TED46

Tuesday afternoon, May 22nd. We are back in Atlanta. Wow, what a trip! THE GREAT AMERICAN ROAD TRIP aka THE WINE, BEER & BOURBON ROAD TRIP. Our last leg was also the longest at 380 miles. As we departed Memphis, we made the mandatory drive to see Graceland. We decided that we were just too worn out to do the tour. So, we could not see much of the mansion. But we did see his airplanes which were on display across the road. There was not much else to report except that we drove I-22 in north-west Alabama for the first time. I thought the countryside along the road was beautiful. I would like to wrap up our trip with some statistics. States & Nights: 11 States & 16 nights/17 days: GA-Start: TN-1, KY-1, OH-2, IN-1, ... read more

Sunday morning, May 20. We started the day in St. Louis and had a lot of sites to see before we depart. I checked our location with my new app and noticed that we started today at 38.6 N, 90.2 W, with an elevation of 460.1Ft. After breakfast and loading our car, we set out on foot to visit the Gateway Arch. Jackie and I have traveled a lot around the world and I can say without hesitation that this structure is one of the most fascinating that we have seen. I took a lot of photos, see below, but there is no way to capture this. You have to come see this yourself. We took the tram ride to the top. It worried me a bit given my claustrophobia, but made it without a problem. ... read more

Friday, May 18th. We had fun today. We had a relatively short drive from Port Washington to downtown Chicago. Once again we altered our plans and decided to explore downtown before driving out to the suburbs to meet our friends. We drove along the coast and entered the Millennium Park Garage. It was below the Harris Theatre and adjacent to the Millennium Amphitheater. From there it is a short walk to the river. We took a 1.5 hour "Architecture Tour" on the Chicago River. It was very informative and relaxing. That is until the rain started. The city has seen a lot of development over the last 100 years and the architectural trends are apparent. Plus, it is not over. New projects along the river are still underway. One issue of note was the "river walk" ... read more

Once again, we were blessed with great weather today. We reached our goal of seeing three of the Great Lakes on this road trip. Today, was Lake Superior. Yesterday, at Mackinac Island, was Lake Huron. And the days at Arcadia were on Lake Michigan. We checked out of the Bicycle Street Inn about 9:00am and caught the 9:30am ferry to St. Ignace. We made a route decision last night that takes us off the original track. We are no longer driving up to Sault Sainte Marie. We discovered that the cruise to visit the Pictured Rock National Lakeshore departs only once per day until June. The departure time is 2:00pm. So, we decided to give up on our plan to visit the city and the local university where my friends, Chris and Cathy Buell, attended. We ... read more

Another long drive today. We hated to leave our friends but it was time to get started to make our target destination by 3:00pm. We got on the road about 9:00am. We had a plan to visit a number of interesting beachfront cities and towns along the way. And we did. Our first stop was the Sleeping Bear Sand dunes. The views at the top are spectacular. Only, I know that by reading. We chose to skip this dune climbing test and move on. We think that Baldy, in the Arcadia Dunes was enough of a test and we passed. These are stunning though and if you come by you should climb. Next we made it to Charlevoix, where we had lunch at the Weathervane Restaurant. Once again the weather was perfect for an outside lunch ... read more