TravelStream™ news feed for member mksquared on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/mksquared en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Sun, 31 May 2009 10:30:46 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mksquared/2/1243736520/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mksquared/2/1243736520/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mksquared/2/1243736520/tpod.html Sun, 31 May 2009 10:30:46 -0400 Beaches and City Blocks: Myrtle Beach and Savannah 2009

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North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, United States

This morning Mom and I walked down to s bicycle rental shop
and rented bikes to take to the beach. We thought this was a fabulous idea.
What could be better than riding along beside the ocean on a beautiful day?
Turns out, riding a bike on the beach is a whole lot harder than it looks. We
rode about four miles before we had to give up. It was fun, but exhausting!



This afternoon, Matthew, Dad and I went to the hotel's lazy
river, which is really just a shallow swimming pool with a current flowing
through it. We floated along in inner tubes for awhile while Mom slept
upstairs.



Tonight we went to the Carolina Opry. It was an impressive
show. All the songs sounded almost exactly like the actual recordings. There
were also tap dancers, who were pretty cool.



More soon,

Kelsey



Today's listening selections:

Raising Sand;
Alison Krauss and Robert Plant. This stuff is pretty rock-ish, but I like Alison Krauss.

Shaken by a Low Sound;
Crooked Still. So cool! They do lots
of neato chopping stuff.

Angeline the Baker;
Brad Phillips and Jeremy Garrett. Some of the best "twiddling" (twin fiddling)
I've ever heard.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mksquared/2/1243650960/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mksquared/2/1243650960/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mksquared/2/1243650960/tpod.html Fri, 29 May 2009 22:49:06 -0400 Beaches and City Blocks: Myrtle Beach and Savannah 2009

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North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, United States

This morning we headed out to town to buy tickets to the Carolina Opry. There was a fiddle
player in on the brochure, so I am hopeful of its quality. Myrtle Beach is similar to Pigeon Forge, with lots of theatres
run by retired entertainers.



Matthew said the one thing he wanted to do while we were
here was to play putt-putt in the golf
capital of the world. There is no shortage of places to do that, so,
naturally, we chose the site with a big airplane and helicopter. One hole in,
it started pouring. We ran back to the ticket counter and watched some blue goldfish
swim around in blue tinted water. The storm quickly passed, and Dad went on to
shame us all in the end. I did get a hole-in-one, though, so that constitutes a
successful game in my book.



Tonight after dinner we went to a show called "Good
Vibrations: Music of the 60's, 70's, and 80's". It was an hour and a half of
nonstop hippie music.



We are still having computer trouble, but I will get some
pictures uploaded as soon as possible.



May a bird of paradise fly up your nose,

Kelsey



Today's listening selections:

No Other Way; Mountain Heart. Adam Steffey is probably
my favorite mandolinist. He plays with Dan
Tyminski (the "man of
constant sorrow") now. Mountain Heart's fiddler, Jim Van Cleve, is pretty cool,
too.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mksquared/2/1243561020/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mksquared/2/1243561020/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mksquared/2/1243561020/tpod.html Fri, 29 May 2009 17:19:34 -0400 Beaches and City Blocks: Myrtle Beach and Savannah 2009

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North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, United States

Greetings from a beach that is not in Florida! Who knew such a thing existed? We are in North Myrtle Beach, SC, just north (imagine that) of the more famous Myrtle Beach. I'm pretty sure this town hit it's heyday about ten years ago. There are a bunch of chipped-paint condominiums, neon-lit bargain souvenir stores, and a miniature golf course about every block. But the weather is nice and the streets aren't crowded. The humidity here is about 150%. My glasses fog up when I walk outside.



The thermostat in our hotel room was set to 40 when we first walked in this afternoon. We opened all the doors to air the place out, and in no time at all, every surface was covered in condensation. We had to wipe everything with towels before going out to dinner.



We went down to the beach after dinner tonight. The sand is very fine, and hard packed near the ocean. Matthew and I burned some steam racing down the shore after sleeping through about eight hours of our nine hour car ride.



