Michelle Basic Hendry • Fine Art » Photography

New Mexico ~ Albuquerque

Michelle — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 13:00:30 +0000

My last day in New Mexico was perfect. The sky was clear and temperatures were comfortable for hiking through a sea of shattered black basalt, searching for the markings of another people from another time.

On my own for the day (Hubby was working in Albuquerque), I wandered over the the west side of the city to see the famous Petroglyph National Monument. The Monument is a huge park consisting of thousands of acres containing over 7000 petroglyphs carved by Native Peoples up to 3000 years ago with more recent markings by the Spanish from the 1600′s. There are even a few modern additions. Dirt roads and tiny parking lots were out of the question for my large vehicle, so I spent the morning at Boca Negra Canyon. Can you see the RV in the top photo?

I was fortunate that the only canyon with a trail to the top and a view over the mesa and the Sandia mountains had the biggest parking lot. Much of the city was cast in a haze. A bird with the most beautiful voice landed beside me and called my attention to the view. High above the clouds, we climbed the dragon’s spiny back to heaven.

I didn’t see many people that morning. After descending the back into the Canyon, I had met only one lovely family from Michigan. I sat and had my lunch surrounded by sagebrush and stone and enjoyed peace that one might find unexpected on the edge of Albuquerque. It is difficult to describe how intense the light is here. I found myself taking photos through the viewfinder and forgetting that my sunglasses were still on.

I am not often behind the wheel of our 36′ RV. I am happy to be the passenger and let my husband drive. With my driver unavailable and a desire to see Albuquerque’s Old Town and the Rattlesnake Museum, I became the horror of narrow city streets and was watched carefully by drivers and police alike.

The drive into Old Town from the west is on old Route 66. It has been widened to four lanes. Four narrow lanes.

By the tentative way I was being passed, I wonder if I had been using both western lanes. OK, maybe just a lane and half? There is a beautiful archway that is in all the Route 66 tour books. I held my breath as I rolled beneath it, wondering if I might catch it with my A/C unit and watch sparks of neon shoot off on my wake. It was everything I could do not to stop traffic while crossing the bridge over the Rio Grande. The monochrome cadmium orange of the leafless trees and coral soil contrasting with the cobalt blue of the river was – well – enough to stop traffic. I did manage to find parking suitable for my rig behind the convention center and I headed in to the narrow streets of Old Town. I imagine everyone else breathed a collective sigh of relief when I was relieved of driving duty later that afternoon.

Old Town is strikingly similar to old Santa Fe with a large Catholic Church at its center with buildings flanking close over each street and an open square. After visiting inside the Church and walking around the square, I found the Rattlesnake Museum on the south east side. It is a tiny storefront and easy to miss because it lacks the imposing frontage of the other museums in the area. I bought my pass and wandered into the rooms containing snakes of all kinds, every rattlesnake you can imagine; a beautiful, blind, white Texas Rat Snake and even a small boa. The rattlesnake right at the entrance was so large that I couldn’t help thinking that he was sitting, waiting for tourists to pass into his lair like trapped rats. Past him was the only way out of this place and that glass terrarium did not look like it could possibly hold him for long. In fact, when I didn’t immediately see a snake in his terrarium, I began to wonder…

“What if they got loose?”

My own lizard brain started to heat up and get busy when I discovered that not only were there many of North America’s venomous snakes, but there was a Black Widow spider, a Brown Recluse and a Tarantula to boot. I have no pictures because the snakes don’t like flashes and it was too dark to go flash free.

Yes. Low light, small rooms, snakes and spiders – what was I thinking??

As beautiful as they were, I found myself letting out an audible sigh of relief when I sneaked past the gatekeeper and out to safety. Now I know why your entry ticket commends visitors for their courage. I am happy to say that these were the only rattlers I encountered on my trip!

I met my my husband in the square and relieved to be serpent free and no longer required to drive, I enjoyed another hour of wandering through shops with wonderful Navajo jewelry and Mexican crafts and as the sun began to lower in the sky, we set off for home. New Mexico was reluctant to let us go without flaunting her beauty one last time. The multicoloured soil and stone buttes wandering the desert captured the sunset behind us and lit our final moments, reminding us that we were leaving ‘ the land of enchantment’.

