Edmond, OK to Home

Mike managed one last blog post, I should too. Kids are in bed, each in their own bed, in their own room, and all the happier for it.

We had planned to stop in Oklahoma City to see the state Capitol. It was pouring rain this morning, so we skipped that. Also thought we might stop in Fort Worth to see the stock yards, though the big attraction there is the moving of the cows twice a day, at 11:30 in the morning and 4 in the afternoon. We got to Fort Worth around 11:45, kept right on driving. Though we did stop at Bucees for gas, their world famous bathrooms, and snacks. Does Buc-ees count as a grand adventure? One more stop in Waco for lunch and we were home around 3:30.

We came home to 3 very happy pups. My incredibly sweet and awesome neighbor swept up all the dog hair, cleaned dog bedding, baked us cookies and left us food for breakfast!

We unloaded the car, somehow or other got everything unpacked and put away. Two loads of laundry have been done, will have to sort out the rest tomorrow. The list of things we have to do in the next few days is staggering. All I want to do is hit the road again. I’ve always thought that I could travel indefinitely. After 6 weeks, I know I could. It’s hard to be home. I’m not ready to face work and school and everything else.

Anyway, trip stats...

43 days
22 states
2 Canadian provinces
18 National Park Service sites
4 Canadian Park Service sites
7 days of no driving
Almost 200 miles on foot
16 tanks of gas
And 6406 miles on the road

The boys spent a large part of the afternoon with their friend down the street. The 3 are already planning lots of ways to kill the rest of these summer days. Fun to see them happy together again.  It also hammered home how much the boys grew and changed these past 6 weeks, in more ways than I can count. I hope they remember this summer and this trip as a very happy time.

Seems a bit unreal that we made it through, seems like forever since we left Home, feels like months since we got home.

Day 42: St. Louis to Edmond, OK

Today is officially the last day of week 6. And the day Mike originally planned to arrive home. I, however, did not want to drive 900 miles in one day. So, we broke it up. Just over 500 miles today, about 400 to go tomorrow. There’s really not much else to say about today. We spent the entire day in the car. Passed by such marvelous places as the vacuum cleaner museum in Missouri, it probably sucked anyway (groan... that was bad, I know). We also passed by the national shrine to the infant Jesus of Prague. Don’t ask, I have no clue. Whatever it was warranted at least 3 road signs though. Missouri is a really long state to drive through. And there is a whole lot of nothing there. We toiluched the corner of Kansas, a park in Baxter Springs to be exact, just so Mike could say he has now been to Kansas. And now we sit just north of Oklahoma City in Edmond, OK. It was a convenient place to stop. Found a nice park with lots of geese to walk around in for s but before dinner. And that’s that. Over 6000 miles now.

Day 41: St. Louis, MO

Shall I impress you with my knowledge of inverted weighted catenary arches? Sounds like a fancy thing, it’s not. A catenary arch is simply an arch made by a chain that is freely hanging from two suspended ends. Inverted, we’ll, you know that one, upside down. Weighted... that’s pretty easy too, thicker on the ends tapering in towards the middle. See, told ya it wasn’t that impressive! What is impressive is that this thing was built in the 60’s with a 1/64th of an inch engineering tolerance so that the two legs would meet at the top. The capsule that you ride in to get to the top is called s team actually, straight from the 60’s, feels space-age-y; it’s tiny and sways as it goes up the arch. The windows at the top are only 7” tall x 27” wide. There are 16 on each side. They look tiny from the ground, even tinier up close. Bigger windows would not withstand the massive amount of force necessary to keep the legs apart while inserting the keystone. But, despite the tiny size, on a clear day like today the view is incredible, you can see more nearly 30 miles. The best part??? Because you are standing at the top of an arch that also happens to be an inverted triangle st the top, when you look down, you can see straight down. It’s definitely wild! So yeah, the arch is super cool.

It’s a bit debatable as to whether or not it was a good decision to build it where it stands. To do so, they had to raze the entire historic waterfront district of St. Louis. The closest you come to a historic building is the St. Louis basilica, the oldest Roman Catholic Church in the States. A building has stood on that site continuously since the 1700s. The current church was built in the 1809s I think. Also, part of the old courthouse stands inside the impressive dome structure you see from the outside. This area is rich in history - westward expansion, civil war, etc. You just don’t see remaining signs of that history outside of museums.

We took the arch tour nice and early this morning. Smartly we bought tickets in afvance, otherwise we probably would have been out of luck for a ride to the top. We browsed the very interesting museum, the kids actually got one last junior ranger badge here. This park just became the 60th National Park in Feb., and the new museum and such just opened Zjuly 1. Previously it was a national historic site. After the arch we visited the beautiful old basilica, then the old courthouse. Finally we wandered over to city garden - a little park full of sculptures and fountains and such. All of this before lunch.

Our timing was a little off, after lunch we had some time to kill before our steamboat ride up the Mississippi. Not enough time for one of the museums in the area, so we wandered around the park by the arch for a bit. The sun was pretty hot, made for a toasty boat ride, but it was fun. Timing again was a little off after the boat ride. If museums weren’t closed, they closed within the hour. No time for that today. So more park exploring, cold drinks, just chilling outside in the beautiful weather. The high today was only about 85.

Found s great bbq spot for dinner... one of those “open until sold out” places. Like really good, fantastic St. Louis bbq. And tgat’s the day.

Brown Car got another zero mile day today. She deserved the rest as we’llbe Putting some pretty serious miles on her in the next couple of days. This was the last planned adventure. But, who knows what tomorrow will bring?

Day 40: Mammoth Cave to St. Louis

Forty days is a long time to be gone. We started the day in Kentucky, doing a second cave tour this morning. Today’s tour was the “Domes and Dripstones” tour. The literature about the tour rated it as moderate, stated there were about 500 steps total, with an initial descent down 270 of those steps, and the tour was 3/4 mike in length, 2 hours in duration. As we are preparing to board the bus for the short ride to the cave entrance the park ranger goes over these stats again and mentions that some of the path is quite narrow, and the stairs are somewhat “steep”. She also said that we’d be passing by areas of great depth so those with a fear of heights should avoid looking down. This was followed by the standard health warnings for cave tours. It all would have sounded a bit ominous and overwhelming had we not taken a moderately rated cave tour with several hundred steps yesterday.  This tour was definitely a bit different. The entrance was through a metal door in the side of a hill. It looked for all the world like the entrance to a subterranean work shed or something. The steps started immediately. They were steep and narrow and twisty and straight down. You had to duck and bend and twist and turn to get around the rocks jutting into the extremely narrow path. There were some people on the tour that i’m Sure we’re extremely uncomfortable with how tight a fit this staircase was. If you were claustrophobic or afraid of heights, this was NOT the place for you. But, oh my goodness, the cave was amazing. This was the “domes” part of the tour. Justvterrific souring heights and depths and tight little domed spaces. Alex and I loved it, Ben and Mike were not so comfortable here. This staircase led down to more open rooms of the cave like we saw yesterday then on to a wetter part of the cave and the beautiful Dripstones formations. We opted to take the extra 98 steps to a lower room to see even more of the formations. My only beef about the tour was o felt we spent too much time in the two break rooms listening to the ranger talk and we were hurried through the sites really really fast, with virtually no time to look. Time could have been managed better. There was a large group of teenage Korean boys that didn’t speak much English. Their guide stayed at the head of the entire tour group and left the boys at the back. The ranger was forever getting after the boys for not following the rules, their guide didn’t seem to care much about explained ngvthings in a language they could understand. There was also a family with2 very young children - the baby under 2 for sure. Poor kid wanted nothing to do with the confines of the tour, screamed for half of the tour but eventually fell asleep. Felt really bad for the parents, they looked a little worse for wear by the end.

Then it was on to St. Louis. We hit some rain about 100 miles out, made fora hairy drive. But the weather cleared by the time we got here. Our hotel is right across the street from the arch. We have a very early morning ticket time for the arch ride. Anxious to see the inside of it. It’s quite an amazing structure from the outside. It seems so tall. I mean, it IS tall, but because of the way it’s build, where it’s built, and it’s surroundings it seems even taller than it is. It’s 630 feet tall and 630 feet wide at the base. Largest man made arch in the world, largest man made monument.

Day 39: Mammoth Cave

Mammoth Cave is the largest known cave in the world. 412 miles of the cave have been mapped so far. It is estimated that there may be more than 600 miles of the cave yet to be discovered! If you take every guided tour available you can explore approximately 10 miles of the cave. We took one tour this morning, saw 2 miles of the cave. We have another tour scheduled for tomorrow, we’ll see another 2 miles of the cave. Today’s tour was the historic tour. The park ranger guide gave what I assume was a lovely talk throughout the tour. Unfortunately I heard exactly none of it. He was not speaking particularly loud, it was a large group, sound bounces around a bit in the cave, it was dark and I could not see his face, the tinnitus in my ears is quite loud all the time. In short, my hearing deficiency got the better of me today. I can almost always fake my way through and figure out most things, but not today. Today it was frustrating :( But, the upside is that the cave was really neat to look at even if I missed the history.

It’s a mostly dry cave, and just huge, hence the name. There were some extremely narrow twisty passages and a LOT of areas where we had to crouch down considerably. And a giant staircase at the end called the tower, 270 steps up. We also walked over one pit 105 feet deep and another called the bottomless pit. At the end we came to a dome that was a couple of hundred feet high. Tomorrow we tour a different part of the cave, presumably with more moisture as we are seeing things such as the frozen Niagara Falls feature, and the tour is called “Domes and Dripstones”.

After the cave tour the kids turned in their junior ranger books. Probably the last one for Alex, maybe Ben too. Had a quick lunch at a little cafe in the park and set out for some hikes.

The first hike was to the overlook to an entrance to a cave that houses an endangered species of bat. We continued on, saw an overlook for the Green River (longest river in Kentucky), and continued looping through the woods for awhile back to the visitor center.

Next we went to a place called Cedar Sink. It’s s big giant sinkhole. The path wound down into the sinkhole a bit, then back out. It was pretty wild, very primordial.

