Along the Chisholm Trail and Restaurant Review

Pink Indian Paintbrush

There are no firm records about when Jesse Chisholm was born, but researchers seem to agree that it was around 1805 or 1806. The son of an Irish farmer and an Indian mother, Jesse established himself as a trader and scout. Although he is best known for the Chisholm Trail, he spent his life developing trading posts among the Plains Indians. Once the Civil War ended, he settled in Kansas and improved a trail that had been used by the military so that it would accommodate the heavy wagons he used to carry the materials he traded. This road (Chisholm’s Trail, re-named Chisholm Trail once the cattlemen began using it) went from his southern trading post near the Red River, to his northern trading post near Kansas City, Kansas. This road became important to Texas cattle ranchers when their trail drives were blocked by local Missouri farmers in an effort to keep tick infestations out of local herds. This meant that the cattle drives had to be re-routed to an area near Red River Station in Texas. The first herd to use the Chisholm Trail belonged to O. W. Wheeler. He brought his 2,400 steers from Texas to the Abilene, Kansas stockyards, paving the way for some 5,000,000 head of Texas cattle to reach Kansas using the Chisholm Trail.

Spinning the Wheel and Restaurant Review

Fort Worth’s Jacksboro Highway was one of those places my parents forbid me to go when I

Top L to R: Lake Worth, Bluebonnets and Spanish Dagger
Bottom: L to R: Indian Paint Brush, Prickly Pear
and Bluebonnets 

was in high school. It was lined with beer joints, dance halls, and other hangouts for ne’re-do-wells. Of course, that only lent force to its attraction. However, one time was enough; my girlfriends and I decided that there was nothing attractive about either the drunks stumbling from the bars, or the scary, poorly lit side streets. Farther out of Fort Worth, in the little town of Lake Worth, there was a place I wish I had gone.

Home on the Range and Restaurant Review

L to R:Clint Eastwood, Yul Brynner, Paul Newman

So we’re off to run some errands and since I’m not driving I’m looking out the window. All of a sudden I get a glimpse of Paul Newman. No, I think to myself, that can’t be. A few minutes later, I see Yul Brenner; still, I doubt my eyes. Then I see Clint Eastwood. Okay, this is just an anomaly of the particular street we’re traveling along. A few days later, on a different street, I spot John Wayne and Lee Marvin. Now I’m on a quest. How many more Hollywood cowboys are there in North Richland Hills, Texas? As it turns out, there are a total of ten.

Trekking to Tyler and Restaurant Review

Redbud flowers

Tyler, Texas is the ‘Rose Capitol of the World’ (or Texas depending on who you read and just how you see your home state). It’s about 135 miles south east of Fort Worth and a pretty drive, particularly if you take the back roads (US Highway 80 to US 64 or to US 110) instead of Interstate 20 and don’t travel during ‘drive times’. Since the Rose City Artisan and Flower Market was going on and I wanted to see meet two people whose work I admire, we hit the road. Although the wildflowers weren’t quite at their peak, Lady Bird Johnson’s idea to plant them along the highways has made for colorful viewing. We saw a few flowers, but what I enjoyed the most were the redbud trees and the crabapples. Redbuds aren’t red, but rather a hot pink to mauve; the crabapple blossoms are a bright, light pink. It’s been a wet spring so the lush green grass that added a nice base to these brightly colored trees.

Running in Richardson and Restaurant Review

Richardson, Texas was once a town of the ‘deep South’ in that it was settled by folks from

Near the now defunct Owens Country Farm

Kentucky and Tennessee in the 1840s. It was named after railroad contractor, E.H. Richardson, and although the center of town was near present-day Richland College, the city center moved closer to the railroad station. Rather than a steam locomotive, an electric railway connected Richardson, Denison, Waco, Corsicana and Fort Worth; Interurban Street in old downtown Richardson is a remnant of that enterprise. The red brick streets in downtown are also a reminder of Richardson’s past. By the 1950s, Richardson was a bustling town, but the population, economic status and land values really took off with the opening of Texas Instruments on its southern border. This once small town now has four Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) light rail stations and the Eisemann Center for Performing Arts. It has been featured in a television series about business-makeovers and used as a model for the setting for the TV show King of the Hill. Richardson also has a vibrant ethnic population that includes about 60 Chinese cultural organizations and the India Association of North Texas along with the main Indian-American grocery store in DFW.

Aloha – Coming and Going – Reviews

Diamond Head from Waikiki

I have always enjoyed the Hawaiian Islands. I like the climate, the plants, the beach, the mountains, hiking, swimming, scuba diving, the food, the culture and the people. I’m comfortable spending the day in sandals, a t-shirt and a pair of shorts, with little to do but enjoy whatever comes along. But this trip to O’ahu was bittersweet. Perhaps it was the time of year or the amount of road construction, but I don’t remember that the traffic was ever as difficult as it was this trip. I also don’t remember the large numbers of homeless people (locals and foreign) nor the regularity with which we encountered the obviously habitually inebriated (either through drugs or alcohol); for the first time I did not feel particularly safe walking just a block off the tourist areas. The environment seemed tired (for want of a better word), with litter in the streets, along the beaches, and even in some of the out-of-the-way places we visited. The local population of all of the Hawaiian Islands continues to rise as does the tourist population; perhaps population stressors are finally having a visible effect. Would I return to this island? Yes, but only to visit the few places I have not seen and to eat at one or two favorite restaurants. For information about my rating system, see Reading the Reviews.

The Vog and other Scenic Events

Diamond Head in the Vog

Out and about in the morning, we were surprised at the amount of fog that was covering the mountains. We were also surprised that our eyes itched and noses burned. It’s not the fog but the vog. Vog is a form of air pollution that results when sunlight hits a mixture of oxygen, moisture, and the effluvia, namely sulfur dioxide, other gases and particles from an erupting volcano. The culprit in this case is Kīlauea on the Island of Hawaiʻi, with the prevailing winds sending vog across to O’hau. We shouldn’t have been too surprised that we would get some interactions since the Hawaiian Islands are continuously formed from volcanic activity at a hotspot. As the Pacific Plate moves to the northwest, the hotspot remains stationary, slowly creating new volcanoes; the only active volcanoes are located around the southern half of the Island of Hawai’i. The newest volcano, Lōʻihi Seamount, is near the south coast.