Day Thirty - From Bethlehem to Home Sweet Home

When Mary Frances's phone alarm went off this morning (for the third time) we struggled to rise, looked around us, and at first wondered, as we have for weeks, which Marriott property we were waking up in this time.

But this felt different.  Today would be the final leg of our adventure, culminating in our arrival at home, after an 8520-mile journey, across the country and back.

This was the Google map, but we decided we'd been diagonally across
Connecticut as many times as we ever wish to, and opted to take the NY
Thruway north to the New England connector, and the Massachusetts
Turnpike.  According to to Michelle, our GPS voice who has recently earned
my ire on several occasions, the alternate route only cost us an extra twelve
minutes.  And we avoided the Tappan Zee bridge, some gawdawful traffic, and
several alternatives which all pass through my unfavorite place--Danbury, CT.

Crossing the Hudson River on the newly-painted bridge next to the rusty railroad bridge.

 Here are some signs we've seen on this adventure:

We've seen this sign in both directions.  Some folks think New York is one
big city; in fact, it has some of the most beautiful countryside as well.

In some places a really lovely state, but Rick Santorum screws that up.

We've got kids and grandkids here, so Ohio is an important state to us.

There's lots that's beautiful in central Kentucky, and lots that's ugly on the ends.

The home of Nashville, probably the easiest place to find things going on.

Truck weigh stations, Jesus Saves signs, and adult superstores, what
else could anyone ask for?  Oh yeah, the big arch.

What's not to like about Nebraska?  It's got Omaha, Warren Buffett, the
Sand Hills, and miles and miles and miles and...

True, but it doesn't happen until you're 150 miles into the state.  Before that, it's
just an extension of Nebraska, but with poorer roads.  Our second son lives here.

As we said again and again on our 2010 blog, this is a beautiful state.  But
the northern part is nothing like the beautiful bottom part.  Mary Frances
enjoyed the Bonneville Salt Flats, though, and has a salt-ball to prove it.

You come here for the gambling (if you can afford it) and the cat houses (if
you're up to it and can afford it) but not for the scenery.

California should probably be a country unto itself.  It's the sixth largest
economy in the world.  But there are three things wonderful about the
state:  the redwoods & sequoias, napa & sonoma valleys, and the Pacific Coast
Highway.  Aside from those, cut it loose.  Met up with some great family here.

We've seen the Grand Canyon, so no mention here.  Southwest: hot.
North Central: beautiful.  Northeast:  Hot, Navajos, institutional poverty.

Western third to Albuquerque:  Magnificent.  East central two-thirds:  Ugly.

Friends and family in Texas.  Good thing; otherwise I wouldn't spend
another minute here.  Never seen so many two-lane, two-way roads at 75 mph.

Turned out to be a very pretty state, but for us just a lot of miles between
Fort Worth and Memphis.

Wait a minute--haven't we seen this before?  Yep,  twenty-one days ago.

This started out curvy and beautiful, sort of like my bride.  A lovely state.

From North Carolina northward is some beautiful driving if you avoid
Interstate 95.  Through the fattest part of Virginia it's many hours to I-81.

The place where Virginia, West Virginia and Maryland intersect is
weird, but I'm sure there's some interesting history behind it, and if I
weren't so tired after more than 8,000 miles on the road, I'd look it up.

For about seventeen miles.  But old home week for Mary Frances, who's
spent lots of time in this area for FEMA.

Yeah, we've done this.  It was three weeks ago...

...as was this one.

But this was the sign we were looking for today.  Fact is, there aren't many
places more beautiful, or places where we could be understood at first try.

All right, touring the country by car and staying in hotels the entire way (except for time with relatives and friends--my cousin Genie and our friends Ronnee and Steve Bienstock) could be very expensive, if it weren't for our using rewards points gained over years of FEMA deployments.

Anyway, we spent $1041.29 on gas, which for 8520 miles works out to 12 cents a mile, somewhat better than 30 miles per gallon.  Not bad for averaging 80 mph across most of the country.  (Come get me, coppers!)

We spent $135.30 at McDonald's highway stops, nearly all of which was for caramel iced coffees.  As guilty as we might feel about supporting that evil empire taking advantage of minimum wage employees, those iced coffees may have saved our lives, keeping us refreshed and awake.  I wish Burger King had better coffee, but...yuck.

