Adios Texas

Back in Dallas after a long freeway drive from Houston of 5 hours. This city is known as the site of the assassination of president Kennedy in 1963. A sniper shot him as he passed through the city in a motorcade. We went to the top floor of the book warehouse, now a museum, where the sniper fired from. It was very sad to be in the spot where the death of a president so shocked a world that had such high hopes of him. We have had an amazing journey through Texas, meeting lots of Texans many of whom admit we have seen more of their state than they have. The contrasts between the big cities and the desert country of the Mexican border are amazing. There is a lot of American history here and constant reminders of the early settlers who founded this great state just over 150 years ago.

Bringing in the cattle

Cowboy bear!

Touching moon rock!

Moon rock

Saturn rocket

The Control Room

Mission control

Houston

The biggest city in Texas and home of the Johnson Space Agency, NASA. From here all the American space missions, including the landing of the first men on the moon in 1969, were controlled. The museum has many of the original spacecraft and samples of moon rock that were collected. The site is huge and is still the headquarters of the space mission, employing 14,000 people. At the moment they are planning an unmanned mission to Mars! This is very near the famous battle of El Jacinto and also the centre of Japanese immigrant settlement in the 19th century as they could grow rice here. We stood in the space command centre, next to a saturn rocket and touched moon rock!

Texas longhorn cow

School bus at the museum

The Alamo

San Antonio

The second largest city in Texas but more famously known as the home of The Alamo. The Alamo was the scene of a defeat for The Texans by the Mexicans who were trying to keep Texas as a state of Mexico. The Texan army was so shocked by the deaths of the defenders of The Alamo that they fought and defeated The Mexican army at El Jacinto capturing their president, Santa Ana and forcing a treaty giving Texas independence. The mission (church) front still stands and some of the walls that surrounded the enclosure in 1836, the date of the battle. There are many tourists in San An. as it is called, and the city has built a lovely walk along the river with shops and restuarants. The museum of Texan culture shows the background to the many european immigrants who were looking for better lives for themselves and their families in Texas.

Tricky these cacti!

Inside the dome

The McDonald Observatory

Another Tarantula

Hot spring next to The Rio Grande

Riding a wagon

Sitting on a canyon boulder

Polar bear picnic by the Rio Grande

Tarantula!

cactus grasshopper

Desert

The Davis mountains

Sadly leave Big Bend and head 150 miles NW into the Davis mountains. Fort Davis is the only town and this smaller than Scole! Because there are so few people here and the sky is clear most days there is a famous observatory nearby,The McDonald Observatory. It has 3 large telescopes on top of the mountains. As you get near they look like giant metal domes on top of the hills. The telescopes are inside the domes which open at night. Huge mirrors collect the light from the stars which can then be seen. Light has many colours and spectographers can look at the colours of the different stars to find out what they are made of! The largest mirror, which we saw, is 436 inches across. The astronomers measure the distances and track the movements of the stars. We were able to go in the domes and move both the telescope and the dome to see a particular part of the sky. We stayed at Indian Lodge, this is built of stone covered with mud and called adobe. Adobe buildings are painted the colours of the desert and are very pretty. There was another tarantula in the patio of the lodge but not in our room!

Bear at Big Bend

Prairie dogs in the desert from Marathon to the park, trying to race the car! Into the park with warnings about what to do if you meet a mountain lion. Stand still, shout and throw stones at it, you must not run away! The same advice is given if you meet a bear! Our first walk along a trail with lovely views  from the mountain to the desert below has a much smaller but still scarey encounter – with a tarantula! These spiders are BIG. The size of an adult hand they do not bite unless provoked. The next day we go to the Mexican border, The Rio Grande. The river does not look very grand as  it has not rained for a while, it is narrow and muddy. The river has cut a deep 1500 foot canyon through the rocks over hundreds of thousands of years and all you can see of Mexico is a tall cliff rising up the other side of the river. A coyote, more like a dog than a wolf runs in front of  us after having a drink from the river. The next day we head through the desert towards the river in the other direction. There are so many different types of cactus in this desert and they support all sorts of life. The Javellinas,  pig looking but really a different type of animal, eat the fruit of the prickly pear. This is a cactus with really big spines so those Javellinas must have  tough mouths! We saw tracks but no animals. Settlers tried to cultivate the desert and they bored through the ground to get water to the surface. The wind  pumps still exist although the settlers have gone. Trees in the desert, grow by these wet areas. We saw pecan, fig, cottonwood and acacia. By the river again there are Mexicans who paddle across the river into America to sell goods to the tourists. They hide in case the border patrol catch them but leave little pots to put money in if you buy something.  One Mexican was standing by his canoe on the river bank singing, hoping tourists would like his songs and give him some money. There are hot springs, fresh hot water bubbling up from the earth right by the river. The spring water is very clear and the river very muddy, it was nice to sit in the clear water next to the muddy river. The mountains were made by volcanoes breaking through the earth’s crust a long time ago. There was a lot of ash thrown into the sky at this time and this settled on the ground with large boulders hurled into the sky at the same time. Rain and rivers have made canyons into the ash and the boulders look like decoration in the canyon walls. The whole landscape of Big Bend is very special with deserts, mountains and an important river. The wildlife is just as amazing, surviving in what looks like a wilderness. This is a very special place.

