The Long, Long Road...A Tough Segment...A Nice Surprise

The rest of the trip was relatively uneventful.  No stops for sightseeing (we were going to go to Elvis' Graceland but I forgot to add a day to the schedule to allow for a stop - never mind, next time), just driving, driving, driving.  We did make it our mission to stop at every Cracker Barrel we could find as we had been deprived over the two years we lived in Washington.  I love their gift shop and there were so many cute displays for the holidays.  I think Vic ate his body weight in pancakes!

A few shots from the road:

Window Rock Canyon in New Mexico

This one for Sophia in Amarillo, Texas

This one near Groom, Texas

We stopped at Air Force or Navy Bases every night - Kirtland Air Force Base near Albequerque, New Mexico; Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; and Naval Support Activity Mid-South in Millington, Tennessee and enjoyed pleasant and reasonable accommodations each time.  Our last stop before Virginia was not in a military base area so we stayed at the Best Western in Knoxville.  Very nice accommodations and the hotel manager recommended a local restaurant and gave us a discount coupon so we enjoyed a lovely meal that wasn't Cracker Barrel or fast food for the first time since Thanksgiving Dinner.

Up early on the final day for our last leg.  We drove just north of Gatlinburg, Tennessee during the time the terrible fires were raging.  There was a lot of smoke over the interstate, very sad as we read later that so much property was lost and there were several fatalities.  At almost every exit, there were vehicles just pulled over the the shoulder, waiting for the time when they would be cleared by the police to travel onward to their destination, no doubt hoping that they would find their communities and homes unscathed.

We decided to take a more scenic route on our last leg as the truck traffic had been quite heavy so instead of taking Interstate 81 and then 64 down to Norfolk, we cut across the southern part of the state on Route 460.  We hadn't driven very far when we spotted a sign that said National D-Day Memorial in Bedford so we decided to make a pitstop.  How very glad we were that we did so.  We were the only guests that afternoon so we had a private tour and were able to ask lots of questions.  I highly recommend a stop if you are in this part of the state.

Just a couple of photos for you as my photography does not really do justice to the sheer size of the monument and the detail of the statues.  Among the hundreds of thousands who took part in the D-Day landings were 44 soldiers, sailors, and airmen from Bedford.  20 Bedford Boys died on D-Day, the nation's severest per capita D-Day loss in comparison with the 1940s population.  How the D-Day Memorial came to be in Bedford is a fascinating story.

Part of the Beach Tableau

The Supreme Commander, a statue of Dwight D. Eisenhower

The Overlord Arch, forty-four and a half feet high

We finished the rest of our journey and even managed to swing by our favorite Chinese restaurant to pick up a takeaway for dinner.  The young man at the counter said to Vic, "We haven't seen you in a long time", amazing that he would remember us after we had been gone for two years.  What does that say about the number of times we eat Chinese food!

Checked in to the hotel and Chinese food eaten (every bit as delicious as we remembered it), we fell into bed.  Eleven states and 4000+ miles later, we were finally back in our old stomping grounds.  We would have one full day to buy a washer and dryer and some other bits and pieces we would need, and then we would pick up our keys and move back into the same house we moved from two years ago.  The household goods were scheduled for delivery right after we got the keys and then the real work would begin.

Thanks for traveling across the country with us!

More Fun

We left Hoover Dam around lunchtime and headed to the next fun stop, the Grand Canyon.  I think I must have scored the last available room - when I made the reservations, I didn't think about it being Thanksgiving weekend and I'm certainly thankful that we were able to find a room.  We arrived late at night and checked in - we were in Maswik Lodge which is a complex of apartment-like buildings holding the rooms.  Maswik Lodge is actually the central lodge building that holds the cafeteria, pizza pub, gift shop, reservations/check-in area, and the concierge for the various tour and special events that are available.

Up early on Thanksgiving Day to take the hop-on, hop-off bus that goes along the South Rim of the Grand Canyon

Strolling along the South Rim - it was freezing - 25 degrees that morning!

The historic El Tovar Hotel where we had Thanksgiving Dinner

Catching the start of the sunset

We woke up on Thanksgiving Day and spent most of the day sightseeing - there are shuttles buses that take you along the South Rim.  We got off at one stop but once we were back on the next bus, we enjoyed the view from the windows.  It was so cold and there was quite a blustery wind.  We got off the bus at the El Tovar Hotel area and walked around, ducking into a few of the museum-like buildings that are there to get out of the cold, and then finally retreated to the lobby of the El Tovar with its giant roaring fire to wait for our name to be called for Thanksgiving Dinner.  We spent the rest of the afternoon walking off the dinner and then headed back to our room to pack and get ready for our departure the next day.

The colors of the Grand Canyon are just amazing - there are a lot of displays along the trails that talk about the various ages and stages of the rock formations, and it's just incredible that nature has made this design.  My limited photography skills caught a few good shots - it's hard not to get a good shot when there is so much beauty at every angle.

