It's our ONE WEEK benchmark!

Today is Monday, Feb 9, 2009-- We have been on the road for one full week, it's a full moon and we have not killed each other ------YET
I have quite the "catch up " to do since I couldn't figure how to get into this blog---duh


on Feb. 3, Tuesday, IT IS COLD---SNOW EVERYWHERE!
we traveled from West VA to Strasburg VA, nestled in the Shenandoah Valley under the Blue Ridge Mountains--- My mother was born there and I showed Sue the "NABE"- my Aunt Tanty's house and Aunt Speck's house--
then it was on to Staunton Va, where we visited my niece, Amanda and her hubber, Steve, and baby Lily . We poked around in Staunton at some cute shops ---crap!!! now the LINE is stuck on here and I do not know how to get it off---

We stopped in Statesville NC (?) and had BBQ again,--- brisket, corn fritters, sweet potato sticks ( from SYSCO, we were told)

Wednesday, Feb 4, we went to Hickory NC to the furniture mart-- HOLY MOLY-- enormous---

From there we headed south west to Ashville NC--- CUTE TOWN-- but a lot of the stores were closed because the weather people told everybody to stay home because of the snow--- yes!!!!
SNOW--- it was 18*

We ate at a CUTE cafe called the Tupelo Honey Cafe (pronounced Too-Pa--LOW)-- we had EGGS CRAWLY ( poached eggs with crabcake on top, asparagus and hollandaise), fried green tomatoes, and candied ginger cornbread (muffin) with peach butter. We discovered Tupelo honey -- honey gathered from the tupelo tree--- we don't know what they look like so we don't know if we've seen one--

We bypassed HOTLANTA and stayed outside in the burbs--

Thursday Feb 5
WE hit the road still heading south and ventured off the main highway into a town called West Point, GA--it was 2 miles from the Alabama border---really cute shops here----the stores had names like Southern Shadows, Twisted Daisy, and Sweet Georgia Brown--

It was in the same area as WARM SPRINGS where FDR had his little White House-- we were directed to Heart of the South for lunch which was all HOMEMADE food on a buffet ( 'cause good grief, we NEED more food on this trip!)--they had stuff like string beans, butter beans, brunswick stew, beef and noodles, spinach salad, pineapple casserole, cornbread salad, buttermilk pie and chessman banana pudding--we were so excited to find out she had a cookbook of her stuff--- so we each got one-- the owner told us that Miss Paula Deen took some liberties with HER recipes--- "just look at the date on MY cook book and when Paula started out", she sniffed

We antiqued the rest of the day in Alabama----I found an antique Steiff Jack Russell--saw a little red "tutu" looking skirt that had "built in " music that played the can can

The trees along the highway are LOADED with mistletoe, and fat little brown birds are plentiful sitting on the wires watching the cars go by. . at night deer were EVERYWHERE so I was a bit nervous about driving--- 18 wheelers are everywhere on the main highways so we try to take the back roads as often as we can.

Sue has spotted hawks, and loves to say shit like tertiary and swath-- "I love this tertiary road," she says,
"Why don't we get on the tertiary road up here?"
or, "These tertiary roads might not show up on your GPS"
or
"What a lovely swath of grass over there"
so finally I asked her what the hell tertiary meant--- to rephrase it for the layman, so to speak--
she looked at me like I was crazy--

"It means "SECONDARY", she says, surprised I would ask
'SECONDARY?????" you mean BACK ??? BACK ROADS????-- why don't you just say BACK ROADS???"

"because I thought you liked to hear me say TERTIARY", she says wickedly, "so I was trying to say it as much as possible"

Cattle are everywhere too, and Sue seems really really concerned whether they are DAIRY COWS or CATTLE--
"I don't know, "she mutters, "they must be cattle, because I don't see them getting milked'
"well, I don't think they milk them out in the field, " says I-
"I know, " she says rather worried sounding, " but they are not going back to the barn"
"WELL, it's 2 O'CLOCK in the afternoon-- it aint time for milking!!!!:"
So as she studied the grazing CATTLE/COWS/DAIRY COWS, trying to figure out their purpose in life, she caught a couple of them having a rather private BOVINE moment--in PUBLIC--- THAT shut her up about the cows for the next hundred miles or so.


When we get to our hotel room, the first thing I do is spray down the whole room with lysol--- I spray the light switches, the phone, the lamps, the toilet, the faucets, door handles, the bed, and the remote---
Sue comes in GASPING and choking and saying she's gonna die from the fumes before the germs get her
and we sure we are some kinda glad to have our bottle of POO-POURRI--one spritz of POO, before # 2 !
Its late and I need to get some shut eye before heading across the state of LOUISIANA into Texas
Later~~~
Mar