Lubbock ; American Wind Power Center ; Silent Wings Air Museum ; ‘The Proposal’ ; Colorado Bend and Ink’s Lake State Parks ; Blanton Museum and Story of Texas Museum (in Austin)

(posted from Austin Library, Millwood Branch)
(This post covers 20 – 22 October, 2009)

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Thursday, 22 October-

WOW, what a night. We had rain as I was writing up my blog entry but after we went to bed the skies really opened up. We had some lightning but it didn’t seem close. But we couldn’t get to sleep for the rain pounding on the roof and blowing against the back door of the van.
Our campsite was right on the lake—within twenty feet of the shoreline--- so I kept an eye on the water level. That was not real easy to do, given I could only see the water level during the lightning flashes, the rain water was streaming down over the van and the windows kept fogging.
By midnight I knew the water had come closer and realized we had better move. Even if the water doesn’t reach the van, I wouldn’t sleep for checking on it.
Fortunately it’s easy to just climb forward to the driver’s seat in the van and start it up. We moved to higher ground at a campsite above the shower house and the campground host’s trailer. If it rose that much, there’d be plenty of commotion to wake us in time to move to yet-higher ground.
We still didn’t sleep for another hour or so as the rain pounded the roof but then it moderated and we dozed off.
After showers and a visit to the dump station this morning, we stopped in at the ranger station for a recommendation for a local breakfast spot. The ranger said he heard the storm dropped between six and nine inches of rain in the region. The park’s rain guage overflowed at six inches so he’s not sure how much more than six we received. The lake rose three feet. After my shower I had walked back to our previous campsite and saw that we wouldn’t have had water on the van but I was still glad to have moved, just for the peace-of-mind.
We took the ranger’s recommendation to have breakfast at the Blue Bonnet Restaurant in Marble Falls. He had praised the biscuits and cream-gravy and they were indeed very good while Labashi satisfied her hankering for a pancake. Neither is on our regular diet but we’ve found we can stray a bit without harm.
We then set the GPS for downtown Austin. We spent the early afternoon in the Blanton Museum at the University of Texas. We happened to arrive just as a lecture was getting underway regarding the reconstruction of a Veronese altar painting which had been cut into pieces in Venice and the pieces sold to collectors or dealers in London, Edinburgh, New York (if memory serves), and Austin. Not all the pieces have been found but it’s now possible to see most of it. Our speaker was quite thorough and interesting in telling us about this painting thought to have been done in the 1560’s.
We spent another hour and a half in the galleries, then took a break at the café before crossing the street to the ‘Story of Texas’, a museum-quality exhibit of dioramas, artifacts, films, and displays, telling the history of Texas.
In looking at the brochure for the ‘Story of Texas’, I wasn’t particularly impressed so thought it would be a walk-through. But it was really, really well done. We had two-and-a-half hours until closing time when we started and found ourselves only a little over half-way done at the 30-minutes-to-go mark.
The exhibit closed at 1800 so when we reached the van we headed to McKinney State Park, our home for the night. We found the park is nearly full and is booked for the weekend but we did manage to snag a good site for tonight.
After Labashi made us a fantastic meal of fajitas (we’re eating like kings out here!), we spent the rest of the evening blogging and researching.

