AU REVOIR, TEXAS

Our final days in San Antonio were filled with a whirl of food, fun, and free stuff.  We visited the Market Square (El Mercado) and discovered that the Alameda, a museum, was featuring Mexican and San Antonio art and history since 1910, with free admission one day each week.  Our lucky day. 

Like many museums, this one prohibited photography.   At great personal risk, I bring you this image.

The art, sculpture and history merited a full day, but we could only spare two hours.  After that, we visited Mi Tierra Cafe and Bakery, consuming the best tortillas ever, wrapped around succulent meats, cheeses and vegetables.  Sadly, we had to skip the baked goods, which were abundant and colorful.  We did enjoy the strolling musicians but declined a personal song.

From there, we headed to the Riverwalk, a portion of the San Antonio River that is lined with shops and restaurants.  Since we were there early in the day we did not meet any crowds; the barkers outside the restaurants betrayed a hint of desperation that dissipated as the evening drew nigh and customers flowed in.  Riverwalk is beautiful, a little like Venice in a way, but cleaner.

I called my daughter Catherine to tell her about it, but it turns out she had been there for a conference.  She noted that she had fond but foggy memories of the Margaritas there.

We visited the Alamo, of course, and were suitably impressed by the solemnity of the history of this small but significant site.  It is well tended, the guides are knowledgeable and helpful, and there are important icons there, such as Davy Crockett's rifle, Jim Bowie's knife, and Colonel Travis' ring.  The Alamo, too, is free to visitors.

On the morning of our departure our kind hosts took us to yet another restaurant, where we just had to go to have breakfast tacos.  On soft flour tortillas, my bacon, egg and cheese taco filled me up--at $1.95!

San Antonio is awesome.  We were so smitten we started looking on Craigslist for rentals.  You can rent a three bedroom, two bath house in a nice neighborhood for a thousand dollars.  Not ready to pull the trigger, but...

NEXT: LOUISIANA and BAY SAINT LOUIS, MISSISSIPPI

SAN ANTONIO

Finally left the friendly confines of Flat Creek RV Park and the comfort and relative luxury of the Scale House for the 185 mile trip south to San Antonio.  We plan to visit and perhaps spend a day or two with a high school classmate of my friend Jim Burns.  One of the endearing features about this trip is that so many people want us to meet the friends they have respect and love for, knowing we will appreciate one another.  The people I meet are universally open and welcoming, each an oasis in the desert of time spent alone.  Time alone and the desert are beautiful in their own ways, but each oasis and every new person is a delightful spring of nourishment, unexpected and unique.

Shortly after leaving Waco we stopped for coffee in a promising little town called Lorena.  Surprisingly charming, Lorena has a Victorian feel not unlike towns in California such as Murphys, but is much smaller.  We visited the Texas Cheese House and were welcomed by Scott Simon and his son, as they were making a batch of provolone cheese.  It takes a hundred gallons of milk (eight hundred pounds) and a three dollar tablespoon of culture imported from France or Canada, to make eighty-five pounds of cheese.  The only differences in preparation of the fifty distinctly different cheeses Scott makes is the temperature of the mix and that one tablespoon of culture. 

Provolone cheese in a steel vat; the tall pipe is a screen for the drain



The whey is seen here pouring through a screen

 Scott purchases his milk from local dairies. The byproduct of the process, the remaining 715 pounds, is a liquid called whey, which everyone has heard of.  It is usually poured down the drain but can be used as an animal feed.

The Texas Cheese House also sells bread and rolls they bake on the premises and gourmet chocolates made locally.  The town is so small and feels so isolated one marvels at the ability of the Cheese House to stay in business, but apparently enough customers take the convoluted path from the freeway to the town to keep them profitable.  The other stores in town are also unique in their own ways and they work together to draw people in.  Scott lives two blocks away and walks to work.

