Safely home, but a little bruised

Well, we made it home safe to Salt Lake. Here are a few update photos. At left is the exterior of the Nashville Parthenon, which I took with C's smaller camera while she was inside with the larger SLR.









At left is the famous "Jesus in cowboy boots" statue in the Evergreen Cemetery in Paris, Texas. There are several ways to interpret this statue. One is that it is a representation of Jesus carrying his cross, although the cross is too small and appears to be fixed in the ground. It is also a valid interpretation that it represents a cowboy in a robe coming to the Cross of Jesus. The figure appears to be clean shaven, and the distinctive cowboy boot heel can be seen exposed below the hem of the robe. It was difficult to get a good photo as the statue is on a pillar type base of at least ten feet high. We just hurried to get what shots we could while Officer Barrios was good enough to be shining his police cruiser spotlight on the statue. The grave is for Willet Babcock, born October 6, 1828 and died August 27, 1881. I haven't googled the name yet.










This last shot is of an "origami" church in Texas. Right now I don't remember if the church was in Greenville or Dallas. Maybe we will come back in a few years and see if it has become a crane or something else.



And now for the latest update on the trip. We made it back to Dallas, had time for an order of Waffle House hashbrowns scattered all the way, but without the jalapenos and then made our flight. WRH was good enough to meet us as the airport and give us a ride home. Then we checked our phone messages. I had a call from Discover about some charges. Turns out that I am now a victim of identity theft. Luckily it was just one existing credit card and not my social with a bunch of new fraudulently obtained cards. Discover will not charge me for the bad charges, and I am waiting to hear more from their fraud investigation department. It does bother me somewhat that some lowlifes have been making some charges using my name. E.

G/G last full day

Howdy, y'all,
We made it safely back to Texas, but first let me tell you about our day. We started the day in Alma, Arkansas, the spinach capital of the world, as evidenced by this statue of Popeye in the city park. From Alma we headed on down to the Fort Smith National Historic Site. Fort Smith was started as an army post intended to keep the peace between the Osage and another tribe, possibly the Cherokee, who were being pushed westward. Then as all the Southeastern Indian tribes were relocated to Indian Territory in Oklahoma, Fort Smith became important as a supply depot at the point where the "Trail of Tears" crossed into Indian Territory. Another important phase of Fort Smith was as the location of Judge Isaac Parker's Court. Judge Parker had jurisdiction over crimes committed by whites in Indian Territory and had a large caseload. He was sent by President Grant to clean up the corruption of the previous judge. Interestingly, Judge Parker was initially appointed as the Federal Judge for the Territory of Utah but asked to be reassigned. The ranger said that he had family in Missouri so Arkansas was more convenient in that way. I told her that a judge with Missouri connections would not have been a good fit for Utah. Judge Parker held court for twenty years and worked himself to death. The book and movie "True Grit" was set in Fort Smith and the Indian Territory with John Wayne playing a deputy marshall charged with finding outlaws in Indian Territory to bring back to Fort Smith for trial. The rangers said that the movie is being remade even as I post.
We then crossed over into Oklahoma and stopped briefly at the Spiro Mounds State Park. We just took pictures from the outside and headed on to Heavener to see the famous Heavener Runestone. The Heavener Runestone is a large boulder with old Norse markings on it. It was originally translated as a date, but now is believed to be a boundary marker claiming the land for a Viking named Glome who would have lived sometime between 600 and 900 AD. It was set in a very pretty spot, but not a place where I think someone would put such a marker.


From Heavener, we drove through the Winding Stair Mountains, where we saw a Bigfoot Crossing. Just to clarify, we just saw the crossing, not the bigfoot. Then we dropped down to Paris, Texas, which is the second largest Paris in the world. Texas is still the largest Texas. At left is a picture of us at the Eiffel Tower. Sorry for the slant, but the camera was sitting on the roof of our car, and the car was a little slanted.
After seeing the Eiffel Tower, we went to a local cemetery where our internet sources had said there was a statue of Jesus wearing cowboy boots. The cemetery was fairly large, you know the old saw about everything in Texas, so we just drove up and down the rows with the high beams on until we got busted by the police. The responding officer turned out to be very friendly and helpful, showing us the statue, which we never would have found even in daylight.
After our Paris adventure we headed on down the road to Greenville, where we spent on last night on Grits/Garter. Once we are safely home, I will try to add a few more posts to update y'all on pictures of things we haven't posted yet. ERH

G/G recrosses the Mississippi

Hello again from the great South. We finally got biscuits and gravy as part of motel continental breakfast. That fulfilled one major purpose of the trip, so the rest is as we say "gravy." At the left is the pyramid in Memphis. I didn't know there was a pyramid in Memphis, but if there is a Parthenon in Nashville, then why not. Memphis is actually an Egyptian place name. We shot the picture in passing. We did stop briefly at Graceland but didn't pay the $10 to park or the $30 per person to take the tour. Maybe when I visit again in 50 years. We bought some souvenirs across the street with some of the money we saved.

