Virginia, Part 4 (taking place in the state of North Carolina)

Asheville, North Carolina. Home of Biltmore Manor, one of the most expensive tourist destinations north of Disney World. (Although admittedly in better taste.)

Biltmore Manor started out as the home of the Vanderbilt family at the end of the 1800s. George Vanderbilt, the grandson of Cornelius Vanderbilt, opened the home to family and friends in 1895. He got married shortly thereafter and started a family of his own.

Like a surprising number of historic homes open to the public on this trip, Biltmore is a work in progress. The staff is still designing and reconstructing the look of several of the rooms (which are not available for touring at this time).

Three stories plus parts of the basement are open to the public, and for once we were allowed to take photos, as long as the flash was turned off. So I can show you the pictures, and let them mostly speak for themselves.

This is the indoor Winter Garden area just inside the front door. The statue in the middle is "Boy Stealing Geese".





This is the library, complete with ladders, "shelving carts", and comfy chairs.






A scan of the Tapestry Room




Ceiling details were a big deal when this place was constructed, apparently. At left is a close-up of one panel of ceiling in the Breakfast Room (I think).




The Grand Staircase, made of marble, connects all levels. Fortunately, there is an elevator for the less ambulatory among us. The second floor hosts an exhibit on restoration and archaeological efforts to recreate the wallpaper, furnishings, and purposes of various room and possessions. Quite a bit of effort apparently goes into furnishing a room before it's open to the public.




One of the guest bedrooms on the second floor.








Mrs. Vanderbilt's bedroom. Husbands and wives usually maintained separate rooms during this time, since it was unacceptable for a maid to enter a man's room, and for a male servant to enter a woman's room.

And, in the interests of equal time, Mr. Vanderbilt's bedroom.







And to give people a look at the outside of the front entrance, I'll leave you with one of the rare posed parental shots on this trip. This is Mom and Dad waving to Barbara V. from church. Because she asked for it.

Virginia, Part 3 (which looks a lot like the state of Tennessee...).

We set up camp in Greeneville, Tennessee for a couple of days, which allowed us time to visit the Andrew Johnson National Historic Site. Johnson was the 17th president of the United States, taking on the job after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in 1865. Whether Johnson was a good president or not depends on who you ask, apparently. I was taught in school that he was a weak president; the displays at the Historic Site praised him for his defense of US Constitution. Either way, the four stops included in the site were worth the visit.

Above is Johnson's home in Greeneville, both before and after he served as President. We took a guided tour of both floors. This was where he and his family lived during his political career, both and before his time as U.S. President. Our guide mentioned facts about the house and family, including the story of the woman who saved a painting of Johnson by removing it from the house, wrapping it in newspaper, and using it as a screen in front of her fireplace. There is also uncomplimentary graffiti left by Confederate soldiers who occupied the house for while. The Historic Site staff members left some of it in place. During the war, the house was damaged several times; when the family restored it, they also added on to accommodate children and grandchildren.

At right is Johnson's tailor shop. Johnson's father died when Andrew was a young boy, and his mother apprenticed both him and his older brother to a tailor when Andrew was seven. Although he broke his apprenticeship by running away before his time was served, Johnson did end up making a living at tailoring for several years. His wife worked with him on his reading skills, and he eventually hired someone to read to him while he worked. After a while he discovered a talent for debate, and soon many local people visited his shop for the discussions. This was the beginning of his political career. The shop is enclosed by the Visitors Center of the National Site.

Another stop in the Johnson visit was at his tomb at the top of Monument Hill overlooking Greeneville. Johnson bought the land for the cemetery in 1852. He died in 1875. Johnson wanted to be buried wrapped in the US flag with the US Constitution under his head. The monument is at left.


There is also a replica of Johnson's birth home, located across the street from his family home. You can walk through the one-room-plus-attic house and view period furnishings.

