Chattanooga

Posted by Donna on October 1, 2009

1 October 2009

Morning! I’m not quite sure what day this is of Motherdear and Ronald’s Road Trip Adventure. I could count it out, but I don’t feel like it… oh bother… don’t you hate it when you decide not to do something then realize you’re just being lazy? Okay… today is Day 13.

We are in Chattanooga, TN… near the end of our travels. It’s sad to know that tomorrow we’ll be flying back to Maine and returning to everyday life. We’ve had a grand and glorious adventure together. But rather than get bogged down in the doldrums let me share what we’ve been up to…

Tuesday, September 29th… we headed to the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. The ticket window opened at 10 a.m. and we hoped to get seats for that night’s show. So we arrived shortly after 10 a.m. Had no problem getting tickets (and later discovered what excellent tickets we got!).

We took a Backstage Tour of the Opry which was another good decision. We saw the time clocks that workers punch in and out of; the water cooler jugs that were waiting to be picked up and replaced; and we saw desks covered in papers that indicated someone actually had to work there.

The more glamorous aspects of the tour included seeing the entrance performers used to enter the building. They come up a walkway with bushes shaped as stars and a water fountain that Minnie Pearl gave the Opry. We walked through the security area that stars and their guests must pass through to get into the dressing room area. We saw the dressing rooms that entertainers use and the green room they can hang out in while waiting to go onstage.

We saw a TV soundstage that was used to tape the final 14 years of the show Hee Haw. My mother and I were standing where the cornfield was located on the show.

We then got to walk out on stage at The Grand Ole Opry. Center stage there is a circle about 5 or 6 feet in diameter. It was cut from stage right of the original Opry House (at Ryman Auditorium). This is a circle that all the country music superstars have walked across… Patsy Cline, Hank Williams, Roy Acuff, etc. etc. They say that they did it so that today’s performers and those in future generations will have the opportunity to stand where their role models/music heroes stood. Nice sentiment.

Now the Grand Ole Opry building is located just behind a huge mall. So rather than return to our hotel (which was only about 10 minutes away), my mother and I decided to just spend the day there. Then we wouldn’t have to worry about parking when we came back for the show.

We went to see the Sandra Bullock movie All About Steve. Then returned to the the GOO and sat outside to read our books. At around 3:30 p.m. we went for dinner at a 50s diner type restaurant in the mall. I had a bacon cheeseburger and a chocolate shake. Yum yum!

After we ate we sat in the car to read our books until the GOO opened at 6:15 p.m.

This auditorium is beautiful. Because the original Opry House was an old church building, this building also uses church pews. Because my mother was in her wheelchair, though, I got a regular seat. More comfy, I think.

The show started promptly at 7 p.m. The GOO is a live radio program. They do shows 3 days a week. There were 7 or 8 performers and each performed 3 or 4 songs and did a bit of chatting or joke telling too. Between performances, while the announcer read commercials (for Humana, Cracker Barrel, and Martha White) the stage was set up for the next act.

I hadn’t heard of most of the performers, but the first group, Riders in the Sky, did the Woody’s Roundup song from Toy Story 2. The final act was The Charlie Daniel’s Band. He can really burn up his fiddle. The show ended with The Devil Went Down to Georgia. When the show was over (at around 9:20 p.m.) the big red curtain came down and it was over.

If you’re ever in Nashville, be sure to catch a show at the Opry. They have shows on Friday, Saturday, and Tuesday nights. Big name performers (Brad Paisley, Trace Adkins, Carrie Underwood, Dolly Parton, etc.) are on stage here. It’s funny that the big names have as much stage time as the lesser known or old-timer performers. To be invited to join the Opry, performers must make a commitment to a certain number of performances each year. Thought that was interesting. Some big country names are not members because they don’t live near Nashville or tour so often they can’t make that commitment.

Now let’s move on to Wednesday… yesterday… if my brain is working right. I’m in end-of-vacation denial so I may try to bump things back to Monday or Tuesday.

So yesterday we got back on the road. This time our destination was Chattanooga. We crossed the time zone again and are now back in Eastern time. In the blink of an eye we lost an hour. Sad when that happens.

An interesting thing on Highway 24. There are several steep declines on this highway… 6 percent according to the road sign warnings. Trucks and autos alike are supposed to reduce their speeds. I didn’t notice much of either of that. The interesting thing is that there were “runaway truck” ramps available for, well, runaway trucks.

These truck ramps are located off to the left side of the road. Which is weird because the trucks were supposed to stay in the right two lanes. However, if the ramps were placed to the right, they would have gone over the banking so I guess the road designers knew what they were doing.

However, the fact that the ramps were to the left meant the truckers would need to cut across the lanes to reach them. I decided to play it safe and let the trucks have free roaming access to whichever lanes they wanted.

Only one truck was a bit worrisome as we cruised down this highway. His tires were smoking all the way down the hill. I gave him clear access to the ramps as we followed him, but he made it okay without using one. That was disappointing, would have liked to see how far up the bumpy ramp he would have made it.

We arrived without incident in Chattanooga. Met my friend Jan for dinner at Cracker Barrel which was located right next door to our hotel. Funny though… we didn’t know it was right next door until we got in our car, pulled out of the driveway, drove up the street to the Cracker Barrel sign, turned into the driveway, followed it around the building to the handicapped parking area and saw our hotel’s entrance (and our hotel room window) staring at us.

We considered driving back to the hotel and walking back, but decided that since we were already there, why not just park it. So we did.

My friend Jan laughed and laughed when she saw that our hotel was right next door. She had offered to meet us at the hotel and let us follow her to Cracker Barrel. I had assured her that we’d been on the road for almost two weeks and could certainly find the Cracker Barrel. No duh…

After dinner Jan took us to her house for a visit. We got back to our hotel at around 8 p.m. Walked next door to Cracker Barrel for dessert, but they didn’t have any more chocolate Coca-Cola cake or blackberry cobbler. So we came back to the room and ate Little Debbie brownies instead. Not a good replacement dessert, but we needed to eat them before we leave on Friday anyway.

