The
Two RV Gypsies: Full-Time RVers
at Frontier Texas Abilene
625 B. 1st Street
Abilene, TX
September 12, 2022 |
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Below: The two
RV Gypsies inside The Frontier Texas General store that has Texas souvenirs,
books, t-shirts, jewelry, canned goods and unique items made by local
artisans. But since the two RV Gypsies live in their RV (or sometimes
in their daughter's garage), they do not have room for souvenirs other
than things that can hang on their Christmas "Travel" tree.
But they like to browse. |
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Below: The two
RV Gypsies at a Buffalo statue outside.
The discovery that buffalo hides were suitable for industrial leather
created an industry that transformed frontier Texas. Soon after the
Civil War, eastern capitalists ordered as many buffalo hides as could
be supplied. Hunters responded, first decimating the herds on the Northern
Plains, and then coming after the millions of Texas buffalo. A government
treaty protected the Texas buffalo for Indians, but hunters ignored
it. The military “looked the other way” as the loss of buffalo would
force the Indians onto reservations. Texas buffalo were killed out in
less than a decade. - so sad !!!!
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Below: The outside area alongside
of Frontier Texas Abilene. |
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Below: A zoomed-in
photo on the water tower that can barely be seen in the background of
the above photos (photo taken from a location around the corner, of
course). |
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Below: Buffalo wind vanes
- so yes, they do spin in the wind. |
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Below: Karen
Duquette beside the World's Largest Buffalo Skull, weighing two-tons,
and stretching 26-feet across. It is an iconic symbol of the old frontier
cattle trails. The skull was sculpted by Joe Barrington in June 2012
from steel salvaged from old Texas oil tanks. This spot was once a vast
buffalo bone yard. The skull is finished without rough edges so kids
can climb through its eye sockets and slide out its nose. Karen passed
up on the "sliding and climbing" part. |
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Below: The Desert
Mule Deer Skull, located at North 1st Street & Hickory Street is
18'X18'x12'. WOW!
Joe Barrington grew up in his father's welding shop, and from him,
he learned how to cut, form shape and welded steel into astounding forms.
His images, such as the deer antlers shown below, are drawn from an
ever-expanding collection of objects of the Southwest. |
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The two RV Gypsies
then took a short walk down the sidewalk from Frontier Texas to Treadaway
Boulevard to see the famous "Singing Ringing Tree".
They did not choose to try to cross a lot of heavy car traffic to get
closer to it, because there was no crosswalk, or any place they could
see across the street to drive to and park. So they photographed it
from across the street. |
THE SINGING
RINGING TREE - The wind swirls around the sculpture and the sculpture
sings its tune!
It was constructed in 2017, is 22 feet tall with 22 levels of varying
thickness of metal pipe. The 54,000 pound sculpture uses wind energy
which passes through the precision-fabricated pipes with special holes
in specific pipes to create musical notes. Unfortunately, there was
NO WIND on the date that the two RV Gypsies were here, therefore they
did not get to hear the amazing sounds. Very disappointing.
The wind-powered sculpture won the National Award of the Royal Institute
of British Architects for architectural excellence in 2007. This project
took four months and was built in Cypress, TX. This Singing Ringing
Tree was also featured in the October 2020 issue of The Welder Magazine.
It is one of only 3 in the world, the original “Singing Ringing Tree”
is located in Lancashire, England, the other is in Saudi Arabia.
So take the opportunity to learn more information on this amazing
piece of art, go to https://jkwelding.net/the-making-of-the-singing-ringing-tree/
- But be sure to return here, to continue on with the Two RV Gypsies'
travels in Texas and more. |
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