Milam County Jail (Cameron, TX) and Elgin (TX) – March 2012 (Mum & Dad Visit Texas, Part Three)

DAY THREE:  Thursday, 29 March 2012

Mum said that we’d gone west and south so far this trip, so what was east?  That was a good question.  When we’d look at the Texas Travel book, there didn’t seem to be a lot out in the Hutto and Taylor area.  There were a couple possible ideas in the points beyond, and we never knew what we’d find once got there too.  Besides, I’m sure there would be some more court houses for Mum to see.

As we drove out towards past, we noticed that we’d left the hill country behind.  The area out here was very flat, with large tracts of fields.  This wasn’t grazing area, but more farmland type.  With few natural barriers, this was why there were so many high winds that descended down upon Round Rock.  Driving through Taylor, we got to see the road construction which was in process of widening two lanes to four lanes of traffic.  Beyond that, Taylor didn’t appear any different than the other small Texas towns we’d visited.

We breezed through Rockdale, and made a couple notations of things to check out on the way back.  There seemed like there’d be some interesting things out in Cameron we wanted to see first.  It was pretty early in the morning when we arrived in Cameron, and the chamber of commerce had let us know the town’s museum had just opened for the day.  Like many of the small towns, there was a lot of memorabilia from specific events in local history, as well as how the events of World War II had affected them.  Among the late 1800’s medicine bottles, vintage office machines, and items donated by veterans was an actual piece of the Berlin Wall brought back by a Cameron resident.  That was pretty interesting.  We commented that we wanted to take a tour of the jail house museum, although the chamber of commerce said it didn’t open for another hour or so.  The curator decided to open it early to allow us a chance to look around.  We thought that was really nice of him.

The Milam County Jail was built in 1895, and remained in use until 1975 (and then was re-opened as a museum in ’77).  The entryway in the front of the jail was where the incoming prisoners were processed, and then brought to the second and third floors to be housed in the general population.  The back part of the first floor was actual living quarters for the sheriff stationed at the complex (and his family).  The sheriff’s wife cooked for the entire site, and those meals were placed on serving trays from their dining room to the central corridor inside the jail portion.  I’m sure the sheriff’s wife had some help with the meals, considering she had a “home” to keep and children to raise, too.

The living quarters for the sheriff’s family is nicely restored to so what they would’ve had in the early 20^th Century.  While many of the items are antiques, they weren’t all actual items used by the sheriff’s families.  Most were donated by various historical societies, and you figure each family that resided there painted or wall-papered as they desired, and filled it with whatever they wanted for their daily lives.  In the shot below, you can see the opening which the sheriff’s wife would send prepared meals to the inmates.  Under the portrait on the wall is a slot with a steel tray on it.

As this is a museum now, you can get from the living residence to where the cells are.  There was a central stairwell in which you could access the four wings of the second and third floors.  Each wing had bars to allow it to be closed off.  Inside each wing was essentially a large metal cage that had three or four individual dual-bunk cells, with a small “common” area (where the bathroom facilities were).  During most of the day, the inmates could roam about the inside jail, and during the evening they had to go back to their individual locations.  Only a handful of actual guards were necessary to keep order.

According to our tour guide, the large black cages (which housed the dual-bunk cells) were built as a single welded steel unit, and slid in place before the walls of the building went up during the initial construction.  As technology improved, so did the plumbing and electricity, but it was all kept within the existing infrastructure of the original building.

A central boiler provided heat in the winter, and bars on the outer windows allowed them to be opened in the summer for some ventilation. I’m sure the air didn’t move very well in this place, and was stifling when it was hot.  The cells didn’t have much in the way of creature comforts (this was jail, after all), but even with a mattress and blanket this didn’t look like a place where you wanted to spend any length of time.  Perhaps our modern correctional facilities could learn something from the way things used to be.

Once we were done with the Milam County Jail, we headed over to the town annex where they had a “miniature replica of the town” complete with working model train.  When we arrived, we learned they were in the process of deconstructing it so it could be moved to another location.  What we did get to see of it looked pretty interesting.  I’d like to see a number of other small towns have a similar diorama like that, so you can get a sense of where things are in relation to one another.

