March 23, 2009

We finally are leaving Mississippi and heading into Tennessee on the Natchez Trace. The Trace is a 300 year old trail between Nashville and Natchez used by Ohio Valley farmers who floated their goods to New Orleans, sold their goods and returned home by foot or horseback. We exited the Trace and visited the Civil War site of Stones River at Murfreesboro. We finished the day in Pigeon Forge, TN.
After a good night’s sleep, we drove through the Great Smokey Mountains National Park - which is celebrating its75th anniversary this year. We had lunch with Barry and Betty McKay, high school classmates (and high school sweethearts) of Don in Ashville, NC and drove to Columbia, SC.

March 21, 2009

Race Car Driver -Talladega

Corinth, MS Railroad Junction - same as 1862

Talladega Speedway is the longest track in NASCAR with a 2.66 mile track and 33 degree banked turns - requires speed of 85mph to stay on the track. We toured the track and lucky for us there were sprint/nationwide cars testing. We drove back into Mississippi to Corinth. A civil war battle here was fought to seize and protect a critical railroad juncture. It was interesting to stand at that same crosswords today that existed in 1862.

March 20, 2009

Alabama's Football Stadium

Arlington House

Birmingham Botanical Gardens

Today we drove northeast to Tuscaloosa, Alabama for lunch at the famous Dreamland Bar-B-Que Restaurant. The restaurant is hard to find until you can see and smell the smoke. They only serve pork ribs, sausage, white bread to soak up the sauce and just recently they added cole slaw and potato salad to the menu. These ribs were smoked meat at its best. Yum! Yum! We also drove through the University of Alabama campus - huge football stadium and beautiful buildings.
We drove further north to Birmingham to visit the antebellum mansion, Arlington House and the Birmingham Botanical Gardens. We spent the night in Talladega.

March 19, 2009

New Orleans

Garden District
St. Paddy's Day - New Orleans Style

Gumbo Dinner

Street Cars are running again
Algiers Point Shotgun House

Shopping in New Orleans

Ninth Ward Abandoned House - Flooded to the Attic

Jimmie Rodgers' Original Guitar

Tuesday, we drove into New Orleans. The weather is glorious - not too hot and beautiful blue skies. We parked the car in the Garden District and walked around the area enjoying the architecture and gardens. This area suffered little damage from Hurricane Katrina. We found a block party celebrating St. Paddy’s Day - lots of green beer and people jamming the streets. We took some pictures and moved on.
We rode the St. Charles streetcar to the French Quarter and ate gumbo at the Gumbo Shop.
Wednesday, we used the Garden District again as our base and took the streetcar to the French Quarter. We rode the ferry to Algiers Point across the Mississippi River from downtown. The architecture in this neighborhood had a real Victorian feel to it and the shotgun style houses were much more accessible than the mansions in the Garden District. This neighborhood is being restored and renovated.
We had read and heard a lot about the destruction in the Lower Ninth Ward. Remember that 80% of New Orleans were flooded by the failure of the levees (September 2005). The center of this was the Ninth Ward. We drove through the neighborhood to see for ourselves. We saw some houses had been rebuilt, some still have the markings from the search crews and too many razed lots. Interesting enough, Fats Domino’s home is located in the Ninth Ward and suffered some damage. We did see the Habitat of Humanity new homes and the new neighborhood construction by Brad Pitt. Still a very sad situation but we did see some hopeful signs.
Spike Lee directed a 4 part DVD called “When the Levees Broke”, it is a fascinating and moving documentary.
Today we left New Orleans and headed east to Mississippi. We stopped in Hattiesburg at Camp Shelby to visit the Armed Forces Museum. We drove to Meridian to visit the Jimmie Rodgers Museum - considered to be the father of country music. Jimmie Rodgers, also known as the Singin’ Brakeman, was born and is buried in Meridian. The docent at the museum let us in even though it was closing time, showed us his $750,000 guitar(kept in a safe) and some of the memorabilia.

March 16, 2009

Today we drove east to Sealy, TX - home of Sealy mattress factory and then east to Houston and northeast to Beaumont. We crossed into Louisiana and to Lafayette. We had our first taste of Louisiana food - shrimp po’boys from a grocery store, Olde Tyme Market. Yummy- stuffed with plump, sweet shrimp.

