September 29, 2011

Left Victor, NY at 9 am and drove to Niagara Falls. The last time we were there was 1971 in February in the midst of a terrible snow storm. We could hardly see the Falls then due to the wind and ice coming from the mist of the Falls. Barb and Dick were with us then and we came to Buffalo for the 50th wedding anniversary of Rose and Barb's great Aunt and Uncle. Today there was no snow and no rain, and we had a wonderful time! The Falls are spectacular and we were thrilled to be there. By the time we left it was almost noon and we headed off to Toledo, OH. We drove into the parking lot of our hotel, the Hampton Inn, at 6pm. We had stopped a couple of times and ran into severe rain at times so the going was slower than we expected. We also ran into miles and miles of highway renovation, also slowing us down. I had forgotten how many big trucks use 90 and 80 and I long for the open roads of S. Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. Although, through of the bigger downpours I followed a very large Fed Ex truck and he helped me get through the worst of the weather. Tomorrow we are off to Oswego to see Barb and Dick one more time, and then hit the road for home either on 90 or 80. I am leaning towards 80 as we took 90 on the way here. We'll see...

September 28, 2011

We were sad to drop Barb and Dick off at Logan, International Airport in Boston yesterday but We were grateful for almost two wonderful weeks together! We were reminded how great it is to talk and laug together. We'll have to do it again sometime! After we left Boston we headed north to Freeport, ME. We drove through New Hampshire to get to Maine and found out that NH has state liqour stores, and they have prices that rival California's! Of course we stopped and bought some bourbon. We arrive in Freeport, ME close to 2 PM and immediately did the tour of LL Bean. It is quite a store and open 24 hours a day every day of the year but Christmas! After a bit we decided we did't want to stay in Freeport but that we wanted to start for home. I think the we felt a bit lonely without Barb and Dick, and we were getting a bit homesick. So we turned around and headed for I - 90 westbound. Last night we stayed in Hanson, MA at a Holiday Inn Express...not good. Tonight we are in Victor, NY in a Hampton Inn and it is very nice. After we checked in today we left for Pittsford, NY to see the Erie Canal. It was raining a bit but we had fun walking the path that used to be the path used by horses, mules, and oxen as they pulled the barges from the Hudson to Lake Erie, and back. On the way back to the Hampton Inn it was raining so hard that I could hardly see. It was raining harder than it did at Gettysburg!! When we got back to the hotel we decided to order in... We are tired and ready to head to Ohio tomorrow, with a side trip to Buffalo,if the weather permits. We saw a lot of incredible colors all along the trip today and into Maine yesterday. It is hard to imagine the beauty of NY state when all you really see is NY City. Fortunately, we have seen it all...

September 26, 2011

Nantucket yesterday, Martha's Vineyard today! Two great days on Cape Cod! Took the fast ferry to Nantucket, the slow ferry to Martha's Vineyard. Both were wonderful. Had lunch at really cool places on both islands. Walked a lot, saw a lot, had a wonderful time! Sad day tomorrow as Barb and Dick fly back to Chicago while Rose and I travel to Maine. We have had such a great time together, enjoying the sights and laughing at Dancing With The Stars. The time has gone too fast...we'll have to do it again some day. Rose and I are thinking we'll spend just a little time in Maine and then head home. We'll see as we haven't made any decisions yet as to our final travel plans. Stay tuned!

September 24, 2011

What a long day! We left Allentown, PA about 8am and finally arrived at our hotel in West Yarmouth, MA about 7pm. Now, not all of this was driving as we stopped often but I think we made about 350 miles. It was a long day but an interesting one. I missed a turn outside New York city and we ended up going through the Holland Tunnel into Manhatten, and we took the west side expressway from the Holland Tunnel to the Bronx. It was pretty neat as there was little traffic on a Saturday morning. We started in Pennsylvania and drove through New Jersey, Ney York, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and finally, Massachusetts. The nicest roads were through Conn and RI. Tomorrow we are taking a ferry to Nantucket and are looking forward to lobster tomorrow night....and Monday night too. We are hoping the weather is nice tomorrow for our ferry ride to Nantucket. We'll adjust if it isn't. That's all for now...

