The Cadillac Ranch

We have spent a second day in Amarillo, Texas as what we call an "off day" -- a non-travel, mostly non-touristy day, a day to just get caught up with shopping, relaxing, and generally a vacation from the non-stop vacation that is our life.

 

We are currently staying at an RV park call "Oasis," which just happens to be next to a huge cornfield.  And in the middle of that cornfield is the Cadillac Ranch.

Cadillacs As Seen From the Road

Per Wikipedia:

"Cadillac Ranch is not a ranch but a public art installation and sculpture in Amarillo, Texas, USA. It was created in 1974 by Chip Lord, Hudson Marquez and Doug Michels, who were a part of the art group Ant Farm. It consists of what were (when originally installed during 1974) either older running used or junk Cadillac automobiles, representing a number of evolutions of the car line (most notably the birth and death of the defining feature of mid twentieth century Cadillacs: the tailfins) from 1949 to 1963, half-buried nose-first in the ground, at an angle corresponding to that of the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt. ^"

Fins to the Left of Me, Fins to the Right of Me

The cars have been immortalized in song, parodied as the Cadillac Mountains in the movie Cars, painted all white, painted all pink, painted all black, and painted in rainbow colors for Gay Pride Day.  Now visitors arrive with spray paint in hand and cover every inch with their own brand of graffiti.  It is truly a mercurial art form.

Spray Painters

Regarding the funds for installation, Wikipedia continues,

"The group claims to have been given a list of eccentric millionaires in 1972 in San Francisco, identifying Stanley Marsh III of Amarillo among those who might be able to fund one of their projects and submitted it to him. Marsh's response began "It's going to take me awhile to get used to the idea of the Cadillac Ranch. I'll answer you by April Fool's Day. It's such an irrelevant and silly proposition that I want to give it all my time and attention so I can make a casual judgement of it." 

And our current RV Park?  They have their own version of Cadillac Ranch!

Oasis RV Park Joins the Fun

Cadillac Wanna Be?

Lowell Observatory and the Grand Canyon

We have been staying in Flagstaff for two reasons. First, we have an overheating issue with the rig, and found a mechanic here that has received ALL 5-star ratings on Yelp.  He is a Yelp God.  He thinks he knows what the problem might be, but could not get the rig in for two days.  We decided to wait.  Second, it is very, very hot now, and Flagstaff is relatively cooler at ~7000 feet.  So here's what we did for those two days.

Day 1: We toured Lowell Observatory, named for Percival Lowell who founded the observatory and famously declared in 1909 that Mars had canals, leading to speculation that intelligent civilizations were on Mars.  Lowell Observatory is also where Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto in 1930. Based on gravitational tugs,  Lowell had previously predicted that a planet, dubbed "Planet X," should be there, but died before he could find it.  Tombaugh used a "blink" technique to locate it -- multiple photographs over  a period of time are stacked, and flipped back and forth rapidly.  Stars stay in the same place, but planets or other moving objects will appear to move from one position to another, causing the object to blink.

Percival Lowell's Mausoleum

Lowells Hand Drawn Mars Globe

Where Pluto Was Discovered

We also did some H-Alpha solar observing

We finished the trip with a couple of beers at the Mother Road Brewery, on the original Route 66 in Flagstaff:

Mother Road Brewery

John have a brew

****************************************************************************

Day 2: we took the train from Williams, AZ to the Grand Canyon. These are the same tracks that have been taking visitors, such as Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, John Muir, and Clark Gable there since 1901.  The day started with a cowboy skit, followed by the two and a half hour trip to the rim.  Along the way, we were served pastries, fruit, yogurt, and Bloody Marys.

Grand Canyon

On the train

John relaxing on the train

After getting off the train, John and I lunched at El Tovar, one of the great Fred Harvey establishments.  Our table seating was lucky -- it was accompanied by a view of the canyon!  After lunch, we walked along the rim for a while and took in the sights before boarding the train for the return trip.

Along the way we saw what appeared to be very short telephone poles running along the track, some of which had wires strung between them.  It turns out these were old telegraph wires.  When a wire broke, someone was sent out from Williams on horseback to fix it, and the height of the wires was set very low so a man could reach them while standing on the back of his horse (apparently women were never sent out to fix telegraph wires).

Telegraph Poles

Later on the return trip, the cowboys from the skit "robbed" our train.  They came riding along side, "forced" the train to stop, and "robbed" us all of spare change (aka, "tips"). We were told to put dollar bills for them on our person, such as tucked in a hat, or under a watch.  The robbery happened just as we were served champagne to celebrate the trip. One of our neighbors on the train tucked her money in her cleavage, and the robbers had no fear of retrieving it there!  When asked if he was hesitant to take it, he said, "Hey, this ain't my first robbery!"

The Bandits Approach the Train

Take My Money... Please!

We Finally Leave Aguanga and Make It to North Ranch

After a few false starts and a few delays, we finally got on the road for the summer!  Our plans are, like usual, firmly written in jello.  We are going East.  That is the major plan, although we do hope to get to the Outer Banks, up the coast to Maine, and back across the country, visiting friends along the way.

We are traveling in a new-to-us 2004 Newmar Dutch Star, and part of the delay was getting it registered and ready to go.  We are now spending our third night in it, and so we are still learning how things work, where the light switches are, and trying to remember where we put things -- we know that Whatchamacallit is somewhere, and didn't we put the Doodad in the kitchen drawer? 

