43. Saturday Sept. 27--9628 miles and finally home!

We drove 576 miles in 8 1/2 hours and got home around 5:30 after a stop in Harrisonburg for milk and other assorted stuff.

Total Stats:

• Miles driven--9629.6
• Nights gone--49
• Nights in motels--25
• Major arguments--1 (short lived and resolved peacefully)
• Minor arguments-255 (at least)
• Weddings attended--1
• Family member dying--1
• Times car was washed--2
• Family burial plots visited--1
• National Parks visited--10
• Said "Wow!, what a big country this is"--at least 140 times
• Tarantulas spotted alongside hiking trail--1
• Crappy meals in restaurants--surprisingly few
• Good meals in restaurants--quite a few
• Phone calls to check on the cat--2
• Visits and stays with friends and/or family--5

The trip. One Big Country with mostly great people

 In summary, a wonderful trip. Do it again? Yes, but not right away ::))

42. Friday Sept. 26--Enroute Nashville

The Grand 'Ol Opry? Who woulda thought?

We were out of Sikesville, MO early enough to flounder around trying to find the National Recreation Area known as "Land Between the Lakes", aka LBL. Let me tell you, the atlas maps in the eastern Missouri, western Kentucky and western Tennessee areas really suck...Even Lee's 'girlfriend" (aka the WAZE app on the iPhone) had trouble figuring out where to go.

We stumbled our way into LBL and stopped at the wildlife refuge area where animals who had been injured could not be returned to the wild were kept for treatment and observation. Owls, snakes, coyotes, elk, groundhogs, turkeys...all the local fauna were kept in pens for viewing by the tourists. Interesting but most of the animals we had seen.

Possum

Horned Owl

Leaving LBL, we headed for Nashville as a way station heading home to VA. We called and got a room at the Springhill Suites in Nashville, again using Marriott points. The last four nights have been free, and that is nice.

Naturally, when one is in Nashville, one has to visit the Grand 'Ol' Opry. We did that. Actually, we had attended a performance there years ago and this was a return visit. We took a backstage tour to see the behind-the-scenes settings for this American icon. We are not fanatical country music fans but we both like the older country music.

While Toni got an autograph from Mike Rowe of "Dirty Jobs", Lee scored this time with a signed program-autograph of "Little Jimmy Dickens", a country star from the past.  On the tour, Lee was the first to shout out 'Little Jimmy Dickens" when the guide asked who was the owner of the PO box 144 in the Opry Post Office and was the shortest country music musician.

Outside the hall

Add caption

Been here, loved it

Jimmy Dickens autograph

Stars dressing room, one of 19

We had a fairly early night in preparation for 'running' home tomorrow morning. 238 miles today, 2,000,000 tomorrow (seems like it).

Can't wait to get home to see Rose..

41. Thursday Sept. 25. Heading toward Kentucky but why?....

First: In yesterday's blog we mentioned a difficulty with the Marriott at the KC Airport. There was a resolution.

We used hard earned points to get a room with those points and not pay. Upon check in, we were treated rather shabbily by the desk staff and the day manager, plus the accommodations were very sub par for a Marriott signature property.  Lee complained via an email to the Marriott corporate headquarters at @ 10PM.

When we woke up at 7:00 AM, there was a letter under the door marked 00:42 (42 minutes after midnight) with an apology from the local management and corporate headquarters, along with a coupon for a free breakfast (they charge at a Marriott) and 10,000 point put back into our Marriott Rewards account. Not too bad after all.

Left early and drove for 7 hours and 464 miles ending up in Sikeston, Missouri and just shy of the Kentucky border.

THIS. IS. ONE. DAMN. BIG. COUNTRY!!

Tomorrow we head east either to the Mammoth Caves or further south to the Smokey Mountain National Park. Time and morning will tell.

Pictures from Pioneer Village

Tons of pictures, some of the most interesting...

Rifles, anyone?

Original Nebraska Land Grant Office

Horse drawn hearse

Hundreds of Telephones from almost day 1

One of probably 300 cars in the collections

The 'Frazier" auto that did not make it

One of three barns, double deckers, with hundreds of autos

Pony Express way station

Mother's helpers

One of 26 buildings

40. Wednesday Sept. 24-Our 21st state

Left the Fairfield Inn in Kearny, Nebraska and headed south a short distance to Minden, Nebraska to see the Pioneer Village as per the last blog.

