Bailey's Tours do Texas 1st -15th June

As we mentioned on the last blog, the journey from Dallas to Houston was a bit of a nightmare, a four hour journey turned into 7 hours. The difficulty was we were meeting our friends Pam and Jeff from the airport at 9pm and time was of the essence. When we arrived at the hotel there were road blocks, police everywhere, crowds of people, this was all we needed when we were running late. Obviously we were wondering what all the commotion was about. We found out that a space shuttle had just been sent across the Gulf Coast from Florida and was getting ready to be moved into Houston Space Centre, which was situated near the hotel. We could see the shuttle from our hotel bedroom. Because of this we made it just in time to meet Jeff and Pam at the airport. After a few gin and tonics in the bar that night, it was great catching up with each other.

Houston skyline

First night Houston, Hilton Hotel

Space ship that had just been delivered from Florida

The following day we visited the Houston Space Centre, it was pretty impressive which was well worth a visit as it does give you a good incite into space history. There were a lot of replicas and Apollo lunar modules that were on display. You would never actual appreciate how big they were until you were close by them, photographs do not do them justice.

Houston Space Centre

Houston Space Centre (The bottom of Saturn 5)

Later on in the day we went to Kemah Boardwalk located 2 miles away from our hotel on Clearwater . It was a buzzing little place with lots of people, fabulous waterfront restaurants, amusements and retail stores.

Kemmah Boardwalk- People dancing in the water sprinklers.

It looked like there had been some sort of regatta as there were so many sailing boats on the water. It was an ideal place to dine out.

Keemah Boardwalk

Our first Sunday started off with a quick visit to see USN Battlehip Texas a very impresive ship that took part in the D Day landings over 60 years ago. It was right next to the San Jincanto State monument. Here Jeff and Steve spent alot of time up the statue, learning about how Texas won their independence from Mexico in 1835 in the final battle of the war. (Pam and I thought there must have been a bar right at the top !)

Before going to the Kennedy space centre we purchased a 5 day Houston City pass which gives you choice of 5 top attractions including the space centre, Zoo, Aquarium, Natural Science Museum and a Fine Arts Museum. The difference between the prices for each attraction cost $26 or you could do all 5 attractions for $36. As we did not have much time in Houston we only chose to go to one more museum which was the National Science Museum, it was quite informative but we were pleased that we had bought the 5 day pass, for $36. I did not think it would have been worth a further $26.

The best entertainment was Steve deciding to get in a cage that turns 360 degrees spinning upside down, I thought he had enough when he had been on the bull in Orlando, as it took him weeks to get over all his cuts and bruises!

We left the Natural Science Museum and were advised that while we were in the area to look the glitzy Monrose area, it was just like a clean urban area of Houston. The Montrose area didn't take long to get around, so we decided to head of to Galveston Island which is located on the coastline of Texas just 50 miles south of Houston. The information about the Island seemed very attractive quoting that "it has more fun and attractions than one can fit into an entire summer". It mentions towering glass pyramids, an array of shops and cafes, first-rate restaurants, 32 miles of beaches and an abundance of leisure activities with something to do for everyone.

We were all fairly surprised when we arrived there when we saw a typical pier full of amusements being the main attractin We all  laughed when Jeff said "Redcar 2 Galveston 1". It was a really sort of strange seaside town, the water looked really brown, not the sort of water that would invite us for a swim even though it was a really hot day. Some of the  Victorian architecture in old Galverston, by the bay  was interesting and worth looking around though. We stayed for dinner before the drive home.

The following day our next destination was to head to San Antonio. In order to break up the journey we made a couple of stops, the first was Schullenberg, which is famous for its colourful churches designed by the Germans and Czechs. The second stop we headed for Shiner, the oldest brewery in Texas. We were in luck as there was a tour about to start at 1-30 which was supposed to take 30-45 minutes, however they let us do some beer tasting first, where we could taste four free samples. So you can imagine by the time of the tour we had got what we wanted and disappeared back to the car by 1-25pm, who needs a tour when we have already tasted the beer?. However after that we realised Pam had taking to this Shinerbock beer making it her main choice of beer to drink during the trip, so the beer tasting was worth it after all.