I have already booked my summer return.

New Mexico ~ Santa Fe & the Turquoise Trail

Michelle — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 18:33:13 +0000

Traveling can be an exhausting business. After White Sands and the long drive through burning hills, we stopped just north of Albuquerque for the night. If you travel by RV, the casinos can be a great place to stop. They’ll take you at all hours (I think it was nearly 2 am for us) and we had access to an electrical hookup and dumping station to boot for around $10.

Santa Fe is like two cities – the one every city knows with the long road of hotels and big box stores; the other, where all roads meet, is the ancient town of old adobes and narrow streets sitting at the base of the mountain’s embrace. I recommend a few days (we only had one) in order to have a day each to absorb the art, the architecture and the walking trails in the old part of town.

Mule's Skull with Pink Pointsettia © Georgia O'Keeffe Museum

One of my top priorities was to visit the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum while in town and see some of her originals. The museum is a labyrinth of small rooms filled with drawings and paintings of sensual landscapes and flowers. I must say that O’Keeffe’s paintings are both intense and sublime. I could feel in them the calm of New Mexico. I can see how an artist could spend a lifetime uncovering a vision to describe it.

Building in Santa Fe is now restricted to adobe architecture only. The soft corners and smooth walls seem to blend into the mountains. Along with being very much a hot spot for the artistically inclined, the underground here is very ‘west coast’. Bikes, bongs and health food dominate a community that would otherwise, not be large enough to attract a Whole Foods! The center of the Old Town is filled with Galleries, Native artists and old Churches. The oldest is the c. 1610 San Miguel Mission Church, which sits beside one of the oldest houses in North America dating to 1649. The old house with its rough walls and wooden barriers reminded me of the houses in old Cairo. No photo here because it needs to be a painting.

New Mexico lays claim to a number of the oldest structures and residences in the U.S. I am planing a visit to one of the oldest continuously inhabited places in Taos later this year.

Canyon Road is the main art gallery district and I’ll agree that it is pretty consistent in quality, but there is a little too much contemporary (read modern) art for my taste. What is good, however, is exceptional. One of my favourite spots is the studio/gallery of Jordan+Roybal Fine Art at the entrance to Canyon Road. These artists have each mastered the use of subtle visual textures in a completely different way. The painting outside the gallery was enough to stop traffic. The other gallery that is a necessary visit is the Sugarman-Peterson Gallery on West Palace Ave. It is not on Canyon road but in the center of Old Town. The prices there are well out of my range, but the work is outstanding. Surrounded by paintings from the likes of Dennis Wojtkiewicz, Terry Strickland and Susan Romaine in their full size and stunning glory, it made me wish I had the means to take one home.

The old road between Santa Fe and Albuquerque is littered with ghost towns and winding roads that appeal to the motorcyclist. Some of these old, partially abandoned mining towns are seeing a revival through collectives of artists and tourist attractions. Old adobe houses with magnificent courtyards are being restored in places like Cerillos and Madrid.

The RV was slow to snake its way up and down giving me a lot of time to absorb the textured landscape full of a rainbow of rock and scrub. Tiny ruins grasping a hillside would appear, while our engine heated up and roared around a narrow corner. Fences between us and ranches seemed like more determined barriers than the multicoloured mountains themselves. The sky was slightly cloudy, dusting the tops of distant mountains like wisps of cotton blocking the sun only enough to turn their distant oranges to indigo. It is no wonder artists are attracted to this place.

Sunday night returned us to Albuquerque and I had one part day left to visit the Petroglyphs and Old Town Albuquerque before beginning the long ride home.

Next post…. Albuquerque, the Petroglyphs and the Rattlesnake Museum!

New Mexico ~ White Sands…

Michelle — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 19:25:42 +0000

The West….

Moving to Oklahoma has opened up the West to long weekend driving trips and made some of the magical places of my imagination accessible to this land bound creature who prefers to avoid planes whenever possible.