The biggie was food.  OK, we're not into starvation, or even being sensible when we're on the road.  So we spent $2315.68, most just on us, for restaurants in the evening, which sounds like $77.19 per day, which homeless folks might consider excessive, and OK, probably was a bit excessive.  But, remember, I'm considered a big tipper, so it wasn't quite that bad.

We didn't spend much on hotels:  $445.89.  That's because of the points gathered for Hilton and Marriott points mentioned earlier.  If we're going to do this again in a couple of years, we're going to have to deploy for FEMA a lot in the interim.  Bummer.

For attractions we handed over $729.78. That got us into three presidential libraries, three Triple-A ballgames, the Biltmore Estate, a bus tour of San Francisco, the St. Louis Arch, the Ohio Railroad Museum, and a bunch of other stuff we've forgotten, but we can always refresh our memories in this blog.

We spent $302.51 on gifts, and lost about $150 gambling--not too bad considering we stopped at four different casinos.

Altogether, just a tad under $5000 for a month of touring the United States.  Lots cheaper than a cruise.  My wife is still speaking to me.  I'd do it again in a minute.

Well, maybe in a year.

Thanks to all of you who have followed us on this adventure.  We plan more of them in the future.

Day Twenty-nine - Durham to Bethlehem

Like the three wise guys, we traveled a long way to get to Bethlehem.  Experience told us that Interstate 95 through Richmond and Washington, DC, was a good way to be found by future archaeologists, mummified in one's car, waiting for traffic jams to break.  That route would take seven hours if those hazards were imaginary, but they're not.  An alternative was to take a somewhat different route, west of I-95 through the back roads of North Carolina and Virginia, before accessing the highways of West Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania.  That route, according to Michelle, our GPS guide (from whom I am estranged, by the way) would take about an hour longer.  Small price to pay.

This is no straight line, but it made straight sense.

It was one of our smarter decisions.  The routes north through North Carolina and Virginia, west of I-95, are beautiful and pleasant to drive.  Whether we saved time or not, well worth the drive.

Wherever there are utility lines along the roadsides in North Carolina
and Virginia, the trees are trimmed to form a wall--and they're taller than
the ones we're used to.

Typical of the pleasant, mostly empty roads that take you northward at 55 miles
per hour instead of leaving you parked in a 65 mph zone on I-90.

We didn't plan an intermediate stop on this leg of our adventure.  But we did need some lunch, and I noticed a roadside sign on Route 81 in Maryland for The Tilted Kilt, Pub and Grill.  A burger and a beer are just what the old boy needed, so after navigating the mall parking lot, we found it.  It's a bit like Hooters, but a tad quieter, with nicer costumes (kilts 10-1/4" high--just a guess, honestly--and little tartan teacup brassiere tops, and I'd better stop here.)  The food was great, featuring Big Arse Burgers in several varieties.  Best of all, it's the only pub I've been in that has Dos Equis Amber on tap.

Some old guy going into The Tilted Kilt in Hagerstown, Maryland.  (Actually,
coming out--that's why the smile.)

 

Back on the road, the corn at several large farms is about two feet high.
Yesterday, in eastern Tennessee or Western North Carolina, we had seen
some four or five feet high, and the day before that in Arkansas, some
six feet high that was tassled.

 

Once we had left the charm of North Carolina and Virginia back roads, this
is the kind of scene we saw most.  If the amount of freight being shipped
coast to coast is an indicator of how healthy business is--and I believe that
it is--our country is in pretty good shape.

This license plate would appeal to our son Arthur, whose nickname (a gift
from his siblings) is Barf.

This is the umpty-umpth oversize load we passed on this adventure.  We
have no idea what this object is, but the truck is covered with radiation tags.

OK, this is our last night on the road.  With luck, we'll arrive home tomorrow afternoon and complete this adventure.  What better way to spend our last night on the road than wasting cash in our fourth Casino:

We had been to the Sands in Bethlehem once before, but it has improved,
and we came away not nearly as poor as we might have expected.

This has been a wonderful trip.  Most of that is due to the Job-like patience of my bride and companion, and the fact that she brought her iPad to earn three stars at Mahjong whenever the scenery or I, or both, became too boring.

Tomorrow, home.  Wow.  From our perspective, going home is an adventure.

