Since the honeymoon...

Since we've returned home, The Old Seventy Six has only had a few other notable journies. One, inparticular, was a camping trip up at Hampton Beach that we embarked upon with Deannaphil and the two oldest nephews, Shane and Luke. We had a great time, but have to mention that Hampton Beach's campground SUCKS. Not only is it nothing but a dirt lot, but there is only about ten to fifteen spaces that have a full hookup--which, for those of you who are not camping enthusiasts, means you don't get to hook up to water, electricity, or sewer. Basically, we paid fifty bucks to park overnight a few blocks away from the beach. We made it fun regardless, but we weren't allowed to have a campfire because we weren't hooked up to water, and the boys were looking forward to making s'mores. My advice to anyone interested is that someone should look into finding or creating another lot near Hampton that doesn't suck.

The second notable journey, was Bobby's trip to Foxboro with his pops and a bunch of his friends for the Pats/Bills game at the end of September. The Old Girl is a perfect tailgaiting vehicle, since you'll never have to wait in line at a port-a-potty! The only problem was, The Old 76 came home a little tipsy if you know what I mean, leaking transmission fluid all over the darn place and groaning like her gears were angry, as if she'd eaten a few too many Late-Night Cheeseburger Doritos.

We haven't been able to drive the 76 since that trip, but we are sure our pal Kenny the mechanic can tune her up back to new so we can continue our camping journies! If anything, we are glad she got us through our trip. We just recently looked back on pictures from the trip and can't get over how much fun we had. What an experience. :)

Geno's Steaks...
Bobby getting ready to order. Focus now Bo... "One Whiz Wit and Two Whiz Widdout please."

Contents of my purse... GPS, Wallet, Cheese Steak...

Bobby looking for turtles at the Zoo....

The prettiest thing about Baltimore... this painted bridge....

So, the Baltimore Zoo was, in fact, much better than the Lincoln Park Zoo. It's a good thing, too, because if I made Bobby go to one more zoo and it housed a few monkeys and a couple of goats somebody would not be very happy.

This Zoo was definitely cool, with polar bears, lions, giraffes, cheetahs, leapords, foxes, elephants, etc. there was even a cool little section with farm animals that we could pet. i definitely chatted with the chickens for a little while.

but overall, we are not very impressed with Baltimore. Did anyone else know it was such a run down city? There's not really any nice sections like you could say about Philly, Chicago, and other cities we've been to.

After the Baltimore Zoo, we headed for Philly for CHEESESTEAKS. You can't drive through Philly and NOT go to Geno's, in our opinion. We decided to sample both Geno's and Pat's Steaks. For anyone who doesn't know the history, Geno's is famous for it's cheese steaks, and lots of famous people go there and the owner has famous people eating Geno's steaks plastered all over the place. There is a very specific way to order your cheese steak sub. If you want cheese and onions, you order it "A Whiz Wit" meaning, Cheese whiz with onions. If you just want the cheese, you have to say "A Whiz Without". If you order it wrong, they kind of hassle you a little bit, but it's all part of the fun.

Now, Pat's is another cheese steak place that is right across the street. We're not sure who opened first, but it's clear that they are rivals. The thing to do is go and try a sandwich from each place and declare your favorite. Now, Pat's has more meat and they have interesting varieties, like a Pizza Cheese steak, but I think Geno's tastes better. You'll have to try them yourself and decide! Bobby smuggled three cheese steaks out of Philly before we got a hotel for the night in Jersey and watched the Jersey Shore as we were falling asleep. seriously.

I'm Proud to Be on This Peaceful Piece of Property

Gravestones at Arlington





Abraham Lincoln Memorial






Memorial for soldiers in the Vietname Was

Kennedy's Gravesites

Bobo in front of the Capital Building

Shanny in front of the Capital Building

Yesterday we went to Washington DC for the day. We probably walked twenty miles when it was all said and done. Both of us have sore feet and blisters today to prove it, but it was well worth the hiking. We did it all, monuments, museums, and even Arlington Cemetery which is profound and moving.

To start off the day, we went to the space museum and the museum of natural history, and the national museum of american history which displayed the enormous flag that was the inspiration to Francis Scott Key for the Star-Spangled Banner. It is so big the stars on it measured two square feet and the flag itself was bigger than the lady who sewed it's house. She had to bring the flag to a brewery to finish sewing it.

