Princess Gail and I just got back from a short little trip to Music City, Nashville, TN. We decided to drive the 7 hours from Winston-Salem to enjoy the Fall colors in the mountains. We were so fortunate this year to have taken four separate car trips into the mountains in the past 3 weeks, and enjoyed all the altitudes from the top of Mt Mitchell to the floor of the Piedmont. I think I saw the best Fall colors of my entire life! You saw some of my memories in my last post.

If watching the Fall foliage wasn’t enough, I also downloaded a fun iPhone app. I was thinking about the old car game we played with the kids during long car trips, counting license plates from as many different states as we could. Well of course there is an app for that! License Plate Game was a lot of fun. I got 21 plates during this trip!

I had to be in Nashville for a work-related meeting, which turned out to be very informative, and held at the beautiful Loews Vanderbilt Hotel.

I knew we were going to be there on a Tuesday, so before we left I had purchased tickets for the Grand Ole Opry. I have been there several times before and I love it! You never know the exact line up of entertainers for this live radio show until the last minute, because you never know who happens to be in town on any given show day. It turned out that Keith Urban, who lives in Nashville with wife Nicole Kidman, decided to play! After that, the show rapidly sold out!

Our favorites of the night were Kip Moore:

Sunny Sweeney:

And of course the headliners, Little Big Town:

And the fabulous Keith Urban!

All in all, it was a short but wonderful little trip to Nashville! Good memories made! And as always, we were grateful to return home, safe and sound.

We found Blowing Rock to be a really pretty, quaint little town. The walkable main street is full of very nice shops (not the cheap touristy stuff) and excellent restaurants. We enjoyed nice meals at The Village Café, Twigg’s, and the Storie Street Grille. My favorite was the Village Café, with an upscale menu, a beautiful, secluded outside patio, and reasonable prices.

We stayed at the Chetola Resort only because we got a Groupon for over a hundred bucks off. Otherwise it would not be worth the price to stay, at least not for me. If I’m in the mountains I want a mountain view, and though the grounds are lovely, there is no mountain view. We saw many little motel-type places right in town that were really done nicely! If we ever go back we’ll stay at one of those.

The town of Blowing Rock has a lot of local activities all summer long. Just stop at the Visitor Center as you come into town and get a list. We weren’t there for the good shopping or eating, though. We love the great outdoors. Right in town, we can suggest the Glen Burney Trail. The rough trail follows a little stream for 1.6 downhill miles, with three waterfalls along the way. It is an excellent spot for birding. Just remember you then have to walk the 1.6 uphill miles! This little Carolina Wren came out from the underbrush to pose for us:

Right outside of town is the town’s namesake, The Blowing Rock. The rock itself is nothing at all to speak of and wouldn’t be worth the price of admission if not for the views. The views are pretty cool. It was a bit overcast, but here is an example. Princess Gail with Grandfather Mountain in the distance.

We spent a morning at Grandfather Mountain. It is one of the highest peaks in the Blue Ridge, and famous for numerous wildlife habitats at the different altitudes as well as some dramatic (and dangerous) weather. We were hoping to spot a Peregrine Falcon but were unlucky. Here are a few pictures at the Mile High Swinging Bridge where winds have been measured at over 100 mph.

Can you tell how she feels about heights and howling winds?

The short span of The Blue Ridge Parkway between Grandfather Mountain and the town of Blowing Rock is full of activity. That includes The Moses Cone Memorial Park, the Julian Price Memorial Park, and the Tanawha Trail. There are numerous scenic overlooks as well. You can spend days just in that tiny bit of the Parkway.

We had fun! Life is good!

Smile!

Gail and I were in San Francisco this past December for a conference. It was a quick trip but we did squeeze in a few touristy stops. Gail really wanted to see Mission Dolores, so we made sure that was one of them. Our weather was foggy and overcast that day, so we didn’t take as many pictures as we usually do. But I’m glad we took a few.

So, back to our movie. Vertigo was shot in 1958, when I was three years old, and only four years before Gail was born. It’s weird to think that the movie is now basically a period piece. I enjoyed seeing how people related to each other back in the late 50′s, the cars, the clothes, all that. It was even fun seeing how different the city of San Francisco looked 50 years ago. The movie itself is Hitchcock wonderful, but it is forgettable by today’s standards. I was a little disappointed that we got the colorized version. I’m certain it would have looked better in black and white.

Our favorite part of the movie, though, was to discover that Mission Dolores played such a big part in it! We had been right there just a few months ago! We walked the same steps that Jimmy Stewart, Kim Novak and Alfred Hitchcock had 53 years ago! That was really cool!

