Blue Ridge and beyond ....

We hadn't really consciously planned to spend the peak weeks of the fall color season in the south, near the Blue Ridge Parkway, but it has turned out that way, and it has been lovely. I don't think we are seeing the most spectacular display as summer coolness and rain have likely influenced the leaves, but they are beautiful just the same.

MILEAGE:

Buster: College Park, Maryland, to Lexington, Virginia to Blowing Rock, North Carolina, to Asheville, North Carolina, to McMinnville, Tennessee to Nashville, Tennessee to Morristown, Tennessee: 1257 miles

Bella: 613

Total League's Excellent Adventure: 12,595

State count: 22 Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky

We left Washington/College Park, Maryland, on Thursday, October 15th, and headed northeast a bit. We wanted to make sure we drove through Harper's Ferry, West Virginia, so we could get West Virginia on our state list.

We wanted to make our way relatively slowly south in order to enjoy the foilage. But on Thursday and Friday, it was quite drizzly and overcast, so we decided to focus on Buster. When he had his oil changed in Pennsylvania, we learned that he had a very slow leak in the air brake system and an oil seal leak of the right front wheel. We identified a Freightliner service center in Lexington, Virginia, and they had campsites just adjacent so this was the perfect stop. We did our laundry at the truck stop and also decided to get four new GIGANTIC tires as ours had a few cracks in them. It has to do with age (not mileage) and Buster is about 5 years old, even though we've only had him for just a little over a year.

While in Lexington, we learned when visiting with Gary's brother, Steve League, by phone that their older brother David and his wife Marie would be travelling through Blowing Rock (Steve and Nancy's home) as they returned home to Hilton Head from the Chicago area. We all have such a good time when the three brothers and wives can be together, so we decided to cut our ambling down the Parkway a little short, and make our way down to Blowing Rock, about a 250 mile drive on Saturday, October 17. It was a little drizzly, but we still enjoyed the serenity and slow pace without trucks on the Blue Ridge Parkway. It is a two-lane road where the speed limit is 35 - 45 miles per hour, and if you're on it, you are there for the drive. It was a little challenging for Gary as the road is narrow, but we had a beautiful drive.

Gary's niece Jenny Sobon (Steve and Nancy's daughter) lives with her husband John and four children in Winston-Salem, NC. She is a family practitioner and is the medical chief of an urgent care center. They graciously adapted to our change in plans and welcomed Liz for Saturday afternoon and Sunday. John met us just by the exit to their home in Winston, and Liz was absolutely THRILLED to be with her cousins (once removed or something) and a bunch of kids. She had a blast!

Sunday, October 18

We always have a wonderful time when we visit with Steve and Nancy in Blowing Rock (as well as in their home in Florida!) They have an absolutely gorgeous site overlooking a hillside where they have planted a vineyard. They are interested in wine, and I believe this is their 5th or 6th year harvesting and making wine.

This year, sadly, the lack of sun and too much rain contributed to a mold or some plant disease that caused the leaves to fall off prematurely. They weren't able to harvest any grapes this fall. But Steve had 40 gallons of wine that had been aging and was ready to be bottled. So Gary and Steve had a great time bottling 10 to 12 cases of cabernet and chardonnay. They siphoned (I'm told it's called racking) the wine, corked, and labeled.

Nancy had some beautiful meals (osso bucco, seafood gumbo) and we so enjoyed our time with all the League boys and wives:

On Monday, October 19th, we had a quiet day. Dave and Marie had to leave to motor on to Hilton Head. We worked a little on our future itinerary including figuring out when we will visit Gary's daughter, Polly and her family as they welcome their new twin sons. Right now, it looks like they will be delivered by C-section on November 3, and we worked on some plane tickets today to go out to Murrietta, California, in the middle of the month. Liz and I may go a little earlier so she can visit with Sierra .... Chris' 10 year old daughter who lives part of the year in Oregon with her mother. She will be down to welcome her new little brothers, and she and Liz have such a nice time together. Then Gary will come out about November 18 and stay for a couple of weeks.

It was a beautiful day in Blowing Rock, and Liz, Nancy and I (along with their Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, Winnie), took about a two mile walk around Bass Lake. We continued some reading and math school work on Tuesday, October 20th, and in the afternoon Gary thought he'd introduce Liz to a safe experience with a firearm. Steve now has Gary's old .22, and there is a good place to target practice from the back deck down the slope into the vineyard. While I don't really go along with the idea that all children need to learn how to shoot a gun (!), Gary had done this with his older children, and wanted Liz to have the experience as well. As expected, she DID enjoy it!

