We are heading out of Dallas, which means we first must head into it. Traffic isn't too bad this morning, but the weather is typically warm and hazy, making for a poor view of the skyline. Photo by Roni.
Crawford is located about midway between Dallas and San Antonio, a few miles west of Waco. Other than the huge billboard just before this sign acknowledging it as the home of the president of the United States, Crawford looks a lot like many other Texas towns. Photo by Roni.
This street connects with the road that leads to Bush's ranch. That's our rental car there. We parked here to get the photo of Glenn near the windmill that is at the top of this page. Photo by Glenn.
This is the front of Crawford Country Style, a gift shop and boutique that thrives on the reputation of Crawford's most famous family. Photo by Roni.
The front door of Crawford Country Style. The main street features maybe a half dozen businesses and most of those are gift shops. Photo by Roni.
When Dubya pledged to improve the business climate in America he probably wasn't talking specifically about Crawford, but there's no doubt the peddling of presidential memorabilia has bolstered the bottom line for local merchants. We spent a few bucks here. Photo by Glenn.
Ben and Dad sit on a bench near the Yellow Rose (another souvenir shop). That's some sort of wild field behind them. Needless to saw, downtown Crawford isn't overdeveloped. Photo by Roni.
Who ever said banks weren't partisan? Believe it or not, the town newspaper endorsed John Kerry for president. That's got to be one popular editor in these parts. Photo by Glenn.
We followed the long and winding road to the Bush ranch, but this is as far as we got before we had to turn back. This is looking in the general direction of the ranch, but it is perhaps a good three miles from here. Photo by Roni.
We liked this barn, which is on the road to the Bush ranch. All the signs are from gas stations. Photo by Roni.
Why did the chicken cross the road? Probably to hang out with this rooster. These guys were just grazing alongside the road out to the Bush ranch. Photo by Glenn.
It is easy to see why people choose the ranch life. This is the entrance to the Broken Spoke in Crawford. Looks very inviting. Photo by Glenn.
Yep, you're looking at yet another state capitol, but we promise this is the last one. We got to Austin too late in the day to tour inside the building, but it is enough to say we saw it. This has to be a record for us -- four state capitols in one trip. Photo by Glenn.
The lone star has plenty of company on this fence outside the state capitol. Photo by Glenn.
This was an extremely rare sight in our travels -- A Kerry for president bumper sticker. We saw this one while in bumper-to-bumper traffic in Austin, which is much larger and more liberal than the tiny towns that encircle it. Photo by Roni.
Another extremely rare sight (thankfully!) on our trip was gridlock. Looking north back toward Austin, a string of cars waits to get out of town on I-35. We were waiting to merge onto the interstate. Photo by Glenn.
|
We always enjoy hearing from our visitors. We welcome your comments.
|
|
Deep in the heart of Texas
Monday, September 27 (Day 11) — I'll attempt to get an earlier start on today's entry to avoid what happened last night, when I was so tired that I had to take a nap break in the middle and wound up not coming back to the computer until close to 3 o'clock. Today was marked largely by frustration, and I'm not all too sure it didn't start with my interrupted sleep.
There has to be at least one bad day in any vacation, and I guess today was mine. We were a little slow getting started this morning. As a result, by the time we went downstairs for the continental breakfast at a quarter to 10, they had already packed away the food. Not a huge loss, but it did mean that we would have to forage on the road. Fortunately, Roni remembered a bagel shop close to the deli where we got our dinner last night, so we went there and ate while Roni looked through the AAA travel book for sights around Dallas that we might want to check out on our way out of town. The only sight I really wanted to see was any store that sold postcards, for we were about to leave the Dallas area and I had yet to find a single card depicting the city. No wait, that's not entirely true -- I saw several postcards at a booth at the state fair yesterday, but the vendor wanted 79 cents each for cards that should have sold for no more than 35. I had decided against buying any at the time, figuring there would be a jillion places around Dallas to buy souvenirs. There may have been, but we never saw them. As we followed I-30 west to I-35E south, I was frantically searching for any store with souvenir potential. We passed downtown in light traffic, then began heading away from the city, watching it vanish in a haze through the rearview mirror. I pulled off the freeway in what seemed a couple of likely places, but each time decided there really wasn't anything. No drug stores, no truck stops, no supermarkets... nothing. Not even a Cracker Barrel, where we had found luck with postcards on other occasions. At last I found a shopping center off I-35E some 30 miles outside of town and took a chance that it might have something. It did. Food. But no postcards. Heavy hearted, I resigned myself to the fact that we had just spent two days in what? The fifth largest city in America? And I had managed to leave without a single postcard. A small problem? In the grand scheme of the day's events, yes it was. But it bugged me for a long time.
