Fun and Educational things I did this week

(not necessarily in any kind of order)

1. Visited the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas, in the Texas School Book Depository. I thought it was an excellent museum, with good integration of video footage of various aspects of JFK's assassination with the museum exhibits. It is really weird to stand in the place Lee Harvey Oswald stood.

2. Fun with Rafia's WACKY GPS system. It often lies.

3. Engaging in shenanigans with Rafia's colleagues.

4. Southfork Ranch, where Dallas was filmed (outside scenes anyway). Oddly enough, we went there on my insistence. EPIC photos were taken there.

5. Ft. Worth Zoo: many active and adorable animals lived here including black bears, a white tiger, lion cubs, cheetahs, meerkats, otters, and more.

6. Kimball Art Museum: A nice art museum, with terrible signs for parking. But a nice museum.

7. Free IMAX videos including "Sea Monsters" and "Extreme". I preferred "Sea Monsters" while Rafia preferred "Extreme"

8. Movies watched: X Files I Want To Believe which I have decided was a dream and thus will pretend didn't really happen, Hamlet 2 which was mostly funny, and Wall-E, which I loved, but wept throughout.

9. Photo Shoots of Rocky, Uniqua, DJ Pinja, Bearning Love, Renee, and a nameless blue reindeer

10. Delicious foods were eaten, possibly to the point of gluttony.

11. San Antonio Missions National Historical Park was wonderful.

12. Riverwalk in San Antonio was sort of cool, if you like that sort of thing. I sort of do. Love San Antonio, and the Southwest, overall.

13. Much, much more!!!

Graceland

I am in Jackson MS tonight after spending the day at Graceland and driving part of the Natchez Trace in Mississippi (and a brief trip to Oxford MS). Memphis was full of Kentucky and East Carolina fans; having avoided the sports page over the last week I was oblivious to the bowl game being played until I started wondering about all the UK flags on the cars passing me on the highway. Anyway, Graceland was nuts. I sort of felt the same way I felt about Las Vegas--really glad I visited, but felt a little overwhelmed.

Other than a trip a while ago that took me to Tupelo and Elvis Presley's birthplace, I have not spent much time in Mississippi. Tomorrow I'm going to take the Natchez Trace to Natchez before heading to Beaumont Texas, near where my grandfather was born. I am not sure what I'm going to there, but I've never been to that area and I'm curious about where my family is from. My ultimate destination, of course, is Arlington.

The outside of Graceland:



Crazy airplane:


TV Room:


Me with mirrors on stairs:


Presents in the Jungle Room


Trees inside house:


The drive on the Natchez Trace was very foggy (still pretty, and not much traffic)

Planning for Another Trip

I started my job at Earlham College in July, and I love it. I'm very happy and the work is challenging. I'm contemplating writing more about some of projects I'm working on, but we shall see. Meanwhile, I'm planning my next road trip. This means having to save as much money as possible as I have to start repaying my student loans next month. Anyway, I'm going to take a road trip in January to visit my good friend Rafia who now lives in Arlington, Texas. I'm going to take a few days to drive down there and visit Graceland, the new B.B. King museum (tentative), Port Neches TX where my grandfather was born, and San Antonio. Then it is on for 3-4 days hanging out with Rafia!

Stay tune for possible updates.

Almost home

I'm in Moline Illinois tonight. There is a really great Thai restaurant I found called Exotic Thai, and the green curry was excellent. Some woman who claimed to be doing a study on communication sat down with me and asked me a bunch of questions. I figured she was going to start trying to get me to join a cult, but I think she honestly was taking a class on communication and had an assignment to talk to strangers and try to figure out their communication style. She said I was "balanced."

The Omaha Zoo is fantastic. It had a staggering number of animals and a couple of really great environments, especially the Desert Dome. It did feel a bit old and some of the panels need to be updated, like the Siberian Tiger needs to be renamed the Amur Tiger (I think this is now the commonly used name to be more accurate geographically). Anyway, if you like zoos, I say this is a must see.

Well I'll be home tomorrow, just gotta drive through Chicago and the boring drive on 94 in Michigan.

Catching up on food

My old nemesis from the first week of the trip returned--the wind. In Nebraska of course. There were tornadoes not too far from where I was in Colorado, so at least so far I have avoided anything that bad. Otherwise I took the drive pretty easy today. The wind ruined the excellent mileage I've been getting--most of the trip I've been getting 44 mpg but today that didn't happen, naturally once gas prices did in fact hit four bucks at one station.