One last small walk to the entrance of Sand Cave. Floyd Collins was hiking in the cave and on his way outkicked a rock that fell and trapped his leg. This was back in the 30s. The rescue attempt gained national coverage. He ultimately perished in the cave but it was his death that brought the Mammoth Cave area to peoples attention and it was made a National Park a year or so later.

Back to the hotel after that for some showers. It wasn’t particularly hot today, mid 80s and all of our hiking was through the woods, but the humidity was ridiculous and we were all a sweaty disgusting mess. The cave temp is in the mid 50s, so cool, but humid down there too.

Anyway, being able to shower and relax for a bit before dinner is nice and i’m Ok that we opted not to camp here.

In a short while we’re heading back into the park. There is a pond that is supposedly full of frogs that sing at dusk and bats that circle around it. The park ranger yesterday highly recommended s dusk time stroll around the pond. We’ll grab dinner afterwards.

Tomorrow we have one more cave tour in the morning then we head for St. Louis.

Day 38: Dayton, OH to Cave City, KY

Yay, it’s my birthday! Was kind of fun to wake up in the city where I was born. Of course, I have spent many birthdays there, we were always there for vacation in the summer. It seems that even as an adult I am rarely home on my birthday. Guess it’s a good time of year to travel!

Anyway, we went back to the Huffman Prairie airfield to look around properly today. Saw the first airplane hangar, the storage barn the Wright brothers built, saw the catapult the built to launch the planes. There were stones marking the area where the first flight school stood. Yes, it’s just a field in the middle of nowhere, but it’s still neat to see.

The plan was tohead straight to Mammoth Cave, see what we had time for this afternoon.  We contemplated stopping by Fort Knox, we were passing right by it, decided there probably wadn’t Really much point in that. We did continue with our presidential history bit of the trip though. We stopped just outside of Hodgenville, KY to see Lincoln’s birthplace. There is a cabin enshrined on the site. For many years it was thought that that particular cabin was the lig Cave Lincoln was born in. However, in 2004 they were able to date it better to the 1849s, so after Lincoln’s birth. However, it’s representative of the cabins of that time  do it remains as theLincoln cabin. Sinking Springwas the name of the farm.

We had a little time to explore the visitor center and some of the hiking trails in Mammoth Cave National Park today. We hiked down to the River Styx. As we neared the entrance to the Cave it felt like someone was blasting the AC on high. We could walk down the steps a short way to see the Cave entrance. Tomorrow we have a cave tour booked in the morning, more hiking in the afternoon.

Surprisingly, we found a decent Mexican place for dinner. We have intentionally avoided all Mexican food up to this point on the trip. Carlos O’Kelkts in Stafford does not count as Mexican food - sorry Mom!

To wind up our day, Alex was able to use his telescope again. We’ve been gone long enough that we get a second full moon and are again in a good place to view it.

We have surpassed the 5000 mile mark - by a couple hundred miles actually. We crossed back into the central time zone today so we’re back on Texas time. We somehow miraculously managed to pack the car with all the extra things we picked up in Vandalia, including the guitar. And, I can still see out the back window when i’m Driving. We were supposed to camp here in Mammoth Cave, but a few days ago the weather looked iffy so we got a hotel instead. Of course the weather cleared and camping would probably have been just fine. It’s pretty humid though, and pretty warm during the day. I figured once we left Canada I would not be cold again until November/December. Looks like I was wrong, happily! The temp in the cave tomorrow is in the mid-50s. It’s a 2 hour tourin that cool cave, i’m Guessing i’ll Beolenty cold, and I look forward to that. As for tonight, time to wrap this up and get to bed. We have an early start to the day tomorrow.

Day 37: Dayton, OH

The only way I can keep track of the days anymore is by looking at the number on the previous blog post!  I’m trying hard not to think about the end of the trip, because I don’t want it to end. It’s fun bouncing from place to place. We’ve packed and unpacked the car so many tomes now, we’ve got that down to a science. We’ve managed to accumulate very little for the 6 weeks, limiting souvenirs to magnets and postcards and just a couple of t-shirts for the boys. We did get a few things from family members, and those blankets from our very cold nights in Shenandoah. The biggest accumulation came from this stop in Vandalia though. We are taking Home a guitar. My aunt bought it long ago, doesn’t play it anymore and wanted to pass it onto the boys. Ben, especially, is thrilled. I think i’ve Found room in the car for it. Tomorrow will tell for sure.

Anyway, enough of that, on to todsy’s Adventures.   Today was all about aviation history. We added yet another National Park site to our list - the National Aviation Heritage Site. It’s actually a compilation of 8 different places in the area significant to the early years of s Latino. We visited 4 of those sights today. The Wright brothers are from Dayton and built the first airplane here. The first airport is here in Dayton, the Wright Flier III is here, and much more. We went to Carillon Park, toured the fascinating museum on Dayton history, including it’s part in aviation. Part of the museum is dedicated to NCR - National Cash Register. There was a really cool display of cash registers and the developing history and technology of NCR, from their first registers to ATMs to self check out technology. Dayton played an interesting roll in the development of the atomic bomb, they build decoding machines in Dayton. Dayton is the birthplace of so many everyday little things we take for granted. There’s a lot of cool history in this tiny little town.

We visited the replica of the Wright brothers bicycle shop. They were extraordinary men. Unbelievable the things they accomplished. Orville Wright was the first person to fly on a heavier than air motorized airplane, and he lived long enough to watch Chuck Yeager break the sound barrier. Crazy.

We went to the first airport, the field where the Wright brothers built their planes and learned to fly and then taught others to fly.

Andcwe speny the afternoon at the Air Force Museum for one of the most spectacular collections of airplanes anywhere. Not just any planes but planes with very historical value. We could have spent many more hours here.

We ended the day with dinner with my Aint Jane and Aint Susan. They are my mom’s older and younger sisters respectively. We had a great evening, had a little celebratory birthday ice cream afterwards. When we parted ways I drove around the neighborhood where my parents lived when I was born, where my grandparents lived, where my aunt lives now. It’s been a dozen years since I was here last, so many things different, some the same. Somehow it orher I found the Park we used to play at, the shopping center where my aunt had a needlework shop for years, right across the street from the airport.

It was another good day. Tomorrow we head to Mammoth Cave Kentucky. Looking forward to another couple of days in a park. Each day now brings us closer and closer to TX.

Day 36: Niagara Falls to Vandalia, OH

Today was the start of week 6. I can’t believe we are near the end. Not much to report today. Mostly we drove, over 400 miles from Niagara Falls to Vandalia, OH. Why Vandalia? Well... it’s s good stopping place on route to Mammoth Cave, my 2 aunts lice here, and it’s where I was born. There also happens to be a lot of aviation history here... Wright brothers. I’ll leave that subject until tomorrow.

Sothe weather was rainy in Niagara Falls this morning. Looked like it was supposed to rain a bit there today, guess we timed out visit right to be there yesterday!!!  No issues getting through customs and back into the US.

I do miss Canada though. Lots of differences. I suspect i’ll Be making lots of croissants and crepes when we get back to TX!

Ben helped navigate for a bit today. He did a great job, didn’t miss a trick.

We stopped in Columbus to visit the Capitol tonight. All the trips to this area as a kid and we never visited the Capitol building. We went to Columbus plenty. Guess it was just one of those things, you never do the stuff in your own backyard because it’s always there. Anyway, it’s s best building. Originally two buildings, they are now connected by an atrium. Sounds like it was covered over to keep the pigeons from pooping on heads as people passed between buildings. This is one of the few state capitols without an exterior dome. There is an interior dome surrounded by a cupola. It’s s neat building. Feels very sparse compared to some of the other Capitol buildings we have seen. Beautiful grounds, neat monuments. A worthwhile stop for the day.

We met my Aunt Hane for dinner at Marion’s - a Vandalia/Dayton favorite pizza spot. My aunt and my mom both worked there in their younger days. Marion’s has hosted many famous actors and such over the years and the walls are plastered with the old photos. We had fun finding my aunt in a couple of the pictures, showing the boys a blast from the past. Didn’t get a chance to thoroughly check all the pictures, but couldn’t find my mom in the one’s we did see. It’s entirely possible she’s on the wall at one of the other locations.

Ended the evening with my aunt with some ice cream at a local favorite place of hers.

Then it was back to the hotel. Just pulled the last load (hopefully) of laundry out of the dryer. We should be set on clothes until we get home next weekend. We are closer to 5000 miles now than4000, we still have 7 days to go. Our walking miles are near 150 for the past 5 weeks. Will be interesting to tally it all up at the end.

That’s my story for tonight.

Day 35: Niagara Falls

we saw lots of water today. Lots and lots and lots of water. All of it crashing a couple hundred feet to the rocks below. The falls themselves are quite beautiful and gun to watch. Ben said he wished we could open the windows in the hotel room and hear the water at night.

We got an early start. Walked over to the American side first thing this morning, got tickets for the Maid of the Mist boat ride and got on the actual boat without having to wait in line at all. That was pretty great. The boat ride was a ton of fun. When we got off we started to head up the path beside the falls for that beautiful close up view. Along with several hundred other people. It was sloppy and slippery and wet and muddy and stupid crowded. Mike decided to bail, Ben went with him. Alex wanted to press on so I took him to the top amidst all the chaos and we got completely thoroughly soaked and it was great :) In just the 45 minutes it took for us to do the boat ride and take the walk, the lines got crazy long. Instead of 45 minutes that boat ride would have been the only thing we did all day.

We stayed over on the American side for awhile longer, checking out Goat Island (the island between the falls) and getting all the good views of the water we could. Was nice to walk around in a state park, even if it was with thousands of other people, as opposed to the Vegasy nonsense on the Canadian side. We did eventually head back yo Canada. Had to wait for a good 30 minutes or so in line to get through customs.

