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Herb & Martha Discover America
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  • Herb Newman

Herb & Martha Discover America

I am a recently retired nurse and my husband and I have just sold our house and we are going to full-time RV until we get tired of it.
There is so much of this country that I haven't seen. Herb has seen a lot more of it, but it was 50 yrs ago. Read more
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    How a "bump" gate works!

    King Ranch Tour, Kingsville, Texas

    February 14, 2020 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 72 °F

    Hello all! I hope this finds y'all happy and healthy. For those of you who follow me on Facebook, this will be redundant, but there you are (you not only have the choice, but my permission to totally ignore all of this!)

    When you grow up in Texas, you grow up absorbing the mystique and essence that is Texas. It’s what makes Texans so annoying to outsiders. We say, “It’s a Texas thing, y’all wouldn’t understand,” but you have to accept and understand that it is part and parcel of all of us. So, we quite literally grew up knowing about the King Ranch and believing that it is the biggest ranch in the world! That is not strictly true anymore, but the image remains. So, today we took advantage of our proximity to the King Ranch to take a ranch tour and to both Herb and I, the tour was certainly a highlight of our overall journey!

    The iconic King Ranch, established in 1853 by Richard King, now encompasses 825,000 acres (larger than the State of Rhode Island) and is the largest ranch in Texas. It remains wholly owned by the descendants of Richard King and it is not just Texas history, it is a working cattle ranch, horse ranch, cotton farm, milo farm, and breeding ranch (both horses and cattle). It is all privately held land and the agribusiness now encompasses several states and several countries and at last count, was worth $1.1 billion!

    As private property, no one can just wander through it. All tours are conducted via tour bus and you can’t get out and take pictures, so the pictures I took were all through the windows of the bus using my phone and its telephoto is piss-poor at a distance. A lot of those pictures are of such poor quality that I took the liberty of replacing the pictures with images from the internet.

    More here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Ranch?wpro…    Read more

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    I took this from the RV roof. A little photoshop, but you don't blame me, do you?
    The view from Corpus Christi NAS, about 20 yds from our campsite.We took the dogs and walked on the beach at South Padre Island. The water is too cold for me!The Rio Grande, not far from us. The other bank is Mexico.Sunset from the 7th hole.Peek-a-boo!Serval cat

    South Texas, Jan 30,2020

    January 23, 2020 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 70 °F

    HERB & MARTHA NEWMAN TRAVEL BLOG UPDATE, January 30, 2020

    Hello all!

    I hope each and every one of you are able to find at least one good thing every day to be grateful for and one thing that gives you joy and wonder. If they are the same thing, even better!

     When I last wrote, we had just arrived in Corpus Christi NAS, TX. We actually spent a pleasant week there. The RV Park is right on Corpus Christi Bay, about 20 yds from where we parked.

    After our sojourn at the Navy base, which while pleasant and cheap, we moved on to South Texas—specifically the Rio Grande Valley which is comprised by several medium to small towns: Brownsville, Harlingen, Donna, McAllen, where we took up residence in several Encore and Coast-to-Coast parks which are part of the Thousand Trails & Colorado River Adventure RV Resorts where we are able to stay with zero money outlay. Their only caveat is that you can only stay for a limited time, so we have to migrate every couple of weeks or so.

     The weather here is wonderful! High temps are 65°-85° and lows run from 48°-60°. The area is a big draw to Midwesterners and various Canadians who are known as “Winter Texans” I saw one car whose Indiana car license plate was WINTERTXN!

    TBH, I think we should keep this a secret between us since I gather from the frequent negative comments from the legions of Thousand Trails members complaining about not being able to find spaces in Florida and we don’t need them complicating our winter sojourns!

     After our first 2 weeks at Tropic Winds RV Park in Harlingen, we went 30 miles south to River Bend Golf Resort which is a planned community built on the banks of the Rio Grande. It’s mostly houses and “Park Models”, but they have RV sites kind of interspersed among them.

     Yelp said that Brownsville’s Gladys Porter Zoo was a tiny gem, and Yelp was so right! Clean, and nicely laid out, the animals look to have plenty of room.

     We are now back at Tropic Winds RV Resort and will be here for a couple of weeks.

     Until next time.

