road trip to Paris...(Paris, TX, that is) n

OK, if you were driving down the highway and saw a road sign for Paris, TX, could you resist? Well, I couldn't...





























One of the first things I saw was this light...actually, there were two of them...and they were HUGE, close to 5 feet tall, I think, at the front of a very ugly municipal building. I didn't like the building but I loved the lights.



Just down the street from the lights, I came across this beautiful memorial to Lamar County WWI soldiers killed in battle...




















Walking down the street, I eventually came upon this alley and staircase. Although I love the country and wild places, in many ways I am also a city girl at heart, and that part of me loves alleys and staircases. This one has it all...red bricks, ivy, a wonderful metal staircase, and to give the gritty urban aspect authenticity...a bunch of ugly, discarded AC units. Ah, well...








Moving right along, I looked up and saw this neat red window:





















I love the way it looks in the red wall, which the ivy is climbing with great determination...
Just down from the red window, I came upon a working FORGE. Here's the neat sign, advertising it....













And here are the ever-so-cool forge DOORS! Aren't they great? I could smell hot iron and hear someone banging away at something inside. I'd have loved to have seen what the person was working on, but didn't want to interrupt their work...so I moved on...




To the Paris/Lamar County Courthouse:





Here are two details from the pink granite trim on that building. I find the gargoyle quite hideous, but I guess that's the point...


Just down the street, I loved the architectural detail, both stonework and window trim, on this building, and I loved the colorful reminder from the ivy that fall is on the way...

























There were more gargoyles on other buildings downtown...and I have to say, I liked these better than the ones on the courthouse...




In the center of town there's a square with a fountain and several of these lovely benches....


























Here's a close up of some of the detail in the cement work on the town square...



















And here's one of the lamps in the town square...

This was a good little sidetrip on my way home from Arkansas.

Arizona sunset

I snapped this sunset last Friday night in Tucson at about 7:30 in the evening, when I stepped outside the front door of the B&B where I was staying.

Arizona lizard

Just before you enter the museum, there's a lizard exhibit where I spotted (and snapped) this little guy, a common collared lizard, who was about a foot long. He's beautiful, and to be able to simply lean over the display and snap away...I loved that!

more Arizona pics...

Yesterday morning I went to the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum, which is a sort of museum/zoo/botanical garden all rolled into one. It's well worth the trip, and I would have loved to have spent more time there. One of my favorite exhibits was a walk-in aviary. While there, I managed to snap this pic of a Northern Flicker, and I thought of a poem by Paul Klee (at least I think it's by Paul Klee; I've been unable to find it, even on the net, so this is from memory, and if the words are not exactly accurate I apologize):

What care the birds

For the tree and its roots

All day long, contented,

They swing and sing

Perched on an ultimate end.

rock climbing in Big Bend

...impressive, huh? :)

more Gage details

...here's the Gage panther, on the wall outside the restaurant...

and here's a potted plant in the courtyard...

...and here's one of several pairs of courtyard doors....

Gage pool detail

...a closeup of the pool...

The Gage

I love The Gage. For anyone who hasn't read my previous entries rhapsodizing about it, The Gage is a small, historic hotel in Marathon, Texas. More importantly, it's an oasis of civilization (thick towels and plenty of them, good beds, great sheets) in a part of Texas so remote that it's 5 hours out of cellphone range.




These are the front doors of The Gage...the Gage was built in 1927 by a Texas cattleman and native of Vermont, Alfred Gage, as a headquarters in which to meet and conduct his banking and ranching operations. Unfortunately, Alfred Gage was able to enjoy the use of his hotel for just a short time, as he died the same year it was completed. The Gage eventually became run-down; however, in the early 1990's it was purchased and restored.

Two stone lions sit guard at the entrance of The Gage; this is one of them.