After that we walked all over the place, from the Washington Monument across the NAtional Mall and to the Lincoln Memorial. We saw the WWII, Vietnam and Korean war memorials. When we finally got to the Arlington Cemetery where there are more than 32,000 soldiers buried, we were sun-burned, tired and blistered, but how could we complain? We took a tour trolley all around the cemetery, saw where JFK and his family are buried, and saw the changing of the guards at the Tomb of the Unknown soldier.

The tomb of the unknown soldier housed three bodies that were unidentified until the 1980s, when DNA testing was able to identify two of them. The symbolism of the guards protecting the body of the unknown soldier was very moving, to see how they perform the ritual of the changing of the guards with such integrity. I overheard a guy talking about how even during a hurricane four or five years ago, the guards would not abandon their post. They were allowed to take the day off because of the 50 mph winds but they chose to stay. It is so extremely honorable what our soldiers do for us, whether we agree with the wars that we have fought in or not, there are so many people who have lost their lives defending our freedom. If there is anything that going to Arlington has made more clear, it is that we are so lucky to be Americans. We have people who fight for our freedom, instead of other countries where people fight to take that freedom from it's citizens. Something that should so clearly be a natural right, causes so much pain across the world.

Where the Kennedy's are buried, there are beautiful quotes carved into the stones surrounding the gravesites. We tried to get pictures, but I'm not sure if the words came out clearly. One picture certainly came out clear enough, and that is the one that reads Freedom is not Free.

"Arlington" by Trace Adkins

I never thought that this is where I'd settle down,
I thought I'd die an old man back in my hometown,
They gave me this plot of land, me and some other men,
for a job well done.

There's a big white house sits on a hill just up the road,
The man inside he cried the day they brought me home,
They folded up a flag, and told my mom and dad, 'We're proud of your son'.

And I'm proud to be on this peaceful piece of property,
I'm on sacred ground and I'm in the best of company,
I'm thankful for those thankful for the things I've done,
I can rest in peace, I'm one of the chosen ones,
I made it to Arlington.

I remember daddy brought me here when I was eight,
We searched all day to find out where my granddad lay,
And when we finally found that cross,
He said, 'Son this is what it cost, to keep us free'.
Now here I am a thousand stones away from him,
He recognized me on the first day I came in,
And it gave me a chill, when he clicked his heels, and saluted me.

And I'm proud to be on this peaceful piece of property,
I'm on sacred ground and I'm in the best of company,
And I'm thankful for those thankful for the things I've done,
I can rest in peace, I'm one of the chosen ones,
I made it to Arlington.

And every time I hear, twenty-one guns,
I know they brought another hero home, to us.

We're thankful for those thankful for the things we've done,
We can rest in peace, 'cause we were the chosen ones,
We made it to Arlington, yea, dust to dust
Don't cry for us, we made it to Arlington.

funny things we forgot to blog about

first of all, we just remembered yesterday how funny our hotel was in nashville....

it was the only nice, expensive place we stayed on the whole trip, and we were going to be there for two days, so we were looking forward to a little pampering. the guy at the front desk was really funny, a young indian guy with a dry sense of humor. When he wanted us to pay, he said to bobby, "okay, give me some green, how about a couple of benji's" (mom and dad: benjamins=100 dollar bills) so we laughed at that for days.

then, around eleven o'clock at night, our AC breaks in our room. now, it's like a hundred degrees and as humid as it could get without raining in Nashville. Bobby was so mad, he called the front desk and they sent a guy up to fix it. a few minutes after the guy left with the AC fixed, it turned off again. we called down to the front desk and they offered to move us. So, at almost midnight, we packed up all of our things and moved to the third floor.

In this room, we unloaded all of our stuff again, put the AC on and got back in our pajamas. At this point, bobby turned on the TV and discovered that didn't work. we called the front desk again. They said, sorry, nothing we can do about that. bobby wasn't having it.

after our THIRD move in the middle of the night, we finallly got upgraded to an awesome suite that had both an AC and a TV. i guess it doesn't seem like a big deal now, weeks later, but at the time...you should have seen us, trekking all over the holiday inn with all of our bags in the middle of the night!

We have been on four or five different MLK Jr. Blvds in four or five different (slums) cities... one thing is for sure... MLK Jr. Blvd. is definitely the worst, most dangerous street in any city even if it's Sunday at noon. Don't go there.

