Friday 11/14 or is that 14/11?

Breakfast of croissants, pains au chocolat, brioche, cafe au lait, preserves and orange juice. Mighty tasty. Provided by our hostess Odile at the Manoir-du-Parc, the B&B we stayed at. Good chow at some restaurant...I think it was French. Drove around Amboise and then headed off to take a tour of Chenonceau, a really really cool chateau. We did a 45 minute audio tour provided us by an iPod. This place was really big. We skipped the even bigger Chambord (400+ rooms) using the logic that once you have seen 399 room, you've seen 'em all.

From Chenonceau we took some really small roads, and I mean really really small, to a great town called Loches which happens to be the where Jeanne d'Arc heard the voices. Or Joan of Arc for all you non French speakers. I have heard Joan was hot...really hot! Actually, what the French inscription says is basically, Jeanne d'Arc was Joan's smarter sister who heard the voices, but told Joan that they were actually speaking to her, and that SHE should go to Reims and do all that crazy shit. Jeanne stayed behind, had the pick of the menz, and became an English teacher in a small high school. She was later known as Jeanne d'Berthoud. Joan got toasted.

Lunch in a Brasserie with beer (not Splugen) and wine. We found a perfect fixer upper for Terry to flip. The commute in the boat truck is a bit much, but the neighborhood is safer than most of the places in which he works.

Decided to skip through Clermont-Ferrand and went all the way to St. Etienne where we have holed up in a chain type hotel. Dinner is in our room with some wine, meats, fromage, wine, bread and wine. We bought these comestables in a number of shoppes in Loches. Very bohemian.

We took the big highway to St. Etienne. Speed limits are 130! I like to go really, really fast. Went through some mountains in the dark which was a bit stressful at times. It took us a while to figure out how to work the defroster so I navigated the twisties at 130km/h through a pin hole sized spot at the bottom of the windshield until the fog finally cleared. Excitement in the style of the French!

For any of you who are interested in this sort of thing: today's bottle of wine is a 2003 Chinon, Domaine de l'Abbaye at the staggering price of 4E,70 (=$6.11). In the nearly inimitable words of Adam Sandler, the abbaye is "not too shabby".

Safety tip for the financially squeamish. Toll roads are really expensive here. Today we spent 20E (=$26) for the privilege of drving really really fast. Good thing the wine is cheap.

From NJ to France via Newark

Milt, If you are reading this. Please let us know what to do to allow access from here to net2atlanta...all other internet access is working, but we can't get to you AND you have our mail. Katie or Kristin, please send an email to Milt to read this message. Jeezh, I feel like MataHari here, passing coded messages to spy networks all over the world. ;-)

Overnight flight out of Newark NJ to Paris FRANCE ;-). Great flight; no “issues”; slept a few hours and hit the ground running.

We landed at 8:35a local time and by 9:30 we had cleared immigration (guess Jimmy’s felony warrants haven’t filtered into the international system YET) got our bags, and were in our rental car driving off campus.

Less than 1 hour later we were in Chartres standing in front of the Gothic cathedral that puts all other Gothic cathedrals to shame. WOW WOW WOW. Pretty impressive stonework. Had deux cafes crèmes, deux croissants for breakfast upon arriving in Chartres. About an hour of mesmerizing grandeur was all our craning necks could endure.

Took another short scenic drive to enter the Loire Valley and the sleepy hamlet of Chateaudun. Quick tour of this lesser known chateau, lunch of croque monsieur, frites, salade and a local red wine served in un pichet.

Back in the car for a short drive to Amboise. By now it was 4:00pm local time and that could only mean one thing. NAP TIME!! 2.5 hours later made ourselves get up and take a brisk walk to a great little restaurant called L’Alliance. For just about $80 (I am not making that up) we had duck, a local take on beef wellington with a really hearty wild cherry reduction, a couple of appetizers, a cheese course and dessert, and cognacs. Pretty freakin’awesome. Oh yeah and a ½ bottle of a local Chinon.

2 things. It’s cold here, and we LOVE our little Garmin machine that Torey and Mike Young lent to us. It is “spot on” so far.
De bon reves, mes chers

More Day 4--Carlisle to Hackettstown

Got to my sister Patty's house about 3:30pm. Seeing family that we have not seen for a long time is nice, but frankly, after the Martin Factory, a little anti-climactic. Just kidding of course, it was very climactic. We hung out, abused the children and several of the animals while waiting for Patty to prepare perhaps the last great meal we would eat before we arrive in Europe. I say perhaps ony because we may get a fabulous meal on the WWI Folkker Red Barron plane provided by that famous airline L'Avion. I am indeed looking forward to Ick with Velveeta as our overnight dinner selecton. Anyway, we had some laughs with Patty, the kids and Patty's hunny bunny Kevin. Kevin is a scientist of some sort and I do believe he has succesfully altered the genetic makeup of his daughter Maggie and turned her into a rather large tree frog. But I could be wrong.