We had an interesting dinner that evening at the Daniel Boone Inn in Boone, NC. We learned that Daniel Boone had passed through here (as he had passed through many places heading to Kentucky --- see Cumberland Gap, below), and hence the name. The Daniel Boone Inn is known for its fried chicken, served family style. Because we were a party of five, we happened to be seated ahead of about 15 people who had smaller parties. A salad with what tasted like Green Goddess salad dressing waited at our table, and then our waiter told us he would bring as much fried chicken, salisbury steak, ham rolls, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn, green beans, cole slaw and stewed apples as we wanted for $15.95 each ($8.95 for Liz!). It was pretty good, but the quantity was certainly the most impressive aspect. Banana pudding/strawberry shortcake or chocolate cake was the dessert. Yes, we WERE stuffed!

On Wednesday, October 20th, we said our good-byes. We had a beautiful day to do more of our driving down the Blue Ridge Parkway. Again, it was slow, but lovely, and reminded us how one of the most enjoyable things about this trip is riding up front in Buster, being high above the road with huge expansive windows. You REALLY have a view of the road and surroundings. Liz is always wanting me to play a card game or read to her or something while we are driving, but the lure of the view as we go down the road is too enticing. I have to put her off until the evening or when we stop. We had made contact with Gary's first mother-in-law, Beneta Polley, who lives in Carolina Village outside of Asheville in Hendersonville, North Carolina. She was expecting us to go out to dinner at about 6 pm, and fortunately we had identified a campground about 3 miles away from her. But we decided to get off of the Blue Ridge Parkway a little early, and I directed Gary down a very small back road into Asheville. Unfortunately, it was so curvy and narrow that Buster got scratched. A dump truck was coming up the road in the opposite direction and Gary had to pull so far over that he nicked Buster's right flank on a guard rail. It is really fairly superficial, but it looks like he has a careless driver which is not at all the case. So we hope to have this repaired in a few weeks in Atlanta.

Beneta Polley, Alice League's mother, is going to be 97 years old in November. She is doing VERY well .... she lives in an assisted living apartment where someone helps her with her medication because of visual impairment. But she does her own laundry, cooks her breakfast and lunch, and goes to the market once or twice a week for her groceries. Friends take her to church. She insisted on taking us to the Hendersonville Country Club for a lovely supper and we really enjoyed our evening with her. We promised to come back the next evening to try to share with her a picture of her granddaughter Polly in the late stages of pregnancy with twins (the belly IS impressive!).

The next day, Thursdsay, October 22, we visited Biltmore House in Asheville, North Carolina. I had never been there though had heard it was lovely and really something to see. Gary had been two or three times in the past, but this was the best tour, he said, largely because gradually more and more of the house is restored and open for display. Biltmore House may be the largest house in America and was built by George Vanderbilt and his wife Edith in the early 19th century. Mr. Vanderbilt was a lover of art and literature and his large library was part of him being called "the best read man in America" for his time. While they only had one daughter, Cornelia, he had siblings and cousins, and this gracious home became the setting for many family holidays. While we didn't get to see all the Christmas decorations up, they were in the process of putting them up and we could get a glimpse of how lovely it will be. Pictures were not allowed in the house, but we loved the Winter Garden, a large glass topped conservatory that seemed like a winter greenhouse indoors. The dining room was huge with gorgeous views, and beautiful sitting rooms all across the southwest part of the house where the Great Smoky Mountains and Mt. Pisgah can be seen. We were able to read a well-done brochure as we walked through the rooms to see dozens of bedrooms, sitting rooms, servants rooms, and in the basement a bowling alley, pool, walk-in refrigerators, roasting spits, pastry kitchen, etc, etc, etc.

We had an ice cream snack and then shopped a bit in their very nice gift shops. We spent a little time in the Gardens and then stopped at the Winery before we made our way back to Hendersonville. We stopped to share the picture of Polly, and found that Beneta had not had her dinner so had the good fortune to have another dinner together.

On Friday, October 23, we packed up and disconnected again, and headed towards McMinnville, Tennessee, the home of my older brother Kenneth Abbott and his family. We traveled the curvy 40E up and down the moutainous passes south and east of Great Smoky Mountain National Park. This is the same road that was closed by a rock slide about 38 hours later. We skirted Knoxville and drove west on Interstate 40 to Cookeville, and the turned south and west.

