Honestly, as a Northerner, as I walked to the memorial I felt a certain queasiness, like visiting a leper colony.
Really? A memorial to men so committed to an evil course as to cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands?

Thursday.
Waking up in Dallas.
Hoping to blog, then make a car trip to the Sunshine Laundry which promises same day service on dry cleaning and laundry, then to Planet Fitness to keep driving muscles in shape, then to Lucia’s restaurant to pick up last night’s forgotten credit card.
Then to sight-see.



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Thursday.
Waking up in Dallas.
Hoping to blog, make a car trip to the Sunshine Laundry which promises same day service on dry cleaning and laundry, then to Planet Fitness to keep driving muscles in shape, then to Lucia’s restaurant to pick up last night’s forgotten credit card.

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Today is Friday, September 21, 2018
This is my 164th consecutive daily posting.
Time is 4.12 and the weather in Savannah, Ga is 86* and sunny.
The hot weather of these last few days has finally had an impact on me, driving me into shorts and sandals. But no today as I expect to be driving most of the day, heading towards, definitely not reaching the great city of Savannah.

 Here’s my first gallery today.

Top left, another of the ubiquitous gift shops, large and brimming.

Two shots of the food offered by Lucia’s, my Thursday night’s choice for dinner.
I had high hopes.
The two interior shots reveal an attractive and informal dining room; the next two shots show and the first two offerings, the bread and the salumi board, were attractive and delicious.

Neither of the two pasta courses that I had were terrific.
Good, yes.
Not worth the picture.
So ends my hopes for a great dinner tonight.

The next three pix are of “The Cattle Drive.”
More on that below.

But first, a few words on the Pioneer Cemetery in Dallas which contains the Confederate War Memorial and is adjacent to the plaza containing the cattle drive.

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After the morning car trip and a brief refresh in my hotel, I went sightseeing – choices I made by their proximity to downtown Dallas.
Where my hotel was.
From which I could walk everywhere.

First trip, the Pioneer Plaza and its Cattle Drive bronzes, and the adjacent Pioneer Cemetery with its Confederate War Memorial.

Pioneer Plaza is a large public park located in the Convention Center District of downtown Dallas, Texas (USA). It contains a large sculpture and is a heavily visited tourist site. Adjacent to the plaza is the Pioneer Park Cemetery which features the Confederate War Memorial. Together, it is the largest public open space in the Dallas central business district.

The plaza and its accompanying sculpture were the idea of real estate developer Trammell Crow, who wanted an iconic "Western" sculpture in the city of Dallas and assembled a group to donate the sculptures.
The $9 million project was begun in 1992 on 4.2 acres (17,000 m2) of land donated by the City.
A work in progress, an additional steer is occasionally added to the herd.

The large sculpture commemorates nineteenth century cattle drives that took place along the Shawnee Trail, the earliest and easternmost route by which Texas longhorn cattle were taken to northern railheads.
The trail passed through Austin, Waco, and Dallas until the Chisolm Trail siphoned off most of the traffic in 1867.
The 49 bronze steers and 3 trail riders sculptures were created by artist Robert Summers of Glen Rose, Texas.
Each steer is larger-than-life at six feet high; all together the sculpture is the largest bronze monument of its kind in the world.
Set along an artificial ridge and past a man-made limestone cliff, native landscaping with a flowing stream and waterfall help create the dramatic effect.

As for the other sight:
The Confederate War Memorial is dedicated in 1886 to the soldiers and generals from Texas during the American Civil War.

The monument is located in Pioneer Park Cemetery, adjacent to the Dallas Convention Center and Pioneer Plaza.

After the wave of removal of Confederate monuments that followed the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings called for a task force to decide what to do it.|
We need a task force?

Honestly, as a Northerner, as I walked to the memorial I felt a certain queasiness, like I was visiting a leper colony.
Really, a memorial to men so committed to an evil course as to cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands?
Honestly, as a Northerner,


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Above are blank spaces instead of pictures of the Confederate War Memorial.
Blank spaces that should be all that remains of the site.
No markers.
No ashes.
A blank space as a sort of museum of nothing.

These were truly my feelings as I approached.
Not sharing them is a lie.

I will be visiting Savannah, Georgia in a couple of days.
Thinking General Sherman’s march of destruction and obliteration a sort of Old Testament sense of justice.

”Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.”

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Let’s change back to the harmless, I hope, Cattle Drive bronzes.
Here are a few more pictures.

They work.
I enjoyed seeing them.
The last is a bit of the greenery that surrounds the Plaza and elides into the Pioneer Park Cemetery in which stands the misguided memorial.

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My drive eastwards continued on Wednesday making it all the way to Dallas.
Thursday I spent in Dallas, thinking I might spend Friday morning in Dallas as well.
But after the morning and afternoon, I’ve decided I’ll end my visit to Dallas with dinner tonight.

On Friday morning, I’ll continue my drive east, getting me 300 or 400 miles closer to Savannah.
I don’t know where I’ll stop.
I do know I’m jamming myself with activities, not spending enough time on the blog.
I’ve got to gain control of my schedule.

As I prepare to leave Dallas, I’m thinking Donuts.
I had terrific donuts on my way out of Tucumcari.
Will I be so lucky today?

I remember on Wednesday, a really unpleasant half hour driving due east with the rising sun in my eyes.

Love you, guys.