Day 33 June 30

Hello and Goodby to Happy Trail Followers,

We left Placerville around nine this morning and had an uneventful drive home. The weather was beautiful and it was also wonderful to be back in the Bay area. Alameda managed to survive without us…the house was fine, a monster pile of mail awaited us and the cat is driving us crazy.

We spent the day relaxing and unpacking. It truly is nice to be home.

Dear readers, this will complete the Happy Trails blog. This has proven to be a great way to keep in touch and to share our experiences.

P.S. --How far did we travel in the last month?  Here are the numbers:

Miles traveled:
--From home to West Virginia and on to Birmingham, Alabama:           4,908 miles

--From Birmingham on to New Orleans, and on to Denver and home:   4,225 miles

                                                                                    Total:             9,133 miles

Number of states visited: 23

Thanks for your comments and remember, there’s no place like home…but happy trails to all.  And in that spirit, here is a link you may enjoy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcYsO890YJY

Until we meet again, Linda and Richard

Day 32 June 29

Hello All,

I can’t believe this is our last day of this vacation. Tomorrow we go home to Alameda. I’m anxious to see our cat, friends and routines.

We had a wonderful day with Elizabeth.  As we had hoped, she maxed her TEAS test (unlike in the good old days, results become available in hours rather than weeks). We’ll hope for the best on her plans for her career possibilites.

We drove a few miles to Apple Hill and bought locally made/grown ingredients for dinner:  Gravenstein apple sauce, rosemary and garlic bread, just picked corn, and an apple pie. This followed a trip to a butcher shop where we bought a local tri-tip in the shop’s own Wild Turkey-based marinade. It was nice to do some home cooking and it all tasted as good as it sounds.

Almost Home,

Linda and Richard

Day 31 June 28

Dear Followers and Friends,

It is wonderful to be in California. The drive from Reno to Placerville was like a familiar old friend.  We exited I80 at Auburn and then had a wild ride over California 49 along the American River canyon, past Cool, Cal., the gold discovery site in Coloma and then on to Placerville.  It was a bit overcast and we heard that it was raining in the Bay Area and we thought it might start at any time.

We got Elizabeth’s place in time to see her for a couple of hours and off she went to take her nursing school admission test (the “TEAS” test).

When John and Elizabeth got home, it was pouring rain. A Thai restaurant had just opened in Placerville, so we went there for dinner and to celebrate Elizabeth’s completion of the test. The food was great and quite a change from the restaurant food available on the road during our month travelling.

Looking forward to home again,

Linda and Richard

Day 30 June 27

Hi Everyone,

We left Ely behind today and headed out to complete our drive along the

Loneliest Road....Ely had turned out to be more interesting than we had expected with a real “wild-west” look to it. It was once a mining town and stop on the Pony Express and a main wagon road from Salt Lake City to Carson City and California. Small casinos, saloons, old wood front buildings and, a sprinkling of turn of the century houses and a few1940-50's style motels make it an interesting place to poke around for an hour or two. 

 

Highway 50 (and the interstates which now cover some of the old road), which we have followed on and off since St. Joseph, Mo., pretty much follows the Pony Express trail all the way to Sacramento.  With the dry climate of central Nevada the actual trail has been preserved and can be seen in many places next to the highway. It looks just as you would imagine --an old wagon road or trail in the dessert. 

The high desert countryside with snow capped mountains, sage covered basins and the occasional dry lake and salt flat was much more beautiful than we expected. We saw a bit more traffic around Ely and then again as we neared the turn off to Sparks and Reno, but it was still very quiet along most of the route. You could stop next to the highway and not see another car for half an hour. A few lonely settlements are the only sign of civilization for miles and miles of highway.

We entered the town of Austin (it’s just about right in the middle of Nevada) and noticed it was holding a Serbian Festival. It was a very small place, again full of wild-west style buildings and beautiful old graveyard which had very elaborate tombstones. I’d love to find out the history of this place. Since it is an old mining town we guessed that many of the miners were Serbian, as you will also find in some of the California Gold Rush towns.

Just past Fallon, we left the old Highway 50 route (which heads over to Carson City) and headed instead towards Reno. We got a great rate for good room at the El Dorado…can’t say we saved a lot though after other “expenses” that evening in the casino. The city itself seemed almost deserted. Of course, it was a Monday with a holiday coming next week-end but even so Reno seems to have been hard hit by the current economy and, perhaps, high gas prices.

We had a wonderful Italian dinner at the La Strada restaurant in the El Dorado Hotel. Our waiter was from Cloverdale (Sonoma county, north of San Francisco) and is attending the University of Nevada, Reno and majoring in Political Science.

