50 States in 57 Years!

 

I have been a little slow in catching you all up on our Hawaii trip and where we are now, but time just flew by and I caught a cold that has me feeling miserable.  I am not well yet but I cannot put this off any longer, so let me get you caught up.

As you know we scheduled a family trip to Hawaii for the middle of September.  This was to celebrate Fran and I being married for 35 years and for both of us to complete our journey of seeing all 50 states in our lifetime.  For me that means it took close to 58 years to do and for Fran it took (not going there) years.  The interesting thing about this is that since we have been doing “Life on the Road” we will have actually completed the 50 state journey in just under 5 years based on our current plan for next year.  We have 5 states left to visit since we began our RV lifestyle and then Hawaii was just a couple of weeks ago. 

Back to Hawaii.  For those of you international travelers I do not know how you do it.  We had to fly 2 hours from Knoxville to Dallas, layover for 3 hours, then fly 8 1/2 hours into Honolulu.  Besides the flight time, Hawaii is 6 hours behind in time zone from Knoxville.  It was a killer for me.  I woke up everyday at 3:30am, but fortunately was able to stay up to a reasonable hour in the evenings.

Our first stop was Honolulu for 3 days.  We stayed at the Hilton Hawaiian Village which is very large complex right on the ocean.  It was nice but obviously very pricey to eat and drink there.  The location made for a nice walk into the shopping district of Waikiki or along the beach towards Diamondhead.

Our arrival at the Honolulu airport

First afternoon and evening was for getting caught up with our daughter and son-in-law from Portland who had arrived a few hours earlier.  We walked on the beach and had a nice family dinner at the hotel. 

Sunday morning I ended up at the bar at 7:00am, because that is when NFL football starts, to have bloody mary’s.  I was eventually joined by the rest of the family as the drink specials were fantastic.  I became a hit with the bartender as all these women (my family) would show up and I would say put their drink on my tab.  Finally when everyone was there he said I was a lucky man and took a picture for us.

Sunday evening we went to a Luau at Paradise Cove.  It was a great evening that included activities, entertainment, food and drinks.  Plus they picked us up and dropped us off at our hotel. 

The ceremony to remove the pig that is cooking in the ground.

Sunset at the Luau.

Monday morning was our bus tour of Honolulu and to go to the Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor.  Very moving to see the memorial and the names on the wall.  Great tour of the city through the Punchbowl Cemetery and a stop at the famous King Kammmmmmmmm….(sorry can’t spell it) statue.

Arizona Memorial on boat ride over.

The wall with the names of those that died.

Statue of the king.

Monday night we walked to the shopping district of Waikiki to have dinner at the Yard House.  Following that 4 of us went to the Royal Hawaiian Hotel to have a Mai Tai as our tour book said this is where it was created.  The bar is outside, right on the beach.  The Mai Tai was fantastic as it should be at $14!

Mai Tai complete with umbrella!

That pretty much ended our Honolulu portion of the trip as we left for Maui on Tuesday afternoon.  Here we had booked two condos on the ocean for all of us to spend 4 days relaxing and exploring the island.  The original booking called for a 1 bedroom condo and a 2 bedroom condo, both with garden view.  When we checked in they had not linked the two bookings and for whatever reason decided to upgrade us (without me making a scene!).  We ended up with a 2 bedroom, 2,000 square foot ocean view room and smaller 2 bedroom condo with an ocean view.  The large condo was amazing.  It had a wrap around deck that gave you ocean views on two sides in the living room.

Living room on the right, master bedroom on the left.  It also had a full kitchen and a dining room that could sit 6 people.  This really made the trip enjoyable.  When I would get up each morning at 3:30am, I would open the sliding glass doors and just listen to the waves.

I will summarize some of the things we did on Maui and then throw in some pictures.  Four of us, with me driving, did the “Road to Hana”.  This is a 60 miles trip that involves driving on very narrow and winding road with many blind curves.  Most people take it to the National Park where the Seven Pools of Wonder are located and then turn back.  I chose to continue on and make it a loop of the other side of Maui, where for many miles the road was just gravel (don’t tell the rental car company), but then meets up with the main highway. 

We explored the town of Lahaina which has many shops and restaurants.  Here is where we tried a Shave Ice at Ulelani’s.  It was amazing.  It was much more than a snocone!!

Fran and Kim took a surf lesson and had a great time.  Fran, Kelly, Katie and Tyler did some snorkeling and other beach activities.

