Sand Dunes in Texas & High Winds in Kansas

Sand dunes, we thought, were only in the deserts or by the sea side (shores).  No, we’ve seen them inland in several States, the most beautiful so far being the Coral Pink sand dunes in Utah, (photo) but there were a few we passed on the roadside in Texas, more in Nevada and amazingly as far north as Colorado and Washington.  Driving north, clumps of low pink flowers lined many of the verges and here and there were isolated wind mills pumping water for the small waterholes for cattle. 

Habitation was few and far between and seemingly, the only presentable looking building in the small town of Nara Visa, NM was a Post Office; most of the small homes dotted along the highway were otherwise in a state of dereliction.  

What amazed us most were the ginormous stockyards stretching for miles along the highway, or so we thought, but they were actually cattle feed lots.  We learned this from the ranch owner of the “Western Star” campground who told us that the cattle are trucked there to be fattened up for three months before slaughtering.  They receive a special mix of feed and live in practically all mud enclosures during that time - it made me almost want to become a vegetarian, almost. 

We do see sheep but rarely is lamb offered in restaurants and not much in grocery stores either.  So along Route 54, we rolled by huge grain silos and fields of crops,  alfalfa mostly in the south but mainly thousands upon thousands of acres of field corn for the cattle stretching for miles on end and irrigated by long sprinkler systems.  Nearly every home has grain silos on the grounds.

It’s a funny thing, but Kansas is truly the one State where we’ve experienced the worst weather.  This particular campground in Liberal was fairly new and situated about 5 miles away and high above the town.  There were no trees to block the wind and that evening with gusts reaching 45 mph and catching us broadside, our camper shook so severely that we thought about leaving for the safety of the nearest building.  Shortly afterwards, the winds calmed down and we stayed.  No wonder it’s so well known for tornados and the famous “Wizard of Oz”.

Dorothy’s House Museum from “The Wizard of Oz”

Dorothy’s House is one of the main attractions in Liberal and delights both children and  adults alike. The young girl who presented the tour was dressed in the blue gingham pinafore with red shoes, just like Dorothy Gale in the movie.  The actual home on this site was a 1907 farmhouse that was furnished and restored to represent, as faithfully as possible, the one in the film, made so many years ago in 1939.

Outside the house the yellow bricks we walked upon had been “bought” to help provide profits and were named and dated for the donors although the price of one was way beyond our means.  Inside the huge barn, we followed another yellow brick road to find appealing displays, especially for children, of the three main characters along with talking Munchkins, Glenda, the Good Witch and a frightening, cackling bad witch set amongst vast amounts of colorful plastic flowers and trees.  

The tiny museum holds the original model of the house (photo) that was used in the film as well as memorabilia from the Munchkin actors of that time.  After our visit, I very much wanted to see the film again.

The town also celebrates an Ozfest during October, which, we read, has been attended in the past by various actors who played the Munchkins in the film, as well as the great -grandson of Frank L. Baum, who wrote the book “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz”.   

 

Shrove Tuesday in Liberal, Kansas

Pancakes are the connection between Liberal and Olney, Buckinghamshire, in England, the home of the traditional annual Pancake race. It’s origin appears to have begun in 1445.  The festival here begins several days before the races and now lasts four days with the International competition held on Tuesday and ends with a parade in the afternoon. The main street is even named Pancake Boulevard. The two towns have a special 60 year ongoing friendship.

The people we met in Kansas and overall in the mid western States seem to be naturally friendly towards strangers and, sitting at the “Cattleman’s Cafe” waiting to order, we were asked whether we’d like to hear a joke from a man at the table next to us.  Without waiting for a reply, he told us a joke that he thought was very funny!  

For a town the size of Liberal, with an estimated population now of around 20,368,  it has a lot going for it, about 5 banks, 18 assortments of motels or Inns, several restaurants, one called “The Salty Dog”, an arts center, pheasant hunting on many public and private acres, the “Mid America Air Museum”, several festivals and fairs throughout the year and not forgetting 8 churches.  

In even the smallest towns in America there are often more churches than you’d ever find in a small English town.  That’s not unusual in this country where, it seems, that anyone who becomes a pastor can set up his/her own church and call it whatever they want.  However, it also seems that many more people in America attend church services both on Sundays and mid-week, judging by the number of cars we see as we pass by.

Dinosaurs at Tucumcari - Friday, 5th June

I’ve always wanted to visit Tucumcari, New Mexico, because I love the name. Apparently it’s loosely named after the Comanche word for “lookout”, which is highly possible considering the large mesa of the same name which overlooks the town.  Not that I knew anything about it and it’s fairly small but home to the only Dinosaur Museum that we’ve ever visited.

