More Blue Ridge Parkway

What a Trip!

Near Laurel Knob Overlook (elev. 4600 … about 200 feet above Mt. Mansfield)

Too lazy to get out of car. (In our defense, we must have pulled into two dozen overlooks, at least.)

Asheville NC mall

NOT your typical mall. Old building. Great architecture. All local stores with mostly local goods. 

Did you know that there's a whole separate market for artisans from Western North Carolina?

Somewhat unusual building next to the mall. 30 seconds. It's what's at the top that I liked.

More random trip items

History of Boathouses
(Finger Lakes)

They seem like they'd be the coolest place to live in the summer and fall.

Charleston SC 

Charleston beauty (not the name of the flower)

Kennedy Space Center: Apollo 8

Here's some stills from my cam recording (done legally) of KSC's Apollo 8 (mankind's first orbit of the moon) multimedia experience. You sit near and above the very consoles that were used that day. The theater darkens and various stations light up that are most key to the countdown at any given stage. I have a ten minute video of the whole thing, but it's not very good on the whole and time consuming to upload and watch so I've extracted some stills from it that some of you might find interesting. When you exit you find yourself in a huge hall with the 36 story high Saturn rocket used in the Apollo program suspended on its side from the ceiling. The four engine exhausts in the main stage are perhaps 8 ft. in diameter. KSC is a terrific place to visit.

Apollo 8 was launched on December 21, 1968. (11 years to the day before my daughter was born.) For those of you too young to have experienced this as it was happening, I can only say that I personally can't think of anything as positive and exciting in the last quarter century as the Space Program and the key launches that were part of it. (Being in D.C. for President Obama's inauguration is the one exception I've come up with.) For those of you outside that loop, think of it as the Super Bowl, World Series, Olympics, American Idol final, July 4th fireworks, and finding a parking space downtown … all rolled into one.

Horseshoe Curve Train

One train start to finish around the curve. Often these trains are completely full and double stacked with containers, not trailers as this one was. Believe it or not this was not nearly the longest we've seen there. You can tell it was not one of the biggest because there were no pusher engines behind it … but that's also partly due to the "light" load.

I included the whole train to give some of you an idea what the experience at Horseshoe Curve is like.

Finger Lakes boathouses

I read something that says no one is allowed to live in these remarkably appealing boathouses. I want to … badly. And it sure seems like there's living quarters set up in some of them. There's rows and rows of these that look like narrow little streets.

Rainbow at Letchworth

Letchworth state park in western NY near Geneseo. What a gem! This is from the middle falls.

Dolphins?

North of Ormand Beach, FL, from a WWII watchtower, we saw these. Can anyone help with an ID, please?

Toy trains

We stopped at several toy train places throughout our travels. One especially nice one in Lancaster PA was put together initially by a man for his children starting about 50 years ago. He recently passed away, but before that had moved everything to a small mall (maybe it's actually in Strasburg) where Mike spent an hour or so looking at it. There is much more than is evident in this photo -- marching bands, circuses, parks, etc. -- and includes a firetruck and firemen in action putting out pretend flames with real water.

Rest stops

There's been some really nice rest stops and welcome centers to various states in the last three years. We now look forward to the welcome centers and will get back on an interstate, if necessary, to visit them. They've gotten more and more sophisticated, even in the short time we've been traveling about. We have seen a few, having been to 47 of the lower 48 during this time. (Some several times.)

Here's one in Florida entering along the Panhandle.

Sometimes there are downsides to these, however.

Earlier in the trip, one welcome center had posters of ten or so poisonous snakes so that we would know what they looked like … as if we were going to try to pet any other snakes we came across.

Letchworth Park

Western side of the Finger Lakes, near Geneseo NY. Spectacular place that way too few know about, including students at a college 15 miles away. We didn't until our motel asked if this place was why we were staying there.

In 1972 the water behind this dam rose to within inches of the top, filling a great wandering valley behind it. Back up the river maybe ten miles, a man signed the final papers purchasing an old hotel that morning. That afternoon it sat in 12 feet of water.

I heard from several sources that the dam (Morris dam) is 500 feet high and is the biggest east of the Mississippi. Below is one angle on the enormous valley that gives you a little perspective on how much water it took to fill the dam that high. It's really hard to believe when you're standing there that such a thing could ever have happened.

The silt at the base of the dam (it is a "dry" dam … meant only to control water in extreme times, otherwise it allows water to flow normally) is 50 feet deep.

Turkeyfoot, U.S.A. Yes, Places like this ...

… do exist. Northern West Virginia or southeastern Pennsylvania. (Check out the reflection in the car mirror.)

And not terribly far away, pretty close to Shanksville PA, where we visited the newly update Flight 93 Memorial, was one of the biggest and neatest auto junkyard I've ever seen. No disrespect meant by mentioning the two in the same caption. In fact, I think it shows how life goes on and no matter how far you think you are from everything, the world can suddenly be focussed on your backyard.

