Impressions –Our 2,643.9 mile long road trip

A beautiful fall drive through America - Land Between the Lakes, Ft Donelson, Stone's River, Cornith, Shiloh, Natchez Trace, Natchez, Vicksburg, Memphis, The Great River Road, Hannibal and home. The following are things I wrote down as we made this road trip through Midwestern and Southern states.

These random thoughts are in no particular order of travel or importance.

• Most beautiful rest stop on the Interstate beside Rend Lake


• The magnificent fragrance of blooming flowers and bushes in a Tupelo hotel parking lot.

• Never know what intresting sights you'll see at Natchez Trace rest stops. The first of several was near the northern end of the Natchez Trace where emerging from a nature trail through the woods suddenly appeared a gaggle of giggling postulates, dressed all in white.

• Peaceful, quiet woods, streams, hills and dales where once booming cannons caused carnage - Shiloh


• The sound made by raining leaves and pine straw hitting the car windshield

• Old oak trees

• Sleeping dogs

• The amazing beauty of cold steel cannons set among the colors of fall




• Park Rangers going out of their way

• Cloudy day, old barn in field with roof caved in – would be beautiful picture with sun streaming into the interior

• Cornith, Mississippi - not what I expected. It definitely was not the small
rural town of my imagination. I was expecting old Hobgood or Scotland Neck - two of my favorite towns from travels through rural NC on our way to
Morehead City

• Open fields and vistas stretching as far as the eye can see


• Trains across the fields look like model railroads

• A quiet so loud that only the leaves blowing in the wind and the call of birds is heard

• Eagles soaring and cannons standing guard over the Tennessee River at Ft. Donelson


• Politics – clutters our highways and airways

• Hawks soaring overhead

• The nostalgic sound of a train-whistle echoing through the stillness


• The varying colors of the soil

• Where have all the cotton fields gone?

• Serenity and peace abounds among the those laid to rest in hallowed ground


• The changing sounds of a car moving on asphalt and concrete

• Magical shapes of trees

• Travelling on roads that began as wagon traces


• To pedal the Trace - 60 miles a day = 6 ½ days to complete the ride

• Magical rainbows are all over the wall. Sun casting mini rainbows on each tile as the light streamed through a fluted window at a Trace comfort stop atop a hill.

• Families from Quebec dry camping on a secluded hilltop near the grave of Meriwether Lewis


• Gray-haired boys of summer atop their big Harleys

• Picnic areas along the Trace filled with bikes – motorized and pedal

• Split rail fences - Natchez Trace


• Company farms – not family farms

• Miles and miles –still no place like home

• Blue skies, blue water = peace to the soul


• Horses and cows in peaceful, hilly meadows

• Old family cemeteries at the end of gravel roads

• Burls and other natural occurring tree parasites of mistletoe and moss

• Back roads

• Wonder how the entitled North Shore would handle living here

• Not another car in sight


• Cows resting in the shade of a single tree

• Roads dappled in shade from the tree canopy overhead

• Ups and downs and curved ribbons of roads following the contour of the land




• Natchez – a little less than anticipated

• What's up? Oh, yes, it's Sunday and everything is closed

• Wide river vista – a great view out the hotel window – we could/should have stayed here for days




• Limestone quarries

• Tunnels into bluffs

• A few beauties still - Rosalie, Endicott Hill, Stanton Hall, Monmouth and Dunlieft


• Getting old – iron bladder no more - Ahh!! Blessed relief

• Entitled to better

• The antebellum south brings to mind hoopskirts and gracefully gliding down the grand staircase


• Amazed anew at the vast and changing Midwest landscape – dotted with small towns, farms and manufacturing

• Stone houses in river towns

• Swamps and trees draped in moss


• Treeless Mississippi delta

• Desolate

• Cotton fields in all stages of picking - still not the fields I remember

• Desolate and monotone landscape with crops harvested

• Fascinated by water ways


• The family farms of southern Illinois are golden shades of brown - only splashes of color are an occasional tree or barn

• Wrack and ruin

• Abject poverty

• Abandoned churches, schools, village centers


• Houses with too much stuff discarded every which way outside

• Black cows with white stripes like Hampshire pigs

• River traffic at a stand-still in upper Mississippi

• Beautiful, muddy Mississippi flowing south

Yes, I know that a tomato is a fruit – to me it is God’s candy.

Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting one in a fruit salad.

Tomatoes, green beans and peppers – picked moments ago give a new meaning to vegetables. Delivered fresh from the garden by a friend who knows how much you love tomatoes gives a new meaning to friendship.

As I opened the bags, the wonderful aromas took me back to my childhood. In my mind I was sitting on a front porch under the shade of a live oak tree snapping beans with baskets of fresh produce beside my feet. Tomato sandwiches here I come.

I’m in heaven.

This one is for you Anne

I have spent thirty or more years searching for this document referenced in family papers – including an unsuccessful trip to the National Archives. Tonight I found it on the Internet. Samuel Meacham Withers is my great-great grandfather. He died in 1864 of a disease he caught while enrolling soldiers to fight in the war we know as the Civil War.

With my cousin Anne, I've stood on his land, sat beside his grave, and held his Bible. Now, I finally found the proof to go along with family stories.

Next year is the 150th anniversary of the "War Between the States" - or as cousin Anne reminded me on an earlier post the war is sometimes called, "The Late Unpleasantness."

Time to go back to some of those battlefields and visit some new ones.

Too Much

It is a busy life - not enought time to do all I want to do. Unfinished research, unfinished book and unfinished doll house.

Life, please slow down so I can catch up.

Let me have time to play with Cassie


Jamie


Finn

and Maude

The Dollhouse

Many years ago two little girls were thrilled to get a huge dollhouse for Christmas. Made by hand, the structure was already about 20 years old when we got it. With a beautiful wraparound front porch attached to the front facade. Both the front and back facades were removable. The rooms were papered with wallpaper from our house. The bedroom had the same wallpaper we had in our room.

Our kitty loved the dollhouse too. She used to sleep on the staircase.

Then, our daughter Patti played with the dollhouse. We gave it to her for her third birthday after I tracked it down and bought from an antique dealer.

At Christmas I asked Lauren, our three-year-old granddaughter, if she wanted to help me paint the dollhouse. She's been so excited about painting and getting the dollhouse ready to play.

The first time she came we talked about colors and then we went online so she could choose furniture and a family to live in the dollhouse. On a visit to Wal-Mart she insisted that she and her mom go to the tool department to buy paint brushes so she and Mimi could paint.

Finally, last week Lauren came to paint the house. She had so much fun.




Wish there were photos of Susan and me playing with the dollhouse. Have to look through the albums to see if there are pictures of Patti playing with it. As least there is a video showing Lauren painting it.

A Blue Moon New Year

May the New Year be as spectacular a year as the Blue Moon.

A full moon occurred on Dec. 2, 2009 and will appear again to ring in the New Year. The last time this happened on New Year's Eve was 19 years ago.

A blue moon is the second full moon in a month.

Thoughts on the New Year

My granddaddy clipped from newspapers and magazines and pasted into a datebook articles, saying and advice. To a stranger, that book would give a glimpse into the soul of who he was, My daddy did it too although his clippings were apt to be found tucked many places including between pages of his bible. Mine reside on my computer to be brought up and used in speeaches or to give me private encourgement and joy. Here are a couple of them relating to the upcoming New Year.

"Let this coming year be better than all the others. Vow to do some of the things you've always wanted to do but couldn't find the time. Call up a forgotten friend. Drop an old grudge, and replace it with some pleasant memories. Vow not to make a promise you don't think you can keep. Walk tall, and smile more. You'll look ten years younger. Don't be afraid to say, 'I love you'. Say it again. They are the sweetest words in the world." Ann Landers

"We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives... not looking for flaws, but looking for potential." Ellen Goodman

New Year's Wishes for You
Happiness . . . deep down within your soul.
Serenity . . . that brings peace to your heart.
Love . . . that is deep, abiding and true.
Success . . . in everything you strive to do.
Courage . . . to never give up being the best you can be.
Health . . . inside you.
Family . . . beside you with close and caring friends.
Special memories . . . to keep and cherish.
Appreciation . . . of yourself and others.
A bright today . . . that will shine on your tomorrows.
A path . . . for all your journeys to follow.
Dreams . . . that do their best to come true.
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