Cross-country Moving to North Carolina 2021

We made it! Wonderful ramble across the US, but we're happy to stay put for a while. We're now comfortably settled in a friend's place at Carol Woods while she's at her family's place in New Hampshire. We'll stay here until we move into our own place on Aug. 10. This will be the last blog post since the trip is over!

Our friends took us on a nice driving tour along part of the Blue Ridge Parkway. Stopped at the Southern Highland Craft Guild, Folk Art Center, which was part museum and part shop. Fabulous. The photo of a hand carved carousel -- beautifully done, but with whimsical characters including Elvis, Teddy Roosevelt and others. Gorgeous woodwork, textiles, pottery, glass... We did manage to escape without buying anything, at least partly because there was too much beautiful stuff.

Visited the botanical garden in Knoxville before heading through the Smoky Mountains to Asheville. Beautiful drive! Dripping green, which is quite a change from the west. Lovely dinner with our friends Bob and Ulana, followed by an attempt to go to Shindig on the Green. We only got too hear a few groups before a rousing thunderstorm persuaded is that we should go home and eat Ulana's let lime pie before we drowned.

Decided to visit The Hermitage, Andrew Jackson's "farm". It's really a plantation, but he apparently called it a farm. We were happy to see some attempt to deal with his slave-holding. It wasn't glossed over or ignored. Jackson clearly bought into the whole manifest destiny thing, but it seems he was genuinely trying to do what he thought best for the country. It didn't make his ideas or actions re slavery or native Americans ok, of course, but at least it wasn't coming only from his own self interest. We're definitely "back east" and south  now. The mountains are green (though they still have big rocks :)) and there's even kudzu and y'all is definitely the proper plural for you.

The day started with exciting news: we can move into our new home on Aug. 10! Don't know yet if we can have our furniture delivered that day, but it'll be close! The porch won't be finished yet, but they're letting us go ahead and move in. OK: back to the regularly scheduled program. Started with a walking tour that was about the history of Nashville including, of course, important places related to country music but not limited to that. Women's suffrage passed by 1 vote after one state representative changed his vote to spruce it after being lobbied by his mother. Bike racks and bus stops have musical motifs. We visited both the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum and the new National Museum of African-American Music. The latter was dealing with the whole history of African-American music from slave times to the present. The Country Music museum was mostly about the headliners (and the wild costumes and sometimes instruments), but had a special exhibit about Boud...

Squeezed in another walking tour on Louisville before heading for Nashville. This one's purported to be about bourbon, and it was, but it was also savor history and architecture in the the downtown area. This city office building, for example, has heads of pigs, cows, horses and mules representing the city's agricultural past. You can see them over the windows in the photo.  Bourbon distilling really got started in the 1780's and eventually standards were established that define what can be called bourbon. These include that it must be at least 51% corn, and nothing in it other than corn, water, and other grains. It can't be more than 160 proof, and it must be aged in a new oak barrel (charred on the inside). No colors or flavorings can be added. Dinner tonight at an Uzbekistani restaurant. Yum!

Busy day! Started with an 8:30 tour of Churchill Downs. It was worth it! The house was a local who hasn't missed the Derby since he first week be when he was 16. We guess he's "our age"--knew all the basic stuff, but also lots of fun details. E.g., having a seat doesn't mean you can see the race--even those in expensive seats. The horses only run when they are three years old. Unfortunately, no horses were there before cause they're doing done renovations. All bets are in cash, and so are payouts. Next was a walking tour of historic Louisville. Lots of old mansions. Many were made into apartment buildings, but are being restore and returned to single family him homes. Most were mixed architectural styles--if Mrs. So-and-so wanted a turret, she got one whether it "fit" or not. There were also beautiful walking paths which many of the houses faced, so it was the back door that faced a street. Plus, Louisville dinner. This time pulled pork, properly coo...

Nice drive to Louisville (minimal traffic, trees!, more corn). Headed for the Kentucky Derby Museum, which turned out to be very interesting. Exhibits on all aspects of the derby and horse racing in general from people's fancy outfits (men, too), to the history of black, hispanic and female jockeys, to info about the horses themselves. Each rose in the blanket of roses is in its own little bottle of water (well, the real one that is) Dinner at the the Troll Pub (under a bridge, of course). We had to try the "hot brown". It's a Louisville tradition: an open face turkey sandwich with bacon and a cheesy sauce on top. Not exactly health food but it was yummy as was the local beer that washed it down!

Museum day. Made it to both the Indiana State Museum and The Eiteljorg Museum. The  Eiteljorg Museum is about both traditional and contemporary native American art, and western art in general. There was a new exhibit on humor in Native American art that i didn't expect to like much, but turned out to be good fun. I particularly like the belt in the photo--those are mouse traps rather than the usual conchos. The state museum was about the history, both natural and modern. My favorite here was a working model of how a mastadon's teeth worked as compared to a mammoth. Both are herbivores, but the mammoth ate grass so teeth needed to grind. The mastadon ate branches and leaves, so need sharper teeth that can cut off a mouthful. Finished with a nice visit and dinner with Bob.

Nice, relaxed morning with Mary, talking, doing laundry and for Mary and me, some fiddling. Then off to Indianapolis, but we were late enough that we didn't try to stop along the way. 

