Exciting News!

Another trip is in the works!  Our friend David Williams was mentioning last week that he really wanted to do a cruise to the Balkans this coming year.  That's on the bucket list for me, mainly for the stop in St. Petersburg, Russia.  He wanted to do the early one, in April of 2013, because of a really good deal Holland America had going.  I thought I would gather all the info and present it to Marcia as it would change our vacation plans for the next year or two, but when I talked to David on Sunday and found out he already booked, Marcia said that we could too!

So we are booked.  A 14 day Jewels of the Baltic cruise out of Rotterdam, The Netherlands on April 27, 2013.  It happened so fast my head is still spinning!  Now, it's my job to figure out how we are going to pay for this.  We are going to be on a somewhat strict budget for the next 8 months as this is more expensive than the other trip we had in mind.  The airfare alone is awful, but we have a wonderful itinerary:  Copenhagen (the only stop that I've been to before); two stops in Germany; Tallinn, Estonia; St. Petersburg, Russia; Stockholm, Sweden; and Visby, Sweden.  I'll have to see what I can do for a before and after cruise excursion since we will be in The Netherlands.

Now, what can I find to put up for sale on Ebay?  The children have been warned that they are fair game if they sit still too long! 

Days 18/19--Making Our Way Home

On Monday we headed to North Carolina to stay and visit with our friends, Beth and Sandi.  We got there about 330, so had plenty of time to chat, go out to dinner and still get to bed early for the long drive on Tuesday.  We decided to take the 441 route and not go anywhere near Atlanta.  It was a much prettier and less stressful drive.  Everything was going well until we hit Florida and the rains from Debbie started.  We got to I-10 and the traffic was backing up.  They had closed I-10 due to flooding and were rerouting traffic.  That had everything backed up to Lake City.  We sat in traffic for almost 2 hours from I-10 to Lake City.  When we finally got to the Lake City exit and traffic started moving again we saw that there was a big tractor trailer that had flipped in the far right lane and that had been part of the problem.  A mile or so up the road in the other direction there was a very recent accident of two tractor trailers, and they blocked all three lanes, so I'm sure that I75 northbound was blocked for hours.  We were really glad to make it home in one piece and see all of our babies.  Laurel reported that everyone but Beau had been an angel (Beau likes to knock things off the counters) and after Buttons reprimanded me for leaving her, everything was back to normal. 

We had a great time on our vacation (and are still talking to each other!) but are glad to be home, back in our own bed with cats sleeping on our heads.  I'm sure I'll come up with another trip before too long.

Day 17---Celebrating Marcia's Birthday

So today is Marcia's birthday and we are not at home.  I wanted to do something that was a little different that she would really enjoy.  I found a Drive Thru Safari Park not far from where we are staying and only a few miles from Natural Bridge, a spot we were going to visit anyway.

We got there by 930 this morning and were probably about the third car through.  We bought four buckets of food for the animals and off we went.  Here are the pics.  Just to mention:  the animals were a little pushy, camels steal the buckets, the animals that can reach into the windows will REALLY reach into the window after those buckets and we have animal feed all over the inside of the truck.  Oh, and we had a BLAST!

When that part was over, we went to a little (or so I thought) zoo area off to to the side.  Turns out they had a LOT of animals there.  What can be cuter than baby pot bellied pigs?

They had kangaroos (all napping), a variety of birds, two tigers, two servals, several giraffes, including a little bitty one that I couldn't get a picture of, some Galapagos tortoises, and some monkeys, including this little baby that was playing.

We were also able to be there when a baby camel got his bottle.  Turns out his momma spent two days in labor with him and then when he finally got pulled out by the zookeepers, she wouldn't take care of him, so he is being hand raised.  He's a big boy, 6 months old, but the size of an 8 month old.  He saw the keeper coming with the bottle and got all excited.  He sucked it dry in record time.

And Marcia fed the big male giraffe.  He wasn't really interested in the food, but she did get slobbered on for her birthday.  Hope it means good luck!

After almost three hours at the safari park, we headed a few miles up the road to Natural Bridge.  There are all kinds of things included with the ticket, but we just did the bridge and part of the walk.  George Washington surveyed the area in the 1750s and Thomas Jefferson actually owned this area and the surrounding 157 acres--he purchased it for the equivalent of $2.40.

It was quite a pretty walk after we took the shuttle down so we wouldn't have to do the 147 steps.  Unfortunately, it was all an uphill slope.  I made it to the Indian Village on the walk while Marcia stopped at the benches on the other side of the Bridge.  The walk back was downhill and much easier. 

After a break this afternoon, we went to dinner at Cracker Barrel, which is about the only choice around here and is therefore packed, just like last night.  Marcia was thrilled however, as the vegetable of the day was boiled cabbage.  So she claimed to have had the perfect birthday.

