Day 9: Into Fort Worth We zoom down the interstate and into fort worth with traffic abounding. Due to the ice storm that had come through the region, we decided that going on the back highways like we usually do might not be the best route. So down the interstate we go, along with everybody else. As we cross the border, two notable things are different than in Oklahoma. Firstly, there are more trees and forests cover some hills as we exit southern Oklahoma. Secondly, here are all the people. As we traversed Oklahoma, we enjoyed the quiet solitude we often found by being one of only a handful of cars on the road. On this concrete and asphalt artery, we find the rest of humanity enclosing around us as we make our way into the city. Like a buildup of plaque, the construction narrows the road and we find ourselves being slowed down at regular intervals crawling along to our destination. Our evening turns pleasant when we finally meet with Seth. After not seeing one another for years, it is an utter joy to be in the same space as him. We go find dinner and again I am thrown off by just how busy it is in this city. We try 3 different places down Magnolia street, all of which are very full with an hour or more wait, until we settle on a Mexican restaurant. The food is good and the company even better. I’m looking forward to the rest of our stay at Seth’s. Day 10: Blogs, Battles, and Best Friends I had underestimated what working on this blog would entitle. For me, it is mostly a tool to remember this trip and all of the new and interesting things I have learned and thought about. However, I need to be more diligent about writing daily, otherwise it takes the better part of three days for me just to remember a week! So this morning is me rushing to get the first post on the blog up while Seth sits here playing Elden Ring and Lily gets a little work done too. The day is cold again and there is a fine mist that covers everything in a wet shine. A good day to be inside. We receive a last minute communication from our DnD group and before we know it we are thrown into the world of DnD. Finding lost treasures, we hop around an island chain, trying to figure out what powers have trapped us here and what danger may lie ahead. It’s a quick session, only an hour, as we had decided to go for an early dinner so as to beat the crowds. We have dinner at Cane Rosso, a pizza joint that came highly recommended from Seth. Thin crusts on a high heat so they are chewy and tender on the inside and a little bit of char on the outside makes for some great pizzas. No one, other than some of the wait staff, is wearing masks and it is easy to be lulled into the false sense that we are no longer in the middle of a pandemic. There is hope that the end is near, but I’m not sure we’re in the clear just yet. We want to go to a game library bar afterward but again we are thwarted by the crowds. Full of good food and now sleepy, we go back to Seth’s for a night of TV (we introduced him to the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) and chats with a quick photography session to document our stay. Day 11: Fun in Fort Worth Lumbering down the street with horns up to ten feet long, a small group of Texas longhorn are driven by a team of cowboys on horses. The buildings that surround us scream old south west with their dark lumber fronts and tall brick and stucco buildings smashed together. Horses snort and spurs clink as the cowboys guide the cattle to the stockyard. We are right next to the Fort Worth stockyards and twice daily this group of steers are slowly marched from one side of the street to the other. The cattle industry has a long history in Texas where large cattle herds were once driven across the state for new pastures and better markets. Today, the cattle industry is still one of the top industries with six cattle for every person populating the state. After getting a taste of history in this tourist site, we move on to the Amon Carter Museum of American Art. Here we see modern works from Georgia O’Keef, Alexander Calder, and Louise Nelson to name a few. There is an extensive collection of Remmington and other artists depicting the “wild west”. We see an exhibition on Chicano graphics from 1965 to present where the work is focused on speaking out against unfair labor practices and the violence done against minorities in the US. From creating unions to speaking out against the police killings of young people of color, these artists drive home their points with bold lines and vivid colors. We find a small exhibit from Sandy Rodriguez who had done an artist in residency in Joshua Tree National Park during the beginning of the pandemic. She worked in water color using pigments that are derived from the natural land around her in Joshua Tree. Using this connection to the land, she made several works depicting the flora and fauna of the region in a very studied approach. But with the start of the pandemic and the upheaval in California against the killing of young black men, her work changes to one of protest and reflection as she grapples with her isolation as the world reels from these traumatic events. The subdued colors of her natural pallet bring a softness to these heavy subjects which complements the feeling of quiet solitude which she must have experienced. Being a smaller museum, we are done with some time left before Seth has to go meet a friend so we walk around the duck pond in Trinity Park. This is the first real pleasant weather we’ve had in almost a week and we soak it up. The ducks here are well fed from the people throwing scraps of bread to them. They quack and chirp happily, their bright orange feet paddling them to and fro. Lily and I spend the rest of the afternoon getting our budgets in order. This month is looking good and we wrap up with the sense that we can do this on our budget. Provided that inflation doesn’t get any more carried away. This evening is a time for some night life. Seth had heard of a Jazz bar downtown with free jazz on