Humming across Oklahoma

I wonder if everyone in McAlester wakes up in the morning glad the place has not exploded? Bruce laughs at my anxieties. The US Defence’s Ammunition Facility is incredibly safe and high-security, he assures me.

But it turns out to be located beside a very odd little town. Our morning explorations of McAlester reveal a town covered in statues of Buffaloes, not because there are any buffaloes around the place but because its football team is called the Buffaloes and they are the star turn of the town.

There ain’t much else, I can tell you.

McAlester has a sort of decaying charm to it.

Organ music is coming from a very ugly and huge cream brick church as we drive past. A train whistle is blowing.

There are lots of empty buildings in the town centre, a little sewing centre and lawyers. Yes, law offices. I never saw so many law offices in such a confined space. Their only competition is loan offices. There is a bank, too. But lawyers rule the McAlester CBD, hands down.

We pause to post a parcel at the post office. It is a friendly, helpful interaction but it takes about an hour. Sending parcels to Australia is uncommon and it is always a long and complicated process.

On the road out of town the strip malls show that the place actually does have a healthy population and economy. It has and Oklahoma East College and, therein, a very lavish colour sculpture depicting a cattle drive.

We’re headed for Tulsa today.

Past a neat trailer park and a big cement factory, we rattle forth on one of those cement roads with rat-tatting expansion joints. Not my favourite things.

Soon we’re in open country on smoother roads. There are low trees. It is dryer here. Vulture circle overhead.

A nice town name. Indianola.

An odd name. Eufaula. It’s the name of a lake, a huge shallow flat brown lake which runs beside the road. It goes on and on. It is very peaceful. Quite lovely.

There’s a sign to Canadian Indianola. My mind spins. Canada is nowhere near. I check with Google. Ah, it is a local town.

I learn that we are in Creek country. It is an important Native American tribal identity. Arrowhead State Park is around us now and, over a low hill, the road presents a vista with a pale brown lake.

We pass over the South Canadian

River on a long causeway with brown waters on either side of us, little mud cliffs etched on the shore.

Who knew that Oklahoma had so much water?

We turn into the town of Eufaula. It looks interesting. There is a sign to

The Haunted House Restaurant. Hmm

There’s a tall water tower, panels of tourist information and a little main street of inviting-looking shops, and look, the Granny Vapors Shop and E-Cigs store. I want to go in. I want to go in.

Bruce says no. It’s lunch we need.

A lot of cars surround a Country Buffet building so we swing in to give it a go. How odd. For all those cars, there seem few people inside. Where are they? Just a few people moving around and another couple in in a kitchen behind a big servery. Something was very strange about this place. Then I saw the religious screeds posted on the walls and the crosses, the crosses. This is some sort of revivalist den. Bruce and I look at each other and sidle out the door.

Braum's is across the road. We have been keen to try this Oklahoma institution anyway. It is family-owned, famous for its fabulous ice creams and the fact that it is the only major ice cream producer that milks its own cows.

It also specialises in burgers. Very good burgers. Of course, Bruce and I order the salad special which turns out to be superb. And I can’ t resist the idea of a pumpkin spice latte. This is quintessentially American and must be sampled. Oh, my, oh, sweet swoon. Ambrosia. A million kilojoules go down the sighing hatch and I don’t care. No wonder there are so many fatties in America.

The Eufaula Lake goes on. Great shallow freshwater with sandy beaches and low scrub.

There’s an RV park along the road, all tricked out with faux palms to be a cement tropical oasis.

Onapa is identified by a very low water tower which suits these low watery lands.

Farmlands emerge, small farms, fields with hay bales, rusting farm machinery, low grassy crops, small barns…

A Baptist Church. Incongruously, a McDonalds in Spanish architectural style.

The town of Rentiesville.

The Creek Nation Casino.

Lovely pastures, flat land with happy cattle.

There’s Checotah, world headquarters of steer wrestling, if you’re interested.

Names we pass: Muskogee, Wagoner, Pryor, Pecan Creek…

The road has been good but now we strike a closed lane but it has not created a bottleneck out here. The traffic is relatively sparse. But where are these roadworks? Why is the lane closed? This happens a lot. Miles and miles are driven on restricted lanes. Is there some team out there somewhere who go out with bollards closing off highway lanes just for amusement?

Speed signs direct the maximum of 70mph and the minimum of 40mph.

We know the police here are hot on speeders. We wonder what they do with the slow ones. We envisage slow car chases…

We are getting silly. Cabin fever?

We turn on the radio and listen to Country and Western music. That makes us a bit silly, too.

We pass Wayside Creek, Anderson Creek and the Outlaw Motor Speedway.

It is still all mown neatness on the verges of the road. Oklahoma is a neat state. I like it.

Civilization shows itself in the form of huge signs. Creek Nation Casino. Braum's. Peach Barn. La Quinta. Rodeway Inn. Wendy’s. Visit Muskogee. Valero Petrol. Lifebreak Youth Ministries. Oklahoma’s Only Submarine.

Muskogee is a density of fairly grim-looking motels. The Spooner Motel is as downmarket as they go. Even the Deluxe Inn looks bleak. The Economy Inn is downright terrifying.

A strident service station sign says Kum & Go. I say. Is that a bit vulgar? Is Kum a brand of petrol?

A cluster of commerce - Little Caesar’s, Runt’s BBQ, an Amish Fudge factory... a hospice? Set alone in a fenced paddock and painted lurid eye-stopping unsecret pink is Little Secret Adult Store.

It looks bleak and lonely out there. One car.

