Category: Places & Travel

Oh, yeah

NewMexiKen forgot to mention that on our recent trip, the highlight for Dad, who lives in daylight saving time free Arizona, was having people in Indiana, which just this year adopted DST — and thus left Arizona as the only state without it * — tell him how much they hated it, and that surely DST and the current governor would both be removed.

100% of the folks we discussed it with in Indiana said this. Well, two people.

* Hawaii doesn’t observe daylight saving time because that close to the equator the length of the day varies by only 2½ hours between June and December. In Tucson the length of the day (sunlight) varies by 4¼ hours summer/winter; in Indianapolis 5½ hours.

Airplane nonsense

At Freakonomics Blog, Steven D. Levitt has some commentary that most frequent fliers will appreciate. It includes this:

Finally, when they read the safety instructions at the beginning of the flight, they go through the whole song and dance about “in the unlikely event of a water landing…” and all the precautions in place to deal with that happening. My friend Peter Thompson did some research on this. At least going back to 1970, which by my estimation encompasses over 150 million commercial airline flights, there has not been a single water landing!

NewMexiKen particularly appreciates the water landing silliness on flights from Albuquerque to Phoenix, or to Denver, or to Dallas.

Cumberland Gap National Historical Park (Kentucky)

… was authorized on this date in 1940.

Cumberland Gap

Throughout the ages, poets, songwriters, novelists, journal writers, historians and artists have captured the grandeur of the Cumberland Gap. James Smith, in his journal of 1792, penned what is perhaps one of the most poignant descriptions of this national and historically significant landmark: “We started just as the sun began to gild the tops of the high mountains. We ascended Cumberland Mountain, from the top of which the bright luminary of day appeared to our view in all his rising glory; the mists dispersed and the floating clouds hasted away at his appearing. This is the famous Cumberland Gap…” Thanks to the vision of Congress, who in 1940 authorized Cumberland Gap National Historical Park, visitors today can still bask in its beauty and immerse themselves in its rich history.

The story of the first doorway to the west is commemorated at the national park, located where the borders of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia meet. Carved by wind and water, Cumberland Gap forms a major break in the formidable Appalachian Mountain chain. First used by large game animals in their migratory journeys, followed by Native Americans, the Cumberland Gap was the first and best avenue for the settlement of the interior of this nation. From 1775 to 1810, the Gap’s heyday, between 200,000 and 300,000 men, women, and children from all walks of life, crossed the Gap into “Kentuckee.”

Cumberland Gap National Historical Park

NewMexiKen and Dad visited Cumberland Gap on our recent trip — it’s an inspiring and beautiful site. The highway through the Gap was removed in 1996 (replaced by a tunnel). One can now walk the Wilderness Road through a forest much as the migrants moving west did from Daniel Boone on.

Travelin’ men

NewMexiKen has been in 25 states and the District of Columbia since last August.

4,600 car miles on this recent trip. (Dad gets another 950 for the roundtrip from Tucson to Albuquerque.)

Gasoline readily available everywhere — we paid anywhere from $2.54 to $3.00 a gallon for regular. Cheapest gas was in Arkansas; most expensive is in New Mexico.

Dad’s 2002 Pontiac Grand Prix averaged 28.4 miles per gallon for the entire trip (not counting his drive to Tucson today).

Info you can use

There is a speed trap on I-68 westbound as you approach Cumberland, Maryland. The limit decreses from 65 to 55 as you approach downhill. Repeat, downhill.

Written for 64 in a 55 zone. $70.

Freeway speed limit in Maryland: 65. Freeway speed limit in New Mexico: 75. I guess Maryland knows just how skillful its drivers are.

Ticket followed (within minutes) by flat tire. Probably got it while pulling over to get ticket. Talk about adding insult to injury.

Three tickets issued while we were there. It wasn’t about safety, or law enforcement. It was about revenue. 9am Sunday morning, good conditions, light traffic. Two cops with radar.

Bryce Canyon National Park (Utah)

… was designated a national monument on this date in 1923. It became a national park in 1928.

Bryce Canyon

Bryce Canyon, famous for its worldly unique geology, consists of a series of horseshoe-shaped amphitheaters carved from the eastern edge of the Paunsaugunt Plateau in southern Utah. The erosional force of frost-wedging and the dissolving power of rainwater have shaped the colorful limestone rock of the Claron Formation into bizarre shapes including slot canyons, windows, fins, and spires called “hoodoos.”

