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FINALLY — THE ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION!

YAY!  Glen and Adina met us in Cleveland, TN, on Friday night, Sept. 10th, to begin a weekend full of anniversary celebration.  First, they surprised us with flowers and appetizers before the first of several anniversary meals! 

Saturday, September 11th, is now Patriots Day – a day of remembrance of the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001.  Legion friends from home sent us a photo of an early morning solemn ceremony.  We observed a moment of silence, but this date was OURS first, so we went on to enjoy a day of 55th anniversary fun.

Adina and Glen treated us to a full day of river rafting on the Ocoee River in Tennessee.  I had hoped to get some good photos, but the river was busier than I expected.  Here are some shots I got in-between rapids:

Top to bottom: This is the bus that took us to the put-in point, up river. Then, we’re preparing to put the boat on the river. Then, we were moving down driver. There were a couple of places suitable for swimming, and Adina was the first in the water, shortly followed by Jay. Aren’t they cute floating along together? Then, Adina demonstrates that it’s harder to get back into the boat than it is jumping out!

And here are some shots by professional photographers set up strategically along the river:

We were pretty exhausted by the end of the day, but rallied for another great meal at a restaurant near our hotel.  We got up slowly the next day and took our time getting on the road to return to Adina and Glen’s house.  

Jay flew home on Tuesday, but I was able to change my flight in order to spend some additional mother-daughter time.  I’ll fly home on Saturday.  

Thank you, Adina and Glen.  And thank you to all our wonderful friends who let us drop in for a visit.  This has been a fantastic anniversary trip.  

Give us a couple of weeks and we’ll be blogging about our Model A Touring Club visit to the “Ole Southwest”.  See you down the road!

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Returning to Tennessee for Our Anniversary

On September 9th, we left Jack and Carol in Athens, GA, to return to Tennessee. We decided it was too long of a drive to go all the way to Cleveland, TN, where we were going to meet Adina and Glen on Friday, so we spent an evening in Lookout Mountain, TN. We stayed at a charming B & B (with a REALLY yummy breakfast) called the Chanticleer Inn.

Lookout Mountain is a beautiful town somewhat near Chattanooga, but remote and obviously full of artistic people. We had dinner at the Cafe on the Corner, which displayed a lot of local art. Here’s a piece that caught our fancy. (Fortunately it wasn’t for sale!) This was an actual chef’s jacket which the artist soaked in some kind of hardening chemical. She shaped it the way she wanted, laid it out to dry, then somehow painted it to look like bronze patina.

Here are a couple shots of the local natural beauty.

Since we had a short drive before meeting Adina and Glen for dinner on September 10th, we checked out some of the sights in Chattanooga. We spent quite a bit of time walking in the Sculpture Fields at Montague Park:

Next, we discovered the National Cemetery at Chattanooga:

After lunch, we visited the Hunter Museum:

The Hunter Museum of American Art includes 100 years of architecture and the most complete collection of American art in the Southeast. We spent hours there.

Before leaving Chatanooga, we purchased a special item for Jay:

It’s supposed to be a “guitar”, but it has only 4 strings, and the body is pottery. It’s intended to be amplified, but I’m not sure I’m keen on having application in my home! Jay can play it, but I think mostly it will hang on a wall! It’s very cute…

The next post will show our anniversary weekend with Adina and Glen.

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Two Anniversaries!

We arrived at Jack and Carol’s new home in Athens, GA, on September 6th.  And Amy (the guitarist) came to visit from Tryon, NC, so we had a guitar fest on Monday!  Lots of fun and lots of music, but I totally forgot to take photos of the musicians…

Jay, of course, settled right in with his guitar (made by Jack) and you can see we had snacks, wine — and dinner — along with LOTS of music.

Jack and Carol recently moved from Avondale, a pleasant subdivision of Atlanta, to Athens, GA. Athens reminds me somewhat of San Luis Obispo. The population is a couple times larger than SLO, but it’s a university town, and the flavor is very similar. After our day of guitars, our next activity was to visit the campus of the University of Georgia. The undergraduate enrollment is approximately 30,000.

We started our walking tour of the campus at the arch. Tradition says that if an undergraduate walks through the arch, he/she will NOT graduate. Jay and Carol checked out the chapel bell, which these days is used primarily to toll Georgia football victories. Nice campus with nice trees, gardens, buildings — and a special bench which we couldn’t resist!

While we were walking, we checked out some of the sights downtown.

Athens has a lot of good restaurants, and we checked out as many as we could. but one night was special, as it was Jack and Carol’s 48th wedding anniversary. Brought back good memories of when we were all much younger! Jay and I were at their wedding and Jay was even IN the wedding. (Jay and Jack have been buddies since their early Air Force days.)

Even after 48 years, they still celebrate, and that dessert was unbelievable!

When Jack and Carol bought their new home, it was missing a place for Jack’s workshop. (Remember he’s a luthier…) That problem was resolved while we were there. They had ordered a custom building which was erected in slightly over a day.

Jack still has to do the insolation, wallboarding and then bring in his benches and tools. Seems like he’ll have plenty of room for everything he needs.

The next post will talk about our visit to Lookout Mountain, TN, and the sights we saw on our way to meet Adina and Glen to begin our weekend of anniversary celebration. Stay tuned!

