Great Adventure-Phase 1 over

Hi Everyone,

Well, we arrived back in Rochester, NY, our hometown on Jan. 9th amid a snowstorm of course. Eight months after leaving home on our great adventure it was bittersweet to come back to snow and cold weather.

So, phase 1 of our Great Adventure has come to a close and we will be staying in Rochester at least until the weather breaks and becomes more comfortable. We have a brand new apartment in a very convenient location in a suburb of the City of Rochester, where we will be staying until we can strike out on another adventure. Then we plan on embarking on Phase 2 of our trip to explore this great big beautiful country of ours.

So far we have visited and explored 25 states, 26 National Parks, 27 National Monuments, 17 National Forests, 11 National Recreation Areas, 7 National Reserves, 42 State Parks, 4 Canadian National Parks,  3 Tribal Parks, and numerous city parks.

Signing off for now from cold upstate New York. See you all again in the spring😁.

Mammoth Cave National Park

Hi Everyone,

On Monday, Jan. 6th we drove about 300 miles across Tennessee, through Nashville and on to Bowling Green, Kentucky. We spent the night in Bowling Green, then went on to Mammoth Cave  National Park the next day.

On Tuesday, Jan. 7th we went into the national park to explore the longest cave complex in the world.

After we went to the visitor's center where Dad got a ticket to go into the cave on a ranger-guided tour, Mom and I went for a long hike around the park.

Inside he found an alien world far beneath the world we live in. The cave complex is so extensive, no one person has ever explored all of it. Some people have spent their lifetime trying to do just that.

There were inhabitants that visited the tour group to demonstrate that there can be life hundreds of feet below the surface, even in complete darkness. These guys are cave crickets, resembling daddy-longlegs spiders.

There were several cathedral-like rooms, some hundreds of feet high, and bottomless pits too.

Outside, Mom and I hiked down to the Green River, past the Historical Entrance, and around the park to the railroad station that helped to launch the park back in the 1880s.

We only saw a small part of the park because a large part of it was closed for the winter, including most of the ranger-lead tours.

Tomorrow we are heading to Ohio, only a few hundred miles for our old home in Rochester, NY.

We expect to be there by Thursday, January 9th😃.

Hot Springs National Parks

Hello Everyone,

On Saturday, Jan. 4th we drove across Arkansas from Fort Smith to Hot Springs, several hundred miles. The national park is situated in a small city surrounded by low-lying mountains.

At the edge of the city, there were two signs. One read, "This is the oldest resort in America". The second sign read, "This is the boyhood home of President, William Jefferson Clinton". Cool!

We parked in a free public parking garage a block away from the park, walking past a public park with a natural spring running through it.

Across the busy street, we visited the national park's visitor's center which is in a row of beautiful old bathhouses at the base of the mountain, some built in the 1800s.

Some of these bathhouses have been operating since the 1800s and remain open today to accommodate the park visitors.

After visiting the visitors center to orient ourselves we walked up the sidewalk to the grand staircase.

At the end of the walkway, there is a small natural spring that runs continuously into a beautiful ornate fountain.

To the left of the staircase, there is a small "hot spring" for visitors to experience first-hand a natural hot spring. The water temperature was about 135-degrees, warmer than most people would want to soak in.

At the top of the staircase, there is a promenade that runs the whole length of the mountain behind the bathhouses.

From the promenade, several hiking trails surmount the mountain to observation points and overlooks that provide spectacular views of the city and valley below.

 At the peak of the mountain, there is a large steel tower that can be climbed for a fee, climbing steel steps rising 190-feet to a grand view into the valley below.

At the far end of the row of bathhouses, there is a huge veteran's rehab center that has been there since World War II.

On Sunday, Jan. 5th we drove 200+ miles further East to the Mississippi River at the edge of Arkansas and crossed over into Tennessee at the bridge to Memphis.

It was exciting to drive over "the Big Muddy" for the first time in our lives.

Tomorrow we are heading to Nashville, TN, and from there on to Mammoth Cave National Park😀.

Happy New Year !

Hi Everyone,

Happy 2020 everyone! It is Wednesday, January 1st and we have over 2,000 miles to travel before we make it to our hometown. We are on our way home to Rochester, NY with a few short stops to explore the areas that we travel through.

Our first stop was going to be Blue Lake State Park in New Mexico. However, the weather was not cooperative. At about 9:30 am in the morning, we left Gallop, New Mexico, but were distressed to learn that the temperature was windy and only 9-degrees, much too cold to do any hiking.

So we gave up on the idea of hiking and exploring, and continued on our way East instead on Route 40. We passed through the city of Albuquerque around noon so we stopped for lunch to rest a bit before moving on. We had lunch at a Subway, right in front of the Albuquerque Fire Department.

We drove over 300+ miles that first day, nearly four hours to Tucumcari, New Mexico (pronounced To-come-Cary) where we spent the night.

 The next day, Thursday, Jan. 2nd we drove another 300+ miles through New Mexico to Texas where we found a fantastic town called Groom. There we found a wonderful park that had a monster cross at the edge of town and fourteen statues depicting the fourteen stations of the cross beautifully rendered in life-size statues. 

To view more of what we saw but didn't have the time to photograph, go to "A Town Called Groom" on the internet. The cross alone is nineteen stories tall and can be seen from 20 miles away.

We continued through northern Texas and on into Oklahoma to Weatherford, OK where we spent the night. On the way, Dad and Mom stopped so I could have a nice walk along historic Route 66, the 2448-mile legendary road that crossed the nation from Chicago to Santa Monica, California, portions of which still exist. 

On Friday, Jan. 3rd we drove another 300+ miles through Oklahoma and on to Fort Smith, Arkansas where we spent the night.

Tomorrow we will be going to Hot Springs National Park in Hot Springs, Arkansas😀.