What was that about a break in the weather?

We're here in Rockford, IL, about an hour from O'Hare. It was a great weather start to the day. Cruised through Ohio, Indiana, and then, with the Sears Tower off in the distance, we see the thunderheads forming. Big, dark, ominous looking clouds that soon enough had lightning coming out of them. They called their friends and soon it was a whole front that we were heading into. We didn't sightsee in Chicago due to our late start in the morning. We got to the airport cell phone lot 45 minutes ahead of Mom's flight. Perfect timing. Except that once Mom landed, the lightning alert in the area prevented the crew from being allowed to unload the luggage from the plane. Mom's waiting time was 90 minutes. That was longer than the whole flight from Philadelphia took. We found out later that the storms we were waiting in (at least we weren't driving in them) were the worst in the country today. 65 mph winds, driving rain, lightning...we blamed Mom.

Our hotel is the finest we've stayed in so far. Nice pool, hot tub, free laundry, reception hour with free wine for Mom and hot dogs for the kids; very nice.

No new pictures today. Tomorrow is a driving day with little to stop and see, but we will stop a few times to break up the monotony. It's supposed to rain on us most of the time. Make it STOP!

We're having a great time, but the road is wearing on all of us. Fresh blood is a good thing. Thanks for coming Mom! Chip will join us in three days and Mom will be tired of us by then and ready to jump ship. My patience wears thinner than it should, but today I met a woman doing laundry who lost her whole house less than a week ago to fire. I can find the patience to enjoy myself. My life is wonderfully blessed.

I haven't posted in a week?!?!

I guess I've been busy. That's a good thing on a vacation. We've finally seen a stop to bad weather. We just had to leave the east coast to do it. We're still east of the Mississippi River, but from the time we drove into NY state, it stopped raining, and so far has been lovely since. Let's backtrack though...

In New Jersey, we went to an animal rescue zoo called Popcorn Park. It was small, but there were some beautiful peacocks there as well as an ancient camel, tigers, lionesses, pot-bellied pigs, and other animals that people have attempted to domesticate through the years and then realized they couldn't. People, some animals just don't make good pets.

We also got a chance to ride in Mom and Ron's boat (the Sydney Rose by the previous owner and never renamed) when the rain cleared in NJ one day. Each kid got to pilot the ship and we didn't wash up on shore after, so they had fun.

There was a cookout at my mom's on Saturday, so the kids went fishing with Grandad and Emilie in the morning (when it was still dry) and Amy, Mom, and I prepared for the festivities. I'm sure they were dry for a little while, but by the time they came home, they were soaked to the bone! Ted's shoes took two days to dry out enough to wear. The rain did stop for a little while when the burgers went on the grill and didn't start again until later, so at least everyone wasn't eating in the house. It was great to see everyone.

And the bugbites! All three of us are suffering terribly with swollen, bitten, itchy, and red calves and ankles. Nothing is stopping the itch either. After Bite, aloe, Calomine, benadryl, and zyrtec have all been used and only slightly reduce the itching.

So we leave NJ and head (in the rain) to upstate NY to visit Bud, Lynn, and Kate on our way to Niagara Falls and Toronto. Fabulous weather in all three of those places. The kids got the s'mores they wanted, and we really had an excellent visit with the Meighans.

Off to the Jell-O museum, then Niagara Falls, and Canada. see pictures of everything here. Don't worry, it's divided into little chunks.

Well, the kids woke up and want to swim before we hit the road to Chicago today, so I'll sign off for now and try to get caught up later!

Happy motoring!

Some pictures and the latest

Helps if I actually type something, so I'm editing this. I've used so many computers and internet connections in the past couple of weeks, it's mind boggling (for me).

Today we get a chance to regroup and enjoy the cool, slightly dreary weather. We did go to the boardwalk in OC (NJ not MD) and got to increase our cartop carrier's sticker collection. I will photograph that soon and post it. Back to the boardwalk. It was breezy, gray, but not raining, so we stayed and played mini-golf. Chip was the big winner. Then we strolled along gathering shoobie souvenirs and taking the requisite tourist photos. It was a great time. Grammy treated us to Kohr Bros. frozen custard....mmmmm. I had mine with Jimmies (that's sprinkles to non-Jersey-ites). Sadly, either due to weather, day of the week, or the fact that school isn't out yet, the rides weren't open. We will hope for some non-rainy days in the rest of the visit, but it's not looking good for the home team on that front.