We had dinner at the Sheraton Maui outside at sunset to see the cliff divers and then some of us went on to the Pineapple Grill to have pineapple upside down cake.

Here are some pictures:

Kim surfing!

Sunset from our balcony

The banyan tree in Lahaina.  This is all one tree!

Tyler relaxing at the Maui airport.

  Black sand beach near Hana

Katie and Tyler

Kim and Kelly

What a great trip, except for air travel!  We got to spend it with our family which made it even more special.

Ok, so what is up next.  We are what I will call the wedding march.  We have two weddings to attend in October.  The first is in Kansas City and the second is 2 weeks later in Palm Springs, so we are ON THE ROAD!  The next month will be a familiar route we have taken many times with stops at many of the same places.  First up was a stop in Nashville to visit with our friends the Sherwood’s.  Presently we are in West Memphis, AR at our favorite RV park on the Mississippi River.  This weekend we head to Springfield, Missouri and then into the Kansas City area.

Route:  From Knoxville just put us on Interstate 40 until Arizona where we will cut through the state to Interstate 10 into Palm Springs.

Aloha!

Quick Catch Up

 

We are 5 weeks into our summer hiatus so I thought I would give you a quick update to let you know we are still around. 

We are still in Knoxville and will be until the 25th of September.  Here are some of the highlights of the past 5 weeks:

Knoxville Open golf tournament – This was our second time visiting this tournament, which is a stop on the Web.com tour.  My nephew is friends with the president of the title sponsor so we get access to the hospitality areas which is very nice on a hot afternoon.  We had a great time walking the course and watching the golfers. 

Meeting pro golfer – Three days before the start of the golf tournament a motorhome pulled into the space next to us.  That day the gentleman from the motorhome set up a golf net outside.  I thought it was a little strange as I had never seen anyone do that at an RV park in the past.  I saw him practicing and then leave with his clubs.  It was the next day, when I learned the tournament was in town, that I thought maybe our neighbor was a participant.  On Thursday, the first day of the tournament, I saw him outside and struck up a conversation.  I was correct!  His name is Jarrod Lyle and he is a PGA tour professional who is working on getting his golf game back on track after a fight with leukemia.  He travels to events in his motorhome so that he can bring his family with him (wife and young daughter) and be more comfortable during the tournament.  We had a great conversation over the next couple of days, as he did not make the cut to play on the weekend.  Never know who you will meet “On the Road”!

Special events – we celebrated our YOUNGEST daughters 27th birthday!!!! and our 35 wedding anniversary this past month.  We are actually going to properly celebrate our anniversary with a family trip to Hawaii on the 13th.

Knoxville Art Museum – we visited the art museum in town which was very nice.  For me it was just the right size!  It features works from Knoxville artists which is a nice touch.  For me, the neatest exhibit was a rendering of the Mona Lisa made out of spools of thread that looked like the real painting when viewed threw a magnified ball placed in front of the work.  Hard to explain but when you see it you sort of just stand there and say “how did the artist do that?”  Here is a picture of it I found on Google:

  It is hanging on the wall upside down.  It is about 4 feet wide by 8 feet tall with the spools on wire chain.  The glass ball is about 4 feet in front of the work and presents the image right side up in the ball.

NASCAR Bristol race – Many of you know that I am a NASCAR fan and that my nephew and I use to have season tickets for the Bristol races.  For four years I would bring my trailer to Knoxville and meet up with my nephew and then go onto Bristol, Tennessee (about 90 miles north of Knoxville) where we would camp in the yard of a house near the Bristol track.  We stopped in 2010 because the track had been changed and the racing was not as interesting plus we were living on the road and it was a little more difficult to get back to the area during the race weekends.  So, during this trip I though it would be fun for my nephew and I to go to the mid-week truck race at the track.  It is a shorter night race and not very crowded so it is easier to get in and get out.  We parked our car at the house where we camped and caught up with the owners then went to the race.  Unfortunately the weather did not cooperate and we only got to see the opening race of modified cars and not the truck race, which was postponed to the next afternoon.  We still had great time seeing the track and how much the area has changed since we first visited it 20 years ago.

Boomsday – Here in Knoxville there is big celebration on Labor Day weekend called Boomsday.  The big event is the fireworks on the weekend.  As we did last year we went to view the fireworks with my nephew and his family on their boat.  It makes for a great viewing, from the water, and it is less crowded to get there and get out via boat.  This year the fireworks were cut a little short as a thunderstorm arrived just towards the end.  The storm was not much of an issue and we were able to safely drive the boat back to the marina. 

