Travel Treats

We just returned from my first trip to California.  I know, at age 65, that must sound like I’ve led a very dull and untraveled existence, but we have lived in Oklahoma, Texas, Montana, and Colorado and seen all of that corridor of the US map. My sister and I did the Washington D.C. area at Halloween time several years ago where I saw my first hardwoods in fall color. Glorious! Our family visited Florida a couple times and we’ve driven through the southern coastal states.

Our vacations, however, have usually been influenced by agriculture. In the summers if we find time to get off the farm, we want to escape the Oklahoma heat in the Colorado or New Mexico mountains.  Occasionally we’ve gone to Arizona or South Texas in the winter, but beyond there to the west has been unknown territory to us.

 

The Southwest Chief arriving at Raton





Husband Bob and our Texas friends, the Fore's

So last week we met  friends at Raton, New Mexico and boarded the Southwest Chief traveling  to Los Angeles. 

Somewhere in New Mexico

We arrived in Los Angeles and the next day our seats on the Coastal Starlight train gave us a spectacular view along the Pacific Ocean up to San Francisco where we spent several days doing most of the touristy things.

Then we  caught the California Zephyr to Denver. Aren’t those great names for trains?

The trip was a feast for the eyes; so much grand and varied scenery, architecture, agriculture, and incredible vistas…and  now I can add California, Nevada, and Utah to my been-there-done-that list. 

Bob contemplating the vista from the observation car

Food is, of course, a big part of the traveling experience and we enjoyed some unique meals. But dining on the train is in a class by itself. The food and service is quite good and they practice open seating at the tables for four. This means that unless you are in a party of four, you are automatically seated with others so you get to meet lots of different people at each meal.  I imagine this could result in some strange and uncomfortable situations sometimes, but our experience has been good.

Because of this venue we got acquainted with a retired California man in construction who built homes for Cher and other movie stars.   When they learned we were farmers and ranchers, they had some interesting questions too.  At one point as we passed some grazing cattle, she asked how many barns we needed to put up our 400 cows every night?  Evidently there is still a need for ag education!

One night on the tracks across Nevada we dined with a first generation American from Italy named Primo.  He had risen in the ranks of the Caterpillar company from errand boy to mechanic to foreman.  His wife was from Switzerland and they were certainly a testimony to our land of opportunity.



Some cute younger diners across the aisle

Another time we shared steaks with a Presbyterian minister of 50 years and his delightful southern belle wife as we wound through the majestic Gore Canyon of Colorado.  Another lady we met was en route to visit her daughter who was a grip in Hollywood.  Once when the daughter was working on the Seinfeld show set, the mother was given a minor role in the episode. She told us some funny things Kramer did to stay limber on the sidelines between their scenes! Interesting conversations abound.

We also enjoyed cream puffs and cheesecake desserts with a school teacher and her retired printer husband while we were being mooned by rude rafters on the river below! This couple were on a month long vacation before school starts in Ohio and it wasn’t their first train trip. They had journeyed on nearly every Amtrak route in the USA and Canada!

                                       A few of the 300 shots I took from the train window. 
                                                            (Can you tell I like the Rockies?)

If open dining seems too risky or you or you just want more privacy, meals can be delivered to your coach seat or sleeper room, or you can buy something in the lounge car, but I recommend you try the dining car at least once.

                                           Julie relaxing in their roomette with her book

 
With the high cost of gasoline now, train travel has become a fairly economical alternative.  I had anticipated most of the other joys of riding Amtrak:  the Santa Fe depots (my favorite style!) the relaxed viewing vantage point (with no white knuckle driving on mountain precipices!) the desert sunsets, the coast and ocean, seeing the vineyards, orchards, and truck farms, as well as going through wild country accessible only by train or hiking.   But the dining car experience was an unexpected added bonus.

It is a real taste of America, I’m glad we savored! All aboard?

FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH

I have finally been putting most of my computer photo files onto CD’s.  It has been quite a revelation.  They say that the mirror doesn’t lie, but somehow I look better in my bathroom mirror than in photographs! Comparing those taken of us only five years ago to recent ones certainly proves that the aging process speeds up exponentially after age sixty.  Seeing less hair (where you want it at least!), more wrinkles, darker spots, and deeper sags can be a bit depressing. 