     Herb and Martha had a day at the Gladys Porter Zoo.    Read more

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    Salton Sea
    View of Lake Mead as we headed to ABQ.Looks like a moonscape, huh?Herb and I back at our old stomping grounds, The Dirty Bourbon Saloon and Dancehall. Hands down the best honky

    Albuquerque, NM

    March 5, 2019 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 48 °F

    Hemet to Las Vegas to Albuquerque

    Before leaving Hemet, we took a trip to the Salton Sea. It’s an interesting place actually, an accidental sea, that became highly saline and now seems to be drying up. Find more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salton_Sea. It makes for a fun place to walk around and there are tons of birds to take pics of.

    While we were in Hemet, we bought an Elite Thousand Trails membership (park fees were eating us alive) and Las Vegas Thousand Trails was our first experience. It was a bit disappointing, but the drawbacks (small, tight campsites; long-term inhabitants with cluttered sites to start with) are easy to put up with to be able to stay in a park without being out-of-pocket for the stay. Long time TT members assure us that LVTT is old and always crowded because Las Vegas is a good draw. I choose to believe them.

    Trying to get into the tight space, Herb misjudged the turning radius of our rear end and he took out the left fender on the tow dolly and did quite a number on the rear of the motorhome. We had previously planned a month-long hiatus at the KOA in Albuquerque to catch up on doctor and dental maintenance, so we made arrangements with GEICO to get the body work done as we came into town and before parking for the 4 wks at KOA.

    So, here we are: stuck in the La Quinta with a vociferously complaining cat and an annoyed Corgi. Fingers crossed that they finish the motorhome soon!
         Read more

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    It was a very hazy day, making it difficult to make out the raised berm down the center of the valley that sho

    Joshua Tree National Park, Jan 30, 2019

    January 30, 2019 in the United States ⋅ ⛅ 59 °F

    January 30, Joshua Tree Nat’l Park
     
    As soon as the government shut down ended, we planned a trip to Joshua Tree National Park. Before going, I wasn’t even sure what a Joshua tree was! Turns out it is a tree-like yucca plant with distinctive “trunk” and “leaves” and grows mostly in the Mojave and AZ/NV deserts. 

    The name Joshua tree is commonly said to have been given by a group of Mormon settlers crossing the Mojave Desert in the mid-19th century: The tree's role in guiding them through the desert combined with its unique shape reminded them of a biblical story in which Joshua keeps his hands reached out for an extended period of time in order to guide the Israelites in their conquest of Canaan.
     
    I find it interesting that they are really fast growers: “Joshua trees are fast growers for the desert; new seedlings may grow at an average rate of 7.6 cm (3.0 in) per year in their first ten years, then only about 3.8 cm (1.5 in) per year,” (Wikipedia).

    We got there late and didn’t have time to do any hiking. We did get to a cool overlook where you can actually see the San Andreas Fault. It shows as a raised berm running South. Their explanation was that as the two plate rub together, it raises the surface sand and rocks.
     
    I find desert landscapes beautiful—after all, I grew up in the desert and deserts ringed by mountains soaring up to 12,000+, Mt. San Jacinto, or 14,000+, Mt San Gorgonio, are particularly beautiful!    Read more

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    Aquarium of the Pacific, Long Beach, CA

    January 22, 2019 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 64 °F

    Jan 22, 2019 The Aquarium of the Pacific, Long Beach, CA

    Well, hello again! I guess it time to update y’all with our journeys and various side trips. After the Christmas rush, we rested a couple of weeks, enjoying the Inland Empire and its mild winter. We had a few days of rain and some frosty mornings, but more days than not we were able to participate in water aerobics. We went out to several restaurants in the area, visited and shopped in San Diego—we even took Touly down to the off-leash dog beach in Del Mar. We also had group luncheons in San Marcos at The Old Spaghetti Factory for the legendary Browned Butter Mizithra Spaghetti with a few of the old Kaiser Pediatric night shift from the late ‘80s-‘90s and the extended family in San Diego just before we left.
     
    The one thing we did do, was to go over to Long Beach to see the Aquarium of the Pacific. It’s a nice one, thoughtfully arranged. We were surprised to find the 88 mile trip from Hemet to Long Beach only took us an hour and a half (Waze routed us through city streets to get around some traffic tie ups in Riverside). For those no familiar with LA traffic, that is nothing less than PHENOMENAL!.
     
    Here are some of the pic from that excursion.    Read more

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    The Natural History Museum of LA County
    Big dude!Special exhibit called The Art of the Jewel featuring the craftsmanship of Paula Crevoshay.LOL! "Neprite" sounds like a kidney stones!Fascinating story of a Puma who prowls Griffith Park.This is P-22This is boundary of P-22's territory.He does take advantage of a free lunch.The have the most detailed and whimscal dioramas I have ever seen.

