The Badlands are Great Lands!

After breakfast at our hotel, we only drove 100 feet before my first picture of the day. This deer, made of car parts and rusty tools, perched on a squashed car in front of the gas station near the hotel. While Phillip got gas, I scampered across the parking lot to get my pictures. I found out about the car parts deer during my research for the trip when I came across the website “Roadside America.” If you’re heading somewhere and want to find small, quirky attractions worth a drive by, Roadside America is a good source. Another good source for information about attractions near a destination is the website "Trip Advisor."

Phillip and I continued west toward the Badlands, watching for more interesting sites. We’ve frequently seen fairly large bee hive clusters like these as we’ve driven in South Dakota, more than we’ve noticed in the other states. We would expect with all the alfalfa fields that bees would be plentiful here, but I didn’t realize until I checked that South Dakota is the third leading state in the country in honey production. FYI, North Dakota is the #1 state for honey production. We saw these hives as we drove to the Minuteman Missile visitors’ center. From the early 1960s until 1991, South Dakota was home to 150 missile silos, each armed with a missile pointed at the Soviet Union. The next available tour of the control center museum wasn’t for over two hours, so we continued on.

About three miles south, we came across the Prairie Homestead. It is a preserved actual

homestead as settled originally in 1909. During 1900 thru 1913, a lot of this area was homestead by settlers who got 160 acres for $18. This was one of the last areas subject to homesteading, and probably one of the least successful in the country. 90% of the homesteaders here abandoned the area after two years or less. The winters were very harsh on the ill-prepared settlers. The people who settled at the site we visited, however, were successful. In 1949, the last son moved to California and the place ended up abandoned. It was still in good shape, though, when the preservationists came, so it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1974 and preserved.

The Prairie Homestead has several buildings, including the original sod home with an addition from about 1915, a deserted claim shack that the homesteader took apart and rebuilt to be the family living room. The site had a cave dug into the hill that served as a refrigerator in the summer and a place to keep food and milk from freezing in the winter. The folks who run the Prairie Homestead have a pony and goats on site and chickens in the original chicken coop. Prairie dogs, probably descendants of the same prairie dogs that were a nuisance to the homesteaders, live in their burrows around the site.

About 8 miles south of the Prairie Homestead, we paid our national park fee and entered the Badlands National Park area. Spectacular is the word to describe the Badlands. It is the most amazing site we’ve seen on our trip. I’m going to just put the pictures in and continue with the narrative after, because the pictures are better than my words.

We stopped at numerous overlooks to take pictures; however, we walked a lot at the location called the Door Trail. The Badlands were formed by water erosion that exposed layers in the rock. Imagine being a settler in a wagon, making your way across the prairie, and coming upon 244,000 acres of this!

 

After spending several hours in the Badlands, we headed for the town of Wall and ate lunch at Wall Drug. Wall Drug is no longer just a drugstore, it is a multi-block destination. Phillip and I both had a buffalo burger, then we walked around the Wall Drug attractions. I’m not actually driving a wagon, it’s just a display on which tourists like us could sit and take pictures. We didn’t buy any souvenirs here, but we did notice that the petrified wood pieces on sale here cost three times what we paid for them yesterday at the Petrified Garden. Wall Drug had stuffed bison, a large animated dinosaur, a fake mine trail, and other activities for kids.

Wall Drug was very crowded, so we were happy to get away. To avoid any more crowds, I

navigated us to the west Sage Rim Road of the Badlands, instead of heading west on the interstate freeway. I figured not many people would use that road as it was longer and was the “‘scenic route.”  Yes it was scenic and yes, we only saw about four cars in the forty miles of the road. Also, the pavement ended about eight or so miles in. Our baby was used to Jack County gravel roads, so she did just fine. The gravel road was packed, dry, and wide.

In addition to more views of the Badlands, our scenic route also yielded the following sights.

