McDonalds on I-44 Vintia OK.

McDonalds on I-44 Vintia OK., originally uploaded by jimbwalking.

Coming home from vacation we stopped at this unique McDonald's for breakfast along I-44.

McDonald's East bound on I 44

McDonald's East bound on I 44, originally uploaded by jimbwalking.

While travelling on vacation I thought it would be neat to do a series of pictures and name them "Through the Windshield." Everyone has driven down the road and said "I wish I could take a picture of that" and couldn't or didn't take the time to stop and take the shot. So between my wife and I using my Iphone we shot many pictures of our vacation through the windshield. Hope you enjoy.

Waiting for the water to lower

Waiting for the water to lower, originally uploaded by jimbwalking.

While spending time on Taneycomo Lake I come across these two guys waiting for the water to go down before casting their hook. I told them I was catching more people with my camera then I was seeing trout being pulled from the stream. But what did it matter it was a beautiful day just being outdoors.

Duck out of water

Duck out of water, originally uploaded by jimbwalking.

More from Through the Windshield series. You have heard the old saying about a duck out of water, well here is a Duck out of the Water. A fun way to see the sites in and around Branson and learn a little bit about the history of the area. And also everyone who rides gets a free Quacker so you can quack at those who don't have web feet.

Look out over Lake Taneycomo

Look out over Lake Taneycomo, originally uploaded by jimbwalking.

I like to geocache and while in Branson I hunted and found several caches. This is a lookout over Lake Taneycomo that was reached by walking a nature trail in one of the cities parks.
The cache was hidden about 20 feet from this lookout on a rock ledge that you had to traverse to reach the cache container. it was a little bit scary but fun to do.

Fishing from the Bank

Fishing from the Bank, originally uploaded by jimbwalking.

Branson is well known for its musical entertainment, good food and hillbilly life style. Another thing they have is great fishing. Many anglers come to Branson each year to fish Lakes Taneycomo and Table Rock.
These guys are trying their luck for lake trout on Lake Taneycomo just below the Table Rock Dam. The waters of Taneycomo are cold from the elevation of the dam making this lake an ideal spot for trout.

Sycamore Log Church

Sycamore Log Church, originally uploaded by jimbwalking.

I enjoy geocaching and a couple of years ago this church was listed as a virtual cache. At that time I couldn't locate the church with my handheld gps because the gps didn't have local roads in its memory. On this trip I had a vehicle gps with local maps so I found this spot fairly easy.
I think the old church is beautiful with plenty of rural character and the sign posted on the outside wall stated that services were still held in the building.

Ozark Mountains

Ozark Mountains, originally uploaded by jimbwalking.

Traveled to the Branson MO. on vacation this year I had a great time and took some good pictures. This shot is from my Through the Windshield series as we entered the Ozark Mountains.

Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy, originally uploaded by jimbwalking.

TRADE DAYS TORNADO

TRADE DAYS TORNADO, originally uploaded by jimbwalking.

TORNADO PART III

I quickly wrote the epithet onto my copy of the posting to be logged in later when we returned home. I then gave a worried glance to the sky and the approaching storm. The clouds were as black and dark as I had ever seen and you could see that a violent wind was pushing them right into our path. I jumped back into the truck and started backtracking to the highway and Canton.

As I drove I told my wife that when we reached the flea market we would park in the center parking area and enter the main gates where the hidden cache should be located. From the description of the cache I knew it wouldn’t be hard to find. I explained this because we both, can be creatures of habit and or normal routine is to park in the South Lots and enter the South gates.

We topped a tall hill just North of Canton and looked down on the flea market grounds. The first thing to catch our eyes was the flashing of lights from emergency vehicles and the traffic backing up on both lanes of the road. I told my wife someone must have hit a pedestrian attempting to cross the highway. In this area parking is on one side of the road and the market is on the other and traffic goes through very fast making it sometimes difficult to cross.

As we got closer to the scene I noted that whatever was happening was happening in front of the main gates. So a change in our plans to park in the middle parking lot wasn’t going to work and we couldn’t get past the accident to park in the South lot. By then the nearest parking area to where we were was inside the markets grounds and I quickly made my turn into the flea market.

Parking on the grounds can be stressful and crowded with the foot traffic and all the vendors and we were lucky to find a parking place rather quickly. As I came to a stop I told my wife we would walk over and find the geo-cache then we would be free to start shopping. Stepping out of the truck we began noticing something strange. People were looking up to the sky, they were excited, and agitated some were on there cell phones making panicky calls and others were leaving the market all together. My wife looked at me and said “What’s going on?” and then we heard helicopters in the sky above us hovering and circling around.

