Fall Adventuring

Summer got by me without being able to do anymore fun adventuring after our Road Trip vacation, but I was determined we'd do some fun Fall adventure(s).

Before I can plan anything, I have to check my calendar.
Having two people that work crazy schedules makes things rather complicated at times.
LSS, there are/were only 2 (possibly 3, depending on R's plans) days that they have off at the same time, and that R won't be coming in from working all night and going to bed.

Day before yesterday, Sunday, was one of those days.
It's still a bit early in the season around here for the leaves to have changed much, so I figured we'd go up North, where the leaves should be doing more changing.
Chattanooga, Tennessee is about a 2 hour drive from here, so close enough to make a day trip of.

Chattanooga has a ton of things to do, but I had particularly been wanting to ride the Incline Railway again. It doesn't seem that long ago since we last rode it, but if I had to guess, it'd been about 10 years or better.

Turned out the leaves weren't as turned/colorful as I'd thought they would be, but that was okay, it was still a pretty perfect Fall day with the overcast/clouds/rainy weather.

The circle is where the lower station is.

 Go here to see an Incline Railway You Tube video (not mine) to see more.

At the top, we checked out the slightly overcast view from the Observation decks, and walked along the street to the Point Park, a Civil War Battlefield.

Kev checking out the view.
He spotted a fire station over a mile away, then found the fire engine in the shopping center parking lot, with it's cab lifted forward.
Eagle-eyed.

We didn't go into the Park this time, but just checked out the amazingly gorgeous homes along the street, and looked for Fall colors.

One house had some nice Fall-coloring in the yard:

As we were watching from the Observation deck, the clouds lowered ominously.

Soon, we were in the clouds.

We stayed on the mountain as long as we wanted to, then returned to the bottom, to the car, to head to our next stop, the Moonpie General Store, where we had lunch: the Moonpie meal consisting of a Moondog (hot dog), chips, RC Cola, and a moonpie.

 Helpful hint: Don't do it.

Love Moonpies, and this is a great store for Moonpie and Vintage-style gifts and stuff, and the customer service was fantastic, but the hotdog lunch was worse than a Little League Concession stand.  The buns were hard, the dogs were probably hours old by the time we got there.
So just go for the good stuff, and get lunch somewhere else.

It's a Southern thing!

The plan got a bit messed up after there.  I had planned for us to go on the Chattanooga Duck Boats
tour, but wasn't sure if it'd still be running with the weather (it had lightninged a couple of times).
We took a vote and decided to skip the tour this time, and go to the Mall instead.

On our way back to the car from the Moonpie store, we saw that we were walking right by the Duck Boats place, behind the Cupcakes shop, and that there was a Duck boat still sitting there, getting ready to go.
We ran across to see if we could catch the tour, but were just minutes too late, and it pulled out without us. Boooo!

Oh well.
We headed to Krispy Kreme instead. 

Pumpkin Cheescake, Pumpkin Spice, Ghostbusters, Halloween Sprinkles, Spider Web...

Kev's favorite place.

Hot now!

The regular, glazed Krispy Kreme donuts were hot and fresh, right off the conveyor belt. Soooo good!
Especially good on a dreary, rainy day.
And although I don't like the taste of coffee, I loooove the smell. Coffee and donuts, Yum-Yum!

Later we headed on over to Ruby Falls to get in line for the Haunted Caverns scary attraction.

We got there early-ish, around 7:00, though it didn't start until 8:00, to get a good place in line. It was rainy, but that was okay. Perfect Fall/Scary-stuff type weather, I think.

At 7:45 they had the "Monster Parade", where the Haunted Caverns workers came parading outside to the tune of rock music and gathered in the parking lot. Which, at first, I was disappointed because where we were standing, on the sidewalk, was behind some bushes and we couldn't see them too well.

But then all of a sudden with loud music and screams, they broke and ran at us, jumping through the bushes and coming around the sides and "attacked" us. (Not really, but you get the idea.)

It was scary fun, and everyone got excited for the real thing.

Grave digger

Scary Dan

Inside (after buying our tickets and waiting a few minutes in line - time enough to be able to go to the bathroom before you go get the pee scared out of you) they put us into the elevator that takes us down into the cave.  (During regular hours, this is a cave/waterfall tour, which we've been to a few times.)

As soon as the elevator doors opened we were greeted by, "Boo!"
Haha! It was a worked dressed as a regular person who was supposed to be down there checking out for paranormal activity, but clearly she'd drank some of the "elixir" that had stricken all the residents of the town, Carrion Ridge, lol.

