My post is later than usual this morning because I engaged in active birdwatching on Site 60 of Camp Margaritaville and got carried away. I can see why the birds all seem to flock to this place – it’s absolutely stunning, and gentle breezes blow balmy in the mornings across the water. The afternoons are a different story. More about that later in the week. We are here for one night for a concert, and it was fabulous. When you can’t always have The Eagles at The Sphere in Las Vegas, you can have The Long Run at Peachtree Pointe on Lake Lanier in Georgia.
We love to listen to all different kinds of music, but when it truly comes down to choosing a favorite, we’re Eagles fans. On days we are home and working around the house, we’ve got Pandora on the Eagles station, blasting it through Google Home as we work. If we’re traveling, same thing – it’s an Eagles station for us as we coast down the open road. We have our favorite songs, and even our favorite line from Take it to the Limit that will stop us in our tracks wherever we are, no matter what we’re doing, and where we’ll wait for that line and look to each other and answer “YES” after the question is asked: If it all fell to pieces tomorrow, would you still be mine??
We flew out to Las Vegas in February to see them perform at the Sphere, and that was as close to Eagles heaven on this planet as it gets. Nothing can touch that, but when I saw in our Georgia magazine that a tribute band, The Long Run, would be performing on Lake Lanier just a couple hours north of us and that the tickets were only $15 apiece to benefit the Georgia Mountain Food Bank, I snapped up two and booked a campsite at Margaritaville for a quick overnight getaway.
We set up on Site 60 and went exploring.
Boo Radley and Ollie loved the little trails leading to the lake.
We rented a golf cart to get to the concert, and I snapped this picture at dark on our way back.
This may be the most scenic outdoor concert venue in Georgia with boats covering the lake.
It was a beautiful evening, but we must go home today. We’ll stop and visit my Aunt Ann and Uncle Tom on the way through Atlanta. Uncle Tom, who turned 90 last December, has been itching to see the new RV and watch how we set it up. We can’t wait for some OK Cafe food and great company!
And we’re thinking of coming back in September for the magic of the Hot Air Ballon Fest. Check out Lake Lanier’s website and upcoming events here.
Our buddy Nick celebrated his 66th birthday the week before we drove half of Route 66 from Chicago to Albuquerque. He asked me to send him a few photos of Route 66 signs and to “take notes” to share with him, since he plans to drive Route 66 sometime before he turns 67. I assured him I would take “copious notes” – – which turned into my ChroNICles just for Nick. In case you plan to travel Route 66, these may be of interest to you as well.
We embraced a slow form of travel by only traveling half of the route on this leg of the journey. We flew into Chicago, rented a Ford Explorer one way from Chicago to Albuquerque, and flew home from there. Every point in between was filled with wonder of our nation, so it’s fitting that on this Independence Day as we celebrate America, I can look back and share 12 slices of what I learned along the highways and byways of Route 66.
Take the road trip! There is no better way to celebrate our great nation and to experience the changing landscapes of America than by taking a drive. Ever since I was a child, I have loved going different places to broaden my horizons and explore a variety of cultural flavors! I’d visit a place – Paris, London, Berlin, Orlando, Asheville, Nashville – – thinking I’d seen France, England, Germany, Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee. Boy, was I wrong! Worse: I hadn’t truly “seen” any of those cities, either – just a landmark or two at most. I realize now what John Steinbeck meant when he said, in Travels with Charley, that “We don’t take a trip. A trip takes us.” To see a slice of America by car, watching the changing landscapes from state to state, is the way to experience the diversity of our land and its people. We find it in the roadside diners, in the conversations with waitresses and other travelers.
Get in touch with your inner criminal graffiti artist self with the situation allows! Buy more than one can of spray paint from Wal-Mart in Amarillo, where they keep it locked behind the glass and will have to help you get your colors. Go for the yellow and black, and add the white and pink. Then drive on over to Cadillac Ranch and paint. But do not – I repeat, DO NOT – wear a hat. The wind is so fierce, it’ll lift you off the ground at times and take your hat with it.
Look for the things no one tells you about – There’s a place somewhere near Albuquerque that plays America The Beautiful if you drive along the teeth of the roadway. We missed that. When we start leg #2 in California and drive back to Albuquerque, we will find out where this is and drive on the teeth on the very end of our Route 66 adventure, coming sometime in the next year! We had deep discussions about the things we don’t see.