After a three hour drive, we reached San Anonio and the home of Linda and Kelly.  Linda graduated from high school in Clay Center, Kansas, a town of five thousand people, in 1972.  She is the creative director for the San Antonio News-Express and is planning a motorcycle trip from Clay Center to the Grand Canyon with Jim Burns and another classmate in September.  She rides an 1100cc Yamaha Star and her partner Kelly rides an almost equally large Suzuki Boulevard, two impressively heavy and powerful bikes for women their size.

Linda and Kelly in the kitchen

Kelly welcomed us on arrival with a delicious meal, and we spent a delightful evening learning about San Antonio and Texas from the viewpoint of two non-natives who have become Texans.  They've opened their home and their hearts to us, and we've fallen in love with San Antonio.

NEXT: AU REVOIR, TEXAS

MORE AND BETTER TEXAS

I'm back in Texas now with my girlfriend, Jeane, and things are better.  Although it's only 47 degrees this evening and has been raining some, the last three days have been sunny and warm.  We drove down from Dallas to Waco to look at a property I own there, and ended up spending four nights at the best RV park ever.  It's owned by an archtypical Texan named Doye Baker ("No L in the name--Mah Momma never tole me where the name come from--Ah thank et was from some handsome train man, maybe").  Doye seems to have built or owned most of the commercial real estate in the area, including the one I own now, and he just built the RV park we're in, opening four months ago.  There are fifty-nine spaces right on the banks of Flat Creek, and the blueprints are three pages long:  one page for the site layout, one page for electrical, and one page for wastewater.

Texas gets a bad rap in California, but they do some things better than we do.  The schools are superb, for example.  Terri Martin, my friend in Dallas, sends her kids to an elementary school with 25 kids in a class, a modern and well kept structure, all the options that California has cancelled, and great teachers; kids with special needs get special help. They're building a brand new school nearby because enrollment is projected to increase.

The high schools look like California's Junior Colleges.

The infrastructure is constructed to keep ahead of building.  In Waco, and in other areas we passed through, freeway interchanges and roads are built--seemingly overbuilt--in the path of growth, certain that business and residential employment and taxes will follow.  In California it seems that the policy is to wait until growth has choked the roads and then try to widen them piecemeal.

There are signs of growth and economic activity everywhere--road construction, commercial building, residential development--things California seems to have given up on.  There's an optimism, too, that there is a future for people here, and there's a kindness and politeness that's real and refreshing. And no state income tax; California's now tops 11%.  Property taxes are higher than California but the money is used well.

Doye has made the RV park a charming and remarkable place.  Laid out on the creek in the center of a 650 acre spread, the 59 spaces curve in an arc that ends at a building called the Scale House, where grain used to be weighed.  The Scale House is a homey structure with a fully equipped kitchen featuring all Jenn-Aire appliances, two bathrooms, two living rooms, and covered porches.  It's left open 24 hours a day for RV'rs use, and although we made it our office and cooking area we were seldom disturbed by others.  Nearby is a laundry room with brand new free--free!--washers and dryers.


THE SCALE HOUSE

Outside the Scale House are some of Doye's vehicles, which include, among other things, a 1911 White dump truck with solid rubber tires and remarkably preserved wood detailing, and a startlingly large hand cranked dump bed.  It was the first dump truck made in America but looks like something from the '30's.

He also has a 1948 Kaiser luxury car and a 1939 LaSalle that looks like Bonnie and Clyde's getaway car.

Four peacocks and one peahen have the run of the place, cadging handouts from anyone passing.  They are so beautiful it's hard not to try to draw them near.  Nothing in nature is as distinctly blue as a peacock.

 I asked Doye how they taste and he said that if they keep pooping on his cars he might find out.

