Land of Ursa Major

We were in the land of moviemakers; western moviemakers, that is.  That part of Utah is famous as the background of many western movies.  The sun had fallen behind the horizon, and still we searched for our elusive campground.  We were on our first coast-to-coast camping trip and were misplaced, disoriented, and dare I use the word..."lost"?  We turned around and traversed the unimproved road back to the highway. As navigator, I checked our maps again.  I was convinced that we had offended someone at Yahoo Maps, and the internet giant had cursed us.

An hour later we did find the campground. There was no park ranger, but our campsite has our name stapled to the sign with the number thirty-four on it. That matched with the reservation confirmation in our travel folder.  The campsite was relatively flat.  The were no trees, just some waist high shrubs on the rocky soil.  We began pulling our camping equipment from the trunk of the Toyota in the waning light. I wouldn't be cooking supper.  It was late,  so we had some sausage, cheese, bread, fruit, and those little boxes of juice like the kids drink. The tent went up quickly with cots and sleeping bags inside, before we sat down at the table for our supper. Normally, after arriving at our campsite, we can set up camp and sit down to a hot meal within thirty minutes. I think that's pretty fast for two senior citizens. Tonight we were dining under a shelter.  It had three open sides, unlike the one on the Mexican border which was open on all sides. "What is that cupboard attached to the wall there?" I asked my travel companion.

"Oh, that's the bear box," she said.

"Bear box?"

"Yeah.  They noted that on the website. You put your food in there to protect it from the bears," she answered matter-of-factly. She had researched our trips online and made reservations where possible.

"Let's turn in," she said and added, "It'll be a long day tomorrow."

"Okay, but I still have to run the extension cord for my CPAP machine," I said, reminding her that I had to sleep with the machine because of my severe sleep apnea.  I pulled the fifty food orange electrical cord from the trunk of the car and began looking for the power outlet at the campsite. Normally they are mounted on a short post about one foot off the ground.  I could not find it. By now it was a moonless night, and I had my headlamp on. Claudette was helping me search.  We checked inside the shelter with no luck. So...the solution was simple; I would sleep in the car.  I can sleep in the sitting position if I must; sleep apnea doesn't affect me in the sitting position. We said our "good nights" and each retired for the night. I had slept in the car before.  It's not my favorite position, but I've managed.

But, I wasn't sleepy.  I kept thinking about being in bear country. It was not so long ago that while camping at Lake Tahoe we had a near bear encounter. It was right after the big forest fires in that area, and much of the wildlife had lost their native habitat and were venturing into villages and towns in search of food. We were camped in an RV campground for a few days.  One night we were awakened by the sound of metal clashing.  A bear had gotten into some food left under the canopy of a motorhome. It was less that twenty yards away. Awakened campers made a lot of noise banging together pots and pans to drive the bear away. My travel partner decided to keep the car keys close at hand. She could press the panic button and set off the car's alarm system if a bear got close.

I was sure she had her keys in the tent now, but what about me?  Oh well, I needed to get some sleep.  Maybe I could dream about chasing that pretty girl down the beach again.  I've been chasing her fifteen years in my dreams and haven't caught her yet! I just needed to relax. I've tried counting things to fall asleep.  It's never worked.  Counting backwards.  Nope.  I still can't believe this is bear country.  Gotta sleep.  There are YouTube videos about bears.  They recognize  food containers and will open them up. I've heard they can tear a car door off when provoked.  I don't know if I believe all that.  But, what if?  I was sure we had locked all food in the bear box.  Hadn't we?  I'm sure we did.  I'm feeling very tired.  Should be easy to go to sleep.  What was that noise?  Maybe I imagined it. If I hear it again I'll know it's real.  

I needed to go to the bathroom. I put on my headlamp and got out of the car.  The restroom was about a hundred yards away.  It was surprisingly light out. The sky was blanketed with millions of stars.  There were no clouds or urban haze to deter the star light.  It was marvelous.  I was soon back in the car after heeding nature's call.

