Across The USA by Dodge
Chapter 19
Sunday, August 2nd 1992
Right near Dallas is the city of Fort Worth (those two cities make up what's called the Metroplex) and sandwiched in between are a number of smaller places including Las Colinas and Grand Prairie. At Williams Plaza in Las Colinas is the most incredible sculpture I've ever seen called "The Mustangs of Las Colinas". The horses are set in a fountain with water splashing up around their hooves so they look incredibly real. I took a couple of photos which I quite like.
I went to the Trader's Village in Grand Prairie in the morning then the Museum of Science and History in the afternoon in Fort Worth. They have some tremendous exhibits like Andy Bean's space suit, a display on wolves and some dinosaur skeletons.
After leaving Texas I headed north -- destination Oklahoma and Kansas (fields of wheat as far as you can see and huge cattle feed lots that stink) then Colorado.
After leaving Fort Worth there was a major traffic jam due to some reconstruction of the I-35W freeway so I had to hastily read my maps to find a place to stay for the night. At about 6:20pm there was the most amazing storm I've seen in my life. The sky turned pitch black at a place called Denton and then there was lightning all across the horizon, strong winds and it started bucketing down.
At around 7:10pm I reached a small town called Gainesville and spotted a fairly impressive double-storey motel (with the vacancy sign lit up called) the Twelve Oaks Inn which I decided to stay at. I parked out the front and walked up to reception, dinged the bell and a little girl came out and served me, she must have been all of six years old -- but did everything correctly and most politely.
The room was large and fairly nice and it even had a microwave -- the first one that had -- so I drove to the nearby market and bought a frozen pizza, Dr pepper and shur-fresh chocolate ice cream and had a feast then stayed up watching television until 1:30am.
There was a building out the back of the motel probably best described as a barn and there was some strange activities going on there I'm pretty sure. It was a bit spooky and felt like you were back in the thirties and half expected Al Capone to drive by and shoot up the place. There were cars and pick-ups driving by at a fairly regular rate doing who knows what.
The next morning I drove to Oklahoma City where I stayed in the Red Carpet Motel in a suburb called Edmond. The motel actually had white carpet which must be the craziest choice for motel carpet you could imagine. Oklahoma City is a nice place and was featured in "Thelma and Louise" where Brad Pitt steals Thelma's money. In 1995 it was the sight of the bombing at the Federal Building.
The Cowboy Hall of Fame is another great place -- there's just so many museums and Halls of Fame it's almost unbelievable. They have a great selection of paintings and sculptures such as End of the Trail by James Earle Fraser; John Wayne by Everett Raymond Kinstler, Proud Dancer by Cyrus Afsary and Emigrants Crossing The Plains by Albert Biershadt.
Then there was the Kirkpatrick Centre which houses the Oklahoma Air Space Museum, the International Photography Hall of Fame, Omniplex Science Museum, Kirkpatrick Galleries, Center of the American Indian, a Grand Canyon Mural and a Toy Train Exhibit. It also has a statue of Sylvan N Goodman, the inventor of the shopping cart! Now there's a good trivia night question.
There was eight inches of rain by the next morning and within hours a number of rivers through Oklahoma had flooded although they didn't effect me.
Chapter 20
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