Since leaving the Dragon, we've accomplished much. Three nights in hotel, two nights in basement, two nights in tent and one more in cabin.
The following morning we cleaned up and checked out, stopping for breakfast at Dunkin Donuts. We headed out on Hwy 24, stopping in Clarksville for an oil change. This was a simple stop - we didn't even have to leave the car! However, our simplicity ran out a few hours later as we pulled into St Louis. Our lovely technicians at the oil change facility forgot to tighten the oil filter, and by the time we stumbled into Missouri five hours later, our engine was bone dry. How nice! Luckily, and I mean extremely lucky, at the exact time we noticed the need to figure out the problem an oil change facility of the same variety appeared across the street. We pulled in, had everything replaced for free and drove out to our party.
My second cousin was having his engagement party and we doubled the invitation into a long-time no-see event. Dinner that night was a second long-time no-see event, as we had dinner with my cousin Erin, whom I had not seen in over a decade. I also hadn't met his lovely children or wife yet, so I introduced them to Princess to equalize the new people meeting contest. Home-cooked lasagna was on the menu, followed closely by six or seven rounds of Wii. The jury is still out for my approval of the game as being more superior to others, but I did walk away with a sore wrist. Too much twisting or something during Archery?
Monday morning rolled around soon enough, and Princess and I prepared to get in the car for a short hop over to Joplin, MO. However, while moving our ton of bags out to the car, I smacked my head on the roof of the basement. The ceiling was rated to about 6’3”, and I had to duck constantly. When I put on my hat and walked out, well, the cross beam walked into me. I instantly dropped to the floor, feigning paralysis. Fortunately, most of the pain was in my head and we soon got a move on. We stopped at the St Louis Arch for a few candids and then got back on the highway. The road was bare and pretty boring, but we got there soon enough. Just like our first night in Nashville, we collapsed early and watched TV till our eyes shut themselves.
We continued o
n to Nashville, spending two nights in a wonderful room on the 16th floor of the Sheraton Downtown. For our first night we did nothing but air out the tent and flex our muscles in the gym. We were .JPG)
so glad to be out of a tent for a few days that we lulled ourselves to sleep with 3 inches of foam, much much more than our usual 2. The next day we headed out before lunch, stopping at the State Capitol for some pictures and then walking down to McFaddens for lunch. We walked around town for a wee bit, headed to the Country Music Museum for a 2-hour tour and then walked over the Country Music walk of fame. Personally, I have very little interest in Country music, but I took a liking to the Hank Williams display. I only know his music from the soundtrack of 
my favorite movie, Shawshank Redemption, but I enjoyed reading his life story. I also learned that the famous Monday Night Football line, "Are you ready for some football?" is from Hank Williams, Jr. Interesting...very interesting.
After over-indulging on Country Music stars, Princess and I walked thru the rain around town, stopping for some ice cream before heading back to the hotel. We cleaned up and drove out to Music Land to a dinner theater show that we signed up for. We enjoyed our buffet of corn, veggies, salad, chicken, ham, steak, mashed potatoes, cobbler and banana pudding. The show started a little bit later, with a handful of Country music historical songs and the hilarious comedic drawls of Ken Hall. I'm sure you are all familiar with Shotgun Red from the show Nashville Live on TNN. Well, we were blessed with an appearance of his and we just about died! If you don't know who we're talking about, look him up!
n to Nashville, spending two nights in a wonderful room on the 16th floor of the Sheraton Downtown. For our first night we did nothing but air out the tent and flex our muscles in the gym. We were .JPG)
so glad to be out of a tent for a few days that we lulled ourselves to sleep with 3 inches of foam, much much more than our usual 2. The next day we headed out before lunch, stopping at the State Capitol for some pictures and then walking down to McFaddens for lunch. We walked around town for a wee bit, headed to the Country Music Museum for a 2-hour tour and then walked over the Country Music walk of fame. Personally, I have very little interest in Country music, but I took a liking to the Hank Williams display. I only know his music from the soundtrack of 
my favorite movie, Shawshank Redemption, but I enjoyed reading his life story. I also learned that the famous Monday Night Football line, "Are you ready for some football?" is from Hank Williams, Jr. Interesting...very interesting.After over-indulging on Country Music stars, Princess and I walked thru the rain around town, stopping for some ice cream before heading back to the hotel. We cleaned up and drove out to Music Land to a dinner theater show that we signed up for. We enjoyed our buffet of corn, veggies, salad, chicken, ham, steak, mashed potatoes, cobbler and banana pudding. The show started a little bit later, with a handful of Country music historical songs and the hilarious comedic drawls of Ken Hall. I'm sure you are all familiar with Shotgun Red from the show Nashville Live on TNN. Well, we were blessed with an appearance of his and we just about died! If you don't know who we're talking about, look him up!
