Tucked away in an industrial corner of Palo Alto, around the corner from an electronics recycling center and across the street from a geochemical testing laboratory, is the Foster Museum, a tiny jewel dedicated to showing the work of watercolorist Tony Foster.
The museum is normally open by appointment only, but I happened to visit with a friend on a “Welcome to Walk In” day. Inside this ivy-covered block is a wonderland of watercolor murals, covering wall after wall with scenes of grandeur: the Grand Canyon, the Rockies, the volcanoes of Iceland, the rain forests of Borneo, the Himalayas, the High Sierras, the coral reefs of the Caymans. Amazingly, the paintings were done plein air rather than from photographs.
The paintings are specially framed with inclusion of leaves, pebbles, and other artifacts from the scene, and many of the paintings include handwritten notes by the artist in the margins of the painting. These artifacts and notes give an authenticity to the art which is terrifically engaging.
Foster writes of his struggles holding onto his palette and easel against howling winds in the Rockies, keeping his materials intact in desert dust storms and tropic rain, and even drawing with wax crayons underwater while wearing scuba gear near a coral reef.
The net effect is absorbing – I spent almost two hours perusing the amazing artistry and detail of Foster’s work, and only stopped because the museum was closing. If you are a fan of water color painting, or of outdoor adventure, this museum will satisfy in many ways.
For some people, seeing a total solar eclipse is a bucket list item. For me, it was a lucky accident: I always visit my brother D in Texas in late March or early April, and he happens to live in Georgetown, right in the path of the totality of April 8th. I asked him way back last August if I could stay an extra day for the eclipse and he agreed; then my son and his family asked the same favor a few weeks later, so we end up with a mini-reunion.
D belongs to a golf club, and the club makes an occasion of Eclipse Day, with access offered to the driving range for an unobstructed view. Since the celestial event is scheduled for about 1:30 PM Texas time, the club also sets up an outdoor grill serving hamburgers and hot dogs, with soft drinks on tap and Milky Way bars for dessert. (Cute!)
The eclipse – peekaboo clouds, and then just before totality, they part perfectly to frame the diamond ring, then almost evaporate completely as the aurora flares out and a few red coals glow on the rim of the moon – solar flares, I am told later. The audience spontaneously applauds – good show, God! Amazing that if the moon were just a bit smaller, or the sun just a bit closer, the effect would not occur. Is this Creation at work for us or just lucky coincidence?
Caddo Lake State Park is another gem made possible by the labors of the Civilian Conservation Corp back in the 1920’s. The entrance to the park is the first sign of their labors – two piled cairns which look like they have already outlasted many visitors, and will outlast many more. Some of the cabins and the eating hall built by the CCC enrollees are still in use, plus a nature-viewing pavilion on the Forest Trail which we set our sights on visiting.
The overnight temperature had plunged from 70 degrees on Monday to 45 degrees on Tuesday (spring weather in Texas can be chancy), so it took us a while to thaw out over multiple cups of hot tea before heading out on our Forest Trail adventure at about 11AM.
It was only a 1.5 mile loop trail, but we made lots of stops for catching breath, reading trail signs, trying out benches, and using W’s iPhone app to determine what trees and flowers we were looking at, it was near 2PM when we finished. [2 on the map below shows the location of the pavilion – and the elevation change!]
Climbing up to the Pavilion through the deciduous forest was a marvel to my West-Coast eyes. At the lower elevation were tree varieties I had read about, like hickory and elm, that don’t seem to occur west of the Rockies. Along the ridge just above the pavilion were long-leaf pines. I still have a little basket I made from pine needles in fourth grade when we were studying the tribes which used to inhabit this area, and for which Caddo Lake is named.
The pavilion itself did not disappoint, perched on an outcrop with the sun breaking through the trees to form patterns on the flat stones paving the terrace, looking out over an ocean of greenery waving and rustling in the breeze. I thought about the CCC enrollees who put this building together. Some among them had the souls of artists, and the skills of craftsmen, to leave us such a legacy.
We had packed a picnic in advance of our canoeing adventure, and headed for the Park Store/Museum/HQ, where we inquired for the best place to take a picnic and look at the big Caddo Lake (the State Park only includes Saw Mill Pond, a quiet side area suitable for calm canoeing and fishing but not for broad vistas) The rangerette directed us to the Caddo Lake National Wildlife Refuge and Starr Ranch, a peninsula only 15 minutes way, as a place with a lake view and a picnic table.
