What a difference a year makes.....

Needless to say, I am thrilled to put 2012 behind me and move into the New Year. I think I said that a year ago.... I learned a lot about myself this year and hope it makes me a stronger, better person. A year ago, I was just trying to survive each day.  Now I'm making plans for the future and able to enjoy the days.  The tears are not a daily occurrence but they do still happen. I've been reading the blog from the time Larry went into the hospital until Christmas 2011.  I'm amazed at how much either I forgot or just blocked out. I found out that the mind can only deal with so much at one time. I have no memory of Christmas 2011. Christmas this year was nice and quiet with some friends coming over for dinner. It was the first time I had really cooked a mean in over a year. I enjoyed having the house decorated for Christmas but took everything down the day after Christmas.  I'm looking forward to class starting Jan 15th and going back to Missouri for 2 months in the summer. The trip should really be an adventure for Morris and me - especially the drive there and back by ourselves. I'm thinking about sneaking away for a few days during Spring Break but don't know where I'll go yet.
Morris is fine.  Since the weather has finally gotten colder here, he is constantly on my lap.  I think he likes the body heat he gets from me.  He certainly isn't interested in going outside for any walks.
I realize I'm not doing a very good job writing on the blog every day but just not much new to write about.  No news is good news.... 8-)

Larry

This was in the Tucson newspaper today.  After an appointment with my Grief Counselor this morning, I went out to Saguaro Park which was a favorite place of Larry's here in Tucson. Like so many times before, I stopped on the way and got a large Hot Mocha at Starbucks.  When I got to the park, I went to our favorite picnic table, spread sunflower seeds out for the ground squirrels and sipped the Hot Mocha - all in his memory.  There were a lot of birds who came around for brunch - most of them Gila Woodpeckers which build nests in the Saguaro cactus. It's the first time that I have seen so many birds while at the park and they have never come by for seeds before.   I had given up hope on any ground squirrels coming around until just before I was ready to leave when a little guy came up and was soon eating like crazy. Larry LOVED watching the ground squirrels out there.  I missed him but he was there..  One Day At A Time...

This n' That

I know, I haven't written in awhile.  I was thinking this morning, awake but not ready to get up yet, that at times I use the blog as a journal and at other times I use it more as though I was writing letters to friends. I guess I'm in the letter writing phase right now....
Trip to Eugene: I went up to Eugene, OR on Dec 6th and came back on the 11th. The primary purpose was to visit with some friends who have been like family to me for about 30 years.  While there, I was also able to visit with some friends that I used to work with.  On Sunday, I drove down to Roseburg, OR to visit with friends who used to live here in Tucson and moved up there about 2 years ago. It was a good trip but I was glad to get back home. 
Morris: Needless to say, Morris was not happy with me going on the trip and leaving him home. He sure knows the meaning of a suitcase! It doesn't matter that someone visits him twice a day and sometimes a neighbor also drops in - it's that he was left behind. When I got home, I couldn't get more than 2 feet from him for the first 2 days. It was 5 years ago today that Larry and I walked into the cat shelter and Morris knew "his ship had come in". For someone who had never had a cat, it took Larry and Morris about 2 minutes to connect. Morris has sure made the past year much more bearable for me. Below is a picture of them the day we brought Morris home.

Weather:  I'm in 7th Heaven!  The last 2 days have been in the mid 50's and rain off and on.  I love it....  No 70's are forecast for a week. I realize that many people would love being in 70+ degree weather and sunny during mid-December.  However, I like being able to wear winter clothes at times and a change from sunshine every day. It's starting to rain again so time to go into the living room, turn on the Christmas tree and curl up with a good book.... 8-)

Text Book for School

I expected going back to college would be a learning experience and I don't mean from books. I'm thinking about policies, practices, students, teachers, exams, etc. and I'm getting my first taste of it. The local community college accepted all of my accounting classes from 1976-77 even though they are so outdated but hey...  Some of them I am going to retake to learn what has changed. Now they require "Practical Accounting Procedures" which is basically an introduction to accounting and is the first class in the accounting series.  Back then it was not a class but I have to take it so that is what I signed up for to start with next month. I went out to school last week to get my text book and was that an experience!  Because class is still about 6 weeks away, they don't have all the books in yet but did had 1 copy of the book I needed even though it was a used book. The clerk kept telling me I could rent the book.  I can't imagine "renting" a text book or getting a digital copy on the computer.  How am I going to mark it up with highlighters and make notes in a rented or digital book?  I kept telling her I wanted the book to KEEP after the class was done.  We looked through the used book and I don't think it had every been used but I still had to pay $98.00 for it - a new one is $160.00. The first thing I noticed when thumbing though it was that it was in color and my old accounting book, which I still have and have referenced many times since the class, was in black and white. I was hoping to take "Ethics in Business" but it was only offered on TV or via the computer and that isn't for me. I want a class room where I can ask questions and hear discussion. Should be an interesting experience!

