Ellen's Family and Travel Spot: July 2008

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Jennifer, Sally and I are sorority sisters from our college days at Missouri Valley College 40 years ago. We made a trip to Huntsville Alabama to visit another sorority sister, Ina who lives there with her husband. We have traveled together for over 10 years each summer to visit each other in many parts of the US. We arrived in Huntsville Wednesday, July 16 about 10 am after getting up very early (4:45 am) after spending the night together at Sally's house, about 10 minutes from the airport in Kansas City. Ina met us at the airport and off we went to her house in Madison, Alabama where she fixed us a wonderful lunch of salads and fruit with a triffle for dessert. After lunch we watched a DVD, "The Jane Austin Book Club" which is a great "chix flix."

Rocket Center in Huntsville, AL

When Ina's husband, Mel, came home from work, he took us to a new area for shopping in Huntsville called "Bridge Street Mall." It is a beautiful mall in a Mediterranean style with a canal running through it with gondolas and beautifully landscaped with flowers. We ate at a gourmet Mexican cafe, called the Cantina Laredo. It was a very nice contemporary restaurant with great food. We window shopped a little more then went back to their home. We played some games and then went to bed relatively early because we had gotten an early start that morning.

Thursday, July 17, 2008
Ina had a great breakfast for us and we left about 9:45 am to travel to Lynchburg, Tennessee, the home of the Jack Daniels Distillery. We were joined in our adventure by Kelly, the "adopted daughter" and neighbor of Ina and super nice young women. It took about an hour and 20 minutes to get to Lynchburg through the green rolling hills of northern Alabama and southern Tennessee. We first visited the Visitors Center at the Jack Daniels Distillery. We didn't do the tour because we had done that once before.

Our next stop was the historic square in Lynchburg and going through some of the shops there.

The highlight of our trip was lunch at "Miss Mary BoBo's Boarding House." It is a restaurant off the square that was once a boarding house and now serves southern cooking family style

. We sat in the parlor until the dinner bell was rung for about 90 guest who were assigned certain dining rooms with large tables. With each table of guests there is an official hostess from the staff. Our hostess was Janice who told us about the 100 years of history of Miss BoBo's and Lynchburg. She also made sure that we were good patrons who always passed to the left and she kept the conversation going. We sat with a family of 4 from Columbus Tennessee. Our menu was: fried catfish, stuffed peppers, fried okra, candied apples with Jack Daniels sauce, "stewed" new potatoes, Lima beans seasoned with country ham,

green chili rice, corn bread and a tomato salad. Everything was absolutely delicious and bowls were refilled as soon as they were emptied. For dessert, Chess Chocolate Squares with whipped cream infused with Jack Daniels was served, which again was superb. After lunch we again shopped on the small square of the town which had small antique and souvenir shops.

We got back to Huntsville about 3:30 pm and watched the beginning a English mini-series on DVD called "A Dinner of Herbs," based on a Catherine Cookson novel. Later we went on errands to the Library and Kroger store in Madison, Alabama where Ina lives. It is a beautiful modern community with lovely homes and shopping areas that have very nice landscaping and flowers. Many people from the aerospace industry live in the area. We went home and Ina fixed us a "snack" of salads and goodies and a few cocktails. We then played some games and watched more of the mini-series before going to bed.

FRIDAY, JULY 18, 2008

We slept in a little and had a nice quick breakfast. We visited and went again the to Bridge Street

Mall to eat a fabulous lunch at PF Changs, sharing lettuce wraps and entrees. We got our tickets to see Mamma Mia on Sunday and went shopping at Barnes and Nobles. We came home to Ina's to watch more of the min-series and have a few cocktails! We watched the movie, Juno, and we all really liked it. Then Ina made us great lasagna and we went to bed early to get up early the next morning to go on a historic train in Chattanooga TN that goes to Chickamauga GA.

SATURDAY, JULY 19, 2008--A CRAZY TRAIN RIDE TO REMEMBER

We had quite an adventure today! We got up early, Ina fixed us some biscuits and we got out of the house to go to Chattanooga TN about 7 am so that we could get to our historic train ride by 10 am. The trip is only about 2 hrs and 20 minutes so we thought we had plenty of time. When we crossed over into TN we realized that there was a time zone change to Eastern Time and we might be late. Ina and Mel had completely forgotten about that. We got there as fast as we could but the train had already left! We did not panic but we had non-refundable tickets that were not cheap. The people at the depot told us where we could catch the train about 20 minutes away in Rossville, GA. Thank goodness it would take the train longer to get there than us if we went very quickly. They had directions because this was not the first time this had happened! They said we were on "slow time" (an hour earlier than what they were) and they were on "fast time" (an hour later!) We made it after a few missed turns, just about 10 minutes before the train pulled in "just in front of the CVS pharmacy" in Rossville. They stopped the train just for us and we got on a bit disoriented but soon where enjoying the train ride. We had missed our call to the dining car so they said we could come back early from the next stop (which was an hour and half stopover) and have our lunch. We had a great lunch in the dining car and were ready to explore. Our first stop was the little town of Chickamauga with shops and museum. Then the train stopped at the Chickamauga Battlefield. We had re-enactors on the train who got off and explained some of the civil war tactics and life on the battlefield. They were a great father and son team with lots of information.

Chickamauga Battlefield in Georgia
We got back to Huntsville about 6 pm and Ina made us a great Mexican dinner and then we played some games and tried to watch a movie but most of us fell asleep during some part of the film. We had had a wonderful but wacky day.

SUNDAY, JULY 20
Ina made us a wonderful brunch with individual personalized omelets. Very yummy. Later we went to the Mamma Mia movie and we loved it. We were not impressed with all the voices but it was a fun and tunefully happy. We then went to one of our favorite burger places, Cheeburger, Cheeburger, that we had eaten at last time we were in Huntsville. Fun day!

MONDAY, JULY 21
We got ready to leave Huntsville after having a wonderful time. Ina took us for a trip downtown to the the Historic Harrison Hardware Store and Museum. A fun place to go back in time to the old general store days and to pick up some fun items, too. Our last lunch in was at a wonderful, local Italian restaurant, Terranova's. Then off to the airport after a wonderful time in Huntsville with great friends.

OUR CANADA DAY CAKE, CELEBRATING CANADA DAY, JULY 1, WITH AUNT ANN

We had Bar-B-Q at Aunt Susan's house and enjoyed visiting with everyone while we celebrate Canada Day for Ann who was with us from Canada.

Girls do crafts while waiting for dinner.

Kids enjoy hamming it up with the Canada Day cake!

This rug was "hooked" by Aunt Ann for our mother. It has our family on it with sisters, Susan, Ann and Ellen skipping rope and brother Jack on the bicycle, "the Silver Streak." Mother is by the school house and dad in the school bus. Ann's family also represented with kids and dogs. She said it took her three years to make.