Un. Real.

There are 26 buildings in the complex (some small(ish), some moved from other locations, some big) that hold an amazing treasure of everything. Literally almost everything. Lee took 205 pictures in the different buildings. Amazing!!

Conestoga wagon

Any change leftover?

General store from 1890

Old school house classroom from 1910

Remember these?

Did anyone have these?

There are far too many pictures to include in this blog.

Leaving Minden, we headed directly east toward Missouri and Kansas City. We intended to spend the night near the city and explore the city a bit sometime before heading a little more south.

We checked into a Marriott Hotel at the KC International Airport. Not a good choice. Nuff said.

Tomorrow we plan to get out and get moving. Check the next blog for more pictures of the Pioneer Village.

39. Tuesday Sept. 23-On the road again

We had lunch in Kansas. By mistake.

Our goal for the day's drive was to stop driving near the town of Minden, Nebraska. Why, you ask? Toni read the Travel Section of the Washington Post one Sunday last year and came across an article on the "Pioneer Village", a museum with more than 50,000 displays of arcane Americana.  It just begged to be checked out.

Check it out your self at: http://www.pioneervillage.org

Leaving Denver, Interstates 70 and 76 share some roadway. When the navigator and the pilot are figuratively asleep at the wheel, heading southeast (wrong direction) on 70 instead of northeast on 76 (correct direction) where the roads split is a distinct possibility. Matter of fact, that is exactly what happened...

8 miles down the wrong road, the light dawned. The navigator came up with a quick solution and we ended up heading east on small roads (the original intention) but being further south. Easy mistake to make?

Kansas has a bazillion acres of nothing. Period. We took no pictures of flat fields of nothing or different burned looking crops. We did take a picture of a blue and white sky. Notice the acres of nothing on either side of the road.

A blue sky with clouds in Kansas. Whoopie.....

Back to the lunch thing.

We stopped in a small town at what was advertised as a 'family' restaurant in east nowhere Kansas It turned out the only food served was Mexican, so one enchilada and one sopopilla later, we moseyed along (isn't that what you say in the west?)

A left turn further along took us into Nebraska, another state with lots of not much but with some bumps they call 'bluffs'. A tad more interesting.

400 miles, 9 hours in the car and we checked into a really nice Fairfield Inn using our Marriott points. A small mistake to start the day and a good way to end it. The WiFi works just dandy.

Tomorrow is the Pioneer Village (lots of pictures) and then on to who knows what...

38. Monday Sept. 22-- A sorrowful day

A few previous posts have been out of sequence due to a lousy WiFi access, a mixture of whirlwind activities, and Norma Hazen's death.

To restate the situation, Norma died Sunday afternoon just after seeing her last step-son married to a wonderful lady. She 'went out' (those would have been her words) with great timing. It was her 52nd wedding anniversary to Wayne Hazen, her entire family (minus a few cousins and nieces) were present, she died quickly, and there was a party going on. Again, great timing.

Monday was a somber day. We stayed around the house, talking with Norma's son Chase and his family. We all did some of the practical things that need to be done when a family member dies, talked about events from over the years, and generally 'chilled out'. There was some tag football involved between Lee and the twin 8 year olds and it became abundantly clear Lee was out of his league.

We went to Sue and Bruce Shaver's house (friends of 40+ years from the Buffalo NY days) and had dinner with them. They are surrounded with grandchildren and it was a noisy and very fun time with a '''bit''' of wine involved.

Anyhow, back on the road Tuesday morning. The trip continues toward the east and home with the first stop at a museum in Minton, Nebraska. The projected arrival in Maurertown is by Sunday the 28th.

Wedding pictures

Pictures from Jonathan's wedding.

Surrounded by Aspens

What a setting

The happy couple

Lise and Norma

"It's Official!!"

A musical duet (and very good!)

Seating for 50

34. Sept. 14--Montrose, Colorado?

MADE IT TO COLORADO! Yahoo, as they say around these parts!!

We left Moab, Utah early (partially due to a bus just below our window cranking up at 06:15), had breakfast (a muffin and coffee) at the "Love Muffin". Gotta love the name.