I never imagined that I would get to visit White Sands National Monument in New Mexico, which is less than an hour from the Mexican border. Driving south, the land is right out of the old cowboy movies – semi-arid scrub across high plains that rise up suddenly into mountains and disappear as quickly as they arose. As we approached Alamogordo, the mountain ranges did begin to enclose around us and the dark shadows of the Organ Mountains caused the white gypsum to glow a blinding white. White Sands is high desert, comprising of, by far, the largest deposit of surface gypsum in the world. In fact, there is no other place like it on Earth.

I don’t think it is possible to take a bad photograph here – even at high noon. While children on March Break attacked the dunes with sleds and the tools of my childhood winters while wearing shorts and braving the over 90 degree air on the sunny sides of the snow white dunes, I took a walk across the whiteness in search of isolation. That isolation is easily found over a couple of dunes, leaving me to wonder if it was I that had been abandoned. It is easy to lose your way in this blinding sea. Fortunately there was little wind and my own footprints served to take me back.

Even if only for a few moments, the sand spoke and it was like listening to the white noise of a waterfall of diamonds. The mountains turned blue and purple through the prism filter of white gypsum winds carrying the scent of ancient seas.

As the sun began to draw down to the mountains, the organized sunset walk began with a group of about 30 people and many cameras. The colours of the sky and the reflecting light quality on the gypsum pillars raised up by the determined roots of high desert plants are almost impossible to describe. This is one of the few places in New Mexico where walking barefoot is not a dangerous dodge of serpents and scorpions, so the softening of the light and breeze while taking a barefoot stroll is a sensory overload of gentleness. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves…

If only we had 30 more minutes on the dunes after the horizon began to darken…. As we rushed north of Alamogordo, headed for Albuquerque, the crescent moon rose over the mountains. Unlike the hook of crescents of central and northern Ontario, the crescent moon rises in a shape of a fine chalice bearing the sphere of its own shadow, perfectly horizontal to the mountains. They say the full moon is the best time to step out on a White Sands Sunset Stroll. I beg to differ. Next time, I’ll bring the equipment to capture a beauty as breathtaking as the dunes themselves.

One last thing I feel I need to share…

Traveling at night often deprives one of the views of traveling by day, but New Mexico proves to be as haunting in the dark. As we climbed in the endless darkness for what seemed like forever, an orange glow like the lights of distant construction vehicles rose high above us on some invisible ridge. For fifteen minutes we drove on and soon what this orange glow actually was became clear – and frightening. The smoke, of what we were later to learn were controlled burns, glowed red orange and flickered with the unseen flames of a bushfire. Soon the scent of slow burning wood invaded the cabin and the fires themselves became visible, lighting up the undersides of the crowns of burning trees like ghostly figures in Dante’s Inferno.

And we are reminded that each place has its element, where I am accustomed to the wrath of air and ever present water; the Southwest feels the wrath of fire and scorched earth.

Coming up… Santa Fe, Turquoise Trail, Petroglyphs and Old Town Albuquerque

Route 66 ~ Part III

Michelle — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 20:41:44 +0000

Highway 66 is the main migrant road. 66 — the long concrete path across the country waving gently up and down on the map’… ’66 out of Oklahoma City; El Reno and Clinton, going west on 66.” ~ John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

Riding the older sections of Historic Route 66 is to become accustomed to the rhythm of tires as they thump across the seams of the concrete road. The trip west of El Reno runs parallel in many places to the Interstate where the traffic of the 21st century passes higher on the plain as if height reflected your place in time. Transport trucks silhouetted by the sun become as indistinct as the traces of old stops along the way.

I live only a few miles from the historic highway and I often manage the more mundane parts of my new life along the edges of its domain. Storefronts of brick and tile, tin ceilings and sidewalks still line the road in Yukon, El Reno and Hydro. After a stop at the Ross Seed Company, we headed west and followed fields beginning to green with only a long string of power lines to break the horizon. Thump, thump, thump.

The concrete is curled in at the edges to keep water from washing away the soil. When rain falls here in spring time, it can be torrential. The bridge across the Canadian River seemed too wide for the gentle stream running over the sandy river bed, the deep cut banks alluding to the sleeping dragon below.

Thump, thump, thump.

