Mariners won tonight

Though I don't think any of their regular squad were playing (having just played a couple of games in Japan) the Mariners did win against the Padres tonight. And we chose our seats for the games tomorrow and Monday.

This morning Paul got up at just after 6 and went out to take some pictures. Then we sat around in the shade and warmth and had a relaxing day before the game.

Phoenix

We are staying in the Purple Park in Phoenix again. All of our neighbours are also here for ball games.

We spent the afternoon relaxing in the shade and plan on more relaxing and ball games over the next three days.

Pictures - Gila Cliff Dwellings

As Kathie said in the post yesterday we went up to the Gila Cliff Dwellings yesterday. The drive was very twisty. The local campsite has a warning on their web site - although it is only 39 miles it takes about 2 hours to drive from Silver City. I am glad we did not take the trailer there. By the way Silver City is where Billy the Kid grew up.

The cliff dwellings are in a remote area surrounded by mountains.

Here is the view from a look out just below the summit of the pass you have to drive through to get there.

In the distance you might be able to see a trailer park. Beyond the trailer park are the cliff dwellings - they are hidden.

Here is the front of one of the dwellings in the caves.

Apparently the T door has some sort of significance but they are not sure what it is. There are a number of ancient dwellings in the area with T doors. The doors are different widths and heights - and they do not appear to have used it as an entrance because there were other entrances.

In the picture below you can see a cave painting. It looks a lot like the aliens that we saw at Roswell.......

This is a panorama of about 16 pictures (2 rows 8 pictures each) of the view across the valley from the cliff dwellings.

The canyon is very steep and narrow.

The caves were used by a number of different groups over the years. The dwelling were build in the 1200's. The local tribes used them and then in the 1800's they were used by outlaws and ranchers. Below is some graffiti from 1882.

Gila Cliff Dwellers

Today we drove up to see the Gila (pronounced Hee-la) cliff dwellings. We did a circle route going through Silver City on the way back. Cliffs being on mountains, it was a mountain drive - lots of skinny, twisty places. The highest point we were at was 7500 feet. There was snow along the side of the road.

The cliff dwellings are fascinating. The first inhabitants they believed lived there in about 400 AD. But the more recent dwellers (around 1270) build whole living quarters with divided rooms, roofs and many differnt areas. The leveling of the floors and the plumbing of rounded walls is evidence of excellent workmanship. It was definitely worth the hike up.

When we got back to the campsite, I hiked up to the top of our little hill so that I had cell service to call Carl and wish him a happy birthday.

Paul wants me to tell you it was another great day - shorts and sandals.

Hiking and Birds

Today we hiked some of the trails around the campsite. One went to the top of a hill. This picture was taken from the hill top. At the bottom of the picture you can see our truck and trailer.

The RV park has more campers in it but there was no one beside us this morning.

This afternoon I set up the camera with the long lens looking for wildlife.

Here are a couple of a woodpecker that was attacking the telephone pole behind our campsite.

There are quail running about the campsite as well.

We are planning a day trip up to the Gila Cliff Dwelling tomorrow. We will also stop by Billy the Kid's home town of Silver City which is around there as well.

Today was another great day, it was warm and as you can see from the pictures there wasn't a cloud in the sky.

Aliens, Missile Ranges and Country Roads

At the UFO Museum and Research Centre yesterday I took this picture of the "Aliens" with their space ship.

We spent most of the day driving into a stiff wind. The road climbed gently for miles. If it were not for my temperature gauges I would not have thought we were going up much at all, but my radiator temperature was a high as I have seen it and I had to slow down to keep my exhaust temperature below 1,200. We ended up at the top of the pass at 7,500 feet.

Driving down the other side of the pass we saw White Sands. Miles and miles of white sand and white sand dunes. It is quite an impressive sight. There is also the White Sands Missile Range and a NASA research centre there. (I wonder if there is a connection between here and the Aliens at Roswell). We stopped in at the visitor centre and I got this picture looking north from the centre. The cloud you see on the horizon is sand being blown in the wind. Before we left today we had to phone to make sure the highway was open. When they are testing missiles they close the highway.