A lunch tip directed to a bistro which was the “local favorite.”  We expected something more like the brisket place we’d found in Gonzalez, but this turned out to be more of an upscale establishment.  The design was an old warehouse which had been converted over with some very modern décor.  I don’t think Dad was very impressed, but Mum and I liked it.

Since the bistro was right off the town square, we were able to walk over to the Cameron court house.  The building was completed in 1892, but in the 1930s during a renovation process some of the original elements were removed (like the clock tower).  Another restoration process was completed in 2002, in which the original elements had been returned.  There were also some war monuments around.  This court house was a bit busier, so we didn’t wander through this one as much as we did the one in Llano.

We headed back to Rockdale in search of the train museum that was there.  We were expecting something like what we’d found in Smithville, but this was even smaller.  This was a small building which looked like it housed only a small bit of memorabilia, and it was only open one day a week.  There were a couple old train cars we were able to look inside, but they hadn’t been restored yet.  We were treated to a train to come speeding by, which was all of ten feet from where we were.  That was _loud_, and shook the ground slightly.

The only other thing of interest in Rockdale we found was what passed for their visitor’s center.  The house this office was contained in first appeared to have a stone exterior, but it was actually petrified wood.  The lady in the visitor’s center didn’t know much about the history of the house, other than “someone built, and it’s been here as long as I can remember.”

The day was still young, so we looked around what else might be in the area.  Not much in the Travel Texas book for areas close by, but Elgin seemed like it would have some potential.  It was just a quick matter back-tracking the road to Taylor, and then swinging south.  The drive was rural highway, so it provided nice farmland to look at.

While the historical building the Elgin chamber of commerce was in wasn’t much to look at (and needed some serious restoration work), the museum near the railway crossing was much better.  This was an old train station that had been built during the segregation era, and an old floor plan showed which were the “white” areas and the “colored” areas.  The design of the building had two sets of restrooms, waiting areas, etc for the people who’d be getting on the same train.  An interesting reminder of what was “accepted practice” only a few decades ago.

The museum had detailed displays on the original settlers of Elgin, how the railway was their lifeline, and how they adapted to changing life in the 1900s.  There was also information about the Robert Redford movie The Great Waldo Pepper which was filmed in Elgin.  The lady at the museum pointed out some of the nearby historical buildings still standing in the town.

One of the more amusing stories was how during the days before Prohibition, a gentleman named Albert Christian created a bar within sight of the train stop in order to attract patrons.  He had the name of his establishment painted on the side of the building so passengers would see it, and know to go there.  Apparently one day, a traveling Bible-seller came in to Elgin, and noticed the sign which said “A. Christian Saloon.”  Not realizing it was someone’s name, the Bible-seller went to congratulate the owner for having a “reputable establishment,” and was horrified once he went inside.

Stories like this are so cool, because you can’t make shit like that up and have it believable.  Truth is always more interesting, and usually stranger, than fiction.

More information can be found on the places we visited at:

Milam County Jail:  http://www.milamcountyhistoricalcommission.org/markers_cameron_milam_county_jail.php

Cameron:  www.camerontexas.net

Elgin:  www.elgintxchamber.com

Llano (TX) and Willow City Loop – March 2012 (Mum & Dad Visit Texas, Part Two)

DAY TWO:  Wednesday, 28 March 2012

The weather was a little bit drizzly today.  Mum made the comment that when I came up to New York last June to escape the heat, I’d come to a rainy area, and it was symmetry that this year when she came to Texas to escape the cold weather, she came to a rainy area.  I reminded my parents of the common phrase down here, “If you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes.”

We left Round Rock and headed west for today’s destination.  We were a bit north of Mansfield Dam, and passed Buchanan Dam.  Another section of the Colorado River, this dam created the aptly-named Lake Buchanan.  As we passed by, it was hard to see where the entrance to the dam’s park area was, so we zoomed on by as we headed towards our target:  Llano.

