Laura and Michelle on 
Bourbon Street, New Orleans






Wednesday, March 27, 2002
Indiana
Illinois
Springfield
Susan Lawrence Dana House

A crisp, cloudless morning greeted us as we busily closed up the house and drove out past a semi-frozen Gull Lake at 9:00 am sharp. A late-season snowstorm that we feared would leave three inches of snow never materialized, and we had perfect driving conditions.  The odometer on Tam's BMW X5 read 39,479 miles.  Once our car GPS was programmed for our first-day destination, Springfield, Illinois, we knew that we would drive precisely 368 miles today.


We made it three miles before stopping at the local hardware store for last-minute supplies and breakfast at the McDonalds next door.

Having made several journeys like this before, we easily dropped into “full-travel” mode, which means maximum entertainment at all times.  CDs with headphones, DVD player, magazines, Gameboys, audio-books, newspapers, and arts and crafts.

The drive was uneventful until we became enmeshed in a massive traffic back-up, primarily of semi-trucks, at the junction of I-94, I-80, and I-294 south of Chicago. It was quickly discovered by the kids, however, that there was a silver lining in this highway parking lot. Michelle and Laura found a plethora of license plates on these trucks – gathering twenty-five states in five miles. The license plate game would be over in a speedy three days.

We hammered a nice lunch at a Cracker Barrel near Joliet. By 2:15 pm, we were in the shadow of the state capitol building in Springfield, Illinois.

Springfield did not exist when Illinois statehood was granted in 1818, but by 1837, it was chosen as the state capital. In 2000, the city’s population totaled 112,000 residents. Most of these people, it seemed as we drove toward the city center, were impoverished. We passed by many run-down homes and abandoned businesses. As we approached downtown, the city showed signs of gentrification; newer renovated homes and rebuilt streets and sidewalks.

On the corner of Lawrence Avenue and 5th Street was the architectural crown jewel of Springfield, the world famous Susan Lawrence Dana House.  This home was one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s first and largest commissions.  It stands as one of the finest existing examples of Wright’s work.


 


Susan Lawrence Dana was a wealthy socialite and women’s activist. In 1901, she asked the rising young architect to design a new residence that would surround and encompass portions of the existing family home. She provided Mr. Wright with a blank checkbook and clean slate on which he could experiment with a newly-emerging “Prairie Style” of construction that emphasized low, horizontal design and an embrace of indigenous flora and fauna.

Construction took two years, from 1902 to 1904. What grew out of the rural landscape was a twelve thousand square foot masterpiece of oak, brick, and stained glass.


At first look, the home is a low-slung, and somewhat dated, mass of tan-colored brick covered by a thick dark-green tile roof. On closer inspection, however, one could observe that the upper one-third of the exterior walls were covered in ornate plaster friezes and stained glass of stylized plant designs. The roof facia was also covered along its entire length with similar green plaster plates. The corners of the roof turned up slightly, giving it an oriental flavor.


The Dana House boasts the largest collection of original Wright-designed furniture (100 pieces) and art glass (450 windows) in the world.

As with many Wright homes, the Dana House underwent a five million dollar renovation between 1987 and 1990.


Our tour lasted more than an hour and we visited almost every room in the most complete showing of a Wright house that I have experienced. The kids were bored until they discovered the bowling alley in the basement, then it became the coolest house they’d ever seen!! Tam was equally impressed, noting the detail and elegance of the home. This was because much of the interior design had the definite feminine influence and good taste of Ms. Dana.

Although the restoration was not as complete and thorough as the Meyer May House in Grand Rapids, the house itself is conceptualized and executed far beyond most other Wright homes.

-----

When we arrived at the Springfield Hampton Inn, the manager announced that I was “Guest of the Day” and he presented me with a complimentary bottle of Aquafina water with a package of peanut butter crackers taped to it. A sign in the lobby posted our name for all to see!

After unpacking our gear in our room, we ate dinner at the local Red Lobster restaurant, where Laura got to pick out her own live lobster for her meal.

A quick swim and we were in for the night. We all dreamt about our nearing encounter with the Great Emancipator.





Thursday, March 28, 2002

Abraham Lincoln Home National Historic Site
Lincoln Herndon Law Offices
Abraham Lincoln Grave
Missouri
Jefferson National Expansion Memorial
St. Louis Arch

Abraham Lincoln moved from New Salem to Springfield, Illinois during the Spring of 1837. His first lodgings were the upstairs apartments above Joshua Speed’s General Store. For the next five years, Lincoln traveled throughout the state on the circuit court but he called Springfield home. He also met his future wife Mary Todd in Springfield during a holiday party in December 1839.  He married her on November 4, 1842.

As Lincoln became more politically active, he traveled less and eventually settled into his home on the corner of Eighth and Jackson Streets in May of 1844. It was at the Springfield home that the legend of Abraham Lincoln began to develop.

Heavy gray skies and thirty-four degree temperatures greeted us as we packed the car. At 8:30 am sharp we pulled into the Lincoln Home Visitor Center. We obtained tickets for the 8:45 tour of the Abraham Lincoln Home and shuffled the block to the outdoor benches in front of the site.  Just as our National Park Service guide introduced himself to us, an icy cold rain began to fall. Luckily, we soon started our tour by walking up the eight steps to the front door and entered inside the historic home.


The Abraham Lincoln Home was the only residence that the sixteenth U.S. President owned. Lincoln purchased it for twelve hundred dollars in 1844 and lived in it until 1861, when he left for Washington.


The home itself is a modest two-story frame house. Painted baby-poop mustard yellow/brown with green shutters, it sat neatly on the corner of Jackson and Eighth Streets in the center of town. It was surrounded by a white picket fence. There was a three-hole outhouse in the backyard. This was confirmed by both Michelle and Laura.


Three of four Lincoln children were born in this house. One died there.  Lincoln would often come home after law-practice, throw a newspaper on the floor, and lie in the center of the family room to read it.

History was made in this home in May 1860, when representatives of the National Republican Convention came down from Chicago to ask Lincoln to be the party’s presidential nominee. It was here, too, that on November 7, 1860, Lincoln returned from the telegraph office, woke his wife, and told her, “Mary, we are elected.”

The home had been neatly and reverently restored, with many original Lincoln furnishings. The first thing any visitor notices when entering the home is a tattered old stovepipe hat and cane hanging by the door. These were real artifacts that were personally owned and worn by Abraham Lincoln.

It was also readily noted that much of the decoration was done by Mary Todd Lincoln. Heavy use of floral wallpaper and rugs. Overall, the house was comfortable and bright inside.

The tour guide mentioned that the stair handrails were original and were used by Lincoln everyday.  As we walked upstairs, it seemed like everyone was holding them with great relish.  Michelle thought that was really cool!

 

Upstairs, toward the front of the home, was Lincoln’s bedroom. No, the bedpan was not original, but the shaving mirror was, as was the small writing desk in the corner. It was there that Abe put the finishing touches on his famous “house divided” speech.

Mary slept in separate quarters down the hall, with access to the boys bedrooms in the back. A narrow staircase led to a miniscule kitchen and rear exit. In a quick fifteen minutes, the tour was over.

Soon, we were on our way back to the car. The wind was picking up, as was the rain. We drove along brick-paved streets past the old Lincoln Herndon Law Offices and the original red-domed state capitol building. The Lincoln law offices were located upstairs, directly above the Judicial Courtroom. On occasion, Lincoln would lie on the floor and peek thorough a hole in the office floor to gain insight into courtroom proceedings.

