Wednesday, November 25, 2015
Tuesday, November 10, 2015
Link to my current South American ride report over at ADVrider.com:
South America and Beyond on Another Minimalist Adventure/
Thursday, November 5, 2015
So you land at the airport safely in South America and make your way downtown to a reasonably priced youth hostel or hotel and get ready to charge up your laptop that was drained on the flight in and you come across something nobody mentions in their travel reports:
WTF? The upper plug is what you will see in Santiago Chile and the lower plug is what you’ll see in Buenos Aires Argentina. Immediately you are realizing square peg, round hole, no bueno.
Sure you can find adapters for U.S. straight prong plugs in most ferreterías (hardware stores), but why not get a couple delivered from Amazon.com while you are sitting around goofing off before you leave.
Here is what they look like:
I like to bring a dirt brown (doesn’t show the dirt) 6 foot extension cord to plug my laptop and battery recharger into since outlets can be far away from your bunk in a hostel and it’s nice to be able to come prepared to plug in a few items without hogging too many outlets. Here is what it looks like plugged into the Chilean adapter:
And the Argentina/Uruguay adapter ready for action:
more later…
WTF? The upper plug is what you will see in Santiago Chile and the lower plug is what you’ll see in Buenos Aires Argentina. Immediately you are realizing square peg, round hole, no bueno.
Sure you can find adapters for U.S. straight prong plugs in most ferreterías (hardware stores), but why not get a couple delivered from Amazon.com while you are sitting around goofing off before you leave.
Here is what they look like:
I like to bring a dirt brown (doesn’t show the dirt) 6 foot extension cord to plug my laptop and battery recharger into since outlets can be far away from your bunk in a hostel and it’s nice to be able to come prepared to plug in a few items without hogging too many outlets. Here is what it looks like plugged into the Chilean adapter:
And the Argentina/Uruguay adapter ready for action:
more later…
While I’m waiting to actually get to South America and officially start sending back pictures and stories of the roads less traveled, I’d like to go over a few practical tips that are left out of most peoples travel stories. Things that are good to know before you even get to South America.
Sure, beautiful pictures of cathedrals and long vistas of twisty misty mountain roads are fun to look at. But what about buying money on the black market in Argentina? Who writes about that? Not many people. Heck, most people don’t even know what a Blue Dollar is. But it can save you 1000 dollars U.S. if you know what it is when shipping your bike home from Argentina and buying an airline ticket when your trip in South America ends, since Buenos Aires is the go-to place to leave from.
As an American this looks like a lot of money:
And it is. A thousand bucks will last a long time in Argentina. But here’s the thing. If you go to an ATM in Argentina the machine will spit out Argentine pesos at the official rate which is 9.55 pesos to the dollar as of today. How do I know that? You go to google and type in “dollar to Argentine peso” and it will tell you every day what the official rate is. So you will get 955 pesos for every $100 U.S. if you go to an ATM in Buenos Aires when you step off the plane like I will next week.
Fine. That seems clear enough. Except that there is an unofficial rate that google doesn’t tell you about unless you look more carefully. It is published daily in the Buenos Aires newspaper and called the Blue Dollar rate. Today it is at 15.55 pesos to the dollar. What that means is that all I have to do is go to the city center to the main square and look for a guy shouting CAMBIO, CAMBIO on the street, or ask around for a money changer (cambio is spanish for changer or exchange) and he will give me 15 pesos to the dollar. WOW!!!! And the government turns a blind eye to this practice although they hope most tourists are too paranoid to take advantage of it. But not me. I’ll take 1500 pesos for a c-note over 955 all day long. It makes your money go 50% farther so travel is way more affordable.
The thing is, you need crisp 100 dollar bills. No tears, no missing corners, in fact no old bills. This is important. Money changers in South America even at banks are EXTREMELY picky about the quality of your bills. And they don’t want 20s or 50s. Sure they will take them, but you get a lower rate for small bills. Who knew? So now I bring crisp 100 dollar bills from home. $1000 for every month I’ll be in Argentina.
I carry it with my passport in a money belt that I never take off except to launder it or when I shower. It is made by travel gear and I got it at REI. So here are the essentials. Passport, cash and moneybelt. Don’t leave home without them:
I have some Argentine pesos leftover from 2014 when I flew out of Buenos Aires.
