2017 The Odyssey Part 1 – Eastbound – Page 3

2017-06-16 Missouri, and Eero Saarinen

Before I get to today’s activities, a thought struck me regarding Frank Lloyd Wright and Laura Ingalls Wilder: They were both born in 1867; she died in 1957 and he died in 1959. They were contemporaries in time, yet I can’t think of two more different people who lived two very different lives… They were born in the age of horse and buggy and covered wagons; they lived to experience trains, planes, and automobiles. She was modest, a simple homebody, and quite introspective; he was arrogant, a home wrecker, and a master designer of our built environment… A very interesting contrast that just appeared on our trip on two adjacent days…

Now, back to our travels:

This morning we walked to Mansfield, and found a delightful little cafe where we had coffee and Belgian waffles. (Ma and Pa’s Diner had terrible Yelp reviews…) Then we packed up and headed the Villa towards St. Louis.

We did our best to avoid the Interstate, because we could. However, whilst driving the back roads of Missouri, it started to rain. Not just any rain, but a true cloud burst like I have never seen. We drove for about 45 minutes with the windshield wipers at full speed, travelling maybe at 30 mph because we could not see any further ahead. There was thunder and lightning (luckily, no hail – Airstreams hate hail like Superman hates kryptonite…). Then, suddenly, within a 5 minute time-span, the rain stopped, the road was dry, the sky was blue, the sun was shining, and a guy passed us by in a top-down convertible… I’m just glad we had that vent cover fixed!

We proceeded to St. Louis, then immediately crossed the Mississippi river into Illinois to camp at an RV park behind a casino in East St. Louis. It was 94 degrees and very humid, not a breath of air moving. We plugged into shore power, turned on both AC units, and headed back to St. Louis. There was a convenient light rail train service right at the casino, and we soon were walking the streets of St. Louis.

2017-06-16 Map Illinois

We had two goals to accomplish in St. Louis: BBQ for dinner, and a ride the top of the Jefferson Memorial Arch, designed by Eero Saarinen. (Eero Saarinen died in 1961, so he did not live to see the arch completed.) But remember the name…

We headed towards the Jefferson Memorial. It was started in 1935; they cleared 40 acres of riverfront property to make way for the Arch. The Arch was completed in 1965, and tours to the top began in 1967. We found that most of the tickets for the day had been sold out, but we were able to get tickets for the 8:35 pm tour. This left us plenty of time for our BBQ dinner.

BBQ, as most of you know, is a generic term that literally has no meaning. Saying “I am eating BBQ” is like saying , “I’m eating soup” or “I’m eating meat”. What kind of soup? Cream based or broth based? Or, what kind of meat? Braised, grilled, or roasted? All meaningless without many more descriptors. Having endured living in Texas for some time, there is exactly one thing I love from Texas and that is their style of BBQ. But I am always happy to try others. St. Louis BBQ refers not to their sauces or type of cooking – you can find both slow smoked and fast grilled BBQ in St. Louis, with a variety of sauces – sweet, vinegar-based, tomato based – whatever you want. What is unique about St. Louis BBQ is the way they cut their ribs: According to Wikipedia, “St. Louis-style spare ribs are cut in a particular way with the sternum bone, cartilage and rib tips removed so that a well-formed, rectangular-shaped rack is created for presentation.”

There are 2 local places that seem to have their fans – Pappy’s and Bogarts. We opted for Pappy’s, because it was a nicer walk through the city to get there… always a determining factor in our lives…

2017-06-16 St Louis - Dinner at Pappys

It was terrible.

OK. On to the arch…

2017-06-16 St Louis - Gateway Arch 12

The Arch is officially called the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, to commemorate Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase and the massive migration west by the pioneers in the late 19th century as the Federal government literally gave away hundreds of thousands of acres of land. It is probably the largest planned migration of people in the history of the world, and it totally reshaped the USA.

The shape of the arch is what engineers call an inverted catenary arch. It is the shape that a loose chain takes when suspended between 2 points, just up-side-down. This shape can be calculated using integrated calculus, and it is also the the graph of 100% tension and zero compression, since a chain, while strong in tension, can withstand absolutely no compression. And that is the limit of my knowledge of structural theory, strength of materials, and calculus…

The arch is 630 feet wide, and 630 feet tall. (The Washington Memorial in Washington, DC, is 555′ tall, and would fit under the arch…) The shape of the cross section is an equilateral triangle. As the triangular form ascends to the top of the arch it gets smaller, creating very interesting perspectives…

2017-06-16 St Louis - Gateway Arch 04

The designers knew people would want to ascend to the top, so a complicated tramway system was custom designed to carry 40 people at a time. There are two trams, one in each leg, and the viewing space holds about 100 people… The trams consist of 8 cars each, holding 5 people each. The cars are tiny, cramped compartments, less than 6 feet tall, with a door about 2 feet wide and less than 5 feet tall. As the tram ascends along the curved path of the arch, the tram cars must articulate, a bit like a Ferris wheel, except not in a smooth manner. As the cars ascend they tilt (forward or backward), then abruptly snap back into a vertical position.