There are three elevators in our hotel, and each has its own unique stench. From sulfur to dead fish, we've smelled it all.
Our internet access is a little flakey to say the least, so we will attempt to upload some photos tomorrow.



Thanks for tuning in,

Kelsey



Today's listening selections:

Wires and Wood; Johnny Staats. Johnny Staats is the UPS driver and awesome mandolin player that no one has ever heard of. If you dig Sam Bush, check him out.

Lonesome Whistle Railroad Blues; Stuart Duncan, Ronnie McCoury, and others. I don't know where this cd came from, but I'd listen to Stuart Duncan all day long.

Handel Violin Sonatas; Rachel Barton. I feel very accomplished listening to pieces I've actually played.

Rest My Weary Feet; Becky Buller. I love her.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mksquared/1/1214102040/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mksquared/1/1214102040/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mksquared/1/1214102040/tpod.html Tue, 24 Jun 2008 01:12:49 -0400 The Pacific NW "Cheerios for Supper" Family Tour

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Seattle, Washington, United States

Today's blogger: Kory
Today's photos: Kory and Kelsey and Matthew

I typed a very lovely entry for this day and managed to lose my web connection before it updated. So here's a more succinct review of our day:

Pike Place Market - a great place to visit, but extremely crowded on the weekends, as some locals forewarned us. We're going back on Monday. Gorgeous flowers and produce, lots of arts/crafts/flea market and touristy type wares, too.

Olympic Sculpture Park - enjoyed art and the outdoor and bay area at the same time.

Rode the Monorail to Seattle Center, site of the 1962 World's Fair. Lots of museums and performance venues are now located there. We went to the Experience Music Project and the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame, museums that are co-located in one very unique looking building. Kelsey and Matthew both learned to play the bass line of "Louie Louie," although Kelsey was quite disappointed they didn't offer a similar experience on the banjo.

Only Matthew and I did the SciFi museum - I thought my own enthusiasm would not be that great, but it turned out that it's not just about scifi movies, but about scifi books, too, and actually I read a fair number of those in my younger days. (Anybody out there used to read OMNI magazine? It certainly helped develop my love of short stories.) Andre Norton, the scifi writer who lived in Murfreesboro for many years prior to her death in 2005, is a member of the Hall of Fame - right there with Asimov, Clarke, George Lucas, Rod Serling, and many more.

Even Matthew said his feet were tired tonight, and once we dragged back to the hotel, I was qutie content to stay in and have leftovers for supper!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mksquared/1/1213924860/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mksquared/1/1213924860/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mksquared/1/1213924860/tpod.html Sat, 21 Jun 2008 23:24:14 -0400 The Pacific NW "Cheerios for Supper" Family Tour

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Seattle, Washington, United States

Today's blogger: Kory
Today's photog: Kelsey and Kory

We took our time driving south to Seattle today, including a few false moves around Everett, where we unsuccessfully looked for some antique shops. Once in Seattle, we found our hotel, the MarQueen, with no problems. We drove around the city just a bit to get our bearings, then checked in.

The MarQueen was built in 1918 as housing for Ford Model-T blacksmiths. Later it was used as apartments. Our suite has high ceilings and hardwood floors, a tiny reading room, a bedroom, bath, and kitchen. It appears - from the old cabinetry and fixtures - that a lot is original, although Mike and I have wondered if some walls have been moved/removed.

Anyway, we are delighted to be here, with a little more room to spread out and call home for 5 days, and, after a string of Comfort Suites (which we've been very pleased with, but are pretty much all the same), some individuality. Mike returned the rental car this afternoon while we explored the neighborhood: a used book store, a music store, and a fantastic grocery store all within one block! We're quite happy. If I said I wasn't a city girl before, I might be abour ready to take it back.