I then began to listen to the conversations going on around me to learn what happened. You could feel the fear and anxiety of the crowd. What I began to hear and understand was that a tornado had just struck the flea market! As I listened more closely I heard how the wind had become very still and quiet and then a sound like a freight train could be heard in the distance and became louder as it got closer. Then from the remarks of the startled shoppers the dark funnel came to the ground spinning like a top just inside the main gates of the flea market and crashed into vendors tents tossing and throwing tents and merchandise up into the air and side to side.

The tornado then waltzed and danced through the outside stalls and the shoppers making its way through the main gates and crossing the highway into the middle parking lot where it turned over a van and attacked a giant oak tree ripping branches from the trunk and splintering wood into kindling before rising back into the clouds to travel on eastward.

Amazing no one was reported in juried, but everyone was frightened by the twister. Television news stations from the area swarmed the skies around the flea market and it was a miracle none of the helicopters collided considering how many there were in the air.

My wife and I made are way to the main gates of the flea market and looked at the damage the tornado had caused. We marveled that no one was hurt or died in its path. We then started talking, that had we not stopped in Edgewood to do the geo-cache there we would have arrived at the center parking lot and would have been entering the main gate at the same time as the tornado touched down putting us directly in its path.

With a slight chill down our backs and a sigh of relief we nabbed the cache and started searching for the treasures of the flea market.

PART II THOMAS TRACY

100_2880, originally uploaded by jimbwalking.

Rising early the next morning we enjoyed a very good continental breakfast at the hotel and worried about the dark stormy clouds rising from the West. We wondered if this trip to the flea market would be a washout. With this in mind we pointed the truck to the Southeast and the next geo-cache to find before arriving at our final destination.

As we got closer to Canton I turned on my GPS, I knew we would have to make a detour to Edgewood Texas where the next cache was hidden. While I drove I hoped it wouldn’t be far off the track as I was becoming anxious to start hunting the treasures that the flea market might have to offer. I even considered foregoing this cache and rushing on to Canton especially with the approaching storm clouds racing us from the West and the splatters of raindrops running down the trucks windshield. When we reached the crossroads where I would have to detour, I glanced at the GPS and seen that Edgewood and the cache was only a couple of miles down the road, so at that moment I decided why not, lets go for it and made my turn.

Edgewood Texas is a very small town and if you were to blink you might just miss it. The town has a main drive with a few homes branching off on side streets. I was also impressed by how clean everything looked. It was apparent the citizens took pride in their community. A railroad track ran along the North side of the town visible from the main street and since the name of the cache we were hunting was the “Iron Horse Tragedy“, I knew this geo-cache must have something to do with the railway. My thoughts were that a train wreck must have occurred in this town sometime in the past.

I made my turn toward the tracks checking my GPS to confirm that I was traveling in the right direction and drove to the intersection next to the tracks. My GPS then indicated that I needed to turn right to travel closer to the caches location. As I looked up the road alongside the track the only thing that stood out that was unusual was a single grave site. Placed in the center of the median between the road and the track.

I looked at my wife as she looked at me, we both raised our eyebrows and shrugged or shoulders wondering what and why, would somebody bury a loved one in a location such as this? I slowly came to a stop beside the grave and checked the GPS, we had arrived at the cache site. I then reread the instructions from the cache’s posting to determine what information the person hiding the cache wanted the finder to provide as proof of the find. The information was contained on the face of the tombstone.

Thomas Tracy
Killed by Train on
T. & P. Railway
May 28, 1889

CANTON TRADE DAYS PART ONE

Gateway to the Canton Trade Days Flea Market, originally uploaded by jimbwalking.

My wife and I travel to Canton Texas a couple of times a year to attend Trade Days, the largest flea market in the state of Texas. The market takes place each month on what locals call the First Monday of the month. This actually means that the market is open on Thursday thru Sunday before the first Monday of the month. I know this can be confusing, but get your calendar out an count backward, then you will understand how it works.

A couple of years ago this coming Spring my wife and I planned our trip much the same way as we usually do with one exception, this year we were going to geo-cache our way to Canton. We would leave our home in the afternoon and take our same route South through Ada then Tuledo and enter Texas at Sherman-Denison where the geo-caching would begin!

First we would stop at the M-K-T depot and search out the moument commemorating Engine NO. 15, the first train to enter Texas from the North. Then on to Eisenhower State Park and view the statute of the late President, Dwight D. Eisenhower who was born in Denison Texas October 14, 1890. At each site we gathered the information needed to prove to the geo-cacher who had hidden the caches that we were there.