We're experiencing the best and the worst of people on this trip. Best; the amazing scenery all over and the lushness of the greenery back east. Worst; all of West Texas and every bug that's bitten us (especially Claire who apparently is quite allergic). Best; visitor center ladies in Louisiana that gave Claire birthday bling. Worst; toll collector in Midlothian that basically called me a liar when I told her I put the change in the exact change basket and she wouldn't open the gate until I dropped in ANOTHER 70 cents. Best; all the people that offered to take our pictures together. Worst; parking ticket nazi lady at the Metro station ticketing people 30 seconds before the free parking time started (not Trish though). Best; the phone reps for Choice Hotels that easily change my reservations over to free rewards reservations and don't make me feel stupid for not being able to do it myself online. Worst; in person reps at Choice Hotels that do nothing to fix something wrong with your stay, DESPITE the sign at the desk saying "we fix it or it's free" AND the follow-up letters that don't fix OR free it either. Best; all the wildlife we've gotten to see. Worst; the frogs we couldn't spot frog hunting due to too much pollution in their place.

I guess we're pretty close to the halfway point, miles and timewise for this trip. I must say it's been a fabulous adventure so far. The good outweighs the bad in every category. The cost, the weather, the activities, the people we've gotten to see have all been bigger, better, friendlier, more than anticipated. We still have so much left to experience and from here on, most of it will be new to all of us. I can't wait!

I hope the new picture link is working. Let me know!

We'll see some more folks here in Jersey, maybe go to the movies (UP was super!), maybe bowl, definitely play some board games, and possibly swim IF it warms up. We'll keep you posted.

Thanks for hanging in there!

What is going on with the weather?

Now, I know that we've been in Arizona for a while, so maybe we've aclimated to the heat. But it's now downright COLD for mid-June. We rode the Cape May-Lewes Ferry yesterday and we all bought souvenir sweatshirts. There was a gale-force (maybe an exagerration) wind blowing and it was chilly. There were actually whitecaps in the protected cove at the dock! I was very concerned for the contents of my stomach. I paid good money for that food, and I wanted it to stay put. The solution for me was to play deck ornament and stay out with the wind beating my face the whole crossing. I worked, and I had a great ride. I saw dolphins, brown pelicans, gulls, terns, and Claire spotted a sea turtle! I thought it was a tire, but she was insistent that it wasn't. Then the tire raised its head, looked at me like I was a big dummy, and swam away.

We're off to Athena Diner to meet Dad after he gets home from work this morning to have a yummy breakfast.

More later!

Picture post site correction

I tried my own link from the blog today and it didn't work. It took me to the site where I (with my passoword) can add photos. That's not right, and if you've been getting frustrated, I apologize. Here's the RIGHT link. pictures

I sure hope that's better!

Having a great time in Virginia Beach. Pray for no rain today. Nancy and Lewis are having a BBQ here today. Nancy says the house's magic number (capacity) is 40 and the invited and RSVP'd guest list is greater than that!

Have been to the bay, the ocean, a frog hunt (no frogs), the movies (UP), eaten, gotten a pedicure, had fun visiting and catching up, and will get on with that until Tuesday.

Enjoy! We sure are.

photos and more

Hello everyone!

It's been a few days, but I'm posting a picture link. They're not all labeled properly, so feel free to ask where or what something is.

We're now in Virginia Beach with all the family there, enjoying some much needed off the road time. We've had great weather and good travels so far. Lots of excitement came in DC the other day. We were standing at a Tourmobile stop right in front of the Holocaust Memorial Museum when the events occured over there. We didn't know until later what had actually happened, we only knew that people were running out of the building and all the roads were blocked. We found out when we got back to the car what went on and we were really glad to be leaving. Time to go. It certainly didn't ruin our day, we just counted our blessings and were happy to be going on to visit friends and family.

A huge thank you to our family and friends who have housed and fed us along the way so far. It's been wonderful to catch up and visit. We love you all!

Since the last post, we've seen Skyline Drive, Luray Caverns, and the Nation's capitol. The kids loved Luray. Ted vaguely remembered seeing it years ago. It hasn't changed. The thing that did change was the way the tour is operated. It used to be a guided tour of groups of about 20-30 led by a ranger. Now, it's self-paced with an audio guide. The audio gives you a choice of either the energetic youth narration that sets up a scavenger hunt along with the geology and history lesson, or the dry, mature, history channel adult version. You can switch back and forth at any point, so I did both. The kid one was much more fun!

The trip along Skyline Drive was peaceful and beautiful. We got to see deer, a piliated woodpecker, lots of trees, interesting fungi, and squirrels. No, we don't have those where we are in Arizona. Some people will tell you that the squirrels are smarter than to live in the desert!

The two days in DC were both muggy, but day 2 was a little better than day1, being a little cooler. Claire finally got to see the Lincoln Memorial. I hope that since that was the thing she wanted to see most, that she's still interested in the rest of the trip. She can't go home yet.

By far, the most exciting thing that has happened since the last post has been getting Daddy at the airport. You'd have thought he was returning from war, the greeting they gave him! Nearly tackled him. It was great to see.

