Family Vacay VIII: Day 3--St. Louis

On Sunday morning, we headed to Forest Park, where we visited the Missouri History Museum and learned mostly about the 1904 World's Fair.

The World's Fair popularized ice cream cones. And Cotton Candy.  And Dr. Pepper.

It also provided the backdrop for the 1944 movie classic Meet Me in St. Louis, featuring the popular song that helped promote the Fair.

Scott Joplin wrote "The Cascades" for the Fair, but it was played on the concourse and not a stage, because ragtime was considered too radical.

The 1904 Olympics were held in St. Louis in conjunction with the Fair. Almost all the athletes who participated in the Olympics were from the United States, among them: German-American gymnast George Eyser, who lost the bottom part of his left leg in a train accident. He wore a wooden prosthetic during the competitions--and won three gold medals.

Marathoner Thomas Hicks of Massachusetts took rat poison (strychnine) mixed with egg whites and brandy during the race to enhance his chances of winning. He came home with the gold.

Hicks wasn't the first to cross the finish line, though. That distinction belonged to Fred Lorz, who rode in the back of an automobile for 11 miles of the route and was celebrated as the champion until his "joke" was revealed.

The Fair featured several "villages" populated by "savages" whose "primitive" customs helped persuade many fair-goers that Western imperialism was morally justified.

Geronimo (above) was given a temporary release from imprisonment at Fort Sill, Oklahoma so that he could be included in the Apache village. He signed autographs for a fee.

In the Inuit villages, the native performers were required to wear representative fur coats throughout the summer.

During "Anthropology Days" at the Olympics, a group of "'savages' recruited from the fair's international villages competed in a variety of athletic feats--among them a greased-pole climb, 'ethnic' dancing, and mud slinging--for the amusement of Caucasian spectators."

The largest of the villages focused on the many people and cultures of the Philippine Islands. Twelve-hundred Filipinos were brought to St. Louis to populate the exhibit. Six years earlier, Filipino patriots launched a rebellion against Spain, which had dominated the country for 330 years. As Spain began to lose its grip on the colony, the United States "bought" it from them at a discount rate.

Over the next four years, 5,000 Americans and 200,000 Filipinos died fighting for control of the islands before the Filipinos finally surrendered.  According to Robert Rydell, author of All the World's a Fair, the Filipino exhibit at the Fair was designed to silence critics of President Theodore Roosevelt's imperialism (Mark Twain was one of the most outspoken of these critics.) As Rydell explains, "People from the Philippines, who were said to be in various stages of civilization or savagery, were put on display [at the Fair] with all sorts of accoutrements demonstrating that they would be more or less willing workers in an American empire."

Elsewhere in the Museum we took pictures in front of one of the two models of "The Spirit of St Louis" built for Charles Lindbergh's solo flight across the Atlantic in 1927. The plane in the Museum was the back-up. Lindbergh moved to St. Louis two years before he made the flight. I don't remember reading anything in the Museum about the anti-Semitic ideology he espoused in the years before World War II began.

Elsewhere in the Museum, I read about St. Louis's 1917 "race riot," which, like the Tulsa "race riot" of 1921, was more a "massacre" than a "riot."

"The Spirit of St. Louis" behind Pablo was one of two identical models designed for Charles Lindbergh's solo flight across the Atlantic. This is the one he didn't use.

After we left the Museum, we took a walk through Forest Park.

The kids wanted to rent a paddle boat, so Mari volunteered to accompany them while I climbed the hill to take photos of my hand in front of some of the paintings in the City Art Museum.


On the way up, I paused to take a photo of my feet enjoying not paddling a boat.

After we left the Museum, we headed to Burger King. Several weeks ago, I heard a story on NPR about how the St.Louis-area Burger Kings have started selling "Impossible Whoppers," which are entirely plant-based, but taste just like meat. Nina, Emilio, and Pablo have never tried meat (except for a few accidents).

I filmed the taste-testing event, which felt a little bit like documenting Amish teenagers on a Rumspringa. I wish I had thought to give them a taste of Dr. Pepper (they haven't ever had carbonated drinks, either).


After dinner, we headed to Williamson County, Illinois, birthplace of my great-grandfather's grandfather.

2018 Summer Vacation Day 1: From Fort Worth to Carlsbad

The first stop on our summer vacation was Anson, in Jones County, Texas, where my grandmother was born on September 15, 1905.

