Glass and Water

 These are glass art by Chihuly in a fountain in front of the William J Clinton Presidential Center. . There is a large Chihuly exhibit at the Clinton presidential library. 

 It was hard to resist taking pictures. 

 

 The library is in Little Rock, Arkansas - it is the only presidential library I have been to. We both agreed it is well done as a presentation of the Clinton years. 

When we arrived in Little Rock on Saturday, it was our plan to get a place to camp and take in some bike trails and see more of the city... So much for making plans we tried two parks and both werefull. 

We drove on to Hot Springs. 

 

We got a place to camp in the National Park late Saturday. It had been several weeks since we were in a town on a Sunday morning, so we found a church service to attend before exploring. It worked out great, the church we went to was only a couple blocks from the park. 

What a unique park! I know they are all unique or they wouldn't be parks - but historic bath houses! What a surprise. 

The Buckstaff

 The Ozark now an art gallery. 

The porch of the Fordyce also the park visitor center & a museum. 

The Fordyce looks like a bath house ready to be used but instead you get to explore the whole building and learn about the bath industry from days gone by. 

These are steam baths. 

Needle shower and sitz bath (lower right).

Gymnasium on the third floor. 

The Historic District that is the main park sits on about 50 hot springs. An average of 700,000 gallons of water flow from the springs every day. Average temp of 143 degrees.  It is completely odorless and tastes fine. 

 There were crowds of people at this station every time we passed. They were filling many large jugs with the hot water. 

 It flows into landscape gardens. 

 And ornamental fountains. Scientists have calculated that it takes about 4000 years for water from the surface to sink down, heat and rise again to flow from these springs. Wow. 

There are nine large bath houses owned by the park service. Two are still bath houses, two are currently not in use. The rest have varied uses such as a gallery, brew pub, emporium, visitor center and administration offices. 

 A view from inside the old cage type elevator as I was preparing to experience a traditional bath at the Buckstaff. There are no more photos of that part of my day. Believe me, it was great... 20 minute soak in deep whirlpool tub (with nifty board for a shorty like me to keep from sliding under)... Hot pack wrap... Steam bath... Sitz bath... Needle shower. All very nice. 

 After all that water, one more view of glass, this is the ceiling in the men's bathroom at the Fordyce. 

jb

Mississippi Mornings

Our travel method is quite simple - drive as far as we feel like it in a day - do an internet search for a campground, and find a place to spend the night. Recently Corp of Engineers parks have been the best deals. 

 This was taken Friday morning at Bay Springs Lake, a reservoir on the Tenessee River. 

The only state landmark we have passed was Ol' Miss University in Oxford. We drove through the university area enroute to a quilt shop that was closed for repairs. Oh well, I really don't "need" any more fabric.

We are camped near Lower Lake below Sardis Lake. When Dan stopped to visit with another camper the man told Dan that he had a funny accent.  It has been fun to hear the "music" of all of the various American dialects. The upper Midwest, New England, New Jersey and now the jazz of the South. I wish I could hear my accent through someone else's ears. 

I took these next photos on a little walk this morning:

These images of beautiful mornings will be my lasting memories of our brief journey across Mississippi. We are about two thirds of the way across the state. Today, we will cross the "Old Man River" into Arkansas.

Have a wonderful weekend. 

Westward Ho!

Artists, Chestnuts and Mississippi

 Over and over again on this journey I have encountered images that beg for interpretation by an artist. I am thankful that there are poets, painters and song writers, who can create and thereby illuminate my world. A tree caught my eye as Dan was driving in the Blue Ridge. It had a delicate vine working its way up and around the trunk. I am pretty sure it was poison ivy, it had those "leaves of three". Within a day or so of when I saw that tree and vine, my childhood friend Susan Beery shared this poem on FB:

there is an evergreen tree across the     

      fence from me

a wild grape winds its way up in a perfect 

      spiral

who says that magic has been lost on 

      this

planet of the universes. 

Magic is seeing a tree, a vine and a spiral

magic is that it has all taken place across 

     the fence 

in a broken down yard. 

I saw a vine and knew I regretted not taking a picture. She saw a vine and created. 

Do you know about Amercan chestnut trees? 

Chestnut trees once filled the forests from Maine to Georgia and west through the Ohio River Valley -- some 9,000,000 acres. One out of every four hardwood trees was a chestnut in the 1800s. They were straight grained and rot resistant. Mature trees could have a trunk 30' around. In the 1920s a blight came from Asia and killed almost all of the chestnut trees. In Shenandoah NP we learned a bit more about the story... A ranger showed us a young chestnut tree, about five inch diameter, she told us that little tree is doomed. The chestnut roots are still alive; sometimes they send up shoots for new trees but these trees rarely grow to maturity before the blight kills them. I find it amazing that the old chestnut tree roots are still alive. There is some good news - scientists have developed a new chestnut that has 99% American chestnut DNA and it is blight resistant. Now they are looking for places to get them growing. Wouldn't you like to grow a chestnut tree?

This is Meriwether Lewis' grave marker. He died and is buried near the Natchez Trace Patkway. We camped nearby last night. 

Today we visited the Shiloh Battleground. I am reading this book about the battle; Dan finished the book a while back. It is interesting to see the actual landscape of the events. 

 It is pleasant driving on the parkway with no trucks and commuters. Tonight we are in Mississippi near Bay Springs Lake. 

Some how camping in Mississippi in late October was not ever on my radar of things I might do! But look where I shopped today:

The store that changed retail forever~ as big a revolution as online shopping. 

G'nite ya'all!!!