Several ruins rose up on either side of the highway and the road to the near ghost town of Bridgeport split like a Y as if the expectation upon entering and leaving the the town is that the visitor is only ever passing through. Less than a mile up from 66, the crossroads of Bridgeport is marked only by the decaying post office. Steel bars still protect the postmaster’s window and images of a man with sleeve protectors sitting behind it in the semi-darkness invade my thoughts. A neighbouring dog comes by to see what we are up to and get some affection. He looks like a cross between Lassie and the Queen’s Corgis and he follows us down the street past abandoned houses.

The remaining residents live an array of double wides and in the homesteads still viable. Broken sidewalks lead down a street where furniture sits on the porches of houses close to collapse. Wildflowers grow over the edges of what might have once been a tended garden.

People are quietly inside their homes and the welcoming committee was left to the various animals, including a young horse who wandered to the fence wondering if I had a hostess gift?

As we walked back past an old church and the walls and foundations of some other unknown place, we became aware of the scent of spring’s green on the brisk breeze and wondered what this year will bring. The wind whipped up dust filled sheets from time to time and the grit in our eyes and on our teeth reminded us of why Oklahoma has so many ghost towns. After traveling a bit further down the Portland concrete road, we made a quick stop in Hydro and turned around in search of refreshment.

Heading across Oklahoma City seems a bit extreme to get a pop, but then Arcadia, OK has the most choices. Nearly 500. On a warm February Saturday evening, the “POPS” stand is crowded. We picked some unusual flavours – Spruce Beer, Cotton Candy and Creme Caramel creme soda.

One last stop was to the famous Round Barn, restored by the Hampton Inn hotel chain. I looked at how complicated the building of this amazing structure would have been and I was left wondering what motivated the builder to do it?

The sun was nearly set when we hopped back on 66 and headed home. That sounds strange when I say it. We are the migrants now and Oklahoma is the end of the line for many. The irony is that some are riding the road east from California.

As Oklahoma faces another possible drought and the oil boom keeps the economy buoyant, one has wonder about the tides of time and what they bring in and what they leave behind.

Mount Scott and Wildlife Refuge

Michelle — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 12:30:31 +0000

I have had a busy few weeks with visits to the historic town of Guthrie, music and art events at the City Center and the windy trip to Mount Scott and the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge. My husband and I are doing day trips to find places where we might like to camp when Oklahoma’s red and orange landscape is altered by Spring’s green grass and the return of leaves to the trees.

In Winter, the bare trees of central Oklahoma stand like old men, some bent over, some split, some appearing to have legs. Others carry the heaviness of drought with the densest of wood. Standing straight with a crown of tiny twisted twigs that trap little shapes of light between them until they become so dense as to look like they are woven into a basket.

The clusters of trees at the Wildlife Reserve north of Lawton, Oklahoma have the nickname of ‘iron woods’. The wood is dense and hard from the harshness of the semi-arid climate, their bases black with the evidence of grass fires. On first inspection they are quiet, listening to you, to determine if you are worthy of their ancient secrets. Their presence is somewhat ominous and images of Tolkein’s “Ents” invade my imagination. I could imagine them shifting slowly when I am not looking only to become still when I turn toward them. Their dance as if moving to a music so slow that it takes a hundred years. Many of these trees are no more than 25 feet tall, but some are over 400 years old. Oaks and cedars… These trees are sacred to both the Native peoples and to the ancient Celtic peoples. The Oak is the King of trees.

Dust storms were moving through the area the day we visited, creating a monochromatic palette of ochres both on the grasslands and up on the mountain. Free roaming buffalo sat quietly on the plains waiting for the abrasive winds to abate. The mountains are an ancient range, the only one to run east/west in North America. They were once as tall as the Rockies, but now, inclines are made up of impossibly large boulders that appear stacked and piled as if by giants. Cedars and junipers are walls to the gale force winds at the summit of Mount Scott. Their trunks twisted and bent by the fierce winds.

When the stone opened up to plains, longhorn cattle could be seen foraging in the pale gold grass.

A Year in Review….

Michelle — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 04:32:49 +0000

Twelve months ago, I sat in my chair looking out over a snow covered Muskoka thinking that I might move house. Perhaps somewhere a few miles down the road with a little more land and a place for a bigger and above ground studio. I didn’t get out much and when I did, I didn’t go far. Leaving made me anxious. I looked at the borders of my home as full of everything I might need, until it wasn’t.