The Great Western Railroad Station, two blocks from his home, is where the President-elect last addressed his fellow citizens in an impromptu farewell address that is considered one of his greatest:

“My friends – No one, who has ever been placed in a like position, can appreciate my feelings at this hour, nor the oppressive sadness I feel at this parting.  To this place, and the kindness of these people, I owe everything.  Here, I have lived a quarter of a century, and have passed from a young to an old man.  Here, my children have been born, and one is buried.  Today I leave, not knowing when or whether ever, I may return.  Before me is a task greater than that which rested upon General Washington.  Unless the great God, who assisted him, shall be with me and aid me, I cannot succeed.  But with that assistance I cannot fail.  Trusting in Him, who can go with me, and remain with you and be everywhere for good, let us confidently hope that all will yet be well.  Permit me to ask, that with equal sincerity and faith, you will invoke His wisdom and guidance for me. With these few words I must leave you – for how long I know not.  Friends, one and all, I must now bid you an affectionate farewell.”  (February 11, 1861)

Our next destination was the Lincoln Tomb. We proceeded two miles up the main street from downtown Springfield to the northern edge of town. This was the same route that the funeral procession took one hundred thirty-seven years ago from the state capitol to Oak Ridge Cemetery. I’ll bet they never waited for the eighty-seven car train that crawled by, delaying us by twenty minutes.

The Lincoln Tomb was immediately visible when entering the through the main cemetery gates. It was a massive four-cornered limestone and granite structure that surrounds a 117 foot tall obelisk.

Abraham Lincoln returned to Springfield on May 3, 1865. Mary Todd insisted that he be buried at Oak Ridge Cemetery. This was carried out and he was hastily buried in a temporary vault while a permanent memorial was designed and built. Lincoln was buried and reburied several times over the next ten years.

On election night in 1876, a group of body snatchers attempted to kidnap the President’s remains and hide them in an Indiana sand dune. The coffin was actually partially removed from the ground when federal agents ambushed them at the last minute.

Over the years, several myths began to grow about whether Lincoln was really in his casket or not. So, on September 1901, thirty-six years after his death, a small group of Springfield citizens (including a nine-year-old boy) assembled at Oak Ridge Cemetery to perform an important duty ... identify the remains of President Abraham Lincoln.

The casket was placed on a table and the green lead lid was removed, releasing a strong pungent odor which surrounded the onlookers huddled around it. Those select few people were face to face with history. Lincoln’s face had been covered with chalk by a Philadelphia undertaker to disguise the President’s decomposing corpse during the cross-country journey from Washington. Nevertheless, Lincoln’s features were plainly visible. His eyebrows had vanished and yellow and red mold spotted his black broadcloth suit.

With his identity firmly established and the crowd’s curiosity gratified, Lincoln was finally lowered ten feet into a specifically-built steel bar crypt and then smothered by twenty-five thousand pounds of Portland cement.

We walked up to the tomb in the cold rain. Just in front of the tomb was a dark-brown bronze bust of Lincoln – his nose a shiny gold. A well-known tradition is that if you rub Lincoln’s nose, it will bring you good luck. This nose has been rubbed so many times by literally millions of people that it had become misshapen, particularly when looking at it from profile. With this altered nose, the bust took on sort of a 'Tony Bennett' look.

Both Michelle and Laura liberally rubbed his nose as well.


We respectfully entered the tomb, working our way to the back antechamber where we found the marble sarcophagus. On it was the simple description:

Abraham Lincoln

1809 – 1865

In-wall crypts behind us were the burial locations of Mary Todd and three of the four sons: Eddie, Willie, and Tad.  The oldest son, Robert Todd, was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.



Just outside the gates of Oak Ridge Cemetery was the Lincoln Tomb Souvenir and Gift Shopa shameless example of American commercialism.  There were slots for at least twenty large tour busses in the parking lot.  Fortunately, we had beaten the crowd and had the store to ourselves. We shopped among hundreds of post cards, bumper stickers, and collector coins. The major highlight was a signed limited edition print of Abraham Lincoln, deep in thought, with Elvis Presley standing over him, providing spiritual support.

Laura bought a small cedar storage box with a unicorn on it, with the words “Lincoln Tomb” stamped on the bottom.  Michelle bought a similar box with planets on it.

We made one more stop downtown near the Lincoln Herndon Law Offices.  It was a specialty/antique bookstore named “Prairie Antiques.” I purchased the nine-volume “Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln” and shipped it home.

The rain began to pour as we left Springfield, heading southwest toward St. Louis. For two hours, we slogged along interstate 55, stopping three times for food, lotto tickets, and toilets.  The land through Illinois was a mostly flat agricultural landscape. A two-lane road paralleled us along the interstate from Chicago to St. Louis. It was the legendary Route 66. The remains of old gas stations, motor lodges, and diners were constantly evident along that road.

As we approached St. Louis, the skies began to clear. The rain ended and clouds began to lift.

Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the silhouette of the city of St. Louis in the distance (12 miles away).  And then, just to the left, I spotted The Gateway Arch standing powerfully above the buildings. As we edged closer, the arch loomed larger and larger. It was much more powerful than anyone imagined. By the time we crossed the Mississippi River into Missouri, the arch had us mesmerized, its polished stainless steel surface gleaming in the clearing sky.

We continued to the St. Louis Union Station, once the glorious railroad crossroads to the west, it is now a shopping mall and hotel complex. Our lunch destination was the St. Louis Hard Rock CafĂ©, where we bought T-shirts and guitar pins.


After lunch, we proceeded to the Gateway Arch for our 3:15 pm date with destiny. We stepped out of Union Station to find a glorious blue sky against which the arch cut a razor sharp image.

The National Park Service sign at the entrance read, “Jefferson National Expansion Memorial.” The ninety-one acre park along the western shore of the Mississippi River commemorates the western expansion of the United States during the nineteenth century.  The park was actually created in 1935, nearly thirty years before the Gateway Arch was built.

In 1947, a nationwide competition was held to design an appropriate memorial recognizing “the spirit of the pioneers who risked so much to develop the west, the spirit that moved Thomas Jefferson to consummate the Louisiana Purchase, and the spirit of the United States of America.”

Hundreds of designs were submitted by renowned architects from coast to coast. One design, by modernist Eero Saarinen, seemed to capture this spirit.  A simple arch – 630 feet high and 630 feet wide. A symbolic gateway to the west. A simple design made of advanced stainless steel materials and requiring cutting edge engineering and construction techniques.

Saarinen’s catenary curve was selected but construction did not begin until 1962, a year after the designer died of a brain tumor at fifty-one years of age.

On June 27, 1962, the first foundations of concrete were poured. For the next three years, two huge legs grew out of the ground in front of the St. Louis skyline. On October 28, 1965, the final eight-foot wide centerpiece was installed.

The arch is the tallest man-made monument in the United States.  Seventy-five feet taller than the Washington Monument. It can be seen for thirty miles. Nine hundred tons of stainless steel were used in its construction. Twenty-two hundred tons of carbon-steel plate was used for the interior sections.

As we walked toward the arch from the parking lot, the surface of the arch would seemingly change as the sun’s reflection moved along its curved surface. An underground visitor center helps maintain the monument’s simplicity of design.


Once inside the visitor center, we found ourselves in a long line waiting to pass through security. I knew this would be the case, since the arch had been identified as one of the top five terrorist targets following the World Trade Center attacks on September 11, 2001.

I picked up our tour tickets at the welcome center. There were many disappointed tourists standing around because tour tickets had been sold out for days!  (I had purchased ours on the internet a month before).

We first watched a fascinating forty-minute movie on the construction of the arch, then we proceeded to the half-dozen or so trams that take tourists to the top. We got on board North Tram #2 through a small eighteen-inch by thirty-inch passageway. The tram itself was cramped with seating for five, like putting five people into the back of a small mini-van. Laura was excited.  Michelle less so.

Every few seconds, as the tram made the four-minute climb to the top of the arch, a little bell would ring and then the tram would make a jerky adjustment to keep it level as it passed through the curving triangular tube.  This enhanced the experience for everyone. I videotaped every minute of it (see below).

