We Made It!

Bob and I spent our last two days on the road, running ahead of, then waiting out, and dodging storms. We drove out of Knoxville early as the rain started, and stayed ahead of the storm all day.  It was a doosey - Knoxville got 5+ inches in 24 hours! 

We spent the night at a nice little RV park just north of Valdosta, GA. We had been passing fields of cotton during the trip and hoping we could pick some.  Luckily, just down the road from the RV park was a small field of cotton. This was the first time either of us had seen cotton growing up-close so we stopped and picked a few balls. It feels just like cotton except it has hard seeds in it. The plants also have flowering blossoms.

That evening we had dinner at Cheddars, a new favorite restaurant of ours. They have great food at even greater prices. Check and see if there is a location near you!

The next morning, there were HUGE storms approaching with high winds, thunder and lightening, so we hunkered down with the weather channel and waited for most of it to pass. It was a good decision as they lost power in parts of Valdosta just south of us, and we didn’t get much wind or heavy rain where we were.

We drove into Florida just before noon yesterday and stopped at the big welcome center for some free juice and brochures. What a great place. Bob and I both agree that I-75 is one of the best highways in the nation. The section from southern Georgia all the way to Tampa is in great shape, and they have nice rest areas in Florida about every 30 miles. Bob sampled a lot of the vending machines.

Lake in the RV park

We are getting settled into our new RV park in Bradenton, just north of Sarasota. We’ve got a shady spot and the neighbors seem nice. It’s still a little quiet around here as most people are gone until winter when it will be totally full. I enjoyed walking around the RV park’s lake today and checking out the birds. This evening we went to the beach for sunset and then celebrated with Bang Bang shrimp and drinks at Bonefish Grill – another favorite eatery. There are a few around the country.

Bob on the beach

Mary in the waves

Tomorrow Bob and I will celebrate our 4^th wedding anniversary in our new state. It’s exciting to be starting this new phase together. The next several months will be filled with researching neighborhoods, searching for houses, squeezing in some fun times at the beach, and maybe even working.  We have a one-year lease at the RV park, so we don’t have to rush. We will continue to post any blog-worthy news. Bye for now………

The Volunteer State

Mary and I spent a few days in Tennessee mostly visiting with friends and family. 

My niece Misty lives just south of Nashville.  She is a couple of years older than my son Matt.  Her second daughter was born six months before Matt’s first.  Matt and Misty have skied together a lot, both as kids and adults. Misty and her husband Adam have a great house just outside Franklin, TN and the two daughters seem to keep them pretty busy. It was great to spend an evening with them. 

While visiting Misty, we stayed at the Nashville KOA and got to see one of our favorite things – the Oscar Mayer Weiner Mobile.  Mary and I had previously looked in to being Wiener Ambassadors, but the website was looking for young energetic types - not geezers. 

Misty parents (Deb’s brother Mike and his wife Kathie) recently moved to Lenoir City, TN, just outside Knoxville (about three hours from Misty).  They had been stuck in Portales, NM and suddenly got the opportunity to move to the Knoxville area.  They have only been there for two weeks! 

The four of us got to play tourist in Knoxville on the day of the big game between the University of Tennessee Volunteers (Vols) and the University of Florida Gators.  Knoxville seems to be a fantastic medium sized city and the entire city was decked out in “Volunteer Orange”.  The color is exactly the same as the Home Depot orange, so I felt right at home.  We enjoyed the farmers market and historical area of the city, but it was especially exciting because it was so alive with people tailgating and having fun even 7-8 hours before game time.  Unfortunately Tennessee lost the game.

Mary has a friend that also recently moved to the area. Carie and Mary were flight attendants together at Northwest Airlines almost forty years ago.  Mary’s career was quite short, but Carie is just now retiring!  Carie and her husband Andy built a beautiful house on one of the many TVA lakes in the area about a year ago.  We had a very nice lunch with them, and even got to go out on their boat and experience the winding wooded Watts Bar Lake.

In fact, we learned that it is possible to boat all the way from eastern Tennessee to the Mississippi and then out to the ocean. A big surprise for us has been the abundance of navigable waterways throughout Arkansas, and Tennessee. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) built many dams starting in the 1930’s, largely to provide electricity and flood control.  Thanks to the convoluted topography, a side benefit is hundreds of miles of smooth waterways that provide animal habitats and a myriad of recreational and residential opportunities for the citizens and visitors of Tennessee.