750 Argentine pesos. When I left the official rate was 8 pesos and the black market rate was 12 pesos. I knew I was comiing back to continue my journey so figured this would get me to the money changers downtown so I don’t have to get ripped off at the airport ATM like 90% of tourists. At current rates 750 pesos is around $50.
Okay. So lets say you are just reading this ride report as you are heading to Buenos Aires to ship your beloved motorcycle back to Europe. And you only have credit cards and other plastic because lets say you are a prudent and cautious traveler. Let’s face it probably German since they have long vacations and aren't afraid to travel. And you have very little cash on you. I met people like that over near the Andes that told me you can get a really good exchange rate somewhere between the low bank rate of exchange and the black market rate through a website called xoom.com. It is what most ex-pats living in Argentina who are paid from the U.S. in dollars use. I never used the service, but worth checking out if you need a few thousand dollars changed for shipping expenses and airline tickets.
Also I noticed that you can get U.S. dollars out of some ATMs in Uruguay which is just across the river from Buenos Aires.
And it is. A thousand bucks will last a long time in Argentina. But here’s the thing. If you go to an ATM in Argentina the machine will spit out Argentine pesos at the official rate which is 9.55 pesos to the dollar as of today. How do I know that? You go to google and type in “dollar to Argentine peso” and it will tell you every day what the official rate is. So you will get 955 pesos for every $100 U.S. if you go to an ATM in Buenos Aires when you step off the plane like I will next week.
Fine. That seems clear enough. Except that there is an unofficial rate that google doesn’t tell you about unless you look more carefully. It is published daily in the Buenos Aires newspaper and called the Blue Dollar rate. Today it is at 15.55 pesos to the dollar. What that means is that all I have to do is go to the city center to the main square and look for a guy shouting CAMBIO, CAMBIO on the street, or ask around for a money changer (cambio is spanish for changer or exchange) and he will give me 15 pesos to the dollar. WOW!!!! And the government turns a blind eye to this practice although they hope most tourists are too paranoid to take advantage of it. But not me. I’ll take 1500 pesos for a c-note over 955 all day long. It makes your money go 50% farther so travel is way more affordable.
The thing is, you need crisp 100 dollar bills. No tears, no missing corners, in fact no old bills. This is important. Money changers in South America even at banks are EXTREMELY picky about the quality of your bills. And they don’t want 20s or 50s. Sure they will take them, but you get a lower rate for small bills. Who knew? So now I bring crisp 100 dollar bills from home. $1000 for every month I’ll be in Argentina.
I carry it with my passport in a money belt that I never take off except to launder it or when I shower. It is made by travel gear and I got it at REI. So here are the essentials. Passport, cash and moneybelt. Don’t leave home without them:
I have some Argentine pesos leftover from 2014 when I flew out of Buenos Aires.
750 Argentine pesos. When I left the official rate was 8 pesos and the black market rate was 12 pesos. I knew I was comiing back to continue my journey so figured this would get me to the money changers downtown so I don’t have to get ripped off at the airport ATM like 90% of tourists. At current rates 750 pesos is around $50.
Okay. So lets say you are just reading this ride report as you are heading to Buenos Aires to ship your beloved motorcycle back to Europe. And you only have credit cards and other plastic because lets say you are a prudent and cautious traveler. Let’s face it probably German since they have long vacations and aren't afraid to travel. And you have very little cash on you. I met people like that over near the Andes that told me you can get a really good exchange rate somewhere between the low bank rate of exchange and the black market rate through a website called xoom.com. It is what most ex-pats living in Argentina who are paid from the U.S. in dollars use. I never used the service, but worth checking out if you need a few thousand dollars changed for shipping expenses and airline tickets.
Also I noticed that you can get U.S. dollars out of some ATMs in Uruguay which is just across the river from Buenos Aires.
Tuesday, November 3, 2015
Link to my current South American ride report over at ADVrider.com:
South America and Beyond on Another Minimalist Adventure/
Sunday, November 1, 2015
Carlsbad Caverns National Park is another one of those places that is a bit off the beaten track, tucked down into the far southeastern corner of New Mexico. If I hadn’t had so much fun floating down a stream through a limestone cave in Colombia a couple years ago I might not have bothered. But with a free admission pass I figured why not check it out? Caverns are otherworldly. Sort of like scuba diving without the tanks.