Although The Gage is small it's 37 rooms are housed in 3 areas: in the Historic Hotel (in which rooms are available With Bath or, for slightly less money, With Bath Down the Hall); in the adjacent Los Portales (Spanish for The Porch); and in a separate cottage, Wilson House. I've stayed in both types of rooms in the Historic Hotel (Bath Down the Hall is not a problem) and I've stayed in Los Portales. The lobby and each of the rooms is charming, furnished with a variety of authentic artifacts representing the Mexican, native Indian, and American Cowboy cultures of the Big Bend region of West Texas (The Gage is designated as an historical landmark). In addition to it's 37 rooms, The Gage also has a bar (The White Buffalo), a dining room (Cafe Cenizo) and a heated pool (I said it was civilized).

here's one of several giant yuccas on the grounds....

...here's one of two beds in a Room With A Bath in the Historic Hotel...the bed was very comfortable, and the sheets were great but I brought my own pillow and was glad of it...and the Indian blanket on the bed is approximately 100 years old, and as heavy as a rug...

Here's a detail on the courtyard walls...

...and here's the sign to the bar...

RMS Titanic

Wow.

Yesterday afternoon I got a phone call from an old friend with whom I'd recently re-established contact by e-mail but whom I haven't seen in a long time. He's recently returned to Dallas after an extended period of amazing travel, including sailing solo to Tahiti this spring and, as if that weren't adventuresome enough, journeying on the Akademik RV Keldysh and descending, in one of the two MIR vessels on board the Keldysh, approximately 12,500 feet (that's almost 2 1/2 miles!!!) to the ocean floor to see the ruins of the Titanic (for more specific information on diving to the ruins of the Titanic, see Deep Ocean Expeditions).

He said that he was going to be in my neighborhood and wanted to know if I'd be home so he could stop by for a few minutes to say hello. Both my car and the boys' car are out of commission right now (don't ask...that's a topic for another entry), so my ex (who's in Chicago for the weekend) had kindly loaned me his car, in which I was about to drive Mike to work. I explained the situation and invited my friend to come over in the evening instead.

He came over a little after 7:00 with an envelope that he'd just received in the mail containing a DVD with a record of his trip to the Titanic. He also brought me an amazing gift: a styrofoam cup that has traveled 12,500 feet to the bottom of the ocean, where, from a bot arm on the outside of the MIR (I think), the cup was placed briefly on the deck of the Titanic. Wow. I can't begin to say how cool I think that is. The cup is incredibly compressed from the tremendous pressure exerted on it at that depth. I've attached a couple of photos that show front and back views of the cup, and I placed a quarter beside it to give an idea of the degree of compression that the cup has undergone.

Of the 6 billion people on this planet, only about 200 have been to see the ruins of the Titanic. The DVD of the trip was amazing...we watched it, and then picked up Mike from work, and of course he wanted to see it, so the three of us watched it again...and (if you're reading this, Jay) I would still love to watch it again.

Still limited to one car and with lots for both Mike and me to do this afternoon, I have to run, but I'll write more about this later.

greasin' on American Express card

I've been re-reading an excellent book, North Toward Home, by Willie Morris. The book, a memoir first published in 1967, is divided into three sections: about his growing up in the '40's in Mississippi; about his coming to Texas in the 1950's to attend college at UT Austin and, after a stint as a Rhodes Scholar, returning to Texas in the early '60's to cover state politics as a writer for the Texas Observer; and finally, about his experiences in New York, where he was the youngest editor ever hired at Harper's Magazine.

This afternoon I came across this passage, from the section where he'd returned to Texas in the early 60's to cover state politics for the Texas Observer: Riding all over Texas...I gave in, as everyone else I knew, to the euphoria of the Texas road, to that curious, liberating exhiliration that comes with taking a car along a flat and empty highway to some place hundreds of miles into the distance. I would keep the speedometer right at 70, wheel-straddle the dead dogs, cats, buzzards, snakes, armadillos, and tarantulas, and aim for the scalding heat mirage rising up from the concrete a mile to the front...