We are staying at a campsite north of Deming, New Mexico. The campsite is very quiet, we are well off the highway, down a country road and then 7 miles of gravel road. There are jack rabbits, roadrunners, and a multitude of other animals and birds around.

Here is the view from our bedroom window.

Before dinner I was playing with my camera and I took this picture of a cactus.

The weather the past couple of days has been very warm. Yesterday in Roswell it was over 90 and last night the clouds rolled in so it was still warm in the morning. Here it is warm and breezy. Knowing we were going to be here for 3 days we stocked up the trailer so we don't have to leave.

Aliens and Country Singers

This morning we went to the UFO Museum and Research Centre.  They have displays of all of the reports about the findings in Roswell in 1947.  They say that they are providing all the information for you to make up your mind.  So, Paul's conspiracy theories were definitely going strong.

This evening as we were relaxing at the trailer, a large RV bus pulled in and we were talking to the group.  Matt Stillwell is on his way to Austin tomorrow morning and he stopped here to do some laundry.  I also got to hold his darling baby girl Carolina who is three months old.

Some of the guys he was traveling with today are working on a music video with him.  They are always looking for new locations and enjoyed viewing some of Paul's pics.

Easy Driving & Nature Pictures

Today's drive from Amarillo, Texas to Roswell, New Mexico was an easy drive. There was little or no wind and very little traffic. The highway was divided and smooth for the most part. It was like sitting in an easy chair, listening to music, watching the scenery go by at 100K. In Texas we were driving by huge stock yards. The dirt has changed colour from red to orange.

In New Mexico the scenery gradually changed cattle country to desert.

The campsite we stayed in in Amarillo was the old Route 66. Here is the sunset on Route 66 from the other night.

These next couple of pictures I got today at the Bitter Lake Wildlife Refuge just outside of Roswell. As far as I can tell these are of a White Faced Ibis. I can't see the white face.

I was going through my pictures the other day and found this picture that I took when we were in Florida. This is a Redish Egret.

After we got set up I went out and took some pictures of a broken home we had seen on the way into town. Can you guess what this building was. It was behind the main building.

This was an outhouse.

It was very warm here today. It was over 30 so walking around in my boots and jeans got very hot but there are warnings about rattle snakes where ever we go so I am better off being too hot.

Route 66, Cadillac Ranch and Palo Duro Canyon

I started the day by driving out to Adrian Texas which is a about 45 miles from where we are staying. Adrian was the mid point of Route 66. It was mid way between Los Angeles and Chicago. 1139 miles from each city. Kathie was working on a new course that she will be teaching and James was working on his chemistry so I went alone.

I stopped in at the Mid-Point Cafe and talked with the new owners. They are working hard on getting everything set-up for this years tourist season. When their web site is up and running I will post a link to it.

On the way "home" I stopped at the Cadillac Ranch. They have 10 Cadillacs of various vintages planted nose down. People stop by and take pictures. Graffiti is encouraged so there are people including many families out there spray painting the cars. As I was walking up to the cars I could smell the spray paint from quite a distance. There is a large pile of empty spray cans by the cars. Some people are too lazy to put their empty cans in the pile and throw them all around the farmers field. The field is very muddy with the red dirt/clay that we have been seeing for the last couple of days. Someone had left 5 or 6 pairs of white runners, that had been worn into the cars, at the side of the road because they to muddy to clean.

After lunch we drove through Amarillo's historic Route 66 district. A lot of the shops were closed. Some of them are closed for winter but a number of them are closed waiting for better times. Most of the small towns we have been driving through look like they are having a tough time.

We had thought that we would spend the afternoon walking around the historic district but there was not a lot to see. The person at the registration desk had recommended the Palo Duro Canyon which is not far from town. It is the second largest canyon in the US. It is 120 miles long and up to 800 feet deep. We drove out and had a look. This is a panorama of 6 images.