The winding road that heads up into the mountains is fun even if you don’t go down into the caverns. Once you get up to the top of a bluff the views out over southern New Mexico are vast. And there is quite a large visitors building:
I had low expectations and got a free ticket for the self guided tour. I wandered around the display area in the main lobby and saw from the exhibits that the good stuff was in large vaults with names like Queens Chamber and Kings Palace.
Because these rooms were so ornate with delicate stalactites that were subject to vandalism, you have to buy a guided tour ticket for the cool rooms whereas you can just wander around the rest of the caverns on your own. The next tour to the cool caverns wasn’t for 2 hours. Hmmm. I bought a ticket. It was half price $4.00 with a Golden Eagle Pass. In the meantime I wandered around the lobby and read the displays.
Since I had time to kill before the guided tour, I decided not to take the elevator down into the caverns. They are 750 feet down underground. Okay that’s a long way. Over 70 stories. But hey, I am getting out of shape in my old age and could use some excercise. Right? So I walked out of the lobby and down the trail to the natural entrance. Check out this stone amphitheater that was constructed by the CCC back in the 1930’s for viewing the bats that come out of the cave every evening:
Here is a picture from up in the lobby of the Mexican bats swarming out of the caverns at dusk:
and another picture of the natural opening with early visitors heading toward the steep stairs down into the mouth of the cavern:
And what it looks like today:
and the switchbacks leading straight down into the abyss:
Hardly anybody goes down the hard way. 99.9% of visitors take the elevator. There was nobody heading down at 8:30 AM shortly after the park opens. Just me and the birds for the first while. Cave swallows nest in the upper portion of the caverns. It doesn’t take long for the massive entrance to turn into a small spot of sky way up in the distance:
The Empire State building in NY is 1250 vertical feet of staircases. Carlsbad Caverns is only 750 feet, so about 60%. Each switchback drops you down another 10 feet, so there must be 75 switchbacks. I didn’t count and did a google search, but didn’t find the answer. The trail is a steep paved ramp the whole way so you could theoretically get a wheelchair down this thing. The ramps are quite steep with metal handrails all the way. As your eyes adjust to the darkness you begin to appreciate the lighting designer who set up the cave lighting. It isn’t overdone. And there are nice lighted informational signs along the way:
I wandered around the caverns that are on the self guided tour and then met up for the guided tour at the elevator area. I am not a fan of guided tours and this one was no different. But it led us through the Queens Chamber, the King's palace and the Green Lake Chamber. All very ornate, beautiful and worthwhile seeing while you are underground. The Park Ranger mainly regurgitated the information I had read in the lobby, made us go in single file slowly and sit on the stone walls for lectures. Encouraging us to snuggle next to our neighbors in case we were getting chilly. Okay, I am not a snuggle with strangers kind of person. Maybe it’s me or maybe it's that I just came from Texas where I am pretty sure snuggling with strangers is a felony. Just kidding. Anyway, the tour lasted an hour and a half which was an hour and fifteen minutes longer than it needed to. Just my humble opinion.
The fifty people on the tour all headed back to the elevator and I headed the opposite direction and hiked back up the 1 mile trail of tears and switchbacks to the natural entrance. It was a steep hike up out of Carlsbad Caverns and I had this song stuck in my head, as happens sometimes when you are hiking or bicycling a long way up a steep mountain. I was in a bat cave and I couldn't get the theme song to batman out of my mind. You know the one, various octaves of duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh BATMAN! Holy crap, now I have it again. Hopefully you will not be afflicted when you next visit the Carlsbad Caverns. It is a pretty cool place and I think it is worth a visit. My pictures don't do it justice. Without a person in the picture for scale, I look at these pictures and can see how you would think you are looking at an aquarium in a dentist's office instead of a 50 foot tall massive stalagmite. Imagine a room a mile long and twenty stories high with boulders that have dropped from the ceiling that are ten stories high and weigh 200,000 tons. Like the Grand Canyon, you have to see it in person to really experience the awesome scale and vastness of mother nature.