Tomorrow we will be on the road for several hours on our way to North Carolina to spend the evening with Beth and Sandi.  Tuesday we do the long slog home and Wednesday, I plan on sleeping most of the day!

Day 16--More Presidential History

Today we continued on down I-81S and stopped in Stauton to visit some Woodrow Wilson historical sites.  The museum was open, we were between tours of his birth home (which was next door), and his library (appointment only) was on the other side of the museum. 

These two pics are of Wilson's recreated study from Princeton.

It was a little museum, kind of superficial in some ways. There was no mention of the Treaty of Versailles, the League of Nations or of Wilson's stroke.  They did have some interesting info on his family, including his daughters.  One daughter had been a singer and then had left to join an ashram in India.  I thought that was an interesting move for the time.

They also had a recreated trench from WWI that was kind of neat and Wilson's 1919 Pierce Arrow.

It's a really BIG car and they had an interesting history on it after Wilson died.  It had been neglected for years and then finally restored.  The museum had to buy the lanterns for the car off of Ebay in 1996.

For some reason everything around here is packed--all the hotels and all the eating places (and there aren't many).  Apparently there are three or more major events going on this weekend in this little area.

Day 15--More Caverns

After yesterday, we weren't sure if we would do more caverns or not.  However, the Shenandoah Caverns claimed to have an elevator and level walkways.  The elevator part was true, the level walkways part wasn't. It was still a spectacular place, though I don't think Marcia will ever do caverns again.  She's done three on this trip and that's probably enough.  Some really nice formations in this one as well.

It took about an hour and a half to do the tour.  When we were done we ate at the little cafeteria there and moved on to another part of the building which houses an exhibit called "Main Street USA".  This is a collection of store display windows from around the 1950's.  Marcia remembers going into Boston and seeing the windows at Christmas when they were all fixed up.  That's a memory I don't have, but some stores in Europe still have a somewhat similar tradition so I am familiar with it.

 

Then it was back in the car and down the hill just a bit to a big barn like building called "American Celebrations".  This is full of old parade floats from all over.  Little info boards would tell you about the floats, which parades they had been in, which parts had been recycled and used in other floats, and some had buttons you could push that made parts move.  Here are some of my favorites:

And then once again across the street to the "Yellow Barn" (all this was included with the cavern ticket).  They had some old cars and farm equipment there.  Marcia tasted some local wine which she found to be quite good, but didn't buy any as we are already transporting a couple of bottles of wine home and she is worried how they are doing in this heat.

Tomorrow we head south on US 81 a little further and will make another stop or two.

Day 14--On Our Way Home

We left Amish Country a little before 11 am today.   The trip to the Luray Caverns took longer than I expected.  It made for a much longer day than I expected.  We didn't get to the hotel until after 6 and when you added in dinner we didn't get to relax at the hotel until 8pm.  They do have some good British mysteries on TV, so Marcia is very happy.

The Luray Caverns are right off 340N, which runs parallel to the Shenandoah National Park Skyline.  Nice drive because there wasn't much in the way of traffic.  The caverns are magnificent.  We got there just as a tour was getting ready to start.  Unfortunately, it was down a lot of steps and there was a lot of walking involved.  Fortunately the walkways were paved making walking much easier.  It was a little over and hour and I think it was hotter in the caverns than it was up top, and it was also very humid.  Anyway, here are some pics of the formations in the caverns:

 

One more set of caverns tomorrow---one with an elevator and no stairs.  That is the only way Marcia is only doing another one.  At least tomorrow will be a lot less stressful with a lot less driving.

Day 13--Saying Goodbye to Amish Country

No pics today.  This morning we hit the laundrymat again and got all caught up so we will have clean clothes this next week when we are making our way home.

Then we were off to Amish Country.  We tried another "Amish" restaurant and the purpose was mainly to see if Marcia could have her new favorite---chicken corn noodle soup.  They did have it so she was happy.  We then spent the next two hours saying goodbye to Amish country.  We just drove the back roads and absorbed what we could.  We just enjoyed the countryside so much. We saw farmers baling and stacking hay and more scenes of farm life.  The buggies, the laundry hanging outside, the handwritten signs advertising the produce and pies for sale---we are going to miss that.

We did make one stop at an "Old Country Store" because they had a Quilt Museum upstairs and figured we would be remiss if we didn't visit it and report to the church quilting group about it.  They had mainly more contemporary quilts on display, but they were pretty spectacular.  The ones that were for sale were downstairs.  We found some we liked, but at $1000 or so each, they stayed there.  Handmade heirloom quilts and cats just don't mix.

We got to the hotel and started the packing process.  We leave in a few minutes to head to a Lancaster Barnstormer baseball game.  We had fun at the last one.  It is much hotter today (mid to upper 90s) so we'll see how long I last.  We head out in the morning for our stops in Virginia.