Our day finally ended at Greenville Texas our regular stopping point on the trip to Canton. We had dinner at Tamale’s, a wonderful Tex-Mex restaurant and after stuffing ourselves with chips, salsa and fajitas we went to hunt the last cache of the day. A memorial to Audie Murphy the most decorated soldier of World War II. Audie Murphy lived in the small town of Celeste Texas just a short distance to the North of Greenville where he worked before enlisting into the Army.

AN OLD TRAIL TO BE EXPLORED

100_2691, originally uploaded by jimbwalking.

This trail is located West of Branson Mo. at the Paul and Ruth Henning Conservation Area. While walking some of this trail last June I was impressed with the beauty of the country side and the peace and quiet that surrounded me.

My thoughts went to Harold Bell Wright who wrote the novel "The Shepard of the Hills" Mr. Wright wrote his best selling book in 1907, not to far from where I was walking and I wondered if I might be walking in his foot steps.

The trail is between 5 and 6 miles long and I understand some abandoned homesteads are along the route. I hope the next time I visit Branson I will be able to continue this walk.

As a side note of interest Paul Henning is the same person who created The Beverly Hillbillys, the TV show which was very popular in the sixties.

SIGNS AND MURALS

January, originally uploaded by jimbwalking.

For the last couple of years I have become interested in photography. Over the course of this time I have taken thousands of pictures and most of them have not been keepers. But I have really enjoyed doing this and have worked hard to improve myself within this craft.

This past fall I started a project to photographic signs and murals in Shawnee, a town close to where I live. I found this sign, or is it a mural, on a building in the downtown area. Of course the primary reason for taking this picture is that it fit in with my project, but a secondary reason is that I knew Dan Brown would be coming out with his new book "The Lost Symbol. " I haven't had the oppourtiny to read the book as of yet, but hope to sometime in the future.

THE CALL OF THE WILD

After the blizzard of 09 and the mud of 2010 I have been going to work and staying home. Last night after writing my evening blog and scrolling the menu for something to watch on TV I began to feel restless. I knew it was nothing but cabin fever and it was really to late to go somewhere I decided why not slip on my boots and step outside for a few minutes. After all the weather was mild and I could use some fresh air. With a light jacket on and my flashlight in my hands I went out the back door and down the steps to my backyard.

As I stepped out onto the wet grass I started to hear a pack of coyotes in the distance, I could tell they had worked themself's into a frenzy by the excited yelps and howls coming from the pack. As a shiver ran down my back bone and the hair on the back of neck began to tingle I began to hear another sound coming from the wild cries of the coyotes, a sound that didn't belong, but yet was familiar. I stood stock still while listening very hard trying to recognize this unknown addition to the coyotes howls, while the voice in my head was saying go back into the house, why didn't you bring your pistol when you went out, go where it is safe.

I stood my ground and continued to listen, I ignored my inner voice facing my fear, curious as to what was making this hysterical call for help. As the sound became louder and more pronounced I then began to realize what I was hearing was the bellow and cry of a cow fighting for her or the life of her calf as the hungry pack attacked. My first thought was how can I help, but I knew how sound can travel and this battle for food or life was begin fought quite a ways from where I stood and there were many gullies and heavy woods between me and the struggle to survive.

I stood hopeless and listened as the battle began to wind down no doubt to its outcome. I felt sorrow and remorse for the cow and calf the unthinkable horror they had endured and the untimely end one or both had just met. Their quiet life invaded by the predators that had caught their scent. I also hung my head and thought about the farmer who was trying to make a living to feed his family, or too achieve his dream and the nightmare that would greet him in the morning when he went out to check his cattle.

I slowly walked back to my house feeling hurt and sad for begin a witness to this tragic drama and then I thought of the coyotes and how there would not be any hunger in this pack tonight. I then came to the realization that this was Nature at work here tonight and what I had heard was the call of the wild.

GROWING UP

My father passed away when I was nine years old and it was just mom and I on our own. We lived out in the country quite a few miles from town and the closest neighbors were scattered on what few farms that were in the area.

Mom had to get a job right away because the social security checks we received were not enough to live on and there wasn't much spare change for me to have in my pockets. The only thing for me to do was to start looking for jobs. Now no one was going to employee a nine year old kid, but some of the farmers didn't mind paying a little bit for someone to do chores around the farm.

I started out helping feed the cows and hauling hay after school each day, as I learned my way around I stared to drive the trucks and tractors around the farm doing these jobs by myself.

When work was slow or the farmer didn't have the extra money to pay for my work I would have mom haul the old push mower to town and I would mow lawns. Now I wasn't able to work everyday, but I did manage to keep some change in my pockets and help out a little bit.

As I grew older I become pretty handy with a rope and I didn't mind spending a few hours horseback checking pastures. I would have loved doing this day in and day out, but you have to take the good with the bad, sometimes I was on the wrong end of post-hole diggers with fencing pliers in my hip pocket.