New Holiday Tradition

I love looking at Christmas decorations but don't like how commercialized the holiday has become. I can't remember the last time I had a tree for Christmas or decorated the house. Christmas was not a big thing for us when I was growing up at home, nor with the ex and certainly not when I was single. It wasn't a big thing with Larry and I either. We didn't exchange gifts after the first year so we did a minimal amount at Christmas and usually went to Laughlin, NV over Christmas.  About the only thing we decorated was Morris's tree house... My counselor has been talking to me about the need to "establish my own traditions". So for the first time in as long as I can remember, I'm decorating the house for Christmas.

A friend, who LOVES to decorate for Christmas is helping me. I've always admired her tree and all the presents under it.  Little did I know that they were just empty boxes.... Since I didn't have many decorations, I've spent a fortune on decorations. I used what few we had and then it was decisions, decisions, decisions. I have shopped every place for artificial trees and now know all about the number of tips and lights. This is the corner of the living room where the tree is beside the fireplace. I'm still not happy with the coffee table and dining room table so we are going to work on those tomorrow.  The one tree that we did have was a Charlie Brown Christmas Tree that Larry loved!  It's in the kitchen next to his picture on a bookshelf for Christmas. I'm really lucky that Morris is not interested in the ornaments.  He looks every new box over and sniffs it before walking off and leaving them alone. The bottom picture is of Morris on the entry table. I was in the office and when I came out, there he sat looking like a statue. He sat there for awhile and then hopped off as "no big deal". I'm enjoying sitting in the recliner at night with him on my lap while watching TV or reading and looking at the lights and decorations. So a tradition begins....One Day At A Time.

Last Thanksgiving

 I can't help but thinking of last Thanksgiving when Larry was in the hospital. We had known he had cancer for 2 days and were still in shock. The good thing was that after the diagnosis, he was soon moved to a private room which was very nice. Dr Whittman, Larry's kidney doctor for 6 years, came by to see us on Thanksgiving morning and stayed about an hour - we just chatted.  He was really bummed out about Larry's diagnosis and we had become friends during those 6 years.  Some friends came by in the afternoon which was the first time Larry would allow outside visitors - he didn't want them to see him sick or feel he had to entertain them. In the meantime, we talked about what we were thankful for and in spite of the cancer diagnosis, there were a lot of things. Such as his health after the kidney transplant, me qualifying as the donor, the trips we had taken and the memories we would always have - it was all bittersweet in lieu of what we were facing.  However, we knew that even if we didn't beat the cancer, we had had a good life and I would have those memories. It's tough to remember those days and read the blog from last year but it does make me realize that "life truly does goes on" and sometimes it's best to just live "One Day At A Time".

A year ago....