After lunch we walked down to the Canadian Falls overlook on the Canadian side. It’s pretty fun, you are right there at the edge of the falls. Tried to get tickets for the behind the falls tour but the next available tour wasn’t until 6, a decidedly inconvenient time. So we came back to the room, went for a dip in the pool and gathered ourselves together for an evening out. When everyone got good and bored we went up the Hershey store to waste some time, bought the boys a little chocolate. Then it was on to dinner. We ate st a fairly nice steakhouse. The food was decent. The entertainment was... odd? Somewhere between drinks and dinner our waiter picked up the microphone and started belting out a heartfelt, though badly offkey” rendition of Inxhained Melody while strolling through the restaurant. I’m, ok. Awhile later some female waitress started singing “I will always love you.” She was better than the waiter, but still. It was all just random.

After dinner it was back to the falls to catch the light show. No fireworks tonight, apparently it was too windy. It actually was very windy.

So there we are. That wraps up week 5. I didn’t think we’d make it this far into the trip before some catastrophe struck. Now it seems we will make it to the end, no problem. I’m very sad that we have only one week left. Would like to be doing this indefinitely.

Brown Car got another zero mileage day today. That’s the last rest she’ll have until we’re back in TX. Tomorrow we start week 6.

Day 34: Ottawa to Niagara Falls

Well... Brown Car got a good workout today. It was a bit of a drive from Ottawa to Niagara Falls, somewhere around 375 miles. That should have taken us about 5 1/2 hours not including a lunch stop. We drove for 8 hours. Yeah, traffic kind of blew today. and driving in Canada is definitely a bit different than driving in the states. These Canadians take the passing lane seriously and will ride your butt like there’s no tomorrow if you aren’t going at least 15-20km over the speed limits mit in that all important left lane. Lots of zooming about, in and out of traffic, constant lane switching. Makes for a bit more of a tedious drive. We got to drive all the way around Lake Ontario today. It’s a REALLY big lake. Contact let’s with white caps and probably tides and glimpses of it looking like the ocean because you couldn’t see any shores.

But... we did finally make it to Niagara Falls. We are staying in the Canadian side this time. When Mike and I came here nearly 21 years ago we stayed on the American side and just walked across to the Canadian side for a bit. If you aren’t aware, the American side is a state park, the Canadian side is, well, the exact opposite. Casinos and lights and all things HUGE and IN YOUR FACE and LOUD and AAAAAAAHHHHHH! So, why exactly are we staying on this side? Actually, better access to food and places to stay. It’s so busy we can just park Brown Car in the hotel lot for the duration of our stay here and walk everywhere, including across up the American side. If we stayed across the river we would have to drive to the park. The town cover ther is a bit more industrial, not as many amenities.

Funny thing is though, this Canadian side feels so much like the worst parts of America (Vegas...) Everything screams loud obnoxious AMERICANS. It’s particularly noticeable since we just spent the last 8 days in Canada loving absolutely all of it, enjoying the peace and calm, even in big, busy Montreal. So, Canada, we’ll forgive you this one loud part of your beautiful country. You do, afterall, have the bigger more impressive Horeshoe Falls on your side.

And, most importantly we’re here to see the falls and ride the Maid in the Mist and walk down to the hurricane bridge overlook. Looking forward to being mildly freaked out by the shear awesome power of all thatvwater tomorrow.

I forgot to mention... Alex was the navigator for the first half of our drive today. Mike is teaching the boys all of his great skills in that role. Ben will take his turn up front in a couple of days.

Day 33: Ottawa

Oh my goodness, my feetsies are about to fall off! It wasn’t even the highest meal king mileage day we’ve had this trip. Probably more the 13 hours that we were out and essentially standing the entire day. Oh, and it was really hot. Weather forecasting has been so off for so much of this trip. Was supposed to be sunny in the low 89s today. They got the sunny part right, but it was in the mid 90s. Pretty big difference. Anyway...

The light show at Parliament last night was pretty spectacular. It was a 30 minute overview of Canadian history. Lots of cool projections on the face of parliament, extremely well done. It ended with the Canadian national anthem and the flag projected on parliament. Very patriotic, uplifting, etc.

Found breakfast at a nice little place this morning, then headed over to parliament to get tour tickets. They start handing out tickets at 9, we got in line at 9:05, the line was already a full city block long. We weren’t sure we’d get tickets at all. It also became clear pretty quickly that the line was moving rather slowly and we wouldn’t be able to get tour tickets and watch the changing of the guard. So I sent mike and the boys to watch the ceremony and I waited in line. Got your tickets, made it back for a front row seat to watch the majority of the guard ceremony. A win for everyone.

We had some time before the parliament tour so we walked over to the Canadian mint to check that out. Right on time for that tour. They have a solid gold brick that weighs 28 pounds and is worth $650,000. The boys lifted it up for the obligatory photo op. The guard was none too pleased when Mike asked Ben how fast he could run. In fact she looked downright pissed. Did I mention that the gold brick was bolted to a steel shaft? Anyway, the mint was super cool. They don’t make circulation currency here, that is done in Winnipeg. This mint makes building coins for investments, collectors coins, and medals. Really fascinating process.

The parliament tour was really interesting. Though it took forever to get through security and get started. Made for a very late lunch. That was totally random. It’s late, i’m Tired.... the library in Parliament was easily the most beautiful library I have ever seen. All of parliament is a really beautiful building that will begin major renovations in January and be closed for 10+ years. Lucky we got in to see it today.

After that late lunch we crossed the bridge into Gatineau in the Québec province. There was a park we were going to visit. Turns out there was a massive mosaic flower sculpture exhibit. We almost passed it by, decided to check it out after all. Very glad we did. The lady at the exit said it took over 5.5 million flower plants to make the sculptures. Absolutely fantastic. Again, every sculpture tied to some part of Canada and it’s history.

Thursday’s happen to be free museum days from 5-8. That’s pretty cool. We took advantage of it by visiting a huge Canadian history museum in Gatineau. Again, fantastic museum. Learned a lot. Could have spent many more hours there.

Back across the bridge and to the area we are staying for a late dinner.

We could spend so much more time here. Ottawa is a really interesting city. As with the rest of our Canadian adventures it feels like we just got our toes wet here and it’s time to move on.

Tomorrow we head to Niagara Falls. Staying in the Canadian side, will have to walk to the US to catch the boat ride. We will be back on US soil for good on Sunday.

We also had to cancel our camping plans in Mammoth Cave - very high chance of rain when we are there. So close to the end of the trip, it’s a shame to do that. Would hate to take Home wet camping gear though and there’s won’t be any opportunity to dry things out after we leave there. Just 10 days left of the trip.

Day 32: Montreal to Ottawa

we started fairly early this morning, that tends to happen when the sun comes up so early. There is so much to do in Montreal it was hard to say goodbye to the city. Instead of heading straight for Ottawa, we opted to take in the botanical gardens and insectorium in Ottawa. It was an absolutely perfect day to spend out doors. The temps never got out of the 70s, the sky was crystal clear and there was no humidity. I love the city of Austin but this trip has hammered home how cruddy the weather is there sometimes (summer, half of spring, most of fall...) Anyway, the gardens were beautiful. There was a magnificent greenhouse, and a very cool garden on medicinal plants. The insectorium housed an impressive collection of a wide variety of insects, both live and preserved.  It was all very well done.

The gardens were right across the street from the Olympic stadium. There were signs of the games throughout town, including an Olympic museum celebrating all the times Canada has hosted the games. We did not visit any of the museums, stadiums, buildings. Time was a factor, other things were of more interest to us. However, the one tall building that is part of the stadium was erected to lean at s 45 degree angle. It was pretty neat to look at from across the street. For a very steep price we could have gone to the top. Alas, time said we needed to head on our way.

It was not a terribly long drive to Ottawa, easier than the last drive. We switched from Quebec and French first, English second to Ontario with Rnglish first, French second. Funny thing is, we are so close to the border between provinces, we will walk across the bridge back into French speaking Quebec tomorrow.

I wasn’t sure what to make of Ottawa on first sight. It’s very different from Quebec and Montreal. Not so European. After walking around a bit tonight though, it seems like a pretty neat place. I am looking forward to exploring tomorrow. We are sitting on the lawn in front of parliament waiting for a light show to start. The show showcases the history of Canada. It’s only a summer thing, should be cool.

Day 31: Montreal

oh my goodness, I think we definitely covered a good chunk of Montreal today! Once again we woke to rain. Fortunately, the weatherman got it wrong today, sort of. We definitely got the called for thunderstorms overnight, but it mostly stopped raining by 7:30 or 8 this morning.

Our first stop of the day was St. Viatures bagel shop. Montreal angels are a thing and this place is the one to go to. It requires freeing Brown Car from the parking lot and venturing out for a little Canadian city driving. Small streets, lots of cars, all the street signs in French. But, thanks to trusty ol’google, we got along just fine. Though there was a little adventure in parking. The bagel place was a couple of miles away so traffic thinned in that area and it seemed that parking was more readily available. Haha, yeah, not so much. Pretty much every single parking space has it’s own set of rules. I’d like to be making that up, but i’m Not. It only took a couple of turns around the block to find a spot. We fed the meter plenty, good thing too as it seemed police were out in force enforcing parking this morning. Anyway, parked, we got bagels. The place is open 24/7. It’s a crazy assembly line of bagels going in and coming out of the oven and giant bins by the register of the offerings. Cash only, fortunately I had a few Canadian bucks on me and we were bagel bound. The “all-in” was my favorite - montreal’s Version of the everything bagel.

After bagels we drove to the nearby Jean-Talon farmer’s market. Every kind of fresh produce you can imagine, beautiful flowers, fresh herbs. Great market. I wanted to eat everything in site!

Next stop was Mont Royal. Since we had the car, there was no need to walk the 350 steps up. Very nice view of Montreal from the top. There is a cross in the park. The story goes that Cartier was so pleased with god when his new city didn’t flood that he carried a cross up the mountain to show his thanks to god. The originsl cross has been replaced. With a giant monstrosity of metal that lights up. Anyhow...

We then cruised over to the little lake onMont Royal. That’s when we got rained on. Short shower though. And it actually did some good, it was horribly humid prior to the rain shower. The clouds were the only thing keeping it bearable. After the rain, the clouds and humidity blew off and it was a nice, though a bit warm, afternoon.

