We're home!

Last week we finally arrived home. We spent nearly 5 days driving from Albuquerque back to Maryland. In total, we put 10,000 miles on the car!!! Luckily, it was a rented Prius and we weren't ruining any of our own cars by putting on that many miles in 8 weeks. Here is Snoopy trying to look out the window, but he is just too short. Poor little guy...


We chose a Southern route for the drive home and made a stop in Vicksburg National Military Historical Park in Mississippi (site of a major Civil War battle). We had been to Gettysburg before and that was fun. However, in touring Gettysburg, we had an audio tour CD to listen to that explained the battle, told stories about each site, etc. In Vicksburg, we didn't feel like buying the audio CDs they had (after all, we aren't planning on returning there anytime in the near future). We found the cell phone tour they offered to be less interesting and informative than we would have liked. Oh well - we still took some fun pictures of us sweltering in the Southern muggy heat. Here's Tanja at the cemetery.


Here we are at the USS Cairo (we laughed that the Park Rangers pronounced it the CAY-ROE). The Cairo was a Civil War Union ironclad gunboat that was sunk. It now sits in the park and you can go inside to read plaques and look at the re-conditioned boat.


The park area sits high on a hill overlooking the Mississippi River and we captured some gorgeous views.


After two cross country trips through the South, we were both really enjoying the BBQ. I love ribs - as you can see! This meal came from Dreamlands in Birmingham, AL. We weren't eating all the time - we also took a walk around Downtown Birmingham to see several of the sites related to the Civil Rights Movement.


We also saw the supposed "Grand Canyon of the East" in Mentone, AL. Having seen the real Grand Canyon, this one was somewhat underwhelming, but we did get a few nice pictures, like this one of Tanja.


We took a hike along the Appalachian Trail near where it starts in Georgia (Neels Gap to Blood Mountain). The muggy weather cooperated somewhat since we were there before it really got too hot, and we persevered until we got to the top of the mountain and enjoyed our views. Snoopy frequently doesn't cooperate when we are taking pictures. Do you see what we have to deal with when we are trying to get him to pose? ;-)


Our last day took us through more of Tennessee, a part of North Carolina, then back home through Virginia. We made our drive through Great Smoky Mountains National Park (the most visited National Park). It was really pretty!




We were quite tired when we got home, as you might imagine. It was a good summer where we were able to see and do so many fun things. Now we are back to reality, which honestly, isn't such a bad place to be.