Shreveport to Carlsbad and HOME!

September 19, 2012

Hello!

This will be our last posting, as we reached home this morning…but to go back…

We were up and down to breakfast fairly early (and a great breakfast it was, too!) and on the road about 7 a.m.  Within minutes we were in Texas, which, is really a BIG state – and to be honest, not a very attractive state, at least following Interstate 20 across to Dallas/Fort Worth and Abilene.  We figured that Abilene would be a good place to stop for lunch – wrong!  It was actually scary; not much going on, and we took the business IS-20 business route right through the middle of town!  We finally found an Arby’s, ate, and were on our way fairly quickly.  We left the freeway at Big Spring, and started angling up to cross into New Mexico and head right into Carlsbad.  We were amazed at all the activity going on – trucks going to and fro; lots and lots of traffic.  Turns out that the oil fields in New Mexico and Texas have discovered new ways to get more oil out of the ground – and the area is just full of employees needing places to stay!

We got to the Best Western in Carlsbad to find that the entire place was booked solid – leaving us a room with connecting door, which we never like.  We got everything into the room and then headed to the local Albertson’s to pick up a few basics – carrots, hummus, more water.  (After almost a month, we finally finished the four cases of Arrowhead sparkling water that we’d brought with us!)  

Seating area

The mouth of Carlsbad Caverns

From there, we drove to Carlsbad Caverns to watch the nightly Bat Flight at sunset.  Robert did take some pictures before the flight began – photos are not allowed once the bats start coming out, as the sound and light disturb the them.  And out they came!  A few minutes after 7, we heard the sounds of wakening bats – and WOW!  Just like last time, they came out circling from the cave entrance in hundreds.  We watched the wonderful creatures for about an hour or so, until it was VERY dark – then headed back to town (about 20 miles) for dinner.

We stopped at Chili’s, in hopes of getting a good, uncomplicated meal, but they were VERY full – even after 8!  So, we returned to our hotel and had dinner in their meeting room, as their restaurant was under renovation.  R had grilled chicken with salad, and I had a Cobb Salad.  Retired to bed before 10 – and guess what?  At 3:25 a.m. exactly, our next-door neighbor’s alarm radio went off – and continued playing music loudly through the connecting door – until we called the front desk.  At that point, we were both so disgusted that we decided to pack up and head home; we were out by 3:45…

The quickest route was back through Texas, so instead of doing the scenic route through the New Mexico mountains (as we had planned), down into Texas we plunged.  Fortunately the road was good, and while we were both a bit concerned about possible wildlife, everything was fine.  We had a bit of a hold-up for an accident on the freeway which runs across the top of El Paso, but that was the only problem.  We got home about 10:30 a.m.

So – we are now unpacked, everything put away, mail all sorted and it sure feels great to be home!  We do want to thank everyone we visited – Robert’s family, my family, the Kennedy’s and the Lowder’s – we had a fabulous trip, and thanks to you all for coming with us!

More later!

m

xxx

Lawrenceville, GA to Shreveport, LA

Monday, September 17, 2012

Hello!

I’m going to try and catch up with everything that has happened since Friday, but as I have a memory like a sieve, we’ll just have to see…

Lawrenceville Courthouse

Saturday we planned first to go to the Suwanee Day festival, but when we got close, the crowds were absolutely intense – so, quick change of plans, and back to historic, downtown Lawrenceville for a stroll around town.  It’s really a beautiful city center!  The lovely courthouse towered over everything, and there were information plaques all around town talking about the various buildings; great fun and very interesting!  Arden was hungry, so we stopped at an Italian place for pizza.  And it was FABULOUS!  Honestly, I don’t know when we’ve had such good pizza, outside of Italy!  After that we had some wonderful frozen yogurt, then headed home for our afternoon naps.

Brenda and Chris’ friend Heather arrived at 4:30 p.m. to watch the kids, as the “adults” (and I use the term loosely, seeing I’m involved…) were going out for dinner.  It took about 45 minutes to get downtown to Bacchanalia, which, according to Brenda, is the #1 ranked place in Atlanta!  The restaurant is attached to a store called “Star Provisions” – which is great!  As we were early (they open at 6:00 p.m.) we wandered through the store – fabulous cheese selections, a great bakery, an impressive butcher shop – very definitely a destination on its own!  

We were seated at 6:00, and joined by Brenda and Chris’ friends Mike and Tiffanie, who live in downtown Atlanta, so had a much shorter commute than we did! 

The Menu

Corn chowder with fennel stem and basil oil

Bacchanalia offers a five-course menu, which changes every night.  There are five or six choices for each of the courses, and I think between the five of us, we covered most of them!  Robert isn’t very happy about how the photos came out (very low lighting and he didn’t want to use the flash), but hopefully you’ll be able to get an idea of what we had.  Each course was presented beautifully – none of the courses were very large, meaning that by the end of the meal, we were satisfied but not stuffed.  All in all it took 3 hours for everything.  They do have suggestions of a wine pairing with each course, but as the three ladies weren’t drinking (Brenda is nursing, Tiffanie is expecting, and I was D.D.) nobody went overboard, and I think each guy had one glass of wine!