It was TERRIFYING!

Once at the top, you can see forever. Since we were there just after sunset, our views are all at night…

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The old courthouse, where the Dred Scott trial was held

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Illinois across the Mississippi River – our RV park is back there somewhere…

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Busch Stadium, home of the St. Louis Cardinals…

After our terrifying experience (for some reason, Lynda didn’t find it terrifying at all…), we returned home back to the Villa. We have a long drive tomorrow across Illinois and into Indiana…

June 19, 2017 3

2017-06-15 Kansas, Missouri, and Laura Ingalls Wilder

We left Bartlesville after breakfast atop the Price Tower. We were only a short distance from the border…

A short time later we were at the location of The Little House on the Prairie (No, not the stupid TV show…). The exact site was only discovered a few years ago, and it is on privately owned farmland, but the owner has erected this small wayside memorial. It includes a reproduction of the log cabin, and some other typical pioneer buildings. The only “real” item is the hand-dug well that Laura’s Pa dug with Mr. Edwards…

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The other structures are fun, but not original…

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And the view of the wild prairie Laura must have had from the cabin:

2017-06-15 Little House on the Prairie 4

From here we proceeded east across Kansas…

Our destination: Mansfield, MO, where Laura and Almanzo Wilder lived for 60 years. This is where all the Little House books were written. It now has a beautiful museum full of memorabilia, including the Ingalls family Bible, which recorded all the deaths, births, and weddings. Also, Pa’s fiddle is here…

There are 2 houses on the property; the original 1- room farmhouse, built by Almanzo from 1896 to 1913, plus a “modern” cottage (The Rock House), ordered from the Sears, Roebuck catalog, bought by Rose, their daughter, and built in the 1930s.

2017-06-15 Rocky Ridge Farm 2

2017-06-15 Rocky Ridge Farm 3

There is a nice RV park across the street from the museum, and it is about 1 mile into the town of Mansfield. Lynda found a nice place to “read”…

2017-06-15 LIW RV Park 2

Tomorrow our odyssey continues as we head to St. Louis to see another architectural icon…

June 18, 2017 0

2017-06-14 Bartlesville, Oklahoma and Frank Lloyd Wright

No Airstream repair issues today! Just a romp through a rare icon of Frank Lloyd Wright architecture.

We had a leisurely morning and an easy drive north from Oklahoma City to Bartlesville, OK, located north of Tulsa, and a few miles south of the Kansas border. Bartlesville is an oil town, subject to oil’s booms and busts. Mr. Harold Price wanted to expand his oil pipeline business, and to do so, he needed a new building. In 1952, he contacted FLW and told him of his intention to build a 4 story building for about $750,000. FLW visited Bartlesville, rejected the chosen site, rejected the concept of a 4 story building, and convinced Mr. Price that what he really wanted was a 19 story building that would cost $2,000,000. It was completed in 1957, just before FLW’s death. And, to make a long story short, here it is:

2017-06-14 Bartlesville Price Tower 3

2017-06-14 Bartlesville Price Tower 8

2017-06-14 Bartlesville Price Tower 6

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2017-06-14 Bartlesville Price Tower 2

The building is laid out on a hexagonal grid, with a structure of concrete and all else being non-bearing walls. The ground floor contained the local utility company offices, a salon, the lobby, and a fancy dress shop. The tower floors each had three offices and one (2 level) apartment. The top floor, where you can see the facade steps back, is the office of Mr. Price and his secretary. If you look at the tower, the areas with horizontal louvers are offices, and the areas with the vertical louvers are the apartments. There are eight 2 level apartments, about 850 square feet, each with 2 bedrooms. One apartment was kept by Mr. Price for corporate functions, two others were rented to long-term tenants, but the others were only rarely rented. The rent, in 1957, was $285 per month, so you can see that this was an extremely expensive place.

We had a tour of the building, seeing Mr. Price’s office and one of the apartments, all beautifully restored. There are 4 very small, odd shaped elevators (hexagonal grid, remember?). There is one stair. It is a delightful and beautiful building!

Mr. Price and his sons ran his firm from the tower for about 30 years; His firm was then bought by Phillips Petroleum, who used the building for about 10 years until they moved their headquarters out of Bartlesville. After that the building sat empty, until Phillips had it restored about 10 years ago. Here is the fun part:

The tower was converted to a hotel!