Total miles we racked up on the rental car in two weeks: 1,908 - a lot of them on bumper-to-bumper interstate and 2 lane highways!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mksquared/1/1214013540/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mksquared/1/1214013540/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mksquared/1/1214013540/tpod.html Sat, 21 Jun 2008 23:11:26 -0400 The Pacific NW "Cheerios for Supper" Family Tour

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Seattle, Washington, United States

Today's blogger: Kory
Today's photog: Kory and Matthew

The sun shone today in Seattle, on this first day of summer, and we took full advantage of it. First we caught a bus to Pioneer Square, which is the old business district of Seattle and now houses a lot of shops, restaurants, etc. We took an Underground Tour, in which we learned of Seattle's early history - and how the Underground developed when a big fire wiped out the city and rebuilding occured on 2 levels at once: merchants rebuilt at the original ground level while the city rebuilt streets a level higher, due to previous problems with tides and drainage. So there was literally a BIG stepdown from the street to the storefronts below - and unwilling to spend money for stairs, merchants put out ladders for customers to use. As streets were completed, the city eventually added sidewalks at the street level, so an entire level of merchants' stores became the underground. Although the area was condemned in the early 1900s, restoration started many years ago. So you can not only tour the underground, there's also new development/reuse going on down there. The tour was really fun and interesting.

After going as low as we could go in Seattle, we then headed up: up the hill to the Columbia Center (also known as the Bank of America Tower), which is the tallest building in Seattle and I think one of the tallest on the West Coast. It has an observation area, and from there we saw (drumroll, please), in all its massive glory, the elusive Mt. Ranier. Wow! The other views weren't bad either, and with the sky so blue and the air so warm, we decided we'd be fools not to go ahead and work in a harbor cruise. So, we headed down to the pier and caught a cruise so we could admire the skyline from another perspective. While this guided tour wasn't quite as funny and interesting as the Underground tour, we still enjoyed it - and we actually got a smidgen of sunburn from sitting on the top deck of the boat.

In between these activities, we hit the Seattle public library (here's a newspaper article about the building), which is an amazing structure and facility, although I have to admit that some of the views from one level to the next gave me a bit of vertigo. But then, I'd already been riding escalators at the Columbia Tower, and this small town girl has a real phobia of down escalators. We had crepes for lunch - delicious! On the way home, in rush hour, we had bus assistance from a nice young man who I preyed on (it turned out he was from Arkansas). We had boarded an "express," so we had to be very careful to get off before it expressed on out past our hotel and to the suburbs. When he wasn't explaining things to me, we also had the chatty assistance of a very friendly, probably homeless couple who said we could come stay with them if we missed our stop.

It was a very full, very beautiful day in Seattle. Tonight Kelsey and I went to the grocery deli for some roasted meat and vegies while the guys ate Rice Krispies. We are quite content to lay around tonight and rest our weary legs. Seattle has quite a few hills - I said that if I lived here, I would be a skinny woman!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mksquared/1/1213834380/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mksquared/1/1213834380/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mksquared/1/1213834380/tpod.html Fri, 20 Jun 2008 21:01:03 -0400 The Pacific NW "Cheerios for Supper" Family Tour

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Bellingham, Washington, United States

Today's blogger: Kory
Today's photog: Kory

Today was a purposefully laid back day, a rest between all the driving and before we hit Seattle. We found the perfect place to be laid back: Fairhaven, a small town (or neighborhood? I'm not sure if it's officially a town, or part of Bellingham) on the south side of Bellingham.

The business/downtown district of Fairhaven takes up just a few blocks, but it has TWO count 'em, TWO bookstores, a couple of pottery shops, a fine woodworking shop, a glass shop, etc. - and every other building seemed to house a cafe. A few blocks down is a port where people can catch a ferry to Alaska, the San Juan Islands, or Victoria.

