2010 Cross Country Trip: August 1-8

After 12,000 miles; 59 days; 58 nights; 199 meals; 31 different hotels; 7 national parks; 7 days, 16 hours, 19 minutes of driving and 31 states we are home. Our last few days were spent in Tennessee, North Carolina and Virginia.


After Lynne got back from seeing Elvis at Grace Land, we headed for downtown Memphis music scene and The National Civil Rights Museum where Martin Luther was assassinated. Being Sunday and 102 degrees, we mostly had the street to ourselves.

As we headed towards Nashville, we stopped at Andrews Jackson’s home and toured the grounds. This was his first house before he killed off all the Native Americans and became president.

Opryland was still being repaired from the May flood which turned out to be a plus for us since we enjoyed downtown Nashville. We ate at the Broadway bar and listened to the locals play music.

As we headed home by taking Virginia’s Shenandoah Skyline Drive, Lynne got into the car, yet, one more

 time.

2010 Cross Country Trip: July 5-31

We are in Memphis, TN and Lynne is off to see Elvis at Grace Land. Elvis not being my thing and not wanting to walk around with the heat index at 106, I decided to update our blog today.

Our stay in the Grand Canyon at the El Tovar Hotel was very enjoyable. However, our hiking was limited. My leg swelled up from a fall on the top of Pikes Peak. I can recommend the North Country Healthcare Clinic at Grand Canyon in case you are in the need of medical attention. After a checkup and antibiotics, we left the Grand Canyon for Williams, AZ.

What happened at Pikes Peak? Lynne wanted to take a picture of me next to the Pikes Peak summit sign. While stepping up on the rock platform, I held the camera in my right hand and the tripod in my left. After my next step, I feel onto the rock causing a bloody left shin and knee. All the while, I held the camera in the air to prevent any damage.

Williams, AZ turned out to be a gem of a small town on Route 66 where some locals staged a gun fight. Thecowboy wanted 2 bucks for Lynne’s ransom. But I told him that I was broke from my North Country Healthcare Clinic visit.

On the way from Williams to Phoenix, we stopped at Sedona and Jerome. We were not shopping for trinkets or artwork and also, we decided not to hike in the hills surrounding Sedona. Unfortunately, we found the city too commercialized and moved onto Jerome, an intriguing old mining town that we liked very much.

After visiting friends for a few days in Phoenix, we were off to Los Angeles for a ten day visit. We attended a conference on Jewish Genealogy and visited my daughter, Vikki. We stopped for gas at Chiriaco Summit, CA in the middle of nowhere where we discovered the General George S. Patton Memorial Museum to commemorate his training camp in the CA desert during WWII.

The significance of our visit to the Queen Mary at Long Beach, CA is my cruise from New York to Cherbourg, France in 1963. That was my first trip to Europe.

We started our trip back east from Los Angeles. Our first stop was Yosemite National Park which turned out not to be so great. After spending a half a day driving thru the park on roads that were under construction, we arrived at the Wawona Hotel in Yosemite. This place dates back to 1901. While it is supposed to be a charm of place, the temperature in our bedroom as well as outside was 99 degrees. We had an inside room with no ventilation other than a fan in the window which faced the hallway and just circulated the hot air. Not wanting to spend another night here, we headed for Lake Tahoe in Nevada.

As we continued northeast towards Yellowstone National Park, our stay in Park City, Utah was a good days rest from driving. This restaurant may not look like much, but we had a great meal here.

Our stay at the Lake Yellowstone Hotel was one our better eating experiences and I would say not typical of the rest of the places to stay in the Park. While we got to see the Old Faithful Geyser and other geysers along with the wild life, most of our time was spent driving from one part of the park to another. This is one place where you really need a week if you want to hike and see the wildlife.

Our stay in Rapid City, South Dakota to visit Mt. Rushmore and the Crazy Horse Memorial was relaxing as we were only 45 minutes from both. We were more impressed by the Crazy Horse Memorial than Mt. Rushmore.

We spent the next few days driving on US90 heading east towards St. Louis, MO and seeing a thousand of miles of corn fields. We stopped at the Corn Palace, SD but this was a bust, as we could not even get corn-on-the-cob. We finally settled for popcorn which tasted very good. In fact, none of the restaurants sold cooked corn-on-the-cob. I guess that corn is the last food that the locals want to see during meal time.