After leaving Graceland, and taking the picture of the pyramid, we headed across the river for a white knuckle drive through the rain to reach the Central High National Historic Site in Little Rock before it closed. We made it just in the nick of time. We also took a picure of the high school, which is still open. The Park Ranger at the desk was very helpful with information about the event. There were some volunteers from the high school. M asked them if they had ever heard of High School Musical so they would know that we also had a nationally famous high school.

After leaving the high school we hit a gully washer rainstorm at the state capitol. I was a little surprised at the lack of murals in the capitol. Most capital buildings have murals. This one had mostly portraits and busts of past governers.

Then tragedy struck G/G in Alma, Arkansas at the Parley P. Pratt monument. A breeze blew our camera off the fence post we were using for our shutter delay shot. The camera hit lens first and damaged the lens. The camera appears to be alright, but the automatic features of the lens no longer work. The lens still works but there is little to no control over the zoom and aperture. The above picture as taken immediately after the accident. Unitl later, ERH

G/G Day Five

Hello everyone,
I still haven't figured out how to position photographs in the correct order, but here we go. The first photo here is a statue of the goddess Athena located in the Nashville Parthenon. She is Annabeth's mom for the Percy Jackson fans out there. Nashville built a scale replica of the Parthenon as part of their centennial celebration about 1897. The people liked it so much that when the original plywood/chicken wire/ papier mache/ whatever replica fell apart, they built a durable one of reinforced concrete. It has a nice exposed aggregate exterior and this cool statue inside. Because we didn't have a lot of time, and because I am cheap, we sent C inside with the big camera and took the exterior shots with the small camera. I haven't downloaded the small camera yet, so here is an interior shot of the statue.
While in downtown Nashville, we spotted a place that sold beigniers(hopefully I spelled that right). G and M went in to buy a couple of beigniers while C and I circled the block. The block we were circling was a Music Row section of Broadway, so now we are a country and western family.

On one of the trips around the block, I spotted the flying pigs at Jack's Barbecue and got a twofer with Elvis crooning from the rooftop. On the other side of the block was the Country Music Hall of Fame with piano key windows. See below.

We also visited the state capitol in Nashville and saw more statues of Andrew Jackson. Also Sergeant York, the most decorated American enlisted man of World War One. Gary Cooper played him in the movie.

Here is a picure of us at the Nashville Temple. Doesn't it look like we just photoshopped the church website picture. About dusk we visited Adams, Tennessee, the site of the famous Bell Witch haunting. We didn't see anything spooky, but we still haven't thoroughly reviewed our photos for spectral images. From Adams we drove a few miles to Kentucky just to say we'd been there and then headed towards Memphis. With a traffic jam caused by a tipped over semi, we only made it as far as Jackson. Jackson does seem to pop up quite a bit on this trip. It makes me a little melancholy. ERH

The Giant Pig of Dothan

Here are the promised pictures of the giant pig of Dothan. This is located on the ring road around the city. As to the caption of save the pig, you could hear the operation of the scrap yard from directly behind the pig. Maybe the inference is that if the company doesn't get enough other business, then the pig will be next. ERH

G/G Day Four

Howdy to all from the heart of Dixie,
We spent all day in the State of Alabama. Our first picture features M standing in front of the Boll Weevil Monument in Enterprise, Alabama. This statue was erected by the grateful citizens of the city to the boll weevil for so utterly destroying their cotton crops that they diversified their agriculture, which turned out to be much more lucrative in the long run. Notably, Enterprise was ahead of the curve in shifted to peanuts, which enabled them to be the supplier of seed peanuts as surrounding areas also got away from cotton. According to M's research, the 'town's leaders couldn't decide on a name, and the name of Enterprise was literally drawn out of a hat.


This next shot is of the smallest city block in the world, located in Dothan, Alabama, where we spent the night. In the city, but not on the block. As of yet, neither Waffle House nor Starbucks has been able to put together the plans to place a franchise on this location. Dothan is famous for peanuts, so maybe a peanut stand would fit.







And speaking of peanuts, here are M and G standing in front of the famous golden peanut, also located in Dothan. There was also a giant pig, but I am going to include that in a separate post.