We found a well-kept, low cost campground called “Cactus RV Park”

en route to Kansas and are sure that we had the best site - 90’ long grassed pull-through with trees on either side.  Most sites were mostly gravel without shade but the owner and his son had planted more young trees and tended them carefully.  They like overnighters and don’t have showers or bathrooms, unusual for many RV Parks, but they also don’t have permanent or seasonal homes there, as many campgrounds do.  We also liked the location within walking distance of Del’s Family Restaurant (tasty home-cooking).

The Park is also home to the old Cactus Motor Lodge, once very attractive in its heyday and probably one of the first Motels along the old “Mother Road”, aka Route 66. The Lodge is listed on America’s National Register of Historic Buildings rather like the Listed Buildings in the UK, which means that it can be restored but not pulled down or altered and is unfortunately deteriorating slowly due to lack of funds. 

 

Affiliated with the Mesalands Community College is the Dinosaur Museum.  Many of the fossils and dinosaur bones have been found within 28 miles of Tucumcari.  Within the museum the laboratory has a glass frontage for us to peer at the students or for them to check out the visitors. Bronze skeletons of the prehistoric creatures were created in the College foundry and are major works that took thousands of hours to complete. Poor Howard, looks as though he almost got chomped by one! We were very impressed with the whole display of replica dinosaurs, fossilized dinosaur eggs found in China and artwork. With less funding than many museums in large cities

it had very professional exhibits; neatly organized with a digging pit for kids and a well-stocked shop for all ages. 

It also displays one of the world’s only “Torvosaurus” skeletons, a huge creature, this one about 40’ long with sharp, savage looking teeth and is somewhat related to the well known Tyrannosaurus rex. It was too big for me to photograph but just look at the height of another dinosaur leg in the photo. This certainly brought back memories of “Jurassic Park” and glad they’re not roaming around now.

Before we left Tucumcari, we stopped to talk to an old man who sat, would you believe, in a rolling office chair  near the front yard (garden) gate.  He  had worked in large scale construction and was in charge of all the hot crushed mix that was used to lay many of the roads and much of newest Albuquerque Airport terminal. Around the yard roamed 7 small, yappy dogs (one laying across his shoulder) three old cats and rabbits, he said, in the back.  Many years ago he owned cows and a 900 lb hog that he butchered and then had to use a “come along” to haul it up for gutting.  I had to ask Howard what this was and he explained that it was a pulley used for raising large objects.  He would have talked a lot longer but was due to leave for an annual reunion with his family;  how many, I asked “oh, about 75 altogether”, unsure whether that was small or large for the USA.

Then, the next morning as we were due to leave we met a Charles McCollum, who also wanted to stay and chat.  He had a home in Tennessee and a ranch in Colorado and bred Arabian horses.  He was proud to tell us that he owned a business employing 24 women - presumably because his customers preferred the sound of women’s voices over the phone but I thought it was because he thought of himself as a bit of a stud.  An hour later, we managed to hitch up and head diagonally east, passing as quickly as possible through the panhandles of Oklahoma and Texas. We reached the border of Kansas in late afternoon, reaching Liberal, 213 miles later, crossing yet another time zone into central time, now only 2 hours away from the east coast.

Early June '09

You’re right if it seems to you like we’re usually having a great time visiting different parts of this vast country and going where we may not have a chance to go to if we lived in one place?  Well,  we are very fortunate that we have both the time (being retired) and the opportunity to enjoy these years together and fortunately to be in good health.

In the past two years we’ve been awed by wonderful scenery in National Parks like Zion, took numerous photos of rock formations in Arches in southern Utah, ascended the world’s highest cog train to the top of Pike’s Peak (14,115’), in Colorado Springs, rode a jet boat up the Rogue river in Oregon and toured several fascinating museums, mostly small ones.  Some of our favorite times were enjoying simple pleasures like picking raspberries, watching a fledgling swallow being pushed off the top of a slide-out by one of its parents to learn how to fly (which it did), taking trolley rides through old historic towns and reading books in the evenings, which we rarely did before we began our trip.  

Some of our good friends, like Chris and Dave, our ex neighbours from Banbury, might wonder what we do when we’re not out and about.  Well, we do the same mundane things one normally does in any home such as maintenance, cleaning, cooking, banking, shopping etc., (not that I like shopping) but it would bore you to read about our daily doings.  What we do spend time on is keeping touch with our family spending many hours on the phone,  working at the computer, reading news on the internet and figuring out where to stay next and which route to take. Our lifestyle has changed completely from previous years. If you really want to know any more unimportant details or may have any questions, feel free to contact us.