And speaking of the family home, that's here at right. This is where the Johnson family lived while he was a tailor, from the 1830s to 1851. Displays inside depict life in the early to mid 1800s, including slavery, housekeeping, and photos of the family. We discovered that one of Johnson's grandchildren went to school in Binghamton, NY! We're trying to track down the school name, as is one of the guides at the National Historic Site.

The other stop in Tennessee was Pigeon Forge, home of Dollywood. This proved to be one of the least enjoyable parts of our stay. Let's see, where to start....

We pulled into town to look for our hotel, which was apparently very new. Unable to find it, we stopped at a place proclaiming "Tourist Info". Mom got out and went into the building. We waited. And waited. And waited. Finally I went in and found her talking to some guy who was promising her free tickets to Dollywood. She was supposed to pay him $20, "so we know you will stop and pick up the tickets; you'll get the $20 back", and we had to schedule a time at either 1 p.m. or 3 p.m. to get them. "We don't advertise, because we figure if you have a good experience, you'll come back, and tell your friends." Mom also had to certify that she understood English, was over 30 years of age, and a couple of other things. Anyone else getting suspicious yet?

The guy gave us directions to the place to pick up the tickets, as well as directions to the hotel. We discovered the 10 miles of construction on the only highway we could take to get to this location, and to Dollywood. Getting anywhere was a nightmare. The traffic was unbelievable (of course, it was a Saturday...). We arrived at the spot 12 minutes late. When I saw the "Bluegreen Timeshares" sign, I knew what was going on. We were supposed to sit through, according to the woman inside, a 90- to 120-minute presentation on timeshares and other related nonsense. We were late, and were going to need to fill out this paperwork, like, RIGHT NOW! Funny that the first guy didn't mention any of this part. (Not!)

Mom refused, and requested a refund. It was pretty obvious to me that the real reason these people didn't advertise was because they preyed primarily on tourists, and so that we couldn't go back and sue them for false advertising. Mom did get a refund check, which we were told we could cash at any Citizens National Bank, or could deposit when we got home. We opted for the former, and took the check across the street to the local Wal-Mart, which had a branch of the bank inside. The bank teller glanced at the check and said, "Bluegreen? Yeah, we see a lot of those." At least it didn't bounce.

After wasting an hour and a half on this, we drove to the motel. The directions the guy had given us turned out to the WRONG hotel. The desk clerk gave us directions back again, and we finally found the right place.

As it turned out, it's just as well we didn't get those tickets anyway. The next day was chilly and rainy, and since a lot of Dollywood apparently is outdoors, it wouldn't have been a very good experience. I did, however, get us close enough to take a picture of the front gates.

On top of all that, we tried to get to church that evening. Mom had found a place that held a 5:30 p.m. Saturday mass. However, when we finally got there (back through all that construction), we discovered that mass actually started at 5 p.m. Another out-of-town couple was entering church at the same time and they verified that the church's website had said 5:30, as did a woman who had been attending the church for the last three years and was surprised to find herself late.

Fortunately, the next day was an improvement, as we did a fair amount of shopping, stopped at the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and had dinner at The Partridge and Pear, a restaurant in The Christmas Place in Pigeon Forge. Lots of pear-based recipes. The food was excellent.

Virginia, Part 2

Moving on out of Winchester, we headed south to Max Meadows and Whytheville. Whytheville, in addition to a quilt shop that offered hundreds of batik and related fabrics, also had an enormous pencil over the door to Wytheville Office Supplies. The pencil, according to the Big Stuff Website, is 30 feet tall and made of steel. It was created in the late 1950s. We were actually there to visit an old-time hardware store, the Kincer Miller Hardware Company. It was a medium-sized store that sold a little of everything, including holiday items and all sizes of nails, bolts, and other hardware.



The next day we set out for the Wolf Creek Indian Village, which was based on the findings of a nearby archeological dig. The village dates to a period from around 1490 to 1530 A.D., but there is no conclusive proof of what tribe lived there. The guides in the village demonstrate traditional crafts based on those done by local Cherokee and other woodlands peoples. Displays in the museum highlight information about the various native people in all the regions of North America.

