Postcard From Hawaii - II

On the 2nd full day in paradise, we were still not fully acclimated to the time change, but we were getting there. We woke up early & drove to the little breakfast cafe we had found just down the road from our hotel. We could have saved a little time by having breakfast in the hotel, but not having Warren Buffett or Bill Gates money, we passed on the $60+ it would have cost for the 3 of us to have pancakes and eggs and filled up very nicely on the perfectly fine cafe-down-the-road food for $20 including tip. 

With cups of coffee to go, we headed north on Hwy 93, the Farrington Highway, as it hugged the coast. The scenery was beautiful and there were a number of nicely kept beach parks. Several of them, particularly in the town of Nanakuli, seemed to be populated with people living in tents and cars. There were even what seemed to be little tent cities of beach people with a number of tents right next to each other arranged around a central meeting area with a fire pit dug out of the sand. Trails winding around and through the occupied areas had been left open for foot traffic. Laundry hung from clothes lines stretched between the tents and old bicycles and stolen grocery carts were all about. We didn't stop at these places.

One of the gorgeous, nearly deserted beaches along
Highway 93

There were other beaches though that were wonderful. The ones outside the sprawl of a town were nice, clean and inviting. I guess the tent people, not having a car, needed to live in the towns where they could get what they needed to make it through another day and night. The tourist area beaches are kept safe and immaculate by the hotels and the beyond-town beaches are uncrowded and pretty due to location. We stopped at several of these to look around, take photo's, and marvel at the beauty.

We arrived at the end of Hwy 93, literately the end of the road, in Ke'ena Point State Park. From there, the only way to go further is by foot on the Kaena Point Trail. We parked on the side of the road, the only place to park, took off our shoes and did some beach walking. Of course it was beautiful scenery and there were only a few other folks around, mostly locals and a few other visitors like us. Everyone smiled and said "Hi" as we passed. 

Youngest-daughter searching for sea shells

After a while, the Mama-woman and Youngest-daughter wanted to keep strolling the sand looking for sea shells while I needed to sit and rest my back. An old injury occasionally flares up and pinches a nerve going down my leg and it had chosen now of all times to let me know it was still around. Perhaps the sitting for so long while flying didn't do it any good. I told the girls to go on and I headed back to the car. Sitting in the passenger seat with the door open, I heard something rustling the tall grass stalks which came right up to the side of the car. Of course I was a little startled because it happened so suddenly with just the rustling noise and a very brief flash of something that kind of looked like a weasel. I grabbed my camera and spent the next 15 minutes trying to get a picture of the little creature. It stayed right there close to the car, but never showed itself. A rustle, a brief flash and then nothing. I finally gave up - no picture and no idea what it was.

A hand-made concrete memorial with flower offering for a
deceased Hawaiian surfer. The flowers had obviously been 
there a long time, yet no one had touched them. Nice.

Another 15 minutes of stretching my back and I was feeling well enough to go back to the beach.  I crossed a little sand dune and came face-to-face with the girls coming back with pockets full of shells and cool little pebbles. An empty Gatorade bottle was washed out and then served as a container for the handful of sand Mama-woman wanted to keep for a souvenir. I did a 3-point u-turn and back to the hotel we headed.

We stopped at a fast-food place for a late lunch before returning to the hotel. Unremarkable food, but one of our fellow patrons was pretty interesting. He was sitting by himself off to the side of us and he had a guitar he was strumming. As I watched him, it quickly became apparent he needed to be on meds and he had not been taking any - at least not the kind that would help him. His guitar only had 3 strings - literally 3 strings, as in 2 pieces of twine and what appeared to be 2 shoelaces tied together. He had a cup of coffee on the table in front of him and he would strum that guitar for a few seconds, sadly shake his head, take a sip of coffee and then "tune" the guitar. He would then play a few chords, sadly shake his head, and start the process all over. We were there about 30 minutes and he did the same thing the whole time. Of course I felt sad for him and actually wished I knew where to buy a set of real guitar strings to give him. For some reason, I found him and his obsession oddly compelling. It was hard to take my eyes off of him, waiting to see if he varied his routine. Mama-woman told me to stop staring, but he never looked up and paid absolutely no attention to anyone or anything except his never-ending attempt to correctly tune that guitar. When we left, I noticed his coffee cup seemed to be empty so I walked over and gave him a dollar for another cup. He looked up, shyly smiled, dipped his head back down and went right back to strumming and tuning. If you're going to be crazy and homeless, I guess Hawaii is a fine place for it.

