Vacation

Hammond – Day 6

We are staying in an Airbnb across from the Neill Corp headquarters, and more than likely the owners of said Airbnb. If you have ever purchased an Aveda product, they are the sole distributor in the US and they bill themselves as an education company for stylists and salon owners in the culture of hair.

On their lot there a are several large marble sculptures of the ancient’s Four Elements with this marble plaque with the element’s names and an associated short poem. The (2) Goddess of Earth, the (3) Goddess of Air, (4) and the Goddess of Fire, featuring the (5) Goddess of Water. The Very Special Guests are the (6) Goddess of WTF and the (7) Goddess of Utilities.

Yesterday evening while getting ready for bed I managed to knock my electric toothbrush off the bathroom sink counter. Unfortunately, the three-foot drop was onto a tile floor. I picked it up and hit the go button and it didn’t go. 🙁 At least I could use it the old school way by moving my arm around. 🙂 When I finished in the shower I headed over to Amazon and ordered one to be delivered next day (today) to Sally’s mom’s house. This morning it was out for delivery.

Well, guess what? It didn’t work again in the morning either, but this afternoon I put it in its charging base, I been just keeping on the sink because it was fully charged when I left home, it the light came on. I picked it up, hit the go button and, “IT”S ALIVE! IT’S ALIVE!” Just a few minutes ago my, and now redundant, toothbrush was delivered. So, decision time, do I send back and get the Amazon credit, or I do keep it because how long will I trust to work, or do I keep and have one for travelling and one for home? I’ve 30 days to decide.

Hammond – Day 5

Another day, another repeat of the early morning routine, up before the sun & Sally, a walk over to get my caramel latte from PJ’s. And I plan on doing that for as long as it takes until they know my order as soon as I walk in their door or when we leave Hammond next Saturday. No post Office visit, but I did extend the walk, by turning corners randomly to get in more distance than a there and back.

There was several store stops in the morning. One for food replenishment for us, a stop to get shrimp for tonight’s dinner and a Hobby Lobby visit for a picture frame. Lunch of PB&J at the Airbnb for us before heading over to Mom’s place for some more reminiscing and a bit of yard work. Midafternoon I headed over to Mandeville. I was missing out on the dinner of shrimp etouffee to have a beer and conversation with a friend.

Heidi started out as a very good friend and school mate of Donna’s younger sister Sandy. After Sandy lost her battle with ALS, any time we ever came this way, which was often enough, we would stop and visit her a bit, so she became our friend. So now she is my friend. Heidi lost everything in hurricane Katrina and almost lost her life too. She had to bust through her roof to get above the rush of water after the the levee broke. When Sandy died her husband said take anything of hers that you want, so we packed up a bunch of her clothes and jewelry which Donna wore for the longest time. We also took her high school yearbook with us. Because Heidi was in Sandy’s class it was also hers, so a one visit down we gave to her.

There was more reminiscing between us over a beer, something on tap in a glass for her and German NA beer for me. It started with B•r•i•t something, something.1 I so wished I paid attention because that was the first non-alcoholic beer that I’ve that tasted like real beer. After the drink she drove me over to McClain’s Pizzeria for a meal of, you guessed it, pizza. We split a Roslyn: ham, cashew, garlic, and artichoke hearts. Even though it was a couple blocks away, we drove because she just got out a soft boot for a broken bone in her foot. Afterwards she took me back the “my car” so I could head west while she went east to go home.

Because I abhor an Interstate, I took LA22 to get back instead of I-12 and it bit me in the tukhus. Because of rush hour traffic on a mostly 2-lane road and I’m guessing the drawbridge over the Tchefuncte River was up for a while because the 40-minute trip took about 70. I didn’t mind, I’m on vacation and in no hurry.

Hammond – Day 4

Today I was up before Sally and the sun, so I walked the three blocks over to get my caramel latte from PJ’s and then walk 4 or 5 blocks further to mail a baker’s dozen of the postcards I discussed yesterday, before retracing my steps back the Airbnb. Sally and I got our hairs cut and a little shop that always goes to we she is in town.

 
Fried Chicken Showdown Results:
Saturday 1/11 – Zaxby’s 1/2 ☆
Sunday 1/12 – Popeyes ★★★★
Monday 1/13 – Piggly Wiggly Deli ★★★★★ !Winner!
Thursday 1/16 – Raising Cane’s ★★★★
Church’s, Chick-Fil-A & KFC were not nominated

I hope the crappy chicken at that particular Zaxby’s was a one off because I always loved their fingers back in my Aiken days. Today was my first exposure of Raising Cane’s and it was like my prior Zaxby’s experience. Those two are very similar in execution, breaded chicken breast strips, fries, butter thick toast and a dipping sauce. The differences are Zaxby’s has straight fries, Raising Cane’s has crinkle and Zaxby’s toast is shaped like a slice of bread while Raising Cane’s is longer and narrower. There is only a slight variation in the dipping sauce.

Our afternoon was spent at the birthday girl’s house with Sally’s first born, Claire, a cruise ship pilot in Alaska waiting for the younger son, Stuart who works in advertising in Baton Rouge to show so the “kids” could drive an hour and a half east to Mississippi to visit with their disgraced father. Below is a photo of most of the players from 30 years ago in Lexington, Virginia cutting down that year’s Christmas tree.