I am now in Apache Junction waiting until the 11th when my plane leaves for South America. I was impressed with how beautiful the Lincoln National Forest is Northwest of Carlsbad New Mexico. Up around Cloudcroft you go over mountain passes that are over 9000 feet high. Really nice area with great switchbacks and would be a fun area to explore further.
more later….
The winding road that heads up into the mountains is fun even if you don’t go down into the caverns. Once you get up to the top of a bluff the views out over southern New Mexico are vast. And there is quite a large visitors building:
I had low expectations and got a free ticket for the self guided tour. I wandered around the display area in the main lobby and saw from the exhibits that the good stuff was in large vaults with names like Queens Chamber and Kings Palace.
Because these rooms were so ornate with delicate stalactites that were subject to vandalism, you have to buy a guided tour ticket for the cool rooms whereas you can just wander around the rest of the caverns on your own. The next tour to the cool caverns wasn’t for 2 hours. Hmmm. I bought a ticket. It was half price $4.00 with a Golden Eagle Pass. In the meantime I wandered around the lobby and read the displays.
Since I had time to kill before the guided tour, I decided not to take the elevator down into the caverns. They are 750 feet down underground. Okay that’s a long way. Over 70 stories. But hey, I am getting out of shape in my old age and could use some excercise. Right? So I walked out of the lobby and down the trail to the natural entrance. Check out this stone amphitheater that was constructed by the CCC back in the 1930’s for viewing the bats that come out of the cave every evening:
Here is a picture from up in the lobby of the Mexican bats swarming out of the caverns at dusk:
and another picture of the natural opening with early visitors heading toward the steep stairs down into the mouth of the cavern:
And what it looks like today:
and the switchbacks leading straight down into the abyss:
Hardly anybody goes down the hard way. 99.9% of visitors take the elevator. There was nobody heading down at 8:30 AM shortly after the park opens. Just me and the birds for the first while. Cave swallows nest in the upper portion of the caverns. It doesn’t take long for the massive entrance to turn into a small spot of sky way up in the distance:
The Empire State building in NY is 1250 vertical feet of staircases. Carlsbad Caverns is only 750 feet, so about 60%. Each switchback drops you down another 10 feet, so there must be 75 switchbacks. I didn’t count and did a google search, but didn’t find the answer. The trail is a steep paved ramp the whole way so you could theoretically get a wheelchair down this thing. The ramps are quite steep with metal handrails all the way. As your eyes adjust to the darkness you begin to appreciate the lighting designer who set up the cave lighting. It isn’t overdone. And there are nice lighted informational signs along the way:
I wandered around the caverns that are on the self guided tour and then met up for the guided tour at the elevator area. I am not a fan of guided tours and this one was no different. But it led us through the Queens Chamber, the King's palace and the Green Lake Chamber. All very ornate, beautiful and worthwhile seeing while you are underground. The Park Ranger mainly regurgitated the information I had read in the lobby, made us go in single file slowly and sit on the stone walls for lectures. Encouraging us to snuggle next to our neighbors in case we were getting chilly. Okay, I am not a snuggle with strangers kind of person. Maybe it’s me or maybe it's that I just came from Texas where I am pretty sure snuggling with strangers is a felony. Just kidding. Anyway, the tour lasted an hour and a half which was an hour and fifteen minutes longer than it needed to. Just my humble opinion.
The fifty people on the tour all headed back to the elevator and I headed the opposite direction and hiked back up the 1 mile trail of tears and switchbacks to the natural entrance. It was a steep hike up out of Carlsbad Caverns and I had this song stuck in my head, as happens sometimes when you are hiking or bicycling a long way up a steep mountain. I was in a bat cave and I couldn't get the theme song to batman out of my mind. You know the one, various octaves of duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh BATMAN! Holy crap, now I have it again. Hopefully you will not be afflicted when you next visit the Carlsbad Caverns. It is a pretty cool place and I think it is worth a visit. My pictures don't do it justice. Without a person in the picture for scale, I look at these pictures and can see how you would think you are looking at an aquarium in a dentist's office instead of a 50 foot tall massive stalagmite. Imagine a room a mile long and twenty stories high with boulders that have dropped from the ceiling that are ten stories high and weigh 200,000 tons. Like the Grand Canyon, you have to see it in person to really experience the awesome scale and vastness of mother nature.