Along the way, we stopped at an elaborate, newly-built (2016) rest stop in Eastland County, where I learned that Conrad Hilton opened his first hotel in nearby Cisco, Texas in 1919.

We stopped at a grocery store in Anson, had a picnic bench lunch near the elementary school playground, and then walked by the abandoned Anson Opera House (1909) and the Jones County courthouse (1910), which first opened at the time when the population of Anson was booming and my great-grandfather, N.G. Ferrell was elected sheriff (January 1, 1909-July , 1910).



On our way out of town, we saw the weird sculpture below on a lonely highway in the barren waste southwest of town.

Our next stop was Odessa, where we waited for the current residents of 1336 Westbrook to stop smoking and go inside before we took a photo on the sidewalk outside their house, where I lived from midway through my freshman year to midway through my junior year of high school. Dad told Emilio before the trip that Odessa was the "armpit of Texas," but I have great memories of the years when we lived there, which suggests that any place is livable if you have good friends. In Odessa, I felt appreciated. And I don't remember a time in my life when I had more friends.  It must also be said that Odessa Permian was by far the best of the three high schools I attended.

After driving by various old haunts--Nimitz Junior High, Westminster Presbyterian, Taco Villa (closed), Harrigan's (gone)--we made our way to Odessa Permian high school. The parking lot on the north side of the auditorium was mysteriously full on a Saturday night.  We drove by John Wilkins field, where I made some big plays in the spring game of my freshman year and found an ominous "No Trespassing" sign on the south parking lot, which I drove right past. I told the police officer who was parked there that I wanted to take a photo with the sign above (we chatted a bit about Permian --he was a '94 graduate and his kids attend the school--and he told me he thought the crowd on the north lot was there for a choir concert).

On the the practice field behind the sign above, I climbed my way to a starting spot at cornerback on a junior varsity team that went undefeated in 1982 and then an undefeated varsity team that would win the state championship in 1984. I ran a 4.61 forty, made impressive interceptions and spectacular tackles, ran past the point of exhaustion, had a finger smashed between my helmet and another player's, got vomited on by all-state defensive end John Fuller, avoided blocks by future University of Texas legend and NFL linebacker Britt Hager, and got exempted from gassers (practice-ending wind sprints) by the above-mentioned John Wilkins one day when I was the only flanker taking reps on the scout team during our practices for an upcoming game against San Angelo Central. Wilkins also looked up at me in a huddle one day and, noting my growing moustache--apparently for the first time, told me to shave it.

We had dinner that night  at Furr's cafeteria at the Music City mall under a large painting depicting an action shot from a Permian-Odessa High game, picked up some Permian fanwear from a local supermarket, and then headed out again over the desert to the Carlsbad, New Mexico KOA campground, where we managed to set up our tent just before sundown.

Day 3: From Waubonsie to Niobrara

The hardest part of trip was getting the sleeping bags and the tent back into their sacks every morning.

Once we packed up, we headed for Waubonsie's Loess Hills trails.

Later, after visiting the Missouri River Basin Lewis and Clark Intepretive Center in Nebraska, we returned to Iowa and spent most of the day driving north on the Iowa side of the Missouri River.

I see four hobbits.

Our second destination on Day 3 was The Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center in Nebraska City on the western side of the Missouri River. Before the trip, Nina read a book about Sacajawea.

A replica of a pirogue Lewis and Clark used to navigate the Missouri.

We had the patio to ourselves with a view of the Missouri for our lunch picnic.

After lunch, he walked to trail down to the riverbank.

After walking back up the bank, we visited a replica of a Plains Indian earth lodge.

When we got back to our picnic patio, this slithery creature was waiting for us.

Nina, Pablo, and Emilio boarded the keelboat.
Pablo put his back into the launch.

Emilio set the course.

We eventually made it to Niobrara State Park in Nebraska, where we set up our tent on a quiet hillside at the edge of a forest overlooking the Niobrara river.

After supper, Pablo, Emilio, and I climbed down to the banks of a cold, post-sunset Niobrara.
The day's soundtrack featured: "Little Nebraska Town" by Rachel Price, "Coat of Many Colors" by Dolly Parton (because it's one of Nina's new favorites), "Frontera" by Jorge Drexler (my contribution), and "Hello" by Nebraska native Karmin.

Norah Day!

Number three.