Getting our Kicks plus Route 66

Hi all! Monday we visited the RV museum in Amarillo. Yes, such a thing exists.

It is in the back of Jack Sisemore's RV lot. He sells Airstreams, too! In fact, he was washing a Classic when we walked through. There are also vintage motorcycles, but alas, we only came for the campers.

Admission was free, which is my kind of museum. Let's take a gander.

The first "pop up"

Wally Byam is special because he designed the Airstream camper

Plus, this fella (the camper) went a LOT of places around the world!

 G's family had something similar to this growing up (at least the year is right!)

 1955 Airstream, complete with Schwinn bicycle!

 This is a classic/last of the Itascas. Won't see anymore of these!

 This RV was used in the Robin Williams' movie "RV". 

This was a toy Winnebago but looked so cute I had to take a picture! My grandparents had a Minnie Winnie when they came to visit us: 70s brown and shag carpet. Yup! There was one on the lot, too!

Also in Amarillo, we visited parts of this national treasury: 

Yes, parts of historic Route 66 ran through Amarillo. Now it is just shops and antique dealers. But if you remember the days of the route, I guess it is good. I just thought it was a neat piece of history.

We also visited the Chamber of Commerce, which is also an historic home. We had a lovely guide, named Denise, who told us all about the history of the home and some of Amarillo. Couldn't ask for a better price either....FREE! 

This is the Bivins home, which also used to be a library, but now houses the Chamber of Commerce and Amarillo planning commission. Busy place! But a lovely home, too. The windows are lovely, too! The top dormer window is where the ballroom used to be. It was also a servants' room. No, the dumbwaiter didn't reach that far, so they had to carry the ice and food all that way up three flights of stairs. They prepped a party two to three weeks in advance. The liquor went first. Priorities, priorities. I liked the pretty windows. 

And like Norfolk with its Mermaids, Amarillo has its horses. Each horse apparently has a name. She (Denise) gave me a brochure about them. It was too extensive to post. But here's a pretty filly outside of the Bivins mansion, just the same.

Hanging out in the canyon for one more day before heading to New Mexico tomorrow. There's a cold front blowing in. I thought we'd blow it your way, since we're chasing 70-75 degrees (lol). Still enjoying our quietness, no WiFi, and coyote serenades. Ya'll come back! 😉

A Canyon Life

We have moved to a beautiful destination, a state park called

It is an absolutely stunning park, because we are staying in a canyon. It is the second largest canyon in the United States (second, of course, to the Grand Canyon). It was built by the CCC in 1933 and officially opened in 1934. There are animals here, including these fellas

Yup! Those are longhorns you see. There are 3 of them. They hang out at the gate because those silver things are feeding tins. There is a brown one, a white one, and this multi-colored one. They are all bulls. There are also mule deer that hang out, too. There are white-tailed deer in the canyon. Might not see them, but we will try. There are also roadrunner, coyote, and a few black angus that roam around.

But what is truly amazing is the view.

This is what you see when you enter the canyon. The colors change the deeper into the canyon you go. It feels like you stepped into a Bugs Bunny cartoon. The rock formations hang off of precipices, ready to fall at any moment (you think Wile E. Coyote is going to push it over while Road Runner speeds past), streams roll past; I mean, you could be on a western movie set! And the funny thing is there are only 4 TV channels, and one of them is called "GRIT", which shows westerns all day!

It is so quiet here, too. This is my view in the evening, as the sun is setting, which is around 6:15. The sun rises around 7:25.

It is so quiet here. And this is my view at night.

Thank you, God, for the beautiful creation you have made here, and the opportunity for us to see and enjoy it. We are here for a week. Oh, and to enjoy this stunningness (I made that up), we have no service of our phone. Yup! No cell service past the gate. So we have to drive over 5 miles to "get in touch" with the world. But we have electric and water at our site, so we're not dry camping. But it sure is nice to unplug.

So, I can say, this exit pointed to my Happy.

Ya'll come back! 😉

A Missions Trip

Hi all! Today we went and explored the Missions Trail. There are 5 Missions within 10 miles of each other here in San Antonio. The 5th one is the Alamo, of course. We saw that the other day. A lot of people forget that was a mission first. The four other missions are active churches and are part of the archdiocese. The Alamo, because a battle was fought there, belongs to the state of Texas. Because these missions are manned by the Department of the Interior, they were part of the government shut down. We were the first guests in over 30+ days. The volunteers were happy to see us. I also told the workers it was good to see them back!

The missions' "mission" was to convert souls to Christ. But they were also self-sustaining communities. Each one is unique in its placement along the river, the San Antonio. The first one we visited was

Of course, the central piece of the mission is the church. And, once again, I could not take pictures of the interior because, alas, another funeral happened today. Here is the outside.

 The missions were run by the Franciscan order of missionaries. They tried to convert the native tribes that were here (there were over 30); they taught them Spanish and Latin and how to build, etc. The buildings were built by the natives. This is what it would have looked like back in the day.

Next up was

This is the church. Unfortunately, it was undergoing renovations on the outside, but it was really pretty on the inside.

It is an active church; a priest comes every Sunday for mass. This site had a lot of displays and information about the missions; so much so that I took pictures to explain the water/irrigation and their crops and sustainability of cows, sheep, and wool.

On the way through to the different missions, you pass the aqueduct, still in use today. What's amazing is Roman technology came into play in the 1700s. Go figure! And you didn't think you needed to learn this in school??!!

Next on the trail was

This one had a little more buildings to it and a 20 minute video that explained all about the missions and what happened during the 1700s and this area. The missions were only here for about 82 years. There is also a visitors center and a gift shop where I bought my sticker to put in my national parks passport (see, RS, I'm using it)!!

This is called a Rose Window. You'll have to Google why it's called that. There are many reasons.

Last in line was

This is the Jewel of the Crown, I think. It has the original colors of paint, the most well-preserved of all the missions. The priest gave us a good 15 minute run down and history of the missions, better than any video!

If you notice, too, the other missions had walls around them. These were to defend themselves against the Lupin Apache who roamed this area. The Mission Concepción had walls, but by then the threat was gone; so the locals used the stone to build their houses. The Spanish brought over some families from the Canary Islands to help colonize this area, too. They formed a new kind of people, called Tejanos. You will only find them in this area of Texas. So basically the tribes that lived here so long ago still live here today as the Tejanos. 

All of the buildings are built out of limestone, which is quarried here locally. There is a natural cave of limestone near here that we visited. I will post on that another day. Tomorrow we visit the panhandle to another beautiful area. Ya'll come back! 😉