Blazing Saddles to South Fork Ranch, Dallas

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We reached the outskirts of Dallas at night following a long stretch of road and accompanied with some amazing thunder and lightning sky pyrotechnics. The next day we drove into sleepy downtown Dallas with the TV theme blasting from the car stereo as the cities skyscrapers loomed towards us on a warm and dusty Sunday afternoon. From checking out the tourist information centre, we quickly found out that the main thing going on in the city was horse racing. Therefore, the alternative to go and visit South Fork ranch from the Dallas TV show appeared the most appealing option.

I couldnt really remember the ranch very well as I was but a nipper when Dallas was on the telly; plus, I preferred Dynasty at the age of 5! Like the White House in Washington, the actual ranch appears a lot smaller in real life and disappointedly, although expectedly, there was no sign of Bobby Ewing, JR or even Cliff Barnes. Nowhere to be seen!

So we took a quick decision to leave sleepy Dallas in our wake and burn rubber towards our long stint back North towards the planes of the midwest. With this our readjusted destination, we headed for Oklahoma Cityin Oklahoma State. It was a long drive up through Texas and we were surprised to find out how popular religion (predominantly various branches of Christianity) is in these parts. Almost as popular as fireworks and guns. As the American's say: "Go figure."

When we rolled into downtown Oklahoma City in the evening, we found ourselves in another concrete urban jungle with towerblocks, grid roads etcetera. After a thorough rekkie around, we finally found the social area that housed some restaurants and a handful of sports bars. It's taking a while to adjust to life without good old Scottish pubs!

Just as we wereabout to write off Oklahoma and Dallas and realise our good luck had run out, we had a bit of good fortune by sneakily managing to walk into a Baseball game being played at the Bricktown stadium. We reckoned the fixture was on a status parity of Hamilton Accies versus Cowdenbeath but it was pretty cool to see some real baseball - even if I didnt have a clue of the rules.

The next day, we pushed further North in the car, leaving Oklahoma state for Kansas. After joining Route 66 at an Inter State section, we felt a touch disillusioned as we held the impression that Route 66 was an old authentic American highway throughquiet rural countryside. Now however, most of it has been replaced by Interstate motorways. With this realisation, we decided to head to Colorado through the countryside using our own route finger picked and cross checked from our road atlas. This was one long, long slog in the Avenger but we got what we came for in this leg. Travelling remote roads with no other vehicles in site across vast flat planes as far as the eye can see and passing through tumbleweed townships and villages with delapidated timber main streets and authentic dusty and run down old gas stations. This is a sleepy side to America that I'm really glad we got the chance to see and I loved wondering what kind of lives these country folk led miles and miles away from the skyscraping and live-fast American cities.

After passing through Dodge City, Kansas, we pulled The Beast up in the small town of Lamar and found a comfy motel to rest up in after our long trip across the planes with our trusty stead, feeling like well and truely knackered 21st century cowboys.

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Photos

Southfork Ranch, Dallas
Yee, haaa!

Comments

[iain]

allright
Allright lads, sounds like you are having fun. Where you headed next?

[Gini]

Cook Islands
Hi dude, not the same without you on these trips! We've just got to the Cook Island of Rarotonga and next week were off to another island called Aitutaki. Do a google image search, its really beautiful here. Today its raining so im trying to rescue the blog which has been decimated since the servers broke. Technology eh? Hope alls well and your settling into the new house nicely. Hi to Claire!