USA Trip - Part 9 - Houston & Galveston

Having set off in midmorning towards Houston we knew that some kind of feeding stop would be in order. There were many small settlements enroute but Julia had it in mind not to become an extra in the next remake of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. So was determined to remain close to the highway and ignore any homegrown eating establishments. I must admit I could understand little of this fear but I went along with it. So from about eleven we started to look out for a recognizable restaurant chain close to the highway that we were on. About this time we started to see signs for BUC-EE’S, some way ahead of us. It appeared to me to be an aggressive advertising campaign announcing the opening of a Beaver themed restaurant. As we got closer to it, and neither Chilis nor IHOP had made a counter bid for our custom, we resolved to eat at BUC-EE’S and encourage their new venture.
I hasten to add I was not entirely fooled by the signs, I was not expecting large creatures similar to the family featured in “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” to be serving but I did expect a restaurant. Some more intrepid travelers than us may know already it is a huge service station, and worse, there is nowhere to sit, unless you count your car. Having looked this chain up they have branches all over Texas and have established quite a cult following. We would have preferred hot food and a comfortable seat but we settled for a sandwich and another bucket of fizzy drink each. We also tried the homemade fudge and bought some which we finally ate back in England.
We had learned the trick to locate Best Western hotels which often stand up by the freeway and therefore have an address which our satnav refuses to deal with, look up the hotel on the internet and expand the map to see a local road then offer that to the satnav. We therefore navigated successfully across Houston, no mean feat in itself, and found the hotel on the south side of the city convenient for the airport.
Having checked in we decided that we were feeling idle so we lazed in the outside hot tub and made ready to watch TV, being Wednesday there was an NBA double header to look forward to. Only the TV seemed determined to put problems in our way, the channels did not match the guide and, worse, there was no ESPN. On the way out to the pool area we reported this and the desk lady told us someone would look into it.
As we returned from our relaxation by the pool we met a guy getting into the lift with a new TV for us and once he had installed it we were good to go.
We felt unwilling to drive so at about 6.00pm I was sent out on a scouting mission, I walked about five blocks in one direction and had only three restaurants to report, two were sea-food and the third was a nice looking Mexican which announced “Wednesday is Fajita Night!” normally a good thing but unfortunately that was exactly what we had eaten the previous night.
One block from the hotel, as I headed back I came upon an army-surplus shop, it was closed but parked outside was a rocket launcher complete with rusted missile – I know Americans defend their right to bear arms but surely this is several steps too far for anyone!
On the other side of the hotel I could see the golden M in the distance but I hoped for better prospects before I reached there. There was another Tex-Mex restaurant then I came upon a Chinese Buffet which looked promising, I progressed past it but nothing else was on offer. I checked the Chinese on the way back and discovered that it shut at 8.30pm on weekdays and stayed open to only 9.00pm at weekends. If this was to be our choice then we needed to move ourselves!
Julia agreed the decision and we were at the buffet by 7.30ish. There were only the staff, us two and a party of four guys who looked like they were working in the area. We were soon patrolling the serving area and the food was great. It turned out that the working guys were from Newcastle and were on a job fitting glass for two weeks. Newcastle is my home town and the accent always brings my mother to mind although she claimed not to have any such accent herself. It was great to chat with them and we left at a similar time to them but I doubt they were as content to watch basketball as we were on our return to the room.
The free buffet breakfast was fine if a little too soon after the Chinese buffet for us to be able to do it full justice. The waffle maker did not require lubrication and we each managed a waffle along with other bits and pieces.
We were determined not to waste our final full day so we decided on Galveston, which we had enjoyed greatly when taken by Ken and Margaret Ehlers previously, and if time permitted, the Houston Space Museum. Since our last visit to Galveston time had passed and things would have naturally changed but also the island had suffered Hurricane Ike.
As we crossed onto the island it did not seem familiar, we both remembered houses built on the beach which were wooden and on stilts, it looked like the cars parked under the house but we saw nothing like that. We followed the coast road to the end of the island where we watched large tankers coming and going, the only strange thing was that, whichever direction they were headed, they were riding high in the water as if they were empty. From there we found our way into the town and got parked, the meters were not working so all on-street parking was free. The central area of the town was familiar but everywhere there was evidence of the damage done by Ike, we have a photo of a plaque on a wall which shows the water height to be over six feet from the ground. The houses we remembered were smashed and similar houses have not been rebuilt. The risk of flooding is obvious everywhere, the electricity lines are ten feet off the ground and appear to enter older buildings at that level.
We then set off back towards Houston and the Space Centre. The satnav did a good job having “googled” the address before we left the hotel, but it brought us to the exit gate rather than the entrance and we had to do a loop. It took us into an estate of houses and for a while I thought it had cracked up on us but we duly arrived. Our first debate was if it was worth paying entry as the centre was due to close at 5.30pm and it was now 4.15pm. We were impressed to be told that the tickets bought in the final two hours would be valid for the following day also; it seemed like a good deal. Having bought tickets we entered the centre, at the door we were urged to catch the last tram of the day at 4.30. This took us into the research and development facilities which are all for real. We saw the genuine control room which had guided the Apollo 13 crew back when they looked doomed. Incidentally this gives me the chance to recall the time we were watching the film and Julia remarked that it was hard watching when you know the ending, I agreed with her but she later admitted that she thought that they failed to get them back. We have also watched the film “Titanic” and perhaps she was looking forward to the arrival in America!
The missions are still controlled from Houston even though all the launches are now from Florida. The guide in the control room pointed out that when the Apollo missions were flown the total computing power available in their five? mainframes was less than a digital camera. His most memorable comment was the Mission Controller had total command and was the only one authorized to talk to the crew aboard the space shot. He was at times battered by several sets of information or questions to be sent to the crew and the way he was able to prioritize them was solved early in the programme, the mission controller was always an astronaut. We were shown round a training area where astronauts were practising with various equipment in simulated zero gravity although much of that is done elsewhere using a huge water tank. We finished at the rocket park where we were able to appreciate the size of the launch vehicles.
We found the exhibition hall emptying as the tram returned and we were ushered out of the complex and we set off back towards the hotel in the chaos of the Houston rush traffic. Since we had eaten nothing since breakfast and the roads were a nightmare we took the first chance to pull off for a Chillis restaurant. Here we had a “two meals for $20” deal and found the roads had eased by the time we traveled on.
Julia checked in on line for our flight home and for the first time we realized how late we were to take off, it gave us another whole day to spend in the area.
The following day we ate breakfast, checked out of the hotel into the first rain of the trip. Our original plan had been to visit the San Jacinto Battlefield and with it the battleship Texas but two things were against this plan, the already mentioned rain, we did not relish arriving wet for our flight, and the fact that in our rush at the Space Centre Julia had not seen moon rock! As a geologist this meant a lot to her so we modified our plans and headed back to the warm and dry Space Centre.
From very early on in our tour of the Space Centre it was obvious that the space programme was emotionally fueled by the JFK presidency and then assassination. We saw the wooden lectern from which Kennedy announced the start of the space race and we watched film presentations of the history of the programme all of this made us aware of the commitment made by the astronauts and their families.
For me the timeline of the space programme had the largest impact, most missions were made up of astronauts returning to space mixed with rookies who became the veterans later down the wall. The tragedies hit hard mainly due to the terse descriptions and there are more of them than I remembered.
Apollo 1 – the crew consisted of astronaut Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom, (the second American astronaut to fly into space) astronaut Edward H. White II, (the first American astronaut to "walk" in space) and astronaut Roger B. Chaffee, (a "rookie" astronaut on his first space mission). They died together in fire during a test, with the Command Module mounted on the Saturn 1B on the launch pad just as in the actual launch, but the rocket was not fueled. This test was a simulation, going through an entire countdown sequence. The most shocking thing I noticed about the incident was this paragraph - A hold was placed on the entire Apollo program while an exhaustive investigation was made of the accident. Although a specific initiator could not be determined, the final report of the investigation board blamed the fire on arcing. It was further exacerbated by the large quantity of flammable materials in the cabin and the oxygen enriched atmosphere.
They never found the cause for sure but they still had people prepared to go ahead with the programme.
Since the early days of non-returning space vehicles the programme moved to the Space Shuttle which returns to earth landing similar to a plane. There have been two Space Shuttle disasters.
The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster occurred on February 1, 2003, when the it disintegrated over Texas during re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere, with the loss of all seven crew members, shortly before it was scheduled to conclude its 28th mission, STS-107.
The loss of Columbia was a result of damage sustained during launch when a piece of foam insulation the size of a small briefcase broke off the Space Shuttle external tank (the main propellant tank) under the aerodynamic forces of launch. The debris struck the leading edge of the left wing, damaging the Shuttle's thermal protection system (TPS), which protects it from heat generated with the atmosphere during re-entry. While Columbia was still in orbit, some engineers suspected damage, but NASA managers limited the investigation, on the grounds that little could be done even if problems were found.
The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster occurred on January 28, 1986, when it broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, leading to the deaths of its seven crew members. The spacecraft disintegrated over the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of central Florida, United States, at 11:39 a.m. EST (16:39 UTC).
Disintegration of the entire vehicle began after an O-ring seal in its right solid rocket booster failed at liftoff. The O-ring failure caused a breach in the SRB joint it sealed, allowing pressurized hot gas from within the solid rocket motor to reach the outside and impinge upon the adjacent SRB attachment hardware and external fuel tank. This led to the separation of the right-hand SRB's aft attachment and the structural failure of the external tank. Aerodynamic forces promptly broke up the orbiter.
The crew compartment and many other vehicle fragments were eventually recovered from the ocean floor after a lengthy search and recovery operation. Although the exact timing of the death of the crew is unknown, several crew members are known to have survived the initial breakup of the spacecraft. However, the shuttle had no escape system and the astronauts did not survive the impact of the crew compartment with the ocean surface.
The acceptance of such risks and the cool courage involved deserves great credit and our respect.
Julia not only saw but touched moon rock but was shocked to discover that her belief that the moon rock was named Almalcolite after Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins, the Apollo 11 crew, was not recorded.
We spent much of the day around the exhibits and in due course we set off to delivery the car back to the Houston Car Rental Centre. It was still familiar to us as we had finished our previous tour of Texas in the same way; the Dollar attendant simply visually checked the car and scanned it in order to check that we were fully paid up and in charge of the correct vehicle. We were then able to catch a shuttle to the airport and check in our baggage. Our flight was scheduled overnight and we were due to arrive back at Heath Row at 11.30am. It all worked out as planned.