I am now in Apache Junction waiting until the 11th when my plane leaves for South America. I was impressed with how beautiful the Lincoln National Forest is Northwest of Carlsbad New Mexico. Up around Cloudcroft you go over mountain passes that are over 9000 feet high. Really nice area with great switchbacks and would be a fun area to explore further.
more later….
Saturday, October 31, 2015
What’s not to like about west Texas? You gotta love those long lonesome highways:
Rays of sunshine streaming through the growing thunderstorm coming up from the south:
Lighting up the mountains on the far horizon:
It was time to hightail it up to New Mexico. As twilight turned to darkness I came around a corner and my headlights lit up a gray carcass in the middle of my lane. Yikes! I didn’t have time to swerve so just straddled the large freshly dead mule deer in the road. Thump!!! It was laying perpendicular with it’s back towards me and the color blended with the gray pavement making it difficult to see as I came around the corner. In the end my tire tracks went on either side and I whacked my differential and rear bike hauling rack on the torso. Knocked one of the straps holding the bike loose. So I had to pull over and secure the bike. It was a big doe. Scared the begeezus out of me.
But it got better as the night wore on. Around midnight a large buck dashed out from the left hand darkness heading straight across the road towards my left headlight. It happened so fast I barely had time to react, letting off the gas and swerving right. I thought my truck was a goner. It all happened at speed and I barely had time to brace for impact. But at the last moment, the large deer made a course correction and turned 90º just before the white line and threw it’s body into the truck sideways with a loud THUMP!!! that shook the cab. His big body hit the drivers side door and flattened the mirror into the door post. I don’t know how many times you have had a high speed deer slam into your door while you’re driving 60 miles an hour down the highway, but let me tell you, it gets your attention!
So I pull over again fully expecting the side of my truck to be caved in. But no. There was hardly any damage. Some slight antler scratches on the roof of the cab and a slight dent on the door post. My mirror had just been folded in but not broken so I re-adjusted it. The main impact had been at the strong point where my lumber rack comes down and bolts to the bed of the truck where it meets the rear door post of the cab. What a lucky break!
For me that is. Not so much for the deer. Although he wasn’t laying in the road, so it didn’t kill him. But it was time to pull over and call it a night. No need to tempt more kamikaze deer.
Rays of sunshine streaming through the growing thunderstorm coming up from the south:
Lighting up the mountains on the far horizon:
It was time to hightail it up to New Mexico. As twilight turned to darkness I came around a corner and my headlights lit up a gray carcass in the middle of my lane. Yikes! I didn’t have time to swerve so just straddled the large freshly dead mule deer in the road. Thump!!! It was laying perpendicular with it’s back towards me and the color blended with the gray pavement making it difficult to see as I came around the corner. In the end my tire tracks went on either side and I whacked my differential and rear bike hauling rack on the torso. Knocked one of the straps holding the bike loose. So I had to pull over and secure the bike. It was a big doe. Scared the begeezus out of me.
But it got better as the night wore on. Around midnight a large buck dashed out from the left hand darkness heading straight across the road towards my left headlight. It happened so fast I barely had time to react, letting off the gas and swerving right. I thought my truck was a goner. It all happened at speed and I barely had time to brace for impact. But at the last moment, the large deer made a course correction and turned 90º just before the white line and threw it’s body into the truck sideways with a loud THUMP!!! that shook the cab. His big body hit the drivers side door and flattened the mirror into the door post. I don’t know how many times you have had a high speed deer slam into your door while you’re driving 60 miles an hour down the highway, but let me tell you, it gets your attention!
So I pull over again fully expecting the side of my truck to be caved in. But no. There was hardly any damage. Some slight antler scratches on the roof of the cab and a slight dent on the door post. My mirror had just been folded in but not broken so I re-adjusted it. The main impact had been at the strong point where my lumber rack comes down and bolts to the bed of the truck where it meets the rear door post of the cab. What a lucky break!
For me that is. Not so much for the deer. Although he wasn’t laying in the road, so it didn’t kill him. But it was time to pull over and call it a night. No need to tempt more kamikaze deer.