It turned out that the Farmers Market is in Fairhaven on Wednesday afternoons, so we hung around to see what the locals had to offer. It was a gorgeous day, so this wasn't hard to do. Although the market is on the small side, on a grassy public square/park where outdoor movies are shown, we weren't disappoinnted: our eyes feasted on beautiful lettuce, radishes, broccoli, and flowers, and we made a lunch from local vendors who offered coffee, fresh milk, pretzels and croissants, shortbread cookies, and more. We also met an area artist named Jesse (whose last name escapes me at the moment) and enjoyed talking to her. More about her another time, but she was a kindred spirit and a delightful person. I got a few block print goodies from her. At the bookstore I got a CD by an Alaskan poet/fiddler Ken Waldman - not something I was likely to find in TN.

We also drove around the Fairhaven residential areas, and found a lovely house, about the size of ours, with a stunning view of the water. Of course their prices were more than twice what ours would be. I wonder if they'd be interested in trading?

We also made a stop especially for Mike...it turns out that Grizzly Industrial, which makes all sorts of woodworking and machine equipment, is headquartered in Bellingham. So we went on a most purposeful industrial tour to visit their showroom. I've never seen so much equipment in one place! Plus, it turns out the president of Grizzly likes to build guitars, so they also have kits and supplies for luthiers. I think Kelsey and Mike may try to build a mandolin from one of their kits.

We spent the afternoon washing clothes, swimming, and eating up the leftovers in our little fridge. And I got us repacked and reorganized, since tomorrow we'll be turning in the car after we get to Seattle.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mksquared/1/1213672620/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mksquared/1/1213672620/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mksquared/1/1213672620/tpod.html Thu, 19 Jun 2008 02:10:39 -0400 The Pacific NW "Cheerios for Supper" Family Tour

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Bellingham, Washington, United States

Today's blogger: just a few quick comments from Kory. I'm hoping Kelsey will add her comments soon.

Today's photog: Kory

We left Leavenworth under a clear blue sky this morning and headed back towards the west coast on Highway 2, a different route than we took yesterday. At Stevens Pass, elevation approximately 4,000 feet, there was still snow on the side of the road. Of course we had to stop like idiots on the side of the road and take some pictures.
Highway 2 was very slow going. In addition to it being mostly 2 lane and of course mountainous, there were several construction zones that were down to one lane. We enjoyed the views but thought we would never get back to I-5, which we took north toward Bellingham. On the way, with my trusty guidebook in hand, we took a couple of detours to try to find apples, because we're in apple country now. Well, my trusty guidebook didn't say WHEN the apples are in season up here, and the orchards (one of which we went quite a few miles out of the way for) were closed. I know this sounds like the idiot thing could be in effect again, but I had expected something like some of the orchards in north Georgia, which have some apples and apple-related products year-round. In fact, my mouth was watering at the thought of a warm apple fritter. But no such luck on these that we tried today.

We FINALLY got to Bellingham this afternoon, rested a while, then headed up a highway due north to Lynden, a small town which is only a few miles from the Canadian border. Lynden's early settlers included some Dutch families, and their new AND old architecture reflects that - plus we saw a lot of Dutch names on the signs of attorney's offices, etc. Most of downtown Lynden, which was very charming, rolled up the sidewalks at 5, but some locals sent us to a cafe that had some of the best egg salad and potato salad I'd ever eaten - along with a waitress who seemed quite impressed that we were visiting from Tennessee.

All day we had been getting glimpses of yet another high WA peak - Mt. Baker. On the way back from Lynden tonight, I got a pretty good photo, although of course there's a cloud partially obstructing the view.

Tomorrow we're off to Canada once more - this time to Vancouver.

]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mksquared/1/1213755720/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mksquared/1/1213755720/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mksquared/1/1213755720/tpod.html Thu, 19 Jun 2008 02:09:31 -0400 The Pacific NW "Cheerios for Supper" Family Tour

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Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Today's blogger: Kory
Today's photog: Matthew, Kory and Mike

I figured this would happen sometime on the trip, but day 13 was a hard one for me. Living in a motel room with 3 other people is catching up with me. Navigating big cities is catching up with me, too. I told my family today that if I've learned anything from this trip, it's that I'm a small town girl. Not that all of the bigger cities on this trip haven't been enjoyable places to visit. They have. But when we caught sight of the Vancouver skyline today, I thought, "what have we done?" Vancouver is not that much bigger than Seattle, according to some web stats I checked, but the mass of skyscrapers downtown makes it seem bigger.