    Semi-Hibernation in Hemet, CA

    January 15, 2019 in the United States ⋅ ⛅ 48 °F

    Wow! It’s been way too long since I’ve posted anything. I just looked at Finding Penguins and realized my last post was two and a half months ago today, when we were in Lubbock! I apologize for the neglect.

    We headed to Albuquerque from Lubbock and spent the better part of two weeks getting rid of the vestiges of the stuff we had in storage. We realized for the money we were spending to store the stuff in a POD, we could easily replace the stuff many times over.

    After that was completed, we changed our plans about direction. Having gone back to ABQ, it wasn’t logical to go back through Texas and then on to Florida, so we rearranged our plans and headed for Southern California. San Diego RV parks are outrageously expensive, so we found an RV resort in Hemet, CA.

    The park is called Golden Villages Palms and they have over 1000 spaces, three swimming pools, eight pickle ball courts, three sand volley ball courts, a fully equipped fitness center, two dog parks, and a mail center. It’s nicely clean and shady and a full social calendar. We try to go to water aerobics on Mon-Wed-Fri and do weight training on Tues-Thurs-Sat, and we never miss “Yappy Hour” at the dog park. Dogs frolic and owners drink wine (dog treats and wine provided by the park) and talk about life and dogs and being on the road. I’m guessing 60% of the winter clientele are Canadian Snowbirds, most of the others, like us, are full-timers fleeing winter.

    A short time after we arrived here it became obvious that Fonzie was in extremis, so we took him to a very kind vet and Fonzie crossed the Rainbow Bridge as we held him.

    Touly was with us in the room when Fonzied passed and he grieved for a while, but extra love and a couple of trips to Dog Beach in Del Mar helped. There's a white and buff Shih Tzu here that he checks out whenever he comes to the dog park that is across from or campsite.

    The first month here was a flurry of holiday stuff. Thanksgiving at Sarah’s and I prepared a Prime Rib Roast for Christmas Eve dinner at Sarah’s.

    We did do a side trip to the Natural History Museum of LA County. (Doesn’t hold a candle to The Field Museum in Chicago, but we’ll keep that to ourselves!)
    We have tickets to  the Aquarium in LA—we’re trying to get there this week, so more pics then.

    Here are the Natural History Museum pics.    Read more

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    And yet another view
    Sunrise, Nov 3, 2018Another viewThis is usBrand spanking new RV park! It stills gravel fill to make the sites safe and security lights.

    Lubbock, TX, Airpark RV Park

    November 3, 2018 in the United States ⋅ ⛅ 64 °F

    As my normal Facebook followers are aware, we have had recurrent problems with our vacuum toilet leaking in our new 2018 Fleetwood Southwind. It has been investigated no fewer than 5 times in the last couple of months. This time we left Fredricksburg RV Park on Tuesday for a 7:30 am appt. Wed morning at the REV Technical Center (Fleetwood manufacturer’s service center) just south of Ft Worth, we planned to stay for at least three days, because whenever we leave the facility, it starts leaking again within 48 hrs.

    Once again, they could not find anything, so we planned to drive to Lubbock Friday morning, but Friday morning it leaked again so Herb ran over to the service center(they have an electric/water campground next to the facility) to get the supervisor to come look. He thought it might be due to a valve or possibly the shower, so they took it back in and replaced the valve and caulked the shower. They got done by 1 pm but it was a long 6-hr drive to Lubbock.

    We had trouble finding a campground in Lubbock—none had any vacancies, but we lucked into a new RV park near the airport. It was so new that we were the first ones to stay here! It will be good I think when they get finished with it. The owner came out and helped us get set up.

    Herb’s oldest friend in the whole world lives here and since today, Nov. 3rd, is Herb’s 72nd birthday, we will allow Joe and family the honor of buying him dinner here!!