Frustration. I was still feeling it as we drove into Waco, where we needed to pick up Highway 84 west for a sidetrip to Crawford. My first stop was at a chain grocery and drugstore so we could pick up some drinks and batteries and (fingers crossed!) postcards. I didn't find the cards, but I did find some calendars of Texas that included images of Dallas. I'm still not satisfied, but at least I have SOMEthing from the Big-D. We toured a bit of downtown Waco just because we could. I was surprised to discover that this is a college town, home to Baylor University. You can tell I'm not a big college football fan or I probably would have known this. The Baylor campus consists of a dozen or more beautiful brown brick buildings. I joked with Ben that this might be his college someday, but he didn't think that sounded funny. Waco also has a nice downtown with a lot of older brick structures. On another day we might have lingered to explore stuff like the Texas Ranger Museum and the Texas Sports Hall of Fame, but it was already closing in on 1 p.m. and we had come to see Crawford.
Yes, Crawford. Home of George W. and Laura Bush, the president and first lady. One of the things I set out to do on this vacation was to check the political pulse of America on the threshold of a presidential election. To look at the San Francisco Bay Area you would think that John Kerry is a shoe-in in November, but you'll get a much different impression if you spend any time in the Deep South. I have said before that this is George W. Bush country, and that goes at least triple for Texas. The Bushes are something akin to God in these parts. People here are actually brave enough to put Bush-Cheney campaign signs on their lawns and car bumpers. I saw folks at the state fair yesterday wearing Bush T-shirts. The most support I have seen for John Kerry this entire trip has been a lone yard sign and perhaps four or five bumper stickers. The polls today show Bush up 51 percent to 45 percent. Some political pundits are predicting a Bush rout on Election Day. I won't got that far out on a limb, but I definitely feel the president's support is much stronger here than any poll numbers will reflect. Of the five states we have visited this trip I won't be surprised if all of them land in the Republican camp, just as I would be shocked if California did. It would be interesting to see what the support is like in the so-called battleground states. All I can say as a media person is never believe everything you see or hear in the media.
Back to our vacation... Crawford is about 15 miles west of Waco and another six miles north. It is very hard to miss. As you come into town from the south, there is a huge billboard to the right with a portrait of George and Laura that says "Welcome to Crawford, Home of President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush." The city limit sign is a few yards past this billboard, and then you hit the downtown strip consisting of perhaps four storefronts, city hall and a bank. Every building excepting city hall has some sort of visible support for the president or the military. Bear in mind that it is an election year, but I suspect you would find the pro-Bush banners at any time of the year. See, the four storefronts on the main drag all happen to be souvenir shops, and all owe their success in large part to the presidential family. For without the Bushes, Crawford would be just another forgotten Texas ranch town. Silly people like us wouldn't drive miles out of our way to buy overpriced souvenir items featuring the president's likeness. I paid $3 for campaign buttons I probably could have found for 50 cents or less at the local GOP headquarters in my home state. I willingly paid a buck each for postcards that say "Crawford, Texas" on them, just so I could have them in my collection. That's just the stuff we bought. There were oodles of other trinkets equally as pricey that we enjoyed looking at but wouldn't think to purchase -- try a lifesized cardboard cutout of the president, just for starters.
At one of the gift shops Roni listened in as the proprietor gave directions to another customer on how to get out to the Bush ranch. He said to turn left at the end of the main street and then follow a winding road about 8 miles until you come to the signs that say no stopping or standing, etc., although the road might be blocked off before that because Bush had spent the weekend at his ranch and might be returning in the next day or two. Being the curious souls we are, we of course took the scenic trip. This part of Texas is more brushy than the areas we saw driving from Arkansas to Dallas. The road to the ranch is lined with other ranches, some with horses and others with crops. We passed a colorful barn decorated with old metal advertising signs for soft drinks and gas stations. We were beginning to wonder if we had come the right direction when we came upon the roadblock. Big orange pylons and a stop sign guarded one leg of a fork in the road, and just behind them sat a police vehicle. As we slowed near the checkpoint we were approached by a female Secret Service agent. I assumed she was going to flag us down and tell us to get lost, so we rolled down the window as we approached. She asked if she could help us, and I explained that we were just curious tourists. Like a dim bulb I asked her if the ranch was out there, to which she gave a bemused grin and said, "It's somewhere in the general vicinity." Well, duh. Why else would a Secret Service agent be guarding a small asphalt road out in the middle of nowhere Texas? So we thanked her and moved along, took a couple of photos of "the general vicinity," and then returned to town the way we had come. As we neared the checkpoint a second time we saw a half dozen cars leaving the road all in succession. I can only assume that some of the president's staff make frequent trips in and out of the property. That must be a royal pain for the locals who live on that road and have to pass that checkpoint every day, or however often it is established. Bush spent the weekend in Crawford, but he was in Ohio today.
