Freeway Free in Texas: Odds and Ends on the Other Side of Somewhere
W and I agreed on the first day to shift off driving every two hours, although she grew a bit impatient at my refusing to drive faster than 65 on a two-lane road where the posted speed is 75. Texas drivers seem to have no fear of oncoming traffic or soft shoulders. As we move along and I figure out the cruise control I am more daring, but still not able to pass anyone unless there is a passing lane.
The first day my two hours ends in Hamilton at lunch time. Yelp reviews speak well of Garlands, but this turns out to be a little blue trailer kitchen in an RV park, with nary so much as a picnic table to eat at. The fallback is Central Perk, a funky converted home with a wide veranda which would have been charming to sit on if the weather had not been in the 50’s and windy. They were out of soup, and the Veggie Panini was… interesting. Whole wheat bread grilled on one side, with eggplant, zucchini, bell pepper, and onion with a slice of Romano cheese. The cheese was melted, but the vegetables were raw. I’ve never had raw eggplant before, and hope not to ever again. but the rest was surprisingly good, with a copious salad of greens, a tomato, and honey mustard dressing. The wall held several certificates lauding CP as “best sandwiches in four counties” which considering where we were may very well have been true.
I’m always on the alert for reasons to stop along the way beyond simply natural necessities. Seymour, Texas, strategically located on the way between Archer City and Turkey, boasts the excellent Whiteside Museum of Natural History, with a Sound Garden across the street, in addition to the requisite gas stations. Two busloads of I’d judge third graders were also exploring the museum and the sound garden at the time we dropped in, but their chaperones kept them well in hand, and we dodged around the Pleistocene and Jurassic and other exhibits in avoidance. I’ve not seen a better T Rex simulacrum, the Triceratops skull was awesome, lots of other excellent taxidermy of currently thriving wildlife all around. The only complaint I have is regarding the sole, ridiculously expensive ($2.50) and very ugly post card available in the rudimentary gift shop.
From Turkey we headed east off across the boundless open high plains to Abilene. It seemed odd to see banners in this North Central Texas cattle capital, proclaiming it to be the “Storybook Capital of the World”, but in the downtown area a former commercial building across from the historic railroad station houses the National Center for Children’s Illustrated Literature Illustration, and a number of statues depicting storybook characters can be found on rooftops, on corners, and in parks around the downtown area. We lunched in the Storybook Garden down the street from the museum. next to a statue of the Lorax. The museum itself is fascinating, full of memories of stories I read to my kids as well as stories read to me.
Abilene also boasts of Frontier Texas! a history museum with modern interactive exhibits which also serves as the official Visitors Center for Abilene and the Texas Forts Trail Region. We did not stop here, nor did we take in The Grace Museum, an art museum featuring rotating exhibits of contemporary art and local history, located in a handsome re-purposed circa 1909 hotel in the historic downtown center of Abilene.
Abilene is doing its best to be Somewhere. It’s certainly worth a second stop, the next time we go west from Dallas.
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My debut novel, Fox Spirit, is appearing episode by episode on my sister blog, ajmccready.wordpress.com. New episodes arrive every Monday and Thursday. They’re short, so you’re not too late to check them out, and sign up for future happenings. Here’s a link to the first episode: http://ajmccready.wordpress.com/2023/02.
Bayeux was the first French city to be liberated by Allied Forces. Troops marched into the city on a street bordered with cheering townsfolk who waved French and American flags, and offered kisses from happy young women and fresh baked treats from older ones. The Germans evacuated so quickly that they had no time to organize a defense, so the most of the medieval structures remained intact.
We first stopped at Bayeux Cathedral, with its mix of old and new stained glass, its ornate Gothic verticality, its mystic paintings decorating the crypt beneath the alter. The apse was decked in French tricolor, British Union Jacks, Canadian maple leafs, and American stars and stripes. Behind the altar there was a large concert band practicing for Prince Charles’ visit the following day (Wed. June 5). This was a truly excellent brass ensemble, plus some woodwinds and tympani. The sound reverberating through the cathedral was thrilling. One piece was “The Spitfire Overture” and another, appropriate for a visiting Brit, was the lovely, noble main theme from “Jupiter” from “The Planets” by Gustav Holst. My partner, a music-lover with bad knees, stayed in the church for the whole rehearsal while I wandered around the side chapels and lower levels.
Right across from the cathedral is an old store front set us as a 
Of course, Bayeux is most famous for that other artifact of war, the 
We had perfectly an ordinary breakfast at Cambria’s 
Some of the acquisitions were puzzling – what was the meaning of the Arabic writing in mosaic tile positioned over the player piano in the alcove off the billiard room? The guide was too far away to ask, so this remans a mystery.
At the time of my visit, the museum had thrown the traditional chronological arrangement of its art right out the window, and had rearranged its El Greco’s, its Goyas, its Gauguin in alphabetical order by subject. So the Gauguin was exhibited under A for ART, taken out of its frame and put between glass panels so you could see the paint smudges on the edges of the canvas, and some scribbles by the artist on the back of the canvas. In the same room were examples of art by paleolithic artists as well as moderns ones. It made me think about the Gauguan in a completely different way.
So – come to Bilbao for the walk, the outdoor art, the architecture, the parks… and that’s only the first day!
San Jose’s Japantown, centered around the intersection of Jackson and Fifth Restaurant, is one of only three remaining centers of Japanese culture in the US (the other two being in San Francisco and in Los Angeles.) Almost destroyed by the forced internment of most of its citizens during World War II, it has bounced back as a nucleus of Japanese restaurants, shops, and community organizations.
After lunch, a stroll along 5th street on the other side from Kubota’s will lead you to the 
Marfa, in the Big Bend Country of Texas, is the home of the mysterious 
But the real mystery of Marfa is not the lights, but how a town of scarcely 3000 manages to maintain not just the grand old 
You recognize this photo of the Cathedral Square in the French Quarter of New Orleans. It could almost be a postcard if the cars would get out of the way and the sky be a bit bluer. It was a warm day in May, and I was glad of the clouds.
Cruising along the Inland Passage of Alaska reveals few “tourist traps.” The landscape is simply too big to allow any encroachment by man to seem significant against the surrounding mountains, glaciers, and ocean. Just standing on the upper deck of our small cruise boat allows us to take in vistas of ice, snow, forest, and water which make the occasional human settlement seem irrelevant. Still, we need to stretch our legs daily, and there are stops which allow us to focus our eyes on things less than 100 yards away.
For Alaska’s centennial the wood carvers of Kare created the worlds largest totem pole, originally 168 feet high. Totem poles, however, are not designed as long-lived memorials; the top twelve feet with its watchward Raven fell victim to weather and wind and now lie in the grass next to the splintered and faded pole. 
The lead dancer is a black man adopted into the tribe on marriage with a Tlingit woman. He dances in a finely embroidered cape made for him by his mother-in-law as a memorial to his daughter, who was murdered while walking home from a dance the previous year by a boy from a rival clan. At the end of the dance the family of the murdered girl is presented with a ceremonial paddle marking her passage to the afterworld now that a year of mourning has passed.
Allyson Johnson 