Ka'ena Point Beach at the end of the road.

After a refreshing nap, that evening I chose to help my back by sitting in the hotel hot tub and watching the stars come out with an adult beverage in my hand. I'm sure I read somewhere that rum drinks with little umbrellas in them are good medicine for the back. The look Mama-woman gave me clearly indicated she totally wasn't buying it, but she let it slide. Rather than the hot tub or pool, the girls decided to take a walk down the beach to the Disney hotel a short ways down from us. Imagine my surprise when they returned several hours later wearing woven palm frond headband thingies and carrying opened coconuts with liquid in them! Youngest-daughter's contained an innocent punch, but I'm not so sure Mama-woman's didn't contain her own "back medicine." Seems they "accidentally" walked into a luau on the beach at the Disney resort and the Hawaiian guys working it thought they were paid guests like everyone else! A few hula dances, headbands, coconuts and stage entertainment later (all free!), and they moseyed on back to gather me up and retire to our beautiful room for a well-earned night's sleep. It was almost 10:00 PM Hawaii time and we were pretty proud of ourselves for managing to stay up so late! 

Youngest-daughter at the "free" luau.

Hmmm. Mama-woman seems to really be enjoying herself
at the luau she "accidentally" joined.

And another day in Paradise comes to a beautiful end.

 

Postcard From Hawaii - 1

When it's winter in North America, when lakes and pipes are frozen, there's ice and snow on the ground, when everyone you see outside is bundled up in layers of warm clothes and heavy coats and rushing to get back inside and all you want to do is curl up in front of a comforting fire in the fireplace with a cup of hot chocolate and a good book, is there anything better than a vacation in Hawaii? I can't think of anything!

A large portion of the Honolulu airport is open-air. In my
opinion, it is one of the prettiest airports in the world

It's a long time getting from Arkansas to Hawaii - leave very early to get to the Little Rock airport to catch the first flight to Dallas and then an 8-hour flight to Honolulu. Then there's the 4-hour time difference to contend with. By the time we got our bags, loaded up the rental car and headed to the hotel, our bodies thought it was 8:00pm, but the clock on the wall said no, it was just 4:00pm in Paradise. Yeah, I know, it was tough!

I must pause for a minute here to be a bit negative about Hertz. After arriving at the beautiful Oahu airport and being excited about actually being in Hawaii, the last thing you want is to sit on the concrete and wait an hour for your rental car. It was crowded, it was frustrating, the employees didn't seem to care and there didn't seem to be a reason for the delay. When they finally called my name, I was handed an electronic key and told to walk about 200 yards down rows of rental cars to get mine. They didn't deliver it to the waiting area, no smiles, no "Welcome to Hawaii," no "Aloha," no thanks for doing business with Hertz, no nothing. Perhaps I'm expecting too much for my $55 per day to rent their 4-door Chevy Impala, but I'll use a different rental car company next time.

Once out of the airport, we made our way to the JW Marriott Ihilani Ko Olina Resort & Spa in Kapolei, our home for the next 4 days and 5 nights. The lobby was spacious, open and beautiful; the staff greeted us with smiles and seemed genuinely happy to have us. Check in was quick and a bell hop quickly gathered up our bags and showed us to our room. Nice! The room was great - very clean, quality furniture, soft, plush carpet and tiled floor, excellent beds, high-end bathing products, a very large spotlessly clean bathroom and a wonderful view of the ocean to the front of us and mountains to the side of us. This was something we all decided we could definitely get used to....you know, if we hit the lottery!

After going out to get a bite to eat at a locally-owned restaurant we saw on the way in, we returned to our room tired and happy. The Mama-woman made a pot of Kona Coffee and we took our cups outside to sit on our private balcony as we listened to the waves and watched the sun set over the ocean. Look up the word "contentment" in the dictionary and there will be a picture of us at that moment. We made it until a little after 9:00pm local time before we crawled into those nice comfy beds and got snuggled in. We left the patio door open and drifted off to sleep listening to those waves gently washing ashore.


