Getting Warmer! Zadar, Croatia

The Church of Saint Donat

A warm, sunny day welcomed us on our second day in Zadar. After a very nice hotel breakfast the bus took us to the old city center about 10 minutes away. A city guide walked us around the important historical points, Roman, medieval and various changes due to this conqueror or that. Many old structures had to be partially reconstructed as a result of the Allied bombing in WW II and the more recent Homeland War, as it is called.

Modern, odd, unfortunate architectural choices stood next to Roman ruins or 9th century churches. Despite this strange hodge podge, the old city is beautiful. Delightful restaurants, coffee bars and gelato shops share the space with the archeology museum, a must see museum of reliquaries run by an order of nuns, the remnants of the Roman Forum, pillars and

The choir singing in Saint Donat

foundation stones outlining ancient temples.

We were allowed into the 9th century Romanesque Church of Saint Donat to look around and to sing. It is a round building as was the style at the time. No longer a church, the acoustics were nevertheless, amazing. The choir stood in a circle in the center of the room and sang two medieval pieces perfect for the room. It was a stunning sound.

The reliquary museum was lovely.

Later we enjoyed a tour through a convent's museum of reliquaries and icons. Stunning! I left before about half the choir entertained the sisters with an impromptu concert in their chapel. These nuns are not able to leave their convent and so were unable to attend the concert scheduled for later in the day. So, the choir sang for them in their chapel much to the nun's delight. Leslie said she considered it the high point of the tour for her.

We walked from one end of the old city to the other seeing the sights including The Five Wells, The Land Gate, St. Anastasia Cathedral and The Loggia,, where the choir would sing their concert that evening.

Along the beautiful sea wall we sat for over an hour listening to the haunting sound of the sea organ. This work of art/natural musical instrument was fascinating. The ocean's ebb and flow fill pipes under water which curve up to the surface along the sea wall walkway. I am sure it is more complicated than that but the sound it creates is eerily beautiful. When a large boat comes by the volume increases and the chordal structure of the sound gets wilder and wilder.

Our polar bear club.

While we were enjoying the sea organ's concert, a half dozen students from the choir decided to jump into the Adriatic. They'd gone back to the hotel and changed. They all jumped in together and it didn't take long for most to come right back out. It was cold but a few made repeated leaps and even swam about before dragging themselves out, drying off and dressing warmly.

Our favorite gelato place in Zadar.

We sampled a couple of different gelatos in town. Our favorite was in a little shop along the central walk way near the cathedral. I loved the ice cold tartness of the lemon gelato.

About 2:00 I decided I'd had enough and walked back to the hotel where I took a lovely nap. Leslie stayed wandering the streets more, eventually heading back herself stopping at a coffee bar along the sea wall for a cuppa and the view.



One of the real five wells.

At 6:00 the choir boarded the bus to go into the city again for their concert at The Loggia. This old building was built by the Venicians who once occupied much of Croatia centuries ago. This building, like the famous Loggia in Venice, was the place where judges worked.

Today the Loggia building has been remodeled inside with a contemporary look. The main room is not more than 30 feet square, with a vaulted ceiling, hardly big enough to hold the choirs and the crowd. With the hall empty, the acoustics were nice. With the 60 or 70 that were in the room for the concert, it was nearly dead acoustically.

A Klappa group suddenly broke into song.

It was another great concert by the WWU choir, receiving that traditional rhythmic applause Europeans give a performer they really appreciate. An encore was demanded and when the choir broke into a familiar Croatian folksong, the audience went wild. The local choir oddly chose to sing all American pop music. Gifts were exchanged as is the tradition, lots of double cheek kisses and then folks started heading for the door. But in a back corner of the room a group of seven Croatian men began singing what we had hoped we would here before we left Croatia. Full-throated, lusty Klappa singing!

My dinner at The Five Wells

This was one of those moments I have written about in my blog over the years. A serendipitous moment when you are present and part of something very special and, as usual, I teared up. The choir stood with their mouths hanging open, amazed at what they heard. I walked passed several students who were obviously overcome by what they were seeing and hearing and said, "This is why we travel!"  They slowly nodded, still slack jawed. As if they suddenly and profoundly understood and they would be forever changed.

Leslie and I went out to dinner at the Five Wells Restaurant she had eaten in the night before. I had an octopus and chickpea salad and lamb goulash that was drop dead delicious. Octopus is a specialty here and I had it several times in a variety of preparations.

Moonlight over Croatia.

