Once Upon a Picnic

During my week of "unplugged" leisure we visited a few cities in Kansas, including city of my husband's birth and young years, Salina. Our wanderings also took in Hutchinson (known as "Hutch" to locals), McPherson and Abilene. Salina and Hutchinson had their 15 minutes of fame back in the 1950s when scenes in the movie "Picnic" were filmed there. Recognisable locations include the h-u-g-e grain elevators in Hutchinson - biggest I've ever seen:

Riverbank scenes in "Picnic" were filmed in Salina. When, in the movie, William Holden stoops to splash his face, my husband, just a young whippersnapper at the time, recalls that locals leaned over the bridge, to watch filming. As Holden began to splash his face with river water, a communal cry of "EEwwww - urrrr" was heard from spectators, who had direct knowledge of content of that water!

Anyway, no picnics for us, though we did rent "Picnic" via ROKU last evening to refresh our memories of the movie. We enjoyed it - but as, since the film was made, William Holden had become typecast as a quite different type of character, it was hard to "believe" him in this role. If the film had been made a few years later, Paul Newman or Burt Reynolds would have been a better fit.

We had a very pleasant few days away in glorious early autumn weather, lots of antique stores to investigate, and some beautiful Fall colour to be enjoyed; none, as yet, has emerged back home in south-west Oklahoma.

As it's Music Monday an apt offering: theme music from "Picnic"

"Moonglow and Theme from Picnic" is a 1956-released medley of both "Moonglow" (1933) and "Theme from Picnic" (1955), by Morris Stoloff. It is from the film Picnic, starring William Holden and Kim Novak.

The 1933 piece, "Moonglow", was written by Will Hudson, Irving Mills and Eddie DeLange. The 1955 piece, "Theme from Picnic", was written by George Duning. (Steve Allen set lyrics to the tune, and is credited on vocal versions of the song as a co-author, but not on the hit instrumental versions by Stoloff and others.)

The Stoloff version spent three weeks at number-one on the Billboard Most Played by Jockeys music chart in the spring of 1956. The B-side to the Stoloff version is "Theme from Picnic" by George Duning.

The medley was also covered by George Cates in 1956, charting at number 4 on the charts.

This is a nice rendition by the James Last Orchestra (with scenes from the movie)-




The original film version of the piece:

Texas Tidbits

Last week we travelled into deepest Texas to visit husband's younger daughter who now lives in Killeen, it's a city just a little northwest of Austin. Here are a few choice Texas sightings from husband's camera. (Clicking on the photographs should bring up larger or clearer versions.)

You know you're in Texas when the hotel chain has had thousands of yards of carpet woven, just to make sure you know it!

On turning a corner one day, I wasn't too sure we were indeed in Texas! Maybe a fellow British ex-pat lives in that house.

I'm always happy to see junk transformed to art!

I suspect this little collage was unintentionally arty - or maybe not:

Boar-ing:

A car junk Christmas tree - nice!

It was a surprise to see this guy in the hotel bar one evening. He was in semi-civvies, but instantly recognisable: the Killeen Mall Santa of some 18 years' experience.

The old Baker Hotel in Mineral Wells has deteriorated further since we first passed by some years ago. It was once, long ago, a popular vacation destination for "the beautiful people" - its story is available in several places on the internet, including at Wikipedia, HERE.

The city of Mineral Wells, as a whole, now seems depressed and down-trodden, reflecting the dismal state of its once-prized hotel .

In a very, very junky junk/antique store in town we saw a few remnants of the Baker Hotel's brighter days.

LOL! Almost home, but still in Texas:

The Remains of the Day (apologies to Kazuo Ishiguro for use of his book title).

High Pains Drifting

Home again, home again jiggity jig.....

We enjoyed a longer than usual trip - a drift around the US's High Plains, travelling through, or in, three panhandles: Oklahoma panhandle, the Texas panhandle, and the Nebraska panhandle. The latter was a new one for us, and very nice too - possibly one of those "hidden gems" travel writers sometimes mention. We also hit the plains of Colorado in Fort Morgan, and the eastern edge of Wyoming at Torrington; home again via Kansas and northern Oklahoma.

We'd have ventured further into Colorado or Wyoming but for the weather forecast. Snow arrived in the Rockies. We experienced just an icing sugar scattering in Scottsbluff, Nebraska where we were staying at the time.

(Clicking on them should bring up clearer versions of husband's photos below.)