We pulled out some bagels we had bought this morning to eat for lunch, as it was now after 3 p.m. and we needed to hustle. We still had 150 miles or more of driving to do until we reached San Antonio. But I wasn't too concerned because we'd be on I-35, which is a fast road. Did I say fast? Things slowed to a crawl by the time we reached Austin at the height of rush hour. Being the capital city, Austin is much more significant than I had counted on. In fact, 650,000 people live in Austin, and I think at least 630,000 of them were driving home on the freeway when we arrived. We could see the capitol dome in the distance, and now more than ever seemed like the perfect time to get out of traffic and do some sightseeing. I managed to find the exit, then we followed the signs to the capitol visitor parking area. But when we arrived at the lot we found the gates closed and a police car guarding the entrance. The same was true at the capitol's other entry points. I guess that when business hours end for the day they are serious about it. No visitors! I parked on the street where I found a good view of the dome and snapped a few photos. That was all the touring we got to do in Austin. Roni says she is surprised that security isn't that tight at all the state capitols and I'd have to agree. We think about the war on terrorism and the fact that Austin is symbolic of George W. Bush, who was once the governor here, and you know it wouldn't take more than some nut like a Timothy McVeigh to load up a Ryder truck full of dynamite and blow the seat of state government to smithereens. It is a sad sign of the times.
I bought gas for $1.86 a gallon at a Chevron station near I-35. The price of gas has been skyrocketing lately. I can only imagine what it is up to at home, where it was $2.00 a gallon when we left. We finally escaped the traffic clutches of Austin and drove on until we got hungry around 7 p.m. We were still 60 miles outside of San Antonio, so we decided to eat now rather than forage at the hotel. We had our dinner at the Country Italian restaurant. It wasn't really what I had in mind, but I guess that Italian cuisine should be considered a nice change of pace from the greasy food we've been eating the past few days.
It was a quarter to 8 when we left the restaurant for the final leg of the drive into San Antonio. Darkness falls early down here, so it was pitch black when we finally rolled up to the Clarion Hotel and Roni checked us in. Here is where frustration turned into calamity. The Clarion, like the Maison St. Charles we stayed at in New Orleans, is located in the downtown and has limited parking. You can self-park in their lot for $8 a day, or pay $14 for the valet. I drove around to the entrance to the parking lot, which is through the valet entrance, but it was blocked by another car. I waited for a few minutes until it became clear the other car wasn't going to budge anytime soon. That meant the only way into the lot was a tight turn into the wrong lane. I felt nervous about it, but it was either that or sit around indefinitely, and Ben was hounding me that he needed to go to the bathroom. So after a van drove in via the wrong lane I decided to follow suit. Big mistake. The Dodge with its lack of power steering doesn't corner well, and as I cranked the wheel to the right and crawled forward I heard the crunch of bumper against concrete. I'd scraped the left front bumper against a high curb. To say I was pissed off would be putting it mildly. I surveyed the damage in the dark and it is impossible to tell how bad it is, but it will be noticeable. There are some big concrete-colored streaks on the paint job and possibly a small crease in the bumper. I want to try to buff it out, but I am not expecting miracles. It was such a light scrape, but of course the bumper couldn't just ride up over the curb and out of the way. Dang! I didn't take Thrifty's insurance policy because they wanted close to $250. Our AAA insurance might cover it, but not without a deductible. It's mostly cosmetic damage as far as I can tell, but they'll find a way to make it a bigger issue than it needs to be. I'm just kicking myself because I didn't feel comfortable with the situation and should have just backed the car out of the valet area and tried to enter from the street where the turn issue wouldn't have been a problem.
So I'm pretty down about things at the moment, but on the bright side it is only 12:44 and I'm wrapping this up for tonight. Perhaps with a good night's sleep and not having to drive anywhere tomorrow, I'll start the day with a new perspective and improved attitude.
|