We will be on our way to Placerville tomorrow. I’m anxious to see Elizabeth and John.

Until then, Linda and Richard 

Day 29 June 26

Greetings to All,

Yesterday we got a preview of the spectacular scenery along Interstate 70 west of Denver.  Many years ago we had been through the area between Denver and Grand Junction and it would be hard to equal the rugged forested slopes and mountain passes of that section of the Rockies.  But today’s trip, with completely different countryside, was equally amazing.  Not only were the views of mesas, canyons, bizarre rock formations, rushing river rapids (the upper Colorado) and mountains stunning but the wonderful four lane “freeway”  itself is a beautiful engineering achievement --and so easy to drive.

Once we crossed Utah and reached Salina, we left the Interstate and began our remaining journey on US 50, one of the historic routes that first connected the east and west of our country.  Richard has wanted to travel this part of 50 for sometime, intrigued by its repute as the “

Loneliest Road

in America.”  As of tonight we are only beginning the truly empty part of the trip even though we pass perhaps a dozen cars during our trip of several hours from southeast Utah to Ely, Nevada.  It really is lonely and beautiful as well.

Ely is a small crossroads town but is a very comfortable spot to stay the night. I kind of hate to leave the room, it is so comfy, but—this is Nevada, after all.  I might want to try my luck this evening.

Tomorrow we will complete the

Loneliest Road

and return to some semblance of civilization.

Almost Home,

Linda and Richard

Day 28 June 25

Hello Dear Readers,

We managed to leave early in the morning and headed west on I70. The scenery became more and more spectacular the higher we climbed into the Rockies. We had decided to stop in an historic silver mining town named Georgetown.  The town is located in one of many areas that had been the focus of prospecting for gold, silver and other minerals that had started in the Rockies about 10 years after the California gold rush.  As might be expected, many of the small towns that haven’t been turned into ski resorts have a strong resemblance to our own California cold country. 

Georgetown is at the bottom of the Georgetown Loop Railroad that runs from the town of Silver Plume where we had decided to trade our car board the train for a few hours trip down and back up the mountain. It was an incredible adventure…the temperature was perfect and the steam train was fun. By the way, according to the conductor, this steam mine train (which must use switchbacks to negotiate steep terrain) is the only one which does not use tunnels to do so. Consequently, the view is always spectacular, following a rushing river and crossing high over the cascade on an iron bridge just above Georgetown.

After our train adventure, we drove through the beautiful front range of the Rockies, which still have a great deal of snow, and eventually reached the dryer west side of the range and a vast area of mesas straight out of a wild west movie. What a contrast and what a gorgeous sight. We spent the night in Grand Junction.

I had decided we should economize when selecting a motel and found a rather run-down-looking Super 8. The room was OK, but when I tried to find an electrical outlet and moved a small table, there was a dispenser of rat poison!! I did not sleep well that night.

Sleep tight,

Linda and Richard

Day 27 June 24

Hello Blog Readers,

This was the second of two pretty low-energy days.  When we get back I think we will need a day or two to restore our usual level of stamina. We left Colby and continued on across the great plains toward Denver and the Rockies. When we got to Aurora, a suburb of Denver, we stopped to get maps, tour information needed for the remainder of the trip at the local AAA office and found a motel for the night.

Richard took a few hours to visit his old haunts from 25 or 30 years ago when he spent many months working with the pilots of Frontier Airlines (an early casualty of deregulation) in Denver. Since those days, the old airport has closed and is being redeveloped as a new community, “Central Park West.”  Denver now has a new airport relocated to what was once open prairie but now is a part of the huge growth of the Denver metropolitan area.  He found the old hotel he had once spent a good part of his working life and and he was also able to relocate the old Air Line Pilots Association office in the Cherry Creek area of Denver.  It was still there but, fittingly enough, is now a liquor store.

We decided to take it easy and had pizza and a good red wine for dinner. We are starting to get a little homesick and hope to make it back by next Thursday.

Hope to See you all soon,

Linda and Richard

Day 26 June 23

Hello Everybody,

We left St. Joseph early this morning, crossing the Missouri River and driving through Kansas. The state seemed to get more monotonous the further we drove.

We are currently staying at a nice motel in Colby, Kansas. We needed to do the laundry so I washed the clothes, but the dryer would not take my quarters (it was broken). The staff took my wet clothes and dried them for me…very accommodating.

Richard and I went to the store to buy some food for dinner. We’re watching old reruns and resting. We hope to get to Denver (4 hours away) fairly early tomorrow.

More Later,

Linda and Richard

Day 25 June 22

Dear Happy Trail Folks,

We had a very relaxing day today. After trying to get caught up on our blogs (endless task) we drove to the St. Joseph Museums.