Lightning is Striking Again

Last night, on our way to our North Carolina kampsite, the most amazing thing happened. For hours, we were surrounded by heat lightning in the clouds which was really beautiful. It looked like flashes from cameras lighting up the sky non-stop, really a second didn’t go by without more lightning somewhere in the sky. But suddenly, it started to downpour again and the lightning became bigger bolts accompanied by loud thunder.

All of a sudden, the biggest bolt of lightning I’d ever seen seemed to strike the highway a hundred or so yards in front of us, and lit the entire world up with the brightest white light we’ve ever seen. It looked like someone had taken a flood light and shined it right in our faces. It only last a few seconds, but it was paralyzing—I think we both covered our eyes! And then, the loudest crack of thunder—as if the world split in half. Neither one of us could speak for a few seconds, and then we weren’t sure if we could laugh or not yet, in case something like it happened again. For a few minutes, every time a little lightning flashed, I could still see the impression of that enormous bolt, like the flash of a camera that continues to echo behind your eyelids when you blink.

I finally said to Bobby, “I honestly thought that lightning hit us.”
He said to me, “I thought we were dead. I thought we saw the light they always talk about.”

Our biggest challenge on this road trip has been the fight against the elements. It is amazing that in our daily lives we have set ourselves up so comfortable that weather doesn’t really harm us other than making us late for work, occasionally. You don’t realize just how powerful something like weather is until you a rolling down the road in a mobile home and lightning is trying to make contact with your GPS signal.

Comin to ya/On a Dusty Road

Bobby serenades me during
happy hour at a bar in Myrtle
Beach......






So what we’ve learned about Myrtle Beach in the few days that we’ve been here is that the weather is insane. Most of the day is sunny and beautiful, but nearly every day at around five o’clock the sky turns black, the wind picks up, and there is a downpour. The rain usually lasts about an hour or less and is just enough to mess everyone up a little bit. I think Mother Nature gets a good laugh watching all of the hot, sweaty tourists scramble for cover once a day.



Our second night in Myrtle Beach was Bobby’s birthday. I bought us tickets to see the Legends in Concert show, which some people might have seen before, especially in Las Vegas. It’s all impersonators of the musical legends: Michael Jackson, Elvis, Madonna, The Beatles, etc. Our seats were front and center, second row. This would be an awesome seating arrangement under normal circumstances. However, at the Legends show, it’s a little awkward to be up so close to these people who are literally dressed up like a celebrity and have to act like they truly believe they are that celebrity—and they can easily make eye contact with you and hear what you are saying to your neighbor.



I literally felt like the people on stage kept looking at us while they were singing, and both of us were worried they would try to somehow include us in the show…”Martina McBride” pulled some guy up on stage and made him dance and tell his wife how much he loved her….and Jake from the Blues Brothers sat next to some teenage girl and sweat all over her until she was embarrassed to tears. Besides, Bobby didn’t know, but I had told the lady at the ticket counter that it was his birthday, thinking maybe they would just give him a shout out, but after the Jake and Elwood performance, I was starting to worry that they were going to do something to Bobby that would end our honeymoon earlier than planned.



Luckily, they did just give him a happy birthday shout out, but they called him “Bobby Conkon”. We have discovered that down south no one understands the name Conlon. Even after spelling if for them and saying it several times, they will still call us Connon or Colon, like as if those names are more common…



But I digress. Michael Jackson impersonator was unbelievable. He looked, sounded, and moved just like Michael Jackson. The Elvis impersonator who closed the whole show was also really good. His voice sounded just like Elvis, and whether you like Elvis or not, you have to admit that some of his songs have unbelievably difficult notes that he can hold. This guy was great sounding, but was a little goofy looking, so it was hard not to kind of stare. At one point, he began singing a slow ballad, just him alone with a guitar, and I really felt like he was looking right at me. It was beginning to feel kind of awkward, so I nudged Bobby to tell him but before I could say anything Bobby looked at me and said “I think he’s looking at you!” Suddenly, the Elvis spoke right into the microphone: “I’m singing to her, sir, not you.” And the whole audience burst out laughing and they put a spotlight on us and he continued singing at me which was for some reason unbearable.