We walked the 15 minutes home, stopping along the way to take some night photos and enjoy the full moon. We slept so soundly!

 

 

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On To Croatia!

The next morning our intent was to head to Pula, Croatia, a long bus journey of about 6 hours. After the conflicts in this region, the old Yugoslavia was finally chopped up into smaller counties. But each demanded, and needed, coastal access. So Slovenia, Bosnia Herzegovina and Croatia each made concessions and, though Croatia wound up with the lion's share of the coastline, a journey down the Dalmatian coast does require a traveler to briefly leave, enter another country and then, a few kilometers on, re-enter Croatia. On our way today we were to pass briefly through Slovenia. A new country! But before that we had to get drive through an hour and a half across Italy and cross the border into Croatia.

This is a photo taken the next day actually. Note the snow
at the side of the road.

We got within 15 km of the border with Croatia when traffic came to a complete halt. Slowly inching forward for the next 3 hours we seldom went more than 5-10 mph. It took us two hours to go 3 km. Our schedule was shot to hell and we were not allowed to use the bathroom on the bus. Some explanation was given that, though this bus was built in Germany, here in Croatia, the bathroom can not be used. What? Oh, well. So our fearless leader, told the tour guide that this decision would have to mean more stops along the way so folks could use a public bathroom. We crept on through snow, sleet, rain and an

One of several tunnels we passed through. This one was
four km long. Note the icy road surface

ice storm. The freeway was closed at times and be had to drive across country, sometimes along hair raising cliffs on an icy road. Finally, we got back on the freeway only to drive passed miles of semi trucks all stopped in the slow lane. We kept going somehow. Our guise was a nervous wreck. Or driver looked as cool as a cucumber!

We finally pulled over in some small town after Leslie insisted it was time for a bathroom stop. The guide was far less accommodating than the Venice guide but she relented.

The snow kept falling. More slow highway speeds. We continued to creep along sliding occasionally but making slow, steady progress. The guide called ahead. The city tour had to be canceled due to our lateness of arrival. Then we started figuring out whether or not we'd have to drive right to the concert!

By around 1:30 the bus finally edged across the border into Slovenia. A new country! At the border we had to stop for a few minutes while a border guard came aboard and stamped all our passports which excited all of us since that doesn't often happen in Europe anymore except at arrival and departure in an airport.  Right across the border our driver pulled over in front of a roadside restaurant. It looked questionable but turned out to be the best food we'd had up until then.  Skafye was its name. I had an insalada di pulpo, octopus salad. Perfectly cooked octopus on a bed of greens and I dressed it with the traditional olive oil, red wine vinegar and a little salt and pepper. Others at my table had pastas with various sauces--bolognese, and a delicious truffle sauce that was the winner.

Having had a meal in Slovenia, we could officially claim that we had been to that new country.

Late in the afternoon, the weather began to clear and moderate. We finally arrived in Pula and our hotel. The hotel was supposed to be a resort. If it is it is more like what I would imagine an East German or Russian resort from the communist era would look like. Spartan furnishings, hard beds, the heat was turned off at a certain hour. At one point we turned the water on in the bathroom sink and out ran brown water! I was glad we didn't get up to get a drink in the middle of the night!

 

The Franciscan Church in Pula. So cold!

Dressed in their formal wear the choir re-boarded the bus for the drive to the church for the first exchange concert, this one with a choir from the University of Pula. It had gotten dark and we had to walk a quarter mile or so up hill to the the performance site--the Franciscan Church of Pula. It looked very old, was all stone with a wooden beamed ceiling and very little ornamentation. It had heat but you'd never know it. It was VERY cold! Our guide told us she didn't think many people would show up since it was so cold. She was so wrong, the church was 3/4 filled with a very enthusiastic crowd.

The Pula choir was made up of about 20 singers only 5 of whom were men. They sang Croatian music which was fun to hear. They only sang for 10 minutes.

The WWU choir took the stage and wowed the crowd with 45 minutes of outstanding music from a wide variety of periods. Of course, the audience was especially appreciative of the American selections. They ended their performance with Hall Johnson's arrangement of, Ain't Got Time to Die. The audience applauded wildly.

Following an informal meeting between the two choirs we walked the short distance to our bus (this time down hill) and were whisked back to the hotel for a late supper. It was welcome but reaffirmed my feeling that we were staying in an old communist era hotel. The food had been sitting on the steam tables all evening and was dried out, pretty basic fare, too. When something ran out it was not replaced. We had to argue with the staff before finally getting a carafe of tap water.

