Almost ready for Amarillo

We have seen quite a bit of OKC so Saturday we decided to take in a movie about 2 minutes away.  There is not much to choose from though.  We ended up seeing Ghostbusters 2 because the time was right, the theater was cool and it was just $5 though the young man said he would never call me a senior.  It was about the dumbest show I have ever seen but there were some funny lines and no cursing!  The last two times Eileen picked the shows.  I walked out of Wolf of Wall Street and would have done the same with Ted 2 but there were six of us and I didn't know the other couple well at the time.  Afterwards they said they would have walked out too if they knew we wanted to.  Poor Ted thought it was a Disney movie and wondered why we were seeing it in the first place!  Eileen isn't allowed to pick anymore!

We stopped at the Grand Opening of a Sprouts and got beautiful produce at great prices.  Bing cherries, tomatoes and cantaloupe were all under $1.  After dropping the groceries off we went to church.  The weather has been cooler and Ted has been using the campground's gas grill so he made burgers for dinner.  The Mexican Train score now is Tom 3, Donna 1 and Ted 1.

Sunday we headed to the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum.  It is an attractive building and grounds.

The End of the Trail sculpture fills the entrance hall.  It signifies the dejected spirit of Native Americans when they felt defeated against the government.  If any race deserves reparations it is the Native Americans.

A Best of the West art display and sale is in progress.  The paintings were exquisite and many of them were sold.  I could have easily dropped $100,000 if I bought my favorites.  If wishes were horses, beggars would ride!

A painting of Glenn Ford is the best portrait I have ever seen.  It was such an absolute copy of him that it almost appeared to be a photograph.

Ted ran into his cousin Roy so I took their photo.

There was a complete town erected inside a special building that was quite interesting.  The hotel, school, sheriff's office, mercantile, Doctor, newspaper, livery, blacksmith, etc. were included.  I ended up in jail while Tom and Ted waited at the saloon!

Everything cowboy and western was included in the balance of the museum from the Parker Ranch in Hawaii to the vaqueros of Mexico, silent cowboy movies, the first "talkies," Buffalo Bill Cody and Ranch 101 entertainment, saddles, 1300 types of barbed wire, boots, Indian beadwork, Gene Autry and Roy Rogers, the singing Cowboys; Bonanza, Big Valley, Gunsmoke and many other TV programs, etc. all included in 9 galleries.  There were several films that we stopped to watch.  Eileen and I took a test identifying theme songs from TV westerns.  We got 11 out of 12 right.

I felt I lived in the South when I lived in Florida though it wasn't the Deep South.  I have never identified Texas as South but we aren't really the west either in the Piney Woods of east Texas.  I loved this Arthur Chapman poem that was in one of the films we saw today.  After 16 years in Texas, I will now say I live in the west!

Out where the handclasp’s a little stronger,
Out where the smile dwells a little longer,
That’s where the West begins;

Out where the sun is a little brighter,
Where the snows that fall are a trifle whiter,
Where the bonds of home are a wee bit tighter,
That’s where the West begins.

Out where the skies are a trifle bluer,
Out where friendship’s a little truer,
That’s where the West begins;

Out where a fresher breeze is blowing,
Where there’s laughter in every streamlet flowing,
Where there’s more of reaping and less of sowing,
That’s where the West begins;

Out where the world is in the making,
Where fewer hearts in despair are aching,
That’s where the West begins;

Where there’s more of singing and less of sighing,
Where there’s more of giving and less of buying,
And a man makes friends without half trying —
That’s where the West begins. 

Tomorrow we make the 250 mile trek to Amarillo.