Stay on the path, but stray from the path, too. Build enough flexibility in your plan to be able to throw it all out and do something spontaneous. We had planned to go to Meramac Caverns, but after going up in the St. Louis Gateway Arch, we wanted to see it from the river, so we took a river cruise instead, then planned a different cavern the next day. We saw signs in Uranus, Missouri for the Uranus Fudge Factory, where they claim that “the best fudge comes from Uranus,” and the t-shirts were too inappropriate to pass up. We built in some iconic landmarks, some quirky stops, some experiences in nature, some retro diners and some ice-cream-for-dinner nights, some chain hotels and some back-in-the-day motels, a peak and a canyon. We wanted the sampler platter of America, and we savored every bite! We were early to bed and early to rise so we could take it all in and still have some energy to enjoy it all.
Keep your eyes peeled for the unexpected – – you just might see it! Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought I’d see a Road Runner and remains of a Mohave Rattlesnake on the trip, but I did! I saw Prairie Dogs, too, and we watched them playing from our room overlooking their playground. The simplest moments turned out to be some of the most memorable ones.
Take the time to talk to the servers! If you’ve never eaten “the special” breakfast in Tulsa, Oklahoma at a hole in the wall cafe with a waitress who’s the Queen of Bling and has a red tattoo of a Q and the shape of diamond right next to her left ear on her cheek to prove it to anyone who doubts it even after seeing the bracelets that line her arm from elbow to wrist and then, when you ask if she’s from Tulsa, she coughs the raspy smoker’s cough and emphatically says, “HELL no, I’ve lived here for 40 years, but I’m from Wisconsin,” as if you’ve offended her, you might want to try it. She may have gotten a few double-takes from some traveling diners, but I realized I was in the midst of my kind of people when I sat down and heard the blatant honesty spew forth from her lips, telling us about a recent storm she’d endured. And talk to April at The Midpoint Cafe in Adrian, Texas over a piece of pie and a cup of coffee. She’s a single mother in her young 20s but knows the whole history of her corner of the world and would climb one of those tall windmills for $56.00 an hour if she could repair them. This is how Steinbeck wrote Travels With Charley – from the lively conversations with his fellow Americans!
Pack light, but bring home some souvenirs and mail some postcards! Memories are the best souvenirs – – photos, journals, blogs, and t-shirts help bring us back to those moments. We have a rule: if it won’t fit in the carry-on and personal bag, it doesn’t come home with us. We pack a 3×3 for a week’s trip – 3 bottoms, 3 tops. That makes 9 outfits and leaves plenty of space for bringing back some new socks, t-shirts, bracelets, and other small things that will fit in our bags.I even found room for a Texas Longhorn and a Highland Bull! I found a turqoise and mother of pearl bracelet in Old Town Albuquerque in a store called Warpath with a red door that reminded me so much of my mother I had to have it. It keeps her on my mind and keeps the memories of the trip close at hand, too.
Wear a great pair of shoes and carry the best water tumbler you can find. My inner hippie couldn’t drive Route 66 without my trusty Birkenstocks, but for getting out on the peaks and in the canyons, I relied on my On Clouds. Even though it’s a road trip, there’s a lot of walking and stair climbing in parts. The water tumbler: I filled it with icy water at every single restaurant and hotel along the way (except one, where it smelled a little funky), and it cut down on the amount of bottled water I had to buy and kept me cool and hydrated.
My new bulls, and a wine cork noted with the date, people, and place of savoring.
Make a countdown list of the things you need to do so you can leave at peace and embrace slow travel (without stressing) at its finest. The most challenging thing for me to remember is holding the mail, but the USPS makes it easy to arrange online, so even if I remember at the airport, I can still make it happen!
Leave something behind – a time capsule, a signature on a sign, some graffiti. We left a styrofoam cooler, inviting someone else to use it and give it a new life, then share it with us if they felt moved.
Eating Lupper (supper off the lunch menu) at The Big Texan in Amarillo
Take a group – you’ll share fabulous company and financial costs, but whatever you do…..don’t talk politics. It can ruin a trip. Enjoy the moments without splitting hairs over differences. We met a couple from New York, who dove straight into their political stance as we all sat outside at The Blue Swallow Motel in Tucumcari, New Mexico. When they realized all of us were not in agreement with them, my husband broke in: “What you’re looking at right here in the four of us is a wide part of the political spectrum. From the moderate to the conservative, we have a wide gap.” They were amazed, and asked, “How do you do this, traveling together?” My husband was quick: “We talk about other things besides the POTUS. We talk about the places, the food…. we respect each other’s opinions, and we keep it that way.” He wasn’t afraid to speak the truth we could all agree on….and when we returned from dinner, the couple was sitting elsewhere.
Research, read, and explore ahead of time so you’ll appreciate all the things you’ll see. Get the Roadtrippers Plus app for planning the journey, and print a hard copy of your planned-but-flexible itinerary to take, along with a hard copy of a travel book and a map in case you don’t have good cell service.
Happy Birthday, and enjoy the Route 66 Experience, Nick! There’s nothing quite like it!