USA Trip - Part 8 - Corpus Christi TX

We needed to arrive at the Wall’s home after 4.30pm to let them get home from work. So we decided to spend a little longer in San Antonio and stop on the way to Portland at the Corpus Christi Lake State Park.
We walked into town from the hotel and found a diner which advertised a bargain breakfast. We were in shorts and this seemed a little out of place as it was distinctly cool. The breakfast was fine and we were greeted as honoured guests as visitors from England are not common in this establishment.
We decided to go up the Tower of the Americas in Hemisfair Plaza; it is interesting that Texas has no hesitation in grabbing a grandiose title for the tower which, frankly, is not as impressive as the title. We started our visit with the “Skies over Texas” 3-D cinema experience, we soon had on our stylish glasses and I warned Julia that her phobia creature, the snake, might make a close-up and personal appearance. We set off in a helicopter, buffeted by the wind, and shaken by the pilot’s maneuvers before landing and taking part in a cattle stampede. All of which we coped with until, in the desert, Julia was attacked by a Rattle Snake! The whole experience is claimed to be 4-D because of the seat getting involved in the action, when the snake reared we were jabbed in the back to simulate its strike! After this to quote the publicity; the 4-D theater zooms in on such scenes as a Friday-night high school football game, working up-close-and-personal with a space shuttle at NASA and more. It was OK but not a holiday highlight.
We then ascended the tower by lift, it reminded me of the John Handcock tower which stages a race each year to run up the flights of stairs, people complete the race in less than half an hour. The views over San Antonio are good but there is not much to see as the city is relatively flat. When we ventured out onto the viewing gallery the wind was seriously strong and on one stretch I felt the wind actually lift me briefly. It was also bitingly cold outside at that altitude making the shorts an even worse decision.
We returned to the hotel checked out, collected the car immediately outside and set off for Corpus Christi. The Walls actually live in Portland which is on the other side of the bay to Corpus, the crossing served by a large bridge next to which are the Texas Aquarium and the aircraft carrier USS Lexington, both of which are excellent to visit but we have ticked them off on a previous visit. We had therefore decided to stop off short of Corpus and check out the Corpus Christi Lake State Park.
We switched off the satnav and followed signs towards and into the park, we passed through a check point and paid up our $4 each for a day ticket and were given a map; straight away I can suggest two economies the authorities could make in November, first don’t employ gate staff and then issue blank pieces of paper rather than maps as nothing is going on. Unless the lady on the gate is paid $16 per day the place is running at a loss. The park is, as you may have worked out, on the edge of a lake and in summer there will be lots of lake-based activities going on. We pretty much had the place to ourselves, we walked along the edge of the lake and basically that was it.
We pressed on towards Corpus Christi, the journey was good and we timed our arrival well, Jane was home and Kevin arrived within a half hour of us. With really good friends the time just passes, we talked, ate, drank and talked more. We caught up about families, jobs and basketball. We started on the garden patio with a log burning for warmth and we moved in to eat and finished in the lounge with a basketball match on the large screen making the occasional conversation point.
The following day both Kevin and Jane had headed out to work before we got up. We headed through Corpus and onto Padre Island; here we had brunch at Whataburger. Kevin had provided us with some vouchers and pointed out that Whataburger had opened its first outlet in Corpus Christi. As we ate at the first Whataburger on the island we noticed two things of interest, firstly as the staff delivered the completed order the carried with them a condiments tray which allowed the punters to sort out what they needed with their meal without leaving their seats, secondly the establishment we were in catered principally for working guys in the area so it must have represented good value. In order to use our vouchers we had to buy a standard burger fries and a large drink, so with free top-ups, we left the restaurant carrying a full bucket of sprite, not the best decision for a man of my age, who now plots his course by public conveniences.
We continued down the island road and ended at an almost deserted beach, on our previous trip to Texas we had discovered that Texans drive onto the beach and set up their picnic area around their truck. Dollar in Dallas had not provided us with a truck but we still drove onto the hard sand with three other vehicles. From there we walked along the edge of the sea and enjoyed the seclusion and the bird life. My camera again did well; the 10X optical zoom was brilliant for getting closer to the storks which tolerated us in their preserve with little concern. About half a mile down the beach we passed a campervan parked and guarded by a wolf on a chain, we had no idea what the owners were doing but they had found a foolproof way to do it in private.
We had arrived at this almost deserted beach pretty much at the farthest point of the island but it was not the area we had visited previously so we re-traced our path and this time followed a beach sign nearer the start of the island. This navigation took us to the beach as we remembered it; we walked out on the long pier, saw people fishing and basically just enjoyed the experience.
As we returned later with the intention of checking out Corpus Christi the city we noted the housing developments which were either side of the Padre Island causeway, they seemed to consist of streets of big houses with a canal at the front and a road at the back, most of the houses had a boat moored at their own dock. It was obvious that these Texans loved their coastal heritage. On the subject of heritage, in looking through my photos I have noted the number of American flags I have captured, it is an iconic sight but, more than that, it reveals a real reverence for the flag beyond anything we in Britain would recognise.
As a quiz question you might be amused to ask; “Which organization burns the greatest number of American flags?” the answer is the American boy scouts. This is not down to their lack of respect for the flag but the exact opposite; they are trusted to dispose of old ragged flags in a dignified fashion.
We never really found the shopping centre of Corpus Christi but we did locate a huge Academy Sports and found Sarah her basketball boots at a favourable price. Kevin approved of them when he later checked them out.
That evening we went out to eat at a Mexican restaurant in Portland, Kevin had not changed from his work clothes and was therefore recognised by both the waitress and other customers as a Coach from Taft, a large high school in the area. It was amazing how high a profile school sport has in the local community, as a basketball coach in Texas you are respected but as a football coach you would be worshipped. We hope to travel to Indiana some day where that will be reversed.
On our return to the house we again chatted and the time passed as quickly as it had the previous night. We truly hope that Jane and Kevin will be able to come over to see us before long.
The following day it was again time to move on, we set off for Houston, our final city, by about 10.00am.

USA Trip - Part 7 - San Antonio

We got an early start on the road and reached San Antonio at about noon. We parked outside the Hilton Palacio Del Rio, one of the oldest established hotels on the Riverwalk, which we had specified when first organizing our trip with DialAFlight. As I have noted already, the luxury level of hotel always cost more in terms of extras, in this case we opted for valet parking which cost $35 per day and again the WiFi in the room cost us. Although we were early it was no problem for us to check in and establish a base in our room. We were on the 15th? Floor so we had a great view over the town but not a good angle towards the Riverwalk. We now had plenty of time to go for a walk on the Riverwalk and to check out the scenery. Our first impressions in returning to San Antonio were that it was less crowded generally and, more specifically, there were many fewer young people in armed forces uniform.
The Riverwalk is such an attractive route to spend some time and we checked out the shopping mall but still did not locate the basketball boots that Sarah had asked us to get.
We were not clear what we would eat in the day as breakfast had been substantial but in the evening we were going to the Spurs v Oklahoma City NBA game. In the event we just snacked both in the afternoon and also at the game.
We summoned the car and it dutifully arrived, we used the Satnav to get on the correct road to the at&t center but since the internet did not supply the house number on the road we had a false start when we set off in the wrong direction, we soon sorted out the problem but seemed to be driving for far too long before we saw the stadium. Some of the street we travelled did not look like an area to break down in but we emerged at the stadium without problem.
The match itself was the least entertaining of the three games that we saw. Julia has always supported the Spurs and on this occasion they let her down. The match followed a similar pattern to the previous ones; the away team started strongly and led at the half, the home team pulled themselves together and got back into the game in the third quarter but instead of going on to win the Spurs lost their way and the Thunder won on the road. The Spurs had Tony Parker and Tim Duncan returning from injury and Manu Ginobli was also playing. As things progressed Ginobli struggled to hit anything from the floor and then went off injured. Parker had been out for several games and demonstrated that by getting to the basket almost at will but then missing nearly every finish. Duncan was the class act but he was not quite ready to play as many minutes as they needed and he kept having to take a break. Meanwhile the Thunder had Kevin Durant who is tearing up the league this year, for a big man he doesn’t seem to want to do the blue-collar work but he can score, every time the Spurs got back in touch he knocked them back with an easy score, he finished with 25 points.
We blessed the Satnav when we were detoured out of the car park into exactly the opposite direction to how we had come to the game. We trusted the device even when it ordered us onto a freeway which felt like it was in totally the wrong direction and our trust was rewarded when two junctions later we were in familiar territory and heading into the hotel. It was very poor value but the valet parking does make life really easy – we pulled up outside the hotel and passed the keys to a porter. We finished the evening sitting on our balcony drinking tea and watching the world go by.
We resolutely slept in on the next day which was Sunday, as we once again drank tea on our balcony we noticed that a large proportion of the passers by were in running kit. It turned out to be the “Rock n Roll” Marathon and we might have enjoyed checking it out if we had done a little more research. I have managed one 10K run for charity but the drumming on my knees does me no good. I figure that if I only have a finite number of miles left in my old legs I prefer to use them up on a tennis court. I cannot therefore see me ever doing a marathon but every year my nephews run the Bristol Half Marathon and through sponsorship produce a large sum of money for Heart Disease Research.
We had a breakfast in a food court – never our preferred option but it served its turn. We then visited the Alamo, which is maintained and supported by The Daughters of the Republic of Texas and is therefore free to look round. We spent $7.00 each to hire an audio commentary and this was a brilliant addition to the tour. There were numbered sites where you switched on the device and were told what happened there.
I would never seek to minimize the sacrifice of the brave men who crossed Travis’ line and opted to die for their cause but as we followed the chain of events it seemed that all the time, 12 days, which the Alamo defenders bought for Sam Houston to raise his army was spent with little more than skirmishes going on, as Santa Anna gathered his forces ready for one decisive assault. This finally happened on March 6th 1836, there were three assaults in the early morning, the third being fully successful. The entire garrison was wiped out and the battle was over by 6.30am. Opinions differ regarding the casualty figures on both sides, all the adult male defenders were killed estimates vary between 150 and 200, the list at the Alamo gives 189 names but the Mexican casualties were higher between 400 and 600 killed and many more wounded.
There are many facts to juggle with but as usual I remember some more than others. As the defenders were forced back from the ramparts they had to give up their cannon, but in the chaos of the time the guns were not spiked and the Mexicans simply turned them round and fired down the length of the long barracks causing many casualties with little chance of reply. The breakdown of the defenders by state is interesting, there were more listed as coming from the British Isles (23) than there were from Texas (11). My abiding memory though is that one of the officer’s wives was wounded by a shot in the leg, when the women and children were released after the battle they were to walk to wherever they found comfort, once again it illustrates that it wasn’t just the men who were tough in those days.
It seems to me that the Alamo became such a rallying cry in Texas not just because of the defense but because of Santa Anna’s merciless treatment of the defenders and this, as much as anything, was his undoing.
Despite their losses at the Alamo, the Mexican army in Texas outnumbered the Texan army by almost 6 to 1. Santa Anna assumed that knowledge of the disparity in troop numbers and the fate of the Texan soldiers at the Alamo would quell the resistance, and that Texan soldiers would quickly leave the territory. News of the Alamo's fall had the opposite effect, and men flocked to Houston's army. The New York Post editorialized that "had Santa Anna treated the vanquished with moderation and generosity, it would have been difficult if not impossible to awaken that general sympathy for the people of Texas which now impels so many adventurous and ardent spirits to throng to the aid of their brethren". On the afternoon of April 21 the Texan army attacked Santa Anna's camp near Lynchburg Ferry. The Mexican army was taken by surprise, and the Battle of San Jacinto was essentially over after 18 minutes. During the fighting, many of the Texan soldiers repeatedly cried "Remember the Alamo!" Santa Anna was captured the following day, and reportedly told Houston: "That man may consider himself born to no common destiny who has conquered the Napoleon of the West. And now it remains for him to be generous to the vanquished." Houston replied, "You should have remembered that at the Alamo". Santa Anna was forced to order his troops out of Texas, ending Mexican control of the province and giving some legitimacy to the new republic.
We hoped to see the battlefield of San Jacinto later in our trip when we reached Houston but that became a different story.
While in the grounds of the Alamo we came upon two men dressed in the uniform of the time armed to the teeth with the period weaponry. They were very interesting in their explanations of the battle but when they realised that we were English it was more amusing to hear their amazement that we were not able to arm ourselves at home. One of them was huge, had he been any bigger he could have applied for statehood, claimed to have read of unrest in Britain because of people wanting to arm themselves due to the increase of gun-crime. I can remember no such debate but it is interesting that, although our regular police are not armed, we have armed response units on call, and they have a very mixed record of success when called into action.
After the Alamo we continued into the city and arrived at the Buckhorn Saloon which incorporated the Texas Ranger Museum. We decided to sample its delights and history was made because it was the first time we had a reduced price due to our advanced years.
We tackled the Texas Rangers part first, it was interesting, there were many firearms on display apparently used on both sides with equal abandon, then we arrived at a frontier town’s main street, all inside the building, and finally we came upon the car which Bonnie and Clyde were in when they finally met their ends. I actually took it to be the real thing until, looking closer, I spotted that the bullet-holes were two-dimensional. I then took the law into my own hands, ignored the do not touch sign and ran my hand over the worst of the damage – it was totally smooth and the “holes” were transferred on. Apparently the authorities had lost enough law officers to the gang to convince them that no attempt to arrest them was worthwhile – so they ambushed the pair and made the car into a sieve without warning.
We then passed seamlessly into the Buckhorn saloon exhibits, basically in the frontier days anyone who brought in a set of animal horns could cash them in for a drink and many must have done it. The exhibits consisted of furniture made with horns; it’s hard to imagine less comfortable seats, and stuffed animals. The animals were in loose groupings and had the common denominator of having been shot. Only about 40% of the exhibits were labeled so there was little attempt to educate the masses. In the African area a sizable proportion of the animals had been slain by a man with a bow and arrows – the whole thing left us a bit cold but it was remarkable for its sheer size.
We left the exhibitions and went to the bar; being entirely out of animal horns we were pleased to find that they also take cash.
When we returned to the hotel we took advantage of the hot tub next to the pool outside on about the fifth floor, we felt that we were operating under false pretenses in that the others in the tub were soaking off the affects of their marathons and we were simply being lazy.
That evening we ate on the Riverwalk at our hotel, combining the people watching with the ability to charge the meal to our room.
We packed most of our stuff that night as we wanted to do a little sight-seeing before heading on to Corpus Christi and our good friends the Walls.

