Day 10 and 11 - On the Road home...Home

We departed our Great Smokies campsite about 8:30AM hoping to make it to at least PA this evening, at least 500 miles. Everyone comes down with "get-home-idis" around this time, but despite this I wanted to drive the historic route 73 through the park, it is about 20 miles of switch backs that follow the little river but is very scenic.  There are places where the road is cut into a cliff or under it where we had to be careful with our tall vehicles, some others left chunks in the road where they scraped the wall....we wanted no part of that.

It was a nice drive that eventually turn north to head up through Pigeon Forge, a tourist town where Dollywood can be visited. If you are into bumper cars, water slides and the like...Pigeon Forge is your place, it makes Lake George, NY look amateur in scale.

Tom really wanted to tour Dollywood but we had to move on.
















When we left Tennessee there was one more stop that Tom felt was necessary....Foamhenge. This is located in Natural Bridge, VA and you have to know it is there or you will never find it. Somehow Tom knew about it so we had to stop.

It is a pretty good replication of the original which took 1500 years and 1000 men to complete.  This one took 6 weeks, 4-5 Mexicans and one crazy white man to construct.

It is corny but pretty cool too.










After Foamhenge we pressed on and made it to Maryland, just a bit short of what we planned, but we had about 500 miles behind us and 500 in front of us. We pulled into a Cracker Barrel in Hagerstown, Maryland and had a good meal.

When we awoke in the morning it was 31F so we knew we were getting close to home.  We hit PA and that nasty white stuff...there was a strong pull to do a 180 and head south but we pressed on for home.

We arrived home about 7PM to a pretty nice sunset...it was 36F, cold but there is something that feels good about being home.














Overall it was a good trip, we traveled 2928 miles in just over 10 days, we had no mechanical issues and overall we successfully avoided the heavy traffic in the cites.

It would have been nice to have more time but we made the most of the time we had. The wedding was spectacular, the Smokies were stunning and visiting friends in DC and family in GA was priceless, to use a worn out phrase.

Day 9 - On the road home.

We left Randy and Sue around 9AM and headed north.  We have never really experienced the Smoky Mountains, so we pointed our little caravan towards Knoxville, TN with no real plan on where would stop or what we might see. The weather was quite nice, our travel was pretty easy without traffic issues and we had our meals on the road. 

Lunch in RT

Our typical rest stop on the road.

We drove until we reached the entrance to the Smoky Mountain National Park and picked a campground, pretty much at random. We made a good choice, we stayed at a KOA - Great Smokies in Townsend, TN. The people were very nice and suggested a wildlife loop in the park that we could complete before dark,

So off we headed to the Cades Cove Loop Road.  This is about 10 miles of one way road through the park that winds through swtich backs and hills with old buildings (cabins and churches). The wildlife on the loop is abundant, we saw 100's of deer, 2 bears, Turkey's and what we think was a coyote and the scenery was amazing. 

Deer everywhere you looked. 

And spectacular views.

This view was from the porch of one of the original cabins, it is pretty easy to see why people decided to live here. 

We think this guy was a coyote, but pretty large, could it be a wolf?

As we exited Cades Cove the sun was setting, the views could not really be captured by camera, at least with my skill....but they were godly. 

We headed back to camp and had a nice dinner and campfire, it was a long day of driving (about 500 miles) but we capped it with a very nice and relaxing sample of what the Great Smoky Mountains are all about. 

Day 7 and 8 - Travel to Randy and Sue's ...chilling out

The next few days are down time so we slept in a bit and then packed up camp.  It is about 3 hours from Tybee to Bonaire where Randy and Sue live. Tom needed a door for his truck that you just can't find in the north since they are all rusted. So we did a diversion to Macon where Tom had arranged a pickup.  This went relatively smoothly, I will just say we kept the doors locked in the section of Macon where the junk yards reside.

When we arrived at Randy's Don and Lou had beaten us there and were up on his new observatory deck sunning themselves.  Randy is a bit of a astronomer and had a permanent deck installed to put his big mirror telescope up where he can get a great view of whatever is out there.

It was a really nice day to be out in the sun.


Randy and Sue have a very nice spread with about 5 acres and a pond for their fish, turtles and geese. It makes a perfect campground complete with electric and water hookups...no charge...thanks bro!

Everyone had a good time just chilling, riding Ran's ATV around his property and enjoying a few adult beverages. 

