Tom & Nan Dot Com

Well we went to the Alabama Jubilee in Decatur again this year… I think this was the 5th year in a row. Weather was absolutely beautiful but the wind was almost dead calm. Only two balloons launched on Saturday evening and flew for about 15 minutes and only went about 150 yards. Got to see Joel, the Remax balloon pilot.  We were treated to the best balloon glow we’ve ever seen.

On Sunday we changed it up and went to the Tennessee Renaissance Festival, our first trip to a renfest. Saw the end of the only human chess game (huzzah) and two joust matches (HUZZAH). Since this was our first time to a Renaissance Festival we didn’t know what to expect, but had a pretty good time.

We toured the Castell Gwynn, the castle/home built by Mike Freeman… yes, it’s his home. We got to see the kitchen, a hallway lined with tapestries and a room that had a very high ceiling with a candle chandelier that is raised and lowered to light/replace the candles.

I don’t have a lot of pics to share but here are a few.

Alabama Jubilee Balloon Festival

Tethered balloon rides

Balloon Glow

Renaissance Festival

Joust

Humas Chess

Castell Gwynn

Castell Gwynn

Candle chandelier

We went to Mackinac Island last week for a vacation. The trip was awesome.

Mackinac Island is an island and resort area covering 3.8 square miles in land area in Michigan. It is located in Lake Huron, at the eastern end of the Straits of Mackinac, between the state’s Upper and Lower Peninsulas. The island was home to a Native American settlement before European exploration began in the 17th century. It served a strategic position amidst the commerce of the Great Lakes fur trade. This led to the establishment of Fort Mackinac on the island by the British during the American Revolutionary War. It was the scene of two battles during the War of 1812.

In the late 19th century, Mackinac Island became a popular tourist attraction and summer colony. Much of the island has undergone extensive historical preservation and restoration; as a result, the entire island is listed as a National Historic Landmark. It is well known for its numerous cultural events; its wide variety of architectural styles, including the famous Victorian Grand Hotel; its fudge; and its ban on almost all motor vehicles. More than 80 percent of the island is preserved as Mackinac Island State Park.

We flew to Pellston Airport in the northern part of the LP of Michigan and stayed 2 nights in Mackinaw City and then rode the “Cat” to the Island.  In Mackinaw City we visited the Historic Fort Michilimackinac on the southern coastline of the Mackinaw Straits. The entrance to the museum is literally under the roadway under the Mackinaw Straits Bridge.  Here are four pictures we took during the Mackinaw City portion of the trip.

On Mackinac Island we spent 5 nights at the Mission Point Resort.

We walked or rode horse buggies everywhere. We even walked the 8 miles of M-185, around the coastline of the island and yes, our legs hurt after that one.

One of the highlights of the trip was a visit to the Grand Hotel. This hotel was featured in the movie Somewhere In Time, starring Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour. Another highlight was a stop in the Mackinac Island Library.

As mentioned earlier, cars are NOT allowed on the island. When you get off the ferry for the first time it IS like stepping back in time, except there are still a lot of modern conveniences like your cell phone will still work, wireless internet is available and some places have air conditioning. But the horses and buggy, bicycle, and using your own two feet to get from point A to point B are your only forms of transportation. It was definitely a different kind vacation, we hope to be able to go here again someday.

Here are some pictures from the island:

We took a trip over the Thanksgiving Holiday to Pulaski, Tennessee.  Pulaski has a rich history and ties to the US Civil War. Pulaski is the county seat of Giles County. It’s city square features a courthouse that was built in 1859.

Pulaski is the site where Union soldiers hung Sam Davis. Sam Davis was a Confederate scout who saw action at Cheat Mountain, Shenendoah, Shiloh, and Perryville. He was captured by Union forces near Minor Hill, Tennessee on November 20th, 1863 and was hung on November 27th 1863, his 21st birthday.  There is a statue of Sam Davis on the south side of the courthouse square in Pulaski.

Pulaski was also the original birthplace of the Ku Klux Klan, founded in 1865 by group of former Confederate soldiers. One of our geocaching adventures took us here.