In St. Louis, MO our car was service for its 75,000 mile maintenance having already driven 10.000 on this trip. Early in the morning, before the downpour, we had time to visit the Arch and its museum. Later, we returned to our unique hotel room in Union Station to watch rain. This was the first real major rainfall since New Orleans.

‘A RUNNER’ and ‘RUNNER’ Meet in Yellowstone Park

What are the odds that you would see a New York State license plate in Yellowstone National Park, pretty low? What are the odd that you would see two New York State license plates with the lettering ‘RUNNER’ in Yellowstone National Park, next to mothering. Well it happen to us as we leaving the Lake Yellowstone Hotel on our drive to Rapid City, SD to visit Crazy Horse Memorial and Mount Rushmore.
As we pulled into the only gas station in the area, I notice about five motorcycles and their riders off to the side. I was about the get out of the car, and one of the riders came up to my window and said “follow me”. At first I was not sure what he was up to, but I followed him over to his motorcycle. He pointed for me to look at the license plate. There it was, a NY plate with the lettering ‘RUNNER’.
Bob Kraft was from Buffalo, NY and got the plate three months ago. Thirty years ago, when I applied for my plate ‘RUNNER’ it was taken so I got ‘A RUNNER’. As he headed south and me east, we had this photo moment.

2010 Cross Country Trip: June 8-30 and July 1-3

Our trip is going well and the driving has been very easy as the roads are empty and the only traffic we have hit was in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area. Road construction has always been in the east direction, so we have avoided delays there. Expect for some rain in New Orleans, we have had great clear weather, maybe a little hot at times, but at least bearable.

We enjoyed Richmond and toured some Civil War battle fields.

While it was very hot we did walk around old Charleston and found it charming. We also visited the oldest continuous plantation.

We also managed a few hours at Cape Kenney

Lynne loved touring the French Quarter in New Orleans,

and then we headed up to Vicksburg for some more Civil War history.

On our way to Santa Fee, we took a quick stop in Oklahoma City

Shopping in Santa Fee,

and Colorado Springs. We took the cog railway up Pikes Peak, but were a little disappointed with the view and the idea that the cog railway almost pulls into the gift summit house

but did get tosome other places

We stayed two nights in Zion Park and all I heard from Lynne was WOW WOW WOW.

I guess we are outdoor type people, because Lynne and I did not like Las Vegas very much. I had been there before, and knew what to expect. We did take in the Cirque du Soleil - Love The Beatles show and enjoyed it very much, but did not even play a slot machine. While in Las Vegas, we did visit a cousin who I had not seen since 1950.

Lynne and Allan’s 2010 Cross Country Trip: June 11 – August 8, 2010

While on our last trip around the world, Lynne turned to me and remarked that she has not visited many of the wonderful places in our own country. So, we planned a 58 day cross country drive which will take us to many of our national parks and unique cities. Along the way, we will also visit relatives and friends whom we have not seen in along time.

Visiting New England and upstate New York – May 1-10, 2010

Not letting an opportunity go by while attending a two day photography workflow course in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, I decide to make a solo drive after the course. I needed to meet Lynne in Rochester, New York for her grandchild’s 1st Communion, the twins’ 1st birthday and Mother’s Day, so I planned a drive that would take me to Mount Washington, New Hampshire; Lake Placid, New York and finely to Rochester.

The photography classroom course was great as it was almost one-on-one with only three of us. I had met the instructor, Jerry Monkman, when he led a Mount Washington Observatory overnight winter photography trip that I attended. Too bad I can’t say that for the outdoor shoots for sunset and sunrise, as it was a very overcast weekend.

Not being a custom to getting up at 4 a.m., and heading for the Portsmouth’s coast line for the sunrise, I was not in the sharpest mode. I set up my camera and tripod and waited for the sun to come up. After a while, while taking shots of the water hitting the rocks, I turned to Jerry and asked when is the sun coming up? He replied, “It has been up for an hour.”

For those of you who don’t remember the first week in May, it was a hot one, but not for me. At Mount Washington, I stayed at Joe Dodge Lodge, Pinkham Notch and headed up early in the morning hopping to see some sun hitting the mountains.