From Dothan and Enterprise in South Alabama, we headed up the road to the capital in Montgomery, where we saw the birthplace of the Confederacy. We saw the original Confederate White House which was the residence of Jefferson Davis for a few months until the capital of the Confederacy was moved to Richmond, Virginia. there is a six pointed gold star at the top of the steps of the capitol building where Jefferson Davis took the oath of office as President of the Confederacy. Most people don't realize the difficulty of his job. He was waging a war against a numerically and industrially superior foe with people who didn't want to be told what to do. The whole premise of the Confederacy was that the states didn't need to submit to a higher authority for anything. It's amazing that the Confederacy lasted four years.
In Birmingham we stopped by to get a glimpse of the giant Vulcan statue. Sorry to disappoint the Trekkies out there, but this was not some pointy-eared dude, but rather the deformed Roman god of the forge. Percy Jackson fans will know him better by his Greek name Hephaestus. More to come later, ERH

G/G Day Three

Howdy to all of you. Day three we spent at New Orleans and Fort Pickens just off of Pensacola, Florida. We spent a little time driving and walking around the French Quarter of New Orleans. At the left is the statue of the Joan of Arc, the maid of Orleans. Orleans is a city in France that is spelled the same as Orleans in New Orleans, but the pronunciation is different. Joan is famous for defeating the English and lifting the siege of Orleans. In front of the St. Louis Cathedral here in New Orleans (please don't ask why St. Louis Cathedral is in New Orleans) there is a statue of Andrew Jackson who is famous for defeating the English at the Battle of New Orleans. The Joan of Arc statue is clearly here to show equal rights for women in defeating the English. I'm wishing now that we had stopped in Orleans last New Years Eve to see if they have a statue of Andy Jackson there. Anyway, moving on, the second picture is of the Hurricane Katrina Sculpture located just outside of the French Quarter. The sculpture is made of recycled material. We also stopped by an above ground cemetery just for the feel. Then we headed across the Gulf Coast to Pensacola, passing through Mississippi and Alabama to Florida. At Pensacola, we went to Fort Pickens, a hodge podge of coastline fortification from about 1820 to 1942.

Fort Pickens is a brick fortification at the end of a long coastal island leading into Pensacola Bay. One of its claims to fame is as the point of imprisonment for Geronimo. The beaches around the fort are just amazing. I'm wondering if it was considered a country club prison in those days and if Geronimo regretted it when they released him to send him to Oklahoma.

We took off out shoes and socks and walked in the soft white sand. It was super nice. People were fishing for Sheepheads and Red Snappers. After dark we drove on to Dothan, Georgia, the peanut capital of the world.

Until later, ERH

G/G Day two

Hey there ya’ll,
We made it to New Orleans. While still in Texas, we stopped for some original fried pies and stunned the waitress when we didn’t know what First Monday was. First off, a fried pie is just like one of those Hostess fruitpies, except that you get it hot out of the deep fat fryer. There was a massive traffic jam in front of the pie shop, and when I asked what it was, the waitress said it was for First Friday. I think that the waitress must be related to PeeWee’s tour guide at the Alamo. She couldn’t believe I didn’t know what First Monday was. It turns out First Monday is a massive swap meet held on the first Monday of each month, except that the meet starts Friday or Saturday and nobody is still there by Monday, so now you know. We pushed on to the Louisiana State Capitol in Baton Rouge. For those of you familiar with the latest Disney animated feature, we crossed in and out of Evangeline Parish a couple of times. Louisiana doesn’t have counties, they have parishes instead. Anyhow, the Louisiana capitol building was built to be the tallest state capital building in the county. It was built in art deco style with lots of pelicans and other birds. The grave of Huey Long is on the grounds. Huey Long was the governor who got the state to build the building during the depression. He became a senator and showed intentions of running for president, but then he was assassinated outside the governor’s office at the state capitol.
There are also two small plaques about the battles of Baton Rouge. One was during the Revolutionary War, and the other during the Civil War. The Civil War battle involved the Rebels trying to push the Union forces out of Baton Rouge, in which they were unsuccessful. The other battle sounds a little fishy to me as it was outside of the original thirteen colonies. In that battle the Americans forced the British out. Maybe the Southerns wanted a plaque for a victory they could be part of. The history here is pretty tricky. Spain, France, the Confederacy, Canadians, pirates, Andrew Jackson, etc. I wonder sometimes if the history got written during Mardi Gras. I am to end now because I am apparently no longer connected to the internet, and this message might just be lost anyway. Love, ERH

Grits/Garter Day One

Hey Y'All,

We made it to Dallas. Of course, it makes a huge difference when you hold a revenue generating ticket as opposed to a standby pass. There were some great views of the Colorado Rockies, and I don't mean the baseball team. We picked up our rental car and headed out to find the temple. Just in case we needed some speed getting back to the airport, we got a Toyota Camry, a red one. A Charger was also in the rental class, but they didn't have an orange one with a Reb flag on top, so we went with the import.

We got to the temple about five minutes before security locked up and almost got locked in until Monday. It was too late to head towards Louisiana so we got a room at a Motel 6 just off the LBJ, which is a local freeway and not the former president. I was just about to ask the deskclerk if he could offer me the internet rate when he offered me a rate three dollars less. BTW, there are lots of Motel 6's in Dallas.