Muskoka is 1500 miles in my rear view mirror and the grey and pink granite is replaced with red sandstone. I catch my breath when I think about how my life has undergone a change not unlike the way an earthquake distorts and changes the land beyond recognition. And yet, what I thought was weak, was strong.

With my studio in boxes after a very successful Spring and a People’s Choice Award to send me on my way, I had the opportunity to explore another part of my creative self through writing. I got to explore the old buildings in my paintings in words and wrap the images in stories that gave them another dimension. I think this was something I needed to foster in order to make the most of what the year was to bring. I did things this year that I thought would be impossible for the girl living in her Muskoka world. I had to go forward. I thought the tears would never end before the cord was cut. But then after, I rarely looked back. The road beckoned me and I was seduced by the unknown.

Oklahoma.

The harshness of Steinbeck’s Oklahoma is still beneath the surface. The extremes of its weather and the intensity of the soil tempered only by the gentleness of the people who live on the hard, scarred land. The desert meets the plains. Trees twist and curl their silhouettes into a sunset coloured by red dust. Lush fields and stark plains merge in this place, a place with a heart that has been torn out more than once and whose blood is absorbed by the soil every time.

The center of Oklahoma City is still heavy with the horror of the bombing. I found it hard to catch my breath next to the black reflecting pond at the Memorial. The city is struggling to revitalize in what has always been a boom-bust economic climate. Its resilience revealed in the spiraling tower of light in the Art Museum only blocks away. There is a quiet energy building in the streets and its culture is growing and spreading. Oklahoma City is a place of contrasts.

The siren song of red soil brought me to the Red Rock canyon where the armadillos and water wander between the sandstone cliffs. I ran my fingers over the rough stone. Crevices created by climbers and rainstorms smelled like green caves of moss and yet there was none. The stone was a mere shell in places dissolving into ochre in my hands and staining my fingers.

And then, I feel just a little bit less anxious.

‘New beginning’ takes on a whole new meaning. Thanks to 2011 for showing me that there was something I needed to do and my finding the courage to do it.

Here’s to 2012 – The adventure is just beginning.

A Curve on the Journey

Michelle — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 13:30:24 +0000

I have been fighting a rather stubborn infection and I am on my third course of antibiotics. I am being forced to slow myself down after the business of the last six months and I find it hasn’t been easy. Inertia. An object in motion tends to stay in motion. This object needs some stillness. The threat of the infection spreading to my kidneys was enough to force me to pause.

Nature is the place where the Divine becomes visible.
~ John O’Donohue

Slowing down meant some time looking for something that might help me lift my focus from my discomfort and to raise my Spirit. Nature herself is not so accessible to me at this moment, so I downloaded this wonderful video “A Celtic Pilgrimage” by John O’Donohue, Irish poet and philosopher. He shares some of his thoughts and feelings on Celtic Spirituality while the West Irish landscape creates the backdrop. John connects much of his spiritual philosophy to nature and landscape, which resonates with me. According to O’Donohue, our dreams and our voices mark the landscape. Ancient places or the ruin of a church can carry the echoes of our prayers;

A ruin has an ancient aura about it. It also has an imprint of the presence of those who lived there once.
~ John O’Donohue

The markings on the ancient landscapes of North America are less obvious because less is left behind for us to see, so one must listen and feel more closely to become aware of their aura. This aura affects us all in different ways and we express it through our gifts. O’Donohue feels that longing for the Divine is what makes us creative.

As I wander around this new place, I see with the fresh eyes of a traveler. I suppose I am somewhat animistic in my philosophy because I believe that everything has a Spirit. I love the landscape and all things in it. I tend to populate my landscapes with characters whose stories are carried in the space in between.

Because of my status down here, my focus is turned from the ‘career’ and marketing of painting back to the roots of the art and the experience. At first I was bothered by the restrictions, but now, I see it as a gift. I am going to turn my full attention to the creative experience and find a way to share fearlessly.

John O’Donohue passed away in 2008 in his 50′s.

