Trip Home from Paducah

Here was our trip home from memory.

Day 1, 843 miles: Finally left Paducah at about 11:30am because it took so long to get all of the snow and ice off of the car and get it packed up and unstuck from the grass of the apartments because we got it stuck. We passed through St. Louis and Kansas City and hopped on I-80 and stayed the night in North Platte, Nebraska. I think I remember getting in about 1 or 2am.

Day 2, 778 miles: Got an early start and took I-80 from there to Pocatello, Idaho making a stop in Twin Falls, Idaho to visit Nicole's grandfather (the only great grandfather left for our kids to visit).

This was what the road looked like from Twin Falls to Pocatello.

In Pocatello we stayed with Nicole's brothers Jed and his wife and Korth's family sans Korth. We had a nice home cooked dinner and got to see family again after not seeing them for almost two years.

Day 3, 524 miles: We left Pocatello, Idaho pretty early and stopped in Pendleton, Oregon to see more family before going home to Pasco. The first picture is the road on top of Cabbage Hill into Pendleton, Oregon. Nicole is looking out the window at my knock wondering what's going on. I recall finally getting home around 7pm. It was a very quick trip home. We drove like mad to get home as soon as we could. It was really nice to be done.

Last week in Paducah

As I prepare to update the blog for France I find that I am woefully behind on posts since leaving Paducah, Kentucky and coming back to Washington state. This was our last visit with David McDowell and his now fiancée Crystal who live in a nearby town in Tennessee. Micah and David had the chance to beat eachother up a bit in Halo. Micah always welcomes the opportunity to play someone at Halo. This was back in January just before we left to drive the family home.

Delinquent Postings...blame it on France!

This post is for those of you who thought we died or just that we were no longer blogging. We are still planning on blogging but we have just been seriously crazy busy getting ready to move to France for two years. The picture below if proof of the list that we had to work off. Nicole thought it would be a good idea to create a giant checklist to work off the items. It proved to be very efficient and we almost have the whole thing worked off now. Here is a brief synopsis of what has happened since I got back from Kentucky in early April:

• I can't remember what we did in April. That's too long ago but I know it was crazy busy.


• May was spent with language training every night after work. That with homework every night kept us busy enough. Oh yeah...we also had a huge yard sale and catalogued all of our books with the help of our good friends the Montgomerys. Thanks guys!


• June was spent going to France on our orientation trip to pick out a house, schools, visit the workplace; selling our home; language training; and moving out of our home.


• Our last month here in the US is being spent finishing up piles and piles of paperwork for everything you could ever think of (including finally getting a will), cultural training, visiting family and friends, language training, picking up our visas, and packing. We leave for France on 7/31.

It has indeed been a whirlwind and I will post more details when I get more time. For now, be entertained by the magnificent picture of our enshrined list. TTFN...et à la prochaine!

Memphis

Two weekends ago I had time to kill by myself in Kentucky so I decided to take a trip to Memphis to see Beale Street and visit some of the music museums. The family and I had been to Graceland and had stopped by Beale to take a couple of pictures. So like a dork I went by myself and stayed at the Graceland Days Inn and visited Beale, ate BBQ, went to museums, and listened to some good music.

When I first got there I checked into the hotel and went down to Beale Street to walk around and eat some good food and listen to some good music. I didn't have a camera with me so I bought a $5 disposable at Walmart so the pictures pretty much suck. But it's better than nothing I suppose. I took more night shots and club shots of the musicians but none of them came out.

Beale Street is "significant location in history and the history of the blues," named after an unknown military hero in 1841, it acted as General Ulysses S. Grant’s headquarters during the Civil War. It is lined with jazz clubs and such each with good food and music trying to get you to come into their place. It's probably not really all that interesting unless you're somewhat into music. You can take a virtual tour here.