Day Twenty-eight - Knoxville to Durham

From Knoxville to Durham doesn't sound like very far.  It's only 337 miles, after all, and we've had legs of this adventure 100, 200 and 250 miles longer.  But these are beautiful states, at least from a New Englander's perspective, with trees, and curves (lots and lots of curves when you get into North Carolina.) And there are no 75 and 80 mph speed limits here.

Into North Carolina and the "Triangle" formed by Durham, Raleigh and Chapel
Hill; an area that holds great hope for the ultimate blueness of North Carolina.

And there are things to see.  One of them is one of the most popular attractions anywhere, The Biltmore Estate in Asheville.  Neither of us had been there, and many friends had raved about it, so we decided to make a stop.  The scenery alone takes one's breath away:

This is the view George Vanderbilt saw each morning from his second-story
veranda.

Mary Frances listening to her audio tour device.  These cost an additional
ten dollars, after a forty-five dollar visitor ticket.

Biltmore doesn't allow pictures inside, so ours are here
on the veranda and the exterior photos below.

Mount Pisgah and the Smokies range.

Three stories, no elevator to the third floor.  Extra albuterol today.  And hot.

Mary Frances and one of the twin Biltmore lions.

Arboretum across the drive from the Biltmore mansion.

The greenhouse and gardens.

More of the same.

And still more.

With all the rooms and stories at the Mansion, hunger set in, so, still on the Biltmore property, we decided to have lunch at The Antler Hill Bistro.  We knew when we walked in and saw seven chefs and two greeters that lunch wasn't going to be cheap.  But it was interesting, and consisted of fare neither of us had experienced before.  For me, a raw trout appetizer and cauliflower soup; and for Mary Frances:

Okay, it's gauche to take pictures of your food, but those orange
things are beets, and the little corpses are bacon.  In the
background, French onion soup and focaccia bread

 Outside the bistro, this lilac-like tree stopped us:

The flowers are white with red spots; I'm sure one of our
readers will provide an identification.

 After Biltmore, it was back on the road.  We had tickets bought in May for a game tonight featuring the Durham Bulls versus the Indianapolis Indians, and now time was a potential issue, as was rain.

The exit sign is for Old Fort, but Mary Frances thought it said Old Fart,
wondering why a town had been named after me.

North Carolina has planted lots of day lilies on its roadways. Lots and lots.

 After checking into the Courtyard in Durham, we had little problem getting to the Durham Bulls Athletic Park in time for the game.  Well, that's not quite true.  Michelle (you know, our GPS voice) tried to screw it up as best she could, and I contributed by making a U-turn on a one-way street.  We saw a huge picture of a bull on the side of a building on the correct street and thought it was the ball park.  So we parked the car in a fifteen-minute parking spot on the street and began to walk, only to learn that the ball park was another three long blocks away.  Somewhere in the back of our minds the possibility of coming back to a ticket, or better yet an empty spot where our car used to be, rose to consciousness occasionally, but we persevered, and saw a pretty good ballgame between two pretty good triple-A teams.

If a batter hits the bull over the left field wall, he gets a free steak.  If he
hits the grass under the bull, he gets free salad.  Damn, I love triple-A.

 

A pretty nice ball park; not quite in a league with the Nashville
Sounds park, but a pleasant downtown venue with great hot dogs.

 

The National Anthem...

Sung by a young lady who'll probably also remain in triple-A.

 

The mascot Wool-E-Bull.

What's not to like about triple-A Baseball.  The between innings activities involving kids or the community; the fans who know these guys from the street, the players who are good enough or almost good enough for the Major Leagues, or the Major Leaguers whose skills have eroded a bit.  Always entertaining.

We have traveled the same roadway, Route I-30 which then morphed into I-40 somewhere east of Nashville, for longer than any other one on this adventure, some 1220 miles starting in Fort Worth. Tomorrow we'll leave this road to turn  northward, and end up only a single leg from home.

It has been a wonderful trip on which we have met family on four occasions, friends on three occasions--two of them unplanned!--three presidential museums, three triple-A baseball games, the Pacific Coast Highway, the Bonneville Salt Flats, beautiful and not so beautiful scenery.  Would we do this again?  Well, let's rest a bit, first.

A long drive to Bethlehem, PA, planned for tomorrow.  For tonight, some sleep.