Day 38, Friday 10-16-15 Jackson, Louisville and Knoxville, TN.

This morning we drove down the hill to Casey Jones Village to get some pictures.  It would have been great to have been able to spend some time here.  This will be a come-back-to when we visit friends in Knoxville.  Casey Jones, while a legend, was a real engineer on the  Illinois Central Railroad.

Follow this link and use the sidebar to read the facts and legend of Casey Jones

The house Casey live in with his wife Janie.

 

Our next stop was Louisville, TN where Linda’s step-aunt lives.  The two don’t see each other very often (like every 25 years) so it was a chance for the gals to discuss where and what everybody in the family is up to.  They had a good reunion.

 

 

Bill, Dusty, Lacey and Pree 

Our next stop is in Knoxville to visit Bill and Pree.  We all met back in 1972 when Bill and I attended Embry Riddle Aeronautical University.  We have kept in touch all these years and when they were living on their sailboat “Night Wind” and we had “TwoGether” they sailed north from Titusville, FL to the Chesapeake Bay for the summer to visit us.  At this point they are enjoying retirement with the occasional trip to TX to visit their daughter and grandkids. 

Here I come!!

Pree has a new puppy who is six months old.  Lacey is all puppy.  As Linda wrote in her journal “Lacy is a little fireball”.  She took to Linda right away. 

 

 

We always have plenty to catch up on even though we email and are on the phone together several times a year

Pizza delivery seemed like a good idea.  It was and we feasted at the kitchen table.





Day 37 Thursday 10-15-15 Oklahoma City, OK to Jackson, TN

Eastern Oklahoma and all of Arkansas zipped by pretty quickly as we were trying to keep on the move. 

Linda did manage to get a shot of the First Pentecostal Church in North Little Rock as we flew by.  Back in 2008 we traveled to San Antonio TX and on the way home we crossed southern AR and our son was kind of disappointed because it was absolutely flat.  However I-40 brushes the Ozarks and the terrain is more like home in PA. 

We wondered how the lady we met at the diner back at Devils Tower, WY was making out.  She had left Alaska and was moving to AR to have more sunshine in the winter and lower taxes and cost of living.   I think she will feel right at home real soon.

Whoa!! Where is this guy going?

I didn't think he could back up at 70 MPH.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Memphis came up on the horizon.  The Great American Pyramid stood out as we crossed the Mississippi River.  We still haven’t figured why ‘GPS Jill’ decided to detour us through downtown but we out smarted her and stayed on I-40.  I think she just tests us from time to time to see if we are paying attention.

The Pyramid, originally designed as an arena, now
houses a Bass Pro Shop Megastore and
headquarters for Ducks Unlimited.

 

We decided we would travel to Jackson, TN and call it a day.  It’s interesting how during our travels we fall into things we never planned on seeing.  Our hotel was next to Casey Jones Village.  We walked down to the Old Country Store's Dixie Café  for supper.  They offered a choice of eating at a cafeteria, a buffet or the ice cream parlor.  The best part was the live music offered every Thursday evening.  Local folks just a pickin’ and a sing’n, Bluegrass and country music.  There were three jam sessions going at the same time: one in the cafeteria, one in the ice cream parlor and one on the front lawn. 



Croon'n in the cafeteria

Pick'n in the parlor



Bluegrass on the grass



 This was a memorable evening for sure.

Day 36 Wednesday 10-14-15 Amarillo to Oklahoma City.

Today is a travel day from Amarillo to Oklahoma City where we will visit with family tonight. 

Of course we all know everything is bigger in Texas.  We saw this cross along I-40 at “The Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ Ministries” in Groom, TX.

  
 
 
 
 
 

 

We have never been to Italy to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa…But we saw the Leaning Tank of Britten.

Cotton Fields

 

 

 



Stephanie, Ty and Keith

We got a room in Yukon, OK then headed south to Bridge Creek to visit with family.  I have an aunt, Ruthann, that is only a year older than I. We could find all kinds of trouble to get into as kids.  About the time my dad was ready to skin us alive my grandmother would say "It's okay...Their just having fun".  Ruthann is kind of responsible for Linda and I getting together when we were in our teens.  Ruthann and her husband Jay, and Linda and I ,would double date.  Anyway, Ruthann and Jay's one son Keith now lives in Oklahoma with his family, Stephanie and Ty.  It just worked out that they were visiting as we were passing through.

 

Ruthann, Jay, Ty, Stephanie and Keith.

We had a great evening visiting together and our first home cooked meal since September 8th.  Yumm! 

Linda was fascinated by the storm cellar which came in handy when a tornado hit earlier this year.  The house received quite a bit of damage but Stephanie and Ty road it out safely down in the cellar.

After catching up with lots of stories and hugs for everybody we went back to the room for a good night's sleep.

 

Day 35 Tuesday 10-13-15 Albuquerque, NM to Amarillo, TX

Today we will meet Steve and Charissa at 9:00 for breakfast at Sopa’s in the town of Los Lunas, a bedroom community of Albuquerque.   But first, TwoGether must go in for her oil change.  

Steve and Charissa with us at Sopa's Restaurant.