They're at the beach right now with cousin Rachel and later will be lots more fun and games to report.

Here's a link to the whole gallery of photos I've taken. Pick whichever albums you want to look at. Bridges' pictures.

Stay tuned!

Some pictures

Carry us back to ol virginny

We're in Virginia. Wytheville to be exact. Today started in Atlanta and the first stop was at a Cracker Barrel in Gaffney, SC. We failed to calculate how much time that would take given it was a Sunday morning in the south, at noon after church. But the wait wasn't too bad and the food was good. I finally found a meal to fill the growing 11 year old; Sunday's special, 2 fried chicken breasts, 2 veggies, and biscuits!

Our next stop was in Gastonia, NC to go to a nice little natural History Museum, The Schiele Museum and Planetarium. We spent 2 hours learning about evolution, wildlife, sealife, and the natural erosion process along the Outer Banks. The kids got to be out of the car, see stuff, learn stuff, and buy stuff in the gift shop. A perfect outing.

Then it was 2 and a half more hours to our hotel. Laundry (still in progress) and the pool were at the top of the list and now everyone is showered and in bed watching TV.

Tomorrow it's a early start so we can see the best of Skyline Drive.

Yawn, stretch, time for bed.

Finally in the eastern time zone

We're in Georgia and getting to bed earlier than usual. The pool was too cold for the kids to want to swim, so we showered, packed for tomorrow and are practicing violin (Ted), blogging (me), pretending to try to sleep (Claire).

We didn't realize it was D-day today until we saw it on the news while eating breakfast. For me, that made going to see the USS Alabama more exciting. There was a lot of activity there today...a car show, food vendors, exhibitors, plus the usual tours. We had a long day of driving ahead of us, so we stuck with the battleship tour. They really take you all over the ship. It took us a little over 2 hours, but I'd recommend it if you're in the area. A self-guided tour with more descriptions in the areas it directed us to than in the guide itself. It was a good history lesson for all of us.

The milestone of today's ride was passing the 2000 miles on the road mark. Somewhere around Montgomery, AL the trip odometer flipped another 1000 miles. We did a little in the car 25% of the miles are gone happy dance and called Chip.

We've been blessed with good weather and good health so far. We are all getting eaten by mosquitoes at every stop along the way since San Antonio. Claire has one on her leg that is getting bigger by the day. I wrapped it up tonight so she can't scratch it in her sleep.

Tomorrow was going to be World of Coca Cola, but we've decided to get out of town and hit the Natural History Museum in Gastonia, NC. That will break up the trip to Wytheville, VA. 3 hours before the break and 2.5 after. Then we'll be in Virginia! I'm seriously hoping for a laundry room at tomorrow's hotel. There wasn't one here, but we have two or three more days of clothes left. We'll be fine.

Tonight was our stay 3 nights, get the 4th free night. The next one of those will probably be Toledo or Denver. It's a little better than "you get what you pay for", but so far, Quality is my least favorite of the Choice Hotels we've stayed in.

I'm not adding new pictures tonight. I'll try tomorrow.

Back online and getting up to date

Well, I'm back on the blog. At least for tonight. The hotel internet has been spotty at times and last night it was just too late to do anything. Now I have to get you all caught up.

We visited relatives (Don, Mary, Ellen, and Lucy +Mitzi and Basil) in Katy, TX. We spent a day doing laundry, going to the park to release some physical energy, mini golfed, scootered, read, played video games, played with the doggies, and generally hung out and caught up.

We left Houston early evening Thursday and got to Lafayette, LA about midnight. We took and posted a picture of the bug carnage we created on the front of the car going through east Texas. Yuck! Claire wants to know how we're going to get it off since we can't go through a carwash with the cartop carrier on the car. Good question Claire! Got a mid-morning start to New Orleans (say "N'awlins").

It's Claire's birthday, so we wished her a happy birthday at the Louisiana visitor center on I-10 in the Atchafalaya (say "a-CHA-fa-LI-ya") Swamp (9th longest bridge in the world is I-10 through there) and the ladies there gave her all the trinkets they could muster. A Louisiana (say "loo-si-ANN-a") pin, beads with a large LA button, a luggage tag, and crawfish caviar (Red Hots, relabeled), and at lunch in The Big Easy, she had chocolate cake and our server sang to her.

The weather today was blissfully cloudy. The temps stayed in the high 70's, low 80's with a breeze. Got to walk along the Moon Walk along the levees by the Mississippi River. Took the kids to Jackson Square and Bourbon Street. Noticed lots of closed up businesses, but it's still loud on Bourbon St. Had the lunch, po boys and cheeseburgers, and then walked back to the Audubon Aquarium. Spent our last couple of hours there and boogied out of New Orleans before rush hour hit hard.