    We will head to Albuquerque on Monday. We had originally planned to go to Corpus Christi after Fredricksburg then on to Florida for the winter, but decided that since we had no intention of ever owning another house, we need to get rid of the stuff we left in storage that is costing nearly $300/mo. So we will spend a couple of weeks arranging that, then head west for the winter. San Diego RV parks are exorbitantly priced, but we found a reasonably priced one in Hemet, an hours’ drive to San Diego. We’ll be there until middle of February—Herb has medical appts in ABQ in March.    Read more

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    Herb and I
    From left: Ron Smith '65, Sylvia Johnson Smith '67, Pat Fenter '64, Les Fenter '63, Katie O'Neill 64Linda Champney 64, Rod Champney 64, Annette Bean & Earl 63, John Whistler 63 and Joan.Karen Davis '65, Charlie Kilgore '63, Tim Stanley '64 and wife, ConnieLynn Herrera '63 and wife, Marsha

    A few Burges High School Grads

    October 5, 2018 in the United States ⋅ ⛅ 84 °F

    This was a VERY informal gathering of Burges High School, El Paso, TX, graduates from various years in the 1960s. (Making us official geezers!) I didn't actually get pictures of everybody who was there, and for that I apologize--notable arrivals who didn't get pictured are Mary Lewis Hensley and Katie Lewis O'Toole. Here are the pictures I did get:Read more

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    Oktoberfest, Fredricksburg, TX

    October 5, 2018 in the United States ⋅ ⛅ 84 °F

    We arrived in Fredricksburg, TX, October 1, got set up in our new spot in Fredricksburg RV Park (we’ll be here for the whole month),. We decided on this spot because Les Fenter and Tim Stanley concocted a very informal mini-reunion of those who graduated from Burges High School, El Paso, TX any year from ’62-’67.

    We ended up with some 20 so who showed up and we all seemed to have had a good time. We combined our gathering with Oktoberfest which is a BIG DEAL in this town that was the center of German immigration starting in 1846. https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles…

    They really do Oktoberfest big here. Lots of German peasant dresses and generations of handed-down lederhosen, and beer, LOTS and LOTS OF BEER! Not to mention wonderful weinerschnitzel, Jägerschnitzel, sauerbraten, bratwurst, http://www.visitfredericksburgtx.com/events/38t…

    Fredricksburg, and Central Texas in general, has become a hot bed of wineries. There are 17 on a small stretch of US 290 between Fredricksburg and Johnson City. Sunday, we took a little winery tour with another couple. Earl Bean and I both graduated from Burges HS in 1963 and he and his wife, Annette, and Herb and I had a really lovely time. We had wine tasting of some very nice wines and we saw some gorgeous scenery! I’ve never been to Europe, and it’s likely I never will unless Herb wins the lottery, but the scenery looked like I imagine Tuscany must.
    My chosen blog site gives me pretty must unlimited space for writing, but only 10 pictures, I have a series of posts with just pictures. Stay tuned!    Read more

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    Luckenbach, TX

    October 4, 2018 in the United States ⋅ ☁️ 73 °F

    We got here October 1 for a month-long stay and one of the must-do things was to go to Luckenbach, TX.

    Luckenbach was originally established as a community trading post and the German settlers and the Comanche Indians entered into a peace treaty, which was one of only a few that was never broken. By the 1960s it was almost a ghost town. A newspaper advertisement offering "town—pop. 3— for sale" led Hondo Crouch, a rancher and Texas folklorist, to buy Luckenbach for $30,000 in 1970, in partnership with Kathy Morgan and actor Guich Koock. Crouch used the town's rights as a municipality to govern the dance hall as he saw fit.

    It entered the 1970s zeitgeist as an icon of country music the summer of 1973 when Jerry Jeff Walker recorded the live album, "Viva Terlingua" at the Luckenbach dance hall--the album became an outlaw country classic.

    In 1977, after Crouch's death in 1976, Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson further vaulted Luckenbach into the national spotlight with the #1 country and #25 Pop charting song "Luckenbach, Texas (Back to the Basics of Love)." It has since become a part of every country music fan’s bucket list.

    It’s a fun place on a very low-key scale. The buildings date back 150 yrs or more and there’s lots of music. Here are some of the pictures…    Read more

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    Simba--16 yrs old, but loud as ever.
    Getting familiarized!Lucy! We're home!Ranger Peak.Sunrise over Hueco Tanks. https://goo.gl/DekKMTJohn Scialdone, Herb, Susan Minnie, Kit Thomas, Me, Zita Naudin Norte, MerryAnne Fordham ScialdoneThe much-loved Star on Mt Franklin.

    "Lucy" Travels to Ft Bliss RV Park

    September 25, 2018 in the United States ⋅ ⛅ 75 °F

    We saw the PA on Tues., Sept 24 and he gave us the all-clear to hit the road with some restrictions and a list of exercises. We had our last family dinner of 2018. Kerry and Vince’s living arrangements have changed and Kerry and the boys are moving back with her mother; Vince is going to rent a room from Jesse.

