Ground Zero Memorial December 2011

Anyone making a trip to New York should definitely visit the Ground Zero Memorial.  Today's sunshine with temps in the upper 50's made for the perfect day for us to visit the 9/11 memorial.  There are two pools known as the North and South pools with a wall of names surrounding each pool.  Although there were a lot of people visiting at the memorial today the atmosphere was one of peace and serenity. You have to go through a security check at the memorial entrance where you had to take off coats and belts and place them in the basket along with your cell phones, cameras, and handbags which were also checked via camera just like at the airports.  There were several checkpoints you went through walking to the memorial which required you to show them your access pass before finally getting to the memorial itself.  Here are some of the pictures I took while there.

 
After the twin towers fell and all the debris, smoke and dust cleared away the one thing left standing unharmed was a Bradford Pear Tree.  A symbol that all is not lost and that there is still hope. This is that tree at the Ground Zero Memorial.

New York City Christmas 2011

They say there is nothing like Christmas in New York City.  I have experienced a lot of the holiday in the two days that I have been in New York.  The Christmas lights, decorations, store window displays and holiday spirit is everywhere in the city.  We spent a lot of time in Central Park although the park itself was not all that decked out for Christmas.  It was a cool but sunny day there with lots of people taking advantage of the walking and running trails.  There were also lots of people just taking a nice leisurely stroll through the park.  I'm not sure how many acres are in the park but I do know that is has a lot of trees, trails, lakes, as well as a carousel, ball field, tennis court and lots of other areas that New Yorkers can escape to when they need their outdoor space.  One of the highlights of our visit to Central Park was the Carriage Ride.  It is not a long ride, only 20 minutes, but it is among one of my favorite things that we have done so far and I recommend that if you come to the city make sure you put this on your list of things to do.

We also went to the Rockettes Christmas Show at Radio City Music Hall.  All I can say is that it was fantastic!  The music, the different set ups and so colorful.  Part of the show was a sleigh ride through New York City with Santa in 3-D.  Here are some of the pictures I took at the show. 

After the Rockettes show ended, we headed for Rockefeller Plaza to see the gigantic Christmas tree that is on display in the plaza.  I understand that they decorate this tree with Christmas lights that when laid out would be 5 miles long.  The tree was beautiful all lit up at night with ice skaters skating in the rink below.  While we was taking pictures of the tree someone through a large milkshake that landed on the ground right at our feet.  The adolescents that through the milkshake was standing only a few feet from us and we heard one girl tell the other girl "I'm not picking it up, you said you wanted it so I bought it for you".  If that cup had hit Julie or me we would have had given those girls more than just an angry glare.  As Julie stated, we would have had to gone redneck on them.  That milkshake had to be in a 32 oz cup and missed us by a hair.  Shortly after that, as we was leaving the plaza, the police had blocked off one of the streets from traffic and was telling pedestrians that were walking in the street to get on the sidewalk.  Because there were so many people in that area there was no place to walk on the sidewalk (and that is no exaggeration). One of the cops sort of zeroed in on Julie as she was walking in the street, as were lots of other people, and he specifically told her to go back to the curb and get on sidewalk.  She ignored him because she didn't realize that he was talking to her. To make a long story short she finally was able to make it through the barricade and onto the sidewalk thus alluding the long arm of the law ( LOL).     


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Arab, AL to Asheville, NC & Home: The Rest of the Story

Alabama storm shelter



David and his children




Yes we made it to the Unclaimed Baggage Store



It seems like nowadays when you take a vacation, it takes you another week to recoup from your vacation.  I have been home a week and I still have not quite gotten over the vacation yet! That being said I decided to write one last blog to tell what I left out and post additional pictures I took along the way. 

