Home Again

Upper Marlboro, MD

We arrived at home on Friday, 9/7/12. The last few days of our trip I wasn't able to connect to the internet, so I have a few days to catch up on.

Tuesday night, 9/4, we were in a motel in Columbia, TN, on the way to Nashville. We were listening to the Democratic Convention and could hear it storming outside. About 11:30 we heard what sounded like dripping coming from the bathroom. Sure enough, there was a leak over the tub from the rain. No big deal at first, but a few minutes later it began to leak on the floor, so we called the front desk and they gave us another room. The next day Serry went to see if they'd give us a discount for the inconvenience of having to move in the middle of the night. They gave us two bottles of water.

Downtown Nashville

On Wednesday, 9/5, we went to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, a really classy place, much like the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, OH. They have a lot of the instruments and fancy outfits old-time country stars used to wear.  As we walked along the exhibits I noticed that most of the outrageous suits and boots were made by Nudie's Rodeo Tailors. Nudie Cohn (born Nuta Kotlyarenko in Kiev, in 1902) came to America when he was 11. He started as a shoeshine boy and later became famous making rhinestone covered outfits for country performers, including Elvis. He also did elaborate auto customizations for the stars. The Museum has Webb Pierce's 1962 Pontiac Bonneville convertable. It must be 30 feet long. It's festooned with models of rifles and six-shooters. It has longhorn cattle horns on the grill, and a fancy saddle over the transmission hump. The upholstery is fancy hand-tooled leather, and the dash is covered with silver dollars. Tasteful? No. An eye catcher? Definitely. Look it up, I can't really describe it.

After the Museum we walked around downtown Nashville. Real honkytown. Even early in the afternoon, every bar has a country singer hoping to make it in the business.

We spent Wednesday night in Knoxville and decided to head for home. When we entered Virginia in its far southwestern corner, near Bristol, we stopped at the welcome center to see if we could figure out an interesting way home. We talked to the guy there and he suggested we explore The Crooked Road, Virginia's Heritage Music Trail, something Serry has wanted to do for some time. This is a driving route that stretches 333 miles through the mountains of southwest Virginia. (We drove only a portion of it.) The Crooked Road connects major heritage music (basically Bluegrass) venues in small communities along the way. These towns are noted for the jams, festivals, and concerts they put on. We stayed overnight in Floyd, where the Floyd Country Store has a Bluegrass jam session every Saturday night for $5, and a smaller, free, affair every Thursday night. Lots of fun. And the hotel was one of the nicest we stayed in on our trip.

On the way home we stopped in Richmond to see Kim and Felix (Michael was at work).  Felix had just awakened from a short nap, and he was not happy to see us. Lots of frowning and screaming. But then Kim fed him and put him back in his crib for a little bit, and when she brought him back out he was like a new kid. Lots of smiles and goo-ing. What a cutie!

So we got home Friday afternoon. We started to wash our laundry, only to learn that the washing machine was dead. It had been dying for some time, so we weren't exactly shocked. Then Saturday we had a bad storm that knocked out our power for about 20 hours. All in all, a nice welcome home.

Sunday we went shopping for a new washer, something I figured would take days. Instead, Serry decided to buy the first one we saw!!! The real Serry must have stayed behind with the hoodoos in Utah.

Almost forgot: Two years ago in Montana we met a guy wearing a tee shirt advertising a car show at the First Baptist Church of Upper Marlboro. This year we were walking along Bathhouse Row in Hot Springs, AR, when Serry stopped to talk to a woman standing in front of a restaurant passing out menus. We told her we were from Maryland, and she said she used to be trick rider and once performed at the Equestrian Center in Upper Marlboro. Small world.

Statistics
We were gone 22 days.

We drove 6527 miles, spent $714.19 on gas, and averaged 28.2 mpg, pretty good, I think, for a fully packed car doing at least 75 mph most of the time.

We spent $785.79 on food.

Lodging was $2338.29.

Favorites
The scenery at the parks in Utah is extraordinary.  You really have to see it to appreciate it, because no matter how big the photo or movie screen you see it on, it can't capture what your peripheral vision sees. It's so overwhelming that it's difficult to pick a favorite place or sight. It's easier to pick smaller, more manageable things. One of which was horseback riding in Utah's Red Canyon, where Butch Cassidy used to hide from the law.

Other highlights were the Indianapolis Museum of Fine Arts, the Salt Lake City Public Library, and Floyd, VA, and the Bluegrass music at the Floyd Country Store.

Coming up: A Bruce Springsteen concert on 9/14 at Nationals Stadium in DC, and then Frostburg, MD, on the weekend for the town's Bicentennial celebration, which Michael and Kim are helping to put on.