The Oatmeal Texas Oatmeal Festival

When my Mom & Dad were here I was to learn that my Mom and I share an oatmeal aversion. I don't mind eating a little of it, it's the smell of it cooking I don't like. My Mom likes nothing about the stuff.

This morning I learned there is a town in Texas called Oatmeal. Oatmeal has a population of about 20. Oatmeal is located a few miles northwest of Austin, near the town of Bertram.

Back in 1978 the citizens of Oatmeal were irked that the official map of the State of Texas had left Oatmeal off the map due to there being no main highways intersecting in Oatmeal.

Something had to be done. So, in cahoots with nearby Bertram, the Oatmeal Festival was born as part of a plot to put Oatmeal back on the map.

It worked. The concept was to sort of spoof other Texas festivals, like all the chili cookoffs. So, instead of a 'queen' the Oatmeal Festival has Ms. Bag. Ms. Bag must be over 55. Then there is something called Groaty Oat, which I've no idea what that is. And then we have Miss Cookie and Miss Muffin, who are 4 to 8 years old.

There are Oatmeal Bakeoffs and at some point in the Oatmeal Festival planes drop oatmeal flakes from the sky. That's got to be strange. Some years there are Oatmeal sculpture contests. Again, that's got to be strange.

The Oatmeal Festival takes place Labor Day weekend, starting Friday night with a BBQ at the Oatmeal Community Center. On Saturday the Oatmeal Festival Parade takes place with events having odd starting times, like the Saturday morning 3K run starts at 8:03, the Pet Parade at 10:03, the Festival Parade also at 10:03. And the Bertram School Homecoming at 1:03.

After the parade there is a BBQ at Bertram Pavilion with brisket, chicken, pinto beans, cole slaw, potato salad, bread, onions. And iced tea. In other words, your basket Texas type picnic. There are also a lot of Texas type desserts. Which means things like banana pudding with vanilla cookies and buttermilk pie.

Next Labor Day I am going to make a real good effort to go to the Oatmeal Festival.

Wal-Mart Bingo In Texas

Like I've previously mentioned, Alma, the Songbird of the Texas Gulf Coast, sends me a lot of funny stuff.

This morning, among the funny stuff, was a Wal-Mart Bingo Card that you can print up and take with you the next time you visit your neighborhood Wal-Mart.

At my local Wal-Mart I have seen or smelled most of the things on Alma's bingo card.

There is a thing or two that I think should be on the Wal-Mart Bingo Card.

Like, shockingly huge butt. Pants hanging below underwear. Items missing from shelves. (My Super Wal-Mart has been without Parmesan Cheese for weeks now) Garish, ghoulish looking make up on an elderly lady.

Anyway, I'm sure this Wal-Mart Bingo Card is in bad taste and likely will offend someone somewhere. Likely an obese person with a rat tail hair style, who uses a Wal-Mart scooter while wearing a rebel flag t-shirt with blood on it, not big enough to cover the tramp tattoo on her lower back, missing teeth and a limb, while reeking of unbearably bad body odor.

Texas Bush Biking

When I moved to Texas, I assumed I would be unable to continue with my mountain bike habit, due to Texas being a little short in the mountain department. Well, that erroneous assumption is my favorite of all my erroneous assumptions about Texas.

I was about 2 months into my Texas exile when I was out in the East Texas zone. I drove into Tyler State Park. There was a sign pointing towards the mountain bike trails. How can this be, I wondered?

I had my bike with me, so I followed the signs to the trails. It was on those trails I was to learn that, though Texas may not be mountainous, Texas did have mountain bike trails that are quite strenuous.

After the Tyler trails had worn me out I was talking to a guy, telling him I was from Washington, recently moved to Fort Worth and not expecting to find mountain bike trails in Texas. That guy told me there were a lot of mountain bike trails right in the D/FW Metroplex.

That information totally surprised me. The biking guy told me to go to a bike shop where I could get the local trail info. I did so the next day. Soon I was biking all over the D/FW Metroplex.

The Dallas-Fort Worth zone has over 200 miles of maintained mountain bike trails on 23 different trails. Some of them are quite challenging, like the DORBA trails at Cedar Hills State Park. Or the Northshore trail on Lake Grapevine. Some are easy, but still fun, like the trails at River Legacy Park. There is one trail, that being Sansom Park in Fort Worth, that is so steep and scary looking that there is no way I'd bike it. It was hard enough to hike it.

Many of the local trails are made and maintained by DORBA (Dallas Off Road Bicycle Association).

In a little over a week there will be a new scary addition to the Dallas-Fort Worth area mountain bike trails. As in the soon to be retired Mountain Biker in Chief is moving to Dallas and is said to be looking forward to riding the trails. Bush started pedalling when his knees could not handle jogging anymore. Apparently George has gotten quite skilled at mountain biking.

