Day #33- Oh Give Me a Home

Where the buffalos roam?  Nope.  Not here.  Turns out, spiders must have roamed while we were gone.  We walked thru a few spider webs when we got home.  Not the best welcome, but it could have been worse. 

Writing this, I notice that today is day #33.  That is the longest summer trip we have taken.  The drive from Arkansas seemed like nothing as we were quickly into Texas.  We made it from Dallas in record time thanks to there actually NOT being any traffic for once.  There was still construction, but the cars kept moving. 

We have been listening to Bobby Bones pod cast.  On the show, they have been doing a fantasy draft, but with subjects other than football such as best fast food, people named Chris, best country song...I decided to round out this summer of travel by Loren and I having our trip draft of favorite places.  If either of us have the same answer, only the person who says it gets to keep it.  So, here goes:

Loren
1.  Paracom Hotel- Pennsylvania
2.  McRaven House
3.  Roanoke Zoo

Erin
1.  Driving the Blueridge Parkway
2.  Myrtle's Plantation
3.  Jimmy Buffet Concert

That's the end of this summer.  As usual, we had an amazing and unforgettable adventure.  We count ourselves as some of the most fortunate people to have the jobs and finances to just take off for a month at a time.  It will be a year of waiting, but I'll be back, so stay tuned!

Day #32- Coal Miner's Daughter

We are back on Central Time and to celebrate, we woke up before 6am.  I'm kidding, it wasn't a purposeful wake up.  That's just what happened.  Yes, we could have gotten on the road that early, but I really wanted to go to Loretta Lynn's ranch.  We farted around for awhile including spending too much time at my new favorite place- The Flying J/Pilot travel center. 

I got an app on my phone when we first started traveling this year.  It gives 3¢ off each gallon of gas.  This isn't a bank breaker, but it adds up.  These travel centers are far from the old truck stops.  Bathrooms are clean, food choices are endless, and there is merchandise like a mall.  Texans are used to Buckees, but places like that are not found on the road outside of Texas.  We decided on Cinnabon for our breakfast, I made a yummy iced coffee, and we headed out for the ranch.

Times for the opening of the ranch shops, museums, and tours were very inconsistent.  I had read anywhere from 8-10.  We arrived about 8:30.  What we didn't know was that the ranch hosts a yearly motocross race.  People were already arriving with their RVs, campers, trailers...We got up to the gate and Loren told the guy we just wanted to look around and were not part of the event.  He sent us on and we drove 2 miles through the lush lands of the ranch.  A huge area of the ranch land had been turned into motorbike tracks and courses.  Hundreds of people were already camped and ready. 

We arrived at the old Western Town part of the ranch.  There was a beautiful river, gristmill, general store, post office- all the things that we would be expect to see.  An employee told us the buildings opened around 9ish, so we drove back across the bridge so we could park in front of the haunted plantation house to look around.  The home was fenced off so we couldn't get too close.  Just looking at it from a distance, the creepy vibe was definitely there.  The spirits were probably confused because this really looked like a town from the 1800s.

We were finally able to go into the gift shop.  It was connected to a Native American artifact museum that displayed relics really found on the land.  That led into a whole walk that was built like a coal mine.  Loren suspects that actual mines had much lower ceilings because he was able to stand up straight the entire time.  It was all very cool to see.  Loretta Lynn's music was playing and I just kept thinking my Grandma Angie was probably watching us explore this place.  I remember all of her old country records that she would play when I was little.  Sadly, as tours of the home did not start until 11, we decided we just needed to get on the road.  But, we got to see a place that I am sure most people have not.  Totally worth it. 

We drove to Hope, Arkansas for the night.  We did not want fast food for dinner, so I researched local restaurants with good reviews.  I found a Mexican restaurant called Amigo Juan Mexican Cafe.  The food was probably the best Mexican I have had since Lupe's in Nacogdoches.  I have searched for years to find comparable Mexican food to Lupe's.  Enchiladas y Mas comes close, but not quite. 