Today we are going to go downtown to the Riverwalk. We plan to meet up with Jan for lunch and then we’ll get on the road for Atlanta. The final leg in this amazing adventure.

Hugs from Chattanooga,

–Donna

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Nashville

Posted by Donna on September 28, 2009

28 September 2009 – Day 10 of our Adventure

Seems like forever since I wrote an entry. When I look back, I see that it was forever ago that I wrote an entry. How did that happen? Lots to write about to catch you up on Motherdear & Ron’s Amazing Road Trip Adventure!

Let’s start back on Saturday (Day 8 of our Adventure)…

We drove to Hurricane Mills, TN, home of country music legend Loretta Lynn. We went to her ranch and Western Town. We toured a re-creation of her childhood home (in Butcher Holler, KY), a re-creation of the coal mine where her father worked, and the home that she lived in with her husband and children until the late 1980s. At that time she built another home behind the big house and opened the big house to the public.

Remember the Crisco commercials she was in? We saw her actual kitchen where she filmed those commercials. Cool!

Saturday night we went to her concert. It was amazing! Despite her declarations throughout the concert that her voice wasn’t feeling strong, she sounded great. She stood to sing the first few songs then sat in a chair for most of the rest of the concert. She chatted with the audience and her family and bandmembers throughout the concert. It was pretty funny.

At one point she told her son Ernest to “Get back on his X.”

We got to enjoy the music of many members of the Lynn family. Her twin daughters, her granddaughters, her sons. It was cool. Throughout, she sat like a proud matriarch in her chair and enjoyed their performances with the rest of us. It was funny because she picked on one granddaughter for not pinning her hair back off her face.

The concert lasted two hours and finished with Miss Loretta singing her signature hit “Coal Miner’s Daughter.” The two hours went by much too quickly.

We got back to our room at around 10:30 p.m. Read for awhile, then went to sleep.

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Sunday… yesterday… (Day 9)

Our plan was to drive north to the Land Between the Lakes National Park. The goal was to see something in Kentucky! Why Kentucky? Ask my mother. ha ha

On the way to Kentucky, as we drove through the park, we stopped at a living museum called The Home Place. It was an 1850s farm. I pushed Motherdear through the fields and farm in the handy-dandy wheelchair we brought for her. Except for nearly sending her flying a few times, it worked out well.

Just across the Tennessee/Kentucky border there was an Elk & Bison Prairie that we wanted to see. It is open to the public to drive through. We thought it would be memorable to see buffalo in Kentucky. We got to the prairie park gated community at around 2:30 p.m. We circled the blasted prairie for over two hours and didn’t see any buffalo. We did see an elk though. We also heard elk bellowing.

Finally the needs of my bladder, and the desire to get on the road if we wanted to make it to Nashville that night, required us to give up on the buffalo hunt. With heavy hearts we left the one-way circular loop and returned to the two-way stretch of road that led to the entry/exit gate.

As we pulled up to the gate, we looked to our left… yup… that’s where the herd of buffalo were spending their afternoon. Dang critters! They were pretty far off in the field, but I did snap some pictures of them. Check my Facebook photo album if you want to see them.

Several times on the drive to Nashville I would spontaneously break into giggles. Motherdear would join me. We both thought it hysterical that we’d been driving around for hours and the buffalo were at the front gate. We are pretty sure that they were not there when we drove into the park though. At least that’s what we are telling ourselves.

Made it to Nashville at around 7:30 p.m. Of course the hotel address I plugged in to my GPS was on the EASTERN side of the city when we were coming from the western side of the city. Ugh. But it worked out. We got a good room at the Marriott Residence Inn for $60 a night.

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Monday… today… (Day 10)

This morning I got up early to do some laundry. Fun stuff, huh? These washers were pretty cool though. They were the front loading machines. I don’t think I’ve ever used one before. I realized after I poured the detergent down the spout though that these machines were very tiny. I wasn’t sure if I overdid the bubbles or not. Half figured I’d have a Brady Bunch type soap incident. But all was fine.

After finishing the laundry we plugged the address of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum into my trusty GPS and headed off on our next adventure.

Allow me to digress for a moment or two… last night I logged onto the Internet and learned a bit about the Hall of Fame museum. I read off descriptions of the various admission options. We settled on what we wanted. The no frills, basic admission with the audio tour.

We arrive this morning and this very helpful museum staff member starts telling us about the other option that we’d decided not to do… a tour of the RCA Recording Studio B.

Of course we now opted to do it. And boy are we glad! It was a highlight of the day.

What is the RCA Recording Studio B, you ask? It’s a recording studio here in Nashville. It was one of the best. Elvis Presley recorded 200+ of his songs in this studio. When RCA built a newer “better” studio (Studio A), Elvis and others didn’t like it. They continued to record from Studio B.

On this tour we learned a lot of musical history trivia about some country performers:

Did you know that Roy Orbison wrote his song “Only the Lonely” hoping that Elvis Presley would sing it? When Orbison went to see Presley to talk about it… Elvis was taking a nap. Orbison went back to Studio B and recorded the song himself. It became Orbison’s first hit. Cool, huh?

Did you know that Elvis Presley did most of his recordings late at night? He liked to start at around 10 p.m. on Sunday night and work til the wee hours of the morning. He also liked to be able to change the lighting in the studio to reflect the mood of the song. In the song, “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” which he apparently recorded perfectly in one take (but the final word in the song still had to be edited because the back up musicians flubbed it up) it was so dark in the studio that when the song ended you can hear him clunk his head on the microphone.