My older brother Ken is a retired radiologist. He's had an interesting career after he finished training at MD Anderson in Houston. He was in the Air Force and was a flight surgeon and stationed in Japan and McDill Air Force Base in Tampa, among others. I believe he nearly made 20 years in the Air Force, and then went on to private practice in Smithville, Tennessee, and from there to Riverside and then Ft. Bragg, California. He and his wife Jo returned to Tennessee over 10 years ago, I believe. One of their three children - Debi and her family live there. Now Ken is retired and he and Jo have a lovely home outside of McMinnville. We parked Buster on the street next door (a vacant lot) and were very cozy there.

The big excitement in their lives is that three of their four grandchildren (Debi and Leyn Rockwell's children) were married in the last three months. Drue and Candy were married in the summer sometime, and then Tiffany married Eric Ellison in July in a small family wedding. Both Drue and Tiffany plan larger ceremonies later down the road, in 2010 sometime. Finally, the baby, Chelsea, married Samuel Mahoney in September, and we were able to hear all about it and see the lovely pictures. Chelsea has returned to South Korea with Samuel who is in the Air Force and plans to be reassigned to Germany sometime this year. They were full of exciting stories!

Ken and his family are Seventh-day Adventists (I was raised in the SDA church) and are very active in their local congregation. So Liz and I attended church with them on Saturday, October 24, and enjoyed the bible study given by Ken. Eric Ellison gave the sermon so it was quite a strong showing by the Abbotts and their in-laws. Debi had us all over for lunch (I think with a little help from her mom and others), and we had such an enjoyable afternoon.

Ken told us about a restaurant he thought we would enjoy about 45 minutes away in Monteagle, Tennessee. Highpoint, a beautiful old stone mansion, is thought to be the former home of Al Capone and mid-way between Miami and Chicago on US 41. It was a beautiful place, and Gary and I enjoyed hosting the family dinner there that evening.
On Sunday, October 25, made the short drive to Nashville after a delicious coffee send-off (with cherry turnovers!) from Ken and Jo. It was another beautiful day for driving, and we found a convenient campground off I-24 with shopping (Target, Kohl's) nearby in Smyrna, TN.

One of the main things we wanted to see in Nashville was The Hermitage, the home of our 8th president, Andrew Jackson. He was another person who came from humble roots and with drive and determination and a very strong vision became a great leader. He was at the heart of Jacksonian Democracy, and felt very strongly that our political leaders should be advocating for the common man, and to improve his lot rather than to protect the wealth and position of those more advantaged. But his vision DID fall short: his democracy did not include men of color or women, and of course not Native Americans or slaves. He was harsh when he didn't see the right, and is responsible for the tragic Cherokee story of the Trail of Tears. About 15,000 Cherokee were to remove themselves from Tennessee and Kentucky to west of the Mississippi in order to "use their land more effiiently." In 1838 Federal troops moved them in several detachments; conditions were so severe that over 4,000 perished. It seems this must be one of the greatest tragedies that the US government has inflicted on a minority population.

The Hermitage was a productive plantation, and one of the most interesting parts of the tour was that of the slave encampments. They were housed in units where 20 could sleep, so probably a couple of families per unit. They were arranged around a central cooking and socializing area. While the stories suggest Andrew Jackson was a caring and compassionate slave owner, he appears cruel and unforgiving to disloyalty: we saw a notice offering $50 for anyone who would give his (runaway) slave 100 lashes if he were found!

We had a little down time after our visit to The Hermitage, and Liz and Gary had seen balsa wood airplanes with rubber-band powered propellers in the gift shop. So they took a little break:

I had heard that the Opryland Resort Hotel was beautiful and something to see. (Actually I had heard that it is really something at Christmastime with many decorations and rated by Travel and Leisure as one of the top ten places to stay at Christmas). Liz and I went into the lobby and I remembered that actually I had stayed there for a meeting over 10 years ago. It is impressive with lobby tropical gardens and waterfalls, glass ceiling and all the rooms with balconies opening to the huge atrium. Liz wanted to check in immediately, but we decided we would save that treat for another visit.

The General Jackson sailed at 7 pm. This was a lovely paddlewheel steamer that served dinner and had a really good country music show. First there was a little dancing on the top Hurricane deck,

and then a prime rib dinner followed by the walk down Country Music lane. The 3 men and 3 women show did a really credible job of multiple renditions of classic country music tunes, trying to imitate the voices and delivery of the original artists. There were songs of Roy Acuff, Hank Williams, Willie Nelson, and on through the years to Vince Gill, George Jones, Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, and up to Carrie Underwood and Rascal Flatts. They did an hour show, and I imagine bits of 40+ songs. It really was very entertaining. Liz was most enchanted with the young woman who sang the Carrie Underwood song, and wanted to have her picture taken with her. Of course, they were all very glittery.