We had already pre-booked the motel for four nights in San Antonio, which was not that cheap but when arriving the motel got a new name by Jeff called "El Dumpo". The motel had one thing in its favour, it was really close to the famous Alamo and the River walk known for its bars and restaurants and shops.

Shopping Centre on the River Walk.

Steve and Jeff in 'Mad Dogs' ,the British Pub on the river walk on Jubilee Day.

        Part of the River Walk.

 The river flowed in the middle of the city for an extensive 15 miles long to the outskirts , it was really pretty with at least one mile and a half of bars and restaurants on either side. You could also tour the river by tourboat, which was pretty reasonable in price.

Outside the 'Alamo'

750 feet up in The Americas Tower- Happy Hour!

                                               
Our highlights of San Antonio was of course " The Alamo", happy hour (cocktails) in "Americas Tower" (standing 750 feet above San Antonio) The Menger historic hotel and the restaurants on the River walk.

The Menger Hotel;where Teddy Roosevelt hired his 'Rough Riders'

  We also experienced the bus city hopper which gave us a fairly educated history and site seeing tour of San Antonio that also had some really  interesting areas ,(Especially the three other Missions .) We all felt that two-three days was enough time to discover San Antonio as  we were searching for things to do on the fourth day,but we went for a car ride out towards the mexican border and ended up in Uvelde- a very, very quiet town .

The next day we went to a pre- arranged surprise package for Jeff and Pam, 'The Mayan Dude Range' in Banderas, 70 miles north west of San Antonio. The literature was exactly what we expected we had not even got to the ranch when we we saw 20 horses all saddled up wondering around the Coral. The ranch was situated in 350 acers of land . The organisation has been run by the Hicks family for 60 years.

Steve outside the Bailey ranch

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  Steve relaxing on the swing bench outside our ranch

                                    

    Pam lasooing in the Cowboy Olimpics

                                         

Resting by the Dude Ranch pool

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Pam and Jeff outside their Ranch.

                                                    

This was an all inclusive deal with a very structured itinerary with options of course. Our first horse riding session was booked within an hour after we arrived, so straight in to it. Each couple had a beautiful two bedroomed cottage, all detached within the woods, very peaceful, however they were still close enough to all the amenities, pool, tennis courts etc. Our highlight of the day was the cowboy Olympics which involved shooting golf, lassooing a metal bull, horseshoe throwing and many more. Steve won the golf round for the men and the lasooing  and by some luck I won the women's golf. Pam was our ambassador within our group for the shooting, scoring two out of three while we all scored zero. The first evening finished with live country music, barbecue and fireworks and obviously as much alcohol and  food as much you wanted.

The following day was cowboy breakfast and a country singer which was very relaxing, followed by a hay ride back to the ranch. We did a little bit more horse riding on the morning and relaxed by the pool on the afternoon. That evening the whole Hicks family did a show whilst we were having dinner which was excellent. There were alot of good singers within the family. We would recommend the place for families  and especially children who love horseriding. We also found out while we were there, that people have been going back every year for the last 10-20 years.

Hay ride.

                                                                             

We left the following day and headed towards Austin the state capital via Fredericksberg, again local knowledge told us to get to Fredricksberg by one o' clock to see a pacific war display. Some display it was, it was like being in the middle of the film set, ducking hand grenades, heavy machine guns and bullets everywhere. We were surprised when tanks jeeps and troop carriers came on the scene. The whole display was very realistic and well acted, however it was very noisy. The odds were a bit uneven though they had more Americans than Japanese. The best part was when the flame thrower came out, we felt we were on fire. We now understand why we were given ear plugs at the entrance and the front seats were the only ones left that were free. For us this was a really exciting display and a very new experience however this would never have been passed in the Uk. Fredrickberg is a beautiful litlle town, a very strong German influence with lots of character.

