Apr 2007

Looking this over the beginning sounds rather melancholy and I don't mean it to but when the muse calls I am not always in charge of what it has to say. The fun part is a paragraph or two down. Missing everyone....

On the halfway point of one's journey it is interesting to note the things that make you homesick. I have a girlfriend in Socorro who is very sick or at least she sounds it and I am heartbroken that I am not at home to make her chicken soup or run to our other wonderful friends house and pick up some healing herbs for her.

We had the good fortune to have some friends of ours from Colorado pass our way and though it was unknown to both groups of our particular locations, our paths crossed and we rejoiced in our reunion. Alas, they had to return home and we had to continue our journey but not without some reflection on my part as to what home means. It takes more than ordinary fortitude to depart on such an adventure as ours. I believe this sentiment was best written about by Homer in the Odessey which was brought home to me on our experience at the Hermitage ( Andrew Jackson's very well preserved home in TN that has a painting of Telemachus trying to find his father and home on the entrance way hall) and Dorothy said it best with "There is no place like home". Another very good friend will be leaving Socorro for her new life in other parts of the world and I am not there to say "till we meet again" and that makes my stamina waver tremendously. So when emotion starts to play, any good scientist turns to numbers. So for fun and because I was inspired by a book I perused recently, here goes. For those of you who are inspired by our journey here are the numbers for 5 months of traveling, family of four:

# of heartaches: 5 per week at the 1st month, with dimishing returns to 1 per week at 3 months and increasing to 2-3 with passing time

# of gallons of gas per week: If move along at a slow to fair pace, 20-25 gallons for a diesel pickup. This does not include gas for the generator if we boondock.

# of gallons of bottled water: 5-8 per week depending on temperature

amount spent on laundry: cheapest $4.00, cyber wash:$20 (stay away, far away!), once a week with about 2 loads

rolls of toilet paper: 2 per week, remember we are a 2 bathroom unit.

cost of camping: average: $15 per night, including state parks, boondocking (see Walmart), and private campgrounds

best boondocking: Walmart, (Note if you think it's free then leave your purse or wallet in the truck when you go in to use the restroom), casino's, street parking in cities (lock your door for good measure)

groceries: We found that since we are roughing it that comfort can be found in quality foods so there is little skimping here since we only eat out on special occasions or in very special places so on average our grocery shops are about $100 per week. This is where we say we are saving money by staying in Walmart parking lots but because of what we spend when we shop there I am not sure it is a savings.

Average cost of educational fun: $10 depending on whether you stay out of Disney World and Graceland which will increase your average to $25.

Mastercard has it right: Memories: priceless

Best part: new friends we have made along the way

That sums up the most obvious things.

On to the journey,…After hiking with our friends from CO up Klingmon's dome in the Great Smokey Mountains, we traveled on to Oak Ridge TN on the other side of the mountains from N. Carolina. Talk about a grade, 21 miles of downhill, I was afraid for the Airstream and Fluffy but both made it down without a hitch or should I say with "hitch it tact". Oak Ridge held a fascination for me since it was part of the trinity which created the nuclear age and the cold war, etc. We enjoyed the science museum and how much the town resembled towns in New Mexico we know. Our journey west on I-40 took us to Cedars of Lebanon State park 20 east of Nashville. We had fun at the local flea market near here looking at spring pigs and chickens while Mariah worked at selling earrings she had made. We visited the home of Andrew Jackson one day and "busked" downtown on Sat. night. Not as good a return as in Key West but it was fun none the less. We has a very interesting conversation with the folks at the Nashville Songwriters Assoc where we learned about the country music song writing business. We are now trying to figure out what our next move is since we missed the Thunder over Louisville fireworks show.

Greetings from music row near downtown Nashville. We have been the typical wide eyed awe-struck tourists since our NSA experience, we have been to the Ryman theatre (home of the Grand Old Opry til 1974), the country Music Hall of Fame and the the new Grand Olde Opry. Our favorite experience was in a violin shop in west Nashville where we took Mariah's fiddle to be repaired. An extremely good looking young fellow came in who looked very familiar and I asked him if he was the son of the owner (and no I never put my foot in my mouth, pth pth) and the owner and he laughed and pointed to a magazine dealing with the music business and this fellow's picture was on it. I knew he looked familiar. Turns out he plays the fiddle and he and Mariah got to chatting and then he asked if he could play her fiddle and now I know why his picture is on the front of the magazine. He and the owner started jamming and it was impressive. I would have taken pictures but I think I would have gotten in trouble, I don't really know but I didn't want to ruin the moment. I hope we see him again and if I can contain myself I will ask him if I can take a picture of him with Mariah. Very down to earth for how high he makes people feel with his playing. Hey that could be a song…..That's all the news that is fit to print, Happy Trails from the Meanderthals.