Fall has definitely fallen in parts of Colorado and Nebraska. The area around Scottsbluff was especially bright with golden Maples plentiful and practically fluorescent. I like Nebraska! Don't know exactly why, I just do - it feels like "me". I wondered if, perhaps, the feeling connected to the state's latitude. It is nearer to England's Yorkshire latitude than is south-western Oklahoma, for sure, but I'd have to be well into Canada to find similar latitude to my birthplace in the north of England.

Points of special interest were: Carhenge in Nebraska - someone had the peculiar idea of building a kind of stonehenge (as in England) from old cars. The morning of our visit was very windy and plenty cold, though not quite bad enough to keep us inside our car.

Later in the trip, in Kansas, we stumbled upon what was once known as the Cathedral of the Plains, now slightly downgraded from Cathedral to The Basilica of St Fidelis because it's not the seat of a Bishop. In any city the huge church would seem quite unremarkable, but rising from those barely populated plains, it stands out some...well...actually it stands out a lot.

We also stumbled upon Greensburg, Kansas without, at first, remembering its recent history. The cinema caught our attention, named after me too!

"Looks brand new, but who would build a new cinema in a tiny town these days?"

Hey, look - they spelled theatre the British way - just noticed!

The whole of Greensburg looked new too - strange indeed, in these parts, where dilapidation and abandonment are common. We found the small town's antique store where the answer awaited, in newspaper cuttings and photographs in the store's entrance. "Of course! I remember now - a tornado devastated this town some years ago!" Ten years ago, in fact. The antique store owner told us that the town had been in the middle of painting and tidying itself up, when the tornado hit and undid the handiwork. Still, Greensburg looks great now, and, we were told, it has been rebuilt to be, appropriately enough - "green". Locals have no argument at all when they see the drop in their energy bills each month, we were told.

We arrived home Sunday afternoon after our High Plains drifting. We forgot to take our whip along but, happily, didn't meet this legendary fellow-drifter! We did have a little "excitement" one evening though. Husband accidentally pressed the emergency button on the phone in our room, while shifting the telephone. Next thing : cops at the door wanting to know....Oops! Indeed!

A little contemplation of where the next trip might take us needed a hat (TSK!) and a drink:

Tripping

So would we! I'm not sure how far we'll get this time (if we ever get on the road, that is) probably not as far as we did on our last big adventure in Colorado, back in 2006. Posts about that trip are 11 years old, but I'll link to them, and to some of husband's photos on Flickr, in the highly unlikely event of any passing reader being short of reading matter.

"...all this travelling and seeing things is fine but there’s also a lot of fun to be had in having been. You know, sticking all your pictures in a book and remembering things."
(Terry Pratchett, The Light Fantastic)

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Photos at Flickr

Also, from a later trip, in 2010, to a different area of Colorado.

Back in the Saddle...

Been away from home for a week - nothing overly glamorous just basic wandering really, a break from same ol'same ol'.

We began with a trip to Oklahoma City. One of husband's great-grand-daughters was taking part in a Modern Dance Arts Recital at the city's Performing Arts Center. We met up with various other family members and friends for lunch before the performance.

The recital included a variety of age groups, from teeny tinies to almost adults, all students of dance. Music for the dance performances, throughout, were all Grammy Award winning songs or musical pieces. The show was well-presented, entertaining, and obviously a lot of hard work and practice, practice, practice had been involved, especially for the wee ones. Husband had only a pocket camera with him in the theater, and we were sitting fairly far from the stage, so though there were some good opportunities for photographs, these sadly were not able to be taken. Below is, I think, great-grand-daughter in full Terpsichorean mode - blurry though! And from afterwards, husband's daughter, her son, and her grandson, who is of course, husband's great-grandson, wee Milo.

After the show we pressed on into deepest Oklahoma, and next day, through constant heavy rain, into north-western Arkansas. Arkansas does not receive all the credit it deserves for being a beautiful state - especially the northern areas. We drove on roadways, tree-lined, backed by many acres of National Forest that would rival similar roads in Colorado for scenic grandeur. We opted to stay in Rogers, but unknown to us we had picked dates on which a national convention of Walmart people (not sure if shareholders or staff, or what - but Walmartians of some ilk) was about to take place. Bentonville, a town next to, and more or less joined to Rogers, is I understand, the heart and home of Walmart. My 2007 post about Sam Walton, founder of the supermarket monstrous empire, is HERE by the way.

