Parrottrek Journal 2009

Frank had just cleaned the windshield, so the pictures turned out great and bug free

April 20th - Picture Perfect Windows -
Who needs to watch TV when you can watch the beautiful countryside go by? At times I feel as though I am living in an IMAX theatre, only better, because there are times when I can have the film stop, get out of my seat and touch what is right in front of us, not necessarily in the middle of the highway, but most other times. A few nights ago, we sat in the motorhome in Arkansas with tornado watches all around. The wind was howling, the rain got harder and harder, and as the temperature dropped the rain turned to hail.

We watched the radar and read all about the storm warnings on the Internet and saw that the bad weather was supposed to end at 8:45pm. Considering it was only about 8:20 at the time we started reading, we weren't quite sure how hard the wind and rain would get and where to go if the tornado sirens did go off. We have been in places before when the tornado sirens started and have vowed to avoid it ever again, however mother nature doesn't give us much control over having that wish come true. To our sheer amazement, and delight, the rains lightened at 8:44 and at 8:45 the wind stopped and all was peaceful. It was truly one of the eeriest experiences we've ever had and never before has a weather forecast been so accurate. Unfortunately the next morning we heard on the news that the tornado did touch down just 50 miles southwest of us, yikes, and took out half of a town and killed two people, very sad stuff. On the positive side, the good thing about the storm is that it created dozens and dozens of waterfalls all along highway 40 which made for some exceptionally pretty scenery as we drove to visit Kate, Joel, Lily and Jack in the mountains of Georgia.

Frank gets the helicopter ready to launch

Jack was mesmerized

He's off to find the helicopter

Always a happy little guy

April 20th - Playtime with Jack - Lookout Mountain, Georgia -
I'm not sure who had more fun tonight with the radio controlled helicopter, Jack or Frank. Frank would set it up and make it take off and land all around little Jack, who's eyes followed it everywhere it went. Every so often it would land close enough, so off he'd go to crawl and chase it. Unfortunately the batteries didn't last as long as the fun, so the flight was cut short which made Frank sad, but Jack didn't seem to mind. Jack is quite a snuggler and he and I danced a bit before he and his sister headed off to bed and the adults had a nice evening catching up.

The walking bridge over the water

Lily and Frank search for birds

The views from the bridge

Lily stopped to check each beam

April 21st - A Day with the Treick's - Chattanooga -
We met up with Lily, Jack and their parents today at The Mellow Mushroom, which has become one of our favorite pizza places around the country. It was a beautiful sunny day so we decided to take a nice long walk around town and over the walking bridge which apparently has become one of Lily's favorite places to look for birds and inspect all the big blue beams that hold the bridge up. The views from the bridge were quite nice with all sorts of parks and the river below. Once across the bridge, we walked through the art district of Chattanooga and by the old and new art museum and then headed back to Lily's house for dinner.

The beautiful art museum

A new modern addition to the museum

The beautiful Opryland Hotel

The glass ceiling makes you feel as though you are outside

Lunch at Wasabi's with great views

April 26th - Eat, Drink and Celebrate Being Married -
At precisely 2:30 this afternoon, we clinked our Sapporos and celebrated our I do's of 12 years with lunch alfresco, well almost alfresco, since the ambiance of the Opryland Hotel, here in Nashville, Tennessee, makes you feel as though you are dining, walking and shopping in the outdoors while being perfectly protected from the sun and not having to worry about reapplying your spf. Wasabi's Sushi Bar was nestled in between beautiful flower gardens, waterfalls and the river that winds all through the hotel's shops and pathways.

The Opry River

A waterfall by our table

General Jackson

Live entertainment on the deck

General Jackson Sunset Cruise
Have we mentioned before how much we love the water? Well today's celebration finished off with a sunset cruise down the Cumberland River on the General Jackson paddleboat. The weather was perfect and the sights were even better. The cruise started out with a live band on the top deck while all the passengers boarded. Once we got underway, there was an option to see a show inside the theatre that the boat held which we opted out of, when purchasing our tickets, since we figured half the reason of taking the boat ride was to enjoy the water. It turned out to be a good choice considering that once the show began we pretty much had the entire deck level to ourselves.

Frank spoke to a man who stormed the beach of Normandy

Floating down the Cumberland River

Had we attended the show, we would have missed the sunset and the views of downtown not to mention our very own private serenade from one of the musicians practicing his violin on the paddlewheel deck and a few stories from a World War II veteran who spoke of storming the beaches of Normandy.