There’s a pseudo castle with grey battlements. How extremely odd.

There’s a medical centre advertising its gynaecologists.

A sign: Got E. coli? State Water Act. Hmm

Names - Tehlequah, Bacone, Shawnee, Mazie, Chouteau, Coweta, Broken Arrow…

A traffic light. Red. We stop.

It’s the Muskogee Turnpike. West to Tulsa.

The landscape is now soft scrub. It is almost park-like. Pastures, cattle, trees. These trees are divine. And the blends of trees very aesthetic. I have no idea what they are.

There’s an occasional neat farm.

Low and sparse woodlands, more grazing black cattle.

There’s a Pet Resort offering dogs for adoption.

Now, huge radio transmission antennae towers.

Developments and techno-style buildings appear on the skyline. Huge housing developments.

Phone towers. A mysterious industrial complex. Oh, it’s a plastics factory.

We are in Wagoner County says a sign.

Another sign says: So You Want The Best Airport Parking Security? Fine. Hmmm

These must be the outer burbs of Tulsa. St John Broken Arrow Hospital. Car and truck yards. There’s the city - sparse semi-highrises on the horizon.

And suddenly more traffic.

We have arrived.

The road to ammo-land

The day dawns humid, windy, cloudy. We’re sadly reflecting upon our experience with the Crowne Plaza Hotel’s rather inexplicable indifference to our double episodes of bathroom flooding as we drive off along Dallas’s Northern Tollway.

The Tollway has had us a bit tricked.

At first I was jangling change eagerly to be ready to pay the tolls. But it turns out it does not take money. It posts toll costs such as $1.48 but it has no tollbooths in which to pay them. It seems to photograph cars and then what? We have now been up and down this Tollway many times and undoubtedly been photographed. So will the hire car company get a toll bill we have to pay? How do they enforce this? It is the mystery toll of Dallas.

We’re photographed one last time as we whoosh off through all the overpasses, out of town along courses of powerlines, past ploughed fields, car businesses, road construction and a vast ghetto of huge and handsome corporate office buildings - Merrill Lynch, Ciber, BMW, Alliance Data, Legacy Texas, fancy banks…

Oh shit. We've missed a turn. Did you see that exit, says an indignant Bruce. Round and about we have to go, Even Siri Google is confused. Finally, we are on the Sam Rayburn Tollway, a big, clean six-laner.

Out through the burbs and fields of cows we hum, heading north through Texas.

Today we hit the 11,000 mile mark on this trip, says Bruce as another toll camera records our visit. Landscape whizzes past as it has done for these almost five months.

Fields, a massive cinema complex, power lines stretching away into the distance.

Oh, grief, we are driving in the sky. So high! Scary. This is one hell of an overpass. I hate heights.

The speed limit is 70mph. Some seem to think it is not enough and whisk past us. They’re scary, too. Here comes a place called McKinley - and another huge cinema complex. They really like movies around here.

More car yards. Another ubiquitous strip mall featuring all the usual chain stores.

More vast car yards.

Sign: Need an Attorney? Call Malcolm Miranda.

Sign: Criminal Attorney - Bill Knox

Good to see the hungry lawyers.

The road opens up to scrubland and crops. A lake. Fields. Vultures circling aloft.

Oh no. Big slowdown. A bottleneck. Four lanes have narrowed to one.

This is big road construction. They are making massive new roads. Sleek and lovely. Aha. That looks like house developments over there. They must be servicing new satellite communities with new roads. Oh, how this great, big, busy country just grows and grows.

Oh, and now another one. Unbelievable. Another huge development, a sea of tan-coloured rooftops stretching out into the landscape. And there is a water tower under construction for them. And now extensive tracts of ploughed land with big Land For Sale signs. The next phase of development, I guess.

My, it is a busy future-driven landscape out here.

A town hoves into view. Van Alstyne. And here’s the Grayson County Line with a service station and a folksy old motel. We whoosh through. The speed limit is 75mph.

A huge hoarding shows a picture of a baby and the words The Future is in Your Hands. True.

And here the farmland is still being farmed. Great expanses of fields all freshly-ploughed and milky chocolate-coloured.

Above them, a beautiful big puffy cloud blue sky. The day has cleared right up.

A row of hoardings: Cowboy Chicken, Lone Star Inn, Cowboy Boots.

A place called Sherman features Angels of Care Therapy Paediatrics - and nothing much else until, get this - Stinky’s Scrap metal. What a juxtaposition.

Here come some more buildings and hoardings. Smile - Dr Ashe; Peanut Festival; Texas Healthcare $1 Billion Lottery; Tyson High Security Society.

Now a huge aluminium factory. Aloominem, I correct myself.

And a sign welcomes us to Sherman where, another sign adds, Dr Ashley Blunt Delivered Our Baby.

Isn’t that nice.

A chain of signs: Home Health, Collision Repair, Home Best Health Care.

Oh, a newspaper building. The Herald Democrat Newspaper.

Close by, Lucy Stop Tobacco and Discount sits pleasingly close to a Public Health building and a blocky edifice called Texoma Medical Centre which claims to be nationally recognised for exceptional heart care.

Sign: Are you curious about weight loss surgery?

Hmm.

I see Eisenhower State Park over there.

The road has turned vile. High speed, lousy surface. I have no idea what I am jotting on my notepad.

Jolting is the operative word.

Siri pipes up. Welcome to Oklahoma.

Immediately the road improves. Thankyou Oklahoma.

Oh, a warning about speeding. They might be strict here, I hint to Bruce. Not that he has not been exemplary throughout the road trip.