Well, this entry is mostly to announce I made it to Omaha and am planning on visiting the zoo tomorrow before driving across Iowa. Also, I ate at Red Lobster tonight. When I was a kid that is where we would go for nice meals out and I have very fond memories of the place. The cheddar biscuits make it worthwhile. For most of the trip I tried to find locally owned restaurants, and was mostly successful. But I've succumbed to chain restaurants the last two days. Some of the places I ate at I barely mentioned earlier or didn't mention at all:

Local Ocean Seafoods in Newport: fish caught fresh daily from Newport or nearby. They have great fish tacos.

Georgie's Beachside Grill: It was connected to my hotel in Newport, but had a great ocean view and pretty solid seafood, especially the clam chowder. The places was always full of locals which was good because it wasn't just tourists in there. They have great pancakes and french toast too.

Baked Alaska in Astoria: I had a simple salmon club sandwich that was great, but the best thing here (besides the view of the Columbia River) was the sweet potato salad.

Urban Cafe in Astoria: The crab quesadilla was delicious. The only thing it wasn't that long after this meal I got sick; I guess it depends on the incubation period, but it is possible it was this meal that made me sick. Oh well, it tasted great! I'll just assume it was something else that made me sick. Probably the vast amount of free cheese I ate at Tillamook.

Tequila's Mexican Restaurant in Cortez Colorado: really popular local joint with great food. The pinto beans I ordered instead of refried beans were great, as was the chile relleno. Great salsa too. Highly recommend.

Rosita's in Scottsbluff: I already mentioned this place for the chips and salsa. I should mention not to go here if you are on a diet, but it was great food.

The Thai restaurant I ate at in Portland: I cannot remember the name, it was a little hole in the wall place mostly doing carryout orders, but it was delicious, especially the spring rolls. Also the Thai restaurant in Astoria is outstanding as well.

Out of the brewpubs I visited, Tablerock in Boise and Bridgeport in Portland stand out. I went to Rogue Ales in Newport, but hated the atmosphere. It was smoky--too smoky--and the people in there were all kind of rude. Beer is great though. Maybe I picked a bad day to go there.

Freaky Sand Dunes

The drive from Cortez Colorado to Denver was absolutely beautiful--drove through some great mountains, with lots of mini waterfalls seen from the road from the melting snow. I also stopped at Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve. This place was a monument up until 2004, when it received park standing. The park is pretty small, but the dunes are interesting. Kind of freaky, in part because the locals use the area as a beach and in part because of the proximity of snowcapped mountains . There is a creek/river that runs right by the dunes, with very low water, and there were hundreds of kids splashing around in the riverbed and then running in the sand. The kids were also screaming, and I have to admit this annoyed me, so I had a picnic and moved on to a part of the park without kids. You can climb the dunes, but I really didn't feel like it. I took a shortish hike though.

Dunes:

Mesa Verde

This might have been the best day of the trip. Definitely one of the best. I'm getting ready to check out and drive to Denver tonight, but here are two quick pictures (more tonight, I hope):

Arches and Canyonland

Words cannot begin to describe the beauty of Canyonlands National Park and Arches National Park. So here are a few of my favorite pictures from today (yes that is me, and I think it is a good picture--must be the sunglasses), and a link to all of the pictures.

Utah

Clark Planetarium saves the day

Yay, I seem to be well and had pizza for dinner. I stayed in Salt Lake City today and visited Clark Planetarium, which is located in a downtown mall. The mall was boring, standard stuff though it it is all open air which I guess makes it better than the average mall. The planetarium I thought was a lot of fun. I watched two of the shows in the Hansen Dome Theatre, one on the ultimate universe and one on black holes. They were both great. It was fun to look at all of the free exhibits and relearn everything I learned back in seventh grade science (and a lot more).

Planning on getting up early and heading to Canyonlands and Arches National Parks!

Salt Lake

Well, it turns out I started eating solid food too soon (last night). My stomach just can't take it. I feel great otherwise and someone managed to walk a mile and back to visit Temple Square and take a tour of the Great Salt Lake and the Kennecott Copper Mine, while only drinking gatorade and water all day. And I still have a ton of energy and really want some pizza, but I dare not eat today. I may take another day to rest here before heading to Arches National Park and Mesa Verde because I really can't see visiting either of those places just subsisting on Gatorade.

