Catching up on the last week!

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Today I planned to drive to Oklahoma City, OK. It’s 680 miles from Arvada. I modified my route to N.C. a bit so I could stop by the OK City Memorial. The drive took me through most of Kansas – no offense to Kansas folks – but it isn’t worth stopping. Lots of flat, hay fields and that’s it. Good new was there was very little traffic so I was able to drive at about 70 MPH the entire way. It took me 11 hours to get to OKC and I figured since it’s a big town, I could find a café downtown, have a bite and park overnight. Well – that didn’t happen. Seems the memorial which I found easily is in almost a industrial- like area of downtown. The streets were empty at 7:30 PM. I didn’t find anything but office buildings, the state capital and empty store fronts for several blocks. I drove around a bit and still found that I was in the wrong part of town. So, I drove back toward the memorial and found a spot outside a local Firefighter union building and parked it. No hanging with the locals tonight!

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

I was up and at the OK City Memorial early this morning – fortunately I was the only one there for about 30 minutes so I was able to get photos of the memorial before people began crowding in. It’s the most moving memorial I’ve ever seen – inside and out. The outside has the reflection pond and 163 chairs – one for each of the people who lost their lives in the explosion. The museum is a great tribute to those that died and the hundreds who survived and helped during the chaos. There are videos that show parents looking for their kids, strangers carrying each other out of the building over broken glass and the fire and rescue personnel risking their lives to search what was left of the unstable structure for survivors. I could have stayed there for hours listening to the stories of the tragedies and the miracles. After the memorial, I headed for Memphis, TN – I had lived in Nashville for 2 years back in 1989 and 1990 so I knew Beale St was the place to stop in Memphis. It’s still the best place for blues. There were about 200 motorcycles parked along the 3 blocks – seems that Wednesdays are Bike Nights and proud owners show off their hardware. Pretty impressive sight! I found my was to the Big Ass Beer and Peel and Eat Shrimp and listened to a fine female blues singer, Barbara Blue. Bought her CD and called it a night.

Thursday, October 4, 2007

Another long day in the car but I wanted to make it to North Carolina. I stopped just south of Winston-Salem for the night.

Friday, October 5, 2007

I took off early and made it to Aunt Pat’s house in Cary, N.C., around 11:00 am. Cary is a small but growing town made up mainly of transplanted New Englanders. Lot’s of folks from NY and NJ have relocated for a ‘family’ style neighborhood, less traffic and better weather. I took it easy today since I was road weary and wanted to get up early to see my 7 yr old cousin play baseball in the morning.

Saturday, October 6, 2007

Up early and at the ball field to watch Derek (yes, named after Jeter) play baseball. No T, no funky pitching. At 7, these kids are pitching and hitting. Pretty impressive. Derek’s dad (my older cousin Tony) coaches the team and seems to me although they don’t keep score, our team won! After Aunt Pat got hit in the shin with a foul ball, (ouch), we had breakfast and went to see the rest of the family – Angela (Tony’s wife) and my other cousin Jillian. See photos of these cute kids! We played soccer, baseball and computer games – wahoo!

Sunday, October 7, 2007

Aunt Pat and I drove about 5 hours to Elizabeth City to see a small (very small) Ansel Adams exhibit on our way to the Outer Banks. The Banks is a very thin strip of land just off the coast of N.C. Not sure how many miles but we drove about 20 miles of it and stayed for two nights. We had terrific weather – about 85 degrees – I swam in the ocean twice and did a little sun bathing. We went shopping, drove by the Kitty Hawk memorial and enjoyed the sights.

Monday – Tuesday October 8-9, 2007
If you’ve never seen several hundred, 4500 square foot plus, $5 million dollar homes in one spot, the OBX is the place. These homes are so big, you need 3 families to fill them for a week’s vacation. I heard they rent for about $10,000 a week! Right on the ocean or the sound, great views and lots of beautiful beach. More sunbathing and swimming then on Tuesday we took a tour of the northern shore which is only accessible by 4wd. Our mission was to find the wild horses that have taken over about 14 miles of the beach. There are actually homes out here too – again, they are enormous and only accessible by 4wd. About 250 locals live out there year ‘round, but mostly these homes are rented. By the way, if you’re thinking of buying one of these babies – don’t plan on getting any hurricane insurance – if you have beach front property, insurance is unavailable. You and your $5,000,000 are out of luck! As for luck, we were lucky enough to see almost a dozen wild horses on our sand dune excursion. These horses mingle among the million dollar homes and graze as they please. They are a sight though. Worth the trip if you go.

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

We prepped for me to get back on the road: cleaned out the RV, the frige, got 4 new back tires (preventative), and pedicures and manicures! (Gotta have some fun right?) After chocolate shakes for lunch….I said we had fun, didn’t I? We picked up the kids for one last run – homework, pizza, icecream, baths and bed. We were beat by the end of the day! I don’t know how you parents do it!

Thursday, October 11, 2007

Around 9:00 am I took off for D.C. I had booked a camp ground for two nights and wanted to get in before dark. There wasn’t much traffic so I made it by 3:00 and settled in. I’ve been able to catch up on e-mail, upload photos and plan my tour of D.C. for tomorrow. Stay tuned!