Our first full day in Paradise was spent mostly hanging around the grounds of the hotel and the beach below our room. Still tired and not yet acclimated to the time difference, we relaxed, took a nice afternoon nap, and let ourselves begin to shed the stress and forget the obligations of our daily lives back home. Of course we were looking forward to seeing all the things and doing all the stuff we had planned beforehand, but this was the perfect way to start our Hawaiian vacation.

Relaxing on the beach. Now this is the life!

Youngest-daughter napping on our balcony.

Late afternoon - view from our balcony.

Sunset - end of 1st full day in Paradise.

Postcard from the Texas State Cemetery

A cemetery is a history of people - a perpetual record of yesterday and sanctuary of peace and quiet today. A cemetery exists because every life is worth living and remembering. - William Gladstone

Show me your cemeteries and I will tell you what kind of people you have. - Benjamin Franklin

Entrance to the cemetery and Visitor Center

If you want to take a walk among the figures who shaped Texas, take a stroll through the Texas State Cemetery, located in Austin about one mile east of the State Capital between 7th and 11th Streets. It is there where many of the shakers and movers and honored Texans lie peacefully at rest.

In 1851, General Edward Burleson, a veteran of the Battle of San Jacinto and former vice president of the Republic of Texas, unexpectedly passed away at the age of 53 after contracting pneumonia.  At the time of his death, he was serving as senator for the 21st district. The Texas Legislature convened to plan a state funeral for him. Senator Andrew Jackson Hamilton donated the land and General Burleson became the first person buried in what became the State Cemetery.

Unfortunately, very little money was allocated for upkeep. In 1874, a newspaper reporter  wrote that the cemetery was poorly maintained and was a "bleak and rocky hillside bordered by a dilapidated picket fence with no tree or bush in sight." A rather feeble effort was made to upgrade the grounds, but little was actually accomplished. 120 years later in the early 1990's, Lieutenant Governor Bob Bullock attended a funeral at the cemetery, found it to be disgraceful and immediately spearheaded a drive for funds for major improvements.

The State Government and citizens of Texas rallied to the cause and a 3-year, $4.7 million restoration and renovation project was begun. New grass was planted and carefully tendered to replace the sparse grasses and weeds, Texas roses and other flowering greenery were planted to beautify the landscape, a new water pond and fountain were built, new sidewalks were added, funereal statuary was cleaned and repaired, including over 2,150 marble headstones of Confederate veterans. Also built was a new limestone visitor center which was designed to resemble the long barracks at the Alamo. The center included a Texas history gallery and an administration building. New walls were erected around the grounds, including columbarium walls made of granite along the northern border.

Today, the grounds are immaculate, the walkways clear, the headstones well maintained, and the staff friendly, helpful, and respectful. Every grave here tells a story - from Civil War heroes to Texas-born Medal of Honor winners in WWII, Vietnam and later conflicts; from Sam Houston, the father of Texas, to historical old-west period Texas Rangers to Darrell Royal, the hallowed coach of the University of Texas Longhorns to one of the most recent burials, U.S. Navy Seal Kris Kyle whose headstone reads, "It is our duty to serve those who serve us." A walk through these grounds provides a true history lesson of the people who made Texas "Texas."

Albert Sidney Johnston - general in the Texas Army and later
served as a general in the Confederate Army. Killed  while
 leading his forces during the battle of Shiloh in 1862.

Over 2,000 graves contain the remains of men who served
in the Confederacy during the Civil War.

Served in the Texas Army and fought in the Battle of
San Jacinto, the battle which enabled Texas to become
a nation. He carried the only Texas flag during the
battle and was the first to see the fleeing Mexican
General Santa Anna and helped capture him.



Grave of Stephen F. Austin, the
father of Texas

Grave of "Bigfoot" Wallace, famous
soldier, Texas Ranger, survivor of many
battles with Mexicans, Indians, and out-
laws and teller of tall tales. Popular folk
hero who died in 1899, it was said of him,
"Without directing many of the events which
shaped Texas history, he was there when they
happened and did not hesitate to tell the tales." 

Monument Hill and the graves of Medal of Honor winners,
most of whom gave their lives in the service of America.

Native Texan who was the author of numerous highly
acclaimed books. Most famous as the author of "Old Yeller."

Vietnam Memorial dedicated to
Texans who served in that conflict.

Moving and solemn 9/11 memorial with two steel beams
from the World Trade Center towers. 

Looking toward the Texas State Capital from Monument Hill
within the cemetery.