 

Randy is currently providing free room and board for JJ's cat too.  And she is so appreciative.

We had a nice visit but time to head north..not looking forward to leaving the warm temps, but we plan to do some sightseeing on the way back home. 

About 1500 miles to get home...

Day 6 - Tybee Beach, Sam's Wedding

It is Friday March 27th, 2015 and it is a big day, not because it is my birthday but because today our niece Samantha gets married.  The wedding is not until 5PM so we decided to look around Tybee some in the morning.

We are camped at River's End Campground & RV Park.  Tybee is not very big, the fact that there is a campground on the island is amazing.

The campsite is only 1/2 mile from the chapel where Sam is getting married so we decided to take a stroll and check it out. It is pretty obvious why Sam and Dominic choose this chapel, it is beautiful.

 

We walked back to our campground and decided we would like to check out the beach, again it was only a 1/2 mile walk to the beach and historic lighthouse.  It felt just great to be able to walk on the beach wade in the ocean and not have to wear layers of clothing. It was not hot but definitely was tee shirt weather. 

The Tybee light house was one of the first in north america, around 1736, it was rebuilt about three times, but still all in the 1700's...pretty cool.




The coast of Tybee also has old structures that were clearly military defenses, part of Fort Screven, built as defenses during the Spanish-American war and remained in service until 1947, now they are storm shelters.

The beaches on Tybee are beautiful sand with lots of shells that wash up on the beach, we even had a live horseshoe crap come visit us.

 

When we arrived at the beach an elderly couple were sitting in the swing holding hands looking at the ocean, it was very sweet.  We can only hope to be so lucky in our twilight.

We let our feet soak into the warm sand and walked in the waves, what great feeling after such a long winter.

 






It was just a morning stroll but we sure soaked up the warm weather.

After the beach we walked back to camp to ready our selves for the ceremony. 

The ceremony was beautiful, Sam and Dominic looked like a bride and groom out of a magazine, they could not have looked better or more happy.  

Seeing brother Randy in formal attire, other than military dress, was a bit of a treat.







Brother Randy's speech and dance moves were displayed and he did himself proud.  I think Sam was relieved.. :-).

Weddings are great for getting together the family, it was nice to see everyone dressed  up and having a great time.

Fred, Randy, Candy and Don

 The Jaquishs were well represented...

Sue Sam and Randy

Candy, Michelle, June

The girls clearly had a good time.

Joe, Sue, Randy and JJ

Pretty smart looking family.

















The beautiful thing about having our campground 1/2 mile from the chapel is that we could walk, around 10PM the wedding wrapped up and we walked back to camp.

It was a great day and we wish Mr and Mrs Dominic Beovich nothing but years and years of happiness.
.

Day 5 - VA to GA - Savannah

We departed the campground around 06:30 and pointed our little caravan south.  We got thru the DC traffic without any problems and hit I95 for the long haul. It was a pretty uneventful drive, we took a few breaks along the way and arrived at the Rivers End Campground on Tybee Island around 18:30 and got settled in. We passed through Savannah on the way to Tybee, but wanted to go back for dinner and walk the streets a bit so we did. We parked the Van at the Hilton Garden Hotel, where most of the family was staying and walked to the Savannah Market Place to find a place to eat. We decided to go light stopped a the wings place and got a good seats where we could see/hear the band on the market place. The market place is very similar to what you see in Burlington on Church St, with the exception that the bars are on the street and you can take your adult beverage with you.

After dinner we walked the water front and we impressed with the barges going by, and having visited Savannah the year before did not fall for the guy selling palms made into flowers this time.... :-).

We knew that Randy and Sue were at a rehearsal dinner so did not expect to see them, but they did come to the water front after their engagement. It was good to catch up with them. We were hopeful that Don and Louann would make it in time to have drink, but after a long day of driving we decided we needed some shut eye so headed back to camp, they did arrive in time to meet Randy and Sue.

Tomorrow we hope to tour Tybee a bit and then go to the wedding in the afternoon.

Day 4 - National Museums

Today we slept in a bit and then set off for DC on our own.  We stopped at the first Metro station to see if we could park but the only parking available was in the garage which lacks the height we needed for my van (9'6").  We decided to just drive downtown and park at Union Station, the traffic was pretty heavy but we managed to make our way there and eventually get into the garage where the buses park. We were lucky to park at all, the garage was packed with tour buses, it is the cherry blossom season, al beit late this year.  Union station is an experience in itself, pretty impressive.