The village is surrounded by a palisade of poles. The houses inside the barrier are round, but are divided between "wigwam" style homes and houses modeled after the picture I posted below while in Oklahoma at the Cherokee Heritage Center. (Amusing fact: I Googled for information on Cherokee Indian homes to find what the second type of structure was called, and got a link to my own blog post from Oklahoma!)

Since I posted quite a bit on the Heritage Center in Oklahoma, I've only uploaded two pictures for this post. The picture above right is a shot of the village; the picture to the left is the inside of the pottery hut. I had the opportunity to make cording from raffia. The guide suggested that I probably hadn't done that before, since apparently a lot of people don't do crafts much any more. I didn't have the heart to tell him I did it frequently to make braid-style cord for embroidery and other needlework; I just use floss instead of raffia.

After a walk down to Wolf Creek and a look around the gardens, we did some shopping in the museum gift shop, and moved on.

Virginia, Part 1

Round two for this state.... We're returning to Virginia after having last year's trip cut short due to car problems. Here's hoping this try goes more smoothly.

My parents are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary this year (September 3rd), and chose to return to parts of Virginia, where they had their honeymoon. We're currently in Winchester.

Today's sights included the Belle Grove Plantation and the Cedar Creek Battlefield. Belle Grove belonged to Isaac Hite and Nelly Madison Hite (President James Madison's sister). The house was built between 1794 and 1797. Nelly died in 1802, and Hayes remarried, eventually becoming the father to no fewer than 12 children (two by Nelly, the other ten by his second wife, Ann.)

Unfortunately, pictures aren't allowed inside the home, so I can't show you any interior rooms. I can, however, show the "cannonball 'ding'" one of the tour guides pointed out on the outside of the building. Belle Grove served as the headquarters for General Phil Sheridan and the Union Army during part of the battle of Cedar Creek in 1864. At least two cannonballs and a number of bullets struck the house. One of the cannon strikes is quite noticeable (in person -- it doesn't show up well on this photo, just a dark spot on the left side of the pic).

We also had a bonus event. The finals for the National Sheepdog Trials was being held today, so we had an opportunity to watch. I managed to get a couple of videos. I'm posting the one that has the whistled signals and no background noise.




Cedar Creek Battlefield consists of twelve (plus) stops along a section of Route 11. We started at the visitors' center and watched a 40-minute movie outlining the events before, during and after the battle, then picked up a guide to a driving tour and started out. The picture at right is a sign outside the Visitors' Center describing the Union Army's movements during part of the battle.

We managed to get to four of the sites listed before 1) Mom got frustrated with trying to find things, and 2) everyone decided they were hungry and wanted dinner. We were driving around a lot of back roads to find two of the sites. At left is a bridge across the creek. These areas really were on little barely-paved roads in the hills. Nice scenery, though.


We had three stops in Winchester the next day: George Washington's Office, Stonewall Jackson's Headquarters, and Abram's Delight, which is the oldest house in Winchester.

Below is Washington's Office, which he used in 1755-1756 while overseeing the construction of Fort Loudoun. The Office was originally a one-room cabin; later owners added onto the room on either side.

The fort, and the soldiers it housed, were intended to protect the people of the then-frontier from Indian raids and attacks by the French.

Winchester was where Washington got his start in surveying, politics, and military experience. He started out as an apprentice surveyor, and eventually ended up running for a seat in the House of Burgesses. He later returned to the area to build Fort Loudoun and the frontier towns.

At right is one of the cannon monuments outside the Office.

At left is Stonewall Jackson's Headquarters. The home was originally a dentist's house and office; it was later purchased by Lewis T. Moore, a friend and colleague of Jackson's, who offered the house to the general for use during the Shenandoah Valley campaigns.

