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Published: November 19th 2009
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Long horn cattle.Monday ,leaving Houston, the 4th largest city in America behind, we drove up north today to Fort Worth , Texas. We saw a few of the small oil wells, well I think they were. The ones that look like giant hammers going up and down very slowly. They are scattered around the place , but we seem to come across about 20 of them and then no more for awhile. Got set up and then went and got some groceries after our bbq tea. Awesome evenings except for the bloody mozzies, they are shocking at the moment, so had to move inside.
Tuesday , we drove around the downtown area of Fort Worth. Over the bridge and down into the flat land known as ' The Stockyards ', 125 acres of one of the biggest saleyards in America at one time. Now its a small town with businesses , houses and in the center of it all they have kept the heart of the old time. Once known as the richest little city in the world, its now just a tourist destination. We took the GPS self guided tour around the place. Through the old holding pens that are now small
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Long horn emblem shops and restaurants. At 11.30am and 4pm a bunch of cowboys walk a herd of 17 'Texas long horn cattle' down the main street called Exchange st. Pass the waiting crowds, these animals have amazing horns. Some grow to be as wide as 6ft!!! We walked over the old saleyards on a flyover thing. These people should go to Feilding on a friday and see this type of cattle sale still going on. Then we went into Billy Bobs honky tonk bar, 40 bars throughout this place and its own bull riding ring as well. Had a quick look into the 'Colloseum' the cowboy equivalent of a big hall of fame for rodeo's and then went and had lunch in the 'pens'. The campground we're staying in has alot of regulars, that live here full time. It cost like $400/month to stay here, so its good regular income for the camp owners. Across from us is the dog run around area. It seems to be like the meeting place for all the locals after work, they bring their dogs down and sit around and chat for a couple of hours and then head home for tea.
Wednesday, Today I left
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Inside the saleyards it up to the kids to decide where we were going to go. After awhile on the computer and they had looked up Six Flags theme parks and water rides somewhere. We packed up and went to the mall down the road. Its huge, it has its own ice skating rink in there. We walked around until lunchtime and then Josh and I said " were off to the movies" we went and saw a movie called "Fourth Kind", definately different. A true story about alien abductions in a small town in Alaska.
Thursday we went back to the mall and went Ice Skating . That was a laugh, holding on to the side rail and trying not to fall over as we made our way around the rink. We stopped for lunch and Kylie went and saw the movie Josh and I went to yesterday while the rest of us kept skating. We got pretty good after a few hours of it. We did a bit more shopping when Kylie got out and our feet were sore!! The kids bought beanies and went and got them painted, like their sweatshirts they got done in New Jersey. They look good.
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Cool car !! Friday we drove over to Dallas which is about 1/2 hr east of Fort Worth. 1st stop was the 'Sixth floor museum' where on November 22nd, 1963 at 12.30pm John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th president of America was assassinated. We took a self guided tour around the 6th and 7th floors of what was then the 'School of book depository building'.It has now been made into a museum documenting the event. It has a very moving video of the day as it started with the president flying in on Airforce 1 into Dallas airport and being met by thousands of people cheering and wanting to meet the president. He drove through the streets of Dallas on the way to downtown Dallas for a luncheon. As the motorcade drove down South Houston st and turned left into Elm street by Dealey Plaza, he was shot 3 times in 5.9 seconds from a gunman on the 6th floor. 1 shot hit the president in the back of his neck and went into the Texas governor in front of him, 1 shot got him in the head and 1 missed. A rifle was seen being pulled back from the window on the sixth
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Long horns walking down the street. floor in the corner of the building. A policeman ran into the building and was met by a person who worked there. They both proceeded up the stairs where they came across Lee Harvey Oswald coming out of the cafeteria. When questioned he said he worked there and the other man confirmed it , so he was let go. He took a taxi home, then was questioned by a police officer driving along who got shot 4 times, Oswald was seen acting suspiciously before hiding in the 'Texas theatre' . He was arrested after a scuffle with police and arrested for the murder of the policeman and the assassination of the president. Three days later he was being moved out of the Dallas police staion with a huge number of reporters lining the exit when a Dallas businessman stepped forward and shot Oswald in the stomach and it was all on video. The whole assassination was filmed by a guy on the outside of the corner, quite a few photographs of before and after where taken, audio from a policemans motorcycle was later used in an enquiry to determine that there was 4 shots fired and a seperate gunman may
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The NZ ice skating team!!! have been hiding in the bushs on the outside of the corner , which brings into question all the conspiracy theories about who else was involved in it. A very graphic and touching museum of the life and death of John.F.Kennedy. His death emortilised him in history and he is still seen today as one of the best presidents America ever had. After there we headed to speedzone for a bit of fun for the day. Josh went on some go karts as Tori was a fraction too short to go on them. Then Josh and I lined up to go on the drag cars. These are half size dragcars with V8 motors in them and the 4 cars run on rails. So we jumped on in and listened to our instructions. When the operator is ready , you put your foot on the brake, when the christmas tree lights go from the top to the bottom and the green light comes on, take your foot off the brake and floor it, about 1/2 way down the track you have to press a button on the steering wheel to change gears. It goes with a bit of a rush and
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Tori trying out for the Olympics. then its all over and its stopping you real quick. 1st blood to Josh!! Little shit. He was grinning from ear to ear, 2nd run, I got him back. 3rd run the little bugger got me off the line, I reckon he jumped the gun but the scoreboard said otherwise!!, so that was that!! Last time I take him on one of my rides. Then we hit the rides/games inside before heading back to the campground.
