Friday cat

A clue

We're playing "Guess where" again.

no cheating

Hiatus

A brief interlude to rant, fulminate, go on, hold forth, vociferate, sound off, spout, pontificate, bluster, declaim, you get the idea.
We'll get back to the pictures later.

This election . . .
There are a number of propositions on the Statewide Ballot this year, as is pretty much in every other election year.
California has a state constitution such that it expands at almost every whim of anyone who wants a modification or amendment.
Anyone who can write a petition and get enough signatures may have a proposition place on the ballot.

There's an official publication, this year it goes to 96 pages, explaining the propositions, gives the pros and cons, provides the arguments for, a rebuttal to the argument for, the argument against, a rebuttal to the argument against, a cost analysis of each proposition and a summary.

The folks who've written this work in the Secretary of State's Office.
They are so caught up in the legalese that it is virtually impossible to read it and understand the language.
The arguments for and against are no help either.

Then there's the daily crap that arrives in the mailbox from the special interests who want to see the measures passed or defeated.

Then there's another issue.
Polling places.
The county is responsible for setting those up.
Sacramento County, in it's infinite wisdom, decided that not so many are needed because everyone votes by mail.
Well, there still are a few polling places, but they've made locating them difficult.
On the other hand, there are drop-off boxes conveniently located at places which do not have sufficient parking to go in and drop off the ballot when it is completed.

And another thing . . .
About that friggin' ballot!
Why on earth does it have to be such that it cannot be designed to be mailed with regular postage?
No, they had to make it oversized so a standard stamp isn't sufficient.
There's just no avoiding going out.

It seems there's a conspiracy to make voting an inconvenience.
Why is it that I can vote my shares in mutual funds online through a proxy, but there's no such option for government? 

[that's a rhetorical question. don't answer it. I don't want to hear it]

I've been so busy trying to decipher the ballot measures, I haven't even looked at the candidates for office.
I know who I won't be voting for, but pretty much am clueless about the alternatives.
A couple of the locals have piqued my curiosity.
I will have to research them further because the mailed literature is pretty slim on real material.

done

Lotsa drivin' day

Back horizontal again and eastbound.

Arkansas was pretty much a blur.

We might have stopped for fuel?

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We saw this building but can't remember exactly where.
It isn't the capitol building.

Then we were in Tennessee.
Memphis!

These pictures can't begin to present how boisterous Beale Street is, music from all directions and people everywhere.

The minor league ballpark is only a few blocks away.

Just down the street from. . .

. . . famous for it's ducks.

Not that duck!

Then all of us went to dinner at Hueys.

walkin' day, too

The map goes vertical

Things got interesting.
The map did get vertical, but not so we could continue north following Route 66.
Yep, that's the answer to yesterday's quiz.
Once we reached northern Arizona, we pretty much followed the highways that followed the old LA to Chicago route.

Anyway, we headed south, to Dallas, for a visit with an old friend of MB's and to do some laundry.
I had noticed that drivers in Oklahoma tend to be a little aggressive.
Then we crossed into Texas.

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The Red River is the border between Texas and Oklahoma.
Texas is where they get really aggressive.
If the drivers aren't happy with the traffic situation, they'll make their own road and they don't seem to need 4 wheel drive.

Oh, back up a second.
Traveling between OKC and Tulsa we found ourselves on a toll road.
There were signs announcing that the tolls would be paid upon exiting.
We expected toll plazas.
Nope.
Just a place to drop cash payments   . . . and cameras to catch those who don't
Then heading down to Texas we were on another toll road.
The catch there was the exit we used had no place to pay.
MB was able to contact the operator of the tollway and handle payment.

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I'm not exactly sure what that is.

We also found ourselves on a tollway in the Dallas area.
There was no place to pay, just all kinds of sensing equipment and, I suppose, cameras.
A heck of a way to run a toll system.

We pretty much lounged around for a day.
Then we went down into the downtown to do some sightseeing.
Our first stop was the site of John F. Kennedy's assassination.

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 The name's been changed but, well it's still infamous to some


The boys were interested in the Grassy Knoll.

Then we went over to the SMU campus and visited the really impressive, low key, George W. Bush Library.

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There were a multitude of displays and quotes from "W."

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There was also an impressive section of the museum devoted entirely to the first ladies of our country.

Martha's quote caught my eye.

Then there was this mobile at the reception desk.

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Deciding which pictures to post is not fun.
I will try to post more later.

Just for kicks

. . . and because somehow I wasn't able to get to the PC today.

The question for today is:

Has anyone noticed anything about our route for the trip so far?

answer tomorrow

What're we gonna see today?

More of the Texas Panhandle.

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I had not seen fog when temperatures were in the low 80s before.

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 We saw the Leaning Tower of Texas, near Groom

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. . . and a 19 story tall cross, also at Groom.

We looked for a sign when we entered Oklahoma.
All there was is a change in the pavement and a county line sign.
It was another four or five miles before Oklahoma was announced at a rest area.

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We had to actually drive into the rest area to see the sign.

There wasn't much else to see until we reached Oklahoma City.

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The Skydance Bridge is said to be inspired by the "sky dance" of the scissor-tailed flycatcher, Oklahoma's state bird.
It's a pedestrian bridge.

Speaking of OKC.

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 This was in the vicinity, too.

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We still had some distance to go and we were going to experience our first toll road.

 Yep, we went right on by Tulsa because we wanted to visit a specific place.

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It's the back of the building but it looks so much better.

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. . . and has a fine view overlooking Claremore.

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. . . and Will Rogers' gravesite.

We'd arrived early enough in the afternoon to visit the museum with time to spare.
"The boys" enjoyed the visit, too.

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We'll come back another time to see the inside (POCIR)


We checked in to our hotel and asked where a good eating establishment was.
They suggested a place just down the hill from the museum.
We have pretty much decided the hotel staff knows where to eat in any community.
They haven't steered us wrong yet.

After dinner we did a brief tour of the downtown [as opposed to the main thoroughfare].

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At the newspaper office,

So we sat down with him.

Oops

I forgot the map yesterday.
Fortunately we have yet to finish that leg of the trek.

There, it's done.
I'd tell you about the food, what's there to say about Cracker Barrel?
Heck, there's not much to say about the Texas Panhandle.
But we weren't done yet.

Santa Fe or bust

We really enjoyed our dinner at the restaurant.

The murals and the chairs are works of art.

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There are a total of four restaurants in the chain.
I turned out that one of them was on our route to Santa Fe.
We had to stop in Bernalillo.

. . . for breakfast.

We split an order and were not disappointed.

Then on to historic old Santa Fe.

The way is marked.

There is a theme to the city.
. . . typically like this.
Some are old, others just match the adobe theme.

. . . but, occasionally a newer building.
The Wallace building sits on Old Santa Fe Trail just north of Paseo de Peralta. It was built in 1887, as a dormitory for El Colegio de San Miguel.
Now it houses state offices.

Some just don't look old.

. . .  one, for sure, really is old.

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 . . . as the sign says

Just down the street [Santa Fe Trail] is the Loretto Chapel, built in 1873.

 

There's an amazing spiral staircase inside.

Even further down the street. 

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. . . a big important church?
Built in the late 1800s on the site of much older churches in the community.

The churches were the least commercial interesting structures.
The performing arts center wasn't too shabby.

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Parking was a minor issue.
There was a lot of tourist traffic.

We headed down the road.
Southeast of Santa Fe we saw this.

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Another church . . .   Eastern Orthodox.

Then we headed East.

Guess what's next