Mary and I had thought of taking some more side trips before we head to Florida, but we are ‘getten’ ready to set up our home base in the Sarasota area. We can explore more of the Southeast later. So, tomorrow we will head down I-75, and after one more overnight stop we should be at Pleasant Lake RV Resort, our new home base for now.  

Memphis/Graceland

Bob and I spent an hour the morning we left Hot Springs getting another new tire put on Harriet. It seems that we are always in need of a tire, but at least Bob discovered an impending problem before it happened. We left town a little late, but we were safe.

As we traveled east, the hills and forests of Arkansas gave way to fields of rice, cotton and sugar cane. It was nice to see some new crops after so many miles of corn and soybeans in the Midwest. Did you know that 48% of the rice grown in the USA is grown here in Arkansas?  I didn’t. They call this area the Mid-South……hmmmmm. Seems like the North-South to me.

We camped at a nice RV park in West Memphis that is right on the Mississippi river. Bob really enjoyed watching the tugs pushing huge loads by at all hours of the day and night. The hum of those big engines is quite soothing. Unfortunately at night some plant that we can’t see must start up, because there has been quite a stench in the evening. It smells like cooking corncobs – yuck.  Both the shipping activity and the aromas reminded Bob a little of Tacoma.

Elvis's Living room

Paul Simon convinced me many years ago that I should go to “Graceland, Graceland, in Memphis, Tennessee” – so we went and it was wonderful. They have saved so many of Elvis’s personal things, gold records, clothes, airplanes and household items. The mansion is still just as it was when he died 35 years ago. We also visited his gravesite. Bob and I were reminded that Elvis stopped doing live performances for about nine years while he was staring in movies, but he made his big comeback with a TV Special in 1968 that put him firmly back into the music scene. He had a huge influence on the entire world of music.

Balcony where King was shot

Memphis is the city of museums, but there was only one that we really wanted to visit – The National Civil Rights Museum housed in the Lorraine Hotel where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. We spent all afternoon there and it was truly amazing. Our country’s journey to civil rights lasted for hundreds of years, but the events of the 1960s finally brought some results. It’s often easy to look back and think that things happened so quickly, but the struggles of the 50’s and 60’s were a long and arduous series of victories, setbacks and victories. I am always blown away by the history of the 60s and today was no exception.

How do you compare Elvis Presley with Martin Luther King Jr.? They both had a huge influence on America and the world, and they both died way too early in Memphis. It was a day of great history and remembering these men and their struggles and accomplishments.

We finished our day in Memphis with a stroll down Beale Street and had drinks, gumbo, jambalaya and gator chips at a local joint. Fun stop!!

Hot, Hot, Hot Springs

Mary and I made it to Hot Springs Arkansas just in time for 100+ degree temperatures, we didn’t think it was too conducive to sitting in hot water, so we decided to check out the other things this area has to offer.  We were pleasantly surprised…a huge lake, crystal mines, mountains, forests, rivers, barbeque, music, motorcycles and even a presidential library.

Lake Ouachita

Mary has a friend that just moved to Hot Springs from Maui.  We connected with her and she was very gracious and gave us the inside scoop.  We rented a boat and spent an afternoon on Lake Ouachita (wash-i-ta) with Mary’s friend and her dog.  The lake has over 200 islands, 1000 miles of shoreline and nice clean water for swimming. 

We heard some great blues at the Ohio Club – a small nightclub that has beeb in continuous operation since 1905.  Hot Springs is a small city surrounded by a National Park that was first created as a national reserve (before the national park system was created).  The reserve was created to protect and provide public access to the natural hot water springs. The national park includes some trails on the hills surrounding the town, a 210 foot observation tower on one of the hills, and a string of architecturally significant historic bathhouses. Some are not in operation and one of them serves as the National Park visitor center. 