The first 3 hotels we tried in Rogers were booked and even, the clerks told us, "over-booked" for the next few nights. We eventually found a room, but only for one night, later to be extended to two after a Walmartian cancellation was received, and the clerk kindly informed us of this and extended our stay.

We headed back south and west before Walmartians arrived in full stampede mode, drove via one or two eastern Oklahoma towns, exploring any stray antique/vintage stores along the way.

Yes, yes, we were naughtily putting more CO2 into the atmosphere, and it's already overloaded with that stuff. My excuse, and I'm sticking to it, is that for my first 63 years on this earth, in the UK, my carbon footprint has to have been minuscule as compared to the average American's footprint during those years. I walked, cycled, rode the bus or train for 90% of the time. When we had a car it was an old Mini, and good for fairly short trips only - hardly ever used for more. I don't drive, by the way. So, I reckon that now, when I live in an area with no public transport whatsoever, and outside of walking distance for anything, our use of the car is necessity. Vacations are by car - and unless we become hermits in our house and yard, then we have to put CO2 into the atmosphere. Husband can blame me, I shall never feel guilty over this. I'm no virtue-signaller, there are more than enough of those around in the USA at present anyway. I'm a vice-signaller, I guess!

Back home...

We arrived home yesterday afternoon after a strange but very enjoyable trip which entailed retracing our steps/wheels after the first 5 days, then setting out again, due to unforeseen circumstance - long story - "another fine mess I got us into" kind of circumstance. Anyway, we spent several days in central Nebraska, where the wind really was sweeping down the plain - and much more so than in Oklahoma where it has long been reputed, in song, to do just that. It was a flippin' cold wind too!

On the way back south we stopped off at what is said to be the central point of the 48 contiguous states, in Lebanon, Kansas. However, I think there are claims elsewhere to this central position.

Nearer to home, in a little town called Watonga, Oklahoma yesterday morning we spotted this, which made me chuckle:

Hmm - I wondered if the "Ye Olde" part meant that on entering, the customer is handed a washboard and scrubbing brush, then directed to a row of wash tubs. Or maybe, taken through to a back door leading to a river, where other customers on the river's bank are busy bashing their dirty undies against rocks.

Jiggity Jig....

Home again, home again....

Our trip to find higher, cooler ground seeking relief from Oklahoma's sizzling heat was, "like the curate's egg - good in parts". After a night in Amarillo in the Texas panhandle we headed for our chosen higher ground in New Mexico, that state's Las Vegas - nothing like its counterpart in Nevada, from what I've read of it. This Las Vegas, a medium sized town, is not far from Santa Fe, which though lovely, would be choked with tourists at this time of year, so we gave it a miss.

We took a couple of scenic circular drives around the Santa Fe National Forest area, upon which Las Vegas borders. Temperatures were mostly mid to high 70s to mid 80s during the day, felt just right to yours truly! Las Vegas' elevation is 6,424 ft, it felt fine for us. We probably drove through much higher altitudes, with no ill effects.

We had intended to return via a different route, visiting some towns in the northern Texas panhandle: Borger, Pampa, Dalhart and Dumas, with overnights in Borger, and in one or t'other of the latter two. Here we hit mild snags. It appears that, in this part of Texas, authorities are dipping into a rather big budget-pot to carry out extensive road repairs and road re-bulding. In both Dalhart and Dumas traffic was absolutely chaotic, due to ongoing road repair through main thoroughfares. Dalhart was especially bad with, in addition to road repair and re-building, some very deep holes being excavated to hold pipework.

So, on we drove further south, to Childress, Texas. Dang me though - the first two hotels we enquired for a room were both full! I asked if some festival or fair was going on in town, but was told, no - many hotel rooms had been taken over by squads of construction workers. These were not yer old fashioned car outside-the door motels, by the way, they were the Hampton Inn, Holiday Inn type! Ah well...it's good to know the workers are being well looked after, for working in this triple-digit heat can be no easy task!

So...on we had to go, yet again, this time to try our luck in Vernon, Texas, a little further south and, actually not that far from home. It was getting late, though, husband was nearing, or had passed, his driving limit for the day. We found a very nice room in Vernon, decided to stay for 2 nights giving us time to explore the area, including Seymour, Texas, with its history of discovery of dinosaur bones in the area. We didn't actually see anything of reptilian interest, the museum was closed when we came upon it. We shall return when the weather cools down.