The doors opened, we walked up some narrow stairs, and then we were inside the viewing platform. Larger than I remembered when I was there last in 1971, it was gently swaying, like the deck of a ship. Laura and I ran up to the small rectangular windows to look out. Tam and Michelle carefully maneuvered themselves, holding onto the walls.


The view was spectacular! Looking east, the shadow of the arch spread over the Mississippi River and the riverboats moored along the shore.  Looking west, the St. Louis skyline looked up at us. I could easily see inside Busch Stadium.

Yes, there were a few fleeting moments when I visualized a low-level jet airliner cruising across the river at high speed in an imaginary terrorist attack.

At the apex of the curved observation area, there was a small sign signifying the 630 foot height of the monument.  A National Park Ranger took our family picture in front of this sign. Then Tam said abruptly, “Time to leave.” What?  We had only been there two minutes!  But I could see her standing to the side of the observation deck hanging on to the wall for dear life. She wanted to go down – NOW. She said that she was freaking out at the idea that nothing was below us.



We took the next tram down, did the gift shop thing and then walked around the arch on the beautiful 68 degree afternoon. We walked directly underneath it from one end to the other, looking straight up all the way! 

By five o’clock, we realized that we regretfully had to leave (we still had three hundred miles to travel). On the walk back to the car and apparently at a lower level of stress, Tam calmly said that she was impressed with the monument. She had underestimated its size and had assumed that it was made of concrete. She said that the stainless surface made it much more beautiful than she imagined.

As we drove westward, like those pioneers whom we had just celebrated, we kept looking back. The arch slowly disappeared into the distance just beyond the rolling hills and expanse of suburbia.

Driving along I-44 toward Springfield, Missouri, we continued to parallel old Route 66 and saw some of the classic and memorable tourist-trap landmarks such as Exotic Animal Park, Meramec Caverns, and the Jesse James Museum in Stanton. We stopped at a Steak and Shake for dinner along the interstate and continued our drive toward a gradually setting sun.

We drove through the Ozarks in the dark, winding along the hills and river valleys. The Olin juggernaut checked into our Hampton Hotel at 9:00 pm.  We had just missed Michelle's favorite television show – Survivor!






Friday, March 29, 2002
Kansas
Arkansas
Oklahoma
Oklahoma City National Memorial

Good Friday.

The freight trains that passed behind our hotel at 11:32, 1:07, 3:26, and 5:11 did not keep me up at all last night.

While Tam and the girls ate breakfast, I stepped out with the luggage to pack the car and was greeted by a glorious morning. Bluebird sky. Seventy degrees. The first real day of Spring in the year 2002.

Soon, we piled into the BMW X5 and continued west on I-44. Just west of Springfield, we passed a sign designating the interstate as the Payne Stewart Memorial Highway. A few minutes later, we observed a sign that read Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield. One of the earliest and westernmost battles of the Civil War was fought on August 10, 1861.  Brigadier General Nathaniel Lyon was the first Union general to die during the Civil War at Wilson's Creek.

After a quick stop in Joplin, Missouri to refuel, we exited off of US 400 and drove about a quarter mile north to the Kansas state border. We jumped out, took the picture at the state sign, jumped back in, made a U-turn and drove about one-hundred yards back out of Kansas. We weren’t in Kansas anymore! 

Within seconds, we jumped out, took the picture at the Missouri sign, jumped back in and drove back to the interstate. We drove west one mile, jumped out, took pictures at the Oklahoma state sign, jumped back in and continued westward on the Will Rogers Turnpike.


 

Before long, we exited at Afton and continued on US 59, over the Grand Lake of the Cherokees to Grove, Oklahoma. From there, we drove south to Jay, then eastward on route 20 to the Arkansas border, where we took more pictures. It was at this desolate location that Laura announced that she had to go to the bathroom – RIGHT NOW! I suggested that she go on the Arkansas state sign. She refused.  Besides, Tam thought that Laura might cut her foot on the twenty or so empty beer cans strewn underneath the marker.

 

We desperately pulled into the town of Maysville, Arkansas – population 38. I wasn’t sure if they even had plumbing, but luckily, there was a Conoco gas station and the crisis was averted.

From there, we meandered down route 43 through Cherokee City. We drove past several large Tyson chicken processing operations. There appeared to be far more family farms along the road, all of which seemed long out of business. This part of the world was very rural and very poor.

We slid into Siloam Springs, where we found a Pizza Hut. A quick buffet lunch and we were westbound once again.

Once we crossed back into Oklahoma, the geography changed dramatically.  Rolling hills gave way to rugged stone outcroppings of gray, orange, and red stone. Trees gave way to open plains.  Looking out over the horizon, it was easy to imagine teepees, stagecoaches, and rattlesnakes sprinkled across the landscape.

We cruised along the Cherokee Turnpike into Tulsa. Once again, we crossed Route 66 as we merged with I-44 and continued toward Oklahoma City.

On May 3, 1999, a massive F-5 tornado (part of a seventy tornado supercell) marched nearly one hundred miles from Norman to Tulsa, Oklahoma. The devastation was tremendous. Entire towns were vaporized by the mile-wide twister.  Forty people were killed and nearly seven hundred were injured. The fifty-three store Tanger Outlet Mall along the interstate near Stroud was leveled.  We drove by what was a huge empty parking lot. The stripes were still clearly painted on it. A water tower advertised an outlet mall that no longer existed!! It was not hard to imagine funnel clouds dancing along Oklahoma’s flat horizon. The fact is that more tornados occur in the Sooner State than any other state, including Kansas.

After checking into another Hampton Inn, we proceeded to downtown Oklahoma City. At the corner of NW5th and Harvey Streets is the Oklahoma City National Memorial. This was where the Alfred P. Murrah Building once stood, until April 19, 1995.

 

At 9:02 am, just as employees were arriving for work, a truck strategically placed under the north side portico by Timothy McVeigh, detonated its 4,800 pounds of fertilizer explosive. The explosion instantly destroyed the Murrah Building, taking one hundred sixty-eight lives and injuring seven hundred others. Nine floors pancaked to the street into a thirty foot deep crater where the truck once was. The heat from the blast torched cars hundreds of yards away. Windows of other buildings were blown out for ten blocks in all directions. The explosion could be heard and felt in Norman, fifteen miles away.


On April 19, 2000, a memorial was dedicated to those who lost their lives in the attack. The park is situated on three and a half acres on the site where the building once stood. It features two gates of times, one on each end of the park. On the wall of one gate is marked the time 9:01 and on the other is 9:03. The gates frame the memorial’s reflecting pool and “Field of Empty Chairs.” The chairs are lined up in rows according to what floor the people were located when the blast occurred. Each chair of bronze and glass is engraved with the name of a victim. Smaller chairs signify the children that were in the second floor daycare center. At night, each chair is lit from underneath. The names of victims glow on the etched glass surfaces.

The southern perimeter of the memorial is the remaining corner of the Murrah Building itself, with jagged and charred edges reaching toward the heavens.


The original chain-link fence that once cordoned-off the area remained, as it was covered with literally thousands of pictures, poems, messages, and mementos left by the grieving.

A child’s park within the memorial let kids leave messages in chalk on the slate sidewalk.

 

A peaceful sunset spread lengthening shadows across the memorial as we arrived to pay our respects. We were all very moved by the experience: Michelle by the small chairs mixed among the large, Tam by the personal messages left on the fence, and Tom by the remains of the original building that gave tangible evidence of the devastation. Laura spent many minutes creating a special drawing in chalk in the children’s park.

I believe that this was probably one of the finest memorials of its kind I had seen. Very well conceived and carried out. Very appropriate.

Tam and I couldn’t help but wonder aloud if a future World Trade Center memorial could possibly be this well done.

We drove back toward the hotel and ate at Garcia’s Mexican Restaurant.  After picking up some reading material at Barnes and Noble, we returned to the hotel where the kids took a quick swim and we all crashed around 9:30 pm.

