Day 11 - Branson, MO to Arkansas City, KS

The end of a long tour - celebrated at our local bar in Ark City


Police welcome sign in Eureka Springs (DEA=Drug Enforcement Administration; IRS=Finanzamt)



Hell's Angel



Haunted Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs




Haunted dining room in Crescent Hotel





Rebel t-shirts in Branson

Tim is happy, he found a Starbucks!

"God and Country" cowboy church in Branson

Branson; the strip at night

Alice writes - so folks, the last day of our trip has arrived!

As you know we arrived in Branson last night, so let me describe this town to you. It's something else! Like a Christian Las Vegas - good, clean family fun without the gambling and the strippers so what happens here will certainly not stay here - it's all caught on videotape. Meaning that basically you have a bunch of old fogies bringing in their grandkids to play mini-golf and see some totally tacky show.

Tim says it'll be Vegas when it grows up.

Speaking of which, I've never seen anything like the Dixie Stampede, the show we went to last night.

There were lots of horses, some pigs, chickens and even ostriches involved, along with a meal that was served during the performance.

The show itself was very well choreographed and the horsemanship was awesome, but the whole thing was very tacky and kitschig. .

Basically it consisted of a competition between the North and the South (yes folks, Civil War all over again, only this time all fun and games) and waddya say, the South actually won this time.

We (being on the North side, of course) weren't too miffed because we all know who really won. So there, Ashley Wilkes, you lost; time to get over it!

This news from 1865 obviously hasn't got through to Branson's clientele yet, since you can find rebel flags everywhere - even on underwear.

Anyways, back to the show. When the southern belles and their gentlemen were dancing in their hoopskirts under the artificial stars and I had given up all hope that it could get even more tacky, the skirts suddenly were lit up with hundreds of little light bulbs and hope flooded back into my veins.

So now what? Could that really be the limit and I'd have to settle for mega-kitsch or was it possible to get the giga-kitsch rush?

Turned out that anything is possible in Branson! Except for strip-shows, of course.

Ah, the grand finale of the show. When all the riders lined up on their horses, wearing star-spangled uniforms and waving flags with Dolly Parton singing some nationalistic, oops, I mean patriotic, song on the movie screen the lights went out and the uniforms lit up with hundreds of red, white, and blue lightbulbs.

It was almost too much for me - I had no idea I would so get my money's worth!

When Tim and I stumbled out of the building, totally stunned by what we had just witnessed, I just muttered with my fist raised to the sky like Scarlett O'Hara:"As the aliens are my witness, never again will I go hungry, eh, I mean, will I go see a show like that again!"

Hey, at least our waiter was very cute....

Since we were totally exhausted by so much enthusiasm (o.k., so the whole chicken, along with the pork, they served during the show might have had something to do with it), and the traffic was bumper to bumper we decided to cruise the strip the next morning which we did - proven by the photos above.

We had originally planned to take the direct way home, but when I checked out the map I found that Eureka Springs, Arkansas, wasn't far away. I've seen a show about a haunted hotel in that town on TV so since we had to skip the Titanic Museum, we drove there instead.

This decision proved to be one of the better ones we made on this trip, because the historic Crescent Hotel is beautiful as well as the town itself.

This grand old hotel was built in 1886 and has a very interesting past. One can still imagine the old splendor when Eureka Springs was a resort town, with the ladies in their 19th-century dresses and big hats sitting in the dining room, sipping tea.

At one time a Dr. Baker had bought the place and ran a hospital - unfortunately he never did bother to go to school and get a medical license so eventually he was busted and sent to prison.

For more infos on the hotel's history and ghosts check out: www.crescent-hotel.com. Before you ask, no we didn't see any ghosts. Guess they were on vacation today.

Speaking of vacation, driving through the very nice and quaint town of Eureka Springs we noticed that there were a lot of signs on the motels and restaurants welcoming bikers. We did see a few motorcyclists driving around the mountains so we didn't think anything of it until we came to a motel where 2 guys were standing on the curb, wearing safety vests.

I took a closer look, saw a bunch of bikers in leather jackets with patches on the back and a sign across the motel which read: "Hell's Angels". (Tim said they do that; when the gang gets ready to pull out from somewhere, they have some guys in safety vests stop traffic for them). Lo and behold, turns out they are having their annual vacation in Eureka Springs, with 500 of them expected.