We went on into the caves and it got dark, and scary. With things jumping out and screaming, scaring the heck out of us. (Some of us.)

We went a good ways through the caves and obstacles, then they put us into an *elevator* that wobbled and shook, and had firecracker-like popping and snapping overhead.
We exited the *elevator* outside the mountain and got into a van that drove back up to the main entrance, and dropped us out in the parking lot where there was a whole nother scary maze set up.

I jumped and screamed my head off.  So much fun!

(The thing is, these things are what you of make them.
Yeah, I knew going in that it was not real, and that nothing was actually going to hurt me. 
Sometimes, I even saw some of monsters coming. I could have just said, "Oh", or "Um, eek", but they're there to scare you, and it's more fun for them and you when you scare and scream in response.
For all those that say, "Too fakey", "Not scary", or "I wasn't scurd", those people don't have a sense of humor or know how to go/get along. Aka, assholes.
Loosen up and have fun, FFS. It's up to you to enjoy yourself. You go in with a shitty attitude, you're going to have a shitty time. It's your problem if you want to be a miserable shithead, don't put the responsibility for your sucky attitude on others.
These people did a great job, and I/we enjoyed it very much.)

Anyway, even though it was rainy and the leaves weren't as colorful/pretty as I was hoping, and lunch wasn't too good, and we didn't go on the Duck Boats tour, it was still a fantastic Fall family day out!

Travel Week (Part 3)

After a wonderful day spent with the new Cousins, they had to leave us after the Fountain of Youth for a previous engagement. But how fantastic that they freed up a whole day to spend meeting us, spending time with us, and taking us around the town on such short notice (we didn't even know each other existed the week before!).

The day had cleared off and warmed up, so we stopped in to a (stupid) Dairy Queen for some Ice Cream treats. They made the orders wrong, then got irritated when I wanted it corrected.
Oh well, Dairy Queen is still, hands down, The Best chocolate milkshake I've ever had. (J says it's Steak 'N Shake, but I'm not sure. Maybe I need to do a comparison test.)

After that, we went to the St. Augustine Lighthouse and jogged up 219 steps (jogged, yeah, right, haha!).

Going up! (14 stories)

The Castillo, 1.5 mile away

Another storm blew up and it started raining, and we were pooped after that climb anyway, so we went back to the hotel room and just crashed for the rest of the night.

The next morning we got up and headed back home, the weather still as bad as it was on the way down and pretty much the whole time we were down there - rainy, nasty.  We were nearly involved in a multi-car pile up when traffic went from like 70 to 10 mph without any warning. Us and some other cars had to veer off into the emergency lane to keep from rear-ending those in front of us. It was awful.

Shortly after that we stopped at a Rest Stop to use the bathroom and saw this ugliness passing by.

I went in to pee and when I came out just a couple minutes later it was pouring buckets. And the bad news was, it was traveling in the same direction we were. So we had to ride into it, until we got ahead of it again.

We never had really decided if we were going on to Chattanooga or not so I didn't book a hotel room, figuring I could do it online if we decided to go straight on up there. But we heard the weather up here was pretty bad, and didn't want to stay on I-75 anywhere near Atlanta, so we decided to come home, and cut off just north of Macon and came home a longer, harder, but less traffic-icky, and therefore less dangerous I think, route.

Ryan's doctor appointment was at 8:30 this morning, so we got up a little after 5am and was on the road by 6:00. It rained on us all.the.way. up there.

After his appointment, I had a couple of things planned we could do... Thing is, we live so close to Chattanooga (less than 2 hours on a clear, easy driving day), we've been there several times and have pretty much already done everything we're interested in doing there. They have this new "Ducks" thing, where you ride in a WW2 amphibious truck that takes you on a tour around town, and then drive off into the River for a water tour. Sounds pretty neat. There's also a free Electric trolley shuttle thing we've never ridden, and a Pedestrian bridge we haven't walked across. So I figured that was a good way to spend a day, then we'd come on back home this evening. I didn't see wasting the money on a hotel room just to get up and come home tomorrow because there wasn't anything else we wanted to do that would require another day stay.

But it rained and poured the whole time we were in the Dr's office, and everyone kept saying it was supposed to keep raining all day, so we said to heck with it, we'll come back on a warm sunny day.

What this day called for was some Hot Krispy Kreme Doughnuts (and coffee for J).

Hot now! Hot now!

There was a dozen in that box about 5 minutes before.

I think he woofed that one down in two bites!