Pictures not posted yet..sorry get to it soon

We are hanging in Asheville for a few days with our new friend Tommy. Asheville is a beautiful town in the middle of the Blue Ridge mountains where wealthy folks have come for years to enjoy it’s beauty and laid back style. There are several colleges in the area. Tommy is a 3rd generation Ashvilleon and we have been enjoying his stories about its history from a native’s point of view. Here’s something not everyone knows: NASCAR racing’s nascent beginnings began with the moonshine runners during prohibition. Tommy grandfather was an circuit preacher just like Mark’s grandfather so they are having fun exchanging stories about people who knew their ancestors. On Sunday, Tommy took us on a tour of Ashville and we went and looked at the scene where “Thunder Road” was made which is a 1960’s movie about moonshine runners. It is funny because the city has re-routed the road since the movie was made but the over pass is still sitting between two new businesses with trucks parked around it. Tommy, Olivia and I went walking around one the first race tracks that drivers like Richard Petty got started but the wealthy didn’t like it’s location so it became the center of a river park on the French Broad river. Tommy told us about past drive through drinking establishments that had clever names. One was a gas station/bar called the Coast In – Stagger Out and another was the Toot and Tell (you toot your horn and then tell ‘em what you want).

I have been having fun making myself at home in Tommy’s kitchen and cooking for everyone. Last night we had a major front blow through and one of the trees outside Tommy’s home came down and took out a power line about 100 yards from the camper unit. We watched as the fireworks from the transformer lit up the night sky. About an hour later we lost power too. We had the kids stay in the house but Mark and I stayed in the camper and I had to put in earplugs to quell the fear of every branch breaking in the gusts. We spent the next morning removing debris from the road and cleaning up the branches we could move without a chain saw. Tommy had gone off to work but came home and ‘caught’ us cleaning. He called his boss and said ‘I can’t come back my guest are cleaning up my war zone.’ We explained to him how we missed working but he stayed and we had a community effort at making everything right.

A perfect evening for us consists of a nice New Mexican dinner and an evening playing music which is what we got to do. I had looked in the local paper and found an open mic in downtown West Asheville and we made red chile enchiladas for Tommy and then arrived at the open mic around 8:15pm. We had no idea how hot the music scene was here, every space was taken- shoot. We spent an hour in a smoke free pub enjoying the locals who got up and played and I was delighted by one of the cleverest ideas I had ever seen. In the bathrooms, the walls are all chalkboards and there are pieces of chalk everywhere for those graffiti artists with an Aristotle urge. I hope we can talk the Capital Bar in Socorro into doing this!

Sometimes things happen but not the way you expect. A friend of Tommy’s who is in the music business and was at the pub told us about a private jam down the street. We grabbed our instruments and played with some very friendly and excellent musicians. There was a fiddler there who played harmony fiddle to Mariah’s licks that sounded terrific. Asheville is the most community oriented town I have seen so far. They have several food coop and everyone is into supporting community agriculture and helping those in need and it is easy to understand how in a recent quality of life survey, Asheville rank very high. I saw a bumper sticker that I would love to get and it said “Buy locally, 1000 miles fresher”. That sums it up in my mind.

The morning of our departure we spent touring the downtown and went into the City Hall which had a very art deco feel and then into the Grove Park shopping area which was built long ago and is very decorative and detailed. The building was the center of downtown shopping until WW2 when the government took it over then put a weather center in it. In the 1970’s Asheville decided they wanted it back to a shopping area and have done a great job at remodeling it and putting in local businesses. I am very sorry to have to leave Ashville, I like it a lot.
The great Smokey Mountain National Park is the most visited national park in the country and we are going to see why.
Hugs to all, The Meanderthals