In all of the tourist spots they always have someone with a camera ready to take your picture and then try to sell it to you. Because after awhile it gets sort of annoying, Bobby’s new thing is to make crazy faces when they are trying to position you to get your photo. They obviously want the best picture they can so that you’ll buy it, and no matter how much they tell us to smile, Bobby will make crazy faces or pretend he’s taking a bite out of my head. All the while, I’m oblivious to this and smile nicely for the camera. The people who then try to sell them to us get a good laugh when we ask them to find our photos and they spot Bobby’s crazy face in the mix.



We are heading to Washington DC for our final leg of the trip. Heading up through North Carolina tonight.

Funny Pics from Knoxville/DollyWood

Old Fashioned photo I forgot to flip.....







Funny sign at Dolly Wood :)








Dolly had a little museum filled with all of her childhood things, this chalkboard was in there that she wrote on and I thought it was very nice.











Bobby's found this crazy t-shirt and we laughed so loud in the store....







At Bob Evans everything was named Bob!

And the Road Goes on Forever

We couldn't figure out why our GPS was saying that it took almost eight hours to get from the edge of Tennessee to South Carolina. When you look at them on a map, they look so close! At about 9 o'clock on Monday night, we figured out why it takes just that many hours to get there.

There is no real high way between Tennessee and the Carolinas. There is only this winding two lane road that twists through the Smoky Mountains for miles and miles. When you are on the road, the tree covered mountains tower on either side of you, and the bends in the road are 90 degree angles. Trucks bust down this road doing 70 mph, but thankfully, Bobby was nice and cautious. Not that I don't have total faith in the RV, but when you see signs warning that there is a hill with a 7% grade (are we supposed to know what that means??) coming up and pictures of trucks at a steep angle on the yellow roadsigns, one tends to get a little nervous. This road was like five hours on a Dollywood ride. Lol.

Aside from the awesome places we are visiting, driving in the RV and camping all over the place has been such an awesome experience. I tried taking pictures of the roads we are traveling and the campsites, but it just doesn't do the scenery justice. I think that even when we are back home, we will make camping at KOAs a habit. It's a great mini-vacation, to just get away from the TV and mail and the mundane. I'll post some more pictures of just funny things we've been doing and things we've seen.

This is space command to Zoom.....

Well, if you're like me then when you read something you hear the author's voice in your head. While we were at Graceland I read everything with an Elvis accent, Wrigley Field signs were all written in an exaggerated Harry Carey voice, Dollywood was a sweet lil Miss Parton southern drawl and this blog has been my sweet singing Shanny voice so far.....until now. First of all, that sign I hit was camouflaged and anyone would have hit it, The Ol' 76 is about 200 feet long and often has a mind of her own and goes wherever she wants. Okay, maybe not, I drive around this great country like Mister Magoo just driving around and bopping up and down singing "On the road again" and "radar love". Sooooo where did she leave off ? I think after the last transmission on Snoop Bloggy Blog we spent a few days in Pigeon Forge at Dollywood. It's like Disneyland but replace the mouse with butterflies and exchange all of the children with sweaty rebelflag weilding rednecks. Lots of rides, food and shows. We went to the Dolly Parton museum and went onto her tour bus. Pardon my french but that day was hot as heck so the surprise rainstorm was a treat. However the flash floods and Tennessee Trash wet tee shirt contest couldn''t have been worse. The rain made the ground slicker than an ice skating rink for anyone wearing Crocs with socks : ) and the rain only accentuated what we were trying to avoid seeing. I'm not writing this trying to be mean or negative but it just seems that people down here are a little slower, a little fatter, just a little dumber and a WHOOOLE lot more racist. Not my first option of crowds to be stuck in wearing transparent, rainsoaked tankinis. Okay anyway, we decided that night driving would be best for the old girl b/c she doesn't seem to like the heat anymore than I do, so we left around 8ish for our 7 anda half hour trip to Myrtle Beach. The original plan was to drive a few, sleep a few then finish in the morning but we were rocking, dancing, texting, singing and guzzling Joe so we kept on keeping on and landed at a WalMart around 4:30. I've loved this whole RV thing so far... driving it, starting it, driving with my arm out the window, talking to other RV guys and especially using RV terms ((okay, I'll admit I bought a book called RVing For Dummies, but I've learned a whole lot of cool lingo)) so that night we "boondocked" which means that didn't have the water/sewer/electricity hookup so we slept with a battery powered fan. We woke up and checked into our Kampsite, which is 1 block from the beach, and went out on our bikes for lunch and beers, which seems to be the only thing we've been doing on this honeymoon aka superlong vacation. We swam, got dressed and wentto Broadway at the Beach which was PACKED so we put our name in for dinner reservations at Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville only to findoutthat there was a three and a half hour wait. Boardwalk at the Beach is like a Salem Willows meets Hampton Beach meets Faneuil Hall, lots of stores, food, activities, fish feeding spots, kids, singers and what not... so we did what you'd expect us to do..... we went to the movies and saw Grownups. We've been swimming in 6 different swimming pools so far, have visited 2 countries and have visited 11 states at this point. Today is my 33rd birfday aka Larry Bird aka Varitek aka Rolling Rock aka Carter Estate and I'm thankful for all of the birthday wishes I've been receiving from friends and family. Last night our family received bad news about Cousin Michelle's battle with cancer so please keep her in your thoughts and prayers as she gears up to endure a stronger round of treatments. ++++ We miss everybody and keep listing things that we miss most, usually starting our list off with Chinese food and Sox games on tv only to be followed by Wallace, Flax Pond and oh yeah.... you guys, JK we do miss everyone and can't wait to get home to talk about the wedding and look at pics together...... Elvis Impersonator show tonight and Barefoot Landing..... talk to ya soon - - - Bobby Conlon
*PS- we have an AWESOME bumper sticker collection going on here.