The following morning we cleaned up and checked out, stopping for breakfast at Dunkin Donuts. We headed out on Hwy 24, stopping in Clarksville for an oil change. This was a simple stop - we didn't even have to leave the car! However, our simplicity ran out a few hours later as we pulled into St Louis. Our lovely technicians at the oil change facility forgot to tighten the oil filter, and by the time we stumbled into Missouri five hours later, our engine was bone dry. How nice! Luckily, and I mean extremely lucky, at the exact time we noticed the need to figure out the problem an oil change facility of the same variety appeared across the street. We pulled in, had everything replaced for free and drove out to our party.
My second cousin was having his engagement party and we doubled the invitation into a long-time no-see event. Dinner that night was a second long-time no-see event, as we had dinner with my cousin Erin, whom I had not seen in over a decade. I also hadn't met his lovely children or wife yet, so I introduced them to Princess to equalize the new people meeting contest. Home-cooked lasagna was on the menu, followed closely by six or seven rounds of Wii. The jury is still out for my approval of the game as being more superior to others, but I did walk away with a sore wrist. Too much twisting or something during Archery?
After saying goodbye to my cousins, Princess and I headed over to my friends Thubb and Bill's house for our down-home domiciling. These were our two nights in basement, which I would later regret a tad on Monday morning. Ice cream was on the menu, followed by bedtime. The next morning we got on our bicycles and rode a pair of laps around Forest Park, racing past all the slowpoke runners, eventually catching up to a pair of riders our speed. We followed them for a li'l bit, getting a taste of riding that we don't ever get to experience. We returned to the house, showered up and I drove out to see my Grandmother. She's 93, and while not on anything close to her last leg of health, is pretty far along in the Alzheimers category. I wanted to see her while she still had some cognitive functions and desire to be awake, since you never know when it's gone forever. The visit was good...I showed her pictures on my laptop of family members and of videos and pictures of this trip, and then we said our goodbyes a few hours later.
Immediately after the visit, I drove back to Thubb's, changed, and headed down the street for an early dinner meeting with some of my mom's friends from the days she lived in St Louis. They know me well, and I enjoyed introducing them to Princess when she showed up. The main point of the visit to St Louis was to see those that hadn't see me in awhile, and I think I was able to accomplish the feat sans problemme.
Monday morning rolled around soon enough, and Princess and I prepared to get in the car for a short hop over to Joplin, MO. However, while moving our ton of bags out to the car, I smacked my head on the roof of the basement. The ceiling was rated to about 6’3”, and I had to duck constantly. When I put on my hat and walked out, well, the cross beam walked into me. I instantly dropped to the floor, feigning paralysis. Fortunately, most of the pain was in my head and we soon got a move on. We stopped at the St Louis Arch for a few candids and then got back on the highway. The road was bare and pretty boring, but we got there soon enough. Just like our first night in Nashville, we collapsed early and watched TV till our eyes shut themselves.
The next day we had a lovely breakfast in Galena, KS (to add it to the list!) and then drove out to Oklahoma. We intentionally drove thru Arkansas (the list!) and then slipped into 100 degree weather. We stopped at the Oklahoma City Bombing Memorial, which was a very emotional stop. Princess was her usual bucket of tears, and I was surprised at how overwhelmed I became. No tears from this hunk-o-junk, but you can't listen to the stories without feeling something. I remember exactly where I was when I found out about it, though it wasn't until the afternoon when I was at track practice.