From left to right: Claire, Me (I still have that coat), Stuart & Sally

Hammond – Day 3

Yesterday we drove to Ponchatoula because the ladies wanted to do a little antiquing at a place called CJ’s Antiques and Collectables. While they were poking around, I was doing the same thing, only in another section of the store that had more of a guy vibe, automotive signs, license plates, NASCAR car models, etc. When I went to catch up with them, I stumbled on an open cabinet that was five feet high and six feet long that was sectioned into 6 x 6-inch segments that was stuffed with old postcards. Very few of them were already used, but that left hundreds of blank ones to pick through.

Before I left Oregon, I bought a couple of small packs of Thank You that I planned to send to everyone who mailed me a Christmas card in 2024 because I did not send out any cards for Xmas (the only card I did send, was a Hanukah card to my sister & her husband.) While perusing the plethora of vintage postcards a light bulb appears above my head, skip the thank you cards, let me send out my gratitude on old postcards of America and the world beyond. I bought 10 at a dollar each because that was my recollection of how many Christmas cards I received, but when I checked the address spreadsheet, I had highlighted a dozen. That number, plus the one I promised a neighbor back in Fairview, meant that I was three shy.

Fortunately, CJ’s was only a little less than 10 miles away, so Sally and I went back today to pick out 3 more cards. I took those purchased Thank You cards and traded them with the manager for three more postcards. While sifting through looking for three new old cards, I came across more than I needed, but wanted, so I paid for the three more. When I said a dollar, it really was $1.10 with tax, man I miss Oregon’s no sales tax.

If you would like to be sent one of those three remaining postcards, comment below with your name and address you will get a weird or obscure old postcard with a witty bon mat or your money back. Below is an example that I’m sending to a friend that I served with on CV-41, the U.S.S. Midway, back in my stint in Uncle Sam’s Yacht Club.

10011100010000000 Miles

For our 101101th2 Anniversary we decided to throw caution to the wind and take a little 3-day mini trip to the Oregon Coast. We had a free night at a Holiday Inn so the first leg (80 miles) of the journey was just over the mountains to Medford where we spent Sunday Night. The second leg (215 miles) was to our next overnight stay in Gold Beach. The last leg (226 miles) was coming straight home. To make the drive a bit more interesting we opted to hunt out some Oregon Post Offices along the way.

Sunday instead of going straight to Medford we went an alternate route so we could start in Ashland and work our way north the short distance to Medford with stops in Talent, Phoenix, Jacksonville & Central Point.

Monday we headed north and west to get to the coast. The shortest way to our destination would have been to go south to Crescent City in California, but we were saving that for our return trip. I added all the Post Office addresses for the rest of our loop to the car GPS and because we abhor Interstate travel we selected “avoid highways” in the settings.

This worked out well for the first few Post Offices because they were close to OR99 which parallels I-5, but once we got to Merlin the GPS could not find a route to Wolf Creek, turns out from here the next 40 miles OR99 combines with I-5 because of the mountains. Donna looked at the map and realized there was a loop of 35 miles, instead of the direct 15 miles, that would get us to Wolf Creek with out using the Interstate.

Not being in a hurry, we headed west along a two lane road that ran along the Rogue River. It was very scenic and we passed several little county parks for the first 20 miles. Everything was fine until we crossed a bridge over the river to head east to our our next Post Office. The road got a little narrower, almost 1-1/2 lanes instead of two and clung to the side of a mountain on the left and a steep drop on the right with no guardrail. Our forward progress slowed considerably, hoping that some large truck wouldn’t be coming our way around the next corner.

A mile or so in, rounding a corner, we came upon another Miata coming our way. I don’t know who was more surprised, us or them, but we squeezed on by with a wave and kept on going.

A couple of miles later our 1-1/2 lanes dropped to a solid one lane. Now it was getting scary, but even when the road did widen back to a lane and a half there was still no way to turn around and go back. For the next 10 miles the width of the road varied back and forth and fortunately the only other car we came upon coming at us it was on one of those wider spots. What would taken maybe 20 minutes on I-5 turn into over an hour of white knuckle driving. After arriving in Wolf Creek we took off the “avoid highways” setting and we vowed to not do that again. We’d stay on back roads when they stayed close to civilization.

As we were getting closer to the coast and having already photographed 15 Post Offices, by mutual agreement, we opted to not do the last few on the way to the hotel and not any along the coast at all. This would be saved for a weeks vacation either next spring or fall where we’d get all the Post Offices along the entire Oregon coast.

Because I had the odometer to trip so I could see tenths of a mile as Donna called out mileage to my next turn, I didn’t notice that the CTBNL had gone past the 80,0003 mile mark.

About fifteen miles from the actual coast the cooler misty weather made us put the top back up and when we did get on US101 the fog/mist/clouds made actually seeing the beach impossible.

Tuesday morning in spite of the off and on light rain, we did walk down to the beach and take a fairly short out and back walk because, after all, we drove all this way to see the ocean.