We returned to a paved road and made our way to Rapid City, where we were finally able to get a new air filter for the SUV. The oil change people in Kansas had shown us that we needed a new one, but no auto parts store along our route (and we stopped at several) had one in stock for the Mitsubishi. Not a popular make of car here, I guess. It was probably for the best that it was after the thirty miles of dusty gravel that we found the new filter. We initially planned to spend the night in Wall, but the crowds there drove us on the Rapid City to spend the night.

Pull over? Hail, yes!

We drove from Grand Island, Nebraska, to Kadoka, South Dakota, today, touring a factory, an auto museum, and a petrified wood display; seeing the beautiful Sandhills area of Nebraska; and having a bit of excitement on the road. The factory we visited (for free!) was the Hornaday Ammunition plant in Grand Island. I couldn’t take pictures in the manufacturing area, so the best I can do is to show one of the well-done mounts that have in the lobby and office areas. The plant tour was great – an employee named Michelle took Phillip and me thru the entire process, except for putting the powder in the casings (safety issue, no visitors there). We were amazed at the level of quality control and all the dies and presses used. We saw the lead being melted, then cooled into 165 pound solid tubes of lead called billets. These billets are then pressed into reels of lead wire, which is then cut for each bullet. More machinery cuts the copper jacketing and yet another presses the jacketing and the lead together. There’s a whole lot more to the process, as we saw, and it was an education. Sorry, no free samples of ammunition at the conclusion of the tour.

After the tour, we headed northeast toward the Sandhills area. Our road paralleled a set of tracks and we noticed train after train, over a mile long each, moving or parked on the tracks. All were filled with coal. At first I thought they were delivering coal from Kentucky or West Virginia, until I realized that they were heading southeast as we headed northwest. Fortunately, we were in a location with cell service, so it was time to search for that useless information on the internet. Did you know that the largest coal-producing state is Wyoming? West Virginia and Kentucky are second and third in coal production. I’m not exaggerating when I say we saw 20 miles of coal-containing boxcars heading from Wyoming.

As we proceeded farther into Nebraska, we noticed a very significant cloud bank ahead of us, far in the distance. We hoped our route would take us to the west of what we figured was a significant storm.

Meanwhile, we saw the land change from flat plains full of corn and alfalfa fields into the Sandhills. This area of the Sandhills is basically sand dunes covered with native grass. In the picture, you can see the sand on the side of the hill where the dune and grass dropped away. No corn or alfalfa here, just thousands of acres of these grass-covered hills.

 

I haven’t put a food picture in the blog yet or raved about some special dish we ate. We’ve been eating breakfast at the hotels (nothing special there) and usually Subway for lunch. Today, at lunch, we were not near a Subway, but the gas station in Thedford had a sandwich shop, so we ate there. We buy and eat something there that we had never had before: Larry the Cable Guy’s “Tater Chips.” This is as exotic as it gets in Nebraska!

Now, about those clouds and the title of today’s post. About twenty minutes after lunch, we actually made it to that cloud bank. The rain started, then all the sudden the hail started, hail the size of ping-pong balls pounding the SUV. Fortunately, we were about 200 feet from a field driveway, so Phillip pulled off the road and turned the SUV so the hail was hitting the back window more directly than the front window. After about two or three minutes, the hail changed to pea-sized, then it stopped and we just got rain. No windows were broken but it was a scary few minutes. We do have multiple dents in the SUV now on the hood and roof. Our baby has even more character than before and now has its own war story.

We stopped at a small casino just over the South Dakota state line, but didn’t stay long.

Combined, this stop cost us less than $2 in gambling losses. Our next stop was at the Pioneer Auto Show, actually forty building full of old cars, some in prime condition, others not so polished. An original Dukes of Hazard car and Elvis Presley’s motorcycle were the headline attractions. We spent a few hours here, as we walked thru every building (all forty of them!) and display area. Not every building or exhibit was car-related.