Did you know that Dolly Parton when arriving at Studio B to make her first recording was so excited she forgot to hit the brake in her car and drove into the studio’s wall? She left her mark on the building and country music! Her hit song “I Will Always Love You” made it to the top of the charts three times. Once when she first released it in 1974. Then she re-recorded it for the soundtrack of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas in 1982. Whitney Houston sang it in the movie The Bodyguard in 1992 and it again climbed the charts. Then recorded it as a duet with Vince Gill in 1995 and it reached #15 on the charts. This song was written to honor Porter Wagoner who had been a business and musical mentor to her for many years.

We learned other stuff too, but those were the highlights that I can remember (and could look up on Wikipedia).

Oh… one more thing… Elvis did not always get what he wanted! The piano in Studio B is the same piano that Elvis played when he was in the studio. He tried to buy it from RCA Records, but they refused.

So… the tour we almost didn’t take was a highlight of the day. Funny how that happens.

Back to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum…

It was great reading about people whose music I listened to as a kid growing up. I’d forgotten many of these people… Charley Pride, Tammy Wynette, Charlie Rich, Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard, etc.) and may have to revisit my country music heritage.

Really enjoyed the day. Even possibly getting hooked by a con-artist claiming to be a veteran. But how can you say no to someone who may have been one?

Here’s the deal… I was paying for parking at the Hall of Fame. A man pulls up and says, “Ma’am, I hate to bother you. I’m having car problems and I need to go another 30 miles. My hands are blistered from trying to fix this piece of sh*t car. And I’m hoping you would help me out. I’m not a drunk. I’m a veteran. Got the license plates and registration to prove it. I’m hoping you could give me a couple of bucks for a gallon of gas. You can write down my address and send me a bill for it or if you feel comfortable giving me your address I’ll get it in the mail to you.”

He was so nice. Polite. And his vehicle did sound awful. So I gave him a $10 bill. I know I was probably suckered, but I don’t care. He said, “That’s too much ma’am, I don’t need that much.” I almost laughed. Was he for real? Probably not. But I told him to just “Pay it forward.”

His truck sputtered off and I wonder if he managed to get enough from people to fill his tank and buy a weeks worth of groceries. ha ha ha

So those are the highlights of today’s adventure. Now we’re back in our room. Motherdear is reading and I’m uploading pictures and getting caught up in this journal of our adventures.

I hope all is well with you!

Hugs from Nashville, Tennessee!

–Donna

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Greetings from the Central Time Zone

Posted by Donna on September 25, 2009

25 September 2009 – Day 7 of our Great Adventure

Greetings from Lebanon, Tennessee… we are now, not only separated by distance, but by time as well. At 3:12 p.m. today, my mother and I through some high tech, molecular regeneration, phase-shifting-bondo process went back in time by 3600 seconds. It happened so quickly… we almost didn’t notice it happen except by the grace of that street sign that stated, “Welcome to Central Time Zone.”

And here we are…

But before I tell you about where we are, let me catch you up on where we’ve been.

Specifically, Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge, TN.

Last night, the Motherdear and I went to Pigeon Forge to experience Dolly Parton’s Dixie Stampede dinner attraction. It really isn’t something you just see. You do get involved. Here are some highlights.

• When buying tickets you had to pick whether you wanted to sit on the side of the north or south. We picked North cuz… well… it would have felt silly sitting on the losing side.
• No photos or videos were allowed so I can’t show you what we saw. I’m sure some people took pics, but I try to respect rules as much as possible. I’m such a killjoy, huh?
• There was a pre-show event featuring a trio of musicians. They played a bit of country, bluegrass, gospel, and old children’s classics. We sang along. We laughed. We clapped. Fun stuff!
• Got herded (quite literally) into the main arena for the main attraction. There were long tables for sitting at… you found your section and scooted in all the way down. We were elbow to elbow.
• The arena used a special dust-free dirt that didn’t kick up when the horses or longhorn cattle were racing around. Good thing since we were eating just a few feet away from the action!
• The waitstaff was dressed in either confederate gray or union blue depending on which side they were serving. We were on the Union side. They were running up and down the table dropping food on our plates.
• For dinner we had… a whole rotisserie chicken, a slice of pork loin, half a baked potato, a biscuit, corn on the cob, vegetable soup, and a flaky apple pastry. Yum yum! The only hitch was that we didn’t have any plastic or silverware. Had to eat everything with our fingers. Yum yum!
• The show was great. There were songs of the wild west and the growing south mixed with a series of contests between north and south. Some were horse riding events by the cast of the show others were chicken chasing events with children from the audience. The stunt horse riders were amazing to watch.

There was so much more to the show. I highly recommend it to anyone finding themselves in this neighborhood.

We got back to our hotel a few minutes before 8 p.m. Just in time to watch Survivor! It was the first time we’d put a TV on in our room since we left home.

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This morning we took a trolley from our hotel to downtown Gatlinburg. We went in to some shops and bought some souvenirs. Dang it all, though, cuz we forgot to buy more postcards! D’oh! Maybe we’ll remember in Nashville.

According to the trolley driver, Pigeon Forge & Gatlinburg, TN are second to Las Vegas for spur-of-the-moment (not to be confused with drunkenly blind) weddings. Didn’t realize it was that big a tourist spot, but it appears to be.

We left Gatlinburg at around noontime… destination closer to Nashville than we were…

And we achieved that goal. We are much closer to Nashville now. According to Google maps we are 30.1 miles east of Nashville. Not too shabby.

Tomorrow we’ll be going through Nashville to Hurricane Mills, TN. This is the home of country music legend Loretta Lynn. We’ll be going to her concert tomorrow night. She’s 74 years old. Will be interesting to see what kind of show she puts on.

And I guess that’s the run down on today. Hope things are well with you where ever (and when ever) you are!

Hugs,

–Donna

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The Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Posted by Donna on September 24, 2009

24 September 2009 – Day 6 of Our Adventure

Slept well… woke up a little after 7 a.m. Got into my running clothes and snuck downstairs to the fitness room barely waking my mother on my way out. Did 2 miles on a pretty creaky treadmill (the emergency off switch was taped in place, the incline feature didn’t work). Got a cup of coffee forthe Motherdear on my way back to the room.