USA Trip - Part 6 - Fredericksburg TX

Having eaten with Ryan we set off into Texas Hill country, again the satnav was set to the town of Fredericksburg and we knew that we still had to find the Best Western that I had booked on the internet before leaving England. I had checked out a lot of hotels in Fredericksburg and I was, mistakenly it turned out, confident that this hotel was on Main Street. The town is mainly the long Main Street with perhaps two or three roads of houses going back parallel from it on either side. We cruised the avenue but never saw the Best Western sign, having been quite confident previously I was less sure of myself now. We parked and I sorted through the Texas guide book and found hotels in Fredericksburg – having phoned the hotel we were quickly able to find it. The good news was that it was very well appointed; the less good news was it was too far from the town centre to walk.
Fredericksburg was basically my idea, I had read that it was an early German settlement in Texas and the influence remained; it was to be a pleasant break from the Tex-Mex cuisine which we enjoy. Strangely it is also the home of the National Museum of the Pacific War; I had noticed this but it was only when we returned to the town centre having checked in and eaten our pancakes – heated in the microwave – that we discovered why. The town is the birthplace of Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz. His family had established the major hotel in the town which had grown rather bizarrely over the years into a strangely turreted mansion. This building now houses the museum and is due to be fully re-opened by ex-president Bush in December. The exhibits covering the war in the pacific in the building were closed but we had time to see and enjoy the Admiral Nimitz Museum and the Japanese Garden of Peace before following directions out of the house and gardens to The Pacific Combat Zone which has hourly guided tours.
Texas hill country has little in common with the battle for individual pacific islands but to do the combat zone credit we found ourselves transported to that barbaric struggle. The young lady who gave us the tour was perhaps just a little too enthusiastic about all the nastiness on both sides but she did get her message across. Our tour started on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier and moved onto a dock with a genuine PT boat moored at it. I was able to impress Julia by remembering that JFK served on PT109 in World War II. We emerged from the building into a beach landing onto jungle covered island. There were tanks from both sides; a landing craft but most striking were the bunkers and pill boxes. These were designed to cover each other with interlocking fire making the area approaching them a killing zone. Much of the island fighting came almost to a hand to hand level with massive casualties on both sides. The ruthlessness of the allied forces was at least party brought about by the commonly held belief that the Japanese would never surrender or allow themselves to be taken alive.
The whole exhibit brought home the savagery of the combat and many feel that the dropping of the atomic bombs saved lives in the longer term. To get the prospective of the time there follows an extract from my father’s autobiography:
Even after V.E. day in 1945, we were still talking about transferring every available man to the Far East for 'as many flaming years’ as it took to finish off the Japanese. Then the atom bomb reduced those years to days and it was all over.
It is interesting to note that all the heart-searching about this is a post-war peace-time product. At the time nobody questioned the use of the bomb any more than they would have queried the use of a bigger and better gun or a heavier tank. The fact that most of its victims were civilians made no particular impact either. We were hardened to civilian casualties of aerial bombing on both sides, even where this included unfortunates in occupied territories, let alone the hated Japanese..
With hindsight and fuller information it seems likely that the Japanese would have collapsed fairly quickly anyway, but their reputation at the time did not encourage any such hopes. The Americans had suffered enormous casualties in taking comparatively small islands and the cost of invading Japan was certain to be far more. Moreover, thousands of Allied prisoners-of-war were dying by inches all the time the war continued. Even today, it seems likely that Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved more Japanese lives than they destroyed and undoubtedly saved many thousands of our own. At the time the question was never asked, because these were acts of war against the enemy and war makes nations callous, none more so than the British.
After this grim experience we moved on down the road, literally as well as figuratively, to the Pioneer Museum. Here, in a plot of land the size of a football field, there stands eight differing buildings, some on this their original site but others transplanted to illustrate the progression of housing over the years. As Julia and I drove across Texas we often remarked on the distances in terms of a day’s ride on horseback – the large ranches had line shacks where the cowboys checking their herd could stay overnight or longer. Here we found a practical result of these same distances.
The Weber Sunday House served as a place to eat and rest when the Weber family made the seven-mile trip to town for shopping and church. This type of structure is unique to the Fredericksburg area. As roads and vehicles improved, the Sunday Houses fell into disuse. There was no bedroom in this particular example.
There were other buildings but to list just three seems enough. The 1880s Walton-Smith Log Cabin was the family home of John and Nancy Walton and their three children. After John’s death, Nancy married John Smith and they added to the house as needed. When it was rediscovered in the 1980s, the original cabin had been totally encased by additions to the house. In 1985, it was moved and rebuilt at the Museum. The White Oak School recalls the time when most Texas school children attended one-room country schools. The interior is furnished with wooden desks and teaching aids from this earlier era. Charles Feller, a former student at the school, and his wife donated the White Oak School to the Museum. The Arhelger Bathhouse stood behind the Arhelger Barbershop on East Main Street. Between 1910 and 1930, dusty travelers frequently stopped in for a haircut, shave and a hot, sudsy bath. The bathhouse has been part of the Pioneer Museum since 1995.
The fittings in the various houses varied in age and I can remember some of the kitchen utensils being in use by my more elderly relatives on visits to Newcastle during my childhood.
The Kammlah House began in 1849 as a one-room structure, but grew through the years with the addition of three kitchens, a cellar, a stone patio, bedrooms and living areas. When the Historical Society purchased the Kammlah property in 1955, four generations of Kammlahs had lived in the house. A barn and smokehouse are part of the original property owned and run by the family. In this barn there was a huge collection of different types of barbed wire, all neatly mounted on timber boards. I fully accept that barbed wire changed the face of the West and tipped the balance towards the homesteader/farmer against the rancher but making collections of the stuff seem to redefine boring!
We wandered back down main street to our car and returned to the hotel, entering through the reception area we noted the huge long-horn steer that had tried with partial success to break into the building through the wall just above the fireplace, the notice decorated with a Colt 45 pistol which reads ominously “We don’t call 911!” and yes a smaller but still impressive collection of barbed wires!
Later we took advice from the, possibly armed, older gentleman on reception about where to eat and were pleased that we followed his advice. We ate at Auslanders which is strangely described as German, Mexican and Greek but we took the German options, Julia had veal while I chose spicy pork and cheese sausage it was very enjoyable. Our choice of table gave us good views of the other customers, but the rotating fan above us produced a strange strobe light effect which I found off-putting. We had no success identifying the relationships of many of the parties dining together. There was one large family group which occupied, if that’s a good choice of word relating to a German restaurant, several tables but came together for group photos before leaving – it was impossible to see any likenesses or indeed any other similarities between any members of the group. It was as if there was some lottery going on outside that grouped people together on a random basis.
The large wall opposite us was festooned with cuckoo clocks and the other three walls had all been similarly attacked by deer and cattle which had only managed to force their heads through the walls, some miraculously had exactly coincided with wooded shields – am I overdoing this joke?
We returned to the hotel, settled into beds sufficient to sleep basketball teams and enjoyed a great night’s sleep. We had a fairly early start the following day after the free buffet breakfast, where incidentally there was no requirement to lubricate the waffle-maker, which produced waffles in the shape of Texas. We were now on the way to San Antonio.

