We started out from the house around 10am, so a rather short day really. Gave us plenty of time to clean up the house and get a start. We skipped breakfast and stopped in Evansville at Gerst Bavarian Hous German restaurant. I had read it was great and a friend even said it was great. I was pretty underwhelmed to be honest…their sausage sampler that I had high hopes for smelled like cheap hot dogs and 2 of the varieties tasted like the Eckrich packaged smoked sausage. So that was disappointing, but the pork knuckle was fantastic! It was sort of like a smoked turkey leg you’d get at the Renaissance fair. I think they are more known for their beer selection-they had 49 beers on tap.
Overall, it felt authentic German… but not like foodie German if that makes sense… There is a German restaurant-Schnitzelbank- in Jasper, Indiana that in my opinion is WAY better. If you need your German fix, I’d head there.
Next we drove through a town, I think it was Eldorado, IL that had an old “muffler man” style statue left over from the 1950s and 1960s. These were really iconic along Route 66 for service stations and auto parts (hence the name Muffler Men)… but this one is for Big John grocery stores. They are pretty rare these days- only 8 Big Johns remain around the country. Ironically, one is in Cape Coral, FL where we have a house! That Big John grocery is long since closed, but the Big John statue still stands in a shopping center.
Next we saw a sign for Garden of the Gods in Shawnee National Forest but we had never heard of this Garden of the Gods- only the big popular park out west… so a quick Google said we should go! So we did a quick detour and hike and it was well worth it! It was a quick 1/4 to 1/2 mile loop called The Observation Trail that I would recommend if you’re near the area.
The sandstone hoodoos are like a feature from out west. Very strange and cool geologic features for southern Illinois!
One spot the walkway was very narrow between two rocks.
The rocks had these really papery layers in places. Almost like laminated dough. I hadn’t seen that before. It was neat.
Kegan caught me by surprise for a photo- a rare occurrence for a vacation photo of me! Ha I had to post it 🙂
Next stop: Metropolis, Illinois – home of Superman and Lois Lane! Metropolis,IL has been around since the late 1800s, but in 1972 is was officially given the title Hometown of Superman.
There is a SuperMuseum there and a large comic themed gift shop.
We crossed from Illinois into Kentucky on a side street bridge because the interstate was stopped for construction. It was one of those 25 mile per hour bridges where the wavy road part feels like it’s trying to wreck you. Ha did not enjoy.
Our destination next was Paducah, Kentucky, a riverfront town found by William Clark (of Lewis and Clark expedition fame).
We stopped by the carved Indian head art piece of Chief Paduke who is said to be the namesake of the town by local lore. However, the Chickasaw tribe leaders say there was never any known chief by this name and that the Chickasaw don’t even have words for Paduke. Instead they think maybe William Clark named the town after a Spanish word for Comanche Indians “Padoucas”
Downtown was super cute and very revitalized. Horse and carriage rides, riverfront sidewalks for strolling, tons of new and trendy restaurants… I was surprised! I don’t think I had been to Paducah before.
The irony of the Tent &Awning company’s awning being in this shape…well, it deserved a photo. Ha
Paducah was an important river transport/ port town. Many barge companies had headquarters in Paducah because there were tons of dry dock facilities. Also, because of its proximity to Kentucky coal mines, it was an important railway hub for the Illinois Central railroad and was the main connection between St. Louis and Chicago to the Mississippi.
In 1937, there was a historic flood and water was 60 feet above normal level..this prompted the building of a flood wall by the US Army Corp of Engineers. The inside of this floors wall has been turned into an art installation of murals about the town’s history. They were really really cool.
The above mural was my favorite because of the realness of the Old photos being painted and the paint techniques for the borders in the teal color. Just a really well done panel.
After the mural we walked down a couple downtown streets and worked our way back to dinner.
Kegan used to do some environmental work around Paducah and had eaten at Doe’s Eat Place back then…and for years he has talked about their steak and wanting to go back. So…we made that happen for dinner!
