{"id":4081,"date":"2014-06-25T22:00:12","date_gmt":"2014-06-26T02:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/?p=4081"},"modified":"2023-07-23T14:31:03","modified_gmt":"2023-07-23T18:31:03","slug":"amarillo-to-russellville-ark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/2014\/06\/amarillo-to-russellville-ark\/","title":{"rendered":"Amarillo to Russellville, Ark."},"content":{"rendered":"

A wild thunderstorm blew through Amarillo in the middle of the night: thunder rolling and booming across the sky, flashes of lightning coming through the motel’s blackout blinds, rain lashing at the window. I got up and closed the window so the rain wouldn’t soak the floor; then I stood there for a minute or so and looked out at the storm. We rarely have thunderstorms in the Bay area, and never on a scale like the thunderstorms on the Great Plains.<\/p>\n

I slept late — I’m still on California time, I guess — and fortunately by the time I had taken my shower the motel was no longer serving breakfast. Breakfasts at budget motels, with their limp gray sausage patties, and scrambled egg product that comes in a plastic bag that the motel staff sticks in a microwave to heat up, are well worth sleeping through.<\/p>\n

As we drove across Oklahoma, I noticed how green everything looked. The last time we drove across Interstate 40, at about this time of year, Oklahoma had been in the grip of a lengthy and severe drought, and the landscape looked silvery-brown from lack of moisture. This year, though, there has been enough rain to turn the fields bright green. I’d read a chapter from Agatha Christie’s Murder at Hazelmoor<\/em> to Carol, then look out the car windows at the miraculously green landscape.<\/p>\n

By the time we reached Oklahoma City, we were ready for a longer stop. We found our way to Bricktown, the self-proclaimed arts and entertainment district. The weather was hot and sticky — not at all the dry heat we’re used to from having lived in the West for five years — and we were glad to walk along the Bricktown Canal where it seemed a little bit cooler.<\/p>\n

We left the pathway along the canal to tour around a city block or two, just to see what was there, and we saw a sign saying: “American Banjo Museum Entrance,” with an arrow pointing around a corner. “We have to go see this museum,” I said. Carol was willing to go. A polite older man took our admission fees. “You can tell this is a real banjo museum when the man at the front desk has a banjo case beside him,” I said. The man smiled and asked me if I played, but I said I only played a little guitar.<\/p>\n

I liked the older banjos best, particularly a William Boucher banjo from the 1840s, with a lovely scroll pedhead, and a Bullock Fretless banjo from 1854.<\/p>\n

\"Bullock<\/p>\n

Above: Bullock fretless banjo, 1854, American Banjo Museum, Oklahoma City<\/em><\/p>\n

Most of the banjos were pretty fancy, with complicated inlays on the fingerboard, ornate carving on the neck, elaborate designs painted on the back (i.e., on the resonator head), oddly-shaped banjos, etc. These are the sorts of banjos that appeal to collectors, but they didn’t really appeal to me.<\/p>\n

\"American<\/p>\n

Above: American Banjo Museum, Oklahoma City<\/em><\/p>\n

I was much more interested in the banjo owned by John Stewart of the Kingston Trio: a “Pete Seeger” model banjo produced by Vega, and played by Stweart during his Kingston Trio years — a working banjo, rather than a show banjo.<\/p>\n

But the most interesting rooms what was apparently a repair room. The door was locked, but you look see though a window. There were two tables, the further table stacked up with banjo parts and tools and what might have been glue; on the near table was a banjo that had been disassembled into its component parts: neck assembly, pot, resonator, head, etc.<\/p>\n

\"BlogJun2514c\"<\/p>\n

Above: American Banjo Museum, Oklahoma City<\/em><\/p>\n

We spent too much time in the American Banjo Museum. As a result, it was almost 10:30 by the time we checked into our motel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A wild thunderstorm blew through Amarillo in the middle of the night: thunder rolling and booming across the sky, flashes of lightning coming through the motel’s blackout blinds, rain lashing at the window. I got up and closed the window so the rain wouldn’t soak the floor; then I stood there for a minute or … Continue reading “Amarillo to Russellville, Ark.”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[956,604],"class_list":["post-4081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-road-trips","tag-2014-road-trip","tag-banjo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4081"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4081\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4089,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4081\/revisions\/4089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}