How I Spent My Summer Vacation

Remember when school started back after Labor Day and your first assignment was the dreaded “Summer Vacation “ essay?  Guess that question shows my age. No one writes essays any more. They just post it all on Facebook. Since this return to blogging is meant as my own antidote to Facebook, I will tell you what I did.

I drove. I drove a lot. I drove up into The Chiricahua Mountains to see completely dark night skies at night and look for Montezuma’s quail in the morning. The stars were breathtaking, but I never found the quail. Then I drove across the southern edge of New Mexico which takes only a couple of hours. I stayed in El Paso for a little while to rest before heading south to uncharted territory. I had always wanted to bird southern Texas and this was my chance. Finally saw the dickcissel and green jays. I birded my way across the bottom of the state then through Houston and Baton Rouge before turning north to cut Mississippi in half.

After a rest stop to visit friends in Ripley I moved east by south to pick up Darlene for our magnificent adventure. We drove up through Tennessee and most of Kentucky before turning east to tour across West Virginia. That’s not  a route I care to repeat again. EVER!  Finally we reached Maryland to begin our Civil War journey. Loved Antietam and was amazed by all the history packed into tiny Harpers Ferry (of course Darlene found a Hohenwald connection).  Three days in Gettysburg was not really enough but almost overwhelming. Eventually, like the rebs we were following the path of, we had to turn south.

Manassas, Richmond, Fredericksburg, Spotsylvania, and finally Appomattox.  Whewwwww.  Two weeks on the road moving every day then finally back to Hohenwald where I rested a few days before driving south into Alabama and east through Georgia to spend time at big brother Mike’s. Enjoyed seeing the home he and Kay have built together and getting his help on some projects in my tiny home on wheels before heading north again to my favorite Kentucky farm home. Lots of good times visiting with my cousins and eating too much southern cooking. I’ll pay for that later!

The culmination of this trip south was the Wade family reunion in Gallatin. Good to see so many of my cousins again. But the next day I was driving once again. By nightfall I was in Arkansas. By the end of the week I was hunkered down in Oklahoma City waiting out very angry wind and thunderstorms. It’s not a good feeling when you check in to an RV park and they circle the tornado shelter before they point out your site. The wind and storms battered me all the way to Albuquerque. By the time I got back to Arizona the storms were gone.

Of course the heat is still over 100 everyday. But it’s a dry heat -or so they tell me. At least I’m through driving for a while.