This morning, we must decide whether we spend any time in Shenandoah National Park, head to Hershey Park, or just book on home. We won’t make it home today, but if we were to go to Hershey, that would make a long travel day on Friday. If we head for home, we might stop at my parents’ house in Connecticut for the night, making a short travel day on Friday.
Blog
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Shaving Hotel Costs
In two or three of the hotels we’ve visited, the pop-up drain plug has been missing. In two or three others, the sink wouldn’t hold water in spite of the presence of a plug. This makes shaving rather less efficient. I tried to fix one of the non-water-holding ones, but failed. Are the missing ones the result of vandalism?
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The View From My Window
Andrew Sullivan’s blog posts a picture, at least daily it seems, showing the view out of people’s windows. Submission guidelines say they rarely accept the view out of car windows, but that’s what I think of posting this. This is my view this morning
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Heading Home…
Well, that about does it. We had a lovely, lovely stay with Jenni and family,
but at this point the kids are somewhat burned out on travel and homesick. So, instead of a leisurely trip northeast along the Blue Ridge Parkway, we will be hitting the interstates and making time. Back soon!
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Tubin’ On The Creek
On Tuesday morning, we drove back to the Visitors’ Center to finish off the kids’ Junior Ranger requirements, and got them sworn in.
We then headed across the park to a picnic area where there was also a hike to a waterfall. We had a nice lunch, but we never got around to the hike, because when we got there, it seemed that tubing down Deep Creek was the activity of choice. So we did likewise
Then, naturally, we stopped for ice cream on the way home.
And while we were in the ice cream shop, it started raining, and hasn’t stopped since, scuttling our plans for a campfire.
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It Was All I Hoped It Would Be
We got to have a nice relaxed Monday mornin’, with no need to get on the road and make mileage. After a nice breakfast, Susan and Jenni packed some lunches and we headed into the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. It was a bit of a drive, and getting down the hill that we’re on is as much of a challenge for the car as getting up it was. When we got to the bottom, we could smell the brakes, in spite of being in second gear the whole way down. Just like when we got to the top, you could smell the engine had been working hard.
We drove up to the Clingman’s Dome trail, and ate our picnic lunch, then proceeded up the half mile paved trail to the top.
And at the top, there was an observation tower made of concrete, with no stairs. A ramp was the only access to the tower, so the entire hike was handicap accessible, and on the way down, we did see someone in an electric wheelchair going up.
It was a good hike. Not long, but fairly steep, and still manageable by all the kids. When we got to the top, we (would have) had a great view of the surrounding mountains
(if we hadn’t been in the middle of a cloud).
One of us needed a little help coming down
but that’s OK. After the hike, we drove back down to the Visitors’ Center, and the kids attended a ranger program to begin work on their Junior Ranger badges. In addition to the program, they must do a lot of work in their workbooks to earn their badges.
Then on the way back home, we stopped at a pullout along the road to hike down to see Soco falls, which was very pretty. The kids wanted to play in the water of course, or hang out longer, but we had to get going to have time to do some grocery shopping for dinner.
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Smokies
After our boat ride, we headed back on I-40 East and drove right out of Tennessee into North Carolina.
We are staying at the home of the uncle of our friend Jenni. It was billed as a “cabin” so we were thinking it would be somewhat rustic, but it is anything but.
And this is our view out the window this morning.
Awesome!
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Showboat!
Yesterday, we went on a short river cruise up the Cumberland River on the General Jackson Showboat
for lunch and a show by Tim Watson called Fiddlin’ Around, which was an hour or so of music and comedy
that we all enjoyed. Tim put on a good show, though apparently not much different than what it was three years ago. After the show, we bought a CD of a live show, and Tim gladly posed for a picture with the kids
When we listened to the CD in the car, the main thing that has apparently changed is that he dropped some Michael Jackson jokes. I’d bet this was a recent change. But again, not to complain – the man is a good entertainer. We heard one couple tell the band that they enjoyed the show more than the Grand Ole Opry show they were at the previous night (featuring Carrie Underwood among others, if you recall…)
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Whapped WAP
As I mentioned earlier, my pictures were uploading to flickr very slowly last night, and when I woke up, I was not surprised to see that the upload had failed. I started it up again, and it failed on the second picture. After a couple more iterations, I decided to take another tack, and connect to a different SSID, as there were many available and provided by the hotel. That seemed to fix it — the remaining few photos uploaded in minutes rather than hours, and the rest of the web sites I was using worked much more smoothly.
The problem felt like the LAN connection to that particular WAP must have been dropping packets (and lots!), either due to a bad cable or a bad interface. So if you’re ever at the Comfort Inn on Elm Hill Pike in Nashville, avoid BBHWIRELESS_18.
Overall, our experience with hotel wifi has been good. Performance hasn’t always been the best, but the availability has been ubiquitous, and as opposed to a few years ago, always free. The only exception was the non-national-chain sportsman-oriented motel we stayed in outside of DeSmett, South Dakota.