I suspect I'll run into George W. some day on some trail some where. I shall resist the urge to throw a shoe at him.

White Sands & The Helldorado Days Of Tombstone Girls In Bikinis

UPDATE #2: My Mom just called. They are safely back home in Arizona. My Mom confirmed that both photos below, sent from their cell phone, were sent from White Sands. However, my Mom also said that another picture was sent, when they were at a high mountain pass, above 6,000 feet elevation, with snow falling, skies gray, snow covering the road. I didn't get that picture. Hence the confusion below.

UPDATE #1: There is a chance I made an error, below, where I say both the pictures from my Mom & Dad's cell phone were of White Sands. I talked to my sister in Phoenix today and she claims she was told the first photo is of snow Mom & Dad saw in New Mexico. My sister told me you can tell the photos were taken in different locations due to the sky being gray in the snow picture. Both skies look blue to me. I stand by my original claim that both pictures were taken at White Sands. Though it did strike me as odd that they would send two of the same thing.

This afternoon, when I got home from hiking and barely in to the making lunch process, I heard my phone make an odd noise. It was caused by my Mom & Dad sending me a phone photo.

Eventually I figured out how to look at the photos. I'm thinking most people looking at these phone photos would assume they are looking at snow. I'm pretty sure that would be a wrong assumption.

It appears to me they are at White Sands National Monument. I don't believe any of my siblings, who got the same photo, have been to White Sands. So, they'll likely think it is snow they are looking at. Unless my Dad tells them different, with that fancy text messaging thing he does.

Somewhere in here I have a picture of me running down one of the White Sands dunes. The sand is so brightly white it is more blinding than snow on a clear blue day. Okay, I could not find the picture of me running down the White Sands dune, but I did find one of my bright white van sitting on the bright white sand. Another of my pictures of White Sands shows the same type railing fence that is in the one from my Mom and Dad, above on the right.

I saw White Sands the day after spending the night at Alamogordo. I enjoyed Alamogordo. That town has played a big role in the American space program and the atom bomb. Holloman Air Force Base and White Sands Missile Range are nearby. The Space Shuttle has landed at White Sands. The New Mexico Museum of Space History with its International Space Hall of Fame is in Alamogordo.

The day I was there they were inducting either an astronaut or a cosmonaut into the Hall of Fame. Maybe it was one of each. The museum has a very good Omnivision Theater, or whatever it is called, you know, the things with the huge screen. They were showing a movie of life aboard the International Space Station. It was like you were in it.

Yesterday I mentioned that Mom & Dad were going to Tombstone. I mentioned accidentally being in Tombstone during Helldorado Days. I also mentioned how disconcerting Helldorado Days was, with guns being fired, very loudly, and floats in the parade having girls in bikinis, which seemed so not like the Old Wild West of my imagination. They should have been attired like wild saloon girls, instead.

When I was looking for a picture of me running down a White Sands dune I found one of the aforementioned Tombstone Helldorado Days float with bikini girls. I guess it was very patriotic.

Freezing And Hiking In Texas

A week ago, today, I went hiking at the Tandy Hills. Then I was sidelined by rain and incoming Parental Units.

And now, a week after that last hike, I decided nothing was going to stop me today. Well, unless there was something like an ice storm. Today's misery was temps barely above freezing with the Wind Chill Factor making it feel like it was well below freezing.

So, I put on several layers and set off for Village Creek Natural Historical Area. I usually, erroneously, call this park Indian Village. Well, it used to be an Indian Village, which would be a more appropriate, historically accurate name. Or so it seems to me.

That would be me, hiking away from a little pond at Indian Village, in the picture above. It was in this pond, one day, years ago, that I saw my first Water Moccasins. Several of them. I have since greatly abated my aversion to snakes, but, at that point in time, it was a bone-chilling thing for me to see.

Just as I started to walk I got a call from Tootsie Tonasket. Her soap opera travails have grown worse. Yesterday she gave her husband an ultimatum, stop seeing his girl friend or never come home again. That's the short version. Tootsie's drunk son was ranting in the background. A couple days ago, in a drunken rage, the son told Tootsie he'd whack her head off with an ax. That same day the wandering husband wandered off, barefoot, with snow on the ground and no coat, heading to town.

I can only listen to very little of that insanity, then I have to excuse myself.

That ham I cooked this morning made a very tasty lunch, along with stir fried spinach I got at the Dallas Farmers Market. My Mom included a container of her patented Mustard Plaster, along with the ham. My relatives do not eat ham without Mustard Plaster.

