Saturday - Day 24 - Miami, Oklahoma

We spent Friday night in Miami, OK. Saturday morning we went to the Coleman Theater. A young man spent some time with us telling us the history of the theater. We were able to sit in on a program that told more about the theater's history. Then we were turned loose to wander around. No charge, just a box out front where you could leave a donation.

Mr. Coleman and his brother went to Oklahoma in the 1920's to dig wells for a living. While digging a well he hit something other than water. He filled the hole. He, his brother, and a couple of partners then started buying mineral rights. Mr. Coleman & his brother had found lead and zinc deposits. Once they had control of the mineral rights in the area they started mining.

At one point Mr. Coleman's wealth increased by over $14 million a day. It kept on increasing all through the depression years. He was fond of the theater tried to get big name theater groups to come to Miami, OK to perform. They pretty much laughed at him. He told them of a wonder theater they could perform in and finally signed them up to perform on their way through Miami, on Route 66, the following year. A month later he was back in Miami and started plans to build the theater. It was finished 11 months later, at a cost of $600,000, $8.6 million in today's dollars. The theater was the only air conditioned building in the area. The first night he sold out all 1,600 seats at $1/ticket. Obviously grossing $1,600 a night, then paying performers, utilities, maintenance, etc. was not going to make him any money, but he didn't care about making money on it.

After he died his wife, who was half his age and married him after he became rich, had no interest in the theater. She basically leased it out and let it fall into disrepair. Finally, just to get rid of it, she offered to give it to the city. The city planned on tearing it down and making it into a parking lot. Concerned citizens saved it and have since restored it.

There is supposed to be a smaller version of it in Columbia, Missouri. Kathy & I will have to drive up there some day and check it out.

 Photo below taken from the balcony.

 This is the balcony, it is huge.

 Upstairs sitting area.

 Part of the ladies powder room.

 Looking back down into the lobby.

 I couldn't get a decent photo of the chandelier that hangs in the theater. It is magnificent. (The stories of how the pipe organ was located, years after it had been sold, and how they managed find and then restore the chandelier are almost miracles.)

Then it was down the street a half mile to Waylans Ku Ku house for lunch.

 After lunch we headed for Missouri. We drove maybe 30 miles of old Route 66. Yesterday we drove even more of it.

Tonight we are in Branson, Missouri. It is such a major tourist attraction, and we have not been here. We thought that since we were going to drive within 40 miles of it we ought to check it out. So far we see no reason to ever want to come back. Our site at the campground is so unlevel that I had to run the tires on one side of the trailer up on a 3 high stack of leveling blocks. Got the trailer unhooked from the truck and the jacks down at the 4 corners so that we could extend the slide. IT WOULDN'T GO OUT ALL THE WAY BECAUSE OF POST WITH THE POWER CONNECTION! A guy guided us to the campsite and had me pull forward to clear obstructions that would have prevented the slide from extending. He just didn't have me pull far enough ahead. We pulled the jacks back up, hooked the truck back up moved about 4" ahead and then repreated the process of setting things up.

We are walking distance of one of the main drags. We walked over to Montana Mike's for supper. We had to wait about 15 minutes for a table and the what a disappointment. Supper cost 3 times what lunch cost us at Waylan's Ku Ku and I would have traded my steak & baked potato for the steak sandwich and fries from Waylan's. Maybe we will find something tomorrow that makes people flock here. If not, at least we can say, "Been there, did that."

God is good, may He bless you an yours.

Friday - Day 23 - Claremore, OK

Thursday night we stayed in Claremore, OK. Friday morning we went to the Will Rogers Museum. What a great place. The building was beautiful. The information about Will Rogers was even better. He was quite a man, even though he was a Democrat 😊

 This is the wall & ceiling above the statue.

 Below is a replica of Will's study at his home in California.

The place has multiple small theaters where you can watch some of his silent movies. You can also spend a lot of time watching movies of his rope tricks. Other sections have movie shorts of some of his introductions to presidential candidates and even Presidents.

I highly recommend the museum if you are in northeast Oklahoma.

God is good, may He bless you and yours.

Thursday - Day 22

Yesterday we drove from Santa Rosa, New Mexico to Amarillo, Texas. We arrived in Amarillo and decided to go to a RV museum about 15 miles from the campground where we planned on spending the night. The trip turned out to be a fiasco. We got off at the right exit and the GPS said to turn left and then turn left again. It appeared that if we took an  immediate 2nd left we would be on the ramp to get back on the Interstate going back where we came from. We went by the turn and found that it was actually a frontage road. We had to get back on the Interstate, get off at the same exit again, and this time we did turn on the frontage road. When we got to the place, which was an RV dealership and RV museum, there was absolutely no place we could pull in with our trailer attached.