Last Nov 18th, Larry got up that morning and complained of his left arm being a little numb and assumed that he had slept on it wrong.  We went on about the day doing laundry in the morning and then going to Penny's for some shopping. After shopping was lunch and I asked him about his arm.  He said it was still numb.  We talked over possibilities and agreed that if it wasn't better when we got home we would go to the emergency room - just in case. In the back of our mind was the possibility it might be a small stroke or something.  We got home, unloaded the car and headed over to the UMC emergency room around 2:30 in the afternoon. We walk in and tell the front desk what is going on and they immediately rush him back and hook him up to an EKG.  I was left out front to do paperwork, etc.  I get back there by the time the EKG is finished and am relieved to hear that the heart is fine. UMC had opened their new emergency room are less than a year ago and I must say it was far superior to any emergency rooms I have seen in the past.  To start with, each patient has their own room - no beds with a curtain drawn around it. So we get to a room since they want to figure out what is causing the arm to be numb. Labs are drawn, x-rays are done and a C-T scan of the head is done. He has complained about headaches for the last several months but would take some Tylenol and they would go away. We just never imagined the headaches were more than "just a headache". About 8 p.m. one of the doctors comes in and informs us that there are several tumors in the brain.  He takes us over to the computer screen and shows them to us. I counted 8 but he said there were some we couldn't see that were in other places of the brain. They were very quick to let us know that these could be caused by a multitude of things including a virus infection. They were so reassuring at this point that we did not panic.  Part of it was because Larry had already been through so much with the transplants and we knew there are all kinds of virus's you can get when the immune system is suppressed. It was like, "O.K., give us a pill, we'll go home and everything will be fine." They wanted to keep him in the hospital to run more tests the next day so late that night I came on home. 
Little did we know that that was the beginning of our world coming apart. I liken it to being  up around 50,000 feet in an airplane, something happens to the plane and it starts a spiral to the ground that will eventually lead to a crash because nothing can be done to stop it.  In some ways it doesn't seem like a year has passed and in other way, it has been the longest year of my life. One thing I sure have learned this year and that was to take it One Day At A Time.

Epiretinal Membrane

Bet you are wondering what an Epiretinal Membrane is? Well....let me educate you. I went in last month for my yearly eye exam.  I have a cataract that he is keeping an eye on plus I could tell on the trip that my eyesight wasn't as good as it has been.  A good indicator for me is reading freeway signs in places where I don't already know what they say. So after the exam and trying to correct my eyesight with glasses, he tells me he can only correct it to 20/50 and last year he could correct to 20/30. To him, that meant there was a problem.   So he did the dilation, which I hate, and then looked inside the eye with the fancy machine. Turns out that I have developed  an Membrane on the macular in my left eye. It is also know as a Macular Pucker. There is a thin membrane growth over the macular and the membrane can get squished into kinda of a corrugated cardboard design hence "Macular Pucker". There are a lot of illness that can cause it and sometimes it just happens. I'm in the "just happens" category since I'm not diabetic, high blood pressure, etc category. It doesn't cause out-right blindness but things get really blurry and distorted.  When it gets to a point, they can do surgery on it but the risk is much greater than for cataract surgery. In the meantime, I got 3 new pairs of glasses with the new prescription - regular, computer and very dark sunglasses - lots of $$$$.  We wait 6 months and recheck it again to see if it is to the point they start considering surgery. It might stabilize where it is or could get worse.  As for the cataract in the other eye, I'll probably need surgery within a year on that one. It certainly was not the routine eye exam I expected!

Life goes on.....

Yes, I know I haven't written on the blog for over a month and thank you for your patience. I just needed a break after writing so much on the trip plus it took me awhile to get rested up from the trip. So I will try to get back to normal and cover the topics I've been saving up. 8-)
Penny's was running a special this month of free pictures so I decided to have one done. I do all the taking so have very few pictures of just me and truth be told, I avoid having my picture taken when all possible.  However, I gave it a try.  When I looked at the proofs, my first thought was "I'm smiling".  After loosing Larry, I  thought I would never be able to smile again but now I have proof I am. To me the picture is the symbol of "Life goes on...", the heart and mind somehow copes with what happens and we truly do do back to living. It's kinda tough right now since I'm coming up on that dreaded "1st year anniversary" of Larry getting sick, hospice, passing on, etc. I was in the Hallmark store today and was buying Christmas cards. I had a really hard time with the tears because I kept thinking about the cards we sent out last year that had the happy picture of us on it. I rarely go back and read anything I've written on the blog and I certainly did not re-read anything I wrote last year when he was sick, etc.   However, I printed them out today and plan to read them on the day they were originally written. Why? At the time, so much was just a blur and even though it will be painful, I want to re-examine what all happened. I know it will be painful but am hoping for some healing to come from it also. Eleven months later, it's still One Day At A Time...

Home

Yesterday was a REALLY long day!  None of us slept very good on the trip for more than 1-2 nights in a row between time change (3 hours), different beds, typical hotel sounds, etc. We were usually all up and ready to go at least 1/2 hour before the planned departure time each day. Yesterday morning I woke up at 4:15 a.m. and couldn't go back to sleep.  I didn't get anymore sleep until I was in my own bed which was 22 hours later so needless to day I'm beat today. We got to the Jacksonville, FL airport about 5 hours before the flight, turned the car in, checked our luggage,  ate lunch, did some browsing in the shops and a lot of people watching.  Actually the time went by pretty fast. The first leg of the flight was to Chicago with a stop (no plane change) in Norfolk, VA where we landed to start the trip 12 days ago.  That was rather ironic....  We had a plane change in Chicago with barely enough time to grab a bite to eat and to to the bathrooms. I am admittedly a white knuckle flyer with take offs much more traumaticfor me than landings. So the take off from Chicago into very bumpy air was not good!  It didn't help that I was so tired by this time so my concentration on relaxing wasn't good. It was a very long 3 1/4 hour flight home. Nancy's husband met us at the airport and chauffeured us all home.
Morris was glad to see me and I didn't get a lecture this time.  He met us at the door, was ready to be picked up and purred while I was holding him.  8-)  I fed him his tuna, left the suitcases by the garage door and we went to bed.  He was right behind me the whole time. I woke up several times in the night and he was laying against my legs, or on my arm, or snuggled up against my head on the pillow. He isn't letting me too far away from him this morning.
So the trip that we planned for 6 months is behind us and we get back to the mundane things that make up daily life. I took over 1,000 pictures so it will take a while to edit them and then do the vacation book.  For now, gotta go unpack, go to the grocery store and do laundry... 8-)

St. Augustine, FL

It was only about 2.5 hours from Savannah to St. Augustine so we were here before noon.  In every town, the first stop is the Visitor's Center where we load up with brochures, maps, get info from a person, etc and today I am going to be carrying home in my suitcase. We had lunch at a really neat place along the waterfront.   This picture is the view from the restaurant where we had lunch.  Notice that the drawbridge is raised.  It is opened every 1/2 hour for sailboats, etc to pass through.  After lunch  we drove over to Anastasia Island to see the local lighthouse. At dinner tonight, we were trying to decide how many lighthouses we have seen and can't decide if this was the 4th or 5th - will figure it out when we get home and I do the vacation book. Then we took a trolley tour around the town to get the "lay of the land" and decide what we wanted to go back to tomorrow and check out.  Had a great dinner at a local Italian restaurant tonight where we tried to think back on "what was our favorite town/cit? What exceeded out expectations? What was the biggest surprise of the trip, etc? It is hard to believe that tomorrow is our last full day on the trip and we head back to Tucson on Tuesday.
We expected there to be high humidity back here but it is REALLY muggy.  Part of that could be because we have always been near rain - either during the day, or at least supposed to rain whether it did or not.  The weatherman in Charleston has a Muggy Scale that he used as part of his weather forecast.  The scale is:

• Super Muggy
• Muggy
• Slightly Muggy
• Comfortable
• Nice & Dry

Unfortunately it was Super Muggy for all 4 days we were in Charleston. The muggy weather isn't so bad if it is cloudy and a breeze is blowing but if there is no breeze and you are out in the sun then it is downright miserable. This morning in Savannah, at 6 a.m., it was 70 degrees and 91% humidity. Oh well....in a couple of days we will be back in 10-15% humidity when we get to Tucson.

A Day in the South

We saw so much here in Savannah and the area today that I don't know where to start!  Our first stop was the riverfront area before the crowds got too bad and so glad we got there early. Besides there being an Oktoberfest going on, it was the Annual Wiener Dog Race which was so much fun. There were dash hound dogs everywhere and in colors I have never seen before. The dogs don't run too far but boy does the crowd get noisy. We couldn't get close to where they were actually running. After the race they had a contest for the "best dressed".

.Then it was lunch and a walk through the City Market. Next we drove down to the Historic Homes District to look at some of the old houses.  It just blows my mind to see houses that were built in the mid 1800's as this house was. We were walking along the street looking at them and while standing in front of one that had not been renovated, the owner came out and asked if we wanted to see a house before it is renovated. Of course we said yes, so went in for awhile while she showed it to us, what she has already been done and her plans for it. Her house was built in 1877 and it was amazing to see inside one of these old houses even if the renovation work hasn't been completed yet. After that we drove over to Tybee Island for a tour of Fort Pulaski that was built by the Confederates and captured by the Union Soldiers during the Civil War. Tomorrow we head on down to St. Augustine, FL which is our last stop before heading home on Tuesday.

Forsyth Park in Savannah

We made it to Savannah around noon today after a short stop at Hilton Head just to say we had been there.  After lunch,  we went to Forsyth Park in the Savannah Historic District. What a wonderful place!  It's 30 acres of shaded walkways, moss covered trees and people doing different things all over the park. And to top it all off, there was a wedding going on in front of this fountain complete with 7 bridesmaids, etc. We just sat down and enjoyed everything..

The fountain in Forsyth Park was built in 1854 and is a replica of one in Paris, France. The original 10 acre park was laid out with the fountain being the center of pathways ilaid out in the pattern of spokes in a wheel. Besides the wedding there was a mother and 3 kinds on roller blades, people walking dogs, artist painting, art students making a video and a bonce ball game going on. In 1867 the city added 21 acres to the park and used it as a military parade ground.  Today the added land is an open grassy space for concerts, etc.
Tomorrow we will be spending the day downtown in the Historic District.


Plantation and Misc Observations

The tourist had a relatively easy day today compared to the last few days here in Charleston.  First thing this morning we drove out to the Magnolia Plantation which is outside Charleston along the Ashley River. The plantation has been the ancestral home of the Drayton family since 1676. It covers around 500 acres and is the oldest plantation along the Ashley river. It is a beautiful place and we loved it. I would love to see it in the spring when all the azalia's, etc are in bloom.  While there, we took a boat ride through the marsh area and learned some history of the place including it's importance as a rice plantation. It is a really beautiful place and we loved all the hanging moss.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE CHARLESTON AREA:
Humidity: Yep, it humid here!  We have lucked out in that it has been mostly cloudy so it didn't seem as hot as it did when the sun was out. When I went to bed last night, the sheets felt like they had been taken out of the dryer before they were completely dry. It takes towel days to dry by themself.
Manners: It really is a shame that other parts of the county don't have the manners that they do here in Charleston. We are tired of hearing "Yes Ma'am" - even from young people; drivers don't run red lights; drivers stop and let a car make a left turn in front of them, etc.
The town is clean: We have only seen 2-3 cases of graffiti while driving around the city.  Store keepers were out in front washing the sidewalk off with soap and water.  There isn't trash and litter on the sidewalks downtown. Cups, etc are thrown into the trash cans which are not running over.
They have a saying here in the south: "We start every morning slow and then taper off...."


Ft Sumter, Tea Plantation & Distillery

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Busy day today but at least we were not walking for miles and miles. However, our brain is on overload with the things we learned and did...
Nancy and I walked up to the Early Bird Diner for breakfast while Jane ate at the hotel - she isn't a big breakfast person. The Diner was on Diner's, Drive in's & Dives. Some of their specialties are fried chicken & waffles (served together) and shrimp & grits.
Then we drove downtown and caught the ferry out to Ft Sumter (right). A dolphin swam right in front of the boat for aways as we were leaving the dock. The boat did a short tour of the harbor before heading out to the fort which is totally surrounded by water.  This is where the first shot of the Civil War was fired when the Confederates attacked the Union which owned the fort. Quite interesting and now we all want to read a refresher about Ft Sumter when we get home.
On our way out into the countryside, we stopped at the Crab House for lunch.  The restaurant is right on the Atlantic Intercoastal Waterway so we could watch boats go by including a good size yacht. Jane and I had a hamburger but Nancy had seafood. 8-)

When planning the trip, I ran across a reference of the Charleston Tea Plantaion. We checked it out and added it to our schedule and what a find it was. This is the only Tea Plantation in North America. We had no idea how tea grows or is harvested. At right is a picture of the tea plants. They grow 8 different kinds of tea at the plantation and make black, green and oolong tea which is what you get in a typical chinese restaurant. It was really interestering!
Nest stop was the Firefly Distillery  which makes flavored vodka, spiced rum and some liquors. They are best knownm for their Sweet Tea Vodka and that is pretty good stuff....  Bottom pic is Jane and Nancy getting educated on vodka.  Since I was the drive, I only got a small amount of the Sweet Tea. Tomorrow we are going to Magnolia Plantation for a tour plus some other misc places before we leave here on Firday and head on down to Savannah.



