Road trip to Ohio ...

Well, this past week we took our annual road trip to Ohio.  These are always fun, pretty tiring, but they generate lots of memories -- enough to hold us over for a little while. So, I'm going to just give you some highlights of the trip.  Here goes:

1. This time, since it was summer and light a lot longer, we decided to make the drive each way in just one day. It was only 9.5 hours and a pretty easy trip.  Only got into construction one time and that was only a slow-down for about 10 min. or so. Pam packed snacks so we didn't have to spend too much time stopping to eat. Saved on two nights of motels, and made each trip on one tank of gas each way.  Prices for fuel ranged from $2.31 in Sidney, to $3.19 on the WVa turnpike. The Jeep has great range so those savings were good.

2. After getting in and settled, we were able to visit with our old neighbors. It was Jim's birthday so we bought an ice cream cake at the DQ located next to our motel and had a nice celebration. Amanda and two of his boys (Carter and Dylan) helped us sing his praises. 

3. On Friday, we were able to visit an old WWII friend of ours...99 years old and still living at home. It was really good to see him again.  Looking pretty good, Warren.

4. Following this visit, we were able to visit some really good friends and have a lunch at Marrion's Pizza, the best place in Troy to eat a good pizza. This was a great visit with two couples we've been friends with for over 53 years. 

5. Pam was able to spend some time with a couple of her friends - had dinner with her friend, Wannie and breakfast with her friend, Paula. She also got to spend a good part of Thursday with her sister-in-law, Mary, in Lima. You can always talk to people over the phone or text back and forth, but actually sitting down to a meal with them or visiting them in their home is special -- especially when it only happens maybe once a year.

6. My visits with friends consisted of playing golf  on Thursday morning with a bunch of guys from Anna. These are the guys who will be coming down for the "Man Trip" later in September. I was hoping to show them how my golf game had improved while playing down here.  Unfortunately, I had a 7 on the first hole and couldn't get it together after that (shot 104). That might not be all that bad though. On courses I play here, I have a 24.6 handicap and when I put that on the table at our Man Trip I'm sure they will squawk. I'll just remind them of my round with them in June.

7. Later that night, I went to the Sidney Veteran's Center for our annual euchre night.  Each time I'm back in Ohio, three of the finest Veterans you would ever want to meet, get together with me and we play euchre, drink a few beers and sell a lot of "wolf tickets" ("wolf tickets" are civilized versions of military tall tales). We have lots of fun, and there is also some rivalry in this as two of the guys are Marines and two of us are Army. The Army guys have won the last two years so that doesn't set too well with the Marines. (Just kidding -- it's all good fun. Besides, we have their $0.55. Big stakes, huh.).

8. A couple of observations:

    a. Streets in Sidney have to be the worst. 

    b. Troy is one of the most beautiful cities I have seen in quite a while. They are really working hard at making that place something special. Good job, guys.

    c. There should be some kind of law against having a book store across the street from a pizza place. I can't pass one by, especially since it is SO close. Somehow, I got out of there with only two books.    

  “Good friends listen to your adventures; best friends make them with you.”

Hooah 

Road Trip to Ohio, Part 2 ...

The biggest reason why we scheduled this road trip to Ohio at this time was because my sister's grand daughter was getting married and this would serve as an excellent reason to get the entire family on my side together for a while. 

This wedding took place at a nature preserve near my sister's house.  It was a very nice venue which featured an indoor/outdoor portion for things like weddings. The weather had been pretty wet for a couple of days, right up to the start of the wedding, but it all turned out for the best and everyone enjoyed the outdoor seating.

One funny thing -- you know how they always have that "anniversary dance" at weddings where they ask all married couples to come out and dance and they play music. The DJ then starts eliminating couples by saying something like "if you have been married less than 15 years, leave the dance floor." He works his way up the year's criteria and usually gets to 50 years being married and there is a white-haired couple or two left out there.  Well, he got to 50 years and we were still out there along with another couple. They were coming up on their 53rd (I think) later this month, and he asked us -- we are coming up on 56 years of marriage in August. There was some applause, but there was also some gasping. 😊 We didn't win a prize, but we won the "anniversary dance"... first time ever. Might be some more coming up if we're ever invited back to another wedding in the future. Maybe we'll be around to dance at our grand daughter's wedding.