Next up is our Hawaii trip and then we leave to begin our trip to the west coast.

Blog Summer Hiatus

 

We are now at that point of the year where we stop in Knoxville for a couple of months which means the blog posts will take a break.  I really don’t want to give you reruns!

BUT, before I take a break with my blog let me get you caught up with our last two stops.  In my last blog I told you we had arrived at Helen, Georgia where we spent a week.  It is a nice little town in the mountains of North Georgia.  What they did about 40 years ago was reinvent themselves as an alpine town to attract tourists, which they have succeeded at.  The buildings in the main part of the small town are all done in the alpine/Bavarian style and the signs, foods and some shops have a German influence.  Besides walking the shops of the town it appears the big draw is tubing down the little river that runs through the town  For $3 to $5 you can take a 2 hour tube ride down a slow moving river (really a small stream).  We viewed this activity while having lunch overlooking the stream and I could see the potential problems for adults, the stream is very low and there are a lot of rocks.  We decided to take the trip the next day and I was right, it is difficult for a larger person.  I kept getting stuck and it was very difficult to try and get out of the tube!  In some places the stream does not move very fast and a traffic jam quickly ensues as there are many people on the river.  If the stream was a little deeper all over it would have been more enjoyable, for me.  Fran enjoyed it, except for my constant complaining!!!

Here are some pictures from the town.

They built this mini-waterfalls along the walkway going to the shops.

  You can make out a tuber in the stream, and can see the big rocks.

The RV park was quite interesting.  There are two parks just about next to each other.  One charges over $50 per night, which is way over priced for the area.  The other one, where we stayed charges $22 per night.  The both got about the same reviews except that the more expensive one had concrete slabs for their RV spaces.  The interesting thing about our RV park, in talking with the owner, is that it appears he does not really care about getting customers.  The park is dated and a little run down but the space we had was a huge pull through with trees but still allowed me to use our satellite dish.  After a weekly discount and camping club discount it worked out to $17 per night for full hook ups.  He does have about half the park occupied with permanent residents.  While we were there for the week he got 4 other campers like us. 

From Helen, Georgia we drove to Asheville, North Carolina staying just outside in Candler.  We are here for a week, leaving tomorrow (Tuesday).  The highlight was our two daughters, who live in Knoxville drove over the weekend to go sightseeing with us.  Our middle daughter, Kelly, turned 30 last week so this was somewhat of a birthday celebration.  She enjoys beer, as opposed to the rest of the family who enjoy wine, so since Asheville has a large number of craft breweries we figured it was a good place for her.  We took a van tour of 3 breweries on Saturday afternoon which was very fun.  They explain the brewing process and then let you taste (actually drink as much as you want while there!) 3 to 4 of their beers.  Following the tour we visited another brew pub that was next door to where we were dropped off.  From there we finished the day by having some wine, and beer, on the patio at the Grove Park Inn watching the sunset.

One of the tasting rooms we visited.

On the patio at the Grove Park Inn

Sunset view from our table.

On Sunday we visited the Biltmore Estate which is a huge attraction for the town.  Not sure if it still is, but at one time it was the largest home in the United States.  It was built back in the early 1900’s by one the heirs to the Vanderbilt fortune.  It is an amazing tour to take of the house and the grounds, which also includes free wine tasting at their estate winery.

Prior to the arrival of our daughters, Fran and I took a trip to nearby Chimney Rock State Park, which was privately owned until just a few years ago.  It is a large granite formation that gives you a fantastic view of the area.  Fortunately they have installed an elevator to take you to the top, otherwise you have to climb something like 500 steps.

  Chimney Rock from the parking lot.

  This is a view of the top of Chimney Rock and you can see the view in the background.

Also on the grounds is a 444 foot waterfall that is a short hike away.

The next day we took a trolley tour of the town which gave us a great overview of the city. 

  Part of the tour takes you through the historic part of town where there are many restored homes.

  This is a picture of the original part of the Grove Park Inn.

We had a great week and enjoyed the visit with our daughters.

Route:  From Helen,, Georgia we took US 23 north to Interstate 40 east into Candler, North Carolina.  From Candler we took Interstate 40 west to US 321 into Lenoir City, Tennessee.