USA Trip - Part 5 - Austin TEXAS

It was about 5.30pm when we got clear of Waco, the satnav is excellent when set for a city and the navigation was easy anyway. We had not previously decided on where we would stay, Waco, on route or Austin. As we drove we settled on Austin and agreed on a Best Western level of hotel. We should have been a bit clearer on the geography of Austin as it would have made life easier for us later. As we reached the outskirts of the city it was now about 7.00pm and we needed a zip code and address of a hotel. I had a Best Western on the south side of Austin in my file but the satnav couldn’t deal with the address. We phoned ahead and they only gave the same address, our next move was to spot a McDonalds and pull into the car park, true to form, there was wireless internet reception, and we looked up the hotel again. This time we got the name of a street close by and the satnav was happy to get us there. Writing this factual account makes it seem cool and considered but the reality was far tenser and, that it had taken an extra hour in the city road system, meant we were stressed when at last we entered the hotel. It didn’t seem like the best of areas and the hotel itself seemed a bit run down.
In the foyer we were accosted by a guy who was offering us a beer, there seemed to be some party going on, but we were not at our best for socializing, so we brushed him off and booked in. We then realised that the random guy in question was the manager and the party was the weekly free manager’s reception. We booked in for one night with the option that we might stay over the following night also and, having taken our bags up to a perfectly servicable room, we returned to the foyer. We were chilled now and more than happy to socialize with the manager and hopefully drink his beer but, too late, the foyer was clear. We had been in the car enough for one day so we walked next door to the Chinese Restaurant, which was apparently run by the local junior school. We got a table without delay, not surprising as we were the only customers, and ordered that first cooling beer. I didn’t take it well when the young waitress told us that they had no license. Judging by the age of everyone we saw working in the place they had nobody old enough to buy a beer let alone apply for a license. We managed with lemonade which didn’t hit the spot as our first choice would have but was nice. The food was fine and we soon retired to our room and, it being Wednesday, we were able to watch back to back NBA games.
The following morning we had formalized our plans, although we were on the wrong side of Austin for our planned evening meal with Megan and Creed Poore who live on the north side of the city, we were on the right side to escape towards Fredricksburg the next day. We therefore decided to stay another night in the hotel and have a quiet day on that side of town. Since we had explored Austin on a previous visit we felt we could give up a day of sight-seeing and chill out.
We enjoyed the free buffet breakfast and had waffles which entail pouring a cup of waffle mix into the waffle iron and turning the iron as instructed by the iron. Unfortunately the first waffle had decided to superglue itself into the waffle maker and I had to report our incompetence to the lady on reception. Our failing was that we had not sprayed the iron with the liquid release agent prior to adding the mix. We were not therefore the most popular couple at breakfast as others were now waiting to use the waffle maker. We did however end up weith successful waffles in due course.
We had already logged onto the free WiFi in our room and therefore caught up with emails. We then looked up Academy Sports as they are the biggest sports chain in the Texas region and found one just three junctions up the highway that we were next to. We were still pursuing the basketball boots which Sarah liked and I’m always keen to check out cheaper tennis accessories, grips and strings. We drove the relatively short distance but the sports shop only had the boots in children’s sizes. The very helpful staff told us that they were expecting the adult version soon so other branches might already have them. Next door to Academy was a Wal-Mart and that sorted out our other requirements, we took back to the hotel milk, cookies and a six-pack of beer, purely for emergencies.
At about 5.30pm we drove across Austin and successfully met up at the restaurant. On the way we were at traffic lights and a huge flock of birds had settled the nearby trees and phone lines it was like a scene from a horror movie with all the noise they were making adding to their scary effect.
We had a great meal with Megan and family, Megan came over to Britain two or three times to see her dad, Kevin Wall, who we became close to when he coached the Derby Storm profession basketball team in the 2000/01 season and went on to coach the Scottish Rocks team in 2001/02 and 2002/03 seasons. Their family is great and, like we did, they expect their kids to cope with social events. It’s always a joy to socialize with Creed and Megan and the girls Carter and Harper are delights, Carter was shy at first but was soon talking especially to Julia who has a gift for getting on with children.
When we were talking about our plans it emerged that Megan and Creed love Fredricksburg and in fact Creed proposed to Megan there. They suggested that we should book a hotel on the main street to be able to enjoy the German beers rather than having to drive, we had already booked our hotel, Best Western again, but I was confident it was on Main Street so that seemed to be fine.
We were hoping to all meet up with Ryan Huntley, one of Kevin’s ex-players whom Megan also knew, at the restaurant but he had called saying that he would be later due to work. He is no longer playing and is in the accounts department of a law firm in Austin. The timing worked out well, just as the girls had finished their meals and were becoming restless and their bed time was approaching, Ryan arrived. There was just enough time for Creed and Megan to socialize with him before they headed back home with the kids. It emerged that it was Ryan’s birthday and he was meeting up with his brother later so he did not need to eat but it was great catching up over a drink. He had taken the next day, Friday, off and insisted on meeting up with us for breakfast before we moved on to the Texas Hill country.
On our way out of the restaurant Ryan introduced us to his car. He is a powerfully built 6’4” and always struggled with the small cars provided to players in Britain so it was no real surprise to us that he drives a large Ford Explorer type truck. All over Texas we lost our rental car in parking lots because it was always dwarfed by every other car.
We met Ryan successfully on our side of town at the IHOP which was pretty much opposite our hotel. We had omelets which made a good start to the day and took with us the pancakes which were part of that menu item. They would make a lunch when we reached the hotel in Fredricksburg.

USA Trip - Part 4 - Fort Worth to Waco to Austin

Early in the planning stage Julia had checked Baylor University fixtures in the hope of attending one of their games and she thought that they were playing on the 11th of November which we could have fitted in nicely. We had hoped to see Baylor because Tenya’s son Tommy had played for them and it would have been nice to see their set-up. Nearer our traveling time we looked up their fixture list again and found that we had misread the dates as the US way is to put the month before the day, and we could not fit in a game due to other commitments.
Rather than give up entirely I had emailed the coach and asked if we could watch a practice, he had replied saying no problem but he had not got back to us with date and time etc. Since Waco was on the way to Austin we decided to chance looking in. We arrived at the University information office and quickly got directions to the basketball centre. We arrived at about 3.15 and wandered into the impressive building. It was looking promising as there were basketball players wandering around, outside the locker room we passed a coach, whistle round neck, clipboard in hand. I introduced us to him and asked if we could watch practice. He ushered us into the gym that he was heading for and allowed us to watch. There were 12 or 13 players, mainly identifiable by their picture hanging from the rafters above us, but more surprisingly, there were at least as many coaches, graduate players and general support staff.
The warm-up was much as we have seen often over here but then the practice started and immediately we noted that the game clock was running for each drill. The number of staff was such that every pair of players shooting had someone with them who counted their baskets and made sure they were declaring the correct score. While things went on it became clear that the head coach was away but the practice was being videoed so that he could watch it later. It was notable that the acting head-coach ran the practice using a printed lesson plan and all the various assistants had a copy of that plan to know what was coming next. While we sat at the end of the gym, players and staff came over to us, introduced themselves and made us generally welcome. As the session progressed it became clear that there was a long term commitment involved, there was a Baylor way to do things and the senior players were partly responsible for cascading that way down to the less experienced players. It became particularly interesting to us when the players were split into two teams the, Green and Gold, and the practice became focused on the next game’s opponents. Both teams were briefed on the opponent’s usual defenses and offences and expected to put them into their game play. Over the next twenty minutes the coaches were very prepared to interrupt the game-play and correct the errors – players who made errors were made to run, and if a team committed a turnover they all ran. The structure was impressive but for the final session of the practice the two teams played each other with no conditions on the play. At this point we were disappointed to see that the majority of the plays consisted of the point guard bringing the ball down court and shooting it without it going through anyone else’s hands. The coaches tolerated this and the session finished with 7 minutes in which every player had to make ten free throws in a row – the only one who failed had to run!
The whole experience made us realize how hospitable the Texan’s tended to be and in contrast we wondered if someone wandered into a Derby Training session and asked to watch would they receive the same treatment?
After a few goodbyes we ;left the basketball centre and decided to get to Austin that evening so that we could have a quiet day to ourselves the next day before meeting up with friends for a meal in the evening.