Random pics from the road

Driving through Kentucky

The Ol Seventy Six at a KOA campground

For some strange reasaon it had to Be/It Was All A Dream About Tennessee

We are in Nashville Tennessee, the country music center of the world. It is easy to see why all aspiring country singers have to go to Nashville. It is a city like any other except that every single bar up and down Broadway street has 24 hours of live music. The way the bands make their money is just by passing around a big tip jug every hour. We stopped at a bar around 12:30 in the afternoon just for some AC and a drink and there was a young girl singing with a band of old guys playing behind her, and the bar was full--on a Friday afternoon at a place that doesn't even serve lunch!

Besides every bar having music all the time, every store sells Boots. There is probably about ten Boot shops on the strip and one bar that even sells boots, no kidding. We had a drink at a place called Tootsie's Orchid Bar that had signed posters and photographs of every famous country singer you can imagine. Minnie Pearl, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, etc.

The first night we were there we went to The Grand Ole Opry which if anyone doesn't know is a live radio show that they do three times a week at the Grand Ole Opry theater. They have about sixteen acts that come on and sing and tell jokes and stories, etc. Since the Grand Ole Opry was flooded this past spring, they are still holding the show but at the Ryman Auditorium right in dowtown Nashville where it originally was before they built the Opry house. We had such a good time at the Opry, we even got to see Little Jimmy Dickens and Vince Gill who performed at the end of the night and brought his daughter out to sing with him. We could see his daughter and Amy Grant watching him perform in the wings, it was very cool.

We figured that on our way to Myrtle Beach we will make a few pit stops, one of them being Knoxville, Tennessee. Knoxville is the big city right next to a small town called Pigeon Forge which is at the base of the Smoky Mountains. Pigeon Forge is where Dolly Parton is from and we are going to go to Dollywood! Does Tennessee hold the record for the longest state from East to West in the US? It HAS to! Four hours from Memphis to Nashville and four and a half hours from Nashville to Knoxville!

To quote the famous line of Minnie Pearl... "How-deeeeeeeeeeee!"

Ghosts of the Old South are all Around Me

On the way to Memphis, a funny thing happened. The awning on the passenger side of the motorhome suddenly began to dangle in the breeze as we were cruising down the high way. I could see that one leg of the awning had come loose, and both of us thought we could just keep going, but after a few minutes, it dropped down a little bit and was dragging along the highway. We pulled off onto the breakdown lane and Bobby climbed up onto the roof. We couldn’t figure out how to get it to stay on, so we did the next best thing. We tried to tear it off. While Bobby pried at the bolts from the roof, I yanked at the pole from the ground. When we finally got it loose, it began to fall towards the ditch on the side of the high way and… I’ll admit it…. I just let it go. We thought our problems were over, until we realized that without the pole, the awning could come unrolled on our journey. At the next truck stop, we did what any one would do… yanked the other leg off and with a Swiss army knife, cut the awning off the side of the RV and left it in a dumpster when no one was looking. You have to break a few rules when you are living on the road, and as much as it broke my heart to not recycle all of that plastic, the awning had to go.
Lighter and more streamlined than we were before, we headed on in to Memphis.

