<– Day 35 – Sat. May 16th: The End of Texas | TRIP OVERVIEW | Day 37-40 – May 18th-21st: Research  –>

Three of the nine jeeps in Sagauche, Colorado. These are sitting at the edge of town. This is downtown!

Today was supposed to be about doing some family research, but I was in for a surprise!

Today I traveled from Alamosa to Pueblo.

I started the morning with a scraper in my right hand and my left plunged into my pocket. After weeks of warm weather, emerging into 32 degree temperatures shocked my being. With my window partially scraped, I could see just enough to drive myself to the local Campus Cafe, which served some good eggs and hash browns (a Yelp find).

My first stop of the trip was to see a very unique motel called Movie Manor. Run by Best Western, the motel plays movies on two drive-in screens. The speakers are hooked into the motel rooms. I priced it at $89, but figured I was too busy to watch the movies, so I found a cheaper place. Still, I wouldn’t mind returning with Ann sometime. They were playing two recently released movies, Avengers and Mad Max. Not bad!

Following movie manor I expected an uneventful drive to Monarch Pass. Instead, as I was driving through the sleepy town of Saguache (not even sure how to pronounce it) that is nearly small enough to have “Welcome to Saguache” on both sides of the same sign, I spotted a flat fender. As I approached more closely, I spotted a second. Then I spotted a couple more. By this time my foot was on the brake and my hand was on a camera. I had find out why these jeeps were sitting in the Gillette’s Trading Post parking lot in a middle-of-a-nowhere town like Saguache.

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<– Day 36 – Sun. May 17th: Tracking the Ore | TRIP OVERVIEW | Day 41-43 – May 22nd-24th: Omaha-Bound –>

On May 18th and May 19th I spent time in Pueblo to do some research. The only semi-interesting photo is this one showing under a sign on Eilers street, named for the Eilers Smelter, aka The Colorado Smelting Company.

The next update with be on May 22nd, which marks the day Ann returns to Colorado and we head to Omaha for her son’s graduation.

<– Day 36 – Sun. May 17th: Tracking the Ore | TRIP OVERVIEW | Day 41-43 – May 22nd-24th: Omaha-Bound –>

<– Day 34 – Fri. May 15th: High Plains Drifter | TRIP OVERVIEW | Day 36 – Sun. May 17th: Tracking the Ore –>

Today was my last day in Texas. Both Ann and I feel satisfied that we did enough and went enough places to get a taste of Texas regions. We appreciate Lee, Sam, Brian and Jason for taking time to meet and talk with us. Also, as always, we appreciate everyone’s suggestions!!

Today I drove from Amarillo, Texas, to Alamosa, Colorado.

To bid me a memorable goodbye, Amarillo threw me a thundershower party. There was thunder, lightening and plenty of rain. The worst of it came just as I stepped out of the motel with my arms loaded with stuff for the Jeep. So, I ran for the jeep and unlocked it as quickly as I could, but I still got pretty drenched!! I hopped in the jeep and drove to the covered area by the reception desk and snapped this photo.

Rather than try to photograph the Cadillac Ranch area in the rain, I headed north hoping to escape the storm. The plan actually worked. Within an hour I was cruising along under clear blue skies.

I even got a chance to see one last jeep before leaving Texas:

I wanted to drive to Oklahoma to see Boise City, a place heavily affected by the Dust Storms of the 1930s. The museum wasn’t open when I drove through the city, but I did find this tribute to a bomb dropped by a B-17 during 1943. My wife reminded me that this is why bombs are not armed until ready to drop. There are a surprising number of accidental bomb droppings I’m told, but safety procedures and good luck have kept us safe.

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<– Day 33 – Thu. May 14th: Leaving On a Jet Plane | TRIP OVERVIEW | Day 35 – Sat. May 16th: The End of Texas –>

This was my view for much of today. The Grass covered prairies of the Texas panhandle stretch for miles and the roads are straight and fast.

Today was the first day of the Midwest Willys Reunion, so I hope every has a good time there! I do have a few books and t-shirts available through Bob Christy. If you see him and can slow him down for a minute, he’ll help you.

Today’s drive to Amarillo, Texas.

I began today knowing I’d be on the road longer for a longer span of time than I had since the early part of our trip. (Yes honey, read long lonely roads!). Fortunately, there were a few stops and surprises along the way.

Only in Texas would you find a Texas-shaped waffle maker. We saw these at several motels.

The first surprise was west of Wichita Falls. When I saw this CJ-3A, I braked immediately. I *think* it is for sale. It’s got rust. It also has some allstate front hubs.

Not much longer after I saw this 3A, a truck pulling a trailer with an M-38 whizzed past me. I couldn’t pull out my camera in time to capture that one.

