Table of Contents
Here is a table of contents listing each of the 56 days of our trip.
Day 1: Lexington to Washington Our traditional first stop: Peets Lexington Uneventful drive down to Washington. Listened to Last Train to Paradise by Les Standiford about Henry Flagler's exploits in building the Florida East Coast Railway -- and in turn changing Florida from a swamp to the thriving(?) state it is ...
Day 2: Newseum from the beginning of print to the present day wonderfully displayed for your perusal. The film in the exhibit on Pulitzer Prize winning photographs had the photographers themselves taking about the work. There were three good films about different aspects of journalism. There ... Day 3: Newseum and National Gallery East Wing Observation –When you wear a bright red Red Sox jacket outside of the Boston area you had better get used to random people shouting “GO SOX” at you several times a day. Day 4: The Phillips Collection, MLK & FDR Memorials The Phillips Collection After two non-stop days (three if you count the drive here) we got a very leisurely start today and did not go out until midday. Venturing out from our Alexandria vicinity hotel by car to the Phillips Collection in D.C. Duncan Phillips an heir to the ... Day 5: National Building Museum The building occupied by the National Building Museum was built after the civil war (1882-87) as the new home of the Pension Office. At the time Pensions were 1/3 of the federal budget. Inside and out the design is classic Italian Renaissance on ... Day 6: Alexandria VA: Gatsby Tavern Marsha has been on the lookout for Taverns as we travel -- to see how they are furnished. The Lexington Historical Society is re-setting the Buckman Tavern and so she is looking for new ideas.While I went to Starbucks, Marsha went on a tour of the tavern. Here are her pictures from ... Day 6: Alexandria, VA twice a day every day.Our curiosity finally peaked today and we ventured up the drive to this imposing building. We had hoped to be able to take the tour of the building, which included the elevator up to the top for the Day 7: Williamsburg, VA Williamsburg was, as always, a very pleasant place to spend a day. We strolled very slowly from one end of Duke of Gloucester Street to the other. Stopping to tour buildings and chat with craftsmen. Sometimes we just sat on ... Day 8: Williamsburg VA to Wilmington NC indulged in a slow and lazy start to the day and headed out of Williamsburg around 11 am. Five hours on the road brought us to Wilmington, NC from where we will head down the coast tomorrow toward Beaufort, SC. Near the beginning of our trip today we crossed ... Day 9: Wilmington NC to Beaufort SC It was a beautiful blue sky and sunny today as we drove from Wilmington, NC to Beaufort, SC. Rt. 17 South all the way – no Interstates. Yes there were stretches where the mini-golf establishments were separated only by the t-shirt shops and fast food restaurants. ... Day 10: Beaufort SC The key to pronunciation used here is “Beautiful BEAU-fort”. The Beaufort in North Carolina is BOW-fort. Beautiful is a good descriptor for this town. Everywhere you look on the residential streets of old town there are immense live oak trees draped ... Day 11: From Beaufort SC, to Savannah GA, and then St. Augustine a day of dark images. Yesterday was the first day I was reminded again about slavery in the United States. We toured Beaufort looking at the "summer cottages" used by the plantation owners in the hot summer months when they couldn't stand ... Day 12: St. Augustine FL Finding our way in St. Augustine was a challenge this morning since there were many streets closed off for a road race and our GPS decided not to have any idea where we were just when we needed that information. Somehow we arrived at our destination with time to ... Day 13: St. Augustine Lighthouse & The Villages FL JoAnn prepared a lovely dinner for us and her friend Kim and next-door neighbor David. After the company left, JoAnn and Marsha cried their way through this week’s episode of Downton Abbey and it was time to call it a day. Day 14: The Villages FL to Florida City FL; Closed on Mondays: Morse Museum in Winter Park FL & El Toro Taco in Homestead FL Mondays Day 13 of our trip: that explains everything.As we sat having our morning coffee outside at the Starbucks in the Town Square at the Villages and were planning out our day I mentioned a Museum I thought would make a nice stop along our route -- ... Day 15: Homestead to Key West those that died in the great labor day hurricane of 1935 (they didn't give them names back then), the third was a stroll from a parking area to view the 7 mile bridge before we crossed it and the last was at a park along a causeway for a picnic lunch. The general ... Day 16: Dry Tortugas you have done it and you don’t want to say that you never tried. All in all it was a good day. The sun was shining, the air was warm and the breeze was blowing. The guide was fun and informative, and the boat was brand new -- three months old. ... Day 17: Key West Free Range Key West Chicken It was a cloudy day here in paradise. First stop was Truman’s Little White House. The house was built in 1890 to serve as the home of the Commandant and the Paymaster of the U.S. Naval Base. Truman was in residence here for 175 ... Day 18: Hemingway Home and Museum; Southernmost point buoy; Key West to Homestead/Florida City FL and we have spent the rest of the day preparing for our cruise departure tomorrow. Sailing out of Miami on the Norwegian