One more stop with Brown Car was the St. Joseph Oratory. It’s a bit late for me to figure out the proper French spelling. Ot’s A massive cathedral on a big hill. Everything about it seemed imposing. Most Catholic Churches are beautiful and grand and full of gold. This one was hard and big and it felt more like the church was trying it’s mightiest to instill the fear of god in all who entered. The organ is among the 10 most famous organs in the world. It was also huge and imposing. And incredibly cool to see.

We took Brown Car back to the hotel and trekked on down to the old port. Smoked meat sandwiches are a thing, so we had to give it a go. The meat was great, sandwich could have used a bit less mustard though.

Next we toured the Notre Dame Basilica.  This is exactly the thing you think of when you think of a massive cathedral. Beautiful, peaceful, serene, even in light of the very many tourists that were present. In short, the opposite of St. Joseph’s. The massive organ, bigger than St. Joseph’s by 1200 pipes, was beautiful too.

Next it was onto the museum on the point down by the water. Again, the proper French name isn’t happening tonight. Very cool museum about the history of Montreal, with focus on the archeological sites there. In fact, most of the museum is under ground as you walk over the ruins of the old city. You actually emerge from the museum in another building on the other side of the street.

We cooled our jets for awhile walking around the old port and eventually wound our way back up to the Rue Jacques Cartier for dinner. Same place as last night. That was not our intent, but a lot of the restaurants in that area were either too upscale or not very good. Hardin Nelson has great food, nice outdoor seating, and isn’t too much for tired tourists at the end of a long day. About a mile walk back to the hotel and we are calling it a night.

We’ve been gone over a month now.

Day 30: Quebec to Montreal

Today is officially the last day of the month since we left. Crazy. We had to start our day in Quebec with crepes, of course! Walked around the fortifications one last time and set off for Montreal. Today was the first Quebec morning without rain. While it was beautiful, it definitely promised to be hot.

We drove out to Montmorency Falls on our way out of town. Technically it was not on the way, but not too far out either. When mike and I were last in Quebec, Montmorency Falls was frozen solid. Was nice to see it again today. There is a staircase that winds down the side of a cliff opposite the falls. The stairs lead to a viewing platform at the bottom where you get to stand in the spray from the falls. We started out down the stairs and weren’t sure we’d go all the way down. Every step down is one you have to take back up. It’s a looooooong way down. 487 steps to be precise. Of course we ended up at the bottom. It was worth it and the trek back up wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. We skipped walking the bridge over the falls and opted to hit the road to Montreal instead.

It wasn’t a terribly long drive, just about 3 hours, but man, today that felt like torture. The road was very flat and straight, not much scenery either.

Got to Montreal, found the tourist office for some maps and information. We set out for the old port tonight. Pretty hot here - mid 90s today. It was a rather long walk to the old port, but interesting. The city feels so BIG compared to old Quebec and every other place we’ve been on this trip. Mike got us a hotel sort of centrally located, we’re kind of in the business district. The walk back from the old port after dinner wasn’t too bad. The city is mostly flat, just a few hills. Interesting mix of old buildings right up against new gigantic skyscrapers.

It’s supposed to rain tomorrow morning, but clear up in the afternoons not sure what we’ll do yet. Still hard to believe we are in week 5 of this trip!

Day 29: Quebec

Before I jump into today’s post, I forgot to mention that we took a bus tour of the city yesterday evening. It was quite cool and we were all freezing by the end. It was an open top double decker bus. Great views of the city from the docks though. Also the bus tour was the only time we left the old part of the city.

Onto today. We officially kicked off week 5 today. Breakfast at another crepe place today. Also, more rain this morning. After breakfast we headed back to the citadel for the changing of the guard ceremony. They have an official regimental goat. We got our picture taken with the goat. Anyway, the ceremony was very interesting, a bit tedious at times, but pretty cool nonetheless.

After the changing of the guard it was on to the Plains of Abraham. It’s a big park. With a lot of cool history. There was a nice museum to go through and we got a bus tour of the very large park. Took a break from touristy stuff for lunch. The French had just won the World Cup and today is the last day of the huge summer music festival. It was a very upbeat happy place today. After lunch we went back to the park and went through the Mortello tower. Built for defense against the US, the towers were never used. Pretty cool interactive tour through the tower.

Then it was on to a pastry shop for croissants. We walked back down near the chateau and wandered around for a bit. Kids were interested in the street performers so we watched some acrobats for a bit. Too early for dinner, too late for tourist stuff, we headed back to the apartment. Got the last bit of laundry done, researched Montréal a bit. Decided to head back down to the Place Royale for dinner. We ended the evening with a stop at a chocolaterie and a ride up the funicular.

That’s the end of the Quebec portion of the trip. Tomorrow we head to Montreal.

Day 28: Quebec City

So today is the official end of week 4. Crazy! We woke up to some rain and a forecast for scattered showers ending by 10, cool with highs topping out in the low 70s. The showers lasted a bit longer, though never bad enough to warrant rain gear. The temps never rose above 64. Doesn’t sound very nice, but it was actually just about perfect. I had forgotten what a hilly city Wuebec is. Steep hills. Lots of them. Very steep. Cool temps are definitely nice for that kind of walking around.

We covered a lot of ground.... the funicular down to Place Royale and the original old part of the city, the fortifications, the citadel, Parliament, the old underground chateau that burned down and was built over by the Terrasse Dufferin.

Lots of cool stuff. Good crepes for breakfast, a rather lively lunch place where I had some poutine. The city really started hopping in the evening with the music festival. Busy, fun. Had a little issue finding a place for dinner. Lots and lots of restaurants, though mostly bars so the kids were not allowed in as they are minors. Finally found a place, food was good.

Day 27: Quebec

We left Acadia National Park this morning. As is the case with all the national parks it was very difficult to leave this one behind. Mike in particular seemed to be having a hard time today. Mountains and ocean all in one place... good stuff.

It was another long drive today. Pretty though, off the highway through north-western Maine. No reason to go there really unless you are doing what we are doing. No real place for lunch, stopped at a rest stop overlooking the border between the IS and Canada and smacked on some fruit and other snacks we had. Hit a Tim Horton’s when we got to a more populated spot in Canada.

It seems we arrived at just the right time. There is a huge music festival in Quebec this weekend. We are staying in an apartment in the old town, right in the heart of things, including the festival. Traffic was just starting to get bad, roads were just starting to get blocked off. We made it, parked the car, settled in. As we were walking back from dinner we passed the garage where the car is parked. It was closed because it was full. Had we arrived any later we might still be driving around!

Didn’t really do much in Quebec tonight, just walked by the old fortifications briefly. Had dinner nearby. We all showered, notable only because we haven’t showered since Vermont... camping fun! Catching up on laundry tonight too. We definitely overused ALL of our clothes. Last time we did laundry was in Frederick... before Gettysburg, the re-enactment, the lake, camping. Yeah, 10 days ago. We only packed 7 days of clothes, you do the math!

We’ll set out to explore the city tomorrow. It was 90 when we got here, supposed to be cooler tomorrow. Fingers crossed that’s the case!

Days 24-26: Acadia National Park

Let’s see... always hard to update when i’ve Missed a few days. There was no cell service in Acadia, and we weren’t in Bar Harbor long enough to devote time to blogs. So better late than never. 

On route to Acadia we stopped at the old man in the mountain monument in Mew Hampshire. This guy, or more precisely, collection of rocks that looks like a guy is pretty much the face of New Hampshire. Sadly, that part of the mountain collapsed in 2003. So what you have now is an interesting little monument that lets you recreate the face as it would have appeared. There are a series of tall metal posts with funny looking bumpy ridges at the top. The idea is that you stand on the mark that corresponds yo your height by one of these posts and squint. If you are in the right spot, the post and bumps line up on the mountain side where the face used to be and you see a sort of bronzed rock face. It works pretty well. 

We also stopped at the capitol in Augusta, Maine. Didn’t tour the inside of the building, just walked the grounds outside. Add Augusta to the growing list of capitol cities we have visited. 

By the time we get to Acadia, it’s time to set up camp. For the first time, it looks like weather will not be an issue for camping. We took the little walk from the campground to the cliff overlooking the ocean. I love the ocean, and the mountains. When they come together like this it’s pretty darn special to me. 

Went to a ranger program that first night. The projector was broken so the ranger asked the attendees to do a talent show. Alex told a couple of pubs, lots of other people participated. The ranger did tslkfor anout5 minutes on the climate and changes to the park.

The next couple of days were spent exploring Acadia. Wednesday we hit the highlights of Thunder Hole, Sand Beach, Jordan Pond and the carriage houses. Made it into Bar Harbor to explore as well. We rode the shuttle around, the park was crazy busy, parking was an issue at the popular spots. 

Thursday we started a little earlier, went up Cadillac mountain, back to Thunder Hole (better show today), Otter Cliff, and exploring tide pools along the bar between Mt. Desert Island and Bar Island at low tide. We also explored Bar Island a bit by itself. 

This post lacks a bit of detail, always hard to think back on the events of the past few days and not miss much. Aside from some lightning and distant thunder (no rain) the first night, camping was great. Weather was gorgeous, nights were cool. All of our camping gear investments again proved to be good ones. We used the fleece jackets we picked up from Pat and Ed in Baltimore, as well as the blankets I bought in Shenandoah. We also used the wine glasses and coffee mugs Erin gave us in Baltimore. I intended to ship those things back to Texas but never got around to it! Guess it’s a good thing I still had them. 

Day 23: Lake Morey - Fairlee, VT

Today was another picture perfect day at the lake. Lots of kayaking, canoeing, paddle boarding, and swimming. We skipped out on hiking up any crazy tall hills today.

There really isn't much to say that was different from yesterday. We did opt to explore the surrounding areas a bit and not eat all of our meals here at the resort. The food is good, but $$$. So at lunchtime we headed out into the town of Fairlee. There are a small handful of little restaurants. We thought we'd hit a diner, turns out it's closed on Mondays. Mike's google search led us to the Whippi Dip, a combination food truck/ice cream shop kind of thing. It's a very tiny little building that isn't much more than a kitchen. There were a few picnic tables outside. Lunch was decent. Bought the kids ridiculously huge ice cream cones afterwards. They ordered smalls, hate to see what anything larger would have been!  We drove around a bit after lunch, mainly scouting for a place for dinner. The town of Bradford is about 7 miles up the road. Cute little town, enough of one to warrant a tiny little main street complete with parking. The dam is actually quite picturesque - it's sort of built into the rocks on the cliff side. The water flowing over the damn mingles with that coming over the rocks into this very pretty waterfall. Odd, but interesting site.

