Journey to the West 2: A Virtual Overland Tour from Texas to California

In July 2010, my sister ("Sherlock") wanted to drive to California for a Dark Shadows convention. I went along so I could see Dinetah, homeland of the Navajo. This is our photo documentary of the journey from San Antonio, TX to Burbank, CA and back. It was an unusually cold and wet summer; there were storms throughout most of the area we covered on the way to CA, so everything was abnormally green.

My sister wanted to go to the con so she could see Jonathan Frid, whom she has done a lot of illustration work for (like these DVD covers).

This photoblog, however, consists of photos taken during the trip itself for historic and artistic reference purposes and focus on flora, fauna, geology, architecture, historical reeactors, and museum displays (anthropology, medicine). I am not uploading any pics from the convention; those will be on my sister's blog if she ever gets to it. I have categorized the images as well as I could (see categories to the right), so you can go through the photos by date (post dates are backdated to the date the photos were taken) or by category/tag.

You are welcome to use these photos for educational purposes if you find them useful.

Note: the photos are backdated to what I think is the date they were taken. The time stamp (HH:MM), however, is only for keeping them in the same order they were taken (two cameras were used). The time stamp is not when the photos were originally taken. That info was apparently lost when the images were downloaded onto my sister's netbook. It would get confusing in some areas anyway since we crossed several time zones.

A few days before we headed off, I noted this cloud formation that looked like a thunderbird... if a thunderbird were designed by Jim Henson.

Now starting day 1.

We headed off on I-10 from San Antonio, TX, toward El Paso. I didn't start taking pictures until we reached Ozona, where I was fascinated by this stately house being invaded by wild turkeys. Ozona is a very old, rural, small, cowboy town. Farmland was within walking distance from this house, as was a central park area. This house was in a very nice little neighborhood area, with a lot of trees. There was almost no traffic. I don't know if the turkeys were pets, escaped from a farm, or if they were truly wild.

These turkeys were wandering through someone's front yard in Ozona, TX.

These seemed more like wild turkeys than farm turkeys, since domestic turkeys are large and white. The one on the right has its foot raised so you can see they have four toes (three in front, one in back).

I don't know if they were eating insects or if there was corn or bread or grass seed or something in the lawn.

This memorial was at the front of a little park in the middle of Ozona. "Be sure you are right, then go ahead." Handy advice for the traveler. Ozona, TX is in Crockett County, named for the Alamo hero for no particular reason, apparently, other than they liked him. Crockett personally had no ties with this town whatever. There is some information on the town on their website: http://ozona.com/articles/view/5/history

Apparently you buy your guns from Yosemite Sam in Ozona.

Beautiful downtown Ozona.

The other side of the street, downtown Ozona.