Steve worked as an apprentice aircraft mechanic in the shop where I was service manager when we lived in Somerset, KY.  I tried to teach him as many bad habits as I could but apparently he didn’t pay attention.  He has had a rather successful career working as a Director of Maintenance for a large fleet of  aircraft and his work has taken him to several continents.  He just retired within the last few weeks and is working on building his own airplane.   They plan on making a circle tour of the US when the plane is completed and we are looking forward to seeing them again when they make their way east.

Linda and Charissa hit it off from the introductions.  I believe they have both made a new lasting friendship.  Charissa is a bee keeper.  It was interesting listening how she got started by selling the honey at local events and then learned all the ins and outs of the trade.  Honey is probably the most perfect food item out there.  There are so many health benefits and believe it or not, even bee stings can have medical advantages.  She graciously gave us a jug of honey and instructed us on how to care for it.  I loves honey!  Charissa and Steve have been married about 25 years now and it was our first chance to meet her.  She is a Bit-O-Honey herself.

 

Steve and I caught up on the last 25+ year of career moves and life in general. The girls had a good time discussing their husbands.  After sitting in the restaurant for four hours we said our good byes and started eastbound on I-40.

While we were driving past Tucumcari, NM I told Linda a story that happened to me when I was nine years old. She felt I should share it so here goes… The family (Mom, Dad and I) were on our way moving to Winkelman, AZ and we stopped for dinner at this little diner in Tucumcari.  As we were getting up from the table I saw a $20 bill on the floor under the table.  I gave it to the waitress who held it up above her head and in a loud voice said, “Anybody lose a $20 bill?”  There was no answer and she handed it back to me and said, “Guess it’s yours.”  Wow…  In 1959 a nine year old with $20 was something special.  I only had it a few days and I bought something for about a dollar.  Silver dollars were in plentiful supply in the west in those days, and the man gave me my change back  in silver dollars. They were so heavy I had trouble keeping my pants from falling down.








Okay…I’m a softy.  Today we stopped at a rest stop and this Mexican came up to me and said he had run out of gas and wondered if I could give him a few dollars to buy gas because his wallet was stolen in Gallup yesterday.  He had a gas can sitting next to his car.  I gave him 10 bucks.  I asked him how he was going to go for gas (we're about 15-20 miles from a gas station).  He said there was a trucker that would take him.  I told him that was good because I don’t have any passenger seats.    As soon as the next car pulled in he wasted no time in hitting the driver up for a few bucks.  Then I realized I have just been had. 

 

Just west of Amarillo there is a wind-generator farm.  It goes on as far as you can see.  When we arrived at the west end we checked the mileage.  By the time we got to the east end we had driven 34 miles.   

Knowing that time is now a factor in our travels we boogied down the interstate and stopped in Amarillo, TX.  Tomorrow will be a mad dash to Oklahoma City.

 

Day 34, Monday 10-12-15 Tucson, AZ to Los Lunas, NM.

Since we could not go to Old Tucson and we are running short of time because of an obligation at home we decided to also skip Tombstone.  It would have been nice to see Boot Hill, the OK Corral and the Birdcage Theater.  The old town hall is now a National Park.

Can't you just see Hopalong Cassidy chasing Black Bart
through the boulders.

About one third the way between Benson and Wilcox, AZ there is an area of boulders along I-10.  What is so strange is all the rock formations for the last hundred miles have been mostly stratified and suddenly here are big rounded boulders.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As we entered western New Mexico the term desert took on more of the mental image you would expect.  There were “lakes” in the distance that reflected the color of the sky.  It is easy to see how someone crossing the desert in the 1800s would have made a bee line for water only to find a desert mirage.

 

 

Then it was like we were in Egypt.  You could see the Great Pyramids in the distance.  There were several hills that stood all alone that had an almost perfect pyramid shape.

 

 

 

Chile patch in Hatch 

We took a turn north east on NM-26 which cuts the corner between I-10 and I-25.   It saves about 50 miles.  While much of the land appears dry and not productive there are places where irrigation makes all the difference.  Farms raising chilies and cotton are found in the valleys.   

Cotton field in Hatch, NM

 

Someone must have had a humorous streak.  The road mileage sings had town names like Nutt/ Hatch and Truth or Consequences and Derry/Arrey.



Linda liked the architecture at the NM road side rest

 

 

 

 

 

While driving along I-25 Linda said, “There is a VOR  station.” (VHF Omnidirectional Range)  There are 967 of these stations placed all over the US as  radio navigation aids for aircraft; creating highways in the sky.   The cone on the top houses a DME (Distance Measuring Equipment) transmitter antenna that gave the pilot a reading of distance from the station. This was the most reliable source of air navigation from the 1950s until GPS was made available to all air traffic in the late 1990s. VOR navigation is still in use and is very accurate.

 

Fertile fields amid a desert: 

 

 

We spent the night in Los Lunas about 20 miles south of Albuquerque at the Western Sky Inn and Suites.  I think Linda liked this hotel better than any we have been in so far. 

Tomorrow we will meet Steve and Charissa for breakfast.  We haven't seen Steve in nearly 30 years and have never met his bride of 25 years.  It should be a great reunion.