Some of the forty buildings were just sheds and others were metal buildings like our workshop. Probably half the buildings contained the car collection, the remaining buildings held all manner of stuff. Eclectic describes the entire collection of the Pioneer Auto Show.  They had an exhibit of metal lunch boxes. I liked the Mork and Mindy one. I say “exhibit” and “display,” but this was much more casual than the museum in Hastings where we saw the Koolaid exhibit.

After the Pioneer Auto Show, we got onto I-90 and had more

traffic and road construction in the next 40 miles than we has had in the previous 900 miles on state highways. We stopped here in Kadoka for the Badlands Petrified Wood Gardens, a fairly small outdoor and indoor display, but with great explanations of the petrified wood found in the nearby Badlands area. Petrified wood is created when wood becomes waterlogged and is covered with layers of sand and silt. As the molecules of wood decayed, they were replaced with molecules of silica and other substances. The trees basically became rocks.

 

The Petrified Garden also had  local dinosaur fossils and an inexpensive gift shop. After the Petrified stop, we found a hotel in Kadoka. Actually, it is the hotel in Kadoka. All the other lodging options are motels, so we’re glad to get our room here. Tomorrow: the Badlands

Toto, we're not in Kansas any more

Nope, we’re not in Kansas, we are in Nebraska. Phillip and I made several stops today on the way to our overnight stop at a Days Inn in Grand Island, Nebraska. We began at about 7:45 am with our free breakfast at the hotel. They had a waffle maker, so Phillip was quite happy with our carb-loading start to the day. Our chariot, also known as the SUV, was due for an oil change, so we stopped at an express oil change business just a few blocks from the hotel. We were quite pleased with the service, as the young man who changed the oil knew about cars and talked to Phillip about issues with our high mileage baby. We now know why it uses so much oil (a leaking rear main gasket, but not bad enough to cut short our journey).

Our first sightseeing stop was to visit the Big Well museum in Greensburg, Kansas, about 30 miles from the hotel. It is the largest hand-dug well in the world. It is no longer used as a well, so the townspeople put steps in it and opened a museum. Greensburg is also the site of a 2007 F-5 tornado that literally wiped out the town. The Big Well museum also contains numerous displays about the tornado and the town’s return to life after their devastating loss.  

Our next stop was at the Statue of Liberty. OK, the mini Statue of Liberty that the Boy Scouts built along Highway 281 north of Portis, Kansas. The Boy Scouts did an amazing job with the statue. I tried to text a picture of it to the kids, suggesting to them that we must have made a wrong turn somewhere. However, I had only one bar of signal strength, so I think the picture never made it. The lack of cell service except right in bigger towns is something we didn’t realize. Because of our route thru the countryside, we were without service for most of the day today – and probably will be tomorrow, too. I do have paper maps to rely on, so we won’t get lost in the middle of nowhere.

The most underwhelming site we visited today was the geographic center of the 48 states. A flag and a rock marker about a mile off of Hwy 281 on a farm road. That’s it. Not even a parking lot. We just stopped in the road, but don’t worry, there was no traffic. None.  And we could see why. Soybean fields and corn fields. But…. now we’ve been to the geographic center of the 48 states. I’ll bet not too many people can make that claim!

We saw corn today. Acres and acres of corn fields. Kansas and Nebraska are major corn producers. We saw why the college football team is called the Cornhuskers. So much corn! The most common second crop we saw was soybeans. It appeared that the farmers rotated their fields between corn and soybeans, as we saw some fields where a few corn stalks appeared in the soybean field. In southern Kansas, we also saw beautiful alfalfa fields.

Our favorite stop of the day was just a few miles south of here, the Hastings Museum. I wanted to stop because it is the home of the “Kool-Aid: Discover the Dream” exhibit. Phillip and I highly recommend this museum. It was one of the best museums we’ve been in, and not just for the Kool-Aid exhibit. But first, here’s your lesson about Kool-Aid.