Bryce Canyon National Park

Harpers Ferry National Historical Park (West Virginia)

… was so designated on this date in 1963. It had been proclaimed a national monument in 1944.

Harpers Ferry

Harpers Ferry National Historical Park is located at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers in the states of West Virginia, Virginia, and Maryland. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Meriwether Lewis, John Brown, “Stonewall” Jackson, and Frederick Douglass are just a few of the prominent individuals who left their mark on this place.

The story of Harpers Ferry is more than one event, one date, or one individual. It involves a diverse number of people and events that influenced the course of our nation’s history. Harpers Ferry witnessed the first successful application of interchangeable manufacture, the arrival of the first successful American railroad, John Brown’s attack on slavery, the largest surrender of Federal troops during the Civil War, and the education of former slaves in one of the earliest integrated schools in the United States.

Harpers Ferry National Historical Park

Archer City

Golden Globe and OscarTuesday Evening, May 23. NewMexiKen is looking at an Oscar — and a Golden Globe. They’re sitting on the mantle above the fireplace at the Lonesome Dove Inn in Archer City, Texas. That’s novelist, essayist and screenwriter Larry McMurtry’s hometown of Archer City — the real town from The Last Picture Show.

The Oscar I’m looking at is McMurtry’s for co-writing the screenplay for Brokeback Mountain — with Diana Ossana, based on the story by E. Annie Proulx. McMurtry has left the award to the safekeeping of Mary Webb, operator of the Lonesome Dove Inn. It fits nicely with the theme of her Bed and Breakfast — the Terms of Endearment Room, the Cadillac Jack room, Hud’s Library, and so on, all named for McMurtry works. (Lonsome Dove was McMurtry’s Pulitizer Prize-winning novel.)

Booked UpIn addition to the Inn, Archer City features McMurtry’s bookstore Booked Up. Actually it features Booked Ups 1 through 4 with several hundred thousand used books, including many rare and collectible volumes. The stores occupy four separate buildings near the town square — Booked Up 1 was once the Ford dealer.

Archer City appears much as it did in the 1971 film The Last Picture Show. A town of about 1,800, there is still just the one stoplight. When NewMexiKen tried to wait this evening to let cars continue before I sauntered across at that, the only controlled intersection, I was encouraged by a driver to go ahead. And after crossing I was told to “Have a nice eve-nin.”

I was having a nice evening. It was a gorgeous, warm star-filled night, perfect for a walk in a storybook place.

Shiloh National Military Park

Shiloh CannonShiloh was the beginning of total war.

According to James M. McPherson in Battle Cry of Freedom:

The 20,000 killed and wounded at Shiloh (about equally distributed between the two sides) were nearly double the 12,000 battle casualties at [First] Manassas, Wilson’s Creek, Fort Donelson, and Pea Ridge combined.

Shiloh Green TreesThis morning Shiloh (Tennessee) was green and lush and quiet, the opposite of April 6-7, 1862, when it was smoke and chaos and violence. After a brief film (which had to have been produced 50 years ago — its colors faded, its actors stilted and poorly made-up), NewMexiKen and Dad took much of the auto tour, from the Tennessee River at what was once Pittsburg Landing, past the Union’s last line of defense to Shiloh Church (where the 1862 log building sits next to an active church).

Often at battlefields I am able to imagine the scene. How realistically is another question, but at least I can picture what I think it might have been like, or at least feel the sense of the place. Sometimes, however, the imagination just isn’t sufficient, or the place doesn’t move me. For some reason Shiloh National Military Park was like that today.

Background: The Union Army, under Grant, was encamped in a poorly chosen position at Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee. They were attacked by Confederates under Johnston and Beauregard early Sunday, April 6, 1862. By the end of the day, Confederates had catured the key position of Shiloh church and driven Union lines nearly to the Tennessee River. Grant, reinforced by Buell, counter attacked Monday morning, regained the lost ground, and forced the Confederates to retreat to Corinth, Mississippi. It was ostensibly a Union victory, though Grant was faulted for a lack of precaution that led to the first day’s disaster.

NewMexiKen

… is still trying to catch up and tell you about the first part of the current trip — the Pecos River and Bosque Redondo, Billy the Kid’s grave, Archer City’s delightful Lonesome Dove Inn and Booked Up.

In time. In time.

Along the way I did observe some remarkable ranches — the kind with their own landing strips. As a result I’ve decided we need to spruce up things around this blog. First step, a name change.

I’m thinking “NewMexiKen Land & Cattle Co.”

