Thursday, July 26, 2012

Sunset in Tennessee

Nashville, Tennessee

Oak Ridge Boys  at Grand Ole Opry

Little Jimmy Dickens

Charlie Daniel's Band

Leading tower of Texas

Cadillac Ranch- Texas

Tucamcari, New Mexico

Sunset at Natchez Trace in Tennessee

Monday, July 16, 2012

The Pole Flyers!  Awesome! Check out the guy standing at the
top! Crazy!

Gator Wrestlin'- Apparently Seminole Indians
wrestled alligators to make money. 

This was at the top of the Smoky
Mountains on the Appalachian
Trail.  That is the border of these
2 states.  We went over the mountain
to Cherokee, North Carolina.

Primitive Methodist Church. This church
was built in 1902.  The original church
was built in the 1820's.  It was built in
115 days for $115.  

3 point buck just hanging out int he Smoky Mountains.

Great Smoky Mountains.

Inside the cave of Ruby Falls in
Chattanooga, TN

This formation is thought to
be 3 - 5 million years in
the making.

Cool formation!

Ruby Falls!  The elevator took us down
260'.  Then we walked 4 tenths of a mile
into the cave so that we were over 1100 feet
into the cave.  This waterfall is 145
feet high, underground.  Very spectacular.
It is on the list of the 10 most amazing underground
waterfalls.  We looked it up and there are only 2 in the
US.  The other 1 is in Hawaii.  It doesn't start underground though.

Beautiful Ruby Falls

Appomattox County Courthouse
Battlefield where Robert E. Lee
surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant to
end the Civil War.

Remnants of buildings in the Smoky
 Mountains from the early 1800's.

Pipevine Swallowtail Butterflies.

Water coming into the "grist mill" which
turned a wheel that would grind corn
or wheat into flour.  

Grist Mill

The bottom of the grist mill.

This house was painted with the only
3 colors that "Sears & Roebuck" had
at the time.  It was 2 stories with 2
bedrooms upstairs.  The fireplace in the
middle had openings on both sides of the house.

Native American dancers at the
Festival of Native People in
Cherokee, North Carolina.

An Indian taco.  It had fry bread
on the bottom, a mixture of ground meat
and beans on top of that, then lettuce, tomato
and onion.  It was not spicy at all.

Pole Flyers.  4 men climbed to the top.  There
were ropes hanging down almost to the ground.
The four men spun the top around, which wrapped
the rope around the pole.  Then a 5th man climbed
to the top.  One man stood on the top and played
a flute like instrument and a drum, and sort of
stomped around.  While he stood up there
the other 4 men fell off the sides, tied to the ropes
and swung around the pole hanging upside down.
When they got to the ground they flipped
themselves up and put their feet on the ground.
Then the man who stood up there the whole time
slid down another rope.  It was pretty amazing
to watch.

More canons on the Yorktown
Battlefields.

Battlefield where the British surrender to end
the Revolutionary War.

Appomattox Courthouse area.  This is
where General Robert E. Lee surrendered
to Ulysses Grant to end the Civil War.

Supreme Court Building in Appommatox.

McLean House where the "Message of Peace" was
signed to officially end the Civil War.

Jamestown has been preserved since
1893.  They have dug up many
artifacts that have helped them
learn about Jamestown.  The
museum had over 1000 artifacts
that have been found.  

About 100 yards off the shore is where the
original Jamestown was.  Since 1607 about 25
acres of Jamestown Island have eroded.

Yorktown Battlefield Encampment

More of the Yorktown Encampment.

Some canyons on one of the
Yorktown Battlefields.

Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel
23 mile long bridge/tunnel. The rocks are on an
island and are covering the beginning of
1 of the 2 tunnels that are 1 mile long each
that go under the water.

On the bridge

Jamestown settlement village

Replicas of ships that carried passengers
from London, Dec. 20, 1606 to Jamestown.
They arrived May 13, 1607.

Making a canoe.  They build a small
fire in the tree trunk.  Then
use a clam shell to scrape out the
charred bits of wood.  

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

The back of the White House

US Treasury Dept.

Old Post Office Building

1 million dollars in $10 bills.
Bureau of Engraving and
Printing.

1 Million dollars from the top.
We saw them making $20 and
$100 bills.  There was a pallet
with 64 million dollars in $100 bills.

Arlington National Cemetery

Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers.  We saw the changing of the
guard ceremony.  It took about 5 minutes and we were just
dripping with sweat.  Can't even imagine those  poor guys
in the dark uniforms walking back & forth out there for
40 minutes.