a long way to Chattanoga

Oh the places we've been and the things we have seen.  Nomar meets his daddy at Vesterheim Museum in Decorah Iowa

followed the next day by a visit to Anne Elisabeth Maurland in her studio, also in Decorah.  A couple of hours drive down the road and we are at Josh and Donnetta Lucas's in Mason City Iowa.  Nice tour of River City and got to see the Frank Lloyd Wright influence 

Me and Donnetta on her porch...... and I got a neat  bird house to bring home THANKS Donetta!!!

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From Iowa it was off to Nebraska to meet MICHAELA, everyone wants to wear the Asian Sunglasses....  The picture below is a new way of 'self' portraits when you have no one around to do it for you, this was just a bit blurry but better than the one with my elbow covering Michaels face 

Nomar rolls into Missouri..... 

 A trip to the museum in Saint Joseph, this is where the Pony Express started and it had LOTS of stuff in it, including a great phone collection and switching equipment 

 Just before it rolled over to 10 K between Columbia Missouri and St Louis Missouri

 In Paducah Kentucky.  Beautiful quilts but you couldn't take pictures §8-(

Walking around town in Paducah

                                    This is for Margerie in Oz (aka Australia)  ^

 This is a wooden quilt, this piece they allowed pictures of. The real deal is hanging on the wall to right and looks just like a real quilt hanging on a line to air out, pretty amazing.  Below is the cross section...

 Nomar has made it to Tennessee!! (see him at the top) and 1st stop was Nashville to meet Line and her family, below is her precocious daughter who is every bit as cute and lively as her picture...... 

Onward to Christiana TN to visit with Karen and Larry Sizemore,  below Nomar is getting ready to hop on the tractor and go for a rid at Canonsburgh Village in Murfreesboro

 The village is a compilation of buildings moved from various locations or were a part of Canonsburgh at one time. 

 Karen and her girls.... #5 was missing, probably off hiding an egg

 Lunch at the deli in Chattanooga, finally made it to Don and Sandy McCrea Stricklands in Signal Mountain TN what a very cool place.  Below is the Komatsu factory, the 'things' look like big bizarre yellow birds.... this is seen from way up near top of Signal Mountain taken with telephoto setting

 Nomar at Signal Point with Raccoon Mt and Lookout Mt in background and a bit of the Tennessee river can be seen.  Below is ???? 

 Incline Railway, this is a 2 car system that goes to top of Lookout Mountain and near the top is a 72% grade.  It is a cable system.  This is going up and you can't even see the top!! 

Below is looking down and you can't see the bottom and is almost scary to look at.  

 And when in Chattanooga what else do you see but the Chattanooga Choo Choo 

 Inside the old Chattanooga train depot, it is now a hotel or the lobby and there are old railroad cars that have been made into 'hotel' rooms..... 

 Something on one of the old cars, not sure of its purpose but it had character

 Along the river walk by the Tennessee Aquarium part of a tribute to the Trail of Tears

 Nomar and I (below) swim with the piranhas... The one in front looks a little angry that he couldn't get to us LOL

 Oh NO Nomar you are pushing your luck  ^  with that diamond back...... 

 Can you see the flounder?  There were 5 in the tank ^ Sandy and I found all of them!!  

 Above is the butterfly 'closed' and below how it looks 'opened' so many beautiful ones in the exhibit I think I could have stayed there all day and just watched them flit around

 and one of my favorite displays at the aquarium of course it's the fluid, fascinating jelly fish

     I think I could really like Signal Mountain and this area if it wasn't for HUMIDITY...  it is NOT my cup of tea......  Friday I head to western Tennessee and than homeward bound.  Hoping I will get to see John Thorp in Germantown and that Helen will be home from the hospital.   

      I stepped on a scale here at Sandy and Don's and seriously hope it is wrong.  If it isn't I will be doing zumba 5 days a week somewhere to work it off!!! 

     Hoping that someday all the people I have visited and stayed with, be they family or friends, will come to California and I will be able to show them the same hospitality and love that I have felt....... I don't know if I will every be able to properly say thank you to all of them except to pay it forward.... 

      More to follow as I wend my way back to the bay area.....