(The first of the ranches linked-to above claims about 180,000 acres. The second, 245,000 acres.)

Corinth, Mississippi

Long-term readers of NewMexiKen (both of them) will, I hope, recognize that through all the wisdom, whimsy and half-witted nonsense there are actually some consistent themes — a great love for America, its cultures, history, music and people. Those themes all seemed to come together for me in an emotional way this balmy evening in Corinth, Mississippi.

Corinth Bluegrass

First, at the Cross City Grille in downtown Corinth, it was the incredible catfish cakes and fried green tomatoes (and the not half-bad Blue Heron wheat beer from Lazy Magnolia Brewing). Then it was the amateur bluegrass concert in the parking lot of South Bank across the street. Finally it was the freight train moving through Corinth (as the musicians played). It was Corinth’s role as the rail crossing (hence, Cross City, its first name) that marked it for the Union Army in 1862 and that led to the Civil War’s first great battle, the Battle of Shiloh.

Is this a great country, or what?

That’s the group Heartland in the downtown Corinth South Bank parking lot.

On the road again

Long-term readers (both of you) may remember last summer when NewMexiKen took a road trip with Dad. We went across Glen Canyon Damn, through Utah, (here and here), Idaho, across Oregon through Portland to Astoria, then back down the Pacific Coast via Redwoods and San Francisco.

This summer our trip is even longer — from Albuquerque to Virginia and back by car. It began yesterday, Tuesday, and will continue for about two weeks. As this is written we are in Hot Springs, Arkansas. I’ll catch you up as time and energy permit.

My Goal Is to Go Around the World in 90 Days on the Cheap

Matt Gross, the Frugal Traveler, has left on an around-the-world trip.

Some guidelines first. Circling the globe presents an seemingly infinite number of travel options, and narrowing them down requires one to be patient, open-minded and occasionally arbitrary. I am beginning in the Mediterranean because it’s summer and I want to go to the beach. Odessa is also on my list, precisely because I had heard little about it except that it’s a hot party zone. And while I went to Shanghai last year, that city struck me as so fast-moving that I couldn’t wait to see how it’s changed in the intervening months.

But the real challenge is not in choosing the route but in accomplishing the journey as the Frugal Traveler. Though my travels might take me to some of the wealthiest corners of the globe like Monaco, my budget is limited: for lodging, free if possible, with a $100 cap per night; and for meals, $40. Like Phileas Fogg, who embarked on the voyage to show it could be done (and to win a £20,000 bet), I too had something to prove: that it doesn’t take a sack full of cash to live the high life.

NewMexiKen, too, would like to be Phileas Fogg. Anyone want to go? Anyone want to pay for sponsor it?

Smart Places to Live

Kiplinger’s ranks the best cities to live: “You told us your ideal city is fun, vibrant and affordable. We found dozens that fit the bill.”

Top five

  1. Nashville
  2. Minneapolis-St. Paul
  3. Albuquerque (“This laid-back city offers resort-town ambience, a boomtown economy and cow-town prices.”)
  4. Atlanta
  5. Austin

I’d say their information on Albuquerque home prices is a bit dated, but otherwise they’re right. Albuquerque is a smart place to live (unless you have kids in public school).

And, of course, as they say, “Unfortunately, no database could allow for another top priority: proximity to family.”

FedEx

Once upon a time about ten years ago NewMexiKen attended a conference in Memphis, Tennessee. Great city — Graceland, Sun Studio, Peabody ducks, the historic Lorraine Motel, B.B. King’s.

And FedEx. The FedEx distribution center is there. Every evening FedEx planes from all over fly into Memphis, the packages are sorted, and by early morning the planes head out with their new load.

Because of crowding at the conference hotel, I stayed at Memphis Airport. The first night I was awakened about 2AM by the sounds of jets taking off. I looked out the window to see FedEx aircraft taxiing. Scores of planes, one right behind another, so close to the hotel I could see the pilots in the cockpit. The commotion kept me awake for a couple of hours. The second night I was so exhausted I slept through it. The third and final night I actually went outside and watched. Take-offs less than a minute apart for more than two hours. Incredible.

Here’s a fun video of FAA radar showing FedEx planes landing at Memphis, trying to avoid a thunderstorm.

The battle rages on at Bighorn

“It wasn’t Custer’s last stand; it was Custer’s last fight,” Medicine Crow said.

“It was Sitting Bull’s last stand. They won the battle that day but lost a way of life.”

An interesting article in the Rocky Mountain News about the history and current issues at Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument.