Another one of those three state days!



Sadie doing what she does best...
sniff, sniff, sniff

 Breakfast in Arkansas, lunch in Louisiana and dinner in Texas.  There was a huge rain storm yesterday so we decided to hang out and stay cozy one more night at the Village Creek State Park in Arkansas. We woke up to little snow flakes drifting around so decided to take off. We checked out the top part of Louisiana and headed over to Texas. We are staying at Caddo Lake State Park for the night.


We just talked to our friends, Tim and Stacy, in Oklahoma and have made plans to meet at Ft. Richardson Historical State Park tomorrow evening for dinner. It is a short drive for them. It will be fun to get together again.

Arkansas



Maggie sitting in the Sunshine!



It was a beautiful drive in the sunshine today. We are spending the night in Arkansas at Village Creek State Park . We are on Lake Dunn. We all had a great time sitting in the sun.

We woke up in Tennessee

This quilt is from the 1800's

and had lunch in Alabama and now we are going to sleep in Mississippi.  How about that? We enjoyed our couple of days of a food coma and TV stupor but woke up this morning ready to head em up and move em out! 


Example of Jefferson and
 Palladian architecture


We took a tour at Belle Mont Mansion in Tuscumbia, AL. It is being restored and was very interesting. There are no kitchens in the southern mansions.  All the cooking was done in an outbuilding away from the home.  One of the bedrooms had a lovely compass quilt on loan. 

We stopped early at JP Coleman State Park. It was nice to sit in the warm sunshine in the chilly air and enjoy the view of the Tennessee river. We saw a huge barge going up the river. Maggie and Sadie are enjoying romping through the leaves.

Happy Thanksgiving

We have heard from all our friends and family and all is well.  What a lovely holiday. We are enjoying our food stupor. The little oven in our travel trailer did a wonderful job. I even cooked a sweet potato pie. I am so grateful for all the neat people in our lives!

Jack Daniel's Distillery

in Lynchburg was fun. Surprisingly, it is in a dry county and has a special permit to sell commemorative bottles only. So, no sipping on the Jack Daniel's Distillery tour!  Not like the Olympia Beer Tour we took years ago where we had to take naps in the car before we could continue on our trip. Lynchburg was a pretty little town but we sure didn't have pretty weather.  It rained quite a bit today. 

We have parked for a couple nights at a KOA in Manchester, TN.  The dogs are having a good time in the field behind us. Laton plans on trying out the catch & release pond tomorrow while the tiny turkey is cooking in the oven.  We have all the necessary dishes; stuffing, cranberries, yams, green bean casserole and gravy. We plan on sitting in a food stupor in front of cable TV. We miss our families but I am sure we will talk to everyone and share in their day. I am so thankful we have been able to have this grand adventure touring our wonderful United States of America!

It must be a law

that requires a baptist church every square mile in NC, TN, and KY! I have never seen so many.

Check out Davy! Davy Crockett's (King of the wild frontier) birthplace. It was on a mountain top in Tennessee. It was raining like crazy when we left there today.  We headed up to Kentucky to see what we could see. Bought our Thanksgiving groceries on the way today so we are ready to park for a couple days.  Don't want to travel on Thanksgiving Day.

Green River Lake State Park was hard to find but well worth it.  It is a very nice campground with electric and water, our favorites. lol We saw several deer on the way in. We have decided arriving at o'dark thirty is not our favorite way to end the day. Tough backing into a site in the dark and discovering a flat tire on the trailer did not help it at all.

We left east Tennessee today and will head to west Tennessee and on to Arkansas in the next few days. Anything you think we must see there, please let us know.

Mount Airy, NC



Carrie on Main Street in front of the Snappy Lunch


We got up early and trekked to Mount Airy for breakfast at the Snappy Lunch. Everything we had read said it would be wonderful. We were soooooo disappointed. Andy and Barney were not there and obviously Aunt Bee was not cooking. The food was not good and the service was questionable and they served everything in foam cups, on foam plates with cheap plastic tableware. They gave a song and dance about conserving water, not exactly green of them using foam cups and plates.