This is strange. There is a very different feel now. Just over the border, and there is a neat, old-fashioned feel to the world.

A lot of mowing has taken place. Big medians are sleekly groomed. Verge grasses are trim.

Farms and fields look super tidy.

Signs advertise an Amish Store and fudge factory with 75 cheeses and peanut brittle.

There’s a farm stand, a sign promoting All You Can Eat Catfish. A sign: AnewYou, Advanced Medical Systems. Sign: Slim Generator Weight Loss.

Beautiful sign declares we are in the Choctaw Nation.

The county is Durant. And here is a colourful cluster of commerce which may appease our hunger pains.

Oh, its the Amish Fudge and Cheese Shop with its 75 cheeses.

When we get out of the car, we are slapped by fierce, hot wind. The sky has cleared but it is a nasty sort of day.

The shop is lovely, cheerfully adorned with pumpkins and flowers. The Amish send their cheeses in from Ohio, it turns out. But the peanut brittle is made here. We taste and buy. And use the nice, clean Amish unisex rest rooms.

A Sonic burger joint is next door. That will do. We have not tried Sonic

and I have liked the old-fashioned line-up of drive-in bays. We drive in and order electronically. I am disappointed the girls are not on roller skates and there are no car trays as in the old days. We take our food and eat at one of their outdoor tables. Their burgers turn out to be rather good.

Back on the road.

A huge swanky Choctaw casino presents itself - and our road has become smart black bitumen. We hum along smoothly. My notes become legible.

A little down called Durant. There’s not much to it but it declares itself the City of Magnolias. No, there is another sign. It is no less than the Magnolia Capital of Oklahoma. Wow.

We look for magnolia trees. See a few.

Along the highways of neat Oklahoma we now see a walk-in, no-appointment medical clinic and hospital. Mini storage. Family dentistry. The SCOK State University. The State Fish Hatchery.

Soft undulations on the landscape and pastoral views out the widow. Dry grass. Pastel sky. Mown fields and windbreaks of established trees.

The wind outside is buffeting the car.

Stands of old trees, more mown fields, a signpost to stockyards, open grazing land.

It is a handsome, cared-for landscape. Soothing.

Cattle graze, white cattle, black and white cattle. In some fields, they lie sated under trees. It is all gentle and bucolic.

A community called Caddo. Mown expanses of grass surround the highway. The speed limit is 70mph.

Open space with cattle.

Oh, a sign offering Used Shipping Containers for Sale.

Traffic has thinned out here. It is peaceful, rural, wide open spaces land.

But it has mini storage of course.

And, hmm, police stopping a car for speeding. That warning sign was serious.

Here’s a glorious signpost juxtaposition. A Death and Dying Lawyer straight in front of Brown’s Funeral Service.

The road is lovely. Smooth and open. Landscape neatly cultivated. Lovely.

We cross Clear Boggy Creek and wonder if there is a Muddy Boggy Creek or a Murky Boggy Creek.

Now we cross Fronterhouse Creek, then Little Tushka.

Interesting names around here.

A sign advertises Crappie Minnows. Poor little things.

Now a farm stand and, huh? Boggy Botto Antiques? What’s with the Boggies round here?

We are passing Atoke which must be big because I can see a Walmart among the churches.

And a another policeman picking up another speeder.

We’re on cruise control, never fear, says Bruce.

More police. This time they’re escorting an oversized load. Huge. We are all stuck behind it. Trucks are all pulling into the overtaking lane to get a go at passing. It is not happening. We daisy chain, big and small. An almighty great trailer truck drives up impatiently on the inside lane beside us. Big white bugger. Heavens above, of all things, it is an Amish truck. Delivering 75,000 kinds of cheese, perhaps?

Our massive convoy rumbles on, past a Choctaw casino and, oh, look, finally the Muddy Boggy Creek, When, many miles on, we pass the wide load, it is a big transportable home.

We’re now in a landscape of low hills and dense scrub.

And, don’t laugh, North Boggy Creek.

Patient vultures are wheeling aloft as we pass a little community called Daisy and another Choctaw casino, rather nicely designed, this one.

A bit further on, a great big jail, a very fiercely-secure looking place with layers of savage wire and windows which are nothing more than narrow slits.

Onwards past mixed forest, lovely curly-looking foliage. Outcrops of rocks. Rounded hills.

Then ridges and tree-covered hills.

Quite suddenly, the land looks dryer. The undergrowth is stunted and scrub-like.

Oh, and bloody road works.

And, guess what! Another police car nabbing a speeder.

Of course, road-works speed restrictions are a classic trap. Vigilance, Bruce. Nagger, he responds.

We are entering Choctaw Nation land.

Farms with horses and, wow, a working oil well in that back yard.

A little township called Savanna.

I am just commenting on the lack of Trump signs when we spot a Trump sign.

And signs to the US Army’s Ammunition Plant.

Ye goddesses. This is where they make their ammo.

All the US Army’s shells, bombs and hand grenades are made here. The plant covers 50,000 acres, says Bruce.

There’s a motel with a God Bless America sign. Yes, indeed. Bombs and all.

Sign: Choctaw Family Services - a non-abusive family is a happy family.

Sign: Larry Buggs for State Senate and a pic of a grey-bearded bloke in a 10 gallon hat.

Sign: Get Cobel Cox for death and injuries.

Sign: Pick Your Dr Pepper.

All these signs show that we are entering a significant Chocktaw casino. A massive Life Church.

Happy Days Motel. A cinema complex including a defunct drive-in.