Downtown Hot Springs

After the weather cooled a bit, we visited two of the bathhouses. The Quapaw is the only one with communal pools so we started there since Mary and I like to sit in hot water together. The Buckstaff Bathhouse still carries out the traditional routine.  Mary and I were led off to separate men’s and women’s locker rooms where we disrobed and were given a sheet and a loofa.  An attendant then led us to a large 100 yr old porcelain tub filling with the magical natural hot water.  After a few minutes the attendant comes in and starts scrubbing you with the loofa!  Next stop is a steam cabinet – mine was like a closet, but Mary had the classic cabinet where your head sticks out and your body par-boils.  The steam was followed by a “needle shower” (sounds scary – but it’s just a lot of small jets of water spraying at you from all directions – but the piping does look like the same vintage as Frankenstein’s).  After a soothing hot towel and sheet wrap you get a 20-minute full body massage.  Mary’s massage was quite modern, but mine reminded me of those old boxing movies where the trainer slaps, pats and rubs vigorously. It was actually pretty good.

Clinton Museum

We took a side trip to Little Rock to check out the Clinton Presidential Library and Museum.  What a great place!  We were there the day after Bill’s speech at the Democratic convention. The library includes replicas of the Oval Office and Cabinet Room and had very well done displays chronicling the events, decisions and results of the Clinton years.  It also has a fabulous restaurant.

Mary and I drove 15 miles north of Hot springs to the Coleman Crystal Mine. They pile up the “tailings” of the mine and you can dig up your own crystals for a small fee.  We had planned to do some digging, but we found such reasonably priced stuff in the store that we skipped the digging and cleaning and bought a few lovely specimens. This area has many crystal mines and there are rock shops along several highways.

We stayed in Hot Springs for a week.  We found a very nice RV Park along the Ouachita River, but we also discovered that there are some great State Parks in the area.  The Arkansas State Parks are free for day use, and many of them have full RV hook-ups, and marinas with rental boats.  We visited Lake Catherine State Park in the early evening and found a free Bluegrass Concert, and the Rangers were making peach cobbler in a “dutch oven” and handing it out free to the audience.  What a nice touch!

We found some great BBQ at Stubby’s, good burgers at the Ohio Club and a fantastic wide-ranging menu at the Bleu Monkey Grill!  Food prices are also very reasonable in this part of the country.

When we were at Sturgis, SD we got there just after the Motorcycle Rally.  Well, we were here for the Hot springs Motorcycle Rally, and while it is not on the scale of Sturgis it was fun to see all the bikes and it gave us a small glimpse into what the Sturgis Rally must be like.

All in all, we really like the Hot Springs area and we’re sure we will visit again someday.  Oh yes!  I almost forgot to mention….Arkansas was the last state to fill up our map of the lower 48.  Mary and I cracked a small bottle of champagne and toasted as we placed the decal on our map.

We’re heading to Memphis tomorrow. 

Five states in a day

The route Bob and I drove from Nebraska City to Afton, Oklahoma, took us through five states in one day. The highways followed the Missouri river for quite some time and brought us from Nebraska into Iowa, then Missouri, Kansas, back into Missouri and then Oklahoma. It was a pleasant drive through rolling hills with oaks and a wide variety of deciduous trees. We were also amused as we passed lots of towns with familiar names – Miami, Pittsburg, Oregon, and Tia Juana. There are so many towns with the same name all over the country. We’ve already encountered quite a few Emersons, but no Getten City yet.

I have to give Iowa my A rating for their rest areas. They were frequent, clean, new, and each one had a different theme with lots of information.

Bob and I arrived at our RV park on the shore of the Grand Lake O’ the Cherokees in northeast Oklahoma just as they were setting up for a potluck dinner. The owners insisted we come, so we got a free dinner and enjoyed some conversation about Oklahoma and the full-time RV life.

Grand Lake O’ the Cherokees is a tremendous lake with 1,300 miles of shoreline. It is famous for fishing with many Bass tournaments throughout the year. There are also lots of blue herons, white egrets, gulls and this time of year, pelicans. It seems so odd to find what I consider “seabirds” in the middle of the country, but there they are.

We have been experiencing quite hot weather this week – about 104 today and more of the same predicted for tomorrow. Harriet’s air conditioner has been running non-stop for about ten hours today and we are so grateful. Even though it was hot we walked through the Bernice state park next door and visited their nature center that had great exhibits. I had quite the conversation there with a young girl who noticed my whale tail necklace and surmised that I wasn’t from around here.