We also drove over into New Hampshire, to the town of Orford. Again, we were scouting for restaurants. There was one over there, a bit too upscale for us for tonight, reservations required, heart shaped restaurant sign. Not ideal for those of us on the very ends of our laundry that has to last us about 3 more days.

After an afternoon of more kayaking, paddle boarding, canoeing, and swimming, and me falling asleep in a lounge chair, we ended up back in Bradford for dinner. Found a decent Italian place. Well, it was that or the chinese place next door. Crazy busy, but when you're the only game in town, and the 5 surrounding towns for that matter, I'd guess that's a routine occurrence. Food was good, service was REALLY slow.

We also took advantage of the slightly bigger town's grocery store and stocked up on some provisions for our upcoming camping in Acadia, and gassed up the car. We're good to go on up to Maine tomorrow.

Everyone is a bit sad to be leaving the lake, it's been a fantastic, relaxing couple of days. A nice midway point in the trip. The boys have done exceedingly well on all the various boating apparatuses. It was fun to be able to let them go out on their own and know they'd be OK.

And, apparently, you can make quite a bit of leather out of a jack rabbit. Don't ask. Well, maybe ask Ben about that one.

Day 22: Lake Morey Resort, VT

We kicked off week 4 of the big adventure today. After breakfast we went out for an early morning canoe ride. The lake is big and beautiful and calm. Very clear, nice and cool. Thought we might have an issue getting canoes and such, there’s not a huge supply here, yet the resort is pretty huge. Turns out it’s relatively quiet here. Mike was saying many of the resort places up here actually have their busy season in winter and summer activities are an afterthought.

Anyhow, after the canoeing we decided to go for a hike. Found s trail, more or less. Followed it for a bit - pretty much straight up. No switchbacks here. I found s walking stick and for the first time ever in my last fe found it to be useful, really, really, really... really... steep trails. We headed for a waterfall, the trail map was not good. We sort of found it, from afar. The trail that seemed to lead to it was steeped than steep and sketchy at best. So that pretty much ended our attempts at hiking here.

Spent the afternoon kayaking, canoeing, paddle boarding, swimming, enjoying the cool lake water. I cast my mom-ness aside and let the kids take off in kayaks and on SUPs by themselves. They did great. I managed to do just fine on the SUP myself. Mike made it to his knees, maybe tomorrow I can convince him to stand. Though maybe the best part is simply being able to lay flat on it and just surrender to the wills of the water a bit.

Tomorrow promises to be more of the same. Just need to get the boys to understand that s break every now and then is s good thing. Not many pictures today. Water and technology don’t usually mix do we kept the phones in the room, safely out of harms way.

Day 21: Hyde Park, NY to Fairlee, VT

We started today with a stop at Dick’s Sporting goods. How exciting, relight?! I bought Mike a little type light weight hammock for camping, specifically for this trip. It was his Father’s Day present and I bought it on a whim and stuck it in our camping stuff. We left for this trip on Father’s Fay do there really wasn’t much of a celebration for Mike this year. Anyway, we get to Shenandoah and try to hang up the hammock and the puddly ropes it came with were simply not enough. The camp store had everything but proper hammock hangers. We forgot to pick them up at our family stops this last week, but happily my I remembered this morning. And, also happily, there was a mall with a Dick’s in Poughkeepsie. So. 

That was not, however, the highlight of our day, no matter how exciting it seems. Poughkeepsie is just a few miles out from Hyde Park, NY. That is where we spent the first half of our day. To be more specific we toured the home, grounds, and presidential library/museum of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. FDR was an extremely interesting man. The house was gorgeous, the grounds breathtaking, the museum/library amazing. We could easily have spent all day there, not to mention at the other family estates in the area. The FDR grounds did not mention much about Eleanor Roosevelt, her home, museum, etc. is just a few miles away at Valkill. It was a fairly long drive to Vermont from Hyde Park, sadly we had to skip the other things there. 

Grabbed lunch at a diner, then headed for a very scenic drive through New York, Massachusetts, and Vermont yo our final destination. Not much to say about the drive other than it was very scenic and pretty. We passed through some tiny little towns and some tiny towns that weren’t quite as tiny. When we passed into Vermont we could see the ski slopes all through the mountains and the tiny little towns that are surely a skier’s paradise in winter. 

Our final destination was Lake Morey resort. Beautiful place right on Lake Morey. And here is where we will stay for the next couple of days. Canoes, kayaks, paddle boards, hiking, bike riding, swimming, all sorts of fun and relaxing things await us. The weather was insanely gorgeous today, just perfect. It never climbed out of the 79s, the sky was a beautiful clear blue, no clouds. Tomorrow and Monday are forecast to be about the same, a little warmer with temps in the low to mid 89s. 

Ben wants to play in the lake water tonight. We came close, Mike talked me into giving it a go. Almost. We were down by the canoes, it’s nearly full dark and I just couldn’t do it. Even though we all had life vests on, I just didn’t feel good about it. I learned long ago to follow my gut, trust my instincts, whatever. So I pulled the plug and disappointed my kid. Tomorrow is another day though and if we can manage in daylight, maybe we’ll try it at twilight again. 

Day 20: Allentown, PA, Delaware Water Gap

Today we ended the friends and family portion of our little (ok, huge) vacation. Our route to New York and ultimately Vermont tomorrow took us right through Allentown, PA. Mike’s Uncle George and Aunt De live there and invited us to stop by. It’s been well over 10 years since we last saw George and De.  George meg Alex when he was a baby, but nether had met Ben. We had a lovely lunch together catching up on all of our lives. They’ve got an adorable little shih tzu named Chloe that BFN was having a blast playing with. It was a very lovely visit, and again, made me resolve to do a much better job keeping in touch with family. We have one more family stop in the works near the end of the trip.  It was very nice to have all of this time with everyone the past week.

Heading out of Allentown we drove through the Delaware Water Gap and ended up in Poughkeepsie for the night. We got a little bit of a later start leaving Allentown than anticipated so we missed the visitor center and the all important park map. No worries though, we found a place with a bit of s guide map and were able to explore a little of the scenery. We stopped at Raymondskill Falls, very pretty waterfall. Leaving the gap we strayed just far enough off the route to venture into New Jersey and officially add that state to our list for this trip.

And here we are in Poughkeepsie, NY for the evening. Got a bit of a drive to Vermont tomorrow, lots to stop and see and do along the way. Tomorrow is officially the end of week 3, the halfway point. When we started I couldn’t see how we could possibly be gone for so long. At this point it now feels like time is slipping by way too fast and I can’t believe we are halfway done already. I want to devour every moment of this trip.

One more thing... big thanks to Uncle George for noticing that one of our brake lights had gone out. Happily there was a replacement bulb in the glove box and with borrowed tools it was a quick and easy fix. Brown Car is serving us very well thus far.

Oh, and the daily weather report... showers leaving Gettysburg this morning. They cleared out by the time we hit Allentown, made for a bit of a muggy afternoon there but not too bad. We headed pretty much north today so the temps are dropping a bit. Looks like we’re in good shape for Vermont. Not checking the weather in Acadia just yet! Very lovely here in Poughkeepsie tonight, in fact it’s on the verge of being almost cool.

Day 19: Gettysburg Re-enactment

Today (well yesterday since it was very late when we ended our day) we spent at a farm a couple of miles outside of Gettysburg where they do a 4 day re-enactment. Yesterday was the start of the 155th anniversary of the Gettysburg battle.  It was a fun day. Stupid hot again. Didn’t help that we were in a giant field with little to no shade. There was lots of cool stuff to see. There were two main tents with presentations on various aspects of the civil war. We caught snippets of a period band, civil war medicine, Pinkerton’s spies, and a few others. We wandered through the living history portion of the event as well, spoke with some interesting reenactors. One was a war correspondent, there were a couple of laundresses too. Interesting to learn more about that bit of history.

Of course there was the “battlefield” itself. We saw one battle, watched some mortar and artillery demonstrations, and the Gettysburg address.

We met up with my sister-in-law Erin and her girls. That was fun, always nice to get more family time in.

We would have liked to see more actual field re-enactment stuff, but there wasn’t anymore to see yesterday. This is a 4 day event though and it looks like the bigger portions of the battle will be today and tomorrow. So yes, it was fun, would do it again, but maybe change my expectations some.

After the battlefield we went to see Sach’s covered bridge and revisited Devil’s Den. Met up with the family for dinner and then took our niece Susan on a ghost tour walk with us. Made for a late night but the stories were fascinating and it was a fun way to end our time in Gettysburg.

Day 18: Gettysburg, PA

Todsy we added a new state to our list, Pennsylvania. While we have all visited Pennsylvania many times before, it’s fun to mark this notch on our trip.

We headed up to Gettysburg from our friends’ place in Frederick. It was a short, pretty drive. We passed by a place that Mike and I had camped at with his family a very long time ago. Lots of nice pleasant memories.

I was particularly looking forward to this part of the trip. All the years I lived in Virginia, Gettysburg was just a short hop away yet it was one of those places that I have never visited. My knowledge of the civil war is extremely poor. I had no interest in history in my younger days. Now though, I find it fascinating and want to soak it all in.

The museum at the park is incredible. It details the events leading up to the battle at Gettysburg, the 3 day battle itself, and the aftermath, including Lincoln’s very famous Gettysburg address. After the museum we drove the Auto Tour route through the battlefields. There is so much to take in. Like all of the other battle sites we have visited on this trip it is quite sobering to visit these spots. We saw Little Round Top, Devil’s Den, the Soldier’s National Cemetery (site of Lincoln’s Gettysburg address), and so many more sites. It’s really fascinating following the strategy and learning about what worked, what failed, etc.