So we took the opportunity to leave the Villa in the parking lot next door, and we spent the night in the tower. Our room was one on the office spaces. (The 2 story apartments are also part of the hotel, but they are much more expensive…) The interiors of our room is not original FLW, of course, since it used to be one of the office spaces. But is was designed by the FLW devotees at Taliesen, the FLW school and studio…

2017-06-14 Bartlesville Price Tower Interiors 3

Here I am sitting uncomfortably in the FLW-style stair (which are always uncomfortable…

2017-06-14 Bartlesville Price Tower Interiors 7

2017-06-14 Bartlesville Price Tower Interiors 9

The rooms are quite bright – only my camera skills make them seem a little dark…

2017-06-14 Bartlesville Price Tower Airstream

And the Villa, parked below…

We had a delightful time walking the town, having lunch in a local pub, and having drinks and dinner in the restaurant atop the Price Tower, located in one of the 2 story apartments…

I also took a selfie with Frank to celebrate his 150th birthday…

2017-06-14 Bartlesville Price Tower #FLW150 Flat Frank

And an enjoyable time was had by all…

June 18, 2017 0

2017-06-13 A Visit to the Oklahoma City Airstream Dealer

Tuesday was a day spent in fear and anticipation, but all’s well that ends well…

As if our power situation were not enough to worry and annoy us, whilst traveling to the Airstream Dealer, we were hit with several gusts of wind. While control of the RV was never an issue, once things settled down we saw in our mirrors that our front driver-side rock guard was gone – blown away somewhere on the east-bound I-40. We stopped to survey the damage, and also saw that the vent cover on one of out fans was also gone. The missing rock guard “only” exposed vulnerable aluminum skin to the potential of damage from rocks being thrown up on the highway, the missing vent cover meant that we were exposing the interior to rain, which was sure to come. Now we had more issues to report to the Airstream dealer…

We arrived at Leisure RV, the Airstream dealer in Oklahoma City, at 12:30pm for our 2:00pm appointment, chronically early, as usual. This is a large, multi-brand RV dealer with very impressive facilities. We spent our waiting time browsing the store full of gadgets and supplies, and we wandered through the sales lot admiring the brand new RVs of many makes and models. Finally we met with our service adviser, we unhitched, and they pulled the Villa into one of their 16 service bays. Then we waited some more.

Our suspicions were confirmed that we had, indeed, blown the power converter. (This device takes the shore power and distributes it to the trailer as 110v and 12v power, also charging the batteries along the way…) Fortunately, they had a new converter in stock, and repairs were underway. They did not have rock guards in stock, but they were able to replace the missing vent cover. So, at about 5:30, with one swipe of a credit card, we were once again on our way. We had called a nearby campground (KOA Oklahoma City East), who had a very nice camping site ready for us when we arrived a little before 6:00pm.

As soon as we arrived, we plugged into power to see that everything was once again working – no damage to any other electronics on-board; the one exception: The refrigerator did not switch over to 110v power when available, but it runs just fine on propane.

We took a quick dip in the pool to gain some relief from the stress (and heat – did I mention the heat?) we were able to have a restful night. Tomorrow we set out for Bartlesville…!

What the rock guard looks like and what it looks like when it’s gone:

Finally relaxing after settling in at the KOA…

and

June 18, 2017 4

2017-06-12 Driving across New Mexico, Texas, and into Oklahoma

So this happened: Sunday night we inadvertently hooked up to bad power. 220V bad power, to be exact… I know, I know… I have an EMS to prevent this, but I was plugging into a 30 amp recommended to me by another Airstreamer. Oops! Don’t do that! So we made some calls and altered our itinerary and headed to an Airstream Dealer and Service Center in Oklahoma City who could see us at 2:00 on Tuesday. We didn’t know what the damage was, but the batteries were charging when we were towing, so at least the refrigerator stayed cold.

The drive east through New Mexico was quite green and scenic, although there is very little there… The road was very good, which was a treat. (Public Service Announcement: for those of you who think California has the worst roads in America: you have obviously never driven the 40 between Williams and Flagstaff, AZ…)

We stopped for gas just west of the Texas border, and again in Oklahoma, just east of the Texas border. So we crossed the Texas panhandle (180 miles) without spending any money. We did, however, stop at 2 rest stops, leaving appropriate things behind. There is a beautiful rest stop in Texas a few miles west of the Oklahoma border that is an homage’ to Route 66. We had a nice break, a few minutes of walking, and some time inside the air conditioned building looking at the exhibits.

We arrived in Elk City, OK, about 5:30, at a small RV park. We still didn’t know what our power situation was going to be, so we picked this place because it had a large, air conditioned Rec Room. Except that it didn’t… Good news: Shore power was good, both AC units worked, electric water heater worked, rear TV worked, and everything else worked, except for the converter/battery charger, and the circuit into which the front TV and satellite receiver are plugged. We’ll have to wait and see about those… We also hooked up to water and sewer, so we both were able to enjoy long hot showers.