The CLNWR is located on land which formerly housed the Livingston Ammunition plant, which was subsequently designated an EPA superfund site, and which is probably responsible for the bass and trout caught in Caddo Lake harboring unsafe levels of mercury and other toxic chemicals. At this time, however, the main toxicity seems to have been cleared, the former Guardhouse is now a nature center for RAMSAR Wetlands, and the expanse of flat roads, by-roads, dirt roads, and grassy lanes invites the birder, biker, and hiker.
Starr Ranch turned out to be a peninsula with a wildlife viewing dock (looking brand new), one metal picnic table in full sun, a chemical toilet (looking pristine), and a pavilion (beamed ceiling, built-in pews on the side, picnic tables) looking quite new also except for a torn screen on the door, which hung open in the wind in a welcoming way.
No fees, no permits, no people except a couple of Harley riders who were consulting each other and their phones seriously but gave me a big smile – could have been drug dealers rendez-vous-ing but probably not), so we had our mackerel fillets, Boursin cheese, Wasa crackers and red Anjou pear looking out on the wind-white-capped lake. I almost felt guilty putting our mackerel/olive oil/pear core trash in that pristine trash bin in the privy.
After our lunch we stopped at the Visitor’s Center, housed in a couple of prefabs with an adjacent barbecue pavilion. It was completely deserted next to a parking lot designed for a host of tour buses – or maybe it was the former parade ground. We signed the guest book, browsed around, and saw not a soul either of staff or visitor. We could have made off with the stuffed bobcat and possum, but a sign warned that the site was “under surveillance”, and what would I do with a stuffed bobcat anyway?
I wake up to the same utter stillness that lulled me to sleep. I walk through lovely wet green woods under maybe-clearing skies to the loo.
Breakfast at 9ish of yogurt, fruit, nuts, and tea,then down to the Park HQ to confirm our arrival, get a parking sticker, pick up post cards, and rent a canoe for the PM.
A note of reality: Caddo Lake State Park is not, strictly speaking, on Caddo Lake. The boat ramp and canoe launch area actually border a small side reach of the lake, Saw Mill Pond. The good news: this sequestered area has no speed boats, no water skiers, and very few really deep areas – a perfect place for a couple of senior ladies, or for families with small swimmers, to try their paddling skills. for a reasonable $7 for a half day’s use, the friendly ranger at the Visitors’ Center gave us directions to the canoe launch area, keys which opened the storage shed full of life jackets and oars as well as our designated canoe. A few false starts (we forgot our hats, went to the wrong boat ramp) and then we found our canoe, donned life jackets, grabbed oars, and launched.
Well, we nearly launched, but ran aground on a cypress knee immediately. Happily, a couple of guys came along, laughed that they had done the same the day before, and pushed us off. I was feeling very unsteady balancing in the canoe in the far front end, and we had to fend ourselves off a number of cypress trees as the wind kept pushing us around. We ran aground again on a buried log in a backwater and were on the point of thinking one of us would have to get out and push, but a hefty shove against a tree got us afloat again. After that we were quite careful about staying in more open water. We were almost alone in the Pond – maybe one family with a couple of children maneuvering at the far end. We admired the shimmering water, and its reflections in the hollows of the trees. We listened to the stillness. We stayed out about an hour, long enough for our backs to feel the effort of paddling, and then ran ourselves into the canoe harbor perfectly.
Next, return the key, find out where to buy an extra propane canister, visit Johnston’s Caddo Grocery and Bait Shop 5 miles down the road, and then it is time for naps, reading, catching up with the expense sheet, and maybe writing a few post cards if we feel ambitious. Quiet is a wonderful sedative.
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I didn’t feel ambitious so contented myself with puttering around, until we decided that as we had skipped lunch making dinner early would be appropriate. So I got out the materials for basic glop, crossing my fingers that it could be cooked as well in a saucepan as in a skillet, and with me chopping onions and W browning the meat we had it together and cooking nicely on the Coleman’s stove in a half hour or so. I puttered around interfering with Wnifred’s building of a charcoal-based fire, until we began to smell a scorching at about the time the casserole should have been done. Hmmm. Although I had added some extra liquid to rinse out the tomato can, I did not allow enough extra to account for 1 the noodles being rotini instead of flat egg noodles and thus required Ng more time and 2 the Coleman stove, even at low heat, with only a thin aluminum saucepan to deal with, cooked HOT. so we had a layer of scorched substance on the bottom of the pan, and rather chewy rotini on the top. Still, hunger is the best pickle, and we managed to eat more than half, leaving enough for a second meal if we have appetizers before hand.