Overall, it was a good get-together and we got caught up on lots of things that were going on in everyone's lives. At one point, we had a "family" picture taken.  We clean up pretty well, if I do say so myself. 

Here are a couple of short notes I just remembered from the trip:

a. I mentioned that we drove the trip in one day each way, 9.5 - 10 hours which was really pretty easy with longer sunlight. But I looked at the mileage the other day when we got back and saw that the trip totaled 1,510.9 miles (up, back and running around while up there) (total mpg was 26.7 for the whole trip).

b. Today I went to breakfast with some men from our men's group and happened to notice that the odometer had an interesting number in the display. Check this out. Looked like a picket fence. The Jeep is a 2019, so that means roughly 15,873 miles per year so far. 

c.  I mentioned that I bought 2 books at the book store in Troy, just across from the pizza place. Well, I am now finished with one of the books and have started the other. If I keep this up, I think I am going to have to go get a library card. Books are getting expensive these days.

d.  Next trip(s) will come some time in August. Going to celebrate our wedding anniversary again at Kitty Hawk. We really like doing that.

To Megan and Hunter, we wish you all the best on your new chapter together. May it be filled with love, laughter and adventure.  

Once a couple gets married, "What's for dinner?" won't be the hardest question you'll ever ask each other.

Hooah 

What a view ...

Pam and I recently traveled to Ohio on some family business, and had a little bit of time so we decided that on the way we would finally stop off at Pilot Mountain outside of Mt. Airy, NC.  We have driven past that iconic landmark hundreds of times and even played golf at a course located near there with the guys on the Man Trip outings. But we had yet to actually stop there and go up to the top.  So this was a chance to check an item off our bucket list.

This was one of the team pictures from a recent trip.  I believe this was 2021.  We didn't play there in 2022.

As I was saying, we had always wanted to stop at this site because it was always mentioned in the Andy Griffith's shows, and Pam's brother, Chuck, always talked about it. He was such a huge fan of that show.  Anyway, it was a beautiful day, so up we went.

It was pretty cool once we got up there. Actually, it was COLD. But what a view.

It was quite a winding road up to the parking area.  Really reminded me of the bus ride up the alps on the way to the Eagle's Nest. Switchbacks, 10-15 miles per hour, with the edge of the road right on the edge of the mountain. YIKES.

So, once you got to the parking area, you still had to hike up to the end of the walkway ... and that wasn't even the top of the mountain.  To get there you had to hike some more and then I don't think you could even get to the actual top. We didn't go there.  Weren't dressed for it.  No -- that isn't the real reason ... we are too old to be climbing around on mountains.  That's what they make telephoto lenses on cameras for. 

As we were getting ready to leave, we decided to stop at the gift shop.  I'm usually a sucker for gift shops and this one was worth the stop.  In fact, we bought a couple of Christmas gifts for our grand children there, and I bought a lego (a knock-off brand I think) "eagle" to put together.  It consists of miniature pieces complete with "directions" that must have originally been written in some language and then translated into English (poorly translated). I tried it once, Quinn tried it once and gave up, Heath took one look at it and passed.  So here it is:

I'll get to it one of these days.

We met some nice people up there and thoroughly enjoyed that little diversion to our trip. That's one of the nice things about having some time available -- one just never knows what's up the road, 'round the bend. All you have to do is go there. Makes me appreciate Emerson's quote a bit more:

"It's not the destination, it's the Journey."

Hooah

Getting ready for this year's MAN TRIP ...

NOTE:

After some thought, I have decided to revise this and make it a two-part entry. Check it out.

Part one:

Well, it's almost time for this year's Man Trip.  I've been working with the hotel getting things lined up and the courses selected.  In fact, I've even been to the driving range a couple of times this week hitting balls.  Boy, it's really interesting how quickly one can lose a swing and tempo.  

So it was interesting when I signed on to the computer today and there was a little video of my photos from our last trip. Check this out. Be sure to enlarge it.

These trips are always fun, and there is even some good golf played every once in a while.  Looking forward to this year's trip and I'll keep you updated after this outing. 

Part two:

Maybe I'm overthinking it, but it seems a bit invasive, bordering on spooky, that on its own, Google would decide that all of a sudden I would want a video of pictures  from over a year ago, put them in the correct sequence, and end them with a team picture in front of the Pilot Mountain background. 

I know Big Brother is always watching, but it seems strange that just as I am working with the hotel on our arrangements via Gmail correspondence, this Google video would appear. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised because I know that if I even mention or search for something in Google, I will be bombarded with ads for that product.  Same issue with Facebook. Just a head-scratcher.

Maybe I am going to have to read those two- and three-page-long "agreements" next time I get an update.  It probably says in there somewhere that I have no expectation of privacy and should not be surprised by anything that goes on in Googleland.

What do you think?  There is a little link below called "comments" if you care to leave your thoughts.

“You don’t know what pressure is until you play for five bucks with only two bucks in your pocket.” (Lee Trevino)

Hooah

Carolina Beach -- what a fun place ...

Last week, Pam and I went to the Carolina Beach for three days.These kinds of trips are fun and since we had been there before, we knew where things were and weren't wasting time looking for shops or food places that either weren't open on certain days or weren't any good anyhow. We did eat at Freddies again this time and had a wonderful meal.  After that we drove down to the Ft. Fisher point to watch the boats (big ones) come in for the night.

This trip was a little different because we really only had two whole days to be there.  So we spent one of them on the beach.  It was hotter than a match that day so we/I spent much more time under the beach umbrella or actually sitting in a chair out in the ocean.  

The second whole day, however, was spent exploring a town called Southport.  It is a really cool oceanfront town, very quaint and best accessed by the ferry that runs from Ft. Fisher.  It takes about 1/2 hour to get from one side of the Cape Fear to the other. 

 

 

Cars were packed pretty tightly on the ferry.  I was not able to open my door without dinging the car next to me, so I rode all the way over sitting in the Jeep listening to the radio, hoping the ride back would be better.

 

Once we got over to the other side, we did some shopping, went to the maritime museum and the welcome center and then went on our way.  On that day, they were having an open air market which was set in a park, under a couple of acres of live oaks.  It was really a picture of old southern living.

After a bit of shopping, we walked down by the water front and sat at a open air bar where they filmed a movie called Safe Haven. It was really nice there, sunny, breezy and we got to talk with some other people there - just chillin' out.

While we were there, we saw a shrimp boat that sure looked like the one used in Forrest Gump.  It was really pretty cool.

I think this little town might be a great place for a couple of days.  We saw some condos that could be daily rents and they were right on the pier area.  I'm sure they are pretty expensive though.  We'll see.  It might happen for some special occasion.

So it was getting close to time to head back to the ferry landing and get in line to get on the ship.  Pam generally wants to squeeze every possible second out of these visits, so getting her to head back to the ferry pier a bit early was a task.  However, when we got there, she was glad we did because there was already a line of cars waiting to load, and this was the next to last ferry trip of the night. I think there is a way to drive around the area and eventually get back to the beach, but after looking at the map, I knew that wouldn't be a great option and would have really eaten up time and gas (you remember gas - $4.99.9 on this island !!).  Anyway, it was another pleasant ride on the ferry.

Had to hold on to your hats while on the water.

So, that wraps up another short visit to the beach.  As I have said before, we really enjoy these trips and living where we do, we are perfectly situated  -- 3-4 hours to any beach on the Atlantic, and 3-4 hours to the mountains in the western part of the state. Nice !!

"The sea cures all ailments of man." (Plato)

Hooah

A little more on our road trip ...

I just wanted to wrap up this road trip post with a couple of pictures of the people we visited (when we actually remembered to take a picture ...... ugh!).

 

 It was good to be able to spend an afternoon with Mary. 

                                    Logan certainly had grown up (taller) since our last visit.

                                                    Linda and Luke still look the same. 

                                    Pam was able to visit her childhood friends, Susan and Liddy

We were also able to visit Lee (Pam's brother) and I didn't think to take a picture of Dave and Dreama while we were at dinner (Dave was my old Command Sergeant Major). 

It's good to be able to visit these old friends and family. So, while I may not have a physical picture from this visit, I have pictures of all of them in my mind, and there they don't have wrinkles, warts, bifocals or gray hair.

In the end you always go back to the people who were there in the beginning. (Unknown)

Hooah

Road Trip ....

Well, Pam and I have returned from our annual Ohio Road Trip (actually we've done this twice).  What a whirlwind week.  Each of these trips has been planned out by the day and I put together a spread sheet showing all the people we would visit, which towns we would be visiting, where I was going to play golf and with whom, where Pam was going to visit and maybe have lunch with a friend or two, in which hotels we would be staying and when we would have to check-out.  I also got to play euchre with Tom, Bill, and Dennis at the Sidney Veteran's Center.  I/we really look forward to that.  We played for about 3 hours and nobody lost a dime.  Either we're getting better at this game or we just didn't keep very good track of points. Regardless, it was quite an adventure.

Before we left, all the crap hit the fan with inflation and gas prices going through the roof, so I wanted to see what this trip was actually costing. Here are the breakdowns:

* 1,652 miles round trip.

* Total cost of gas: $462.11.

* Driving my 2019 Jeep -- great for packing all the "stuff" we needed or might need for this trip.

* Gas mileage: Overall average: 24.5 mpg. (High of 27.1 mpg, low of 20.4 mpg).

* Average gallon per mile cost: $0.28/mile

* Hotels: $501.37 (We used my military and AAA discounts where we could and all of our Hilton Honors Points to keep the costs down).         

* Ohio roads are not nearly as nice as NC roads, so somewhere I picked up a little shimmy when I hit one of their potholes.  That cost me $49.00 to get the tires rebalanced once we got home.

So, what is the bottom line from all of this? Well, first -- we proved we weren't too old to do another of these trips. Aside from that, we got to see some really great people back in Ohio.  Wannie is always fun to visit and she even entertained us with her piano skills (she's really good!!). Chris and Karen, Ken and Pat and Becky and Eric are really long time church friends from Troy and it is always good to catch up with them. Warren, our WWII friend, was turning 96 and he looked great.  My sister, Linda and her husband (Luke) had recovered from their trip to visit us and we had a good time at her grandson's HS graduation party. I had a great time playing golf with my Anna buddies and with Dave. I always have fun with these guys and I played pretty much my average game -- bogey golf. While I was playing golf on Thursday, Pam had a really good visit with Mary and all of the Lima gang.  Friday night, we had a Cassano's pizza night with our old neighbors from McCartyville Road (Jim and Amanda) and I really wanted to thank the 3 boys for delaying their Friday night plans for going out with their friends to stay home for a couple of hours and have dinner and visit with us. Pam got to meet up with her line dancing friends and spend an afternoon dancing and having fun. We then got to spend time with Pam's brother, Lee, and the three of us went to lunch at Tom's Ice Cream Bowl in Zanesville.  That afternoon Pam was able to visit with her friends Liddy and Susan while I drove around Zanesville to see how it had changed in the last year. Later that evening we caught up with my old Command Sergeant-Major (Dave) and his wife (Dreama) for dinner.  I really enjoy that because there are usually stories to be told that I might not have heard before, some of which might even be true !!!

What do you think -- sound like a pretty eventful trip? I think it was. Now you know why I put together a spreadsheet -- to keep it orderly. 

So, other than all the windshield time (which is really pretty boring for Pam), it was a pretty rewarding trip. In fact, we might be making another one in October as one of Jim and Amanda's boys is planning a wedding some time that month.

I don't know if you could go to a travel agent and ask for a trip to include all these kinds of things for only $0.28 per mile (or $127 per day, depending on how you want to look at it). So, given that, I don't think the next trip will be any problem.

There is no such thing as a bad road trip, only inappropriate clothing and not enough shoes.

Hooah

Good golly, Miss Dolly... (Part 1 of 2)

About a month ago, I took a big ole dip into the bucket list bucket and came up with an interesting thing -- "Go to Dollywood."  Never been there before, so I thought, "what the heck," let's do this.  I spent a day running down motel reservations and tickets for the park and the dinner show and putting together an agenda.  Since our visit was after Labor Day, the park was closed on Tuesdays.  I kinda screwed up and got the motel reservations before looking at the dates for the park.  Oh well, that part of the country is beautiful so there had to be things to do. We were in it for four days, so let's go see what we can get into.

With that in mind, Pam and I packed our bags and off we went.  The drive wasn't too bad -- I-40 all the way.  There was one section in the mountains, however, that would be really dicey in fog or the winter, but it was a pretty easy 4-hour drive in September.  On the way, we came across the factory where they make Bush's Baked Beans.  Might have to stop there next time.