We ordered the 2lb Bone-In Ribeye to share and while it was good…I didn’t think it was anything crazy good and Kegan agreed that either his memories were rosy or the quality just wasn’t there tonight. So both our stops today weren’t anything to really write home about…I hope that’s not a sign for the trip! Ha
We continued back on the road for another 3.5 hours to south Memphis, Tennessee where we stayed for the night. Tomorrow is Graceland, the Lorraine motel and Civil Rights Museum and a trek across Arkansas on I-40.
Hellllo to everyone who likely forgot they got emails from me when I put new posts on my blog. 🙂 ha It has been a WHILE since we’ve been able to go anywhere. For most people, it was COVID that has limited their travel ability…but for me it was a long client project I committed to for 2019-2020 (and then extended into 2021 with COVID)… so my travel moratorium was initially self-imposed…but then lengthened for the same reason as everyone else’s! I don’t know about you but I am DYING to go somewhere new! I have always loved travel, but these last 2 years have really proven to me that travel is a lifestyle…and I’m a much better person when I have a vacation to plan. ha I don’t know how it is for other people… but for me, just having a trip coming up on the horizon makes the monotonous or boring days go by so much easier knowing I’m working towards that goal. I’m sure for others its a hobby meet up or a quiet weekend where they can finally fish or read that novel they’ve been dying to read- but for me… its experiencing someplace new. For sure.
Life isn’t much different for us than a couple years ago… still live in the house in Freetown, its still a bit under construction (3 years later) but really close to being done. Norah completed 3rd grade this past year in online school and did really well- but she misses her friends and clubs at her school, so has she opted to go back in the fall. (Much to my dismay because I was REALLY hoping she wanted to keep doing online for my own selfish travel reasons! ha)
I just finished a couple client conversions from one medical record system to another…and I was looking forward to NOT working 50+ hours a week for the first time in 2 years starting with this road trip…and then last week I took on a new job role for an existing client running projects for their IT department. So, now I get to road trip and juggle work. Fun…but necessary.
Kegan has been very busy with his home remodel business. We haven’t done any advertising yet because with my work schedule and Norah’s school schedule, there are days he still has to be home to supervise her…and he’s staying plenty busy with word of mouth references! Just so far this year he’s completed 6 total bathroom renovations, a new kitchen, a whole house of new flooring and about 15 other projects. Sometime this year we’ll likely activate the Facebook feed and start actively marketing some of his before and after work. He’s on Instagram as @mckinneyhomeservices if you want to check out any of his stuff.
Our trip this summer is focused on the US- mostly because of COVID restrictions and too many unknowns leading up to the summer months, but also because Norah has never seen much of the US that she can remember. Most of our USA travel occurred either before she was born or when she was too little to remember. She barely remembers just tiny glimpses of our house in California or Florida…she remembers just a couple things about our house in Georgia before moving to Ireland. (She remembers Ireland ha) so this kid has seen way more of Europe that most adults, but nothing in the US. Her top things to see were: Grand Canyon, Mt Rushmore, Washington Monument and the Statue of Liberty. We’ll at least be knocking out 2 of those this trip.
We initially planned to do a full US road trip… but the more I planned it out, then more green flags I kept adding to Google Maps and I quickly realized that to do it justice there was just no way we could cover the whole country in two months without just hitting the highlights, and that’s just not how we roll! So, we revised our plan to break down the whole country into 4 road trips. One each summer. Up first this summer: The “Inner West”!
We’ll start out with a drive to Memphis- shoot across Arkansas,Oklahoma and Texas to really start diving into “the west”. Northern New Mexico and Arizona, all over Utah, a trip out to Vegas, a bit of Southern Idaho, a lot of Wyoming and South Dakota… and then a few days working our way back home via Minneapolis and A bit of Iowa.
Future trips (dates to be determined):
The “outer west” – West Texas, southern NM and AZ, California, Oregon, Washington, Montana, North Dakota, Wisconsin
The Northeast – Up through Michigan into Canada over to the Canadian side of Niagra Falls, Montreal, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania
The South – Starting in Washington, DC, down the coast into Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, ending in Texas and back home
Not sure of the order of these yet, basically depends on if after this month of travel (we’ll be gone 24 days for this trip) we want MORE of the west or if we’re ready to switch it up for another side of the US.