Day 4--Carlisle PA to Hackettstown NJ

OK...Left Carlisle at about 9am and headed toward our Culturally Significant site. Since there was only ONE post with a guess as to where we were going, I will hereby announce that Katie V is the winner, if only by default. She guessed either a brewery or a distillery. Now given what my usual inerests are, that would be at least a statistically appropriate conclusion to which to come. However, if anyone had looked at a map, they would have found a number of plausible possibilities. There was of course, Gettysburg, nearby. There are a number of Amish workshops at which to see...you know, whatever the Amish do in such places. The area is also often described as the Pennsylvania Dutch Country, and we did indeed pass by a number of classic Pennsylvania Dutch historic sites, pictured below. As a side note, I will put on my politically correct hat that proudly displays an Obama for President button carefully affixed to the brim, and mentione that there are only two things I hate in this world...People intolerant of other people's cultures...and the Pennsylvania Dutch. But I digress. We saw the "Worlds (plural, not possessive) Greatest Miniature Village. I think it may be that village Hillary always talks about. We did see the World's Dryest River Boat, also pictured below. We searched high and low for the World's Largest Ball of String, The Three Headed Cow, The World's Most Gigantic Doctor (Scrubs reference), but to no avail. I think those items have been purchased for huge sums of money and are now on display at Wall Drug in South Dakota. We did, however, see a number of rural Pennsylvanians standing around on the side of the road, clinging to their guns and religion. Not sure why, but I thought I would mention it. Now, you must be thinking that any one of these culturally significant sites could have been the ONE to which we were referring, but to that I say, "Nay Nay." About an hour and a half from Carlisle PA is the tiny hamlet referenced in the famous song by The Band called "The Weight." The lyrics go a little something like this..."I pulled into Nazareth, I was feelin' bout half past dead." Yes indeed folks, we visited none other than the world famouse Martin Guitar Factory. I do have to say, I felt that familar tingle of excitement, dare I say, giddiness as we approached the front door. Jackie took a picture of me in front of the factory. We toured through the museum and saw the 1,000,000th Martin which Doug, Tom and I each held when it was on tour and visited Eddie Mathis' guitar shop in Roswell. We saw Prototypes of many other limited edition signature guitars like the 000-28 Eric Clapton, the D-45 Stephen Stills and many others. We did see, however, a glaring omission from the collection. I did not see the prototype of the OM-28 Night Dive. We saw a production model, but not the prototype, which is much more typical of the collection. Hmmmm. I wonder where they are hiding the prototype. We had a guided tour of the factory watching Martin guitars in various stages of manufacture and then had a nice slice of east coast pizza before heading out toward the burghe of Hackettstown. So, ladys and gentlemen is the answer to the Puzzler. We visited, dare I say, experienced, the 175 year old Martin Guitar company and had a rockin good time. Doug and Tom...eat your hearts out!

Day 3 – Blacksburg to Carlisle, PA

Breakfast at the Hampton Inn under the watchful eye of Manny. Actually saw a woman eating a donut with a knife and fork. Mr. Pitt would have been duly impressed.
Beautiful vistas through the Shenandoah Valley.

Coffee with Ms. Mallory Butler in the bustling metropolis of Lexington, VA. Mallory is a nice girl.
Road sign photo-op outside of Staunton, VA in honor of Jessie Kincaid.
Mandatory lunch stop at Cracker Barrel before leaving the “South” to enter the land of 7 Elevens, Sunoco, and where all iced tea is unsweet. I had aveggie plagte (fantastic hashbrown casserole) Jim had a turkey sandwich (for fear that he wouldn’t get one for several weeks – not alotta turkey served in France or Italy).

Rolled into Carlisle about 5:00pm to wine and cheese and chat. Had a nice dinner at one of those typical northeast tavern-type restaurants—the kind you can’t find in the new south. Beth and George’s oldest daughter, Theresa, was generous enough to drive in from Hershey PA to visit with us and let us pay for her dinner and beer (which she drank from a glass NOT the bottle). She and Jim traded inappropriate insults from any number of Will Farrell movies confirming her Dirty Pirate Hooker status.
Coffee and cupcakes and mashed potatoes with Beth in the morning (Beth prepared an entire Thanksgiving dinner overnight while we slept – true story). It was determined during our morning chat that we are not only people who have cuckoo for CoCo Puffs siblings.
We missed George.
Good news. We found Manny’s dog.