Many students stayed up late in the bar area having fun with other hotel residence, many of whom seemed to be their age. We headed off to bed. Whether an accident or planned, we wound up in a two bedroom apartment. All I can say, beyond what I said earlier about the decor, was that it was big.

After a rather fitful night's sleep on the hard bed, the alarm awoke us for second day in Croatia. We'd packed the night before so we could sleep in a bit more. Breakfast was in the same hotel cafeteria in which we'd had the previous evening's supper. The breakfast didn't change my opinion of the place.  

We drove into Pula for a short morning of sightseeing before heading to our next destination. We had a walking tour through the old town ending with the not-to-be-missed Roman amphitheater. That is what they insisted upon calling it and it is how it is used today, but its history is most definitely that of an coliseum complete with animals and gladiators. Built in 1 A.D., it is either well preserved or well restored, depending on the explanation you listen too. Today it is used only for summer concerts. We took a group photo in the center of the old coliseum, and then went down the ancient steps leading under the arena floor where the animals were kept and the gladiators prepared. Today it is a museum explaining the architecture and housing relics from the period including lots of ancient amphora. Not having been to Rome yet, this was a real thrill for me to see. Definitely a highlight of the trip.

Back on the bus we braced ourselves for the 6 hour journey ahead to the region of the Dalmatian coast where we would spend a couple of days in the city of Zadar.  We made stops every couple of hours for toilet breaks or to have lunch. Our drive took us through the mountains which were covered with the fresh new snow we'd experienced in the ice storm the previous day.  Today it was cold, crisp but sunny and beautiful.

Our travel day finally came to an end when we arrived in front of our hotel in Zadar. It was a beautiful resort hotel sitting right across the street from the Adriatic Sea. Our room had a view of the beach and out onto the sea. Even the room was lovely. Nothing like the communist era accommodations of our previous night. This room reflected the place. It had a nautical look with lots of warm wood accents and was very nicely appointed.

Amphora in the "basement" of the coliseum in Pula.

The choir was surprised by being greeted in the hotel lobby by several members of the choir they will share a performance with tomorrow night. What a kind thing to do. They were warm and happy to see us.  They insisted on taking us on a walk around the old town center, a 10 minute walk from the hotel. Leslie and a former WWU grad student, along on this trip as a member of the tour choir, accepted their invitation and headed off within minutes of our arrival. I chose to stay in for the evening to catch up on my journaling and process the photos I'd taken so far.

 

I  was fine with it. I find I get to a point where I just need a break from people from time to time and relish the peace and quiet, the calm, the by-myself-time. Leslie is very supportive of my odd

The view out our hotel window in Pula. 

little quirk, though I am sure she wishes I would tag along on her high-speed jaunts. She gets a lot more sightseeing done as a result of being able to go at her own pace.

She rolled in  a few hours later having had a wonderful time and chattering away about what she'd seen. We slept very well that night and awakened this next morning to a mild, sunny day which would be filled with a walking tour of old Pula and what would turn out to be a special experience at that evening's concert. 

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Ice Cold, Beautiful Venice!

Our flight, though a long 10 hours from Seattle to Frankfurt, was uneventful. Watched a couple of movies, they fed us twice with predictably terrible airline food, but it gave us something to do.

The real adventure began in the Frankfurt airport.  My advice is to avoid that airport if at all possible. It is sado-masochist's dream come true. We landed and, after descending the portable stair system they dragged up to the exit, we were immediately herded onto buses that took us to a terminal where we were herded down one long hallway, then through security all over again, then back down the same hallway only on the other side of the wall, then down four flights of stairs, since the one elevator couldn't begin to handle the demand, then down a VERY long hallway at least a quarter mile long ( I guess we walked under a runway) and back up four flights of stairs. No, not done yet. We were finally in the correct terminal, however, another quarter mile walk was necessary to get to the far end of the A terminal and our gate. By the time we got there they were already beginning the boarding process.  We poured ourselves into our seats, hot and exhausted. The experience was like being a rat caught in a maze. Yikes!

Landing at the Venice airport an hour and a half later, we again had to board a bus. This time, however, the bus drove us all of about 100 yards, and stopped. The doors opened right into the baggage claim area. Laughter erupted inside the bus as everyone realized the absurdity of the situation.



Our Venice guide, Julia greeting us in Venice.