Settling In…

Michelle — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 20:14:09 +0000

After over 6 months of domestic upheaval, it would appear that things are finally beginning to settle down. The studio is almost ready and the idea of packing, unpacking and moving from one temporary location to another is receding into the recent past. I recommend selling one’s house before committing to a cross-border move, but I will not lie and suggest that doing so eliminates all of the problems. When I look back over everything, I sometimes wonder how I managed to survive it. And of course, one might say it is typical that I move South and they get lower than normal temperatures! Let’s hope we don’t find those lost degrees in June!

But we are here.

I am hoping that for the new year, a sort of rhythm will return to the blog and the newsletter – and my life! Living so close to Oklahoma City means I’ll get to introduce my northern readers to the OKC Museum of Art and the art scene here in Oklahoma; as well as the neighbouring states of Texas, Arkansas and New Mexico from a resident’s point of view.

I am also sure many of you will recognize the old and the new patterns that will lead up to a new series of my own paintings faster than I will and I look forward to your thoughts and comments.

True to form, though, I open with an Oklahoma ruin (some of you may have caught it on Facebook!). I am hoping to secure an invitation to a nearby ranch to visit a family homestead on 16,000 acres (small by Oklahoma standards) – that has me very excited! So we’ll see where things go.

Before the end of the month, it will be entertaining to review 2011 in detail. My list of goals ended up quite out of sync with what ended up happening! And yet, the spirit of them, the idea of moving forward, ended up going well beyond anything I would have imagined a year ago… The goals for 2012 will be modest in comparison, but I think it will make for the best year yet!

Now back to very last of the tidying up!

Route 66 to Oklahoma ~ Part II

Michelle — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 18:52:23 +0000

We set out on old Route 66 from the Springfield KOA in Missouri a little later than planned but after two days of very little sleep, a real campground was a gift. We were not disappointed. This section all the way from Springfield, through Kansas to Oklahoma is jam packed with great old buildings that lined the sometimes narrow trail cut by Mother Road.

Our first stop was the ruin of an old casket making factory at Plano. We paused at the crossroads and wandered through the stone walls that contained more brush than what surrounded it. The wind and the occasional passing car were the only sounds.

We continued on to Halltown and Paris Springs and found ourselves at Gary Turner’s replica of the old “Gay Parita” Gas Station. The old garage on the same site is original to 1929 and built of the rough stone that was to become more an more common as we approached Oklahoma. We pulled up in front of the Station and we were immediately greeted by Gary himself.

Gary started by handing us each a bottle of “Route 66″ soda in Black Cherry and “Route” beer, took us into the garage and started talking about his cars, local artists including well known Jerry McClanahan, whose acrylic and watercolour paintings are famous for their depictions of classic Route 66, past and present. The walls were full of classic signs and photographs from the heyday of the Mother Road; the floors covered with old refrigerators, gas pumps and a lovingly restored Ford F-5 which Gary wants to convert into a ‘wrecker’.

Gary, by his own admission, is a true “Hillbilly” and he has tried his hand at many interesting things. His kindness and willingness to greet and share his wealth of knowledge with every visitor makes him the best “must see” stop on a trip down Route 66.

He invited me to sit in his Model “A” with “Bonnie” and took my picture. He showed us how to make memories on our trip down the Mother Road by getting the autographs of those that touched us. Gary was our first.

Me and Gary

As were were getting ready to leave, Gary insisted we visit Spencer and the old steel bridge over the creek. The road through Spencer is hand troweled concrete and was in the best condition of any of the roads we traveled, including the Interstate.

It was easy to slow our pace and really get into the rhythm of the Mother Road. We forgot we had any particular destination and got lost – sometimes literally – along the winding pavement that was old Route 66. On one of the rare occasions that I was behind the wheel of our 36 foot rig, I ended up on a road that was only wide enough for me. My husband was trying to rest, but I think he ended up more stressed watching me navigate around other traffic that he decided to take over again.

Just before leaving Missouri, we entered the beautiful city of Joplin. Joplin is now known across North America, not for its position on old Route 66, but for the massive tornado that swept through it in May 2011. We lost our way and accidentally ended up in the middle of the path the tornado had taken. The city seemed to abruptly end and what had once been dozens of streets and a school were now empty fields and a few ruins. The community is still struggling to clean up and the rebuilding process is only just beginning. Many volunteers were still on site, five months later, and lots of free supplies were being handed out. A group of residents were sitting on furniture in what had once been their living room. Only a single tattered wall remained. The resilience and determination of this community is very evident. Hats off to them.