Postcard From Toltec Mounds

Toltec Mounds Archaeological State Park in Scott, Arkansas is a National Historic Landmark. The site preserves and interprets the state's tallest Native American mounds. 

Toltec Mounds is one of the largest archaeological sites in the Lower Mississippi Valley. At one time, the mounds had an 8 to 10 foot-high earthen embankment on three sides and was protected on the fourth by a small lake. A century ago, 16 mounds were known inside the embankment with two of them being 38 and 50 feet high. Today, several mounds and a remnant of the embankment are still visible and the locations of other smaller mounds are known.

Two of the larger mounds

Toltec was built by Plum Bayou culture people between A.D. 700 and 1050. The mounds were religious and social centers for the people living in the surrounding countryside. The Toltec center itself had a very small resident population  which consisted mostly of the political and religious leaders and their families. The mound locations were planned using principles based on alignment with certain important solar positions and standardized units of measurement. This alignment can still be witnessed at the site during the spring and fall equinoxes.

The lake on one side of the mounds with a
mound in the background.

"Cypress Knees" - roots of the cypress trees
growing around the lake next to the mounds.

Early sunset at Toltec Mounds.

Owney - The Good Luck Postal Dog

Owney with some of his medals and tags

Owney was a scruffy mutt who became a regular fixture at the Albany, New York, post office in 1888. His owner, a man named Owen who had adopted him as a stray, was a postal clerk who let the dog walk with him to work. One rainy day, the back door to the post office was accidentally left open. The dog found his way inside and the workers didn't have the heart to put him back out in the rain and in the following weeks, continued to let him come in and spend his days there. When the supervisor inquired about the dog the workers were keeping in the back room even though it was against the rules, they told him it was Owen's mutt. Falling for the pup's cuteness, wagging tail, and likable nature, he let them keep him. After that, the dog became known as Owney. 

Owney was attracted to the texture or scent of the mailbags and slept on them every night. When his owner moved away, Owney stayed with his mail clerk friends and his mailbag bed. He soon began to follow mailbags around on their daily travels. At first, he just followed them onto mail wagons, returning every afternoon to his home at the post office. Then he began to follow mailbags onto Railway Post Office (RPO) mail trains and traveled with them on their journey across the state and then all around the country.

Before long, railway mail clerks considered the dog a good luck charm. At the time, train wrecks were all too common and resulted in a number of deaths of postal employees. However, no train Owney rode was ever in a wreck.

Somehow, he knew the mailbags were for postal employees only and wouldn't let anyone but a uniformed postal worker touch a bag. One time a mail pouch fell unnoticed from a wagon during a delivery run. When the carrier returned to the office, not only was the bag found to be missing, but so was Owney! Upon retracing the route, the bag was found with Owney laying on top of it, guarding it by barking and growling at anyone who approached. When he saw the postal carrier, he jumped off the bag and began wagging his tail. 

In a book at the time it was reported "The terrier Owney travels from one end of the country to the other in the postal cars, tagged through, petted, talked to, looked out for, as a brother, almost. But then, no matter what the attention, he suddenly departs for the south, the east, or the west, and is not seen again for months." In 1893 he was feared dead after having disappeared for longer than usual, but it turned out he was slightly injured in an accident in Canada. Word went out that Owney was missing and when the Canadians heard this, they put him on a mail train back to Albany with a note telling what happened and that they had paid a local vet to nurse him until he had recovered enough to once again travel. They did, however, request a payment of $2.50 to pay for his food. The money was quickly collected in Albany and sent to the Canadians. 

Owney with Mail Train workers

Fearing he would get lost someday, this incident led the Albany workers to buy him a collar with a metal tag which read, "Owney. Post Office. Albany, New York." Railway mail clerks around the country adopted Owney as their unofficial mascot and began marking his travels by placing medals and tags on his collar. Eventually there were so many tags attached to the collar that the small dog was unable to carry them all around his neck so each time Owney returned home to Albany, the clerks there removed and saved some of the tags. 

Postmaster General John Wanamaker was one of Owney's biggest fans. When he learned that the dog's collar was weighed down by the ever-growing number of tags, he gave Owney a harness on which to display the "trophies."  On April 9, 1894, a writer for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported that "Nearly every place he stopped, Owney received an additional tag until now he wears a big bunch. When he jogs along, they jingle like the bells on a junk wagon." Eventually, there were so many tags that it was too heavy even with the harness so during his travels, clerks would remove some and send them to Albany for safe keeping. It is unknown exactly how many medals Owney accumulated during his time riding the rails, but an unofficial total of 1,017 has been given. Many have been lost. Others,for one reason or another, were not saved. The National Postal Museum has 372 in its collection today.