Well, tomorrow we are on our last leg, barring any unforeseen circumstances.  I will be writing the blog from our own bed.  As our 2019 blog comes to a close, stay tuned for one final entry tomorrow. 

Day #31- Coming on Strong Like a Hurricane

We had a lovely drive today.  Zero complaints.  No traffic, no construction, no wrecks, no fighting.  We started out nice and early and made it through Nashville between any sort of rush hours.

Traveling with Loren is like traveling with a small child that I have to keep entertained.  I am happy listening to music the whole way.  He has to be actively engaged in something.  He has his Game Boy and we listen to pod casts.  He discovered a new activity today.  Our new GPS, Turkleton, allows drivers to report all sorts of road hazards so that other travelers will be warned.  Anything from cops to something in the road to disabled vehicles.  Oh, but there is more.  If someone is driving like a jerk, that can be noted as well.  The app allows for a picture to be taken of the vehicle and a statement of their unsafe behaviors to be submitted.  So now, Loren carefully watched the roads and would threaten (not that they could hear him, but...) to tattle if they kept driving like maniacs.  One guy in a blue Jeep was so crazy that Loren could not even get a picture.  However, Karma got this man.  We later passed him stopped with two cop cars behind his vehicle and the man with his hands cuffed behind his back.  Sucks to be him. 

We were somewhere between Nashville and Memphis when we saw signs for a town called Hurricane Mills.  That name rung a bell, but we were not sure why.  We then saw signs saying "Loretta Lynn's Hurricane Mills" and we remembered!  Ghost Adventures had been here to investigate her haunted plantation home.  Since we had already been on the road for 7 hours, we decided to stop for the night...if the hotel would have us.  They let us in early and we started to plan our investigation.  Sadly, there are no night time tours.  It was already past time for the last plantation house tour and we were not really interested in the various other museums and buildings.  We decided to wait and check it all out in the morning.  While researching, I learned that Loretta Lynn owns this entire small town. 

We had a great meal at a place called the Log Cabin.  It was southern home cooking and has been in this town for a hundred years.  The side options were any delicious veggie you could imagine.  I had pot roast and Loren had a steak.  We plan to take a plantation tour tomorrow and then head closer to home...unless something else grabs us and wants us to visit.  As always, stay tuned!

Day #30- I'm Damn Sure Not Gonna Fight Tonight!

Texas Country singer Cody Johnson got it right when he sang the title of today's blog.  However, 30 days with pretty much only one person and countless hours in a small vehicle can wear on even the strongest relationships.  Loren and I rarely fight.  He screams and yells at the outside world plenty, but it is hardly ever directed at me.  Well, by the end of our drive today, I was a smart ass about something and he was a nut case about something (I am not being evasive here, I genuinely have no clue what set us off).  We decided it would be better if we stopped because someone was about to left on the side of the road to walk home.  We were fine by the time we checked into our trusty Econo Lodge.  I guess we just had some travel frustrations built up. 

Today was pretty smooth sailing, though.  I downloaded a new GPS called Waves.  The Google GPS lady has been awful this trip.  The new app had me laughing.  I set the voice to be Cookie Monster.   "C is for crash- look out!" 🤣. Then while playing with the app, Loren changed it to be a British guy whom we named Turkleton. 

We are almost in Tennessee.  I imagine we just have a night or two left on the road and then it will be home sweet home.  Who knows what we can get into during these last few days, so stay tuned!

