My Trip to the Smoky Mountains

Day 1. From Solon Springs to Champaign, Illinois with lunch and a few stops along the way.   I was reminded how flat the landscape is and how much corn is grown in Illinois.    548 miles

Day 2. Champaign, IL to Sevierville, TN with lunch at the Waffle House in Lexington, KY.  Kentucky is a beautiful state and I'd like to go back and see more of it.  Arrived at the Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede just in time for dinner and the show.  No pictures allowed during the show.  It was a good time with good food and the North won!    525 miles

Day 3.  Our first day in the Smoky's with retired forest ranger Dwight McCarter.  Beautiful day with breath taking views.  Stops at Cherokee and an old grist mill.

Here's an unusual Christmas tree that was in a shop in Cherokee.  Cheddarhead hats and mice on a ghastly red tree!  Eye catching for sure!  

In the afternoon we took the tram ride at Ober Gatlinburg.  This was an awesome ride and view!  I loved it! 

In the evening we had time for shopping and dinner in Gatlinburg.  This is where you go if you want to buy some moonshine...and I did!   110 miles

Day 4. Today we drove to Cades Cove on a very narrow and winding road.  It was another beautiful day to be sightseeing in Tennessee. I'm going to fess up to y'all (see, I really was in the south!).  I didn't take that many pictures because I didn't want to look like these guys. I wanted to see it all with my own eyes.

In the afternoon we were at Dollywood.  I really had to control myself and not sneak some pictures while at Dolly's Museum.  This was my favorite part of Dollywood.  It had many of her gowns, shoes, awards and other memorabilia, but no pictures allowed here either.  Dolly is one $mart lady.  If you want pictures of her stuff, buy the book or postcards.

Interesting story about this train.   Back in the 40's it was used up in Skagway, Alaska when the Alaskan Highway was being built.  At the same time and place my Dad was working on the Alaskan Highway construction.  Made the ride much more meaningful for me. 95 miles

Day 5. Up early and on the road to Asheville, NC to see the beautiful Biltmore Estate.  No pictures allowed inside, but you can take them outside.   I bought the tour book, postcards and wine from the Biltmore Winery.  250 rooms in this mansion plus gardens, stables, indoor pool, winery, bowling alley, you name it!  230 miles

Day 6. Sadly it's time to head home already.  We left early and finally got to our destination in suburban Chicago around 6:30.  Took longer than expected because 3 semi trucks crashed into each other and really screwed up traffic in Indiana. 595 miles

Day 7. Arrived back home around 3:30.  I had a great time, saw lots of new and interesting sites, met some wonderful, friendly people and I'm looking forward to another trip next year. 413 miles for a total of 2516!

Good News, Bad News and an Apology

First I want to apologize to all my blogging friends.  I haven’t been doing much commenting or blogging lately.  I’ve been in some kind of funk and I’m trying to get out of it and back into visiting with all of you again.  Thanks to all who continue to visit my blog, even though I haven’t been updating very often.  But like the title of this blog, I have some news.

First the bad news.  Yesterday I went up to take another picture of the view from my blind.  From the back everything looked just fine, but then I noticed on one side the zippers were unzipped.  Hmmm, that’s strange.  Then I could see the front was ripped and my chair sticking out of it.  We’ve had lots of wind lately and it must have caused all hell to break loose in my little blind.  I may be able to repair it with duct tape, but it did sit out in the sun, wind and rain all spring and summer, I think the elements got the best of it.  I’ll be adding a new blind to my Christmas list.  I know, in the big scope of things, this is hardly bad news, sad would be a better word for it.

But now for the good news.  On Saturday, I’m leaving on a trip to the Smoky Mountains!  Jim has no desire to travel and I do!  So I’ll be taking a bus tour and will be gone for 7 days and 6 nights.  I plan on sending pictures to my Facebook page and Google+ as well as adding some here when I get back.  The weather forecast sounds perfect!  Can’t wait to board that bus at 6:05 Saturday morning.  See ya all when I get back.