After I showered we had a leisurely breakfast (free) downstairs. At around 9:30-10 a.m. (can’t believe we didn’t look at the clock before we left) we headed for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Yeah!!

Just after we got into the park I saw a couple of Tom turkeys on the side of the road. Cool! Tennessee wild life! I don’t think I mentioned that I saw an owl at the edge of the woods yesterday when we were on the tour of Gettysburg. My first thought was that it was a fake owl… like farmers use… then I thought, “Why put a fake owl in the middle of the woods at a battleground?” So I’ve convinced myself that the owl was real. It really was!

Anyway…

The Great Smoky Mountains! What a beautiful place! To see pictures please check out my Facebook photo album. If you aren’t my FB friend already, go to www.facebook.com and search for me by my e-mail address… donna@donnadoyon.com. You should find me that way.

Anyway… the mountains are beautiful. The trees are huge, the stones and fallen trees are mossy, the air smells fresh and clean even in places where it smelled woodsy and earthy.

The road that we were on goes up and over the mountains from Gatlinburg, TN to Cherokee, NC. We made quite a few photo op stops along the way. We reached the highest point, Clingman’s Dome, at around noontime. We stopped to take pictures, pulled out our books, and sat on a rock for about 30 minutes to read. It was beautiful. One of the things Motherdear and I had talked about doing.

Just when our butts were starting to fall asleep a man approached us and asked if the white Hyundai Sonata was our car. I told him it was an immediately thought we had a flat tire or he hit it or something. Nope. He wanted to let us know that a SNAKE had just slithered beneath it.

EEK!

I leaned back to peer under the car. I didn’t see anything… then it moved… yup, it was a snake. I gathered up my book and my purse looking to see if I was suddenly surrounded by snakes) to get a closer look. Neither the man nor I knew if it was poisonous, but we watched the little guy until he was safely across the road.

Yes, Motherdear and I decided it was time to move on.

We wanted to continue into North Carolina, but traffic was backed up. Cars were turning around in the street. We turned around too. Then we thought… what if there really isn’t anything wrong? We weren’t in a hurry. We turned around again. Got much farther than the first attempt then found out the problem. An accident involving an RV… people were being told that it would take 2-3 hours to clean up the mess. We may not have been in a hurry, but we didn’t want to wait 2 hours to get moving again. We turned around again.

We spent about 3 hours driving around the Smoky Mountains. We didn’t see it all, but we saw a lot. It’s a beautiful mountain range. Definitely worth a visit.

Rather than coming directly back to our hotel, we drove to Pigeon Forge, TN… home of Dolly Parton and Dollywood. It’s a pretty little tourist spot, too. I think Gatlinburg has a bit more charm to it, though. Tomorrow we’ll go downtown and take some pictures of it.

Tonight our plan is to go back to Pigeon Forge for dinner at the Dixie Stampede. It’s a Dolly Parton dinner attraction. Should be fun.

And that’s been our day so far. Right now Motherdear is reading her book while I’ve been uploading pictures and writing this entry. It’s amazing how much time it takes to do all this stuff. But it’s a nice record of our activities.

I hope all is well with you.

Hugs,

–Donna

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65, 55, 70, 65, 45 mph

Posted by Donna on September 23, 2009

23 September 2009 – Day 5 of Our Big Adventure

The subject line says it all… Today was a driving day. Getting from Point A (Strasburg, VA) to Point B (Gatlinburg, TN) was all we had planned. It was pretty much all we accomplished, too.

We slept in a bit, ate a leisurely breakfast at our hotel, then got on the road at around 9:15 a.m. Filled the car’s gas tank, returned to the hotel because we realized we forgot to leave a tip for the housekeeper, then headed south on I-81.

We started with 300 Virginia miles to travel. As long as the day in the car was (we arrived in Gatlinburg at around 5:45 p.m.) it didn’t seem all that long. Virginia is a beautiful state (if what we saw off the highway is any indication, that is). Loved going up and down hills all day. What fun. Going down the hill I thought, “Boy, this would be fun on a bicycle.” Going up the hill I thought, “Glad I’m in a car.”

Arrived in Tennessee at around 2:30 p.m. I think. Stopped at the Welcome Center and called Gerry to say Howdy. Then we were on the road again. (Can you hear Willie Nelson singing?)

There were three Fairfield Inns (part of the Marriott chain so we get really cheap rooms) in Gatlinburg, so we plugged one of them into the GPS and found our way here. They had a room for two nights so here we are.

Tomorrow we’ll start exploring the Smoky Mountains. Tomorrow night we’re going to go to the Dolly Parton’s Dixie Stampede dinner attraction. Should be fun.

And that’s it for the news from the road.

Hugs,

–Donna

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Chocolate World & Gettysburg

Posted by Donna on September 22, 2009

22 September 2009 – Day 4 of Motherdear and Ronald’s Great Adventure

Greetings travelers!

Today’s entry will be short (hopefully). The laundry is in the dryer and I hope to finish this entry at about the same time the laundry finishes. Then I’ll read for a bit then get to bed.

Another great day with my mother. That’s what today was!

We started at Hershey’s Chocolate World. We went on the 15-minute ride to learn about the chocolate making process. Very interesting. I can’t even say that the best part was the free mini Kit Kat bar we got at the end!

Next we did a bit of shopping in the store. We tried a sample cookie and an elderly gentleman asked me if I was sneaking a free sample. I told him I was. I lifted the lid on the sample dish and he reached up for his own. The younger man with him (I assumed grandson, but who knows? Well, they know, of course, but did anyone else?) told me that the older man was a retired dentist with a sweet tooth. So if you catch me eating cookies… just remember that Dr. Nielson thought it was okay.