There was one other thing that I wanted to do in Nashville. I had read great things about the Adventure Science Museum, and Liz also wanted to make a visit. Gary had to "check out" of the campground by noon, and the museum didn't open until 10 am. So we agreed I would take Liz and we would meet up later and drive on to Morristown. It was a good museum day .... rainy and cool. But the Adventure Science Museum was really enjoyable. Our visit began with a great visit to their Planetarium where we got in along with a school group and saw a great "all over the sky" type movie about being an astronaut. There was also a brief presentation on the rockets directed at the moon and the effort to understand how much, if any, water is on the moon. It made a lot more sense than when we heard about it on the news a couple of weeks ago, but I would tell you that NASA's explanatory presentation BEFORE the event suggests they really expected to see more of a plume of dust or something that what we all saw on the news (or didn't see!).

The other strength of the museum was it's BodyQuest area, with very creative and educational exhibits about physiologic and anatomic systems. One of the most interesting was Body Wars, where we stood in a room with laser type guns, and "shot down" invaders to the respiratory tract, nasal passages, GI tract, etc. There were teams of kids in there, and I have to say my "laser tag" skills were such that I was quite an asset to my team. Another interesting thing was the "Aging Machine." Liz answered some questions, including saying she would probably sunbathe in the future, and they projected for her what she might look ike in 65 years! It was scary!! We really enjoyed the visit to the science museum.

It was a short drive back in the rain to Smyrna where we did a little shopping. Liz got her Halloween costume ... a Tavern Maid with which she is very pleased.

Then we set off for my niece Renee Salansky's home in Morristown. We didn't realize we lost an hour to the time zone change, and arrived a little late to sit down for dinner (about 8 pm). But we did make it, in the rain, and were very happy to pull into their cul-de-sac where we parked Buster in the middle, so the mail man could circle the mail boxes in the cul-de-sac. Renee and Greg have great neighbors, and Buster sat there undisturbed while we began our great visit with the Salansky's.

Wednesday, October 28 was another low key day. We caught up on some math and reading lessons. We are still working on polygons and making sure we have nailed down rhombuses and trapezoids. Liz continues to do well on spelling but I am having a little difficulty getting her to do expository writing. She wants to do creative (very fantasical) writing ... that's ok, but we need a little bit of a balance. She is starting to want to read for fun, and that is very exciting to see. I had some reading to do for Women's HealthSource so it was a quiet day for us at the Salansky's. It is so easy and pleasant to be in their home. Renee is my niece, and is a partner in Hamblen Pediatrics here in Morristown. Greg has a fire management background, and is in charge of fire prevention in the Cherokee National Forest. He drives to Greenville, TN, daily as his headquarters. They have two lovely daughters: Brenna is 13 and in 8th grade, participating in band (saxophone), is in advanced math, and is having a good year. Olivia is an energetic 5th grader with soccer games and birthday parties, and all the usual fun stuff. Elizabeth adores the girls, and is simply thrilled that we are here for a few days, as are we.

Renee had the day off today, and went to meet my brother Ken and his wife Jo in Asheville. She had given them three days at the Inn at the Biltmore for their 50th wedding gift, and went up to meet them for lunch. So we cooked a little dinner and had things all ready for their return (my niece Debi went, too). I made a casserole that our family loves (cottage cheese, eggs, flour, frozen chopped spinach with some cheddar cheese) which is very yummy with a salad. They were tired and happy to have some dinner ready when they got home.

We continued to focus on home schooling the next day, Thursday, October 29, while Gary obtained a 20 amp electrical cord which he used to plug Buster into electricity at Greg's parents house. They have a gorgeous new home with a big LEVEL driveway, and we moved Buster out of the cul-de-sac today. Greg had taken the day off, and in the afternoon we drove over to Greenville, where he works, and visited the home of Andrew Johnson, our 17th president. He, of course, was Abraham Lincoln's vice-president. It seems he must have been rewarded for being a southern abolitionist, and it was hoped he could have some favorable influence on his fellow southerners in Tennessee. He had started out as a tailor, but loved to talk politics, and quickly rose in local politics first to alderman, and then to the state legislature, and finally to Congress. After Lincoln's death and the end of the Civil War, many wanted to punish the south. But President Johnson held steady and put preservation of the union and healing of wounds as his priority. He felt that Secretary of War Stanton was too agressive against the south, and so he fired him. Johnson's political foes thought this violated the Tenure of Office Act which stated that people in the Executive Branch were tenured and couldn't be removed from office without Senate approval. This sounds unconstitutional to us now (the powers ARE separate, and the Executive Branch can appoint and remove it own staff), and in fact it was declared unconstiutional by the Supreme Court a few years later. But President Johnson ended up being impeached by his political enemies. The impeachment was not confirmed by a vote in the Senate. He was judged not guilty. He returned to live out his post-presidency days in Greenville, TN, where we visited.

