Dine's Visit to South Carolina

May 18, 2010
Stopped at Cooley Farms Strawberry Farm on the way to Keowee Key from the Charlotte Airport after having lunch at Ruby Tuesday's in Gastonia, N.C.

On Wednesday the 19th, we visited the Split Creek Farm where they have a large herd of dairy goats. There were many little people and kids (little goats) there as well as chickens, roosters, Great Pyrenees dogs that work as guards to protect the goats from coyotes and other dangers and lots of other fun things to experience. There were a lot of rescued animals from the dogs to Vietnamese pigs, cats etc.


The kids would just as soon chew your clothes as look at you so we had to be vigilant to protect our shirts and pants from their onslaught.



Love, Love, Love chickens -- especially this type!

Gulliver was very friendly. Ask Dine if he was tickling her..........

This little gal was so sweet from her head (pigtails) down to her toes......


So proud and beautiful.....
One of nine guard dogs on duty.......


The goats were trekking across the pasture as if they had somewhere to go but they would stop eventually and march back to where they had come from.

Lunch at Ooh, La Lollies amongst all the French decorations was charming in between shopping expeditions on another day.

Saturday night the 22nd, we took in the local high school's honors chorus year end concert which featured songs, costumes and choreography of the Lion King and was extremely well done and professional. The pictures are for catching the flavor of the evening - not much light so the pictures were much less professional than the production.




Couple days left..............................Too short a visit!!!

LAST DAY !!

Turns out that without a prior plan we happened upon two different things today of interest to us as we started back into the more familiar terrain of wooded hills in Kentucky and Tennessee.

In Lexington KY, we searched for the street that Harry's great and great - great grandfathers lived on in the 1800's. The number of their house was 13 W. High Street. Today the lowest number on that street is 100 so we weren't able to pinpoint just where they lived but the following pictures are of the older houses in the area not necessarily the early 1800 vintage. We did get some very good information from the City Travel Information Bureau with leads to contacts at the U of K and the Historical Society to track down more specifics on this Tipton side of his family there.









Another and better photo showing the locust trees along the roadsides.


As lunchtime approached we found we were near the Kentucky Craft Artisans Shoppe which was very impressive. At the time I owned the 1812 Country Store I had purchased some of the old time crafts such as rugs and brooms from Berea which is affiliated with it with a town and college of the same name nearby. The college is a liberal arts college with emphasis on service where the students are expected to work in the college community doing all manner of different jobs that are needed to keep things running smoothly. Many galleries and artists in residence in the various craft disciplines are in the area. We didn't have time to tour them but I do have an idea of a field trip in the future...

The Boone Tavern was named for Daniel Boone but never had an affiliation with him. It has been recently updated and renovated and served a very good luncheon in wonderful surroundings of blue and white.



Harry matched the decor, incidentally.


A young woman just outside the window from my table sat in the shaded sunshine hand-piecing quilt blocks.


Harry cruised the street while I perused the fabrics in the quilt shop.

I lied yesterday (not intentionally, of course) when I said that our meal was the last dinner of our trip. Tonight we ate in the German restaurant in the Hendersonville area (or is it really Flat Rock?) that I thought my friend had taken me to but realized when I got there that we just talked about doing so some day...........sorry Marie. We still can plan on it in the future. Good meal. Brought some home for lunch tomorrow.


Then at 8 p.m. another cry could be heard down the length of Spy Glass Lane at the end of our trip that started with: "We're off the Captain shouted as he staggered down the deck !" as those of you know who've been with us from the beginning.

This time though, 6 weeks later, it was:

"HOME AGAIN, FINNEGAN ! ! ! ! ! "

Leaving the Land of the Giants

May 3, 2010
Well, our trip is winding down, we passed out of the West over the Mississippi driving through Illinois and Indiana enjoying the continuation of the farmlands we so loved in Iowa throughout those two states.


Leaving the lands of the giant scenery and great big chairs and a gigantically super vacation during the past six weeks.

Staying tonight into Kentucky in Erlanger. We had a good view of Cincinnati across the river from Covington.

We saw many white flowering trees that seem to be like the ones at the cabin my family had for so many years when I was growing up - locust trees. Very impressive.


We investigated the riverside around Covington Landing where the river seemed to be quite high after the past few days of storms.


We were disappointed to find the Brooklyn Bridge replica under renovation making it less photogenic.


Note the containers in the water at the river's edge.


The Roebling Murals (Roebling was the engineer on the Brooklyn Bridge) lined the banks and were a reminder of the murals in Vicksburg Mississippi way back at the beginning of our trip in March.



The Cincinnati Reds were playing the NY Mets in the stadium across the river. Fireworks started off the night's game.


Nearby Behle Street Cafe's patio was the scene of our last dinner on the road with mild temperatures.

Ah, the Blue Moon half liter..............


We could follow the Reds game on the TV at the outside bar.



Just so you know: Multi-tasking is alive and well in Covington, Kentucky. Talking on cellphone, eating salad and entertaining a girlfriend is no problem for this fellow.


The GPS shows that our route home will be just about 7 hours so will be home late tomorrow afternoon. We feel very fortunate to have had such a rich and enjoyable experience - to have the time, health and wherewithal to travel so extensively through our wonderful country, as well, of course, spending quality time with our friends and family.

Staying Put with Buffalo Bill

May 2, 2010
We are mighty sick of seeing the same storm stuck in place and being a factor in our planning of our trip home for what seems like the umpteenth day lurking there as a barrier in our way. We felt it was prudent not to travel when tornadoes and flooding were predicted for the area. There was serious flooding on the roads overnight in Tennessee and tornadoes farther south so we opted to stay another day in Davenport and hope it would move out of our way (and also, of course, give the residents of those areas some relief from the devastation they were experiencing). We are perfectly safe so certainly shouldn't be complaining .


We listened to a Recorded Book on our trip west entitled, "Eiffel's Tower" by Jill Jonnes about the building of the tower for the World's Fair in Paris in 1889. The personalities that visited or performed at the fair were all included and it covered the time period from the planning until the closing of the fair after it's 6 month run and even a bit beyond. We found it very interesting as it talked about Gustav Eiffel and his difficulties and genius in the engineering and erection of what was then and for quite a time afterward the tallest structure in the world. Many people were discussed including Thomas Edison, Annie Oakley, Buffalo Bill Cody among many others so when we saw that there was a Buffalo Bill Museum in nearby LeClaire we decided to visit it. It seems he was born in LeClaire but left for Kansas with his family while a boy. The museum was mostly a town museum with some Cody memorabilia included. The main museum for studying the man is in Cody, Wyoming but we didn't travel that far north. He was quite a showman moving Native Americans, cowboys, sharpshooters and many horses and bison to Europe for his sold out shows there which ran for many months in Paris and also traveled from place to place throughout Europe.


A quilt there depicting some parts of his life.



A replica of the house where he was born.


The illustration of how mother-of-pearl buttons were made was interesting to me.