Many places in Texas have Spanish-sounding names, because this used to be Mexican territory.  But I’d noticed since my arrival in Austin that many places which should be pronounced in the Spanish-style are mis-pronounced.  The “explanation” I’d been given was the Texas settlers purposely started to say the names wrong, all except for Seguin (because he sided with the settlers against the Mexicans).  That being said, the double-L in Spanish is a “Y” sound, but the town’s name is pronounced like it just starts with an “L.”  So it’s not “Yano,” but “Lano.”

We located the visitor’s center, which had had a small railroad museum.  The visitor’s center gave some interest information about the area, especially how the most deer hunting (and processing) in Texas takes place here.  The people in the visitor’s center told us to be on the look-out for various deer statues scattered throughout the town square (and other areas), as each one had a different design.  This was similar to the horses we’d seen in Saratoga, and the guitars in Austin, and the pig-like critters I’d seen in Sedona.

One of the funniest things we saw in the visitor’s center was the Basselope, which was the pride and joy of the area.  A rare Texas critter, much rarer than the rabbit-like Jackalope, they informed us it was caught from a body of water “not far from here.”  And such it was such a rare find, it needed to be stuffed and mounted.  There was also a photo next to it showing the critter being pulled out of the lake.  Needless to say, we found it pretty amusing.

We started to walk across the bridge to the main section of the town, and about half-way across I decided it would probably be a good idea to run back and grab my pull-over rain-coat.  Dad had left his back at the hotel.  Mum and Dad waited for me on the other side as I trucked back to the car, and then caught up with them.  Sure I used up some extra breakfast energy, I know I earned quite a lot more steps on my pedometer.

Llano had the nice courthouse in the town square, like the other Texas locales we’d visited.  I liked how this had a number of war memorials out front to.  There were monuments to those from the area who’d served in all the conflicts since the Civil War.  That gave us a number of things to check out, before we went inside the courthouse.  There wasn’t a lot to see inside the courthouse, because much of it was office space.  We could get up the bell tower, but the support bars across the windows made if difficult to take any decent high-elevation shots.

One of the interesting things in the courthouse was as we went up the stairs towards the bell tower, we were then able to see into the closed court room (due to the vent window over the door).  The sign on the door mentioned it was a closed session to due to it being a divorce proceeding, but I’m sure during some “high profile” case smart people sat on the stairs to get a better vantage point.

Anytime we visit one of these places, we always find something of interest which we need to take a picture of.  That’s just part of the fun of coming to some place you don’t know.  While we did take pictures of the deer statues as we found them, we noted one particular merchant establishment with a very interesting name.  We’re not sure what type of items would be considered “stuffology” that would be sold at their store, we got some amusement out of it.

When we were walking over towards the old jail, it started to sprinkle on us.  We took shelter in a coffee shop called Fuel to get a light snack.  The sprinkling was light, so we continued down the rest of the way.  The jail house was in the process of being restored to allow visitors, much the way the old jail in Gonzalez was.  The people had the visitor’s center told this before we came down, and that it expected to be completed a few months from now.  I still liked the design of the deer statue out front.

The rain started to get heavier, so Mum & Dad took shelter in the booth for the bus stop.  I trudged back to the car (more miles on the pedometer), and shot back to pick them up.  Near the visitor’s center was an old pioneer cabin and the Llano County Museum.  The cabin didn’t have much in other than a small table and bed, and a bunch of cobwebs.  The museum has some interesting artifacts from the town history, from a list of all the rancher brands that had been used, stones and arrowheads found in the area, and gear from the World War II era.

One of the things Mum found interesting here was a display that had actual recipes which had been used by people at the turn of the (previous) century.  There as was a recipe for “cocoa fudge” that one her relatives had been made for her when she was a little girl.  We had some fun trying to get the lighting and angles right so the picture would turn out so Mum could read it (with the intent of making some later).

We left Llano and headed south on Route 16, towards Fredericksburg.  It was still drizzling, but not too bad.  Following this route, it would take us to the Willow City Loop.  The gentleman in the Georgetown visitor’s center had told us that we needed to so in a specific way, in order to give us the best view of the area.  I had my MapCo handy as I cruised down the road, but still managed to pass by a sign that seemed to point towards Willow City.  Had it not been rainy, I would’ve been able to see it earlier, and have slowed down enough to make the turn.