Sign: Dr Chat E Crawley - joint replacement specialist.

Siri pipes up. Your destination is on the left. The Holiday Inn Express on Peaceful Road, McAlester.

It had better be peaceful, say I, as we head to a huge and well-appointed room in the hotel. That ammo factory is a bit close for comfort. What are we doing here?

Just a co-incidence, says Bruce. McAlester is a nice town and it is well placed for a stop. The population is about 17,000, big enough for a Walmart. 4000 is big enough for a supermarket. 9,000 for a Walmart. The ammo facility is a big boost for this town - the main employer.

Hmm.

We unpack and go for an exploratory stroll. The wind has not abated. It is a bit on the nasty side. We decide we will only walk to the nearby Chili’s Restaurant for dinner.

And back to our lovely hotel room. We have not stayed in a Holiday Inn Express on the trip and we are so impressed with its space and comfort and we wonder why.

Bruce sinks into the sort of contented sleep of someone who has worked in the spheres of American defence and finds everything perfectly normal.

Not so easy for me. I pitter pat on my laptop and watch endless annoying election dissections on TV for hours on end.

I mean, surely I am not expected to sleep with the entire explosives supply of the American Defence Force as my neighbour?

Sa does Dallas

We have a few days here at the Crowne Plaza where we've been assigned a gorgeous airy king suite. First day is a housekeeping day, reassembling luggage, posting things back to Australia, doing laundry, writing…chores needed on a six-month road trip.

Day 2 we have booked a tour of Dallas. This time, by serendipity, we have secured an exclusive, private tour with Dallas’s preeminent guide, Rebecca of Discover Dallas Tours. We are to meet her on the steps of the Old Red, the stately courthouse now a museum and visitor centre opposite Dealey Plaza. As we stand there in the bright, warm morning light, we recognise that notorious building on the corner - the Texas Schoolbook Depository. And there, in an upstairs window, is a clear marker showing that it was from there, right there, that assassin Lee Harvey Oswald shot and killed President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963.

It seems very immediate. I am not ready for this awful landmark to be right there in front of me. It casts a shadow over the day.

When Rebecca pulls up in her Lexus 4WD, the day takes a dazzling turn. Rebecca is a strong, solid, vivacious, informed and engaging personality and for the next five hours we are her willing captives, her students and her new friends.

She walks us over to the place where it all happened and explains the Xs on the road, where the first bullet hit and the second. She shows us the grassy knoll and places where people stood and watched and filmed and heard on that dreadful day, and where the convoy rushed off to the hospital where Kennedy was pronounced dead

by gunshot and where his killer later also would be pronounced dead by gunshot.

A stray Chinese tourist interrupts Rebecca in her descriptions asking a question about the X on the road. Rebecca gives him a curt answer and when he tries to ask more, she will only say she is on a private tour. We are hers and she is ours. Exclusively. Phew.

A few minutes later she fends off assassination conspiracy theorists who approach us as they are setting up their display. You are not legal, she snaps at them, steering us well away. They undermine the right and honest portrayals of history and they abuse copyrights, she explains. She points to an African American guy who is handing out brochures by Dealey Plaza and pats him on the arm as we pass by. He, on the other hand, is not exactly legal in the tour business but he is a good guy, she says. Ah, the inner politics of the tour world.

She takes us to the Kennedy cenotaph behind Big Red. It was commissioned of architect Philip Johnson, he of the amazing Glass House in Connecticut, by Jackie Kennedy. Rebecca says Jackie loved it. We hate it. Great, impersonal square of white walls and inside, a black marble slab surrounded by a shallow dry gutter.

Oh, no, those Chinese tourists are standing on top of the cenotaph and posing for photos. Rebecca is very upset. It is a shrine. It is consecrated ground. I wave to the tourists and gesture that they should step down. They get the message. With Rebecca I approach them and she tries to explain. They don’t speak English.

Privately, I am thinking that it is a pretty tough call to expect foreign visitors to get the nuances of this ugly and inept shrine. What was Jackie thinking?

We pile into Rebecca’s Lexus and for the next few hours we are driven all over and around Dallas with Rebecca giving us torrents of

insights.

The arts district is just stunning.

The new theatre complex, a silver box which holds the treasures of the stage. Inspired. The opera house. The symphony orchestra’s new digs. All brand new, squillion-dollar structures with adjacent sculpture terrace. Philanthropy rules. Dallas is rich, says Rebecca. It is so rich. It is growing, growing. The population is soaring and the city is expanding. It is fourth largest city in the USA when combined in the metro area with Fort Worth, she enthuses. She loves her city to bits and her passion is infectious.

She also puts the business of showing visitors

the city above the needs of the local people - that is, in terms of traffic. I can’t believe it when she slows the car to a crawl on busy overpasses and seems impervious to tooting drivers as she points out views and vistas and landmarks.

Picking up on my love for the theatre, she delivers us to a theatre designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. It is still in use and it still looks sleek and cutting edge. Oh, yes, just another little Dallas treasure. The theatre company is having a garage sale of its props department. Thrones and statues and all sorts of old bits of set

are up for grabs.

We see millionaire mansions. Oh, my. Opulence, much? Over the top? Dallas rich are absurdly rich. Their wealth does not necessarily buy good taste. Then again, some are graceful replicas of English and European mansions. Many of them are beautifully adorned with pumpkins and lavish decorations for Autumn. Of course, they have staff

to do it all, says Rebecca. Professional arrangers come in with special potplants as well as pumpkins. One immense Tudoresque mansion has me intrigued. Who owns this, I ask. Rebecca does not know, but only for a couple of minutes. She pulls out her phone, pulls up the house address and then, heaven help me, the name and tax returns of the inhabitant. A resourceful, clever

woman is our Rebecca. We pat ourselves on the back for finding her.

