Author Archives: Jill and Bud

We had a full day of sightseeing yesterday starting with a bus trip to Lower Manhattan.

Our first stop was the 9/11 Memorial and Museum. Here’s the family outside in front of the plaza. From the left: Sean, me, Jamie, Tia, Jacey and Terry, Sean’s mom.

This is looking across the south reflecting pool to some of the new buildings beyond. The footprints of the twin towers are now pools.

The building that replaced them sits off to the side, One World Trade Center, 1776 stories. In front of that is the museum.

Also new is a transportation hub whose outline suggests a phoenix. The sculpture in front, that was at least 20 feet high, is not a permanent installation. We were amazed to learn that this huge sculpture is just one of a series of changing displays that have been here.

I found the museum very moving. It starts above ground, with some of the huge steel beams.

Most of it is under ground. That column is the last piece of framework taken down with the cleanup and is signed by some of the rescuers and workers.

You wouldn’t think viewing twisted metal could be such an emotional experience, but it was. These beams took the impact of one of the planes.

A docent explained what was learned from analyzing the twisted beams as to how the tragedy unfolded.

Seeing the recovered dedication plaque was sobering,

Ladder 3, New York Fire Department. As one of the millions who watched in horror as the second plane hit and the towers fell this exhibit brought back that day. It must be very difficult for those who lived and worked in Manhattan to even come here.

By the time we worked our way through the artifacts and information to what we realized was the main museum it was time to meet our tour back outside. We needed more time here.

We walked down past Trinity Church…

to Battery Park.

We went through security that was like a small airport…

and took one of the ferries to Liberty Island. On the way we got a great view of Lower Manhattan…

and Lady Liberty herself.

Once there we had time to grab a quick lunch, pose in front of the statue, and walk around the island.

We went in a building where they have some of the history of the statue and the original torch.

From a viewing area on top of that building I was able to capture Liberty Enlightening the World and the American Flag.

It was a beautiful day, there are lots of people in town for the parade and the lines to get back on a boat to take us to Ellis Island and back to Manhattan were the longest our guide had seen.

By the time we were able to board a boat our guide asked us not to even get off at Ellis Island, so this is all we saw. I would have very much liked to spend some time there.

We went to supper as a group (there are about 80 of us) and then those who wanted to walked the half mile down to Macy’s on 34th Street to watch the kids do a dress rehearsal for the cameras. I have some pictures of that but was asked not to post anything until after the parade. The group that went cheered the band on, but there was no opportunity to talk to them. Everything was strictly business.

We did find out that they were number 121 – wherever that puts them in the parade; not near the front, anyway. If you are watching look for Lake Hamilton Marching Band. The band is wearing maroon pants and maroon knit hats, the color guard has maroon velvet dresses with white ear muffs.

The five of us that walked down there (Sean, Jamie, David, Renee and I) then took a tour of Macy’s.

It’s at least three buildings long and nine stories high with a lower level.

The store has several sets of escalators and many of them are old wooden ones. Those are wooden treads on the moving stairs. What a fun place.

We then walked a bit over a half mile back to the hotel, but treated ourselves to dessert along the way at Junior’s,

It was a long day, but we needed more time at both the 9/11 Museum and Ellis Island. Oh, well, if I ever get back here again…

Saturday morning I took Matey for a walk through the misty and quiet campground back at Lake Catherine State Park.

At noon Bud took me to meet Jamie and her family at Lake Hamilton High School where two charter buses were waiting to take those going on the Lake Hamilton Marching Band Fans and Friends Group New York City Macy’s Parade Tour. Jamie, Sean, Tia, Jacey, Sean’s mom Terry and I and two friends, David and Renee all came. We eight made up a tenth of the 80 traveling on these two tour buses. The band, leaders, and chaperones left just before us. Bud and I saw the five! buses it took to carry them.

This morning as the sun came up we were cruising through Virginia.

Late afternoon found us crossing from Pennsylvania to New Jersey under a lowering sky.

We came to New York City as darkness fell,

and in the early evening crept through the streets of Manhattan…

to the Hotel Edison on 47th Street between 7th and 8th Avenues.

After checking in to the hotel…

we went back out on the streets and walked through Times Square and

past the Ball Drop Building to Carmine’s Restaurant on 44th Street.

Along the way we passed the band kids going to Times Square to have their picture taken and Jamie managed to snag Adler for a quick photo. The band is staying in a different hotel and following a different itinerary to allow them time to practice. We don’t do anything with them until Tuesday evening.