We enjoyed watching the doughnuts cook and
then get their glaze shower.

There's several Thrift type shops between Chattanooga and here and even though the weather was nasty and we were pretty tired, I didn't want to pass up the opportunity to check a couple of them out.

At the first one, I finally found a flannel bedsheet. Who'd have thought it'd be so hard to find a flannel sheet? I've looked before, but the only thing I ever found was a set, at Goodwill, for like $6.00, and I found I couldn't bring myself to break up a perfectly good set.  This was one single flat sheet, and only cost $1.39, but then they were having a sale, so I got like 35¢ off of it, too.

Found two of the mixer beaters for 20¢ each, I'm trying to collect several for a project when I get enough.

I dug around under a stack of pans and things (which is unusual for me, I'm not usually a digger) and found the green Pyrex 9" pie plate for $1.99.  I don't really know how to price Pyrex, but from what I see online, it's Vintage, Lime Green, #209 Pyrex. These were originally introduced about 1952, then the pink and yellow colors about 1954, but I don't know if the pink and yellow colors were additions, and they continued making the lime greens, or of they were a replacement, and my lime green is from 1952-53.

I got three more mixer beaters for 25¢ each (my top price I'm willing to pay), and J found himself a food processor he's been wanting. Funny thing is, it's exactly identical to the one we have that Mom gave us a few years back that used to be my Grannie's.
J's been using it to make his Super-Secret trout fish bait, which involves stinky sardines, and it makes the processor stink. He has to really de-fumigate it with bleach so when we use it for cole slaw and such it doesn't make it taste fishy. So he's been wanting another one to use for just making his bait, then he can just wash it but not worry about if it still smells like fishy.

And now we're back home.

Travel Week (Part 2)

We had planned to meet my Cousin and tour the Castillo on Friday afternoon, but the weather was rainy and bad, and her husband ended up having to work late, so we changed the plans to meet the next morning and she gave us some dinner suggestions for some fresh, local seafood/shrimp.

It was so-o-o-o-o good. Me and Kevin had steamed peel-n-eat shrimp, and Ryan and J had three different kinds of fried shrimp: original, Dat'l Do, and Coconut. Ryan loved the Coconut shrimp. We ordered another platter of fried shrimp to go and took it back to the room to eat later.

After we ate we went to Walmart for junk food and bottled water, and saw a real life Person of Walmart.
Ryan says he sees them all the time, but I never have seen one IRL, only on the website. Kev chased this guy around to get a picture for me. (He looked a lot better (ie. weirder) in person, lol)

The next morning we got up and headed to the Castillo to meet my Cousin and her husband. It was great, but kind of weird because we knew each other on sight, and it was like we had known each other forever but maybe just hadn't seen each other in a little while. It was unbelievable that we didn't even know each other existed a week before.

She gave us her professional Tour and we got watch/hear the cannons shoot. After there we went across to "the Village" and she took us into the Spanish Courtyard where we saw an authentic Spanish hacienda and visited the gardens and several of her friends had craft booths.
We ate Empandas at her friends' authentic Spanish Bakery. They were very good. I hadn't ever had them before. (I'm not usually an adventurous eater, but it was her friend.)

Then she took us into the Oldest Wooden Schoolhouse in the USA. It was very interesting to see the displays and the way things were done back in the old days. There's a separate kitchen out back, and a beautiful garden area.

It was sometime between the Spanish Courtyard and this garden that Kevin discovered he loves, loves, loves the smell of Rosemary.  Cousin's husband would rub his hands on the Rosemary, then rub them together, almost like rubbing on lotion.  I never heard of anyone doing this before, I thought Rosemary was just something you cooked with. Anyway, Kevin tried it, and turned out it was like catnip or something to him. He really liked it.

Next we traveled over to the Fountain of Youth, discovered in 1513. We drank from it, but the water is so chemically treated now, it wasn't good, and any magical qualities it might have ever contained are likely chlorine'd out.
There were some beautiful Peacocks (that I have probably 100's pictures of, because Ryan had possession of my camera for most of this trip and he loved taking pictures of everything he could see - except people, so I have very few of us, with my newfound cousin, and the ones I do pretty much suck), and we saw a Planetarium show explaining how the Explorers used the Stars to navigate around (don't ask us how, I think we all dozed off, haha). We also some re-enactors setting up their Spanish defense fort/home, and doing some knife throwing and shot off another cannon.

My Cousin's older brother (also my cousin) met us there so I got to meet him, too. He doesn't look much like my Dad, but otherwise they could be brothers. Same quiet, reserved, stand-off'ish personality. (It's mostly shyness, I'm the same way.)