She shows us also where the poor used to live and how the new bridge brings gentrification to this old downmarket part of this great city. The new bridge is gorgeous. And people's parks have been created beneath it - just as they have been created in the city and complemented with the food truck fad.

Beautification, urban sculpture, a wealth of commissions for artists is another feature of the modern Dallas. Rebecca loves so many of the public art works and so do I. Wildly varied from zany sculpted people climbing perilously up the side of buildings to austere kinetic works. And, the

jewel in the city's public arts crown, the cowboy cattle roundup - a mob of Texas long-horns galloping over and down a hill, across a watercourse and up to the street. Life-sized bronzes, complete with cowboys on horses. Yep. Too big to photograph, this one takes the breath clean away.

Rebecca rounds up our adventures at the Dallas Farmers’ Market where we have a late lunch at the new food hall. Vietnamese cold noodles for me.

We leave our tour guide with hugs and a strong feeling of warmth for her beloved city.

She drops us at the Texas School Book Depository where we wish to make the Sixth Floor Museum tour. So do a million other people. We join a snake queue to buy tickets. It is not quick. There is another snaked queue of people who have bought tickets. And, eventually, when we get our tickets, we find another massive waiting queue winding right around the outside of the building where it is rather hot. The ticketing girls assure everyone that they will be admitted within half an hour and so we are. Photographs are absolutely prohibited, they warn. Everyone is equipped with headsets which give an extensive narration on the details of the history from the spirit of the Swinging 60s through the 1960s presidential election campaigns through to the fateful day. The commentary is unhurried and it relates to walls of photos and written accounts. People are expected to read as they listen. I wonder at the wisdom of this. There are too many people in the space and they are clogged all over the place. Bruce and I are well informed on most of this so we find out how to jump our headsets and leapfrog some of the jams. And there we find ourselves, standing beside that window… looking down on the road where the motorcade drove. And, even though the trees outside have grown, it is clear that Kennedy was an easy mark. It is closer than ever it looked in any of the films and documentaries we have seen over the years.

It is eerie and profoundly sad.

And we see tourists down there playing chicken in the traffic to stand for photos on the X which marks the spot in the middle of the road where the first shot hit Kennedy.

What can one say?

Exhausted by this fantastic day, we have room service again in our divine room and plan our next day.

Back into Dallas we drive for a culture fest. Firstly we join families and grackles in the new people’s park in the centre of the Dallas highways in the museum district. It’s a charming park set up with tables and chairs so that people can sit and eat from the long rank of food trucks. Oh yes, food trucks are the big culture here, too.

We find a pleasant little table in the shade of a tree. I have a quesadilla of Maine lobster. Bruce has pork, beef and chicken tacos from a Mexican truck. It’s OK food. It is food truck food. I am not a devotee of this cult.

The fabulous art museum wherein Rebecca had recommended seeing the Wendy and Emery Reves collection has free entry. This is uncommon in the US. One only pays for special shows.

It is a magnificent, vast, airy empire of a museum and the Reves collection is its diamond - the best part of a Riviera chateau transplanted into specially-designed replica rooms.

Living room, library, bedroom...as if their occupants had just stepped out for a moment.

Not only a wonderful collection of paintings and decorative art but a window into another time and a luscious expatriate lifestyle. Winston Churchill was one of the Reve’s closest friends and he stayed often with them. The museum has devoted a special room to his typewritten letters to them, his cigars, his paints and his paintings. It is an intimate insight. I’m in seventh heaven.

Bruce’s heaven is down the road at the Perot Science Museum - another impressive new work of prestigious architecture, this one with a light carbon footprint and much external exquisite use of great stone slabs and soft native grasses. We explore the world of outer space and the world of microbes. We see fantastic fossils and fascinating extrapolations on wildlife. We see magnificent minerals from the Smithsonian - gob-smacking great jewels. The Hope Diamond was not there. The Perot is called Perot because Ross Perot initiated the museum and footed the bill for most of it. Of course, Dallas being Dallas, other philanthropists chipped in and the vast place is set to expand, all with private money.

We’ve walked a good 10,000 steps and climbed a zillion stairs by the time we get back to the Crowne - to find the bathroom floor is flooded again. The loo is an odd-looking clear black water puddle.

Expletive!

This happened on the day we arrived. We'd no sooner unpacked than I noticed the bathroom was filling up with odd, flakey water. I called the desk and they rushed a maintenance man up. It took him a while, and not before the whole bathroom had been flooded, but he sorted it out housekeeping buffed up the room - and we relaxed for our Dallas adventure.

This is worse.

Two maintenance men attend this time, bringing a huge, loud pipe vacuuming machine. Do we want to change rooms? Oh, dammit. We are entrenched here. If they can’t get it sorted, yes, we will have to move. Let’s see how they go. We trot down the hallways to use the public rest rooms again. The men work furiously. Nice men. The noisy machine sends out a chemical smell. They think the earlier workman worked on the wrong pipe. There is much testing of pipes downstairs, banging and listening, two-way radios, sucking, pumping, gurgling… It is not looking good. I ask the housekeepers in the hall if the room next door is vacant, perhaps we could just open the connecting door and use its bathroom. It is occupied. Sigh. Moving rooms will be a monster operation.

