Knoxville, TN to Fairmont, WV

I left Rick's house around 5:45 this morning, hoping to get out of Knoxville before the traffic got really heavy.  I headed east on I-40, then north on I-81 to north on I-77 to north on US19 to north on I-79.  Whew!  Uneventful ride for the most part, although there was a LOT of truck traffic the whole way.

While on US19 some 20 miles south of Summersville, WV, I stopped at the New River Gorge Bridge.  This landmark has some notoriety because of Bridge Day, which occurs in October and when they close the bridge to allow visitors to jump off, climb off, fly off, or whatever their little hearts desire.  Haven't been there, but I guess it's a pretty big deal.

There is a nice Visitor's Center at the bridge with very nice views of the bridge and the New River Gorge.  The bridge itself is the World's largest single-span steel arch bridge, and at 876 feet above the river below, it is the second-highest bridge in North America.

From the overlook (quite a hike back up, I might add) you can see more details of the bridge's construction:

This is a view of the gorge to the east of the bridge.  If you look in the lower right-hand corner of the picture, you can see the bridge that was replaced when the new bridge opened in 1977:

And another view of the gorge:

I arrived in Fairmont, WV around 4:00 this afternoon and will be heading home tomorrow morning.  It's been a great trip, but it's quickly winding down to a close.

Miles today:  432
Total: 8,862

Bowling Green, KY to Nashville, TN to Knoxville, TN

I left Bowling Green on Saturday morning and headed south to Nashville for the Johnny Cash Museum and the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.  Fortunately, they're about a nine-iron shot apart in downtown Nashville, so finding them wasn't difficult at all.

First stop was the Johnny Cash Museum which, while small, was really interesting.

Did you know that Johnny Cash had no first or middle name?  His "given" name was "J. R." and when he enlisted in the Air Force in 1950 the recruiting sergeant told him he had to have a first name, so he picked "John."  Later, when he was recording with Sam Phillips, owner of Sun Studios in Memphis, Phillips told him that his name wasn't "John", it was "Johnny."  Interesting tidbit, I thought.

The museum had a lot of information about JR Cash, of course, but also a lot about the other artists  who recorded at Sun Studios.  In one section they were playing clips from live performances by some of the artists, including Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins, and others.  Here is Jerry Lee Lewis doing "Great Balls of Fire":

This is Johnny Cash doing "I Walk the Line":

And this is Elvis doing "It's All Right":

Somehow I didn't get a picture of Carl Perkins doing "Blue Suede Shoes" or Roy Orbison doing "Pretty Woman", but the film clips were really interesting.

Here's a shot of his "Wall of Fame":

I thought the JC Museum was well worth the cost of admission.

About a block away is the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.  It is a lot more grand than Johnny Cash's place, as you can see:

There was a lot to take in and if you're a huge CM fan, it would be very interesting.  The museum was well-done and tasteful, but unfortunately, I didn't get a lot of good shots.  Here are a couple from inside the museum:

It was nicely done and well worth the visit (one time!).

After viewing all that downtown Nashville had to offer, I headed east on I-40 toward Knoxville, arriving around 3:30 pm.  I spent Sunday at my brother Rick's house and we had a very nice visit.

Miles today:  245
Total:  8,353

Springfield, MO to Villa Ridge, MO to Bowling Green, KY

I left Springfield on Thursday morning to ride to Villa Ridge, MO, where my Uncle Glenn and Aunt Gladys live.  I haven't seen them in about four years, and, unfortunately, Glenn has Alzheimer's and has been in a nursing home for the past year.  We visited with him and it is really distressing to see him in this state and to remember what he was like years ago.  He was always my favorite uncle and I really looked up to him when I was a child.  Gladys is doing the best she can with the situation and sees him every single day, but he is getting worse pretty quickly.  My heart goes out to her.

I left Villa Ridge very early this morning, around 5:45.  I had to pass through St. Louis to get on I-64 to go through Evansville, IN on the way to Bowling Green, and I wanted to get on the other side of St. Louis before rush hour hit.  The ride down to Bowling Green was uneventful and the scenery was pretty nice.  Rolling hills and lots of greenery.