On the trip home we did stop and get the remaining four Post Offices on US199 from the border back up to Grants pass. Bringing our total for the weekend of two dozen or about 6% of the total of around 375 Post Offices in the state of Oregon. All in all , even with the white knuckle side trip and cool misty weather, we had a pretty good time.

33,000 Feet in the Air

Next time we drive…

Our flight home from the northwest started very early Monday morning or very late Sunday night, east coast time. We went to bed at the Portland Airport Hampton Inn at about 7 PM on Sunday night with a 2:00 AM Monday wake-up call because we had a 5:00 AM departure time on an American Airlines 737-800. We woke up on our own at about 1:30 and just decided to get the trip started.

We got to the airport at around 2:00 and it was a ghost town. Fortunately the Hampton Inn Desk Clerk warned us it would be that way. He told us the gate agents wouldn’t even open up until 3:00 AM and TSA wouldn’t start up until 4:00, so we found a couple of seats and got comfortable.

At 3:00 we got in line to check our bags. When that was done the agent told us that TSA didn’t start until 4:00 on our departure concourse, but on D & E they had 24 hour service so we could go though security there and just walk back to our gate on C concourse. So that’s what we did and then we found a couple of seats and got comfortable.

Boarding the plane went smoothly, but after we backed away from the gate and got on a taxiway, we came to a stop. The pilot came on the PA and said something about a center fuel pump and getting a technician to maybe cycle a circuit breaker. So they found us a different gate to park at while maintenance was called to trouble shoot the problem. Two hours later we left our plane and walked to the neighboring gate to begin the boarding process all over again. We rolled back from our second gate in our second plane 3 hours past our scheduled time. I wonder if American could still count this flight as being on time since we did in fact roll from our original gate at the correct time…

Those 3 extra hours in Portland greatly outstripped our 1-1/2 hour layover in Dallas. Once the airline’s app on my phone knew we were not going to make our Dallas to Augusta flight it offered up several options for other flights. Unfortunately they were all listed as for the next day, Tuesday. Turns out there is only one direct flight between DFW and AGS per day, so I picked that one rather than and earlier flight that stopped in Charlotte where we’d change planes to fly to Augusta.

On arrival at Dallas we sought out a customer service person to see about a voucher for a couple meals and a hotel room. (I’ll skip the whole finding the customer service counter fiasco in an unfamiliar airport thing.) The person we did find was very helpful and said she could get us home today, but we would have to go to Charlotte first. The CLT flight was going to be first class (like we paid for), but the AGS trip would be in coach. She couldn’t get us seated next to each other on either flight either, but we figured during boarding we could work a swap with someone. We were ready to be home, so we said we’d take it.

When we got to the gate for the Dallas to Charlotte, the departure time was pushed out a couple hours. While annoying, it wasn’t as bad as the Portland to Dallas delay. We had a long layover in CLT, so the delayed DFW departure just shifted the layover to Dallas. When we boarded our plane in DFW, Donna asked the fellow on her aisle seat if he would swap for an aisle seat two rows back so we could sit together, he agreed.

When we got to Charlotte, the sun was going down on Monday. We had enough time to use the rest rooms and walk slowly to the gate. The flight to Augusta was scheduled to board at 10:00 PM, which was 24 hours since we had woke up in Portland. I was in row 9 at a window seat next to a blind guy I had to crawl over to get in, because he had his headphones on and ignored my tapping on his shoulder. Donna was in row 7 just in front of a noisy, anxious kid. When they closed the aircraft door, Donna could see that the last row of first class was empty, so she called over the flight attendant and asked to get us moved. At first, she didn’t want to do it, but when Donna told her we paid for first class tickets for the whole journey and it was the airline’s fault we were inconvenienced, she relented. So I crawled back over my blind guy and Donna squeezed by her seat neighbor and we settled into some bigger seats right next to each other.

The topper on the travel day was of course our luggage was not on the carousel at AGS. The “Track Your Baggage” section of the American Airlines app, told me that one of the bags was in Charlotte and the other was still in Dallas. The friendly baggage guy filled out the forms on the computer and told us that more than likely we would get our bags on Tuesday. A quick check of the time showed that what he meant to say was later that day, as it was already 12:15 AM on Tuesday. We walked through the nearly deserted airport parking lot to get in the Mini for the drive home. It passed through the 33,000 mile mark somewhere on the trip.

Twenty-eight hours after we woke up in a Portland, Oregon hotel room, we climbed into our own bed in Aiken, South Carolina.

About 10 hours later the two suitcases were delivered to our door. Looking at the airport stickers on the luggage, it seems like the big bag made a quick trip to Las Vegas before coming home. I’d ask what the deal was, but you know what they say – What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.

Enchanted Forest

We had planned a hike along the Lime Kiln Trail with the whole family, but when Donna and I arrived at the Morrison Manse in Granite Falls, the only two folks that were up and raring to go were Donna’s older brother and the oldest niece. The rest stayed up ’til after midnight with the neighborhood crew lighting off fireworks.

So 9-year old Maddie directed us to the trail head not too far out of town, acted as hike leader and guide to the interpretation of forest scenery as everyday fairy objects.