Now that those gory details are out of the way, I did indeed visit Temple Square today, and even took a tour led by two very earnest missionaries from South America. The tour was mostly about getting people to request more information on Mormonism but occasionally they slipped in a fact about a building or so. Here is a picture of the tour guides praying or something in front of a statue of Jesus with a mural of the universe in the background:



A picture of the temple:



A couple of people left the tour in disgust, but I stuck with it out of curiosity. And I have never seen so many missionaries. They were everywhere. I wonder how you land that job for your mission? I guess I could have asked, but I have to admit I did not want to encourage them. Anyway, I'm fascinated with religious history and religions in general, so I looked at this as a learning experience, though I have to admit the whole setup is...weird. It is a beautiful area and I respect the Mormons for moving out to a desert after being persecuted, but I'm not going to understand the whole be with your family for eternity, including dead relatives that they have to save or something. Among other things.

I'm glad I took a tour instead of having to drive today, though the people on the Great Salt Lake tour were mostly annoying middle aged women who would spend hours in the gift shop buying copper jewelry. There is nothing wrong with this, and I will be middle aged before I know it, but I was reminded why I generally hate taking tours--slow moving people who actually buy the junk in gift shops--I've been wondering this entire trip who buys this stuff, now I know. I know, I should be nicer...but...anyway, the Great Salt Lake was pretty cool:







After that, the tour went to Kennecott Bingham Canyon Mine, a huge copper mine that can be seen from outerspace. The museum emphasized their environmental stewardship which is hard to believe, but then again who doesn't use copper every day? The mine was huge:





A few remaining trees:

Made it to SLC

Feeling much better today, though still weak. I visited Golden Spike National Monument, which is where the transcontinental railroad was finished. I was going to visit the Great Salt Lake, but was tired and the drivers here are insane so I checked into the hotel and am doing laundry. I'm annoyed with my hotel because there was no soap in my room and there are a bunch of teenagers running around. Here's hoping I can eat tonight and will be completely better by tomorrow.

I forgot to mention I saw Mount St. Helens yesterday while driving...pretty cool. I'd like to visit the monument, but yesterday was not the day for that.

After driving in small town traffic I almost hate to be in the city...but I'm looking forward to checking out Temple Square, then I signed up for a guided tour of the Great Salt Lake and some mine, because I just don't want to deal with driving in this city. I'll take an isolated highway any day!

I made it to Boise despite being sick, and now am about to leave for Salt Lake City. Feeling better I think...but I don't recommend driving 520 miles while being sick. Ugh! More tonight!

Wonderful Bed and Breakfast

I have been staying at Clementine's Bed and Breakfast in Astoria for the last three nights. It is wonderful--amazing breakfasts, great conversations, and a really cute room with a view of Astoria:





I have been staying mostly at Fairfield Inns because I had a bunch of Marriott Rewards points that enabled me to stay for free (why I could afford this trip). But I wanted to treat myself to something different, so I opted for a bed and breakfast. Judith, the hostess, is incredibly generous and has lots of great information on the area, as well as creating amazing breakfasts. It has been really great to talk to the other guests here. The breakfast is communal which encourages conversation, and there is wine in the evening too. I met people from North Carolina, one who was a community college instructor and one a retired United Church of Christ minister; some other bed and breakfast operators--I learned a lot about running these places!; a couple from New Albany Indiana on the honeymoon--talk about a small world, right across the river where I grew up;a couple from Idaho; and some of Judith's relatives.

I've done a lot the past two days, and am now quite weary. I have overeaten, and walked about 5-6 miles every day if not more, which is a good combination, but right now my stomach hurts and my legs are exhausted. Sleep will come easy tonight, especially in this comfortable bed! Tomorrow I'm driving to Boise which is going to be a long drive but it's time to sort of start back.

In Astoria, I visited all the local museums: Flavel House, the Heritage Museum, and the Columbia River Maritime Museum. They were all great in their own way. The Heritage Museum had a good exhibit on the Native American cultures of the area and how the settlement of the area by white men changed their culture forever. However, they also have an exhibit on the Ku Klux Klan which includes a robe and a poster. The Klan ran the government for a couple of years on a platform of anti-Chinese sentiment, so the exhibit does in fact make sense. However, the museum really needs to put in an interpretive panel explaining why it is there, because the way it is now you have no idea unless you ask or the docent tells you--they must have plenty of questions because before I toured the museum, he warned me about that exhibit. It would not require much to put even just a piece of paper explaining the historical significance so you are not standing there wondering if this exhibit is celebrating the Klan, or what.