Oklahoma City was the western-most point of our tour. We turn left, to Dallas, and points south.





Saturday, March 30, 2002
National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum
Texas
Dealy Plaza and Sixth Floor Museum

On April 22, 1889, between noon and sundown, the unassigned lands of the Oklahoma Territory were opened for settlement and ten thousand land claims were made in one afternoon.  Oklahoma City literally blossomed overnight.

In 1910, Oklahoma City was named as state capital. On December 4, 1928, the first oil well within the city limits struck a gusher. Oil derricks sprouted all over the state. The most famous strike was the “Mary Sudik” which blew in 1930 and lasted for eleven days, spreading oil as far as fifteen miles.  Today, there are two thousand wells within the city limits. Most of the wells we saw throughout the state were dormant and covered in rust.

But very much alive today in Oklahoma City was the influence of the American cowboy. Rodeos and horse shows continued nearly every weekend in the area.  Cowboys still practiced their trade at horse and cattle ranches in the surrounding region. This cowboy heritage has proven to be a stabilizing influence as Oklahoma City experiences ongoing change.

We pulled back the curtains to find heavy gray skies. A blustery wind howled through the budding trees. A few drops of cold rain were spraying around.

Our first stop was the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum. The complex, open since 1965, was located just north of Oklahoma City on the old Chisom Trail. The museum was impressive, featuring contemporary architecture incorporating traditional Indian teepee design.


Once inside, the place was spotlessly clean, spacious, and beautiful. The museum underwent an expansion in 1994, increasing from eighty thousand to two hundred thousand square feet in size. It was spread out into several modular units. Huge bronze sculptures of wildlife, cowboys, and Indians line the wide, marbled hallways.


One room, the convention center, had huge triptiches by painter Wilson Hurley.  These were twenty-foot high, mural-sized, landscapes of Monument Valley, the Grand Canyon, and the upper falls of Yellowstone Park.


The museum had the largest collections of saddles, hats, boots, guns, barbed wire, branding irons, and chaps in the world. All of it proudly and elegantly displayed.


In the galleries down the hall, were stunning collections of works by Charles Russell, Fredrick Remington, Solon Borglum, and many others.


I was incredibly impressed with the entire experience, one of the best museums I had visited. It came as no surprise when I learned that some of the wealthiest families in Oklahoma and Texas underwrote the whole thing.  Many of the paintings and sculptures were personally donated by the benefactors. Many of the artifacts were priceless and the place was crawling with very polite but very well armed security guards. Nevertheless, we were made welcome by several elderly docents who really enjoyed talking with us.


We stopped by the gift shop where artisans were busy selling jewelry, wood carvings, and watercolor paintings. We bought a large ceramic native American vase and sent it home.

Back in the car and headed south, we drove toward darkening skies and were soon hammered by heavy rain. We stopped for a quick lunch at Burger King in Norman, home of the University of Oklahoma Sooners. The family truckster was soon slogging down I-35 through the increasingly rugged southern Oklahoma landscape. After a couple of long and very boring hours, we crossed the Red River into Texas.

As we neared Dallas, we could see the skyline of buildings rising in the distance. Unfortunately, we could also see more massive black thunderheads rising around them. By the time we arrived at Dealy Plaza, thunder was echoing in the caverns between the skyscrapers.

We parked the car and ran for cover under inside the Sixth Floor Museum.  Now a museum, it was the Texas Book Depository in 1963 when Lee Harvey Oswald leaned out of a sixth story window with a sniper’s rifle and snuffed out the life of President John F. Kennedy. After waiting in line for a half-hour to purchase tickets, we finally took the elevator to the sixth floor. The museum was so crowded that it was hard to view many of the display panels. I watched the girls as they went through the exhibits, absorbing it all. But it seemed like the whole story really came to life for them once we walked out onto a wet Dealy Plaza and visualized the event from there. An “x” painted on the street marks the location where the fatal shot hit its victim. We dodged cars so that we could stand at that point and look back toward the corner window where Oswald fired the shots.


Suddenly, Tam and I looked around and couldn’t find Laura. We conducted a brief and panicked search where we finally found her, with a crowd of people listening to a souvenir vendor up on the grassy knoll, making his case for a conspiracy.

Video evidence of Laura
on the run to the grassy knoll

Laura and Michelle were keenly interested in the whole affair and understood what transpired here. Both were moved. Michelle kept asking questions and Laura was quiet but kept reading everything.

Next, we drove to the Dallas Hard Rock CafĂ© to grab a drink and buy more pins for friends and family. We did not eat there. We had someplace else in mind. Dave and Busters was like a great big restaurant/arcade for kids and adults. We ate a better-than-average dinner there and then played games for two hours. This location was the flagship store (the chain's first) and its success helped Dave & Buster open thirty-three more stores around the country during the past fifteen years.

We finally checked into the Westin Galleria Hotel at 8:00 pm. The kids settled in to watch Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone while Tam and I watched Ocean’s Eleven.


From the comfort and safety of our seventeenth floor hotel rooms, we watched huge thunderstorms parade over our building. Just east of us, the storms spawned three tornados.  Michelle kept switching between Harry Potter and the Weather Channel.





Sunday, March 31, 2002
Six Flags Over Texas

Easter Sunday.

The Easter Bunny arrived in room #1710 at the Westin Galleria Hotel.  The kids collected their eggs very quickly. It was not hard to find them in a ten by fifteen foot room.

Getting an early start, we piled into the car with a giant bag of dirty laundry and drove three blocks to Speed King – Lavanderia. Tam stayed and did laundry while I took the kids to breakfast at the Burger King down the street. We soon returned to help fold laundry and brush up on our Spanish.

Michelle and Laura were very helpful at the laundromat because they were anxious to move on to our next adventure, Six Flags Over Texas.


It took about a half-hour to drive across the metroplex to get to Arlington. The Texas Six Flags theme park was the first of its kind in the nation. The title “Six Flags” represented the six flags that had flown over Texas throughout her history. These flags were: Confederate States of America, France, Mexico, Republic of Texas, Spain, and the United States.

Driving up to the park, we were all reminded of the legendary “Wally World” amusement park from the movie Vacation. The park had definitely seen better days and really looked cheesy.  Still, the place was not cheap, forty bucks a head.

 

Once inside, we discovered that it was a roller coaster paradise. Laura made a bee-line for the Batman ride, the newest and wildest in the park. The rider was suspended by straps and hangs under the rails, feet dangling and legs swaying as the ride makes endless loops and corkscrews. Laura and I got in line. Then I watched the ride once and chickened out. Laura went on the ride by herself. A few minutes later, she walked out ... King of the World!! She thought it was great.  The family hero! 

The four of us all went together on Super Chuter and other more sedate rides. Then Laura, feeling pretty cocky, got in line for the Wildcatter, a five-story vertical drop experience. When she exited, she was white as a sheet, but still proud that she was the only one of us to do that ride. She was fearless!


The rest of the afternoon was spent riding rides, playing arcades, and snacking our way around the park.  Among those snacks were huge barbequed turkey legs. It was the true fairground culinary experience.

The last ride of the day for us was the Whitewater Rapids Adventure. All four of us got completely soaked. Good thing the sun was out and the temperature was above seventy degrees. Four wet rats climbed into the car. Tam gave us all a thrill when she changed her clothes in the Six Flags parking lot before we left!! The rest of us sloshed back to the hotel where we ate room service dinner and watched more in-room movies.

Next destination, Houston.





Monday, April 1, 2002
Traversing Texas To Houston

Dallas was born when John Neely Bryan built a cabin along the Trinity River in 1841. By 1872, the Texas Central Railroad brought its railway into the village and the town exploded to six thousand people.