A few pics off the web:

And a few of our own:

I was limited to two cold, overcast days because of my work schedule. Bummer. Gail had the chance to spend an extra, even colder day, 29 degrees at the crack of dawn, which is the typical starting time for these events. But even so, our group spotted 40 different species on each of the two days I was there. This is less than half of the usual. Photography was also less than ideal, though I will share at least a few of my pictures of the Yellow Throated Warbler that was my favorite bird of this trip.

Here is part of our birding group at the New River Gorge, with the famous New River Gorge Bridge in the background:

The New River:

Railroads parallel the edge of the river, dating back to the time of active coal mining that started over 100 years ago. Coal mining has long since been “tapped out” in this area, which is now a protected National River.

The Yellow Throated Warbler:

There was a nice bus tour and then we split from the group for a few hours. We had Gail’s ring checked at Tiffany’s, walked around Rockefeller Center and Times Square, and stopped at St. Patrick’s on Holy Thursday. Then we had a nice dinner at Trattoria Trecolori before meeting back up with our group at the Shuman Theater to see the show “Memphis.”

All in all, an excellent day! I’m grateful.

First is some scenic beauty along the Blue Ridge.  (The countryside is pretty nice, too!)

There was a beautiful postcard scene at every little stop we took!

We got off the parkway and took the hike down to Linville Falls.  It was SO worth it!  Look at these beautiful falls!  Wow!

After that, we headed off to our two day retreat on Gateway Mountain.  I’m glad it was still daylight when we got there because it was an adventure just getting up the mountain in our car!  There aren’t enough superlatives and exclamation points to describe the place we found.  It is the sort of place that lets you feel small amidst an awesome expanse of nature’s beauty!  I woke up early the next morning to enjoy the dawn…

We shared a common adventure, and spent precious moments of quiet solitude…

Gail kept an eagle eye out for the local birds…

It rained later in the afternoon, but cleared long enough for us to marvel at a sunset of eery mystery above the clouds…

And it was over all too quickly!  The fog was thick this morning as we came down from the mountain.  We encountered a flock of wild turkeys!  I love running into crazy, unexpected things like that!  I was smiling and thinking, “See you later, you wild, crazy turkeys!”

Yeah, that’s right.  You go run and hide!  Thanksgiving is right around the corner!

I’m grateful for our excellent little trip!

I’ll post more tomorrow, but right now I’m going to vegetate. Later!

Gail has been capably managing all the details back home in Toledo. She is a master organizer. She has trimmed down our household as our new home has considerably less storage. We were advised to “edit” our belongings, and really, that’s a good thing. Little by little we have accumulated stuff we no longer use, need, or want. But getting rid of stuff is a chore! And the stuff that has emotional meaning takes extra thought. Well, Gail has edited away these past seven months.

We didn’t want to own two homes at the same time. Our house in Toledo has been slow to sell. The big move has to happen now because of Eric’s school. We also didn’t want to leave an empty house back in Toledo. So we waited until last month to buy a house in Winston. And wouldn’t you know it, a few weeks later we got our first offer on our Toledo house, and it looks like we’ll close in early September! We won’t have a double payment! Man, I am GRATEFUL!!

Speaking of grateful, I just bought a little iPhone app called Gratitude! The idea is to write down 5 things I am grateful for every day. Perfect for me!

I feel very blessed right now. All the important people in my life are healthy. All are doing well, working hard, gradually moving ahead in every way, as I see it. Not that there aren’t problems, issues, and some sadness. Sure there are. That’s part of life. I’m sad to be putting physical distance between me and my four adult children. But I see answers to all the problems, issues and sadness. All in all, things are good. We are blessed and I’m grateful.

I will now sleep with my wife every night, instead of 4-5 nights per month. I am very grateful for that! (I hope she is,too! LOL)

And I am very grateful for the exciting opportunity to start a new life in North Carolina. I have learned many lessons through the mistakes I made in my previous life in Toledo. And I am older. I value and savor the many blessings that seem to always come my way. My next job will be to see how I give them all back, pay them forward.

Okay, I better stop. Just because I have all this time on my hands doesn’t mean I should abuse my readers with my wordiness!

Peace!

This is Tarheel Ramblings Lee’s meme, and I like to play as often as I can.

I don’t know if it’s okay to put people in a “scenery” meme, but at least Gail is easy on the eyes, from all angles!  ; )

This was taken on the day we arrived in Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic. It was Princess Gail’s first trip out of the country. There is just nothing like Caribbean water!