Doye runs about a hundred head of beef cattle on the ranch, but since rain has been sparse the grass is thin, so he took them over to "the other spread.  'Bout eleven hundred acres."  This spread has twelve man made lakes stocked with bass and perch, and a great number of sheep with very little wool.  The breed is for meat only, Doye explains, and their meat is considered a delicacy by Texas' increasing Asian population.  The adult sheep are not large, and their lambs, of which we saw many, are adorable.  The flock is guarded against coyotes by three sizeable and friendly Pyrenee-Andalusian mixed breed dogs.

Doye and his wife Esmeralda are gregarious and generous.  They insisted on lending us their Chevy, so new it doesn't even have plates yet, every day we wanted to go to town to the YMCA, bank, or whatever.  They spend a lot of their time working with a church that supports the homeless and missions in poor countries.  Wonderful, salt of the earth people.

NEXT: SAN ANTONIO

TEXAS. FREEZING COLD TEXAS

It's been a long time since the events here actually happened.  I've been through half of Texas, from El Paso to Dallas, flown to San Francisco to spend three weeks at home, flown back, and drifted on down to Waco.  I have no excuse for not blogging sooner.  Anyway..

Entering Texas at El Paso on December 8th, I made it through and out as fast as possible.  From the freeway, El Paso is 25 or more miles of run down housing, brick warehouses, refineries, cemeteries, and railroad tracks that weave in and out of brick warehouse districts, all of it covered by a smoky haze.  It reminded me of the Paris suburbs, where their minorities are relegated, as seen from the above ground Metro--minus the graffiti.  The houses all seemed to have been built at the same time, maybe during WWII, of the same cheap materials, and were uniformly  lacking in maintenance.  The freeway, old concrete, created a distinctly unpleasant whistling sound mile after mile and the haze penetrated the state, obscuring the nearby mountains, for at least a hundred miles.  I understand the economy is good and housing prices are rising.

I drove miserably through Texas, stopping first at Pecos, home of The First Rodeo and the legend of Pecos Bill.  To be Pecosited means to be killed and dumped in the Pecos River.  I met two genial old guys from Quebec who had more fun bantering in Franglais than I thought possible.  Each had his own brand new $100,000+ RV and they hooked up on the road from time to time.  Both were halfway crippled from accidents and age but didn't let it slow them down.

My heater was not working, I discovered, and it was so cold I could see my breath inside the RV at night.  I opened up my sleeping bag and spread it over my bed, and slept warm, at least. 

As I approached Midland--oil country--I saw oil derricks pumping away on both sides of the road, from the roadside off in both directions, giving the grass, pavement, and the air, seemingly, an oily feel.  It was so cold I stayed at a motel in Midland, one of those sour but cheap rooms that have big, deep old TVs nobody would steal and the room you're in is a no smoking for the night you're in it, at least.  I can't distinguish it in my mind from the one I stayed in the next night at Abiline.  In one of those two places I rode my bicycle four miles through streets where snow covered the sidewalks to watch the Steelers play at the best sports bar I ever saw.

It was so cold I hardly took any other pictures.

I arrived in Dallas on December 12th and spent the night at my old friend Terri Martin's, reconnecting with her two sweet and exciteable children.  December 13th I dropped my RV off at Blue Moon RV Repair for what would turn out to be sixty-two hundred dollars of repairs and tires, and flew off via Southwest Air's seemingly standard three stop trip to San Francisco and home.

NEW MEXICO

The first thing I noticed as I entered New Mexico on Highway 10 is the astonishing amount of freight rail traffic.  I saw five fully loaded freight trains in my first twelve minutes in the state, all pulling east or west with two or more diesel engines in front and (usually) a pusher in the rear; the terrain was getting  mountainous.     As I climbed higher, I saw hayfields, huge fields of nut trees, cows, fireworks stands, and the ubiquitous trains, trucks, and trading posts.  The land became more rolling and greener than Arizona, but still dry.

Plenty of fireworks, though.  For six hundred bucks (less 30% because you're spending more than one fifty) you could blow up the neighborhood.