As with Oklahoma City, Dallas’ real growth occurred with a nearby oil strike in 1930. East Texas became home to many millionaires and the Federal Reserve Bank was wooed there in 1936. Soon after came the establishment of Southern Methodist University and the University of Texas, cementing Dallas as Texas’ educational, cultural, and financial center.

I was up early and was at John Robert BMW before they opened at 7:30 am.  I needed some replacement molding clips for the X5. Afterward, I went to the Alladin Car Wash on Forest Lane and washed the car inside and out. It was amazing how much crud could accumulate after 1200 miles of travel.

The girls ate breakfast in the Galleria Mall while I packed the car. By 10:30 am, we were underway for Houston. I drove down US75 to Interstate 45. We stopped for fuel and a Whopper just south of Corsicana.

Continuing toward Houston, near Huntsville, we drove past a gigantic masonry statue of Sam Houston. We later learned that this monument marked where Sam Houston lived most of his life. It was also where he is buried.


Entering the metroplex from the north, we passed the Woodlands resort complex where Vijay Singh had just won the PGA Houston Open the day before by six strokes.

Our hotel, the Doubletree Post Oak, was located on the west side of Houston, near Katy. The weather was warm, above eighty degrees, so the kids and Mom and Dad all went down to the outdoor pool to enjoy the beautiful day.


Houston was born in 1824 when John Harris built a maritime trading post on Buffalo Bayou. The Allen brothers, Augustus and John tried to buy the post from Harris in 1836. Finding the price too high, the Allens started their own town further up the bayou and named it Houston, for General Sam Houston, who had just defeated the Mexicans at nearby San Jacinto.

The emergence of the oil industry, along with the development of high technology businesses, helped Houston grow. NASA’s Johnson Space Center really put Houston on the map.  In fact, many here will remind you that the first word that man uttered from the surface of the moon in July 1969 was “Houston.”

The construction of the first fully indoor stadium, the Astrodome, in 1965, brought even more fame to this city.

Lately, however, the financial misdeeds of the Enron Corporation had cast a shadow over the proud city of Houston.  Nonetheless, it is a strong, viable, and diverse metroplex that is embracing the future.

The April Fool’s joke of the day came courtesy of our car’s GPS computer. I was driving toward downtown to locate the Houston Hard Rock CafĂ©. The car navigation system kept telling us that the restaurant was not downtown but out on Kirby Drive. The AAA book said that it was downtown at Bayou Place. After driving through bumper-to-bumper rush hour traffic, we finally got to the Bayou Place building, but it looked to be under construction. So reluctantly, I got back on the freeway (in bumper-to-bumper rush hour traffic) and drove eight miles to Kirby Drive.  When we got to the location on the GPS computer, we saw a vacant building for sale. It was the original Hard Rock location I remembered from many years ago. 

So at this point, we finally called the restaurant. Ha Ha. It was in the Bayou Place building, but on the other side.  So we got back on the freeway and drove back downtown to the HRC where we ate dinner and bought more pins. For Tam, the whole adventure was not worth it. For me, it was a moral victory. For the kids…they were happy.  They got Hard Rock CafĂ© tie-dyed underwear!!







Tuesday, April 2, 2002
Lyndon B Johnson Space Center
Galveston Bay

I pulled the drapes back at 6:00 am to find our world in a cloudbank.  Skycrapers disappeared at their third floors, and the damp air sat heavy on everything around us. However, the forecast called for 82 degrees and sun in the afternoon.

Before 9:00 am, we were driving around the perimeter of Houston on Interstate 610. Just east of Kirby Drive, I could see Enron Field, and beside it, the Astrodome. In it’s day, the Astrodome was state of the art. On this day, sitting beside the huge Enron Field, it looked small and sad. Across the highway was Six Flags Houston.  Laura pressed her face on the car window and drooled, dreaming of the Batman ride.

Headed south on route 59, the signs for Galveston prompted us to put on the Glen Campbell classic of the same name. All four voices in the Olin caravan broke out into a full-blast chorus of Galveston as drove south under a clearing sky.

We turned onto “NASA 1” and soon into the parking lot at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center. The visitor center opened at 10:00 am, and we immediately boarded the tram for a behind-the-scenes tour of Johnson Space Center.  After a brief and not too rigorous security check, we were on our way.


The first stop was Rocket Park, with full-size working examples of Mercury, Atlas, and Saturn V rockets.

Next, we stopped at the X-38 Development Building. Here, the X-38 emergency return craft is being built. A simple wedge design, it's purpose was to remain affixed to the International Space Station until it was needed for an emergency return to earth. It would jettison the station, enter the atmosphere like a glider, and then float back to earth with massive parachutes.

The X-38 was being ready for use in 2004 with an estimated total production cost of $125 million.


Our next stop was the Space Vehicle Mockup Facility, where astronauts were trained on full-size mockups of all spacecraft. Looking down from an observation platform, it was like looking into a big garage. There were three or four full-size shuttles, a couple of Soviet Soyuz capsules, a complete space station, three fully operational robot arms, and more.

As we drove around the Mission Control campus, our tour leader pointed out various buildings and explained their purpose to us. He also explained that final preparations were underway for the launch of shuttle Atlantis in two days, on April 4th.


After the ninety-minute tour, we returned to the visitor center, where the major traveling exhibit “Grossology” captured our attention. One hands-on display showed how people vomit.  Another display enabled visitors to shoot green pollen ping pong balls into a giant nose. The worst one had the visitor whiff different kinds of stink and guess whether it was armpit, foot, bad breath, or anus! Totally gross ... the kids loved it!!

Laura got into a special zero-gravity simulator and was given instructions to flip all kinds of switches on a mock-up space shuttle control panel. She scored the fastest time of the day!


Michelle signed a special banner with her name and the names of her friends. The banner will be sent up to the International Space Station on a future shuttle flight.

After more than four hours at Johnson Space Center, we drove down to the Kemah Boardwalk along Galveston Bay. We spent a hot, almost ninety degree, afternoon wandering between art and gift shops. The sky was once again bright blue but the Gulf of Mexico was brown and churning in the brisk winds. We ate dinner at Joe’s Crab Shack along the boardwalk. As we ate, we watched all types of boats head out into the harbor. Clear Lake, which adjoins Galveston Bay, has the greatest number of boat slips in the state with more than seven thousand.

We were at the southernmost point of our tour.


We drove back to Houston and the Doubletree Hotel. Laura climbed out of the car in a complete astronaut outfit,  wearing her helmet, and marched through the packed lobby of the hotel as if she were taking the elevator to the top of the shuttle. Man, she had guts!!

Once again, the kids took a twilight swim in the hotel pool and then we turned in for the evening. We had big miles to cover on our drive to the “Big Easy."





Wednesday, April 3, 2002
Louisiana
Breaux Bridge
The Original Mulates
New Orleans
Bourbon Street

The Olin wagon train started early.  We were down the road by 8:00 am.  Our trek would take us through Bayou Country to New Orleans via Interstate 10. Three hundred sixty-seven miles.

Just east of Houston, near Pasadena, we saw the San Jacinto Monument, celebrating the victory of Sam Houston’s troops over the Mexican army in 1836. At first, it was hard to spot the monument among the plethora of oil refinery derricks and stacks. Then, the masonry 570 foot monument emerged above everything.  Topped with a large Texas star on top, the monument shone brightly in the morning sun.

Just west of the state line, we enjoyed watching a crop duster plane make several loops over us as he sprayed fields along both sides of the interstate.

After cruising through Beaumont and Port Arthur, Texas, we crossed into Louisiana at the Sabine River. The presence of oil refineries slowly gave way to commercial rice patties. Then the rice patties started to give way to wild swamps.


At noon, we rolled into Breaux Bridge looking for lunch. This region was colonized by French Nova Scotians when they were expelled by the British in the 1700’s. These immigrants settled in twenty-two parishes in south-central Louisiana. Their descendants, commonly called Cajuns, still speak a French dialect and observe the traditions of their ancestors.