Any Elvis fans out there? Graceland is amazing. We checked out of the Heart Break Hotel early because we wanted to be first in line for the Graceland tour. His house is not as big as one would imagine, but you have to remind yourself that Elvis bought this piece of land when he was only 22 and it was the sixties. Everything was scaled down compared to what we have now.
First you get to walk around the first floor of his house, viewing his living room, dining room, kitchen and “the jungle room” which was like a large sitting room that he’d added on to the house and decorated in such a way that reminded him of Hawaii. There was green carpet on the floor and ceiling and fake fur covered furniture with big hand carved wooden arms and legs. Elvis recorded his last album at his home in the jungle room because his manager was finding it increasingly harder to get him out of the house. We bought the album (called “Moody Blue”) before leaving Graceland.
It is so cool being in the place where he lived. His family pictures are still hanging on the walls. In his basement, you get to see his sitting room where he hung out and watched TV and his pool room. In the backyard there are the graves of his grandmother, mother, father and himself. I can’t lie, we both cried when we got to this part (I haven’t seen Bobby cry like that since the wedding). It is just really moving thinking of how loved he was, how many lives he touched, but that it was probably all of this adoration that eventually led to his death. When you are there looking at all of his glamorous outfits and all of the screens that play his performances over and over again, you can imagine how his icon – the idea of Elvis--grew bigger than any normal person could manage. Elvis wasn’t the kind of guy who could just roll out of bed in the morning and put on his slippers and watch TV all day…every moment he lived people wanted recorded; every thought he had, people wanted to know about it. Can you imagine how that could mess with someone’s mind?
Our next visit will be Nashville. After witnessing where the best blues, jazz, and country musicians cut their teeth in Memphis, we have to see where the current country stars call home.

Pics of Beale Street

the pics don't do it justice--the music, the food, the atmosphere... but it will have to do! having fun in Tennessee!!!

Walking with our Feet Ten Feet Off of Beale

Memphis has to be the coolest city ever. I mean, Boston is cool, New York is cool, Chicago is cool, but MEMPHIS defined cool before we knew the word. As small as Beale Street is, it's influence in the music world is ageless. For two people who love music as much as we do, visiting Beale Street and Graceland is one of the most neccessary things to do.



We checked in to the Heart Break Hotel around 5 and wanted to catch the shuttle to Beale Street by 6, so there was no time to waste. When we go there, it was overwhelming how many places there are to eat on such a small strip, especially for out-of-towners, how do you decide on one blues cafe from the next? Each of them boasting "best BBQ in town" with sounds of live jazz and blues and blue grass coming from inside, it was almost impossible for us to choose. It would be a pity to pick the wrong restaurant on a street that has so much to offer.



First we tried Alfreds, which, save for the delicious pulled pork nachos, left a lot to be desired. We decided not to eat dinner there, and just had a drink and appetizer. Good thing, because we finally landed at BB King's Blues Club which was inspirational to say the least. There was a young kid singing some southern rock, classics like Whipping Post and Midnight Rider, and every single table in the place was hand painted to reflect the Blues Persona of the street. Rufus Thomas was painted on our table and the table and the table next to us was painted bright red and in black letters said "Do you like good music? That sweet soul music?" One table had the STAX logo on it. i walked around taking pictures even though i probably looked like a total amatuer. :) Bobby got the best ribs he ever had and I had something called a "Stuffed Porktato" which you can only imagine how delicious that was.

We also got pretty lucky because it happened to be Bike Night on Beale Street. For a Street that is about two blocks long, there had to be at least a thousand bikes lined up and down the street. Some of them were like nothing i'd seen on the east coast. We will post pics of those coming soon, but we want to make sure this posts because as we drive we lose service. There is so much more to say about Memphis...next blog---Graceland :)

6 Wheeled-Amphibious-Banana-Splits-Mobiole

don't wake the beast while she's sleeping....

The Mississippi Delta is Shining Like a National Guitar

We're going to Graceland, Graceland, Memphis Tennesseeeeeeeee

The alarm went off at 8:08 a.m. which is really 7:08 in the Central Time Zone. I sat up too fast and whacked my head on the ceiling of the RV since we have been staying in the bed above the cab. It's the second time I've done this, and Bobby laughs hysterically all day just thinking about it.