Again, pictures are not permitted, but our tour guide left no artifact unturned during the walk through the house. She talked about each piece of furniture, the pictures, and the personal items. One room is devoted entirely to Jackson's army staff members; another to the Moore family children. She informed us that people think the children's ghosts haunt the house, causing some mischief but no real harm. She also talked about the fact that the Taylor Hotel, which served as Jackson's headquarters until Moore offered him the house, is expected to be torn down "for another parking lot."


At right is the oldest house in Winchester, known as "Abram's Delight", built in 1754 which, our tour guide pointed out, "was before we were even a country." Abraham Hollingsworth, a Quaker, came to the area, claimed the land, and built a log cabin and a mill. Years later his son Isaac built the house you see here.

Our tour guide on this was an 88-year-old woman who climbed stairs unassisted, left her cane in the Visitors' Center because she decided she didn't feel like carrying it, and was happy to learn from Mom what some of the old implements in the house were used for. (Not to mention the fact that my father's parents also had a decoration made out of human hair, like one of the pictures in an upstairs bedroom in the house.) She handed each of us a buckeye from a tree on the lawn, telling us to keep them for good luck.

Oklahoma, Part 7

We trekked out to the Southern Plains Ranger Research Station, in Woodward, Oklahoma.

This is a botanical research facility, where staff members cross-breed various grasses and other plants, searching for new species that will feed more livestock using less water, or species that are resistance to diseases, or that meet other criteria.

We received a tour of the greenhouses and a description of the some of the research being conducted.

Above right is a test patch of one of the cross-bred plants. At left is a closer view of one of the parent plants in the greenhouse.


The next day, we left Weatherford and drove to Andarko, where the Native Americans outnumber everyone else. We visited two sites: the Southern Plains Indian Museum, and the National Hall of Fame of Famous American Indians.

The museum had one room of Plains Indian artifacts, crafts, clothing, and other items of daily use; the second room holds contemporary Native American paintings. Photography isn't permitted.

The artifacts are grouped by type: clothing, game equipment, tools, pouches/bags, etc. Items are labeled, and each display case gives general information about Plains Indian life in the 1800s.

The Hall of Fame is a set of sidewalk displays of sculpted busts. The subjects are Native Americans from all over the United States, who held various roles in their societies. Most of the honorees lived during the 1700s, 1800s, and 1900s; both men and women are included (more men than women).

The entire display is outdoors, and is free of charge. At left is the bust of Hiawatha.





At right is Hosteen Klah, Dineh (Navajo) medicine man.







At left is Alice Brown Davis, Seminole Chieftain.






After we finished in Andarko, we moved on to Lawton, Oklahoma, and experienced a first on this (or any other) trip. When we arrived at our hotel, we were told they didn't have a room for us. Apparently some of the military families had asked to extend their stay, with the result that the hotel had overbooked their available rooms. (It was also graduation time for local schools.) So the hotel called the local Quality Inn to book us rooms.

Whether this was fair or not can be argued, but the problem was that when we got to the Quality Inn, the only two rooms they had left were smoking rooms. I don't smoke; my parents don't smoke. The cigarette smoke smell was noticeable when we walked in.

The staff was certainly friendly and helpful -- one of the maintenance men carried my parents' suitcases and so on. However, it still was a difficult night to get through.

Oklahoma, Part 6

Visits to two museums that feature blasts from the past: one dedicated to singer/songwriter Roger Miller, and another celebrating the famous Route 66.

The Roger Miller Museum, located in Erick, Oklahoma, hosts a set of family photos, memorabilia, album covers, and items Miller owned before his death in 1992. (Biography here.) Several of his suits are on display. Miller is noted for tunes like "King of the Road," "My Boyfriend's Back," "Dang Me," "Do Wacka Do," and music from the Broadway show Big River, an adaptation of Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

The woman running the museum was knowledgeable and friendly, and followed us around the room, relating stories about Miller's life and career. As with many museums, photos weren't permitted, so you'll have to follow the link provided to get an idea of the visuals.