 

A Kentucky Loop

This is a .9 mile tunnel under the Cumberland Gap. It was finished in 1996 and the above ground has been restored as best as possible to the landscape of the 1880s. We spent a night at a nearby NP campground in Virginia. This photo is taken from the Tennessee side of the tunnel. The tunnel emerges into Kentucky. 

 Our primary goal in Kentucky was Mammoth Cave NP. We arrived on a Friday afternoon and booked a campsite for 3 nights and 2 cave tours. 

 Our camp was nice with plenty of space around us, but it turned out to be a Boy Scout special event weekend. Lots of rambunctious kids, especially Friday night. 

 Kentucky is known for sink holes. They are spots where rain drains underground. Over millions of years those rains have created many caves including Mammoth the longest cave in the world as so far measured and mapped. We took a walk through the ficinity of the visitor center. 

There were large old trees and interesting gauges grown into them. 

 The gauges are for measuring river level of the nearby Green River. 

 Bark graffiti   

This little locomotive used to haul visitors to the cave. 

 We were part of an "intimate" tour group of 120! This is the group coming out. The cave was fun to see but another time I would try for a tour with less capacity. 

At the Visitor center there was a Kentucky travel info desk with a friendly helpful volunteer. She told us about the "Bourbon Trail" - where you can visit various distilleries. We were not too excited about that; then she mentioned some monks who make bourbon fudge and Dan was all over that! 

Trust me it is good stuff. 

 She also told us about an Amish grocery store we would pass by. We replenished the pantry there including fresh baked bread and Amish farmers cheese. 

WoodSongs is a radio show I listen to on  Saturdays  on High Plains Public Radio out of Amarillo TX. They tape the show in Lexington KY each Monday evening in front of a live audience. We timed our stay at Mammoth to work out with going to Lexington for Monday's show. It was fun to see it live. The guest performers included Emi Sunshine; she is a 10 year old YouTube sensation. With a little googling you can find Wood Songs and Emi if you are so inclined. In visiting with the woman who was seated by me I learned that Kentucky is known for a special style of country ham. When they lived in other parts of the country or world before retiring back in Kentucky, they would stock up on ham when they visited home. There are no rv parks in Lexington so we parked free at a Walmart. Fast forward to breakfast the next morning- thanks to trip advisor we found a local diner and I found country ham on the menu. Wow, I loved it! I asked the diner proprietor what kind of ham it was. It was Penn's Ham. With a little internet search I found the Penn's Ham business was located in the general direction we were headed. 

 So we stocked up on ham and bacon. Plus we had at great drive through beautiful countryside. I did not take many photos I just enjoyed the views. 

Traveling south from Campbellsville, where Penn's is, we crossed the Cumberland Gap Parkway where we passed on the way to Mammoth Cave three days before. Hence, the title of this post. A Kentucky Loop. 

Rainy Days in the Smokies

The Blue Ridge Parkway runs right into Great Smoky Mountains National Park. We did not stay in the parkway the whole way. 

 Driving with a view down the road like this is tiring. We dropped off of the mountains and traveled on the interstate for some of the way. We stopped in Asheville NC for groceries. We found a Trader Joe's and next door was a nice upscale market called Teeters. Asheville seems like the kind of city we would like to know better. There is a Habitat for Humanity affiliate there, so maybe we can come back and work someday. 

On the east side of the Smokies the  parkway has several low clearance tunnels so we drove through Cherokee NC on a secondary highway to come to the park. Cherokee is a sister city to the towns near Mt Rushmore in South Dakota. There are miles of dense tourist traps, including Santa Land and a Zoo! 

 Once in awhile we could peak through the clutter and see the mountains. We stopped at the Oconaluftee Visitor Center to get oriented to the park. We learned the weather forecast was for severe weather for the next 24 - 36 hours. We went to Smokemont Campground and settled in for a 2 night stay. 

 We explored the campground area before the storm arrived. Smokemont was cultivated by the early Cherokees and later was a townsite for a lumber operation 

 We even saw a bit of blue sky! 

We arrived Monday afternoon; the rain started about 8 Tuesday morning. It did not stop until Wednesday morning. So what is a quilter to do? Quilt! I got lots more sewing done. I was a happy camper. Dan was feeling a bit of "cabin fever" 

 ... but nothing a little snooze wouldn't cure. With the crazy weather we thought it prudent to keep the radio on. Wouldn't you know it the only station that was clear was country music. At least every hour we heard those loud beeps that in Oregon mean there is a test of the emergency broadcast system. Only these were not tests. There were tornado watches in many counties - not the one where we were. Then flash flood warnings and severe wind warnings - again none seemed to be in our immediate area. In between the warnings I think I heard "Drunk Americans" about 10 times! Uhg! The rain was steady but winds were not bad. That was good because we were under lots of trees. 

 This the camper bumper in the morning after the storm. The next two pictures are of the stream near camp before and after the rain:

 before

 after. 

We drove through the park Wednesday morning before the next storm arrived. There had been several trees down, but roads were clear by the time we passed. 

 We had a few good views. 

 Oconaluftee River. 

 

 This is one of several "Quiet Walkways".

 At the beginning of the path is a sign suggesting walk a ways - no destination - just enjoy the beauty of nature. Very good advice.

We have been surprised by the crowds here. The weather is marginal at best and it is midweek, but many of the parking lots are swamped. At one where we managed to park I had to get out and stop traffic so Dan could back out. The quiet walk sites rarely had anyone parked there. Hmmm

By lunch time the rain was coming back so we got a campsite at Elkmont and settled in again. Dan worked on photos on the computer and you guessed it - I quilted. I only need to sew 120 more of those 840 blue/neutral squares! More good news - on this side of the Smokies Tennessee's NPR station comes in clear.