This was further compounded when the granddaughters came to visit.  For a fun activity we went online to do free virtual makeovers.  At these sites, you download a photo of yourself, and then you can apply all kinds of make-up, change your hair color, and try on a multitude of hairstyles. In some programs you can even plump your lips, do different eye colors, try on sunglasses and add other accessories.

While the girls liked seeing themselves in the most outrageous styles and colors, I was just in search of more flattering looks.  These instant makeover methods are much more appealing than the long process of growing your hair to a different length, spending big bucks at the beauty parlor, or suffering pain with a facelift to get a new image.

Befores and afters can be very enlightening!

In our youth oriented culture, most of us desire to look more like we used to look, but when you think about it, we probably weren’t very satisfied with our own images back then either!

The apocryphal stories of the search for a fountain of youth surely had at least a little bit of truth in them.  But there have always been more realistic search options for “painting the old barn”!

 I don’t even go to the field to drive the tractor all day without putting on make-up and fixing my hair.  Maybe that’s vanity, but it just seems right to look your best when you can. I’ve certainly contributed my fair share to the Mary Kay empire over the years!

Thankfully in our 45 years of marriage, handsome husband and I have aged together and accepted one another’s changes gracefully.  The way we see each other today is probably tempered by the memory’s picture of how we looked at twenty as well, and that’s a nice thought. 

With our oldest grandchild Haley age 12 recently

It’s just human to find ourselves lacking when we compare ourselves to others, but it won’t always be this way.  Aging, change, and dissatisfaction stops in heaven.  The tree of life that was once in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2 and 3) is now in heaven (Revelation 2). No need for makeovers, no more aging, no more worries, no more pain there.

A new body, a new outlook…I’m looking forward to drinking from that fountain of youth!

For with You is the fountain of life; in Your light we see light.

Psalm 36:9

  

Watching Cats

Last week tiny Miss Dumpling had her first litter of kittens.  She is only one year old and can be forgiven for her lack of experience in picking a safe spot to give birth.  Possibly the labor pains came on her suddenly or maybe she just wanted to stay cool in this Oklahoma heat wave we’re having, but I found the new family of 5 right on the edge of our little goldfish pond.   You can see her little calico face peeking out under this ornamental grass left of the frog.

I could just envision the little ones venturing out in a couple weeks and falling promptly in the pond, but before I could get very worried, she had moved them nearer to the house.  The next day I found them on the other side of the house.  Then in the tongue of a hay trailer and today she has outsmarted me completely and I can’t find them at all!

Our other farm cat mama, Mrs. Morgan, was always much more predictable.  Her maternity route was barn loft…brick pile…euonymus shrub. And when I called “kitty, kitty” she always answered me and gave away her position.

I have a feeling it’s going to be more difficult to keep track of these new kittens and get them gentled down for new owners, but it will be a bit of adventure and mystery, both of which I usually enjoy.

I did have an unsettling adventure with a cat of a different breed a few years ago, though.  As I was returning from a walk one evening, I saw a big black cat run across our country road into some tall CRP (Conservation Reserve Program) grass.  It was much larger than my black tomcat; more the size of a big bobcat, but it had a long tail that curved down and almost touched the road as it ran. 

I hurried home to the computer and looked up wild cats.  The only photo that really matched was that of a black leopard or jaguar, sometimes wrongly called a black panther. Neither of these is supposed to live in Oklahoma, however.  

I told a couple hunter friends about my sighting and they tried to convince me it was probably just a big domestic tom cat or a bobcat and that the evening light had distorted its size and color. And could I just have imagined that long tail?

From then on, though, I kept a careful watch when I was walking!  I didn’t see him again for a couple years.  Then one evening about dusk, he ran across the road only 20 feet in front of my car.  I got a real good look this time!

When my husband Bob and I talked to a local game ranger friend, he did acknowledge there were other similar reports, but he wouldn’t confirm there could actually be a beast like this here in northwest Oklahoma.  Finally, however,  Bob and I both saw him this year about a mile from our house, crossing the highway.  He does exist!