Saturday we took the back roads through Texas to get down to Lake Charles, Louisana. Nice farmland with fences for a change along the way. We saw alot of garage and yard sales as it was a nice warm sunny day. We came past an airfield where there were thousands of mobile home trailers parked up around the fences. We found out later they are called 'FEMUR' trailers, they were/are used in hurricanes for temporary accomodation.
Sunday, I rang Angela, who we met in Washington DC with the girls and asked what they were up to today? So she rang Jennifer her sister and they all came over to our campground. They decided to take us out to a Cajun restaurant to try some
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Josh and I in our drag cars. of the real Louisana food, Well at least Kylie did anyway, she had sautered Aligator. UUMM. Josh and I had steak. After there Jennifer had met a lady the day before who had given her free tickets to go and watch some authentic traditional Indian dances. They were a kids group but they were awesome. They had travelled to Ireland, Wales and Scotland representing the native American people and to do their dances at different shows over there. The kids were only between 12 and 20 years old and their costumes were amazing. Then we all went for Ice cream.
Monday we had arranged to meet Angela again as she said she would give us a guided tour of the area. Jennifer turned up with Hayley as she took the day off school and wanted to come with us. So we set off over 'Gun bridge' which is on I-10 the main southern interstate from California to Florida. We have been on and off it for weeks now. Anyway on this bridges railing is two hand guns crossing each other, but if we hadn't been told about it we would have just driven straight across and never noticed them. There
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On the podium after the big race. is alot of Industry in Louisana, Petroleum, plastic, paints etc are manufactured there, so it looks pretty yuk from the road driving thru. We drove south to the Sabine national wildlife park. Along the way we could really see the effects from hurricane Rita that hit the area in 2005, just 6 weeks after Hurricane Katrina had hit New Orleans . We stopped at the Sabine national wildlife refuge to walk around and see some aligators. We got out of the car and got eaten by the biggest mozzies I've ever seen. They just swarmed around all of us, as fast as Kylie was spraying on her 100% dimp they were biting her. Shes got a few good welts on her legs and on her face. We thought if we walked on we might get away from them, NO!!. The paved footpaths lead through a marshy type area where you are spose to see aligators but all we saw was mozzies. It got darker and arker as we were walking around , so we decided to jog back to the car. About 500m from the car it poured down, we all sat in the car trying to dry off. So
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Dancers at the Indian show. we drove further along to the beach and the Gulf of Mexico as its called. Theres a little village there that got hammered by the storms, There are a few huge houses that have been rebuilt. Like the ones at Galveston they have the open style garage on the ground floor and all the living is on the next 2 or 3 floors. Alot of the sections have been cleared of debris but are now just empty, some have put travel trailers with a garage roof over them. But it would have been nothing compared to what they used to own down there. I still wouldn't want to be any where near there when a storm hits as they are right on the beach with absolutely no protection. We drove around further until we had to catch a ferry to cross the river, luckily we didn't have to wait too long to catch a ride. We stopped at the little fishing village of Cameron, where the shrimp boats were moored and Kylie and Angela bought a shrimp burger and a boudin( like a sausage) from a travel trailer come cafe. Next stop was the visitor center which had a great
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The wrought iron rail on the 'Gunbridge'. animated show about the wildlife and the local people of the area. On the way back to Lake Charles we saw alot of houses that have been rebuilt, the new regulations say you must build at least 20ft from the ground. Some people have built huge dirt mounds to put their houses on and others have just put them on stilts. Alot have just not rebuilt!! We went to the Mardi Gras museum next to see the amazing costumes that are worn during Mardi Gras week. They have a King and a Queen that get dressed up and these things are incredible. The money and time that have gone into them is mind boggling.Angela took us upstairs to meet a friend and a student of Gerry's ( her husbands) who is an artist. She has up to six people working for at times. While she is out on the road around America selling and promoting her art, they are there reproducing it and getting everthing out there. She gave us two signed copies of a print that she sells of Lake Charles. It has the two crossed guns right in the midle, I said to Angela if we had never