They have a 16 mile road that tours the canyon and they have campsites, trails for hiking, biking and horse back riding. It looks like a nice place to spend a week or so. The road down is steep (10%) and twisty but there were some large trailers in the campsites.

As you can see from the pictures is was sunny (and warm) here today.

Rain and Wind

Driving to Amarillo today we had a lot of rain and wind.  The NOAA information for the area we were traveling in was 35 MPH with gusts of 45 MPH.  But we seem to have come out on the other side and it is was sunny this afternoon and is supposed to be sunny and warm tomorrow.

Paul decided he wanted to come to Amarillo so that we could drive part of the historic Route 66. We have already done that.  The road into the campsite is part of the old route.  Perhaps we'll explore more tomorrow while we are here.

This is the first campsite we have been in where there is a patch of artificial grass at the campsite.  I guess it cuts down on the mowing :-)

Day to Relax and Plan - Pictures

We took the day off today. We went shopping and spent the rest of the day around the campsite. We also planned our next week or so.

The other day when we were in Texarkana there were some old barns and houses within walking distance:

On the road by the building was a dead rattle snake. And you wonder why I prefer to wear boots and jeans when out taking pictures.

Down the highway about a kilometre was another old house and barn:

On the way down there was another dead rattle snake, so I walked down the paved shoulder of the road instead walking through the grass in the road allowance.

When I got back to the trailer I took this picture. Later that night we were in the tornado watch area.

I have been watching the tornado warnings since we got to Tennessee. I checked them before we got to Texarkana and the forecast for that area was sitting at a risk rating of 2 (out of 10). A 2 rating says - "Very low chance of tornado, but hail and / or strong wind gusts possible". You can imagine my dismay when I got up the next morning and the risk rating had jumped to 6 (moderate risk of a tornado). We now have figured out the weather radio system and will use that if we run into this kind of weather again - probably tomorrow.

This old house I got awhile back when we were in Georgia.

The weather here is cooler, about 15 today, but breezy. Most of the day was sunny but late in the afternoon there was another thunder storm with a chance of a weak tornado and hail.

Answers and Questions

And the answer is 16. The question was how many time zone changes have we been through since we started in July. This does not include the two time changes for daylight / standard time.

The question is "What would you do?

We were in Texarkana for the last couple of days. There was a huge storm that was 400K wide (250 miles) and 3,000+K long. The storm is generating huge thunder storms and tornados. We were on the eastern edge and the storm is moving east very slowly. 400K to the west is clear of the storm. Kathie and I were up until 2:00 am last night watching the computer screens because there was a tornado watch in the area. If it gets upgraded to a tornado warning the sirens go off and we abandon the truck and trailer and hide out in the washrooms until the storm is over.

So would you 1) stay where you are, 2) drive east or south east and hope to miss the storm (but then you might be late for Spring Training in Arizona) or 3) drive west through the rain (but miss the nasty part of the storm because they get worse later in the day). When we were in Quebec City we chose to stay put and Hurricane Irene when right over us.

We drove west through the storm and we are now in Wichita Falls Texas. We had wet but a nice drive along highway US 82.

On the east side of the storm the weather was very warm. Here is is cooler but still sandals and shorts weather right now.

Our Thoughts Today 2

Today our thoughts are with Nancy in Texas who goes in for a set of tests to find out how successful her Chemo therapy has been. We are also thinking about our friends Keith and Carol who are going through treatment for Thyroid cancer. We have not heard how Keith's treatment went at the beginning of the month. We hear that Skeena is doing well and we look forward to seeing her and the rest of her family in May.

Pictures - Graceland, Barns and Playing

Here are some of the pictures I took at Graceland.

This is in what used to be a racquetball court. These are some of the gold records.

This is the Stutz Blackhawk, Elvis's favourite car.

And of course the Pink Cadillac.