The first stop in Bowling Green was the National Corvette Museum.  You may remember that in February, 2014 a large sink hole opened up under the museum and eight vintage cars dropped into the hole and were pretty much destroyed.  Well, they have filled in the hole, and they are restoring the cars one-by-one.

Here is a picture of the museum from the outside:

The museum is very nice and spotless, with many Corvettes on display, going back to the first year of production, 1953, when they produced a grand total of 300 vehicles:

They had a number of examples from each body style (they are now on #7), including this 1968 model:

I can remember when this model came out, and it was, by far, the hottest thing on four wheels.

This is the "Skydome" area of the museum, where the floor gave way, and these are some of the eight cars that fell into the hole:

I think the guy in the picture is having a prayer vigil.

Here is another shot of the damaged (totalled??) cars:

The car in the foreground is the 1.5 millionth Corvette ever produced and it was on display at the museum on the fateful day.  Here's another look at it:

Makes a grown man wanna cry, but supposedly, they're going to rebuild all the cars.

The museum was very interesting, very well laid-out, and very informative.  I enjoyed my stay.

I left there and headed into the downtown area of Bowling Green to visit the Bowling Green Rail Park.  It's in their old Louisville & Nashville Railroad Station and was pretty nice.  Here's a shot of the train depot...

Lots of train memorabilia and information about the L&N RR from the time of the Civil War to the 1970's.  After taking a spin around Bowling Green's downtown area (nice), I headed back over to the Corvette museum.  Across the street from the official museum, is the unofficial "Art's Corvettes", which is a combination museum and used car dealer.  The building was packed with almost 100 restored vehicles from the 1940's up to the 2000's.  Most of them had a price tag on them, and in looking at them, I didn't think they were overpriced, at least by much.  Here area a couple shots of some of the cars in the collection:

A 427 Ford Cobra Kit for $35k:

Not a bad price.  I think the kit itself costs almost that much, and that's without the engine and transmission.

A 1958 Chevrolet Impala:

A 1940 Ford for $14k:

A 1972 Chevelle SS with a 454 Engine for $25k:

And a 1958 T-Bird with original paint, original tires, and only 9,000 miles on the clock for $35k:

Anyway, nice day today. I'll be heading out in the morning through Nashville and down to my brother, Rick's for a couple nights and then on home on Monday and Tuesday.

Miles today:  375
Total:  8,108

Enid, Oklahoma to Ponca City, OK to Bartlesville, OK to Miami, OK to Springfield, Missouri

I left Enid early this morning and headed north on US60 to Ponca City, Bartlesville, and Miami, Oklahoma.  The scenery was pretty interesting, as it is definitely getting greener the more east I ride.  There wasn't much to see or do in Ponca City, but Bartlesville was a different story.  It seems to be a really nice small city of about 37,000 people and appears to be quite prosperous. Bartlesville is the headquarters for Phillips Petroleum, which was founded there in 1917 by L.E. and Frank Phillips.  There were also a number of other industries in the area, some associated with oil exploration, refining, and distribution, and others that did not seem to have a direct connection with the oil business.  Downtown Bartlesville is very nice, neat, and populated with a number of local stores and restaurants in addition to the very large Phillips headquarters building.  I stopped at the Phillips Petroleum Museum, which was really pretty interesting.

Here are a couple shots of the area directly in front of the Phillips museum:

The museum itself covered the Phillips Petroleum from its founding in 1917 to the present day.  I thought it interesting that Phillips really promoted the "advantages" of their fuel, particularly from the 1920's to the 1970's or so.  In 1934 Wiley Post flew his plane, the Winnie Mae, to a record 55,000 feet above Bartlesville, using, of course, Phillips Aviation Gasoline:

The Company also unabashedly promoted their superior gasolines during WWII with ads like these:

Pretty heady stuff...

If you thought that you've had a bad day at the office, take a look at what this fellow had to do six days a week:

Anyway, the museum was interesting and I thought Bartlesville was a really nice small city.