    We had left our vociferous Tonkinese cat with Vince in May since he had not tolerated travel in the Class C. But we needed to take him back—we thought he would do better in the Class A with so much more room, and so far he has—or he’s afraid to raise too much of a fuss or we’ll make him go back with all those other cats (7 at last count, I believe).

    We left Albuquerque the morning of Sept. 26 and drove the 4 or so hours to El Paso. We checked in the Ft Bliss RV Park and settled down for a few days. The new RV drove well and we have decided to call her Lucy. It’s a comfortable home, and well-built. They used top materials and good design—but the workmanship is deplorable! We still have things that need fixing. The vacuum toilet still leaks even after it’s been back to La Mesa RV twice. The problem is intermittent which makes it hard to find. Then, when we left the KOA in ABQ, the power step wouldn’t retract. After talking to the Fleetwood company, repairs will be done October 18 at Ancira RV in Alvarado, TX. Amazingly, they have they’re own RV park next to the maintenance facility for people like us who live in their rigs.

    As many of you know (or may not) I am from El Paso. I lived here from 1945-1965, then moved back with husband #2, 1976-1983. I was pretty much of a nonentity in high school; I can only imagine how I might have been bullied if I had been in high school in the age of social media, but I wasn’t and I turned into a self-sufficient woman. Since the advent of Facebook, I have reconnected with more than a few old classmates. Friday night we had dinner with a few of those classmates, and it was wonderful! We’re in our seventies and we have nothing to prove to anybody!

    Tomorrow we leave El Paso and drive to Fredericksburg, TX where we will stay for a month. We will be there for Oktoberfest and Burges HS classes of ’63 and ’64 are having a mini-reunion in conjunction with Oktoberfest on Oct. 6.7.8, so I should have some good pics!    Read more

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    Pacific Beach
    Uh, you gonna eat that?

    Sedate Adventures During Shoulder Rehab.

    September 14, 2018 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 81 °F

    Wow! It's been awhile, huh? We've been ensconced at the Albuquerque KOA since July 22—Herb had his rotator cuff surgery on Aug. 17. The surgery went well and he's 4 wks. out now and rehab is going extremely well. He is [mostly] pain-free.

    My daughter, Sarah Eishen, turned 50 last Thurs. and she and husband Jeff with the assistance of Marissa Eishen, Jeff's cousin and Sarah’s daughter-of-the-heart, put together a massive party with a live band, bartender, and tons of food, plus a massive cake. There were about 50 guests (not counting the 6 dogs and 2 cat/dogs—cats that think they’re dogs). Since Herb was still in the midst of his rehab, we didn’t want to miss more than one session and since he couldn’t drive we loaded our stuff for the weekend and the dogs into the car and drove to San Diego for the party. The dogs boarded with Sarah—a dicey prospect since her group of dogs: the ones she owns, the new greyhound 4-mo old puppy she just acquired, the boarders and the day care dogs, have all had giardia diarrhea going from one to another. We stayed at the Inn at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station and couldn’t keep the dogs there. So far my dogs don’t have it.

    However, the party was a great success and a good time was had by all. Jeff put together a wonderful video of her life [so far]: <https://goo.gl/fqp8NS&gt;. She has had so many physical accomplishments: doing the Susan G Komen 100 mile bike race, finished a marathon, ran many half-marathons, in addition to stand-up paddle-boarding that it’s hard to remember that she has had MS since 1998!

    We did break free for one afternoon to go down to Pacific Beach to take some pictures, which I have included.

    As I write this, we are stopped for the night in Scottsdale. Tomorrow we head back to Albuquerque. But not for long. We plan to leave Sept 26 for a few days in El Paso, then we’ll be in Fredericksburg, TX for a month, before heading further South for the winter. It’s been eating at us to have this wonderful new Class A RV that has yet to get on the road! Watching the constant flow of RVs coming in and out of the KOA really makes us want to hit the road again!    Read more

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    This is our new RV: 2018 Fleetwood Southwind
    The driver's and passenger seat turn around and have a nice table. The passenger seat reclines.It's a small kitchen, but adequate to the task.The full size couch is pretty comfortable, and big enough for all of us.Herb's office/computer desk/dining table.My very own bathroom!Nice size master bedroom.Smallish closets.Nice shower with a seat.Washer/dryer