Showing the firepower of a Thompson machine gun

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Two hours later we arrived in Austin, where we stayed near the centre which was still a taxi ride from the bars. As we only had a duration of two nights we went to the supposedly 6th Street which had a fantastic write  up about all the bars and restaurants. It was the roughest place we have seen since we have been to America. The police were on pedal bikes. We had a quick walk down 6th street after passing many rough bars and found an Irish bar where we felt pretty safe. We really struggled to find a decent restaurant and walked quite a long way to find one. We didn't seem to have much luck they all seemed to close early so we went back to the Irish Bar.

The following day on the morning we visited their  Capitol Building  which is where the Texan government is  based. This is very impressive building, higher than Washington State Capital Building.

The Capitol

The Main Hotel on 6th Street

The Biggest Texas Star in the world

                                                    

On the afternoon we did the 'Duck Tour' which is a bus that converts into boat. When we were on the lake the guide pointed Andy Roddick's ( famous tennis player) house. The tour overall was pretty informative, with a very enthusiastic guide who was very proud of the City. The evening finished back in the Irish bar, once again two days were enough to get a good insight  into Austin.

  On the Duck

                                                             

We thought this was funny Waco Police

Our next destination was Fort Worth which was recommended by people we had met on our travels , this journey was approximately 200 miles however we did have to stop for a while.Firstly for lunch in Waco.We didn't bother checking out what Waco  has become world famous for ie the mass religious suicide but on our way to Fort Worth we did pass loads of Baptist churches. (In places they were lined up next to each other, similar to a parade of shops!) Secondly the weather changed from a glorious summers day to  thunderstorms and torrential rain. In the end we took a detour away from the motor way so the journey was a bit longer than anticipated. (That day hailstones were reported and shown on TV the size of tennis balls!) 

The next day we went to the stockyards, where there was a cattle drive down the main street, approximatley18 Long Horn Cattle followed the cowboys on horses, apparently they do this everyday at 11am and 4pm to demonstrate to tourists the importance of cattle in  the history of Fort Worth. The stockyard area was a home to cowboys with some excellent venues for live country music. Some were dance halls, Billy Bobs was the largest of them all biggest holding 5000 people at one time. The shops were quaint and most of them sold cowboy style goods varying from clothes, furniture, small gifts and a vast amount of hats and cowboy boots. We enjoyed the stockyards tour and could not believe how big it was, once again we had a very enthusiastic tour guide who was very proud of his routes. We liked this area for the restaurants the first night we had a Tex Mex and the following night a grill/ Steak house was recommended to us, both restaurants were busy and buzzing with people.

We also spent a bit of time around Sundance Square which is the centre of Fort Worth where the infamous Sundance Kid used to hang out, hence the name. This was an interesting area with lots of nice old Victorian buildings, however the square was still under reconstruction so we could not see the full potential at the time.

We all decided to stay an extra day in Fort Worth as Dallas City was only 20 miles away, we decided to make it a full day visit instead, instead of up routing again.

We parked in the centre and spent the whole morning in the Kennedy museum, learning about the details of assassination in 1963. It was an informative audio tour and was quite moving. We then went to the second top attraction in Dallas which was sculptures of approximately 60 bronze long horn bulls stampeding through a river. This was a very impressive piece of sculpture for the city. It was a clean city but lacked shops and restaurants in the centre. Their westend area, which was highlighted in the guide book famous for restaurants and bars only consisted of about 6 restaurants.

Bronze sculptures- Long Horn cattle- Dallas

Departure day ; A ride back to Dallas and the Bailey's Tours Texas road trip was over! We all had a fantastic time and were very proud of oursleves to manage so many cities in temperatures soaring around 95 degrees the whole time. We managed to once again cover alot of miles 1500 miles in total since picking the car up from Dallas on the 1st June. We feel we have learned a lot about Texas, love the Texans  and their  southern accent is brilliant. We did not realise how much they use the work Ya'll !