We’ve been to Pulaski several times over the years and the old section of town hasn’t changed much, but the city has expanded to the southwest a bit and now is home to a Home Depot and a Super Wal-mart store. US-64, the main east-west highway through Pulaski, was recently 4-laned and goes past the site of the Bodenham School. Bodenham was a K-12 school that operated here from 1928 to 1978. The school was closed and schools in the county were centralized with 2 High Schools remaining in Giles County.

The only parts of the school that remain are parts of the foundation for the main building and  second building that is now a day care.

So, how would I know so much about the area? I lived in Giles County off and on in the late 1970s and early 1980s. My dad bought land here and built a log cabin and is buried not far up the road from where he lived. I attended Bodenham for part of the 7th grade, moved away and attended Giles County High for 2 years. Since my Dad died, my mom has moved to the area.  Two of my brothers are graduates of Giles County High School. I visit as often as I can and enjoy Geocaching in the area, I like driving the windy country roads, which were all dirt when I lived there as a teenager but have all since been paved. I like the friendliness of the people and still have friends that live in the area. I’ve never lived anywhere else where people, total strangers to me, wave a friendly hello as we drive past each other on the back-roads; I wave back!

So why am I posting this to our long neglected site for our family and friends to view??? I took all the photographs that I’m posting here at the request of a co-worker of Nan’s, Miss Pat. Miss Pat almost bought a house in Giles County years ago and was surprised to hear that we visit often. She asked that we take some pictures so here are the best of the rest of the photos I took in Pulaski for Miss Pat.

On Tuesday we went to Cades Cove, a small valley within the Great Smokey Mountain National Park.  This area was first settled in 1818 by the John Oliver family.  By the time of the Civil War rolled around there were about 685 people here among about 120 families.  The settlers established the Primitive Baptist Church in 1827.  Many of the early settlers are buried here.  There was also a Methodist Church.  It has two doors, one for the men and one for the women. Finally, there’s a Missionary Baptist Church here because some of the members of the Primitive Baptist Church were expelled because they favored missionary work.

This place is very peaceful.  Except for the caravan of automobiles and the paved roads, it’s almost a step back in time when you go here.  There’s no electricity, no cell phone service, and no Internet.  Kitchens in these homes were primitive, usually some sort of a wood burning stove or a kettle hung in the fireplace.  Of course there was no plumbing or running water. The accommodations were tiny.

We took a lot of pictures, these are the best:

We entered Elmoble in the 8th annual Scion Exposed show put on by South East Toyota.  The event was in Jacksonville at Metropolitan Park and it was the most beautiful day I’ve seen since the beginning of the year.  At last count I heard there were 182 cars there, Quite an awesome turnout.

Nan decked Elmoble out with Elmo all over, inside and out.  She was interviewed by one of the videographers for the event… rumor has it the video will be on a DVD and on YouTube at some point… will post a link to it when we find where it turns out.

I shot a lot of stills, and I shot some video of the Pahandle Scikotics rollout to the event.  I turned both into videos on Youtube:

Here are some of my favorites of the stills I took:

We had a blast and are in the midst of planning for the next show in a month.

After I got out of work today, I went to the Pima Air and Space Museum which is just outside of Davis-Monthan AFB, AZ.  It was amazing to see aircraft from the Wright Flyer to the B-1 bomber and everything in between.  I toured  the 390th Bombardment Group Memorial Museum and got to see my favorite plane, a refurbished B-17.  I also got a bus tour and got to see most of the aircraft under the care of the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group at what most people know as the boneyard.  If you served in the military or are an airplane buff, this is one off the prime places in the country to go.  I snapped a lot of pictures and here are a few.

F4E Phantom (USAF Thunderbird #7)	Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15
Grumman F-14 Tomcat	SR-71 Blackbird
Northwest Airlines	Lockheed Model 10 Electra
Lockheed L-049 Super Constellation	C-141 Starlifter
C-54 Skymaster	Douglas C-133 Cargomaster
Douglas C-124C Globemaster II	B-36 Peacemaker
Strategic Air Command	B-36 Peacemaker
F-84 Thunderstreak	F-16 Fighting Falcons
More F-16s	C-130 Hercules
B-1 Lancer	MiG-29 Fulcrum
MiG 17	F-86L Sabre
B-52G Stratofortress	B-52 Stratofortress

We went to Decatur, Alabama for Memorial Day weekend to see the Balloons.  We went here in 2007, and didn’t stay for all of the festivities because we had to be somewhere else.  We’ve since found out that they do this event every year at Memorial Day.