Scary, if you ask me. The local hotel and restaurant owners are looking forward to the money they're spending, but the police aren't so happy, as you can tell by the sign I photographed.

The only bad thing about going to Eureka Springs was the time we lost driving around in the mountains; didn't get home until 18.00. but there Tom was waiting with a bunch of roses. It felt good to be home even if the cats ignored me for the first half an hour.

The rest of the evening was spent at the local bar; basically where it had all begun.

Was it all worth it? You bet! Would I do it again? Definitely, but not so long and not anytime soon.

We did a lot and saw a lot, but the time spent in the car was starting to get to be too much.

As for Tim and I - we're still speaking to each other. Even if it's about the plumbing :).

And for the last time: gute Nacht!

Thanks to all of you for reading!!!!

p.s. we drove 330 miles today

p.p.s. Tim has another 10-11 hours to go to Albuquerque tomorrow

Day 10 - Cox's Creek, KY to Branson, MO

Bridge over the Mississippi in St. Louis


Hinterland Kentucky



Fort Knox, Kentucky

Alice writes – got up at 5.20 this morning just to ensure a good start. Were able to leave Cox’s Creek shortly after 6.00 and head on out to the interstate. Since we knew we had at least 10 hours of driving ahead of us, we decided to do all interstate and not to stop anywhere for very long. Entering he central time zone helped a great deal, since we gained an hour somewhere along the way.

We did actually pass Fort Knox, you know, the building with all of the gold in it. The route also led us to St. Louis and we did want to go through the city center to get our fans a picture of the famous arch, but then we listened to some truckers on the CB saying that there was construction and traffic jams so we bypassed it. Did get a photo of the bridge crossing the Mississippi though!
I know, the arch would have been better, but hey, beggars can’t be choosers, right?

Actually got to Branson, MO at the very reasonable time of 16.00 and checked into our motel which, again, is very nice and clean. Research does pay off!
Called the Titanic museum and wanted tickets for tomorrow morning at 9.00, but the earliest they could get us in was 11.00. We declined because Tim’s not really interested and I do want to get home to see Tom and my kitties so Tom, we’ll just have to go some other time and let the neighbors feed the cats.

Our motel is located on the east end of the strip so we didn’t get to see much of Tourist Central, but we’ll certainly do that tomorrow morning.
For tonight we have tickets to Dolly Parton’s Dixie Stampede Show so we’re resting up for that right now. For those of you who don’t Dolly Titty Parton, google her and her show.
Will take photos, if possible, and report tomorrow.

Yeehaw!

p.s. we drove 566 miles today

p.p.s. drank enough wine to get us geared for the “patriotic finale” that they’re going to have at the show – a demonstration of pure nationalism if you ask me, but unfortunately nobody asks me J.

p.p.p.s. Tim’s talking about his plumbing again – HELP!

Tim writes: Dolly WHAT Parton?

(Franklin Lewis, Mayor of Cox’s Creek Kentucky says: only two good things ever came out of Tennessee, and Dolly Parton has both of them!)

Day 9 - Uniontown/Hopwood, PA to Cox's Creek, KY

Tim's old house in Cox's Creek


Franklin and Tim



Bardstown jail, now a bed & breakfast




Wildflowers along the interstate

Alice writes – what I forgot to mention yesterday was, that when staying at the Hopwood Motel, I thought it might be haunted because during the night I had the feeling that the edge of my bed went down, as if somebody were sitting on it. It was so creepy that I didn’t dare open my eyes and check it out. I sure should have!

We decided to take it easy today and enjoy the countryside a bit, then hit the interstate through West Virginia. We got stuck behind a coal truck for a little while, but that gave us time to rubberneck as we were creeping up the mountain.

In West Virginia there were a lot of pretty wildflowers along the road; that’s just about all the excitement for that part of the trip, well into Kentucky.
Once we arrived there I talked Tim into going through the middle of Bardstown, which used to be his stomping ground.
Kentucky is famous for its bourbon whiskey (there are plenty of distilleries around, that don’t only make Jim Beam, but much better stuff) and horses – since I couldn’t fit one of the latter into the trunk I got some whiskey instead. A nice little, expensive bottle of Maker’s Mark, something you can’t get in good ol’ Kansas.

