Lincoln, Nebraska

Not much to report today, except that we arrived in Lincoln, Nebraska safe and sound, in spite of the wild winds.  We drove through it and although it was a little tense at first, Gerard adapted just fine and got us here.  We crossed into Nebraska around 1 pm this afternoon, and were at our RV park by 3.

This evening we got some stuff ready to take to the truck.  We have an RV storage spot booked here in Lincoln for tomorrow.  We'll leave our RV here for about 6 weeks while we head home, then we'll pick it up again later in May.  We should be home by Saturday.

So unless anything interesting happens between now and then, this will probably be my last blog for now.

Wichita

I am a lineman for the county, and I drive the main road,

Yep, Interstate 35, straight up from Oklahoma City to Wichita, Kansas.  It was a relatively short drive today and we arrived in Wichita around 12:30 pm.

We saw this barrel near a gas stop we had.  A little weathered, I'd say.  Never seen one so falling apart.  Hope they don't store fuel in it.



We crossed into Kansas without even realizing it.  This was about a mile in.



Searching' in the sun for another overload - going to be searchin' all day, nuttin' out there.  This is Kansas.



We got to our RV park and set up in the wind.  Holy moly, I think we're in Kansas!

I hear you singin' in the wire
I can hear you through the whine, - yeah, probably the wind - winds are 35 mph, but haven't seen Dorothy and Toto yet.

We thought we would check out the Wichita Botanica.  Lots of tulips.



And a giant tree.

Down the road from the Botanica is The Keeper of the Plains at the confluence of the Arkansas River and the Little Arkansas River.



Quite an impressive work of art.

Another guy from Canada was here!



We came back to the RV and hunkered down inside because the wind was, and still is, crazy.  We are in tornado country after all.

And the Wichita lineman is still on the line.

Still no sign of Dorothy and Toto.  Maybe tomorrow.

OKC

Oklahoma City.  What a pleasant town.  It's not too big, and not too small, but just right.  We parked the truck and took advantage of the city's "Downtown Discovery".  It's a free bus that takes you around the central core.  We chose to ride it because it takes you to the Oklahoma Memorial, which is located a ways north of the downtown area.

Overall, I have to say this is the most well-done memorial we've ever been to.

 

Outside, representing each end/side of the building that was bombed, is a "wall" with the time on it.  One end says 9:01 (representing the start of any day like any other day) and the other says 9:03 (representing the beginning of healing).  The blast happened at 9:02 a.m, April 19, 1995.  There's a reflecting pool in the middle.



On the side lawn there are "chairs" for each person who died in the blast.



And if you think that was a somber place, if you could walk through the museum without shedding tears, then you would be almost heartless.  It's incredibly moving.

This is a wall of paintings by children put on tiles outside the front entrance of the museum.  The one here kind of says it all.



Anyone who comes here must see this museum.

Kiddy-corner to the museum is this statue that says "and Jesus wept".



Whew.  We couldn't believe we spent 2 emotional hours there.

We walked back to the downtown area to find a place to grab some lunch.  An area that's really being developed is called Bricktown.

It's quite a nice area.  They've got a canal here and they're just restoring and building around the canal.  It's going to be gorgeous in the future.  There are only some restaurants set up here.  Room for many more.

While sitting there having a pizza and a beer, we noticed the Chickasaw Dodgers AAA baseball park was right behind the building.  So we took a walk around there.  Did you know, Micky Mantle was born in Oklahoma, Johnny Bench was born in Oklahoma City, and Warren Spahn wasn't born here, but he lived most of his life here claiming Oklahoma was the best place to live (Gerry almost wet his pants, as Spahn pitched for the Braves most, if not all, of his career).  So there are dedications to these 3 guys on 3 of the corners of the ball park.  And 2 of the streets are named after Bench and Mantle that go around the ball park.

Then we turned around and noticed Joe Carter Ave.  We thought, huh?  Sure enough.  He was born here in Oklahoma City too!  Well, wadda know.  No corner dedicated to him, although they're doing something on the 4th corner.



We found our truck, and took a drive to the State Capitol Building.  We just took a look.  Didn't stop to go inside, or anything.  Very impressive.

After we got back to our RV park, Gerard was chatting with a couple of guys.  One guy he talked with comes here regularly and told him that 2 years ago, a tornado tore this park apart!!!  Yikes!  No high winds expected while we're here, but we are in tornado country, for sure.

As if Oklahoma isn't bad enough for tornadoes, we're headed to Kansas next.  We'll be looking for Dorothy and Toto.

Oooooo-klahoma!

We left our place in Austin around 9:00 am, headed north to Oklahoma City.  A pretty smooth ride for the most part.  A couple of slow-ups because of construction, but not bad.  It is Sunday after all.

We passed right through Fort Worth, and a spaghetti junction.  This is somewhat small compared to ones we've seen in Houston.  However, impressive nonetheless.



RECTor?



Damn near killed 'er.

Here's the Red River that is the border between Texas and Oklahoma.  We're crossing the state line.



The sign is sort of buried in the bushes.  That lady getting into the truck was sneaking to get a picture.  I just know it.

Where the winds come sweepin' down the plain

And the wavin' wheat can sure smell sweet (well, the wheat's been sown),



When the wind comes right behind the rain.



Ooooooo-klahoma, every night my honey lamb and I (Toby Keith)



Sit alone and talk, and watch a hawk makin' lazy circles in the sky (no picture of that).

We arrived in Oklahoma City around 4:45 pm, set up for a couple of days, then pondered where we would go for dinner.  All the time we were in Texas I didn't have any Texas ribs.  For some reason I was craving them today.  So we went to the Texas Roadhouse for dinner, about 5 minutes away from here.

We're here until Tuesday morning, so we'll check out OKC tomorrow.