Stuffed squab

Filet

To summarize (as best I can), R’s meal was:  (1) a kind of sashimi using yellow-fin tuna; (2) filet of trout; (3) stuffed breast and leg of squab; (4) blue cheese course; (5) trio of melon sorbets.  I had (1) fois gras with toasts; (2) crab fritter; (3) fillet of beef (outstanding!!!); (4) blue cheese; (5) warm chocolate cake with mint ice cream. 

After dinner we retired down the street to a Starbuck’s for hot chocolate (the ladies) and coffee (the guys).  Mike and Tiffanie are really a neat couple, and we very much enjoyed meeting them and spending a great evening at a fabulous restaurant with them and Brenda and Chris!!  Back home about 11:00, and very quickly to bed and to sleep!

We had decided to have a very low-key on Sunday.  We watched the end of Salmon Fishing on the Yemen and Sherlock Holmes 2 (with Robert Downey) [note from RJB – Just about the dumbest movie I have ever seen],  and I did some laundry in Brenda’s very modern and fancy washer and dryer, and we got to bed about 10:00.

Up this morning before 6:00; packed up and out the door by approximately 6:45 a.m., as we had heard how difficult traffic can be in Atlanta.  It was so HARD to say goodbye to Arden, Brenda, Chris and Dara, but we are hopeful that they will be able to visit us in Tucson soon!!

We decided to make a large detour around Atlanta to avoid the legendary rush-hour traffic.  It took us almost 2½ hours to wind our way around the northern suburbs and finally reach the freeway to Birmingham, AL on the far west side of Atlanta.  Whether or not we saved time is an open question but it certainly was less aggravating than sitting in stalled traffic on a freeway.  From there, we had a straight shot to Shreveport, LA – all the way through Alabama and Mississippi and to the far side of Louisiana.  We did have some truly horrendous weather to navigate, though – rain – torrential at times – coming down, and occasionally almost a complete “white out” so that you could hardly see anything ahead of the car at all.  Fortunately we made it through safely, and arrived in Shreveport about 5:30 p.m. and are now in our wonderful hotel – Homewood Suites by Hilton – in a huge two-bedroom suite with living room, full kitchen and two bathrooms!  

Went to Becca’s for dinner – just a short drive down the road.  It was pretty basic – how do you like your fried food?? But I got a great steak with twice-baked potato and salad, and R had grilled shrimp with potato and salad.  We returned to the hotel ready for an early night…another 10 hour driving day tomorrow to Carlsbad, NM – and from there to Tucson on Wednesday, and we’ll be home!!

Much love,

m

xxx

St. Augustine to Lawrenceville, GA

Friday, September 14, 2012

Hello from Lawrenceville!

We’ve been so busy (except for naps) that I need to catch up a bit on our travels!

The Lowder Family

 Up very early yesterday, and out of St. Augustine by 6:30 a.m.  We had a long but not too tiring journey back to the Atlanta area and Chris and Brenda and Arden and Dara’s lovely home.  We arrived about 3:00 and it was WONDERFUL to see everybody again, and to meet Dara Margaret for the first time  (For some reason, I do tend to really like that name…)  as well as see how much Arden has grown since their visit to us a year ago February!  (Note:  Poor Arden had just gotten mosquito bites, one in each cheek!)

  Arden is a really cute, wonderful and very, very smart little girl – oops, that’s wrong!  She is a BIG girl she keeps telling me!   She is really amazing, and so much fun to talk to and play with!  We visited for a bit, brought our cases in from the car, and then headed to the Gwinnett County Fair!!  I haven’t been to a fair in AGES!!

The fairgrounds are actually only a few miles from the house, and I think we were one of the first groups to arrive – it actually started at 5:00 last night!  It was not particularly hot out, and there was a lovely breeze, and we had great fun walking the grounds and seeing all sorts of wonderful things!  The 4-H Club had some great animals to see and pet – goat, sheep, a really cute donkey, one-day-old chicks and four-day-old little ducks; really nice kids taking care of them, too.  There were rides galore, and Robert and I (along with Chris and Arden) even got to ride on the merry-go-round!  What fun!!

Back home for bedtime for Arden and Robert, and Brenda, Chris and I (with Dara) retired to the wonderful movie theatre Chris built in the basement, for “Salmon Fishing on the Yemen.”  Unfortunately, the day caught up with everyone before the end – so hopefully we’ll get their tonight!

Robert up very early to get the Toyota over to the dealership for an oil change…but he was back by 9:00, when the rest of the house was stirring.  

 At 10:00 we departed for the

Blue Willow Inn

Blue Willow Inn in Social Circle, GA – about an hour’s drive away through lovely rolling hills, green fields and past some beautiful old houses. 

The Inn is quite spectacular – an old plantation-type home, now turned in to a restaurant.  They have a great Southern buffet lunch – salads of various kinds, then great main courses – Southern Fried Chicken, fried green tomatoes, and a truly outstanding meat loaf!!!  Brenda has their cook book, and that is one recipe that I definitely want to get!!  Their desserts were also fabulous – especially their chocolate cake with chocolate frosting…mmmmm…fortunately, the cut it into thin slices; I could have eaten the entire thing!!