Here’s our group just before a huge and delicious meal at Carmine’s. Clockwise from the left: Terry, Jacey, Tia, Jamie, Sean, David and Renee.

This is going to be a fun week, but a far cry from my usual days among the trees and the quiet.

We now know the Arkansas State Marching Band competition is in November, so we planned to be here for it. It was postponed from the first week in November because of rain, so was held Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week. The Class 6A schools competed Wednesday afternoon and we were there. This is Lake Hamilton, our grandson Adler’s band, ready to go.

You would never know watching them come out onto the field that they were really nervous. Their band sent an audition tape for Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and were selected. So besides preparing for their regular competitions, they were preparing for the parade. Money for costumes and props had to be tightly budgeted because taking all these kids to New York City is costing a bundle! Lake Hamilton won states last year, but a couple of schools were out to get them.

Although their props were simple, they played very well.

As usual, I forgot to take pictures during the performance, so these are from the woman next to me whose daughter is the girl in front of the fence holding her baritone horn.

Of course she didn’t take pictures of Adler, but Jamie was down near the field having helped with props again this year and she got this nice one. Adler is the tall one, he’s 6’3” now.

I love this one she caught of the horn soloist.

It’s hard to tell without a video, but these kids were moving!

Every step is choreographed.

And they really put it all together.

And in the end, although they lost best visual by a tenth of a point, they took first place overall. Here’s me getting excited while I try to video the award.

These are the drum majors, who accepted the award, and they were pretty excited, too.

So they did it, state champions two years in a row.

Adler did not want us to forget that.

And mom…

and grandparents were all pretty proud and happy, too.

Great show Lake Hamilton Powerband.

Great show Adler.

We’ve moved to the Hot Springs National Park campground at Gulpha Gorge and this morning at eight o’clock Matey and I set out to walk over the Hot Springs Mountain. Our first leg was up Gorge Trail from the campground. The morning sun was beautiful on the old stone steps that have been here for a hundred years.

I love the rocky folds of this mountainside.

At the top of the steep bank along Gulpha Creek I paused to take a picture of the campground, but the trees hide the valley.

The majority of our walk was along the Oertel Trail, a lovely wooded path that goes around the south end of the mountain.

These trails are well maintained. Here a huge tree fell across the trail, but had been cut and cleared from the path.

I was glad to see that besides clearing the trail they left this giant lay where it had fallen. Downed trees make great habitat for many small creatures and eventually add needed organic matter to the forest floor. Glad to see this great tree continue as part of the woods.

After about a mile and a half we started to see the city through the trees.

There are a lot of great old buildings in Hot Springs.

The end of the trail took us down to the Promenade behind Bath House Row.

This is a view I love.

The old Army and Navy Hospital looks over the south end of the Promenade not far from where Bud met us at the end of our two mile walk.

After a busy day of appointments and chores Matey and I got to sit out for a bit in this lovely little campground.

We’re back in Hot Springs at Lake Catherine State Park. We have site 55, where we’ve stayed before. We are in the area until December third, although we’ll be moving sites twice, due to time restrictions at the State Park and at the National Park campground at Gulpha Gorge.

This is a nice site with full hookups and plenty of room.

Our site is just across the loop road from the lake.

There are nice trails here and Saturday Jamie came out and she and I took the dogs for a walk. It’s been very dry here so there was no water in the little creeks, but there might be soon as it’s rained at least some of the day for the last five days straight.

The rain might have prompted this huge mushroom which grew in Jamie’s lawn in one day.

I’ve been enjoying the fall despite the rain and the many chores and appointments we have.

Not a bad place to call home.

We were just looking for a place for an overnight near Little Rock. I booked us for one night into Willow Beach Campground. It’s a Corps of Engineers campground so I was hoping for a level site where we wouldn’t have to unhook, and we got that.

We’re taking the trailer into a shop tomorrow to have them check the rear axle. We’re chewing up the insides of our rear tires, especially on the right side. We had to put our spare on in Tennessee.

Luckily I found this site which is quite private and quite lovely and less than 10 miles from the shop.

It’s a small campground with no trails…

but plenty of beautiful trees, like these sycamores.

It sits between the Arkansas River…

and Willow Beach lake, which is an old oxbow of the river.

At our site we can see the river on one side…

and the marshy lake on the other. Totally fine for an overnight stop!

There are some campgrounds that go on our list for second stops, if we’re passing that way. George P. Cossar State Park in northwest Mississippi has made that list.

It sits on Enid Lake about 70 miles south of Memphis, and this is our view from the back of our site.