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New houses out at the beach. been told about the gun bridge all this would have meant nothing to us. That was really cool. Next we picked up Avery from school and Kylie and I took all the kids to Sam Houston state park to look at the cyprus trees in the eiry lakes with the spanish moss hanging off them, it looks like something in a Scooby Doo movie or a horror movie. Then we went out to meet Angela and Jennifer Parents, they live on a small 4 acre block out of town a bit. His 60 x 20ft shed fell down during the hurricane, so hes replaced it with smaller ones. One of which is a 20ft container stored with all his restored antiques. He reckons hes going to ride out the next hurricane in there as hes bolted it to the ground. We tried some of his homegrown sugar cane. He sliced off a thin piece for us and you chew it for a bit then spit it out. The sweet sugar taste gets mixed up with the woody plant taste. Different. Then he went and put his waders on and started collecting the 'crawfish' from his small pots around his hand
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Some of the larger ones that have been rebuilt. dug pond. Each pot would have had about 10-15 crawfish in them. They live under the soft puggy ground and the water of the pond. They look like a small crayfish about 3-4 inches long with a small tail that wraps around like a crayfish. So we took those inside and boiled them up in a big pot as you do. Just as it started to go dark we went outside to stand in the cold and watch a wooden box on a pole!! He has built the boxs for the bats and everynight , going on dusk they come out. There are hundreds of them squashed inside these thin boxs up the pole, They are about the size of golf balls when they are all tucked up inside there. Then they drop out one by one and fly off somewhere for the night, You had to be real quick to see them go. Jennifer had spent alot of time and effort in making us some real louisana dishs for dinner. 'Gumbo' was like a stew but on rice and had a boiled egg in it, it was delicious. It must have been , even my kids enjoyed it. Boudin,
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This boat got caught up in the hurricane for sure!! an egg and potato salad for the Celiacs which I loved of course and the huge pot of crawfish. You have to break off the tail of the crawfish, then pull of the outer shell part to get to the little bit of meat, then dip it in a sauce and away you go. You know that Kylie was the only one game out of our crowd to try it although Tori did get into pulling them apart for her. We tried egg nog aswell as some of the home made wine on offer. The night wouldn't be complete without a song and dance perfomance from Hayley and Avery. We often laughed when we heard the 'Helen Kellar' song on the radio and remembering Avery singing and dancing it to us in the Mall in Washington Dc on July 4th and all the people around us stopping to watch her performance. Shes 5 and she is addorable!! To me this was one of the best nights of our trip. This is what I hoped to experience around America, these people opened up their house and their hearts to us and made us feel so welcome it was awesome !! Thanks
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A shrimp boat. guys. Its one thing to see your country but another to meet the people.
Tuesday we packed up and headed for New Orleans. We stopped at a little visitor center down the road and they had a 2 year old aligator there for us to hold. It was funny as its scales look really rough and hard, yet they were really soft.Her mouth doesn't open much yet and they just feed it little aligator pellets, so it was very safe to hold. The rest of the drive was looking at fields and fields of sugar cane. It must grow all year around as the fields have sugar cane growing at different heights all over the place. Trucks on the road, tractor and trailers of it everywhere. At one part we were driving for miles over swampy marsh land and they have built these 2 lanes highways over it all only about 10ft above the swamp but it goes for miles. It just goes to show the engineering feats they have gone to live in this part of the country, I just wonder if nature is winning sometimes?
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