So, now would be the time to unsubscribe from emails or alerts if you don’t want them as we are headed out and I’ll be posting almost every day so I can record everything we are doing. I anticipate a lot of landscapes and photo ops with various “Americana” – world’s largest wooden nickels and things like that. 🙂 Lots of food photos because we have scoped out meals in about every town we are staying in…not much to note on the hotels though. One of the reasons we could plan this is because with all of the client travel I did pre-Covid, I was staying at a Holiday Inn in a small town in Missouri. By getting the Holiday Inn credit card that had some huge “first 12 months” bonuses- I racked up CRAZY hotel points, and we were able to book EVERY NIGHT for free for the entire trip plus a week coming up this fall in Times Square in Manhattan… and STILL have enough for the next summer trip (once I make sure they don’t expire before then!) So, while it doesn’t thrill me that we are staying in 21 different Holiday Inns across the country… you just can’t beat FREE. A very rare opportunity that I do not take for granted that we have the ability to do. So by driving our own car and having free hotel- the cost for this month long trip is literally gas, food, admission to attractions and the sunk cost of wear and tear on the vehicle. Plus whatever USA souvenirs I come home with. I’m sure there will be a few. We’re giving Norah her own “souvenir budget” as well. She got cash to start in a little pouch and she has to budget and figure out how bad she wants something along the way. Economics is cruel but so is life. ha Maybe we can squeak out a life lesson or two on this trip 🙂
I’ve been planning this trip since February. I knew if we were going out west, that I would need to be on my game. We knew we wouldn’t be the only family with an idea for a go-west road trip in this year of COVID. I knew the national parks would be one of the last places to ease restrictions and there would likely be limits to entry and hotels would be hard to book if I didn’t do it early. I had all hotels booked by the beginning of March and still struggled to find a room at Yellowstone for July! Zion National Park was limiting entries into most of the park if you didn’t have a shuttle pass, but they stopped that just a couple weeks before we had to compete for a pass. I’m really going to have to work on my zen some of these places. haha We’ll see how I do with the crowds and completely unaware and obnoxious tourists.
I stalked the dining reservations for a couple restaurants for the exact day the reservations popped open for the day we could dine and had a recurring calendar reminder twice weekly to remind me to check in on a couple things that still werent open- like Las Vegas shows and Navajo Reservation Parks like Monument Valley and Antelope Canyon.
All in all, I’d say about 120 hours went into just planning and research for this trip. I hope its an amazing time to remember. 🙂 (and I hope I didn’t miss planning to see anything along the way!)
I was going to rent an SUV for the trip…but as its the year of the summer road trip… I found rental prices to be ridiculous so we prepared our chariot. ha
The 2014 Honda Pilot will be our carriage. When we bought it, I said I was driving it until it broke down…then I was fixing her again and driving her some more. ha It currently has 120,000 miles but I still enjoy driving it and its pretty comfortable. I think it’ll do fine..but you never know. We at least have the option that if it does break down, to leave it somewhere to be repaired for a couple weeks and rent a car at that time to continue our road trip, circling back at some later point. (We’ll deal with that- hopefully unlikely scenario- if we have to).
She got a full service inspection and an interior cleaning and I researched how to best outfit an SUV for a month long trip to keep things within reach and somewhat short of disaster two days down the road.
I bought seat back organizers for both of the backseats with built in USB ports and tray tables as my mother will be joining us for 7 days of the trip, meeting us in Salt Lake City and leaving in South Dakota. Even if we had a rhythm of where things went and which electronics charged where, adding another adult to the mix two weeks into the trip might mess it all up, so now she has her own space and charging spots!
Also bought a backseat middle seat organizer for all of our snacks. Front seat “crack” fillers since I always have my phone slide off my lap and into the abyss under the seat. It’s been a joke for a while. All of a sudden you’ll just hear it *clunk clunk* on all the seat parts on the way down. “Byebye, phone…” lol
Also, a cargo area organizer for the things we likely wont need much but need to take anyway: Binoculars, bug spray, a battery jumper, first aid kit, etc.