And now...to sleep. I'm tired.  I must relax.  As I looked out on the landscape I saw movement behind a shrub about ten yards away.  I watched.  Maybe I'm imagining things.  Gotta forget about bears.  What was that movie with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin? They were in Alaska, and one of the people was killed by a bear.  I wonder if bears here grow that big.  Probably not, everything is bigger in Alaska! But there are bears here.  Gotta sleep.  Nothing moved behind that shrub!  I think my eyelids are getting heavy.  99...98...97...96...95... I see the  girl in the black bikini on the beach...

"Tony! Wake up! We've got to get moving!" Claudette says as she bangs on the the car window. "How did you sleep?"

"Just great!" I lied.

We were having a quick breakfast of instant oatmeal with juice and coffee when I banged my knee into something with a sharp edge under the table.  I had discovered the electrical outlet we had searched for the night before.

With breakfast finished and camp broken, we were about to leave when the park ranger stopped  by.
"How's it going?" asked the young man in thee olive  drab uniform.

"Great!," we said in unison.

"Seen any bears?"

We looked at each other and shook our heads.

"Well, be careful," he said as he got back into his truck and drove away.

"Bears, hah!", my travel buddy said, "I bet that there's not one within a hundred miles."

They Called it a Scone

Hey Tony,

I was thinking 'bout you the other day when me and Darlene was down in yo neck o' the woods.  We had been up to Myrtle Beach for a day or two. I just got me a new Ford F-150, and we decided that a beach trip would really check it out. I still got the old one though.  Darlene says they oughta bury me in it.  Well, anyway, we were coming down U.S. Highway 17 past Georgetown, and Darlene points to a sign and says, "Let's stop here for lunch."  The sign said, "Hopsewee Plantation".  "Mary Ann Belcher said they had a real nice tea room there."

"What's a tea room?" I asked, slowing down the pick-up truck.

"Oh, it's a restaurant," she said.

"Well, I'm gittin' kinda hungry; them grits, eggs, and gravy don't last forever. A burger and beer would go down just fine"

"I'm sure you'll find something you'll like, " she said smiling and added, "There's the entrance on the right!"

I pulled the Ford in through an open gate in the white fence and drove down the winding sandy drive.  There were some oak trees that don't shed their leaves and some palmettos along the road.  The land was flat as a pancake and not a sign of red clay. We saw a big white two-story house with the river the other side of it.  " Looks like the back of the house to me," I observed.

"It was built in 1740, and there weren't no roads then; everybody traveled by boat." Darlene liked to show off her knowledge of South Carolina history.

"You know what river that is?" I asked.

"It's the Santee.  It goes right on into the Atlantic Ocean."

"Humph!" I responded.

Before we got to the house, Darlene says, "There's the tea room over there!" She points to a low building that is built of a light colored wood, maybe cypress.

We parked the truck and walked down the pathway to the restaurant under old oak trees.  There were some kind of pretty red flowers blooming on some bushes.  The sign by the door said Welcome to River Oak Cottage.  We went in, and this good looking girl led us to a table in the back of the place.  We had passed the kitchen on the way in where a woman of color was cooking.  The dining room was pretty big with floor to ceiling windows all around.  You could see the big house and the river real easy.  There was a piano in the middle of the room, but it wasn't like that upright piano at the Baptist church. The top of this one opened up. If the top was closed down there would have been plenty of room to lay out a hog for pig-pickin'. They had fancy table cloths on the tables with real fancy plates, and everyone had a fancy cup and saucer. I noticed right away that we were not dressed like the other folks.  I had on my favorite faded jeans, a t-shirt with a little rebel soldier saying "Forget Hell!", and  a John Deere ball cap. Darlene had cleaned up right good in white short shorts, a tube top, and a brand new pair of sunglasses. Well, the pretty girl came back with the menus and asked what kind of tea we wanted. Darlene said we would have English Breakfast Tea.  I didn't know what to ask for. The girl come back with this little teapot.  I'm a iced tea drinker, but Darlene is still mighty good to me, so I go along with some of these girly things sometimes. Really...most of the time. The server, they don't call 'em waitresses anymore, asked if we wanted the Southern Tea.