Our first day was pretty much devoted to sight seeing in the area.  The pictures below were views from our hotel.  Big mountains -- Smokey Mountains.

We had heard that Sevierville, TN, which was Dolly's birth place, was worth a look so we drove up there and looked around.  Didn't see much -- probably not looking in the right places.  We did, however, see this statue of Dolly in the downtown area.

We also spent some time driving up in the Smoky Mountains.  We stopped at the visitor's center/ranger's offices and checked it out.  I found a couple of interesting books there -- Bear in the Back Seat I and II,  Adventures of a Wildlife Ranger,  written by Kim DeLozier and Carolyn Jourdan.  Good books, funny stories and amazing look into the life of a wildlife ranger in the Smoky Mountains. We then drove up the parkway a bit and came across a trail that looked inviting.  I wish I had read the books and DeLozier's advice about bears before going off on a hike.  Fortunately we only saw birds and falling leaves.

We spent our evening at a place called "The Island." It is a really "island" located in the downtown area, just off the main drag.  It has really neat shops, great restaurants (including a Paula Deen's restaurant, which was a super dining place), and a spectacular water fountain that shoots up water choreographed to music.  At night, it is also a water/light display and lots of people sit around in rocking chairs.

(This picture will be replaced by a video as soon as I remember how to do that 😀)

So, that was the first part of this particular road trip.  So far, so good.

 

When I'm inspired, I get excited because I can't wait to see what I'll come up with next. (Dolly Parton)

 

Hooah

Trip #14, can you believe that ...

Well, I am now rested up from our most recent "Man Trip."  This is the 14th trip we have done; not all with the same guys -- some have died, some are too old, some have abandoned their golf game, COVID has put some on the bench -- but 14 years none the less.

Team Picture from 2021 (Trip #14)

 

We did a marathon this year, playing 27 holes three days in a row and then 18 on the last day!! Pros don't even do that much, or at least at our age.  Most of the players are now in their late 60s or early-to-mid-70s, and that's not their score.  As has been the case for the past few years, we played a nice course at Mt. Pilot, NC (not too far from Pilot Mountain and Mt. Airy) called Pilot Knob.  As is also a tradition, we finished the trip with a team picture.  Check out this group of par busters above.

Don't know how many more years these trips will continue -- might try for 20!  Group is already committed to next year's trip.  Pretty hard core.

Now that this year is over, I think of all the guys who have been on one of these.  My thoughts always go back to the first groups, especially Dave, Chuck, and Dave.  Yep -- that was a good group.

FYI -- here are two of the earliest pictures from the very beginning.  

The very first trip, 2007, checking in at front desk (l-r) Chuck, me, Dave.

Getting ready to tee off on first hole, 2008 (l-r) me, Dave M., Dave B., Chuck.

 

Just a side note -- the two Daves are both left-handers, so Chuck and I had to go get some mental counseling after playing with them.  They were never on the same side of the fairway as we were, and sometimes not even in the same fairway.  Challenging, but great fun and lots of laughs.

These golf trips are kinda like class reunions.  Nobody quite looks the same as they did when we started them, or even like they did on the last trip, but the fact that we are there is all that matters.  We swap new and old stories, probably eat and drink too much, but nobody cares. Our golf isn't that great, but nobody cares about that either. It all boils down to having 12 friends getting together to play a game.  You don't hear of that very often anymore, especially doing it for a whole week.  

I look forward to this every year.  We used to play in March, but the weather and the courses were not very hospitable then, especially as we got up in age. So, we switched to the fall and really enjoy the NC climate then. I guess now you could call us "The boys of Fall."

Looking forward to next year.  Hope everyone stays healthy.

From exercise keen, from strength active and bold,
We traverse the green, and forget to grow old...
("The Golfer's Garland" of the Blackheath Golf Club, 1700s)

Hooah

Doing our thing ...(again)...

You know, being centrally located in the state of North Carolina gives us so many options to take fun, exciting and informative day trips.  The trip last week (Hillsborough) was one example, and this week we took two trips, one to Blowing Rock, NC and one to Durham to take in a Bulls baseball game.

First, was Blowing Rock.  The temperatures had been so hot here this week (3 days in a row with temps. of 93-96 w/heat index of 106 - yikes!!), we decided we would get out of Dodge for the day.  The beaches were going to be pretty hot (and probably crowded) so we looked to the mountains where the temps were a bit better. There was a 40% chance of rain all day there, but weathermen are wrong so often that we decided to take a chance and go anyway.  Glad we did.  