Importing Ham From Arizona To Texas

My Mom & Dad brought me so much stuff from Arizona that I could open a small grocery store. I've got boxes of grapefruits, lemons, oranges. And jam. And a ham that is bigger than the last turkey I cooked.

I was barely able to fit the giant ham into my turkey cooking pan this morning. The ham is now in the oven, slowly getting warmed up, so it'll be fit for consumption in a few hours.

Between now and then, I'm planning on going on a hike somewhere. I've not done that since last Saturday. I took Sunday off, Monday it rained and Mom & Dad arrived, which put me in driving mode for aerobic exercise.

As soon as Mom & Dad left it got cold again. We got down to freezing last night. It is only 35 right now, with less than an hour to go before noon. And it is windy. With gusts to around 30, which makes the Wind Chill Factor making it feel like 30 out there.

When people don't have anything else to talk about they talk about the weather. So, I'll shut up. For now.

Mom & Dad Made It Out Of Texas

This morning, when I looked at my cell phone, I saw I had a couple voice mails. One was from my Mom. I think I must have been watching TV when they called and didn't hear the ring.

I think I mentioned, yesterday, that they were leaving Texas via Highway 180. That's a two-lane road in most places. Those are usually way more slow going than a freeway.

Yet, somehow Mom & Dad made it out of Texas, after leaving Fort Worth at about 11 in the morning, getting all the way to Carlsbad, New Mexico.

I was curious how far Carlsbad is from here. So, I used my Microsoft Streets & Trips program to find out they drove about 430 miles yesterday. I don't think they like to drive after dark. So, assuming it got dark around 6, they had 7 hours driving time. That works out to 61.428571 miles per hour. That number goes up each time they stopped for gas, a restroom break or a McDonald's.

I hope there were no speed limits broken in this mad dash effort to exit Texas!

I think today they are heading towards Bisbee and Tombstone in Arizona. I've been to both. Bisbee is a cool-looking former mining, now artsy type town, with this huge open hole in the center of town called the Lavender Pit. Tombstone, I was a bit disappointed in. They've not done a great job of historical preservation. The day I was in Tombstone happened to be Helldorado Days, which turned out to be a really raucous-filled deal with guns blasting and girls on floats in bikinis, which seemed totally incongruous.

I don't know if Mom & Dad are going to the Carlsbad Caverns. I suspect not. I don't know if they've been to them before. I have. It is a lot of walking. They don't like walking. I remember you walk quite a distance and then end up in this huge cavern space at the end of the tour, where there is a fast food type joint, if I remember right, and other amenities. When you are ready to get out of there, you get on an elevator that brings you back to the surface. I enjoyed Carlsbad Caverns, though it was so long ago my memory is a bit hazy.

Shocking Seattle (P-I) News

Even though I know it's been financially struggling for a long long time, even way back before I moved to Texas, it still surprised me today to read that the Hearst Corporation is giving the Seattle Post-Intelligencer 60 days to find a buyer.

Or else.

The hard copy version of Seattle's oldest paper will be no more. The online version will continue.

A few days ago I read, somewhere, that back in the early 1950s nearly every household in America subscribed to a daily newspaper. And, now, in 2009, only 20% of American households get a daily paper.

At my house, when growing up, we got the daily Skagit Valley Herald and the daily Bellingham Herald. And on Sunday's we got the Sunday Seattle P-I, which is where I learned to like the P-I, with the P-I eventually becoming my daily and the newspaper to which I compare others. Which explains why I was so constantly appalled by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, which always seemed, to me, like a real small town paper, prone to mistakes and Chamber of Commerce type hyperbole that rubbed me the wrong way.

I know the drop in newspaper readership is being blamed on the new media, like cable news and the Internet. But neither is a substitute for a good locally produced newspaper.

Way back when I was in school, and already an avid newspaper reader, it seemed to me that one class a day should consist of reading a newspaper. And then discussing it. I can't think of anything a school could do that would have more meaningful educational value.

Instead, we are slowly becoming an ever larger population of people woefully ignorant about way too much. When the majority of Americans can't tell you when the American Civil War took place, that is scary. We are sliding down a slippery slope where soon the majority of Americans won't be able to tell you who is buried in Grant's Tomb. I fear we may already be at that point.

In Texas.

Mom & Dad Are Heading West Away From The Ol' South

I drove to Mom & Dad's temporary Arlington abode this morning before 9 to lead them out of Fort Worth, with a stop at the Ol' South Pancake House on the way out of town.

I didn't gain any weight during my month, last summer, in Tacoma. I think I've gained 10 pounds during the 5 days Mom & Dad were here.

This morning I had a big Greek Omelet with 3 big pancakes. It's been years since I've had a pancake.