History comes to life

Once again, the weather man was wrong - it didn't rain today!  However, it was hot and humid but there were a lot of clouds and a breeze off the water. We drove into town and then took a free trolley that runs around the downtown area.  We got off at a stop and then walked, walked and walked.....finally catching it again and going to another part of downtown where we walked, walked and walked some more. We saw homes that were built in the early 1700's and are absolutely beautiful.  We walked down the middle of brick streets that were completely covered with large oaks. Charleston has done a wonderful job of maintaining their historic area. 

A highlight for me was visiting the St Michaels Church (pic at left). The original church was built in 1727 but was later destroyed by fire.  The current church was opened for services in 1761 which was 15 years BEFORE the Declaration of Independence was signed. The steeple is 186 ft high. The chandelier was ordered from London in 1803. It was first lighted with candles, later with gas and now with electricity.  The pulpit inside is England after the Revolution as a prize of war, bought by a merchant and then shipped back to Charleston. We were taking pictures inside the church when the janitor stopped vacuuming, led us into pew #43, handed us a pamphlet and said to read a particular paragraph on the church history. We were setting in the "Governor's Pew" that George Washington worshiped in on Sunday afternoon, May 8, 1791. General Robert E. Lee worshiped in the same pew 70 years later. I was impressed!!!! He insisted on taking our picture setting in the pew.

Lunch was at a British Pub that a local recommended to us. The food was wonderful. Then it was on to the Charleston City Market, an open air market that was established in 1807 and covers 4 city blocks. By now, our feet are numb so we caught the trolley back to the car.  Fun day!
Tommorrow is Folly Beach and a lighthouse, Charleston Tea Plantation (yes, where they grow tea) and the Firefly Distillery where they make Sweet Tea Vodka.


More driving, more rain

We left Jacksonville, NC at 8:30 this morning in the rain heading for Charleston, SC. Fortunately for the driver, me, it quit after awhile so I didn't have to drive too long in the rain and it was just intermittent after that all day. We stopped in Surfside Beach, SC for lunch and found a little diner on the beach. The waitress there told us we HAD to go to Brookgreen Gardens before  we left the area. We had never heard of it but since we had time, decided to check it out. In 1931 a couple bought 4 deserted rice plantations and combined them into a 9,100 acre sculpture garden and wildlife preserve.  She was a sculptor and he was a poet.  Scattered throughout the gardens are her sculptures plus works by other artist.  Some of these are really large pieces!

There are hundreds of huge oak trees with hanging moss on them.  Some of the trees date back 250 years. To me, nothing says "in the south" like the hanging moss from the trees. We hung around there for an hour or so and then headed onto Charleston.  It would have been easy to spend a whole day there walking through all the gardens but time didn't permit.  I would love to see it in the spring when the flowers are all in bloom. We got to Charleston today in time to go to the Visitor's Center before going to the hotel.  Now I have a very big stack of brochures and maps to go through. There is an 80% chance of thunderstorms tomorrow so we had to make a Plan B in case it is raining and we can't do the outside stuff we had planned for the day. So far we have lucked out with it not raining where we were being a "tourist" - maybe not blue skies but at least it wasn't raining. Hopefully out luck will hole for tomorrow and then the chance of rain for the rest of the week is pretty small. Oh yes, Miss Ashley did a fine job getting us here today with not a single "recalculating". When I make a wrong turn, she very politely just gets us back on track. 8-)

 



Lighthouse, Ferry, Ft Macon & Miss Ashley

It was a long day today!  None of us slept much last night due to cold rooms, hot rooms, heavy rain, etc. Plus,  jet lag has caught up with us. Breakfast was at 7 a.m. this morning since the ferry left at 10 a.m. and we had to be in line by 9:30 plus there was few things we wanted to see in the town of Ocracoke before we left. We visited our 2nd lighthouse of the trip and it was a beautiful setting.  However, it was all white and the sky was all cloudy so the lighthouse wasn't as dramatic as it would have been if it was against a blue sky.

Our ferry from Ocracoke Island to Cedar Island (mainland) was a twin of this one which was coming into harbor from another island. Originally, we were going to skip Ocracoke but everyone who has been in the area said "you must go there". The only way to the isalnd is by ferry. We were leery of taking the ferry since I have a depth perception problem, which includes driving in tight spaces,  and Nancy is prone to motion sickness.  But we added it to the trip and are very glad we did - I didn't have any problems driving onto the ferry and Nancy didn't have any motion sickness. It was interesting last night being on a pretty small island knowing that the only way off was by ferry. The distance from the island to the mainland on was only 23 miles but it took 2 1/4 hours to cross the water. At times the water was relatively shallow and the channel very narrow so it was slow going for the ferry. The crossing was very smooth. In the below picture, Jane and I are enjoying the sun on the deck at the front of the ferry.