About 5 miles before you get to the coon dog cemetery there is the Rattlesnake Saloon.  The lady working in the Alabama Music Hall of Fame gift shop told us about the saloon.  She told us it had been opened for about 2 years, was reasonably priced, good food, and was the "talk of the town". We decided we would stop there for lunch on our way to the cemetery. What the lady failed to tell us was that it is only opened on weekends and we was there on a Monday.  You can't see the saloon from the parking lot because it is down a mountain trail that is only accessible by 4 wheel drive vehicles.  When they are open, 4 wheel drive trucks run every 20 minutes between the parking lot and the saloon. The saloon itself is inside a mountain and has an old-fashioned saloon feel with swinging doors and hitching post.  I didn't take any pictures since you are not allowed to walk down the trail.  If you want to find out more information about the Rattlesnake Saloon go to www.sevenspringslodge.net.  The Rattlesnake Saloon is definitely on my list of places to visit my next trip to see David and Lorene in Alabama.

We spent two nights in Asheville on our way back home. We spent most of Saturday in downtown Asheville browsing through the unique shops.  We ate dinner in the side alley of a Mexican restaurant.  Throughout the day there was lots of entertainment by local musicians, clowns, and mimes. I love riding in the North Carolina mountains, I like calling North Carolina home, and I am so glad to be back home! 



Street musicians in downtown Asheville




Mime downtown Asheville




Chris in Asheville



Me in the side alley of the Mexican restaurant

HUNTSVILLE, ALABAMA: U.S. SPACE & ROCKET CENTER

Although I have been home for a few days, I am still blogging about my trip to Alabama.  When we picked Chris up at the airport in Huntsville, we decided to check out the U.S. Space & Rocket Center Museum located in Huntsville and only a few miles from the airport.  The museum features more than 1,500 artifacts representing milestone achievements in space exploration.  The artifact that impressed me the most was getting to see the space shuttle Pathfinder.  This was one of  several space shuttles that traveled in space and when it was retired it was donated to the museum.  It was bigger than I ever imagined sitting on top of the booster rockets as if it were ready and waiting to blast into outer space.  They have a lot of rockets on exhibit inside and outside of the museum.  They also have an Imax Theatre where we watched a documentary film on The Hubble Telescope.  They have a gift shop and a few restaurants/cafes on the premises.  On a scale of 1 - 10 with 10 being excellent I would rate the U.S. Space & Rocket Center a 5.  Cost for admittance was $21 per person which included admission to the museum and the Imax Theatre.  Here are some pictures that I took while we were there. Hope you enjoy the pics.



Chris, me & David at the Rocket Center



Inside Rocket Center




Chris, Daivd & Lorene at one of the rockets on display



Space Shuttle Pathfinder

ALABAMA: Canebrake Farm - Wright Dairy

While in Alabama we took a road trip to Alexandria (near Anniston) to visit Wright Dairy located on Canebrake Farm. This is the only dairy in Alabama who milks the cows, bottles the milk and sells it to you right on the farm. Wright Dairy sells freshly made cheeses, butter, milk and yard eggs out of the store located on the farm. Their products are also sold to consumers at grocery stores in the nearby area.  Their milk is pasteurized but not homogenized so the cream still rises to the top.  Nothing is added and nothing is removed. Wright Dairy and their Amish partners, use no herbicides or pesticides on their pastures, nor do they use hormone injections on their cattle or chickens.  They have a see-thru window in the store that allows you to watch as they bottle their milk, but of course, you have to get there early to see this taking place and we did not get there until early afternoon.  We bought a gallon of whole milk, 1 pound of cheddar cheese, dozen yard eggs and 2 cups of ice cream: 1 vanilla and 1 chocolate from the farm store.  The milk, eggs and cheese were devoured at breakfast the next day, the ice cream we ate at the farm.  Non-homogenized milk is thick and creamy but tastes as good if not better than homogenized milk. Yard eggs are very flavorful, fluffy and delicious. The cheese was very good and is the sharpest cheddar I have had in a long time .  Being on the farm and at the dairy took me back to the 1950's where I grew up "way out in the country" and we would go to a neighboring farm to buy our milk, eggs, and butter.  Straight from the farm to the table!