 In 1895, Owney made a 4-month around-the-world trip, traveling with mailbags on trains and steamships to North Africa, Asia and across Europe before returning to Albany on December 23rd. In Japan, the Emperor gave the dog 2 medals bearing the Japanese coat of arms. It was estimated that before his death, Owney had traveled over 143,000 miles.

In June, 1897, Owney boarded a mail train for Toledo, Ohio. While he was there, a new clerk chained him to a post and he was shown to a newspaper reporter. Exactly what happened is not known; some say the reporter tried to pick him up by the scruff of his neck and others say it was simply because he wasn't used to being chained up, but for some reason the normally calm and docile Owney became ill tempered, bit the reporter and then a police officer who came to investigate and was shot in response, Owney died in Toledo of a bullet wound on June 11, 1897. Mail clerks raised funds to have Owney preserved and he was given to the Post Office Department's headquarters in Washington, D.C.  In 1911, the department transferred Owney to the Smithsonian Institution, where he has remained ever since. Owney can be seen on display in the National Postal Museum's atrium, wearing his harness and surrounded by several of his tags.

Owney at the Smithsonian today

Owney’s unusual life and wide-spread travels have inspired five children’s books and a song sung by Trace Adkins. In 2011, the Post Office issue a stamp honoring his memory. Elementary schools across the United States continue to use the story of Owney as a way to connect their students with those in other states by sending stuffed toy dogs from school to school through the mail accompanied by messages from students to one another.

Owney stamp

The Headless Horseman Rides

From 1850 to 1855, people reported encountering a headless rider, a mysterious mounted ghostly specter which brought fear to the plains of west Texas. During those five years, hundreds of people claimed to have seen the spirit rider roaming the lonely ranges riding a huge black mustang stallion as wild as anything that ever raced over the prairie. Clad in rawhide leggings and a buckskin jacket, the figure seemed to appear out of nowhere. Sometimes he would appear in the bright sunshine of the day tearing across prickly pear flats, but usually it happened in the dark of night. Always alone and sometimes accompanied by lightning and wind, it struck terror into even the bravest gunfighter. Neither horse nor rider ever seemed to tire and it was noted the rider sat rigid as if he were made of wood and never bent or turned in the saddle

Men who saw him claimed there was only a gaping hole atop his shoulders where his neck and head should have been. Some said he carried his head under a Mexican sombrero tied to the horn of his saddle. The creature he rode was shunned by other wild horses. Sometimes he could be found by the stampede of mustangs running away from his presence. He seemed possessed by the very devil himself and at the sight of humans, would tear away at a speed even the fleetest of the cowboy's horses could not match. 

Most of the Indians in the area, being superstitious, tried to keep well clear of him. They saw him many times and would always give him a wide berth, often trekking miles out of their way to avoid his presence. The Mexican vaqueros and sheep herders were just as scared of the apparition as the Indians, making the sign of the cross and hurrying away at the sight of him. The cowboys weren't as superstitious, but they kept their distance as well, especially if they were alone. There were times however, being emboldened by numbers and bravado and distance, that men would take shots at the horseman. They declared they were positive they hit him, but their bullets seemed to pass through him like paper. A few brave soldiers in the area also insisted their shots were true, but the rider never even flinched when their bullets hit him. They declared him to be Lucifer himself or at the very least, a demon summoned from hell.

Eventually, a group of ranchers perhaps a little braver than others, decided to track down and capture this headless horseman and put an end to the mystery once and for all. They tried tracking him for several days, but could not get close enough. They finally decided to go to the Nueces River at a spot where he had been reported to water. The next morning, their wait was rewarded as the big black horse and its rider cautiously made their way to the water's edge. When the horse lowered his head to drink, the men arose from their hiding places and began shooting. When the dust and smoke had cleared, the horse and rider lay dead. The men were stunned as they fully expected their bullets to have no affect. 