We are off to Hot Springs, Arkansas tomorrow and will finally be able to put that last state sticker on our RV map. We will have visited all of the lower 48 in Harriet, fulfilling one of our goals when we set out in January of 2010.

Hobo, Grotto, Wind, Tires, Trails and Trees

When Mary and I left Minnesota, our plan was to head straight for Nebraska so we could fill in one of the three remaining states on our map of the lower 48, but we got side-tracked by some interesting diversions.  We spent the night in Iowa so we could experience…..

Britt, Iowa, the home of the annual Hobo Convention and Hobo museum.  The term Hobo comes from the greeting “Ho! Beau”, as men traveling for work would great each other during the great depression.  We also learned (from the brochure-the museum was not open when we came through) that the definition of a Hobo is “one who wanders and works”, whereas a Tramp is “one who wanders and dreams”, and a Bum is “one who neither wanders nor works”.  I guess Mary and I are Hobos aspiring to be Tramps, and hoping we don’t end-up Bums.

We visited the Grotto of the Redemption, a wonderful Catholic shrine built entirely of stones, petrified wood, stalactites, crystals and gems that were gathered throughout the western states.  Father Dobberstein gathered from 1900 to 1912 and then began a 40+ year obsession to build a very large rambling and strangely beautiful labyrinth of walkways and alters and caves to honor Jesus.  The site is literally out in the middle of nowhere (Iowa) and includes thirteen great statues made of Carrera Marble from Italy.  The grotto kind of reminded Mary and I of Coral Castle in Florida.  The adjacent church has a 300lb amethyst and a carved wooden alter with stained-glass windows from Germany.

We also learned that Iowa produces a greater percentage (20%) of its electrical energy from Wind than any other place on the planet, though they are not the largest producer of wind power in terms of total megawatts.  The wind blowing across Iowa seems almost constant, and there are very large windmills almost everywhere. There were also lots of semi’s carrying huge blades on I-80.

On our way to Nebraska City, one of the tires on Harriet separated. When this happens the tread rips off and sometimes can do great damage to the trailer. Luckily, only some of the lower sheet metal was bent and I was able to pull to the side of the road (I-80) safely.  Our motor club dispatched someone to put on our spare for us (it takes a pretty hefty jack), and we were on our way again in about one and one-half hours.  I was able to get a new tire and borrow a jack in Nebraska City to put it on in the RV park.

Nebraska City turns out to be a pretty interesting small (7,000 pop) town. We really enjoyed Parker’s BBQ – a must if you are ever here. The area was a prominent stop for Lewis and Clark, a major starting off point for the westward migration, and thanks to J Sterling Morton, a significant player in the country’s appreciation for trees. The Morton family settled just outside of Nebraska City on a large tract of grassland and proceeded to plant trees of numerous species.  The patriarch was the US’s first Secretary of Agriculture (under Grover Cleveland) and was the founder of Arbor Day.  A day to celebrate and plant trees, and as the literature points out, one of the few holidays that is not political, religious or commemorating some past event.  Arbor Day is a day to look to and invest in the future by planting a tree.  One of Morton’s sons went on to become the owner of the Morton Salt Company and another son, the Argo cornstarch company.

We visited a fairly new and well-done Lewis and Clark interpretive center that included some trails overlooking the Missouri River.  In a little over two years the expedition went from St Louis to the Pacific Ocean (and back!) via the Missouri, Snake and Columbia Rivers.  They recorded over 100 new plant and 122 animal species and learned of the migration of the salmon from the native cultures that they encountered.  We biked along a trail called the Steamboat Trace that ran along the western edge of the Missouri River (before it was channeled). The Missouri, as we learned, used to flow wide, up to 3 miles, and shallow along Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri.  Spring floods added fertile silt to a broad stretch of “bottom land” and the river wandered a very curvy path before modern channelization and dredging deepened and straightened its course.

During the great westward migration from 1846-1866 Nebraska City was home to several “freighting” companies who would outfit the wagon trains with livestock and supplies for their journey on the Oregon, California or Mormon trials.  With the advent of the transcontinental railroad the overland route was obsolete and Nebraska City was no longer a major commercial transportation hub.

We successfully waited out hurricane Isaac up here in Nebraska and were able to learn a few things to boot!  We are heading out tomorrow to Oklahoma - another of our “not visited before” states.