Just west of Breaux Bridge was the “original” Cajun restaurant and dance hall named Mulates. Operated by Goldie Comeaux since 1980, the business had thrived there for more than one hundred years. The reputation of Mulates had drawn an impressive list of musicians and celebrities, including Robert Duvall, Paul Simon, Meg Ryan, Bill Bradley, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Huey Lewis, and of course … Geraldo Rivera.

From the outside, Mulates looked like any bar in Michigan, heavily-painted cedar clapboard with no windows.  Stepping inside, the entire ceiling was covered with business cards thumb-tacked into it. Literally ten thousand cards!! In the center of the restaurant was a very worn wooden dance floor.  On either side of it were cheap tables and chairs spread out in both directions. We sat on the edge of the dance floor next to a massive cypress tree trunk that served as a load-bearing post. Next to us was a table of elderly folks, talking freely in Cajun.


Our meal consisted of the best alligator and crawfish I had ever eaten!! The kids hammered every bite of what was served them. Tam even liked her catfish special.

Then the band fired up. It consisted of a guitarist, a fiddler, and an accordionist. Next thing you know, an older gentleman next to us got up and started to dance. Then he turned and asked Tam if she would like to dance!!  Shocked and surprised, Tam politely said no thanks. The rest of us all tried to push her out there and our friend kept insisting. I thought the whole thing was hilarious!! Tam grabbed the girls and went out to the parking lot while I paid for the meal, the cookbooks, the bumper stickers, the spice shaker, two CDs ... and Laura’s new plastic accordion.


As they say at Mulates ... “Laissez les bon temps rouler!”  Let the good times roll!!

We drove the next ninety miles through the swamps, listening to Cajun music, Laura’s accordion, and burping up our deep-fried lunch. It almost tasted better the second time around!

We re-crossed the Mississippi River at Baton Rouge. The Louisiana state capitol building stood strong along the river’s edge, looking more like the Wrigley Building than a state capitol.

We paralleled Lake Pontchartrain and slouched our way past the Superdome on the way to the Marriott Canal Place.  We checked in among a thousand college professors there for a conference. No, Laura was not wearing her space suit.

Our rooms were on the 31st floor, overlooking the Mississippi River, riverboats paddling up and down in front of the French Quarter. This was not the view that Jean-Baptiste LeMoyne had in 1699 when he first arrived to settle the region for France.  He named it after the French Regent Phillippe Duc d’Orleans. To express its gratitude, the French government rounded up its thieves, prostitutes, and other undesirables and shipped them across the Atlantic to populate the city.

So that explains everything!!

Soon after, the slaves arrived, followed by the Cajuns.

The place survived massive fires in 1788 and 1794 and changed hands twice in 1803 (when the Spanish sold it to the French who then sold it to the United States to finance their war against the British).

Being the important strategic port that it was, New Orleans was captured by the Union Army early in the Civil War in April 1862. Post war, New Orleans continued to thrive despite corrupt business and political shenanigans.  A century later, the “Big Easy” is still going strong as America’s longest running continuous fraternity party.

Ground zero for this party is the infamous French Quarter, a one square mile area tangent to the river.  The Olins walked down Royal Street for about fifteen blocks. The street runs through the center of the quarter but was not as busy as Bourbon Street. Many art studios were located there, but we just didn’t have the time to look around. Anyway, this was an educational trip and the kids were about to get their first lesson in the seamier aspects of life. Almost immediately after turning onto Bourbon Street we saw several homeless people curled up against a building.  Next, we passed by countless drunks and tripping addicts.

We stopped briefly in front of Preservation Hall, birthplace of New Orleans jazz music. A brass band was blaring out into the street, trombone sliding up and down with the rhythms. 

The further we walked, the wilder it got.  Strippers and prostitutes stepped out to greet me, in front of my kids.  Michelle didn’t miss a thing. She knew what was going on. On the other hand, Laura really liked what they were wearing. In fact, she was putting on a show of her own, having bought a huge feather boa, a half-dozen necklaces, and Marti Gras mask at a local tourist trap. She was strutting her stuff right down the middle of Bourbon Street. Oh my God!!


Several pick-pockets tried to snuggle up to us but Michelle’s keen eye was on the lookout and kept us out of trouble.

We all did some major shopping for bead necklaces and cheap masks. The  T-shirt shopping got real serious, however, on Decatur Street at Bubba Gump’s Shrimp Shack, the Hard Rock CafĂ©, and Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville.

 

I tried to explain the historic importance of Jackson Square to the kids but hunger and shopping bags were big distractions. We saw these landmarks, but couldn't fully absorb them. For example: Jackson Square is historically significant because it was where the Louisiana Territory was transferred from Napoleon to the United States ... but it was hard to pay attention while diving into a bag from Cafe Du Monde.

We enjoyed a hot and spicy dinner at Margaritaville and bloatedly walked back to the Marriott as evening settled in.

New Orleans is a sensual place. The sights, sounds, and smells are intense and ever-present. A trombone slides up and down while a beer bottle is kicked across a brick sidewalk.  Eighteenth century wrought iron railings tucked above a neon sign that says “All male celebrity impersonators.” There is the constant mixed aroma of stale beer and creole spices.

All too brief. Our next destination, the deep south ... Mississippi and Alabama.





Thursday, April 4, 2002
Mississippi
Alabama

Huge cargo ships maneuvered around the arching Mississippi below our window in the early morning light. A freighter named the Yang Ming from China seemed nimbler than the others as it maintained its head start toward the Gulf of Mexico.

Sadly, we had to check out and begin the gradual return trip home. We breezed by Jackson Square and were unable to show the kids several other important historic and tourist locations – i.e. St. Louis Cathedral and the Aquarium of the Americas.

Tam and I could have spent days wandering around the art galleries and taking in some great food and music.   I made a mental note to return to New Orleans again soon.

Packing the car was becoming nearly impossible!! The back of the car was stuffed to the ceiling. Michelle had every nook and cranny filled with candy wrappers, Marti Gras necklaces, and the basketball she won at Six Flags. Laura won a life-size, three-foot high, stuffed dog that she named Buster and placed it in the center of the back seat. Every time I looked in the rear view mirror, the dog was staring me in the face. Tam’s bag of dirty laundry kept growing by the minute, and the bag would soon include the pants I was wearing, when they became inadvertently spackled with Picante sauce when Laura tried to squeeze it onto her McDonald’s breakfast burrito in the back seat of the car.

By nine in the morning, we were sliding across the eastern shore of Lake Ponchartrain through Slidell, Louisiana and into Mississippi.


Hernando de Soto first tread on the land now known as Mississippi in 1541. One hundred fifty years later, in 1699, Pierre le Moyne established the first permanent settlement in the Mississippi valley. Little more than one hundred fifty years after that, the state of Mississippi seceded from the Union and its favorite son, Jefferson Davis, was chosen as President of the Confederate States of America. Another hundred years later, Mississippi was still the focus of racial upheaval and violence.

Mississippi's destiny has been slow to develop. To us it seemed sleepy, slow-moving, even backward. We covered two hundred miles, on Interstate 59, through the heart of the state and found much of it undeveloped, just as de Soto must have found it five hundred years ago. The swamps near the Gulf of Mexico slowly transitioned to lush green pine and deciduous forests. Miles and miles of forest, no roads, no buildings, no power lines.  It was truly wild space.

Mississippi’s other favorite son, Elvis Presley, was born in the north-east town of Tupelo not far from Meridian, where we ate lunch at Applebees. By one o’clock, we were crossing into Alabama. At first, the topography seemed the same as Mississippi, but then we were soon traversing rolling foothills. By the time we drove through Tuscaloosa, we encountered more severe rock outcroppings. In fact, we had climbed from sea level in New Orleans to twelve hundred feet as we entered Birmingham.