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Wednesday, 21 October-

Our night at the Sweetwater Wal-mart was noisy due to the nearby I-20 traffic but we both managed to sleep well.
We drove through Sweetwater, then on to Abilene. I had thought we might find an interesting museum or two in Abilene but nothing in the Tourbook caught our attention (or perhaps we were ‘museumed-out’). We had not yet passed a Texas welcome center so we tried finding a visitor’s center in Abilene. A sign on the beltway said there was one but we never found it and after driving two miles out of our way, we gave up. Not one sign after turning off the beltway. And the GPS says the nearest visitor’s center is in another town entirely. That was enough of Abilene for me. We did get a brief look as we drove through on Business 20, then down the east side of the beltway so that will do.
We drove southeast down route 84, passing through mile after mile of ranches. The mesquite trees hide the ranch buildings and cattle but for an occasional glimpse, yet we can get a feel for what they are like. We did find it interesting to being seeing lots of goats and then happen on a sign proclaiming Mills County the ‘Meat-Goat Capital of the World!’.
At Bend, we decided to take the late afternoon off by going to the Colorado Bend State Park. The listing in the AAA guide said it was a four-mile gravel road from Bend and we thought it nice that we made it to the entrance to the park without hitting a gravel road. That’s because the TEN mile gravel road to the park OFFICE--- which you must visit to get a permit to do anything in the park --- starts at that point.
But we didn’t really mind. We had been surprised to see how little public land there is in Texas so we were happy to be on a gravel road in the Hill Country, headed for our campground and perhaps a hike of some sort.
After rattling to the park office, we were surprised to learn that Texas State Parks have a per-person fee in addition to the camping fee. So to camp at the primitive campground we’d have to pay $14 to camp and $6 in per-person entry fees for pit toilets and no showers. I asked why the price is so high for a primitive campground and the ranger-lady said it’s because the state government doesn’t want to undercut the local campgrounds, two of which are nearby. So it has nothing to do with value offered, but rather with representing the best interests of business over those of the common folk. Where have I heard that before?
We had intended to take bush-showers in one of the more remote campsites but the rules make it clear that NO greywater (or, of course, blackwater) may be left anywhere in the park and there’s no dump facility. So if you wash your dishes or take a bush-shower, you have to take the soapy water out with you (and if you’re travelling, what do you do then?). Thank you, Texas, but we’ll just move on.
We drove on south to a more modern state park, Ink’s Lake, where we have pay the most we’ve had to pay in overnight fees in the 59 days we’ve been on the road ($22—I hope the local campgrounds approve!!!) but at least we get showers and a dump station.
Ink’s Lake is, according to our check-in person, the second-most popular state park in Texas. It’s within an hour’s drive of Austin and San Antonio so perhaps that explains it. We found our nice spot on the lake and settled in. It’s raining this evening so there won’t be a walk but we do have a very comfortable temperature (70) and we have some blogging and reading to do. And I have some work to do on improving my grumpy attitude.