The Maritime Museum was excellent too. I know nothing about river navigation, but they had some great exhibits on river and bar pilots. The sand bars at the mouth of the Columbia River are known as the Graveyard of the Pacific. I definitely recommend this museum if you are in the area.

Incidentally, the Goonies was filmed here. I think I found the house they used for the family's house.

Every meal here has been outstanding. I recommend this one place called Baked Alaska, which had river views and an amazing sweet potato salad. I also checked out a local brewhouse; there was another one, but I didn't get a chance to visit it and as stated earlier, am too tired for that. This place called the Urban Cafe had a great crab quesadilla. I had Thai food tonight, and have plenty of leftovers to save money tomorrow.

I spent today doing Lewis and Clark stuff at Ft. Clatsop where they camped over the winter, Cape Disappointment, and Ft. Stevens. Cape Disappointment had two lighthouses which I visited, and Ft. Stevens had a civil war era fort, which I had no idea existed. Lincoln was worried about a Confederate attack up here. Ft. Stevens also functioned during World War II and a Japanese submarine attacked the fort. They had a nice exhibit on that.

Some photos:

Fog at Cape Disappointment:





Cape Disappointment Lighthouse


Deadman's Cove


Large wave:



Oh I almost forget, there were amazing views from the Astoria Column:



The fog was really eerie, but here is a picture of the Astoria-Megler bridge. According to wikipedia, this is the longest continuous truss bridge in North America. I did cross it to get to Cape Disappointment







The view was awesome, but even better were the friendly people at the top. I have no idea why, but the person running the visitor center, a guy that lived up there, and some random tourists were all friendly and wanted to hear about my trip. It was really nice!

Guest Blogger: Bill Clinton

Not really, but I did get to hear Bill Clinton speak today:




I actually think this is a pretty good photo:



My original plan had been to stop briefly at Tillamook Cheese Factory, get some free samples of cheese, and get back on the road. These plans were changed when I arrived and found throngs of people. I was pretty excited to hear that Clinton was going to speak. So I went on the tour, such as it was, impersonated Homer Simpson by gorging on free cheese and holding up the line, and then did buy some ice cream while waiting for his arrival. I did not stay for the entire talk because I did not want to deal with the traffic mess when I got out, but I listened to the first half of his speech, in which he revealed his great knowledge of local concerns--not so convincing--and discussed Hillary's policies, which I have to say I agreed with--health care, taxes, etc. It was interesting listening to people in the audience discussing her; they all said the same thing--like her politics generally but do not like her personality. Yeah, well we know what happens when you pick your president based on who would make a good drinking buddy. Honestly I'm not a huge Hillary fan, but she knows what she is talking about policy wise. I think she would make a good president. And I worry that Obama's inexperience is going to get us in trouble if he wins, though I will definitely vote for him. So yeah, this political rally was a nice bonus to the trip. Clinton did seem tired though. Hope he got to eat some cheese and or ice cream...Also, I did not understand the security at this event. They had a security check until Clinton got there, then I was able to enter the area where he was speaking with no security check. Now, I am not a security threat--really--but if I had been, it would have been super easy to sneak in there. I just didn't understand why they seemed to be doing such a great job then just let us go wherever we wanted. Oh well, I'm sure they were keeping an eye on me.

I'm staying in a bed and breakfast in Astoria for the next three nights. I like Astoria; it does not have the touristy feel that Newport, Cannon Beach, and Seaside had. There are some local museums to check out and some Lewis and Clark stuff to be seen. These next two days should still be relaxing; I begin the drive back on Thursday, though I'm planning on a day or two at Mesa Verde National Park. Besides Clinton and Tillamook, I visited Cape Meares which had another lighthouse, and a bunch of scenic viewpoints.

Slideshow of today's pics:



So yeah, over the weekend I saw seals, tidepools, and lighthouses. It was really awesome. Here are a couple of cool tidepool shots. It was very rocky and slippery, but I managed not to trip and make a fool of myself:







Yaquina Head Lighthouse:




Seals:



Seals hanging out in downtown Newport (I recommend eating at Local Ocean Seafoods)


Some good graffiti:




Sunset on beach. The waves were really wild, but the pictures do not quite capture it, at least in this size. On my computer they are better.

Ocean

I just got back from a wonderful walk along the beach during sunset. The tide was high (previously when I have been on the beach this weekend it has been quite low). Every morning I have woken and then taken a hour long walk on the beach, followed by a delicious breakfast at the restaurant here, which has good food and great ocean views. In fact, I have eaten dinner there every night. I was going to just eat at Subway today, but could not resist the ocean view and seafood.

