Week 8 - Last week of the trip

Winchester Virginia

    We drove from Morganton to Winchester, Virginia, not a long day.  The weather is still summery, so we have not given up the shorts yet!  We have stayed outside Winchester before, but have never ventured into town, but this time we did and found it to be a beautiful little Shenandoah town. The downtown is pedestrianized and very pretty.  The town changed hands in the Civil War - over 70 TIMES, which is remarkable.  We ate at a little Sushi restaurant and then strolled.  (We also did a load of laundry.)

Mom and Bob

   After Winchester, we drove to see my mother in Binghamton, NY and stayed with my best friend from high school, Kathy and her husband, for two nights.  We had a nice visit, although, have reluctantly had to give up wearing shorts.  Sigh.  There was actually a little bit of snow in the air the first night we were there.
   Then, we drove from Binghamton to Concord, Massachusetts for 3 nights with our daughter Jecca and her family.  On the first full day there, Mark and I drove into Boston to see if we could find English newspapers for the play Mark will be directing soon, Noises Off!  No luck, but, amazingly, we ran into two Nantucket graduates - Connie McDonough-Thayer and Gillian Paige.  We were only in Harvard Square for 45 minutes, yet managed to run into two people we know!   We made speidis from Binghamton for dinner.

Sturbridge Village

Saw Mill: Otis, Henry, Mark

Henry and Otis dipping candles

Henry and Otis being silly

Henry on play ox

Carding Mill

    But, the best day at Concord was our day with Otis and Henry in Sturbridge Village, a place we have never visited, but Jec and Willy are members.  We had a lovely sunny day and we had the place almost to ourselves as the schools are still in session. (But Concord had a teacher-parent conference day.)  We spent hours there strolling, watching the saw mill and carding mill; the kids hand-dipped candles etc.  We all felt that we learned a great deal about the every-day life on a farm in New England.  We lunched at Friendly's.  A good time was had by all.

Week 7 - end...steadily heading back east

Barbara at Ingrid's Kitchen

    We left Santa Rosa and had a windy drive across Texas and Oklahoma to Oklahoma City.  The land got flatter and flatter.  Oklahoma City was a pleasant surprise.  Mark looked up a good place to eat from the "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" website and we found Ingrid's Restaurant and Deli, a German restaurant.  And, we let the Garmin direct us there.  We had a really good meal.  We both had weiner schnitzel which was yummy and split a German beer.

Bricktown, Oklahoma City

   Very full, we then went downtown and parked by the botanical garden and wandered around.  We found the touristy Brick Town which centers around a canal.  Along the canal are restaurants, bars, hotels and flower gardens.  We took a lovely stroll.  It was a great end to a day of driving.

BB King Statue

Beale Street of Blues, Memphis

   From Oklahoma City, we drove to Memphis, Tennessee, another city which we have passed by before, but never visited.  Once we crossed the mighty Mississippi, we pulled into the downtown tourist information center.  Besides information, the information center had two large statues of their most famous musicians - Elvis and B.B. King.  The people at the information center directed us to a trolley because they told us that it might be difficult to park on Beale Street, the famous street of blues.  So, we hopped on the trolley and got off at Beale Street. The part filled with blues restaurants and bars is pedestrianized.  It was a beautiful, sunny day and we strolled the street, eventually stopped at City House of Blues where Mark had ribs and I had a seafood gumbo.  We decided not to take the trolley back because we needed a good walk.

Mark and Cole, almost 13

Cole and Nana

     And, to end the week, we had a longest drive of the return trip - 580 miles from Memphis to Morganton, N.C. where our grandson Cole lives.  He turns 13 in a few days and we thought it would be great to take him out to dinner and give him his birthday present.  It was a lovely day and we ate outside on the river at a restaurant called "Judges".  It was great to see him.