History day! Started with a walking tour around the loop about Chicago history. Saw everything from some iconic buildings such as the former Marshall Fields, the Palmer House, the Picasso sculpture, Chagall mosaic and Millennium Park. After a Chicago hotdog, we took an architectural tour on the river. Also really interesting. Maybe we'll even remember some of the info!

Started with a very nice outdoor museum about the pioneer times in Rockford, IL. It was interesting to see a slightly more urban view of the time period we'd been seeing father west. This was the end of the train when it was founded, so had all the modern amenities. What was disconcerting was that they were filming a WW2 film on the grounds, so there were all these soldiers in WW2 uniforms running around. Fabulous evening with our friend Mary. An actual, in-person jam session on the front porch! with the Chicago Spelmanslag preceded by a dinner of Chicago pizza and homemade beer brought by one of the musicians. Yum, and so nice to be playing again, and to meet these people in person that I'd mostly only met before on zoom.

Continuing with the quirky museums, this morning we visited the National Mustard Museum. It was fun to see how mustard is appreciated all over the world, how it varies--and see both a bunch of old ads and some funny stuff from the founder (whom we met). The mustard testing was fun as well, and (no surprise) some mustard is coming home with us. Then John and Patricia showed us around the university and downtown. It was chilly and rainy, but we didn't let that stop us. The museum were planning to visit turned out to be closed, but the capitol building was open and we climbed up to the observation deck. Even with the cloudy day, the views were nice. My favorite was the bronze badger only visible from the observation deck who may be threatening something, but may be doing something else!

Nice, relaxed day. It was hot and humid--I guess to get us ready for North Carolina-so hard to feel terribly energetic. Nice walk around the neighborhood which includes the botanic garden, then a potluck dinner with some friends of John and Patricia after which we all went to Tom Stoppard's "Rough Crossing". The theater was a lovely outdoor amphitheater, and the play was light and funny. Perfect for a summer evening. It didn't even rain on us, and the theater even provided bug spray.

Lovely drive though Amish country in southern Minnesota and Wisconsin. A little scary to have house-drawn carts and buggies sharing highways, but we managed. Yummy visits to two cheese factories and to an Amish farm where the wife makes candy. Now we know about cheese curds and cashew crunch/brittle.  We still don't get how cashew candy got to be an Amish thing, but clearly it is!

First stop today was the Spam museum--yes you read that right! First, though, we had to wait for the parade to pause so we could cross the street. The museum was fun and funny as well as interesting. I didn't know the origin was an entrepreneur's intention to find a safe way to can meat, serving a need initially for cheap meat during the depression and becoming even more useful during WWII. It's also got a better ingredients list than you'd think: the original had pork (shoulder and ham), salt, water, potato starch, sugar, and sodium nitrite. No high fructose corn syrup or unpronounceable chemicals. Second stop was the National Eagle Center, which is right on the banks of the Mississippi River. They have three balds eagles in residence. They can't be returned to the wild: one is blind and the other two have broken wings that didn't heal properly so they can't fly. Things I didn't know: bald eagles aren't exactly noble. They're opportunists who wi...

Final drive through The Badlands before heading east across the prairies. Stopped at The Corn Palace, an interesting and somewhat iconic place. It's used for sports and concerts, but it's the murals that are interesting. The outside ones are redesigned each year around a different theme and redone using 12 naturally occurring colors of corn, plus other grains and native grasses. Each year of corn is cut and stapled to the board individually. The new ones for this year haven't been done yet, so the picture is one of last year's. Then made out way to Sioux Falls, with enough time for museum visit. The Old Courthouse Museum didn't quite measure up--I guess we're spoiled by having seen so many excellent museums, small and large. Falls Park was interesting. First visited a small museum where we learned that the big stockyards don't exist anymore. The farmers sell their animals directly to the meat processors, eliminating the extra step of sending the animals to a...

Lots of hiking today. Spectacular rocks, of course, but the prairie is beautiful, too. Didn't get a picture, but the woolly verbena is happily blooming it's head off--gorgeous. Lots of fossils, too (though we only managed to spot the ones at the Visitor Center). In this area, we're talking 65 million years ago, so younger than the dinosaurs but older than the mammoths. We also visited an original sod house built and used by a homesteading family in the early 1900's. Super tough life--no wonder so many gave up. Not much wildlife today, but we saw more bighorn sheep and prairie dogs (including some white ones). Also, learned that I was right about the birds above our motel room door being swallows, but they're barn swallows, not cliff swallows. Dinner at the gas station/convenience store/diner down the road. Tonight was chicken fried steak. It was quite good, but if you want choices or veggies, forget it. You eat whatever Sue cooks that day. Plus, an evening program a...

Spent the morning at Custer State Park. Started with another lake hike, and then a drive that was supposed to offer wildlife viewing. Found two (female) bighorn sheep before we even started the"official" drive. They were in the road licking up some salt that apparently was still there from a snow on May 1. The coat looks so ragged because they are shedding some of it for the summer warm weather. We did see more bison and pronghorns as well. We also saw the "begging burros", feral descendents of burros that were once pack animals carrying tourists up Black Elk Peak Then a scenic drive through the Badlands. Amazing colors, and otherworldly landscape. Got to our motel in Interior (population 94)--there's a bird's nest over our door. You can only (barely) see two babies in the picture, but there are at least 4, maybe 5. We think they're cliff swallows, but aren't sure. We'll try to verify tomorrow (or if any of you reading this knows, please tell us)...