I didn't detour to Truth or Consequences, NM (I'm one of the few who remembers when the town changed its name), but I did pass through Deming, "Home of Pure Water and Fast Ducks."  Didn't see any ducks--I expect they were too fast, like the cartoon Road Runner and the famous three legged chickens.

Like everyone else in the desert, Deming had its tank.

                         

Passing through Arizona and New Mexico lands roamed by Cochise, Mangas Coloradas and the Chiricahua Apaches was spine tingling.  The Apache had a good run, and were done in largely by US Army treachery.

Although New Mexico was prettier and more diverse than Arizona, I felt rushed because of the solar delay and missed a great deal.  I bypassed Carlsbad Caverns, White Sands Missle Range, Taos, and fortunately, the 40 inches of snow southern New Mexico got in December and the 105 inches northern New Mexico got.  Passed by the biggest dairy farm I've ever seen, though. 


NEXT: TEXAS.  FREEZING COLD TEXAS.

PHOENIX and TUCSON

Finally got the solar completed.  Seems to work fine but I haven't had a chance to try it out because I've been visiting, first for three nights in Phoenix at the home of one of my two best fifth grade friends, Jim ("Max") McBride.  Max's dad Jim was my dad's best friend and we moved next door to the McBrides when I was eleven.  Our neighborhood in Pittsburgh, Mt. Washington, was a little rough.  All dads were blue collar (if they had jobs) and all carried...issues.  Max's home life was, shall we say, not statistically predictive of success, but he was always surprisingly centered and connected to people then and is still. One of those guys you feel optimistic around.

We had a great time.  I caught up on the news from Mt. Washington and we filled in the forty year blanks, and watched the 1960 World Series 7th game on DVD.  (We saw it on TV in 1960, but not together.)  Did some hiking, too.  Beautiful uphill climb to Squaw Peak in particular.

I probably shouldn't say that Max was shamed into climbing the last little bit by a 69 year old lady on her way down, but it is the sordid truth.

The coolest thing in Phoenix was the Musical Instrument Museum, a collection of over 15,000 musical instruments.  It includes instruments from nearly 200 countries, with audio and visual displays corresponding to the instruments.  You can hear the different instruments played as you stand in front of the displays with headphones on.  Staggeringly beautiful.  Has an interactive section where you can try unique instruments as well. 

We also took a trip to a Steeler bar; Max has deep and constant connections with Pittsburgh and its sports teams.

I didn't get a chance to spend much time with Max's wife Kathy, but she thoughtfully baked some cookies and banana bread for me to take along.
Metropolitan Phoenix, more than 4 million people, is essentially flat, but has small mountains abruptly rising like pimples in random spots.  It was founded about 1865 by a Confederate Civil War veteran who engineered irrigation canals based on ancient Indian canals.  Much of its growth has been led by developers, often in cahoots with corrupt officials and sometimes organized crime.  Don Bolles, a writer for the Arizona Republic, was murdered by a car bomb in the city in 1976.  It was believed that his investigative reporting on organized crime and politics, particularly the relationships in Phoenix between real-estate developers, organized crime, and out-of-state corporations, especially in regards to land and housing fraud, made him a target.  Phoenix real estate took a major hit in 2008, similar to Las Vegas.

Phoenix is incredibly profligate with water.  There are many golf courses and lots of greenery in this desert spot, and there is apparently no tiered water metering.  Water is cheaper here than it is in Marin County, and it's wasted.  The volume of water coming out of the shower at Max's was staggering to me.  And, of course, everyone has a pool if they can afford it.

With the exception of two modest downtown areas, everything seems to be one or two stories, resulting in sprawl.  The summer heat can be overpowering; the large stadiums are domed.

Tucson once was larger than Phoenix, but no more.  Water is not brought to Tucson by the same system as Phoenix and it is noticeably scarcer and more appreciated.  In Arizona I crossed over numerous rivers and creeks and, without exception, they were bone dry.  All had names, though.