Today I went to Oklahoma and got some broken home pictures:

When I got home I started playing and got these shots of a bumble bee.

Another great day - it was 22 when we got up and we saw a number of people mowing their lawns.

Texarkana in the sunshine

Drove from Memphis to Texarkana today. We took the 40 to the 30. Sorry Ken, we stayed on the interstate. Probably the bumpiest interstate we have been on.

We stopped in Texarkana - drove through the Arkansas part of town and into the Texas part. Then we just relaxed in the sunshine and watched a video on the computer.

More Elvis - I miss Steve

This morning we spent watching a thunder and lightning show that went on for several hours. We had rain with periods of heavy rain. The forecast said it would clear up this afternoon so we watched from the the show from the trailer. One of the strikes was close enough to vibrate all of the windows in the trailer. Graceland is within walking distance and we can see the parking lot from the trailer so it did not make any sense to drive, walking in the lightning storm made even less sense.

While the storm was going on I decided to go to the local barber and have my hair cut. Most of the people living around here have different hair than I do. I don't think the haircut is that bad. Kathie has requested that I wear my hat until my hair grows out. I am going to go with James's strategy from now on - get it trimmed so I can grow it long and not have to worry about getting it cut on the road. Steve is my barber.

We went to the Elvis memorial this afternoon. We toured Graceland, two of his planes, his automobile museum and saw a couple of videos of him in concert. We saw where they broadcast the Elvis radio station from. The most impressive part of the displays was the gold records and other awards he received. There were rooms filled with gold records, grammy award nominations, international awards. The Stutz Blackhawk in the automobile museum was also interesting.

The sun has broken out and it is still warm. It was 20 celsius when we got up this morning, so sandals and shorts for the day.

Graceland

Moved from Nashville to Memphis today.  From country music to Elvis, from Hazzard County to Graceland.  The drive had lots of big trucks but wasn't too bad overall.  The weather today was warm and sunny (somewhere in the 80s).

We are staying at the Graceland RV Park.  The park is located behind the Heartbreak Hotel, which is, of course, at the end Lonely Street.  When we checked into the park, the radio was playing on the Elvis station (a radio station that is "All Elvis, All the Time").  There are Elvis cruises and even an Elvis Cirque du Soleil,

Tomorrow we will tour Graceland and then maybe have dinner out.  There is a local restaurant that picks you up at your campsite in a pink limo if you are eating there (and the food is reasonably priced).

Short Day

Today was a short travel day. We looked at how long it would take to get to Memphis and decided to take two days to drive there. Our short day has taken us to Nashville. We are staying just down the road from the Grand Ole Opry on Music City Drive. Unfortunately there is nothing going on tonight.

There are all kinds of hotels, campgrounds and other attractions in the area. Cooter's Dukes of Hazzard Museum is just down the road. The "older generation" went to have a look, and we spent about 3/4 of an hour looking at pictures and memorabilia from the show. You could even get your picture taken in the General Lee or Daisy's Jeep, Dixie.

We crossed another time zone today. So how many time zones do you think we have crossed since July? We also had the time change on Sunday. Our internal clocks are kind of screwed up. When is dinner?

Here is one of the images I got yesterday in Alabama.

Of course now we are in Tennessee I had to get some pictures today from here.

We had another nice day about 80. I should have been wearing my boots and jeans when I was out taking pictures because I don't like walking through ditches and long grass in shorts and sandals, but I forgot to change before I went out.

Catch Up Day

Happy Birthday Mandell (a day late).

Today was a catch-up day. When we drove through Alabama on our way east I went to the Pensacola Air Museum instead of going back to Alabama and taking pictures. Then the weather forecast said it was going to get nasty in the area and we took off south. Today we are in Georgia on the boarder with Tennessee and we are about 30 miles from the Alabama boarder. Today was my day to get my pictures of Alabama. They will get posted tomorrow.