After a few adult beverages and some microwaved left-overs for dinner, we retired early. Tomorrow we see what the damage to our electrical system really is…

Entering Texas… Note the green countryside… Nothing but miles and miles of nothing but miles and miles…

And, finally, Oklahoma…

2017-06-12 Map - Oklahoma

June 14, 2017 4

2017-06-11 The Odyssey Continues – Arizona and New Mexico

As we love to do, we pulled out of the RV park in Kingman, AZ, at 5:00 am sharp! It is such a pleasure to drive in the early morning hours when traffic is limited to like-minded drivers. It is always exciting to watch the dark fade to light, and it is especially exciting to see the sun come up right in your face where no sun visor can protect you! Luckily, on this day, there were low hills at just the right locations to block the worst of the sun.

Our first destination was Winslow, AZ, site of the famous song by The Eagles:

“Take it Easy”

Well, I’m a standing on a corner
in Winslow, Arizona
and such a fine sight to see
It’s a girl, my Lord, in a flatbed
Ford slowin’ down to take a look at me.

No one know where Jackson Brown was actually standing (some say he picked Winslow because the lyric just sounded right), but the city has designated the corner of West 2nd Street and North Kinsley Avenue in downtown Winslow as “Standin’ On The Corner Park”, which officially opened in 1999. There is a mural on the wall, and a flatbed Ford parked on the street…

So we played tourist for awhile and actually drove the Airstream around the corner… (You’ll need to go to my Facebook page, “Airstream Adventures in the Villa” to see the video…)

A short drive past Winslow is Holbrook, site of the famous Wigwam Motel…

Then it was on to Albuquerque. At a Rest Stop along the way we happened upon another Airstream Slide-out. They are headed to the WBCCI International Rally in Michigan, then they are joining the Ores, Shores, Waters, and Lights caravan…

2017-06-11 Lupton, AZ

In Albuquerque, we took advantage of a great WBCCI benefit – Courtesy Parking. Many Airstream owners have space for another Airstream to park for the night. It’s a great way to meet other Airstreamers and it is often more fun than an RV Park. So we stayed at a nice home just north of downtown Albuquerque. Unfortunately, the 30 amp power provided to us was wired as 220v, so we are having a few electrical issues (more on that later…)

Happily, we were picked up by Jennifer and George Foster and we were driven to dinner at El Pinto, a famous Albuquerque “New Mexican” restaurant.

2017-06-11 Albuquerque - Jenn and George W

George even helped add our New Mexico sticker to our map…

On Monday we head east out of Albuquerque and we will try to see what we can do about our power situation…

June 13, 2017 0

2017-06-10 The Odyssey Begins – Leaving Irvine

It finally happened. Saturday, June 10 came and went and we are officially on our 4 month odyssey across and around the United States.

The week before was spent doing final packing and loading (Phil), and giving and grading final exams (Lynda). VCHS graduation was Friday night, June 9, and now Lynda is officially and finally retired!

Other last minute items have been completed:

Some weeks ago I finally confirmed what I had long suspected, but could never verify until now: Yes, you do need a special Driver License in California to tow a travel trailer (or fifth wheel trailer) over 10,000 lbs. So I dutifully made my appointment at DMV, and took the written tests to get my “Learners Permit”, and then I made my appointment to take the behind-the-wheel driving test. I felt like I was 15 again…

On Tuesday, with the assistance of dear friend (and properly-licensed) Dale Cram, I pulled the Airstream to Fontana, CA, where we found the largest spread of concrete I have ever seen at a DMV office. I went through filling out more forms, the pre-check, the pre-trip inspection, the low speed maneuvers of backing and parking around red cones in the giant concrete lot, and then we hit the road. Right turn, left turn, around the block, onto the freeway, off the freeway, pull over to let the ambulance pass, and back to the DMV. I passed with flying colors, and I was issued a Class A (non-commercial) Driver License, which permits me to tow a travel trailer or fifth wheel trailer up to 15,000 lbs. (The Villa weighs just 10,500 lbs…)

The rest of the week, as Lynda finished her school work, I was shopping, doing laundry, making lists, sorting lists, and gathering the last minute items we needed to pack. (We had done most of the major packing on Memorial Day weekend…)

So after a few last minute preparations on Saturday morning, and after good-bye hugs to John (and Yan), Paul, and Vicki we hit the road. We had an uneventful drive to Kingman, Arizona, where we spent our first night in a simple RV park. Celebratory adult beverages were consumed, and an enjoyable time was had by all.

These are pictures of leaving Irvine. Our son John (with service dog Yan) is a chemistry professor at Vanguard University in Costa Mesa, CA, who lives with us. My brother Paul and his wife Vicki (see their website here…) are perpetual travelers who are staying with John for these 4 months.