Did he escape from a zoo somewhere?  Was someone trying to raise him as a pet and gave up?  Could he have been part of a government relocation project? I don't know.  I just hope he continues to be afraid of us and always runs fast in the opposite direction.  I like cats, but I can do without this wild kingdom type adventure again.

Today I'll resume the search for Mrs. Dumpling's family.  I want to find them and know them better.  I would prefer, however, that their black cousin stays well hidden somewhere... for a very long time!

Small Town Saturday Night

As a farm family in the late 40’s and early 50’s, we didn’t go to town often, but I have fond memories of main street in Cherokee, Oklahoma.

When there were extra eggs and cream to sell, we loaded up the car and made a trip to town on Saturday night. Our first stop was the Cherokee Creamery.

Before we left town that evening we had to make another stop at the Creamery for some ice cream to take home with us.  Inside a few selected cartons they put a little paper entitling you to a free half gallon next time you came in. What fun to be dipping into the box and find that paper!  It was a great simple advertising gimmick.  They probably sold several varieties, but black walnut was our favorite flavor. 

Occasionally we would get to eat supper in town.  A hamburger with French fries was 45 cents at Hayden’s Café.  A cold fountain Coke cost a nickel and was a very special treat for us. I had my first club sandwich at the Keye’s Drugstore and thought it was fancy gourmet food!   And the sweet smell of fried onions and burgers always reminds me of the tiny Kern’s Café on the east side of the street. 

I recall 2 other drugstores downtown at that time, 2 groceries, 2 movie theaters, 2 gas stations, 2 funeral homes, 2 automobile dealerships, 2 banks, 2 lumber yards, a furniture and hardware store, appliance, jewelry, and five or six clothing stores.   I know there were also several other businesses in town including the grain companies, hospital, clinics, and machinery dealers but the favorite businesses for little girls were the 2 variety stores on main street. We seldom had any money to spend except at Christmas time, but we did a lot of window shopping!

My little sister and I also loved to go in the old snooker parlor where we could often find Grandpa Stauffer playing or talking crops with his neighbors.  We could always coax him into buying us a handful of salted Spanish peanuts from the gumball style machine there!

Our other grandpa worked at Perkins Hatchery.  The mixed smell of feeds, minerals, and baby chickens under lights always seemed pleasant to me and that aroma still reminds me of Grandpa Johnson. Often he would watch for and save certain feed sacks that mother wanted to cut up and use to sew dresses for us.

It’s fun to wax nostalgic about these days of the past, but the convenience of one stop shopping at WalMart any hour of any day of the week can’t be ignored either.  I guess I've been blessed to have lived in both eras.

Small Town, Big Pool

My sister is visiting from Texas and yesterday we relived a childhood memory and took a swim at the park in Hardtner, Kansas. You know how much smaller places seem to be that you remember as a kid when you revisit them as an adult?  Well, that’s not the case with the pool that Jacob Achenbach built and donated to this little town in 1937.  It is still huge!

Just a few years ago we took our grandkids there to swim and we had the whole place to ourselves that day! The cost was only 25 cents apiece. Entry fees have gone up some now, but it is still a great deal and a grand experience.  Friendly staff (the lifeguard didn't blow her whistle once all afternoon!) and there are rafts, floaties, mats, tubes, and noodles available FREE! When you get those swimming hungries, you can buy cold drinks, candy, snacks, and snowcones for nominal prices.

The classic bathhouse is still clean, well maintained, and freshly painted for probably at least the 50^th time in its long history.  My sister and I found the water sparkling and cold even on this 104 degree afternoon. There were only about 25 people swimming, and seldom all at the same time.  The high diving board is gone, but there are still 2 other boards, 2 slides, a waterfall jet, and a separate fenced and gated kiddie pool.

The pool is set in a nice big shady park with good playground equipment and a cute little playhouse.  Across the street is the now abandoned Achenbach Memorial Hospital.  The park, pool, fairgrounds, and hospital were all built in the early 1900's by the generosity and foresight of Mr. Achenbach, the town founder.

So if you still live in this area, don’t forget what a great pool is sitting in Hardtner.  And if you’re just passing through on a hot summer afternoon,  have a cool dip, thanks to this German farmboy immigrant, Jacob Achenbach!