But really, the Pièce de résistance is the Apple TV I managed to rig up in the rear. The Honda has a rear entertainment system because it was FANCY back in 2014. lol But, it was 2014… so it only has RCA cable inputs. But my friend Amazon had this HDMI to RCA adapter setup… and luckily, there is a full 110v outlet in the console- allowing Norah to have the entirety of the world on the TV as long as we have Verizon internet reception! I also had a nice pair of comfy over the ear headphones with a long cord that I used to use at my desk that will allow us to listen to music up front or just talk without being subjected to whatever YouTube ridiculousness she decides to stream in the back. ha
For me, in the front- since I will likely have to do some work here and there while driving in between towns-or at a minimum catching up on my blog post that I fell asleep without finishing the night before- I bought a cigarette adapter power converter and mounted it on the front passenger area for plugging in my phone and my laptop. High tech fancy. The car can now charge 11 devices via USB while powering a laptop and an Apple TV. Rolling space station! ha
I’m excited to hit the road and excited to share all of our finds along the way! Thanks for following our caravan!
We started our day across the street in St. Augustine at City Bistro Coffee and Tea House. Fancy breakfast.We headed on down the coast down Anastasia Island past the lighthouse and drove south towards Daytona around Flagler Beach area to Washington Oaks State Park to see the Coquina “beach caves” which were really just rocks that have been weathered in the beach
After we saw the rocks, we decided this beach was an awesome place to lay out and swim for a bit. The sand was white and powdery, it was almost empty and the water was so shallow it was perfect for Norah to play in.
You know that meme about the Irish girl sunbathing?
Yeah, we have one of those, too! Haha laying completely under her towel!
We had a three hour drive after that to our hotel in Jupiter and we just grabbed some pretty terrible Mexican food down the street and called it an early night. We watched a History channel show on DB Cooper that I was totally into because they made it out like they had some real info and the FBI was making an announcement … But I should have known better. Just wasted 3 hours of my life believing the History channel might actually have something real to offer.
Norah quickly settled into her bed for the evening. Lol
The next morning we woke up early and headed on down to Sailfish Marina to take the water taxi to Peanut Island but when we arrived the water taxi wasn’t running for the day. So they directed us to Riviera Beach marina… And after wandering around and finally finding the water taxi that started at 10am according to the sign…and then waiting until 10:20…. And then calling Captain Joe… He informed us that the Kennedy Bunker we were going to see was closed until Thursday. Sigh.
So, we’ll try again Thursday.
We headed on south to Homestead to visit the Coral Castle. An eccentric man named Ed Leedskalnin built this over 28 years supposedly after being turned down by his young love back in Latvia. He never shared his methods for how he built it with anyone but he would give everyone tours of his creation.
There were stones that weigh up to 30 tons and a 9 ton gate that would turn so easy that it was said a child could turn it with one finger.
Since we were close and ahead of schedule, we decided to head down to Key Largo and have some proper Key Lime pie and conch fritters… And we found them at Hobo’s Cafe.
When they brought the dessert tray around Norah got super excited about the idea of Oreo cheesecake so I let her order it (a move I would come to regret for the evening as she bounced all over the walls and was just a little jerk haha)we checked into our hotel in Miami and took a little cheesecake reset nappy nap…
Once it got dark we headed out to check out the South Beach Tuesday night nightlife but on the way I wanted to swing by the Holocaust Memorial in South Miami. What an incredible monument and amazing tribute to the millions of people who died in the Holocaust. A very moving and sickening metal sculpture that was by far better than any other monument I’ve ever seen.
After that sobering experience we drove Collins Ave and Ocean Drive to check out the Art Deco buildings and neon lights.Keeping with the Art Deco theme, we decided to eat at the fanciest Art Deco themed restaurant of them all- Checkers. haha Mostly because it was too late to eat anywhere else and Ciara had never had their French fries. She was a big fan. But Irish people…Potatoes…it’s kind of a thing. Haha
We started our day from our hotel. If you come to St Augustine, don’t stay at the Magnuson Hotel if you have other options. We aren’t having great hotel luck this trip. Breakfast wasn’t even edible, beds were old and hard and they make the habit of leaving the AC completely off when the room isn’t rented making it really musty and moldy since its Florida in the summer. Come on. Anyway… We opted for the Hop on Hop off trolley through town because it was HOT today. Id like to blame it on traveling with a three year old… Or with a delicate Irish gal… But it’s mostly because of me. Ha but I think everyone was happy by the end because we squeezed two days of sightseeing into one day! Yay free schedule day tomorrow 🙂
Our first stop was the old jail in town. It’s been a tourist attraction since the 1950s but was town jail from the 1890s, built by Henry Flagler here outside of the main part of town because he wanted the land the original jail stood on to build his Ponce De Leon hotel that we went by in the afternoon. (More about Henry Flagler and the Ponce De Leon hotel further along.)