Motherdear was a bit worn out at this point so we took a break for about 20-minutes and just watched people walking by. Next we attended Hershey University to earn our degrees in chocolate tasting. Sweet, huh?

It was around noon time when we left Hershey and headed to Gettysburg. We arrived at the location of the tour bus company that we wanted to use at 12:58 p.m. The tour bus was waiting. We quickly went inside, bought our tickets, and climbed to the upper level of the double-decker bus. We didn’t even have time to pee before we left.

The two-hour tour was very interesting. It was an audio tour of the battle at Gettysburg. Every so often the tour bus driver would interrupt the audio track to point out something specific that we were passing. It was very interesting.

Okay… just got back from getting my laundry… time to finish this up.

After Gettysburg we began the long, long, long drive to Tennessee. It was 4 p.m. I plugged Gatlinburg, TN into the GPS. According to it, we would arrive at our destination at 12:15 a.m. Ha! Not likely. But with that as our destination, we knew we’d be going in the right direction.

My tentative goal was to drive til approximately 6 p.m. then find a hotel in Virginia for the night. At 4:48 p.m. (if I remember correctly… I forgot my notes in the car), we finally left Pennsylvania and crossed into Maryland. Ten minutes later we crossed into West Virginia.

I love West Virginia. The speed limit is 70!

A short time later we crossed into Virginia. Also noted that Rte 81 covers 324 miles in Virginia. Ugh. We’d having to travel the entire length of it. Beth warned me that Virginia is a heck-of-a-long state to drive through. ha ha

I was getting tired but was determined to break the 300 mile mark. We saw several signs for hotels that are part of the Marriott chain (my mother gets a great price on very nice rooms) but they were at the 300+ mile marks so we kept going.

Then we saw it… a sign for Fairfield Inn (Marriott family) at mile 298. Yup, we swung off the high way, got a room, and are settled in for the night.

Once here I did a two mile run on the treadmill. Wanted to go swimming but the pool is tiny, tiny. After my shower I decided to do laundry since we knew this hotel had an onsight washer/dryer and there’s no guarantee the next one will.

That’s my story and I’m sticking with it… tomorrow will be a long day of driving. We have 298 miles of Virginia to cover and then 118 miles of Tennessee to reach the Smoky Mountains. Google maps says it will take us 6 1/2 hours. That’s pretty much what my GPS said, too. Guess that’s about what it will be then.

By the way… several people have asked how Gerry and Sean are doing at home. Just fine, thank you. They’re quite up to the task of taking care of themselves.

Hugs,

–Donna

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Up, Up, and Away!

Posted by Donna on September 21, 2009

21 September 2009 – Day 3

Did I mention yesterday that my mother and I had big plans for today? I did, didn’t I?

Here’s what we did…

We arrived at the lift-off site (which was just about 100 yards up the street from where we stayed) at about 6:20 a.m. By 6:30 a.m. we were in the balloon and up in the air. Words cannot describe the experience, but I’ll do my best.

First, neither my mother nor I really knew what to expect. One thing we did expect was some kind of “doorway” into the basket. Guess what? There’s no doorway. Makes sense, as Lucas the pilot explained, “One less thing to worry about.” So with a foot in a stirrup like hole in the basket, we had to heave ho over the edge of it. None of us did a face plant, so I’d say we were successful. Wouldn’t you?

There were five of us in the basket. A couple from Maryland who were there to celebrate her 50th birthday, my mother and I and the pilot, Lucas. We had met the couple (Karen and Ken) last night at the Inn. They were very nice.

In fact, when I told Karen my camera was giving me grief (more on that later), she said she’d take pictures of the balloon ride and e-mail them to me. How nice was that?

Anyway… back to the ride… here’s how it works… the pilot takes us on the ride and Phil drives the van and trailer around the county to haul our butts back after we land. He’s called the “Chaser” for a reason.

Lift-off was so smooth… but let me digress for a moment… you’ve seen hot air balloons before, right? They’re huge! Ginormous even, right? When we arrived at the lift-off site just before 6:30 a.m. the balloon was stretched out across the field and they were just starting to fill it. It was huger than huge! Looks bigger on the ground than it does in the air! Okay, maybe not, but it was huge huge huge! The opening to the base of the balloon is big enough for people to stand in while its being filled.

Okay… lift-off… smooth. It was still dark out with a few tinges of pink and red along the horizon. There was hardly any sensation of movement. We went up, up, up. Can’t quite say we went “away” because it never felt like we were moving.

Another surprise was that it wasn’t cold. Wasn’t even chilly. My mother and I had on sweat shirts and were fine. We didn’t feel the wind (with a few exceptions that I’ll explain in a minute) because the balloon is moving at the same speed as the wind. The exception was when we went up or down to catch a different air pattern. That’s the only time we felt the wind or movement because we were actually slowing down and then changing directions.

The fields and farms in Amish Country are just like the postcards. They look like patchwork quilts of browns, yellows, and greens.

From high up (just over 1 mile) we could see for miles and miles. There were clouds and mist in the valleys. It was gorgeous… One section of sky looked just like ocean waves. I half expected to cloud surfers! Perhaps that’s what we were.

As we dropped a bit lower we could see cars on the road, Amish people riding bikes and in carriages. People (Amish, Mennonite, and “regular” folks) stopped what they were doing to watch us fly by. They waved and dogs barked. When Lucas ignited the flame horses and goats broke into a run. Cows just looked at us. It reminded me of all the times I’ve seen balloons and I’ve stopped to watch them drift past. I always wanted to be in the basket. Today I was.

We passed over Amish schoolhouses. Lucas pointed out that the small buildings behind the schools. Outhouses. Amish don’t believe in indoor plumbing. Another woman later in the day called them “Summer Houses” (Some ‘er her outhouses… and some ‘er his outhouses).