Day #29- Mary Had a Little Lamb

We are in Maryland.  The song has nothing to do with anything other than yet another look into my weird brain.  Mary-Lamb, Mary-Land?  Ok, I'll stop. 
Anyway, here we are in Maryland.  Did we plan to stop here?  Nope.  Do things tend to work out the opposite of what we want?  Yes.  The traffic on this side of the country is far from being a lamb.  It is a beast.  First, the tolls.  Oh, those damn tolls!  Unlike the ticket drama in Pennsylvania, we didn't just get a ticket when we entered and pay when we exited.  No, these tolls were stops every few miles.  None were consistent.  One would be 75¢ while the next was $2.19 and the next $4.  None of this was reported in advance, so it was a surprise at each toll booth.  There was no flying thru the Easy Pass lane as those had gates down that would only open once the pass was read.  The pay lanes were cash only.  Yep, no cards allowed.  So, no cash?  You're screwed.  There were 10 booths at each stop, but only 2 open.  Each line was about 20 cars deep.  This is no exaggeration...we had driven 4 hours and the GPS said we had only gone 2 hours towards our destination.  We had been using our Roulette winnings, but that ran out.  We had to stop at a gas station to get more cash for the roads. 
Next, the construction.  We were paying our family fortune to drive roads with lanes closed and construction going on.  Which leads to the third problem.  Accidents.  The final straw was when we started hearing about a 45 minute delay.  That notice came through a good hour before we ever hit the delay.  It was still saying 45 minutes.  Then, as we sat there, it turned into indefinite road closure. 
Having no idea where we were, we exited and spent another good hour driving through some nowhere town looking for a hotel.  Everyone that was stuck on the highway was now in this town.  There were zero hotels.  Hotwire finally told us of one 7 miles away.  I booked it.  But guess what?  It was 7 miles down the closed highway!!  Loren finally got the GPS woman to give us an alternative route to the hotel, which took 27 minutes for 7 miles.  We finally pulled up to the hotel and were very pleasantly surprised that Hotwire had given us a nice Holiday Inn for very cheap. 
We settled in and tried to get ourselves ungrumpy.  We have decided to forgo any other adventures and just head for home.  I checked the routes and finally found one not full of construction.  It may not be the straighest path, but hopefully the least stressful.  Tomorrow we are Austin bound, so stay tuned!

Day #28- Under the Boardwalk

Ok, I know I am weird, but there are certain places on my bucket list for travel.  These places might have some people scratching their heads wondering why I would want to visit.  Some of those places are to drive old route 66 (done), visit Coney Island (done), Astoria OR (not done), Savannah GA (not done), and Atlantic City NJ.  Well, today was the day to scratch Atlantic City off my list. 
The original plan was to move into Philly from our hotel on the outskirts.  We had a hop on hop off tour scheduled.  It was a last second decision, but we decided to get a refund on the tour, head to Atlantic City, and just book the tour for another day if we decided to go back to Philly.  Knowing how close Atlantic City is to where we were, I just couldn't miss it. 
If you watch Boardwalk Empire, you probably would understand why this Boardwalk holds so much interest to me.  I know it is not the prohibition era.  I know Lucky Luciano and other gangsters won't be roaming around, but I just wanted to see it. 
We found our trusty Econo Lodge right across from the huge Tropicana casino.  Check in was not until 3, so we set off to entertain ourselves until then.  We walked across to the Tropicana and first had their lunch buffet.  Casino buffets are far from CHEAP, but this one was great!  I guess that's why people pay the big bucks for them. 
We were walking through the casino looking for Roulette when we saw a sign for the arcade.  No surprise, this turned into our first stop in the casino.  Most people would hit the slots, but not us.  We walked around looking for the one game that I play- and play well!  Pop-a-Shot.  This one was different from others we had played.  It was one person at a time.  If you got a certain number of points, you move on to the next round where the basket moves.  I made it to the second round, but sadly, not the 3rd.  In total I scored 69 points in a matter of like 2 minutes.  Then it was Loren's turn.  He didn't, and never will beat me at this game.  Maybe it is because he is so tall and wastes time bending over to retrieve the basketballs.  Who knows.  I'll have to pay attention to his form next time and give some pointers.  Haha.  I'm kidding.  He is great.  His shots are more accurate.  I think maybe I just move faster being more compact.
We found the Roulette machine and sat down to play.  This one was much better than the game in Lake Charles.  It was still a $3 minimum, but the $3 could be spread out across the board.  After playing for awhile, we decided to max bet the money we still had.  I picked simply, black odd.  It hit and we made up the money we had lost, plus $3 more.  Ya, I know.  Not a huge cash out, but we are conservative gamblers. 
There were doors marked exit on the gaming floor.  I knew they were on the boardwalk side of the building.  So, it would make sense to walk out these doors.  Nope.  As soon as I pushed the door open, alarms started going off all over the casino.  I may have said 'oh shit' and we ran away.  We finally found the actual beach exit doors and walked out into the gleaming sun and the board walk!  It was packed with shops, restaurants, and people.  We walked around a little, but really wanted to wait until the evening to see everything lit up.  It was check in time, so we went back to our hotel. 
There were several groups checking in, so we had to wait.  A young girl walked in, obviously messed up on something.  The guy refused to let her get a room.  She argued saying she had money and was paying cash.  The man still refused.  He told her of another hotel that might rent to her.  She left all of her stuff (it looked like everything she owned) and went out the door.  It was our turn to check in.  Everything went smoothly.  Our room was on the bottom floor and we could park right outside.  Win win.  We get into the room and are greeted with something similar to the room we ran away from a few years ago in Hollywood.  This place was so old that the bathroom had mint green tiles and a pink toilet.  I pulled the covers back (I don't ever sit on the comforter because I assume they don't wash them) and there were stains and sand on the sheets.  Like I have said before, we are not hotel snobs.  We just need clean and safe.  This was appearing to be neither.  Loren went to the desk to ask for our money back.  The place refused, but gave us a key to a new room.  Loren noticed the sketchy people hanging around and made the decision that even if we couldn't get our money back, we were NOT staying there.  We found a nice hotel and were relieved to have been out of the drug den. 
When looking at what all the boardwalk had to offer, I saw an arcade.  I knew Loren would love that, so we had a starting point for our evening.  Just as we walked out of our hotel room, the sky opened up.  Great.  So much for a nice walk.  We drove to the arcade (glad we did because it was 1.6 miles away).  The rain had stopped as quickly as it started and it was a beautiful night.  The lights and sounds and shops of the boardwalk did not disappoint.  We took pictures on the beach and poked around the stores.  We chose Hard Rock Cafe for our dinner. 
As of now, our plan is to start our journey back home tomorrow.  However, the trek will be exciting as we plan to go home via Savannah!!!  Another place to mark off my bucket list.  Stay tuned! 