There was a little drizzle as we got closer and the Blue Ridge Parkway was really socked in with fog, but once we got to the town itself, it was nice the whole 6 hours we were there and it was a sunny drive all the way home. It's funny -- we've been there three times now and still haven't made it all the way down Main Street, let alone any of the side streets.  We got half way this time -- making progress. We also told ourselves that on the next visit we would stay over night.  Found a pretty nice place (Mountainaire Inn and Log Cabins) located on the edge of the main drag.  It has parking and secluded cabins.  It's only a short walk to Main Street, but the way it is built and laid out, it appears to be out in the mountains. 

Having lunch at the Mellow Mushroom.

 

So the very next day, June 30th, we took in a Durham Bulls baseball game.  Probably could have picked a better day, but we had great seats.  The ball park is very nice, easy to get to and has a nice area around it. We'll be taking in more games as the season progresses.  The Bulls are leading their division and playing some pretty good ball. 

One thing we found out about the stadium is that cash is not accepted anywhere.  You swipe a card to park and all concessions are cards only. I guess it's OK, but can you spell "hack." Maybe I'm just too old!!

Well, now we're making plans for a trip to the beach -- maybe a longer stay.  Beach is so relaxing.  Also, making plans for our next man trip for golfing.  That's coming up in September.

"Travel and change of place (pace) impart new vigor to the mind." (Seneca)

Hooah

Short trip to Carolina Beach ...

One of the big pluses to making this move to North Carolina, aside from being close to Doug, Danika and the kids, is the proximity to the ocean and the numerous beaches.  They are pretty much within a 3-4 hour drive, with some as close as 2 hours.  Not a bad drive at all.  Just hope the coastal storms and the hurricanes don't have too much of an impact over here.

So, now that the Covid crap is over, we feel unencumbered in making day trips and maybe even longer ones.  So, with a pretty good weather forecast for the next week, we thought we would check out the Carolina Beach, an area we had heard so much about from our neighbors and relatives.  Since it was still early season (school still in session) and other people were still not quite ready to venture out, we were able to get hotel reservations at the Hampton Inn on the beach.  Our bags are packed -- lets head out.  Just have to remember that most shops and eating places are closed on Tuesdays.  Don't know if it is because they can't get help or what (lots of them are also closed on Mondays.)

This is a really nice beach.  Just a short walk down the boardwalk and there it is.   (Click on this link for a short video of the beach).  Beach picture 

We took several pictures from our balcony overlooking the hotel decking area, and several shots down the boardwalks.  I wasn't all that impressed with the boardwalk area, but the beach and the hotel facilities more than made up for it.

 

We found some really good places to eat -- one on the boardwalk and one pretty nice place called Freddies.  It was a really small place, no outdoor dining like lots of the beach places, but the food was really good and servings were very large.  No excuse to go away feeling hungry. 

So, what else did we do there -- well, they were actually shooting a movie on the island, just down from the hotel.  It was a teenagers movie (some beach thing -- not like the Beach Boys or Annette F.).  We drove down past it but they weren't shooting at that time.  It was a night beach scene -- hmmmm.

We also drove down the beach to visit the aquarium that was there and then visited a place called Fort Fisher, which was a Confederate fort keeping the port of Wilmington open for blockade-runners supplying necessary goods to the Confederate armies that were inland. It was overcome by Federal troops in January 1865.  

This picture shows the mounds where the gun emplacements were.  They really had a commanding view of the river and the ocean from there.  One other nice thing about Fort Fisher is that there is an Air Force campgrounds there which has camping spaces and cabins which can be rented out by service members. 

So that's pretty much our three day trip to Carolina Beach.  Great time and looking forward to doing this again some time.  We have 3 or 4 more beaches that are on our list to visit so we hope the summer weather holds up for us.

Click on this link to see more pictures of this area.  Additional pictures of the visit to Carolina Beach.

 On these trips, the only worry you should have is if the tide is going to reach your chair.  

Hooah

Daytrip to Hillsborough, NC ...

