Stuffbymichele's Blog

Home again, home again…

stuffbymichele — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 02:41:59 +0000

We spent the entire day on the road and got home at about 9 p.m. (about ten minutes shy of Tristan’s estimate!)

This is the first shot I took this morning – the sun rising over the Ohio River:

And here’s a shot of Iowa:

We did a couple more things on the way home, but I’m wiped out so I’ll have to write about that later. We ended our trip pretty much the same way we started it, with a stop here:

Another day spent driving through Georgia

stuffbymichele — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 00:52:02 +0000

For such a small state, it sure takes a long time to get from one end to the other… we spent most of today driving across it.

Our first stop was The Little White House in Warm Springs. Here is a link about it:

http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/presidents/roosevelts_little_white_house.html

And here’s one of the photos I took:

After that stop, we headed up to Stevenson, Alabama. We were looking for Fort Harker but we couldn’t find it. We did, however, find the railroad tracks the Fourth Minnesota would have marched down. Which is also why we wanted to find the Fort. Unfortunately there were no signs in town and we hadn’t picked up any brochures beforehand.

And here’s Nashville again:

My other photos will be posted on Flickr for now. I’m still not sure what our plans for tomorrow are. It will be a surprise for all of us apparently!

How I spent my Saturday…

stuffbymichele — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 23:57:16 +0000

This is where I spent most of the day:

And this is how I spent most of the day:

We leave in the morning. The car is mostly packed so we just have to grab a bag or two and go. We’re thinking of heading to The Little White House in Warm Springs, Georgia. There’s also a place near there where the Fourth Minnesota camped that may be on the agenda. It all depends on how late Mike stays out tonight. Well, not really out… he’s just downstairs in the ballroom having dinner with the rest of the conference attendees. I had a sandwich from Momma Goldberg’s deli. Don’t feel bad for me though… last night’s room service meal was fantastic!

Friday and it’s 83 here…

stuffbymichele — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 19:49:08 +0000

This morning we slept in a little. Unfortunately we had a bunch of noisy neighbors that woke me up a few times during the night. I think they all checked out this morning (*fingers crossed*). We walked into Auburn and had breakfast, then sat around the hotel pool reading.

Mike left for the first session at about 12:30. I went for a walk and did a little shopping. Turns out most of the shopping near the campus consists of shoes, purses and orange t-shirts. I did manage to find this though:

Here are some random shots I took on my walk:

Mike won’t be back until evening so I’m planning to get some reading in. Then maybe I can talk him into dinner at a restaurant I found on my walk. Or maybe it will be room service tonight!

Another day of driving…

stuffbymichele — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 01:16:19 +0000

Finally comes to an end here:

We arrived in Auburn at about 6 p.m. tonight. We crossed the timeline a couple of times but finally determined it’s still central time here. After we checked out our room we went downstairs to the restaurant on the first floor and had a nice dinner.

Here are some shots from Nashville:

We spent a little time walking around Nashville. The rest of the day was spent in the car. We’re both happy to be spending the next couple of days in one place.

The hotel is right on the Auburn University campus so I will be wandering around with my camera tomorrow. For now, I plan to kick back and relax (and probably be sound asleep by 9).

On the road to Alabama… the state, not the band

stuffbymichele — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 00:22:51 +0000

We left at about 6:15 this morning and made it all the way to Franklin, Indiana. It was a little over 700 miles I think. I have absolutely nothing exciting to say. Oh wait – I got to have cheesy hashbrowns at Cracker Barrel this morning. That’s extremely exciting!

Here are some of the random shots I took:

To give you some idea of how exciting the remainder of the day was – two of the three photos are of rest areas…

Montana – the wrap up

stuffbymichele — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 16:50:00 +0000

I created another site for photos and videos. It’s on Shutterfly and it can be reached by clicking here.

I can probably put videos on wordpress but it’s so much easier to do it on Shutterfly.

Right now Mike is taking a nap. I had some photos printed this morning that I’m planning to bring with to Geri’s tomorrow. For now we’re just catching up and winding down. Mike and I will be heading to Alabama in just a little over a week so I pretty much had to unpack the suitcases just so I could pack them again.

We had a great time with the gang. Still sad that Tracey couldn’t join us, but we’re already looking forward to next year’s Founding Fathers Tour. Hope everyone can join us. I’ve heard rumors some “new” people would like to come along this time. We have room in the van for you!

Montana – Random things

stuffbymichele — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 00:56:43 +0000

I thought I would wrap up the trip with some random things.

Mike and Joshua were sitting together on the deck… Joshua turned to Mike and asked “do you hunt?” To which Mike replied, “No, but I’d like to.” And then he mentioned that he wouldn’t eat what he’d manage to kill. And Joshua’s response was “Oh, you can hunt. We’ll eat it.” Priceless.

I think I forgot to mention that Ryan Bell joined us for dinner on Tuesday night:

We stopped at Missy’s store before we headed out of Elliston on Wednesday:

Luckily I took that before everyone started crying!

Mike enjoyed the deck on the hunting lodge. It was a little chilly this day:

I have a lot more photos and some video. I’m thinking about the best way to share that. I will probably do a shutterfly site. Either way, watch the blog for information. I’ll decide for sure over the weekend.

I’ll leave you with this photo of the view off Shannon’s deck. Just over the first ridge is where Shannon shot the elk Tuesday morning. I was only mildly disappointed that we didn’t have elk steaks for dinner that night.

Montana – the final day

stuffbymichele — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 01:02:17 +0000

I wrote this last night while we were in South Dakota. We were going to try to make it to Bismark but it was rainy and foggy and we gave up in Dickenson.

Tuesday night we had dinner at Shannon and Allison’s. I think Shannon and Missy conspired to take us up the mountain to see the guys logging so Shannon’s driveway wouldn’t seem like such a big deal…

Here is a photo of Shannon’s house from the overlook at the top of the pass. His driveway is literally a break in the guard rail. It was pretty but we were happy to get to the bottom.

Here is a photo of the logging operation. I think this is the de-limber. I have some video of this that I will attempt to post later.

Here’s the view from up near the top of the mountain:

And here’s Billy on the skid steer:

Montana – whatever day this is…

stuffbymichele — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 18:36:55 +0000

We had dinner with the gang last night. Here’s a shot of everyone on the deck after dinner:

This is Shannon and Allison’s littlest, Nicholas. I think he knows what a camera is…

And now we’re heading up the mountain to watch Billy do some logging. Then later we’re heading to Shannon and Allison’s for dinner. I think we might be having fresh elk… I’ll let you know next time I get near internet access.