Day #27- We're Off to Never-Never Land

We have not slept-in later than 8:30 am so far since school has been out.  This is amazing for us.  We used to quickly get on a schedule of staying up late and sleeping late.  Then when work time rolls around, we are wrecked trying to wake up in the mornings.  Fingers crossed that we can keep up this schedule.  Being up early has completely changed our hotel stays.  We no longer sleep through breakfast and are able to eat and drink free coffee each morning. 
Our bodies must have been exhausted from the heat and the physical activity yesterday because today, it was 9:30 before we woke up.  Not wanting to miss our free coffee and chow, we threw on clothes and ran downstairs.  The breakfast room was packed.  Sitting in it was Steve Tango who we had investigated with last night.  Loren stopped by to say hi.  He remembered us and asked when we were headed back to Texas.  It is so cool that we are staying at the same hotel as the stars of the paranormal field.  We are actually able to have good conversation outside of the event. 
Since we had 2 day passes and still some autographs to get, we arranged for an additional night at our hotel and went back to Paracom.  It was still blazing hot out and many vendors had given up. The tents were virtually empty of booths and people.   Surprisingly, every single person we had met over the past few days were still at the event.  We were able to get each of their autographs on various items and found a shirt I had seen yesterday.  It was amazing how we were remembered including where we were visiting from. 
Having gotten more than our money's worth over the past few days, we planned on spending the rest of the afternoon staying cool in our room.  We would occasionally go downstairs to see if anyone of interest was around, but I think everyone had checked out. 
The excessive heat is supposed to finally break with it being highs in the 80s tomorrow and high in the 70s on Tuesday.  I think the cool down has already started as I hear snores from one side of me and thunder from the other.  We are headed off to Philly tomorrow, so stay tuned!