Traveling Morgans 2008 Destinations and Travel Highlights
Early Spring
Before leaving Texas, The Traveling Morgans took a small trip into
San Antonio (map reference 1 below) to visit the most Texan of historical places,
the Alamo ( top left).
Whether the Alamo should or should not have been defended is a matter we will
leave to military historians. Certainly there is no doubt about the
courage of the defenders (all killed either during or immediately after
the siege). There is also no doubt of the impact of the courageous
stand on the rest of Texas and on the United States. Something not well
known is the only defenders of the Alamo born in Texas were of Spanish
descent. Yes, some Mexicans fought against Santa Anna at the Alamo and
elsewhere.
San Antonio also has 4 other historic missions, some of which still serve as churches. The one most worth visiting is the Mission San Jose .
We also liked the aqueduct that serviced the Mission Espada
.
See the South Texas region for more information.
Our Route North

Click on map above to see a larger version. RED map reference numbers will be visible.
Late Spring and Heading North
As we headed east and north, we crossed the very flooded Mississippi River at Vicksburg MS
(, map reference M above).
We generally avoid cities, but we spent three relaxing days in South Memphis (2).
It was not our first visit.
We are not Elvis fans, but we enjoyed watching visitors to Graceland ( left) and
Elvis' private plane the Lisa Marie
.
A pink Cadillac limo
took us to Marlowe's
restaurant (
and
),
a very casual restaurant known world
wide for its Memphis style wet barbecue ribs. Memphis is also is famous
for dry rub ribs in the downtown section.
A shoe shopping stop in Jackson TN (3) at
We stopped in Indianapolis (4) to visit our grown children, then went East.
Going through PA, we saw a rainbow while parking at a Wal-Mart (5) for the night.
Also in PA, we stopped at Steamtown USA National Historical Park (6) in Scranton PA.
Alas, no steam engines were running that day.
We toured the interesting turntable and roundhouse and back-room workshops.
As far as operating steam power, the Traveling Morgans have visited several steam-powered tourist
railroads that did better, including the Mt Washington Cog Railroad below.
Fishkill NY had a great Walmart and Sam's Club overnight stop (7).
In Massachusetts, we visited Plymouth Rock(8) and the Mayflower reproduction
.
We also went to Cape Cod, but took no pictures as the coast in the small part we saw had too many private homes between the road and the beach.
We had hoped to go to Boston and view the historical sites, but it did not happen this time.
Summer Destination New Hampshire
We are steam train nuts who love mountains.
What could be better than taking a cog steam train up Mt Washington( above) in New Hampshire?
(9)On Memorial Day of 2008, there was a snowstorm on the summit
.
Franconia Notch State Park ,
and Crawford Notch State Park
were also New Hampshire highlights.
Dixville Notch
may sound familiar.
The first votes in a presidential election are cast there at 12:01 AM.
Clark's Trading Post is a famous tourist attraction
(or Tourist Trap depending on your point of view) with a Climax logging locomotive.
Fabyans was a nice restaurant in the area located in an old train station.
See the New England section for more information.
Summer Destination New York's Catskill Mountains
We ended up spending most of the summer at Skyway RV Park in Greefield Park NY in the
Catskill Mountains
(10 above or
below).

The highest waterfall in New York is not mighty Niagara, but scenic Katterskill Falls
in the Catskill Mountains.
We also enjoyed scenic drives near many unnamed waterfalls such as
on a Ulster County Hwy 42.
Another highlight was our 41st wedding anniversary at the ecclectic
Egg's Nest Restaurant
in High Falls NY.
Fall and Heading South

The season ended Labor Day, and we started west.
We went to a very grand canyon ( at right)
at New York's apparently mislocated
Letchworth State Park
(
above). It looks like it belongs much further west.
In Ohio, we decided to visit something we heard about on the
old M*A*S*H TV show.
We stopped at Toldeo and visited the ORIGINAL Tony Packo's Cafe
( above
right).
After visiting Larry' mother in northern Indiana, we went to Indainapolis, stopping on the way at
the Monon Connection
and its Whistle Stop Cafe
.
There is no charge to see the train cars outside. The food is good.
Indianpolis was a visit with our grown children.
Our plans were to head west to Palo Duro Canyon in the Texas panhandle.
We had stops at St. James Missouri for the fine inexpensive winery
of the same name and
Carthage Missouri
where the Big Red Barn RV Park and the Sirloin Stockade
were resting highlights.
While in Oklahoma, we got word the travel trailer we were planning to buy was available early if
we got there early, so it was time to head quickly to
North Texas where we saw a
quintensintential Texas scene of an American flag the size typically found on a house
flowing from a pole mounted on a Harley Davidson motorcycle
.
We barely slowed down as we headed to San Marcos Texas
above)and our winter job.
We were not back in Texas very long before we went 10 miles to the
marvelous western town of Lockhart (the county courhouse is shown)
and the equally marvelous barbecue at Black's Barbecue
.
Texas is also famous for its own style of barbecue.
Texans say real barbecue does not need sauce.
Black's Barbecue is one of the 4 highly regarded barbecue restaurants in Lockhart that caused the state legislature to recognize Lockart as the "Barbecue Camital of Texas".
Black's is the favorite of The Traveling Morgans, partly due to the wondeful barbecue Turkey.
The San Marcos River area had a wonderfully peaceful Chrstmas scene with Mr. and Mrs. Claus (aka Roscoe and Harpo).
Another interesting item in San Marcos TX was Wonder Cave, which is formed by an earthquake.