That's all from Bailey's Tours for now. Our next trip is a bit of a dog leg again - north to Arkansas, then east to Tennessee. I'm really looking forward to this part of our trip to get my music 'fix' in Memphis and then Nashville. Steve is really looking forward to getting back to nature again, in the woods, walking and lots of fishing .(Plus he's just informed me of the many Civil War battlefields in Tennessee ,so it looks as though our tour of the Mid South will prove interesting and educational too ! )

Pam and I on  ourlast night in the Stockyards in Fort Worth -celebrating surviving Bailey's Tours of Texas, June 1st -15th 2012!

Denver- Steamboat Springs 18th May- 1st June 2012

After our 'family' holiday in Mexico, we flew from Puerto Vallarta to Denver via Phoenix which took most of the day as we had to wait in Phoenix for about 4 hours.  We were wearing vests, ’t’ shirts and flip flops which was typical clothing for a hot country but not the right clothing you need for wet cold and foggy weather with snow on the ground.  The weather got worse during the day so we looked silly wearing shorts and flip flops.

We collected a hire car ready to start our 2000 mile trip in order to visit some of the sights in Colorado.  We aimed to cover roughly a geographical square above Denver that would take you to Mount Rushmore in South Dakota in the North East then across to the Little Big Horn in Montana at the North West. Our next plan was then to go down to the Rocky Mountains in Yellowstone, then back to Denver via Steamboat Springs.

Near Cook City- winter wonderland again

Next day out of the shorts and back into sweat shirts and jeans again. Our ski jackets would have been handy but we left them behind while we have been on our trip. Not a good idea! 

We knew we were amongst the Rocky Mountains but could not see them due to the fog and snowey conditions.  What can we expect when Denver is one mile high above sea level. This was obviously one of the reasons for the changeable weather conditions.

During our journey we saw the rolling hills of Wyoming appear leaving the flat, parched grassland of Colorado behind. Our first trip was in Guernsey, a small town famous for being on the Oregon Trail where in the 1850’s over 350,000 settlers past through to the West Coast , they had been offered cheap land. The town was a little run down with just hotels and  nobody in them.  The first hotel we called in we were met by two twin brothers about 17 years old who were holding rifles  we were a bit wearey about them ,  we would just call  it intuition as they seemed a liitte strange !  So we decided not to stay there and stayed in bunk house up the road..  The best thing about this place it was next to ‘Mad Tony’s’ here we had a meal and met up with some of the locals most of these were from the USA Army base and were off duty USMC (United States Marine Corps) the base was near by.

The second aim of this trip was achieved today by visiting Little Big Horn, very reveling when all things were considered. A great museum with loads of easily accessible information. We spent time on Last Stand Hill and saw the inevitable here where Custer and his 200 troops came to an end. The controversial question was though was it all Custer’s fault?. The debate will never end on this one.

Custers grave- Black text on it.

We headed North into Wyoming after spending the morning in  Fort Laramie made famous in many westerns. It was impressive with its layout next to a river and we both enjoyed going back in time looking at how people lived during those turbulent times 170 years ago. We drove Northwood through Lusk where the film Raw Hide had been made, this is  where we heard the true story about the young man who got skinned alive.  ooch!

 As we entered South Dakota the Black Hills came into view. We stopped in mid afternoon at Hot Springs and dropped in the Mammoth Museum, this was a fantastic like  mini 'Terracotta Army' experience ast he findings were an archeological dig unearthing 65 Columbian mammoths and many more to discover too.  (Well worth a visit). That night we stayed at Hot Springs in Americas Best Value Inn. opposite the river.  The whole place had  lovely sandstone structured buildings. We were  lucky and found ourselves in a great location, this was yet another place where we could have spent more time as there were many attractions.

Mammoth Museum -South Dakota

Mammoth Museum -South Dakota, thigh bone of one of the mammoths

The car ride in the Black Hills was glorious and we stopped off in Keystone for lunch, it was a typical Western town in appearance with board walks, and great scenerey.  It was the perfect stopping point before or after people visited Mount Rushmore as it was only ten minutes up the hill from the town itself.  Mount Rushmore was very dramatic with the four statues each on their own merit, and collectively amazing. (once again well worth a visit).