There was a kitchy little gift shop and free town museum we walked through.
The gallows behind the jail. They said the jail performed 8 executions but I’m not sure if they were all hangings… Or if they were in the electric chair.
We walked out of our way to walk down this beautiful magnolia lined street to find it under construction. Ha Not quite as picturesque with the orange cones all the way down both sides.
Magnolia Way led us down to the Fountain of Youth
We first visited the Fountain of Juice espresso and juice bar across the street. They had this old school desk And Norah wanted me to give her math problems. Nerd alert.
We paid our admission to the Fountain of Youth. They had some beautiful peacocks on the property including an albino peacock.
Next we came to the famed Fountain. Legend has it, that Juan Ponce De Leon discovered Florida while searching for the Fountain of Youth… Although there is absolutely no fact or record to support this.
Ponce De Leon sailed with Chrisopher Columbus to the New World in 1492 when he “discovered America.” He then sailed with another explorer when they returned to Hispaniola.
During that trip he received basically a free conquering pass from King Ferdinand of Spain to explore north of the Indies and claim anything he found and govern it for life in the name of the King for a period of 3 years as a thank you for all of the massacres he helped to carry out.
So, supposedly this spot marks where PDL’s crew came ashore- although there is really no record of that either! Haha but either way, somehow some very smart guy started charging people to drink from this fountain/spring.
So, how could you not??
This site is also the site of the oldest mission in the US, this is just a replica, not even in the right spot. Haha again- so typical. Hawe next got on the trolley and got off at the Old City Gates and walked down the pedestrian St George’s street. Again these aren’t the real city gates- the originals were wooden. These are replicas. After a major attack by British Governor James Moore in 1702 (I think) and the burning of their town to the ground twice, the people of St Augustine decided they needed a defensive wall . And original stood into the 1800s, but now only a couple rebuilt sections exist made out of “coquina” which is sort of a shell concrete mix. Or fossilized shells according to our tour guide on the trolley. The geologist among us was not happy with that inaccuracy. Haha
We walked past the oldest wooden schoolhouse. Not to be confused with the actual oldest schoolhouse which is somewhere in New York… But of wooden ones, this is the oldest. Seems like a technicality… British burned the city in 1702, tax records show it in 1716- so it was constructed somewhere in that range.
We stopped into Taberno de Caballo at 37 St George’s Street. Kegan and I had steak sandwiches and Ciara had a Cuban sandwich.
Next, we stopped by a little stand where a lady was doing silhouettes the old Victorian way by cutting paper by hand from just looking at the subject-the way it would have been done before there were photographs. Norah did a pretty good job sitting still for her.Next we crossed the street to the inpenatrible Castillo de San Marcos. The oldest masonry fort in the US. During that afore mentioned British attack in 1702, over 1500 townspeople took refuge in this fort, Governer Moore hit the fort for like 50 days with canons to no avail. As he was running out of supplies, they spied the arriving French or additional Spanish ships on the horizon coming to assist St Augustine and in a fit of rage at his defeat, his men retreated, setting everything on fire as they left as one final good British farewell. Due to the defeat, James Moore lost his governorship but still managed to keep killing the Spanish by making a life raiding Spanish mission towns in Florida and slaughtering people.
I’d like to pretend the British were just in the wrong, but like 2 years later the Spanish marched up to Castletown and tried to attack Gov. Moore’s town and take it and we’re also unsuccessful- so it’s all really just one giant chess match.
After the fort, we were waiting on the trolley and spotted The Hyppo, a gourmet Popsicle shop. I had Blackberry Clove, Norah had Banilla Vanana , Ciara had Pina Colada and Kegan had Horchata. They were very nice on a scorcher of a day.