March 15, 2009

Jim's Latest Find-Cascabel Mexican Food

On Monday, we drove across west Texas through the rain and wind. The truck was pushed around as we struggled to do 80 mph. Texas has been suffering from a drought so they were happy to see 4 plus inches of rain in two days. We were cold and wet as the temperatures were in the 50’s. We were so happy to arrive in San Antonio at Ruthie and Jim Stewart (travel buddies).
We spent the weekend visiting the McNay Museum Statue Garden, Missions - San Juan and Espada and having lunch at the wonderful restaurant, Cascabel (traditional Mexican food).
Finally on Sunday the weather broke and we saw blue skies and warmer temperatures. We enjoyed a neighborhood walk before we packed our bags for our departure on Monday.

March 10, 2009

Fabulous White Sands Monument - walk barefoot and never burn your feet!

After spending the night in Las Cruces, we headed out to White Sands National Monument. The white gypsum sands are so white and the dune formations offer lots of choices for hiking and picture taking. It is one of our favorite spots. We drove back to Las Cruces and along the scenic route to El Paso, TX. This route took us through pecan orchards and farmlands. We had planned to visit Chopes Restaurant for lunch but they were closed by the time we got there. Don went into the Post Office to ask about any other restaurants in the area. The woman working the counter suggested “The Rose Garden” in Anthony, TX. The food was tasty and reminded us of some of our favorites in Mexico. We drove through El Paso and spent the night in Van Horn, TX.

March 9, 2009

Silver City Art District
Silver City Architecture

Fort Bayard Officers' Quarters

Santa Rita Open Pit Copper Mine (the town of Santa Rita is now buried under the tailings)

We left Phoenix and drove south to Tucson and visited the Saguaro National Park (sentinel cactuses). We then east to New Mexico after a lunch spot at a great Mexican restaurant (Magalys in Benson, AZ). In New Mexico, we headed northeast to Silver City, a silver, gold and copper mining region discovered in the 1800's. We had hoped to spend time learning about the mining history of the area, but Silver City today is focusing more on their art colony. We have been talking about coming here for 10 years and needless to say it turned out to be a disappointment. We did visit Fort Bayard, the last New Mexico military post built. It was also home to some of the buffalo soldiers who fought the Apaches to protect the miners in the region. Today due to its 6000 foot altitude, dry air, and clear skies it is one of three facilities in the country dedicated to the research and treatment of tuberculosis. Unfortunately, today was rainy and cold so the views were not what we had anticipated. However, we did take a scenic drive through the Gila National Forest up over Emory Pass (8200 feet- wet slush along the road). We had lunch in Hatch, NM, a town famous for its chili peppers, chili powder and canned chilis. We are spending the night in Las Cruces, NM, a favorite of ours.

March 7, 2009

Poolside at the Flamingo
Amanda, the birthday girl

Family Breakfast

After spending one day on our own at The Orleans Casino, we joined Barb's sisters, Joan and Margaret (and her family) at the Flamingo to celebrate the 21st birthday of our niece, Amanda Kautzer (junior at DePaul). It was her first time in Vegas, her first time gambling so we added to her slide into adulthood (not to mention the quart size margaritas she was drinking). Amanda's brother, Luke and his girl friend, Meghan flew in late Friday night to add to the partying and we all had a nice family breakfast before we left for Arizona.

We drove to Hoover Dam (still spectacular) south to Kingman, AZ to the Route 66 museum and arrived just after sunset in Phoenix.

March 5, 2009

Drove north and east to Las Vegas. Part of the drive was on Old Route 66 which was the first cross country highway to the west coast. When Don was 4 years old, his family drove this route from Los Angeles to St. Louis where his Dad joined Mcdonnell Aircraft in the run up to WWII. In 1940, you could only cross the desert at night due to the car's speed and frequency of overheating. We had 6 people in a Plymouth coupe and Don slept on the rear window ledge.

March 4, 2009 AGAIN

Mike and Cindy Kelly - home in Palm Desert

March 4, 2009

Don's birthday lunch- Sherman's Deli
Our house in Palm Springs

Superman's Vacation Home Marker


Greek Festival

It turns out that the cabana we are staying in is the original home of George Reeves (the first Superman). We are on the edge of the famous district called “The Movie Colony”. We have been in Palm Springs a week now and today is our last day. Our days have been filled with sun tanning by the pool, relaxing in the hot tub under the desert sky and swimming in 80 + degree weather. A cold front is moving in today and the temperature is dropping into the mid 70’s. During our stay here, we have also connected with friends, Richard & Diana Newton, Gloria & Cliff Johnson and Mike & Cindy Kelly. The first two couples are from Eldec days. We attended a local Greek Festival on Sunday with Richard and Diana. Mike and Cindy we met on the East Europe trip in 2007 and we had dinner with them at their new home in Palm Desert.
Tomorrow we leave for Las Vegas to do our part to jump start the economy (and help celebrate our niece’s 21st birthday.)