Luggage in hand, we went through the doors that separate passengers from those waiting for them and there, blessedly, was our guide, Julia, holding up a sign--"Western Washington Choir" and smiling warmly.

 

San Marco square

Julia gathered us up and got us on the bus that would take us to the boat landing. From there we took a vaporetto on an hour long cruise past some of the islands around Venice. She described what we were seeing as we went along. It was a great boat ride and landed us only a few hundred yards from San Marco Square. We walked across four bridges toward the square and when the square opened up to the view of the students, there was an audible "Ahhhh"! from them.  The sun was shining and though quite cold, Venice looked her wonderful.

As we walked along towards San Marco, we were surprised by Ed and Carla Rutschman, professors at WWU who had showed up to greet us. We knew they were in Venice and planned to attend the Palm Sunday concert, but this was a nice surprise.

Typical square tucked away and waiting to be discovered.

Once the students had been given their instructions for where and when to meet, we walked around Venice with Ed and Carla as our guides.  We grazed along the way buying a slice of pizza here, a cone filled with gelato there and even some delicious frommage!

At 6:30 an exhausted and happy group of students met at the two pillars in San Marco near the gondola station to walk over to dinner along the water front. We dined on a primi of ravioli and a secondi of roasted chicken and potatoes.  Our dolce was two more scoops of gelato.

Some students, myself included, were actually falling asleep at the dinner table. We took a shorter boat ride over to the island where we could catch our bus. The ride to the hotel was very quiet. No one could get their room key fast enough. Within minutes, everyone was in their room and quiet. No noise or shenanigans tonight. Only very sleepy people scooting into their warm beds. We did the same but prefaced that with a nice hot shower. 24 hours in the same clothes, running through airports, walking all over Venice in the cold....I don't know how anyone wouldn't have dreamed of a hot shower and a warm bed.  We went to sleep immediately and slept through the night.

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Waiting to board our vaporetto.

The next morning gave us a chance to take a better look at the place where we were staying. It was actually a lovely hotel. Very well appointed. We all met in the breakfast room at 7:45 where students entertained us with stories of figuring out how the European electrical and plumbing systems worked. We breakfasted on cheese, ham, croissant, fruit and eggs. The coffee was delicious. It was wonderful to indulge in a typical European breakfast.

It is so fun to watch students who had never experienced any of this before, especially those who are from more sheltered backgrounds, like myself on my first trip to Europe, so long ago. However,  I'd say that a sheltered American in 1972 knew significantly less about the world than one in 2013 what with our access to so much

more information today.

We boarded our bus again for the trip back to the island where we could catch a boat and retrace our steps from the night before. This morning there was a light but steady rain greeting us in San Marco Square and it was cold. Students had brought along there formal wear for the concert mass they would perform later in the day. We walked a short distance to a store room our guide had arranged for and dropped off the items they would not need until the concert.

Students took turns singing Italian arias while
riding the gondolas. The gondoliers were impressed!

After giving them their instructions for the day, everyone walked off in different directions.

We had prearranged to meet the Rutschman's for lunch at noon. They treated us at a place just off San Marco Square. We each got the €16 tourist meal which turned out just fine.

A city tour preceded an afternoon gondola ride. Our group was scattered between 7-8 gondolas, about 6 per boat. Students took turns singing Italian arias and other art songs they knew. Scattered applause was offered from along the shore and above on the bridges where small crowds gathered when they heard the lovely singing echoing off the buildings in the narrow canals.  It was wet, cold and wonderful. It was magical, just the way a gondola ride should be.



Entrance to Saint Mark's.

At around 5 we headed over to the church to get changed for the concert. The same two guys behind the counter tried their best to hurry everyone. We walked behind San Marco and, plopped our belongings in the seldom seen crypt below the church and headed upstairs.

I left the group to go out front and see the vespers service before their mass.  Very uninspiring. 45 minutes of a cantor, seemingly bored stiff based on his delivery, exchanging unrecognizable phrases with the congregation.

The mass began and the choir sang beautifully! Ubi Caritas, There is a Balm in Giliad and a couple of other pieces all performed in the appropriate places during the mass.

The WWU choir sings a mass in San Marco!

The congregation indicated its appreciation at the end of the service after the priest introduced the guest choir. Leslie had hoped the choir could sing a few extra pieces after the mass but the minute the mass was over someone hit the light switches and the place was all but dark. Thanks, now get out! Friendly place. We'd been told the choir couldn't sing more pieces because they were having special tours for special guests after the mass. Baloney! They were closing up shop.