I have plenty of pictures I will post later. Today I visited Yaquina Head, a natural area with a lighthouse to tour, tidepools full of sea creatures, seals, and many birds. I really fell in love with this area. I knew my mom would have loved it, so I called her and wished her happy mother's day from there (she shouldn't be too jealous, my parents are heading to North Carolina beaches in a couple of weeks).

More later. I'm too busy listening to the ocean to sit at the computer.

Video of Ocean

So my camera can sort of take video. Here is an attempt to capture waves crashing upon rocks at Yaquina Head:

Relaxing on the coast

Now it is the part of my trip where I get to relax in my hotel with a nice ocean view:



Fortunately, I bought some books at Powell's yesterday. You could spend all day in that store. I am now reading: Historians in Trouble by Jon Weiner, which includes chapters on two of my professors at Emory (I was a research assistant for one and house/dog sat for another---I so should have been interviewed for this book, ask if you want the details!); The Quakers in America by Thomas Hamm (my new boss at Earlham College in Indiana, as I need to learn more about Quakers); and Traveling Music: The Soundtrack to My Life and Times by Neil Peart. This last one should be interesting since I've been thinking about road trip music a lot lately, for obvious reasons. Neil Peart is the drummer for the band Rush, by the way. One album I recommend not listening to, at least if you are a single female traveler, is Murder Ballads by Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds. It is a brilliant album, but with stories of murder, especially of women, I cannot recommend it for female travelers. I can recommend Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Rush (good for any occasion), Snow Patrol, Eric Johnson, Tom Petty, Beth Orton, Tracy Chapman, and the Doors. For starters.

Also yesterday I visited the Portland Art Museum, which had a special exhibit on Degas, Forain, and Toulouse-Lautrec. I have to admit I'm not much of a Degas fan, but it was a nice exhibit nonetheless. From their website: "This landmark exhibition, appearing exclusively at the Portland Art Museum, explores the complex image of the dancer in the work of three artists intrigued by various manifestations of dance in fin-de-siècle Paris: Edgar Degas (1834-1917), Jean-Louis Forain (1852-1931), and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901). The Dancer presents an international roster of more than 110 works of art, including rarely seen paintings, pastels, drawings, prints, and sculptures from collections in Europe and the United States. "

The rest of the museum was fine, especially the exhibit on Persian narrative painting. From the website: "Every Picture Tells a Story features 26 works, including a magnificently preserved complete manuscript of the Yusuf and Zulaikha of Jami (a tale of the Biblical Joseph and Potiphar’s wife, as retold by 15th-century poet Jami). The majority of the brilliantly colored and exquisitely detailed paintings in the exhibition are from Shāhnameh manuscripts, allowing visitors to trace historical changes in illustration from the 14th to the 19th centuries. Other works offer visual interpretations of Khalila wa Dimna, a collection of animal fables, the Khamsa (Five Tales) of the poet Nizami, and other literary classics." Actually I really enjoyed this exhibit.

I had a drink and lunch at Bridgeport Brewery, which might be the oldest microbrewery in Portland (I found conflicting information). The chipotle chicken and black bean burger and the Ropewalk Amber Ale were both delicious. I also bought some cd's in a used cd store--Band of Horses, The Dears, and The Chills. I hadn't visited a used cd shop in ages so this was nice. For dinner I found a nice little Italian spot and had tortellini. The neighborhood near my hotel had a lot of cute shops and restaurants--many Thai and sushi places, but I was in the mood for pasta last night.

I could spend another week in Portland, but the coast beckoned...so many neighborhoods to explore. I will definitely be coming back someday, maybe on a trip that would involve visiting Seattle as well (but probably flying out instead of driving though I love driving).

Today I drove to Salem and visited the historic district, but got annoyed at the traffic. I then made a stupid decision and took the less traveled road to Newport. This took forever as it was a winding road with a lot of logging trucks. On the one hand, it was pretty; on the other it was very frustrating. In the end I made to the Pacific Ocean, with my first stop being Seal Rock State Park, though there were no seals here:





I then drove into Newport and enjoyed a pleasant walk along the beach. Hopefully I will see a whale, but I somehow doubt it.





There is a nice restaurant attached to the hotel so I'll be dining there tonight and probably all weekend. Rogue Ale is in town somewhere so I will fit them in too. Other than the aquarium and a couple of lighthouses, I'm going to be chilling in the room reading and enjoying the view, which sounds great!