Also got to see the jail in which Tim spent quite a few nights back when he was young and pretty (pretty as in pretty drunk); it’s a bed and breakfast now – an expensive one too. Maybe if enough fans request it, he’ll tell you how he got to be guest of the county.

After all the sight-seeing and shopping we drove to Cox’s Creek to see Tim’s friend, Franklin, and his wife Jean.
They had a big, very good dinner prepared for us and after stuffing ourselves Franklin took us on a tour in his pick-up truck.
I managed to pass up Jean’s earlier invitation to accompany her to bible school and it wasn’t easy to get out of that one either.
Instead I saw where Tim had thought up all sorts of mischief (of course, since he didn’t go to jail for helping old ladies cross the street J) and where he had lived. His parent’s old house is for sale and Carol, it’s only $399,000.
Tamara, I even saw your ex-husband sitting in front of his house; not that that was a real pretty sight J.

We also saw Indian Mound, which is a hill in a field where supposedly the Indians had buried their dead. The old man that owns it won’t let archaeologists dig there, but due to his age that problem will probably soon be solved.

Franklin then took us to the town graveyard where the gravestones told all kinds of interesting stories – 2 people, who have buried spouses there, are actually being investigated for murder (that’s according to Franklin, it wasn’t on the stones).
Seems like lately we’ve been visiting more dead people than living.

For the first time I got to see a Baptist church from the inside; nice little swimming pool they have inside there for baptisms. We were urged to fill out visitor’s cards so now I’m sure we’ll end up on their prayer list and we’ll never get to find out what hell looks like!

When we got back to the house we had a very gemuetlich remainder of the evening, sitting under a tree in the front yard, sipping bourbon whiskey and telling stories. I now know some things about Tim that I hadn’t known before – Pat and Janette, for a slight fee I am willing to pass on information!

That was it for today. Prost und gute Nacht!

p.s. we drove 414 miles today

Tim writes: ah ain’t talkin’!

Day 8 - Mansfield, PA to Hopwood/Uniontown, PA

Z-man and Tim


Amish farmer

Gettysburg battlefield

Gettysburg battlefield

Gettysburg battlefield


Alice writes – left Mansfield Pennsylvania at about 7.45 this morning and thought we got a good head start until we encountered construction and a lot of traffic in the towns we passed through.
Driving back roads was totally worth it though since we saw some Amish on the way – even one mother with her two little girls in traditional clothing on bicycles.
I took the photo of an Amish farmer from the moving car so the picture is a little unclear.

We arrived in Gettysburg before noon and signed up for a bus tour of the battlefield that was to leave at 13.00; plenty of time to have lunch before that.
For those of you who are historically challenged, Gettysburg hosted the most important battle of the Civil War. Not that they wanted to, the whole thing kind of found them.
It took place on three days in July of 1863 and it was there that the Union was able to turn the war around in their favor.
In other words, the Confederates lost which seems to have traumatized them to this day because for some reason the South thinks it will rise again. Good luck with that!

We were driven around for 2 hours in a double - decker bus on the huge battlefield; we sat inside the bus whereas the more privileged (o.k., some people bought their tickets earlier than we did) got to sit out in the open on the upper deck.
This feeling of being third class on the Titanic immediately turned into Schadenfreude when it started raining heavily and the complete upper deck got wet. Poor things couldn’t come downstairs either, because there were no more seats available. They did get dry though, because the sun came out a little later.

Anyways, they survived and so did we, unlike thousands of soldiers on the fields alongside us. We got a very good feel of how things went back then and there were even some buildings in town that were still covered with the original bullet holes.

The whole town of Gettysburg was pretty much a zoo and full of tourists, but hey – there’s a reason why a tourist town is a tourist town, right? There’s stuff to see! And it was totally worth it.

After the tour we drove about 3.5 hours more to Greensburg, PA to visit one of Tim’s old motorcycle friends whom he hasn’t seen in quite a while and who was having a party.
He served plenty of yummy food (especially the Wurst) and beer; Tim as the driver couldn’t party as much as I could - unfortunately I was already gut dabei after a half of Hefeweizen. Guess I make a pretty cheap guest - remember that guys, next time I come to visit.