April 30th - Running Stadiums with the Boys - Madison, Illinois -
Since we have arrived at the track here in Madison, just outside the city of St. Louis, Missouri, I have been walking around the NASCAR track and stadiums for a bit of exercise. We usually take Cody for a bike ride so he can flap and flap and flap until he is all worn out, but today we experimented to see if he would walk up the stairs with us. It was the cutest thing to see him run and hop up the steps trying to catch up to us, or turn around and hoping back down once we headed down the stairs. When he did get ahead of us he would turn around, nod his head up and down and say 'come on' and then would mimic our breathing once we were winded. Needless to say he only made it up the entire steam once to our four or five times, but at the end of the workout he was well worn out and fell asleep on Frank's knee once we got back to the motorhome.

The zookeeper yelled at me when I pet his head

They're almost the same height when mom sits down

Lunchtime in the prairie dog habitat

A most unusual pair of playmates chase each other

May 4th - Spring is in the Air - St. Louis Zoo -
As we find ourselves with another week off and a leisurely drive to our next event, we decided to spend a few more days here on the border of Madison, Illinois and St. Louis, Missouri. It has been a few years since we toured this great city so we decided to re-see some of the sights and visit a few we missed last time. We started off at the enormous, and free I might add, St. Louis Zoo. You can sure tell Spring is here, since there are all sorts of babies. We saw a few baby prairie dogs, a tiny camel with itty bitty humps, a couple baby penguins sleeping on their momma's feet and the most darling baby giraffe, playing chase with a full grown, gigantic ostrich. The ostrich would start out by poking the giraffe's neck. If that didn't get a rise out of her then the ostrich would pick up the giraffes' tail and pull on it. This would either make the giraffe try to kick the ostrich, which caused her to lose her balance since she is still quite wobbly on her very long legs. Once the giraffe kicked, the ostrich would run off with the giraffe chasing him until he turned around with his beak open and would chase her back around the enclosure. It was incredibly entertaining and each game of tag ended with the little giraffe running behind her mom or dad for safety. Of course the giraffe would brave up again within moments and try to run at the ostrich kicking. I want to be here the day that the little giraffe grows into her legs and realizes that she can kick the ostrich without falling over, or the day the ostrich has to look up about 3 feet to see the giraffe's face instead of their current eye level status.

Every so often we noticed a few free roaming peacocks. Most of them were just lying around sleeping and no matter how close you got or what noise you made they didn't seem to be bothered, well at least not until a very cute peahen walked behind us. Once she came into the picture the sleeping peacock began his dance, fluffed up all his feathers and strutted all about. The way he walked and strutted was the exact same way the wild turkey acted when we were back in Florida and I jogged by him and his flock of ladies. It was quite impressive and the colors and designs in his feathers were unlike anything I've seen outside of a Crayola box. I tried to get a few shots of him and all the colors but seeing him in real life and only 3 feet away isn't something a still camera can quite grasp.

Nap time for the grizzly bear... ...

... the snow leopard

a primate snuggled in a tree...

and 4 young tigers as their fearless brother stands guard.

My favorite part of the day was seeing all the various positions that the animals fell asleep in. Just moments before I took the picture of the grizzly bear, his back leg was actually floating in the air. The sleeping ape would twitch ever so often and swing at a non existent fly, while the tigers all slept soundly with their ever faithful guard. The five of them were born here at the St, Louis Zoo almost a year ago, so they are still quite young and not full grown. You can tell this by looking at their paws and how big they still are in comparison to their body. I wanted to climb down the wall and snuggle with all five of them, but didn't want to risk the anger of the mean old zookeeper again. As we made our way to the Bird House, we noticed a momma Canadian goose that had settled right in with the rest of

Is it just me, or does he not look like Jabba the Hut?

A non zoo guest built a nest and made herself and her eggs at home

the wildlife, built a nest on the rooftop of the sea lion maintenance building and laid a few eggs. Inside the Bird House we saw all sorts of feathered friends, many of them were species we had never seen before and a few made ours look very ordinary and almost boring in regards to beak color and shape, however having a 3 foot bird with a foot and half tall beak isn't as appealing to me as our birds whose beaks are nicely proportioned to their body size.
Once we left the zoo we drove downtown, right by the Arch and the Old Courthouse, and checked out Union Station, which is no longer a fully working train depot, but a very nice shopping center with lots of character and charm from the old restored buildings.