September 23, 2011

Last couple of days have been interesting. Yesterday Rose and Barb and I spent some time in Lewisburg, WV. We walked a lot of the town and saw some neat stores(too expensive) and a very old cemetery. Then is the afternoon Dick joined us and the four of us took off on a tour of the bunker under the Greenbrier. This bunker was built in the late fifties and completed in 1962. It was designed to house all of the members of the House of Representatives and Senators and their aides in case of a nuclear attack on Washington DC. It lost its usefulness in the 90s and now acts as a repository for backup documents for Fortune Five Hundred companies. Later we had dinner in the grand ballroom at the Greenbrier. An excellent dinner was enjoyed by all!

We got up early this morning to drive to Gettysburg. It sprinkled most of the way but really dumped on us the last 30 miles to Gettysburg. It rained so hard that most of the roads on the driving tour of the battlefield were closed, as was the main street through Gettysburg. We toured the visitor center and watched the movie, saybthe cyclorama, and visited the museum. We were disappointed the roads were closed but there was nothing we could do. We left about 3:45 and headed for Allentown, PA. We to get there sonwe could cut down the driving time to Cape Cod on the 24th. We are all pretty tired now and looking forward to getting to Cape Cod tomorrow. We are also hoping the rain abates somewhat. More after we have had our first lobster dinner...

September 21, 2011

We are spending our second night in Lewisburg, WV, about 7 miles from the Greenbrier, where Barb and Dick are staying. We arrived yesterday and deposited Barb and Dick at the Greenbrier and then checked into our hotel in Lewisburg. We met Barb and Dick later at the Greenbrier for dinner at a bar overlooking the golf course where a professional tournament is held. Food and ambiance were wonderful. Today, while Dick was in his seminar sessions, Rose and Barb and I drove to Lexington, VA. We visited the home and museum of Stonewall Jackson and, on the campus of Washington and Lee University we visited the grave of Robert E. Lee. This entire area is dripping with history! Later this evening all four of us tried our hands in the casino in the Greenbrier. Dick did very well, which could not be said for the rest of us. Tomorrow, Rose and Barb and I will spend the morning in Lewisburg and, when Dick is finished with his seminars, we will take a tour of the famous bunker built to house the members of Congress during the Cold War. We are then going to have dinner in the main dining room of the Greenbrier and then take in a musical review held at the hotel. Tomorrow should be a busy day! Friday we leave for Gettysburg...can hardly wait!

September 19, 2011

Tonight we are in Morgantown, West Virginia. Sunday morning we left Indianapolis and drove to Cincinnati, Ohio. We arrived at Scott and Beth's about 1pm. They are great, have a wonderful apartment in a really nice area, and took us for a couple of nice drives to see some of the older homes in Cincinnati. We were hungry by mid-afternoon so Scott took us to Terry's Turf Club, a hamburger joint featured on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. We all had hamburgers, of course, and they were wonderful. Rose's hamburger had Stilton cheese, Beth chose one with goat cheese and a tequila, jalapeño, mango dressing. Barb had one with mango curry. Needless to say, there was not a crumb left!! After a cigar and some very smooth bourbon at Scott and Beth's we drove to Blue Ash, Ohio and stayed in a Holiday Inn Express...probably not our best choice on this trip. It was clean but our toilet would lose water and run to fill about every 60 seconds so I had to get out of bed at midnight and turn the water off at the wall. Got back in bed and about 30 minutes later our air conditioner started making a "grinding" noise, so I got up and turned that off. I probably got to sleep near 1am and woke up at 6 as we wanted to get an early start. It was a great day, however, as we got to spend time with Scott and Beth.