We got off to an early start this morning to make it to a Hertz rental car in Tennessee. We had to leave the Old Seventy 6 in Clarksville for a few days because as we learned in Chicago, there's not much of a place for her in the big cities. This makes the most sense because we are going to shoot down to Memphis for a night's stay in the Heart Break Hotel and then zip over to Nashville for the weekend, and then back up to Clarksville, which makes a perfect triangle. We are going to buy about a hundred postcards in Graceland, don't worry baby.

So, Bobby's favorite thing about this "road-life" is to flash the lights at big-rigs trying to shift into our lane. Truckers will give you a little flash of their taillights as a thank you, which Bobby calls "A Light-Show". My favorite thing to do is watch Bobby flash the lights, even at trucks that aren't trying to get over, and then watch his face as the trucks give him a thanks ((big smile)) or don't give him a light-show, which causes him to pout a little when he thinks I'm not watching.

We are listening to nothing but The King today in our little rented Corolla. Bobby actually asked the guy at Hertz if the car had brakes. I told him we didn't want to accelerate through Graceland and bust up the Heartbreak Hotel.

Bobby wants everyone to know how good the Lime-ade is at Sonic. It's funny how different the restaurants out here are. You are hard pressed to find pizza anywhere since Chicago, but there is a Big Boy, Sonic, or Steak 'n Shake on every block. Hope you like corn dogs and tots.

Yesterday, we drove for about a half hour down a farm road thinking we couldn't get over how bad it stunk. Not regular manure smell, but really rancid...like Bo was holding a poop in his hand in the car. After at least a half hour of this, we realized...dum-dums....that we'd been following a truck that was full of pigs. Literally...full...of pigs. I mean, these pigs were like, layered from the floor to half way up the trailer. I'm guessing there were maybe fifty pigs in that trailer. And we were downwind. These are the things we are learning on the road: Don't sit up too quickly in an RV, and never ride downwind of a Swine-Mobile!

So, Graceland tour tomorrow, Beale Street tonight.
The Conlons have left the building....or blogspot...for now...

well the south side of chicago is the baddest part of town... but where we were we got plenty o'pics!

Our Reflection in The Bean

The Bean in Millennium Park

On This Lonely Kentucky Backroad

We left Chicago on Monday morning, refreshed from a weekend stay in a hotel and ready to enjoy the company of our friends Heather and Bryan and enjoy some homecooked Ohio meals. It took us about about five hours to get from Chicago to HP & Beez because they live just about a half hour north of Cincinnati. We drove from the southernmost part of Illinois and made a big diagonal, cutting Indiana right in half to get to the southern part of the Buckeye State.
HP and Beez were awesome and grilled us some filets wrapped in bacon (yummm), corn on the cob, and potatoes that were baked with onions and rosemary seasoned olive oil. I am pretty sure we will not see another homecooked meal like that again for a few weeks more. The other cool thing was we got to just chill out in some air conditioning with our pals and watch The Red Sox (Bobby and Beez) and the Bachelorette (Shanny and HP). ((I have to admit, I was having a little anxiety about missing this episode in Tahiti! ))
Tuesday morning brought Cracker Barrel breakfast and a little restocking at Kroger which is the midwest grocery store. Then, we hit the road. Our aim is for Tennessee, and we are hoping to be there by Wednesday afternoon. We drove all day through Kentucky which is absolutely beautiful. I never realized how lush and green Kentucky would be, I think I always assumed it was more farm land than anything else.
We drove past the birthplace of Abraham Lincoln and a place called Dinosaur Land which we really wanted to go to but just didn't have the time. Another thing about the midwest that is really cool is the flea markets. Unfortunately, they are only open on the weekends, so we haven't been able to go to any this time around, but they are enormous. They take a lot about tthe size of a football field and cover it with barn sides and enormous tin roofs and they put gigantic billboards all down the high way that say things like "Worlds Biggest Flea" and "Most Awesome Flea Market".
Now, we are camping in Bowling Green. Bowling Green is the kind of place you hear of your whole life but never think you will see. A great thing about the KOAs (Campgrounds of America) is that they have swimming pools that are about 70 degrees and stay open til nine or ten at night. Tonight, as we were about to hop on our bikes to ride over to the pool, a guy pulled up in a vehicle that looked like 6 wheel amphibious banana splits mobile. Okay, that's what Bobby called it, but be more specific, it was like a four wheeler (but it had six wheels) and it had big metal roll bars going over it and instead of a steering wheel it had these two levers. The levers could make it go forward, backward, or spin in place. So, this guy offers us a ride and then proceeds to zoom all over the campgound, off roading, knocking trash barrels over, flying up to the water's edge and then spinning suddenly in place and zooming off in another direction. Turns out, he's the guy who runs this KOA and his name is Rico, so no need to worry about the toppled over trash cans. I thought I was going to die, or at the very least wet my pants, so everyone got a good laugh out of me, but we are both here to blog about it.
Goodnight East Coast :) Its only ten o'clock here, but eleven o'clock where you all are.
PS--Most of my blog titles are lyrics from songs about the places we are...if you know the song, post it in a comment!! Some of them are obscure!!