I smiled reading it. Maybe you have to have done it to appreciate it, but there's something about getting in a car and driving across Texas...it's so VAST...and there's a stark sort of beauty to the desert.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm planning an imminent road trip to Arizona with my son, Michael, who'll begin his freshman year at the University of Arizona at Tucson in August. So, directionally impaired as I am ("What do you mean it's 1000 miles? It's only 5 inches on the map! Hey! Point the map back in the direction I'm driving!"), I've been spending a fair amount of time the past couple of days at the Rand-McNally site planning our trip in infinitesimal detail.

Because it's on the way (sort of) and because Mike's never been there, I've decided to take a couple of extra days for us to dip down into one of my favorite places in Texas, Big Bend National Park. Big Bend is in a remote part of the state: it's a good 5 hours out of cellphone range. So today I called (no internet, either, at least, not reliable enough for hotels to have online reservations) The Gage, and got LUCKY (it's usually booked) and got a room for 2 nights (the camping gear won't fit in the car with all the stuff Mike is taking for college). The first day, we'll leave Dallas at the crack of dawn and drive like demons the 553 miles to Marathon and The Gage. We'll still be a good hour outside the park, but that's OK...Marfa, and it's Mystery Lights, is just 30 miles down the road from The Gage, and my ex is going to lend us his Russian night vision goggles, to enhance our viewing experience.

This will be my 4th trip to Big Bend. The first time I went was a couple of years ago. I'd signed up for a 3-day camel trek in Big Bend with The Texas Camel Corps. When he found out that I was going alone, a friend, very familiar with the area, had cautioned me that I'd not only be 5 hours out of cellphone range, but on the Texas/Mexico border. He advised me not to drive alone in the area at night, and went so far as to make me promise not to drive my own car, saying, (rather ominously, I thought), "Aside from the fact that you're more likely to have car trouble in your own car, with all the miles you have on it, and you know that if you do have car trouble, without a cellphone, you're screwed, you've said yourself you'll have to leave your car in a public park for the 3 days you're on the trek, and it'd be just too easy, Jude, to break into your car" (I drive a ragtop).

So I rented a bigger and more substantial car, with a hardtop, and happily, if somewhat nervously, took off for my adventure (I'd never ridden a camel before, either, but that's another story). As I sped west out of Odessa, Texas, looking for the turnoff to Hwy. 385 South, to Marathon, I suddenly remembered that I hadn't packed anything to sleep in (other than my sleeping bag). I'd been warned about the dearth of places to buy anything in that part of the country, so when I saw a big sign advertising a Walmart just before the turnoff, I followed the sign and drove to Walmart to buy some pajamas and other last minutes items that I imagined I might want on the trek. I was happy I'd stopped, because in addition to some cheap but perfectly adequate pajamas, I picked up extra batteries for the night vision goggles and I found a terrific Al Green/Teddy Pendergrass CD (Tired of Being Alone).

At the register, I gave the clerk my American Express card to pay for my purchases. To my surprise, the card was declined. I knew there was no reason for it to be declined, but I wanted to pay for my things and get to Big Bend before dark, so I just gave the clerk another card, which was accepted without any problems.

I went on my way and had a terrific time on the camel trek, learning a lot of things I didn't know about camels (mine didn't spit) and javalenas (we saw quite a few) and tarantulas (which were migrating at that time, and were everywhere on the ground and climbing up the fences at the stables).

A few days after returning to Dallas I received a letter from American Express, saying that as part of AE's comprehensive fraud protection service, all AE cards are routinely monitored for suspicious activity. The letter went on to say, "Suspicious activity has recently been detected on your American Express card. Specifically, a request was recently submitted for authorization of the purchase of a number of items at a Walmart store just outside Odessa, Texas." The letter went on to say that, based on my history of my use of my AE card, AE found it unlikely that I'd be shopping at a Walmart outside Odessa, Texas, and accordingly, AE had refused to authorize the transaction...

Bwwaaahhhaaahhaaahaahahahahahaha....AE doesn't know me as well as they'd like to think they do...and it warms the cockles of my independent heart, to know that.