USA Trip - Part 3 - Dallas/Fort Worth TEXAS

We landed successfully at Dallas and found our way to the car hire centre using a shuttle bus. This time the process was smoother than Tulsa and we found ourselves in a Ford Focus, similar in many aspects to the Ford Focus we had owned previously. The Dollar people warned us that it was vital to avoid toll roads as it was no longer possible to pay by cash. I tried to set up the satnav but for a long five minutes it refused to co-operate causing us considerable stress during which we tried to get out of the immediate area of the airport. Suddenly it came to life and accepted the address of Tenya and computed a route which got us there without problem. Julia managed the driving brilliantly and I gamely translated/relayed the instructions as she battled the freeways with up to five lanes at a time and the satnav only recognizing two lanes. We found in general if it said keep left or right it was sufficient to stay in a middle lane and hope that we would be offered two lanes going in our direction.
We pulled up outside what we hoped was Tenya’s house, as we approached the front door we saw a massive pair of basketball boots – which did turn out to be castoffs of Tommy, her son – we knocked and were admitted by Sheila, Tenya’s travelling companion and our friend from New Orleans.
We met Tenya and Sheila when they came over to visit Tommy Swanson who was playing for Leicester Riders last season. Tenya is Tommy’s mother and Sheila is an old friend of hers, they worked together in the post office, Sheila is now retired making her available to travel. When he was busy with training and coaching the ladies spent an enjoyable day with us in Derbyshire, we visited Kedleston Hall, which is a great house in its own right but the more interesting because it was extensively used in the movie “The Duchess”. When the film crew wanted to film an evening scene in the round ballroom which has a circular window to the sky they inflated a large dark balloon with helium and allowed it to rise to block out the light. The house was never properly lived in; the family lived in smaller accommodations in the grounds, but was a showpiece for entertaining. Anyway as four people put together by circumstance, we had the best of times, everything was enjoyable and above all we found ourselves to have much in common. It was most touching that when we had returned to our house, before going out for a meal locally, Julia and I wanted to take the flowers to Andy at Marston Cemetery, and both ladies came with us to pay their respects to a young man they had never met.
Arriving at their door in Fort Worth was as if we lived next door, Tenya works nights for the US Mail Service but she appeared from her bed to greet us and we felt extremely welcome. We had organized our visit several months before and Tenya had been insistent that we should stay with her, nearer the time she had hoped that we would be her first house guests at her new home, it had not worked out that way, she was packed up ready to move out but the paperwork was causing problems and she could not yet take possession of her new house. Sheila had come through from New Orleans to see us and to do the day light hosting when Tenya would be sleeping.
We allowed Tenya to return to bed before her shift and following her directions we, and Sheila, set off to find some supper. We did not go far enough in the correct direction and decided that we needed to go in the other direction, we ended up at a Subway, which our American friends tells is similar either side of the Atlantic. It served us well and Sheila brought back a sandwich for Tenya to take to work.
The following morning Tenya returned from work as we were getting up and we all four went out for breakfast. With Tenya driving we discovered our error of the previous night, we continued just another couple of blocks and there was plenty of choice of places to eat. We had a big breakfast to set ourselves up for the day at IHOP, which Julia suddenly realized stood for International House of Pancakes, and announced it to the amusement of the diners. After breakfast Tenya took us to see her new house without, of course, being able to let us in, it was from the outside similar to the Ehlers home.
Owing to the fact it was another working night for Tenya she then drove us home and we others set off in our car to the Fort Worth Stockyards. We parked up in an almost deserted lot and found the payment method to be new to us. The spaces were numbered and a large board had matching numbered slots, the deal was we had to slide five dollars in notes into our slot to avoid the car being clamped, since we had a considerable number of dollar bills, I was given $300 in dollar bills on my retirement by my department, this proved to be no problem.
As we walked into the area we observed that all the flags were at half-mast in recognition of the Fort Hood massacre which had just taken place.
The Stockyards grew up here as for the drovers heading longhorn cattle up the Chisholm Trail to the railheads, Fort Worth was the last major stop for rest and supplies. Beyond Fort Worth they would have to deal with crossing the Red River into Indian Territory. Between 1866 and 1890 more than four million head of cattle were trailed through Fort Worth which was soon known as “Cowtown” When the railroad finally arrived in 1876, Fort Worth became a major shipping point for livestock. This prompted plans in 1887 for the construction of the Union Stockyards. It went into full operation about 1889.
On the main street there was a peculiar mix of Western history and modern traffic, we saw mounted cowboys demonstrating their abilities with rope and whip, some of whom looked old enough to be the original drovers. The Stockyards, unsurprisingly, consist of acres of pens which now are empty except for the token longhorn herd which is driven round the block twice a day, it is still impressive to see thirty or so longhorns wandering down the street totally free to impale spectators on their four feet long horns except for the intervention of the six or seven bored cowboys.
We invested $5 each to see the Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame, with my interest in western folk law, as show in the movies, I was hoping for a more historic set of exhibits than we found. The museum specialised in two distinct strands, both unfortunately things that left me cold. The first was horse-drawn wagons and carriages, seen one buckboard seen them all! The other was the Rodeo Cowboys hall of fame – each inductee had a space like a locker-room cubicle in which there were hats, spurs, photos and other memorabilia, I’m using the term memorabilia very loosely as memorable was the last thing it was. It was amusing to learn that some of these cowboys had learnt their skills in school and had competed against other schools. In Texas things are rarely half-hearted but this set up lacked any real drive. Our best laugh came when we found the Chuck Wagon tableau - the four model cowboys were clearly female mannequins with stuck on facial hair to denote their rough life on the range – unless the organizers were trying to tell us something about the Wild West.
We did enjoy the area and it was late afternoon when we decided to move on, our car was now entirely alone in the carpark and those carparks nearer the action only charged $3 for the day – no justice!
Sheila is an intrepid traveler, and as such she thinks ahead, she had provided herself with a Texas guide book, which she insisted on us keeping when we later moved on from Dallas. She looked up points of interest and obtained their zip codes for us to use with the satnav. This method took us to the botanical gardens and we walked in its beauty for an hour or so as the light faded.
We then headed into downtown Fort Worth; we intended to find somewhere to eat, this time no science was involved, Julia sensed the direction towards the central business district and in due course we arrived in Sundance Square. We had a wander around another attractive area and settled on a steakhouse. We ate well and once again Sheila took food home for Tenya, the ribs that she selected and were brought to us when we were to leave smelled great and Tenya was lucky that they made it home to her.
The next day was Tuesday and Tenya had the night off for Veterans Day, Wednesday 11.11, so she was able to join us for the later part of the day after hopefully getting some sleep and also chasing up her house purchase with her lender who seemed to be stalling the process.
Our trio went out for breakfast and ate at somewhere which claimed to be the “Home of the Biggest Buns in Texas” I’m not confident enough with the Texan sense of humour to express an opinion if this was about the baked items they serve.
We attempted to track down a pair of basketball boots for Sarah and a basketball vest with the name “Bibby” on it but, despite the genuine efforts of all the sports shops to assist us, no business resulted. It helps if you have an English accent if you want Texans to be really nice to you.
When we returned to Tenya’s she had managed little sleep but was now determined to change her lender to a smaller outfit more prepared to get things progressing. She drove us into Dallas, much more daunting than our trips around Fort Worth.
We spent the first couple of hours going around the 6th Floor Museum which is actually in the Texas Book Depository, where Lee Harvey Oswald worked, and allegedly from where he assassinated President John Kennedy. My own views about the assassination, in as much as I’m entitled to them, have changed over the years. I feel that no conspiracy would still be water-tight after all these years and therefore on balance perhaps Oswald acted alone. The feat of marksmanship he achieved might have been beyond him more times than not if he had attempted it repeatedly but that doesn’t make it impossible on a one off. The conspiracy theories are explored in the museum but no strong opinion emerges. Two things struck me, the first was that LHO had not completed the work set for him to do in the morning of the fateful day, indicating perhaps that he knew that things were never going to be the same for him. Also the idea that he was a completely innocent dupe cannot be sustained in the face of the seemingly accepted fact that he left the book depository and murdered the policeman who challenged him outside the cinema. It seems clear that he was involved but with whom? The grassy knoll provides a better killing angle than the high perch in the book depositary and the idea that there was a second shooter there might explain why LHO fired as the convoy was retreating from him rather than as it turned slowly. The only supporting evidence for a second shooter was based on analysis of the existing audio tapes which concluded that there had been one extra shot from the knoll area but it missed. This has since been partly discredited by further research but to my mind it flies in the face of reason that LHO was put in place to cover the existence of a better sniper in a better position to deliver the meaningful shot and he misses!
My interest in the topic was inspired by various reading that I did in my teens and early twenties; a thought provoking read was “Winter Kills” by Richard Condon, although fiction, and at time almost satire, it seemed to hint at some inside knowledge and as a conspiracy it seemed plausible. Here is the Wikipedia entry for the novel:
Before the main story of the novel begins, U.S. President Timothy Kegan is shot in Philadelphia at Hunt Plaza. The ensuing presidential commission condemns a lone gunman as the killer. The book starts years later, when Kegan's half-brother, Nick, witnesses the death-bed confession of a man claiming to have been part of the 'hit squad'. As the protagonist attempts to find the plotter(s), he encounters numerous groups and persons that could have led or been part of the conspiracy. One person is Lola Camonte, a hostess, lobbyist and fixer. She recounts the story of President Kegan asking her about appointing a member of organized crime to the Court of St. James. The character "Joe Diamond" is the fictional representation of Jack Ruby. Condon's book describes the numerous intertwined threads of the conspiracy, from the Mafia, Cuba, even possible domestic police connections. Only in the final act, in which Nick meets with his vicious and perverse Joseph P. Kennedy-like 'father-figure', is the truth revealed with a twist ending.
Although the museum is extremely impressive the whole experience seems strangely under-stated, there is a small painted cross on the road outside, which indicates where the presidential car was hit, but it remains a normal road. As we left the museum the evening rush had started and the road was busy, it did not appeal to me but people want to get themselves photographed on that spot – it’s not the safest photo call possible!
We were now caught between getting something to eat and arriving early at the American Airlines Centre before the Dallas v Houston NBA game that Tenya was taking us to. There was no contest we got back in the car and headed for the game. We got into the arena and decided to eat game food – Julia and I had a huge tray of Nachos each, I went for chicken and she opted for beef, mine was smothered in melted cheese but Julia had hers relatively plain. We got settled in our seats and in due course enjoyed the game. It followed the same pattern as had the Bulls v Bucks game in that Houston came out of their blocks quicker than the Mavericks and while playing better team ball they established a lead. However the similarity continued as the Mavericks took over the second half and won comfortably making it the second home win we had witnessed in the NBA. WE seemed to get back home quickly and everyone turned in without delay.
The following day it was time to move on, we were going to Austin via Waco. In the morning we went out for breakfast at Chilies and after that we drove over to Tenya’s new house. The realtor had given her the lock-box combination so that she could show us round the inside of the house. Initially all went to plan Sheila, used the combination to get the key from the box and open the front door, as we entered the alarm went off and, we did not have that combination. As we looked around, Tenya phoned her realtor and she in turn had to phone the security company for the combination of the alarm. This accomplished we had a less stressed look round the house which is really nice – I hope by now Tenya is established in it.
We then picked up our hire car and set off towards Waco.