There was just over 100 miles left in our day, and we made it pass quickly on the road. We stopped at a KOA in Elk City, OK and spent the night relatively peacefully. In the morning both of us mounted our handy dandy two wheeled fun machines and took off ten miles down the road. I was faster, going further, but Princess took longer and therefore got more cardio. Overall even, I say! The drive 
out of OK was about as incident-free as the drive in. We admired the complete lack of anything across both panhandles, and were extremely happy we stuck to the highway for speed. We had lunch at Big Daddy's BBQ in Amarillo, eating some amazing ribs, steak, sausage and sweet tea. We still had our growler from Ashland, WI and filled it up with sweet tea for $1.35. That's more inexpensive t
han any store around...for 64 ounces! On the way out of town we stopped at the Cadillac Ranch to leave our mark. The ranch is a row of 8 Cadillacs buried up to their nose in the ground, out on the highway. They have all been graffiti'd (on purpose, we presume) and there were a handful of not-quite-empty spray cans still around. We tagged a few cars and then continued on to New Mexico.
New Mexico greeted us with puffy clouds and rolling hills. We arrived at our KOA near Tucumcari, and had an adve
nture setting up camp. We just happened to select the site with a fist sized wasp nest hanging off the sun shade. I captured the nest and all present adult wasps in a cup, and set them far far away to bake in the sun. Evil I know... The remaining adult wasps returned one by one to meet their demise by sandal. In anticipation of rain we pulled out our football field sized tarp and fought the wind while securing it over the sunshade frame. Then we realized that food was scarce and decided to head to town for supplies. As we approached Tucumcari, the lightning show 
began. Hollywood and I practiced our photographic skills of capturing bolts of lightning while standing on the roof of the car. I got pretty good at it! Back at camp we had to reinforce our tent by tying it to the car, since the wind was whipping as the storms swirled around us. We never got a direct hit, but the light shows surrounding us sure were great!
out of OK was about as incident-free as the drive in. We admired the complete lack of anything across both panhandles, and were extremely happy we stuck to the highway for speed. We had lunch at Big Daddy's BBQ in Amarillo, eating some amazing ribs, steak, sausage and sweet tea. We still had our growler from Ashland, WI and filled it up with sweet tea for $1.35. That's more inexpensive t
han any store around...for 64 ounces! On the way out of town we stopped at the Cadillac Ranch to leave our mark. The ranch is a row of 8 Cadillacs buried up to their nose in the ground, out on the highway. They have all been graffiti'd (on purpose, we presume) and there were a handful of not-quite-empty spray cans still around. We tagged a few cars and then continued on to New Mexico.New Mexico greeted us with puffy clouds and rolling hills. We arrived at our KOA near Tucumcari, and had an adve
nture setting up camp. We just happened to select the site with a fist sized wasp nest hanging off the sun shade. I captured the nest and all present adult wasps in a cup, and set them far far away to bake in the sun. Evil I know... The remaining adult wasps returned one by one to meet their demise by sandal. In anticipation of rain we pulled out our football field sized tarp and fought the wind while securing it over the sunshade frame. Then we realized that food was scarce and decided to head to town for supplies. As we approached Tucumcari, the lightning show 
began. Hollywood and I practiced our photographic skills of capturing bolts of lightning while standing on the roof of the car. I got pretty good at it! Back at camp we had to reinforce our tent by tying it to the car, since the wind was whipping as the storms swirled around us. We never got a direct hit, but the light shows surrounding us sure were great! Early the next day we got a move on, driving south to Las Cruces for our last stay lost in the woods. We had hoped to go to Roswell and Alamogordo for some alien searching and H
-bomb finding, but a little research the night before told us that all the hype was simply that. The actual alien landing was in Corona, but if you ever drove through there, as we did, you wouldn't know it until your GPS told you to turn around. We stopped at 
the White Sands National Monument for a little trudging through mounds of gypsum and white sand blindness, and then continued to the KOA. For our final night in the wildnerness we opted to stay out of the wilderness and slept hardily in a log cabin, complete with ants and a porch swing. To top it all off, we left earlier then we ever left (not counting Bar Harbor fishing), off to see Nonni and Bing in Arizona...
-bomb finding, but a little research the night before told us that all the hype was simply that. The actual alien landing was in Corona, but if you ever drove through there, as we did, you wouldn't know it until your GPS told you to turn around. We stopped at 
the White Sands National Monument for a little trudging through mounds of gypsum and white sand blindness, and then continued to the KOA. For our final night in the wildnerness we opted to stay out of the wilderness and slept hardily in a log cabin, complete with ants and a porch swing. To top it all off, we left earlier then we ever left (not counting Bar Harbor fishing), off to see Nonni and Bing in Arizona...
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