Laton in front of Floyd's Barber Shop.
As you can tell, Laton doesn't need a haircut.

The town was very quaint and all the Christmas decorations were up and the Christmas music was playing from the stores. It was all very festive.

We hooked up and got back on the road and have landed at Davy Crockett Birthplace State Park. It is beautiful in the Tennessee Mountains. We are at Limestone, TN next to the Nolichucky River. Yep, sounds just like it is spelled. LOL.

Mayberry RFD

We have landed at Stone Mountain State Park for the night. We did not quite make it out of North Carolina.  We are planning breakfast at Snappy Lunch tomorrow in Mount Airy, NC.  Evidently, Mount Airy is the inspiration for the TV show, Mayberry RFD. I will report back tomorrow.

Kerr Lake, NC

We have landed for the night at Kerr Lake, NC. It is a lovely location, the evening is cool but not cold, the sky is clear and you can hear evening crickets, then bang, bang, bang! Duck Hunters, we imagine. LOL. Hoping for an early start so we can get some distance.  We still have to check out Tennessee and Kentucky!

Colonial Williamsburg

This was George Washington's
favorite tavern in the day!

Today we left Aquia :-(  Next stop is Williamsburg. We are staying at the American Heritage RV Park. Colonial Williamsburg requires a lot of walking, and we did not have a lot of time so we were able to see quite a bit from the bus and made reservations at the Christiana Campbell's Tavern and bought tickets for Cry Witch: a play where we are the jury in a candlelit inquiry into the charges of witchcraft brought against Grace Sherwood in 1706. The audience was invited to question the witnesses, weigh the evidence, and determine the guilt or innocence of "the Virginia Witch." 

The Queen's attorney, the Magistrate and the accused witch!
God Save the Queen!



The food at the Tavern was delicious, it was fun dining by candlelight and well worth the trip, time and money!

We actually ended up sitting on the bench with the magistrate and were transported back in time and determined the guilt or innocence (heck, she was guilty and we all knew it!) of poor Mistress Grace Sherwood. LOL

BFF!

BFF's (Liz, Carrie and Angela)

On our way back from New York, Laton dropped me off at a great pub in Alexandria. I was meeting up with my sorority sisters, Liz and Angela, who have both relocated to VA. We met at the Union Street Public House. It was a fun, fun evening. Sorority Sistahs are the best (along with my favorite sister, Carolyn). Lots of catching up and thank god for camera phones cuz then we could check out all the updates in our lives with pictures. Liz headed back to Leesburg and Angela dropped me off in Aquia on her way back to Fredericksburg. Old Town Alexandria is well worth a visit.

The Statue of Liberty

 We made the first ferry to the Statue of Liberty. It was a beautiful day, a little foggy, with a brisk breeze. It was a magnificent morning and she is so beautiful and awe-inspiring. We were very happy with our visit.



Check out her foot! Awesome!



The torch!

New Jersey

FYI; It is easier to reach the New Jersey side of Statue of Liberty National Park, if you are driving, than the NY side. Great parking! Glad we did that. I had always heard about the NJ Turnpike but have now experienced it.  My advice to travelers is take lots of dollar bills (no, not for the strip clubs). There is a toll everywhere! We got here too late to take a ferry to the statue so found a hotel for the night. So, now we are all tucked in and excited to visit with Lady Liberty tomorrow!

New York Traffic

We drove to Snug Harbor Park, Staten Island. The traffic was quite something. Driving a big truck through narrow streets was an adventure.  We were sure glad we were not towing our 5th wheel. LOL! We ended up in a traffic jam (thank goodness we were not the cause!). The horn blowing was stupendeous. Seriously? It helps?

New York! New York!