Puzzler--a cultural/geographic test

Knowing that our route over the next two days will take us from Blacksburg, VA through Carlisle, PA ending in Northeastern NJ, what culturally important site do we intend to visit?

Winners will be announced.

Day 2-Cashiers to Blacksburg VA

5:37 am. Nora's upstairs bedroom where we are snuggled up under a warm comforter.

Jackie rouses herself and decides to see what time it is. There is no sense getting up too early...it is her vacation too! She reaches for her fancy schmancy iPhone and pushes the button to light up the screen. She slides the little lock icon thingy to the right to activate the desktop which has the current time nicely displayed at the top. Indeed, it is too early to get up, it being only 5:37am. She clicks button to kill the display, reaches back to the side table and promptly deposits her fancy schmancy iPhone into a full glass of water. iBaptism. The next half hour is spent shaking the phone, blowing into the phone, cursing at the phone, using the blow dryer on the phone and ultimately, giving up on the phone realizing that if it is dead, it is dead. We will not go to unnatural lengths to extend its life. If it is to live, it will live. We just hope and pray, it has a respectable quality of life.
WOW truckstops in NE Tennessee are not fertile recruiting grounds for the Ivy Leagues. I don’t even think the underground organ harvesting syndicate would hunt here. We did however see an advertisement for clinical research study sponsored by the Royal Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry (seems to be housed with Joe Bubba’s Body Shop and HairCare). Whew!! You shoulda seen the “before” photos. Do the Europeans have trailer trash too? Well we are fixin’ ta find out.

TRAVEL NOTES: Great bike ride potential along rtes 246 out of GA and 107 between Cashiers and Sylva. Lot’s of hairpin turns and spectacular views.

Dinner with DC and DC's son Michael and his girlfriend Randi in Blacksburg. Michael is doing his graduate program at VA Tech. We really came to Blacksburg to see Randi and Michael is part of the package. You take the bad with the good.
We decided to stay at the Hampton Inn because they have nice beds. This housing selection was partiularly fortuitous because WE FOUND MANNY! Who is Manny, you ask? And I would answer: Manny is a manaquin given to our friend Doug by our other friend (yes...we do have more than one friend!) Terry. Terry had dressed the manaquin in all sorts of high styles and fashion, reflecting Doug's particular sartorial preferences. We named him Manny and posted him at the top of our driveway to help guests navigate our perilously long driveway during a New Year's Eve party held at Villa Vienneau. Well, Manny was abducted that fateful night. Not only was he stolen but he was also, somewhat, dismembered. We found an arm on the driveway, but alas, nothing else.
That was almost five years ago. WELL, we found him. Not only did we find him, but we also discovered the story of his disappearance. AND, we also found out that our friend Doug knew of Manny's wherabouts but conspired to conceal this information from us, his pals. Manny, having been given to Doug as a companion and confidant, learned that his new benefactor is a graduate of the esteemed, dare I say, illustrious center for higher education, Virginia Tech. Manny was so taken with Doug that he used the cover of an alleged abduction to disappear from our midst. He hitchiked to Blacksburg VA, with no money of his own and sometimes having to, dare I say, debase himself in exchange for transportation and lodging.
Anyway, Manny made it to Blacksburg and enrolled as a matriculating mannequin...in the Fashion Engineering program. Well, Manny's education from the institution whose mascot is a Hokie (no one actually knows what a Hokie is...Not even Doug) positioned Manny for employment in the most lucrative of all careers. He is currently the assistant overnight front desk manager at the Hampton Inn in Blacksburg.
We spied Manny in a phone booth outside the Hampton Inn, confirming the date and time of his second job: Exotic Dancer for bachelorette parties in the completely out of control Blacksburg. Apparently, the party attendees have a particular preference for Superman. Anyway, Doug usually stays at this very same Hampton Inn when he visits Blacksburg and no doubt has filled out his registration under the watchful eye of our Manny. I suppose Doug is a bit embarrassed that his pal and educational protege Manny is not better employed, given his VA Tech education. This is most likely why he has kept Manny's resurfacing a secret for all these many months.

BUT, we were very happy to have dinner with Michael, who is a graduate student Hokie. Hey Mike: There is a Motel 6 down the road. We'll leave the light on for ya!