Sunday nights so we buzz through the skyscrapers looking for some live music. The buildings reach high above us, several being lit up on the edges as if someone had decided to first outline the buildings with a bright dotted line before filling in the details. We wander a bit and hear some jazz coming from a large plaza dimly lit and with no one around. A trick! No bands here. Just an empty, dimly lit plaza. We turn around and spy an alley with a bright neon sign flashing SCAT. We wander into the alley and find an elevator door. We push the button. After a moments hesitation the doors open up and a group of young women come tumbling out confused and turned around as to where they were. Passing by us and out of the way, they leave the elevator empty and inviting. Down we go into the basement of this large building, not really knowing what to expect. The elevator drops us off into a hallway from which we can hear jazz again. We turn the corner and go through a pair of large doors into a quintessential underground jazz bar. The lights are low in sconces on the wall and there is a band up on the small raised stage. A bassist, drummer, and piano player jam out with a bass saxophonist. I squeeze into a booth as Lily and Seth go get drinks. The atmosphere is lively as the audience claps between solos and sets. People mingle with one another and it seems that half of the people there know each other. Lily and Seth come back with their lemon drop martinis and we enjoy an evening of good music and good company. Day 12: A day of Planning We slept in the van last night so as to give Seth space to go to work and so that we didn’t have to get up early with him. Today is a day of planning as we haven’t had much time for that lately and we know that we’re coming up on needing to make reservations at some places if we want to go see them. So we hang out at the local public library branch near Seth’s place and get to work. After some computer trouble with Lily’s computer, the day moves fairly quickly and we just about have the next two weeks planned out when Seth is finally off work. He suggests that we go get dinner with his partner somewhere between Fort Worth and Dallas and we are all too happy to agree. The food is good and it was great to finally meet Ale. She is a very pleasant person to chat with and we learn that she was raised here in Texas. I ask what her favorite thing is about Texas and she responds that it’s the people. Growing up around Houston, she found that the community around her was very supportive to one another. They are kind and show up for one another when needed. I like this sentiment and can say that the few Texans that we’ve interacted with have all been very pleasant and nice. Day 13: A Rest Day Still in Fort Worth today but without much of a schedule as we wait for some replies on the Boondockers Welcome app to see if we have a place to sleep around Austin and Houston. We have been sitting on our butts for most of the week at this point so it’s time for a little exercise. A quick and light jog around Trinity Park and then a good stretch. Afterward it’s time for a little productive work on the blog as Lily goes to the duck pond to read and paint the ducks. The day ends with us taking the drone out for some shots of the city with Seth and his friend Emily before going back to Seth’s apartment for Taco Tuesday and watching the State of the Union Address. Even though we have only been gone for a week, I am beginning to miss our tradition of Taco Tuesdays (a weekly event where a group of friends get together to share a meal. It is not always on Tuesdays nor is it always Tacos) and this helps to ease some of the homesickness that is creeping in. Day 14: The Texas Capital Today is in large part a driving day. It takes us a bit to get the van re-settled and we are underway a little later than hoped for. We jump on the interstate and head south to Austin. The 4hr drive is uneventful and we make it into the city around 5:00p. As we wait for the metered parking at the Capitol to end for the day, we go to Amy’s Ice Cream on 6th street and walk around for a hot minute with ice cream in hand. The people rushing about this area seem mostly like the young hip type as the skyscrapers and luxury apartments fill the sky. Finishing our ice creams, we move the van down to the Capitol building. It is a monumental structure that feels out of place in this modern city of skyscrapers and bright lights. This immense stone building, with its Renaissance revival architecture, is topped with a dome which reaches some 200ft into the sky, making it all feel as though it is some palace from Italy. Inside, the interior is all wood and decorative plaster. The rotunda underneath the dome is lined with painted portraits of the former Texas governors, most looking serious and important. In the center of the rotunda, Lily finds a fun acoustic anomaly. If you stand directly on the star inlayed into the floor, you can hear everything you say amplified. We can’t help but spend our last few minutes making noises and tap dancing like fools in the middle of this extravagant building. Feeling a little exhausted, we make our way out of town to a cracker barrel for a night of rest. We know that we have to miss things on this trip but we are still sad that we will be missing out on that Austin music. Gotta take care of ourselves though. Day 15: To Houston for Art We arrive to a city that sprawls for miles and miles. It’s jam packed with humanity, the highways creating majestic webs of concrete and steel that flow over and under one another. The buildings rise up and down all over in what seems a chaotic mess from the interstate. Amidst it all, we find ourselves arriving at a small nondescript chapel made of brick. The Rothko chapel houses one of the best collections of the artist Mark Rothko, a color field painter, and has been on my list of art to see for years. And, as my luck would have it, the chapel closes just before we arrive due to an event at 7p. It is currently going