I’d gotten the feeling that might’ve been where we’d wanted to exit from, so I decided to drive a bit further to see if there was another route.  Figured if we hit Fredericksburg, then we’d just turn around to go down the road we’d seen.  Our patience was rewarded, as just a mile or so down Route 16 we saw a larger sign and turn-off for Willow City.

Willow City is a small hamlet of probably a dozen houses and a saloon.  It didn’t start off being very much to see, but we continued to follow the road (which is the “Loop”), we went over some very hilly and rugged terrain.  The Loop was a total of thirteen miles, and while some of it was wooded sections, the large majority was hillsides filled with wildflowers.

The road of The Loop was pretty much a paved farm road which allowed people access to their fields.  While there were some gates to separate the cattle from the road, there was a special type of grate across some sections which would keep wandering bovines contained to that area.  I know there’s a specific name for it, but the design wouldn’t allow for stable hoof placement, thus not allowing the cows to venture out.  In most places the road was just wide enough for two cars to pass each other slowly.

Through the light rain, we could see fields of green filled with swatches of blue, and other colors.  More than the blue bonnets Mum wanted to see, there were other types of wild flowers here.  We’d gone in the correct entrance, as the majority of the up-and-down hilly drive was going down hill.  I knew Argent’s brakes were given a work out, and it was better than what his transmission would have to do creeping up the inclines at slow speeds.

This is a pretty popular thing to do, as there were a number of other cars heading through The Loop also.  Most were going the same direction as us, which was good considering how wide the road wasn’t.  There were some shoulder areas which had enough room to pull a car mostly off the road.  That allowed people to get out and take pictures.  I imagine if it hadn’t been raining, there would’ve been more people wandering about.  The wet ground was something to take into consideration when looking for a place to pull off.  A couple cars had parked themselves in such a way, they could’ve easily been stuck in the mud if they had spun their tires too much or didn’t have four-wheel drive.  The response time of the auto club’s roadside assistance can be pretty long if you’re out in the middle of no where, with no landmarks to allow them to find you easily.

That was also the thing which made the drive nice.  Excepting for the other cars, the road, and the occasional fences we saw, there were few human-made objects visible.  From the information we’d heard, it was “suggested” that you don’t wandering into the fields of the wild flowers (as not to disrupt them), but there were other grassy areas you could sit to enjoy the view.  I’m sure on a warm sunny day, people come out here with their picnic baskets.

Since I’m pretty sure-footed, I did venture out on the rocks of the nearby stream beds in attempts to get better angles for pictures.  I was smart enough to avoid the wet sandy areas so I wouldn’t get my shoes covered in mud.  There was already going to be some tracked inside the car, and that was unavoidable, but it could be minimized.  I did locate a nice rock to stand on to do my standard “praise the sky” pose.

We moved slowly through The Loop to be able to enjoy it, but not so slow that we held up other people.  I think we spent the appropriate amount of time there.  Once we’d come back around to Route 16, since we were pretty close to Fredericksburg, we headed there to be able to some place to get a warm snack.  Beyond that, there was no reason to spend any other time there, as by the time we got back to Round Rock, we’d be looking for dinner.  The tip that we’d been given at the Georgetown Visitor’s Center certainly paid off, and was well-worth the drive.

More information can be found on the places we visited at:

            Llano:  http://llanochamber.org/

Willow City Loop:  http://www.fredericksburgtexas-online.com/WillowCityLoop

Georgetown (TX) and Mansfield Dam – March 2012 (Mum & Dad Visit Texas, Part One)

DAY ONE:  Tuesday, 27 March 2012

            I’d picked Mum & Dad up the previous afternoon at the Austin airport.  It worked out pretty well, as I’d gotten to spend some time down at the offices of the Austin Planetarium doing some volunteer work.  It was warm and sunny when my parents arrived, and we’d just spent the remainder of Monday relaxing.

It was a little overcast today, so that meant it wasn’t going to be too hot today.  We decided to do some walking tours of the surrounding areas, so my parents could get a feel for the areas in Williamson County.  We started out by heading up to Georgetown.  Since it was during the normal work week, it should be pretty easy to wander around, as most people tend to be out on the weekends.