Hey Grandpa what's for breakfast: country ham, bacon, scrambled eggs, homemade gravy, homemade biscuits, home fried potatoes, and good ole' dairy milk

PICS OFALABAMA TRIP

We saw this armadillo on way to coon dog cemetery

Alabama Music Hall of Fame

Country group Alabama's tour bus

Helen Keller's birthplace

Me and Lorene at the water pump that Helen learned her first word "water"

Me at the entrance to the Coon Dog Cemetery

Tree with signs inside cemetery

One view of coon dog cemetery

Memorial inside coon dog cemetery



Red's Tombstone



Unusual burial marker



Doctor Doom's headstone



1st dog buried in cemetery Troop 1937





TUSCUMBIA, ALABAMA (SEPTEMBER 2011)

Today we went to Tuscumbia, Alabama to see the Alabama Music Hall of Fame, Helen Keller's Birthplace Ivy Green, and the Coon Dog Cemetery.  I have to apologize because I am unable to upload pictures on my brother's computer so I am writing a short description of how our day went and what we saw at the places listed above.  Pictures will come at a later date so be sure to check back later.

Alabama Music Hall of Fame - The hall of fame museum began as the dream of the Muscle Shoals Music Association, a group of Shoals-area recording studio owners, producers, musicians, songwriters and other music professionals.  In order to be in the Alabama Music Hall of Fame you have to have been born in, lived in or recorded in Alabama.  One of my favorite items on display there is the original notes and finished version of the song that was written by Alan Jackson "Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning". The country group Alabama donated their first touring bus to the hall of fame for tourist and music lovers to enjoy.  You can actually walk through the bus and see where the group Alabama called home while they were touring the first 10 years of their music careers.  It was well worth the $5 admission fee.

Helen Keller's Birthplace Ivy Green - The Keller home was built on a 640-acre tract of land in 1820 by Helen's grandparents. The home is surrounded by English boxwood - over 150 years old - magnolia, mimosa, and other trees. The home contains much of the original furniture of the Keller Family. The famous pump where Helen learned her first word, "water", is located behind the main house.  Helen graduated from Radcliffe College in 1904. The City of Tuscumbia acquired the Birthplace of Helen Keller, which is situated on a ten acre tract of land, in 1951. Cost of admission is $6 and was well worth the cost.

Coon Dog Cemetery - you've heard of boys and their toys, well this is definitely men and their best friend! This is the only cemetery in the world like this and people come from all over the world to bury their coon dogs in this cemetery located in the middle of nowhere.  It is 12 miles outside of Tuscumbia.  Once you get to Coon Dog Cemetery Road you travel about 6 miles before you get to the cemetery.  There is nothing on this narrow mountain road but a lot of twists and turns all the way to the cemetery.  To qualify for burial in this unique cemetery, three requirements must be met: the owner must claim the dog is an authentic coon-hound; a witness must declare the deceased is a coon dog; and a member of the local coon hunter's organization must be allowed to view the coon hound and declare it as such.  Key Underwood sadly buried his faithful coon dog, Troop in a small, grassy clearing, deep in the thick wilderness of Freedom Hills. They had hunted there together for 15+ years.  When Troop died Labor Day 1937 Key wanted to do something special for his best friend Troop, so he buried him where they loved to hunt.  Out of his devotion to his faithful coon hound was born the "Key Underwood Coon Dog Memorial Graveyard", which has become a popular tourist attraction and is the only cemetery of its kind in the world.  This cemetery was featured in the movie "Sweet Home Alabama".  If you like to visit off the beaten path places this cemetery should definitely be at the top of your list.  I give it a two thumbs up!

Again I apologize for not being able to post some pictures but will try to post some pictures later in the week.

ALABAMA HERE I COME

My next road trip takes me to Arab, Alabama, a small community in the foothills of the mountains.  Chris will be flying from NY to Huntsville on Wednesday so I will have to pick him up at the airport that afternoon.  Some places I hope to visit while in Alabama is Helen Keller's home, Alabama Music Hall of Fame (state of Alabama not the singing group Alabama), Wright Dairy Farm, and last but not least the Coon Dog Cemetery, made famous after it was shown in the movie Sweet Home Alabama.  Shucks, I guess most of us (including me) never knew there was such a place for coon dogs to be buried but it has been around since the 1930's and is the only one of it's kind.  More about the cemetery later.  

