On my Travels
Here are some pics I took in South Africa, Italy, England, Scotland, Ireland, Mexico, the USA and Canada.
I'll be updating periodically with pics from
some of the other places I visit.
Below: First up is me at Devil's Tower, Wyoming. Movie
goers may recognise this place as the setting of the 1978 movie,
Close Encounters of the Third Kind, in which a huge alien spaceship appears
above the tower.
Below: Me at Crow Agency on the Little Bighorn in Montana.
I went on to make many friends here, all Native American,
Cheyenne and Sioux. They're great people and I don't like to hear a wrong word
said about them.
Below: This is me at the Little Bighorn Battlefield, very
close to Crow Agency. Montana. Here, on June 25, 1876 the great grandfathers of
my personal friends here scored a decisive victory over the advancing white
people, defeating George Custer in under an hour. Masterminded by Tatankha
Iyotake ("Buffalo Who Sits", the "Sitting Bull" of lore), the encounter was timed
to coincide as
closely as possible with White America's first millennium
celebrations (4 July 1776 - 1876). The intended message was unequivocal:
"If you think you have won the West, this thing isn't over yet!"
The graves behind me are of the fallen soldiers.
Below: Me in Tombstone, Arizona. The historic main street here is all original, not rebuilt. The OK Corral is down the street on the right.
Below: I took this in the Boot Hill bone yard here in Tombstone. Natural life expectancy was low enough to begin with, without everybody going around armed up to the teeth, and in a world where human beings will get used to anything, they developed a casual attitude towards death which manifests itself in some of these gravestones. Another one reads, ".... hanged. It were legal".
Below: The famous Crystal Palace saloon in Tombstone. Still
open for business after 150 years.
I spent a week in there, couldn't be bothered moving on.
Below: Dodge City in Kansas. It's just west of Wichita
where I go a lot. I honestly swear that Dodge is worse now than its ever been.
Up on Gunsmoke (a street that runs along the back of the main street) there's
this cinema that had all its front windows smashed in. I thought it was
derelict but it was still open the next time I visited the town, windows still
all broken.
Also, in all my travels across the USA by road, stopping overnight at thousands
of places over 15 years, I've only ever had my fuel nicked twice. Have a guess.
Yup. Dodge City, both times. I dunno about waking up at 2am with a frog in my
throat -- in this place I'm more likely to wake up with a knife in it.
Below: Me in Dodge. Now unlike Tombstone this main street is a reproduction. However the saloon at the end of the street is open for business. The bartender slides your beer along the bar and there's a knack to catching it. When it reaches your hand, move your hand with it in the same direction, then slow it down. Let it just run into you and you'll get half of it all over the counter top. In the Old West the sheriff here was Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp, who later moved to Tombstone.
Below: I spend most of my USA time in Texas and rented an apartment for a few years in Dallas. They have a great zoo!
Below: The giraffe compound at Dallas Zoo. When I lived here I came here a lot.
Below: Remember the Alamo! I've been here 3 or 4 times; its in what is now downtown San Antonio. I know the family of Gen. Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna (they don't live in Texas), who laid the famous siege in 1836, and I've definitely heard the other side of the story here!
Below: Me outside the Alamo (photography is not allowed inside because it's still a church). Look up. Talk about being "overshadowed by a subsequent development."
Below: Back in Dallas where I lived for a few years. This is me, looking increasingly ridiculous, in Dealey Plaza down on Elm, where President Kennedy was shot. The window directly above me, on the sixth floor of what used to be the Texas School Book Depository building, is where the shots were allegedly fired from (left building, square window, 1 floor below the top).
Below: A selfie of yours truly here, standing in front of the famous picket fence atop the grassy knoll in Dealey Plaza.
Below: Still in Texas, this is the Lyndon Johnson Space
Centre in the southern part of Houston. The fabled "Mission Control"
is here.
My girl is a local Texas lass. Funnily enough, before me she went out with a
Wednesdayite from Sheffield. Small world ain' it?
Below: Me standing next to a Saturn 5 in Houston.
