History Hound Travels

Quick, tell me everything you know about the Pony Express. It lasted a couple of decades, and the mail moved from one side of the country to the other, right? The men traveled the route in all weather, and they got robbed a lot. Right? Well, those were all things I used to think, until I went to the Pony Express Museum in Marysville, Kansas. That is the only of the Pony Express buildings located on it’s original site, by the way.

So let’s talk about those things I said up there, and find out which are true.
1. The Pony Express only ran for 19 months. It holds such a large place in the mind that it’s hard to believe, but it’s true.
2. It ran from St Joseph’s Missouri to Sacramento, California.
3. The mail did move in all weather, proving that the route was viable for the mail run all year long.
4. In the 19 months it ran, not one letter was lost.

However romantically we view it today, the Pony Express was a financial disaster, losing over $200,000 dollars in it’s short life.

It’s a far cry from the way we get mail today. Whether you pull letters from a bank of commercial mailboxes or a line of distinguished residential mailboxes, you can be pretty sure your mail carrier slept at home and not in a barn last night. He’s probably not stuffing those mailboxes from horseback, either.

But I have visited. In fact, I lived in Germany for close to 2 years, but I was in southern Germany, in a little town called Göppingen about an hour from Stuttgart. I was just looking at the Google Map, and thinking of going to Frey (department store), and the Bonnet (pizza place). I found the most interesting yarn shop there, but I wasn’t into real wool then and sadly did not take advantage of it.

I only stayed in a couple of hotels the whole time I was there, and never any Hotels in Berlin or Hotels in Berlin if you sprechen Deutsch.

I really regret that I did not spend more time visiting other countries while I was there. I should have visited France and England and Italy again, but I was young and homesick, and did not take advantage of the close proximity. I could have booked any of the hotels in Vienna for a long weekend, but….no. Oh, hotels in Vienna for you natives.

There is a reason people tend to ask me when they want to know obscure facts, and it’s because I tend to know stuff. Today, I was wondering about lapband surgery, so I went to (wait for it) wikipedia to check it out. The first band for this type of surgery was patented the year I graduated high school, and now it is considered outpatient surgery. With proper lifestyle adjustments and followup care, it’s helping patients lose large amounts of weight.

I think that the advancements in the field of medicine are mind boggling. Just imagine that 300 years ago, going to the doctor was probably one of the least safe things you could do. The neighborhood surgeon/dentist/barber would be happy to see you, but whether or not he could do you any good was another question altogether. And that was just 4 life times ago.

What about this lifetime? Well, 50 years ago a tonsillectomy required a three day hospital stay. 20 years ago, it was overnight. Last week, it was donefor my soon at a stand-alone surgical center and he was home 5 hours after we left for the appointment.

I was doing some research today so I could post about Hoteles en Barcelona, and found myself looking at the wiki on bullfighting. My dad and I had talked not long ago about how there were people who were trying to get the sport outlawed, which is why it occurred to me to look it up. It is truly a blood sport, and until today, I did not realize that the bull is almost always killed. They sorta forget to show that part on the Saturday morning cartoons, I guess. I also learned that there is more to the sport than just some crazy guy waving a cape at 2000 pounds of fury. There are actually several men and at least one horse involved. Until 1909, the horses were mortally wounded by the bull, too. I think, all things considered that I must recommend you find something else to amuse yourself when in Spain.

As shameful as it sounds, tourists are in large part responsible for the continuation of the sport. As many as 70% of the attendees at Barcelona’s Monumental ring have spent the night in a local hotel. Now you know I am all about going and seeing and doing. But I am going to suggest that when you are going to Spain, and seeing touristy things that you find something to do besides the watch traditional bullfights. The hotels in Barcelona should be able to supply a list of fun things to do that don’t involve bloodletting as a guaranteed course of events. If not, check in to one of the Hotels in Madrid and see the end of the Vuelta a España!

Not too long ago, I spent several posts talking about some of the sites in London and made a few quips about London accommodation. I said then not to let that London hotel go until I said, and then I forget to tell you to check out when we moved on. Oops. Sorry. We’re headed back to England today, but instead of finding accommodation in London, we’ll be booking ourselves into Manchester hotels.

So, what’s in Manchester? So glad you asked!! Manchester is about 160 miles from London, and was once the global center of the cotton trade, and the area suffered greatly during the American Civil War. Remember that the American South, where much cotton was grown, was not heavily industrialized, and the cotton mills in Manchester relied on a steady stream of cotton from that region to keep their spinning and weaving machines humming along productively. After the South was prevented from shipping it’s cotton out, textile mills all over Europe faced shortages. However, even those hardest hit by the cotton shortage would not aid the South because they did not want to be seen as supporting slavery. And this is why, in addition to all those lovely English statues and landmarks, you will also find an rather jarring exhibit in Manchester: a statue of Abraham Lincoln, given to the city by Mr. and Mrs. Charles Phelps Taft, residents of Ohio.

photo from the public domain