I'm heading out in the morning for Alabama and spend some time with my brother David and his wife Lorene. Chris will be joining us midweek and then Chris and I leave Arab, Al on Friday for Asheville, NC.  I hope you will keep reading my blog and I will try to keep making it as interesting as possible. 

On the road again, I just can't wait to get on the road again........

New York City - The Rest of the Story & More Pictures

New York City is not too bad once you get to know the routine and the city.  The hardest part is trying to figure out which subway to take to get you from Point A to Point B. With the help of Chris, who has lived in NYC for almost six months, we were able to accomplish this fairly quickly.  Taxis are another story.  We took a cab from the airport to Chris' apartment when we arrived in NYC, back to the airport when we left to come back home and a couple of other times during our visit. All taxi drivers are different in their attitudes, friendliness, and driving abilities. You constantly hear horns honking and breaks squealing as you are riding in a cab.  One incidence, that gave us a good laugh, was when we were catching a cab to take us from Ground Zero to Greenwich Village.  Chris always sat in the front seat and Julie, Wade and I always sat in the back seat.  Chris, Julie and Wade had already gotten in the cab, so I handed Wade my cane and proceeded to get in the cab.  I had one foot on the floorboard, one foot on the street, one hand on the top of the cab, the other on the open door.  For a second I thought I felt the cab move, but the next second the cab was leaving the curbside without me.  My hands slipped off the door and roof of the cab, and my foot slipped out of the cab as the cab drove away.  As the cab pulled away, I yelled "hey you're leaving me".  I could hear Julie and Wade yelling at the cab driver "wait you forgot mama/mawmaw.  The cab driver stopped the cab. Luckily, I only had to walk about 10 steps to get in the cab.  We were all laughing except for the cab driver who continuously was saying "you alright mama, so sorry mama, hope you alright mama." I told him I was alright and that we needed a good laugh and he had sure given us that! We chuckled all the way to Greenwich Village and the cabbie turned off the meter once we got to Greenwich and drove us around so we could see Greenwich Village and decide which place we wanted him to drop us off.  In addition to mama being alright, I guess he wanted to make sure mama was happy too!

Another funny story happened in Madame Tussuad's Wax Museum. At the very end when people are exiting the museum there is a hallway where wax figures of the  band NSYNC are on one wall and a girl was standing on the opposite side taking a picture of the band.  Everyone that came through including me waited the longest time for this girl to take a picture.  The gestures and faces of the people waiting for this girl to take her picture were priceless. Chris and I had already slipped by the girl taking the picture and was waiting for Julie and Wade.  Finally Julie and Wade show up and like the rest of the people stop because this girl is still taking pictures of NSYNC.  They wait at least a couple of minutes before Julie makes a facial expression indicating "what's taking this girl so long to take a picture?"  A few seconds later she makes a motion with her hands indicating "take the picture!"  Finally, Chris and myself could no longer contain ourselves so we finally told them she was a wax figure.  Everyone exiting the museum (including myself) was fooled by this and did as everyone else: stop and wonder after a minute or two "What's taking so long to take a picture lady?" Almost everyone had to be told that the picture taking lady was wax. Finding out made people laugh at themselves and wait and watch as others were tricked the same way they had been tricked.  To me that was the best display in the wax museum.  I wonder if security cameras are focused on that spot and how many laughs security must get everyday watching that security camera.

There are other stories but these were the best two that I wanted to share with you.  I'm not sure where my next trip will be but as soon as I know I'll post another blog so you can keep up with me and my travels. In the meantime, here are some new pictures of New York City.




How they park cars in NYC




Ceiling in wax museum



Julie's friend in wax museum (not wax)

The closest we got to going into lady liberty's crown

Wax Museum tribute to 9/11

Julie trying out for the Rockettes

Me and my Fab Four (Beatles)



We followed the Yellow Brick Road



Run, run, the Hulk is after you

Ferris Wheel inside Toys R Us store

Subway station mural

Apple Store

What Ground Zero will look like when completed