journeywithmadonna

 The first two pictures are the view we woke up to this morning.  Then we drove out to the lighthouse   to see the deer havinjg breakfast and to view the tallest lighthouse in the US – quite the way to start the day!!!!  From here we are headed to Maryland, Ocean City area,  and will be crossing Chesapeake Bay which I believe will be the longest bridge/tunnel combination I have ever encountered!!!!  Jim brought us here as he has been curious about this for a while and Gerry Murphy says “God Bless America” as who else could pull this off.   Georgina and I are ”gob smacked” and in awe of such an engineering feat – time to google!

Waiting for the ferry

Cape Hatteras National Seashore is unbelievable!!! So glad we woke up to sunshine this morning in spite of the colder weather, 6 degrees, which was quite the change from yesterday’s mild tornado type weather, which as you can imagine, is very foreign to us. Anyway we got up and took off to the ferry from Cedar Island to Ocracoke, followed by another ferry to Hatteras. Unfortunately due to a mix up in scheduling and a great walk on the beach we missed the second ferry so another great walk had to be had and lesson learned, once again! Hope to be on Cape Hatteras before dark!

Cape Hatteras is not happening today, Nov. 17, as it’s blowing a gale outside, there’s a risk of a hurricane and there’s no way we want to be on a boat in this wind. So we’ve hunkered down at Hampton Inn and Suites on Pine Knoll Shores, Atlantic Beach, outside of Morehead, NC. Every ten minutes the weather changes but we managed to get a great walk in after the torrential rain. Georgina has become an expert at using Hot Wire and has found us some great deals……..in Canadian currency!!!! Hoping to head to Cape Hatteras tomorrow as long as the weatherman says the risk of hurricane has passed………..now we know why all the houses are on stilts around here!

…..is just outside of Charleston and that was our next stop with the plan to spend the next day in Charleston. However we woke up to a day of heavy rain, our first, and decided to do a quick tour of Charleston and head out. Looked like a beautiful historic old city but too wet even for a walk so we decided to head up the coast towards Myrtle Beach(still raining) and then Wilmington, NC where we decided to get off the wet roads and spend the night. That’s when we heard from Kathleen that it was minus 20 in Calgary and Georgina heard from Anna that there had been a snow storm in NS………glad to be in the rain!  Plan for tomorrow is to head towards Cedar Island where we will take the ferry, 2 1/2 hours, over to Ocracoke and then another ferry for about an hour to Cape Hatteras and wander around for the rest of the day.

 Hilton Head, cold but beautiful and surfers in the backgroundSavannah, Georgia is the home of Paula Deen which really did not mean too much to us except for the fact that she was in the news within the past year or so, bad press, for something none of us could remember. It seems that the people of Savannah have also forgotten as they are awfully proud of their ‘Paula’ and promote her in their tourist centres, on their billboards as well as on their trolley tours. And that’s what we did in Savannah, a trolley tour, at 9am in the morning when the people who sold us the tickets thought we would freeze until they realized we were from Canada ……. And were used to cooler temperatures. Beautiful, historic and a great River street where we found the absolute best pecan praline we’ve ever tasted…….and of course had to buy some for our journey to Hilton Head, NC and beyond(hope it makes it out of the parking lot).  We also remembered that Georgina got her name from Georgia!   When mom was pregnant with Georgina we had an American couple who lived in an apartment in our house.  Her name was Georgiana, or something like that, and she was from Georgia – at least that’s the story we concluded after a couple of glasses of wine as we couldn’t remember all the details and Jim and Gerry just agreed – smart men we’ve married!!

 Hike along the waterfalls Our new car – which one? The Biltmore! We did a wine tasting at the Biltmore but lone behold we couldn’t afford the wine!!!!In Ashville the highlight for many is the Biltmore house and gardens………and it was for us as well! Again ‘Google’ is your friend as you can explore it much better than with any of the pictures we took but needless to say this 120 year old mansion was so worth the visit. George Vanderbilt opened the house on Christmas Eve, 1895 and it is still run today by his grandson , great grandson and granddaughter and 1800 employees. We didn’t spend too much time in Ashville but did get a chance to explore the downtown core and our air BnB neighborhood and have attached a few pictures.

 “Holy shit, more rhodos” Blowing Rock ……Shenandoah………the movie with Jimmy Stewart , is one of my earliest memories with regard to movies and music. Travelling with Gerry Murphy reminded me of the music, and Jimmy Stewart, and needless to say we had to travel the Shenandoah Valley to be reminded of its beauty from the film(1965)!!! We were not disappointed by Shenandoah National Park which is 477km(Virginia) and encompasses part of the Blue Ridge Mountain Parkway – all of it is spectacular and so worth the slow and windy ride. Once again ‘Google’ is your friend as my fingers are too tired to fully inform you of its beauty. We ended up spending the night in Staunton, Va., a town of about 25,000 and known as one of the best small towns of America………neat little place with the Woodrow Wilson Library which Jim and Gerry visited while George and I enjoyed a walk and coffee. Good night’s sleep and then we travelled on to Boone and Blowing Rock, NC. Here we did a hike on the Jim Burney trail which we renamed the “Holy Shit, more Rhododendrons” trail because they were everywhere and all we could think of was coming back when they were in bloom. Next we visited Blowing Rock for a short walk and a few pictures which I think I have attached.

……was definitely the highlight for Gerry Murphy so far on this trip, and the rest of us quite enjoyed it as well. The town of Gettysburg, pop. 7,655, is an amazing little place with a huge history and when you’re at the National Military Park it’s like stepping back in time. I was surprised by the entire visit and also amazed by the cyclorama which is a massive oil on canvas painting depicting the confederate assault on July 3, 1863. I knew I was really behind the times when I read the cyclorama was a popular form of entertainment in the late 1800’s and yet I had never seen it before……time to google!!

Ever since I saw Harrison Ford starring in The Witness movie over 25 years ago I have been quite fascinated by the Amish. As a result Lancaster, Pa. was one of our destinations and even though I wasn’t driving we managed to get lost. Lancaster has a population of approx. 60,000 and is known for the Amish population within. During our drivie around in circles we noticed the Amish in their wagons and they seemed not to be slowing us down but being slowed down by us. After quite some time we realized we were in the ‘outlet’ area without a room to be had or a parking space for that matter. Utter chaos from bumper to bumper whether it was a car or a wagon was irrelevant. Finally we found a room and settled in for a glass of wine, a bite to eat and to plan our itinerary for the following day…….Gettysburg, here we come!! Gerry Murphy is vibrating right about now as he is so excited he can’t contain himself.