I had done something earlier in the day that irritated my bad shoulder. It was hurting. Between the bad turns (on my part), no available parking places, and my painful shoulder I said "Enough, time to head back to the campground." Which we did.

This morning we stopped at the "Cadillac Ranch" exhibit. Some "artist" buried a bunch of Cadillacs many years ago. They are out in a hay field. People take cans of spray paint out in the field and paint them. It was a dismal day. It had rained overnight making the area a muddy mess. It was drizzling while we were there.

The amount of trash people left at the site was disgusting.

It was misty.

Didn't need to be a hunter to determine what type of animal left this print.

Later in the day we stopped at a museum in Elk City, Oklahoma. It was GREAT!

 There was LOTS of stuff to see in these buildings. I have a lot of photos. If anyone is interested in seeing more of the museum let me know & I will send you some of the other photos.

Tonight we are at a campground in Oklahoma City.

God is good, may He bless you and yours.

Tuesday - Day 20 - Update

We drove from Delores, Colorado to Santa Rosa, New Mexico on Tuesday the 26th.

Shiprock is one of the more famous outcroppings along Hwy 160. There is a town named Shiprock.

It was another day of downhill then uphill driving.

We parked in this grocery parking lot and Kathy fixed lunch. After lunch she went grocery shopping and said she got some good deals.

We drove into quite a storm. The rain hitting the truck was so noisy it almost sounded like hail.

Then we got a rainbow.

And beautiful clouds.

We had planned on staying in Albuquerque overnight. The weather report was for more rain overnight so we continued on to Santa Rosa. When we got up the next morning Kathy heard that Albuquerque had received 1.8" of rain overnight and some streets were flooded. In Santa Rosa we had some rain, but it was no problem.

God is good, may He bless you and yours.

Navajo Power Plant, Kayenta Coal Mine & Electrified Train

As we were driving from Tuba City, AZ to Cortez, CO we were surprised to see what looked like an setup for electric powered trains. We saw a westbound train of coal cars pulled by 4 engines with pantographs that picked up power from the lines above the tracks. The tracks paralleled Hwy 160 until near Kyenta, AZ. There we saw part of a long conveyor (it is 17 miles long) that ran south out of sight. The conveyor fed 4 silos that temporarily stored coal for the train.

Some online research indicated that the coal was for the largest coal fired powerplant in the West, near Page, AZ. When running at full capacity it takes three 80 car trains, 100 tons per car, a day to keep the three 750 megawatt generators burning. It takes the train 6-7 hours to make a round trip on the 78 mile track.

The utilities that operate the plant are planning on shutting it down in 2019 because they say then can buy, cheaper electricity from other plants that burn natural gas. The Navajo tribe will probably end up owning the track. The plant and mine that provides the coal employs about 750 people, almost all of whom are members of the Navajo and Hopi tribes. The mine provides those on the reservation with all the free coal and water they want to haul away.

http://www.azcentral.com/story/money/business/energy/2017/09/01/electric-train-keeps-navajo-generating-station-coal-plant-burning/441387001/

Monday - Day 19

Mesa Verde was fantastic. We are continually surprised by the crowds, especially this late in the year.

Views from the park. These snow covered mountains are not in the park.

Hiking from the parking lot up to the fire lookout station sure caused us to do some heavy breathing.

Views are absolutely stunning.

A little of the road we drove in on, it seemed like we were driving around the Swiss Alps.

The small trees/shrubs had leaves that looked like oak leaves.

One of the ruins we walked around.

The first cliff dwelling we looked at. We would have loved to have gone on one of the guided tours of the place but it was a 2.4 mile hike, and a long way down and back up, from where we took the photos. I don't think either of us could have made that hike at sea level. I'm certain we couldn't do it at over 7,000 feet above sea level.

They think these have been abandoned for over 800 years. No one knows why they were abandoned.

 This is the canyon that runs up to the cliff dwelling.

This was another cliff dwelling several miles away. You could take a ranger guided tour of it but the hike was far to strenuous for us to attempt.

A map of the park. We drove nearly 50 miles, round trip, in to and out of the park. I hope this shows up so that you can see a little of it.

This is a satellite view of the park area. There is a lot of "flat" areas where Indians farmed, MANY years ago. An interesting feature of the "flat" areas is that they tilt down to the south. We were told that this "tilt" towards the sun adds about 20 days to the growing season.

 A physically fit person could easily spend several days hiking into different areas of this park that are open to the public. He/she could spend years in the park exploring, it is over 50,000 acres.

We had an awesome day, but we were sure tired by the end of day.

God is good, may He bless you and yours.