USA Trip - Part 2 - Tulsa Oklahoma

We travelled painlessly once again and landed in Tulsa slightly ahead of time, all that we needed to do was to reclaim our baggage and collect our car. As it had been an internal flight there was no involvement with immigration or customs so we made our way to baggage reclaim by following signs. We were both quiet and then quietly relieved to find that the airport had been altered over the years since we had been there. Our previous two arrivals in Tulsa were differently poignant, our first visit was to visit Andy during his first year at Oklahoma Wesleyan University on the occasion of Julia’s birthday and he met us in the foyer of the airport having already grabbed our bags ready for us, the second was when we returned to Oklahoma to collect his personal effects two days after his funeral, then we were greeted by Kathy Ensor who looked after us throughout that visit. It was a relief that nothing seemed exactly as we remembered it.
In due course we found the Car Rental area. Car hire nearly defeated us; the system struggled to cope with us not having a zip code and an American phone number. At last we were adequately identified and were ready to have a car allocated to us, DialAFlight had made all the arrangements perfectly but I wonder how two independent travelers would have coped with middle-America’s unawareness of the United Kingdom. We were asked if we would like to upgrade to a bigger car from the compact that we had specified, we declined and heard the clerk pass on the instruction to give us the smallest available vehicle. We made our way to the ground level to claim our transport, a smiling Dollar representative ushered us to a 4x4 which must have been two levels above compact. Julia enjoyed the driving experience and after one missed turn close to the airport which took us into a poor area next to the railway we found our way to our hosts, the Ehlers. Ken and Margaret Ehlers are the adoptive parents of Sarah, Andy’s girlfriend who was killed with him in the accident returning from their home in Lake Jackson Texas where they had spent his first and last Christmas away from home. They have had links with Oklahoma which probably had something to do with Sarah going to college there and they have retired to Tulsa rather than stay in Texas. After much deliberation they have settled in Jenks, a district of Tulsa, quite close to Sarah and Andy’s fatal accident. They made us most welcome and we very much admired their new home which they had been able to supervise from the ground up. Space is plentiful in the Midwest and their house is large with all the living areas downstairs and the upstairs devoted to Ken’s model railway. Roughly two thirds of the space is the layout which he is in the construction stage and the other third is his workshop where he produces his models. It was interesting to see the various stages in the layout’s development as different parts had progressed further than others. Ken is one of the premier railway modelers of the USA.
The following day was Friday and we went for a walk round the estate which has lakes as a feature. We then were driven by Margaret into Tulsa where we spent some time in the Boston Avenue church, a most impressive building. Incidentally it was refreshing for Julia and I to find it open to casual visitors and very welcoming. While we were there a member of the church community put on the lights in the main area that we could better appreciate the overall effect. Ken and Margaret have not yet found a church which totally fits them so they spend considerable time checking out possibilities, this church certainly impressed!
We then went on to Philbrook house which is an art gallery and an impressive house and gardens in its own right. Julia and Margaret have similar backgrounds and experiences so they get on very well together and the time passed quickly. We returned to the house and Ken drove us to Bartlesville to see Oklahoma Wesleyan University again and to meet up with some friends of Andy and Sarah. We were shown round the campus with its recent improvements by Jamie and Sam Peterson, Jamie played soccer with Andy and Sam was Sarah’s roommate. It was good to catch up with them again, they married shortly after graduating and Jamie told me that they had never planned to settle at OKWU but they were still there and he had just been appointed to coach the men’s soccer programme.
After seeing them, we four went to Casey and Kendra Culver’s apartment where Kendra cooked a Turkish themed meal for us all – they are hoping to return to Turkey in the future.
Saturday was busy. We met up with the Ensors, Jon Savannah, his wife, Brent and Kathy at a Rib Crib quite close to the Oral Roberts campus. Jon Ensor was Andy’s roommate in his second year and his family has been immensely supportive to us. When we came over after Andy’s funeral it was the Ensors that we stayed with, during that time there were many difficult tasks which were made easier by their help and support. It seemed that they had been thinking ahead for us and had made contact with the various agencies and people involved. It was upsetting to learn that Kathy had suffered some health problems and Brent had lost his job recently but they remain very positive people with a deep faith. It was our first meeting with Savannah and she was also delightful.
We were ambushed by the menu, Julia and I ordered first then both Ensor couples split a meal each. We then found ourselves totally unable to finish the entire side of beef and full sized ostrich which it appeared that we had on our plates. Ken later suggested that, as a rule of thumb, any meal costing over $10 could be split between two.
We had no sooner arrived back at the Ehlers than we got a call from Mikey Manghum suggesting that we could meet up at Oral Roberts. We returned to much the same area and met him outside the Maybee Centre. He showed us round the university with particular reference to the sporting facilities. Although he is a “walk-on” player this year it is clear that they are expecting him to be an asset to their programme – he has his own area in the locker room with a flat screen tv/dvd player. Having seen all the improvements to the OWU sports centre we were not fully ready for the division one level of facilities. That afternoon the ladies team was playing an extended scrimmage against another college so we sat in and watched. There are three links to English basketball on the ladies squad, Georgia Jones daughter of Jeff Jones an ex-derby coach, Dominique Allen daughter of Clive Allen a legend in Birminghamn basketball and Cristal Turner from Solent. The intensity was suffering by the time we were watching as they had already been going for two hours and they just kept re-playing the second period. The coaching staff, assistants, graduate players etc were spread over the floor making sure that the girls knew exactly what they should be doing in each situation.
Oral Roberts has a strict regime which was illustrated by the fact that Julia was not allowed into Mikey’s dorm at all and I was required to show photo identification if I was to go in with him. He told us that the university had only just relaxed the dress code for lectures from long trousers, shirt and tie by removing the requirement for a tie.
When it came round to 5.30 Mikey was required for the pre-game meeting even though the plan is for him to “Redshirt” this season, making him a squad member who trains but doesn’t play in the matches.
In some ways our trip to the local diner brought home the community involvement in college sport to us like little else. The waiters were all wearing an Oral Roberts game day t-shirt and the place was packed with people clearly going to the game which was only a pre-season friendly.
On our return to the stadium we went to the “Will Call” window and sure enough Mikey had left us tickets. We found our seats but the arena was far from full so we were able to move forward. Mikey couldn’t sit with us as he was expected to sit on the bench but in the second half Georgia Jones came over to sit with us and was great company. The match was a blow-out which ORU won easily.
After the game we met up with Mikey before returning to the Ehlers.
The following day was Sunday and we were due to fly on to Dallas. After breakfast and a walk on the estate we had a photo call with the Ehlers before driving back to the airport. We checked the car in and again the airline was happy to let us have our extra bag free of charge on the basis of it being part of the original flight plan. The flight was full again but left on time and we were heading on to Texas.

USA trip - part 1 - Chicago

It was a painless travelling day from Hilton to Heathrow and on to Chicago.
We parked successfully at the purple Parking depot and transferred by minibus to Heathrow terminal 5. We had checked in online but the queues to put in our baggage seemed as long as usual but we were in no hurry. While in Prague we had been warned about the likely cold weather in Chicago so we had taken advantage of our early booking of the holiday to use a luggage allowance of two bags of 23Kg each, in fact we had three bags between us to accommodate clothing for three climates, Chicago – COLD, Oklahoma – COOL, Texas – WARM.
Security came next and we passed through smoothly.
We have recently only travelled by budget airlines so the experience of flying with British Airways was refreshing, the cabin crew were attentive and the drinks and meals were free. My highlight, anyone who knows me will recognise it, was on my leg-stretch to the rear of the plane when the senior stewardess said that she had just brewed and did we want a tea. It tasted great.
The clock was in our favour in that we set off at 15.20 and arrived in Chicago at 18.05, our bodies however were aware that eight real hours had elapsed. We reclaimed our baggage smoothly and found the minibus stop for the airport to hotel transfer which I had in advance. We were the last people off the bus in central Chicago and we booked smoothly into the Westin on Michigan Avenue. The holiday was a mixture of pre-booking by me or our agent, DialAFlight, and some playing by ear. The Westin was booked by DialAFlight and clearly they get better rates than the general public. We were even slightly upgraded from a basic double to a room with two queen beds overlooking Michigan Avenue. We had a beer in the bar and retired for the night.
The following morning we had breakfast in the hotel which was excellent but reflected the Four Star nature of the hotel in the price. This is going to be a recurring theme, the better hotels are great but they catch you for extras in several ways, they charge for parking, they charge for internet access, they charge for breakfast and everyone expects to be tipped. We had paid $12 per day for WiFi in our room but it was worth it to keep in touch by email.
The view from our room on the 12th floor was spectacular and featured the John Handcock building immediately opposite the hotel. We went up the tower to the observation platform on the 94th floor, the audio guide provided in the price was excellent and we really felt it to be good value and it gave us our bearings. From there we walked to the Navy Pier which was in its November, almost hibernation, mode so we had it almost to ourselves. It is usually heaving in the summer but probably not our main reason to go back to the windy city.
On a personal recommendation we went to the Cheesecake Factory Restaurant, which was at the base of the John Handcock building. We decided on a snack lunch and went for a slice of cheesecake each and a hot chocolate. The portions were huge and we ended up taking enough cheesecake for our supper back to the hotel in a box.
Talking about the weather, although we wore overcoats for the only time on the USA trip, Chicago was far from as cold as we had expected and it was bright all the while we were there.
In the evening we had tickets for our first ever NBA match, the Chicago Bulls v Milwaukee Bucks at the United Centre. We took advice from the hotel and caught two buses to the game; we claimed our booked tickets from the “Will Call” window and found our way to our high-altitude seats. The game was untidy with little structure but plenty of one-on-one play for the first two quarters during this time the Bucks had a lead and looked quite comfortable. After the half-time break the Bulls slowly got back into the match and ended by winning by two points despite missing free throws down the stretch which would have made their victory more comfortable. Luol Deng, a GB player, was the most impressive Bull finishing with 26 points and 20 rebounds. The whole presentation was impressive and very memorable.
We reversed our journey to return to the hotel and ate the cheesecake mentioned earlier.
Breakfast the next day was at the deli that we had spotted across the road from the hotel which provided us with a good start to the day at a fraction of the costy of the hotel breakfast. Then we followed our previously successful method of seeing cities by booking a “Hop On, Hop Off” tram ride. We travelled the agree route and got off at the Art Institute of Chicago, which is guarded by two huge stone lions and is opposite the very beginning of the famous Route 66. As art galleries go it was good and it is fair to say that 50% of our party enjoyed the entire decade we spent in the gallery. We, as Crimewatch viewers, are particularly alert to the possibility of crime, however it was shocking to observe several cases of blatant forgery where the criminals had simply set up in front of their target picture and started to copy it – you have to ask what use is the security in the place – my companion refused me permission to make a citizen’s arrest.
We saw several displays but our focus was basically French Impressionists and amongst them we found works by Joseph Wright, native of Derby, neither French nor an impressionist.
On our escape from the art experience we walked across Millennium Park where we encountered the Bean, a massive reflecting structure which gave endless photo opportunities which we exploited quite fully. Then it was back onto the tram back to the hotel where in due course we had dinner in front of the World Series Baseball during which New York Yankees clinched the title. It appears that the Yankees are loved by their fans but hated by all other baseball fans – this was clear from the lack of enthusiasm which greeted their triumph.
The following day we ate breakfast at the same deli as before and returned to the hotel to pack before moving on to Oklahoma. We took a taxi to Chicago O’Hare airport and everything went to plan, we were concerned that we might be charged for having more hold baggage than allowed on internal flights but on production of our full itinerary we were not charged.