After dinner I kept fooling with the fire, as the termperature was dropping and the wind picking up. Although plenty of smoke was generated by the wood we had taken from the firewood rack at the boat dock, the only real flame camer from kindling sticks and pine cones I scrounged from the environment. We brewed some herbal tea and sat and chatted and i kept getting colder, adding a thin but oozy yoga jacket, my warm hat , my Biffy , my longjohn sottoms and my sweatshirt to my costume. By the time we gave up on the fire (a couple of logs had smoldered through, but no real heat generated) and climbed into our cots, i had decided to keep my sweatshirt on, with hood. I should have also kept the long John’s, as my summer pj’s tended to ride up and were no contest for the dropping thermometer (which hit 43 degrees per the Weather app the next day).
[I have had arthritis in my right hip enough to keep me awake both nights – both nights I got up and took an ibuprofen which cut in enough to help me sleep eventually. tomorrow I will be sure to take a famotidine in the AM hoping my “miracle cure” works again. It took a week to wear off from the Omoxxxxxx – or was it the Kathy Smith Aerobic workout? Or is it the hard cot? Or the cold?)
From Love Field in Dallas to Caddo Lake on the Louisiana Border – W and I first met in East Texas, so the afternoon is a trip through the mists of nostalgia as we flash past familiar landmarks on the ubiquitous interstates.
From DFW we pass familiar streets on the exit signs: Mockingbird Lane, Inwood Ave, Turtle Creek, Preston Road and University Park. The frontage road skirts neighborhoods full of the lovely brick and white-trimmed ranch-style houses of East Texas prosperity, set well back on impossibly wide and deep and green lawns.
After several mis-directions we make it onto the freeway, past fields of bluebonnets, paintbrush, godetia, and crimson clover. There are more familiar names on the exit signs: Athens, Terrell, Gladewater, Tyler, Kilgore, and finally Marshall, our turnoff. We stop at a Kroger’s, where W reveals that she had not glanced at her checklist before loading the car. Just in case, we pick up things we turn out not to need (tea, salt and pepper, bowls) and things we will be glad to have (fruit, crackers, tinned fish, yogurt, fixings for a one-dish skillet dinner, and most importantly, a cooler).
Fifteen miles later we are at the CCC stone-piled entrance to Caddo Lake State Park. We arrive at 4:45 at the check-in stand to discover that the office closes at 4:30. W’s computer pulls up Shelter 16 on the reservation.
It is dusk by the time we unpack, W is exhausted and wants to sit, and I am hungry. We have our snack lunch for dinner and save the skillet meal for later – a skillet is another thing W has forgotten. An application of Off! keeps the bugs at bay, W has a mini-lantern for the table, and we make our way through a tin of sardines, a half-box of crackers, and half the cherry tomatoes – Excellent, and easy!
We had planned a post- prandial fire sit, but the fire is short-lived, as we had not stopped for firewood on the way in. Still there is magic, as the stillness thickens, and fireflies begin to flicker in the trees. The humidity is so high that the evening dew is condensing in puddles INSIDE the shelter, but W has brought a tarp for the floor, and cots to raise us above it. A sheet is all I need for a cover as I snuggle on top of my sleeping bag, listening to the stillness until I fall asleep.
Our boat goes through our first lock – 80 feet or more down from one level of the Snake to the next. We move into the lock; a bridge is before us, an open space behind. Then a wall seems to rise from beneath the river behind us as the water level in the lock is let out and we begin to descend. The walls rise, only two feet from the boat on either side. The bridge before us is now far above, with a large and getting ever higher curving wall ahead. We descend and descend. The black wall behind us is holding back the river, though it appears there are leaks. The black wall ahead is now 80 feet high. On the side are dripping black concrete blocks a yard high piled up and up. Finally we stop descending. We wait. There is a loud shudder, and a crack appears in the wall ahead. Sunlight, and color, a view of hills and sparkling water. The crack opens wider – the feeling is like the scene in “The Wizard of Oz” where Dorothy steps out of the sepia-toned world of Kansas into a technicolor Oz. The engines throb and we move forward into the light and space.
We go through a second lock at night – it is still magical. There is only black and white, the white boat, the black night, the gleaming gate, the sparkling water.
Later we explored off the boat at the Bonneville Dam, whose Visitor Center is a self-congratulatory celebration of the transformation of the wild rolling Columbia river into “a damn fine machine” for generating hydropower, in the words of an industry lobbyist.*
We saw another aspect of the locks and dams at the fish hatchery, where tiny salmon fry are nurtured until they are large enough to release downstream from the dams and make their way to the sea, and at the fish ladder, where returning salmon are given a chance to circumvent the dam in a series of cascades. These makeshift replacements of natural features are an attempt to appease the fishermen and native peoples whose lives depend on the salmon run. In another section of the hatchery, a bit off the self-guided tour, the sight of frustrated salmon leaping in vain against a current backed by a three-foot fence made me sad. In the hatchery these fish are artificially milked for their semen or eggs before dying, so the salmon fry can be created. The salmon would die anyway after spawning, but as they frantically jumped over and over against the impassable barrier, theyseemed to know they are supposed to get further to their spawning grounds than a hatchery.