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<– Day 32 – Wed. May 13th: No Raining on Murphy’s Parade | TRIP OVERVIEW | Day 34 – Fri. May 15th: High Plains Drifter –>

The owner of this BBQ restaurant in Grapevine was a retired cop who had never worked in a restaurant before launching his BBQ restaurant. Last fall he had someone build a custom smoker that looks like a train. Here he is explaining how it works. Despite it being the hardest job he’s ever had, he loves running the restaurant.

Ann’s grandfather took a turn for the worse. After I watched her stress eat two bags (small bags) of M&Ms I knew it was time to send her back home for a few days. So, she arrived in Pasco Thursday evening.

After dropping Ann at the airport I left for Bowie, TX.

Prior to her departure, we attempted to accomplish one thing. We wanted to see the cowboy glockspiel in the town of Grapevine. The cowboy glockspiel is a clock tower. At certain times of the day, two automatronic cowboys appear on the tower and engage in a gunfight. I’m told one always dies, but never the same one. The death is chosen at random by a computer.

We arrived in Grapevine at 11:30am, all ready to watch the gunfight unfold. It turned out we arrived as the town was readying itself for their annual beer celebration. So, there was a great deal of hustle and some bustle all through town.

Yes, lots of hustle and bustle in town, but not evident at all in this photo of downtown.

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<– Day 31 – Tue. May 12th: A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall | TRIP OVERVIEW | Day 33 – Thu. May 14th: Leaving On a Jet Plane –>

Audi Murphy looks taller in person . . .

Today we began our trek northwestward. We got going later than planned, as usual, so I passed up my opportunity to be manscaped at the local barber, Milford’s, that Jason recommended. We really needed to get going so we could beat the rain that was heading our direction from Dallas. So, I remain longhaired.

Our first objective was Whitehouse, Texas, to locate a big hat. Along the way we passed two towns Jason mentioned during our history lesson: Sacul and Reklaw. These two adjacent towns faced the same problem when they applied for a post office. Both original names were taken. So, the town brain trusts decided to spell the names backwards. Thus, Lucas became Sacul and Walker became Reklaw.

When we finally reached Whitehouse it didn’t take long to locate the hat. It’s a big white hat that sits atop a coffee shop. It just might be the largest cowboy hat in Texas! Of course, I had to buy a drink.

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<– Day 30 – Mon. May 11th: Three-nap Kind of Day | TRIP OVERVIEW | Day 32 – Wed. May 13th: No Raining on Murphy’s Parade –>

Jason Monday and I next to his M-677.

Our goal for Tuesday was to stay dry. It wasn’t easy to achieve, because it rained hard at times!

As planned, we began the day with Tacos at Titas Taco House in Humble. Once again, they were awesome. This time I got to watch them make the corn tortillas. Their dough station sat just behind their serving station. They were pretty much rolling and cooking them as they served them. You can’t get any fresher than that!

Front doors of the Texas Prison Museum.

With breakfast finished, we headed for the Texas Prison Museum in Huntsville. Apparently, Huntsville is the prison city and for more than a half century hosted the prison rodeo. It was a big hit for the city economically and people from all over came to spectate. Even some stars arrived to participate. One of the more odd events was the Monday Grab. A bag of cash was strapped to the neck of a bull. The prisoner who could grab the money and hand it to an official won the money. We saw some video and it was a wild event! The rodeo ended in 1986.

Inside the museum.

Ann seemed to enjoy seeing me inside a cell.

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<– Day 29 – Sun. May 10th: Breaking up the Beatles?? Not again!! | TRIP OVERVIEW | Day 31 – Tue. May 12th: A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall –>

Titas Taco House in Humble, Texas

Apparently, we needed some rest. We woke up early, checked emails, Facebook, etc, then fell back asleep for a nap. I blame the rain (seems as good excuse as any and it rained all day).

When we awoke, I was hungry. I found a place I wanted to try called Titas Taco House that had a five start YELP rating with 145 reviews. So off we went.

It was 11am when we arrived at the Humble, Texas, location to find a house converted into a small restaurant. We could see much of the dirt parking lot because it was already filled with cars. This bode well for our food adventure.

Inside the restaurant there was no list of prices and no menu. There was a series of poles and ropes, suggesting that long lines were not unusual.

Poles to help direct customer traffic.

However, we must have timed it right, because we walked right up to the order station. In front of us were about 20 different options for filling our tacos.

Lots of taco filling options

Again, no names on anything. We had to ask what was what. Ann decided on three corn tortillas filled with egg & sausage, potatoes and polish sausage, and poblanos and cheese. To make the tortillas, the server laid a thin layer of refried beans onto the tortilla and then added a small amount of filling.