Rode along the trolley towards the south side of town passing a few interesting landmarks.
The Flagler Memorial Presbytarian church which Henry Flagler had built in memory of his daughter who died from childbirth complications. He is buried here as well alongside his first wife.
After seeing what Flagler built for the Presbytarians, the Baptists wanted him to build them a church, too- naturally. They asked Henry Flagler, he declined but did make them an offer to give them a parcel a land to build a church on with funds they raised themselves with one condition- it could not have a bell. (He lived just a bit away and didn’t want to hear it ha) to this day, the Ancient City Baptist Church has no bell.
We got off the trolley at Villa Zorayda. A very ornate replica of the Alhambra palace in Grenada, Spain. It was built by an eccentric millionaire Franklin Smith from Boston who wanted to use it for his winter home. It was the first building made of the concrete coquina mixture that almost everything after in St Augustine was constructed from as Frankin Smith pioneered this technology. The inside has alabaster walls with exact carved replicas of the walls of the Alhambra palace and amazingly intricate pierced brass lamps from Damascus and other far off places. Not a lot of photos because the lady told me I couldn’t photograph inside, but I’m a rebel. Ha
After that, we crossed the street to the Lightner Museum. Originally this building was built by Flagler for extremely wealthy snowbirds as the Hotel Alcazar but it closed in 1932. In 1947, Otto C Lightner bought it to house his enormous collection of Victorian era treasures and handed it over to the State. It is now known as the little Smithsonian. We didn’t go inside, just looked around the grounds and checked out Cafe Alcazer which is located at the bottom of a swimming pool.
Where this cafe now stands used to be the largest and deepest indoor swimming pool at over 12 feet deep.
We walked across the street to Flagler college, the former Ponce De Leon hotel. If I understood the tour guide correctly, if you would have been invited by Henry Flagler to his amazing hotel, you would have traveled down the railway for the entire season- December through February and you would have paid $9,000 up front for the season, the equivalent of over $250,000 in today’s money.
There were Tiffany Windows all over the building, totalling over $130 million in today’s value.
We rode the trolley back towards our hotel and discovered some history I didn’t know. Martin Lither King Jr. stayed in this house in the sixties, invited by the lady who lived here. She still lives in this house at 94 years old.This is THE Woolworth’s store made famous for their sit in during the civil rights movement. Some black teens decided to go sit at the white’s only counter which pissed off the restaurant staff and the police were called. They arrested around sixteen individuals but the police offered to let the teens go to the parents as long as they would sign a contract to not participate in any more protests until they were 21. Only four families refused to sign and they became known as the St Augustine Four. These poor teens were all sent to correctional facilities and people were outraged. St Augustine has an MLK Boulevard and it’s one of only 2 MLK streets in the country that Dr. King actually marched down. The other is in Atlanta.The Whoolworth’s is now a Wells Fargo but they’ve added a fake counter back to to commemorate. The actual counter is now on display at the Smithsonian.
We ended with dinner at Mojo BBQ which was pretty good stuff!
Friday was just a pretty standard Disney day, so not much to tell although we did get to evacuate our stellar hotel for a fire alarm that wouldn’t stop at 3am. Norah can sleep anywhere though. Ha
We drove over to the Magic Kingdom, rode tons of rides and met lots of princesses. It was Norah’s best day ever. Ha
She was asleep before we got out of the park! HaDinner was uneventful, some carry out sushi from a little place called Sushiology
Saturday was our random Orlando day. We didn’t buy another ticket to Disney but needed to kill time in Orlando until Ciara’s flight landed at 6:30. Scratch that: 8:30pm. Delays. Lol
Sent Miss Norah to the pool first thing in her “mermaid” bathing suit. Little diva
After that, we had to check out of our hotel room, but we still could go use our movie passes and arcade credits. We watched Angry Birds and Thomas the Train in 4D, played arcade games like an animal and then finished with a few rounds of Batman laser challenge.
After we left the hotel, we played Pirate mini golf off of International Drive.
Finally, we ended at Orlando and Norah met her friend Ciara… And pretty much hasn’t let go of her hand since. So glad she came over to visit Norah. Ha
We drove two hours to St Augustine so we could have a full day of tourist stops tomorrow.