Upon inspection, the men found the horse appeared to be not a ghost, but nothing more than a fine, large specimen of a mustang.  Upon his back they found not the devil, but an old, dried up carcass of a Mexican, perforated by hundreds of bullets and even several arrows. The body had been tied to the horse and saddle so tightly that the rope had to be cut to unfasten it. Tied securely to the horn of the saddle was a skull with a frayed sombrero bound around it. 

The mystery, however, was only half solved. How had this Mexican vaquero's body come to be tied to a mustang and his head lashed to the saddle? The answer came several years later with a story told by Bigfoot Wallace, the famous Texas Ranger, Indian fighter, and veteran of many battles in the Mexican war and war for Texas Independence.

Bigfoot Wallace - 1872

Shortly before the battle of San Jacinto gave Texas its freedom, a Mexican deserter named Vidal came to the Texan's camp bringing information about the strength of the Mexican army. Bigfoot Wallace and another man destined to later be a Texas Ranger, Creed Taylor, took note of him and declared they didn't trust him. After the war, Vidal turned to horse stealing. At that time, horse stealing was a hanging offense just as bad as taking the life of another person. In time, he became the leader of a band of thieves operating in both Texas and Mexico. 

In early summer of 1850, Vidal and three of his men stole a large number of horses and headed to Mexico. Their timing was good as a large Comanche raid had just been carried out in the area and most of the men were away from home trailing the Indian raiders. Unfortunately for Vidal, some of the stolen horses belonged to Creed Taylor and even more unfortunately, Creed Taylor had not gone off after the Indians. Creed was a Texan among Texans and with a fighting background just as impressive as his friend Bigfoot's, was not someone you should steal horses from. With a nearby Mexican rancher named Flores who had also lost horses and happened to be home, Creed set off tracking the thieves.

Creed Taylor in later life

Before long, the trackers became convinced it was Vidal they were after. When they came across several cows with arrows sticking out of them, they knew for sure as Vidal had become notorious for doing this to trick greenhorns into thinking it was Indians they were after. Creed knew no Indian would kill a cow and leave behind the meat and their arrows. When the trail got to the Frio River, the pair ran into Bigfoot. After hearing the story, Bigfoot readily joined them as he was always "ready to whup somebody who needs whuppin'." 

Two days later near dusk, the Texans sighted campfire smoke and the stolen horses. They left their horses staked and stealthily crawled up to get a better look. Evidently the thieves believed they were out of danger as they had a big fire going and only 1 man was on watch. A plan was made and after it was dark and 2 of the thieves were asleep, Bigfoot and Creed crawled up close to the camp being careful to keep downwind of the herd so the horses wouldn't be spooked and raise the alarm. Flores waited a sufficient enough time for the 2 men to get into position and then, with his rifle, shot the man guarding the camp. As soon as the shot rang out, the 2 thieves asleep rose up drawing their guns, but Bigfoot and Creed had their own six-shooters ready and put both thieves back to sleep forever. 

At daylight, the bodies were inspected and sure enough, Bigfoot and Creed recognized one of them as Vidal. Bigfoot, always a bit eccentric, suggested what he thought was a good joke and a way to maybe scare other horse thieves in the region. In the herd happened to be a big black wild stallion. While Creed roped the horse, put a bandanna blindfold over its eyes and saddled it, Bigfoot made use of his Bowie knife and cut off Vidal's head. With chin-strap and leather thongs, he firmly attached the bandit's sombrero to it and then with more leather straps, laced the sombreroed head to the horn of the saddle. He then dressed Vidal's headless body in full regalia complete with leggings, spurs, serape and with great care, attached it in the saddle. A strong tree limb was tied under his clothes to keep him upright. The feet were tied in the stirrups and the stirrups were then double-fastened to each other under the horse's belly. 

During all this, that big black stallion was snorting and trembling something fierce as nothing scares a mustang more than foreign blood and there was plenty of that all around and on him. When everything was finished, the blindfold was removed from the horse and without bridle or halter, he was set free. Bigfoot declared that over the years he had seen thousands of wild, bucking horses, but he had never seen one act like that big stallion with a dead Mexican on his back. After the poor creature had pitched and bucked in every direction, snorted, squealed, pawed the air, reared up and fallen over backwards, rolled and then stood quivering and sweating, the awful thing was still on his back. For five minutes then he stood there with his legs spread out, sides heaving, nostrils snorting and his eyes almost bulging out of their sockets. Then he let out a squeal like none any of the 3 men watching had ever heard from a horse before and took off running like the wind across the prairie.