This year, the weather didn’t cooperate very will.  There were thunderstorms in the area and the Balloon Pilots weren’t given permission to fly.  A few of the crews inflated their balloons in case they got clearance to fly.  These are some of the pictures I took today.

It looks like the weather isn’t going to cooperate tomorrow as well, we’ll see.  I really wanted to see the Balloon Glow, That was a treat last time but we didn’t have cameras with us that time…  There’s always next year

Yesterday was a pretty short day, much like today will be.  We left Omaha around 9:30 and it was an easy drive to St. Louis.  Wasn’t really a lot of traffic but there were some lane closings here and there for construction.  Today is the last official day of our vacation, we’ll arrive home tomorrow.

Yesterday we went to Old Market in Omaha and had Breakfast at “The Diner”. When we got to St Louis we went to the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. We took some pictures along the road and at the memorial. Here’s a few:

We ate at this really cool place last night.  Was hard not to look around at the “junk” on the wall.  Sanford’s is named after the old hit TV show, Sanford and Son… If you HAVEN’T seen the show, Fred Sanford was in the salvage (junk) business… the decorations on the walls here were just awesome… A lot of old signs and license plates from the great plains states, Along with a couple of old gas pumps and probably tons of other junk…  The restaurant is inside and old Chicago, Milwaukee, St Paul & Pacific Railroad freight house.

It was quite busy when we first got there and it took a while to get seated, but the wait was worth it.  I would recommend this place to anybody passing through Rapid City.

We stayed a while and left close to closing time… we pretty much had the run of the place to take some pictures… Here are a a few of them:

Oh yeah… this is a restaurant… I had a very tasty rib-eye steak for dinner.

Starting to get a little tired of traveling… not too bad, was just a bit boring today when the scenery didn’t have too much variety… It got much more pleasant once we reached the Black Hills.  We stopped in a Wal-Mart for souvenir playing cards for Nan’s collection and we were treated to watching a shoplifter get tackled by security.  We were in the store about 10 minutes and the police were just arriving when we left.  Guy was trying to heist 3 or 4 CDs…  I don’t understand why people throw their lives away over junk like that…

We drove through the northeast corner of Wyoming and then into the Black Hills.  There’s a lot of stuff to do here… I think we’ll make it a longer vacation destination later on.  Nan is getting better with the SLR camera, she still gets frustrated when it wont shoot until it focuses, but she’s getting the hang of it…

Worked some HF again today and talked to w7sac in Fort Walton Beach.  When we finished a station came back and wanted to ask what radio and antenna I am using because I sounded next door to him… he was in Minnesota, about 900 miles or so away.  HF signals are much stronger now than when I was in the Yukon…

We saw a lot of livestock today, we passed some sort of power plant and like five or six LONG trains LOADED with coal.  Nan took a picture of the sign announcing the name of the Crazy Woman Creek.  I notice that Wyoming has Big Skies too.  We saw quite a few oil wells and drove past a refinery in Newcastle… funny thing is gas in Billings was $4.09 a gallon… in Newcastle, where the refinery was, it was 4.37.

Ok, here are today’s Pictures.  Will try to put some captions in today… first time…

Montana Road	A truck we followed for a while
Not many trees	Livestock
Welcome to Wyoming!	The grazing cow
Distant mountains	The long boring Interstate
Power generation plant	Newcastle refinery
Old Mill Restaurant	Newcastle houses
Welcome to South Dakota!	US Hwy 16
Rotting forest	Life in a dead forest
Black Hills Road	Red Rock
Turn right after tree	Rocks, trees and a fence
Crazy Horse Monument	Mountain reflections
Granite Spire	Windy road
Mount Rushmore Entrance
US Air Force Brass Band	State Flag Display
The Washingtons with Betsy Ross	Unelected Presidents
	WWII Leaders
Old west town	Tunnel Arch