We saw farms with windmills (that are used to pump water from the wells), silos, and huge barns. Learned later that the farmhouses grow and grow as families get larger. And unmarried daughters are not called “Old Maids.” They’re called “Leftover Blessings.” ha ha ha

After over an hour in the air and one missed landing attempt… okay, here’s the story on that… we were all set to pull into a small grassy area beside a cemetary. Phil, the chaser, was already parked and on the ground ready for us. Lucas started bringing us down… unfortunately, the wind at the surface had different plans for us and started taking us west when we needed to go east. So Lucas had to turn on the flame again, lift us up, and let us enjoy more air time. Nice of him, don’t you think?

About 15 minutes later, we tried again. This time we did manage to land in the grassy area near a parking lot. When we were low enough, Phil grabbed the basket and guided/pushed us up a small incline (Lucas was giving the balloon lift as needed) to the middle of the parking lot. Then he had to maneuver us to a spot that would make a good landing place for the balloon itself as it was lowered.

Our landing spot happened to be a preschool. So the teachers brought the children out to watch and see the balloon. An Amish mother with her three sons came out to watch too.

Now here’s the deal with balloon landings… Balloons can land anywhere. The catch is that if the balloon damages anything the owner has to pay the damages. Reasonable, right? So Lucas tries to find empty fields to land in that are near the road to make it easier to pack and pick up the balloon. Farmers don’t have a problem with him landing in the fields. It’s a bit of excitement for them.

Once we packed up the balloon and basket, Phil drove us back to the lift-off site in Bird in Hand. We drank champagne and/or orange juice. I stuck with the orange juice. But you guessed that, didn’t you?

And that was one of Motherdear and Ronald’s Great Adventures!

Definitely the highlight of the day!

Afterward we ate breakfast at our hotel and checked out of our room. At 11 a.m. we took a 2+ hour bus tour of the area… stopped at a few Amish shops and farms.

We left Bird in Hand at around 2 p.m. Went to Lancaster, PA to buy a new battery and battery charger for my camera. Should be all set to take pictures tomorrow.

Then we drove to Harrisburg, PA. Tomorrow we’ll do some things at Hershey World (not the amusement park though) and tour Gettysburg National Park.

Not sure if we’ll spend another night here in Harrisburg or start driving south toward the mountains. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.

But for now… I’m tired of typing and you’re probably tired of reading this.

Hugs,

–Donna

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Bird in Hand, Pennsylvania

Posted by Donna on September 20, 2009

20 September 2009 – Day 2

First, a brief mention that today would have been my father’s 71st birthday. I wasn’t sure if my mother would want to leave on our vacation yesterday or if she would have wanted to put flowers on his grave today. Obviously she was fine with leaving yesterday so…

I began my day at just before 7 a.m. I went for a run around the Staples/Best Buy parking lot and buildings. As we got on the road I did a quick drive around to clock the distance. Just over .3 miles for the loop. Ran 4 laps… do the math.

I made a phone call this morning and got some exciting news. It directed our travels today. I won’t tell you yet what that news is, but it’s an adventure we are going to have tomorrow. Motherdear and I are both wicked excited!

Those plans brought us to the Amish community of Bird in Hand, Pennsylvania. But I’m getting ahead of myself…

After my run, shower, and breakfast at the hotel, we went back to our room for a bit. I got online to check my e-mail and Facebook. My mother read her book. Did I mention that she’s reading a really smutty book? It makes me blush just thinking about it. I read it about 20 years ago and I still remember some of the steamy stuff in it. LOL

We headed out at around 10:30 a.m. The journey would take about 2.5 hours. Not bad. Not bad at all.

Along the way we enjoyed the rolling mountains and the scenic views. It occurred to us one time that we hadn’t put the radio on, and even then neither of us reached for the dial. It’s nice being with someone you feel comfortable sharing silence with. Not to say that we didn’t talk a lot, but we also shared the quiet too. It was a very pleasant ride.

One surprise came as we were climbing a hill (or it could have been a mountain). There was a sign that read: “Remove sunglasses.”

What? I wasn’t wearing sunglasses but my mother had just reached into her purse to get her’s out. I told her she better not because we were in territory not friendly to sunglasses. A short distance and a curve in the road later, we discovered why people were told to remove their sunglasses.

We were approaching the LeHigh Tunnel. My mother asked, jokingly, if we HAD to go through the tunnel. Funny she asked, because it looked like there was a service road that went up and over the top of the tunnel making a loop to head back in the other direction!

But we brave women forged our path as many others had forged before us. The tunnel was pretty cool as tunnels go. It was .8 miles long and had some cool airplane engine size thingies to keep the air circulating.

We passed the town of Virginville, but didn’t bother to stop since neither of us qualified. We did take a few minutes to ponder what it must be like for teenagers to admit to people that they lived in Virginville.

In Talmage (an unincorporated community) in Lancaster County, PA, we saw the first of many horse and buggies being driven by Amish people. One thing that amazed me was that these buggies have turn signals… and the driver used them! How shocking is that! People who believe in and use technology every day have a difficult time using their car’s turn signals, yet these people who choose to resist technology can flip a switch to make a light go blinkey-blinkey. Amazing.

I do have to admit that I felt a bit unsettled after taking a picture of the rear of this buggy while we were waiting at a traffic light. It occurred to me that these people are living their lives the way they’ve chosen to live them. They are simple lives governed by their faith and the rules of their community.

I felt unsettled because it occurred to me that these people were a tourist attraction to me… Perhaps no different from the bearded women in a circus show. I knew I shouldn’t stare at them, but that’s all I wanted to do. It’s weird and uncomfortable for me still.

A few minutes later we passed a large group of Amish or Mennonite people walking down the street. An older bearded man was being pushed in a wheelchair. Children were being pulled in a red wagon. A gaggle of young women were walking together and laughing.

We arrived in Bird in Hand at around 1:30 p.m. (we’d make a lunch stop at McDonalds along the way). We got a room in a delightful inn called Bird in Hand Village Inn & Suites.