My niece Renee and her pediatric office practice partners were conducting an Employee Appreciation day this week, and so she brought home some delicious ribs, grilled chicken and baked sweet potatoes which they had left over from their catered lunch, so we had an easy to prepare and clean-up dinner.

On Friday, October 30, we worked on some math, and then met Renee for lunch. We drove to Hamblen (County) Pediatrics where we encountered ...... Raggedy Ann! The fun (and VERY GOOD) pediatrician that she is had dressed up. She also thought ahead and reserved three doses of H1N1 vaccine for us for which we were VERY GRATEFUL!!! Liz got the nasal mist, and she had just received some injectable which she gave us. We were, again, so thrilled she thought of us and our health. We went to lunch together

and in the afternoon, we wanted to head to Cumberland Gap .... we knew this was an important passageway in the westward expansion of the US population, and when there we learned that over 300,000 Americans traversed this low point in the mountains near where Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee meet. We were so interested to see the Gap from a distance, and then closer up. The picture on the right is a beautiful fall scene from the Cumberland Gap Visitor's Center:

We also got to add our 22nd state, Kentucky, with our visit to Cumberland Gap.

We had fun that evening joining Renee and Greg and their girls as they joined their friends for their traditional Friday night Mexican dinner out to celebrate the end of the week. We've joined them before, and it is always a good time.

On Halloween, October 31, we spent most of the day getting ready for "the event." We carved some pumpkins around noon time, and worked on refining costumes. Trick or treating started before 5 pm in their development, Seven Oaks, and they have a fun tradition in their cul-de-sac of setting a table out at the end of the driveway and sitting out to hand out candy. Unfortunately, it drizzled most of the evening, sometimes raining a little harder, but fortunately it wasn't terribly cold and the kids stayed out a couple of hours. Brenna was Sally Quality from Nightmare before Christmas (I've never seen it), Olivia was Pebbles (Flintstones) in a costume her mother designed and created, and Liz was a Serving Maid. Olivia and Brenna's cousin, Matthew, was another Flintstone character, Bam-Bam! They were all adorable!

The jack-o'lanterns also turned out very well, particularly Greg's! Greg is a fire prevention specialist for the U. S. Forest Service, and in that role actually personifies Smokey the Bear .... in fact he wears the Smokey the Bear suit when he rides the Forest Service float in the Gatlinberg, TN, holiday parade. He had a template for a Smokey the Bear jack-o'lantern, and did an absolutely awesome job carving it, don't you think? We were amazed. Liz's pumpkin is the one of the right in the right-hand picture, and her cousin Brenna's is on the left.

After trick or treating we went over to Greg's parents beautiful new home. Eva and Ted Salansky also live in Morristown (retired from owning and running a motel in Gatlinberg for years), and they generously "loaned" us their driveway to park Buster. Their garage was also close enough for our electric cord. We had some more treats (no tricks), and very much appreciate Ted and Eva's hospitality.

Sunday, November 1st, was another quiet family day. The kids, of course, were in the post-Halloween sugar heaven, and we were relatively unsuccessfully trying to ration the candy. We were able to take a 30 minute drive southeast to some 85 acre property that Renee and Greg have bought with his brother Gary and his wife Debbie, that is providing some great recreational opportunities. Named River Wood (I think) Retreat by the former owners, it is land that is flooded by the French Broad River when dams upstream or downstream are open or closed for short periods of time, as vegetation does survive. They can ride ATVs on it in when it is dryer and when flooded, they can ride a pontoon off their long dock. These couples each have two kids, coming into teen years, and they hope to keep the kids interested in the outdoors and camping with friends. It sounds like a great plan! And it's a beautiful spot as you can see.

We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing and taking some more family pictures. We love getting these three girls together .... they have such a good time. We all do, and our visits with Renee and Greg are always wonderful .... easy, warm, relaxing.

(I've been trying to add another couple pictures but the uploading isn't working; so I"ll post this for now, and hopefully have a chance to come back to it!)

Tomorrow, we will head southeast to South Carolina, and reconnect with Gary's brothers and begin the leg of our trip with his mother, Maxine. She is the matriarch of the family, and has been looking forward to her time with us. We all have!

Sending love,

Julie, Gary and Liz