Roadtrip 2007

Sunday - Recovery

2007-10-28T12:13:00.001-07:00

We are home, well at least I am. Scott flies out tonight and back to Houston. Yesterdays drive was long, but we left Florence about noon after having lunch with a friend there. It rained some heading home, but was pretty uneventful till we hit Orlando late in the day where there were some accidents on I-4.

Were chilling today, doing Laundry, catching up on emails, etc... Over-all with the exception of the five days of rain, the trip went very well. We would really like to thank all our friends that allowed us to stay with them and took time out of their lives to spend it with us. Thanks to Tom and Brenda in NC for allowing us to stay with them and for feeding us so well while we were there. Thanks to Kathleen and Kenny for their hospitality and the sweet butterscotch pie and doing so on such short notice. And thanks to my good long time friend Bonsky for letting us spend a night and feeding us, as well as the partial tour of Erie. And thanks to all those who kept up on the blog and commented along the way - I guess I need to turn that date off of the camera. : )

We had fun despite the rain. I will most likely visit Washington again, as there was much to see and not a lot of time and dry weather to take it all in.

One last link to the pictures:

Road Trip 07 Photos

Back to work we go!

Friday - Day Eight

2007-10-26T21:09:00.001-07:00

Rain, rain, rain...

It has been raining since Monday!! Washington was a wet mess, the drive home so far - equally wet. Traffic out of Washinton was a nightmare! I am actually looking forward to getting home and drying off! No more pics, and probably not much more news to share. I'll summarize on Sunday!

Thursday - Day Seven

2007-10-26T07:14:00.000-07:00

Another wet day! We were up early again and had a nice breakfast at the house before driving up to Falling Water. The two other couples there were also going to Falling Water and were very friendly. One couple was from Sarasota, and they ended up on the same tour as us.

Falling water was very interesting an amazing structure - a lot of attention to detail. Pictures to follow.

We drove down to Washingtopn and enjoyed another GPS fiasco. We ended up nowhere near our destination and both with extremely full bladders. Fortuneatly we found a nice wooded neighborhood with lots of tress. : ) Whew.. took another 15 minutes to find the hotel. We ended up getting to the hotel at about 4:30.

We walked around last night before hitting the tour bus at 7:00 and doing our cold wet tour for the next three hours. We saw seven different monuments, some of which turned out pretty decent, some did not.

After the tour we hit the bar in the lobby and chatted for a few hours before crashing about 2:00am. Now were getting ready to hit the road for breakfast and head over to the Air and Space museum and see what else is in that area.

I will work on getting the pics uploaded next. Hope everyone has a great Friday!!

Road Trip 07 Photos

Wednesday - Day Six

2007-10-24T18:16:00.000-07:00

Today we got up and lounged for a bit. We sat around and had coffee with Bonnie and caught up some more on old times - we have so many. Then the three of us went out to breakfast and took a drive around Erie to see some of the sites. We went to a local park on the Peninsula and drove through part of downtown before ending up at Bonnie's office. At the park we saw some beautiful fall tress and collected some leaves for a workmate. We also saw a young buck which I did get some good pictures of. At Bonnie's office, we met Bonnie's boss and hung out for a couple of hours just chatting. We left about 4:00 and headed down to Mill Run to check in to our Bed and Breakfast.

It has been a very rainy couple days - just a continuous drizzle. We arrived in Mill Run close to 7:30 and drove through some serious back roads, and followed one road about two miles in to the woods - was feeling very "Deliverence" like. Turns out the GPS had directed as to the exact opposite end of the road - our destination was right where we turned off the main drag.

Anyway, the Bed and Breakfast is very nice, we got a room with a Queen and a single bed (I verified two beds before making reservations)- Scott won the coin toss, so he got the queen bed (lucky bastard). Scott is a bit paranoid of what the other guests heading up to Falling Water will think in the am at breakfast. Oh well - maybe I should pat his but on the way out the door. : )

Well should be a good day tomorrow - except the apparent continuous rain we will have. For me, tomorrow is the best part of the trip, i have been waiting to come up here for along time.

Tuesday - Day Five

2007-10-23T20:15:00.000-07:00

Today was an early riser once again - 6:30. We hit the road after a hotel breakfast just before 8:00. Poor Scott had to say goodbye to Emma - his hot hotel desk person. It rained most of the day, I hope the rain was happening back in Franklin and Bryson City as well, because from what we heard they were going through a drought.

After a long 10 hour drive and many bathroom breaks and one stop for pizza in the mountains for lunch, we made it to my friend Bonnie's house around 6:25pm. We had a very good dinner with salad, strip steak, broccoli and baked potatoe with a desert of Peaches and cream pie. mmmm We enjoyed it all with one of our bottles of Biltmore Pinot Grigio.

We then sat around and talked about the old times and what has been going on lately - just catching up. Then off to bed. We will do some running around here tomorrow morning, then head out to "Falling Water" after lunch.

Monday - Day Four

2007-10-22T12:32:00.001-07:00

Today was an early day - up at 6:30 and on the road at 8:00. Due to some traffic snafus we arrived at the Biltmore Estate at 9:30. I will post more info on today's adventure, but for now - here is the pictures I have taken so far.

