31st March - Easter Sunday in Phoenix

We have enjoyed being in Phoenix and so stayed on for a few more days than we had planned. On the Saturday night our neighbours invited us to go eat with them at a Mexican restaurant, it was great fun, I had the Chimychanga, Sally a shrimp salad with rice, very nice. Lots of laughs at how three couples with such different backgrounds can have such similar ways of handling their relationship with each other.

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So we are staying here for Easter Sunday. I had spotted a very interesting looking church round the corner from our RV Park - The First Christian Church on 7th Ave. It is a very interesting building, Frank Lloyd Wright designed it for a Seminary somewhere else, but it was never used  until this church came along and used the plans (in 1971) for their new church. The building itself is a wonderful piece of architecture, however on checking our their website it also seemed to be a good church community, so we decided to go there for their Easter Sunday Service. It was a really good service, very free, great music, with a good challenging sermon. Sally and I were both quite moved.

View all       First Christian Church Phoenix

Following the service, and lunch in Wildflower Bakery, I took Sally to a 'local' (13 miles away) park, called McCormick Railroad Park. It is a community park which has lots to do with trains, it is run by volunteers. It is also the place to go for Ester Sunday Picnic with the family, there seemed to be thousands of people there. It was great fun. We rode on the miniature train, which goes right round the park, we (being the train load in general, as well as us) waved at everyone, they waved at us. It was great to see so many families out in the sunshine with their picnic stuff BBQ's, coolers, toys, skateboards, kites. There is a small carousel, a whole load of train museum stuff, including the Presidential train from 1921. It is also the resting place for the Arizona Merci Boxcar, talked about in a previous blog, so we saw that. They also have a pavilion for Model Train Layouts. There are 4 layouts set up by local model train clubs. we were entranced by these toy trains, the level of detail and the sheer scale of them. What was to be a quick look turned into a couple of hours. We were even invited to go into the club members area to look in more detail at one train layout. Thank you to a guy named Paul, who showed us round. So once more we had a great day and returned to our trailer tired but happy.

View al           lMcCormick Railroad Park

Tomorrow we move on to Yuma.

Merci Train UPDATE!!!!

I do so enjoy discovering things.
While looking into the Merci Train we both had the feeling that they were familiar, but could not place where, or if we had seen one before, So I returned to the Merci Train website and checked more carefully the locations of the boxcars in all states we have passed through. Using Google maps, satellite views and Street view I could then cross reference the locations with our photos. I looked again at Jackson, we were so close to that one. The boxcar in Bristol, Tennessee was close to us, we may have driven past it, but the map shows that it's location cannot be seen from the road. Lastly I looked at Louisiana. The boxcar was displayed at the Old State Capitol, well we had visited the new State Capitol, but could not recall going to the old one. However as soon as I brought it up on Street View I recognized the building, so then checked on our blog archive - found it on 21st October 2012. We had heard about the Downtown Friday Concerts, a series of concert held in a public square, just by the Old State Capitol Building Friday evenings, this week was to be Zydeco! So we had driven into Baton rouge after lunch and parked the car nearby. As we arrived early we had toured the Old Capitol and then gone for a coffee. I re-read the blog. But while I have recorded our visit to the Old State Capitol, there was no mention of the Merci Boxcar and no photos of our visit. In fact I had been quite dismissive of the exhibits there, with the exception of the fine staircase.
So I then checked the Photo Albums on Picasa and lo and behold, there was and album showing our visit and a careful  search showed that in the background to a couple of the pics and one video is the Louisiana Boxcar!! More than that, I then searched through our photo archive and found it! We had actually had a look at it  and examined it close up, but I had not included the picture in the blog. So here are those pictures.
Oh I am so easily pleased!!! But I had tracked down that little niggle. Yes!

March 29th - Downtown Phoenix

Friday
We decided to visit downtown Phoenix today.
Phoenix is the State Capital, which means that it has the State Capitol building. In this case the original building is now a museum. As so few people were visiting we were given a personal tour round the building by one of the volunteers, which was very interesting.

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The building reflects Arizona is many ways, it is quite pretty, but small and AZ has always been minimalist its political process (history of public lynchings may have a bearing here). It also prides itself (as I am sure most states do) on going its own way. It was the last area of the 'contiguous 48 states' to receive statehood, February 14th 1912, with New Mexico beating it by a month. It is probably the most active in its support of the 2nd amendment. Incredibly rich in mineral resources, it is the second largest produce of copper, after Chile, in the world.
The State Capitol is now a museum which has exhibits which display much of Arizona's brief history. Very much to the fore is the fate of U.S.S. Arizona ( sunk in the raid on Pearl Harbor, now a monument in Pearl Harbor and a symbol to all Americans).
Frank Lloyd Wright used to live in Phoenix in the winter and there are several of his buildings to the East of Phoenix. He also designed a new State Capitol for Phoenix, a beautiful building, but the design was not adopted as it was too expensive. The newer, functional, precast concrete jungle buildings so common in the early 60's, now surround the the old capitol.
Among a number of interesting exhibits was some of the contents of Arizona's Merci Train Boxcar. Also an exhibit about the Harvey Girls, as well as a photographic exhibit about Native Americans in the 19th century.
Following our tour round the Capitol we strolled the lovely gardens which surround it. The gardens are full of memorials to historical events. We read the time line of the Vietnam war, which now makes for horrendous reading with more than half a million US troops fighting there, it really does seem a senseless war there now.