My aerobic exercise, the past week, has been driving 100s of miles a day. And talking. In Tacoma, I think I burned a lot of calories due to the stress of verbal harassment, a lot of hiking and doing things, like walk 6 miles to escape dementia to return to relative sanity. With a McDonald's stop midway.

I did my chauffeuring in Mom & Dad's big new van. I don't think they liked the idea of being crammed into my little car. That's Mom & Dad standing in front of their big new van, with my little bitty car next to it and the Ol' South Pancake House behind them.

After we were done at the Ol' South Pancake House I led Mom & Dad back to the I-30 freeway and got them safely out of Fort Worth. They are not taking the freeway back to Phoenix. They are going to go the old-fashioned 2 lane route, via Highway 180, exiting I-20 about 20 miles west of Fort Worth.

The first town they'll come to is Weatherford. I told them about the food-poisoning bout I had after eating a burger in Weatherford. I doubt they'll be getting a Weatherford burger, due to it being too soon after breakfast, not due to the food-poisoning warning.

The next town they'll come to is Mineral Wells. So, I told them why there is a monster old building in that little town, that being the Baker Hotel. I knew it would perplex them as much as it did me when I first saw it.

It was fun having Mom & Dad here. I'd worried about what I'd find for them to do. That turned out to be no problem. Next time I will remember not to worry. They are returning in 2015.

Mom And Dad Do Dallas

Well, I had me another day with Mom and Dad. My day started sometime between 2 and 3 this morning. I picked up Mom and Dad a bit after 10.

Dallas was on the agenda for today. For the most part. Headed east on I-30, entered downtown Dallas via the infamous Triple Overpass. I was heading to the Dallas Farmers Market.

The Market was not very busy so we were able to park inside the shed. Mom seemed a bit worried that one is not supposed to do that.

The Parental Units got some blueberries and nuts. Then it was off to the Texas State Fairgrounds, known as Fair Park. I did not realize, til today, that you can drive all over the fairgrounds. I thought there were guard posts to stop that type activity. So, I was able to drive the entire fairgrounds. Pointing out where Big Tex stands, among other things, like driving right up to the Cotton Bowl. The entry to the actual football field was open. I could have driven down there. But, Mom would have had a panic attack. Anyway, Mom and Dad have now had a visit to the Texas State Fair. Sort of. Including the Carnival Midway.

I headed over to White Rock Lake en route to one of the World's Most Unique McDonald's. I drove them by White Rock Lake the last time they were here, but both were passed out that time. So, today they thought they'd never been there before.

After White Rock Lake I drove west on Mockingbird to the 75 Freeway to head north over the Big 5 Exchange to I-635. I'd not been over it since it was finished. I liked it. Dallas has made it much more colorful than Fort Worth has with its Mixmaster.

Exited 635 at Monforth. That's where the McDonald's is. Neither Mom or Dad remembered being there before. I have photo evidence to the contrary. They did a shadowy pose in front of the Giant Happy Meal, before going in and having some wraps, cheeseburgers, fries and hot fudge sundaes.

After McDonald's I headed south on Preston, back towards Downtown Dallas. This goes through some areas of big houses. Mom likes seeing those. Drove up Turtle Creek. That's scenic. Headed to the Victory Park development to show them the American Airlines Center and all the other stuff there.

Then it was on to I-35 E, to head north and get off at I-183, to drive by the soon to be defunct Texas Stadium, then on to Los Colinas in Irving. Around then I was informed a restroom break was needed. So, I headed back east on Northwest Highway to a Sam's Club. Some shopping for leftover Christmas bargains ensued.

Then it was back on the road, heading west on I-121, towards Grapevine. My eventual destination was Babes in Roanoke. I went via Flower Mound. I knew my Mom would find suddenly being out in the country to be interesting. We got to Babes. It didn't open for a half hour. So, I drove them by Cabelas and some other stuff and then back to Babes.

Babes Chicken Dinner House is always good. We got 2 orders of chicken and 2 orders of chicken-fried steak. This comes with salad, creamed corn, biscuits and mashed spuds and gravy. It's served family style with the chicken and chicken fried steaks on one big platter. And the other stuff in its own bowls. You can ask for more of all the fixin's, except for the meat products. I ate a lot of biscuits.

We had the usual incident with the Baby Rattler at Babes and all the waitresses did a long line dance routine. It was cute and amusing. Mom and Dad seemed to like it.

After Babes it was a long drive south on 377 to I-820, then a quick jaunt back to their temporary abode, then me back to mine.

Tomorrow I'm going to be at their place about 9 to escort them out of the Metroplex, stopping at the Old South Pancake House on the way. I'll take one more picture of them in their cowboy hats and then see them sail off into the west.

Phoenix, they are heading your way in the morning. They are taking the scenic route, not the Interstate method they used to get here earlier than expected.