"Of course we do," Darlene says in that sweet southern drawl of hers. Sometimes that girl's voice can make me break out in a cold sweat.

Buddy, let me tell you about the food they brought. This is what you get with the Southern Tea.

They had these little bitty round open-faced cucumber sandwiches the size of a half-dollar, a little bigger than a quarter. Everybody knows that cucumbers is for pickles, and they ain't fit for nothin' else. There was some kind of creamed salmon fish on a cracker. Everything was very small, even the little wedges of pie.  And these pie wedges had some kind of leafy turnip greens in it.  Most everythin' was on a cracker, too.  There musta been seven or eight different kinds with just one bite each.  A fella could go hungry eatin' like that. Then, she brought desert. It looked like a triangle shaped biscuit. Darlene called it a scone.  There was some kind of jam and some stuff called lemon curd that was sorta like the lemon meringue pie without the meringue and crust. The scones had berries in 'em too.  I will say that them scones was pretty good eatin'.  The girl brought some chocolates too.  That Darlene does like her chocolate.

I'm glad to say that Darlene really enjoyed the tea room at Hopsewee Plantation. We left after payin' an arm and a leg for all them "iddy, biddy, bites" and headed south on Highway 17.  I knew that somewhere down the road there was either a hotdog, cheeseburger, or rack of barbecue ribs with my name on 'em waiting for me. And there's a cold Bud longneck to go with 'em.

See you later,
Bubba

Mary's House?

The big green and gold Neon Tours bus began an uphill climb as the driver downshifted.
"On the right is some of the ruins of the city of Ephesus," said our Turkish guide, Yesim. "We will visit it tomorrow," she added.

It seemed as though we had been on the bus a long time, although in reality it had only been about two hours since our last rest stop. The diver expertly navigated the huge bus around the mountain switch backs as the late afternoon sun produced lengthening shadows.

"We will soon be at Mother Mary's house.  Remember that it is a sacred place to Muslims and Christians alike. Please, act accordingly," our guide said.

Harold, the Chinese real estate agent from Orlando, asked, "It's sacred to Muslims too?"

"Oh yes, Mary was the mother of the prophet, Jesus."Obviously, the Muslim view of Christianity is considerably different from mine.

About fifteen minutes later we were at the site of the house of the mother of Jesus. It was crowded.  When there are several tour buses in the parking lot, things will be crowded.

Of course we were asking ourselves how anyone could know with any certainty that this is actually the last house in which the Virgin Mary lived. After I verbalized this question, my wife was quick to answer.

"According to the scriptures, John brought Mary here because of so much persecution of Christians  in Palestine," she said.

"But, to this house?" I asked as we walked up a stone walkway amongst large trees with overhanging branches laden with thick green leaves.

"That's where a German nun gets involved," she said, with a slight smile playing across her face.

By now we were walking by a cistern. Ahead was a line of tourists in front of a rather small  stone house. Claudette  continued as we walked, "A German nun, Anne Catherine Emmerich, had a vision in which she saw the house and its location. The poet, Clemens Brentano, wrote a book based upon her visions. The house was found based on information in the book.  It was in ruins.  The house you see today was built on those ruins in the 1950's. One of the Popes visited it in 1896, although it has never been designated as Mary's house by the Catholic Church."

"That's quite a history; I'm impressed," I said.

She responded with a "ho-hum" look.  We were near the brown stone house now. I noted the flat roof and arched doorway. The structure has been converted into a chapel. It is fairly dark inside. There was an ornate statue of Mary as an alter piece with a large bouquet of fresh cut flowers nearby. The decor reminded me of the many cathedrals we've visited, but on a smaller scale.  People were now speaking in whispers.  Many were making the sign of the cross. The Indian woman who sat in fromt of me on the bus was on her knees beside me, her lips moving in prayer. 