Dinner was at a little restaurant a few minutes walk from the church. Nothing to write home about. A lasagna al Forno, a veal cutlet dry and tasteless without any sauce with a few roasted potatoes and a dish of hazelnut ice cream which was the high point of the meal.

We walked back to our boat that would take us to the bus. The high tide had come in with a vengeance  and the elevated walkways, I had seen pictures of in magazine stories, had been put up to allow us to keep our feet dry. The sea was coming in over the sea wall and washing across the walkways. It was raining sideways and so cold.

The WWU choir loved their ride in a gondola.
Nothing could dampen their spirits. Not even
the cold, rainy weather.

A boat took us back to the island to our bus and dropped us off. The skipper was obviously in a big hurry hollering at everyone to get on quickly, a dangerous thing to do under the wet and stormy conditions. The dock was slippery and rocking due to the tidal surge. Then he insisted we hurry off when we arrived.

Cold, wet, freezing and exhausted,  we marched over to the bus station where we found...no bus!  The driver had forgotten the pass to be able to cross the Freedom Bridge to the island and had to wait for someone to bring it to him. So we sat on the cold concrete floor and waited, and waited and waited--for an hour.

 

We slept the sleep of the dead again. Our last night in Venice. Up early, we breakfasted in the hotel, then boarded the bus that would take us on the next leg of our adventure and to Pula, Croatia! A new country!

Europe Tour 2013

This is Europe trip number...I've lost count. My first trip was the summer of 1972 with the Merced Community College Concert Choir. It was the first time I'd ever been out of the country and the first time I had ever been in an airplane.  I was a freshman in college and been invited to audition and join the college's choir on its trip to the UK and the Music Eisteddfod in Llangollen, Wales.

 

The cost of the trip as I recall was all of $100. Even then it was a lot of money for me to come up with, I managed through my jobs and the generosity of grandparents to make it happen. The choir also did a lot of fundraising to get the cost down to that small amount. Long story short, I went and despite being young and naive in the way I personally experienced the trip, it was life changing.

Our director LGC and members of the WWU Concert Choir
waiting for our flight at SeaTac.

Fast forward to 1976. I was now a member of the choir at CSC, Stanislaus in Turlock, California. This time we went on a grand tour of Europe. England, again, but also Belgium, Germany, Austria and France. We, and by that I mean Leslie and I, (we were already together by then) had decided to extend our trip on our own by another week or so, an option we would take on most all of our tours to Europe thereafter. We drove with a friend through more parts of France and added the country of Switzerland when we toured through the Jungfrau and some of the major cities.

Our world travel went through a bit of a dry spell after that until Leslie started teaching at the university level. Then the tours began in earnest--every 3 years on average. Our last one was a fantastic tour of Argentina and Uruguay.

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Members of the WWU Concert Choir about to board
 our flight to Venice, Italy.

Now, here we are on a plane headed for Europe once again. 40 folks in all. A Lufthansa flight from Seattle over the polar route to Frankfurt after which will follow a short hop over the Alps to Venice where the tour will actually begin.

The choir will sing a Palm Sunday mass in Saint Marks Cathedral, then board a bus that will take us through Bosnia Herzegovina, Serbia and Croatia, exciting for us since these are three countries we have never been to.

Each stop along the way will include a concert with another local choir. After our tour 3 years ago to Argentina and Uruguay, Leslie was convinced it was a great way to tour. Her students meet other people, they sing songs for each other including traditional music from their countries. It was an amazing experience to watch. We hope to replicate that experience with this tour.

The tour is short though. It is during WWU's Spring break so it only lasts 12 days including the travel to and from, and there is no opportunity to extend our stay. So it will be short and sweet.

 

Over the next couple of weeks I'll be documenting the trip here on A Fork in the Road so subscribe now and don't miss a single episode.

Goodbye FaceBook

A brief explanation for my having left Facebook, in case anyone even noticed. Actually, I haven't really left. I deactivated my page and created another hidden from everyone for one reason. I administrate another FaceBook page for a local organization and to continue administrating that page required that I continue to have a personal FaceBook page. It did not require that my personal page be public, only that it exist.

So, why did I abandon my public page? Good question. FaceBook is a tremendously popular medium for communication between friends, family and especially people you might not hear from at all if it didn't exist.