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Picking up where we left off, a few more hours turned into most of the day as the parts of the South Carolina State Museum that we missed the previous day were as interesting as the parts we saw and we went over some of the stuff we saw again plus the Civil War relic room. We are heading into the piedmont and so our progress will now only be slowed by the hills and valleys of the Blue Ridge.
We spent the night at King’s Mountain which is the site of one of the most decisive battles of the Revolutionary War. Most of the RW was fought in the north but Cornwallis wanted to cut off the south so the north couldn’t get soldiers and supplies from there. He had a commander named Ferguson who was considered the best shot in the British army who was sent to the Carolina’s to recruit and train loyalists and he did. To make a long but interesting story short, his Tories met up with patriots from the Carolina’s at Kings Mountain in 1780 which history will tell you was not a kind time in the war for the Americans but the patriots whooped the Tories and so rallied the country and forced Cornwallis from the south and the rest is history as they say. We hiked the trail all around Kings Mountain and it was impressive how any force could have routed another from the top of that mountain. It was a beautiful spring day and the landscape was coming to life in the spring like weather. We had spent the morning at a re-creation of an 1850’s farmstead where the buildings were original dovetail log construction and Olivia got to experience the chore that a colonial child would have of pulling water from a well. Plus we saw some chickens that made us homesick for our chicken period.
A well versed traveler should always visit at least one site where a famous movie was filmed and we did that today. At the end of the Last of the Mohicans there is a very sad scene where the Native Americans are trying to escape from their enemies and taking the anglo children of the commander with them to save them but in the end everyone dies. It was filmed at Chimney Rock North Carolina. This is a very impressive rock outcrop and accompanying waterfall in the Appalachian mountains. You really have to want to get there because you have to go over some big mountains to get there. We were all very proud of Fluffy for not only did she get us to Lake Lure which is at the base of Chimney Rock but she got us halfway up the mountain to Chimney Rock and down again. We hiked all over the cliff’s around Chimney Rock to the waterfall that is twice as high as Niagara but not nearly as much water volume. Olivia kept up the whole way about 2.5 miles, it was a workout for all of us but thank goodness we had some practice at King’s Mountain. The weather was good for hiking, not to much heat and not to cold. It is supposed to snow tonight here. So much for warm spring weather…We are in Ashville tonight visiting Tommy who we met at Tuck in the Woods. Soon to be playing bluegrass in the Blue Ridge…hope everyone is not blue but happy. Hugs from the Meanderthals,

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Hunting Island is a very popular campground so we had to move to another one if we wanted to tour Beaufort so we found this nice campground called Tuck n da Woods which gives private campgrounds a good name in our view. We were only going to spend one night but some people camping near us asked us to play music for them so we said sure and plus we wanted to spend more time with Bill and tour more of downtown Beaufort. We had a great time playing music and thought we were leaving the next day but Mariah made a friend that was her age and the family just adopted us and fed us and we all went bike riding the next day. We thought, okay we will leave tomorrow but that was not to be as the family, (Kenny, Kerri, Kolton and Kurtis) had a brother who came with a boat and Mariah went out with them the next day and participated in water sports such as tubing and knee boarding (like water skiing on your knees). Kerri was a great cook and insisted we eat with them so we didn’t argue. A great time was had by all. They are from Homestead Fl and we traded tales of our travels till wee hours in the morning. We are finally off to Charleston today.

Charleston is the zenith of southern elegance and charm. The houses in the historic district are well preserved, lovely to admire and easy to navigate. We spent the afternoon wandering around after dropping off the silver queen at a lovely park called James Island County park which is ten minutes from downtown. The beauty is hard to describe and the feeling of old timeyness is evident all around. You can see Ft Sumter from the waterfront and almost hear the ghosts of civil war participants in the walkways. On our meanderings we wandered down Zig Zag Alley which seemed irresistible if in just it’s name. At the end we ran into a home owner who was taking care of his small but meticulous garden and he recommended a place called Slightly North of Broadway and he was right on the money, it was very good. I have been spoiled lately with Kerri fixing us meals and then going out to eat but I am cooking again. We have been to Patriots Point where we toured the USS Yorktown, bloody big ship. It it like a miniature town with everything from kitchens, shoe repair shops, to barber shops and movie theatres. Mark went on and did the submarine tour but the kids and I experienced that claustrophobia when we were in AU. I really enjoyed the re-creation of the Vietnam American army camp. It made me think of all my heroes at home : ).

Today was tea plantation tour day. We went to the only tea plantation in the US south of Charleston where they grow, process and package their own tea. The man who owns it, is a 3rd generation English tea taster and obviously has a passion for it.

Having a passion for tea myself, I purchased some tea made on the plantation itself and though it was good, I myself prefer the tea from Australia. The tea made at the plantation had a American characteristic that you taste in the ice teas here. It is obviously made for that market.
Into the interior of South Carolina we go. The countryside is covered in the beauty that only spring can produce. We are in the midst of a freak cold snap now and it is affecting the flowering plants but at least we got to see them for a moment. The dogwoods are dropping their petals quickly and with the cold it looks like a light snowfall of big flakes everywhere.