This town, (St. Joseph) is fantastic and sort of spooky. Driving around yesterday we noticed that many buildings and houses are huge, gothic-looking and made of dark stone. If you stopped and rang the bell the Munster’s might come to the door.

The town is also the home of the Glore Psychiatric Museum located in the somewhat dark and dilapidated buildings of the old Missouri State Lunatic Asylum.  With its huge collection of early psychiatric implements, tools and devices and the actual wards and treatment rooms in which they were used, this was a must see for me.   Among the other museums and places of interest are  a Civil War Medical Museum, the Pony Express Museum and a wonderful collection of plains Indian art and artifacts. Also to be found: the house in which Jesse James was shot and killed (“by that dirty little coward…”),

The Pony Express exhibit had brief biographies and pictures of many of the teenage boys (“Orphans especially encouraged to apply….”) who rode for the Pony Express. Most were local farm and village boys and then a few were originally from England, Ireland, Germany, etc. The route, of course, passed through Laramie, Salt Lake City and hundreds of tiny towns and settlements, ending up passing through Placerville and down to Sacramento.

The big news here (as everywhere in this part of the country) are worries about the levees overflowing—in this case, those on the Missouri River. It looks like Friday may be the crucial day for the river flows but it was time for us to head off into Kansas.

Hope your life is also overflowing

Linda and Richard

Day 24 June 21

Saying good by to Cape Girardeau, we hit the road north again along big muddy towards  St. Louis. A few hours later we were standing on the grounds of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, better known as the site of the Gateway Arch. From close up, the Arch is an awesome and elegant monument celebrating the great migration of America from the east to the west.

Arriving early on a weekday morning, we were able pass through a short line to take the tram to the top. You head down below ground level to board a small capsule which only holds five people. It almost feels like a tiny window-less space capsule (not recommended if you are at all  claustrophobic). The tram moves up the inside of the arch with a lurching start and stop motion.  When it reaches the top of the arch, you disembark and go to look at the views from the top. The views were gorgeous and worth the trip up.

Back at the base under the arch we walked through an excellent National Park museum telling the story of westward expansion using high-tech simulations as well as the more usual museum displays.  Either the Arch or the Museum would be well worth a trip

Back on the road we headed to Hannibal, Missouri to see the town where Mark Twain grew up.

The drive was pleasant and only took a couple of hours. We had lunch in town and then visited a group of several buildings important in Mark Twain’s life including his home and the homes of his childhood friends whom had served as his models for the characters of Becky Thatcher and Huck Finn.  At the Twain museum, among other exhibits we viewed the original oils painted by Norman Rockwell to illustrate various editions of his Twain’s novels.  Many are instantly familiar and have passed into our culture as the image when one thinks of Huck, Tom, Injun Joe, etc.

After about a two and a half hour drive, our last stop for the day was St. Joseph, Mo., headquarters and starting point of the Pony Express. There are several places to see here, so we decided to stay for two nights (we also felt the need for a little extra rest).

Hope you are riding high,

Linda and Richard

Day 23 June 20

We left beautiful Vicksburg and continued to headed north passing through Memphis, Tennesee (home of the late, geat Elvis). We stopped for the night at a charming town, Cape Girardeau, on the Mississippi River.

The town is near the site of a French trading post established in the 1700’s when France still owned all of the vast territory surrounding the Mississippi River. The town later became a major port on the river during the period when paddle wheel steamers provided the main form of transportation west of the Alleghenies.  

We drove to a place near town called the Cape Rock, said to be the site that in about 1733 an adventuresome French soldier, Jean D. Girardot, established the trading post.  It is now a park and has a beautiful overlook of the river, now in full flood and swallowing up areas that would  normally be fields and wooded areas.  From the rocky bluff you can really see the fallen trees and other debris being swept down river. The flooding also continues to damage roads and port facilities along the river and many areas were closed to travel or were being repaired.

The town itself is a typical gorgeous river town: old shops, cafes and dock areas near the river with old houses surrounded by big trees and gardens on bluffs overlooking the twists and turns of the river. We drove around, enjoying the views. The town is protected by a tall concrete levee which unfortunately limits river views when actually next to the river.  The view has been improved by colorful portraits on a "Missouri Wall of Fame."

Hoping your views are beautiful,

Linda and Richard

Day 22 June 19

WOW! Another incredible day. We had offered to drive Trystan to the airport to fly to were getting ready to leave, when she arrived at our door. Trystan asked if her wallet was in our room. I looked, but assured her that I would have noticed if it was there. She had already called Robert, who had left early that morning was driving through northern Florida,  to see if she had left in the car. She was awaiting his call back when we went down to our car to make sure it was not there. It was not…she remembered going with Robert the night before to fill the tank and was sure she must have left it in the car.