The St. Louis Arch

The historic Old Courthouse

The entrance to Union Station

Waterways inside Union Station

A stud peaking out of the stud barn

A self portrait with an older foal

Frank pets a young foal

The fence made from civil war gun barrels

May 6th - Grant's Farm-
In 1848, future president, Ulysses S. Grant received 80 acres of family land as a wedding present when he married Julia Dent. In 1855, Grant built a four-room, two-story cabin on the property which was completed by he and his friends in three short days and was named "Hardscrabble". From the late 1800's to the early 1900's it was sold to various others but ended up being bought by August Busch Sr. in 1907 and is still privately owned by the Busch family today. In the intervening years, the cabin had been moved to Old Orchard, Mo., and displayed at the 1904 World's Fair. August Busch Sr. eventually had the cabin moved back to its original location and in 1977, Anheuser-Busch restored the cabin to its present condition which now sits in the middle of a beautiful animal preserve that houses many free roaming animals such as buffalo, deer, Texas long-horns, geese and many others. The perimeter gate of the property is constructed from hundreds of civil war riffle barrels. Within these gates, were all sorts of sweet baby animals all around us. The best part of Grant's Farm is that the animals aren't penned up and can roam where ever they like within the 281 acres. In fact on our tram ride through the animal encounter we stopped within 8 feet of 6 week old buffalo babies and about 15 feet from a 9 day old wee one getting a bath from it's momma.

Feeding baby camels

A family of geese cross the entrance road

The cabin Ulysses and friends built

Sweet baby buffalo

A Texas long horn family

The Bauernhof and one of the many carriages the Bauernhof houses

Bald Eagles playing in the grass

Once off the tram, we headed to the goat feeding coral where we were entertained for quite some time by these hungry little pint sized creatures knocking each other over with their little horns to fight to our bottles of milk. They tried to nurse on everything from shorts to purses to socks to ponytails. The next stop was lunch at The Bauernhof. The Busch family built The Bauernhof in 1913. Bauernhof is German for "farmstead". The Bauernhof surrounds a beautiful courtyard and is typical of 19th century Bavarian farms complete with stables, a carriage house, and offices and quarters for those who lived and worked there. Today however it not only houses the extensive collection of carriages owned by the Busch's, it also holds the Hospitality Center where they let us sample various Anheuser-Busch products and a few products from their new parent company of In-Bev. After lunch we watched their infamous bird show where the star of the show was a green-wing macaw just like Cody and fed all sorts of different animals including llamas, donkeys and baby camels. It was a great day and I got my wild animal fix.

Somehow Frank got a calm goat

Kurt was mauled by about 10 of them

"What's in your purse Suzy?"

A star of the bird show

The pretty streets of Paducah

An old steam engine

Frank tries to catch the train

The back of the levy and river front

May 8th - Paducah, Kentucky -
At the confluence of the Ohio and Tennessee rivers, sits a little town with a very funny name. Paducah, Kentucky is considered the hub of the river industry due to it's closeness to the Mississippi and Cumberland, which we visited not too long ago, rivers as well. In between the bank of the Ohio river and the town and it's inhabitants, stands a concrete levy that about 15 feet tall with locks and dams that are unique to this levy in the fact that they have medal doors, so to speak, that lift up from the ground to create a solid wall when the rivers were overflow and threaten the city with excessive flood damage, and lower down to allow cars and boats and people to get from the streets of the town out to the waterfront to enjoy the parks and the views. These locks and dams were completed in 1928 due to many previous floods that took lives of a few citizens and greatly damaged the town. Even today while we were walking along the river's edge, we noticed that the regular river's edge was much lower. One of the observation points that is usually on dry ground, according to the signs, was completely under water. On the wall of the levy, that faces the town, are all sorts of murals that show the history and traditions of the town of Paducah, including the work that is done on all the barges and their tow boats that travel up and down these various rivers and a few historical moments that made Paducah what it is, including one from the Lewis and Clark expeditions, since it was from there that the town of Paducah received it's name.
After walking along the riverbank and reading up on all the murals, we found an old steam engine to tour and a quaint little train museum that was unfortunately closed on Thursdays, bummer. We have seen all sorts of towns with various historical markers, but this is the first town that we have seen where the historical markers are literally every 150 feet or so. One stop we almost made was the National Quilt Museum, but since we got lost in all the history of the waterways and trains and various shops along the way, we decided to forgo that exciting location for another day. Yes, I am being a bit facetious, but just a bit, since I am in the middle of making a reverse quilt with all sorts of ribbons and buttons to keep one unnamed, big, lovable, red bird entertained during those times we want to read or relax and he wants to play. The quilt museum might have been a good place to get a few ideas. Oh well, I'll just have to wing it!