Talk about a surprise that surprised us. We were at a South Carolina campground near the small town of Sumter when a truck with camper pulled up and asked us if we could help them get into a spot. I looked at the woman and realized it was Kerry from Tuck in the Woods. I was so surprised and happy. They spent the next 3 days with us and we made food and went exploring and just had a great time. Mariah got to hang out with someone her own age so she was happy. The game Apples to Apples came in handy and we played for hours. Nearby was a an Air force gunnery range so we were serenaded by the sound of A-14’s shooting gatilin gun bursts off and on all day. Everytime I heard it, I thought, sure glad they are on our side.
After a tearful goodbye to our new friends from Homestead, we headed off to Columbia and they to Tampa. They were having a good joke at our expense because Columbia is maybe 40 miles away and Tampa is 300 miles but we both had to start out early. It is true, we don’t make it very far in a day.
Columbia is the capital of South Carolina and has a regal state house where many remember the controversy of the confederate flag having a home there. We visited the state museum where we learned such interesting tidbits as the difference between the lowland and uplands and how they grew different cotton and why the capital was moved from Charleston to Columbia. We also have enjoyed seeing wall sized pictures of the latest Hubble telescope images. We enjoyed it so much we are here in Columbia today to visit again so we can spend a few more hours looking at their collection of Civil War relics.

That’s all the news fit to print for now. On the road and doing well, hope everyone is doing well too! To all those who’s birthday’s I missed Happy Birthday!

We have escaped Florida! It’s funny how you get into a mode and then one day you wake up and you are not there anymore, in thought process or manner. We never seems to get an early start and the result of which is we made it out of Florida but not far. Our first stop was Crooked River State park on our march up the sea coast. It feels good to out of Florida but the landscape hasn’t changed enough for us to know. The bugs are moving north too, much to Mark’s chagrin. On our way to Savanna we stopped at San Simon Island lighthouse which was Mariah’s first lighthouse. It turns our that all southern coastal states have barrier island and so there are lighthouses all up the coast and we are all going to be experts on Fresnal (pronounced fre-nel) lenses by the end of this trip. Mariah was so inspired by the trip that she wrote a song and we are looking forward to the learning experience that goes with copywriting a song.
We spent the night at a park called Fort McAllister which was just south of Savanna. Fort McAllister was the first earthen fort of the civil war that was used by the confederates and union as a testing grounds for defense against modern (of the day) armaments. It was supposed to guard the backdoor of Savanna from blockade runners. The union sent it’s ironclads up the Ocheebee river to see if the fort could withstand it’s guns and it did. The sturdier masonary forts would blow apart but with earthen bulwarks the damage inflicted could be fixed overnight and also would absorb the impact of the blast. We spent our first but certainly not our last day learning about the country most significant time.
We went to Savanna for a day and it was interesting the way the city was laid out and the influence of cotton as a mainstay of it’s economy. The historic district has little plaza’s everywhere that give it a park feel and each of those are surrounded by very old masonary houses. The rest of it is just big, old city. There is a very exciting college there called Savannah College of Art and Design and the students were everywhere with their art supplies making paintings and drawings. The river area is very old and is home to the Savannah Cotton Exchange which if you read “Big Cotton”, a fascinating book about the influence of cotton on world events, it is a reverent spot.
Carolina on my mind….We are in South Carolina now near a town called Beaufort and this more my style. Another town spared by Sherman it is small and has all the charm one would expect from a town this size. They are going through a river revitalization project and are doing a fantastic job. Lots of antebellum houses with the basement slave quarters that have been restored. We spent our first part at a popular park called Huntington Beach which is way out on a barrier island. You feel like you are driving for miles to get there and think no one else must know about this place and you get the last spot available at a campground that holds 200 people. It too had a light house that we toured with our friend Bill who came to join us. It has been his life goal to climb it and he finally got to with us. The diameter of this lighthouse was much bigger that the ones we have climbed and much taller. The view as usual was spectacular.
The exterior color scheme and unique flashing light pattern of the various lighthouses can tell a sailor his location and he can go to a book and find out what the local hazards are. This seems antiquidated by modern standards but if the satellites go out there will many a boatman who will be glad that the lighthouses are still around. Mark and I read an interesting book by Jimmy Buffet called A Salty Bit of Land that involves the restoring of lighthouse so it fun to actually see all the items talked about in the book.
The music continues to light up our life. Olivia is further inspired by the patterns given to us by Joe from the Florida House Inn and we are having fun keeping people up at night in the campgrounds. Hugs to all, The Meanderthals