Having been traveling solidly for about 15 months, we thought it would be nice to stay in one place for a month or two, unwind, and maybe get to know few people. With winter coming on somewhere southern was called for, and as we were in Florida all last winter we decided on Arizona which was recommended by a number of people during our trip. The journey was to take us through Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas, New Mexico and finally Arizona. This took nearly three weeks; longer than we'd expected, but the weather improved dramatically when we hit Texas so we hung around there for twelve days.

Saturday 20 October 2001 - Monday 22 October 2001

Back full circle to our very first campground: Circle C in Bellingham, Massachusetts. We revisited our friends Hilary and Ron a couple of times to catch up on the news and have some nice meals. We also visited Liz, Geoff, Lizzie and Michael who had kindly put up with us while we were getting ready to set off last year, and got a fine photo of Geoff and Liz in a study for Grant Wood's famous picture American Gothic ...

Personally I prefer ours to the real thing.

Picked up our mail from them and found a cheque from our insurance company for nearly $3,000 in respect of the hail damage suffered by the trailer in British Columbia. Hurrah. Got a state inspection (American equivalent of the MOT) on the truck with no problems, although it's not as stiff as ours. The main thing they look at is emissions, including putting it up on a dynamometer to check it under load.

Tuesday 23 October 2001

A long drive, with lunch at Danbury, CT at an ordinary looking diner where I had their signature dish of Slammin' Shrimp. Can't remember the name of the place but they do have a web site, so if you're going to be in the area do a search on the above, find it and go there - it's worth it. Ended up towards dark in rural Pennsylvania at Paradise Resort Campground, which is currently a recently cleared area of forest with a man-made lake in the middle, all hand-dug (with a backhoe) by the owner, and a few sites amongst the trees ...

Should be really nice when they finish it.

Wednesday 24 October 2001

A long drive, mainly through autumnal trees, ending up in Barkcamp State Park in Ohio. Nearly empty, as are most campgrounds north of Virginia.

Thursday 25 October 2001

Into Kentucky and Indiana, and finally back into Ohio at Indian Springs campground, North Bend near Cincinnati. Christine's bookbinding friend Gabrielle Fox lives here and invited us for a quick visit. On the way we saw a few Tim Horton's, which seem to be spreading across into the US from Canada; makes a change in the fast food world.

On the way we found what really happened to one of Britain's most popular entertainers ...

Friday 26 October 2001

Visited Gabrielle's lovely studio in downtown Cincinnati; lots of nice equipment imported from Australia of all places. In the afternoon we carried on to Lake Barkley RV Resort in Eddyville, Kentucky, passing through Lexington on the way. This is the centre of the American horse breeding and racing business, although the stables are slightly different from those around Lambourn ...

... more like a cross between Transylvania and Disneyland.

Saturday 27 October 2001

In the morning we travelled through the Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area, a beautiful drive through trees and grassland with occasional glimpses of water, and virtually deserted. Over here you need at least 10 square miles per visitor to be a bona fide recreation area. Into Tennessee, passing through India, Paris and Milan; skirted round Memphis and crossed the big bridge over the Mississippi into Arkansas, ending up at the romantically named I-30 Travel Park at Benton near Little Rock. Didn't see Bill Clinton.

Sunday 28 October 2001 - Saturday 3 November 2001

Into Texas, through Texarkana and down to Traders Village RV Park in Prairie, Texas about halfway between Dallas and Fort Worth.

Interesting info #19: You may recall the song 'Cotton Fields' which includes the line 'It was down in Louisiana, just about a mile from Texarkana'. At its nearest point Texarkana is about 30 miles from the Louisiana border, showing that you can't believe everything you read or hear.

Apart from its convenience for the two cities, the main attraction of Traders Village is its proximity to a huge weekend market, a kind of enormous car boot sale covering several acres. We walked round it, through the pervasive aroma of burnt grease, past countless stalls full of cheap Mexican clothes, knock-off Nike trainers, mobile phones and used computers, ending up with a few scruffy paperbacks. People travel for hundreds of miles just to come here for the market, which is a bit scary.

As we were near Dallas we thought that a visit to South Forks Ranch was mandatory. This was a disappointment, although we were never fans of the series so maybe it's better if you can relate what you see to your favourite episodes. The tour round the house revealed some rooms decorated in truly bad taste ...

... including a fine piece of porcelain - Meissen, perhaps? ...

... but the grounds are very small and overall everything is a bit bland.

Another of Dallas' claims to fame is the world's biggest sculpture (or strictly speaking group of sculptures), a life-size cattle drive over a stream located in the centre of the city ...

We went round the botanic gardens in both Fort Worth and Dallas; the former is slightly unkempt but nonetheless attractive and contains one of my favourite signs ...