Bigfoot, Creed, and Flores took the herd back to San Antonio, gave back to the owners the horses that could be identified and split the remaining mustangs among themselves. All three agreed they should lay low and not speak a word of what they had done for a while. And thus the legend of the Headless Horseman was born.




Bigfoot Wallace died in 1899
and is buried in the
Texas State Cemetery

Creed Taylor died the day after Christmas,
1906 and is buried in the Noxville cemetery
near Junction, Texas

Miracle In The Jungle

This is the true story of a 17 year old girl who not only survived a 2 mile fall from a plane without a parachute, but then trekked alone, barefoot, with no survival equipment, clothed only in a mini-dress, for 10 days through the deadly Peruvian rain-forest.

Juliane Koepcke at her high
school graduation

On Christmas Eve, 1971, just a few hours after attending her high school graduation, 17 year old Juliane Koepcke and her mother, Maria, got on a flight from Lima, Peru to Pucallpa. The two were traveling to join Juliane’s father, Hans-Wilhelm, a famous German zoologist who was working at a remote research station in the rain-forest.

30 minutes into the flight, the plane entered very thick, black clouds. "The clouds became darker and darker and the flight became more turbulent. Then we were in the midst of pitch-black clouds and a proper storm with thunder and lightning,” said Koepcke. “It was pitch-black all around us and there was constant lightning. Then I saw a glistening light on the right wing. The motor was hit by lightning.“

Planes get struck by lightning all the time with no real problems, but this time there was a big problem.  Directly after the wing was struck, the aircraft was ripped apart because the Electra aircraft they were on had very rigid wings and wasn't built for flying in heavy turbulence. The struck wing fell off and the plane was then simply ripped apart in mid-air.

The last words Koepcke ever heard from her mother was when the lightning struck the wing, she shouted, “it’s all over! We're done for!” Still strapped to her seat, Juliane Koepcke was thrown from the aircraft and fell approximately 2 miles into the dense, green Peruvian rain-forest.
 

"I heard the incredibly loud motor and people screaming and then the plane fell extremely steeply. And then it was calm—incredibly calm compared with the noise before that. I could only hear the wind in my ears. I was still attached to my seat. My mother and the man sitting by the aisle had both been propelled out of their seats. I was free-falling, that’s what I registered for sure. I was in a tailspin. I saw the forest beneath me—like ‘green cauliflower, like broccoli,’ is how I described it later on. Then I lost consciousness and regained it only way later, the next day."
 

Koepcke became the sole survivor of Lansa flight 508, all 91 other passengers and crew died. It isn't known what exact factors played into Juliane’s surviving the fall. Some speculated her fall was slowed by the row of seats she was strapped to rotating like a helicopter, and then in what can only be called a miracle, helped cushion her landing thanks to striking the dense forest perfectly horizontal with seat bottoms hitting first.

For the next 19 hours, Juliane lapsed in and out of consciousness. She awoke when it began to rain and managed to unstrap herself from her seat and crawl under it for shelter.  Finally, about 9:00am, she became lucid and in somewhat of a daze, took stock of her situation. She was lying on the ground, dressed in only a sleeveless mini-dress and was missing one of her sandals and glasses. While she didn't realize all her injuries at the time, she had survived the fall with a broken collar bone; a torn ACL; one of her eyes swollen shut; the capillaries in her eyes had popped (due to rapid decompression from the plane); a strained vertebrae in her neck; a partially fractured shin; and several deep cuts on her arms and legs.

It took her half the day just to be able to stand without getting too dizzy, but eventually she managed it and set out to find her mother, searching for a full day before giving up. During her search for her mother she found a bag of hard candy, which came to be her only food during her 10-day journey. She also stumbled across a small stream. Her father had once given her the very good advice that if she were ever lost in the rain-forest and came across a stream or river, she should follow it downstream because people tend to live on or near water, following a river long enough, should get you to civilization eventually.

So what did this barely-clothed, severely injured teenage girl do next? With her small bag of candy in one hand and her one remaining shoe in the other, she set out to find her way out of an almost impenetrable jungle and back to civilization.  

