Letty and I have the most interesting things happen to us. We had planned to drive 2.5 hours to Tuscaloosa to drop off the contributions from our family and neighbors for tornado victims - then 2.5 hours back to Huntsville.
I wasn't looking forward to that in the 95 degree heat. This morning we got a telephone number of a possible drop place in Decatur, a mere 25 miles from our abode. We had an approximate address, but we stopped at an information services place in town to check on the address. The lady who helped us recommended we go to the old district of town, and gave us the name of a good place to eat. We found the warehouse, run by the Methodist church. Inspired by Letty's reluctance to strike up a conversation :=) we ended up visiting with the volunteers for 30 minutes. Letty now has the name and phone number of a lady's daughter in Minneapolis for her to call as we buzz through there in a couple of weeks. We drove to the old part of town and found the deli, called TimBucks2. Our lunch was so yummy - true southern comfort food. We visited with our waitress for 30 minutes or so. A rather petite lady who has 10 kids. Her parents lived in Mt Home while he was in the air force, and her older sister was born there. Her second oldest daughter wanted to go to Dartmouth College (where I went 55 years ago), but she ended up at Auburn instead. Her oldest two are going to be doctors!
Everyone down here knows about the blue grass at BSU, and several have said they root for us.
Tonight is quite, and tomorrow we go to Sewanee TN for a visit with one of Letty's suite mates from college.
Until next time.....blessings to all.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Monday, May 30, 2011
Down Day
It is Memorial Day. Saw a moving program on PBS last night. The walking wounded were featured, as well as those who have given their lives in defense of the country. Quite moving.
We feel like we have gained 10 lb since the beginning of our trip - too much sitting and snacks on the road. The apartment complex where the kids live has a workout room. Letty and I made it there yesterday, and I am going today. Letty thinks she will hit the swimming pool.
The graduation party last night was well attended. We saw many friends from former visits to Huntsville, and met others. The food was typical of a church buffet - way too much and way too good!
Today is rest and laundry day. The kids washing machine went down the other day. With 7 in their family and us being on the road, we have to track down a laundromat.
Tomorrow we plan to drive to Tuscaloosa to deposit the personal care things we brought with us. We will report on that. Blessings to all.
We feel like we have gained 10 lb since the beginning of our trip - too much sitting and snacks on the road. The apartment complex where the kids live has a workout room. Letty and I made it there yesterday, and I am going today. Letty thinks she will hit the swimming pool.
The graduation party last night was well attended. We saw many friends from former visits to Huntsville, and met others. The food was typical of a church buffet - way too much and way too good!
Today is rest and laundry day. The kids washing machine went down the other day. With 7 in their family and us being on the road, we have to track down a laundromat.
Tomorrow we plan to drive to Tuscaloosa to deposit the personal care things we brought with us. We will report on that. Blessings to all.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Our problem posting is (at least temporarily) solved. Our daughter, Nancy, is considerably more skilled on the computer than we are. She downloaded Firefox and that seems to be working fine.
Later in the day in Fort Worth, we went to dinner at the family's favorite restaurant, Joe T. Garcia's. We were joined by by Pat Buckley, Betty (Lynn) Buckley, and her personal secretary. Betty Lynn still goes on singing tours, and teaches voice. Meanwhile, the weather was getting worse. When we headed for the car the wind was blowing 55-60 mph. Marble sized hail started coming down. My cousin's car got a few direct hits. TV showed a local picture of a hail ball and a baseball - guess which was bigger. That evening killer tornadoes hit Oklahoma very close to the route we had driven the day before.
The next day we headed for the New Orleans area. Our motel was actually in Houma, about 50 miles from New Orleans. We drove through Cajon country - the lowlands where the Mississippi flood water was released to save NO. We saw very little flooding though. The highways were high and dry, and there are trees lining the road. We had to shorten our Louisiana stay as I was informed Kaylie's graduation was Friday night instead of Saturday.
We drove to NO in the morning and headed for the French quarter. That is a place to behold. We hadn't been there for 45 years. We had a late breakfast at Brennan's: starting with milk punch; chicory coffee; eggs benedict; topped off with bananas foster. We strolled to the levy area and purchased a couple of pounds of the chicory coffee, and several boxes of French Quarter doughnut mix. Y'all will probably get to taste those items when we get home. We then drove out to Tulane University, so Letty could revisit her undergraduate days.
To make up for the lost day, we had to leave NO for Mobile, AL, mid-afternoon. Behind us, the skies started to darken. Then the radio announced a tornado warning for eastern Louisiana and western Mississippi. We were out of its reach once again. Two of our granddaughters go to school at the University of Mobile - we drove the campus. It is a beautiful school in a rural setting, with a huge campus. The traffic was ugly, and we didn't have time to detour to Tuscaloosa. We may be able to go back down there to leave off all the personal items we brought for tornado victims.
Graduation for Kaylie was at 6pm last night. We arrived at 3:30, so we had time to change clothes before heading out. There were 8 graduates, so it was a relaxed, personal graduation. Kaylie's other grandparents from Lubbock, Texas, are here also. Tonight is the graduation dinner and party at a lovely home (up the hill).
We will be around here for a week before we head to our time share at Hilton Head. Kaylie and our daughter, Nancy, will go with us - as their graduation presents. Meanwhile, we will drive up to Sewanee, TN, on Monday to see a classmate of Letty's. We have put about 3000 miles on the car - lots of driving!
We sense your prayers and the Lord's presence with us.
