Day 1 -- Roswell to Cashiers, NC

Got a late start. Rounded up the dogs and dropped off at Eunice and Ronnie’s. They are a delightful couple.

Jim and Jackie first’s argument of the car portion of the trip= which Quik Trip to go to for the cheapest gas. SCORE: Jackie 1; Jim 0. Feeling bad that she was winning, she let him choose lunch. Yes, folks that’s right. As we begin our search for gastronomical fulfillment, Jim opted to dine with royalty. He wanted a meal with the King. Burger King that is. French fries, diet coke, amercian cheese. Gotta keep those cholesterol numbers up in the event we run across one of those pesky French cholesterol and trans-fat shortages.

Uneventful but SPECTACULAR drive to Cashiers. Jim can turn a normally short day trip into a marathon day of snapshots and meter, meter, meter. Really it was a beautiful ride. The colors were breathtaking.
Arrived at Nora’s just in time for a long walk on the golf course with her sweet little dogs, Buddy and Quincy. Cocktails and dinner at a great little night spot called the Library. Driving to dinner guess what we saw?? Go ahead guess. I’ll wait for you. Unicorn? No. They’re not real. Troll? I don’t think they’re real either…But bears are real. And we saw one…in fact we actually stalked it for a few yards down Nora's street, but sure enough just as we got close we heard the tell-tale whup, whup, whup from overhead that could only mean one thing. DAMN, it was an Army Blackhawk helicopter and we were just able to make out the door gunner’s identity. Night vision goggles, face paint camo and Manolo Blahniks!! Yup, you guessed it was Sarah!! Moose rifle and all. Turns out she doesn’t have to give back the shoes or the helicopter back until the end of the month. So, no, really we didn’t see Sarah Palin, but we did see a cute little black bear.

Thanks to Nora for a very nice stay at her inn. Pancake breakfast and all.

On My Wish List for Italy

After some exhausting research, I believe the tasty little treat Jimmy The Thing, Jackie V, Dougy C, Donna C, Anna M and Jamie the Limey enjoyed during our Umbrian adventure in 1999 is no longer available. If someone can find this little devil and direct me to whatever enclave in which it is currently hidden, I will either kiss them on the mouth or promise not to, depending on the supplier of said info. Meanwhile, gaze upon the object of my Italian Desires:

Blarney, The World Travelling Gnome

Several months ago, we had a nice dinner, which included nice food and nice wine, with our nice friends Don and Dianne. When we left their humble commode, I mean abode, we sort of kidnapped their lawn gnome. That was NOT nice. No pink flamingos for Don and Dianne, Noooooo. They have, or at least had, a cute little Travelocity looking gnome guarding their turf like Papa Smurf! So we stole him. We proceeded to do a number of really nasty things to the little fella, and of course, took a number of photos of the abuse. Unfortunately, most of the photos are too graphic to display here. We did, however, treat Blarney, yes, Jackie named him Blarney, to a splendid vacation in Hilton Head where we buried him on the beach and had to enlist the help of several large canine type animals to help locate him after we sort of misplaced him in the sand. They found him, pee'd on him and then we took him home. Since then, we have sheltered 'ol Blarney in our Pub, which is where such a creature is most at home. Since we will need to reserve all of our spare luggage space for our medications referenced in a previous blog, we will not, however, have room for the little guy. And I aint buyin a separate seat on the plane for him. So we have settled the hairy fairy in the pub, surrounded by his new friends: Several other woodland creatures, slugs, gargoyles and nut crackers. You can figure out who is who. Or is it whom? Anyway, given the fact that Hillary is standing right next to poor Blarney, it seems he is a bit uncomfortable about the prospect of keeping his junk intact. So, we would love your ideas on how Blarney should attempt his escape from his obviously Gitmo style confinement. Please post your ideas as you se fit!

Pre Game Warm Up

I, Jimmy The Thing, took a nice little bike ride on his scooter with a couple of buds on Thursday as a bit of a Pre Trip Warm Up. I went with two old (and I do mean OLD!) pals from the Lotus days: Mike Lyons and Mark Ardagna. Mark led us to Dahlonega (an old mining town in the North Georgia mountains) via every twisty turny back road possible. We went down so many, previously unknown back roads that I developed a theory about Mark Argagna's true profession. As many who read this blog know, Mark's brother owns, like, 29 Taco Mac restaurants throughout the southeast. I think Mark is really a hit man for the Taco Mac Syndicate and he knows all these back roads because that's where all the bodies are buried. But I could be wrong. Anyway, the colors were spectacular, the riding was great and the beer at the Crimson Moon in Dahlonega was swweeeeeeet! Speaking of sweet, Mikey Lyons really looks hot in his leather chaps. Mmmmmm. Can you say Village People? Can you say Coronet Club? I'm just sayin.