Coming tomorrow:  No more fun, just the long, long road to Virginia (with a tough segment and a nice surprise)

The Fun Stuff

After spending the night in the middle of nowhere - Lemoore Naval Station really is out in the middle of nothing.  I guess I thought it looked like it was close to the interstate but no, we drove for MILES while enduring the most unbearable stench.  It's a huge agricultural area and there's something about the valley and/or the weather conditions that just makes the smell hang in the air.  Ugh, praying that  Vic never gets stationed there!

Before our trek from the interstate to Lemoore, however, we did get some California sunshine when we stopped in the Apricot Capital (who knew?) to grab some lunch and drove by lots of vineyards

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Up the next morning and off to Nellis Air Force Base just outside Las Vegas.  We managed to hit our drive through Las Vegas just as the sun was going down so it was lit up for us to enjoy.  I managed to count at least four hotels I'd like to visit, as well as a host of shows.  Next trip, perhaps?

Off to bed early since the next day was a fun day - Hoover Dam.  This was one of Vic's dreams and we had a glorious day for it.  We took the tour, viewed all the exhibits, strolled across the dam, and took lots of photos.  I have to admit dropping 54 floors in 70 seconds to get inside the dam was not quite my idea of fun!

The Powerplant - another post-Navy career opportunity

The Colorado River

You can have one foot in Nevada and one foot in Arizona

Coming tomorrow:  The fun continues!

Heading Down the Pacific Coast States

We left Washington on Saturday, November 19 and headed down Interstate 5 for Oregon, destination Ashland.  It was so hard to leave Washington - we drove past evergreen trees, snow-capped mountains, and rushing rivers.  Still so much to do and see and we had run out of time.  We sincerely hope that we will be back.

We arrived in  Ashland, home of the famous Ashland Shakespeare Festival, in time to check in and grab some dinner.  Most of our travel days were going to be like this - drive all day, dinner, and then bed to do it all again the next day.  It was really starting to get cold so after a brief walk around town (which was really charming and on our list of places to visit again), we ducked into a restaurant near our hotel and enjoyed a lovely meal,

I loved the hotel, the Bard's Inn.  Everything about it was devoted to the Bard himself.

Up early the next morning and a short drive over the state line.  We drove along Highway 101, the coastal road that led us to the Avenue of the Giants, the home of California's giant redwoods.  The northern California coast is gorgeous, even on a cloudy day.

It was a beautiful drive.   Vic stopped off at the start of the Avenue of the Giants to pick up a self-guided tour pamphlet and we drove along slowly, stopping at the markers to read a little about the redwoods as we made our way to our night's accommodation, an inn right on the Avenue of the Giants which was very quaint. 

We had a bit of a struggle finding a place for dinner as there are not too many eateries along the Avenue but finally found somewhere.  We went back to the inn where we enjoyed a delicious breakfast cooked to order the next morning and then we were off again.  We had a long drive ahead of us to Lemoore Naval Air Station, the first of our overnight stays on a base where the hotel rates are very reasonable.  I had planned our route through as many Navy and Air Force bases as I could to take advantage of the rates.  We get a travel allowance but we have to use military accommodation as much as possible.

As we drove down the Avenue of the Giants on our way to Lemoore, we couldn't resist stopping at the Drive-Thru Tree.  Really, how could we not?

Coming tomorrow:  Out in the middle of nowhere and the main sightseeing segment of our trip.

Prelude to Departure

I thought I'd take you all back to our last week in Washington before I started on the road trip to Virginia.   My last day of work was Thursday, November 10 as Friday the 11th was Veterans Day.  I had arranged with my sister and her family that they would visit us this last weekend before we left so they arrived on Thursday evening (my sister and her two boys by car and her husband by ferry as he had business in Seattle).  On Friday, we all took the ferry to Seattle for a day of fun and sightseeing - Vic had to go into work for a few hours so he joined us later in the day.

It was a grey day but thankfully dry

First stop, Seattle Aquarium

Monorail to the Seattle Center for a trip up the Space Needle

Lunch at a fabulous pie eatery

Exhausted from walking, we grabbed a takeaway from our favorite Indian restaurant and relaxed at home.

On Saturday, Sophia and her boyfriend arrived and we all headed to the ship for a guided tour.  It was pretty cold and really windy (especially up on the flight deck) but everyone had a blast and one of the sailors in the hangar bay snapped a group photo.  My sister and her family headed off to a soccer event back in Oregon so we took Sophia and her boyfriend to lunch and then headed back to the house for her to collect a few things before they headed back to Bellingham.  It was tough to say goodbye to everyone but that's the way things roll with military life.

 I now had three days to get things sorted in the house before the packers arrived.  I wasn't nearly as organized as I would have liked to have been so several totes marked Ebay came with us - things we don't use anymore but are a little too nice to just give away.  The packers arrived bright and early on Wednesday and spent two days packing before the truck arrived on Friday morning and just after lunch, the house was empty.  I had arranged with the landlord to have a cleaner come in so she (the landlord) stopped by the pick up the keys, thanked us for being such great tenants, and we headed off to the first of the ten hotels that would be our temporary home until we picked up the keys to our new house (which, funnily enough, is exactly the same house we moved from two years ago).  Nice to know the floor plan and the neighborhood; too bad I'd tossed all those old address labels!

Coming tomorrow:  On the Road Again!