Thursday, October 29, 2015
Big Bend National Park is beautiful this time of year:
Because I am 62 and have the Golden Eagle pass they waived the 25 dollar entrance fee and allow camping for half price. Only 7 dollars at Cottonwood campground down on the Rio Grande river:
Plenty of fun riding out here. This is River Road:
Plenty of fun paved riding as well:
Gorgeous desert mountains:
and mesas:
Or how about this mountain called Mule Ears Peak:
Lots of ruins:
October is a beautiful month down here. Temps in the low 80s, not too hot. Recent rains have brought out the desert flowers:
Here is my office for this evening outside the Terlingua cafe catching some wifi:
Live from Big Bend this is Big John, ace cub reporter honing my skills getting ready for my next epic South American ride report. Next stop, Carlsbad Caverns up in New Mexico. Will report back what I find.
Stay tuned…….
Because I am 62 and have the Golden Eagle pass they waived the 25 dollar entrance fee and allow camping for half price. Only 7 dollars at Cottonwood campground down on the Rio Grande river:
Plenty of fun riding out here. This is River Road:
Plenty of fun paved riding as well:
Gorgeous desert mountains:
and mesas:
Or how about this mountain called Mule Ears Peak:
Lots of ruins:
October is a beautiful month down here. Temps in the low 80s, not too hot. Recent rains have brought out the desert flowers:
Here is my office for this evening outside the Terlingua cafe catching some wifi:
Live from Big Bend this is Big John, ace cub reporter honing my skills getting ready for my next epic South American ride report. Next stop, Carlsbad Caverns up in New Mexico. Will report back what I find.
Stay tuned…….
Wednesday, October 28, 2015
I stayed in Wichita Falls Texas last night at Scott and Lois’s place. His latest Tilting at Windmills ride report is over at:
http://advrider.com/index.php?threads/tilting-at-windmills-talimena-two-step.1099776/
Had fun catching up and left this morning headed down towards Big Bend National Park in West Texas. Rural Texas is HUGE! The state of Texas is 850 miles east to west and 800 miles north to south, so even though I’m driving all afternoon today, I’ll only be going halfway across Texas.
I turned the corner yesterday in the small town of Mineral Wells Texas and saw this towering old abandoned hotel. check out my truck in the lower right hand corner for scale.
This place is enormous. There are no signs around, not even anything saying no trespassing, so I had to explore. Imagine what a great haunted house this would make this weekend on Halloween!
Here is the back with an arched bridge leading over to an abandoned olympic size swimming pool:
It has a mad max post apocalyptic feel to it with boarded up entrance and some of the windows on the upper floors broken out. I had to know more about it so did a google search for Mineral Wells abandoned hotel and found this on wikipedia:
The story of the Baker Hotel begins in 1922, when citizens of Mineral Wells, concerned that non-citizens were profiting off of the growing fame of the community's mineral water, raised $150,000 in an effort to build a large hotel facility owned by local shareholders. They solicited the services of prominent Texas hotel magnate Theodore Brasher Baker, who gained fame by designing and building such grand hotels as the Baker Hotel in Dallas, the Hotel Texas in Fort Worth, and managed the Connor Hotel in Joplin, Missouri.
Architect Wyatt C. Hedrick based the hotel design on the Arlington Hotel in Hot Springs, Arkansas, which was known for its water and baths. Construction began on the hotel in 1926 but was stopped after Mr. Baker made a trip to California, where he visited a hotel with a swimming pool and decided the new Baker Hotel must have one in the front of the hotel. The swimming pool was placed on top of an already-completed basement, which was used as a work area for the hotel and a changing area for guests. An Olympic sized pool to be filled with the curing mineral waters, it was the first swimming pool built at a hotel in Texas.
Construction began the following year on the grand and opulent structure, which was described by Palo Pinto County historian John Winters as “Spanish Colonial Revival, Commercial Highrise." It would rise fourteen stories over Mineral Wells, house 450 guest rooms, two ballrooms, an in-house beauty shop, and other novelties such as a bowling alley, a gymnasium, and an outdoor swimming pool. Completed three years later with a cost in 1929 dollars of $1.2 million, the mammoth building instantly dominated the city skyline. It was the first skyscraper to be built outside a major metropolitan area.