A mural of a tow boat dry docked

A mural of the driver's area of a barge

An observation point of the river, currently under water

The lock and dam system which rises up from the ground and makes the levy solid

Katie's team Thunder played Lightning and won!

Ryan scores a goal

Sarah and I cheer them on, with funny Frank in the background

May 8th - 11th - A Weekend with the McElhaney's - Asheville, North Carolina -
Just an hour or so southeast of the Tennessee racetrack, which is our next destination for work, is Asheville, North Carolina and some very dear friends who invited us over for the weekend. We spent Saturday cheering on Katie and Ryan to soccer game victories and Sunday we shared in the celebration of Sheila's birthday and Mother's day with a backyard bar-b-que with perfect weather. At the back of the McElhaney's property is a forest of trees, where Frank and I decided to test out our double hammock.

Abbey plays on the jungle gym

Cody tries to remove all the bark off the trees

Oops, a little too low

Aaahhh! Just right for two

... ... or three... ...

... or a big pile of kids.

On our first attempt, the hammock was a little too low and had a funny angle, but once we figured out the right place to tie the ropes to the trees, it was perfect and we all took turns relaxing in it. Cody and Bradley were in heaven in the branches of the trees and Abbey made herself right at home with her blanket and toys on the jungle gym.
A few months back, Frank and I were thinking about getting rid of his old guitar. He rarely plays it, and it takes more than it's fair share of room in the motorhome, so we decided to post a note on Facebook and see if any of our friends had a need for a guitar. We received quite a few inquiries, but most of them were places far off and shipping something the size of a guitar case might be tricky. Then we remembered that on our last visit to North Carolina, Sarah had shown quite a bit of interest in learning to play the guitar. In fact Frank had even shown her a few chords and given her a few quick lessons. We told her about wanting to give the guitar to a good home where it would be loved and played and cared for, and not just left in a closet to collect dust. That night, she wrote us an essay on how she would love to learn to play and would give the guitar a good home, she even illustrated it with a picture of the guitar with music coming from it, and told us about how she had received a book and DVD lesson for Christmas, but had no guitar to practice on. So this afternoon, right before lunch, and right after a refresher course of chords, we presented her with the guitar. She was quite surprised and very happy and once we finished lunch she and Frank went back to their lesson. It's good to know the guitar has a happy home.

Frank shows Sarah a chord before she knows it's going to be her guitar

She isn't quite sure how to react once Frank told her it's now her's

She was quite excited once it hit her

Frank continues on with the lesson

Bradley came with us on today's adventure

It appears that the ivy is slowly taking over

A closer look at the front of the Grand Guitar

May 13th - The World's Largest Guitar - Bristol, Tennessee -
Imagine that! We found another quirky little place to visit, however this one wasn't so little. Just a few miles up the road from the racetrack, stands an enormous Martin guitar that used to house a music museum and the radio station WROI, 1490 AM, so after breakfast with the birds, we decided we had to check out "The Grand Guitar" which is what the old sun faded sign, that hangs below it, reads. Unfortunately the music museum wasn't a big draw, other than for tourists to come to the parking lot and snap a quick picture of it, so a few years back it was forced to close. Insofar as the radio station, we aren't sure what happened to that. All we know is that the poor unloved guitar now just sits and is slowly deteriorating. It's missing a few strings and the ivy on the back side appears to be taking over.
This afternoon, back at our campsite, Frank set up the hammock and Cody and I enjoyed a good book and the views and sounds of the river below us which included a few other feathered families. In fact these feathered friends would surf down the currents of the river and around the corner where the water crossing over tree roots made waves. It was hilarious to watch the geese turn their butts into the waves in order not to get knocked off balance. Once they reached the part of the river where the water was calm, they would swim out of the water and walk back up to start their surfing path again. Since it was a bit warm this afternoon, we greatly appreciated all the green trees and their leaves above that weaved together to create a perfect canopy of shade. This part of the country sure is beautiful.

A perfect way to spend a sunny afternoon

The trees above us

The river below us with various families of geese and ducks swimming about

Who needs a dishwasher when you have these two?