Then the men say it is fixed. They send in the housekeeping girl to buff the bathroom up again. The room is a bit stinky. I spray madly. We have lost several hours. For the second time. Bruce is sure the hotel will make it up to us one way or another. Maybe comp us a night or a meal. It’s the Crowne.

Sad to say, next morning when I check us out, there is not so much as an apology for the inconvenience. I am extremely surprised. I comment to the receptionist that I thought they may have made a gesture. Sorry about that, she says without a hint of regret. And I am dismissed. Oh, Crowne.

Back in the car...

It’s like a way of life now. We have the packing down to a slick art. We each have our duties. We are never late for checkout. The days are planned. It is all pretty smooth, efficient and agreeable. Several friends raised their eyebrows at the idea of the two of us spending six months shut in a car and one friend made ominous predictions that it could not be done.

Of course we have differences. We could not be more different. But this is an exercise in common purpose and shared experience and it seems to undercut differences to what I’d describe as occasional quibbles.

So today dawns mild and overcast.

We have not had too many of these but chances are the days are going to get a lot cooler.

Our travels have taken us across the top of the country in the height of summer, down the east coast and now, as the weather moves into autumn, across the south where the the idea is that the temperatures will be mild.

The Radisson porter in Austin offers to help Bruce load the car but he has it streamlined now. Not even I am allowed to put a finger in this pie.

My job is the double-checking hotel rooms to assure we leave nothing, leaving tips and sorting out accounts with reception.

And off we go through a quiet morning city.

Onto another great big highway, through another vast urban sprawl, under more towering overpasses. Interestingly, here they have added a veneer of designs upon the great cement struts, an attempt at aesthetic

in the overpass underworld. I like it.

Past restaurant chains - Fudruckers, the Savvy Rooster, Cracker Barrel, In-n-Out.

Mini storrrrrage, sings Bruce as we pass yet more more mini storage facilities. I long have fantasised about doing a coffee table book on American mini storage. The great consumer society. The moveable population.

The traffic thins out as we pass the great strands of car yards which border cities and towns across the land.

Oh, look, a clearance sale of portable homes. I love a bargain. But where would I put it?

Now Rock Springs Behavioural Health Hospital. Interesting. For drug addicts and alcoholics? Obesity?

A scrub-your truck yard. Mini Storrrrage!

Northwards we purr, now our imaginations set alight as we overtake a Crime Scene Unit van. What awful horror is its destination? Don’t listen to Bruce. Decapitations and blood spatter. Gruesome boy.

Chains of trucks are ahead, stuck behind an oversized load. We take our place in the jockeying queue. It’s a bit hairy. Much patience required. Big trucks have to pass bigger trucks. Little cars like ours are tucked in between. The obstacle load turns out to be huge concrete beams, the sort they use for bridges. And there’s the monitor vehicle up front with its flashing lights - and a woman driver.

The road stretches out and out and out ahead.

Lots of trucks.

Bruce’s favourite thing. Road works.

Trucks.

It takes a lot of concentration in heavy truck traffic.

Roadside there are more flags and car yards, power poles, overpasses, mini-storage.

More bloody roadworks.

What a mess of fixing is happening on these interstates, grumbles Bruce.

A town called Temple passes by and near it, another of those mega petrol stations.

The roadworks go on for miles.

It is like threading a needle, driving between the bollards and cement barriers. Not fun.

A spectacular flock of starlings wheels across the field over there.

And here comes another big strip of commerce, signs red and yellow, signs for everything, food, accommodation, fuel - and Waco.

We swing into Waco, that town of which one seems to have heard nothing good. It was the scene of the mad Branch Davidian horror.

Heavens, the Live Oak Classical School looks rather lovely. And what’s that huge tower looming over the town?

Waco seems quite small. Just a tight little main street and not the prettiest burbs. I don’t exactly take to it. In fact, I am ready to leave the moment we drive in.

Oh, a huge Dr Pepper premises. What the..?

Dr Pepper’s world HQ is in Waco. Waco is the home of Dr Pepper. Well, it has to be the home of something.

Off we go, past signs to Lake Waco, past lines of signs, a strip mall, a Pawn & Friends store, mini-storage, a suburb of bland little brown houses, open land, and ploughed fields.

Now driving is easier. Out in flat farmlands, 85 miles from Dallas.

Good grief. Do you see that? What is a carpet store doing out there all alone in the middle of the fields?

A sign announces Bush’s Chickens. We smile.

And another sign bids us Welcome to West Texas.

Desultory farmland surrounds us. But of course there’s some mini storage, too.

Now the farmland is ploughed, signs of green sprouting from some of the fields. Winter wheat, maybe?

Time for food. Tall road signs announce Carl’s Corner. We pull off. It is a petrol station and restaurant pretty much in the middle of farmland nowhere. There are old fellows in denim overalls, complete in their classic hats, filling their trucks. It’s the real Texas thing. We fill up, too. The restaurant is

called The Iron Skillet.

Surprisingly, one finds it by walking through a colourful convenience store and into sweetie and souvenir room where a couple of old gals behind a counter point and tell us through there.

Through there is a large dining room with a huge three-sided buffet counter.

More old chaps in denims look up from their food as we strangers come in.

A very gnarled and skinny old girl

in classic black and white waitress dress welcomes us and takes our drink orders. Coffee for Bruce. Iced tea for me. She has her hair in jeune-fille pigtails. Her voice has the deep rough crackle of a seriously damaged smoker. But she couldn’t be kinder.