Puzzler Update-Meds

Tomorrow we are going to annouce the winner of our first puzzler.
Here is a photo of (most) of what we have to pack. I am heading to the drug store now to get the last couple of items.

Last chance to guess correctly in cubic inches.
Jbv

Today's Puzzler

Sunday, Nov 2: Ok...so we're starting to pack now. Starting to realize just how much crap we have and how much crap we can't fit into our luggage. And wondering just what the X%$# we were thinking trying to go on vacation for a month.



Some things we know we can do without. Like, I'm not sure we have a real need for ALL of Jim's Harley t-shirts; I say 1 or 2 will suffice since we all know for sure that's he'll buy a new one in every freakin' town we go to. And, okay, I only need to take 2 extra pairs of shoes.



BUT, we realize there is no way we can do without our medications. AND being the goody-two-shoes (okay 3 shoes) that I am, I insist that all meds need to be in their original containers lest we be arrested and thrown in jail in some small French village with no access to ketchup or diet coke.



So Today's Puzzler is this:



How many cubic inches of space will be filled by the minimum daily requirement of meds to send 2 middle-aged, over-stressed former small business owners to Europe for a month.



Helpful Hints:

1. Some Meds are OTC

B. Remember, Jim's family is joining us for part of the trip

iii. Wine has less alcohol content than vodka



Winners will be announced.

Where in the world are the VNO's going?

Soooo. You want to see where we are going in the land of Freedom Fries and Fiats? Follow the link to the Google Maps site and you will see!

We arrive at Orly Airport on the south side of Gay Pareeee and pick up our rental car. In keeping with our time tested strategy of arriving in Europe early in the morning and resisting the urge to sleep until 9pm local time, we will immediately begin seeing the sights. Our first stop will be in the Chateau region to see, yep, you guessed it, a whole mess o' chateaux.

We will stay in Amboise the first night. From there, we will make our way to Italy via Clermont-Ferrand, Avignon, Nice (or is that Nice?) La Spezia (where we will tour the Cinque Terra; a series of ancient towns basically hanging from the cliffs overlooking the Mediterranian Sea). Then to Lucca where we will make day trips to Pisa, the Carrara marble quarries and other cool places in that neighborhood.

From Lucca we will arrive in Manciano in southern Tuscano. (Tuscany for all you rednecked non Italian speakin' colonials.) We will spend a week in our fabulous Villa, taking day trips to even more really cool places in that neck of the woods. Oh, yeah, I almost forgot the absolute best part! We will meet my Mommy, and two of my other CooCoo for CocoaPuffs sisters in Manciano so they can party like rock stars like it's 1999 with us! They will stay a week with us there and when they head back to Roma (Rome for all you rednecked...well you get the picture), Jackie and I will head north to Parma with a stop in Firenza (Florence for all you...see above).

From Parma we will go through Torino (Turin...you know, shroud city) and then onward toward Lausanne Switzerland. From Lausanne, we will head toward still Gay Pareee, with a stop in the lovely hamlet of Dijon, land of sunshine, mustard and the fancy pants university at which the Joli Jacqueline spent much of her formative college time learning to speak French and apparently German. Or maybe she learned something about a German. I can't remember.

Anyway, we fly out of Orly again with our final destination of Newark and another splendid night at Villa Riley in Hackettstown.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&saddr=Paris,+France&daddr=Amboise,+France+to:Clermont+Ferrand,+France+to:Avignon,+France+to:Nice,+France+to:La+Spezia,+Italy+to:Lucca+LU,+Italy+to:Manciano+GR,+Italy+to:Firenze,+Italy+to:Parma+PR,+Italy+to:torino+italy+to:Lausanne,+Switzerland+to:Dijon,+France+to:Paris,+France&hl=en&geocode=&mra=ls&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=60.811,112.5&ie=UTF8&ll=45.722815,6.441845&spn=13.6197,28.125&t=h&z=5