Below: Some time before the Mission Control visit, this is
the hotel in Houston where I was holed up alone for 3 weeks in 2015 after some
bozo crashed into my vehicle and I had to wait for new parts. Then, when they
finally arrived, they
had to be painted. Meantime I lived on Mexican tacos and white wine, which was
all that was available within walking distance.
The wine was good but I couldn't face another taco for years.
Below: Well anyway I got fed up of waiting and got in a taxi. This is me stood by the grave of Howard Hughes in Houston. It's not a good shot as I took it later on my computer screen. The taxi driver took the original shot which I can't find; I retained her for the afternoon so she could show me as much of Houston as possible.
Below: Las Vegas Nevada. This is the building where I spend most of my time when I'm in town. At one time I was on hugging terms with most of the girls who worked there, and they'd break off and come sit with me when I'd be having a quiet drink (they weren't on the make!). Then I switched to another casino for a while, during which time most of them moved on. I'm still in touch with some.
Below: This is the inside of the same building. Under a false sky, you could live in here for years without ever venturing outside.
Below: In South Africa in Kwa Zulu Natal. Some of the places I needed to access cannot be reached by car, so I got myself a horse. Just the job.
Below: The hairy dashboard of my means of transportation. Indian Ocean in the background.
Below: This is where I stay in South Africa. It's actually on the beach; the Indian Ocean is right behind me.
Below: A friend of mine in South Africa
Below: Driving from Cape Town up to Johannesburg.
Below: Back in the good ol' U.S. of A. This is the family grave plot of the US branch of the Marsden family, my family on my mother's side. Robert Lathrope here was my g-g-g grandfather who left Deepcar, UK for Ogden Utah in 1868. His eldest daughter, my g-g-grandmother, stayed behind in England because she had recently got married. But he took his youngest daughter with him and through her I am now related to half Utah and Nevada. His best friend was Max Parker, Butch Cassidy's dad. They grew peaches together on adjacent plots of land they owned. Our two families also intermarried. See my family tree on this site.
Below: I took this at the Calgary Stampede in western Canada back in 2007. This was the year that for some unfathomable reason they all dressed in pink.
Below: In Deadwood, South Dakota. This is the place where James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickok was shot dead in 1876.
Below: Me at the grave of Wild Bill Hickok. Deadwood has the steepest Boot Hill I ever went up.
Below: This is me at Mount Rushmore in South Dakota.
Below: This is me on the shores of the Pacific Ocean at
Carmel, California. Clint Eastwood used to be the Mayor here.
Talk about getting fleeced -- never before or since have I paid $25 for fish and
chips from a roadside stall.
Below: In Rome with my son. Inside the Colosseum, and in the streets of Pompei.
Below: In the amphitheatre and sitting in the streets of Pompei.
Below: Me looking a bit like a blackshirt, in Rome and Pompei.
Below: In Nuevo Progreso, Mexico. I walked over the bridge
across the Rio Bravo (Rio Grande) from the US side,
and the difference in living standard was shocking.
Below: Me looking like an even bigger Wally in the Avenue
Benito Juarez, the main street of Nuevo Progreso, Mexico.
A 11-12 year old street urchin took this with my camera. "Take your picture
mister? One dollar one taco!", she said.
"One taco?", I rejoindered, "don't you mean one burp and you're
empty?" I gave her 50 bucks and
told her to keep it in different pockets.
Below: An atmospheric eating place in Nuevo Progreso, Mexico. Next door I bought myself the hat I'm wearing and a new pair of boots.
Below: Speaking of nosh, this is Skegness on England's east
coast, July 2022.
Note the varied cuisine and eclectic culinary tastes. Mind you it's my kind
of place.
Below: In York, England. The guy in front of the medieval city gate is my brother.
Below: I took this one of my brother at Doe Castle, Co. Donegal in the Irish Republic.
Below: Driving from England into Bonnie Scotland, just east of Edinburgh.
Below: Castle Street in Edinburgh, Scotland.