It is currently early Wednesday afternoon and I stopped at the Anson Texas public library to find out what the deal was with this burned out part of town in Jacksboro Texas that I passed through:
I was impressed with the fact that the fire melted the metal facade and roof and the stone perimeter wall was still standing with nothing more than some soot that needs cleaning off. A quick google search of Jacksboro fire turned up more pictures and the full story. Turns out the source of the fire is still under investigation whatever that means.
more later….
This place is enormous. There are no signs around, not even anything saying no trespassing, so I had to explore. Imagine what a great haunted house this would make this weekend on Halloween!
Here is the back with an arched bridge leading over to an abandoned olympic size swimming pool:
It has a mad max post apocalyptic feel to it with boarded up entrance and some of the windows on the upper floors broken out. I had to know more about it so did a google search for Mineral Wells abandoned hotel and found this on wikipedia:
The story of the Baker Hotel begins in 1922, when citizens of Mineral Wells, concerned that non-citizens were profiting off of the growing fame of the community's mineral water, raised $150,000 in an effort to build a large hotel facility owned by local shareholders. They solicited the services of prominent Texas hotel magnate Theodore Brasher Baker, who gained fame by designing and building such grand hotels as the Baker Hotel in Dallas, the Hotel Texas in Fort Worth, and managed the Connor Hotel in Joplin, Missouri.
Architect Wyatt C. Hedrick based the hotel design on the Arlington Hotel in Hot Springs, Arkansas, which was known for its water and baths. Construction began on the hotel in 1926 but was stopped after Mr. Baker made a trip to California, where he visited a hotel with a swimming pool and decided the new Baker Hotel must have one in the front of the hotel. The swimming pool was placed on top of an already-completed basement, which was used as a work area for the hotel and a changing area for guests. An Olympic sized pool to be filled with the curing mineral waters, it was the first swimming pool built at a hotel in Texas.
Construction began the following year on the grand and opulent structure, which was described by Palo Pinto County historian John Winters as “Spanish Colonial Revival, Commercial Highrise." It would rise fourteen stories over Mineral Wells, house 450 guest rooms, two ballrooms, an in-house beauty shop, and other novelties such as a bowling alley, a gymnasium, and an outdoor swimming pool. Completed three years later with a cost in 1929 dollars of $1.2 million, the mammoth building instantly dominated the city skyline. It was the first skyscraper to be built outside a major metropolitan area.
It is currently early Wednesday afternoon and I stopped at the Anson Texas public library to find out what the deal was with this burned out part of town in Jacksboro Texas that I passed through:
I was impressed with the fact that the fire melted the metal facade and roof and the stone perimeter wall was still standing with nothing more than some soot that needs cleaning off. A quick google search of Jacksboro fire turned up more pictures and the full story. Turns out the source of the fire is still under investigation whatever that means.
more later….
Monday, October 26, 2015
I had never seen a damaged windmill until I passed by this one in west Texas today.
I just did a quick google search here at the Cleburne Texas library to find out what happened. Was it a tornado? Apparently not. According to the owners they aren’t sure what happened. Mind you, the information and picture of this same wind turbine were on a UFO website. Hmmmm.
Vast cotton fields ready to be harvested and made into jeans and tee shirts. This field was just outside Pima Arizona. I always wondered where Pima Cotton came from. It is supposed to be high quality.
I just missed the Sunday hours at this mining museum near Globe Arizona. I liked the giant dumptruck parked in the even more giant dump bed out in front of the museum. Kind of like a Tonka truck kachina doll:
I made it to central Texas this afternoon just in time to get the paperwork I need to give social security. Alas SS building was closed by the time I got there, so will head back in the morning.
more later….
I just did a quick google search here at the Cleburne Texas library to find out what happened. Was it a tornado? Apparently not. According to the owners they aren’t sure what happened. Mind you, the information and picture of this same wind turbine were on a UFO website. Hmmmm.
Vast cotton fields ready to be harvested and made into jeans and tee shirts. This field was just outside Pima Arizona. I always wondered where Pima Cotton came from. It is supposed to be high quality.
I just missed the Sunday hours at this mining museum near Globe Arizona. I liked the giant dumptruck parked in the even more giant dump bed out in front of the museum. Kind of like a Tonka truck kachina doll:
I made it to central Texas this afternoon just in time to get the paperwork I need to give social security. Alas SS building was closed by the time I got there, so will head back in the morning.
more later….
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