Mountain Mist

Twists and turns through mountain roads as we left Georgia, wandered through part of North Carolina and into Gatlinburg, Tennesee. The Great Smokey Mt. National Park is beautiful in a different way this time of year. Where the green leaves of spring and summer might be nice the bare branches gave us glimpse of hills and valleys and forest floor we wouldn't have seen. The contrast between nature and commerce is really pretty startling because the change comes up so suddenly.

Nothing to See, Nothing to Say

Biloxi to north of Atlanta and cloudy, misty and boring drive means I never touched the camera. The only thing to tell about is that after all the hotels, etc. I goofed up tonight's reservation and made it for tomorrow! Luckily Hampton Inn located another Hampton for me and we still got a free stay. Please NO comment, Gary!
I'm going to post one of the innumerable photos I have not shown you yet.

Art and Avarice

Avarice may be too strong a word but it makes a nice title for today. The art part was the start of our day at the Walter Anderson Museum of Art. Anderson was a local artist whose work centers on the flora and fauna of the Gulf Coast. The museum is small but really well done and includes a room rebuilt on site that Anderson kept locked and no one saw until after his death that is totally covered with images. It is hard to photograph but I tried. A short war away is the Shearwater pottery which is also an Anderson property and was begun by Walters brother, Peter.
Check them out here:
http://www.shearwaterpottery.com/

Too bad we are here on a Monday since the Ohr Museum is closed on Mondays. We did go see the exterior designed by Frank Gehry. It's a good pairing since George Ohr was known as "the mad potter" and Gehry's buildings are pretty extreme.

Afternoon took us to the beach which offered great expanses of sand and sky without those pesky people getting in the way since it was very cloudy and cool.

Next was the avarice part when we dropped by the Hard Rock and Beau Rivage Casinos. Gambling casinos are certainly helping bring back money to the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina and the BP oil mess. Dan upped our small bill in a slot machine to enough for a dinner for one of us. He did agree to let me have a dinner, too!

Nine hours

In order to keep a southern route I picked Biloxi, Mississippi as our next stop. Unfortunately that meant a nine hour drive. It wasn't bad but it was a no picture day except one from our hotel room window at dusk.

Dallas Dodgem

Getting around in Dallas is not for the faint of heart. The directions by GPS said we would get to the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza in 7 minutes so you think it might be a few blocks away. No, it is 7 minutes of on and off ramps of 6 lane highways!

Well worth the driving challenge we spent 3 hours in the museum housed in the Texas School Book Depository from which Oswald aimed the rifle that killed President Kennedy. No photography is allowed inside but I think I got some good shots of the outside and around Dallas.
Photos:
1. Kennedy Memorial designed by architect Philip Johnson
2. Highway maze
3."Old Red" former courthouse now a history museum
4.no explanation needed
5.Dallas skyline
6. Notorious 6th floor window

Childress to Dallas

Childress, TX where we stayed last night is a small town along the highway with a LOT of hotels, motels and inns and very few places to eat. Looks like it accommodates a lot of truckers who favor mostly fast food.

One of the photos shows a gigantic football stadium that is for a Texas School district. I guess football really is a big deal down here!

Dallas is a big city with roads that we could have never maneuvered without both the GPS and the Google map on the iPad. With the help we got to the Frontiers of Flight Museum next to Love Field in Dallas and found our hotel.

Photos:
1. Display of "GI Joe" dolls dressed in incredibly detailed uniforms or all kinds of aviators.
2. Two balloonists with basket helmets that also served as seat!
3. High school football is BIG in Texas
4.if you can enlarge and read this you will be amazed.

Turned toward Texas

We took our time leaving Susan's Santa Fe hospitality this morning. The only thing we had to do was drive to Childress, TX which is on the way to our visit to Dallas. There is nothing on the way here and nothing when you get here except all the trucks that raced us on the roads to get here.

Santa Fe for another day

The first stop today was at the local Ford dealership to get the rear right turn signal bulb fixed. It is pretty scary driving in a city without it. Since I already had the bulb they did it in about 5 minutes for free.

Then it was off to the Museum of International Folk Art. For some reason many of my pictures came out blurry. Perhaps it had to do with shooting through glass.

Then we visited the Plaza which is the center of old Santa Fe and had lunch at La Fonda, a very old inn that has existed since the days of the old Santa Fe Trail. Loretta Chapel with its mysterious spiral staircase that legend has was created by a mysterious carpenter who built it with no nails or sophisticated tools and then he disappeared.

After many nights in hotels and dining out my friend Susan offered us a dinner and a night in her wonderful house. She just had guests for a week who left today and this was a very generous and appreciated offer.

Photos:
1,2. Loretto Chapel
3. La Fonda's La Plazuela restaurant
4,5,6. Folk art museum

Atom bomb & Ancient Sites Today

Los Alamos up "the Hill" from Santa Fe is the birthplace of the atom bomb. Robert Oppenheimer selected the site of a boys ranch school as a remote location to gather the scientists who created the mushroom cloud.

We spent a long time in a very complete but small museum dedicated to this place from the explosive volcanoes that created this place to
The explosive device that ended WWII.

We drove further up into Bandelier National Monument which was home to ancestral Pueblo people over 10,000 years ago. Again the views in new Mexico are always stunning and hope I did justice to them in the photos.
Photos:
1. Bandelier view
2 & 3. Cliff dwellings at Bandelier
4 & 5 canyon views
6. A dangerous pose
Remaining pics are of Los Alamos including statue of Robert Oppenheimer & Gen. Groves and home where Oppenheimer lived on Bathtub Row (if asked I will explain name).

Technical Difficulties

Today's post very nearly did not happen. When I opened my iPad this morning NOTHING would work. It was locked up tight and would not even turn off. With no way to use my home computer I called my Apple consultant and sometime travel companion, Susan. She suggested I call 1-800-apple. She also told me there is an Apple store in Albuquerque. Calling didn't work (it's 1-800-myapple). The GPS came to the rescue and located the Apple store where a very friendly guy solved the problem in about 2 seconds.

So the whole day was spent driving from Kingman, AZ to Santa Fe where we are now comfortably ensconced.

Not much in the photo section today. One of these is of a power plant I could see approaching for at least 50 miles.
The other is a place we pulled over because a sign said it was a scenic view. Is it?

Speechless

Nothing can beat the pictures of our helicopter flight, pontoon boat ride and views of the Grand Canyon west rim. We did the Skywalk but you cannot take your own camera and $30 was too much for a picture of us.