As for the buffet. I never saw its brilliant like of fried chicken, fried liver, stews, macaroni cheese, potatoes, and greens. And the huge salad bar which encompasses chopped eggs and olives, cheeses and dried cranberries, beet salad, greek salad, potato salads, and every sort of lettuce and lines of assorted dressings.

And then the huge tureens of soup. Soup and salad special, $6.95? You're kidding. Big iron skillets are supplied on which to pile food. And deep terra cotta bowls for the soups. I have a beef and cabbage soup which is unspeakably delicious. Superb. The old girl comes up and asks if everything is ok. I swoon at the soup. Oh yes, we do good soup, she crackles.

As we leave, paying our tiny tab to the women in the sweetie room, I buy a few of the handmade chocolates at their sweetie counter. They turn out to be chocolates competitive with the best in the world.

Who would ever have imagined such a spectacular sanctuary of welcome and good food out there among the fields of Texas?

Ah, America.

Back on the road among the farmlands. Is that a loo block on the roadside? Odd spot.

Salvage yard in the fields. Hmm.

Cop Buffalo Creek Baptist Church. It is a huge farm barn.

Waxahachi turnoff. Scarborough Fair. Good grief, an English-style village.

A huge, busy antiques junk yard.

We’re on The Purple Heart Trail, says a signpost.

Passing a bland roadside suburb and bumping along into more lousy roads and roadworks.

Corsicana. A huge medical centre stands at a major highway intersection. And a refinery.

Texas.

This is the state where they can openly carry guns.

Funny, I haven’t spotted any gun stores.

Suddenly we are on a neat multilane highway running through very neat shopping strips. This looks very healthy and prosperous. What a transformation.

The usual out-of-town lineup of accommodation appears at the roadside and here come more overpasses, layers of them.

School buses trundling along and, there it is!

Towering buildings ahead of us. Within no time at all, we have scooted right into their midst. Hello, Dallas! What are a neat and handsome city you are.

G'day weird Sis.

Among the claims to fame of Austin, Texas, is that it is the sister city of Adelaide, South Australia.

The music city and the festival city are chosen siblings going back to our Jubilee 150 celebrations. This relationship always piqued my curiosity about Austin.

We roll into town and effortlessly to the door of our Radisson Plaza hotel where, to my delight, we are assigned a gorgeous mini suite with a view across the famous bat

bridge and down the river. It is a good impression of Austin straight away and, looking at the river and its river trail, it does remind me a just a bit of Adelaide and the Torrens. Just a bit.

The first thing I learn and am to hear over and over again is that Austin is proudly weird. It is weird city. It wants to be weird. To stay weird. Keep Austin weird is reiterated as a city motto. I love the idea.

The Austin magazine in our hotel room touts the Museum of the Weird as a symbol of this, a must-see. Look, Bruce. Let’s. Bruce is not keen.

But, since we want an exploratory walk around the city and since 6th Street, upon which it is located, is also touted as a must-see, live-wire part of the city, he agrees and we set off. It is hot. The air is heavy. It is not a brisk-walking day. We are hungry for lunch.

The streets of Austin are quiet. Few pedestrians. A few beggars. But the drivers are impatient. We note that people are very obedient to the walk signs at traffic lights which, by the way, are big white hands.

The food front is a worry.

There are no cafes to be seen along the way. It seems to be just business buildings. Sixth Street presents us with seedy bars most of which are closed. We quickly realise that Sixth Street is a night spot and we are seeing it in the hungover grime of the day. The nightclub and bar scene dies an ugly death in the daylight. Only the homeless are hanging out here, just walking about. They seem quite busy in an odd, purposeless way.

Finally we spot the open door to a dark and cavernous Mexican restaurant and step in. A very large

girl welcomes us and asks if we would prefer downstairs or on the balcony. Oh, balcony please. We mount steep industrial stairs to a broad balcony made leafy and lovely by the treetops around it. Just two other tables of people.We could look down on the life of Sixth Street. Not much happening. A few young

hipster men with manbags going places. Those lovely sheeny black grackle birds hop in and out of the balcony. They have little meetings under the chairs.

The waitress recommends stuffed avocados as she brings our iced tea and complimentary corn chips with two absolutely fabulous, spicy salsas. The avocados are strange - raw but in a cooked breaded shell. There is a spoonful of chicken mash in the centre. I’m not writing home about them.

We’re now just a few doors from the

Museum of the Weird. The really weird thing about it is that it is open when everything else is shut.

Bruce does not want to go in. It’s a Ripley’s rip-off thing, he grumbles. Wrong. It is Austin weird.

Finally I charm him through the door wherein a good spirited, amply-formed, pierced woman in a shop selling souvenirs of weird and hokey things gives us a hearty welcome and explanation of the weird things in the weird museum. I have to charm Bruce quite a bit more but finally, I get him through the door to

the museum itself. Well, it was decidedly weird: Big Foot footprints, stuffed two-headed animals, mummies, a mermaid, shrunken heads.

We are instructed to watch a video about the Minnesota Ice Man which would prepare us for the experience of meeting the Minnesota Ice man.

The story goes that this hairy hominid was bought off eBay by Steve Busti who remembered seeing it in the back of a truck when he was a lad. It had been on the road for years as a carnival freak show attraction and it remained a mystery as to just what or who this frozen creature may be. Now it sits in a special padlocked room at the Museum of the Weird which was built around this major attraction.

One has to wait for the guide to come and escort one to this spooky marvel and photography is strictly prohibited. So there, in the darkened cool room sits a giant coffin wherein this hairy early man lies inside a huge block of ice. He certainly looks like a prehistoric hominid, scraggle-toothed with a huge hand laid across his hirsute body. But he is also a bit hard to see clearly and it would be impossible to say if he was made of flesh or something else. Skeptical Bruce is not fascinated.