Upon arriving in Georgetown, I found a great parking spot right out in front of the Georgetown’s historical museum … which just happened to be closed on Tuesdays.  We made a note of it, and if time allowed, we’d go back on another day.  We headed across the street to the town square, where the court house was.  This was very common in Texas (and perhaps other southern towns, as well).  The center of the town is the square which contained the court house, and the rest of the buildings circle around that.

Mum likes the architecture of the various court houses in Texas, and she liked to take pictures of them, and the statues which generally were found around them.  This obelisk was a monument to Williamson County’s Confederate soldiers and sailors, and erected in 1916.

We circled around the square checking out the various buildings, which of course were mostly shops.  On one corner was the old Masonic Lodge, easily identifiable by its Illuminati-like symbol, which had a for sale sign on it.  I noticed something of interest, and went closer to investigate.  It was a sculpture of a dolphin.  And on closer inspection, I saw it was made of various tools glued together.  I thought that was pretty interesting.

Spaced all along the square were some interesting sculptures, ranging from a large scorpion to a funky cube-like “plus sign.”  I’m not sure if these were temporary items (like a travelling exhibit), creations of students from the local college (Southwestern University), or were placed there for other reasons.  Even though I didn’t see any specific connection to Georgetown, I still thought they were pretty interesting.

Once we’d gotten a snack at a local coffee shop, we finished our stroll around the square.  I looked for artistic shots as we went along.  One opportunity presented itself at the old fire house there was a bell which honored Emzy Taylor, an Arkansas native who moved to Georgetown after the Civil War and helped formed the volunteer fire department.  Walking tours of cities are good because you can find little informational tidbits like this.

The Georgetown Visitor’s Center had told us about how they were gearing up for the Red Poppy Festival, hence all the images of the red flowers all over the place.  I see poppies and I think of either Oz or opium.  Mum commented while she really would like to see the poppies, she wanted to see her bluebonnets.  Mum commented that she’d taken a bunch of bluebonnet seeds back with her to New York, and planted them in window boxes, but they didn’t take very well.  She got some poppy seeds in hopes these would do better.

Georgetown’s fascination with poppies stem from (no pun intended) how these plants have grown naturally in the street and highway edges, and have been cultivated in yards and vacant lots for the past seventy or so years.  Some soldiers returning from World War I brought poppy seeds came back from Europe, and through natural means (birds, etc.) were spread all over the area.  Like other Texas wildflowers, the poppies begin bloom in the Spring, hence while the Red Poppy Festival in the later part of April.

A gentleman at the Visitor’s Center told us about a place just north of Fredericksburg called the Willow City Loop, which was a driving tour in order to see “fields of bluebonnets.”  Mum added that to her list of things she wanted to see on this trip, and I took notes so I’d remember how to even locate this place.

After that, we headed south a short distance so we could take a walking tour of historic Round Rock.  Like Georgetown, Round Rock had a small section of restored buildings with informational signs.  Unlike Georgetown, Round Rock didn’t have the “courthouse square,” because it was more of a stop-over on the Chisholm Trail.  Because this was more a “frontier town,” the buildings were a lot shorter.  Interesting how Round Rock’s population has doubled in the last decade due to Dell Computer, and the city has expanded outwards to encompass other areas, that the “downtown” area didn’t really change.

At one point, from what others have told me, as the Austin city limits expanded, it was just assumed that eventually Round Rock would be absorbed within its boundaries (much the way Houston absorbed the areas around as it expanded).  But with the recent economic explosion in the region, Round Rock is quickly nearing the size of Austin.  Current opinion is that Austin and Round Rock will form a “two-axis metroplex” similar to the Dallas-Fort Worth region.  Smaller nearby towns, like Pflugerville immediately south and Cedar Park to the west, expected to be absorbed by Austin as well, and then later wondered if they’d become part of Round Rock.  Pflugerville and Cedar Park have had their own economic expansions in the last few years and are growing quickly.  My guess is those regions will be able to retain their independent identities, and there will be four large communities crammed together in this Central Texas region.

