I’m back home, but was thinking about the tragedy of losing historical sites in favor of progress. Don’t get me wrong, I love the convenience of a Caribou on the corner as much as the next person, but there are some things we can never get back. Franklin, Tennessee is a great example of that. The buildings left are riddled with bullet holes from the Civil War. The site where one of the south’s commanders was shot is now a Domino’s Pizza. I guess I’m trying to say that sometimes progress really isn’t progress after all.
May 2008
Monthly Archive
May 30, 2008
May 27, 2008
We got back Saturday night, so I’m back at work today.
We traveled 946 miles in one day… from Mississippi to Minnesota. We left Mississippi at 6 a.m. and arrived home at about 9:30 p.m. We decided to let TomTom pick the route so we ended up coming back along the same route we took down. Normally we don’t do that, but we really wanted to get home. It was too darn hot down there! I don’t think it’s going to be 65 here today, though.
May 25, 2008
This is where Grant’s army was before heading to Vicksburg. This is one of those sites that had very few people. We commented to the lady in the gift shop/museum that it was a place you really had to mean to go to. We were here on Friday, May 23rd. On the way out there was a rather nasty looking snake in the roadway. I’m glad we were in the car. I’m not sure I understand how people can live somewhere so humid, with so many crawly things. NO THANKS!
May 25, 2008
Longwood Plantation – Natchez, Mississippi
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This plantation home was featured on a television show, probably on C-span or the history channel. It’s a 6-story home, but only the basement level was completed. The furnishings and materials needed for the completion were taken during the beginning of the Civil War. After the war ended, the Nutt family was broke and unable to complete the home. It’s a really unusual time capsule… the workers were from the north and when the war broke out, they simply walked off the job and left their tools. Those tools are still in the unfinished portion of the home.
May 25, 2008
This is where we spent most of the day on Thursday, May 22nd. We walked along the beach, picking up shells and just enjoying the sound of the surf. It was really hot down there so the ocean breeze was nice.
May 25, 2008
This is the room we had in Florida at Walt Disney World’s Port Orleans Riverside Hotel.
The grounds were beautiful and it was far enough away from the various parks so it was kind of quiet. There were a lot of families, but it was still a great place to be if you were just there as a couple without any kids. Mike spent most of his spare time at the pool.
May 19, 2008
Sorry for the short update but I was between conferences. The one I wanted to attend just now was overbooked and my second choice wasn’t that good. It’s raining right now so Mike is probably back in the room watching DVDs.
Anway – here’s a recap of the trip so far: We left home on Thursday at about 9 a.m. and drove all day, stopping mostly just for gas and necessary breaks. We arrived in Mount Vernon, Illinois and spent the night there.
Friday we went through a place called Land Between the Lakes in Kentucky. Unfortunately I didn’t get any pictures because we didn’t want to get too far off the main road and there was only one place you could actually see the lakes from. We saw lots of wild turkeys and I did get a picture of a couple of them. We also saw a few deer.
Later in the day we stopped in Franklin, Tennessee. We’ve been there before but didn’t get to see the entire battlefield because we were trying to get to Saturn that time through. This time we were given the tour by Thomas Cartright who is a civil war historian, specializing in the battle of Franklin. He was on one of the specials that came out around the same time as the movie Gettysburg. I do have pictures of Franklin, which will be posted as soon as I defeat my technology demons.
Saturday we went to Lookout Mountain, Tennessee. That is also a civil war battlefied. The battle that took place there was called the Battle Above the Clouds. I have pictures of this – I swear! We spent the night in a small town called Adel.
Sunday we spent about four hours getting from Adel to Disney World. It wasn’t a bad drive, but the TomTom sure came in handy. Not so much for the trip down I75, but more trying to navigate around the Disney stuff.
Last night we took the boat from our hotel to downtown Disney and had dinner at Fulton’s Crab House. We walked around downtown a little bit, but it was pretty crowded, so after a quick stop at Ghirardelli, we took the boat back to the hotel and watched DVDs.
May 19, 2008
Well, the technology has beaten me. I have tons of photos but no easy way to add them. I’m standing in front of a computer at Disney World’s Swan Hotel in between Conferences. Saw lots of cool things on the way here, but you may have to wait to see the proof.
May 17, 2008
Here we are in a place called Manchester, Tennessee. Yesterday was all about driving – not much in the way of sites to see in Wisconsin or Illinois.
Last night we tried to stop for the night in a place called Effingham but all the hotels were full, which meant another hour drive to the next town. Needless to say, we were a little loopy by the time we got settled.
Right now I’m trying to upload some photos but the photovault is only fast transferring from the card, not to the laptop. I may give up if it takes much longer!
May 17, 2008
This was taken somewhere in Illinois yesterday. There wasn’t a lot to see there so I had to stop for this picture.