Robert called back with a confirmation. Without her wallet and ID she could not board her scheduled flight or check in at Camp Lejeune, a Marine base where she was to report for Coast Guard advanced boat training the next day.

We quickly agreed with Robert that he would turn back and we would start driving toward Florida and meet half-way. We quickly left New Orleans and Trystan called the Government Travel Office for help but after a long wait got little help other than cancelling her existing plane reservations. At any rate, we ended up meeting Robert after about a two hour drive and Trystan headed off to Panama City, Florida where she had located a flight that would get her to Raleigh, N.C. where she could then rent a car to get her to the base on time. (We also gave Robert a gentle reminder that he too had misplaced a few things during his years with us.).

We then drove north toward Hannibal, Mo., where we decided to stop for the day and to visit the Vicksburg Battlefield Military Park. It is a very beautiful but sad place. After visiting the museum and viewing a film about the Vicksburg siege, we bought an audio car tour, which provided a detailed narration of our two hour drive through the park. The Union victory at Vicksburg split the Confederacy in half and along with Gettysburg turn the course of the war against the south.

There were scores of monuments on the battleground in memory of the various units that participated in the battles from May through July of 1863 and the nearly 100,000 soldiers, north and south, who fought there.

We also saw the USS Cairo, which was an iron-clad Union warship that had been sunk during the siege and rediscovered, raised and restored about 50 years ago. I was surprised to learn that the Navy was heavily involved in the Civil War operations this far inland. The ship and museum would have been well worth a trip to Vicksburg on their own merit. All for Tonight,

Linda and Richard

Day 21 June 18

Hello Blog Followers,

We had a breakfast at the hotel. Richard and I decided to spend the morning at the National World War II Museum while Robert and Trystan devoted themselves to other attractions.

The museum is absolutely incredible. As part of the museum, we viewed a very moving film narrated by Tom Hanks called Beyond the Borders. The film was about an hour long and was an IMAX production with motion and other incredible special effects. As we reclined in our seats, real snow fell as we were taken into the battle of the bulge, flack exploded around us as we flew in a bomber over enemy territory, etc. The remainder of the tour can easily last 2  to 3 hours. If I were a history teacher, my students would spend a week at this museum.

 

When we returned to the hotel, Robert, Trystan, Richard and I drove over to Ward Nine to see the areas where levees had broken during Hurricane Katrina. Having read Zeitoun’s great book on the aftermath of the storm, it was extremely interesting. And it is unbelievable how much still needs to be done all this time.

We celebrated Father’s Day on Saturday, because Robert and Trystan had to leave on Sunday. We ate at a great place in a neighborhood a few miles from our hotel. We chose a place that had great local reviews found after a brief on-line search: the Crescent Pie and Sausage Company. It was in a very non-tourist neighborhood, was small, loud and had great food. I think the average age of the patrons went up several years when Richard and I arrived.

We drove back to the hotel and said good night and goodbye. Robert was to leave about 3:30 am the next morning and we would drop off Trystan at the airport three or four hours later.

Happy Trails to All,

Linda and Richard

Day 20 June 17

Dear Readers,

It was a long drive into New Orleans. We stopped for lunch in Gulfport at a local dive called the Blow Fly Inn and had a selection of the local seafood. I wasn’t crazy about the fried catfish (no whiskers!), but everything else was excellent, including the view of the bayou (the restaurant is built on stilts).

Richard had booked rooms at the the St. Charles Inn in the Garden District and we arrived fairly early on Friday. After checking in, we went next door to relax over drinks. This area is beautiful. According to our guidebook, the lush greenery and trees are there as a result of a big flood in the 1800’s which deposited a rich silt on the earth as well as raising the elevation of the area above the normal flood level.

After drinks we took the St. Charles streetcar to the French Quarter. While on the streetcar, I talked to a woman visiting solo from Manhattan about Schwarzenegger and Wiener. As you might imagine we had a few laughs. We were prematurely interrupted when a collision between the streetcar ahead of us and a car forced us to transfer onto a bus for the few more blocks to the French Quarter.

The French Quarter is a true adult Disneyland. It was hot and the streets were closed off to traffic. Music was everywhere and the drinks were flowing. We stopped into a couple of the clubs and heard some great jazz, blues and old time rock n’ roll. Had we been two or three years younger we could have partied all night… what happens in New Orleans stays in New Orleans! Suffice to say, we caught a cab back to the hotel and collapsed into bed.

Nighty-night and Happy Trails,

Linda and Richard