Lone Star Hospitality: Abilene~Part 2

If you have ever driven across Texas, you have been humbled by its flat grandeur. We drove across it in a blizzard. In a VW bug. With a squalin' baby. They shut down the interstate, so we found back roads. Is that it? Noooo. We also had a flat tire. And the jack wouldn't go high enough. That it? No. We were really cold. Did you know they find cattle with their mouths frozen to the ground? Yes.

The National Center for Children's Illustrated Literature • Abilene, Texas

In Timothy Eagan's book about the dust bowl, The Worst Hard Time, he describes those southern plains, "It scares {people} because the land is too much, too empty, claustrophobic in its immensity...It scared Coronado, looking for cities of gold in 1541. It scared Anglo traders who cut a trail from Independence to Santa Fe... It even scared the Comanche as they chased bison over the grass...It scared the Germans from Russia and the Scots-Irish from Alabama...It still scares people...a place where the land and its weather --probably the most violent and extreme on earth--demand only one thing: humility."

Now hold your horses. There is something even bigger: Texas hospitality! The NCCIL hosted an art exhibit of the SCBWI Golden Kite award winners. Pictured above: Larry Day, Kristen Balouch, Alan Stacey, David Diaz, Pat Cummings, Priscilla Burris, Barbara McClintock, Diane Stanley, Cecilia Yung, and moi. We were treated like Princess Amidala. Although the guys wanted to be treated like Davy Crockett.

Nice expanse inside and artwork with a remarkable variety of technique, style and emotion.
It is such a beautiful show.

Stephen Mooser and I were fixin' to hunt buffalo. He even had a shirt made for the occasion.

Turned out it was easier to go to the Perini Ranch Steakhouse. You have to bring your own Bowie knife (also known as an Arkansas tooth pick), on account of the steaks that won't quit. We are talkin' steaks that will knock you clean off'n your chair if you turn your back on 'em.

Out front they have an iron armadillo the size of a tank. This is to scare away vegetarians.
Do you know what they call an armadillo out here? A Texas speed bump.

Eating large rare steaks does kind of iffy things to folks. Why that lady in the middle started pawin' the ground. Above: Liz Mertz, Stephen Mooser, Lin Oliver, Jacqueline Gramann, and Mark Mitchell. Seriously, Lin and Steve are the founders of SCBWI. They began with a handful of writers in their living room in 1971, and it has become a vibrant, international organization.

At Frontier Texas, these bronze sculptures by T.D. Kelsey capture the thunder of the cattle drives which are such a part of Abilene's history.

Thank you Sujata, Debbie, David, and the entire crew at NCCIL and SCBWI. I love y'all.