We had a good time and left around 21.00 because we still had to drive the 40 minutes to Hopwood to find our motel.
We did find the town right away and the motel after the second try (it was pretty dark), so here we are!
The room is sort of a suite so we each get to have our own room. Aren’t we lucky? Yay! I even have one of those massage beds where you stick a coin in a slot and the bed starts vibrating. Will try that out tomorrow morning so I won’t wake up the neighbors with a moving bed.

Gute Nacht, allerseits!

p.s. we drove 367 miles today.

p.p.s. I had my first Krispy Kreme today – it’s not at all what it’s hyped up to be. The ones at Dillon’s are way better.

Gettysburg battlefield

Day 7 - Montpelier, VT to Mansfield, PA

Mark Twain's gravesite at Woodlawn Cemetery in Elmira, NY



Mark Twain's monument in Elmira, New York. [Seems like that we're visiting more dead folks that live ones!]

Pfaelzer Bauernhaus in Schoharie, early 1700's

One of the first cars driven by a woman in New York, 1903

Oldest fire pumper in the U.S., 1731

Old stone fort in Schoharie, New York, 1772

Alice writes - finally got a really early start from Montpelier this morning and left town around 8.30 after stocking up on our supplies.

We took a scenic back road to the major interstate 87 which led us southwest toward the state of New York. We had decided not to take the northern lake route because frankly we've seen enough pretty and wanted to get where we were going quickly. Spending a few days in your car does that to you!

As I looked at the map I noticed that there was an old stone fort marked along the route and since we had time we decided to pull into the town of Schoharie (pronounced Sco-ree, located along interstate 88, southwest of Schenectady). After grabbing some lunch at a local diner and being greatly entertained by the conversations of the locals, we went to visit this old building that had been constructed in 1772 by German protestant settlers as a church. Later, as the British attacked in 1780, it was transformed into a fort and now houses a museum with a bunch of artifacts from the Revolutionary and Civil War.

Adjacent to the fort were a few old buildings containing more cool things, as you can see in the pictures. The fire engine, by the way, was build one year before George Washington was born and that dude is old!

Along the street were some more buildings, constructed by the German settlers from the Pfalz and rich Dutch immigrants.

They didn't like each other very well and still don't (except for Poelli), but they managed to get along. Tja, die Paelzer und die Kaeskoepp halt....

When we were done with our tour it rained and didn't stop for the rest of the day.

We decided to ignore the weather and stop at Woodlawn Cemetery in Elmira (also on interstate 88) to visit Mark Twain's, whose real name was Samuel Clemens, grave. I guess his wife was from that town and instead of having to sit around with his in-laws during summer vacation he preferred to write. Who wouldn't?

Anyways, we reached our final destination, Mansfield, Pennsylvania, at the early time of 18.00 and checked into our motel ganz gemuetlich.

We'll try to get to bed early tonight, because we're going to see the Gettysburg Civil War battlefield. Can't wait to see that!

Gute Nacht.

p.s. we drove 405 miles today....

Tim writes: if you need a trip-planer, ask Alice... it's been sooo easy!

Day 6 - Montpelier, VT

Somebody gave this guy sunglasses..






The dying man is actually the sculptor and the lady is his wife





That'll be my gravestone :)

Wonder what this one means...

Janette's and Dave's house

Breakfast in Vermont with the family


Alice writes: hi folks, on Sunday the Creator rests (I mean the creator of this blog, of course) so there will be more pictures than text.

After a nice breakfast with real bread, we first walked Syd and then drove to the town of Barre (pronounced "berry") which is only a few miles down the road from Montpelier.

There we visited the Hope Cemetery - a graveyard containing a plethora of neat granite gravestones produced by the local Italian sculptor population.
Check out some of the photos above - some unusual stuff going on there!

After having a vegetarian, wholefoods buffet (very yummy!) there was a little break in the program which some of us spent snoozing, others reading.

In the evening Dave, Tim, and I went to see the movie "Sicko" by Michael Moore.

For all my German friends, he's the same guy that made "Fahrenheit 911" and "Bowling for Columbine" - just ask Dorle, he knows what I'm talking about :).

