I’ve always liked the stuff that Frank Lloyd Wright designed-I like his windows and chairs as well as his buildings. Wright was an odd duck, as most geniuses tend to be, and he seldom did exactly what his clients wanted. So I can’t help but have mixed feeling about the Fontana Boathouse in Buffalo, New York-a Frank Lloyd Wright design build in 2007. The Boathouse certainly looks like a Wright building, it has great lines and symmetry. On the other hand, it’s not exactly a building made by craftsmen or artisans. It’s a Frank Lloyd Wright building made with modern…
Category: travel
Eat Pray Love
The story of a writer who wakes up one day to discover that she is not as happy with her life as she would have hoped. Much like the woman Julia Roberts plays in Larry Crowne, our hero finds that her layabout husband with his half-assed plans and never fulfilled dreams is not going to be a part of her future. She throws her hands in the air and leaves him. She instantly hooks up with a whiny actor and moves in with him, seeing as she gave all her worldly possessions to her soon to be ex-husband. While living…
A Volcano, an Ice Cave, and Some Wolves
Tourist Stuff in New Mexico The Wife likes animal sanctuaries. I tend to have mixed feelings about them myself. For one thing none of them are made with Photographers in mind-a dozen shots of chain link fences with blurs behind them are not really worth bothering with. Of course, that’s how some of these places make a bit of money, by selling Photo Op Tours. I tend to like the places that are nothing but Photo Opts-like a Volcano with an Ice Cave. The Ice Cave is one of those private owned tourist attractions, but it has a lot of…
Sandia Peak Ski and Tramway
From the bottom of the hill the cables running up the side of the mountain don’t look all that impressive. The mountain itself doesn’t look all that impressive. But distance can have that effect. Once we are at the bottom of the hill where the boarding station sits, the mountain looks a good deal more impressive. The Sandia Peak Skyway cars are slightly larger versions of the Skycar rides commonly found at amusement parks and state fairs. The woman working in the car says that it holds fifty people, which seems a little on the optimistic side to me. With…
Two Frogs Grill
Over the past few years we have seen the billboard for Two Frogs Grill on our way to or from Oklahoma City. This is a picture of two smiling frogs tied together. This billboard gives no hint as to what, exactly, the Two Frog Grill is. I was expecting either a home style place like Cracker Barrel or maybe an S&M club with a lot of leather and chrome. Turns out that the Two Frog Grill is a blues club, or at least it seemed to be the day we were there. There is a small stage and the walls…
The Big Texan
Free 72 oz. Steak proclaims billboards for hundreds of miles on every road leading to Amarillo, Texas. The Big Texan is an old style tourist trap-a place with a gimmick and a ton of odds and ends for sale. In addition to a large dinning room reminiscence of Gunsmoke’s Long Branch, there is a pretty large gift shop filled with all manner of western themed items. Among the more interesting things was a series of mugs in the shape of rattlesnakes, one of them just like the one Craig Ferguson has on his desk on the Late, Late Show. The…
James Coney Island
I like hotdog places. They all have that kind of carnival feel to them. Bright colors and outgoing people working beind the counter. And then they sell hotdogs, so what’s not to like? The James Coney Island is a Houston hotdog place that started doing business 1923. For some reason a couple of Greeks opened a New York style hotdog joint in Texas and I’m glad that they did. I had a couple of Sonora Dogs and those were pretty sweet. This is a hot dog that is pretty popular in Mexico, hence the whole Sonora thing. It’s a hotdog…
Trying to Get In Shape
I used to be an avid cyclist. I would ride a couple of hundred miles a week. I read a lot of magazine. Kept up with the Tours in Europe. Watched the Cyclists in The Olympics riding their $40,000 dollar bicycles. I was a sucker for all the gimmicky wheels, cogs, gear shifters, tires, water bottles, and clothes that were featured in ads and hanging on the walls of my local bike shop. But then I had to earn a living, and being Lance Armstrong was not going to be the way to do it. I also had a brief…
NASA-Not What It Used To Be
When I was a kid being an Astronaut was a big deal. Rocket launches were a big deal. It was easy to believe that all those Science Fiction stories about living on the moon and exploring the universe were going to become reality. And not in some distant future, in the here and now. NASA in the here and how is kind of a joke. I love Space Center Houston, but at the same time, I hate that they rent themselves out for Corporate Events and Birthday Parties like they are a branch of Disney. I know that Space Center…
NaBloPoMo-Doh
Well, I ended up in a one horse town last night with no internet connection-so I missed a day on my NaBloPoMo-drat. Oh, well, there’s always next month. I was out in the middle of nowhere Oklahoma and it was bleeding cold and wet and I have had a bit of a cold myself and the work was not great. Is there a National Whiner Month out there? I’m sure I could do that with no problem. On the plus side I saw a Bald Eagle today, sitting up a tree and looking all regal. I don’t see a lot…