 I have mentioned in previous entries that Pam and I plan to take bunches of day trips around our new home state.  We "kinda, sorta" started doing this last year, but COVID really put a damper on things.  Shops, restaurants, and even pretty much entire towns were shut down.  We quickly discovered that a general rule around here is that most places are closed on Tuesdays .  Hmmm. 

Anything that was open required a mask or two over your face.  We really weren't up for that, so it kinda shut down the vast majority of our planned outings.  Even then we wondered how many smaller shops and places to eat in small towns would survive.  

Well, we got our first taste of daytripping without COVID restrictions. We decided to go back to Hillsborough, NC and see if it was opened back up.  This was a risk, as that town is pretty widely known as a liberal hangout, so we really didn't know what was in store for us. We'd pack a mask just in case!

Got there and it was a mixed bag of what was open and what wasn't.  As we walked up and down the streets of the "downtown" area, we noticed lots of political statements on the store fronts and in the flags flying from light poles.  Oh well, didn't plan on spending a lot of time or money there anyway.  One place that really got my attention though was the old cemetery behind the Methodist church.  

Pam and I walked among the tombstones, looking at the born/died dates and the epitaphs -- I am always fascinated by those things.  We had been there for a little while when we came across the grave site of William Hooper. We probably wouldn't have paid any special attention to him or his stone if we hadn't noticed the sign at the head of the rather large slab.  William Hooper was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Now this isn't something you run into every day.

Hooper's signature is to the immediate left of John Hancock's at the top of the second column.

I have read that the original group of signers to the Declaration of Independence faced multiple death threats for many years from British loyalists.  Their businesses were ruined and their lives were very hard from that point on.  Hooper was a lawyer, so I wonder what happened to his practice and what he went through.  Well, anyway, before we left, I thanked Mr. Hooper and told him, "Well done."

OK.  So following that part of the visit, we walked by a very nice section of old, historical homes and came across a very nice looking Inn and B&B.  It featured several rooms in the main house and an attached section of guest suites (see second picture).  There was also a very nice dining room on the first floor of the main house.  Unfortunately they did not begin serving until 4:00.  Knowing traffic would be the pits on the way home at that time of day, we decided to pass.  Maybe another day.

Pam was really looking forward to having the salmon they featured on their menu.  Again, they weren't serving yet -- but no worry.  My sweetie wants fish for dinner, I'll make sure she gets some.  We stopped at McDonalds on the way home and each had fish sandwiches !!! I really know how to take care of her, right!

Oh, one more thing.  We checked the GPS for food places on the way home and came across an interesting diner, so we thought we would try it out and maybe get lucky.  After all, Charles Kuralt used to do this on the back roads of the country all the time.  Guess what --  it was closed!  Oh well, Mickey-D has always been a good fallback.  (Not this time -- the fish sandwiches were many hours old and the fries were cold!) Oh well ..........

Overall, it was a great day.  Out in the sunshine, no doggone masks, a couple of really interesting "finds" and a day together with my sweetie!! Doesn't get any better than this.

For more pictures of this day trip, click on this link: Day trip to Hillsborough, NC pictures

“Live with no excuses and travel with no regrets”  (Oscar Wilde)

Hooah

What a trip ...

Well, it was Memorial Day weekend 2021 and we have not been back to visit friends in Ohio for over a year and a half, so we decided it was time for a road trip :-).  

This would be a very busy trip, so we decided we had better do some careful planning.  We also decided that we had better put this down on some sort of agenda so we would be sure to get all of the things we wanted to do done and not leave anyone or anything out. I brushed up my Excel skills and created a spreadsheet of days, times, places and people we would visit on the trip, and it really came in handy and enabled us to make this a very stress-free excursion. We even managed to squeeze in a bonus visit with my old buddy, Dave M. and his wife ;-).

So rather than making this an extremely long entry, I am going to put in some links to some of the places we visited so you can look them up if you wish.

To begin with, we established certain "must do/see" things and then built in everything else around those items.  The trip was planned for five days "on site" and two days of traveling. We got everything on the spreadsheet and checked our reservations and decided this was doable. Charles Kuralt didn't have anything on us (I suspect lots of you will have to look up Charles Kuralt to understand this reference)!