... while the latter is much more managed and formally laid out (for which it charges an entrance fee).

Fort Worth's main claim to fame is the Stockyards National Historic District, which grew up in the days when cattle had to be driven from the range to the railheads from where they were shipped east. The whole of this is now a tourist area; we saw the daily cattle drive and did the guided tour which was surprisingly interesting. It included Billy Bob's Honkytonk, a vast entertainment establishment comprising 30 seedy bars, dance floors, mechanical bulls and other sophisticated delights ...

After the tour we had the 'all you can eat' beef ribs, which are enormous, did some shopping and discovered a local speciality: the 'Bullie' bull's scrotum bag ...

... an ideal fashion accessory for those Women's Institute teas and royal garden parties.

What else? A bookbinding exhibition at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, and a visit to the Old City Park where by a remarkable coincidence Christine met a distant but definite relative. She was one of the historic re-enactors, and while we were chatting  she mentioned a trip to England last year for a meeting of various branches of the Henden family from whom Christine is also descended. (She also gave us the email address of Harry Hendon in Saratoga, California who has done a great deal of research into the family and apparently would like to hear from us, so we'll contact him shortly). Their common ancestor dates from the 16th century. Amongst the City Park's various historic buildings there was a fine original Dr. Pepper advertisement ...

That's about it. We'd only planned to be here for two days, but there's so much to see and the weather was so good that we needed the full week.

Sunday 4 November 2001 - Tuesday 6 November 2001

Down to Lone Star RV Resort in Austin, the state capital of Texas. On the way we had an excellent lunch in the small town of West, which has a number of Czech immigrants and businesses; we had Czech roast beef, very similar to ordinary roast beef but cut along rather than across the grain.

On the night we arrived there was an ice cream social in the campground: all you could eat for $1.00. It was very good stuff, especially the cookie dough flavour, so we both managed two large bowls while we watched that night's game in the baseball World Series - New York Yankees v Arizona Diamondbacks - on the big TV in the clubhouse. Arizona won, and later in the month clinched the series 4 - 3. 'World Series' indeed - the US and two (shortly to be one) Canadian teams.

Interesting info #20: After watching, or at least trying to watch, a few games of baseball on TV, we are at a loss to know why people view cricket as a boring sport. Baseball is mind-numbingly, stupefyingly dull and incomprehensible, and generates so many tedious statistics that their equivalent of Wisden must occupy several bookshelves. Not only does nothing happen for 95% of the time, but the batter actually making contact with the ball is an extreme rarity (and most of the time the hit is invalidated for some obscure reason). No wonder they broadcast women's college soccer on the cable sports channels at prime time; anything has to be an improvement over this. Mind you, I expect Americans think the same about crown green bowling.

Next day we went to the University of Texas to see the collection of books, manuscripts, photographs and all sorts of other stuff at the Treasures of the Ransom Center exhibition, and the Lyndon Baines Johnson exhibition in his memorial library on campus where his millions of presidential papers are also stored. LBJ enacted a lot of good legislation, especially in the fields of education and civil rights, although his handling of the Vietnam war tends to overshadow this. His wife, Lady Bird Johnson, is fondly remembered for getting ugly billboards removed from highways and wild flowers planted along the medians and embankments.

On our final day we visited the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, set up by her ladyship to promote the cultivation of native wild flowers throughout the country. Very pretty and worth a visit ...

Also found an Indian meal in downtown Austin which tasted like a proper one (as found in England) rather than someone cooking an Indian-type meal in their kitchen using pre-mixed spices like most that we've had over here.

Wednesday 7 November 2001

Travelling through hill country today, with a stop at Fredericton for a German sausage lunch. This area used to be savannah grasslands until the white man came and overgrazed it; now there are lots of trees, and the distinctive local building style is a kind of squared-off log cabin with white mortar. Overnight at Junction KOA, Junction.

Thursday 8 November 2001

Ever westward to Clint, near El Paso. En route the countryside changed to more traditional Texas, i.e. dirt, scrub and cacti. Saw signs advertising a Grand Gun and Knife Show which we passed up reluctantly, a huge wind farm, a winery of all things, several dust storms, and frequent Border Patrol posts although we didn't have to stop. There's a very high fence and scorched earth area alongside the I-10 which their cars patrol constantly, as this is a favourite area for illegal immigrants.

We may be doing it an injustice, but El Paso seemed an enormous dump quite unlike most Texas cities that we've seen. I suppose all border towns end up the same. The grandly named Cotton Valley RV Park and Motel where we stayed is basically a large area of dirt next to a gas station just of the Interstate; not somewhere you'd want to be for longer than a night, but even this had long-term residents. What a life.

Tomorrow we'll finally get back into South Arizona.