We might not have enjoyed our stay as much in the site I originally booked. That driveway was narrow, bumpy and uneven.

In my defense, I chose the site when we were still using a satellite antenna and Dish TV. From the campground map I thought there might be a clearing to the southwest, and per my Winegard satellite antenna aiming app, it looks like we might have had a chance to get reception.

However, Starlink needs a view of the sky towards the north, and that wasn’t going to work.

We looked around, site 7 was open and looked promising. I made a phone call and we were able to transfer our registration.

So now we have a view of the lake…

and Starlink has a pretty clear view of the sky.

Not only is this a pretty park with full hookups, it has two disc golf courses.

Basket 12 and the tee for 13 are just steps from our site.

We’ve already played 23 holes. We started at 13 and played through 18 early this morning with Matey along. But he wasn’t doing well, so I walked him a bit on the leash and took him back to the camper. Then Bud and I played another round, but this time I forgot my phone, which has a map of the course, and we missed basket 3 entirely. Hence 23 holes.

Along the way we spotted this tree and I had to get a picture. This looks like lightning damage, and I wonder if this was originally two trees that fused and were then partially split. In any case, the crown of the tree (a pine) looked fine.

We have only one more day to enjoy this place, but we may well be back.

We’ve traveled further southwest and are now outside Tuscaloosa Alabama at Deerlick Creek Campground.

This is another Corps of Engineers campground, which we love. Like most of those, these sites are extremely well made. They have level, concrete driveways and pads and gravel areas abutting wooden decks with picnic tables, grills and fire rings. And since this is a federal campsite our lifetime senior pass gets us this campsite at half off.

Matey and I have been spending the afternoons outside, moving with the shade. With the high temperatures right around 80, the shade is needed.

Wherever we sit we are rewarded with a lovely view.

The only downside is that a terrible thunderstorm with straight line winds of 80mph hit this area on August 2nd. The roads are lined with downed trees and all the trails are closed. They only reopened the park a couple of weeks ago.

Matey and I found one short trail…

that took us down to a fishing dock on Holt Lake.

Holt Lake is on the Black Warrior River and today we drove down to see the Holt Dam, lock and power plant. We were told the lock is closed right now because of cracks. The Army Corps of Engineers is working on a plan for the repairs. There is commercial and recreational use of this waterway that is now interrupted.

We are enjoying the area. We’ve gone disc golfing twice at Ol’ Colony Disc Golf Course which shares space with the Ol’ Colony Ball Golf Course.

This is looking out towards one of the golf fairways.

The disc golf course starts at a ninety degree angle from that. It plays through the trees…

and across the open area around this cone installation. We find these from time to time all across the country. I just looked it up and this is a VOR, a navigation beacon for airplanes that’s been in use since just after WWII. VOR stands for Very High Frequency Omnidirectional Radio Range. Supposedly they are to be retired next year. Meanwhile, we appreciate the space this one creates for disc golf.

How lucky we are to continue to follow early fall from north to south and enjoy our life outdoors and away from cities!

Adler’s band was in a regional Bands of America competition last Saturday in Johnson City, Tennessee. Jamie said she would go but it’s a 10 hour drive from her house (the red pin) to Johnson City (the grey with white dot). I saw that our location at Cathedral Caverns State Park (the green tree dot) was about halfway there. So I told her if she could get anywhere near us I would drive from there. She got plane tickets to Chattanooga, I extended our stay at the park by one day so we didn’t have to leave until today, Monday, and off we went.

The competition was held in the indoor football field of East Tennessee State University; the Ballad Health Athletic Center you can see just past Jamie.

It’s a beautiful campus and Johnson City is set in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains, very nice. Fortunately they were just north of the devastation from Hurricane Helene.

The whole thing is a very complicated production. There were 22 bands that participated and they filled up several parking lots with their buses and gear.

Schools have a variety of transportation equipment.

Lake Hamilton just got a brand new semi tractor…

with a trailer designed for band equipment. They don’t have a logo on the trailer yet.

For a trip this long they use commercial buses for the kids, for closer competitions they ride school buses.

We found the kids hanging out having lunch outside on the campus. That’s Jamie walking across on the right, the only picture I got of her face.

They practice outside on the fields. Each school is assigned a parking area and a practice area.

Then they have to bring all their instruments, equipment and props across to the field. If they are one of the 12 schools that make finals they do this all over again in the evening.