Later in the day in Fort Worth, we went to dinner at the family's favorite restaurant, Joe T. Garcia's. We were joined by by Pat Buckley, Betty (Lynn) Buckley, and her personal secretary. Betty Lynn still goes on singing tours, and teaches voice. Meanwhile, the weather was getting worse. When we headed for the car the wind was blowing 55-60 mph. Marble sized hail started coming down. My cousin's car got a few direct hits. TV showed a local picture of a hail ball and a baseball - guess which was bigger. That evening killer tornadoes hit Oklahoma very close to the route we had driven the day before.
The next day we headed for the New Orleans area. Our motel was actually in Houma, about 50 miles from New Orleans. We drove through Cajon country - the lowlands where the Mississippi flood water was released to save NO. We saw very little flooding though. The highways were high and dry, and there are trees lining the road. We had to shorten our Louisiana stay as I was informed Kaylie's graduation was Friday night instead of Saturday.
We drove to NO in the morning and headed for the French quarter. That is a place to behold. We hadn't been there for 45 years. We had a late breakfast at Brennan's: starting with milk punch; chicory coffee; eggs benedict; topped off with bananas foster. We strolled to the levy area and purchased a couple of pounds of the chicory coffee, and several boxes of French Quarter doughnut mix. Y'all will probably get to taste those items when we get home. We then drove out to Tulane University, so Letty could revisit her undergraduate days.
To make up for the lost day, we had to leave NO for Mobile, AL, mid-afternoon. Behind us, the skies started to darken. Then the radio announced a tornado warning for eastern Louisiana and western Mississippi. We were out of its reach once again. Two of our granddaughters go to school at the University of Mobile - we drove the campus. It is a beautiful school in a rural setting, with a huge campus. The traffic was ugly, and we didn't have time to detour to Tuscaloosa. We may be able to go back down there to leave off all the personal items we brought for tornado victims.
Graduation for Kaylie was at 6pm last night. We arrived at 3:30, so we had time to change clothes before heading out. There were 8 graduates, so it was a relaxed, personal graduation. Kaylie's other grandparents from Lubbock, Texas, are here also. Tonight is the graduation dinner and party at a lovely home (up the hill).
We will be around here for a week before we head to our time share at Hilton Head. Kaylie and our daughter, Nancy, will go with us - as their graduation presents. Meanwhile, we will drive up to Sewanee, TN, on Monday to see a classmate of Letty's. We have put about 3000 miles on the car - lots of driving!
We sense your prayers and the Lord's presence with us.
Journey Across America......
We have arrived in Huntsville Alabama and are enjoying our viit with our daughter Nancy and her family. We attended Kaylies's highschool graduation from Valley Fellowship Christian Academy. We will keep you updated on the trip if we can make this blog post work...........
Monday, May 23, 2011
The Lord is with us...
We drove into Enid last Friday night. They had a rain of over 2" the night before. Roads were overflowed. It had dried up by the time we got there. We found out today as we arrived in Fort Worth that they had a torrential rain this morning. It had cleared by the time we arrived. We were worried about our next stop - New Orleans. Should we try to go there, or by-pass it to avoid the flood. Mid-afternoon Letty received a text from a person who used to be our neighbor - who just happened to be in New Orleans today. She knew Letty had gone to school there, but had no idea we were on our way toward that area. She comforted us by saying everything seemed to be normal there. So our next stop is New Orleans.
Meanwhile we are with my cousin and family in Fort Worth. Betty Buckley is my first cousin, and is 10 years older. We haven't seen her in 8 years or so. Her daughter, also a Betty Buckley, is a Broadway and TV actress. She has starred in the plays Cats, 1776, and others: the mother in the TV series '8 is Enough'; several movies, most notably 'Tender Mercies'. My only claim to fame is to have a famous cousin.
On our way out of Enid this morning, we met with a long time friend and her daughter. They had just arrived back from Ethiopia with her newly adopted 19 month old girl. Another blessing for us.
We did talk to my cousin in Greensboro, NC, and told him of our visit on a future date, of which we shall blog later. Many years ago we had a foreign exchange student from Liberia. She is now a nurse and lives with her family in Greensboro. We had been unable to get in touch with her. Interestingly, we received a letter from her the day after we left on this trip. Our daughter read the letter to us, so we had an address confirmation. My cousin was able to come up with a phone number for her, and we talked to her. She was ecstatic that we were coming, and that we could spend some time together.
It will be a few days before we blog again. My computer isn't working, and I won't have access to another one until we get to our daughter's house on Friday evening. We plan to spend a day in New Orleans and go to Huntsville, Alabama, via Tuscaloosa to drop off some things to the tornado victims there.
Blessings to all, Jim and Letty
Wyoming and beyond!
We drove the first day to Laramie WY, through some rain and cold. It had snowed there the night before we got there. We did see elk and antelope, so the drive was worth it. We even had time to go through the old Wyoming State Prison. Got some good pictures of Letty behind bars, but that will have to come later. The next morning, we drove through country where there was still a snow floor (over 8600 ft). Then we started down toward Cheyenne, Denver and Kansas. The temperature was 81 when we hit a rain squall, and the tempature promptly plummeted to 61. But we drove out of that and on into Oklahoma. We arrived at dark, but found my cousin's home thanks to our GPS.
We have had two delightful days visiting long time friends in our home town (Enid). We went to our old Presbyterian church (where we grew up and were married). The Sunday service was defintely evangelical. We hadn't seen a choir or clerical robes in many years.
Today (Monday) is hot and windy, and we are set to head out to Fort Worth to visit my 85 year old cousin. She still calls me Jimmy!!
Take care - we love y'all. Jim (and Letty)
Friday, May 6, 2011
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