Unfortunately, Pflugerville is just now considering how to revitalize their “downtown” area, which is even small than Round Rock’s.  I drove my parents through the area and used the standard “don’t blink or you’ll miss it” phrase.  There’s wasn’t any reason to park and wander around because there wasn’t anything historical marked.  That may have changed the next time Mum & Dad come down (as they’ve been coming down annually the past few years).

In order to reinforce how much last summer’s drought had affected the area, I decided to take Mum & Dad back over to Mansfield Dam.  During the Summer of 2011, there was no rain from roughly May until September, and there were about eighty days over 100 degree temperatures.  At one point, there were no less than _five_ separate wildfires burning the in the greater Austin area (Bastrop being the worst of them), and tens-of-thousands of acres went up in smoke.  While the aquifer which provides water to the region is a sixty-percent capacity, no one can see it so most people don’t understand the impact.  Looking at the water levels of Lake Travis (the area behind Mansfield Dam) is a good representation of what’s happening there.

Now compare the above picture to one which was taken on my parents’ first visit here back in March 2003.  When preparing this, I tried to find previously taken shot which was taken from approximately the same angle.  In failing that, I thought there would be a greater impact of seeing what the lake used to look like.

On this visit to Mansfield Dam, we went down into the park area, so we could go right up to the water level … or where the water level should be.  Last March when my parents visited, the water level had just dropped to expose these whitish rocks.  Now, a year later, those whitish rocks have become greenish-brown scrub.  Even looking on the back of the dam, you can see the change of color which showed where the water level should be.

Lake Travis used to have a lot of boating going on, but with the level significantly lower, the local residents have had to adapt.  The inlet which used to be the local marina is completely dry, so they’ve had to store their boats somewhere else.  The more shallow nature of the lake has caused the use of smaller vessels that don’t displace much water.  And those who have actual boat houses needed to put them closer to the water level.

We wandered around the park area for a bit.  Mum was happy to have found a huge field of blue bonnets.  So no matter what this drive over to Willow City Loop turned out to be like, she’d be happy that she got to enjoy her flowers.

Like we did the previous year, we took a quick stop up at Steiner Ranch Steakhouse only to get an elevated view of the area.  Not only did this make an interesting perspective to the shots we’d taken last March, and back in 2003, but it gave a new perspective when we looked in the direction opposite the lake.  Back behind the Steakhouse is the area where one of last summer’s wildfires happened.  Houses were still destroyed in this area, but not to the extent as the other fires.  Most of the destruction followed the contours of the hills, and consisted mostly of burned trees.  Some of the sections were controlled-burned to create bare areas to protect nearby residents.

These were thoughts to keep in mind that no matter where you live, you’re always going to have to deal with some nature aspect that will add challenges to your life.  The central Texas region has droughts, wild fires, tornadoes, floods, and the occasional earthquake.  But find an area in the world that doesn’t have something like that.  Looking at the low water levels of Lake Travis are signs of what is to come, and hopefully this will start to change the minds of those in the area.  This wasn’t meant to be a killjoy for the day, but it gave us some interesting conversation during dinner later.

More information can be found on the places we visited at:

            Georgetown:  http://visit.georgetown.org/

            Poppy Festival:  http://poppy.georgetown.org/

Round Rock:  www.roundrocktexas.gov

Steiner Ranch Steakhouse:  www.steinersteakhouse.com

Salt Lake City (UT) Region – September 2004 (Part Two: Hill AFB Aerospace Museum)

HILL AIR FORCE MUSEUM

The next morning the weather was clear, so it’d be a nice day for Jose & Margaret’s wedding (which wouldn’t happen until the early afternoon).  That didn’t leave us a lot of time today to do stuff before that, and certainly not enough for me to see the Olympic areas I wanted to.  I settled for taking pictures of the ski jumps (and ski trails in the distance), with the idea I’d return at some point in the future to explore further.

Brian found a place he wanted to check out that morning, which was located the city of Ogden (north of Salt Lake City).  Since we’d driven to Nevada yesterday, I looked at the AAA map to see if it was feasible to go a farther north into Idaho, and then loop east briefly into Wyoming, before coming back to the SLC area, just to say I’d been to those other states.  If we had all day, it probably would’ve been a pretty decent adventure, but our time was limited.  We’d be flying back to Austin tomorrow morning, and back to work the next day.