on 2:00p. A little annoyed by the lack of information on their website about the closure, we walk the grounds. There are rows of some bush, rendered to sticks as it is still technically winter, and a reflection pond with a monumental sculpture by Barnett Newman titled Broken Obelisk. The day is pleasant, if bordering on too warm, and we have lunch on the grounds. Craving some art today, we move on to the Houston Museum of Fine Art (HMFA) which turns out is free on Thursdays! The grounds hold a sculpture garden containing works from artists such as Rodin, David Smith, Amish Kapoor, Louis Bourgeois, and Henri Matisse. The works are all of the modern and postmodern period and they radiate with their movement and textures. We wander inside for only an hour before we have to attend to our other plans but in that time we see their collection of Impressionists and post impressionists. The works run the gamut of the masters including Claud Monet, Vincent Van Goh, and Kandinsky. The galleries exploded with color and texture as the artists veered away from the traditional styles of art making and embraced the chaos of the new century. We also manage to peek into their American works collection which holds nothing of major interest to either Lily or myself except for their depressingly small collection of Native American objects on display. Perhaps there is a larger collection elsewhere that we didn’t manage to get to. Our evening concludes with a visit to the James Turell piece Twilight Epiphany located on the beautiful campus of Rice University. A note about this campus in the middle of Houston: it is glorious. The architecture is reminiscent of the palaces built in Europe. Tall towers and arched colonnades greet you as you walk into a great square. I am astounded that even though it is late winter, the breeze is pleasant and the number of plants that are already green is remarkable. The Turell piece sits atop a small hill in the middle of the campus. The roof is a large flat square with a smaller square cut out from the center through which you can view the sky. There is seating within the hill for you to gaze up at the sky through this square aperture. Just before sunset, the lights which shine up onto the ceiling begin to change colors. They move with the slow grace of the sunset ranging from rich oranges to deep purples and vivid greens. The intensity of the light softens and brightens from time to time, calling attention to the color and light from the rich blue sky. The evening is mostly cloudless so the barrier between the sky and the ceiling seems to fade away. The patch of sky plays with the boundary between going on forever and being a flat piece of the ceiling. As the sky gets darker and darker, the interior space is lit up with a whiter and brighter light, calling attention to the inky blackness of the sky as all light from the sun seems to leave us. And with a great soundless crash the lights go out and suddenly the roles reverse and the inky black now surrounds this square of gently glowing blue of the night sky. A remarkable piece of art that showcases the talent of Turell and how he paints with light. If you are in Houston, I highly recommend experiencing this piece of art. Some quick BBQ before bed at another Cracker Barrel in South Houston. Day 16: NASA Space Center Houston. As we drive up to NASA Space Center Houston, one thing stands out: the space shuttle Independence riding atop a Boeing 747. While this shuttle never actually flew, the massive airplane under it did ferry the space shuttles to Florida when their approach back to Cape Canaveral had to be diverted due to weather. We go inside the center to find a large and dim complex with several stations with bright lights pointed at them. Children scream and yell as parents attempt to corral them and the whole thing gives off a Disneyland vibe. The first stop on this trip is a tram to a Saturn V rocket. Yes, a full sized nearly complete Saturn V rocket. One of only 3 in the world. The Saturn V was the workhorse of the Apollo missions and was the vehicle that sent the first Astronauts to the moon. When laid down, it is as long as a football field. Its first stage has five engines each with a diameter of 12.2 ft and standing 18.5 ft tall. In 2.5 minutes, its $1.5 billion dollars worth of fuel is spent up as the rocket reaches a speed of 6,000 miles per hour and an altitude of about 38 miles and the first stage detaches. All of the first stages that were actually used in the Apollo missions were then dropped in the Atlantic Ocean as our brave astronauts went on to complete six lunar landings and two orbiting missions. The next stop is the space shuttle Independence. Walking around the cargo bay and the flight deck, I can’t help but try to imagine what wonder astronauts must feel as they orbit the earth, completing important scientific research and projects. The rest of the complex is interesting and we are quickly overloaded with information. We see real moon rocks (we could even touch one) and they have a Space X Falcon 9 rocket on display outside as well. All in all it is a fun and exciting day and Lily and I are both exhausted with our brains full and are happy to make our way down south to finally see the Gulf of Mexico.
5 Comments
Jane Boynton
3/17/2022 08:13:55 pm
Thanks for sharing this. I really enjoy reading about your travels!
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Marieanna and Jack Elliott
3/18/2022 04:38:09 pm
What a joy read. Love following you around.
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Danny
3/27/2022 10:28:04 am
This puts these Texas cities on the map of places I'd love to see! I love how y'all found the jazz club, and especially the dynamic sunset sculpture description. What a great thing to be able to soak up all the amazing art. The works of the water color artist working in Joshua Tree really resonate through your words! Can't wait to hear about Big Bend 😊 Leave a Reply. |
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