Edwin Perkins was a home chemist who sold patent medicines like gasoline additives and elixirs to stop smoking. One of his most popular concoctions was Fruit Smack, a flavored syrup sold in glass bottles. But the bottles were heavy and they would break during shipment, so he worked on a powdered version of Fruit Smack. In 1927 he succeeded and called the resulting product Fruit-Ade. He soon changed the name to Kool-Ade, then later to Kool-Aid. Perkin’s Kool-Aid outsold all of his other products combined. The exhibit noted that a package of Kool-Aid cost 10 cents until 1933. Because of the Great Depression, Perkins actually dropped the price of his product to 5 cents, a price it kept until 1953. When Perkins’ health began to fail, he sold Kool-Aid to General Foods, who began the marketing campaign with Mr. Kool-Aid and all kinds of product tie-ins. The exhibit had videos of some of the old commercials for Kool-Aid, including the 1970 commercial starring the Monkees! I got a big kick out of watching that one.

 

On to the parts that Phillip liked best, which I think was the entire remainder of the three floors of the museum. Unfortunately, I underestimated how good the museum would be, so we arrived an hour before they closed. We did move thru most of the exhibits, including the stuffed animals that frequent the Great Plains. This picture is of a bison, which is a different animal than the buffalo, although a lot of folks misname them as buffalo. The museum contained many more animal displays.

On another floor, the museum had the most extensive collection of old guns that we had ever seen, long guns, revolvers, Gatling guns, you name it. After we walked thru examining the displays, I noticed labelled drawers under each glass case as we were leaving the area. I pulled open one and we found even more guns,  also under glass, but closer and easier to really look at. So… we scurried back thru the gun exhibit, taking turns pulling out drawers and announcing what we were seeing, with a “Wow, look at this one!”

The museum staff had already announced the closure of the museum when Phillip found an

exhibit with a telephone just like the one that we had bought at an antique store in Galveston. The manufacture date of the one in this museum was 1933. We practically ran by covered wagons and Indian exhibits as we headed to the door so we wouldn’t get locked in. Needless to say, we were the last museum patrons to leave. We could have spent another two hours there, but we really enjoyed what we did see. Tomorrow, more driving and stops as we head northwest thru Nebraska, probably making it into South Dakota by the end of the day.

Great Plains Road Trip Begins

This post finds us in Pratt, Kansas, having traversed Oklahoma from south to north today. We have begun a road trip to see Mount Rushmore and visit some Colorado ski resorts on our way back to Texas.  I’ve wanted to see Mount Rushmore ever since I saw the movie “North by Northwest.” Cary Grant won’t be there, and I’m sure it is more commercialized than when that movie was made decades ago, but still… and it is a national monument! Because we will only be in the lower eastern part of the Rocky Mountains, we are basically taking a road trip thru the Great Plains.

We left the ranch this morning at 9:20 am, and made a prolonged lunch stop at the Kiowa and Red River casinos just across the Red River from Wichita Falls. Our cows are looking good and have plenty of grass because of the recent rains. The females are definitely pregnant – Thelma, being the shortest one of the herd – looks like a black barrel with legs. However, they aren’t ready to calve yet and probably have at least a month before we have new calves.

Phillip did all the driving today. I expect he will continue to drive as he gets bored being a passenger. I brought some crocheting, so when the scenery looks like this, I can stay occupied. We were pleasantly surprised with today’s driving conditions. We took US 183 then picked up US 281 thru Oklahoma, mostly on two-lane roads. However, we never had a traffic slow-down and we were usually the only car in sight. I guess everyone else was on the interstate highway. Yes, we had to slow down thru towns, but the route was so much better and traffic lighter than the highway.

We stopped in Clinton, Oklahoma, at their Route 66 museum. It was a nice little museum, only $5 each to visit. We saw vintage cars, signs, and items that our grandkids (and maybe even our kids) will never see: a phone booth, a rotary phone, and a punch button cash register.

 

The museum did a good job taking the visitor thru the history of Route 66, “the mother road,” with displays of its construction, the exodus of the “Okies” to California on Route 66 during the Dust Bowl, the Rock and Roll era’s drive-ins and diners, and the eventual end of Route 66 when it was decommissioned because of the interstate freeway system.

One of my favorite display areas was the one about the rise of bus travel across Route 66. I took several pictures of the Greyhound bus company items. My dad retired from Greyhound after driving a bus for almost 35 years. I have found memories of riding with him on occasion. He never drove on Route 66, as he worked out of Cincinnati, Ohio, but the Greyhound logo and bus stories on the signs resonated with me. 

Phillip got a real kick out of the hippie van they had in the museum. Of course, he was just a kid in the 1960’s and in high school then the Air Force in the 1970’s, so I was probably closer to being a hippy than he was.  Even so, I know I never rode in a van like that, although I did come to Texas in a VW Beetle in 1978.

Since we are on a road trip, I chose to pose next to the station wagon. Shades of Clark Griswald! No kids or elderly relatives with us, though. On a related note, we did stop at two WallyWorlds, aka Walmarts, today. Once in Wichita Falls to pick up oil for the SUV and the second time in Alva, Oklahoma, to use the restroom and buy a delicious dinner. I’m actually not kidding about that dinner. Those Hormel ham, cheese and cracker packages you can buy for $6 are actually quite good and more than enough for two people.

We planned to spend the night in Alva, but the options in Alva were either dumpy looking motels or tremendously over-priced hotels. $169 plus tax for Alva, Oklahoma? We paid less than that for the Hyatt on the Riverwalk in San Antonio. That’s why we picked up our Walmart dinner and kept driving. We passed some interesting areas, especially this one where the erosion exposed layers of grey rock in the red soil. I saw a pheasant next to a recently cut field and we both saw a spotted fawn, wanting to cross the road in front of us. We slowed almost to a stop as we passed so we could actually stop if she darted out in front of us.

We stopped for the night at almost 9 pm at a Super 8 hotel in Pratt, Kansas, 68 miles farther than we planned to drive. Less than ½ the cost of those Alva hotels! Free WiFi, free breakfast, a refrigerator, and a new TV. The art above the bed illustrates something else we’ve seen, other than thousands of cows, namely wind farms. Lots of wind farms in Oklahoma. I expect we’ll see more of them here in Kansas also. Tomorrow, we’ll drive north thru Kansas. Since Dorothy and Toto are associated with tornados, here’s hoping we don’t see them!

Amtrak to San Antonio

This is a catch-up post about our May adventure on Amtrak’s Texas Eagle train to and from San Antonio, our two-night stay near the Riverwalk, and visits to the Alamo and other San Antonio landmarks. I am switching to my ranch computer with Windows 8.1 so several aspects of blog posting are different from my little netbook and its Windows 7 experience.  I want to make sure everything works well before we head out on our USA driving trip with its daily, or almost daily, blogging as we travel.

When Phillip and I made plans for 2014, a travel year for us, we wanted our year to be “Planes, Trains and Automobiles… and Boats,” although hopefully not with the mishaps that befell Steve Martin in the 1987 movie from which we borrowed our title!  The “planes” portion would be covered with the long flights to and from the Philippines, the “automobiles” part would be our USA driving trip, and “boats” would be several cruises. We needed a “train” segment, and the Trinity Rail Express (Fort Worth to Dallas light rail service) to the Texas State Fair in October didn’t seem exotic enough since we do that every year now. An Amtrak ride was therefore in the picture. We decided to test the waters with a short trip on the Texas Eagle service from Fort Worth to San Antonio, as San Antonio is a beautiful travel destination. Phillip found an excellent hotel deal at a Hyatt on the Riverwalk and I made the train reservations for us, leaving on May 6 and returning on May 8.

  

The Fort Worth Convention Center, two blocks from the Intermodal Transportation Center (the downtown bus and train station), allows overnight parking in its garage ($15 for 24 hours), even if the City website doesn’t make it clear. I know this because I emailed the City Public Events folks to find out. The ITC was clean, had plenty of seating, and was populated with fellow travelers, not homeless folks. We boarded our train at 2 pm, and the train began moving at 2:18 pm, only 8 minutes behind schedule. However, and this is a big “however” and the reason we may not take a longer train ride, that 8 minute delay was the closest we would be to any scheduled time on the remainder of our journey to and from San Antonio. The train moved about four city blocks south from the station and stopped. We had a nice view of Lancaster Avenue and downtown Fort Worth for the next hour. That scene of rushing trees, blurring past our window did not occur for another two hours!

We did wait in comfort. We were amazed at the room we had on the train. Our seats were fantastic – so much more room than an airline seat! I could barely touch the footrest when I snuggled back into my wide, cushioned seat. To accommodate short-legged passengers, a padded seat extender swung up to various positions so I could basically stretch out in my seat. Each seat had tray tables with extender arms and more than ample space below the seat and above the seat for carry-on luggage. The aisle between the pairs of seats was wide enough for two people to pass without touching each other. This part of the trip exceeded our expectations.

Our train finally began moving again at 3:15. The ride was quieter than I expected, no clanking as we rode down the tracks. The side-to-side swaying motion and a slight bouncing sensation as we picked up speed were not unpleasant and fairly minor. I brought snacks and oven fried chicken in a cooler, as I knew we were traveling thru dinner time. We went to the sightseeing car, glass-enclosed with tables, and ate and played cards. The train stopped to pick-up and discharge passengers in several cities, including Cleburne, Killeen, and Austin. The view of the sunset was fantastic from the train.

We arrived in San Antonio at about 11:15 pm, ninety minutes behind schedule. The train station was much smaller than the ITC, and the two waiting taxis scarfed up passengers quickly. I knew our hotel was less than a mile away, so Phillip and I walked. The route was well lit, with colored LED lights under the interstate bridge, and we encountered no transients or even mildly alarming people. The San Antonio Spurs had just won some play-off game, so the streets had a fair amount of celebrants in their vehicles with banners and horns honking, but not very many actually walking. Our stroll to the Hyatt Riverwalk was just what we needed after the 9 hour train ride. And the Hyatt was quite nice – complimentary cold bottles of water when we checked in, a refrigerator in our room, and a comfy bed.

Wednesday morning, we began a quick tour of San Antonio. The hotel was just a block from the Alamo, so that was our first stop after coffee. I hadn’t been since before Leslie was born, and Phillip’s last visit was even before that. We listened to the presentation and walked thru the grounds, amazed again at the bravery of the folks who stood their ground there.

After the Alamo, we walked to the Buckhorn Saloon and Texas Ranger Museum for lunch. After lunch, we took the tour there of both the historical Texas Ranger displays and the animal displays. FYI, I’m referring to the lawmen, not the baseball team. We weren’t impressed with the Ranger collection. Although it had some displays about the formation of the Rangers, the collection basically consisted of letters and memorabilia of a few Rangers who served mainly during the 1940s thru 1960s. 

 I recommend the real Texas Ranger Museum in Waco over this one. The taxidermy collection at Buckhorn was a different story – it was huge with all kinds of animals on display. The picture shows just the mounts in the dining area. The entire second floor of the building had rooms of full mounts of all sorts of critters and a carnival side show area with a sloping floor (where I looked taller than Phillip).

After the Buckhorn, we walked to Market Square, an area with vendor stalls similar to what we’d find in Mexico, but with prices twice as high as those we’d find in Cozumel or on the cruise ship pier in Progresso. Needless to say, we didn’t buy anything there. After that, time for the Riverwalk and its cool shade and peaceful water. The sun had come out, so the three blocks to the first set of steps down to the Riverwalk was a bit toasty. We walked along the river until we came to the boat ride vendor. We had never been on the boat tour, and the price, $8.25 each for a 35 minute narrated tour, was reasonable. This was worth the money, as our tour guide told us of the history of the channel and stories of the building and structures we passed.

Because it was mid-week, the area was not crowded and at times, our boat passed thru areas where we didn’t see any other people – but there were always ducks! The ducks have learned to paddle quickly away from the tour boats, but apparently enjoy the calm water of the channel and the handouts from the tourists. The landscaped areas next to the water also provide habitat for the ducks.

After our boat tour, we continued walking back along the Riverwalk to our hotel. We considered swimming in the roof-top pool, but the pool was really small with no shade, so I just took some pictures from the roof, including one of this brightly colored art deco building we had seen from the water during our boat tour. The rear entrance of our hotel opened right onto the Riverwalk, so we went back to the Riverwalk to find a restaurant for dinner. We had lots of options to choose from, as most of the buildings that line the Riverwalk are restaurants, or hotels with restaurants. We finally stopped at Casa Rio, a Mexican reataurant that had available seating outside near the water. Although our chili rellenos were good but not great, the view was quite entertaining.

 

Pigeons, sparrows and ducks vied for leftover tortilla chips. The bravest of the ducks would walk up to seated diners, including us, then cock their head and just watch. They never pecked at us but their request was clear. I did not use a telephoto nor did I even crop this picture. I just held my camera beside my chair and got this guy, waiting for a tortilla chip. Actually, the ducks wanted only a small piece of a chip. If the chip was too large, the pigeons would rush over and snatch it away from the duck. And the sparrows… they came after a duck/pigeon tussle over a chip to clean up the little crumb pieces. Because I’m sure the wait staff did not want to clean up duck and pigeon droppings, the staff very promptly cleaned each table as diners left, although not before the pigeons flew in to steal chips left in the basket. And for the squeamish of you…the wait staff used bleach water to wipe off these outdoor tables and we never saw a bird near an unoccupied table.

 

Final note about dinner, I had a Texas pale ale called “Weekend Warrior” which had definite hints of grapefruit in the flavor. Interesting, different, and quite enjoyable. We walked around a bit more and stopped for ice cream at CVS. Yes, the pharmacy. Instead of $5 for one scoop from a vendor, we got a pint of Blue Bell and two spoons for $3.69. Back to our room for dessert!

We got up early Thursday morning and walked back to the

train station to catch our return ride to Fort Worth. It was overcast and almost drizzling rain. Our train, scheduled to leave at 7 am, pulled out of the station around 7:15 am. Since we had arisen at 5:30 to catch the train, I almost fell asleep as we left San Antonio. If I would have brought my travel pillow and a blanket, I probably would have. Phillip and I had picked up bagel sandwiches from the hotel restaurant for our breakfast. I also had snacks still left to eat, including the dried pizza peas I had bought in the Philippines.

 

As we rode north, the rain increased and the train slowed. We passed over the Brazos River.

At one point, we stopped on a siding for a long time. The conductor finally announced that we were waiting for a freight train ahead of us to move. The crew on the other train was waiting for their relief to arrive and their train was blocking the tracks.  While on this return trip, we ate dinner in the dining car. The food reminded me of Chili’s, both the quality and price. In other words, not bad on either count. The snack bar below the sightseeing area, however, was expensive and had  a limited selection. This train had more passengers than our southbound train, so a table in the sightseeing car was not always available. We finally pulled into the ITC at just about 5 pm – 2½ hours later than scheduled.

To summarize what we learned: Amtrak is a comfortable way to travel, but expect delays and be patient. Take a DVD player, book, cards, pillow, blanket, and snacks. San Antonio is a wonderful destination for which good deals can be found that put you right on the Riverwalk – and take the boat tour!