In about five minutes we exited the tiny two room house and began our walk back to the bus. As we began our descent we saw a wall with faucets on our right.  We were told that this is holy water from a spring. A young woman in a mini-skirt and large sunglasses filled a half-liter plastic bottle. I wondered if she  knew it was holy as she took a big gulp. A few feet beyond this is the prayer wall. Literally thousands of small scraps of paper are stuck in cracks between the stones in this wall. Prayer requests are written in the hope they will be answered. We did not test it. Our conventional method seems to work.

It seems to me that it is almost impossible to visit the Virgin Mary's house without some feeling of the presence of high being, which as a Christian I refer to as God, and in his famous book, Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill referred to as "Infinite Intelligence".  We were in a Muslim country,  a country that holds the mother of Jesus in high regard.  It is also country in which ethnic cleansing had been practiced and a country in which honor killing is still practiced. 

As we climbed aboard the bus I asked Claudette, "Do you think that by helping Turkey's infant tourist industry we are endorsing such things as honor killings?" 

Freddie and the Wall of Death

As I was drinking a cup of coffee this morning I noticed that I was using a souvenir cup I had bought in the Dominican Republic. On it was an illustration of a family on a motorcycle and I began to think about one of the first times I had seen a motorcycle.

It was quite a while ago when I was probably about eleven or twelve years old. Freddie Johnson and I were at the county fair. We always looked forward to it.  It was a chance to get out of school early and ride the amusement rides.  How could you not have fun on such things as the Wild Mouse, the Cyclone, the Rocket,  and our most favorite - - the Bumper Cars. Of course there were other things to see that we just didn't have in our home town.

It was a beautiful fall afternoon in late September, and all seemed right with the world. Freddie and I were at the fair and each had two dollars.  Mama said we could be on our own like big boys. I wasn't real sure what she meant by "like big boys", and I didn't ask.  I wouldn't want to give her a chance to change her mind. We had already figured out how far our money would go on rides and were headed for the midway. Actually, I had figured it out. I was a year older and a lot better at arithmetic than Freddie.  It was going to be a great day, and we had three hours before we had to meet Mama back at the church booth where she was working. The music was coming from the Merry-go-round, and we could smell  cotton candy and popcorn.  We heard a sound like a siren on a firetruck.

"Let's see what that is,"  Freddie said, and he started to run.

Since I was bigger and taller I didn't have any trouble keeping up with Freddie as we raced toward the shrill of the siren. We ran past tents that had funny looking animals.  Some had some really strange looking people too. There was one place that had this sort of stage with women on it.  They had these sparkly little bitty bathing suits on. The man on the stage with them was talking through a loudspeaker saying, "Step right up, Gents.  See somethin' you ain't never seen before!"
I don't know what it was, but there was a whole lot of men there, and I believe one of them was Uncle Bill.

We kept right on running til we got to the sound of the siren, which stopped right before we got there.  A little crowd of men and boys were in front of this stage that had a man with a loudspeaker and two men with motorcycles on it. Behind it was a tall tent with a big banner saying, "The Wall of Death". It had a picture of a skeleton riding a motorcycle, and it was on fire. I'd never seen anything like it. I elbowed Freddie.  The fellows with the motorcycles had on their riding britches and brown high boots. And they both had on brown leather jackets and brown leather aviator helmets. One of the men cranked a motorcycle with a kick starter.  Boy, was it loud. "Is that a Harley-Davidson?" Freddie asked.

"I don't know, " says I.  "I never saw but  one motorcycle  before. Me and Daddy was at the seed store one time, and Mr. Carlisle rode by. I think it was a Harley-Davidson, but it had big saddlebags and a windshield. These don't  got no saddlebags or windshield."

"I b'lieve that one has an Indian chief's picture on the gas tank," said Freddie.

