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Um, what can I say? Fun. Pure. Fun. Felt like a kid sledding in the wintertime back in Chicago when I slid down those sand dunes [which are surprisingly cool despite the blazing sun]. Couldn't get enough. Only, I don't remember the hills being so hard to climb when I was a kid. We had a blast.

On our way to Pie Town--a must stop destination--we passed The Very Large Array [which fit nicely with our continuing alien theme]. Any Contact fans? This is where they filmed the movie:








Just made it to The Daily Pie Cafe before they closed at 3PM....





we each had three slices of pie for lunch and bought a Mexican Apple Pie [FREE PIE RECIPE HERE just scroll down the page & a great link to a condo in Kauai, too] for Joe to celebrate his birthday when we arrived home. After a stop in Winslow, AZ,



we hit the road to see The Meteor Crater:



and stopped off at The Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, AZ to check out Saturn through The Pluto Telescope:



and, after toasting our last night we fell into bed and got up the next day to drive home.

They--rreree---heeee--rerree. At least they were here. Touring The International UFO Museum was a little beyond the kitch-fest I expected. Biggest surprise for me was all the first hand accounts of what exactly happened all those years ago in Roswell and there was this I-beam. Well, the best part about the museum was their desire for visitors to put the pieces together for themselves. Incident is such an fascinating word. Not used very often, and, when it is, seems like there's always something a little controversial going on. Words with attitudes. Note to self: must use more of those types of words.



Most unexpected treat? The great lunch we had at the Mexican dinner down the street, El Toro Bravo Restaurant. Good food and friendly. But the guys in the booth behind me who wanted to buy us beers creeped us out a little bit, it wasn't their lack of teeth, exactly. Just a feeling we got.

The road and the heat had made us weary. After an AMAZING nap we headed over to Carlsbad Caverns for The Bat Flight, what Mx and I had lovingly dubbed The Bat Show. Visitors to the Caverns call each day to find out the time the flight & ranger talk will take place because the bats change their flight in relation to the sunset. Anyway, we were very excited because thousands of bats fly out of the cave and we were all over that. But, when we checked in, a nice lady behind the counter said they only had one bat the night before and hadn't seen bats in weeks, they thought in part due to the dry weather, and no bugs. Mx and I cracked up. So we waited. And waited. And there was this little boy giving his mother hell that was worth the wait even if we did get one bat. But, the bat gods smiled on us that night and thousands and thousands of bats left the cave that night. The Bat Show is up there in my all time TOP 10 WILDLIFE MOMENTS. LOVED IT. I didn't want to leave. They swirled out of the cave in a sort of bat hurricane and Margaux and I grabbed each other, cracking up. Got goosebumps the swarm was so beautiful and the way the moved together in groups to fly out over the remote hills in the distance. A flock of bats is called a cloud. Some clouds were big, some were small. But the ones most fascinating to watch were the large clouds because the bats flew in sync with each other, changing course together all to the staccato rhythm of the beat of their wings.



We fell asleep dreaming of the bats and the spelunking we'd do in the morning.

After a doing a little shopping in New Orleans and visiting some of the uber-scary places we saw the night before,






Old Ursuline Convent


we hit the road for Cut and Shoot, TX to meet up with my brother and his family at my sis-in-law's family picnic celebrating the 60th anniversary of her Aunt and Uncle.



Awesome Elvis Impersonator



We had a great time. All her relatives were so sweet to us, so welcoming, and there were at least a hundred people there. Fun to catch up with all that's been going on with Mike and his family. It was Memorial Day weekend, and, in honor of our fallen soldiers, those assembled stood and sang, "Dixie." I only knew some of the words. Such an amazing moment. A Southern moment. Mx had to leave though, the emotion of the day brought tears to her eyes. Her cousin Cody and his good friend David had called a day or two before to let her know that they were being deployed to Afghanistan that weekend.

After the wedding we crashed in our beds in San Antonio, we stayed at The Omni San Antonio, but were barely there twelve hours because we were headed off to Carlsbad, New Mexico the next day. On our pillows were little oval wooden boxes with tiny dolls inside and a note that read:

"Legend has it that the Yanaguana Indians, a peace-loving tribe of native San Antonians, extended their hospitality to Spanish settlers by presenting them with these handcrafted worry dolls. According to tradition, by transferring one worry to each doll before bedtime, and placing them under your pillows your worries would disappear by dawn's light."

We were selling our our house at the time, so I transferred my worries about the sale and Cody's safety to my little dolls knowing full well that the Spaniards of long ago had similar concerns about shelter and survival. Timeless worries, I guess.

We knew that New Orleans needed its own day and we were so happy that we took the time to enjoy this amazing city. Could spend so much time here, but, since Mx had a job to get to, we did what we could with the time we had.

First up? The Cemetery Tour. Highly recommend The Haunted History Tour of New Orleans. We took two of their tours and both had fantastic tour guides who were so entertaining and knowledgeable.

