Be a Pepper

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

First the answers to yesterday’s trivia questions (but of course anyone who didn’t read yesterdays blog first, will now have all the answers):  Tonto’s horse was named “Scout” .  The William Tell Overture by Rossini, was the musical theme music. The Canadian connection to the Lone Ranger TV series; Jay Silver Heels who starred as Tonto was a Mohawk Indian from Brantford, Ontario.  And for added info Tonto referred to the Lone Ranger as “ke-moh, sah-bee” which means “trusted scout” or “faithful friend”

Dr Pepper (the soda pop) was developed in a small, corner drugstore in 1885 by Dr. Charles Alderton.  Alderton had been playing around with some soda-fountain flavours and some of the chemicals from the drugstore until he perfected the right combination of 23 ingredients. With the help of a particularly skilled truck driver/salesman (Woodrow Wilson “Foots” Clements –>Foots because he had big feet), the drink was marketed throughout Texas, Alabama and the southern states.  It eventually went on to international fame.  The Dr. Pepper museum is unique and very well executed; leading the visitor through an old bottling plant and then through a history of the advertising and marketing programs through the years. 

We drove north, out of town to the Homestead Heritage Craft village.  This is partly hippy, partly fundamentalist Christian communal living village. The residents are involved with woodworking, blacksmithing, pottery-making, weaving or mixed-farming.  They seem to be fairly self sufficient and market their hand crafts out of their craft barn.  From our perspective it appears that the crafts are extremely well made but tended to be quite pricey.  One small jar of preserves was $12 US.

  On our way home we drove through the Oakwood Cemetery quite close to Baylor University. Many Confederate Army generals are buried here; and I must say that the monuments tended to be very elaborate.

We have pretty much seen what we wanted to see in Waco and will be pushing  southward to Austin, TX tomorrow.  Austin is south-west of Waco and is the capital of Texas.  With a population similar to Winnipeg, it is the home of the University of Texas Longhorns.  The weather is forecast to change in the next couple of days with some rain and temperatures in the low to mid teens.