Valdosta, North Georgia and Cincinnati

Our "Gone With the Wind" House in Valdosta

We departed Valdosta on June 1 after two great weeks with Mike, Jennah, Kevin, Makenna and Shane. Finally stopped raining after the first week so we were able to get out of the house to help with some yard work and generally get out of doors. We were also able to finish packing up the last of our household stuff that we'd previously stored in Mike's attic - some of which we're lugging home in the car in a couple of packing boxes and some to be shipped via FEDEX once we return to Vancouver in a couple of weeks. Hot, sweaty work in the close confines of the crawl space above the garage, and aggravating as I tried to find some packing tape that would actually stick to the boxes in the heat & humidity of a Valdosta summer. I think I became "Customer of the Month" at the local Home Depot thanks to my numerous visits there for packing supplies and yard equipment.

As you can see from the photo above the place we rented in Valdosta was a "Gone With the Wind" themed place - actually an old Victorian home originally built in 1906. It had a play room on the 3rd floor which we put to good use when the family came over one evening. Here are a few photos.










After leaving Valdosta we drove up to the mountains of north Georgia to visit one of my old Naval Academy classmates and his wife on their horse farm. Bob Eikenberry retired from the Marine Corps as a helicopter pilot and is now operating a forge out of his farm - manufacturing everything from horseshoes to huge brass & iron decorative gates for the well-to-do gentry of the Atlanta area. One of his long-time clients is country singer Kenny Rodgers. We'll be seeing them again at our 40th class reunion this October in Annapolis.


Our most recent stop was in West Chester, Ohio (just north of Cincinnati) to visit Don & Susan Tanaka. Don was my roomate at the Naval Academy and was also the Best Man at our wedding. Hadn't seen them in about 10 years so we had a lot to catch up on. I think we carried on a running 3 day conversation with them the whole time we were there. Went up to Dayton one rainy day to visit the Air Force Museum there - a monumental and quite well done museum of USAF aircraft old & new. They had everything from WWI era fighters to a B-52, and also had an interesting display of the various generations of "Air Force One" aircraft thru the years, including the versions used to haul around Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy (it was the airplane that flew his coffin back to DC after the Dallas assassination), Johnson & Nixon. Also went downtown with them to see the sights of Cincinnati.

We really enjoyed our visit with them - we talked for hours. Basically a running 3 day conversation getting caught up. It was really hard to break away this morning to keep heading north towards Mackinac Island where we'll be for our 40th wedding anniversary.

So... we're back on the road - will be catching the ferry tomorrow from Mackinaw City in Northern Michigan over to Mackinac Island, then turn west towards Mt. Rushmore and Yellowstone before we arrive back in Vancouver on June 18.