Time for my confession… When we entered the really beautiful registration desk area I looked around for signs about internet access. There was nothing. I immediately did a brain shift to accept that I’d be off-line for at least 24 hours. Yes, it was painful to realize, but I could accept it.

We got in to our room in the Ressler House building. It’s beautiful. It’s the bed and breakfast accommodations I’ve always wanted to experience. Both my mother and I were so excited!

We decided to explore this amazing little community a little… on foot. Well, I was on foot, my mother was in the wheelchair. She remembered to buckle her seat belt and she didn’t need a helmet today. We walked about a mile or so and had to share the road with many horse and buggies. It was so neat to watch them driving by.

It was shocking how fast cars and trucks passed these buggies though. The horses never flinched, obviously well exposed to the high speed traffic.

After our walk/roll… we came back to the Ressler House, grabbed our books and bottles of water, then sat out on the porch (in rocking chairs) for over an hour. We read a bit, chatted a bit, and just watched the world driving and rolling past. It was relaxing and enjoyable in ways that I can’t quite describe.

We went back into our room and I picked up the Inn’s information binder. Guess what I learned? I learned that Bird in Hand is not an out-of-the-loop location!! They did have free wireless access! Woot! Ding! Grats!

Now we’re sitting in the dining room. Mom is in one corner reading her book. I’m at another table near the electric outlet typing this entry. I also have to download pictures from my camera. I’ll be posting pictures to my Facebook page (cuz it’s easier than doing it on my blog) if you want to see pictures of our trip.

Well, I better get to that task because tomorrow is going to come early. tee hee hee

Hugs,

–Donna

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V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N

Posted by Donna on September 19, 2009

19 September 2009 – Day 1

We did it! My mother and I finally left on our road trip to Tennessee. Yeah!!

By 8 a.m. this morning I had the rented white Hyundai Sonata all packed and was just pacing between the kitchen, the den, and my bedroom… trying to remember what I’d forgotten (surely I’d forgotten something!)… and getting anxious to hit the road. Finally I told Gerry there was no sense in my hanging around and that I was going to go ahead and head south to my mother’s home in Massachusetts.

You’ll be glad to know that about 15 miles down the highway I remembered what I’d forgotten. It wasn’t toothpaste or clean underwear or anything as common as that. I had forgotten to write down our car insurance information in case I need it along the way. Easily solved though. When I got to my mother’s house two hours later I called to check in with Gerry and asked him to text that information to me.

So I arrived at my mother’s house about an hour early. She was also packed, ready and eager to get on the road. One final decision had to be made though… we had decided that we’d bring a wheel chair for my mother to use in case she got tired or winded. She had two of them so we needed to decide which to use.

Yeah… that was pretty funny. She sat in the first one that has small wheels on both the front and back. It’s a “transport” chair. I started pushing her across the lawn and we were doing okay. Then we hit a rut. Oops. Mom almost went flying!

Tried the other chair with the big wheels in the back. It was a lot heavier and harder to push. So we decided to bring the transport chair with us. We’ll just have to buckle Mom into it and buy her a helmet. ha ha ha

Since my sister and brother-in-law weren’t home, and I had arrived so early, my mother and I decided to go to her favorite diner for lunch. We stopped back at her house to see if my sister or her husband had gotten home yet (so that we could say goodbye). They had so we chatted for a few minutes and then we were OFF ON OUR ADVENTURE!!

We’ve been planning this trip since shortly after I returned from my stint in Mississippi and Georgia last winter. For it to finally be here was amazing.

For those of you who weren’t aware of this road trip, let me give you our vision of it. We want to see part of this great country. We both love the mountains and want to see some that we haven’t seen before. So we are going to be driving down through the Shenandoah Mountains in Virgina (I think… better figure that out if we want to get there, huh?); the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee; and then off to Nashville; Memphis; hopefully Chattanooga; and then to Atlanta, Georgia to catch a plane home on October 2nd.

We didn’t make any hotel reservations and don’t have to be anywhere at a certain date/time except for a Loretta Lynn concert next Saturday, and then our flight home the following Friday. In between we are going to relax and do whatever feels good that day. No rushing to be at this place or that place. I’m sure we’ll see a lot, but we have no pressure to see and do it all.

For today, my first proposed stopover was Scranton, Pennsylvania (about 5 hours from my mother’s house… about 7 hours total driving time for me).

As I wrote on my Facebook page this morning before I turned off my computer… “Not sure if we’ll make it today [to Scranton], but that’s the goal (well, it’s not a goal exactly… more… like our loosely defined target that we may not make if we lollygag too much along the way).”

Reaching Scranton would put us out of familiar New England territory and also about 2-3 hours from Hershey, PA; Lancaster County, PA and Gettysburg, PA. Those are all places we want to stop at. So… if we could make it all the way to Scranton, we could have a nice easy drive on Sunday, then stop for a couple of nights in that area.

The drive was easy… Rte 495 south to the Mass turnpike… to Rte 84 west… to Rte 81 north…

Along the way we stopped at a “scenic view” spot to take in the view from the top of the mountain we didn’t know we’d climbed. Well, we did figure it out before we got to the top, but it was a pretty subtle mountain. Reminded me of the Hugh Grant movie called The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain. Anyway… our first hint was when we saw an exit sign for Mountain Rd. I chuckled and asked my mother “Do you see a mountain?”

We hadn’t, but then we started looking around. Hmmm… maybe we were climbing… did my ears just pop? Then we saw a street sign that read, “Elevation 1254″ (which according to Wikipedia, does in fact make it a mountain!). A few minutes later we saw another sign telling us of the scenic view pull-off. So we pulled off.

All I can say is… they made a mountain out of a mole hill. The view was nothing to write home about, but then again, here I am writing home about it, so I guess it was pretty special after all. Funny how things like that happen, huh?

I won’t bore you with the details of our conversations or how many times I had to tell my mother to find a new radio station because we’d gone out of range, but suffice it to say we had a lovely time together.