From Erick, we moved on to the National Route 66 Museum. In addition to two buildings that deal with the people and vehicles that used the road (or were available to travelers/drivers at the time), there is an "Old Village" of buildings like the General Store, the doctor's clinic, a blacksmith's shop, etc. Also on the grounds are the Farm and Ranch Museum and the Pioneer Museum, which features displays on the history of Elk City through items owned by the locals.



At right and left are a set of cars, an airplane, and a fire truck featured in the Transportation Building. Visits can actually sit in many of the vehicles in this display.





Dad spent a lot of time in the Farm and Ranch Museum, and I took several pictures of the displays of tractors, hand tools, and old-time equipment like wind pumps and watering troughs.







Outside the blacksmith's shop, Mom noticed this metal tree made of horseshoes.




The Pioneer Museum featured many items from the 1800s, most of which were owned or produced in Elk City. The upstairs of the museum including displays of local cowboys and bull riders.



Other buildings in the Old Town section including the general store, banks, schoolhouse, and post office.





We finished off the day with dinner at The Pig Trough, a local bar-b-cue restaurant. The name may sound a bit funny, but the food was quite good and reasonably priced.

Yes, Toto, we are definitely not in... (Oklahoma Part 5)

We left Kansas behind (although we may well come back some day, as I don't think we've done the whole state yet), and returned to Oklahoma to visit the Oklahoma City Memorial. On April 19, 1995, a very angry and disturbed man name Timothy McVeigh parked a van in front of the Alfred E. Murrah Federal Building and exploded a bomb. The blast was felt up to 50 miles away. An enormous crater was blown in the front of the building, and the nine stories fell in on top of each other, killing 138 people, including 19 children in a daycare center. It was one of those things that changed the perceptions of the entire country.

Now, 15 years later, the event has been commemorated by a monument that is a full city block in size. It stands where the Murrah Building used to be. I'm going to post pictures and explain how each of them fits into the memorial has a whole.

The memorial is flanked by two large walls, as though the whole space were still inside a building. On the left wall, shown here, are the number 9:01. That was the time of the initial blast. We were fortunate enough to have a park ranger making a presentation on the memorial while we were there, and he explained that 9:01 was considered the moment when everyone's world was changed forever, even those people who weren't present or related in any way to anyone involved in the bombing.

The reflecting pool symbolizes the things around the site that were changed by the bombing. Visitors can walk down to the water, which is very shallow, and look into it, as all of us were changed in some way or another, even if this event is just history to us. People can also dip their hands into the water and mark their handprints on the walls, to symbolize their connectedness to the people who experienced the blast.

The center part of the memorial are rows of bronze chairs with glass sections around the legs. The lower portions of the chairs light up at night. The chairs are arranged in nine rows, to symbolize the nine floors of the Murrah Building. People's names appear on the chairs; the names are grouped by the floors on which the people would have been at the time of the blast. The largest concentration of chairs is in the middle, where the crater was blown in the building; the designer of the monument wanted to "fill in" the hole.

The wall on the right end of the monument has the numbers 9:03 carved into it. The ranger told us that this symbolized the moment when the healing began after the explosion, when rescue workers and concerned citizens rushed to scene to help find people and piece together what had happened.

People from all over the world submitted possible designs for the memorial. A committee narrowed the submissions down to five. The current memorial, sent by a firm in Germany, was unanimously chosen by the survivors and the families of those killed.

At right is a large elm tree that is not only part of the memorial, it was also part of the events of the bombing. It's called The Survivor Tree, and is around 100 years old. It was in a parking lot across the street from the blast. Pieces of debris are embedded in its trunk. At first, city officials were convinced that it would die from the inflicted damage, and the FBI wanted to cut it down and use the embedded debris as evidence. However, the tree miraculously grew leaves and proved to be very much alive. The people of Oklahoma City insisted that the tree be left standing, and be incorporated into the memorial. Immediately after the blast, it was surrounded by burning cars and other objects. It now has the best care of any tree in the United States.