After lunch we sat out on the front porch and rocked in rocking chairs.  Arden is a great rocker, and great fun to be around!  The “girls” (minus Dara) wandered through the gift shop – always fun things to discover there…and of course this one is no exception! 

After a thorough tour of the front and side gardens, we returned home for naps…very definitely needed, although I’m sorry to say I don’t think anyone but Robert and I got some well needed sleep!!

Up around 4:00 and spent time reading and playing with Arden; great exercise, to be sure!  Then we both “helped” Brenda made a great salad of greens, apples, pecans and blue cheese in a balsamic vinaigrette to go with Chris’ great grilled hot dogs!  They have a fabulous screened in patio right off the dining room, and it was just lovely to sit outside and eat!

Chris is now in the process of getting Arden to bed, and Brenda is tending to Dara, so I thought I would get a quick blog posted!!

Much love and more tomorrow!

m

xxx

Richmond Hill, GA to St. Augustine, FL

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Greetings from hot and sunny St. Augustine!  (Not now, actually, as the sun has set – but boy, it was hot and STEAMY when we were at the fort this afternoon!)

Actually up about 6 this morning, and out the door of the hotel about 7:30 a.m.  As our destination was only something like 2 hours 45 minutes away, we took many, many detours winding our way down the coast.  This part of the coast is very, very interesting, with lots of bays and inlets and rivers coming down to the ocean.  In many places, there were houses lining the shore high above the road, and it almost felt like we were traveling through English hedge rows, as we had no view at all!  We stayed on highway 17 for quite a ways, finally crossing into Florida.  We did not want to tackle downtown Jacksonville, so

Mayport

instead we followed route A1A.  The benefit of this is that we got to cross the Chicopit bay to Mayport

On the Ferry

on a car ferry!  It was GREAT!  We were able to drive right on – along with a taxi, a police car and three or four other vehicles.  The ride was a quick 10 minutes, but as R says, we cut off quite a bit of driving – and had a boat ride to boot!

On the Ferry

 

Spanish Salami

We worked our way down the coast, going through Ponte Vedre and other posh suburbs, until we reach St. Augustine about 11:30 a.m.  As we couldn’t get into our B&B until 3, we decided to have lunch before hitting the fort.  We did a quick driving tour of town so that R could see Flagler College and the Casa Monica Hotel as well as the fort, from the outside.  We parked at the fort parking area and headed into the historic district.  There were so few other tourists that it felt like we had the town to ourselves!  And when walked into the Tasting Room Spanish Restaurant, we actually DID have the place to ourselves!

Trio of cheeses

Empanadas

Lovely restaurant!  We decided to share three different tapas plates – one with three kinds of Spanish cheeses along with caramelized sweet onions and roasted red peppers; one with three kinds of Spanish meats – a chorizo and two salamis, olives and blanched almonds, and the third – three empanadas – one duck, one chicken and one vegetable, each with a different sauce.  Everything was yummy, and it was great sitting in the nicely air conditioned room with a good glass of Spanish wine!

Saragossa Inn

The Castillo

After lunch, we drove to the Saragossa Inn (fortuitously on Saragossa Street!) and left the car (and luggage) in their parking lot.  From the Inn it was about a 10 minute walk to the fort, reaching there about 1:45 p.m.  We were very fortunate that a really funny ranger dressed in Spanish period costume did a great talk about the history of the fort.  After that, we toured the battlements and the open rooms off the courtyard – getting VERY hot and sweaty in the process!

This is a park ranger (?)

Once done with the fort, we decided to head straight back to the Inn for a rest…which, by then, we really needed!  Lovely room in the B&B – very, very tiny, but beautifully decorated, and the bed – which is REALLY high with step stools on either side – is amazingly comfortable.  And, the A/C was on!  Yipee!!

Robert brought our bags in from the car – although it was difficult finding places to put things!! And we both decided to jump into the shower just to cool off!  That was a GREAT idea; it was wonderful to feel so clean! 

 

Bronze cannon from 1724

We talked about my homesick feelings, and decided that after we leave Brenda and Chris’ house in Atlanta, we’re going to go in a straight line home.  New Orleans and San Antonio will have to wait for a future trip!  I was able to do the cancellations and book new hotels – first night in Shreveport, LA and the second in Carlsbad, NM and then HOME!  We should reach there on the 19^th, which only cuts off two days, but that’s fine with us!

So…with that decision being made and acted upon, and the outside temperature cooling a bit, we decided to walk into town. We headed to the Casa Monica hotel, where we had glasses of wine; then back to the B&B in a lovely, cool breeze!

 

Mill from the 1880's

Hope to be on the road tomorrow before 8; very much looking forward to seeing Arden, Brenda, Chris and their newest addition, Dara Margaret!

Lots of love,

m

xxx

PS – Our friend Stew inquired as to whether the photo with me and Sheila the Lizard had been photoshopped…absolutely not!  That’s me and lizard!