Pics of The Bean and Wrigley

some pics of wrigley field and the bean that we were telling you about. it's hard to post more than a few pics at once, so they will come in spurts! We took a bunchc at the Bean because the effects weere so cool!

Monkeying around

The funniest thing about the monkeys at the zoo was when one came right up to the glass wall and started humping it. I said "Eeew gross! Look what he's doing!" and a little girl turned to her mother and said, "What's he doing, mom?' and the mother said... "Ohh, he's just saying hello." and then hurried her daughter away.

In the Heat of a Summer Night, In the Land of the Dollar Bill

So we have successfully made it through Chicago! We are on our way to Ohio now to visit Heather and Beez, but we have to tell you about our awesome weekend in The Land of the Dollar Bill and Leroy Brown.
Saturday night we hadn't quite figured Chicago out yet. We decided to get a hotel outside of Chicago because all of the nice ones in the city were booked, and we couldn't park the big rig anywhere on those city streets anyway. We settled on Hammond, Indiana, and thought we'd take the train in on Saturday night for a nice dinner and to sort of check out what's what in the Windy City. Well, Transformers Three had the nerve to be filming on a Saturday evening on Michigan Avenue which is comparable to Newbury Street or Downtown Crossing in Boston. So of course, everything is busy and backed up and our train was a half an hour late.
However, our luck started to change once we made it into the city. We had a delicious steak dinner at a restuarant called Foulton's, which was right on the river, (Thanks Ma and Pa Conlon!) where we told them it was our one week anniversary! :)
On Sunday we headed into the city again to be touristy and see the sights. We first went to the Navy Pier which is a big pier with music, restaurants, and a huge ferris wheel. There are also a bunch of hot shots in expensive boats showing off up and down the pier, which is kind of cool too.
After lunch at the pier we headed to Millennium Park which has a bunch of huge art sculptures, some of which you can catch in Kanye West videos. There is one in particular called "The Bean" that we will post pics of. It's like a huge silver kidney bean, and all of the contours in it reflect the city in awesome ways, sometimes crunching the reflection up, sometimes spreading it way out. Tons of people take pictures of themselves or the reflection of the city in the bean. If you google the bean you can see all kinds of artsy pics of it. We took our own. :)
After The Bean we took a cab to the Lincoln Park Zoo which was a little disappointing. It was too humid for any of the animals to be out in their outside habitats and the ones we saw inside were sleepy and lazy! It was pretty funny to see the apes sleeping though, because they are so much like us. Pics of that too, I believe.
Our last stop of the night was a baseball game at Wrigley Field. The Cubbies were playing the Phillies, and Bobby hates the Cubs but kind of likes the Phillies--so I bought a Cubs tank top just to pester him. We ate some deep dish pizza and drank some Old Style beer (Illinois local beer) and took a cab home around ten. I still can't get over that it stays so light here into the night. At nine o'clock the sun is just setting. It is great.
We are cutting Mount Rushmore out of our trip due to engine troubles with the RV. We just don't want to push the Old Girl too far on her first big trip. Maybe we will see Mt. Rushmore on our 1st anniversary. We can't wait to get to Ohio to have some Coneys and hang with HP and Beez and their lil boy Connor. We think we might be back in the bubble. Hoping the pics post!

We're not the jet set we're the old chevorlet set

So, it has definitely been a funny couple of days, but I have to notify everyone that right now, we are sitting by a camp fire, listening to Bob Marley (Redemption Song) and drinking a couple of cold ones. Steel Reserve for Bobby, Mich Ultra for Shannon. How could it get any better?

And, Bobby rode his bike two miles to get the cold boys and when he came back, he cooked us a delicious bertolli dinner and we ate like kings.

No, we're not the jet set...

But that's ok.