Today we drove from Blue Ash to Falling Water Pennsylvania to see the famous home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Barb had ordered tickets online and we got there just in time to take our one hour tour. The house is amazing! There is no doubt that FLW was a genius. I think I got some pretty good pictures. We left there close to 5pm and drove to Morgantown, WV. We arrived at the Hampton Inn at 6 and found the hotel had a special night, Pirates' Night, and they had drinks and hors d'vores. That's where we had dinner, along with a few bourbons and wine. We visited with the hotel manager and went to our rooms because the girls thought Dancing With The Stars started at 7pm. Dick and I may go to their room to watch MNFB... We don't have to leave very early tomorrow as White Sulfur Springs is less than 4 hours away. Dick and I may try to buy some university of West Virginia t-shirts before we leave. We'll see what tomorrow brings. It started raining here right about the time we left Falling Water and it is the first real rain we have had on the trip. We hope it doesn't continue tomorrow. Next blog will be from White Sulfur Springs.

September 17, 2011

Left Oswego this morning about 8:30 and arrived in Parke County, Indiana, around 1pm. Took an interesting driving tour of a number of covered bridges, stopped in a little town on the route, and road through the Indiana countryside for a while. Arrived in Indianapolis about 6pm, took our stuff to the room and ran down to the lobby to have a few drinks and play SkipBo with Barb and Dick. We ordered pizza and had a great time just visiting. We'll get to Cincinnati tomorrow and visit with Scott and Beth, and we are all excited to see them both. Monday we will head to Falling Water in PA and from there to White Sulfur Springs, WV for Dick's conference. We made reservations on Cape cod for Sept 24 through Sept 27. We are excited to stay on the Cape! We are all tired now and going to bed soon. More soon...

September 14, 2011

We were too tired last night after being on the upper Dells river cruise, a few bourbons, and a nice dinner at Del's bar to write a blog. But, here we are at Barb and Dick's, arriving about 3:30pm. Shelane and Harley were here and Andy came after work. It was really nice to see the Barrett family and it is always a great pleasure to spend time with Barb and Dick. It appears we are going to leave here Saturday morning and drive to the French Lick, Indiana area and see the covered bridges. Then on Sunday we will go to Cincinnati and spend some time with Scott and Beth. After that, what we do will be anyone's guess. We simply have to get Dick to White Sulfur Springs, WV on Sept. 22. Tired now and time to get to sleep. I may take a couple of days off from the blog, but we'll see.

September 12, 2011

I am here to tell you that there is only corn and soy bean fields on I-90 between Sioux Falls, SD and Rochester, MN. It was an interesting drive, though. As we got closer and closer to the Mississippi River the road began to be surrounded by large oak trees. This was somewhat disconcerting given that we had spent three days with landscape views that stretched twenty miles in all ways. It actually felt a bit confining to have lost that vista. And the speed limit has dropped from 75 to 70 to 65. Even though we felt like we were crawling, we decided to drive to Wisconsin Dells and spend a couple of nights here. We were going to stay by the Mississippi but didn't find any place tha suited us. We plan on taking a boat cruise tomorrow of the upper dells, which everyone says should be spectacular. More on that tomorrow night. I am pretty tired now. Both my fantasy FB teams are off to bad starts, ND is 0 - 2, the Cubs and Mariners have left me with no reason to watch baseball, tennis puts me to sleep, EWU is 0 - 2, the Seahawks probably will go 0 - 16, and I have yet to find REALLY cheap bourbon. Rose, however, is doing great!!