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*Quoted from Blaine Harden’s A River Lost; the Life and Death of the Columbia
With all the discussion about “Oppenheimer” and his role in the development of the atomic bomb, one would have thought there were be more discussion of the other two locations which were key to his success. One was Oak Ridge in Tennessee, where uranium was refined for the first bomb, the other was Hanford, Washington, where plutonium for the second bomb was manufactured.
Like Los Alamos, Hanford was built in the most remote location possible, shrouded in secrecy, and filled with scientists who believed their labors would end World War II. At one point the town of Hanford was the fourth largest city in the state, with the largest General Post Office in the world (since addresses would have been Top Secret.) And as at Los Alamos, the scientists involved in the project worked with little apparent thought of the long-range effects of their labors.
The REACH museum outside of Hanford overlooks the longest undammed free-flowing reach of the Columbia River – hence its name. The country surrounding the museum is a sage and scrub desert, but it teems with wildlife including elk, antelope, an occasional bear, and all sorts of minor rodents, insects, and birds. Ironically, the reason for this virgin territory lies buried underground in unmarked sites and in leaking canisters – the radioactive waste left over from the plutonium project. No-one wants to drink water that may have overlain these poorly-conceived and poorly protected waste dumps.
The museum itself is a hybrid – half of it is devoted to the geology and wildlife associated with the Columbia River, the other half tells the story of Hanford, the plutonium project, and the community’s pride in its contribution to ending the war. Only one exhibit addresses the threat of radioactive contamination left behind, and that exhibit invites you to compare the amount of radioactivity in a vintage Fiestaware coffee cup to that in a sample of dirt from Hanford. (Surprise! the coffee cup’s red glaze has more!)
The US government has belatedly spent millions of dollars to remove or contain contamination around Hanford, and will need to spend millions more before it is safe to drink the ground water. But the town is still proud of its contribution to V-J day, still cherishes the government houses (Models A through F) thrown up almost overnight to accomodate the families, and wishes that “Barbenheimer” was”Barbanford”
You wake up in the spacious master suite of the home you designed yourself on 140 acres of open land. You make your coffee and stroll out to the spacious veranda which runs across the front of the house, looking out over a pasture with cows and pecan trees, and an occasional herd of deer or feral hogs around the pond. It’s bluebonnet season, and the blossoms are carpeting patches of the pasture.
Next to the white ranch house, but not too close, is the barn/workshop which stores equipment for maintaining the fence that keeps the cows, deer, and feral hogs away from the nearby vegetable garden, green with lettuce beginning to bolt, sugar peas just ready to harvest, tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant well along. It’s a bit too early for the strawberries and blackberries. You check the chicken coop for eggs and find enough for breakfast for you, your spouse, and guests who are bedded down in the wing on the other side of the kitchen.
Breakfast includes the eggs, bread you made yourself, and blackberry jam from last year’s berries. After breakfast you see your daughter, son-in-law, and three granddaughters walking over from their house just kitty-corner across the pasture. (You designed their home also, when you and your spouse and your daughter’s family agreed that buying the property together would be a good move.) You leave the guests to entertain themselves while the two families jump into your SUV and off you go for a morning of soccer.
Back in time for lunch, you serve everyone goulash made of home-grown broccoli, ground venison shot and butchered by yourself on your property, and wild rice.
After lunch you take the guests for a tour of the new San Saba County Musuem, assembled and curated by volunteers, very creatively arranged by types of activity (law, business, church, school, home , children , agriculture , ranching, etc). You are a board member of the Museum, and can regale your guests with a fountain of info and anecdotes. including why Queen Victoria named San Saba “the World’s Capital of Pecans”.
Then you take the guests on a tour of the town of San Saba starting with the “Longest continuously used jail in Texas”, the refurbished courthouse (painted in authentic avocado green and harvest gold), lovely old homes in various states of repair, and the Methodist Church, “the only church in Texas built entirely of local marble” with lumpy white pillars like stacks of slightly bubbly marshmallow on a skewer.
Back at the ranch, your spouse prepares the charcoal grill while you take the guests on a tour of the property on your electric golf cart, checking out the wildlife feeders and adjacent hunting blinds, but no feral hogs or deer to be seen, only placid cows. At 5 pm the family across the pasture arrives preparatory to dinner. You sit on the veranda, the men talking hunting, fishing, trapping, the girls playing hobby horse or doing gymnastics on the lawn, the women exchanging information about cooking, planting, and coping with energy blackouts, (Your houses have solar panels and backup generators, so no worries) while the girls are playing hobby horse or doing cartwheels on the lawn.