Fredericksburg to Big Bend

We are heading westwards across the state to the Mexican border. The border between America and Mexico is the Rio Grand River in Texas.  The area we are heading for is a national park in a bend of the river. The park  is nearly a million square acres or almost as big as Norfolk – quite  large so it is called Big Bend! It is the only national park in Texas, the other parks have been run by the state. The drive is nearly 5oo miles long so we stop a night in the desert in a small town called Marathon. The town started as a fort to stop Apache Indians raiding farms.

The railway from California to the East coast goes through the town, just in front of our cabin. The trains are over half a mile long and have to whistle as they go over the crossing in the town. There were free ear plugs in the cabin as the trains run all night! Marathon is 4400 feet high  but our stop in Big Bend is 5600 feet, higher than the highest mountain in Britain! 

the granite trail

wonderful view

german farm

Enchanted Rock

Austin to Fredericksburg

A first stop at Hamilton Pool, a state park with a natural swimming pool below a limestone cliff. The pool is 64 degrees so a little cold for swimming??????? In America the temperature is measured on a farenheit  scale, not the celcius scale we use in England. Next stop is an old farm settled by Germans who decided to make America their new home just over 100 years ago. No electricity, water from a stream, no supermarkets! The volunteers who work the farm today use the old methods with none of our modern technology. They showed us how to make cheese and yoghurt which only lasts 3 days without a fridge. They even had to make their own soap from boiled lard. The farm was at the edge of a ranch owned by a previous president of America, Lyndon Johnson. He and his wife, Ladybird, liked their farm in Texas so much that he often ran the country from the farm which became known as the Texas White House. We stopped for 2 nights in a town built by German settlers called Fredericksburg. All the original buildings line the main street and many restuarants are german bierkellers the same as in Germany today. There is a museum about the war between the Japanese and Americans in the Pacific Ocean because the American admiral in charge, Admiral Nimitz, came from Fredericksburg. There are submarines and torpedo boats in the middle of Texas! The temperature got to 87 degrees whilst we walked round the museum although it was only 50 degrees when we woke up in the morning.

Austin

America!

Arrived in Dallas at 3.30pm after a 10 hour flight which left at 11.30am???
Had fried pickles and Santa Fe chicken for dinner with a black bean and corn salsa. The food here is called texmex as there are lots of mexicans in Texas, it was part of Mexico before it became independent. Many people in Texas still speak Spanish as their main language. Set of on Thursday along a 12 lane freeway, the name Americans give to a motorway. The traffic is very heavy with lots of huge trucks, nearly twice as long as the ones allowed on British roads. I drive 200miles to the state Capitol, Austin, which is a lovely city on the edge of lake. The Americans have lots of big national flags, the stars and stripes flying on all important building. Some of the flags are as big as a double decker bus. Here in Texas they also fly the state flag, the lone star, alongside the national flag. You know you are in America and in Texas! After a walk around the city seeing lots of statues about the history of Texas, I watch over a million bats leave their roost, under a bridge, at sunset to hunt for insects. They are called Mexican free tailed bats and have a wingspan of about a foot. Every night they eat thousands of pounds of insects! The sight of them flying out from under the bridge is amazing. It lasts about half an hour and makes black streaks across the sunset. By morning they have all returned to their roosts, full up, and sleep all day.

Packing

Facts about Texas - first stop!

Texas is larger than France so a circuit in just over 2 weeks will be quite a drive. It is the 2nd largest state of the USA after Alaska. There are about 22 million people in Texas, about the same number as the whole of Australia! It is known as the lone star state as it's flag is a single star from the time it gained independence from Mexico and was a republic in 1836. Texans are very proud of their state and most prefer to be known as Texans rather than Americans.

Simple itinerary for Scole to Scole with Scoler Bear

13th October 2010. Drive from Scole, Norfolk, UK to London, UK.
13th October 2010. Travel from London, UK, to Dallas, Texas, USA. Drive a circuit of Texas.
31st October 2010. From Dallas, USA to Honolulu, Hawaii, USA. Visit islands Hawaii.
28th November 2010. Fly from Honolulu, USA, to Nadi, Fiji. Stay on island beaches Fiji.
13th December 2010. To Auckland, New Zealand, from Nadi, Fiji. Drive in North Island New Zealand.
11th March 2011. From Auckland, New Zealand, to Sydney, Australia. In transit.
11th March 2011. To Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia, from Sydney, Australia. Backpack around Bali.
26th March 2011. From Denpasar, Bali to Hong Kong, China. Explore Hong Kong and Southern China.
3rd April 2011. Fly from Hong Kong, China to London, UK.
4th April 2011. Drive from London, UK to Scole, Norfolk, UK.