After leaving Bartlesville, I headed east on US60 to the Vintage Iron Motorcycle Museum in Miami, Oklahoma.  As an aside, it appears that just about every little burg in Oklahoma and Missouri can claim to have been situated on Route 66, the "Mother Road." At least, every place I've stopped in Oklahoma and now in Springfield, MO.

I digress...

Here is a shot of the Vintage Iron Museum in Miami, just in case you ever want to go:

They had a small but, I'm sure, very valuable collection of old motorcycles, including this 1917 Harley:

And...well, they didn't have Evel Knievel's motorcycle,or his rocket ship from his famous attempt at jumping the Snake River Canyon, but they did have his leather suit from the Snake River jump AND...prepare yourself...the actual Chevrolet van that the great man himself used as his control center for the (very unsuccessful) jump (or would it have been a flight??) over the Snake River in 1974:

I'm sorry the picture isn't any better than it is, but I was shaking with excitement...

Anyway, it took me about 2 hours to find this place, and now that I've seen it, I don't need to go back.

After leaving beautiful downtown Miami I headed up I-44 to Springfield, where I'm spending the night.  Tomorrow, I'm headed north to Villa Ridge, MO to visit my Aunt and Uncle.

Miles today:  337
Total:  7,5642

Clayton, NM to Enid, Oklahoma

I had breakfast this morning with Karen and Al at Maria's in Texline and then headed on south from there on US87 to Dalhart, TX, the first town of any size I went through in the great state of Texas.  Dalhart is a rail hub and you can see trains constantly moving in and out along with a tremendous number of semi-trucks hauling local farm products to the grain silos in town.  Very busy place.  I rode through the downtown section, and a local museum caught my eye:

It's called the "XIT" Museum and was actually pretty interesting.  It seems that in 1876 the Texas Legislature wanted to build a new Capitol building in Austin, and they set aside 3 million acres of land in the panhandle adjacent to the New Mexico line.  There intention was to sell the land in small tracts and use the proceeds to build a new capitol building.  By 1879 is became apparent that it would take a very long time to sell the land in small parcels, and they sold the land to a group of investors, which organized it as the XIT Ranch, all 3 million acres of it.  The ranch remained in operation until 1912.  The town of Dalhart was established on the ranch land when the railroad was built through the town, and the museum housed a number of artifacts from the very early 1900's, around the time of the town's founding.  Here are a couple pics:

It was worth the stop, if only once!

I headed out of Dalhart on US54 north toward the town of Guyman.  You've heard of the city of Texarkana, which straddles the Texas-Arkansas Line?  Well...I went through the "city" to Texhoma, which straddles the Texas-Oklahoma line.  I think it's a little smaller than Texarkana, though:

At Guyman, OK I headed east on US412 toward Woodward, OK, where I stopped at the Plains and Pioneers Museum.  They had a nice building:

About 30 miles west of Enid,OK the countryside began to look a lot like Arizona and New Mexico:

You can't really see it in the pictures, but the buttes and the soil throughout the area were bright red...looked like Georgia.

I'm in Enid for the night and will be heading east to Springfield, MO in the morning.

Miles today:  351
Total:  7,225

Roswell, NM to Clayton, NM

I left Roswell first thing in the morning and headed to Vaughn, NM north on US 285, and then northeast on US 54 through Santa Rose, Tucumcari, and Nara Visa, NM and on up State Route 402 to Clayton.  I stopped in Tucumcari to see the town's historical museum (unfortunately, closed on Monday's) and its Rail Road Museum. Well, the railroad museum is under construction and looks to be so for the foreseeable future, but here's a pic of the outside:

It looks like it's going to be pretty nice once it's completed.  Tucumcari is astraddle the old Route 66, and so there were a lot of old buildings on Main Street that had been motels, hotels, and restaurants on the good ol' days when there was no Interstate, but most of them were closed and in pretty sorry shape.

