounge I like a couple of extra pillows and because Sally doesn’t like to feel left out she has a couple as well, so I returned to the front desk to ask for four extra pillows, “That would be fine Sir” the lady said with a refined, but definitely Latvian accent. About an hour later a knock at the door and a slightly confused housekeeper brought two more pillows. She gave them to us and made a move for the bed and started to pickup our pillows, saying something in a definitely unrefined Polish accent “ Ghare R you pheorm pelos”. At this point confusion reigned as I was not about to give up my pillows because this lady could not count. Clarity arrived through repetition as she eventually made clear these were foam pillows. She thought we wanted hypoallergenic foam pillows, so was replacing our pillows with foam pillows. To be replaced by eye popping expressions of disbelief that we would want four pillows each! Fortunately Sally said that she would be happy without any extra and every thing was sorted (except of course Sally stole one of my pillows, not that I would complain about that).

That evening we splashed out on the three course set menu in the Hilton’s restaurant and justified it as being Sally’s Birthday Meal! It was very nice, Sally had a char grilled chicken salad followed by Salmon with new potatoes and green beans and finished with fresh fruit salad. I had mussels in lemongrass and chilli cream sauce, followed by rump of lamb pan fried with chips and a jus, with green beans. I finished off with a lemon tart and cream. Overall it was a very enjoyable, well presented and tasty meal, leaving us feeling pleasantly full.

We woke early and unfortunately could not do justice to the breakfast buffet, though we did our best. The shuttle delivered us to the Terminal, there was no line for the bag drop – straight through, the aircraft boarded early, there were plenty of spare seats on the plane (unusual) and a favourable route delivered us to Orlando airport 30 minutes early. A slight hesitation on our smooth passage was the immigration officer! She had been annoyed by another employee who had ushered us to her desk before and American Resident (two different lines)! So she relieved her annoyance be giving us the third degree on why we wanted to be here, why I had a visa but Sally didn’t, why I had a visa, full stop, how much cash we had, etc. very petty, but after reading all the small print on our passports very closely, she allowed us to enter the nation proud of it’s freedom. A rapid transit through the airport followed by a short taxi dirve (which didn’t stop it costing $45) to the premises of Cruise America. A quick walk around our RV, which is adequate, though basic and looks t be about 5 years old and held together with duck tape, and we were underway. One minor slip of direction (going the wrong way on the Expressway) meant half an hour extra on our journey time and we arrived at Connie and Jim’ just in time to get parked up in our usual spot before it got dark.

…………..To Here

As we drove up Connie and Jim’s drive we could see that about a dozen RV’s were already here and when we pulled up at the Pole Barn we got a very warm reception from everyone and within seconds felt we had never been away.

Kathy and Jim have been wonderful and loaned us a whole heap of stuff like cutlery, bedding and Jim has even loaned me a coffee maker. I left Sally to unpack the cases into the cupboards and drawers on the RV, while I went and had a short jam session in the Pole Barn.

As we crawl into our bed in our little RV we give thanks once again that we have arrived safely on the start of our next adventure.

My Cooliris Wall

The Waiting

The list is progressively getting shorter as we slowly do all the things on it and then tick them off. We have sorted insurance, printed off all the tickets and bookings, done last minute shopping, cleaned the house, done washing, tidied the garden, loaded up our English caravan with the bedding etc. after it was emptied for the winter, done the list of birthdays and made sure we have all the addresses, put checks in the bank and Sally's had her hair done (thanks girls) and is trying to catch Terry to do his!!

There are still a few things to do, but we are well on target.This is good, as this means that we can rest in between doing things as we are both still trying to recover from various viruses we have had.

We have had to load up our caravan before we go to the USA as we plan to take it away a couple of days after we return home so we can camp with our friends from the Ridings Folk Group for summer half term week. Trying to load up when jet lagged is not a good idea so we have got it done, ready just to put our food and clothes in it and set off. We can sleep when we get there!!

Why do you always lose something that you need? I cannot find a folder which contains all my songs and music and Terry cannot find the English dongle to connect the laptop to the internet. We have looked everywhere, but I'm sure they are in the cavernous region of the GARAGE - where most things not in use are stored! We even checked the caravan to see if we left them there. No joy!! So today, I'm having to make a new music folder.

We are beginning to get excited and are really looking forward to some warm weather. The temperature in Orlando is around about the 80's F - lovely!!! It's really cold here today - the sort where you need gloves, scarves, thick coats, hats and thermals! But the garden is already beginning to bloom and grow. The crocuses are out in all their glory and the miniature daffodils are budding. The bushes are all sending out new shoots and the heather is in full flower. Very nice to see this after such a long, cold and dark winter.