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<– Day 28 – Sat. May 9th: A Big Boat (Ship) | TRIP OVERVIEW | Day 30 – Mon. May 11th: Three-nap Kind of Day –>

New friends of ours. Brian is on the left, Melodie is in the middle, and Lauren (Melodie’s mother) is on the right. Melodie and Brian are a very happily engaged couple. It seems Lauren approves, for she was all smiles, too. Ann told them I’d be publishing their photo here. We wish you all the best of luck!!

We thought Sunday morning would be a good time to explore Houston, due to the lack of traffic.

Since I’d had my eye on a French bakery & Cafe just around the corner from the hotel, we didn’t drive far Sunday morning before we stopped at La Madeleine’s for a pastry. Well, one of us stopped for a pasty, because  Ann can’t enjoy flour based pastries any more. So, I ran inside and ordered an apple turnover and a mini chocolate croissant (both crunchy and excellent). I also found a fresh fruit tart that Ann could eat. So, I gave it to her as a Mother’s Day surprise.

After we consumed our respective breakfasts, we drove towards the Art Car Museum. Along the way, fate intervened. As we exited the freeway near downtown, we looked off to our right and spotted three people posing in front of a Love Houston sign. Naturally, we knew that spot was made for us to photograph, so we spun around the block and found a place to park.

We arrived at the sign and met Brian Kozel, Melodie Smith, and Melodie’s mother Lauren Moore, who were just finishing up with their photos. Ann quickly volunteered to take the photo of all three, but the iPhone camera couldn’t capture the whole scene. So, Ann handed it to me. I bravely leaped (okay meekly backed) into the three lane road to get a better shot, but dodging oncoming cars racing at 55mph was a stretch for my poor camera skills. Of course, there was no way I was sending Ann into traffic. With her bum knee, she doesn’t play live Frogger so well.

It was at this point that my wise wife spared me from certain doom and volunteered to use our Nikon to take the photo and send them the resulting image via text. For some reason, they agreed to have a couple of crazy Washingtonian’s send them a text, which is how we got to know them. We also learned that Brian and Melodie are getting married, so congrats to them!

We did eventually get our own photo:

The building behind us was just built. I suspect this sign was much cooler when the building was there.

With our love for Houston documented, we jetted on down the road for our next destination.

I’m pretty sure I’d first learned about Houston’s Art Car Parades from a Smithsonian Magazine article, probably in the 1990s. The event is held annually on the second Saturday in April and has become a big deal. One of the spinoffs of the parade is the free Art Car Museum.

We pulled up to the museum. Expectedly, it was not your average building. What really surprised us was to see a vehicle parked under the front carport that we’d seen before. It took us a little while, but we finally figured out it had been on loan to the Studebaker Museum in 2013 when we stopped in there. Small world!

Art Car Museum entrance

This is the art car we saw at the Studebaker Museum. The eyes in the front light up blue.

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<– Day 27 – Fri. May 8th: The King Ranch | TRIP OVERVIEW | Day 29 – Sun. May 10th: Breaking up the Beatles?? Not again!! –>

The clouds looked menacing, but it was a fine day for touring the USS Lexington — though the wind was a pain on the Flight deck.

On Friday night in Corpus Christy I was hungry, so after searching through YELP, I finally found a place to go eat some food that was highly rated AND open after 9pm (best hidden food gem in Corpus Christi was one review). It was a small ‘Asian Street Food (my description)’ place called Z Counter. The reviews were great and the photos of the food made me feel optimistic. So, off we went.

Click on the photo and you’ll be able to see the whole menu. They also had photos of all the items on a separate wall.

They only have this one location. I wish they had one near us in Pasco! I don’t quite get the name, but I sure like the food.

I’ll just cut to the chase and say the reviews were right on the money. I had a simple pork bowl, yet they turned that into delicious contrast of fresh, sweet, hot, and smokey (from the charbroiled pork) that made it delightful. We also had some Spam Musubi, which was also surprisingly good. In fact, I only had one problem with the Z Counter: I was too full to order and try some of their other dishes. So, Ann and I agreed that on Friday we’d return for lunch.

On Friday morning, we tackled our biggest planned event of the day, a trip to the USS Lexington (CV-16) Museum. The USS Lexington is an Aircraft Carrier ‘parked’ just off the shore in Corpus Christi. One of the things I learned is that some folks call the Carrier a ship (I’m told that is correct Navy-speak for a vessel of that size), while other folks gleefully call them boats (I’m told that was one way certain Air Force personnel would needle Navy personnel). So, call it what you want, but for me it was my first opportunity to explore an aircraft carrier.

The carrier is nearly moored on the beach. There’s a ramp to walk up to the museum entrance or visitors can wait for the shuttle.

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