Return Home and Final Thoughts

We made it safely back to DFW after a grueling flight that started when we got up at 2:15 am Monday morning and ended at 11:15 pm Monday night when we arrived home. That doesn’t sound too bad, but figure that our start and end times were not in the same time zone, but had a 12 hour difference. Our bodies were awake from what to them was 2:15 am Monday morning to 11:15 am Tuesday morning. We missed a night of sleep after having only gotten about five hours of sleep Sunday night. We had a two hour flight from Manila to Hong Kong, then a five hour layover there. We were flying Cathay Pacific Airlines; however, a company called DragonAir had the neatest looking paint job, red dragons on the tail section. I can’t tell you what Hong Kong looks like because the airport was almost fogged in. About half the departing planes were delayed. Fortunately, ours was not one of them. If you ever travel thru the Hong Kong Airport, bring your own snacks. $4 for a 500 ml bottle of water, over $60 for a small breakfast for the three of us – coffee (one cup of brewed, nothing fancy) was $5. The airport did have free internet kiosks scattered around. Phillip and I used them to check our emails and the weather forecasts. Our plane left Hong Kong on time and we then endured the 13 hour flight to Los Angeles. Mom was pretty tired by the time we were almost there, so Phillip asked the flight attendants about a wheelchair for her and they were able to call ahead and have one. We were glad they could arrange it, as she would have had difficulty with the LAX customs line and long walks up and down ramps to get to our next boarding location. As it was, the wheelchair came with a staff person who took us to the special lines. Mom doesn’t use a wheelchair at all here, but even she admitted that Phillip’s idea for her to have one then was the correct way to go. At 91, she needed this particular perk at this time. We had another 5 hour layover in LAX. When we got to DFW, we very happy to see my brother-in-law, Terry, almost as soon as we made our way to the baggage area and sat Mom down in a chair.

Our Philippines trip is now over and it was great. Mom took her film and had it processed yesterday, so I have copies of her pictures. While she was at Burt’s, he and Linn had a party for the family members with birthdays in March (I think there were 5 of them). Linn had it catered, complete with a roasted hog and huge birthday cake. Burt said that Mom was dancing at the party, and I believe him. The party was on the beach near his house. Linn and I went there to pick up shells for a game board I bought called Sungka. I saw it at our hotel in Puerto Princessa and want to learn how to play it. Sounds like Internet search time for the directions and hopefully a video.

Phillip and I will return to the Philippines in a future travel year. We enjoyed our adventures and appreciate the education system of the country that teaches English in school. That is a legacy left from when the Philippines was part of the United States, a territory like Guam and Puerto Rico still are today.  The clear blue water with coral reefs teeming with fish rival that of Thailand. The volcanic rock composition clearly visible in some of the smaller islands is fascinating. To think that eons ago, volcanoes in the ocean spewed lava to form the islands, then time changed the volcanic rock into soil in which plants can grow is a nature lesson at its basic. Regarding food, the Philippines comes up a little short. Although we enjoyed the chicken and pork adobo, we found the food to be rather bland for such a tropical climate. Thailand and Ecuador had better tasting native dishes. To be fair, we never tried the balot – and that could have been great. I doubt it, but maybe. Phillip and I agree that the mangos of the Philippines are the best in the world. We had never bought them because they are smaller than the ones we buy, but the taste is stronger and fruitier. And a well-blended mango shake is unrivaled to provide relief from the heat. The people of the Philippines are friendly and welcoming. They easily engage in conversation, especially if you ask what they think of the Chinese. (China is trying to claim some of the islands, even though the disputed islands are over a thousand miles from the China coast and within Philippine’s recognized border.) The Philippines is composed of over 7000 islands. Considering the island-hopping tours and our overnight stays, we’ve seen about fourteen of them. Plenty more to visit! So, to quote General McArthur, “I came through and I shall return!”