After another sweet Chanticleer Inn and B&Bbreakfast of waffles, whipped cream, fresh fruit, coffee and assorted breads we waddled out of the inn to begin our trip to Montgomery, AL. Montgomery Alabama. I had hoped to have time to explore Birmingham on our way south but on our tight schedule I would have had to give up something in Montgomery and there was already so much to see in a day and a half that I decided we should focus our energies in Montgomery instead. I am glad we did! We arrived just in time to tour the F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Museum before it closed. I had no idea that Zelda was a very talented and troubled young woman. F. Scott fell in love with her at an early age and after two years ... read more

Breakfast at the Chanticleer Inn and B&Bon Lookout Mountain, GA consisted of fresh fruit, home made pastries and apple cinnamon pancakes with real maple syrup (the owners were from New England and knew the difference between corn syrup and maple syrup) but the southern influence was present with the abundance of sweets as we found out after three days of rich, sweet breakfasts and evening cookies. We started our exploration of the Civil War Battlefields with the Battles for Chattanooga Electric Map and Museum. The exterior of the museum looked like a tacky tourist trap but inside we found a very knowledgable and friendly man who answered all our questions. We viewed a very instructive electronic battle map presentation about Chattanooga’s “Battle Above the Clouds”, in fact I was more impressed with the museum’s docent than ... read more

A Brief Tour of US history from Jefferson to the Civil War to the Civil Rights Movement We began this tour driving from Washington, DC, heading west to Waynesboro, VA via route 29 passing the Manassas Civil War Battleground with its open rolling hills and pre revolution wooden fences edging the hillsides. This lovely area will be explored further on our next trip north. Our introduction to the Shenandoah Valley ended up in clouds and late afternoon darkness on our drive down 340 from Front Royal to Waynesboro. The beginning of the drive was scenic but it got dark too soon on the sharp mountainous winding roads making the trip to the Speckled Trout B&B more exciting than I would have wished. Our B&B hostess Kay talked us through town of Waynesboro and even ran down ... read more

Version:1.0 StartHTML:0000000167 EndHTML:0000031208 StartFragment:0000000457 EndFragment:0000031192 Leaving Stockholm for Gothenburg (Goteborg) June 28: We boarded the SJ Train in Stockholm at 16:10 for the three and a half hour trip to Gothenburg passing flat farmland and forests with some light industry along the way. My sister Laurie lived in Gothenburg when she was a young adult and was eager for me to meet her friends, experience the places she loved and where she lived. According to my sister Gothenburg was a small fishing town on the sea (but she has spent most of her time in NYC and so small is relative.) This country girl was surprised to end up in quite a large city, in fact I later learned that Gothenburg is the second largest city in Sweden and the largest seaport in the Nordic countries. ... read more

June 21, Parnu's official first day of summer This morning Heli prepared yet another amazing breakfast. (I will have to fast for months when I return home.) This time she had prepared hard boiled eggs, cheese and meat and some special salty local herring from the Baltic sea (we learned that the Baltic has much less salt than the ocean and because of this many of the fish are unique to this area.) We were instructed to eat the herring with our unsalted hard boiled egg. Delicious! I washed all this down with my kefir and coffee and we were out the door for another tour of Parnu. Heli showed us the little house on the sea where she lived as a child with three other families, one bathroom and one room for each of the ... read more