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More Anniversary Fun

On September 3rd, we were up early to take the coast road (and two ferries!) down to Wilmington, NC.  If we were “normal” people, we would have gone inland and driven for 4 hours, but we are COAST people, so we took the scenic route down the Outer Banks and spent 11 hours getting to our hotel!  

Too tired to do much that night, but the next morning we checked out the North Carolina World War II battleship.

The battleship North Carolina is a refurbished World War II battleship. She was equipped with some VERY large guns!

Before we left Wilmington, we took a quick drive around the historic downtown and found beautiful mansions and churches:

Amongst the gorgeous buildings, I couldn’t resist the tree with the typical Spanish moss. Beautiful, but probably deadly to the host tree.

Next stop: Savannah, GA.  We had reservations at the Kehoe House in the heart of the historic downtown area.  Apparently Mr. Kehoe owned the ironworks in town, providing many of the decorative iron fences around town.  

This was our B & B — The Kehoe House.

We took a carriage ride around the historic center, then toured the Davenport House, right across the street from where we stayed.  This 1820 federal style house is interesting for at least a couple of reasons.  Mr. Davenport was a builder – and carpenter.  He built his home with a relatively plain exterior, but a lavish Greek Revival style interior, so he could impress potential customers with his talents.

I didn’t get a photo of the front of the Davenport House, but I remember how to recognize a Federal style house: “Five, Four and a door.” The style is very symmetrical,with five windows on the second floor, and four windows on the first floor with a door in the middle!

The Davenport House had been scheduled for demolition in the 1950s to make another parking lot, but a group of seven ladies stopped the demolition.  It’s said that the women stood between the building and the wrecking ball – I don’t know how true that story is.  However, the women saved the building and became the founding members of the Savannah Historical Society, which went on to preserve many more old buildings in the city center.

Next blog will cover our visit with long-time friends, Jack and Carol.  See you there!

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Anniversary Adventures Continue…

We left Williamsburg, VA a little bit wilted, but ready to arrive in Currituck County, in the extreme northeast corner of NC.    

The word “Currituck” means “Land of the Wild Goose.”  Currituck is currently known for the wild horses that roam the beach, but the area actually earned its name due to its early population of wild geese when the Algonquin Indians founded it.  To make things more confusing, we stayed in the town of Duck!  To our east was the Atlantic Ocean and to our west was the Currituck Sound.

While we were on these Outer Banks, we walked on a delightful boardwalk through a maritime forest, visited the wild horse museum, the Currituck Lighthouse, and the Kittyhawk Wright museum and memorial.  

No, we didn’t climb the 220 steps to the top of the lighthouse. Too warm!

The inside of the museum was interesting, but the best were the life sized sculptures depicting the first flight!

We also took a wild horse tour, of course.  We had been looking forward to this expected photographic highlight, and yes, we found the horses.  Our guide was very knowledgeable about the history of the area and the horses, but we think he was not a photographer and didn’t understand a photographer’s needs.  We managed to get some reasonable photos anyway.

These wild horses are amazing. There are three subdivisions within the preserve area. Residents may find horses in their yards, under their houses, etc.!

It was really warm and humid here, but our last day in Duck cooled down as we received the fringes of hurricane Ida.

More to follow soon. Having SO much fun!Wild

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Fifty-Five and Beyond!

September 11th is our 55th wedding anniversary, and we started planning this trip three years ago.  Best laid plans of mice and men… We went through the planning stages four times for separate cruises, each of them cancelled by Covid.  We finally gave up on the cruise idea, and settled on a road trip!

We started by flying into Nashville, TN, to spend a little time at Adina and Glen’s house, and this is where we’ll return for more family time after the road trip.

Adina and Glen’s home in Hendersonville, TN, is VERY peaceful!

We borrowed Adina’s car to see some of our East Coast friends.  We didn’t have time to stop in Asheville this time, but spent a couple of nights in Tryon, NC.  Had fun visiting Amy’s horse and mini-donkeys, plus Amy staged a performance of her trio – including a special arrangement of “our” song, Wind Beneath My Wings.

That’s Amy on guitar, and her friends Fran and Barbara played keyboards and melodicas!

After that, we drove to Appomattox, VA, for a little sight-seeing.  

Appomattox is where Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant in April 1865 to effectively end the American Civil War.

The next day, we stopped to tour Monticello on our way to friends in Arlington, VA.

“Monticello” means “little mountain” in old Italian, and Thomas Jefferson built his home at the top of this hill, with a beautiful view.

We were really warm and we were very happy to reach John and Pam’s home in Arlington, VA. It was too warm to do much sight-seeing, so we hung out and caught up with our friends and filled them in on happenings in Cambria.  We also had a beautiful drive (in the air conditioned car!) through Arlington Cemetery.

When I was 12 years old my family took a cross-country road trip, and the only thing I remember from that trip was Arlington Cemetery. It’s still just as impressive — and even bigger now.

Leaving John and Pam’s house, we visited Williamsburg on our way to the Sanderling Hotel in Duck, NC, for 4 nights of romantic R & R.

Did I mention it was very warm? And humid? Thought I was going to melt, but Williamsburg is a premier center for the preservation and interpretation of American colonial history. Even today there are archaeologists digging, brushing and filtering dirt in search of more colonial artifacts.

The next blog will start with our arrival in Duck, NC. Hoping for some cooler weather…