September 11, 2011

Left Keystone about 9:30 and decided to drive a little further than we planned and stopped in Sioux Falls, SD. Let me tell you, there is nothing, I repeat, NOTHING, between the Black Hills and Sioux Falls. Dry grass, dry rolling hills, dry creek beds, and then the Missouri River, and then dry fields, etc., etc., etc. This area is where they filmed Dances With Wolves. I can see why someone out here would befriend wolves... As we got closer to Sioux Falls the traffic picked up. I am afraid we have seen the last of the wide open roads that we have experienced the last four days. We are going to drive to LaCross, WI tomorrow and stay at a Holiday Inn Express in Onalaska, WI. Rose was checking it out online and we may take a Mississippi River cruise on the 13th and get to Barb and Dicks on the 14th. I will have to find a Detail Plus or something like that because I must have three pounds of bugs plastered to the front of the car and Thule. Saw some of the ND game last night. I hate Michigan!!! Kelly must go!!! My fantasy football teams are also sucking..it is going to be a long fall and winter. We were both impressed with how many American flags were being flown at half-staff today. We watched some of the reading of the names at Ground Zero this morning. It was all very moving. We are truly fortunate to have the freedom to drive across this country without restriction, not like anyplace else in the world. I hope we never take any of our freedoms for granted.

September 10, 2011

Had an excellent day today! Left our motel shortly after 9am and headed to Mt Rushmore and arrived around 9:45. We didn't leave until after noon. The weather was perfect, cloudless and in the low seventies, and, even though this was a Saturday, huge crowds had not yet arrived. We took some pictures from the viewing area and then took a walking guided tour led by a Park Ranger that wound down a trail closer to the mountain. The views of the Presidents was amazing, and the guide was very informative. We then watched a short movie about the monument and it's creation and then left for the Crazy Horse sculpture, which was only about twenty miles away. Crazy Horse is not yet finished, unlike Mt Rushmore, but the work continues. If wen had visited on a weekday we would have been able to see the people working on the mountain. Even though it is far from finished it was also amazing in size and scope. We left there close to 2:00pm and drove through Custer, WY. I thought it might be a classic old-west town but I was mistaken as most of the stores were the cheap touristy places we saw in Seaside, OR. I decided to take the scenic route back to Keystone and we were glad we did. The road wound through the Custer State Park and the Black Hills National Forest. We passed two huge buffalo eating grass by the side of the road, and saw several beautiful Pronghorn Antelope climbing a small ridge. We drove over several historic "pigtail" bridges and went through three one-lane tunnels. As we came out of two of these tunnels Mt Rushmore was right in front of us. That was spectacular even if the mountain was several miles away. We arrived back in Keystone about 3:30, poured ourselves an icy bourbon, and relaxed for a couple of bourse before we went to dinner. We are exhausted now not only with the length of the day but also with the experience of the majesty of Mt Rushmore. I don't know that I would ever tire of visiting this National Monument.

September 9, 2011

Left Billings at 9:30 and arrived in Keystone SD at 4:45pm. Long but beutiful drive with small herds on Pronghorn Antelope along the way. The Black Hills National Forest is magnificent. On the way we stopped at the Little Big Horn battlefield memorial. It was very impressive. White headstones mrk the ground wherebthe soldiers and civilians fell in the battle. Custer's is near the top of the hill. The remains of the soldiers were relocated at the base of a stone monument and the officers' remains were moved to other locations. Custer is buried at West Point. Rose and I both remarked how quiet everyone was at the memorial. we made pretty good time given that we stop every once in a while tonged a drink or use the restroom or just to stretch. The speed in the three states we were I today, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, are all 75, which is nice. I am averaging almost 20 mpg since we left Anacortes, which isn't bad considering the Thule is causing some drag. the best gas prices we have see have been right here in SD, $3.66/gal for supreme unleaded. I told Rose I remembered stopping here in Keystone when we were moving to Washington and seeing Mt Rushmore on the way, and how surprised I was to have paid $1.50/gal. How times have changed... Tomorrow we will see Rushmore and Crazy Horse and take it easy as we are staying here two nights. It is nice to have a break from the car for a day. We should arrive in Oswego on the evening of Sept 14, plenty of time for Rose and Barb to get their hair done before we leave for WV. We are really looking forward to the time we will spend with Barb and Dick!