Checking in at the Vernon hotel, the couple ahead of us, guy and gal, very tanned, in sleeveless tops, bandanas atop heads, had obviously been travelling by motor cycle. They told us, when we met in the elevator later, that they had driven from Louisiana that day and were headed for Montana. Yikes! And in this heat! Temperatures in the afternoons in this part of Texas were ranging from 104 to 107 according to our car's gauge and roadside signs.

We noticed, in small towns we passed through, that many stores hadn't bothered to open, including any antique stores we came across. I guess that keeping the stores cool enough to welcome shoppers would be too expensive, and would cancel out any small profits. We did find one or two antique stores open, struggling to cool using fans, but that wasn't working - we could stay inside for only a short time. Some tiny towns seemed completely closed down - not a body to be seen, human or animal!

We'd have been wiser to have stayed in New Mexico longer, and returned home via the quickest route. Hindsight!


A few photographs from husband's camera are below. Most of the best scenic views couldn't be captured, because of winding roads with dangerous drops on one side. There were disconcerting road signs here and there warning of falling rocks. We've never had a problem with this, but I do recall that, once in Tenerife, Canary Islands, on vacation from the UK years ago, seeing results of the fall of a very large rock which had barrelled down a cliff side, directly hitting a coach full of tourists, crushing the 'bus, killing passengers. So I don't take those signs lightly - fingers are crossed while driving through such areas.

Clicking on images should bring up a better view.

The once Black Hotel in Borger, Texas, about to be demolished. See story HERE.

So there really are non-Republicans in Texas (in addition to commenter mike!) Registration tag blurred - to protect the innocent.

This was a surprise roadside attraction as we passed through Shamrock, Texas: The U-Drop Inn, also known as Tower Station and U-Drop Inn and Tower Café. It was built in 1936, along the historic Route 66 highway. See Wikipedia's page.

 Himself.

Tootling into Texas

Our long weekend out of town was spent in Gainesville, Texas - not far over the Red River, Oklahoma's border with Texas.

Gainesville, billed on road signs as "The Front Porch to Texas", doesn't have anything especially touristy to draw crowds there, though some of the town's business is sure to come from a huge casino, WinStar World Casino,located a few miles away, just across the state line in Oklahoma. Gambling is not legal in Texas. The casino is advertised on billboards as "The World's Largest Casino". I suspect they exaggerate. The casino's theatre regularly hosts concerts featuring world famous stars.

Gainesville itself has an historic rail depot. A passenger train, Amtrak's Heartland Flyer operates daily through the town, travelling between Oklahoma City and Fort Worth. We were standing in the street, very near the railway lines when the Flyer sped through one morning, nearly deafening us with its shrieking whistle. It was only the second passenger train I've seen since I came to the USA in 2004, whereas rail travel was a way of life for me back in Britain. This train had two levels though - an "upstairs" - something I'd not seen back in the UK.

As for the town's other claims to fame, (or notoriety) Wikipedia tell that:

During the Civil War, the Great Hanging at Gainesville, a controversial trial and hanging of 40 suspected Union loyalists, brought the new town to the attention of the state and came close to ripping the county apart.

And
Gainesville is home to a large outlet mall (the Gainesville Factory Shops) which used to attract visitors from north Texas as well as southern Oklahoma. Constructed in the mid 1990s as a "destination" shopping mall, it has since become a "distressed mall", with very few stores remaining in business. Our hotel was very close to the large and rather attractively designed deserted estate of outlet stores. It's now a virtual ghost town, apart from lights in GAP's still live outlet, and maybe one other. There's probably a story to tell as to how and why the development met its demise.

Gainesville has three antique stores which kept us busy for a half day. On another day we drove the 15 miles or so to a small town, Whitesboro. The short Main Street there carries three antique stores, for our delight. A few miles further down the road is Collinsville with a single big antique store recently re-located there from Gainesville.

Wikipedia, on Whitesboro, tells that:

After the Civil War, Whitesborough grew into a frontier town where female residents were prohibited from leaving their homes on Saturday nights because shootings were so common. Whitesborough had a population of 500, saloons, several stores, and other businesses when it was incorporated on June 2, 1873. By 1879, it had a bank, a newspaper, and train service from Denison, Texas on a line from the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad. In 1887, it altered the spelling of its name to Whitesboro.

Driving back to Gainesville we passed a huge field with more horses grazing there than I'd ever seen together (or probably even separately) in all my life! Apparently this area is known as horse country - the breeding and selling of. Husband tells me it's easy to spot horse ranches because they are always surrounded by white fences rather than by barbed wire or bare wooden fencing.