Prague Oct 09 - Visit to TEREZIN

It strikes me as strange that decisions are often arrived at in a random way but turn out to be meaningful. We chose to take a daytrip out of Prague principally because of the continuing poor weather – most of the tours in the city were on foot so not mitigating the situation – the timing of the Terezin tour suited our return to the hotel to be picked up for the airport and so we chose it.
We packed our bags and left them in reception, where they were open to anyone adding drugs or explosives to taste but I still straight-faced the check-in clerk and assured her that they had been under my supervision throughout my stay.
At lunch time we were picked up by a Czech Basil Fawlty driving a mini-bus, we assumed that he was taking us to the centre of Prague where we would meet up with a bigger coach. His cheery disposition mirrored the weather and we felt that we would hardly miss Basil when he passed us onto another driver. It was not to be, he grimly instructed us to remain in our seats while others joined our party along with our guide.
Her first shock of the day was when she checked that we were all English speakers, clearly having been briefed that we were, alas no, there were three Spaniards amongst us, not a bad thing in itself but a nightmare for her in that she had prepared her script in English.
She apologised to them that she was not well prepared but her Spanish was excellent and both Julia and I found ourselves able to recognise the things that she had first explained in English when she reached that point in Spanish and to some extent when it had been Spanish first. Two out of the three Spaniards showed their appreciation of her efforts on their behalf by going to sleep.
The whole situation of Terezin became clearer in our minds rapidly, and chillingly, the town, which basically consisted of a small and large fort built long before the Second World War, was cleared on Hitler’s orders of all its Czech citizens and a Jewish ghetto was established there. It became, in turn, a propaganda device to refute the truth of the Third Reich’s policy towards the Jews and later a transit camp in the transport and final extermination of the Jews in the death-camps.
The large fort was basically the town and as such it housed the Jewish population with considerable overcrowding. It was this ghetto which was visited by the Red Cross and, it seems, passed by them as a humane situation, it also featured in Nazi propaganda films which showed a Jewish self governing community enjoying soccer matches and classical concerts. It beggars belief that this charade appears to have served the Nazi purpose but as my father would often say, “There’s none so blind as those who will not see!”
Anyway our trip arrived at the Small Fort first which was a prison even before the war, its claim to fame being the place where Gavrillo Princip the killer of Arch-duke Ferdinand was imprisoned. During the war it was the more repressive part of the system. It imprisoned anyone who attempted to escape from, or cause unrest in, the Ghetto. It was a dark miserable day as we arrived, we were issued with white plastic capes to keep off the rain but these mainly served to make us feel more like the arriving prisoners must have done.
Our guide turned us over to another guide who worked at the fort; she was well-informed but as darkly serious as her subject matter. The Spaniards had a Spanish speaker as their guide which our guide had phoned ahead to request.
Our tour started at the administration block, with typical Teutonic efficiency the inmates were recorded and given a number, only printed on their uniform not tattooed as in the death-camps. We next passed through the most haunting gateway, the old slogan still visible “Arbeit Macht Frei” into a prison courtyard. The shocking history of the place has left its mark and I cannot recall all that we were told – please look up the place if you feel the need. The bald facts are that about 32,000, not all Jewish - other minorities were also persecuted, people arrived here and were usually sent to a concentration camp later. 2,600 people were executed, starved, or succumbed to disease here. Of the 15,000 children sent there, a possible 1,100 survived. Two things that I remember from the guide will serve to make my point. In amongst the cells there was a room set out as a washing area with a long line of sinks and taps down one side, it seemed strangely out of step in its humanity but the guide explained that the room had been put in ready for the Red Cross inspection which never left the main Ghetto, however the authorities were only prepared to go so far; the taps were not connected to any water supply. The old firing range, used previously by the garrison to practise their marksmanship, was used as the site for all executions by firing squad. That felt grim enough but those unfortunates destined to die there were marched in to the area down a path which went between the guards’ apartment block and their swimming pool.
As the final part of the tour we were shown parts of the film made on the orders of the Nazis and directed by Jewish prisoner Kurt Gerron (a director, cabaret performer, and actor who appeared with Marlene Dietrich in The Blue Angel), it was meant to show how well the Jews lived under the "benevolent" protection of the Third Reich. After the shooting of the film, most of the cast and even the filmmaker himself, were deported to Auschwitz. Gerron and his wife were executed in the gas chambers on October 28, 1944. The film was not released at the time, but was edited into pieces that served their purpose, and only segments of it have remained, the version we watched was intercut with the chilling facts of the Final Solution.
After the small fort, from which only three prisoners escaped, we moved on to the main ghetto. Here, surprisingly, people live in the same blocks that were built during the war. We toured the ghetto museum where we read of the life of the inmates, they managed a strange form of normality in the Ghetto, magazines were published, operas were written and performed but many of the people credited with these shared the same fate, to die in an extermination camp. It was uplifting to read the very few who survived, amongst them was a young man who was transported to Auschwitz, escaped from there and returned to the Terezin Ghetto to warn the Jewish community but he was not believed.
The Ghetto area which had housed 7000 before the war held over 50000 at its height but that figure pales when you consider the transient nature of the population. Almost one-quarter of the approximately 141,000 Jews sent to Terezín between 1941 and 1945 died in the Ghetto, the victims of disease and starvation. The conditions in the camp were horrendous, despite continued efforts made by the inmates to improve their plight. Overcrowding, lack of adequate sanitation, poor housing, lice and other pests, allied to a poor, meagre diet led to constant epidemics, which often proved fatal for the older prisoners. For the majority of the Jews who were sent to Terezín, the ghetto was little more than a gateway through which they passed on their way to death. The figures make tragic reading: of the 15,000 children who passed through Terezin, only 100 survived; of the 88,000 deported from the camp (about half of whom went straight to Auschwitz), 84,500 were murdered; only 23,000 of the 141,000 sent to Terezín before April 1945 survived the war.
It was a quiet return to Prague and I hope I will never forget the experience. In these days of holocaust denial the survivors of the camps dwindle and soon they will not be there to show us their tattooed camp identification number. It is up to us to keep their memory intact. A friend of ours, Roger Harrison, was refereeing in Poland and took a day out to visit Auschwitz, he felt it was something that he should do rather than something to enjoy. I share his view and I remind you that someone once said, “Those who forget the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them”

Prague October 2009

In our quest to change the fate of the world and overcome global warming we took our challenge to Prague in October. The weather was expected to be similar to England but could our presence influence this? – we had four nights to test the theory.

MONDAY

We traveled from Derby on the Monday on an evening flight from East Midlands Airport; we arrived in Prague and passed through the airport smoothly. We had a new experience in that there was a man at arrivals with a sign displaying our name. We had booked a car from the airport to the hotel and had not yet paid for it so it was a relief to see him. We got into a smart car and we set off – we were now confident that we would not get mugged unless it was by our driver – he was huge. We quickly spotted the castle and, as explained, the hotel was just below it. We were able to pay off the driver – think Giant Haystacks on steroids – for both journeys in sterling and he gave us a voucher for the hotel to airport journey at the end of our stay.
We had been allocated the Hotel Neruda which was four stars – rather better than we might have chosen – and we installed ourselves in our room. I have no idea how stars are allocated and I wouldn’t know if all the rooms have to meet a standard but our room caused us some questions.
There was a real WOW factor to opening the door and seeing the room, there was a huge bed central in the room with stylish covers and large cushions. On both sides of the room there was a sloping ceiling which made it obvious that we were in the roof-space. The windows on either side of the room were dormers which opened to views of the road up to Prague Castle. The furnishings were high quality and the bathroom was large with stylish fittings but there was a shower and no bath, to Julia’s dismay.
The downsides to the room were the lack of real electric light in the hallway of the room this made using the wardrobe a lottery as dark garments hanging in a dark space defied the eyesight of anything other than an owl. The large double bed spread had two separate single duvets below it and this often created an icy expanse in the centre of the bed. We were disappointed with the TV in that it only had two channels in English out of only five channels available they were CNN news and Eurosport not the most balanced diet of viewing.