Ben worked on another Junior Ranger badge today. It started in the museum and was quite fun to see him apply his knowledge around the fields on the auto tour. Nice to know he learned some things today!

The weather is iffy at the moment. It started raining this afternoon, some storms off and on during our drive through the park. The rain was actually alright, it cooled things down from the tremendous heat and humidity of the last week. I think it kept the crowds down a bit too. Fireworks are still scheduled for tonight, if the rain stops, we’ll go.

Tomorrow is a day of reenactments here. Initially I wasn’t really thrilled about spending the day doing that. But, my interest has grown and I am now really looking forward to it. The weather is supposed to warm, but not as bad as this past week. Slightly overcast, maybe a few showers. Should be a good day.

Day 17: Frederick, MD

After a quick visit and one last goodbye with Grandma Rita we headed to Frederick, MD to visit with the Hasenbuhler family. They were our very dear friends in TX and they moved to Maryland not quite 6 years ago. We’ve kept in touch and we’re all thrilled to be reunited for a short while. It was a pretty quiet and low-key day of just catching up. We hit the pool for a bit in the afternoon, probably the best neighborhood pool i’ve Ever been in. This pool had slides, basketball hoops, a vortex, volleyball net, even a lazy river that floated under a little bridge. Not to mention a huge splash pad area for little kids and a nice deep pool for playing and lap swimming. Admittedly, we spent the entire time floating around and around the lazy river!

We spent the evening playing with Jason’s very cool retro toys. He’s got an impressive collection of early gaming systems and we had a blast playing on a Commodore 64 and an Atari. We also got  to play with his newer toys. It was our first experience with a virtual reality system. That was pretty wild. Pretty funny to watch the person in the headset too!

It was a light weight day on the trip but a really nice break not quite at the halfway mark.

Almost forgot, my boys and their daughter used to be the best of friends and played together constantly. All were pretty young when our friends left Texas. While they had a few memories and definitely recognized each other there was still a moment of shyness at reuniting. Within minutes though all were having a blast again. Their youngest was just a baby when they left, he had no memory of us. But, he’s turned into this super cute and fun little dude. Hopefully he’ll remember us now. Hopefully it won’t be another 6 years before the next visit.

Day 16: Fredericksburg, VA

We spent today playing tourists in Fredericksburg. It was crazy hot, even first thing this morning. Temps hovered right around the 100 degree mark, very humid, heat index somewhere around 110.

Anyway, hot day to be walking around. We first stopped at Belmont, Home to Geri Melchers, an artist from the late 1800s - early 1900s. He has a beautiful estate and we haven’t been there in just over 21 years. Belmont is s very special place for us, it’s where we were married. The grounds are just as beautiful as they were 21 years ago. The college now owns/operates Belmont. Was nice to revisit it.

Next stop was the Sunken Road site of the Fredericksburg battlefields. Took the walking tour, relearned the story of the battle of Fredericksburg. We strolled through the cemetary, saw Brompton from afar, again, bringing back many memories of college and early days with Mike.

Then we headed into town with the idea of just walking around a little before heading to mom’s. Bought the boys some civil war bullets, wandered up and down Caroline street. Mom was not quite ready for company so we ended up grabbing lunch at Sammy T’s. Different owners than when we were here, but some favorites were still on the menu - camper’s favorite and lemon tahini dressing. Our car was blocked by a delivery truck so we ended up walking up the street and visited the shush Mercer apothecary shop.

Finally it was time to head to Stafford. We helped Mom with a few things around the house, ran some errands for her, kept her company for the afternoon. After dinner we headed back to town for one last stop at Carl’s.

Tomorrow we continue the friends and family leg of the tour in Frederick, Maryland with more friends we know from TX.

Day 15: Baltimore to Stafford, VA

This is going to be super short because i’m Updating the blog on my phone. And no doubt it will be full of typos.  Anyway, we said goodbye to Mike’s dude of the family and hello to Grandma Rita today. We had a great time st the family barbecue yesterday. The kids had a blast, we’re running around like maniacs even though it was crazy hot. Felt like Texas yesterday, in fact the temps were nearly identical, but the humidity here made it much hotter and grosser than TX. Same for today. In fact tomorrow is supposed to be near 100, before that nasty old heat index comes into play.

Anyway, barbecue... super fun. Great to see everybody and catch up. The distance between us all is hard, would love to be able to do that on a regular basis. We’ll try harder to keep in touch better.

Hard to say goodbye to everyone this morning, but good to see mom. All things considered, she’s doing well. We spent the afternoon visiting the MWC campus, though it’s UMW now. Anyway. Still beautiful, but parts were very very different. Some parts felt familiar and were fun to reminisce over, other parts are so new it felt foreign and not at all theschool that we knew.

Back at mom’s House the boys played the piano for her, and we even managed to get Mom to play a bit too.  Grabbed a quick bite at Carlos O’Kelly’s for old times sake. Was a bit hard to do that being Texans for so long now. But, we ordered carefully and while it wasn’t our Mexican comfort food it was alright. Definitely passed on the quest though, just won’t cut it here!

To round out the evening we went to Carl’s for some ice cream. Old habits die hard and Mine found his usual pineapple shake while I got my usual chocolate malt. Alex tried his first chocolate malt, Ben went with a traditional chocolate shake. Perfect way to round out the evening.

As for tomorrow, we’ll see downtown Fredericksburg, some battlefields, maybe Belmont where we got married. And, of course whatever Mom wants to do.

Today kicked off week 3, and we officially hit 2000 miles.

Days 13-14: Baltimore

Today is the official 2 week mark of our trip. One third of the way through. At this point in all vacations past if we aren't already home, we are definitely on the way. I don't think we've ever been gone longer than 14 days. This year, we still have 4 weeks and 1 day left. And no one is ready to go home yet. No one is even thinking of it. We're all very happy and having an insanely good time. I wondered how it would feel this far in. I've always said that I think I could travel indefinitely, that I don't need a home base. This is a good little test of that theory. So far so good. Anyway...

Yesterday and today are family days in Baltimore. Mike's family specifically, though after all this time together, certainly my family too. So let's clarify that as Mike's blood family, my extended family.  Yesterday we had a nice leisurely morning. The boys ran some errands with Grandpa while Grammy had to work a little bit. When everyone was home we headed to the inner harbor, just a short distance away.  Had lunch on the patio at one of the restaurants their and then spent a couple of hours touring two of the ships docked there - a submarine (Torsk) and a 19th century sloop (Constellation). Both boats were very interesting to tour. Hard to imagine living on one for months at sea though.

Had dinner at a really nice local spot, great food.

Today we are hanging out with Mike's brothers and their families. They aren't here yet, but it promises to be quite hectic and fun when they do get here so I'm posting this now. There will be 6 of the 7 grandkids on this side of the family here. One is spending time with other family in Florida. We saw some of these cousins back in April when they visited us in Texas for a week, the others we haven't seen in 3 years. Should be a fun afternoon.

Got quite hot here. We definitely left the cool weather in Shenandoah. A heat wave hit yesterday. All the fun of Texas heat plus east coast humidity. For laughs yesterday I pulled up the weather in Texas to compare to here. It was 92 here with a heat index of 97, 93 in Austin with a heat index of 93. And it's an hour later here.

And now I've got to sort out the last of the laundry. We should be good to go for another week.

Days 9-12: Charlottesville to Shenandoah to Gainesville to Baltimore

Seems like this should be a long post, but it won't be. Just a little bit of catching up to do. There was no cell service or wifi available in Shenandoah National Park and I just now got access to wifi here in Baltimore so I can update a bit.

We started off Day 9 in Charlottesville touring Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's home. It's a beautiful property. Jefferson was an incredibly interesting man. A lot has changed since I was there last, new visitor center and museum, some new displays around the grounds. All very well done, worth visiting if you are in Charlottesville.

Next we hit a grocery store and headed for the mountains. Shenandoah is such a special place for me, and it always will be.  That excitement seems to have worn off on the boys, they were as happy and at peace there as I was. Lots of great hiking around the park, tons of animal sightings including a couple of bears, tons of dear, about 10 gazillion chipmunks, even peregrine falcons feeding on some quail on a clifftop.

Monday night we had a good old fashioned weenie roast over the campfire, ate s'mores, watched the stars come up. We even had an opportunity for Alex to set up his telescope and watch the nearly full moon for a bit. It was quite chilly though.  We did not expect to be cold here in Virginia.

Tuesday was our day of hiking. We started off with a ranger program in the morning, so ended up hitting the trails a little later. By dinner time it was starting to mist a little. Not a happy thing since our Smoky Mountain camping got derailed due to weather. Mike and I walked to the ranger station and checked the weather, no rain was forecast for Tuesday, but it was forecast for early Wednesday morning and all throughout the day Wednesday. We finished dinner, I decided it was going to be very cold again for sleeping so I went to the camp store and bought a couple more blankets. By the time I got back it's starting to rain lightly and a heavy fog is rolling in. We decided to pack up everything but the tents and sleeping pads/blankets so that it wouldn't get anymore wet than it already was. Mike and Alex went to another evening ranger program, Ben and I packed the car. By the time we found each other the fog was so thick you couldn't see more than a couple steps in front of you, it was raining, and cold. We settled in for a long, cold, wet night that wasn't a lot of fun. Somewhere in the middle of the night though, the wind kicked up, quite fiercely actually. That wind turned out to be a good thing, even though it was cold it dried out the wet tents.

Wednesday morning we woke early, we were all cold, had all slept badly. I made breakfast, we checked the weather, and they pushed the rain chances off until later in the day. We decided to take advantage of the windy morning and pulled all of the wet gear out of the car from the night before. After a bit of discussion and the fact that it looked like rain was definitely in the forecast for Wednesday afternoon/evening we decided to find a room at the lodge instead of camping the last night. We packed up our now dry gear and set off. Turns out to have been a good decision, about an hour or so after we broke camp a really heavy downpour that lasted for a good 20-30 minutes came through and would have soaked everything, again. We did get one more shower Wednesday night, right about the time we would have been settling into the tents for the night. Aside from that brief bit of rain though, Wednesday turned out to be a gorgeous day. The boys finished their junior ranger books they started 5 years ago and we did some more hiking. Had a nice restful evening in the lodge.

