Sweet Home Alabama

We are in northeastern Alabama, at Mountain Lakes Resort, with a view of Lake Guntersville. Fortunately we are away from the Gulf Coast that had a whole bunch of rain dumped on it. It could have been worse, but a storm is a storm.

We are just getting a lot of rain (it rained all night), which is expected to move on to the east tonight. The wind has picked up too, but it isn't really bad.

This area is just plain beautiful, still full of autumn's colors. Thickly wooded small mountains running along the lake and the Tennessee River. We'll be here a week, enjoying the scenery once the rain moves on.

Our Nation's Capitol, my 100th post

We had a couple of days to tour D.C., and here are some of the more memorable photos. I like this one of the Washington Monument in the late afternoon.

The inside of the monument is pretty amazing, especially seeing some of the dedications (by states, groups, etc.) of slabs visible from the elevator.

Perhaps one of the most interesting war memorials was that dedicated for the Korean War. Several realistic sculptures of soldiers moving across a level area presumably to resemble a rice paddy. Along one side of this area is a marble wall with hundreds of images (GIs, aircraft, jeeps, etc) etched in the wall---some a couple of inches high, some up to 7 or 8 inches.

The Capitol Building sits on the east end of the mall. It is astounding how many government buildings there are. I doubt our founding fathers ever imagined something like this would happen. It used to be legislators were only 'part time', needing to return to their home states to take care of their farm or business.

That's me in front of the White House. It is amazing how many people are being tourists just like us.

Arlington Cemetery is a very sobering experience.

We saw so many interesting things and buildings. A week was not enough. (of course it was really only a couple of days, as we were both recovering from the flu.) We hope to return sometime soon for an extended visit!

Rainy Mount Vernon

Trying to catch up here...I haven't posted for over 2 weeks, and we have done a lot of stuff. After we left Gettysburg, the we and the Sarvers traveled down to the Washington D.C. area, staying actually in Dumfries VA. This park is next to the Prince George National Forest--a beautiful park, with very short sites. We had to park at a diagonal to fit, then had to park our F-450 a block away in overflow parking. Not a big thing, just inconvenient.

The weather was iffy, but we decided to at least go to Mount Vernon on a Friday. It rained ALL day. Chilly and wet, we still thoroughly enjoyed this historic site. Check out the photo of Ellen and you will note that we had the audio tour, which was nice. Even through the rain, you could tell George and Martha had a wonderful view of the Potomac.

The buildings were really in great shape, and we learned a lot, as there is a nice museum on the grounds.

Probably the worst thing is the following day I got really sick with the intestinal flu, chills and fever....a lot of other nasty business that I will not go into here. Suffice to say Ellen had to take me to the emergency room, where I got shots, abdominal xrays, and bags of saline as I was dehydrated as well. It took over 3 days to get my bearings.

I will try to continue our travelogue in the D.C. area as soon as possible.

Ellen enjoying the steady rain

GETTYSBURG

We have been in a campground in Gettysburg, PA this week, and have had a chance to spend a day at the Visitors Center and Museum. The exterior of the structure is kind of hodge podge, but the museum is simply awesome.

Inside is a cyclorama of the battle. Cycloramas were very popular in the 1890s, and basically were huge paintings in the round, so the viewer would stand in the middle of a circular room, with the painting on the wall. The viewer can turn around 360 degrees and see the continuous art work.

The Gettysburg Cyclorama is 42 feet high and over 350 feet in circumference! Longer than a football field!!!! It was originally displayed in boston, MA. The restoration of this magnificent painting was completed in 2008. Just below the circular viewing platform are actual artifacts, (cannons, rifles, etc.) and landforms to aid in the 3 dimensional effect. By the way, the painting is amazing in its 3D illusion.

We did an audio tour of the battlefield yesterday, which took in most of the 25 square miles of the ground around the town. Here one of the Confederate Napoleon cannons on Seminary Ridge.