Nobody was in the mood to tour the Alabama capital after driving four hundred miles. Besides the famous Vulcan statue was closed for renovations. I asked if anyone wanted to visit the Civil Rights Institute ... no takers. So we did the only thing we could all agree on, checked into the hotel and went to Outback Steakhouse for dinner.

We all settled in for the latest episode of Survivor and then wrapped it up for the day.






Friday, April 5, 2002
Birmingham Waffle House
Tennessee
Nashville
Ryman Auditorium
Opryland Hotel
Grand Ole Opry

Alabama was discovered before either Mississippi or Louisiana. Explorer Alonzo Alvarez de Pineda sailed into Mobile Bay in 1519. De Soto soon followed and sent several expeditions into the region.

During the Civil War, Montgomery was the Confederacy’s first capital.

Alabama became later known for its’ racial unrest in the 1960s. Rosa Parks rode the bus in Montgomery. Dr. Martin Luther King marched from Selma to Montgomery to protest discrimination.  Alabama’s legendary governor, George Wallace, created a flashpoint of controversy with his attempt to block black students from attending all-white colleges.

A chill was in the air as I packed the car. The temperature was hovering just above freezing with forecasted high in the mid 50s.

A Waffle House across the street from the hotel provided breakfast. Our waitress, B.J., greeted us with a happy southern drawl. We struck up an interesting conversation with her. She had worked for eighteen years with Waffle House. She said that she once served the singing groups Big Blue 8 and TLC when she worked in Atlanta.  B.J. took good care of us, including Michelle’s double cheeseburger ... for breakfast ... and we were soon heading north toward Nashville.

 

The highway cut through the foothills of the Cumberland Mountains.  The trees had not yet fully budded and the grass was still dormant, not the lush green that we had seen throughout Mississippi.

It seemed like every other car on Interstate 65 was from Michigan. Most of them filled with college kids, feet hanging out the windows and luggage stuffed against the back windows.

For nearly five hundred miles, from Natchez to Nashville, the Natchez Trace Parkway had paralleled us through the heart of Dixie. Running diagonally across Mississippi, Alabama, and now Tennessee, the trace was once an American Indian trail, then it became a post road and pioneer trail. It was instrumental in linking the lower Mississippi Valley to the Union in the early 1800s. It was along this trail, near Nashville in 1809, that Meriwether Lewis, the famed western explorer, probably died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound while on a trip to Washington, D.C. The National Park Service is attempting to preserve the entire length of this trail as a national park.


Slicing north through rural Tennessee, we saw signs for the Jack Daniels distillery in Lynchburg, the Davy Crockett Birthplace near Lawrenceburg and the James K. Polk home in Columbia. 

We blasted into Nashville at 1:00 pm.  

The Olins parked behind the Ryman Auditorium and literally ran four blocks to the Hard Rock CafĂ© where we ate another satisfying lunch.  Michelle, now wearing her Cheeseburger In Paradise shirt from Margaritaville ate her second cheeseburger in four hours!

Well fed, as usual, we waddled back toward Ryman Auditorium. I stopped at the famous Gruhn Guitar Shop located adjacent to the hall. I shopped for an antique blonde Gibson 335 guitar.  Although there were dozens of collectible guitars hanging on the wall, many with price tags over ten thousand dollars, I was unable to find my guitar of choice.


The Ryman Auditorium was originally built as a church in 1885 by a converted riverboat captain named Tom Ryman. He wanted to use the grand building for revivals; a purpose that it served for twenty years. In 1897, a massive balcony was constructed for the Tennessee Centennial Exposition, as part of the architect’s original plans.  With the addition, the building had a capacity of 3,755 people. This was an astonishingly large number considering how small and intimate the auditorium was.


Ryman struggled to keep the building afloat until he died in 1904. His funeral was held in the church on Christmas Day. During the funeral, it was proposed that the building should be renamed the Ryman Auditorium.

The auditorium hosted frequent community events, including regular musical gatherings. The acoustics at the hall, as it turns out, are better than anywhere else in the world, except perhaps Carnegie Hall.

In 1943, the Ryman became home to the Grand Ole Opry and hosted hundreds of memorable country music moments until March 15, 1974, when the Opry moved to the Opryland complex east of downtown.

The Ryman remained unused and fell into disrepair for many years until 1992 when singer Roger Miller died. He wanted his memorial service held in the old Ryman where he had started his career. There was a problem. The auditorium was falling apart. Fire codes prevented but a few people inside and the place reeked of mustiness. Still, this is where the memorial took place.  Many of Roger’s friends, realizing the significance of the Ryman, committed to resurrect the old church. Two years later, it was fully restored, just in time for Trisha Yearwood’s wedding. It was a new beginning for the Ryman.


As we entered the hall, we were greeted by a full-scale bronze sculpture of Minnie Pearl and Roy Acuff engaged in conversation and sitting on an original Ryman bench. Michelle sat down beside them and acted like a sculpture. Just beyond were the white-painted doors that led to the auditorium. Inside, the beautiful oak curved bench seats line up twenty deep. The balcony hangs low, almost obscuring the stage when standing in the back of the room. For a four thousand seat auditorium, it seemed comfortable, almost intimate. Stained glass windows line the back walls.


We freely wandered throughout the hall, eventually approaching the stage, and then we stepped up onto the stage.  Indeed, looking out into the hall, it seemed churchlike. I could feel the vibe of soul singer Al Green who had performed on this stage the night before.

We posed onstage for a few photos and respectfully slipped out. It was a near-reverential experience.


More gift-shopping and the Olin caravan was headed out of downtown on the Briley Parkway and to the Opryland complex. Once we arrived, I was reminded of the logistical nightmare it was to check in for an Archway sales seminar held there in 1994. This time was no different. It took an hour to park, check in, and find our room.

The Opryland Hotel is a massive structure. Thousands of rooms.  Multiple buildings and garden courtyards. It is beautiful but very poorly designed for guests. The place is a giant labyrinth of halls and elevators.

We ate at the hotel. Michelle was not able to get her third cheeseburger of the day, so instead, she ate cheese pizza. Afterward, we walked to the Grand Ole Opry Theatre to experience for ourselves the legendary Grand Ole Opry.


The new theater was very beautiful and comfortable, but it was not nearly as intimate as the old Ryman. However, the new theater still retained some of the old traditions, however, such as the bench seating.


In an effort to retain the Ryman legacy,  an eight-foot circle was cut from the original Ryman stage and placed center-stage at the new auditorium.


At 7:30 pm, the big red curtain went up and we were treated to a two-minute commercial for Cracker Barrel restaurants, sponsor of the first hour of the show.

Then the announcer raised his pitch, “Ladies and Gentlemen ... Porter Waggoner!” The living icon strutted out in a purple suit covered with rhinestones and performed an opening number that everybody in the place recognized, except us. Porter then emceed the next half hour, introducing other Grand Ole Opry legends. Then the curtain came down. After a change in sponsors, the curtain goes up again with another, different, emcee. Jean Sealy, Little Jimmy Dickens, Bill Anderson, and Riders In The Sky all served as emcees.

On this night, we were privileged enough to enjoy Jim Ed Brown, Trick Pony, Brad Paisley, Neal McCoy, Clark Family Experience, Shannon Lawson, and several others.

  


The show was a very intimate, relaxing experience. Everybody was having fun, including the artists. It is a great American tradition that all of us enjoyed and appreciated very much.

We walked back to the hotel in the very cold night air and got to bed after midnight.





Saturday, April 6, 2002
Opry Mills Outlet Mall
Twelve Rolls Of Film Destroyed

I got up early and took twelve rolls of film to the local one-hour photo place.  They told me to come back after 3:00 pm and they should be developed by then.

A little slow waking up, the rest of the family was fired up and ready to go promptly at 10:00 am. It was a very important day, Nashville Outlet Mall shopping day. Right next door to our hotel was the largest and best mall I had seen in many years ... Opry Mills.