So...our haul from the vintage and antiques stores: husband found a nice supply of vintage photographs for his collection. I bought a couple of books, a DVD set, and the sculpture shown below. It's an Austin Productions piece (like my Black Magic Woman and a finial sculpture). This one is by by Alexander Daniel. It's about 17" high, and the only Austin Productions piece I've seen lately with a nice low price tag ($25). I've just found similar ones online priced from $45 (with some damage) to $100+ The piece's title seems to be, variously, "Lovers' Heart", "Soulmates" or "Dancers". The two figures form a heart between them Awwww! How could I possibly have left this one behind?

Sampling The Ozarks

We spent a quick but very pleasant exploration, in Missouri, of a tiny part of the huge and beautiful region known as The Ozarks. We were mainly hoping to see some lovely Fall foliage. We saw lots of it, but in places where it wasn't possible to stop and take photographs. Areas of the Mark Twain Forest offer vistas of quilt-like mixes from dark green, through bronze, copper, a little gold, and many shades of brown. Private yards and municipal gardens often provide the most dramatically coloured trees: orange, pink, and golden Maple-types. Foliage up in Missouri is much further along its Fall costume change then in our area of south western Oklahoma, where it still looks much the same as it has all summer. Some Missouri trees are already shedding their leaves, making the drive in forest areas both a happy and sad experience at the same time, as leaves fluttered past the car windows.

Missouri. It had never been a state holding the same magnet of strong attraction for me that New Mexico, Colorado, and even Texas still do. However, on this brief showing I've found that Missouri can rival any of those states in beautiful scenery and lovely old small towns. We stayed a couple of nights in Rolla (in the yellow area of the Ozarks map below).

Ozarks? Strange word, I thought. According to Wikipedia it's a linguistic corruption of the French abbreviation "aux Arcs" - that then spawns a selection of further possibilities of the "Arcs" origin.

Noticing a place convenient to stop and take photographs of some pretty trees in a graveyard in a small town, Hartville, we saw this: one third of a three-part illustrated historic marker commemorating a battle near the town, during the Civil War.
"A Sullen, Stubborn, Bloody Fight" the marker tells us. (For a clearer view click on the image.)

The Battle of Hartville was fought January 9–11, 1863, in Wright County, Missouri, as part of John S. Marmaduke's first expedition into Missouri, during the American Civil War.

In a cemetery close by:

Waiting to greet us in an antique/vintage store we visited during the trip:

Husband's photograph of our motel corridor, which, unintentionally, recalls dramatic scenes where a character is advised...."Walk towards the light...." We resisted the suggestion!

A tower, a titter, a tyre, and more....

We spent last weekend in Bartlesville, in northern Oklahoma. Main attraction in the town, for us, is the Price Tower, mini skyscraper designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. There's more about it, and him, in a 2009 post HERE. After gazing at the gem once again, we spent most of our time in nearby tiny towns of Dewey and Collinsville, where antique/junk outlets fill most of the old stores in their main streets.

Click on any photo to see a larger image.

 The Price Tower

A bit of light creative humour goin' on here:

In Dewey their claim to fame is a connection to vintage cowboy movie star Tom Mix. He wasn't born in Dewey, but did work in the area, and his second wife came from the tiny town. See HERE. There's a Tom Mix Museum in town, and the well pictured below.

The signs on the window shown below aren't too clear (better if you click on image). I'll explain: On the left a sign declaring "We support Our Troops". On the right a sign: "Rick's Custom Slaughtering & Processing". Hmmm.
I'm reflecting on that!

And we reflected some more with a glass of iced coffee -

In one of the antique stores, in a corner at the back was a DeLorean motor car! I think it's a DMC12 (See HERE). You don't often see one of these in an antique store - especially not driven by giant teddy bears!

Oh look - we Aquarians have a drum set named in our honour!

On Sunday morning we were about to set off for home when husband discovered a flat tyre. AAA and Walmart's auto repair department to the rescue, and a couple of hours later we were good to go.

On Monday afternoon our air conditioning broke down - refused to work at all. It had been working on Sunday evening. Sigh - more frustration and discomfort as temperature Monday afternoon was nearing 100 degrees here.

UPDATE: 7:30 this morning husband's son (heat & air specialist) was here, he had been out of town yesterday, and discovered problem: faulty breaker. Fixed, for now. All's well that ends well...once again.