This is the magnificent Pennsylvania Monument, which lists every one of the 34,000 plus Pennsylvania soldiers that fought here.

The Virginia Monument features Robert E. Lee on his steed Traveler, and is located on Seminary Ridge, where the ill advised Pickett's Charge was begun.

There are monuments everywhere, for individual officers, states, brigades, divisions, and on and on.

This is a humbling experience, walking the ground where thousands of men were killed or wounded.

HAIL, HAIL ROCK AND ROLL

We made a day trip to Cleveland to see the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum on the shores of Lake Erie. Wow, what a trip back into time. All those albums I once owned, played so many many times, and lost along the way were there, in word, artifact, photo, video and sound.

The building is sort of weird looking with those angled wings. This is the best view I think with the gigantic atrium featured.

Inside view of the atrium features huge things, like these British autos suspended. Not sure, I think these are from a U2 video. Roger Watter's (Pink Floyd) Wall is also there. ("teacher, leave those kids alone!")

Some interesting artifacts include John Lennon's outfit from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club album cover, Mick Jagger's Union Jack/American flag cape, and Jim Morrison's cub scout uniform. By the way he was a model child!

There was so much in the museum, we have to definitely return on our next swing though Ohio. One feature I really enjoyed was the Hall of Fame Jukebox. It was a listening station with headphones like at Best Buy, only you could access any member's total musical output, sorted by album, song or year. Ellen had to almost tear me away. One area of the museum had installations by 'era'--Grunge, British invasion, etc., full of video and photos, along with posters and rock historical objects. There also was an excellent exhibit about the roots of R & R--hillbilly, blues, etc.

There were several guitars in the entry area, decorated for theme or specific artist.

This is a must see attraction for anyone interested in music!!!!

REUNION AND A RALLY

Yesterday was a sweet reunion with Don and Connie Sarver, fellow full timers from NW Ohio. Our rendezvous was supposed to be at a Wal-Mart in Van Wert Ohio. They were coming from the north, but couldn't find it, and they asked some guy in a pick up truck about the store's location, and he was nice enough to lead them to it on the north side of Van Wert. We followed our GPS from a store listing on line, and were led to what is now a Pik'N'Save on the city's southwest side! A cell phone conversation got us up to where they were waiting.

We then drove to Celina for the Eastern Gypsy Journal rally, at the Mercer County Fairgrounds. This is a beautiful fairgrounds, compared to the several we have seen or camped at. Lots of mature trees, nicely maintained buildings, and paved roadways. This is our 2nd Gypsy Rally, and we are looking forward to learning some RV stuff and meeting new folks, as well as enjoying spending time exploring Celina.

Nice to catch up with our good friends, sharing what has been happening with our families and our respective RV's. We both have Excels, theirs being a 2009 version of our 2008 LMKO.

Fall has fell

On this first day of fall we motored down highway 4 in central Iowa, totally enjoying the changing fields of corn and soybeans. What beautiful colors! Bean fields ran the gamut from green to bright yellow, to rust and finally a dull brown. Corn fields showed changes vertically, as the plants dry out, there is a variety of greens to dull yellows on each stalk.

We then turned west on highway 44 heading to Guthrie Center, where we have a service appointment at Bob and Jo's RV for a list of warranty work. The scenery is awesome with rolling hills and changing foliage. We know it will get better as time goes on, but the start of the changing leaf colors is exciting.

Our list is a big one, as things have piled up. Most important is the toilet issue, as I have been manually flushing our stool for quite some time. Ugh! Jason, our tech here, has the part coming in and we will have a real, functioning toilet tomorrow!

Other big issues are replacing our blown microwave convection oven and replacing our water pump. Several little things are being addressed as well.

We still love this life, even when we seem to be under a dark cloud for periods like these past few weeks. We are so lucky to be able to move around and see and do things, almost at will...someone said last week that it is like you are on a permanent vacation. Well said, but the vacation will be much more fun with that flushing commode.