    Repose in Albuquerque

    August 15, 2018 in the United States ⋅ 🌧 72 °F

    August 15, 2018, Albuquerque, NM
    I know that many of you are wondering why you haven’t seen any blog posts from me in over a month, but after leaving Nashville, we headed for Albuquerque for Herb to entreat his Orthopedist, Dr. O’Guinn, to do a repair on his increasingly painful left shoulder.
    At first I delayed posting a blog about this because I wanted to have a date to post. We waited about a week to get to see O’Guinn, but when we did get in we got a date: August 17. In the meantime, we’d about had it with the lack of storage and close quarters in the Envoy, so we started looking at Class A’s, and after looking and talking and getting all our ducks in a row, last Monday we took possession of a brand new Fleetwood Southwind  37’ with a V10, 6-speed transmission. It was a nightmare for two 70-somethings getting everything moved from the Envoy to the Southwind.

    It’s finally getting there, though. The unit has bunk beds, which we need to put the overflow in. Tomorrow we will get shelving set up in the bunk beds so it will be organized.

    What we gain is monstrous: I have my own bathroom!! OMG! What a gift! We have a wide, comfortable living space. We have a luxurious master bedroom with enough floor space so I am not endangering either Touly  or myself trying to get around him to go the bathroom at night. (I used to have 2 ½ ft max, now I have at least 5’). And we have a washer/dryer combination!
    Herb will have about 5 wks of rehabbing the shoulder before he can drive the RV. In the middle of that time, my daughter, Sarah, will be having her 50th birthday celebration in San Diego on Sept 14th. We had planned to take the RV and stay a couple of weeks, but we have decided that I will drive us in the Honda Civic with the dogs. Herb and I will stay at Miramar MCAS, and farm the dogs out to Sarah.

    We plan to leave here Sept 26 (we are at Albuquerque KOA, but Balloon Fiesta is coming up in October and the rates about double), we have reservations for Fredericksburg, TX RV park for the month of October, which coincidentally, occurs as a sort of Burges HS classes of ’63 and ’64 mini-reunion.

    In November we will head for Corpus Christi for a few weeks and then meander toward Florida for the winter.

    The general plan is to go North when the weather warms up and spend some time in Georgia and the Middle Atlantic states before coming back to Albuquerque for 2-3 months, then San Diego for 2-3 months. The plan is to spend time with family here and family in San Diego, and the rest of the time to stay wherever the temp is a pleasant 72°!     Read more

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    The Grand Ole Opry is where country music was born (and raised). Radio station WSM has been broadcasting the s
    Cassadee PopeMore PitneyOak Ridge Boys (yeah, they did Elvira!)Bobby Osburn and his Rocky Top X-Press. I know he looks like an Italian Goomba, but is the guy who wrote the bConnie SmithCrystle GayleThis called a Party Bike. This bachelorette party was having a great time!

    The Grand Ole Opry & Nashville Downtown

    July 13, 2018 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 88 °F

    NEW JERSEY TO TENNESEE

    From Colt’s Neck, NJ to Nashville is not just a long drive—it’s a whole culture away! We left NJ on July 11 and it was a really long day. We elected to take the long way around since getting through Baltimore and Washington DC meant careful re-routing to avoid low bridges and tunnels (you can’t take an RV through tunnels as a rule).

    So we went through Harrisburg, PA to Lynchburg, VA, making for a 400 mi jaunt. That makes for a hard day of driving and even the dogs complain.

    The next stop was Knoxville and Friday we completed the short stretch to Nashville.

    We got to Nashville in the early afternoon Friday and had plenty of time to change our clothes and get over to the Grand Ole Opry venue for the 7 pm show.

    The Grand Ole Opry was a major bucket list item for me and it did not disappoint! I knew, rather vaguely it seems, that it is an actual live radio program, and has been every week since 1925! Most of know that I am a country music fan. It’s the music I grew up listening to and it’s a part of the fabric of my life. I married at 19 to a man who was 8 yrs older than me and who considered the Mantovanni Strings a musical genre (think: elevator music). He frowned on country music (Jesse and Sarah must have got it from him). I always listened, but only when he wasn’t home. When he died, I went back to country music and it’s been mine ever since!

    Saturday night we went to dinner at Valentino’s—a restaurant owned by the uncle of Herb’s great-nephew’s wife, Megan Oliver. Valentino’s is a 3-star fixture in downtown Nashville—very elegant, very good and very expensive.