But I came to believe it also to be addictive and that it has contributed to an unhealthy freedom for folks to speak in ways they would never were they face to face with many of those who read some of their remarks. A lack of awareness of boundaries, of space seems to have disappeared too often in the world and is never more obvious sometimes than in the comments and postings on FaceBook.

Many of my FaceBook friends were students or former students from my elementary school, some as young as 10 years old. It was important to me, as a teacher, to keep the content and discourse on my page civil and safe for those children I knew were watching. Despite my occasional pleas on my page to please think of the children, too often I would discover entries I would need to hide and the habits of some even necessitated I unfriend them.

The last straw was when a "friend" I had asked not to use inappropriate language on my page continued to and I was forced to unfriend him, he began a series of abusive messages which were rude, mean and foul. He was angry that I was attempting to censor people, an accusation that, as far as the content on my page was concerned, was absolutely true. But even more important I was trying to encourage a civil discourse. I did not respond to his venomous comments but they continued. I reported his abuses to the FaceBook authorities but I had had enough.

It was a combination of things really. Everything I have mentioned above plus my concern that I just spent too much time on the site and began to realize that all that time kept me from being more active in other ways arguably more productive. So, the decision.

I am very concerned that some friends, including those I had actually re-discovered on FaceBook, might disappear from my life again. I am not quite sure what to do about that yet. E-mail and the telephone are certainly options. I am encouraging that. I don't know what I'll do exactly yet but I know that reactivating my old account just isn't an option.

An Okie Returns to Oklahoma--My 48th State!

I dropped Leslie off at the Sheraton Hotel in Dallas, Texas, the site of the 2013 national convention of the American Choral Conductor's Association. She has attended these biennial gatherings for many, many years. I've tagged along on parts of a couple of them over the years, the last being in L.A. where her choir from Western Washington University was invited to sing. It was an incredible experience to sit in an audience of her peers when they gave her and her choir a rousing standing ovation.

But today, I was headed north to visit another state I had never been to--Oklahoma. I am especially interested in visiting Oklahoma because my mother's side of the family left during the Dust Bowl era. My mother was born there and her parents, my grandparents, left there with my infant mother around 1936, having suffered through years of dust storms, loosing their farm and heading to California as a part of the Okie rush to the promised land of California. 

As I crossed the Oklahoma border, I noticed a visitor's center and pulled off I-35 to pick up some brochures and a map. I was greeted by a lovely women who chatted me up. On discovering my family connection to Oklahoma, she said, "welcome home," with an Oklahoma twang reminiscent of my grandma Welch, a voice I hadn't heard in some 30 years. 

She handed me a free map of Oklahoma, invited me to grab some brochures and a cup of coffee. I did as instructed and was soon back in my silver Jeep rental car heading back up I-35 towards Oklahoma City. Along the highway I could see here and there, oil derricks, some still gently rocking up and down pulling oil from the earth. Most sat idle and rusted.

Gene Autry, The singin' Cowboy

A noticed on the map a site for a Gene Autry Museum. It wasn't far off the highway so I made a detour. After about 7 miles a sign looking like Gene Autry pointed down a dirt road. I turned off and watched the red Oklahoma dust kick up behind the car. After another 2 miles another Gene Autry sign pointed to the left and indicated it was only another mile and a half. Feeling a little anxious, I nevertheless pressed on. What could be out here in the middle of nowhere that could have any interest?

Gene Autry for those of you who don't recognize the name was known as the Singin' Cowboy, hugely popular in America in movies, TV, radio and rodeos in the 30's, 40's and 50's. Check out the links above if you want to learn more about him.

The Gene Autry Baptist Church in Gene Autry, Oklahoma.

I nearly drove passed the little town and museum. I came into what may at one time have been a bit of a settlement but certainly wasn't much now. There was a Gene Autry Baptist Church, a Gene Autry community center and a Gene Autry Oklahoma Museum. It turns out Autry owned 1,200 acres of land around here known as the Flying A Ranch and the town actually changed its name in 1941 to Gene Autry. He visited several times over the years. I can't imagine anyone wanting to spend much time. But you know what they say, everyone has to be from somewhere. I suppose that there is always a draw, even if small, back to your roots. 

I arrived in Oklahoma City and checked into my hotel. Still having the bulk of the day left to explore, I remembered one of the brochures was about Route 66.  It contained a beautiful map and points of interest along the route. My mother and grandparents took this road all the way to California in the 30's. There was no freeway system such as we have today in America. It was a two lane road that stopped at every stop sign in every little town it went through from Chicago to L.A. I wondered if I would be retracing any of my family's steps to California if I drove even a bit of the old "Mother Road"? I decided I needed to take a drive up the old highway.