To its credit, Vancouver traffic downtown wasn't too bad, and between the map and good road markings, we made our way to Stanley Park without much difficulty. But the freeways around Vancouver are rather narrow laned and not very many lanes, so that part of the trip was very congested, both morning and afternoon.

Stanley Park is the 3rd largest park in North America. (I don't know what #1 and #2 are - I've meant to look that up, but that's your assignment.) There, along with every Vancouver school child under the age of 8 (we said that DisneyWorld wouldn't be as crowded), we visited the Vancouver Aquarium, which has a lot of the aquatic life indigenous to the area, plus a tropical rain forest area and other features. A baby beluga whale was just born there about a week ago, so that was all the excitement there. People were waiting in line for an hour to see her with her mother, but we took a top-of-the-tank view with little wait. The cutest things there were the sea otters, which as Kelsey said, had the cutest expressions. Unfortunately they were so popular that it was hard to get close enough for a good photo. But we sure did enjoy watching them, and Matthew has developed a swimming pool routine in which he mimics them. He's almost as cute as they are.

As aquariums go, the Vancouver Aquarium was not a disappointment, and I'm glad we learned something about Pacific NW aquatic life, but I'd rate Chattanooga's aquarium higher. Chattanooga definitely has the "wow" factor when you walk into the area that has the huge floor to ceiling viewing windows of the large tank. Vancouver's aquarium doesn't compare with that.

After the Aquarium, we set off to catch a Stanley Park trolley to take us around to other stops in the park. We were able to see a great view of the Vancouver skyline, a totem pole display, walk on the sea wall, etc. It started raining, so we didn't get on and off the trolley quite as much as we originally planned, but we still got a good feel for the park.

When we left Stanley Park, we intended to visit an old part of Vancouver called Gas Town, but we had some traffic challenges and decided just to get the heck out of Dodge, so to speak. It took us almost an hour just to get back to the freeway. Once we cleared the Vancouver area, though, it was smooth sailing back to the US and through customs (very quick for us today).

]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mksquared/1/1213584480/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mksquared/1/1213584480/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mksquared/1/1213584480/tpod.html Tue, 17 Jun 2008 01:48:46 -0400 The Pacific NW "Cheerios for Supper" Family Tour

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Leavenworth, Washington, United States

Today's blogger: SHOULD be Kelsey, since she's the one who knows some German, and Leavenworth is a German-themed town. However, she hasn't done it yet, so her mother is at least going to post a few photos.

Today's photog: Kory

We left the Bellevue (east of Seattle) area today and drove about 130 miles, through the Cascades, to Leavenworth, where it was actually hot. We didn't see a temperature sign, but it must've been about 80.

Leavenworth is off the beaten path and was a dying town in the 60s, when it decided to take on the German theme to attract tourism. Clearly that has paid off for the town, although, as I'm writing this a day later, we've also visited the Dutch-influenced town of Lynden, and I liked Lynden better (more authentically influenced, it seems). Although that's not knocking Leavenworth - it's still charming, and has clearly embraced its mission fully.
We had a German meal of things I can't spell and Matthew mostly wouldn't eat, but hey, we tried it. Matthew was thrilled to find an arcade and mini-golf place next to our hotel; we didn't do mini-golf, but we did play several games of pool. Of course Mike made us all look bad. Actually, we all are pretty bad, except Mike, but it was still fun.

Oh, and before we left Bellevue this morning, in the blazing sun, guess what we could see from our hotel balcony? The gleaming white tip-top of Mt. Ranier! We're still hoping for a fuller view, but it looks like cloudy days are coming our way again soon.

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