We decided to walk the 1/2 mile or so to the mall and started with the Air and Space museum.

We were rather selective in what we saw at the Air and Space Museum and still found it 2PM before we stopped for lunch.  From A&S we crossed the mall and went to the Museum of Natural History, crossing the mall was a bit of a challenge since they have it all torn up for construction.  The NH museum had the best part closed for renovation...the dinosaur exhibition... doh.  We still enjoyed the museum, the girls spent way too much time in the gems exhibition if you ask me.

We looked at the clock and decided to head back, walking again.  As we made our way back to Union Station, we were delayed by a Motorcade, some head of state (we think Afghanistan and one cop said VP Biden).

 It was fun to watch...once.







We debated whether to head to camp or direct to the Malloy's since they invited us for dinner, we made the right call and went direct to their house in Fairfax.  We had a really nice visit and the Malloy's put on a very nice dinner.

Need a picture, will add later

We said our good bye's to the Malloy's and can't thank them enough for their hospitality, they truly are very good friends.

Day 3 - VA and DC with the Malloys

Today at 7:30AM sharp our personal tour guides arrived at our campground to shuttle us around DC. I became friends with Bob and Maribeth when they were working for IBM in the 1980's in Burlington, they left Vermont in the mid 80's and we have stayed friends all these years. They both took a day off work to spend with us, what great friends. Bob had our tour planned out for the day including lunch and dinner venues, he is a great tour guide. We started with Iwo Jima, always one of our stops in DC. It was cold but busy, this was our first indication that maybe there were a few more school age children than usual.

  

From Iwo Jima we intended to do the Arlington Cemetery next, however due to heavy traffic and rather cold temperatures, we decided that we would move on to the Air Force Memorial. This is one of the newer memorials and it is situated where you have a great view of the city, pictures do not really do not capture it well.

We next visited the Pentagon Memorial, this is in memory of the 159 people that lost their lives on 911. It is somber memorial, we took no pictures, the symbolism they built into the display is impressive and it really does make one appreciate the horror of that day.  

We took an early lunch at a small cafe in the city and got some time off our feet.

Next stop was the library of congress. This is one of Maribeth's favorite buildings in DC, she wants to spend her birthday there someday (pay attention Bob).

   

This building also houses most of what was Thomas Jefferson's personal library, an impressive collection to say the lest of books from philosophy to medicine. It does make one ponder if humans were actually smarter back then than today. We then took the tunnel that runs under the street to the capital building. Apparently you need to be signed up for a tour to get to see much and Bob had to bolt because it occurred to him that his parking meter was going to run out, so we did not tour the capital.

Our next stop was a the Catholic Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, something that would not normally be on our list to see, but should be. It is the largest church in north America and has unique chapels for about 65 different countries.

What I found most unique from other catholic churches is that it is still evolving. The Mosaic's are done by Americans (all but six) and really have a different style than those from hundreds of years ago. Our guide was unique to say the least, he was an elderly gentleman that clearly thought a lot of himself, but had a memory that was just amazing, he had more facts about each mosaic, shrine, chapel than you would think a human could retain….impressive.

From the Basilica we moved onto see Lincoln's cottage, another site that we would have probably missed had the Malloys not been our tour guides.

It is not a national monument so does not benefit from the tax payer funding like others, but none the less is a very interesting site to visit. Lincoln spent much of this time during the summers at this cottage to escape the heat of the city. He rode his horse three miles back and forth each day, think about that in today's world.

Next on the agenda was dinner, Bob had made us reservations at the Capital Grill in downtown DC. I learned from Bob that when in DC order a Manhattan at the Capital Grill, this may be my new drink, very good. To say everyone enjoyed their meal is an understatement, it gets five stars from all of us.

After dinner we planned to tour some of the memorials after dark, since we have always toured them during daylight in the past. This is when we really found out that the kids were out of school, holy cow there were bus loads and bus loads of kids everywhere. It was actually good to see so many young people taking in our countries history, for the most part they appeared genuinely in awe, as they should. 

The monuments at night take on a different look and feel, and we visited the Martin Luther King memorial for the first time, it is impressive and very well done.

By now we were all bushed, our guides chauffeured us back to our campsite and we turned in for the night...it was a really long but good day. Tomorrow we intend to tour some of the museums on our own.