The museum is in a tiny tall building and the guide leads one up more stairs saying that Johnny Depp stayed in the apartment upstairs and that the owner still lives onsite. There is another room up there containing a giant King Kong. One is invited to pose with him. And the the guide completes the weird experience by giving a performance. He does some magic tricks. He is a sweet man. I struggle to find cash to tip him.

To have a good look at Austin, we sign up for an Austin Detours tour of the city. Our guide Steve’s night job is as a stand-up comedian. Like most comedians, he is not a funny fellow. He is very earnest and bursting with his patter of day job city information. He takes us inside the Capitol Building. I didn’t know I wanted to go into it until I got there. But, wow. It is simply glorious in its tremendous scale and superb workmanship. Superb painted atrium, formal

portraits of governors all around the great circular walls. Great high doors to all the rooms of the politicians who work in the place. It has a massive underground expansion, gob-smackingly massive! It is a work of incredible engineering skill which is ironic considering that the architect who won the original contract to build the edifice was untrained in both architecture and construction. How did he get the job, one wonders. It makes a good story. His heart was in his mouth throughout the building because he was so nervous of his lack of experience. Because he knew nothing and was afraid it may fall down, he made it absurdly thick.

Outside the gorgeous Capitol Steve points out the Ten Commandments statue. Controversial. It

was not allowed in various official places because of the separation of church and state, but some rich Christian polly showed them who’s boss by buying it and putting it ostentatiously outside the capitol.

We look at some of the quirky residential areas of keep-Austin-weird as well as the university and the music area of this music city.

We also visited a graffiti park wherein the graffiti artists have adorned a vast, tiered derelict site turning it into a vivid gallery of whimsy, madness, cute factor, glamour and political ire.

I'm amused at the Donald Trump iconography.

Steve also takes us to the postcard mural of the city. It is a shopside adornment, a photo of which has become the most popular postcard image of the city. Also, beside it, the Love From Austin has taken off.

We admire and dutifully pose for Steve to take official photographs of us.

Next, we are taken to a food truck to be given little cakes on sticks but the food truck is unattended so we don’t get these Austin treats. We do go to amazing Rainey Street which is all bars converted from down-at-heel houses, very wild and crazy and fun.

It is funny how tired a tour can make one. I suppose it is overload of

information. We have decided they are really good value to give one a potted and efficient familiarisation of a new city, but we are exhausted when we get back to the tourist centre; and still have to hoof it back to our hotel through the hot streets where there are few pedestrians - except for the homeless and beggars, one of whom plays a cardboard washboard and sports a dog with sunglasses. Of course.

Our hotel pool is a drawcard in the mornings. It is very quiet then so I get in some aqua and we are nourished by time in the sun. I run into a fellow journalist called Frances, a writer for Politico who has worked the Washington political

scene. We hit common ground on the political front and stand in the water raving about the election prognosis for ages. We part promising to keep in contact but, of course, we never will.

The bridge over the river outside our hotel turns out to be the top tourist spot in town. It is where the bats hang out. Austin has a population of millions of bats and they are the pride of the city. Truly.

They tell one of how the bats eradicated the mosquito population and how bat towers have been built for them and how much other places covet their bats and try to encourage similar populations. People congregate along the bridge before sunset and also in boats under the bridge to see the bats take off on their night hunting flights. The come out as huge, whirring black clouds. A spectacle. Not that we see them. But everyone, just everyone, tells us about them and there are bat statues and t-shirts and motifs all over the town. Yep, weird city is completely batty.

I discover that the local Zach Theatre company is presenting the Australian musical Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Well, of course one has to see it. Americans doing an Aussie show. In our Sister City. Just try and keep me away.

We park near the theatre and then in our theatre gladrags, we dine in a folksy el-cheapo Mexican joint. The waitress’ T-shirt says “God knows when you don’t tip.” Bruce loves this place. I am a bit unnerved about how very downmarket it is. Definitely not a happy camper when my gumbo is luke-warm and, although it is delicious, as I look at the staff and the grime, I envision nightmares of hygiene in the kitchen and, indeed, I later have a very bad night of indigestion.

The theatre itself is very new and bedecked in the names of its assorted philanthropists. Joe Bloggs’ foyer, Lolly Gobbs’ bar, etc.

The lights no sooner go down than the show has to stop because of a mechanical fault with the curtain. Catastrophic. How embarrassing. Actors scuttling. Stage hands pushing and shoving the obstinate set divider. Announcement. There will be a 15 minute tech delay. It turns into 30 or so. We are on the

aisle in a row of people who can’t stop getting up and going in and out. In and out. Out and in. We finally move into the seats in front of ours to get a rest from standing for them. The grasp of theatre etiquette is a bit odd here.

But the show is a triumph. The cast does it in Aussie accents. Not perfect but pretty bloody good. A lot of the jokes go over the head of

the Americans. Dingo’s got my baby etc. But the audience loves it and stands in wild ovation at the end. We join them. Fabulous show.

Austin is a quaint and interesting city. It is definitely a bit alternative. It has chosen an identify for itself as the music city and the weird place. It works hard at asserting these qualities and they work well for it.

The city is a bit dead during the day with lots of tech industry workers heads-down in offices. We never did find a flourishing retail or commercial centre in it. However, like its famous bats, the people come out at night.

Our sister city is a boozy nocturnal creature.