The work hours were from "can't see to can't see" and it was scorching hot in the Summer and freezing cold in the Winter. But to watch the grass turn green with newborn calves playing in the fields you knew Spring was on its way. And with a big harvest moon overhead you see the frost form on the ground and your breath has a hint of vapor, the last bale of hay in the feed trough ends a long day. I have to say those early jobs were the best.

PEOPLE WATCHING

I have been a people watcher for many years. I remember back in my early teens or maybe just before, my mother said to me " Watch people and pattern yourself after the way they conduct there-self." What Mom meant by this was that she had taught me everything she knew as far as manners and being polite was concerned and it was up to me learn the rest of the things I needed to advance further in life.

You see Mom was a daughter of a share-cropping familty who had never practiced good manners or being polite. They couldn't take the time for education because farming and putting food on the table was a day to day battle for suriveal. So what Mom did growing up and into womanhood was watch how other people acted and then copied what they did in the day to day ways of life.

I listened to my Mother and followed her example and I have been watching people for many years. I have learned a lot of things by doing this and my manners are about as good as they will ever be. I have also learned many things about how not to act because over the years I been around my fair share of fools, but the best teacher I ever had was my wonderful Mother who taught me to observe, and make decesions based on how I would want to be treated if I was in other peoples shoes.

THE TOOLS OF THE ROAD & TRAILS

Assignment Evenings, originally uploaded by jimbwalking.

For many years I have been interested and have enjoyed walking and riding the trails in and around home. When I take trips away from home I always look for a place to walk it may be a city sidewalk or a trail around a city park it doesn't really matter I just enjoy being out and about looking at whatever is new to me. I have seen some wonderful sights.

One habit I have when I walk or ride no matter whether I am in an affluent area or on the poor side of town is whoever I meet or pass I always greet them with a smile and hello, sometimes I get a smile and hello back, sometimes they look at me as if I am crazy, but it is fun to watch their reaction.

As the attached photo shows this is my tools of the trail all of this equipment has been with me for years and has traveled many miles and I hope these tools have many more miles left in them, because there is a lot of trails I still want to travel and people I want to say hello too.

AUTHORS OF OLD

I have always been a fan of authors born in the 19th and early 20th century. When these people told a story I felt as if they had lived some or all parts of what they were writing. The settings, the people and the story lines were written through the author's eyes and the feeling they were having in the telling of the story.

Harold Bell Wright one of my favorite authors would write a tender love story surrounded with a story centered in the good works of man. Fred Gipson's stories took place in the Hill Country of Texas and told of growing up on the frontier. The characters were very much like the people I knew in my little country community.

I have only mentioned two Authors with this post, but hopefully as I write this blog I will go more in-dept with their writing and talk more about other Authors and Books I have enjoyed a lifetime of reading.

LITTLE RIVER COUNTRY

LITTLE RIVER COUNTRY, originally uploaded by jimbwalking.

Little River is a quiet place where I go when I want to get away from the house for awhile. The river is not to far from home and I enjoy sometimes walking, or I may ride my mountain bike on the dirt roads, sometimes I just sit and enjoy the peace and quiet.

JANUARY

JANUARY, originally uploaded by jimbwalking.

This is a photo of a crane taken at Tecumseh Lake. Tecumseh Lake is a small lake close to where I live and I go there quite often to hang out.

I also used this photo as the January photo for a calendar I made for 2010.

BOOKS & AUTHORS

I remember when I was a young child, my Mother would read to me from children books. The stories could be about Cowboys and Indians, fairy tales and stories about animals by doing this Mom instilled in me a love for reading which is as strong today as when I was child.

Each night before I go to bed I have to read and when I finish a book I always start a new one. This has led to a life of adventure even if it is in the comfort of my home.

I have visited every place on this planet and sailed every sea, I have been to the earth's core and traveled to distant galaxies all through the pages of the books I have read.

I have rode the range with the wild bunch and stood up to the meanest of villains, I have courted the prettiest girls and saved those who have been preyed upon. If I wasn't the hero I was at least his sidekick and with the turn of the last page I would ride off into the sunset.

With all of that said over the next days and weeks I will on occassion post some of the more rememberable books I have read. I hope anyone reading these words will enjoy what is written.

THE BEGINING

January 7, 2010

Well this is something new to try. I used to do a jounral everyday some years ago and then got out of the habit, maybe I will keep this up.

As I go along I will tell everyone about myself and the things I do and enjoy.

I will write about the books I have read and hope to read, pictures I take, walks down country roads and bike rides when the days become longer and warmer.

Hope anyone who reads this enjoys the content and if they wish they are welcome to comment.