Austin, formerly Waterloo

Well, we're here in Austin, Texas.  Might as well check out the city.  We left for downtown around 10 am.  It was about a 20-minute hike (by car).  We found some parking and went to the Visitors' Center.  There were 3 things we'd like to do here:  1)  City tour.  We chose the hop on and hop off so we could get off at the; 2) Capitol Building; 3) Mount Bonnell.

We purchased our tickets for the city tour.  Actually, we were fairly impressed with it.  One of the better ones we've done.  We went to the hot spots in the city and the guides pointed out a few things so we could go and explore more of it on our own if we wanted to.

This was the "Museum of the Weird".  Kinda weird.  This is on 6th Street, lined with bars and restaurants in an older part of the city, but not the chic bars and restaurants which are on Congress St., over the bridge in an area called SoCo (South Congress).  We went through that section too.  Very nice.

Austin's motto is "Keep Austin Weird".  By that they mean encourage small business development, one off kinds of businesses.  Another word for "weird" would be "unique".

We got off at the State Capitol Building.  Austin is the capital of Texas.  The exterior is made of a beautiful red granite.  Lady Liberty stands at the top with the Texas star in one hand and a sword in the other.  Beautiful building and grounds.  The grounds are more like a park for everyone to enjoy.

We joined a guided tour of the building.  Every door inside the capitol building has 3 hinges, and every hinge looks like this.  They weigh 8 pounds each.

This is the dome ceiling with the Texas star in the middle, of course.  It's 8 feet across and over 280 feet above the main floor.  I almost got caught in the middle of a choir from a school while taking the picture.  I'd have missed the rest of the tour, but could have sung at the State Capitol.

When we were finished at the capitol, we continued on our bus tour around the city.  This tower is at U of Texas.  It was infamous for many people being shot by 2 people using rifles in the bell tower.  That was in the 90s, I think?

Beautiful university though, and huge.  So much building going on here in the city, both the city itself and on the university campus, which occupies a large portion of the city.

This is a shot of the downtown from a different direction.

When we were finished with the tour, we walked back to a pub we saw for some lunch.  We were starving by this point.  We chose the Moonshine Bar & Grill.



It's in the original section of the city that was called Waterloo before it was changed to Austin.  Stephen Austin moved the capital from Houston to Waterloo, and eventually they changed the name of the city to his name.  The name Waterloo was probably in honour of the Battle of Waterloo, Belgium, just like our city at home.

Some craft beer to be had.  Cool, eh?  This is Gerard's wheat beer.  Think what you like.



After lunch, we retrieved the truck and drove up to Mount Bonnell.  From there is a view over the City of Austin.

And over the Colorado River.



No, it's not THE Colorado River.

All in all, a great and beautiful day in Austin.  And I must say, Austin is a beautiful city with lots of green space.  I could live here.

Travelling is such fun

We had quite the day.  We packed up and got away from our place in good time.  I dropped off a couple of things (like the router) we had that belonged to the RV park.  When I came out of the office, Gerard started the truck, but it was already running.  Besides the grinding sound that happens, it blew the panel fuse so we had no instrument lights and no radio lights (although the radio worked fine).

Our first stop was at Discount Tire where they replaced the 2 forward tires on the RV (remember the flat we had earlier in our trip?).  And they put the spare back on the back of the RV.  So we wondered what to do about the blown fuse.  We called a local Toyota dealership since getting to an auto supply store was awkward with the RV.  We went there, which wasn't too far out of our way.  Well, that was a waste of time.  We were there for 3/4 of an hour, and no one did anything.  So we just said, see ya, and left.  We didn't want to spend any more time there.  I determined we could get a fuse at Walmart and replace it ourselves.

So we went along our way, heading up toward Austin.  No direct way to get there.

We went through a town with an interesting name, "George West".  And we fuelled up in Alice (haha).

 

At Three Rivers there is a large oil refinery for Valero fuels.



When we hit I-35 toward San Antonio, we got into a big traffic jam.  We managed about 8 km in an hour and a 1/4.  After we got to San Antonio, our GPS took us the quickest way to Austin, but we were on a toll road, which we don't mind, but it's like our 407 in Toronto, and we don't really know what we're going to end up paying.  We got off at one point because the sign said "Cash" in the right lane.  But it turned out to just be an exit, which we didn't want, so we went back on.  I have no idea how much they'll charge us.  Probably double.  They'll send us a bill.  The section furthest south is privately managed and is famously the fastest highway in the U.S. at 85 mph.

I can tell you we're certainly not doing that with the RV!  In fact, even doing 60 mph was touch and go as it was quite windy today (again).  The wind blew out the heat and humidity and brought in much cooler temperatures.  Last night we could hardly stand to have a sheet on in bed, even with the AC running.  Tonight we need a comforter and the heat on.  Go figure!  It's just like Canada!

We finally arrived at our RV park around 6:30 this evening (should have been more like 4:30), but hey, travelling is such fun!

Packing Up

Our last day here in Mercedes, Texas.  Can't believe we've been here a whole month.  Where has the time gone?

Yesterday and today were just spent tidying up, picking up a couple of things for the ride, doing some laundry, bathing the dog, and starting to put things away.  It's a hot one today though...95F (35C).  Probably the hottest day since we've been here.  There was a period of time today where I don't think the air conditioner stopped running for over an hour.  We live in a tin can.

It's short-lived.  The temperature is supposed to drop 20-30 degrees overnight, and much cooler tomorrow (it's all relative).  Doesn't matter though as we'll be on the road.

Our last sunset at Llano Grande.  It's been a lovely RV park.



We have a couple of tires to get changed in the morning, then we'll be heading north.  We still have that spare on.  So time to get a couple of new ones.

I'll report from Austin, Texas, tomorrow night.