The trek, 2.4 miles up to HoJo's (the caretaker’s cabin) just above the Hermit Lake Shelters was a snowy one for me. Again, I was plagued by overcast skies and light rain at times.

The drive across to Lake Placid was pleasant as there was no traffic. Since the Lake Champlain Bridge which spanned the state line between Crown Point, New York and Chimney Point, Vermont had been taken down, I used the free ferry service so that broke up the driving.

Again, I was plagued by overcast skies and adding to the grim day, I could see that Lake Placid village had seen better days during the Winter Olympics of 1932 and 1980.

Rochester lived up to its reputation as the weather turned cold and we even had snow flurries for Mother’s Day. We did manage to walk out to the west pier lighthouse at Genesee, Lake Ontario.

Thailand

Tuesday night, we are at our Hotel in Thailand after being on 3 planes and airports for a total of 19 hours of flying and a 3 hour drive to our hotel in Cha-am on the Gulf of Thailand. We arrived with one less piece of luggage, mine. It left Paris on an Air France flight that is arriving tomorrow.

I am convinced that the Air France Lounge Agent with whom I had an argument had some hand in getting even with me. I guess it is like a restaurant “do not” where you don’t argue with your waiter if you don’t want your food tainted. You can add airport agents to this list of do not’s. Lynne’s luggage arrived with our plane. While my bag with a PRIORITY luggage tag arrived at 8pm the following day, with my cigars!

Wednesday, it is sunny about 95 with a warm breeze, a very large pool and gulf swimming. We are on the 18th floor with our own deck overlooking the Gulf of Thailand. In this hotel, there are mostly Germans. When it comes to communicating, they speak English in both the hotel as well as in the Cha Am village.

Our hotel in Chia-am is right on the beach and looks like a Miami setting with high rise hotels and condos along the Gulf of Thailand but they are well separated by at least 1/8 mile.

The street behind the hotels is a little low key village with cheap Thai restaurants, custom clothing stores, trinket shops and other essentials for the locals. I am “shrimp” out and we have not had western food since being here.

Thursday-Friday, this place is relaxing and Lynne loves it. It was only 103 in the sun today, but we stay at the pool having drinks at the pool bar where the seats are in the water.
Saturday, we did a little touring to the Phr Nakhon Khiri palace

and the Floating Market in Damnoen Saduak.
Sunday, so we headed for the big city for a change of scene. We going north to Bangkok for the remainder of our trip. So we will be in Bangkok until Wednesday, the 11th and arrive home on the same day. We had originally intended in staying in Chia-am but too much sun, beach and pool.

Monday, we did a lot of walking since it was Makha Bucha a Buddhist holiday in Thailand. We walked to the Golden Mount,

The Democracy Monument

and the Wat (Temple) Ratchanatdaram Worawihan.

While it was only 2.1km (1.3 miles), Lynne thought she had just done a marathon with the swept dripping from shirt, but at we treated ourselves at The Democracy Monument, where we ate a very upscale Thai restaurant which cost only $30. Needles to say we took a taxi back to the hotel. While we took a metered taxi which means the meter is not working once you get in, so I negotiated a price of 200bht which was another experience since the cost of the trip went up 100bht at our destination, but I only paid him the original negotiated price of 200bht.

Tuesday, we drove to the River Kwai where the Japanese built the infamous bridge with prisoners of war labor during WWII. We visited the War Cemetery at Kanchanaburi which was very moving.

Then on the banks of the River Kwai, we visited a war museum showing how bad the prisoners was treated and how the area has developed into a memorial. Next we took a fifteen minute boat to the “Bridge on the River Kwai” that was depicted in the named movie but is not the bridge the Japanese actually built which was bombed 1945.

The area is very touristy and built up, so it is hard to imagine what it looked like 68 years ago as a desolate river bank. From here we took a one and half hour train ride towards Burma where the scenery is mostly sugar cane, pineapple and tapioca farms.

This is the same railroad the Japanese built, but modernized and again very touristy. Other then the scenery, the train passed through several prisons of war camps and we got of where there is a cave with a Buddha in side.

Wednesday, we went shopping and are heading home today.