The rider put the back wheel of the motorcycle on a pair of rollers and hopped on the seat. He revved  up the motor, and the rollers turned the siren which made a deafening sound.  All this time the man with the loudspeaker was telling us how dangerous the Wall of Death was and how easy it was to get killed riding on it.  But captains Brown and Seigler, he said,  had been in the war, were afraid of nothing, and would ride through the gates of hell itself. (I could never tell Mama what he said 'cause she would wallop me for saying "hell".)  He said it was only fifty cents to see the show, and this could be the last one, because the riders just might get killed doing this stunt.

Freddie and me paid our money and climbed up the steps to the inside of the tent. There was a wooden wall made in a circle about twenty feet across and chest high. We could barely see over the wall. Inside the wall was a pit, kinda like a well, about twenty feet deep and sloping in a little bit at the bottom. The floor looked like it was wood too.  There was a little door to the side and the captains pushed their motorcycles into the bottom of the pit. Capt. Seigler cranked his motorcycle first. Something fell off it with a clunk.  "What was that?" I asked.

"That was just the kick starter.  It don't keep it from running," answered my buddy.

"Wonder what he's gonna do now?" I thought.

The rider gunned the engine, and the motorcycle began to climb  and gained speed going around the wall. Soon the motorcycle seemed to be flying around the wall, which would move a bit with the weight of the machine. He was riding the motorcycle only about a foot from the top of the wall. And then he took his hands off the handlebars and held his arms straight out. The crowd cheered. I didn't cheer.  I was holding onto a steel cable that held the wall together.  My knuckles were white.  Some of the men held up one dollar bills and the rider would lean over and snatch them from their hands.  Down at the bottom of the wall Capt. Brown was cranking up his motorcycle.  He lit out up the wall and commenced to race with the other rider. Round and round they would go chasing each other and passing each other.  They put on quite a show.  Both riders hit the brakes of their machines, and they came down off the wall quickly.

Freddie and I climbed down the stairs knowing we had seen something few of our classmates had.  We took a short cut between the wall of death and another tent.  One of the motorcycle riders was leaning up against a post with his helmet off and jacket open.  He had a pint whiskey bottle in his hand and was taking a long drink.  The man put the cap back on the bottle and stuck it in his jacket
as he saw us. "You kids like the show?" he asked.

"Yessir, we sure did!" we said together.

"Good, come back again, " he said as he turned to go back into the tent.

We walked along a little ways in silence and then I said, "You reckon Mama would let me ride a motorcycle like that?"

Freddie thought a minute and then said, "Naw, she won't even let you drink."

Once Upon a Time in the Desert

We had passed one of the largest solar power stations in Europe on our way to the Tabernas Desert. A huge billboard from the highway along the desert highway, N-340, proclaimed the Oasys Theme Park. It was the object of our venture into Europes only desert and was one of the places on my "must see" list for Spain. This theme park was built on the original movie sets of the great Sergio Leone westerns. The ones they called spaghetti westerns starring a little know American actor named Clint Eastwood. I remembered the films well. They were some of the first "realistic" westerns. The cowboys weren't all clean shaven and well dressed.  They were rough and crude and smoked cheroots. Yeah, I liked 'em all and now I was going to see where the films were made.

We parked our rented Opal, bought our ticket, and entered the turnstiles to another world. We had visited Old Tucson in Arizona, where a lot of American westerns were made, and naturally tended to campare the two. The teepee on our right looked kind of cheesy, but we continued walking a bit further and wound up on the town square. It looked like a typical western town with a few European architectural details. The sheriff's office and jail with a nearby gallows was on our left, the town square with the bank, saloon, and other businesses on the right.   In the jail  Claudette snapped a picture of me behind bars. I'm not sure of my motivation, but I have pictures of me in jails in Yuma, AZ, Edinburgh, Scotland,  Virginia City, NV, and other cities around the world, but I have never been incarcerated.