Just outside of Joplin, back on Route 66, we stopped at an old grocery. We didn’t realize it at the time, but it is an original stop on the Mother Road. The tiny entry patio and tin ceilings welcomed the traveler seeking a few supplies for the journey. It was late afternoon when we crossed Kansas border and followed Route 66 into Galena where a truck like “Mater” in the movie Cars sits in front of an old gas station. We lingered in Galena. A brick garage sat across the road, long abandoned like most of its neighbours. Faded paint covered the wall that sat in shadow not unlike the majority of the old road itself, now shadowed by the Interstate. We quietly entered Oklahoma.

The sun was setting when we finally reached Miami, Oklahoma and our last stop. The Coleman theater in Miami is a marvelous piece of architecture that opened its doors in 1929, months before the beginning of the Great Depression. Will Rogers and the Three Stooges were seen on the stage of the Coleman over the years. It has been beautifully maintained and is still active.

An RV is not always the best way to travel the Mother Road. Not only are some sections of pavement not as wide as our rig, but the conditions of that road vary widely. Had we known that in advance, we might have taken another route past Miami. Our tires straddled the pavement and we rattled so badly, we had to turn around. It took us an hour to figure out how to get back on the Interstate in the dark and I was never so relieved to pay a toll to head to Tulsa.

The darkness burst the bubble of our journey thus far and we were reminded that Jeff had to be at work in the morning. We stayed on the Interstate the rest of the way to Oklahoma City. This journey, however, is only on pause. There will be a weekend trip in the near future to finish this section of Route 66 up to our home. You see, our new home is in Yukon – a Route 66 town – and our house is only a mile distant of the Mother Road herself.

(Click on the images to see larger versions)

Home to Route 66 ~ Part 1

Michelle — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 18:51:48 +0000

I am not a morning person.

The last time I was on the road at 5:30 am was so long ago, but there I was on Friday morning stumbling into a Barrie Tim Horton’s, while Jeff filled the RV with gas. We drove into the October early morning darkness for what seemed like forever and as we began to travel the south side of Lake Ontario, the sun rose into our eyes.

Crossing the border was quick and painless and we stopped in Western New York near Buffalo for groceries. If you ever need to pick up food in that area – I must recommend Wegmans. It is as good as Longo’s in Woodbridge for selection and quality. As we set upon the interstate and headed to Jamestown, the sculptures of Buffalo lined the cloverleaf making us feel like we and the road were the ones out of place here. Perhaps, we were.

Most of Friday was spent traveling and running errands, including a stop at the outlet malls in Grove City, PA for some tax free shopping. I picked up some great stuff for prices that really made the trip worthwhile. We drove on through most of Ohio and slept in a Wal-Mart parking lot chased by 0C weather and the threat of snow. I nearly cried when I got dressed that morning – my clothes were like ice! RV travel at this time of year has its struggles…

Saturday morning was the farmland of Indiana and afternoon was St. Louis, where we joined Route 66. We only had a couple of days to enjoy the side roads and only a few of the roads would take our rig, so by the time we crossed the Mississipi we were anxious to discover the Mother Road. The transmission in our gasoline RV screamed through the Ozark section of the old 66 and I-44. The move has us pretty loaded and we had to keep our water and gas at half tank in order to make it up the hills! Our first stop was just south of the Mother Road at the Meramec Caverns.

Reputed to be the hideout of Jesse James and his gang, the tour followed the caves and their underground steams for over an hour. Each leg of the tour was lit in stages, leaving the path before us and behind us in silence and in darkness. Stalactites and stalagmites lined the cavern walls and a small waterfall whispered deep in the walls. Near the end of the tour was this great big stone waterfall that used to be the backdrop in the 1950′s for performances of God Bless America.

The sun sank quickly after leaving the caverns and we moved on quickly to an RV park in Springfield for the night.

Coming up in PART II… more of Missouri, Kansas the the first hours of Oklahoma…. Gary Turner’s Gay Parita, several near abandoned towns and roads too narrow for us and other traffic.