Old filling station currently housing a motorcycle museum

I headed out of town in the general direction of Tulsa to the northeast since the map in the brochure indicated quite a number of historic buildings and sites from that era along that stretch. It turned out not to be as easy as the brochure showed to even find the old road. I cris-crossed farm roads for nearly an hour before finally stumbling onto the old two-lane. Just up the road a bit I found the first sign I was, indeed on historic route 66--a historic sign marker.  I headed east driving through small, run down communities, past old shacks, ruins of buildings that were probably thriving, well maintained places of business or homes or farms back in the hey day of the highway.

The Lincoln Motel in Chandler. Restored and open for business

Occasionally I slowed down and even pulled off the road to take a photo of a still surviving, or restored building. Many were marked as historic remnants of the era. In Chandler, Oklahoma I hit a gold mine. In this still thriving farm community I found one of the old motels. It had been restored beautifully. It was the Lincoln Motel and was open for business.

Old filling station being restored.

I also found a service station, now a motorcycle museum, a beautiful round barn from that era and several old downtown buildings that had been around in those days. At one end of town I found the old armory had been restored and turned into a very nice little interactive Route 66 museum.   I went inside and was given a brief tour by a lady who then sent me into the main room which was divided up into several places to sit and watch a video about the route.

Interactive museum in chandler, Oklahoma

After finishing in the museum I went into the gift shop to look around. I bought a Route 66 coffee mug and paid my admission fee to the same lady, the only employee.

I drove about 50-60 miles of the route, then turned around and drove slowly back the same way, this time taking it all the way back into Oklahoma City. The route heads straight at the Oklahoma capitol building in the city, then curves around it and heads west into the sunset.

I wonder whether I traveled any of the route my mother and grandparents traveled as they left their home and headed west. I'd like to think I did, that perhaps they stopped at that filling station outside little Chandler for a few cents of gas, or that they, at least, glanced at it. I'll never know of course, but it is a romantic notion to think that I may have retraced a few of their steps.

round barn outside  Chandler, Oklahoma

Back in town I began to wonder why it took them so long to leave this place. Even without the dust storms and tough life on the farm, this town is just ugly.  I went to bed with only one more goal in mind before heading back to Texas--visiting the Oklahoma City National Memorial. 

The next morning, I slept in, had breakfast and headed into town to visit the memorial. At this site, where the Murrah Federal building once stood, an American terrorist blew up much of the building. Today, a beautiful tribute to the victims, men, women and children stands in the building's place. A park, dotted with bronze and glass chairs sit on a grassy area, one for each victim and small ones for each of the child victims.

The grounds of the memorial. 

The museum is a moving, wonderful tribute to the victims. It transports the visitor through the events of that day and those following in chronological order. Beginning in a conference room mock up, you hear a recorded meeting of the Oklahoma State Water Board taking place near the federal building.  Suddenly, you hear the actual explosion, the wall in front of you lights up with photos of all the victims and the audible chaos continues. A door opens and you enter into a room where the chaos continues with aerial  film footage of the building and of the injured and the dead being tended to. The museum covers the investigation, the arrest and trial of the perpetrators and the aftermath of the tragedy both locally and nationally. It was a very moving experience and one well worth visiting if you should ever find yourself in Oklahoma City.

Each of these chairs represents a victim and where they were found

After my visit I headed back south the way I'd come. I arrived back in Dallas in the late afternoon and got the key Leslie had left to her room.

The next morning I decided to visit the one place I knew I had to see when I got to Dallas. I was only just 10 years old but this event had probably the strongest impact on the early lives of the kids of my generation. We all know where we were when this tragedy took place and it was super imprinted onto our consciousness due to the massive coverage it received on television and endless replay of certain key moments in the events that followed.

The old Texas Book Depository Building. The 6th floor
corner window above the entrance
was where the shots were fired.

I speak, of course, of the assassination of President John Kennedy. He was the first president of which I had any conscious knowledge. His  assassination shocked our nation, sent it into a period of mourning that left it reeling into a historic period of violence in our nation. We truly believed we could do anything. After that we descending into years of killing our leaders, race riots, cities being burned and, of course, there was that war over in Vietnam. I believe it also marked the apex of our country's confidence in itself.  It was a terrible, depressing era.

The grassy knoll. In the street is an X marking the first shot
that hit the president.