Very interesting, scaring and cleverly made, as usual.

Now we're about to have a late dinner on the back porch and tomorrow morning Tim and I will head out towards Pennsylvania. After resting for 2 days, it'll be another long haul. Will change our routing a bit, but will let you know about that tomorrow - if we have wifi, that is.

Gutes Naechtle!

Morningly check of emails, blogs, bank accounts, etc.

Day 5 - Montpelier, VT

Janette at a covered bridge




In front of the Ben and Jerry's ice cream factory





Farmer's market in Montpelier






Capitol in Montpelier


Alice writes: unbelievable - a day without sitting in the car from morning until night. It was sooooo nice! And having an own bedroom was just as nice - sorry Tim :).



We started the morning by going into Montpelier and scoping out the place.
The capitol is very small and cozy and can be visited without going through any security checks - I'm really not used to that.
For those of you who are geographically challenged, Montpelier has a population of about 8 000 and is the capital of Vermont. The landscape is very hilly and there are plenty of trees - very beautiful!


The farmer's market was something else - every hippie in town showed up there; all 8 000 of them. Well, not really, but there was a lot of "natural" and "organic" going on which made me very happy. That feeling was slightly diminished when I saw the prices of bread, but nonetheless - instead of watching gun-toting republicans driving around their pick-up trucks I was able to watch organic-fed lesbians buy tie-dyed shirts. What a relief!

I also only saw one church which was an even nicer change of pace - sorry, bible-belters if I offended anybody.
Just joking, I don't really care :).



We had our lunch at a coffee shop which, surprise, served organic food and coffee. Yay!!!
A little tour was planned after that, namely to the Ben and Jerry's ice cream factory. For those of you who don't know Ben and Jerry's, it's a brand of ice cream that has funky names and comes in all kinds of concoctions. Just imagine the most sinful and caloric combinations and that's their ice cream.
The tour itself was very kitschig and just watching a movie about the whole process would have been just as educational, but what the heck - at least I don't have to die dumb now and I now know how ice cream's made.

As you can see in the photo we sacrificed ourselves for our fans and the blog and stuck our heads through this silly sign, in front of a crowd of people standing in line to buy totally overpriced ice cream.
We did too, I have to confess, but it was delicious!



On we went to see a covered bridge, which Vermont is supposedly famous for, and then sampled cheese, which Vermont is even more famous for, at a cheese and chocolate store.
Tom, I bought you some cheese and an emu summer sausage - you can already start drooling :).


Here's some educational stuff (Volkmar's thinking: "oh crap" right now):
did you know that the distance signs in Vermont are all in kilometers, but the speed limits and distance markers are in miles? Confusing, but all progress is hard.


Did you also know that men at a certain age consider talk about their gastro-intestinal tract to be great conversation? So all you ladies out there that are reading this and who's guys are not yet over 45 - consider yourself warned, because this is the future, gell :).


So long and gute Nacht!

Tim writes: I have terminal gas!

Day 4 - Pembroke, ON to Montpelier, VT

Sydney - my nephew




45-minute wait at the border Canada-USA

Self-explanatory

Restaurant in Quebec

Rain, rain and more rain

Always preparing - breakfast at the Sleepy Haven Motel in Pembroke

Alice wrote: spent a good night in Pembroke, Ontario despite the snoring coming from the other bed!

Since we had a microwave and real dishes we got to eat hot oatmeal, which I insisted on taking along, while planing out the route for the day.

We wanted to go visit Montreal, have lunch there and then head south toward the USA.

It rained for most of the night and kept on going when we left so sometime on the road we decided that Montreal wouldn't be much fun in this kind of downpour so at a service station we bought a Quebec map and decided to take back roads through some of the smaller towns.

Off we went into the rain! After crossing the St. Lawrence River into Quebec and driving under this huge power plant, the roadsigns suddenly changed from English/French to French only which we thought was pretty outrageous and arrogant, but we all know the French, so bitching about it is pretty useless. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em so I'm sure glad I brushed up on my French! At least I was able to impress Tim a little, since he's capable of speaking French big time and as the navigator I had to distinguish est from ouest, which I have a hard time doing even in English.

