2008 Traveling Morgans Overview

This page last updated: Mon Jan 19, 2015.

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 Hi's Birkenstock-Mephisto got Phyllis' feet ready for the summer.

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).

It was hard to get more than a glimpse of the scenic Hudson Valley and harder to get pictures from surrounding mountains, as parking spaces were few, the number of people coming from the nearby major population centers was not small, and our truck is large. Several other areas in the vicinity of the Catskill Mountains presented the same problem -- no place to park due to too many people slready there. The Delaware River(

at top right) was scenic in a different way and not as crowded.

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.