Cruise Lines Epic bound for St. Marten, St. Thomas and Nassau.We will probably not have internet access for the next week.See you on the 9th. Day 19: Start of Cruise from Miami to St Maarten, St Thomas, and Nassau Epic We are off on a 7 day cruise to St Maarten, St Thomas and Nassau. Marsha found an incredible deal on an inside cabin that we couldn't pass up.The Ship - Norwegian Epic (one of the world's largest) the advantage of a large ship is there are more choices. More restaurants, ... Day 20: Day at Sea 1 Marsha reading in a restaurant at the back of the ship Working on it...Super Bowl Le Bistro ... Day 21: Day at Sea 2 Cirque de Soliel Sketching Reading Day 22: St Maarten Marsha and Juan Paolo We signed up for a historical bike tour. The owner of Tri-sports - St. Maarten Juan Paolo and his assistant Martin led our group along the beachfront path and around the curving bay and back. We stopped along the way to learn a bit about the history of the ... Day 23: St Thomas 1671 Harry chose to stay aboard while Marsha headed to town with a historical walking tour pamphlet in hand. Most tropical locales have a bit of a worn shabby vibe - it's part of their charm. St. Thomas has a bit more than most. The government of this U.S. territory ... Day 24: Day at Sea 3 Howl at the Moon Working on it...Howl at the Moon Legends of Rock and Roll Working on more photos. Day 25: Nassau Picturesque entrance to Nassau with Paradise Island off in the distance. Again we chose the self-guided walking tour rather than the glitzy overpriced tours. At our third stop we talked with a fellow passenger who was using a guide much better than ours and who shared an extra copy ... Day 26: Back from the Cruise, Lunch in Coconut Grove with the Grays Richard, Lillian, Harry and Marsha It's 10am and we are camped out in a Starbucks, having just returned from a cruise to St Maarten, St. Thomas and Nassau aboard the Norwegian Cruise Line Epic. It will take us several days to catch up with the details and pictures from the cruise. ... Day 27: Winter Park: Morse Museum and their Tiffany Collection; then drive to Cedar Key Villages on our way to Key West we tried to visit the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum in Winter Park only to discover that we were at their door on the one day they are not open. So, we decided to try again when we were heading for the Gulf Coast. And we are glad that we ... Day 28: Cedar Key hanging swings and hammocks interspersed between the palms. Morning coffee was consumed on one of those swings this a.m. and after a full day we have returned to watch the setting sun. After our initial cup of coffee we walked a few blocks to Eat at Pat’s who served ... |
Day 29: Cedar Key Hermit Crab Today is our half way point – one month on the road – one month to go.After another hearty breakfast at Eat at Pat’s we headed for the boardwalk at cemetery point. The boardwalk stretches out over the marsh and then alongside the bayou until ...
Day 30: Cedar Key to Wakulla Springs An entire town dedicated to fishing. Since the sky and the sea were the same pale gray this morning with a steady rain we decided that it would be a good day to drive to our next destination. So off we headed for a 2 ½ hour drive to Wakulla Spring State Park ... Day 31: Wakulla Springs State Park Gallinule and White Ibis Happy Valentine's Day.After a hearty breakfast we decided on taking the morning to catch up on our blog and read our books.The state park operates tour boats that go out on the Wakulla River to view the scene and especially the wildlife along the river. Our ... Day 32:Â Wakulla Springs to Apalachicola Great Blue Heron With the sun shining and a clear blue sky we had a lovely drive this morning from Wakulla Springs along the gulf coast. Our destination was Apalachicola but we drove across the bay on the bridge to St. George’s Island and past the beach houses to the open spaces of the St. ... Day 33: Apalachicola Shrimp boats Cloudy and windy in the morning but the forecast said it would be clear by noon and that’s exactly when the clear blue sky appeared.Harry dropped me off in downtown Apalachicola at 9am to wander and shop while he drove to and from Wakulla Springs to retrieve the items he left in ... Day 34: Lunch with An at Seaside, FL An and her pink bicycle Before we left Apalachicola we stopped to photograph some of the grand homes along the gulf shore in the morning sun. Picture wide wrap around verandas with rockers and porch swings.Then it was a slow meandering drive down to Seaside for a prearranged meet up with An ... Day 35: Destin, FL green tingeto it.It is also called the Forgotten Coast although given all the people that were here for President’s Day weekend I think some of them must have remembered.As for the Old Florida designation we have found vestiges but you do have to search them ... Day 36: Destin, FL to Ocean Springs, MS. Birds by Walter Anderson A three state day:Breakfast in Destin, FloridaLunch in Mobile, AlabamaDinner in Ocean Springs, MississippiAs we were driving on the bridge above the bayous approaching Mobile, Alabama I started to imagine that I was living the opening scenes of a John Grisham ... Day 37: Ocean Springs & Biloxi MS appreciated Gehry’s design. He did not achieve recognition in his lifetime but now his work is in the Metropolitan Museum in New York, and in the Smithsonian and there is this museum in his hometown.When Harry had experienced quite enough for one day I dropped him at the Hotel and ... Day 38: Biloxi to New Orleans also a shaded back veranda over-looking the gardens with rooms on either side. We were, of course, there on a somewhat windy February day but we could imagine how wonderful it would be in July. Katrina extensively damaged this property and it took over five years ... Day 39: The National World War II Museum, New Orleans A day at the National World War II Museum. We will need another rainy day to go back and see more. The museum currently occupies 4 buildings and they are building a 5th. There is so much to see, experience and digest that we had to ... Day 40: Finish WWII Museum, Brunch at The Commander's Palace, New Orleans see the big picture and the relationships between the European War and the War in the Pacific. If was also made clear to us that D-Day was in many respects just the beginning of the fight. I was moved by the individual soldier’s stories of their actual experiences ... Day 41: Sunday in New Orleans crowds in the Center City and French Quarter we thought we would try another side of town for our indoor activity. So we planned a day at the New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA) in City Park. Our GPS got us within a few blocks when we saw the roadblock. ... Day 42: Doing the Wash, Ogden Museum when it is raining and we are in city is to go to a Museum. Alas, when it is raining on a Monday, the standard day that museums are closed, you have a problem. Rolling over in bed works for a while but eventually you have to find something to do. ... Day 43: Garden District Walking Tour, Trip on St Charles Trolly recommendations. The neighborhood continues to surprise us as we travel down different streets and see the wonderful restoration work that is being done in the Bywater. We had been waiting for a sunny day to be able to really enjoy getting out and walking and we may have overdone it today ... Day 44: Laura Plantation the day for a day trip out of the city. For some reason I had always assumed that the Sugar plantations were a couple of hours outside of New Orleans but I was wrong. In under an hour you can find yourself winding along the Great River ... Day 45: New Orleans – Courtyard Walking Tour and Dr. Bob Every once in a while we take a day to do our own thing. Day 46: NOLA – Chalmette Battlefield, Kermit Ruffins An Arts & Crafts Bungalow in the Bywater Section of NOLA Slow start to the day with coffee at Satsuma, after which Harry wandered off to take photographs of the Bywater scene and I hung out writing this blog and wandering through some of ... Day 47: NOLA - Evergreen Planatation We decided to just take it easy this am and catch up on our blog and our beauty sleep.At noon we headed back out of town to the Great River Road to visit Evergreen Plantation. There are other more famous and certainly glitzier sugarcane plantations to choose from but we chose ... Day 48: NOLA – New Orleans Museum of Art Diana, as well as those that are new and exciting. Lovely place. Too bad we arrived some twenty minutes before they closed for the day – it would have been nice just to sit on one of numerous benches and gaze out over the lagoon. I discovered after ... Day 49: NOLA – French Quarter weekend when it is wall-to-wall people. Today we set aside the whole day just to wander at will in the French Quarter. And just to mix it up a bit we left the car and took the bus. For seniors the buses are a real bargain with 40 cent fares. ... Day 50: NOLA – Dooky Chase & Metairie Cemetery Chase surrounded by Harry and Marsha Thanks for our host Karen we had one more glorious day to spend in New Orleans. Karen had been suggesting that we go to Dooky Chase’s Restaurant (still run by 90+ year old matriarch Leah Chase) for the buffet lunch. ... Day 51: New Orleans to Atlanta just the two of them. So this visit is probably the last time we will stay in their home as it goes on the market next week. It was a good decision to stop to see them.So our travel day – 8 hours on the road – ended surrounded by family. Nice. ... Day 52: Atlanta – Chickamauga NBP – Oak Ridge battlefield we even knew the names of the major players and we had a good idea of their plans and strategies. It was a bright, sunny day with a bit of a nip in the air, which made it all the more enjoyable. After exploring the battlefield we went back to the ... Day 53: Oak Ridge, TN – Wytheville, VA vision of nuclear energy, versus the reality that has be learned in subsequent years. Thus our disappointment. The day began at the American Museum of Science and Energy (AMSE) in Oak Ridge. The museum dates from the late 1960’s and hasn't seen ... Day 54: Frontier Culture Museum, Staunton, VA At the start of the day we were in Wytheville, VA and now at its end we are in Hagerstown, MD. There was a two-hour drive in the morning to get us to Staunton, VA and a two-hour drive in the afternoon to get us to Hagerstown. ... Day 55: Hagerstown to Philadelphia; Philadelphia Museum of Art Day Parade. Could someone explain to me why Philadelphia had its Parade one week in advance of St. Patrick’s Day? So we continued to try to get to our destination and were again with sight of the Museum when it became evident that the ... Day 56: Rodin Museum, Barnes Foundation; Philadelphia PA to Lexington MA anticipation of what turned out to be a very long day took our time in the morning. The hotel was just steps away from both the Rodin and Barnes Museums. The Rodin Museum We started with the Rodin. First opened in 1927 the museum was a gift to the city from a local ... |