Dinner is home-grown broccoli, oven-baked new potatoes, and the grilled chicken. After dinner you all sit on the veranda and watch the stars – the Big Dipper, the Little Dipper, and a glowing cloud that may be the Milky Way. It’s not quite a Dark Sky, as the moon is rising over the roof and the horizon is lit by the surrounding towns, but pretty close. “Orion just leaps out of the sky at you,” says one of the guests.
You tell the guests of a visitor from Boston who looked up awestruck and said “I can’t believe this! how come you have so many more stars in Texas than we have in Boston?” He couldn’t believe that the stars were there in Boston, but obscured by urban glare.
A fantasy? There are some downsides to being some distance from a grocery store or a doctor or a local school or a library, but overall, the Good Life outside of San Saba looks pretty fine to me. I was one of the guests.
Turkey, Texas, has a population of 374 people, per the City Limits sign. However, it is conveniently located for access to both Cap Rock and Palo Duro Canyon State Parks , so we have reservations at the Hotel Turkey. In Turkey we find no reception whatsoever for internet, and W has no address for the Hotel. There is a boarded-up brick building that says “Hotel Turkey” on the front, and only after a circuit up and down the main (and only) street do we realize that the arrow intends us to go left behind the Main Street. There is the Hotel Turkey, which despite its antique furnishings, eccentric lighting and plumbing, and dearth of welcoming committee, seems to have carved a niche in the area as custodian of the legacy of “Bob Wills, King of Texas Swing”.
If you are not familiar with the name, as I was not, check out the link above.
Perhaps there is something about the wide open spaces in North Central Texas that is conducive to ambitious dreaming. How could this run-down circa 1920’s hotel on a side street in a town of less than 400 people possibly make sense?
But it’s working.
Behind the building itself are the three magic ingredients: an open air bar, a broad sheltered patio, plenty of open dirt space, and a simple wooden stage.
There are maybe 20 people gathered around the open air bar and patio in the back, and we are served a couple of Texas beers and some hot wings (sweet chili sauce and garlic-Parmesan sauce) with carrots and celery sticks and a caprese salad made with fresh mozzarella, variegated cherry tomatoes, balsamic vinegar, and LOTS of fresh basil as if it were lettuce. Yum. We could not finish more than half the wings and veggies. A friendly man comes over to talk to us about the local sights, the Hotel (that converted silo is the restrooms) and to welcome us to the area. Not sure if he was related to the owner, or just friendly, but it was pleasant.
The hotel has just one other room being used on a Monday night, and we are upgraded to a room with its own bath. (Fortunate, as when I checked out the hallway bathroom which our bargain room would have had us use, a sign on the toilet lid ordered DO NOT FLUSH ANYTHING DOWN THIS TOILET – PUT PAPER IN BASKET! .)
The rooms are furnished eclectically with furniture appropriate to the 1920’s and probably scavenged from prairie estate sales. Bare walls are decorated with a collection of Stetson hats, or, in the dining room, a collection of rainbow-painted old violins and vinyl LPs. The old-fashioned iron beds are so high that W has to call and ask for a step stool so she can get into hers. But the fan, lamp (once the defective one is replaced) and heat/cooling work well, and W luxuriates in the deep old-fashioned iron bathtub.
In the morning, we have the standard Texas “Hotel Breakfast” with eggs, bacon, sausage, buttered toast, and hash browns – all deliciously greasy. The cook doubles as host and entertainment. He tells us that the hotel is usually fully booked for the weekend, with live music on the outdoor stage which brings in 200 attendees on average. The previous weekend they had 400 people here for a concert with a well-regarded local Texas Swing band. It must have been a hoppin’ time for the bartender! He tells us that the owner/lady in charge has been working on the hotel for 7 years. I wish I had been able to talk with her to find out what dream drove her.
Returning from Palo Duro Canyoun, we had the Hotel Special dinner: a Chile Relleno Platter, with chips and salsa. This turned out to be a meat-stuffed chili, served with a beef enchilada, beans, and rice – all excellent and distinctively Tex-Mex.
After dinner the sky seemed to be clearing so I went out to see if the Milky Way was evident. It was not, though there was a lovely crescent moon, a glowing circle like a jeweled ring just below Venus. The town was quiet Quiet QUIET, as if there was nothing in the world to hear, until my footsteps set off a lone guardian dog.
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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.