North Carolina, South Carolina and now Georgia

When I last wrote we were just arriving in Marston, North Carolina, which is near Pinehurst and where we were meeting up with Fran’s former boss and a couple of co-workers for the July 4th weekend.
We had a great time visiting with our friends and lounging around their pool.  The highlight of the weekend for me was playing one of the Pinehurst golf courses.  If you are a golf fan then you know that the U.S. Open men’s and women’s tournament was just held here on course number 2.  As my skills are not up to that level, and number 2 is closed for repairs, we played number 3.  This is a much shorter course and more in line with how I play.  I have not played in many months, and generally do not play 18 holes, so this was a challenge for me.  Although I did not shoot below 100, I did play the entire 18 holes on one ball, so I take that as a major accomplishment.  It was a beautiful day for golf and I had a great time.  Following golf we met up with the rest of our group for lunch on the patio of the Pinehurst clubhouse, which overlooks the 18th green of course number 2.
Here are some pictures of our visit with our friends:
  It is 5 o’clock somewhere!
Fran and her former co-workers
  The whole group.

While in the area we took a drive to Fayetteville, where Fort Bragg is located, to see the Airborne and Special Forces Museum.  We actually visited two museums as there is an 82nd Airborne museum on the base and a much nicer, and larger, Airborne museum in downtown Fayetteville.  While at the 82nd museum we ran into “Larry the Cable Guy” who was visiting.  Not sure what his visit was all about but he had a large entourage which included local TV news crews.
Here are pictures from the nicer Airborne museum in downtown Fayetteville:
Entrance area
  Vietnam helicopter exhibit.
This museum is free and the exhibits are just fantastic as they are life size visuals of equipment and events.


We had a great visit with our friends.  After Pinehurst we moved on to Roebuck, South Carolina, which is just outside of Spartanburg.  While here we caught up on our chores but did take a drive into nearby Greenville, South Carolina.  What a beautiful city.  It has a very nice restored Main Street that is tree lined with many shops and restaurants.  They also have a small historic district and a beautiful park, Falls Park, in the downtown area  We stopped to walk through the park and then have lunch at a French bistro that overlooks the falls.
The falls at Falls Park
They have a walking bridge, Liberty Bridge, in the park that is a curved suspension bridge.  Pretty cool!
Lunch at the bistro,
We have now moved to Helen, Georgia, which is in the mountains of north Georgia.  We will be here for a week.
Route: From Marston we picked up US 1 to US 74 to Interstate 485 to Interstate 85 into Roebuck, South Carolina.  From Roebuck we took Interstate 85 to highway 17 into Helen, Georgia.

Yoder, Yoder and Yoder!

 

From Michigan we headed into the Amish country, Holmes County, of Ohio.  According to what I read this area has the highest concentration of Amish.  It did not seem as touristy as Lancaster County in Pennsylvania which we visited last year, but the area is just as busy.  Forget trying to drive around on Friday or Saturday as the roads are clogged.  All the roads are two lanes and are shared with Amish buggies so it can be slow going.  We strolled through Berlin, Ohio which has shops and a couple of restaurants.  We drove the countryside to see Lehman’s Hardware and Heini’s Cheese Shop.  I highly recommend Heini’s to just “graze” the aisles to sample all the cheeses!

It was nice place to visit but it was very rainy during our stay.  In fact the county was under a flood warning the entire time we were there.  It has been a long time since we have seen rain come down so heavy. 

From Ohio we moved to Max Meadows, Virginia, which is near Wytheville.  This was just a weekend stop over on our way to Pinehurst, North Carolina.  The funny thing was that in planning the route I was just looking for something decent in between our stop in Ohio and our destination in North Carolina.  I found this RV park that had good reviews in Max Meadows.  When we got off the interstate to get to the park it was déjà vu.  I immediately told Fran this all looks familiar and as we approached the park she and I both said we recognized it and had been here before.  Sure enough I checked our calendar and we had stopped here about a year ago, just for one night, on our way to Knoxville after our east coast swing last year. 

We have now arrived in Marston, North Carolina which is about 20 miles from Pinehurst where we are meeting with Fran’s old boss and some of her former co-workers for the July 4th weekend.

 

Route:  From Millersburg, Ohio we took Highway 39 east to Interstate 77 south into Max Meadows, Virginia (near Wytheville).  From Max Meadows we took Interstate 77 south to Interstate 74 to Highway 211 to Highway 15/501 to Marston, North Carolina.