Thursday morning broke clear and cool and gorgeous. The most beautiful mountain morning you can imagine. I woke before everyone else and took advantage of my time to enjoy a few minutes of solitude in one of my favorite places. It really was heart rending to leave the park yesterday. All other places/times on this trip I have been ready to move on. It was almost more than I could bare to leave my spot yesterday.

But, we had plans to meet some friends in Gainesville on route to Baltimore and Mike's family. We met the Cohen's when Ben was in 3rd grade, they gave us Pepper when they moved back here to VA. Ben and Lily have a very special bond and Ben was beyond excited to spend the day with Lily. So we went to their house, had lunch, caught up on the past year apart and then headed to the Udvar-Hazy Museum, that very magical place where they house the very best of the toys for the Air & Space Museum. Things like an SR-71 Blackbird, Concorde, the Discovery Orbiter. Just amazing. The space shuttle had me in complete awe. To know where it's been and to see it up close is almost incomprehensible. Very cool. After a hard goodbye with very special people we sat in crappy northern VA traffic and headed to Baltimore.

And here we sit, Friday morning. It's good to be with family, been a very long time since we've seen each other.  Their new house is lovely, the boys are thrilled at having time with Grammy & Grandpa, we are all very relaxed and happy here. We will spend the day exploring Baltimore and tomorrow we will catch up with Mike's brother's and their families. The boys can't wait for some cousin time!

Day 8: Gatlinburg to Charlottesville, VA

Today's journey led us back into Virginia. We're not quite back to familiar ground yet, but close. The scenery is certainly familiar. Not much to report about the day, it was mostly driving. It's a pretty long haul from the Smoky Mountains to our spot in Shenandoah National Park. I'm very glad that Mike planned for this stop in Charlottesville. While I would love to spend as much time as possible in one of my favorite places, setting up camp and all that stuff after an 8 hour drive would not have been ideal. I'll be spoiled and take a nice cozy bed for a night before 3 on a 2" sleeping pad.

We made an unplanned stop in Natural Bridge today. I lived here for 25 years, Mike for 15 and neither of us had ever been there before. It's a state park now, apparently that just happened in Sept. 2016. The bridge is beautiful, Thomas Jefferson bought the property. It was surveyed by his father.  young George Washington fit into the story somewhere that my brain is failing to remember. Anyway, George climbed about 25 feet up the one wall and carved his initials into it - they are still there. The bridge is very beautiful, one of those really cool gifts of mother nature. There's a really easy 9/10 of a mile hike to a little waterfall. It was a nice place for lunch, a nice break in the drive.

Once we got to Charlottesville we walked around a very tiny part of the UVA campus, visited Edgar Allen Poe's dorm room, a few other pretty spots. Then it was onto the little outdoor mall for dinner. A bit humid tonight, there were storms off and on all day today, we drove through a couple. The humidity is lingering. There were a fair number of homeless people hanging around the mall, I don't recall that from visits past. But, the last time I was here was 20+ years ago.

We're headed to Shenandoah tomorrow. Don't know the likely-hood of being able to update this for the next few days. I know there won't be wifi, cell service will be spotty at best and blogger is terrible on the phone. So, if nothing else, we'll touch base again on Thursday!

Day 7: Great Smoky Mountains National Park

So today officially marks the end of our first week. We've definitely covered a lot of ground and had some great adventures. Everyone is looking forward to continuing on. It is somewhat sad that a week is ALREADY gone. In some ways it feels like we just left home yesterday, in other ways it feels as though we have been gone for months. Anyway...

It was a beautiful day for hiking in the mountains. This park is huge and it just so happens to be the most visited of all the parks/monuments/sites/etc. in the national park system. So yeah, there were LOTS of people here. There also happens to be over 800 miles of hiking trails.  Only Yellowstone and I think Yosemite have more trails. There are definitely popular hikes that are crowded, but there are lots and lots of places to go where it is quiet. Even the popular hikes have so many off shoots that the parking lot may be crammed full with cars stacked up on the road for half a mile either side of the parking lot on both sides of the road, yet you pass comparably few people on the actual trail. They all just sort of disappear into the woods. That is really nice.

With the exception of a short, flat little nature trail everything else we hiked went up. Lots and lots and lots of up. The road winds through the valleys, often following the water. That means that all of the hikes have to start off going up. That's not so bad, by the time you get to your destination you've done the hard part and the return trip is relaxing and easy and just makes you ready to head up to the next one.

Lots of variety in the trees in the park depending on the elevation.  We went up Clingman's Dome this morning and it was all fir trees. And the temperature was about 60 degrees and breezy. That felt great as we had a steep half mile hike up to the top. There was a bit of fog at the top this morning so we only had sporadic views. Still beautiful though. Even as we cruised back down and stopped at various places for other hikes, the temperature didn't get out of the 60s until we hit the visitor center at 4.

In short, it was a perfect day for hiking.

I should take a minute to talk about the junior ranger badges, I mentioned it before. I'm just mentioning it again to remind me to dedicate time to it later. This post has gone on long enough for now.

Just one last note - we ended up leaving the park a bit earlier than intended, it started raining again.  Looked like we were going to get a pretty nasty storm, but it ended up fizzling by the time we got back to the hotel. We opted to just call it a day and get our laundry done before heading out to dinner. I think that was a good plan. Looks like Charlottesville is going to be nice tomorrow so we can devote our time there to playing tourists instead of having to wait around for laundry as we originally intended.

Would have been nice to get the full 2 1/2 days here that we had originally planned, but all things considered, it worked out well. We didn't have to get rained on 3 days in a row in a tent, we are caught up on laundry, will be well rested for the long drive tomorrow and ready to camp in Shenandoah on Monday.

Day 6: Chattanooga & Great Smoky Mountainsomorr

It was an absolutely gorgeous morning in Chattanooga. On our way out of town we stopped off to see the famous Chattanooga choo choo. The train ran from Cincinnati to Chattanooga, a vital supply line for the town. The old train depot is now a hotel and center for a few other businesses. Some of the old train cars serve as hotel rooms. The grounds are quite pretty, the train fun to look at.

On our way out of town we stopped at the Chickamauga & Chattanooga National Military Park. This park relives the history of the civil war battle that took place there. Interestingly enough, this park was created before the national park service. About 30 years after the civil war those that fought there gathered together. They erected thousands of monuments that remembered the ones who fought in the battle, battle strategies, those that died, pretty much everything about the battle. It's an interesting park to drive/walk through. Once the park service was founded this became a National Military Park.

Then it was on to Gatlinburg, and here is where we are now. Not a bad drive, though traffic got bad once we got to Gatlinburg. I did not realize that this park is the most visited of all the national parks. Gatlinburg is full of all the usual tourist trap stuff, and crazy amounts of people, like beach boardwalk in the summer crazy. But the park is big and the weather forecast isn't as bad tomorrow as we originally thought it might be. Not camping again tonight was probably the right call. Got some pretty good rain showers from about 5:30-8, might be a few more overnight. Would have been another damp night.

We did get one hike in to Laurel Falls today. It was a very pretty waterfall. We saw our first bear on the way down from the falls. A little cub was climbing around a tree. I'm guessing mama bear wasn't far off.

And that brings us to now. We'll see what the weather does tomorrow, but i think everyone is looking forward to some hiking and mountain time.

If you read this, and Mike's blog, I'm sure you've noticed some discrepancies. Go with whatever Mike says, it's a sure bet he's right and I'm not.

Day 5: Chattanooga, TN

Turns out it was the right call cancelling our camping reservations in the Smokies. We drove through some pretty intense rain on route to Chattanooga this morning from Huntsville. That same rain made it's way up into the Great Smoky Mountains. In fact, when I checked the weather around 8 this evening it was still raining in the mountains.  Camping would have been a whole lot less than ideal. Tomorrow's forecast isn't much better, clear in the morning but rain throughout the day. So. Here we are in Chattanooga.

We headed straight for the aquarium today because it was raining pretty good when we got here. I had no idea what to expect from the aquarium, I had not researched it at all. But, Mike said it was a go, so we went. I really didn't have high hopes. The aquarium was really very very nice. It's divided into two halves, one focusing on river life and one on ocean life. Two separate buildings. The buildings are tall and don't look big from the outside. They housed so many exhibits though, and all were very well done. We've been to a whole lot of aquariums over the years, this one was great.

We explored the river life half of the aquarium first. By the time we were done the rain had stopped (although that turned out to be a temporary lull) so we walked across the way to a little spot for lunch.  More rain showers came during lunch, but it finally seemed to all clear off by 3. After lunch we took advantage of the breaks in the rain and walked around Chattanooga by the river for a bit. It's quite beautiful, some interesting history displays about the iron foundries in the 1800s. Pretty terraced hills with flowers, a very large art museum which we didn't have a chance to visit. Gave the kiddos some ice cream and then headed for the ocean half of the aquarium.

There's a waterfall near here called Ruby Falls. Again, didn't know much about it but thought it might be worth checking out. We drove up the hills to it, turns out it was in the kitschy tourist trap area and it costs a ridiculous amount to see, so we scrapped that and checked into the hotel.  It was just the odd hour that was too early for dinner but too short to go explore some of the other things we wanted to do. So we swam in the hotel pool. That was refreshing, kids loved it. Found some dinner, walked around a bit enjoying the now absolutely gorgeous weather. The heat and steam from all the rain has blown off and it's quite cool and beautiful out. Mike and I would have walked around more but at least one of the kids was visibly tired and the extreme amount of bickering back at the room was a sure sign they are both pretty exhausted. So, that ends day 5.

For fun... we hit the first 1000 miles on our drive over here today, and we have officially been through 6 states now (Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia). I was very glad to have brown car today and not a rental. We gave the car a lot of love before we left to make sure she could get us around.  She did well in the weather today.  We have a 3+ hour drive to Gatlinburg tomorrow. Hopefully the weather will be a bit better than today. Just 5 days in, and Texas feels like a lifetime ago, and thousands (well just over one thousand anyway) of miles away.

