Places I’d Like to See in Texas

 

Okay, have some writer’s block, but it’s due mainly to being overwhelmed. Lotta stuff going on with the work front, on the home front, well, in fact, on a whole lotta fronts. I’m even struggling through The Two Towers, fer cryin’ out loud. So, when I get the block and feel the itch to write, the best thing I’ve found during these dozen or so years on the Hopper, is to write a list.

So, without further explanation, here’s a List of Places I’d Like to See in Texas, in no particular order:

 

The Alamo (San Antonio)

Yeah, this is the most tourist-y thing on my list, but I’d still like to see it. Especially the basement :)

 

The Lubbock Lights / The Marfa Lights (Lubbock and Marfa)

OK, these are cool, hair-raising tidbits of spookiness from some readings of my youth. In the 50s, Texans reported seeing strange lights in the skies and mountains around these two areas, looking off the local highways. Not sure if the mysterious lights have been explained to everyone’s satisfaction, but I’ve heard they range from headlights of faraway cars traveling faraway roads to campfires on distant mountains. Whatever they are, some think they ultimately have an otherworldly explanation.

 

Globe Life Field (Arlington)

To take in a Texas Rangers baseball game. Provided the whole wu flu thing is consigned to the dustbin of history and the MLB dials back on its wokeness to pretty much nil. I’d love to sit in the bleachers as the sun’s setting, overpriced beer in one hand and hot dog in the other, listening to the PA announcements, hearing the crack of a bat and the crowd cheering as the perennial mediocre Rangers win a game.

 

Dealey Plaza and the Sixth Floor Museum (Dallas)

This is a given. Might even re-ignite that bonfire of interest I had in the JFK assassination from 2010 to 2013 or so. So much to take in from that tragic day. I’d like to look down from Oswald’s perch, and then walk over to the “X” in the road where Kennedy was hit, and look back up to the School Book Depository. For extra points I’d like to track down the boarding room where Oswald was staying, but I don’t know if that’s still standing.

 

Stonehenge Replica (Odessa)

This is just weird, and it is exactly what it says it is. I’d check it out, because odds are I’ll get to Texas before I get to Wiltshire, England. Plus, there’s a 600-foot meteor crater located in the vicinity.

 

The National Museum of the Pacific War (Fredericksburg)

As a WWII buff, especially over the last year or so, I’d love to wander the halls of this museum. I’ve read they have one of the midget submarines the Japs used to sneak into Pearl Harbor on that infamous Day of Infamy. Just read an excellent book on the December 7, 1941 attacks in January, and have two more on deck dealing specifically with the Pacific. I would soak this up in awe and wonder.

 

Stevie Ray Vaughan’s grave (Dallas)

Ah, my great unrealized dream as an aspiring musician in the 80s was to see SRV live. I had two opportunities, in 1986 and 1990, and let them both carelessly slip away before the master guitarist’s untimely demise. I have several CDs and have always been amazed by his technical abilities. Plus, the wife is a fan, and unusual conjunction of our musical tastes. A visit to his graveside would be quite reverent and moving.

 

NASA’s Johnson Space Center (Houston)

Visiting this place would be like me as a kid in a limitlessly infinite candy store of infinitude. Saw some pics on the web, and I would love to actually see up close the capsules that launched the men into space and ultimately to the surface of the moon and back.

 

Aurora UFO Incident (Aurora)

Back in the late 1890s a wave of “airship” sightings spread across the US. The most famous occurred over this Texas town. An airship is alleged to have crashed on a farm, resulting in the fatality of its pilot, said to be “not of this world.” The creature was buried in a nearby graveyard, marked by a stone, but over the years both the stone, as well as the body, vanished. Spooky goodness!

 

USS Lexington (Corpus Christi)

WW2-era aircraft carrier, the replacement for the Lexington lost in the Battle of the Coral Sea, docked here permanently since 1992 and functions as a museum. It participated in some of the “island hopping” invasions after August of 43 and fought in the Battles of the Philippine Sea and Leyte Gulf.  As fascinating as the Pacific War museum but more “hands on.”

 

There ya have it. Things to do if I ever get down to Texas.