Well - time has gotten away from us and we have seen and done a lot since our time in the Smoky Mountains. Just having too much fun I guess.
We spent a great week in Nashville - highlights include biking the Naches Trace, Live music in downtown Nashville, The Nashville Convention Center, several rounds of golf, BBQ, Elvis Show,
Andrew Jackson Hermitage, and beautiful drives around the area.
Here is a brief pictorial of our journey back west:
We had a great time at an Elvis Show "Tribute to the King" at the Texas Troubadour
Live Music Options abound all around Nashville
We found lots of options for golf around Nashville too!
Elvis Lives!
Music Central~ Broadway
The "Bat Tower" AT&T Bldg
Just North of Nashville the Andrew Jackson Hermitage
Could these quotes be more appropriate for Today's Political Climate??
From Nashville we headed west to Memphis. We not only stopped here for the music and BBQ but to visit with Vince Nguyen the son of our friends Tuan and Mai. Vince is doing his residency in Memphis and it was great to see him after so many years. We had a great meal together at Central BBQ downtown.
Beale Street - Memphis center for Music
We just had the one day and night in Memphis then off to Arkansas and we had a nice lunch in Little Rock and visited the Bill Clinton Presidential Library. Our first presidential Library visit and we enjoyed it.
From Little Rock we spent the night car camping near Fort Smith AR and then headed NW through Tulsa, OK and were we ever impressed. Tulsa has a rich history and downtown filled with Art Deco architecture from the 19th Century.
Our last night before returning to Sally and Al's in Kinsley was another night of "car camping"
Great Sand Plains state park in north central Oklahoma.
A nice fire and our Biolite Stove for our evening meal
A beautiful sunset on the Resevoir
We were excited to get back to Sally and Al's farm in Kinsley and what a treat to spend the time we had with them both as well as their family. We feel so lucky to have renewed our familial ties to them all and look forward to more get togethers!
Al's Pride and Joy ~ '53 Chevy Belair
We had a nice dinner at the Kinsley golf and country club and watched game 2 of the World Series
(which KC won) and then the next morning, reunited with Obiwander (our trailer which we had left in Kinsley for the last month during our journey east) continued our trek west. On Sally's recommendation we took a couple of hours out and stopped at Bent's Old Fort N.M. and it was a real highlight. It was more of very fortified trading post on the Santa Fe Trail and it is a really inspiring example of life in the settling of the American West.
We have made our way into Colorado and we are now in Durango until Sunday.
We are getting a little snow today but it is supposed to clear up.
We are in that phase of the closer we get to home the more homesick we are feeling.
We will spend some time in our favorite of places - Utah, but we will be watching the weather and will get home sometime the middle of November.
Hope all are well!
Don and Carol