Today was also the day to get the oil changed and get a tire fixed. Yes we had another one go on us. At every coffee and lunch stop James takes the temperature of all of the tires. One of the trailers tires was consistently much hotter than the other tires. It was down about 30 pounds - so we pumped it up using a bicycle hand pump - that took a while. We started looking for air to pump up the tires at gas stations along the way - we did not see any - how do people inflate their tires these days - especially trailer tires?

The next day it was down again - so I pumped it up. At the end of the travel day, James and I swapped it out for one of the spares. It turns out we had picked up a screw. The place I went to, Mack Smith Tires in Rossville, was about a mile from the campsite and they also did my oil change so it was very handy and saved me from driving into Chattanooga. I will be picking up a compressor for the trailer so I don't have to pump them up by hand again.

It was very nice here today in the upper 70's.

Tomorrow we will move up to Nashville and I will get some pictures of Tennessee.

Cool name

Both my parents posted last night and were arguing over who had to post so I decided to stop the argument by posting so neither of them had to. Today we are in Georgia, if you want a more accurate description of where we are (map-wise) look up Chattanooga Tennessee because that is the town we are staying in. Before you ask it is a border town. The place we are staying in is rather nice, no paved roads but they are smooth and flat as are the sites which are all pull throughs, and they either have good wifi or I am getting really used to bad wifi and their's is average. Another cool thing about the site is that we are staying at is that it is the site of a civil war battlefield. Which brings me nicely to what is new with me (going all the way back to early february) in Eldar mythology in the 40k universe those who die in battle come back as hawks for revenge on those that killed them marking them out in future battles. The warriors that embody this aspect of mythology are the Swooping Hawks Aspect Warriors. In one of my earlier Warhammer spending sprees I bought an Autarch with Swooping Hawk Wings (a useful piece of wargear) but I had no squad to attach him to because they did not have Swooping Hawks out yet. At one of the few GamesWorkshops I have been to they did have Swooping Hawks so I decided to buy them (you know how it is a few dollars cheaper to buy Warhammer stuff in the US). By now you've noticed that I am rambling but if you know me you know I do that a lot and now you've noticed something a little off about my style of writing which all my english teachers call stream of conscience but please note that this is slowed down because there would be another three topics if I just went off that, my mind is very jumpy and will jump to jokes at the oddest things which is why I occasionally laugh at nothing.

Pictures from Biltmore

Here are some pictures I took of Biltmore today. You are not allowed to take pictures inside the house. From the campsite we can see the Builtmore Estate.

From the campsite you can see the estate so I took some pictures from here.

If you click on the picture you can see a larger version. The inn is on the left at the top of a hill, the village is below the inn to the left of the hydro pole in the picture and the house is on the far right. It is 3 miles from the front gate to the house and 5 miles from the house to village. The speed limit is 30 mph on a lot of the roads.

The Inn - this is a 4 Diamond rated hotel. It is one of the top 500 hotels in the world.

These two pictures are Antler Village. They include the winery, outdoor adventure, brew pub / restaurant, creamery, black smith, and farm. You have to drive past the bass lake to get from the house to the village.

This is a picture of Builtmore from the campsite. This is the back side of the house.

This is the house as you approach it from the front. The original stables are hidden by the trees on the right. That is where we had lunch.

So there are 4 acres of floor space in the house, about 175,000 square feet, a private railroad was built to move the bricks made on the property to the house during construction, a pipe organ in the dining room and two rivers runs through the property. The pool in the house had underwater lights before most houses in America had electricity.

It has at least 14 parking lots and 15+ shuttle busses run about every 5 minutes from the parking lots to the house or village. A number of parking lots were full today. They have staff dedicated to guide you to the next available parking spot.

A day pass was $45 each. They have yearly passes ($125) and for $145 you can ride the bike trails or an equestrian pass ($200+) that allow you to ride the horse trails. They also have special tours, fly fishing lessons, Land Rover Driving School, Segway tours, skeet shooting and more.

We were there on a sunny warm winter Sunday - so it is off season and it was very busy. I can only imagine how many people would be there in the summer.