We took Interstate 80 back into SLC, and swung northward on I-15 (also known as the Veterans Memorial Highway).  This brought us into a more industrial section of the area, where we could see the mountains to our right and the Great Salt Lake to the west.  We saw the signs for Hill Air Force Base, but not their Aerospace Museum (which was our target destination).   Soon we located the entrance, and made our way next to a parking lot, which had a bunch of large aircraft sitting next to it.

Located within the confines of this active air base, the museum first opened in 1986.  The first building had some smaller displays of regalia, flight suits, notable pilots, and important aviation eras.  There were two other buildings which were jam packed with various planes.  The aircraft outside (which we first saw when we pulled up) where only sitting outside because there wasn’t a building big enough to hold them.  Sitting outside were things like the freakin’ huge B-52 bomber, and C-130 cargo plane, as well as a Minuteman ICBM.

Brian’s favorite was the A-10 Warthog, and he was happy to see one.  One of the planes I liked was the P-38 Lightning, which goes back to my childhood when someone gave a Matchbox version of one.  And because it was a World War Two-era fighter, that enhanced my love of it.

Another plane which could be found he was one we both liked.  I’m completely geek enough to admit the reason I was attracted to it was it was the aircraft which the X-Men were flying in those 1979-1980 issues where I first discovered this outlaw hero team.  Around the same time, there was an issue of Popular Mechanics I bought just for the schematics on this as well.  This is the SR-71 Blackbird.

I knew the real thing was much smaller than the fictionalized version the mutant heroes flew around in, but I didn’t realize how small until seeing it up close.  The cockpit for this was much more compact than any other single-seat fighter there.  The SR-71 was made for stealth and speed, and was one of the best spy planes the U.S. ever built.

There were other planes were, like the Mustangs and a B-17 Flying Fortress, and all were in great shape.  This is not a CAF chapter, so these are decommissioned, although it wouldn’t take much to get them air-worthy again.  I had to chuckle at the plane for the Texas Air National Guard which was sitting here.  It seems like even on holiday I can’t escape the hold of the Lone Star State.

After we looked at the craft outside, we then worked our way back to our hotel so we could change into the nice clothes to wear to the wedding.  Of course, onn the drive back from Hill AFB Museum, we took a couple of shots to be able to show people what the highways looked like up against the mountains.  While Austin prides itself as being part of the “Hill Country,” it has nothing which compares to the elevations of the mountains around here.  It’s like when I’d show people pictures of Glens Falls (with the Adirondack Mountains framing the shots).

Plus as it was early September, the foliage was starting to come out.  Some of the green of the area had started to be replaced by subtle hints of orange and yellow.  It’d be a couple weeks before it’d peak, but this would also give some of my Texan friends to understand why the mountains are so beautiful in the autumn.

We then drove to Heber City for the wedding.  The hall where the reception took place was still mostly green, which made a nice backdrop.  With how short of a time we had in the area, we didn’t have the opportunity to explore any metropolitan areas of SLC or Park City, much less where the reception was held.  Can’t say much about them, other than the areas looked very nice.

Our flight the next day would have us layover in Phoenix.  Ever since seeing Road Runner cartoons as I kid, I had some attraction to the Grand Canyon (and even worked it into my novel via a “dream sequence”).  I’d never had the chance to actually see it before, so when we flew over it I had to snap what photos I could.  This wasn’t quite scratching it off my bucket list, as seeing it from the plane is not the same as actually being able to visit it.  That gave me a sense of longing to want to go there.

When we were hanging out in Phoenix Sky Harbor awaiting our connecting flight back to Austin, I saw all the visitor information about the Grand Canyon.  I tried not to drool.  I didn’t know when I would be able to get there, but I hoped it would be soon.

I can say I’ve been to Salt Lake City (and the surrounding region) now, but there was so much more in the area that I’d want to check out.  I didn’t get to see some things I wanted to, but I did enjoy what I got to visit.

For current information on the places mentioned:

            Salt Lake City (UT):  http://www.ci.slc.ut.us/

            Hill AFB Aerospace Museum:  http://www.hill.af.mil/library/museum/

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