September 8, 2011

Had a nice breakfast at the Holiday Inn Express and left Missoula just about 9am. Once again, the scenery was beautiful. Rocky Mountains, Pleasant Valley, high plaines, and the Yellowstone River accompanied us on our route. It is always fun and interesting to cross the Continental Divide. I always wanted to stop at the top and leave my waters running down both sides...maybe on the way back! We had seen signs for a place called the Wheat Montana bakery and deli. We decided to see what it was about so we exited the freeway kind of in the middle of nowhere and could hardly find a place to park in a very large parking lot. The place was very cool and Rose and Insplit a turkey, cucumber, lettuce sandwich with chips. Rose, of course, also bought a gigantic cinnamon roll filled with cream cheese. It was pretty good. Rose drove most of the way today. She's a great driver and I enjoyed actually seeing the scenery from the passenger seat. Once we left the Continental Divide we spent a lot of time cruising pretty quickly over the high plaines. Speed limit here is 75 and Rose has been known to get a heavy foot! I was struck by the emptiness of the place, and how the early pioneers must have had to scratch like crazy just to survive. As I saw some very large ranches I was reminded of the struggles between the cattlemen and homesteaders and sheepherders. Because we had been sitting for quite a while I was uncomfortable riding in the air-conditioned Audi Q7, zipping along at 80mph. I can't imagine what it must have been like in a covered wagon! We drove into Billings at about 3:45 and found our Motel, the C'Mon Inn. Rose and I are sitting in the atrium just outside our room sipping a spirit or two, waiting for the pizza to be delivered, listening to the waterfall in the atrium. I think it was in the 90s here today. Tomorrow we are off to Keystone SD. We'll take most of the day to get there and we'll see Mt Rushmore, Crazy Horse, and some of the other local attractions the next day. We'll stay there one more night and then head East to Oswego...go East old man!!!

September 7, 2011

Got up this morning and took Will and Joe to school. Will showed us his desk in his kindergarten room. Joe was too cool and said, "It's OK Gramps, I can get to my room myself. Joe is in third garde, after all. Rose and I left East Wenatchee at 9am and stopped by Quincy and bought some new apples. They were great. We caught I-90 at George and I can reel you the bleakness of the lands ape has not changed in twenty years. We did see a few trees in Lake Moses...:-). From Coeud d Alene to Missoula 90 wound back and forth across the Clark Fork. I would guess in the spring the river is magnificent. We also ran into quite a bit of smoke from wildfires near Missoula and a small one in Idaho. Good news...booze is cheaper in Montana!!! We were in the car a long time today so tomorrow we are going to take it easy and just head to Billings, with our route takings to Sheridan, WY the next two days. We are going to do Mt Rushmore, Crazy Horse, Sturgis, etc... D any of my motorcycle friends have any suggestions of watering holes inSturgis??? Time to find a restaurant. We are walking as I have already imbibed enough for a couple fo healthy twenty-one years olds...

September 6, 2011

Left the island on the 8am ferry and took Annie to the kennel. Drove to Auburn and got to Caity and Larry and Ellie's by 11am. Caity and Rose and I took Ellie to her first day of Kindergarten. It was very cool!!! We left Auburn about 1pm and got to Jack and Michelle's house by 4:30. We ran into road construction in the mountains and it slowed us down quite a it. Rose and I stayed with Will and Joe while Michelle went to work and Jack went to watch Thomas practice football. Jack brought home Chinese and we had great food and a couple of beers. We'll take Joe and Will to school tomorrow morning and then head out for Missoula. The weather is supposed to be great so Rose and I are expecting some beautiful scenery in Idaho and Eastern Montana. Hope to write again tomorrow night.

September 5, 2011

We are almost packed and it has been an all-day job! I am taking two pairs of shoes. Rose is taking eleven!! The Thule will be packed before long and will be bursting when we pick up Barb and Dick. We are really looking forward to getting away for a while. We hope to be in Missoula on Sept.7 and I think we will shoot down I-90 and see Mt Rushmore on the way rather than wait for the ride home. We'll see.