    Then we went to downtown Nashville. An amazing place! If you’ve never been there, it consists of about 4 blocks of Broadway St between 5th Street and 1st St. There are dozens of bars, no more than about 50 ft wide, with open windows and live bands playing loud country music and huge crowds of 20-somethings working on killing their livers. The streets are gridlocked with pedestrians and the homeless who sit on the curb. It’s a major sensory overload!    Read more

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    National September 11 Memorial & Museum

    July 5, 2018 in the United States ⋅ 🌙 79 °F

    This was a very moving experience. For the second time in my lifetime (the first was the Kennedy assassination), an event occurred where I can always remember exactly what I was doing at the moment I heard about it. I was just out of the shower and getting ready for my 7am shift at Kaiser Hospital, Pediatrics in San Diego when they broke into the morning news to say that an airplane had struck one of the World Trade Towers. I watched as the second plane struck the second tower and I immediately woke Herb to tell him we were under attack.

    The first picture shows what to me is the iconic picture. The quote from Virgil's Aeneid strikes me in the gut. The blue squares are each one a different shade of blue that represent how this most horrid of days started out beautifully, with the sky a marvelous shade of blue. There is one square for every victim. Behind the wall is the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner for the State of New York where they still labor to extract DNA and identify the few victims that have not yet been identified.

    The panel that shows where the first plane hit the tower--when you look at the girder you can see the curve where the nose of the plane struck it. The last picture is called the "Last Column" It was the last column and it was found whole, still attached to the bedrock under the tower.    Read more

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    Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island

    July 5, 2018 in the United States ⋅ 🌙 79 °F

    Thursday, we drove to Jersey City to take the Statue Cruise to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. As we approached the Liberty State Park in Jersey City, I glanced over to the right and I saw the head and shoulders and torch of the Statue of Liberty. I mean—it was RIGHT THERE!! The freakin’ Statue of LIBERTY!!! Yeah, I know. Sometimes I go really over-the-top! But, WTH, bite me!!

    The Immigration Museum is incredibly well done. They have taken a difficult subject fraught with multi-faceted conflicts and objectively covered them all. Including the involuntary immigration that that the slave trade accounted for: the 12.5 million Africans that were brought to this country in chains.

    And they covered the Chinese who were recruited to come to this country to build railroads and how they quarantined them so they were virtual prisoners.

    The “Have’s” vs. the “Have Not’s” is a fable as old as time and as I reflect on the discouragement that I feel over the current situation in our country, I guess it’s a conflict that will never be fully resolved.

    Lady Liberty is impressive! Not just because she is such an iconic symbol of what America stands for, but because she is so huge! I wonder what she looked like before the patina turned the copper to green?    Read more

  • Herb & Martha Discover America
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    The Metropolitan Museum of Art

    July 2, 2018 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 90 °F

    n Tuesday, we saw the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It is way too big to see it all at once—it is so impressive, that we needed at least another 4-8 hrs to see it really. It was our first experience riding the subway—we (I) got on the wrong train, but proved to ourselves that we were undoubtedly able to negotiate the system.Read more

  • Herb & Martha Discover America
    Iconic Times Square pic.
    Madison Square Garden1Scantily clad Indian maiden. If you look closely at the bra portion of her bikini..."Give my regards to Broadway..."Rockefeller Center.

    Times Square, New York City

    June 27, 2018 in the United States ⋅ ☁️ 68 °F

    We had taken the train to The City Monday on a whim to see how it works out. We got there at 2 pm and barely had time for lunch before we had to return to be back before 5:30 to feed and comfort the boys. But we figured out the drill. So today we went to The City on the 8:40 train that gets to Penn Station at 10:00.

    Our plan was to have breakfast and to walk to Times Square. The first place we saw was Al's Deli, which turned out to be the quintessential NY deli. Everybody’s yelling orders and the cooks are racing back and forth at a hectic pace. My avocado toast was amazing and Herb loved his scrambled with hash browns—and the whole bill was less than $15!

    After we ate, we continued walking up 7th Ave to Times Square. It’s like the first time you see Las Vegas—the neon lights alone generate their own excitement! As I try to fight my phone, trying to get it to open my camera app, we see there’s a T-Mobile store and Voila! Herb has a new S9 and I have his S8!

    After Times Square, we continued up to Central Park and took a few pics. It’s a green oasis that changes the whole atmosphere of New York. What was frenetic becomes suddenly bucolic. It’s the damnedest thing I have ever seen.
    We came back down 6th the Avenue of the Americas, stopped off to see Rockefeller Plaza (I am a total Today Show junkie!), then took Uber down to Penn Station to get the 3:45 to Red Bank.