A visit to Biltmore

Today Paul and I went to visit the Biltmore House (built by George Vanderbilt in 1895).

It is huge, it is the largest house in the U.S. - it has over four acres of floor space, that means I could fit about 100 of my houses into it.  It has 250 rooms, 34 bedrooms, 43 bathrooms and 65 fireplaces.

The grand staircase has a four-story chandelier.  The staircase is spiral and all cantilevered.  The formal dining room's ceiling is 70 ft high.

In the basement is the workout area.  There are change rooms for the men and the women (the servants would bring your clothes down to the rooms for you).  There is a couple of bowling lanes, a swimming pool (10 feet deep), and a gymnasium.  

There is a bachelor's wing with the billiard room, smoking room and gun room.   The library has books from floor to ceiling and the owner was lauded in the papers as being the best read man in America.  

The servants each had their own rooms that were almost as large as my bedroom.  The servants dining room had a dining room maid to serve them their dinner.  The clocks were all synchronized with one clock tower (normally only seen in factory settings).

The grounds were originally 125,000 acres and were gardens and parkland and have American's first managed forest.  It now sits on 8,000 acres.  What was previously the dairy is now the winery and that is 5 miles from the house.  The estate currently has more than 1,700 employees and is  a National Historic Landmark.

Asheville NC

The day started off with a nice back roads drive from Highway 95 to 85 (for once Lizzie did not lead us astray). Highway 85 is much more mellow than 95 with fewer trucks. 

Then, we got onto highway 40 and traveled west across North Carolina. We are in the mountains at 2,000 ft. The scenery here reminds us of Quebec. 

It is sunny now, but supposed to get down to 1C tonight.  Tomorrow will be warm and sunny again. 

Heading South

Happy birthday to my brother Malcolm.

We have now turned around and we are headed south. We started the day in Delaware and were soon in Maryland. We continued in Maryland for a while and then as we were crossing a bridge we were in the District of Columbia for a few seconds and then into Virginia. At the end of the day we crossed the boarder into North Carolina and we are staying just inside North Carolina.

While we were driving past Andrews Air Force Base we saw one of the Presidential planes taking off. Kathie tweeted the news and every few miles after that a black SUV with blacked out windows would drive by us (coincidence, I don't think so).

When we were driving through Washington there was a sign for a rest stop and tourist information area. We took the exit and there were no signs as to where to go next. We drove down the road and saw nothing, we turned around and got back on the interstate.

While we were driving in Washington there were 10 - 12 lanes all headed south - where where all those people going?

We spent more time in Richmond Virginia than we had planned. We took Interstate 295 which is supposed to go around Richmond to avoid the traffic. I95 goes straight through Richmond. Part way around there was a sign that said I295 Closed at Exit 28 use Highway 64. If we had known that earlier we would have taken I95. When we got to exit 28 the highway was completely closed and there were 5 lanes being collapsed into the exit lane with absolutely no traffic control. Then Virginia DOT did not have any signs about where the detour went (they must be taking lessons from Quebec DOT). A couple of wrong turns, a u-turn and a traffic jam on Highway 64 and we were on our way thanks to Kathie, Lizzy (our GPS) and the iPads.

Everything is flat around here, I think the highest points we have been since we left Texas are the bridges. I have never seen so much water. There are swamps and rivers all over the place. We have spent nearly as much time on bridges as we did on ferries on our first loop. We have also been helping the US with their deficit - we have been paying tolls all on a number of different highways since we left Texas.

We are headed south for the warmer weather. Today was warm but tonight is supposed to be cold (0C) so we will move further south tomorrow.

A Few Pictures

Here are a couple of pictures that I got over the last couple of days.

The first one I took in New Jersey this morning.

This barn was in 40 mile strip of Maryland between North Carolina and Delaware.