Leaving Michigan

 

I last left you while we were in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  We left there a week ago and moved to Traverse City, Michigan for a few days.  Traverse City is a beautiful town on a bay of Lake Michigan.  It has very vibrant and popular downtown area.  We spent Saturday morning at their farmer’s market, walking Front Street and then having lunch at the Grand Traverse Pie Company.  We took pieces of pie home for later (very good).

Besides seeing Traverse City the reason we stopped in this area was to see Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.  It is about 30 miles from Traverse City and has some of the largest sand dunes in the US on the shore of the lake.  They have it set up nicely with a scenic drive through the park with overlooks to see the dunes.

Hard to tell but this is looking straight down from the overlook.  This dune is 400 feet tall.  There are actually people down at the bottom.  Some are walking back up on the dark line you see in the center of the picture.

View of the lake through the trees at the top of the dune.

From Traverse City we made a stop in Ionia, Michigan which is about 30 miles east of Grand Rapids.  The purpose of this stop was to visit the Gerald Ford Presidential Museum.  This is the 11th of the 13 Presidential Libraries that I have visited.  Very beautiful museum (his actual papers (library) are in Ann Arbor), and very informative considering he was only President for a couple of years.

We have now moved into the Amish country of Ohio.

Route:  From Munising, Michigan we took Highway 28 east to Interstate 75 south to Highway 31 south to Highway 131 south into Traverse City.  From Traverse City to Ionia we took Highway 131 south to Interstate 96 east to Ionia.

Yooperland!

 

This past 4 days we were in the Upper Peninsula (locally called “yooper”) of Michigan.  We had driven through this area many years ago when we were on an RV trip from Sault Ste. Marie to Door County, Wisconsin, but we never stopped.  In looking through our 1000 places to see book it had an entry for the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.  It sounded just beautiful so it has been on our list of places to stop.  We were not disappointed.

There were not many choices for RV parks in the area, Munising, Michigan,  but all the reviews pointed to one park that was right on the lake.  The problem was trying to get reservations for a site big enough for us and for a few days.  The park is really popular.  Luckily I found an opening for 3 nights during the week.  Our spot backed right up to the lake.

The downside was the mosquitos were out in force.  It was nightly ritual to try and find all of them in the trailer before we went to sleep. 

On Wednesday we saw a portion of the park, walked the town and picked up some Pasties (pronounced “past-tee”) for dinner  They are a local delicacy made of dough stuffed with various fillings.  We tried the veggie, beef and chicken ones, although they do have fruit filled ones.  They were not bad.

The only way to see the rocks, which are high cliffs on the lake, is to take a boat ride up the coast.  The rocks have many colors in them due to the minerals and water is constantly seeping out so it looks like an artists canvas.  Since the cliffs face west the best time to see them is at sunset as the sun is low in the sky and hit the cliffs at a great angle.  They offer a sunset cruise but since we are so far north, sunset is not until 9:40pm!.  Our cruise started at 7:15pm and lasted until 9:45pm.

The views were spectacular as was the weather.

The start of the cliffs.  The cliffs are made of sandstone, so they are very soft.  With the water action many caves are formed.

Starting to see some of the colors beginning to show.

Huge rocks that have broken off.

Interesting rock formation

The colors

Sunset

For our second day we drove the entire park to the town of Grand Marais.  One of the stops in the park is the Log Slide.  This is where, back in the 1800’s, loggers had set up a log chute on the sand dunes to send the logs down to the lake and waiting boats.  What is great is that you can actually slide down the dunes, if you want.  The Park Service has a big warning sign telling people to be careful as help is a long way off and to remember it takes only 5 minutes to make it to the bottom and more than 90 minutes to get back up!

Fran at the top of the log slide with the lake in the distance.

A view of the sand dunes, where the slide is.

On Friday the wind really picked up overnight and by morning it was creating 2 to 3 foot waves on the lake.  I was concerned with the creaking tree over our trailer and how hard it would be to drive the highway so we quickly packed up and drove off at 8:30am.  Once we got on the highway, which is inland, the wind was not a problem until we got to the Mackinac Bridge where we had to take it slow to get over the straits.

We are now in Traverse City, Michigan for the weekend.

Route: From Butternut, Wisconsin we took highway 13 north to highway 77 east to highway 28 east into Munising, Michigan.