Headed into Arches National Park very early (before the busses got there) and got prime views of morning sun hitting some of the more than 2,500 arches of sandstone in the park. We saw eight of them that were on the road through the park.

We have used superlatives throughout this blog to describe the sights we have seen. Arches NP goes beyond anything previously described. The sheer size and height of the cliffs, the multitude of colors (primarily red with streaks of black), the tortuous shapes carved into the cliff sides through millenia, the scope of the park left us both thinking that Arches is the best of the sights we have seen. Sequoia,  leaving Zion on your own tour, and the California coastline are all tied for second. Magnificent!!

All over the park were stands of rock like this

Just standing there in the middle of 'nowhere'

Double arch

'Delicate Arch'

Passage leading to "Sand Arch', hidden off the mainstream. 

After we left Arches, we looped around the eastern side of the park and headed to a big road, rt. 70, into Grand Junction, Colorado. We stopped at a visitors center and got way more information than we wanted about geting to Salida, a town we were in once before.

We drove south along route 128 and the Colorado river. A maginficent drive again. the sides of the cliffs were right down to the road on one side with the river on the other side. Sheer cliffs, hundreds of feet high were wonderful to see.  Lots of rafters were out on the river, floating on the high water of the recent rains.

Canyon of the Colorado

Very muddy Colorado river head waters

As the day was getting long, we pulled into a Hampton hotel in Montrose, CO. Small town, not too much to offer the tourist, but a great brewery.

Tomorrow, we head for Salida and then Denver to Norma's house (Lee's dad's wife) and chill out until Lee's brother Jonathan's wedding on Sunday, Sept. 21. There may not be blog activity for awhile as Norma probably does not have WiFi (unless Lee can talk her into it.)

Stay tuned, boys and girls! More will be revealed.

37. Sunday Sept. 21--An very unexpected situation

Today was Lee's half brother's wedding. The wedding was held in an aspen grove at 9,200 feet in the mountains above Boulder Colorado. The setting and the wedding were both spectacular.

After the wedding, the plans were to have a reception at the Colorado University Alumni Club. Everyone at the wedding went back into Boulder to start the celebration, except.........

Lee's half brother Chase took his mother, Norma, and his family into Boulder earlier than the rest of the party in order to have a small family dinner before the reception. While sitting in a pizzeria in Boulder, Norma had a seizure and became unconscious.

911 was called and Norma was transported to the hospital where she died a short time later. The cause is still not firmly understood but it appears she had a stroke. All the Hazen clan was able to get to the hospital to say their final goodbys.

Norma Hazen

One of Norma's favorite sayings (among many):

"Well the Amusement Park is closed, it is time to go home."

36. Tuesday-Saturday, Sept 16-20. A summary

I did not know cats snored.

We are in Wheatridge, Colorado, just northeast of Denver proper in Lee's dad's house. The house is now occupied by Norma, Wayne's third wife, Tigger the cat (the one that snores), and a lady who helps around the house, Carmen.

 The house has been modified multiple times in the 52 years of occupancy and the surrounding gardens and trees evoke the Colorado wilderness. Really something to see.

Back of the house

Stairs to the apartment over the garage

Anyhow, back the the cat. Tigger rules the house. Cats do not have owners, they have staff. Tigger snores loudly. Loudly.

Nap time. Again.

To summarize our activities over the last few days. There has been lousy Wifi connectivity due to a faulty modem that will be replaced next week so there have been no updates.

Anyhow:

• Arrived Tuesday afternoon in Denver
• Saw a production of the stage play "Pippin" which is well worth seeing if the opportunity arrives
• Saw a local production of "Memphis", again a worthy story line and play
• Drove to Rocky Mountain National Park and made it to 12,085 feet before altitude sickness caught us (short of breath, light headed.)

Above the tree line in Rocky Mountain National Park

Aspens changing color

Snow in September?

Now that is a switchback!

• Went shopping in a HUGE mall in downtown Denver
• Went to a wedding brunch at Lee's brother's house
• Went to a sculpture gallery with TONS of wonderful products

• Fixed a few items around the house that needed attending to
• Chilled out

 We have not been taking many pictures as we have just been too busy.

More on the blog after we head for Nebraska, probably Tuesday morning