One of the things I look to avoid when taking pictures of old barns is modern devices in or around the barn or building. Plastic is almost impossible to avoid. Today I got one farm building and when I got home there was a new truck at the back of the building. I have made an exception for the picture below. True it has a satellite dish in the front but it has an outhouse in the back so one sort of cancels out the other.

It has warmed up here as it was about 22 today, but very windy. Driving back from New Jersey this morning there were a number of semi's parked (hiding from the wind) under overpasses. I was glad that I was not towing the trailer as the truck was being blown around.

Funny Bumpers and Rooftop Porches

Today I got up to New Jersey and got pictures of some barns up there and on the way back I got some pictures of barns here in Delaware so now we head towards Tennessee and Alabama where I don't have any pictures yet. I will post some pictures from today later.

Since we got to North Carolina we have seen trucks with "funny bumpers". The have a oblong piece and a number of upright pipes. It turns out that they are for holding fishing rods. They take the trucks down on the beach up to the water and cast their lines into the water and then sit in the truck waiting for the fish to take a lure. It looks like they can have 5 or more lines in the water at a time.

A lot of the houses on the Outer Banks have either rooftop balconies and or observatories at the top of the house. I just wonder what the Saanich inspectors would have to say about some of the balconies we saw. The balconies allow the owners to see the ocean over the sand dunes.

The houses are really interesting here as there are no "boxes". Most of the houses are different, some of them have turrets, other are completely round and there are many interesting shapes. Most of them are "built" from the second story up so the storm surges don't damage the house. One even had two boats in the garage so I guess he is really prepared.

Beside the road on the Outer Banks there are loaders and other heavy machinery. They leave machinery there so it is handy for clearing off the the sand that gets blown onto the road from the sand dunes.

One of the things we have been told is the population of the Nags Head / Kitty Hawk area grows from 30,000 in the winter to 300,000 in the summer. Many of the businesses are closed or on reduced operations. It was funny to drive by the Arby's that had a sign "Closed for the season".

The other thing we noticed was a number of businesses that were closed because of hurricane damage. Near the campsite there was a Shell gas station, a restaurant and small grocery store. All were closed due to storm damage. About a third of the gas stations in the area were closed with what looked like storm damage.

Outer Banks to Delaware

We moved on today.

Driving north on the outer banks we drove up to Virginia and crossed the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel.   What a neat thing.  There is a bridge span, then you go under the ocean, then up to another bridge span, down under the ocean again and then up to an elevated bridge span (for the fishing and pleasure craft to go under).

We thought from a quick look at the map that we went from Virginia straight to Delaware, but we actually had 40 miles of Maryland to go through as well.

The drive was medium in length but was stressful on Paul as there were many stop lights - and the truck/trailer need time to stop.

But the day was sunny, and warmer than the last couple of days, and we are here in Milton DE for a couple of nights.

Kitty Hawk

We started off today by going to Kitty Hawk and the Wright Brothers National Memorial . They have replicas of the gliders and the plane they flew in 1903. There was a presentation showing the plane and the development of the controls. They had some of the original documentation a complete history of the development.

Here is a picture of a replica glider they used in 1902.

After testing that year they went back to Dayton and re-wrote the book on aeronautics, they built their own wind tunnel and then when no one would sell them a motor - they designed and built their own. Since no one had built a airplane propeller they had to design and build their own. The fabric they had was too wide for the wings they built so one of the brothers borrowed a sewing machine and resewed the fabric for the wings.

Here is a picture of the 1903 plane.

Here is a picture of me at the monument for the distance of the first flight from the point at which it took off.

After the Wright Brothers we had lunch at the trailer and then Kathie and I went to Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. It was about 50 miles along a long string of sandbars they call islands around here. Hurricane Irene apparently cut an inlet through the island in August.

When got back I took some pictures from around the campsite. The first one is the trailers reflected in the lake. This is the first time since we have been here that it has been calm - yesterday there were almost whitecaps on the water.

This is looking across the lake at the sunset.

It was another good day - it has been cool here but it is supposed to warm up over the next couple of days.