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November 27, 2008: Route 66 (Day 1)
We woke up this morning intending to head south to Georgia. After a last check of the weather we noticed the forecast had worsened. The chance for rain increased significantly, and since I had a specific purpose for this trip mostly involving outdoor photography, it was not something I wanted to do in the rain. We struggled between wanting to go and whether or not to trust the forecast. We could go somewhere else with a better forecast or not go at all. Pat hinted at going west on 66 since we hadn’t done that in a while. He’s very indecisive, as readers of his blog know from his recent…
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November 2008: Cincinnati, Ohio….the Neon Shangri-La
We’re planning for our next trip, a 4 day weekend to Georgia. We originally planned for Thanksgiving weekend, then Pat asked if I could go sooner (i.e., this weekend). No sooner did I arrange for Friday and Monday off work, when I received an e-mail from our friend, Denny Gibson, from Cincinnati. Another roadie friend, Don “RoadDog” from the American Road Magazine Forum that we moderate, was going to be passing through Cincinnati and they were planning on going to the elusive American Sign Museum. Elusive, that is, to Pat and me – we never seemed to be in Cincinnati at a time when the owner / founder was available…
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Tourist Trap Hell
It was a last second idea, but I wanted to finally see Gatlinburg, Tennessee. My second oldest brother, Scott, and his family go down there two or three times a year. Since it’s just a 6 hour trip on the interstate, we decided to go for it this weekend. We were on our way Friday afternoon after work, and procured a room at the Country Hearth Inn in Pigeon Forge via priceline.com for a modest $38/night, a savings of $20/night. Priceline has yet to fail our travel expenses in the 6+ years we’ve been using it. We arrived at our motel at 11pm Friday night and headed straight for bed. We had…
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Road Trip Memories is moving to a new home!
Being tired of maintaining an HTML-based site, I thought I’d change formats and transfer my website, www.roadtripmemories.com, into a blog format. Like moving into a real new home, I have a lot of boxes to unpack and set up in the new house!
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Road Trip!!!
There won’t be any updates for a few days. We’re heading to Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge, TN this afternoon for the weekend. We’ve never been there, so it’ll be interesting to see if it lives up to the hype I’ve heard over the years. Details next week…..
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Running to Madison
We had a nice Saturday afternoon trip down to Madison, Indiana for some fudge and burgers. Due to some time constraints, we had to jump on the interstate heading down, but got off onto US 31 in Columbus and took IN-7 into Madison. Due to the fact the Madison Fudge Factory closed at 5pm, we had less than a half hour to get in and get our fix of sugary goodness. The Factory’s HIGHLY recommended by us, as we’ve tried all the fudge shops in Madison….but we still buy from all of them anyway! Next up was dinner at Hinkle’s Hamburgers on Main Street, an institution in Madison dating back to…
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Some Came Running…for fudge?
Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Shirley MacLaine didn’t go running to Madison, Indiana for fudge, but every once in a while, we do. Madison, Indiana is a neat town in southern Indiana with very nice architecture, shops, and dining. It sits right on the Ohio River and was the filming location for the 1958 film “Some Came Running,” starrring the aforementioned celebrities. It was a nice day, we felt like getting out, so we drove down to Madison to pick up some fudge at the Madison Fudge Factory & Guest Suites. They have two guest suites upstairs, and the evening turn-down service includes fudge samples. Don’t quote me, but I…
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August 2008: The Great Outdoors and the Great River Road
Part 2 of “The Great Outdoors” as we return to the Sleeping Fawn Resort in Park Rapids. While we needed to take the Interstate up, for the most part, we returned along the Great River Road through Minnesota. We crossed into Wisconsin, back over to Iowa, and back to Wisconsin, before taking Wisconsin State Road 11. We then needed to take the Evil-I home to Indiana. Slideshow of All Photos For more details about a particular photo, click on it in the slideshow and it will open in my Flickr site. [flickrslideshow acct_name=”roadtripmemories” id=”72157606775163113″ width=”500″]
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June 2008: The Great Outdoors – Park Rapids, Minnesota
Pat has mentioned many times over the past several years about wanting to visit Minnesota. As a child, it was his family’s vacation destination of choice, and he also visited several times as an adult, the last being 1995. Other than our journey to the Twine Ball in November 2005, I had not been to Minnesota. So, we thought a trip to “The Great Outdoors” would be a fine idea. One of my favorite movies is “The Great Outdoors” starring Dan Aykroyd and the late, great comedian, John Candy. The film epitomizes the family northwoods vacation and our experience reflected that – everything reminded me of something from the movie.…
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Brieties Again – Greenville, Illinois
Pat and I took a quick trip to Greenville, Illinois to take photos of a diner called Brieties Again. The diner was the subject of an upcoming “Diner Days” feature in AMERICAN ROAD Magazine, written by John Goldsmith, the Executive Director of the National Road Association in Illinois. Becky Repp, AMERICAN ROAD’s Managing Editor, asked if I would take the photos.The article was published in the Autumn 2008 issue of AMERICAN ROAD. To view the photos, click here to visit my Flickr site: June 2008: Breities Again – Greenville, Illinois