We walked the entire mall at least twice, and bought so much that we needed to rent a cart. The prize-winner for the Most Valuable Store went to Hilo Hatties of Hawaii, where both kids promptly dumped the majority of their vacation money on coconut bras and grass skirts. We also bought Nike clothing, Skeecher shoes, and miscellaneous junk.

The highlight of our day, however, was when we learned that CBS was holding open tryouts for the reality TV show Big Brother at the mall. They were looking for five hundred applicants, many of whom were waiting in the food court for their chance at glory. If the network was suitably impressed with the initial interview of the applicant, the potential contestant would film a live two-minute video for further consideration. An agent asked me if I would sign up and the kids excitedly thought I should, but Tam put the kibosh to it.

Only in Nashville … a western fashion store hired a cowboy singer to stand in the shoe department and meander about, serenading the customers. The mall atrium also had several bands rotating throughout the day.

After five hours of hard-core shopping, we went back to our hotel to ship the merchandise back home.

I returned to the photo shop to pick up the pictures of the trip. They were virtually destroyed!! All twelve rolls of film came out dark blue. The manager only charged me for half of the rolls and said that the photo-printer was overheating. Great. Just great. I recovered what I thought were all of the negatives to take home to try to salvage something. I did not know it at the time, but the negatives from the Cowboy Hall of Fame, Texas state sign, and Dealy Plaza were completely missing.  They would be gone forever.

We ate dinner at Santa Fe Cattle Company on Music Valley Road. They let us throw peanut shells on the floor.  So the kids really enjoyed trashing the place. It was like they were eating in our car!!

Back at the hotel, Tam and Laura took a boat ride inside the Opryland atrium while I finished the day’s journal and made plans for our jaunt into Kentucky.

At midnight, we would lose an hour on our clocks as we sprung forward into daylight savings time and we would also lose another hour as we drove back into the eastern time zone.

Sleep fast.





Sunday, April 7, 2002
Kentucky
Churchill Downs
Kentucky Derby Museum
Indianapolis

Well, the dream of sleep we hoped to get quickly dissipated as partying college kids returned to their rooms right next to ours. They sat out on their garden balconies and babbled until 5:00 am.

I was up promptly at 6:30 am and by 7:00 was out with my cameras enjoying a crisp Sunday morning. Like my Dad, I needed to walk around and take a few “title pictures” ... Opryland Hotel, Grand Ole Opry, and the Opry Mills Mall.

As usual, logistics at the hotel were horrible. Two thousand people were all trying to check out at the same time. At least two hundred were in line in the lobby. Cars were ten deep under the portico. We smartly performed the electronic checkout and called for the car thirty minutes in advance. Even though we thought we had beaten the crowd, they had caught up with us. It took forty minutes to retrieve our car. 

With the time change and late start, we would not be able to tour Mammoth Caves or the Lincoln Birthplace. Our top priority was to get to the Kentucky Derby Museum. We were pressed for time, so we were pushing hard up Interstate 65.  Our X5 easily negotiated the ups and downs of the mountains as we knifed into Kentucky.


Things were going great and then – bang – traffic came to a dead stop. 

We crawled two miles in a half hour then encountered an electric sign that said “Prepare to stop. Construction zone in four miles.” Oh man! We got off at the first exit in Bowling Green. We bought maps at the nearest gas station. With Tam navigating, I smashed around Bowling Green for another half hour. At one point, I sheepishly admit that I blew my top. Finally, we rejoined I-65 twenty miles east of Bowling green and continued to Louisville.

We did lunch at the Cave City Wendys.

Just before 3:00 pm, we pulled into the parking lot at Churchill Downs and the Kentucky Derby Museum. The museum is built as an annex to the racetrack grandstand. The museum looked new and was a lot of fun. Lots of hands-on displays and exciting videos of horse racing. In a well-conceived nuance, each visitor enters the museum through a starting gate, and “shoots out” into the exhibits.


In the center of the complex was a circlevision theater that showed a feature film every thirty minutes. A useful exhibit taught the kids how to place wagers ... then they were solicited to go to a window and bet on fictitious races. Michelle spent the balance of her tour at the window, gambling. Laura was busy jumping on and off full-size race horse statues.

 

A tour guide then took us on a tour of the Churchill Downs racetrack. We saw the champions paddock, the garden, the jockey weigh-in area, and the start/finish line. In the garden were buried several Kentucky Derby winners. We learned that only the head and heart of the horses were buried while the rest was cremated. 

Unlike the museum, the racetrack and particularly the grandstands, looked run down and in need of renovation, something it would receive over the next year, $127 million worth. The renovation would reconstruct the grandstands, increasing capacity from 48,500 to 53,000 people.

Standing at the edge of the track, I looked down toward the final turn and imagined the awesome power of a dozen horses straining for victory; nostrils flaring, muscles flexing, and dirt flying. In twenty-seven days, it would really be happening for real. The run for the roses!

We slipped past the University of Louisville on the way out of town. We crossed the Ohio River (the Mason-Dixon Line) and continued toward Indianapolis.

Much of the spring break traffic had cleared from the highways, facilitating a smooth drive to the Indiana capital.  For three hours we continued north across the flat and open state of Indiana. We proceeded past our hotel and straight into a downtown parking lot beside the Coseco Fieldhouse where the Indiana Pacers and WNBA Fever play.



Up the street was the Indianapolis Hard Rock CafĂ©, where we ate dinner.  It was our sixth HRC of the trip and forty-third that I had visited worldwide.  I ate the same spring rolls and salad and bought more pins.

The Hampton Inn – South was our final hotel accommodation of the vacation.




Monday, April 8, 2002
The Drive Home

At the time of our visit, Indianapolis was the twelfth most populous city in the United States. It is the thirty-first largest by area. Indy is home to several national landmarks such as the NCAA Headquarters and Hall of Fame, the Congressional Medal of Honor Memorial, and the internationally famous Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Unfortunately, we wouldn’t see much of Indianapolis. As usual, we had packed ten pounds into a five pound bag on this trip and needed to get home. We let Michelle sleep in until 10:00. I threw the last bag into the car as it started to rain. It would rain all the way home.

As we cruised up Interstate 69, we all shared our thoughts about the trip. Here is the rundown of best and worst for each of us:


TRIP REVIEW
BEST DAY:

  • Tom: Lincoln Home/St. Louis Arch
  • Tam: Cowboy Hall of Fame
  • Michelle: Space Center Houston
  • Laura: Six Flags Over Texas


BEST HOTEL:

  • Tom: Westin Galleria Dallas
  • Tam: Opryland
  • Michelle: Westin Galleria Dallas
  • Laura: Opryland


BEST MEAL:

  • Tom: Mulates
  • Tam: Westin Room Service
  • Michelle: Mulates
  • Laura: Mulates


WORST MOMENT:

  • Tom: Bowling Green Map Fiasco
  • Tam: Bowling Green Map Fiasco
  • Michelle: Dallas Tornadoes
  • Laura: Dallas Tornadoes



It was a quiet and somber ride northbound as we returned into Michigan. The spectre of school on Monday made things worse. When we pulled in the drive the snow was gone, but Spring had not yet sprung.  Everything looked gray; the sky, the water, the ground. I remembered watching the shrimp boats coming in from Galveston Bay. Everything was crisp and colorful; deep blue sky, lush green trees, sun-bleached white boat with fluorescent orange buoys.

Our odometer read 42,787 as we pulled into the garage. We had covered 3,308 miles and had traveled through fourteen states. We saw six state capitols. We ate at six Hard Rock Cafes.

At the close of this trip, the kids had been to forty-one states. Our next big family trip was tentatively planned for New England and Canada.

Until then ... see you down the road!!



Video Footage Of The Olin Family
Soul Of America Trip