Day 4: Huntsville, Alabama

Today was largely for our rocket boy, though we all enjoyed it. Wasn't a terribly long drive from Memphis to Huntsville, just shy of 4 hours. We had a couple of little rain showers along the way. Mostly we were just on
a little two lane highway winding through the country side of far north Mississippi and Alabama. It was pretty and green and pretty quiet. 

I love where we live in Texas. Austin is a great city, lots of things to my liking. But being somewhere with more green and trees and a road that goes up and down some hills a little makes me miss some parts of Virginia.  I have no desire to move back there, but there are times when I miss the scenery.  So, on this trip, as the majority of it will be in the scenery that I love, I will soak it all in. My favorite roads are those that pass under a tunnel of trees. I love looking up and seeing the trees meet over the roadway with the light filtering down through it. We passed through one of those this evening.

The main goal for the day was the Space & Rocket center. It's kind of hard to miss as the Saturn V rocket on the grounds is standing erect and all 36 stories of it are visible from the highway. The museum had some really interesting exhibits. Rocket Park and the discovery center dedicated to the Saturn V rocket were certainly the highlights. We all learned a bit, could have spent many more hours there reading every little placard.

Perhaps the most well known part of this center is Space Camp. Kids from 9-18 can spend a week here during the summer prepping for their hopeful future as astronauts. The camps are divided out by age and become more intense in the older groups. The camp geared towards the 15-18 year olds will even qualify for a college credit. Bet you can't guess who wants to go to Space Camp. I would love nothing more than to send him. Who knows what the future holds.

We spent a small bit of the evening exploring historic downtown Huntsville. It's very pretty, the historic parts remind me somewhat of Fredericksburg, VA, or Fort Collins in Colorado. Smaller than both of those cities though. Lots of trees and green, historic buildings, corner cafes and restaurants. There was a very pretty park to the one side of town, lots of steps down with a cascading waterfall and a little river full of ducks. There was one family of ducks, mama and 10 babies. Ten little ducklings is probably one of the cutest things ever to watch. One little duckling got kind of far away from mom and started swimming in circles, crying. Obviously he was in distress. But, he persevered and eventually found his way back to mama. Anyway, it was nice to walk around down here.

We capped off the evening with some fine German food, and now we are getting ready for the next adventure.

Day 3 - Memphis

It's a bit late, so this one is going to be short. Had another great day. We managed to see quite a few Memphis highlights, all the while avoiding the big one. We saw the Lorraine Motel (sight of the MLK assassination), Sun Studio (famous recording studio - Elvis recorded his first record here, along with many other very famous musicians), a tour of the Mississippi River via a paddle wheel boat, and the duck walk at the Peabody. The Civil Rights Museum was closed, but at least we had an opportunity to view the motel and catch the outside exhibit a bit. Ben wanted to ride the trolley, so we did. Also snagged a bus ride from Sun Studio back to Main Street. Yay for public transportation! Between that and our little legs we were able to get a break from the car.

To cap it all off we had some of that famous Memphis bbq at Rendezvous, known for their pork ribs.

We've been keeping tabs on the weather, there's a rather large system that's going to affect our plans in a few days. We had planned on camping in the Great Smoky Mountains. We cancelled that reservation tonight as it looks like a near 100% chance of rain and storms for the bulk of the time we would be camping. That didn't sound like a lot of fun for any of us. So, after exhaustive searching and trying to come up with an alternate plan that wouldn't increase our driving time unreasonably we opted for a day in Chattanooga and a hotel in Gatlinburg. If the weather changes, we'll still be able to go the park and enjoy the mountains, just no camping at this point. If we get the rain that is forecast we'll at least have a dry place to hang out for a couple of days. 

That's the first deviation from the plan, and it's alright. We'll make anything work.

Day 2: Hot Springs, Arkansas to Memphis, Tennessee

Let's see if I can string together a bit more of a coherent post than last night. Blogger stinks on a mobile device! Honestly, for the best scoop, you probably ought to go check out Mike's blog. He's so detail oriented, and his memory is so much better than mine. Anyway...

Hot Springs. Pretty cool little place. The area is fed by all of these lovely little thermal springs. The water bubbling up out of the earth is a toasty 143 degrees or so when it exits the earth. Thanks to the Junior Ranger program (more on that in a bit)... we learned that the springs are fed by rain water high in the mountains that follows all these lovely little cracks and crevices deep into the earth where it gets all nice and toasty warm, then it follows more cracks and crevices back to the surface. The water is not warmed by volcanic activity so it doesn't have sulfur in it which means no rotten egg smell. It tastes lovely, though hot. You can fill bottles from taps along bathhouse row.  The waters are known for their medicinal properties.

The 8 bathhouses that are left make up bath house row. These were all build in the late 1800's - early 1900s. Only one still operates as a barthhouse, which is basically a luxury spa. And no, we did not get a chance to take a spring fed bath. Maybe next time.  The other 7 are businesses of various sorts, a couple of them are National Park Service buildings. The Fordyce bathhouse serves as a museum and has been restored to it's glory days. It's quite interesting to go through, some of the luxury treatments offered seem a bit medieval - the electric bath in particular. The Superior Bathhouse has been turned into a little brewery restaurant touting themselves as the only place in the world that brews their own beer and root beer with the natural thermal hot spring waters. Both the beer and root beer were very good. The food was good too.

We also took a nice little hike up the mountain to the lookout tower. The view from the top of the tower was lovely. The Ouachita mountains were off in the distance, the town of Hot Springs down below us. The hike was a very steep 1/2 mile up. It was extremely humid and I was glad we chose to do the hike early in the day. We saw some deer, a chipmunk. I was reminded of how nice it is to hike outside of central Texas where the trees offer some shade and even in the extreme humidity it is quite tolerable and pleasant.

After Hot Springs we trekked on over to Little Rock. It's kind of a thing for me to go visit state capitols when the opportunities arise. The Little Rock building was very beautiful. Tons of marble, very big. There were large bronze doors at the main entrances. When we got there I noticed a man standing on a ladder doing something to one of the doors. It turns out that in order to maintain the luster intended by the original door sculptor, the doors are polished inside and out by hand every week. The doors are 10 feet tall. That's a lot of hand polishing.

We got our first taste of real rain in Little Rock. We cut the sight seeing short because of a torrential downpour. Enough rain that it warranted sitting in a parking lot for about 15-20 minutes to let the storm pass. It was the kind of rain that would have kept me off the road anywhere, not just because I was in unfamiliar territory.  In fact, all I really thought was "huh, we're getting a Texas sized storm in little Arkansas.".

Then it was on to Memphis. Just a taste of Memphis tonight. We found a nice little place for dinner - Automatic Slims, then walked over to Beale street. Beale street is somewhere between Austin's 6th street and New Orlean's Bourbon street. Just fun to say, yeah, I've been there. We've got a little history planned for tomorrow. Graceland may or may not be on our list of stops. I think we'd all like to check out the Mississippi River a bit. It's big :-)

That's day 2. Pictures will surface eventually. For now, enjoy the words.

Austin to Dallas to Hot Springs, Arkansas

I think Mike is sitting by the window writing his own blog post for the day. Probably postingbon Facebook too. How much of my thoughts do I put here, how much do I save for my journal? Do I date read Mike’s blog now or wait until the end of the trip and revisit everything from his perspective?

Anyway... day 1!! It’s still hard to believe that this trip is actually really finally underway. It was a pretty great start to the trip. Dealey Plaza does not fail to inspire awe. It’s quite something to walk through such a well known part of American history. The museum was incredibly fascinating. We had a lovely lunch at a little local place s few blocks away then hit the road on to Arkansas.

And that is where we sit now. Hot Springs is a cute little place. The old bath houses are pretty to look at. Only one is still doperating as a bath house.we walked around a little tonight, will do some hiking and exploring tomorrow. The water from the Springs is on average 134 degrees, quite toasty coming out of the earth. I imagine the baths would feel quite lovely.

I was going to add a few pictures, but blogger doesn’t work great on the phone. Will have to add photos later.

Aaaaaand we're off... Almost...

The hope is that in less than 12 hours we'll be on our way. First stop is Dealy Plaza in Dallas. The boys and I visited this historic landmark last summer on our whirlwind eclipse trip. Pretty amazing bit of history to experience. I'm glad we'll have a chance to go with Mike. Our final destination tomorrow night is Hot Springs, Arkansas. Fingers crossed for quiet roads and good weather.

And packing the car? Yeah, it all fits, and yes, I can still see out the back window. Thanks, Mom, for the gift of car packing. I learned from the best.

As for the rest of the night... Well, I've got a few little odds and ends to pack up. I can't imagine I'll sleep much. Seems like a good time to put on a movie and chill.

One last note, the refrigerator is officially empty and I only had to give away 3 limes! We did a great job of emptying it out this week. Yay for creative cooking, and eating lots and lots of salads.

Happy Father's Day Mike. I hope that you enjoy this adventure more than you dreamed possible. I love you.

Mike's Take on Things

For the fun of it, we've each got a separate blog for this trip. Clearly, this is mine.  I started to play around with a new/different thing, decided it wasn't worth it. This one will suffice. I'm guessing I won't update it as frequently as Mike updates his. At any rate, it should be amusing to see our different takes on the same thing. Like the house we drew in elementary school art. About the only thing my sister and I saw that was the same was the color. We both drew a yellow house. Other than that, you'd never know it was the same (ignoring the fact that one was drawn by a first grader and the other a much more artistically advanced third grader). Mike and I compliment each other so very well and part of that is our different perspectives. It will be fun to see how the next 6 weeks play out. Without further ado, here is a link to Mike's blog...

http://mikegilsbach.onuniverse.com/

I will point out that I'm a little more optimistic about our packing prospects. Today was the 4th test pack of the car. Mike's a bit skeptical it will all fit. I think it will. We'll just leave one or both of the kids behind if we're short on room. Double bonus, said kid(s) can take care of the dogs. All kidding aside, Saturday as the official packing day ought to be interesting. Anyone want to place bets on whether we scrape by without having to get a cargo carrier for Brown Car?