Merci Train Boxcar

Merci Train Boxcar also known as the Gratitude Train

 We discovered that in 1948 US charities sent 700 boxcars (rail freight cars) to France, full of of donated materials. By way of thanks the French sent 49 box cars back full of gifts for the Americans, one for each state (Hawaii and Washington D.C. had to share one). Many of these box cars are preserved in museums across the country.
The box cars were called 'Forty and Eight Boxcars' as they are all stamped with '40/8', meaning that they could carry either forty men or eight horses. They were used extensively in the first world war to transport troops. they became an icon of that war. After the war a 'select' group of American Legion activists set up a fraternal group (like the Masons, or Moose club) for the betterment of their fellow man called the '40&8's'. They are well known for their Forty and Eight Scholarships. When the boxcars arrived from France the Forty and Eights took on the responsibility for distributing the gifts and now are often involved in their preservation. The Arizona Boxcar now resides in McCormick Park. The exhibit in the museum included several interesting items. A lovely wedding dress, which sadly has never been worn. Also a somewhat battered Peugeot racing cycle circa 1948, which, complete with Simplex derailleur gears looks little different from my first bike, or indeed any modern racing cycle (except the real racing, racing cycles).

Although we have not seen any of these famous boxcars we have passed close to some of them. In Tennessee we passed within about 100 yards of one when we were in Bristol. Our closest encounter was in Jackson, Mississippi when we walked from the Old State Capitol through an underpass to Hal and Mal's restaurant. The boxcar was just about 30 yards away, but hidden by an embankment. Well there you go. We shall now have to keep an eye out for other boxcars on our travels. Roll on Fresno!

The Harvey Girls

It is amazing that when you are traveling how themes start to develop. Some of the themes that we have interacted with are the exploits of the Butterfield Stage Routes right across the West, Twenty Mule Teams (the workhorse of the western Mineral Workings), Route 66 and Frank Lloyd Wright.
Seeing an exhibition of the Harvey Girls in Arizona State Capitol Museum reminded us that we have come across this name before. We first encountered The Harvey House Restaurants and the Harvey Girls in Guthrie. Our British friends,  I hear you say " Harvey House? what is that? I have never heard of this", our American friends will give a patronizing nod of the head and then sigh longingly for another icon of American history. Sally knew of the Harvey Girls through a book she had read and seen the 1946 Judy Garland film of the same name.
It seems that without realizing it our journeys have crossed the path of Fred Harvey on many occasions!
Briefly he was probably the first person to start a chain of special restaurants which served rail travellers from the 1870's until the 1970's. But they grew into much more than this, a veritable institution! As usual in America it makes a fascinating story.
So if you only have a little time then I urge you to read this review of the importance of Fred Harvey, ........or you can read more about The Harvey Girls here .......and the Harvey Restaurants here......... or .... lastly here.
Including Guthrie we have been in three Harvey Houses- Guthrie Station (briefly), we also had lunch in La Fonda Hotel,which was a Harvey House in Santa Fe, now restored and a fabulous hotel and restaurant and we also toured the visitor centre at Painted Desert National Park, which was originally a Harvey House Restaurant. Though we have passed close to 28 more of these restaurants.
Maybe I will dig out some pics and maybe we will see some more Harvey Houses on our travels.

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Harvey Houses we have passed within a mile of.
In Arizona:

Ash Fork: “Escalante” Hotel
The Grand Canyon - South Rim
Kingman: Santa Fe Eating House
Seligman: “Havasu” Hotel
Petrified Forest National Park: Painted Desert Inn
Phoenix: Union Station News Stand and “Green Gables” Restaurant
Williams: “Fray Marcos” Hotel
Winslow: Old Santa Fe Hotel & “La Posada” Hotel

In California:
Bakersfield: Santa Fe Eating House
Barstow: “Casa del Desierto” Hotel
Fresno: Santa Fe News Stand
Mojave: Santa Fe Eating House
San Bernardino: Santa Fe Eating House
San Diego: Santa Fe Lunch Room and Shops
San Francisco: Ferry Building News Stand, “San Pedro” Santa Fe Ferry, Santa Fe Bus Terminal
Merced: Santa Fe Eating House

In New Mexico:
Albuquerque: “Alvarado” Hotel
Clovis: “Gran Quivira” Hotel
Las Cruces: News Stand
Santa Fe: “La Fonda” Hotel

In Oklahoma:
Ardmore: Santa Fe News Stand
Oklahoma City

In Texas:
Amarillo: Santa Fe Hotel
Dallas: Santa Fe Eating House
El Paso: Union Passenger Station Restaurant and Shops
Fort Worth: Santa Fe Eating House
Gainesville: Santa Fe Eating House
Galveston: Santa Fe Eating House
Temple: Santa Fe Hotel

March 14th - Tombstone

Thursday 14th March
On Tuesday evening we flew into Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix, picked up a rental car and were reunited with our truck and trailer. Once I had jump started the truck we had power and everything seemed fine. No Bugs, no water, no worries (a bit of mold in the Fridge, as we had forgotten to leave it open). A good nights sleep and we were ready for the off. Wednesday morning we packed up in Phoenix, returned the rental car and by 10.30 we were passing the campground I had picked out for our first night, however because we were so well up on time we pressed on to our first big destination - Tombstone. Tombstone is out in the desert, right out in the desert, like Bodie in California, if it wasn't for silver mining no one in there right mind would want to live here. It has that unreal quality about it that makes you think you really are in a film, stage coaches coming past, cowboys on the street, street fighting (though we haven't seen that yet, maybe tomorrow), all those names of cowboys that we know from films, but they were really here, really shooting each other. We toured the courthouse and read the story of the O.K. Corral, great fun. we stopped in for lunch at the Longhorn Restaurant and then visited the famous Bird Cage Theatre. we have included some of the pictures. Tomorrow I think we will take a ride on the Butterfield Stage and go see the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.

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Here is a link for mobile phones:

Tombstone