Another very weird coincidence!
When me and Cousin first met on Facebook and I told her we were related and was telling her who my parents were and where they lived (part time in the GA mountains, mostly in a small fishing town in Florida), turns out her brother is also a Boat Captain and often goes to the same small fishing town to go fishing in the Gulf where my Mom and Dad lives.

We were like, y'all had to have passed right by each other and didn't even know it.

Oh, and also, Cousin's brother is a retired Firefighter.

(To be continued....)

Travel Week (Part 1)

Awhile back, I was trying to plan a kindly complicated trip, where we first went down to my sister's (in central Florida) for my nephew's graduation on Thursday, and then worked our way back up to Chattanooga, TN for Ryan's doctor's appointment on Monday (today).
But then J didn't get approved for the days off we needed, but then he was able to swap a shift so we could make the graduation, and then right at the end someone else's plans fell through and they decided to not take off, so J got the shift off after all.

I knew these two things right off the top: one, I didn't want to spend too much time at my sister's, and two, we always cry when we pass the Jacksonville exit because we don't want to go home, we want to go to the beach and vacation. (Okay, maybe it's only me that cries, but you know what they say: What Momma wants, they all want.)(Okay, maybe it's only me that says that, too. Still...)

So, I suggest that we'll spend a night or two in Jacksonville on the way home, but J wasn't thrilled with the idea.  For some strange, crazy, weird, dumb reason that I can't fathom, he's "not a fan of the beach". Gasp!

Okay, well, he likes Historical stuff, Civil War and all that, and we've never been to Savannah (GA), and it's just a bit north of Jacksonville, plus it's at the end of I-16, the highway that goes right back over to I-75 to take us north to TN, so I thought we'd go to Savannah instead.

I looked on the map to see the best way to get there, and St. Augustine jumped out at me. My grandparents live in St. A for a short time back in 1946, and my parents took us on a family vacay there back in the early 80's...maybe even late 70's. John or the boys hadn't ever been there, so I looked into some of the things to do there...and there was too much to do in like a day and a half. 'We'll come back and spend a week another time," I said.

I went on to look up what Savannah offered, and pretty much what I found was tours - looking at the outsides of old houses/buildings, shopping, and eating. Bo-o-r-r-ing.
How about Jekyll Island? I could stay at the beach, J could go fishing. But all the reviews and everything I read on Tripadvisor was basically saying to me "Don't go there".
Looked at St. Simons, Brunswick, Waycross....
I continuously kept ending up back at St. Augustine.

Eventually I made a deal with myself - we'd stop in St. A and spend the afternoon and see the Castillo de San Marcos and the Fountain of Youth on our way to Savannah. Okay? Okay. Good? Yeah.

I made a tentative plan for doing a Ghost tour and eating out at Savannah, but that was about the extent of it. I didn't even start looking at a hotel to stay at, or decide if we'd stay two nights, or move on up the road, or head on to Chattanooga or what.

As I was working on inventorying my Little People collection - and ignoring our travel plans - in a totally unrelated event, a lady comes along and posts her father's name on my Family Tree Facebook page.

I started this Family Tree Facebook page awhile back for other's with my (maiden) last name to meet up, share info, look for contacts, whatever. It doesn't get a lot of traffic, every so often someone will come along and post their lineage and occasionally, seemingly not very often, someone will connect with them.
In the meantime, I'm a member of a Family newsletter so I share info from it to the group, mostly Obituaries. It had almost gotten to where it looked more like it should be the Family Tree Obituary posting group instead.

Anyway, as it happened, I thought I recognized this lady's father's name, and asked if her father's parents names were (Mark and Mary Jane).  But then I went on her FB page and looked through her photos and saw that her father was who I thought he was, which was my grandfather's brother.  So she's my Dad's 1st cousin; my 2nd cousin, or 1st cousin once removed, whichever it is.

I emailed my Dad, and both him and Mom knew this Cousin when she was a little girl. Dad's only a few months younger (older?) than her older brother.
I scanned some pictures I had of her Dad as a little boy, and her parents as young newlyweds, and her grandparents (my great-grandparents).

She was so excited and emotional. Later she told me she almost didn't even post because she saw all the Obits on the FB page and wasn't sure she was supposed to post her lineage there.

The reason I'm detailing all this is because - I kid you not - she lives in St. Augustine, and she's a tour guide at the Castillo.

How crazy is that?!

(To be continued....)