Anyways, at least Quebec is a lot cleaner and better upkept than Ontario, so it was fun driving back country roads. We even found a town called St. Timothee, which we thought was worth stopping in and having lunch.

Of course we wanted to order everything in French and totally blend in with the locals which worked for about 30 seconds - then we were lost.

The waitress was nice enough to speak English so we sheepishly caved in and ordered the coquilles fruit de mare (me), and baked ham in the language we knew better.

We then cruised the countryside a little more in the rain, noticing that a lot of the towns looked like in France, except for the pickup trucks.

After a few hours we had enough and headed toward the border which we had the privilege of staring at for 45 minutes before we were finally let through.

The drive to Vermont was quite interesting, crossing a bunch of bridges over scary waters. No wonder the taxes in VT are so high, with the great roads and visitor's centers they have - lots of free organic, fair trade coffee and muffins. Volkmar is now rolling his eyes, but tough luck - we loved it!

Around 19.30 we arrived in Montpelier at my sister's Janette and her husband Dave, being enthusiastically greeted by nephew/granddog Sydney.

After a great meal and lots of wine we're now saying: "Gute Nacht!"

p.s. we drove 367 miles today.

Day 3 - Manistique,MI to Pembroke, ON

Yay, we're in Canada, eh!

Tim writes: OK - readers... tonight it's my turn to write something more than just a smart-assed comment! We didn't hit the sack until 1:00 am so couldn't make tracks until after 9:00 this morning. That, plus slow Ontario speed limits and bad weather, getting - uh -misplaced in Sault Saint Marie [a town that doesn't waste much time and money on road signs], and much traffic put us into Pembroke behind schedule - but what the hey, as this voice keeps nagging at me: "Nur keine Hetze, wir sind doch im Urlaub"! [I have to add that that nagging voice helped with much of the driving today!]

Impressions from Canada: having worked up here, I remembered it as clean and tidy. I once worked south of here, down near London, Ontario so they might be clean and tidier there, but sure aren't up here in Northern Ontario... lots of weeds, scrub brush, and Kentucky-like houses and mobile homes complete with junk cars and washing machines - plus snowmobiles, lots of junk snowmobiles, in the yards. It did seem to improve some as we neared Ottawa so we're anxiously awaiting tomorrow and our forey into La Belle Quebec. After finding our motel [which thanks to an erroneus Google map we found to be on the other side of this fair-sized city], we were treated to a rack of fresh baked cookies by our humorous landlord Adam and his wife Lynn. Never had that happen to me at a Holiday Inn! We checked in and found the room to be o.k. - it included a little kitchen and a wallpapered bathroom. The furniture was old and well-worn, but the matresses very comfortable and we have wifi!. We do have to watch out for vertigo though, the floors are up to three inches out of plane [Alpen Tussi and Mr. D, how aboot a fixer-upper in Ontaario, heh?]. With some notable F-250 exceptions, the people so far on this trip have been as expected - friendly and helpful, and that includes of course - Canada!

Highlights from today: Finding Canada! [Hell, all we had to do was follow the arrows!] The wind-and-rain-swept beach/boardwalk/lighthouse of Manistique, on the shores of Lake Michigan, lying to the Canadian border guard this morning: "no sir: no alcohol on board" [a case of wine wouldn't really be an alcoholic product, would it?], a very impressive bridge-work over the Sault Ste. Marie locks, introducing Alice to the popular Tim Horton's coffee shops, and a return to the metric system!

Downers from today: the extremely high prices with an exchange rate almost at par, the afore mentioned down-at-the-heels look of upper Ontario [and upper Michigan too, for that matter - [but then, perhaps we've been spoiled by Iowa and Wisconsin], and getting ripped-off by the local Pembroke McDonald's [shorted two fajitas]. We'll live through it and are looking forward to a dejune' tomorrow in Montreal, and a safe landing in Mont-peel-yer Vermont tomorrow evening!

Alice wrote: that's what you get when you support part of the evil empire (Micky Dee's), hehe.

Arrows to Canada [duh]!

Endless Michigan and Ontario woods.

Nagging voice on the Manistique boardwalk... ain't she purty?

Lake Michigan: beach and lighthouse at Manistique.

p.s. we drove 535 miles today!