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Tuesday, 20 October-

We had a most-excellent night at the Lubbock Wal-mart last night. The winds were quite fresh but did not have the turbulence which would cause the van to shake and the heavy traffic on the nearby beltway died down by 2200.
We wanted to go to a museum but it wasn’t to open until 1000 so we found a nearby coffee shop with wi-fi. As we walked toward the door, another customer emerged and mumbled something about ’15 or so’ as she handed Labashi a card. It was a gift card for the coffee shop we were entering. I used the card to pay for my coffee and it did indeed have over $15 of value left on it. We spent an hour or so on the web catching up and on the way out I passed the card on to a Texas Tech student sitting near us.
We then drove to the American Wind Power Center on the other side of town. They took my idea (sort of)! Several times in the past I’ve thought I’d like to have a collection of working windmills (the farm-level watering-tank ones, not the Don Quixote ones) and here it was—a collection far more extensive than I ever could dream of having.
We learned windmills have been found in history as far back as 600 AD on the Afghanistan/Pakistan border. These reportedly were like door-sized panels mounted vertically on a turning pedestal. (I’d love to see a drawing and should have thought to ask whether there might be one in the attached library).
We spent several hours looking at windmills, each with something different than the last. This was the first time I had seen a sectional windmill. This design appears to operate backward from a ‘normal’ one. What we think of as the tail of the windmill is in front of the wheel. The blades appear to be mounted backwards. As the wheel turns faster and faster, a counterweight on the tail causes the wheel to change shape, breaking into segments and forming a partial-cone shape, keeping the wheel from turning too fast. It’s an ingenious design but (we learned) overly complicated. Newer designs added controls to the traditional layout (wheel toward the wind, tail behind) to prevent over-running.
I really liked seeing a Zenith Farm Radio Wincharger windmill and it’s accompanying advertisement. For $15 you could order a windmill with a six-foot blade designed to run a Zenith radio. Prior to the electrification of farms, the family could order one of these and mount it on a granary or barn roof or other handy, out-of-the-way spot to power the family radio via what the ad called ‘Frepower’ (wind!). The best part? For your $15 you also got the Zenith radio!
After our tour inside the building we went outside and approached the Vestas V47 wind-turbine across the parking lot. This is a 660 kilowatt power-generating behemoth, circa 1995. It generates 60-cycle three-phase AC power (and thus no batteries are involved), one-tenth of which is used to power the Center and the remainder is sold to the power company. Another wind-turbine lies in pieces along the other side of the parking lot. I found I could stand up inside the base of one of the giant fiberglass blades. This one is a GE and produces 1.5 Megawatts. The V47 (the 660 kW unit) cost $1 million and the GE now costs about $1.5 million. The Center is planning to also have the GE unit installed and operating as money becomes available.
After lunch we drove to the nearby Silent Wings Air Museum. This one is dedicated to the World-War II glider pilots. This was an amazing story, supported by footage from the War. These clumsy-looking gliders were towed to the battle zone by C-47 (think DC-3) aircraft, carrying payloads of up to 8000 pounds. The payloads might consist of troops, a howitzer, a jeep, a small bulldozer (!!!) or one of many different configurations of pre-loaded jeep trailers containing ammunition, medical supplies, food, mortars, etc.
The gliders could land where no other aircraft could land. The clearings in Holland and Germany, for example, often were only 1000 feet long and surrounded by hedgerows of tall trees. After release, the gliders would enter a steep bank and circle down quickly to make what could only be considered a somewhat-controlled crash.
The front end of the glider could be unlatched and tilted up to allow the jeep or howitzer to be rolled out. And, incredibly, in one of the stories-of-the-war video segments, we learned that a cable could be connected via a pulley arrangement to the back of the jeep which opened the door automatically as the jeep drove forward. Incredible!!!!
We also saw incredible training footage of how a C-47 could pick up a glider using a tailhook. The film described how to lay out the nylon rope and how to hang it between two twelve-foot-high poles for the C-47’s tailhook to catch as well as the preparations by the plane crew. The C-47 slowed to 130 miles per hour to make the pickup. A retrieval mechanism in the C-47 and the stretch of the rope (up to 40 per cent for a new rope) allowed the glider pilot to feel an acceleration of 0-60 miles per hour in 200 feet. One glider pilot described finding his hat in the tail of the glider after such a pickup. The pickups, by the way, were primarily used to evacuate wounded soldiers though of course would have been used for any high-priority need.
It was very sobering to learn of the high fatality rate of the glider missions. The tales of former glider pilots included many stories of flying into heavy flak and taking enemy fire throughout the landings. There are stories of watching the tow plane in front of you lose a wing or catch fire and watching the crew bail out, knowing you need to unhook NOW, whether you can see a place to land or not.
The museum has a full glider to look into. Looking to the tail, you see nothing but a light framework of metal tubing, covered with cloth. In another part of the museum is the front three-quarters of a glider with the nose up and a jeep inside, showing how closely it fit. A howitzer and a mortar sit nearby as does a mini-bulldozer, only as wide as the jeep and with a blade only about 18 inches high.
The video-taped stories of the veteran glider pilots grabbed us. These normal-looking, man-in-the-street guys told incredible stories of their experiences.
After the Silent Wings Air Museum, it was time to say a fond farewell to Lubbock (or book another night at the Wal-mart!).
We drove southeast. At supper time we were near the town of Snyder and stopped at the Wal-mart for a look-see. It really wasn’t time to stop for the night so we shared a burger at the What-a-burger across the street and then pressed on.
As we left Snyder we noticed that the density of wind-turbines in the area had increased dramatically. Where before we were seeing lines of them atop the distant mesas—perhaps 50 to 100 at a time leading off into the distance---- we were now in a full-fledged wind-farm. We drove from Snyder to I-20, a distance of nearly 30 miles, through hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of wind-turbines, on all sides and stretching to the horizon. And these look just like the GE models, the $1.5 million-dollars-each models. Somebody has put a LOT of money in the Panhandle Plains in wind turbines.
As we approached Sweetwater on I-20 the wind-turbines thinned out (though we could still see a line of them on the mesa on the southern horizon).
We found our Wal-mart for the night and rented a Redbox movie. We watched ‘The Proposal’ with Sandra Bullock. It had a great start but then fizzled badly. Sandra plays a powerful editor in a New York publishing firm. She’s demanding, mean, and self-centered. But a big problem turns up. She’s Canadian and her visa has now been denied. On the spur of the moment she tells all that she and her male assistant are about to marry, thus solving the problem. But of course it’s more complicated than that. She and the assistant must go to his parents’ home (in Sitka) and (for us) hilarity is supposed to ensue. But from that point on it was very poorly done. The actors looked like actors bravely trying to make something of the drivel given them. The powerful woman realized what she really needed was a man. And the man (the assistant) who hated his boss, realized (upon seeing her naked) that he actually was in love with her. Give us a break! Give me my $1.06 back!

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