Day Trippin’

Yesterday was a gorgeous day for a road trip over to western Wisconsin.  We always have one specific destination and yesterday it was a stop at Straka Meats for some of their specialties.  After that, we took the first road to the right and saw some great scenery and some unusual sites as well.  First was this nice new log house.  What caught my eye was the way they left the base of the trees on the supporting logs on the porch.  Neat huh?  This place had quite a menagerie of farm critters…donkey, chickens and a llama or two.  It was called the No Profit Farm.  LOL
A little ways further down the same road we saw this beautiful animal in a pen with a couple other elk.
  Okay, don’t know what’s going on here, but they must be raising their own “wild” animals.  Along the same road we saw a bunch of turkeys.  First there was 3 hens that crossed in front of us.  Seeing how it’s spring and being a former turkey hunter, I figured there had to be some toms around too.  Sure enough on the other side of the road there were 6 or 8 of them strutting around with their feathers all fanned out.  Of course they scurried off before I could get a picture of them.

We ended up in Richland Center, stopped at a couple antique stores and had lunch.  We decided it was too nice of a day to hurry back home.  As we left town, we took the a left turn and went back into the rolling farmland.  We saw signs along the road for a shrine and decided to go check it out.  Turns out we’d been there one other time, but yesterday was a much nicer day.  The little shrine sits on top of a hill, in the middle of farm country and is called Our Lady of the Fields Shrine.  It’s one of the most beautiful and peaceful places I’ve ever been to.   Surprisingly the chapel was unlocked so anyone could enter.  Everything inside was beautiful with no signs of vandalism.  Simply amazing.                            A couple views of the old cemetery.     

Call me weird, but I really enjoy walking around old cemeteries like this one.  They’re so peaceful, so many big, beautiful trees and so much history told on the old gravestones. 

It was another nice day and another great road trip.

Road Trip!

When we heard Charlene the Weather Lady say that Friday was going to be the last nice day we’d be having for awhile, Jim decided we should take a road trip.  So off we go over to Minnesota to check out a town we’ve seen on the news and on some other regional shows.   After arriving there we both were trying to remember just exactly why we thought this would be an interesting town to visit.  We drove around town, up and down the main street, all the time looking for something…anything interesting.   Nothing there, but on the other side of the highway was this big ski jump.  So we’re thinking, maybe that’s what all the hoopla was about.  But that wasn’t enough.  We thought there had to be more around here than a ski jump and a bunch of empty buildings.  So back to the highway and right there on the other side of the road was another town called Bovey.  On the main drag was an antique store/cafe.  Okay, this is starting to look much better, just the type of businesses we like.  The antique store had nice stuff and decent prices.  The cafe was wonderful.  It’s a mom and pop place with real homemade food.  Jim had the special of the day, a dish called Sarma, which is Serbian cabbage rolls.  He loved it.  I had a chicken teriyaki salad.  Both came with warm, homemade, whole wheat rolls that were excellent.
As we were getting back in the truck, we noticed a big marker in front of the Village Hall.  Always love reading about small towns claim to fame.  Well, low and behold, Bovey is the home of a very famous photograph.   Who hasn’t seen this picture?  My parents had it over our dining room table and it’s seen everywhere.  Well, the photographer and the man were from Bovey.  Here’s the story of it if you’re interested in learning the history of this famous picture called Grace.
It was another good road trip through some very interesting areas of Minnesota.  On our way to Bovey, Highway 2  went through miles and miles of spruce and tamarack swamp.  On the loop back, the road went through the Iron Ore Range and past Hibbing, the home of Bob Dylan and finally to the top of Duluth, before going across the Blatnick Bridge and back to Wisconsin.

The Dummond Woods

Back when we were working we always took the last week of September off so we could get out and enjoy all of fall’s splendor.  We use to rent a cabin and go fishing in north east Wisconsin.  But after buying our cabin, we fell in love with all the fall color and everything else right here. 

Earlier this summer we stopped in the little town of Drummond and thought it would be a neat place to revisit in the fall.  Today’s weather was perfect for playing tourist and a nice drive.  So off to Drummond we went!  There’s not much of a town there today, but back in the late 1800’s it was a booming company logging town.   Just outside of town is a stand of virgin pine and hemlock that thankfully was left for all to see.  We walked the trail that encircles the giant trees and really enjoyed ourselves.  These trees are so big, it was hard to get pictures showing just how gigantic they really are.  But here’s a few of our attempts to get the perspective of their size.

  

This log is part of a huge hollow basswood that recently broke off the trunk on the left.  It landed on one of the trail signs and dented it up pretty good.

Another cool thing we saw along the way was this sign for the Great Divide in Northern Wisconsin.  We’re suckers for this kind of stuff.  It’s just a sign along the road, but it’s kind of cool knowing where the water goes.