Personnel, materials, and expressions of sympathy poured in from all over the country, and eventually from all over the world. Some of these expressions are still on display. The wall at right is covered in tiles sent by children and other people; many tiles have handprints or other things painted on them. A section of the chain link fence put up to section off the blast area has been saved and put up along the sidewalk outside the memorial; people still leave tokens of sympathy and commemoration on the fence.

The park is run by the National Park Service, although it is not a National Park. Nevertheless, I stepped into the gift shop and added a date stamp to my National Park Passport for this site.

Oklahoma, Part 4 (except we're really in Kansas....)

Before I get back to the Indian portion of this trip, I have to tell you about this odd little thing we're doing in restaurants. Well, actually, two odd little things we're doing. Some background: Every morning for the past several months, my parents have been going to the same restaurant for breakfast, and they have a favorite waitress. Before we left on this trip, she jotted the words "That's all she wrote" on a piece of place mat, and asked my parents to get as many waitstaff as possible to sign it. We've asked probably a dozen up to this point, on both the train and in restaurants, and none have said "No" yet.

In addition, I have discovered the "art" of dollar bill origami. (Well, money origami, really, as I have folded a few fives as well.) I've been handing these out as tips. Mom commented that since we're "out West" I should do boots, so I've altered a pattern in my instruction book to make things that look like cowboy boots (kind of). People seem really pleased by this, although they may just saying that to be polite. Anyway, it's been amusing, and I've gotten good enough to fold a boot out of a dollar bill without referring to my instructions.

There's a link here for a similar model if anyone wants to give it a shot. This is a YouTube video, and the steps are different from the ones I use. I'll be happy to teach people the method I learned if they ask.

This really has nothing to do with the fact that we're in Kansas for the next part of the trip, it's just trivia. We stopped in Arkansas City to visit the Cherokee Strip Land Rush Museum. Again, flash photography was not allowed inside the museum, so my pictures are pretty dim and few in number.

The Cherokee Indians had been given land in Oklahoma, as well as a path to their hunting grounds (the Cherokee Strip or the Cherokee Outlet). However, as is typical for U.S. government agreements with the Native Americans, when a lot of settlers wanted Indian land, the government found a way to give it to them.

In April of 1893, thousands of people had gathered in Arkansas City to wait for signal to move into Cherokee territory and claim a parcel. (An eyewitness account is posted here. More information on the land rush can be found here.) An estimated 100,000 people walked, rode horses, or drove horse-drawn vehicles into the area to stake a claim. (One of the wall displays note that before the news of the land rush was published, there were 5,ooo people living in Arkansas City. Just before the land rush began, Arkansas City's population rose to 150,000. Once the guns had sounded to begin the rush, the population plunged back to 5,000.)

In addition to artifacts from the time of the land rush (including an actual claim flag that settlers would plant on their property -- one of only two original flags in existence, a staff member told me), the museum hosts a display of various type of shoes used in Oklahoma history, and a section housing local non-land rush artifacts and historic items. Local theater companies also put on dramas in the museum at various times -- there is a stage and activity area set aside for this.

I don't have any photos to post this time around. As with many museums displaying actual historical objects, flash photography is discouraged (the light will eventually damage the items). The lighting was dim enough that most of my pictures came out rather dark.

I've mentioned the fact that we've been seeing a lot of school children on our travels. We had a busload here, too, and I wish I had gotten the name of the school to list here, because these were some of the best behaved kids I've ever seen. I said so to one of the teachers, who passed it on to her students.

Oklahoma, Part 3

And now, on to the cowboys.

After staying the night in the Will Rogers Inn (and having breakfast at Eggberts, which seems to be a regional or local chain), we headed up to the Will Rogers Memorial Museum. The museum is actually located in two buildings: the Museum itself, and the Will Rogers home in Oologah, Oklahoma, where Will was born.