She knew from experience that snakes particularly liked to lay camouflaged under dry leaves, so when she wasn't walking in the water, she used her shoe, thrown before her, to test the ground for snakes (she couldn't see very well due to missing her glasses). Luckily, she never encountered any, that she saw at least, and she walked as much as possible in the stream as it was an easier way to go, rather than through the dense foliage. Within a day, the stream emptied into a small river and she began following this waterway. The going was a little bit easier, but she had to constantly keep a sharp eye out for crocodiles, water snakes, and other deadly aquatic wildlife.

Within 2 days, she started hearing King vultures around her, the sound of which she recognized from living at her parent’s research station a year and a half before, only about 30 miles from where the plane crashed. Because King vultures usually only land when there is carrion around, she figured there must be dead bodies from the plane crash that they were feeding on. She didn't see any bodies during the first 3 days, but on the fourth, she finally spotted some; three other passengers still strapped to their seats and rammed several feet deep, headfirst into the ground.

"I couldn't really see that much, only people's feet pointing up. I poked their feet with a stick. I couldn't touch the dead bodies. I couldn't smell anything and they hadn't been eaten yet or started to decay. I mean, sure, decay must have started, but I couldn't notice it. I could tell it was a woman because she had polished toenails and the others must have been two men, judging by their pants and shoes. I moved on after a while, but in the first moment I found them, it was like I was paralyzed."

During her trek, her wounds became infected and a large cut on her right arm was infested with maggots. This is something she’d seen happen to her dog before, with near disastrous results for the dog. Try as she might, though, she couldn't manage to get the maggots out as they were too deep in the wound. “I had this ring that was open on one side that you could squeeze together, and I tried with that. It didn't work because the hole was so deep. So I tried with a stick, but that didn't work either.”

On the tenth day she came across a boat. She was somewhat delirious by that time and thought it was a mirage until she finally came up to it and touched it. Next to the boat was a path, which she crawled up. At the end of the path was a small hut that was used by lumbermen. Empty at the time, she found an outboard motor and some diesel fuel in a barrel. She used a tube to suck out some of the fuel from the barrel and poured that on her maggot infested wound, something her father had done to her dog, though with kerosene. Although extremely painful, this worked and the maggots, after initially trying to burrow deeper into her arm, eventually came to the surface and she was able pick them out.

 She then tried to sleep in the hut, but with her wounds, found the ground to be too hard, so she went back down to the river side and spent the night laying in the sand. The next day she woke up and, hearing frogs all around her, tried to catch some to eat. Luckily for her she was unable to as they were poisonous dart frogs. At this point, she was debating whether to take the boat or not, something she didn't want to do as it was stealing, but ultimately decided to spend another night at the hut and leave in the boat the next day.

She ended up not having to do this because she soon heard voices, “like hearing angels’ voices”. Three men came out of the forest and spotted her. At first they thought she was a “Yemanjá”, a type of blond, pale skinned water spirit. ”When they saw me, they were pretty freaked out.” However, she explained what had happened and how she got there and they had heard of the plane crash so they accepted her tale. They then fed her and cared for her wounds as best they could and took her downstream on a seven hour boat ride to a lumber station.

Once there, a local pilot knew of some missionaries nearby running a hospital in Pucuallpa. The pilot took her on a 15 minute flight to the hospital and the day after her rescue, she was reunited with her father. She then helped the search parties locate the crash site. On January 12th, they finally discovered her mother’s body. Like Juliane, her mother had apparently survived the fall. However, her injuries prevented her from moving and she ended up dying several terrible days later.

Juliane returned to the still debris littered crash site 40 years later.

Today, Juliane is alive and well, happily married with a family and has a PhD in Zoology. She is a librarian at the Bacarian State Zoological Collection in Munich and is living proof that miracles still happen.

Odd Coincidence - Cannibalism on The High Seas

Poe

In 1838, the famous horror writer, Egdar Allan Poe, wrote his only novel, 'The narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym'. It was about four survivors of the shipwreck of the whaler Grampus who were in an open life boat for many days before they decided to kill and eat the cabin boy whose name was Richard Parker. Almost 50 years later, in 1884, the yawl, Mignonette, foundered with only four survivors, who were in an open boat for many days. Eventually, the three senior members of the crew killed and ate the 17-year old cabin boy. 24 days after killing and beginning to eat the boy, the 3 survivors were rescued by the sailing barque Montezuma, a ship named after the Aztec king noted for cannibalism. The name of the cabin boy they killed and ate? Richard Parker. 

Richard Parker

Richard Parker's grave