This shows only part of the yard. If you look slightly up to the extreme left, you can see how it keeps going and going. Here it is from Google:

The bridge nears completion

Addison County, VT

We headed for home via the new bridge. Almost, but not quite done. "Soon" they said.

Our welcome home

This is a miserable, pale comparison to the rainbow we saw as we approached Essex Junction … but it's the best photo we could take at the time. The purple was sharp and clear. Hard to see it here.

rough route map and stops

Due to limitations of Google Maps and Mapquest and my brain, this represents a pretty good outline of our general travels, but leaves out about 2,000 miles of wanderings, detours, and just plan getting lost.

J = St. Pete's Beach

Tiffany chapel stain glass, Auburn, NY

Active video link below. Almost certainly worth the click.

Tiffany chapel, one of a kind

History All Around Us

Can anyone identify this clouds? I know they look like jet contrails, but I quite sure they aren't.

The Johnstown Flood of May 31, 1889

The actual count is uncertain, but over 2,200 children, women, and men lost their lives when a dam built in haste for super rich "sportsmen" collapsed after heavy rains. The Civil War, Lincoln's assassination, and the Johnstown Flood are considered the biggest news stories for years 1800 to 1900. The tales of individuals and families are heartbreaking and horrifying. The National Memorial to the flood is well worth a visit if you're near Johnstown, PA.

Our annual pilgrimage to Horseshoe Curve, Altoona, PA. There was a Nazi plot to destroy this key location bringing coal and supplies all around the country during WWII.

Three dams step down from this unique site. The purpose of the wide sweeping horseshoe shape is to allow trains to climb up and over the Alleghanies with their sometimes precious cargo. A four percent grade is pretty much the maximum for standard freight trains ... and that's pushing it.

At the Shanksville, PA, Flight 93 Memorial. My estimation is that there were several thousand people there on this beautiful autumn. Several locals told us that it was very much like the day on which the passengers on board attacked back. Thousands of people and nearly total silence. Very emotional.

The passengers and crew of 93. Remember them, please.

This rock marks the middle of the crater created by the impact at around 560 mph. The plane was inverted when they hit.

One the way to the wall with the names of the passengers and crew.

The Haunted Inn

We stayed at the Green Park Inn in Blowing Rock, NC, the highest incorporated city in the state. The ancient inn, one of the buildings in the National Registrar of historic places, is said to be haunted by several ghosts.

When asked about ghosts being there, the innkeeper said, "The only thing we are allowed to say is that we protect the privacy of all of guests ... whether they've ever checked out or not."

It's a beautiful inn in a great location with balconies for every room (I think). Ours overlooked the adjoining golf course where deer came out at dusk. The town itself is very wealthy with amazing homes scattered throughout the many hillsides.

This is the bridge in WV where base jumpers once a year (third Saturday in October) leap with their parachutes to the river some 900 feet below. Later I'll add a picture I did not take that shows a much better perspective on this bridge. It is closed for that day. I can't imagine how frustrating that must be for those unaware of the closure trying to travel on this main highway.

Here's a better perspective on the base jumping bridge in WV. I grabbed this photo off the internet.

It -- or one very much like it -- is used on a postcard available at the gift shop near the bridge.

Sunset in Morgantown WV.

Mike and the Momma Bear

Apologies for getting behind ... again ... on this. Here's some photos and a few words more -- more or less in the order in which they occurred.

Blue Ridge Parkway, NC.

Sunset at Little Switzerland, NC. At first I thought what an overblown name, but it's very pleasant there. Very much like Trapp Family Lodge is a little bit of Austria.

It was at the pool here that Mike saw a momma bear with two cubs about 40 feet away. He was sitting by the pool. I was in it and couldn't get out in time. I stood quietly for about half an hour afterwards trying to pick up their movement through the nearby woods. Some motorcyclists also staying at the lodge in Little Switzerland (actually the town's name ... population about 150 year round -- as much as 400 in the summer) coming back were the cause of the bears disappearing into the trees ... but not before the bikers saw them, too. One waiter at the adjoining restaurant has lived there six years and never seen a bear.

I also met a very thoughtful young woman who worked at the desk of the lodge. She is starting online graduate school this fall. No big deal, you say? She's the first in her family to graduate from high school. That's correct. No typo. High school. Chew on that for a while. Her father, in particular, is not happy about her "getting educated." He does not understand why she's doing this. I suggested to her that he might be afraid of all the things he doesn't know about this undertaking and that he's losing his daughter. (His wife, her mother, died just about two years ago.) On the other hand, as I mentioned to her, his work is done. He raised a great young woman. It's time for her to leave the nest. Other reasons for his position will have occurred to you, I'm sure. And those probably factor in, also.