Now visualize a high leg kick here! Might as well visualize a beautiful girl too. We are planning a trip to the Statue of Liberty.  This involves boarding the dogs. We found a place called Lisa's Bed & Biscuit. The 4 legged kids will stay together in a suite (large pen) with private bath (doggie door).  It even has toddler beds for them to sleep on. They have play time 6 times a day. Of course we had to find their shot records and low and behold, no bordetella (kennel cough) shots on the records.  So we found a vet, got shots, but have had to push everything out 24 hours.  The bordetella needs 24 hours in their system before exposure. So instead of leaving today, we leave tomorrow to visit Lady Liberty.

Paper Luminaria

I have been frantically working all week on a swap with some other consultants for Stocking Stuffer gifts using our Christmas paper scraps.  I came up with several fun things.  My biggest project has been luminaries or votive cards.  This has a battery operated tea light inside.  It was fun to design and is more fun to use.  It is very simple to make.

I also made some tea card holders, some bottle hangers and tags for the 12 Days of Christmas.

CHOCOLATE!

We drove up to Hershey, PA to check out the chocolate capitol of the USA! It was a beautiful drive through fields dotted with houses and barns. We stopped and checked out the Gettysburg National Military Park.  There was a group of music students on a field trip parked near us and it was haunting to hear taps played on a trumpet there.

Finally, Chocolate World was in sight! It was fun checking out how it was made. By the time we were done, it was only late afternoon so we decided to head toward Lancaster, PA and have authentic Amish food for dinner.

Our attention was immediately seized by the town of Intercourse! So off we go. It was fun to see the Amish people, the buggies and horses and the different type of stores.  As Laton commented, the buggy might have headlights but the horse sure doesn't. LOL

Sick of being Sick!

After our wonderful trip to the Outer Banks, I came home and came down with the flu.  I think it should have passed me by since I am on vacation and traveling, but it was mean and stuck around. Luckily, Laton hasn't been ill.  When I was feeling better, he drug me down to get a flu shot with him. So, hopefully, we are done with illness for the rest of the winter.

The Outer Banks

Atlantic Ocean Sunrise

We stayed in a hotel in Kill Devil Hills, NC.  The hotel was directly on the beach. When we woke up we saw the sun rise from the Atlantic, then the fog came in. Here is a picture from our patio.


The houses built along the ocean are wonderful.  Three to four stories tall, with decks built on the roof, painted lovely pastel colors with lots of gingerbread decorations.  Every house has a plaque with a cute name.

We started our drive down the Outer Banks across a long causeway, through towns called Rodanthe, Waves, Avon, Frisco, Buxton, and Hatteras Inlet.


Cape Hatteras Lighthouse

 There is a free ferry that runs every hour in the winter to the island of Ocracoke.  We got in line 3 times and each time we were the last of the line that did not get on the ferry.  On the 3rd try, we decided maybe we were not supposed to ride it today. By then a heavy rain had started, so we decided to drive back up the Outer Banks and home through Chesapeake, Norfolk and Hampton.  We went through a tunnel that goes under a shipping channel called the "Hampton Roads".  It is the historic name for the five-mile wide, last ten miles or so of the James River before it empties into Chesapeake Bay.

While traveling, we used the GPS and set it so that it would show the whole area, and it shows us traveling out on the Atlantic Ocean.  It was awesome. 

Missing the ferry gave us a chance to check out the lighthouse (between rainstorms) and also a candy company featured on the Food Network called The Scotch Bonnet.  We left with pumpkin pie fudge, fire and ice fudge (mint with a touch of jalapeno) and peanut butter fudge coated dog treats for the four legged kids.

Roanoke Island, NC



Elizabethan Gardens on Roanoke Island, NC



Today we took the opportunity to take a delivery for our friend, Angela to Washington, NC.  Then we drove to Manteo, NC to check out The Lost Colony. I have been fascinated with the story of this colony since I was a small child and came across it in some of my reading. The park is under a lot of construction right now but the Elizabethan Gardens are lovely. We enjoyed lunch in Manteo near the waterfront.  The Hubbard squash bisque was wonderful. As we contemplated the 3 hour drive back, Laton suggested we get a hotel and explore the rest of the Outer Banks tomorrow.  What a wonderful idea!