We then headed across the longest continuous bridge over water in the world, 2nd largest in the world over any terrain; the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway. It looked like the low sections of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, but you couldn't see the far shore quite as soon.

When we got to Mississippi, we headed to the Gulf coast to wiggle our toes in the Gulf of Mexico and the white sand beaches. The kids really liked that. Mom of the Year, here I come! I showed them where I went to the beach when I was stationed at Keesler AFB in Biloxi. We checked out the major growth and the Katrina damage (still greatly evident). Due to dense population, New Orleans seemed to get the greater media coverage, but physical damage to seemingly secure structures was worse along the Gulf Coast. There were homes on stilts that the stilts remain, but the houses are gone. There were houses built on concrete pads that only have the front brick steps left. There's still a grounded fishing trawler between two casinos. It was moving for me. Of course, with all of the growth, I would hardly have recognized it anyway, but there were some beautiful mansions that are gone and won't be rebuilt.

We then continued the journey to Mobile, where I sit and type this as I wait for my photos to upload. I can't put the link in until I know the pictures are there, huh?

Tomorrow it's the USS Alabama then the 5-6 hour drive to Atlanta.

Pictures days 3-6.
Pictures Alamo and San Antonio.

The good, the bad, and the ugly

THE GOOD
Yesterday is over! First, we did get to WalMart to get Ted some cheap sneakers so he didn't walk the dunes in flip-flops. Then it was a long day on the road. White Sands NM was such a unique place. As you climb over the mountains to get there, you're looking straight down into the flat valley that is the White Sands Missile Range. There is a museum there, but we were headed for the National Monument and didn't mess with getting on the Post.

Once you go another 25 miles or so, the flat scrubland desert has a slight rise to the west that's white. You get closer, and the slow movement of the dunes is visible by the fact that some of the parks bordering fence is now completely "duned over". The dunes approach, but never reach the road at this point.

Before you actually get to the park entrance, you need to pass through a Homeland Security Checkpoint. Leave that, and you're at the park entrance in a mile. A nice visitor's center and gift shop are there. Usually we leave the shopping until the end of the visit so the kids can pick based on what they experienced, but I knew that this is where they sell the snow saucers for sledding down the dunes. We picked purple. It wasn't her favorite color or his, so it was fair.

At all the National Parks I now expect that manning will be at a minimum, but the lady in the gift shop said we'd get a map when we entered the main gate. When we got to the main gate, it was unmanned. No map. Luckily, I had researched it on the net beforehand and knew there was one loop road so we couldn't get lost.

The first stop was the 1 mile Dunes Nature Trail. One steep climb up the first dune and the rest was a mildly rising and falling loop trail on top of the dune following sign narration by Katy the Kit Fox. Well marked, signage appropriate for 7-12 year olds (lucky me), and we saw some unexpected vegetation. The sand is 90% gypsum and Ted decided that the consistency was more like flour than sand. Coarse flour. Claire thought it looked like salt. We saw stink beetles, flowers, lizards, birds, and great root formations, as well as the dunes.

When we finished there, we headed to the snowy dunes to sled. The clerk had advised us to soap, wax, or sunscreen our disc for the best slippage. Sunscreen it was. We had a snack and the kids climbed the closest dune for their first ride. It certainly wasn't as slick as snow, but they had a great time. They went up and down for 40 minutes. Steep climbing up, but since it packs more like flour than beach sand, it wasn't terrible for them. I exceeded the posted weight limit for the disc (150 lbs), so no freefall for me.

Then it was back in the car.

THE BAD
The first hour and a quarter in the car, sadly was a backtracking trip. We waved to our hotel again as we passed it and the real driving began. Soon we were in Texas, and traffic in El Paso added to our long drive. But at least there was stuff to look at. Things to count. After that, it was just west Texas, straight, occasional rock formations and hills, but not much else. So we won't dwell. It had to be done. At least the speed limit was 80.

THE UGLY
Our hotel. A Quality Inn in Fort Stewart, though I think they have some nerve keeping that in the name. How bad is it when you write your complaint email to Choice Hotels from the hotel room? Plumbing that doesn't drain properly, bulbs hanging out of fixtures, crooked loose headboards, a pool with brown algae on the bottom that you could see where someone had tried to vacuum the steps and 2 feet beyond (there were trails in the algae), but not much effort beyond that. The hot tub was 1 foot low so the jets just made a sucking sound. And a bunch of nit-picky stuff that isn't worth going into here. But the linens were clean, the staff friendly (even if unable to fix anything), and they had electricity to recharge all of our "stuff".

THE FUTURE
Today, it's off to San Antonio. 4 hours of driving (a relatively short day), but not too much along the way to see or do. Hopefully, we arrive in time to do laundry, then head to see the Alamo at night. Tomorrow will be Alamo sight seeing and a short drive to Katy.

See today's pictures.