For about an hour or so we wandered around the town. People in western garb, some on horseback, wandered around with the visitors. We checked out the livery stable, which had a collection of rolling stock, and the cemetery.  Boot Hill was at the edge of town with the mountains rising behind it. A split rail fence, cacti, and low growing shrubs surrounded it. We laughed about the inscription on one of the tombstones.  George Lucas was the name on the headstone.  A little Spanish joke?

As we continued our way back to the center of town a cowboy on a horse passed us under the brilliant blue Spanish sky. I believe that clouds are illegal in this part of southern Spain.  And the sun...well the rays you feel piercing your skin like thousands of needles of fire.   The sun-bloc was in the rental car. We ducked into the bank building and absorbed its cool darkness. Of course once our eyes adjusted it wasn't really dark at all. It was a museum for movie memorabilia of Italian western films made in Spain. There were dozens of old movie posters and old motion picture projectors.  Claudette translated for me.  As we exited there were two dance hall girls  at the door. I pointed at my camera and said to one, "Photo?" She was tall and slim with blonde tresses under her cowboy hat. With a shy smile she softly said, "Si." Had I not understood the Spanish word I would have still understood her meaning. I've got this thing about having my picture taken with pretty girls...I guess it's some kind of "dirty old man" obsession.

The sound of a piano waifed into the street from the Yellow Rose Saloon, and it beckoned. Behind swinging doors it was semi-dark, with a mirrored bar down the left hand side and a stage at the far end.  We looked around a bit and had an adult beverage with foam on top. It was welcome after our time in the desert heat. While there we noticed that everyone seemed to move for the door en masse.  We were standing on the boardwalk in front of the saloon when a cowboy was knocked off the boardwalk into the dirt of the street. He was followed by another in a yellow duster who jumped astride him and began to pummel him with both fists.  There was a sound of horses approaching as a wagon with a coffin sped by dangerously close to the men on the ground. The horses bared their teeth as the driver pulled back on the reins, stopping the wagon. The driver leaped to the ground clad in top  hat and long black coat.  He was met by two men on horseback who dismounted quickly and ran to the wagon. Opening the coffin they retrieved rifles and walked menacingly toward the bank at our right.  Gunfire erupted, and the men ran from the bank carrying a strongbox.They loaded it onto the wagon which had the coffin, and the undertaker drove away. From the sheriff's office at the other end of the street the men of the law appeared. They were tall men in black suits, white shirts, and string ties. Their six-shooters cracked in the Spanish sun as the bandits made their getaway. Two of the lawmen mounted their horses and chased the robbers, guns blazing.

The town square was empty for a few minutes except for the lonely watering trough in the center. Across the way we saw a mounted rider.  It was one of the lawmen, and he was dragging something behind him, raising a cloud of dust. It was one of the bandits.  What followed was a true horse opera. The villain was jailed, but his companions broke him out of jail, and a gunfight ensued culminating in a hanging of one of the bandits. Others escaped the noose only to be gunned down by the sheriff and his deputies.  All of this with dirty filthy cowboys cursing each other in Spanish. (I really don't know if they were cursing, but they were very angry.)  The background music, reminding me of A Few Dollars More, blasted in the background. At the end of the show a dying villain arrogantly gave the one-fingered salute to his executioner.

It was fantastic!

We went back into the Yellow Rose for an adult libation. (Watching gunfights is thirst provoking) It was crowded, and a band was beginning to play.  Actually, it was just a guy playing an old upright piano and a girl playing a banjo.  They were pretty good.  The girl singer did a stirring rendition of Nancy Sinatra's Boots.  I guess that was kind of appropriate. After the band stopped playing the crowd was getting a bit noisy when the piano player walked into the center of the saloon, pulled out his revolver and fired a shot into the air.  It was deafening.  Things quieted down a bit for the dancing girls to hit the stage.  It was a can-can style show, and we really enjoyed it.  We decided we had had about as much of the old west as we could stand, so it was time to head back to Seville.

By the way, the show in the Tabernas desert far outshines the Arizona desert version even though I couldn't understand what they were saying.