We stopped at the historic seaside town of Beaufort, NC which goes back to the early 1700's. There are a lot of wonderfully restored homes in the town that are so beautiful. We were surprised at how large some of the yachts were that were docked in the harbor. Then it was on to Fort Macon State Park to look at a Fort that construction began on in 1824 and was captured by the Union Soldiers during the Civil War.  Most of the original buildings remain.

And by now you may be wondering who Miss Ashley is.... After 2 days, we have named our GPS system Miss Ashley because she is disgustingly polite, never says "recalculating" like Gertrude loves to say in her condescending voice, has a slightly breathy voice in an almost southern accent.  Miss Ashley is delightful and tomorrow her job will be to get us to Charleston, SC. 

Outer Banks of North Carolina

It started raining this morning about the time we left Norfolk, VA and rained on us all the way to Kitty Hawk, NC. Then it stopped and we were able to be a "tourist" before it started raining again right after we got on the ferry. First stop was Kitty Hawk and the Wright Brothers National Memorial. In the picture at right, the big boulder is where their plane left the ground on Dec 17, 1903 and history was changed.  They completed 4 flights that day and the white markers represent the 4 flights. The first flight was 120 ft and went from the boulder to the first white marker. The 2nd flight was 175 ft, the 3rd flight was 200 ft and the last one to the marker that you can barely see in the distance was 852 ft and lasted 59 seconds. After the 4 the flight, the place was caught by a guest of wind, flipped over and damaged beyond easy repair.

On down the road is the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse.  The lighthouse is 187 ft tall and is the tallest lighthouse in the United States. The lighthouse was build in 1870. It was relocated in 1999 due to beach erosion at it's original location. When it was built, it was 1600 feet from the water but when it was moved, it was only 100 feet from the ocean. The lighthouse, including it's base, was put on steel beams and slowly moved 2,900 ft to it new location which is again 1,600 ft from the ocean.  The lighthouse keeper's house was also moved. It really is a beautiful structure and no, we did not climb the 256 narrow, winding steps to the top.
Then it was back on the road to catch the ferry from Hatteras to Orcacork Island where we are spending the night. We lucked out with the ferry since it runs every 1/2 hour and we only had to wait 15 minutes. Last weekend, the wait was about 3 hours. There is no bridge to Ocracoke Island so ferry is the only way to get there. This ferry is a 40 minute trip. The bottom picture is of a ferry like the one we were on as it passed us right after we left the dock. We were going out and it was coming into the dock. There were about 30 vehicles on the ferry and everyone in line did not get on so they had to wait for the next one. They told us that a squall line was coming in and sure enough, it started raining before we left the dock.  At times it was just a light rain and at time it just poured.  However, I was surprised that there was no wind so it was a pretty smooth crossing. The ferry we take in the morning over to the mainland is a 2.5 hour trip.

 




The trip begins

Even though we spent about 5.5 hours in the plane today between 2 flights, it all went pretty well.  We flew from Tucson to Chicago Midway, changed planes and then came on to Norfolk, VA.  Both flights were completely full but Southwest Airlines was on time all the way through. A little bumpy at times but not bad. I brought Gertrude/Matthew (Garmin) but the SUV we rented has a GPS system in it so will use it.  "She" will get a name tomorrow since we couldn't think of one today during the 4 miles between the airport and hotel. Her voice is a little breathy but want to hear her say "recalculating" before she is named. However, it is a different voice from what I have heard in other GPS systems.

Here are my 2 travel mates for the next 11 days. On the left is Jane and Nancy is on the right. We have been planning this trip for 6 months and are finally here. I'm the driver, Nancy is the co-pilot and Jane is riding shotgun in the back seat and watching the maps.

Above: Nancy and Jane standing on the balcony at the hotel we are staying in tonight.

Below: We went to the Ship's Cabin, a local restaurant for dinner. This is the view from the patio where we had dinner. By the time we
were done eating, it was dark and an approaching thunderstorm provided quite a lightening show. We dlove the