I parked the car and walked the few blocks over to the the site of the tragedy--Dealey Plaza. I turned the corner and there in front of me was the old Texas School Book Depository Building. My mind had always seen this place in black and white because that was how we saw it on TV at the time. Now, it suddenly shifted into living color. My eyes knew just where to move their gaze. The 6th floor, corner window. It was slightly open, just as it has been on that November day in 1963. I froze staring up at that window, then my gaze shifted to the left. There was the grassy knoll and the street down which the president's limousine slowly moved, with the president and Jackie in the back seat smiling and waving to their adoring fans.

The memorial to the president sits in Dealey Plaza.

Around me, tourists, parents with ill-behaving children running and screaming stood snapping photos and tried to explain to their bored children why this was such an important place.  Others looked around for the building, then tried to figure out which window it was. Another women asked me where the "X" was? "The X," I asked? "You know, where Kennedy got shot?" "Oh," I said, "that would be down the street that way." I pointed gesturing with my hand. I knew exactly where everything was. It was so indelibly etched in my mind 50 years ago.

I crossed the street and walked down the hill down which the president's limo had traveled and there in the middle of the street was--The "X." I stared at it, then up at the window, back up the street and saw the whole thing happen again in my mind. Across the street the grassy knoll stretched up to the same fence and parking lot, the overpass below where the president's limo sped him to the hospital with the secret service agent climbing over the back trunk of the car to get to the president's slumping body, the onlookers standing along the street wondering what was happening as the first shock settled in that some of them had just seen the president shot.  One of them, a Mr. Zappruder, had even taken film of that moment.

I couldn't bring myself to go into the Depository building. There was a museum, The 6th Floor Museum and they would take you up to that 6th floor. I just couldn't do it.

Out on the street I became aware of the circus-like atmosphere. Hawkers were selling souvenir newspapers. The worst offender was a guy who stood right in front of the depository building selling videos and books and lecturing the crowd gathered around him on the morbid details of entry and exit wounds and encouraging the old conspiracy theories.  It didn't seem to me at all appropriate. But our society does believe in the freedom of speech with little emphasis on any of the responsibilities that go along with it. Of course, a capitalist society shouldn't expect anything less, should it?

I walked away back to the spot across the street where I'd first laid eyes on the colorized version of this scene, turned and looked back one last time. The event played in my head once more. I lowered my eyes, turned and walked away.

I returned a couple of days later, this time with Leslie who hadn't seen the site and needed too.

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We stayed at the Sheraton here in downtown Dallas. She was ungraded to an executive suite, an amazing room! It is understandable that you would stay in a downtown hotel since the convention is here and you want to be in the proximity of events. Beyond that it would seem it is nearly always a bad idea to stay in a high-end hotel.

As one example, I am sitting here in the hotel restaurant having lunch, if you can call it that. There is very little within easy walking distance of the hotel so I came downstairs to eat here. $18 for lunch. For that I am sitting in a spacious dining room, well decorated, with ambivalent service and looking out a window onto a patio area currently being used for storage. One item just blew over into the landscaping. Lovely view. The floor has not been swept for quite a while. There are bits of food here and there under tables.

The food? Terrible! The salad is lifeless, the sandwich has obviously being sitting around too long. No presentation. I could expect better in a Denny's for less than half the price.

Everything in these "high end" hotels costs at least twice as much as you'd pay if you simply drove a ways or stayed in one of the less expensive hotel chains.

I have mentioned before that we normally stay in a Choice Hotel property when traveling. Free breakfast, free wi-fi, free parking, free use of the hotel facilities and the price is half or even a third what you pay in these high end hotels. Yes, there is the convenience in this case to be near where the events are happening. But I have no wi-fi access without paying a high price per day. I am paying $21 per day to park.

Last night I accompanied Leslie down to the sports bar for a quick dinner, where they had a buffet for $14. The food was the same as they give away at most bar's happy hours--pizza, chicken wings, etc.

So think twice before choosing one of those fancy hotels. Think about the hidden costs?  We stay out on the edge of town. Even with paying for public parking when we drive in to see the sites, we don't come even remotely close to what we pay when staying in these big fancy places.

_______________________

We'll be home for only four days before heading out again, this time to Europe. The choir from WWU will head to Venice for a concert in Saint Marks, then by bus through Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. It'll be a whirlwind tour by previous standards--only 12 days, but it will take us through territory we've never been. Three new countries!

Stay tuned for my blog report about our experiences there.