TUESDAY

Breakfast was provided in the hotel so we emerged from our room by 10.00am and went downstairs to eat. Our first problem was that the only water available for tea was tepid when all English people know that boiling water is required. The fruit juice was poor also – I cannot hazard a guess as to the fruit involved – leaving us drinking water. The bread on the other-hand was excellent, there were many varieties and they were all very tasty. There was a heated container with compartments for bacon, sausage and rubber fried eggs. We made ourselves bacon sandwiches and felt ready to face the day. By some organisational error, whichever table we chose for breakfast there was never a laptop provided but everyone else seemed to have one.
After breakfast, in cold drizzle, we set out towards the town centre, with a plan in mind. Guided by the map we found Charles Bridge and crossed it into the Old Town. We walked alongside the river up to the next bridge and there turned into town. We found Wenceslas Square to be the end of a long shopping street and not impressively square at all but certainly impressive. Overlooking Wenceslas Square is the National Museum which had been our aim for the rest of the morning as: a) it specialises in Natural History and 50% of us have an interest in that and b) it was raining on and off all day. Sadly it was closed for renovation process which was going to end later the week that we were in Prague and Julia had her lust for fossils unresolved.
We decided that a quest for a cup of tea would fill some of the time between then and a walking tour of Prague which started at 1.00pm. We found a café which offered pancakes and more importantly to us tea, we ordered Hot Tea and specified Black rather than Green (Indian v Chinese?) and when a mug of boiling water and a tea-bag each appeared we dunked in the bag and tea began to form in the mug. We felt more human after lingering over it and an accompanying pair of pancakes but we hoped for better tea before returning home.
As 1.00pm approached we returned towards Wenceslas Square and bought our tickets for the walking tour – nothing seems cheap in Prague – the tickets were 600 crowns each (£24). We also spotted an Irish pub for future reference as we needed to find somewhere to watch the international football on the next day and up to that point we had not noticed many/any sports bars.
Whenever we had chosen this week away we had carefully avoided both weekends with a view to also avoiding the British stag nights we had however not checked the World Cup qualification schedule and on the Wednesday of our visit the Czechs were at home to the Northern Irish. Irish supporters were everywhere but always it was good humoured.
We joined our tour group by the statue of Wenceslas mounted, our group consisted of a female guide, SuzzannHA, who stressed the end of every phrase as if she feared that we had dozed off listening to her, and, to my best memory, a Californian couple, an Australian couple, a German man, a young couple from Chicago, a couple from Teesside of about our vintage, ourselves and two blokes over from Manchester to support the Northern Irish. As we set off from the base of the statue the rain came on heavily and we had to take shelter in the doorway of a store. I was next to the couple from Middlesbrough and although I was a similar age to the man we seemed to have no friends or acquaintances in common; this is another illustration of my aversion to every time someone says “it’s a small world”.
We set off down the main street and saw several sites of interest in terms of the communist control of Czechoslovakia as it was before the amicable partition into the Czech Republic and Slovakia. SuzzannHA shed some light on her own distinctive pronunciation of the English language when she explained that when the communists lost power in the Velvet Revolution the school system switched from Russian being the compulsory language to English but the only language teachers available were Russian or German. She also told us that before the revolution the fact that a quarter of the country was liberated by the western forces was not acknowledged in their history lessons.
From the New town we went on to the Old Town and in the old market square we saw the astronomical clock which was impressive.
Our next stop was the Jewish quarter which only survived the war because Hitler had decided to make Prague the Eastern capital of this empire and the Jewish quarter was going to be a museum exhibit of an extinct religion. When I was told that it brought home to me something my father said. He remembered that after the war people were disappointed not to have made the world a better place but he countered that anyone who had fought with that intention was misguided, they should have been content that they fought to avoid it becoming a much worse place, which they had.
In the Jewish quarter, which even before the war was the only place Jews could live, there is an ancient cemetery which houses graves from the 15th century, SuzzannHA told us that there are 150000 bodies buried in the relatively small area it occupies and to accommodate that number they were buried in stacks of twelve.
We then used Charles Bridge to cross the river to the castle side which is known as the Lesser Town – Julia had selected this tour on the basis that it finished at the castle and we would be close to our hotel. Halfway over the bridge we were told one version of the martyrdom of John of Nepomuk – both stories agreed that he was the Queen’s confessor and when the suspicious king wanted to know if his queen had been unfaithful he demanded that the priest break the seal of the confession, you can see that refusing the king was likely to make trouble for John and in both versions it did. SuzzannHA told us at the marked spot on the bridge he was thrown in and drowned but the other story was that he was tortured to death and the body dumped into the river from that same point. It makes one wonder how much can be relied on in these tours.
Having crossed the bridge there was a refreshment break where we sat with the Australian couple and bought a bowl of soup in a small café. I imagine that there was a deal between the café and the tour or more personally with SuzzannHA and it was fair to say it was not the mast impressive food we encountered. It was also here that the Californian husband left his sleeveless jacket and was never reunited with it as he could not find the café again while we waited for him to go back. Every nuance of his wife’s demeanor indicated that he should never have been trusted to dress himself in the first place.
We then caught the tram for three stops up the hill to the castle. Although the castle complex occupies a commanding defensive position over the town it is no longer a recognizable castle, it is home to the parliament building and the most impressive structure up there is St Vitas Cathedral.
Although Prague is home to many religious buildings the population is 80% non-religious and this may explain the fact that we were totally free to photograph inside the cathedral. I have been pleased with my camera, a Kodak digital model with a 10X zoom, which was my first retirement present to myself but I found myself totally out-gunned by the Chicago couple, she produced from a backpack a formidable weapon with a lens much bigger than mine but her young husband hauled out an even bigger set of equipment – not for the first time I wondered if size really does matter. Chatting to the couple we elicited that they were both very keen photographers and also it would be colder that Prague when we are in Chicago in November.
Our tour finished at the castle and we were quickly back to our hotel – I would guess before any of the others in our party had got on a tram.
There were many hotels and restaurants close to our hotel and we chose one of the nearest – the food was only average but we needed filling after our long mileage of the day.

Wednesday.

After considerable mileage on Tuesday we decided to stay closer to the hotel with a view to walking to the Irish pub on Wenceslas Square in the evening for the football if we could not identify a nearer sports bar. We had breakfast and set off to Charles Bridge where we had seen some Russian dolls in the colours of soccer and basketball teams. Before making that purchase we took a river cruise in the cold rain. The cost included a free beer and since it was at a time when, had I stayed in teaching, I would have been working we took a photo of me drinking it to maintain a tradition – a bit like a successful escaper sending a postcard back to Colditz. The cruise was good value and this time the guide was easier to listen to than SuzzannHA. After the hours cruise, dolls purchased, we set off back towards the hotel and stopped off at a bar where we had a better cup of tea than anything up to that time. Since it had not got any more appealing in terms of weather we stayed in the hotel reading until we set off early to eat and find a place to watch the football.
We were the first customers in a cellar restaurant and we both had a menu of the day, I had goulash and dumplings which were exactly right for the cold night and it seemed a more reasonable price. After eating we headed across the bridge yet again and never sighted a bar with the soccer on until we reached the Irish bar we had spotted earlier. We entered and followed signs downward until a large area opened in front of us. In the centre there were four large screens forming a cube at ceiling height and other flat screens were all round the bar area. We sat at a table where we could watch both a large screen and a smaller TV. We had two large beers in front of us and we were thawing out well. There was a considerable amount of planning going on as to which match was going to be on each TV and we had opted to watch the Czech v N.Ireland game, England having already qualified. The bar manager came over to us and wanted to know if we would move so that he could place someone in front of the side TV so that they could watch the Poland? game. We moved to equally good seats and he sent over fresh beers on the house – good business on both sides. There was a good atmosphere in the bar albeit smoky and the game was well contested without being a classic. With about twenty minutes gone in the second half about thirty Northern Irish fans appeared in the pub, it transpired that they had been actually at the game but it was cold and miserable on the terraces and they were standing amongst the home supporters so they retreated to where they felt warmer and beer was cold but still in a liquid state. It was a good finish to the day and we got ourselves back to the hotel in a happy state of mind.

Thursday.

When we came down for breakfast there was a break through, the usual girl serving was replaced by a man who offered us tea and returned with a tea-pot of boiling water, we soon had the tea bags in and brewing! We took this to be a good omen for the day’s plan.
We intended to find the funicular railway up to the miniature Eiffel tower which overlooks Prague, and take in the whole vista. Although the tower is a smaller version of the Parisian tower it is actually one metre higher when you compare it to sea-level. To do this we stayed on the Lesser Town side of the river and walked parallel to it looking for any sign of the station, our Czech is non-existent so we were hoping for a picture type sign or two. After a couple of false starts we found ourselves at the start of the railway, I went round to the front of the structure and the garage type doors were open, a train was in and there seemed to be activity which I took to be passengers boarding. We rushed round to the other side of the building only to find that the operation was closed for two weeks in October ie when we wanted to use it. The rain was quite hard and there were flurries of snow so a long walk up a hill order to look down on a blizzard seemed like a poor idea.
Our not much better idea, was to cross a small bridge onto a island, which had been so unattractive in the past due to the risk of flooding and constant involvement with the city’s sewerage that it had only housed the most foul industries like slaughterhouses and tanning works along with a prison, now of course a riverside development had taken place and there are now plush restaurants and fine apartments. Having said all that in 2004 the river level rose two metres and flooded pretty much everything not on high ground – a good case for not choosing a ground floor flat.
We found the watermill which we had seen from our river trip and from the bridge, the wheel was turning but something we were not prepared for was also there. Apparently it is tradition for couples to declare their undying love to each other by attaching a padlock to the fence and throwing the key into the mill stream. In these modern times I ‘m surprised that there is no method whereby in the event of break-up you can send someone to your coded lock to cut it off and throw it after the key. We had come shamefully unprepared and totally without a padlock of any description so we missed our chance to make this touching gesture.
We went back to the hotel and, on the way, had another cup of tea at our favourite bar rejecting the Earl Grey tea bags without hesitation, if I wanted a drink to taste of talcum powder I’d add it myself, and choosing the English Breakfast.
The weather notwithstanding, we felt obliged not to waste time in a beautiful city hiding in our hotel room watching a limited choice of television which we could do better at home. Incidentally CNN covered the escaped balloon with the six year old trapped inside story in minute detail, we watched, live, a balloon floating along on the off-chance the small boy having chosen to get in and launch himself would choose to get out and plummet to his doom. Was I the only person in the world yelling at the TV that it was a publicity stunt?
We set off into the town centre and narrowly missed the astronomical clock striking the hour before returning to the Jewish quarter where we refused to pay the admission charge for the cemetery and Jewish museum of death. Once again we returned to the hotel having made an important decision about our final day – Friday.
It seemed that the weather was not only affecting us – when we went out to eat in the evening the small Italian restaurant only seemed to stay open for us but their pasta was excellent and this time we refused the bread which turns up at the start of the meal, blunts your appetite for the main course then they charge you for it.
Afterwards we regretted that we never ate in the hotel merely because we were not overly impressed by breakfast.

Friday

Breakfast went well now that we knew about their tea pots and the boiling water, we made ourselves clear to the girl serving and we even used our own Tetley Everyday tea bags which we always travel with. Julia stole the makings of a ham and cheese cob for each of us – I condoned her crime by eating the evidence later in the day.
We were supposed to check out by noon but our taxi to the airport was not until 7.15pm. There was no problem about leaving baggage but we did not fancy sitting in the hotel bar for seven hours or on past experience cold and soaked in the city centre. Our solution was to book a bus trip to Terezin a town with a dark wartime past which would occupy us for the afternoon.
It was a hugely memorable experience which I will blog separately.
The plan worked and we were back in the hotel to be picked up promptly on time and taken to the airport where our flight was delayed but still got us to our bed by 1.00am.