Road Trip 07 Photos

Ok, were done with our adventures for today. We did the Biltmore house tour, the winery tour and visited the Inn at Biltmore. The house tour was about 2 hours long and was quite interesting. It's amazing to see how the filthy rich lived back in the early 1900s. The house is amazing in many respects, from the ground breaking technology at the time to the actual architecture and structure of the house.

Unfortuneatly we were not permitted to take pictures inside and it was raining all day, so outdoor pictures were tough. We purchased some wine at the winery and called it a day.

We checked in to the hotel early, had Carabas for dinner and now we are chilling in front of the tube and getting to sleep early. We have a long driving day tomorrow, we are off to Erie PA!

Sunday - Day Three

2007-10-21T20:59:00.000-07:00

Today was a full day, but not quite as rushed as the last few. I received a call this am while eating breakfast from some other friends that also live in NC (Kathy and Kenny). It was a total surprise, and they had no idea I was in NC. I did not know exactly where they lived, but it turns out they were only 30 miles away in Franklin. So after breakfast and little bit of lounging, we headed over to their place - about a 45 minute drive.

We were driven around the property on their Bobcat where we were able to see more of the great NC mountain views. We then had some fresh Butterscotch pie and fresh creamery ice cream and some good conversation, catching up on what's been going on during the trip and life in general.

We headed back to Bryson for dinner and cocktails and even more interesting conversation with our hosts Tom and Brenda.

After another great dinner, desert and cocktails we headed back to the "Round House" for a good night's sleep. We will be up early tomorrow in order to get into Asheville to visit the Biltmore Estate.

I am off to bed. I promise to get pictures posted tomorrow evening.

Saturday - Day Two

2007-10-20T21:35:00.000-07:00

Saturday was a full driving day. We had a late start Saturday am due to our previous late night. Once on the road, we checked in with our destination - some friends that live near Ashville, N.C. We had estimated a 6:00pm arrival time in order to be able to have a reasonable dinner time. We humped it pretty hard because the GPS estimated we could not make it before almost 8:00pm. We made up the time fairly quickly by doing between 80 - 90mph the whole time. BUT... to save GPS battery, as we needed the plug for the radar we turned off the GPS. We were making such good time, we went an hour past our expected exit before stopping for gas and turning the GPS back on to verify our progress. After an hour past and an hour back tracking and throwing in a few traffic issues we finally arrived at 8:30pm. Man - the NC police (which thankfully we saw little of) want to give you plenty of notice, and had on two occasions directed a lane change to a the left lane - one for an accident and one for road work about 4 miles ahead of the actual event!

Anyway... driving in the mountains was beautiful - pictures to follow. The leaves have started to change and the temp dropped a bit cooler than the FL or TX weather we were used to. Tonight it is expected to drop in to the mid forties and get back up to the mid seventies tomorrow.

Upon arrival - after dark and after traversing some typical narrow gravel mountain roads we arrived in time for cocktails and a main house tour. Tom and Brenda - our hosts, gave us a tour of their "Ranch House" and described the extent of the renovations they had done since their original purchase. A beautiful job and a beautiful view of the mountains - I will get some pictures tomorrow evening when we head back up there for dinner. I had stated the dinner menu in the last post, and it was awesome - fresh ceasar salad with home made dressing, thick Filet Mignons cooked to order, a baked potato with all the fixins, peas and for desert, delicous home made chocolate Mouse. : )

Around 10:40, exhausted and stuffed from the incredible dinner, we headed down to our accomodations, which is another home on the property - the "Round House". Where we each get our own bedroom, covered parking, all the fixings for a very filling breakfast and a very comfortable environment to chill in. Once this is posted, I am off to crash - we are running on about 4-1/2 hours of sleep.

Tomorrow, I will get the camera out and get some pictures posted.

Goodnight for now.

Friday - Day One

2007-10-20T08:26:00.000-07:00

Red Roof Inn - 69$
Six Pack of Coronas - $9
Staying up till 4:00am with your best friend catching up on life - Priceless!

Not the best accomodations, but clean and cool. Should have made reservations. But the beer was cold and the bed was clean. - Life is good.

Got in to Jacksonville around midnight and tried a few hotels - all booked up. Slept in till about 9:30, showered and headed out. We got our Dunkin Dougnuts coffee and are heading up 95 as I am typing. Just got a call from our NC destination and got the low-down on our accomodations. For dinner were having Filet Mignon, baked potato, Ceasar salad and wine. Yummy!!

Later!!!

The Beginning - Planning

2007-09-08T07:11:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I needed a vacation - been way too long! I originally decided to take a long weekend and just head up to PA to finally see one of my favorite structures of all time - "Falling Water" by Frank Lloyd Wright. When I spoke with my buddy Scott - he was very interested in a road trip as well, but wanted to make a week out of it. Sounds good to me!!

After a few phone discussions and much Googleing - we decided on three main locations to visit (Biltmore Estate, Falling Water and Washington DC) beyond that, we will see what other interesting places we find along the way! So now were off to plan the 07 Roadtrip and enjoy the time off and out of the office.