The first night I visited the Rock n' Soul Museum which was created by the Smithsonian Institution which "tells the story of musical pioneers who, for the love of music, overcame racial and socio-economic barriers to create the music that shook the entire world." It was decent but I liked the others I visited better. Then I had dinner at hte Rum Boogie Cafe which had some decent BBQ and several very good bands.

The next day I went to eat at Pig On Beale which had no music but probably the best BBQ that I have ever eaten. I sort of went there on accident. A friend from high school on my facebook recommended a restaurant with the website of http://www.hogsfly.com/ and when I was walking around I saw Pig on Beale and thought that was what he recommended. Accidental...but I'm glad I went.



















These last pictures are an odd sign that I also saw in New Orleans and some goats climbing around on what looked like a kids play area. Not sure what that was all about...














The second morning I went to Stax Museum of American Soul Museum. Apparently it is the only soul music museum in the world and was the recording company for such singers as Otis Redding, Rufus and Carla Thoas, Isaac Hayes, the Staple Singers, Albert King, the Bar-Kays, Booker T. & the MG's, and many others. Unfortunately none of the museums would allow cameras so I could only get pictures of the outside.

According to Wikipedia, Stax "was a major factor in the creation of the Southern soul and Memphis soul music styles, also releasing gospel, funk, jazz, andblues recordings. While Stax is renowned for its output of African-American music, the label was founded by two whitebusinesspeople, Jim Stewart and his sister Estelle Axton, and featured several popular ethnically-integrated bands, including the label's house band, Booker T. & the MG's."











In the afternoon I went to Sun Studio mostly known for being the place where Elvis and Johnny Cash got their start and has been called the birthplace of rock-and-roll. According to Wikipedia: "Sun Studio was opened by rock pioneer Sam Phillips...on January 3, 1950. It was originally called Memphis Recording Service, sharing the same building with the Sun Records label business. Reputedly the first rock-and-roll single, Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats' "Rocket 88" was recorded there in 1951 with song composer Ike Turner on keyboards, leading the studio to claim status as the birthplace of rock & roll. Blues and R&B artists like Howlin' Wolf, Junior Parker, Little Milton, B.B. King, James Cotton, Rufus Thomas, and Rosco Gordon recorded there in the early 1950s...Rock-and-roll, country music, and rockabilly artists, including unknowns recording demos and others like Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, Charlie Feathers, Ray Harris, Warren Smith, Charlie Rich, and Jerry Lee Lewis, signed to the Sun Records label recorded there throughout the latter 1950s until the studio outgrew its Union Avenue location."















These last pictures are of the hotel that I stayed at. Notice the awesome guitar shaped pool. I had the priviledge of having Elvis watch over me as I slept. And the hotel had two channels completely dedicated to Elvis movies. It was glorious!

Father-Daughter Ball 2009

While I was looking at family pictures of some high school friends of mine on facebook while thinking about our annual visit to the Father-Daughter ball put on by Calvary Chapel at the TRAC and I had a crazy idea to organize an outing with old high school friends and their daughters. It was a total blast; all the girls and dads had a fantastic time though unfortunately about three friends couldn't go because they were out of town (or from out of town).

These first pictures are of us disembarking in the limousine. This was both my and Rebekkah's first limo ride. We just happened to have some sparkling cider in the garage (almost like we planned it, but we didn't) that we chilled in the limo and had some on our ride. The driver took us across the blue bridge and then through Columbia Park and up Columbia Center Blvd to Red Lobster for dinner.

Micah was a bit jealous as he wanted to go on the limousine ride as well. Maybe they'll have a Mother-Son ball someday. Who knows...
































Here we are at dinner at Red Lobster. Rebekkah and I split the Ultimate Feast which was lobster, crab, two types of shrimp with rice, a salad, and clam chowder. It was yummy.

















After dinner the limo driver dropped us back off at our house where we had some dessert. We had brownies and ice cream or peach cobler and ice cream. When we were done we all piled in my van and went to the ball.














Here are some pictures of us dancing at the ball. We were getting a few confused stares because we were getting our grooves on. I think they suspected we might be a little wierd.