Our tour guide started off by saying that the streets of New Orleans are named after Saints and Bastards. One thing I loved learning about was that voodoo was the religion that developed among the slaves. They found that their gods and goddesses were similar to the Catholic saints, and were able to keep their religion alive by associating their gods and goddesses with the saints of the Catholic church. St. Expedite is an example of such a saint. I saw his statue in the Catholic Church just outside of the French Quarter. St. Expedite is no longer recognized by the Catholic church, and his history tends to be a little murky, which is why I like him so much.

A few photos from our day in New Orleans:



After some bignets at Cafe Du Monde [AWESOME!] we took in the sites,







had a little dinner,





then we went on The Vampire Tour,





Mx and our guide. Lemme just say. Creepy. Creepy. Creepy. To many stories to share, but we did discover that Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop is the best bar in the city. Hands. Down.

Of course, when I travel, I love to get books. I usually lean to books with stories about women, but I had to get "New Orleans Ghosts, Voodoo, and Vampires Journey into Darkness" by Kalila Katherina Smith.

We. Love. New Orleans.

This leg of the road trip was short for one huge reason: We wanted to tour some plantations. And while we expected them to be grand, like the Monmouth [must take the house tour and the complimentary Southern Breakfast was fabulous], we didn't quite expect The Longwood Plantation. Even with all the movies I'd watched about The Civil War and all the school lessons I'd had [well, suffered through, wasn't a fan of history as a kid], the Longwood Plantation gave a rare insight into what happened to one family caught in the midst of war. Never finished, the Longwood stands as a reminder of people who had thought all their dreams were about to come true, and didn't. Our wonderful tour guide described the feeling I got while touring The Longwood like this, "You know when you wake up too early from a dream?" And, because my husband and I own a construction project management company, Elliott Management, I found this haunting example of east-meets-west architecture infinitely intriguing. The furniture was purchased, the exterior finished and the interior work had begun when the war broke out. Everything has been preserved as it was then, as much as possible. Even leaving buckets where the workers had dropped them the day they fled. The Pilgrimage Garden Club, who maintains the property and runs the wonderful tours, has one provision for their care of the property, that no one ever try to complete the construction.

When our tour guide discovered that Margaux was at school in New York City, the tour guide said, "I got a joke for you: A bunch of Yankee ladies were sitting around a fancy table eating chicken with their forks and knives and raised their eyebrows when the Southern women ate with their hands. Why do you Southern ladies eat with your hands? They asked, horrified. The Southern women said, 'Because you Yankees stole all our silver.'"

We didn't quite laugh. The southern ladies on tour with us just shook their heads. Being told that joke in the midst of the shell of The Longwood and, well, being Yankees, it was a little, um, awkward. But the guide was lovely and did a wonderful job of bringing the era to life for us.







Josephine, the cat

Stopped one more time for a look at the Mighty Mississipi:





For some bizarre reason we got all turned around in Natchez and even with GPS, we had a hard time getting on the road to New Orleans. Once there, hotel troubles ensued. All I wanted to do was stay in a room with a balcony in The French Quarter. I was told that's what I had reserved at The Saint Louis Hotel. But, even after confirming and calling and reconfirming that we had our balcony room, they didn't have one for us. And instead had a room, well, more like a cave with a view of a massive tarp covering their courtyard. Yuck. And, the weather, although it turned out to be FANTASTIC, was supposed to be very rainy that weekend. After inquiring about another room, which was worse, we went to stay at The Omni Royal Orleans, where I was told over the phone that they had a balcony room available. When we got there it wasn't. This was a little bit of a low point for me. While we did a have a beautiful view of a magnolia tree,



I was tired and disappointed. Mx went down to complain and the Concierge was from Brooklyn. He totally understood our saga. Gave us some drink tickets and gave us a room rate reduction. So, I let the whole balcony room thing go. But, next time, I will get my balcony room...if you want French Quarter charm with a balcony room in New Orleans I'd suggest these places: The Hotel Provincial, or The Chateau Hotel. Both of these hotels give you charm and a little bit of quiet to enjoy your stay in The Crescent City.

After I got over the balcony drama, we went for a walk down Bourbon St., which didn't disappoint.





Turns out we were there during The New Orleans Wine and Food Experience and want to go back next year for it too. Must go. Great wines and fabulous food.

Later on in the evening we went to Sing-Sing, where we enjoyed awesome blues music and people seemed to read our minds all night, but that's another story...



Had a little etouffee and plopped into bed, at our usual 2AM.

We started our tour of Nashville at The Pancake Pantry, and I had THE most amazing potato pancakes. We visited the Ryman Auditorium next, the original home of The Grand Ole Opry. We only had time to tour one thing in Nashville and picked the Ryman. The tour was fantastic.[If we had the time I would have LOVED to see a show there.]





One of the best descriptions of the Ryman came from a tour guide who said "people courted here." I loved that. But, as it was built as a tabernacle originally, people also worshiped here. Story goes that Thomas Green Ryman, a steamboat captain who profited from the gambling and drinking houses he owned in town, built it for a preacher named Sam P. Jones. Ryman went to heckle the preacher one night, but after hearing him preach in a tent, he decided to construct a space so that Sam would never have to preach in a tent again. $100,000 and 7 years later the Union Gospel Tabernacle was complete.