After extracting as much local history as I could, I headed on up US54 to Nara Visa, about 80 miles south of my destination, Clayton.  There wasn't much to Nara Visa either, except I expect there was "Nary" a Visa in sight.

I arrived in Clayton at our friends' house, Al and Karen Brown, around 2:30 and we just had a really nice visit.  Al is all of 92 years old and is sharp as a tack.  He's a former WWII B-24 pilot and was an engineer with Hughes Aviation and Motorola for some 40 years, plus having his own engineering company for some period of time.  He also, at one point, owned a 26,000 acre ranch east of Phoenix.  Quite a remarkable gentleman.  I had a wonderful visit, and we headed over to Texline, TX for dinner last night and again for breakfast.  The little place is called "Maria's" and Karen and Al are regulars.

I had a very nice visit with the Browns and headed out Tuesday morning towards Enid, Oklahoma.

Miles today:315
Total: 6,874

Las Cruces, NM to Roswell, NM

I left Las Cruces this morning bright and early headed east on US70.  The first stop was the White Sands Missile Range, where the US developed virtually all its military-specific missiles from the time during World War II until the present day.  There is a museum that is open to the public, but unfortunately only six days a week.  Nevertheless, I was allowed to view the missile displays and they are quite impressive.

Here is a shot of White Sands Missile Range from the top of a pass on US70:

You can see the main complex in the center of the picture.

This is another shot of the area from the same spot:

You can see how remote the area is.

The missile display was quite impressive.  Every one of these missiles was developed, at least in part, at White Sands:

Some you would recognize include the Patriot Missile, star of Desert Storm and the SCUD-killer:

This is the Redstone missile, which was used to launch a number of satellites (and one monkey) early in the Space Race:

And this is the Pershing II, an ICBM that was first deployed in 1982 and was so accurate, it forced the Soviet Union into seeking the Treaty on Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces, which eliminated an entire class of nuclear missiles, including the Pershing II.  The treaty was signed in 1988 and all such missiles were destroyed or deactivated by 1991.

Next stop was the White Sands National Monument, about 20 miles west of Alamogordo, NM.  I had planned to only take a very brief stop here, but the area was just beautiful.  The sand is like powder and is the brightest white I've ever seen.  It is formed from water dissolving gypsum out of the local rock formations in the area and has the consistency of powdered sugar. Here are a few shots:

This next one was taken from the top of one of the sand dunes:

And...proof I was there:

My final stop of the day was the International Space Hall of Fame in Alamogordo.  It was interesting, but I think geared a little more toward educating kids.  Here are a couple pics:

This is called the "Daisy Track".  From about 1947 to 1985 or so, a man would be strapped in the seat on the "sled" and accelerated to some high speed and then quickly decelerated to test the effects of rapid acceleration and deceleration on the human body.  I remember seeing films of this when I was a kid in the 1950's:

Following WWII, the US brought a number of German rocket scientists over to drive development of our space and missile program, the most famous being Werner von Braun.  We also brought over a number of captured German V-2 rockets to test fly them and to study their operation.  A number of these were fired at White Sands Missile Range, and these are the remains of one such flight:

Here is a shot of the town of Alamogordo from the hill where the Space HOF is located.  Seems like a nice place to live, if you don't mind scrub brush and brutally-hot weather:

Alamogordo was also deeply involved in the development of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Japan in 1945, bringing an end to WWII.  The bombs were actually assembled near here, and Trinity Site, where the first test-firing took place, is about 30 miles north of the town.  Unfortunately, there isn't much (I couldn't find anything) in Alamogordo that discusses the important work that was done here 70 years ago, and Trinity Site is only open to the public twice a year, on April 1st and October 1st.  That would be an interesting tour.

I left Alamogordo headed east to Roswell, home to our extra-terrestrial aliens and the like.  Seems like a nice town, too, but the UFO tourist-traps are pretty dirty and worn.

Tomorrow, I'm headed north to Clayton, NM to visit family friends Al and Karen Brown, and then on Tuesday I'll be heading east through Oklahoma.

Miles today:  258
Total:  6,559