The complete list of "must do/see" items included a visit with our sister-in-law (Mary), some of our old neighbors and friends, Dylan S's graduation party, lunches with family members, church and breakfast with Warren T. (old WWII friend who just turned 95-years-old), me playing golf with my old golfing gang at the Shelby Oaks Golf Course, playing cards one evening with some old Veteran/VFW friends at the Sidney Veterans Center, driving around our original home town (Zanesville, home of the Y-bridge , Zane Grey and Tom's Ice Cream Bowl ), and dinner with my old Sergeant-Major (Dave B.) and his wife.

The trip consisted of 1,228 "travel" miles and another 200 or so miles of "in and around" miles.  So I figured we drove just around 1,500 miles +/- with gas being generally $2.89 per gallon, and stayed in hotels for 4 nights (gotta build up those loyalty points and cash-back bucks for later trips!).  BUT IT WAS CERTAINLY WORTH IT!!!

I have included a link to a few pictures (forgot to take more pictures than we could have -- getting old and forgetful apparantly). Roadtrip to Ohio 2021 !!

This COVID year has certainly been a trying time for all of us.  Things you used to do, people you used to see, places you used to go  -- all of that was pretty much taken away from us, even more so being seperated by 500+ miles.  Zoom and Facetime only go so far, so this trip really hit the spot.  Sometimes, visiting people (live) is all the therapy we need.

They say travel can leave you speechless but then turns you into a storyteller.  This certainly was the case here with us -- we had great stories to tell, old stories to retell, and notes for future stories not yet told.  

Hooah

"Band of Brothers Adventure" Day 9 -- (The Eagle's Nest) ...

Have you heard the song that has this line, "I'm sittin' on top of the world"?  Well, that is how we were to finish our tour -- visiting the Eagle's Nest, located on top of the Bavarian Alps.  This was Hitler's birthday present from Hermann Göring.  Built high in the Bavarian Alps, it was not one of Hitler's favorite places.

After Adolf Hitler took his own life on April 30, 1945, and Soviet forces captured Berlin on May 2, only one prize remained for the Allies: Berchtesgaden, the town near Adolf Hitler's mountaintop retreat, the Obersalzberg (Eagle's Nest), where many of the highest-ranking Nazi leaders had homes.

It was visited on 14 documented instances by Adolf Hitler, who disliked the location due to his fear of heights, the risk of bad weather, and the thin mountain air. Today it is open seasonally as a restaurant, beer garden, and tourist site.

In the HBO series, Band of Brothers, viewers get a good look at the site.  But, until one visits it personally, the actual height in the alps, the road and path up to it, the tunnels, all the underground support systems, the anti-aircraft guns built into the side of the mountain go unseen.  What a place.  I have included links to my pictures, and links to other sources of information, but again, these don't fully give you a full  appreciation for this place.

 

This little path led from the building to a cross shown below.  In order to get up to it, one had to walk up a pretty steep path that dropped off on both sides.  Get too careless and you might not stop until you got to the bottom of the mountain. The view from here was spectacular.

The flower on this cross is the edelweiss.  It was a sign of manhood, the soldier had to climb up to where the edelweiss grows and pick his flower to prove he had made the accent. Also it was the badge of the Alpine troops.

This is the meeting room.  Now it is used as a dining room for larger groups.  All of the windows overlook the mountains.  Very little of this room has changed from the time it was built.

This fireplace was a gift from Benito Mussolini to Hitler for his birthday. If you click on the picture and enlarge it, you can see inside a cast firebox with pictures sculpted into it.

One of the highlights was having lunch on the terrace which overlooked the mountains and valleys.

What a way to end our trip.  The next morning at 0300 hours, I would fly out of Germany and back to the US.  What a long flight.  But I finally arrived in Columbus, via a lay-over in Boston and met my wife at the airport.  I was really hungry that morning (0230 the next morning) after meeting them, and we stopped at a Wendy's (only thing in Columbus that was open). Imagine, eating at the Eagle's Nest overlooking the Bavarian Alps on one day, and at a Wendy's the next. Hmmmmm.

My pictures of the Eagle's Nest

Other pictures of the Eagle's Nest (Shutterstock) 

Background to Hitler's Eagle's Nest by Rick Steves

Easy Company Soldiers sitting on the patio at the Eagle's Nest.

"In thinking back on the days of Easy Company, I'm treasuring my remark to a grandson who asked, 'Grandpa, were you a hero in the war?'
No,'" I answered, 'but I served in a company of heroes.” (Dick Winters)

Hooah