I visited my cousins Kathy and Patti in Tucson and spent a night in their home.  They plan to take a road trip around the country in a year or two.  K & P live in a surprisingly large and well built manufactured home in a community of perhaps 550 manufactured homes.  Very common in the southwest.

I did see some new homes being built and, surprisingly, some commercial building, including a new tilt-up.  Don't see much of that in California any more.  To the east is Apache country, where Cochise led his people in their struggle against the white settlers.

NEXT: NEW MEXICO

SOLAR!

At long last, the solar panels and related equipment have arrived and have been installed by Bob, an expert in the specialty field of RV solar installation.  His work is generated by word of mouth--his past clients are passionate advocates.  I will be too.  Bob does not like to install solar on homes because it costs too much and because he doesn't like goverment subsidies (he has a Sarah Palin bumpersticker on his truck).  He's the fastest electrical worker I've ever seen, moving from place to place as he works with a motion that would be a run if distance allowed.  Doesn't waste a SECOND from the time he arrives till the moment he leaves.  Yesterday we got the panels installed and connected on the roof and got the control panel set in the RV.

I've been helping Bob because I desperately want to get this done.  He's had me drilling holes in all the mounting brackets, screwing the brackets onto the panels, and other tasks that don't require too much thinking.  I spent about four hours on the work and easily saved him thirty minutes, no matter what he says.  I also did a great job cleaning up and putting things away after he left yesterday, and I know I was very helpful when he was fishing wire through and needed someone to say, "I see it!  It's through!"  No way a guy can do that without climbing up and down from the roof.

Bob maintains a strict focus and keeps things right by talking to himself, saying out loud what he's doing and what he's going to do next and so on.  While I was helping him I found myself saying, "What? What? Say again?"  I quickly got the idea that he'd get my attention if he needed it.  I did recognize that if I wanted to understand what he was doing and why all I would have to do is stand and watch; I could get an audio visual tutorial of the whole process.  If I had any aptitude at all for this suff it would have been incredibly useful, but alas...

He's from Roundup, Montana, and has a place overlooking Musselshell River.  Looks like Tommy Lee Jones, less fifteen years, fifty pounds, and five inches.  Got his first break working as a draftsman for an engineer named Stark (first name), one of those rare but memorable businessmen-mentors who give responsibility to people if they show the ability to handle it.  Stark wasn't hung up on formal titles or degrees and, given the opportunity, Bob flourished.  After eight years he moved on so he could get out of the office more.  He seems to have found his niche.

Like a lot of problem solvers, Bob sees most clearly what doesn't work and gets extremely frustrated about it.  His scorn for most RV solar installers is relentless.  Observing that most (he might say all) installers oversell, overprice, and underdeliver, he spends a lot of his time correcting installations done by big outfits who ought to know better.  He likes to pretend he's gruff and hard--he has an entry on his website titled "The History, or how did I end up so angry?"--but he's extremely sensitive to what people need and even more so to what they can afford.  A lot of talk and a lot of thought go into his designs, and when he's done you have what you need--no more, no less--plus the flexibility of adding more if you want and of taking your package to your next rig if you move up.  His estimate of the hours my installation required was exactly correct.  His estimate of material was off by twelve cents on what I ordered and twenty dollars on what he supplied.

His wife, Noreen, bakes her own bread and cookies.  I got a cookie but he wouldn't share the bread, just let me look atit.

Today he finished installing the inverter and doing all the wiring.  He was also going to run a propane line to hook up a new heater for me but some of the parts haven't come in yet.  My way of helping is by staying out of the way and by not rocking the RV too much when I'm inside.  I'm very sensitive to the little things.

I'm anxious to get out of town.  I've been here nineteen days now, far more than I expected to spend in one place. Looks like I'll have to wait until Monday to get the parts for the propane heater and have it connected.

Today is my son Owen's 27th birthday.  Happy birthday, Owen.  I love you.

NEXT: PHOENIX and TUCSON