While the preliminary scores were being compiled the East Tennessee State University Marching Band put on an exhibition of their show “Happy Together” which included this version of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy”. You can see the high school bands in the seats behind them where they go after they perform and haul all their equipment back out.

As an encore the ETSU Band turned around and performed for the high school bands. I thought that was a wonderful gesture. They also announced they gave band scholarships and invited seniors to come and talk to them. Pretty good marketing.

Lake Hamilton made finals. Here they are gathered while Mr Schultz, their band director, gives them a pep talk before finals. They made some major marching errors in preliminaries and he is making sure that doesn’t happen in finals.

This is Lake Hamilton getting ready to go on for their final performance. During the performance of the band that precedes them they file into the end zone with all their equipment. The man in light colored pants is a timer. The last band is now carrying and pushing all of their stuff off the field. When the timer indicates, the other band is to have cleared the field and Lake Hamilton gets about 2 or 3 minutes to get all their stuff out and in place, including amplifiers, ladders for the drum majors and all their props.

And then they perform. These bands are pretty amazing considering the members are from 14 to 18 years old. Towards the end of this clip you can see Adler as I zoom in on his group of saxophone players. He’s the tall one in the middle. The whole thing from set up to tear down fits in a 15 minute time slot.

Then it’s back out to the parking lots to wait. We found Adler with his new bandana. The kids all got them for making finals.

He and his laffy taffy posed for me…

and then he gave me something between his performance smile and his regular smile.

Jamie and I went out for a quick supper and came back to find the kids all lined up to go back in for final awards. We were in time to see the lone class 1A school put on an exhibition. They did not make finals, but did win their class, so got to perform again. There were only 30 kids total, only 13 that marched and they were very, very good. But a band of 30 can’t compete with a band of 300.

The bands marched in to the cadence of the ETSU drum line. Lake Hamilton is the group with their color guards all sitting with skirts flared around them.

The group on the end is that 30 person band.

And here are all twelve of the finalists. Lake Hamilton did do better. They got ninth place and beat the school that won third place in their class (2A) in preliminaries. But in finals all the classes compete together, and there are also 3A and 4A schools.

Here I am at the end of a long day with my grandson, who is eating laffy taffy again! He said he was happy with their placement, but not with the score.

Jamie and I got to our hotel at 11:00 PM. The kids went back to the camp where they were staying. Sunday I drove Jamie back to the Chattanooga airport and then I drove the ninety miles back to Cathedral Caverns State Park. I was home at about 4 PM. Jamie flew to Little Rock and then drove home to Hot Springs. She got home at 12:30 AM. Adler went to Dollywood with the band and rode the bus all night. He got home at 5 AM Monday morning, at which time Jamie had to get up and drive to school to pick him up. It was a tiring weekend for all of us, but very much worth it.

We are now in northeast Alabama at Cathedral Caverns State Park. It’s a nice site; new, nicely made with full hook ups..

and it’s situated in a pretty valley.

There are decent trails…

and nearby disc golf.

But what made me choose this particular park was the cave.

According to the literature the name Cathedral Cavern is because of the 126 foot by 25 foot natural opening to the cavern.

According to our guide it was the reaction of the first developer’s wife on being taken back to this room. I like his version.

Wherever the name came from, it is a spectacular place, both immense and ornate.

It is home to the largest known stalagmite…

and the biggest flowstone wall in a commercial cave.

Many of the more spectacular views were made accessible by this tunnel, the only place in this huge cave that had to be dug out. I measured it on the way out, just under 100 paces. It took nine months to excavate back in the 60’s with picks and shovels and dynamite.

Past the tunnel is the cathedral room and this flowstone formation they call the frozen waterfall.

There were a lot of very large and very tall stalagmites.

Of the stalactites these were among my favorites. These are thought to have cracked off in the 1811-12 earthquakes that formed Reelfoot Lake in Western Tennessee, when the Mississippi ran backwards. The ends of the broken stalactites fell into thick mud beneath them. That mud shifted slightly to the left and then dried up, leaving these formations just a bit disjointed.

On the way out I noticed several formations..

that were blue green in color. By then our guide was far behind us, making sure we all got out, and I didn’t get to ask what mineral might have caused this.

We have toured a lot of caves,

but were pleasantly surprised with the beauty…

and grandeur of this one.

We’ve camped about 10 times in Alabama and never thought to come across something like this.

The lovely Welcome Center…

is built right over the exit to Mystery River, the underground watercourse that made the cave.

Whenever I think about quitting this camping life or perhaps moving much slower I think, “But there’s so much more to see.”