    When you live in a “fly over state” and you read voraciously and watch a lot of TV, all of the sites in midtown Manhattan are very well known, so actually seeing the sights is amazing! Not very sophisticated, of course, but it’s such a wonder to see them is more than just a fulfillment of a bucket list! I call this "A Hick Goes to the Big City!"    Read more

  • Herb & Martha Discover America
    We took this open air narrated tour of Portland.
    A city of windows.Portland Head Lighthouse.Schooner tour of Casco Bay.Sunset from the bay.Boston manages to blend modern and historical in a classy way.Paul Revere's House (yeah, they don't allow pictures!)The Old North Church, cue The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere.Peaks IslandPeaks Island, looking north.

    Portland, Maine

    June 18, 2018 in the United States ⋅ ⛅ 79 °F

    We spent a week at the KOA in Saco and had a wonderfully mellow time. Maine is green and the weather was very temperate, in the seventies most days. We took a short narrated tour of Portland on an old firetruck and learned all sorts of things that I did not know, like that Portland is the most populous city in Maine, but only has 68,000 people. It’s an old town, but has burned to the ground three times. Looking at the town, I see tons of red brick buildings and tons and tons of windows. I have never seen a place with so many windows.

    Tuesday we took a schooner tall ship tour of Casco Bay. Sailing is one of those mindful things that are so zen. The wind in your face and the smell of the open sea makes all of your ordinary worries of the day seem very small by comparison. Later we drove to Portland Head Light to take some pictures. It’s a beautiful site.

    Wednesday, we drove to Boston. No one will be surprised to hear traffic is horrendous and parking fees outrageous. We walked a part of the Freedom Trail. We saw the Old State House, Faneuil Hall, Paul Revere’s House and the Old North Church. Boston is such a vibrant, modern city, yet around every corner there’s a memorial to the American Revolution. I started a conversation with a woman behind me looking at The Old North Church and asked if they still make school children memorize the Longfellow poem, The Ride of Paul Revere, and she said, with heated exasperation in a thick Australian accent, that she had to memorize the "bloody poem" in Oz! This a great hip hop version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dKJ75F3tj8

    Thursday we took the ferry over to Peaks Island. The ferry is the only way to get there. It’s a small island with some remarkable houses and even more remarkable scenery.

    Friday was a low key day as we preparing for the trek to New Jersey.    Read more

  • Herb & Martha Discover America
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    The Farmer's Museum, Cooperstown, NY

    June 15, 2018 in the United States ⋅ ⛅ 63 °F

    Since we had the extra day, we decided to check out The Farmer's Museum. It's a converted farm and is set up as a "living" museum. Craftsmen dress in 1820s costume and demonstrate crafts such as spinning and apothecary and there's even a blacksmith shop where they make nails and such. They grow crops and have some farm animals. They bring school kids through there by the bus load so they can see where and how our food and textiles come from. It's a great museum!

    The Cardiff Giant is on exhibit here. I recently read an article about the great hoaxes of the 19th century, and the Cardiff Giant was one of those. Fascinating to see! I me it looks like a crude sculpture and I cannot imagine anyone would think it was real! <https://www.history.com/news/the-cardiff-giant-…;    Read more

  • Herb & Martha Discover America
    Tony will always be my favorite Padres.Trevor has been selected to the Hall of Fame and will be inducted this year.Anyone but me hear Hell's Bells playing?I love that they gave the "Who's on First" comedy routine by Abbott and Costello its own exhibit.1A collage of some of my faves.

    Baseball Hall of Fame

    June 14, 2018 in the United States ⋅ ⛅ 61 °F

    This is one of the really good ones! The marvelously quaint little town that seems to have been frozen in time about the same week that Abner Doubleday invented (or not) baseball. That they manage to create the whole atmosphere without it looking like cheap dressing makes it even more admirable. The buildings really are that old and they are in use as store fronts and offices.

    The Hall of Fame is really quite beautiful and well-arranged. The first floor is dedicated to the Hall of Famers. I like the bas-relief plaques. The second and third floors are a series of exhibits about baseball and the men who played the game. All of it well done. As long-suffering San Diego Padre fans, much of it is bittersweet. I think the museum would be quite interesting to someone who is not a baseball fan, but it's heaven to the baseball lover!    Read more

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