Vacation!

 

We haven't gone down south in two years.  Down south is where my extended family lives and I have been missing everyone.  So the next few posts will be a travelogue of our vacation--not too exciting for most readers.  For now I write for Arielle and Liana because they were there and I want them to remember the good times we had.

We left right after the Moore, Oklahoma, tornado.  The images were still vivid in my mind.  I think of the people I saw on TV, their land, their accents, and it is all too familiar. We lived in Mustang in the 80's, about 15 miles from Moore.  I remember the sirens when a tornado was bearing down, the green, angry sky and the fierce winds howling through the house.  No basement, no place to hide.  We got lucky.  The closest touch-down during that time was 8 miles from us.

This day it is great to hit the road and put all that behind us.  Instead of going west, then south, we decide to take a diagonal to 81, stopping in Gettysburg.  It's our favorite nearby vacation spot.  We stop at the visitor's center (again) and then take the auto-tour (again).  It is hot and humid today, so that puts a damper on our desire to get out and walk around the battlefield. The girls want to climb one of the towers though, so we stop there.  Fred never climbs it as he hates heights, but I always do.  Today it is difficult.  Am I so old I can't do this?  Then I realize it has nothing to do with strength and endurance.  It's all about the heat.  It's not just uncomfortable but a health risk for me since I had a heat stroke years ago.  But I made it up, just more slowly than before, all 9 flights of steps.  The view was spectacular!

We ate dinner at Ping's, our very favorite Chinese restaurant, and shopped at Peebles, our favorite store.  Then we found an exhibit we've never visited before--The Lincoln Train Museum.  Fred is a railroad buff and I knew he would enjoy this.  We were the only tourists there and so we were able to take our time and enjoy all the historical information and artifacts.  There is a huge model train display, kind of like the Choo-Choo barn in Strasburg, but most interesting for me was the memorabilia from Lincoln's life, including many photos of him before he was President.  We watched a video about his funeral train as it crossed the country from Washington, D.C. back to Illinois for his burial.  Fascinating stuff.  I can't imagine any other President has ever had such devotion.  In every town where the train stopped, thousands came out to pay their respect. 

After an evening of swimming and a good night's sleep, we were ready for a day of driving.