Hard to say goodbye to Nashville, felt like we could have stayed a while. We swung by Memphis on our way to Natchez. And Sun Studio was our first stop, a recording studio so legendary it gave me goosebumps. "Walk The Line" was recorded there on April 2, 1956:



Mx and I grabbed a quick snack. I ate my first Moon Pie here!





On for some BBQ:



which was SO good, we thought they had put crack in it...WOW. Hated to leave Memphis so soon! Our BBQ buzz lasted all the way to Natchez, and helped us get over the fact that we were about to run out of gas on The Natchez Trace. Isn't it amazing how sinister a place can look, late at night when the needle is one tick from empty? Note to self: gas up BEFORE the ride.

And arrived at the BEAUTIFUL Monmouth Plantation. Ahhhh..... You MUST go there. Must. Friendly staff, great food and the rooms are to die for...





What the canopy looked like above our pampered lil' heads...



Even though we got there at like 1 AM, I had to sit and write at this desk. WOW. As I wrote about our travels, I couldn't help but wonder how many other writers sat down at that desk. I wondered about their lives, their dreams and all the magic and heartache that correspondence can bring.

We left Raleigh via Asheville on our way to Nashville. A day of 'villes. We were about to start our musical portion of the road trip. Music is so important when we travel. Whether it's taking turns being DJ to keep the drive interesting, or actually touring the iconic places I'd only dreamed of, music was what it was all about for the next three or four destinations.



Beautiful wildflowers of North Carolina on our drive to Asheville.





Mx and I stopped at The Biltmore Estate. Wonderful. For me, the most amazing part of the estate was the library. Ooodles and ooodles of leather bound books and Napoleonic memorabilia, including a desk that was rumored to have been used to display Napoleon's cremation urn. There was a lovely chess set too, made with a red marble. George Vanderbilt was a bachelor when he built The Biltmore, a fact that blew me away. Most bachelors I know are stuck in what I call the brown phase, usually involving lots of brown plaid furniture with brown-on-brown accents. George dodged disaster in 1912, when he booked passage on the S.S. Titanic, then canceled at the last minute. Dude, George rocks! Mx and I shared a wonderful lunch and basked in the beautiful sunshine.

I love Asheville.

We headed to Nashville after stopping at the winery on the estate [most of the grapes are imported from California's Russian River Valley] and set our sights on Nashville.

We stayed at the Best Western and loved it. Took a walk to Robert's Western World and danced to Phil Hummer & The White Falcons. They were awesome. A young guy asked Mx and I to dance and we had a lot of fun trying to keep up with Jim, who happened to be a dance instructor. He made us look good...Jim learned how to dance from his grandfather. His grandfather said that it was the only way to keep women happy. The other tip Jim had for keeping the conversations lively was reading "Uncle John's Bathroom Reader." Learn something new everyday.

I love Nashville.



Nashville at Night



The Robert's Western World, by the light of day.

Otherwise known as: A Couple Yankees Head South. Before we could hit the road for Raleigh, Mx had a couple finals to take. I went to the Antique Cafe for an awesome cup of coffee and then took in some of the student exhibits at FIT.

One of the Exhibits highlighted the history of and special attractions in Chelsea:



Art from The High Line



The history of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union in Chelsea



The Museum at FIT [closed on Mondays]



Student Designs>



Finals are OVER!
California here we come. After one last stop at Mx's apartment we took the Lincoln Tunnel out of Manhattan and headed south!

Here are some scenes from the road:







We arrived pretty late in Raleigh and to be honest we FELL into bed at the Best Western in town. We had spent about 8 hours laughing and talking and singing. Watching the world go by. When all was said and done we'd gone through 6 states: New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina. It was heaven to drive into North Carolina. We were a bit challenged when it came to photographing all the state signs. Seems like they came upon us so fast. So, we didn't get much of that done, although we intended to. Just too much to talk about, I guess. We also got into the habit of reading FML; and making a road trip song list. Mx introduced me to Red Yellow Sparks and I love them.



Here's an excerpt from my journal from Day One:

"We passed by battlefields and looked up some history--learned that Patrick Henry gave his "Give me liberty or give me death!" speech in Richmond Virginia. Learned that Grant invented the foreshadow of trench warfare when he dug trenches in Petersburg to disturb the supply lines to Richmond and that it took him over a year to do so....One thing we noticed about North Carolina is how many churches there are."

We'd never traveled in The South and were just getting a taste of how The Civil War impacted all the places we would visit. I laid my head down on my pillow and went to sleep to the sound of the men in the room next door cranking country music and talking about the sorry state of it today which moved on to a discussion about their female troubles, angry about something that had happened that night. And, as I writer, I wished the walls were just a little thinner and sleep hadn't come over me so fast.

Click here to see all road trip photos [adding more as I go...]