Mount Rushmore



Mount Rushmore



Mount Rushmore

However with 400 miles west to aim for, our next destination we had to keep moving.  This day drew to a close in Sheridan where we stayed.  Sheridan is famous for hosting Buffalo Bills old hotel, by the railway and bar which of course we had to visit ,it was quaint by Americas standards and had some great photos of the man himself.

Steve had the best fish and chips in months  (now missing England!)

Buffalo Bills bar


Steve eating Fish and Chips

Whilst in Montana we headed for Yellow Stone National Park where we saw a magnificent site of approximatley 50 wild horses it was a fantastic sight to see.



Wild horses in a field- Montana

This weather was so changebale on our travels , a variation of  80 degrees + for four days  but as we climbed higher into the Rocky’s  it declined to  32 degree Fahrenheit, (freezing)  in Cook C ity.  This was quite shocking as we did not appreciate the fact that  the car safety light came on saying DANGER ICE,   it does not help when  you are driving with flip flops wearing t' shirts etc! what can we say!!!
Our other surprise was  Cook City had a  population of only 100 people.  City what is that all about ???

Cook City sits at 7,608 feet at altitude, higher than a lot of ski slopes in Europe. We managed to find a nice place called 'The Alpine Inn'  basic but cozy and warm. The next day the car was covered in snow and ice, there had been a good storm during the evening surprise surprise !! The thought of driving without snow chains  the following day was quite scary.

The next day we entered Yellow Stone National Park,  where we discovered  a Moose next to the road! we found that exciting, however  the day got better as  we saw a real live grizzly bear only 25 yards away (Yogi), It was busy digging up roots so it ignored everyone else around it. (Thank goodness as a couple of tourists were killed by one last year by not following the park rules).

Moose

Yogi Bear

Grizzly Bear (Yogi)

We then had a snow storm in Mammoth Springs, the roads were blocked we saw two more bears and a wolf before we retreated to West Yellowstone to wait until the storms passed.

Views- Black Hills

View Yellowstone Park

Views- Yellowstone park

Buffalo

The aim was to get to Yellowstone and avoid the bad weather we failed but we saw herds of Buffalo run past the car, we also saw Elks we passed a frozen lake (Lewis) and ended up in Dubois and stayed there another night due to snow falling.

Stampede of Buffalo's

Elk- Yellowstone National Park

Elk- Yellowstone National Park

Deer crossing the road

The weather worsened as you can see from the picture below, it was like being back in winter wonderland, very pretty but cold!

Yellowstone Park- Lake Lewis

Yellowstone Park- Lake Lewis

On the way we drove through a place called Muddy Gap, which was quite well signposted but when we got there the town consited of one shop.  When we saw this van outside the shop it made us laugh.

We drove to steamboat springs and had a lovely journey down which was in Colorado and descended to 7,000 feet where we stayed at the Legacy Vacation Club Hilltop.  We were ready for a rest after driving 1500 miles in 6 days through many different weather conditions and landscapes.

At Steamboat Springs we stayed in a studio flat, so it was great to get back into a kitchen and cook our own food. We played tennis most days and ventured out on a couple of fairly long uphill trails.  The trails had magnificent views, but were fairly hard on our lungs it must have been the altitude of being so high, but they were well worth it.  Steamboat Springs is a famous ski resort with many other outdoor activities do during the summer such as walks, mountain biking, canoeing, Kayaking etc. We were both impressed with the place and it had nice temperatures around 70 degrees Fahrenheit, so it felt comfortable. 

 Fish Stone Creek trail

 We stayed for five nights and it should have been six but the flights were really expensive to Houston at the weekends. We changed our plan instead of flying to Houston we managed to find a fairly cheap flight to Dallas where we stayed one night. Our new intention was to drive  to Houston from Dallas as we were meeting our friends from Darlington.  The journey was supposed to be a four hour  drive but turned into seven hours,  this journey was a total nightmare from start to finish as the highways were just so busy with no respite from the traffic.   We finally arrived and were now looking forward to the next part of our trip.

The next road trip 'Bailey Tours' in Texas!