We arrived at the Fairfield Inn in Dickson City, PA (just outside of Scranton) at 5:45 p.m. The cool thing about this place is that we got the room for super cheap because my mother works for the Marriott hotel chain. Cool, huh?

After we’d unloaded the car, I went for a short swim in the pool. The water was way too warm for my taste, so I didn’t swim as long I as I would have had it been more comfortable. Then I went in to the whirlpool for about 5 minutes. Although I didn’t exercise for as long as I would have liked, it felt good to move my muscles.

We settled in for bologna sandwiches and Goldfish crackers (okay… I confess… we actually bought the cheapo Whales crackers at Wal-Mart). My mother is sitting at the desk reading a new smut novel (it’s a really steamy one by Linda Lael Miller) and I’m writing this blog entry.

Once I’ve posted this entry, I’ll probably do a little Internet surfing and then a bit of reading before turning in for the night. For a long day on the road, it didn’t seem that long.

I expect tomorrow will be another great day.

Hugs,

–Donna

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Over a Month’s Worth of Scattered Thoughts

Posted by Donna on August 20, 2009

20 August 2009

Several people have commented lately that it’s been awhile since I wrote in my blog. Although I knew that was true, the few times I’ve tried to write an entry, I just wasn’t able to produce anything blog-worthy.

Not sure if today will be different, but I’ll give it a try. If you are reading this, you’ll know I found some redeeming and hopefully interesting thoughts to share with you.

Before I get started, I’d like to say Happy Birthday! to my mother-in-law Priscilla. Although she died in February, today was her special day and God’s gift to my world. Also Happy Birthday to Aunt Celeste and nephew Travis! More gifts from God.

Next I hate to admit that Earl was right. He said he thought my last blog entry was in July. I could have sworn it was the end of June. He was right. Oh bother. I’ll never live that one down. I may have to go back and change the date on that last entry.

It’s been approximately 40 days since my last entry. Surely my life hasn’t been so dull that there was nothing to write about. A few fleeting memories pop into my head but I decided to pull out my handy-dandy calendar to pick out the highlights to share.

Here’s a summary for you. In the past 40 days I have:

• Had a massage and a facial (gotta being pampered… even if I have to pay someone to do it)
• Had six breakfast or lunch visits with friends and family
• Attended my first politically based meeting of concerned citizens
• Attended a Toby Keith and Trace Adkins concert
• Visited twice with my mother in Massachusetts (we’re planning a September road trip to Nashville)
• Had several “of a female nature” tests and procedures done (TMI… sorry… but it’s on my calendar!)
• Lined up contractors to do some repair work on the house (roof, windows, steps)
• Attended three Concerts in the Park
• Spent 13 days training at my Air National Guard unit (gave me a nice two week break from my regular job, but it meant working 15 days straight)
• Celebrated Sean’s 19th birthday!
• Brought my car to the garage twice
• Attended another LL Bean Outdoor Discovery School shotgun class. Gerry went with me this time. Had a blast (pun intended)

Those are the calendar worthy things that have kept me busy.

Some non-calendar events that come to mind are:

• Published a book of poems my mother-in-law wrote. Gave them to family members at a tree planting memorial gathering last weekend.
• Started studying and obsessing over handguns (I want one!)
• Helped my daughter move in to her first apartment
• Enrolled in a college graphic design class and bought my books for it
• Signed up for two handgun basics classes that will be held this weekend

Hadn’t realized how much I’ve accomplished or how busy I’ve been over the past 40 days. It’s always nice to take time to reflect and review what’s been going on in life. That’s one of the reasons I love my calendar. I write a lot on it. There are few days in a month that don’t have one or more entries on it. I keep my calendars from year to year as a sort of journal.

But all that doesn’t really explain why I haven’t been writing more. But it is something I think about often.

So here’s what I’ve come up with…

My interests are changing. Primarily based on concern for the direction our country is moving in. Although I’m a registered Republican my views are more Libertarian. Definitely conservative when it comes to fiscal issues but more moderate when it comes to social issues (unless we can’t pay for the programs/solutions).

I’ve done a pretty good job of being your typical apathetic American. I’ve always thought things won’t change and I haven’t really cared. But now, with the “hope and change” president in office, I think that things will change… and I don’t like the changes he wants to make.

Living in a predominately liberal based state I’ve learned to just keep my mouth shut about my own political views because even my friends can get pretty nasty and hurtful when I offer a different opinion.

But I’m feeling, for the first time in my life, that it’s up to me to instill “hope and change” in America, too. To do that I need to become better informed. That, in and of itself, is a daunting task. There is so much information/misinformation/disinformation out there. I don’t want to just repeat the talking points of my favorite radio personalities or columnists, I want to read the legislation, develop my own opinions, create my own talking points.

But it’s time consuming and energy stealing. I’m not at the point yet where it energizes me. I’m not at the point where I relish a hearty debate. I still feel timid, mousy, and unprepared for the road I think I need to walk.

So that’s why I haven’t been writing. The fluffy posts of the past had their place and now that I’ve unburdened my soul with these words, perhaps I’ll be able to share both my growth as a concerned and informed American as well as the day-to-day minutia of my life.

Life was easier when the first (and sometimes only) headlines I read were from people.com. But it’s long past time for me to grow up and be an American… and that means accepting all the rights and responsibilities that go with that term.

What does it mean to you to be an American? Many of us are too busy working and living our lives to get involved with the political decisions that will ultimately impact every aspect our work and personal lives, but should we really just sit back and let other people make those decisions without our input? If you’ve ever doubted whether our political leaders have your best interests at heart, it may be time for you to get involved too.

I’m still trying to figure all this out. It’s confusing, overwhelming, and scary. But those of you who know me well know that I don’t usually back down from a challenge. So as my friend Mike says… “Ever onward, never backward” (or something like that).

Hugs,

–Donna

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