We still have our 2009 Forest River Lexington GTS for sale, although it looks like that will wait until we return to our home base -- Jojoba Hills SKP (Escapee) Resort in Aguanga, CA -- in the fall.

So Night One was spent in a very empty, desolate, dusty park in Quartzsite, AZ.  The number of people in Quartzsite in January swells as hundreds of thousands of RVers descend for what we call "Spring Break for Seniors."  Party in the desert, with most people dry camping and having fun with groups of friends.  Not so much fun in June! Quartzsite becomes just another dry desert town, the hot sun relentlessly fading everything. The RV park office wasn't even open, but a guy named Bill with a dog named Cody came by to take our money.  Cash only!

So now we are at the SKP park in Congress, AZ called North Ranch. We are staying here for a few days to get some shopping done (to get the things we forgot, which turned out to be so many that we needed a long list), figure out how to connect our DirecTV to the dish on the roof (hoping they are compatible and knowing in our hearts we'll have to buy some kind of cable that is just like the ones we have sitting at home), figure out why John can't connect to the internet (we think our hotspot may be bad in a finicky way or his computer decided it really doesn't like him anymore), and get John reconnected to email (his account seemingly went south but we think it can be restored).

North Ranch is mostly vacant this time of year.  We took a walk over to their amazing Saguaro Park today, and here are some photos of it:

Entrance to Saguaro Garden

The star of the cacti is named Methuselah, and has been hanging out here since circa 1600:

Methuselah, with Blossoms 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Look closely at the dark spot at the bottom of Methuselah, center of the photo. Those are bees.  A beekeeper is coming soon to relocate them.

Bees. Lots and lots of bees.

In addition to lots of quail running around, there are lots and lots of bunnies, too.  This little guy was hiding behind a prickly pear:

Hippity Hoppity, There Goes A Woppity

In closing, there is so much is in bloom now, and cactus flowers have to be some of the prettiest:

So lovely!

WWII and BioBlitz

Our next stop along the historical tour was the World War II museum in New Orleans.  Originally dedicated only to D-Day remembrances, it is currently in the process of expanding -- enormously -- to encompass all of WWII, and much is still under construction.

The high point of the visit was the excellent "4-D" movie, "Beyond All Boundaries," narrated by Tom Hanks. 4-D means non-film effects such as smoke, vibrating seats, flash-bangs, and 3-D objects that mesh with the screen action are part of the experience.

We saw some other WWII exhibits, navigating our way through groups of field-tripping middle school kids with "Class of 13" on the back of their shirts.  It struck me how ancient this history must be for them -- they are too young to even remember 9-11.

We  saw huge WWII planes hung in a massive gallery.  Visitors can walk among them on catwalks, although they warn anyone with a fear of heights to avoid even exiting the elevators, let alone venturing out on the catwalk!  I don't have a fear of heights, but there were a couple of times when the vast amount of space to the floor made me cringe just a little. These planes are on the fourth and third floors. Those little tiny dots on the left are people on the ground floor.

We then participated in a recreation of being a crew member on the submarine Tang.  The Tang, under the commnand of Lt. Cdr. Richard “Dick” H. O’Kane, sank a record 33 Japanese ships during 5 patrols.  Unfortunately, on their fifth (and last patrol before returning home), the last torpedo to be fired boomeranged back and sunk the Tang, killing most on board.  Most of those that survived were captured by the Japanese and sent to POW camps.

We were all given identities of real crewmen on that ship, and we were assigned "their" posts on the sub. John and I were John Kanast and Arthur Darienzo, and our post was Hull Opening Indicator Panel. Our job was to open and close the torpedo doors (in reality, to push a button when it flashed).   We never knew exactly what the other people were supposed to be doing, but some were turning wheels and dials,  some moving a periscope, and some just sort of standing around.

When the simulation was done, you found out if "your" crewman survived or not.  Neither of ours did.

Next we were off to a BioBlitz in the bayou! A BioBlitz is a weekend when teams of specialists in all sorts of flora and fauna scour an area to count the number of species they can find. This one was at the Jean Lafitte National Historic Park and Preserve, and was a joint venture with National Geographic. In addition to the teams, the public was invited for food, entertainment, and learning.

This was my second BioBlitz-- I had participated in the 2006 Potomac River Gorge BioBlitz on the Odonata team (dragonflies and damselflies) as a photographer with my friend, Richard Orr. This time my particpation was limited to strolling past booths, talking with artisans, and eating snow cones and crawfish hotdogs (and sampling John's alligator dog).

Here's the group photo from 2006. Yes, I'm in there somewhere:


We had to park at a State Park and use the shuttle to get to the site of the BioBlitz.  Did I say shuttle?  Hah.  It was a school bus.  A big, yellow, grumbly, shaky, klunky school bus.  It wasn't crowded so we each had a seat to ourselves which was fortunate because the leg room was so tight I had to sit sideways to sardine myself in.  Ah the memories! Watching the huge doors creak open and then clambering up step after step as the bus driver's face changes from bored to impatient. Avoiding eye contact as everyone stares while you look for an empty seat that is not next to the kid picking his nose.  Stepping in gooey, stringy bubble gum left on the floor, now heated to the consistency of peanut butter.  Listening to the air brakes, and trying not to think of it as a "bus fart."

But at least I didn't have to deal with that odd kid, the one with the wild hair and piercing eyes, who kept peering at me over the seat behind me.  But then again, maybe I did.