At bit of background: Will Rogers was one of the people who defined "cowboy" and "The West" through movies, rodeo shows, and other media. He was born in 1879, never managed to finish a formal education, and made a name for himself with his riding and rope tricks as a young man. He started performing in vaudeville theaters, then signed on for the Broadway show Ziegfeld Follies in 1915. He went on to become a successful newspaper writer, a radio star, and an actor. In 1935 he and another man attempted to fly from Alaska to Russia, but crashed into a lake 15 miles from their intended pit stop.

When we pulled into the museum parking lot, the first thing we noticed were the three school buses parked at the far end. Sure enough, there seemed to be about five hundred kids from local elementary schools wandering around the museum displays (and, of course, the gift shop). They were reasonably well behaved, but of course, they're kids....

We did catch part of a live talk from one of the museum staff, who portrayed Will Rogers for the kids and did do several rope tricks as he talked. He also showed a black-and-white film Rogers had done, demonstrating a whole bunch of rope tricks using riders, horses, and other moving targets.

The museum rooms held a variety of items, including many saddles, part of Rogers' collection. (At left is Will Rogers' son's boyhood saddle.) He apparently picked these up all over the world; some seem to have been gifts.

One room had six display cases and a large mural. The cases represented one aspect of Rogers' career: his Broadway show, his newspaper work, his films, and his roping, among others. One whole room was a reproduction of his ranch in California. Rogers ended up owning the ranch on which he was born, but he also spent a fair amount of time in New York City and California. Below is a brief video of the ranch room. You can hear the schoolkids in the background.


After the museum, we drove out to the family farm, which consists of a house, a barn, an outhouse, and a lot of fencing. The caretakers have an assortment of animals on the farm, including a couple of donkeys and some goats.



The house, pictured at right. Rooms include bedrooms, a parlor, kitchen, and attic.






At left is the brand Rogers chose for his ranch and cattle. It's actually modeled after an object called a dog iron, which holds logs in the fireplace. Hence the name "Dog Iron Ranch". This picture was taken of the brand on the front steps of the house.




The barn was built using period techniques and materials. (The original was destroyed by wildfires, as were a couple of replacements.) Around 10,000 head of cattle live on the ranch at various times during the year, but only a few animals use the barn.





Continuing with our theme of "cowboys", we drove on to Bartlesville, Oklahoma, and then over the Dewey, the home of the Tom Mix museum. (Official website can be found here.) Another rider and actor who helped define "The West", Mix starred in more than 300 films. He was born in northwestern Pennsylvania in 1880(the two people staffing the museum said at least two towns have been listed as his birthplace in various records) and moved to Oklahoma in 1909. Most of the display items belong to Mix at one time or another, and were saved by a friend after Mix's death in 1940 in an automobile accident (what is it with these cowboy icons dying in accidents?).

A few of Mix's movies are shown while the museum is open. We caught a 10-minute segment at a special showing, since the movies are shut off at 3:30 or so, and we were there a little after 4 p.m. Flash photography is discouraged in a lot of places like this, so I only have one shot of the building itself.

Outside Bartlesville is the Woolaroc Museum, which houses an enormous collection of Western art and Native American items. As usual, there were buses of schoolkids everywhere. The area was nice, and the collection was impressive, but we were kind of expecting a wildlife sanctuary, and got a game preserve instead. Apparently the owner, Oklahoma oilman Frank Phillips, imported a lot of exotic animals and they of course needed to be kept in fenced enclosures. The Phillips family lived here beginning in 1927.

The name "Woolaroc" comes from the woods, lakes and rocks that make up the ranch acreage. The lodge is pictured at right. Above are some of the local wildlife we happened to see.

I have mostly pictures of the grounds, as photos are discouraged inside the museum and lodge. So I'll leave you with a few photos, as I close out the cowboy section of the trip. For now....










(Currently reading: The Wild Road, by Gabriel King. It's not about the West, it's a fantasy novel about cats.)