Vacation - McDonalds is now on my bad list!

These coupons
are good for -

NOTHING!

Our first stop on our vacation was at a McDonald's in Little Rock to get a couple lattes. I put them on a credit card and then they told me the latte machine was being cleaned and they couldn't make them. No "Shall I credit your account?" or anything - just a blank stare like what am I going to do about it? But - not a problem - I'll just take a couple coffees instead and then use the balance due me on something else. The math got too hard for the person waiting on me and she had to get the manager who was soon asking me for more money and couldn't seem to grasp the problem. After a bit I walked out in a huff with the two coffees and them owing me a bit over $3. Glynda was looking at the receipt and saw a number to call if you were unhappy with your service. We had nothing to do but drive so we called the number. I told my story a couple times (including the fact that I was on vacation and over 200 miles from home) and they finally asked me if they could send some coupons for some free product. That was OK with me. When we got home, there they were in the mail. Today I was going to Tyler so I took them along to use for my lunch. I had the opportunity to discuss these with two McDonald's managers . They both refused to accept them - they say I have to go to Little Rock to use them. And I can only use one at a time so I guess I need to make four trips to Little Rock???

Now these things are plainly marked to be valid at "any participating location". You would think that a manager looking at these would see that (a) this guy evidently had a bad experience at a store in Little Rock and that (b) he was upset enough about it to call corporate and that (c) corporate found some validity in the complaint and send him the coupons, so the best course of action would be to - just give him more reason to be upset!! It's not like I was trying to get a free Rolex watch! What's it going to cost - $1??? But that's the course of action at both places! We use McDonald's for coffee and for a quick breakfast when we need one. We'll just look elsewhere now and look forward to the day when all America files a class action lawsuit against them for making everyone fat and unhealthy. If they can do it with cigarettes they should be able to do it with Micky D's. (So maybe I'll just send these coupons Liz. She lives in Little Rock now.)

Vacation - Second Day

I'm kinda jumping around on these posts and need to cover a couple earlier things now. The first day was just driving and we spent the night in Decatur, Alabama. When we started off the next morning I saw a bunch of the color blue showing up on the Garmin and suddenly we were making a left turn and crossing the Tennessee River. It's very wide here. (In reading about BC Goodner in the Civil War, he mentions the efforts in crossing the river and here, you can see why!). (BTW - this was our first trip with the Garmin and I'm addicted to it now. It saved us a number of times, particularly in getting us back on track after a wrong turn. I'll never leave home without it now!) Our first stop that day was at Lookout Mountain - Chattanooga is across the river at the base of the mountain. We drove to the top and were really surprised at the number of homes all along the road and what a large area it is at the summit.

We ran into a guy at Point Park that was a real Civil War buff! (Are there any other kinds of "buffs" other than "Civil War buffs"??). He took the pictures of us that has the marker in it. He asked if I was familiar with a picture of U. S. Grant leaning against the side of a mountain. I said I was and he pointed to a grown-up area just below us and said "That's where the picture was taken!". He was upset that the area was neglected and said he was going to complain about it. He lives in Chattanooga and pointed out the place where he works to us. (For Thermalloy friends - he was a Tony Shotwell!!) This isn't the picture but that is Grant on the left and it is the place where the referenced picture was taken.


In this picture there are mountains on the left, river on the right, and a 25 MPH sign. We drove for hours like that. The speed limit was sometimes as high as 45 MPH but usually 25-35. It was a beautiful drive - until it got dark and started raining - one of the two rains on the whole trip - weather wasn't really a factor! The next morning we were in Asheville and had to put on our jackets to go to breakfast.


You've probably tried to take pictures like this before. The vast beautiful vistas just never seem to photograph well - but you have to try just the same. We took lots of these. (Yep - we drove on that road down there.)

Vacation - New Castle, Delaware

When I was planning the trip I had a stop in Wilmington, Delaware listed because of a web page on the waterfront there. But then the more I looked at it the more it looked like a contrived tourist attraction. I started Google "street viewing" down the coast of the bay and discovered New Castle. The existing old town there dates from around 1800 and lots of things are original to the period. I put Jessops Tavern on the itinerary as a place to have lunch and it proved to be a really good choice. It was a wonderful old place with great food and a good local beer and some really nice music. It made us feel our tiredness and we decided to postpone our visit to Longwood Gardens until the next day which turned out to be a fortunate decision!.




So we walked around a bit and were admiring an old house when a guy older than me asked us where we were from. That ended up in an invitation! He owned the old house and asked us if we'd like to see his garden and house. Too much to go in detail but his garden was a wonderful space. The house is a three story plus basement, 189 year old structure, filled with amazing antique furniture. Calvin Elliot Marshall lives there by himself. He was a WWII pilot - bombers, has a fascinating family history and antique family art to go with it. He took us on a tour of the whole place and shared lots of things with us. It was when I started to take the first picture inside that I found out my memory card was full - so I just enjoyed the tour. The basement use to be a "speakeasy" in the 20's and still had some bottles from then (with liquor in them) . That was a fascinating experience. (If you feel like you've read this before it's because it's a copy of an earlier post then didn't have any pictures with it.)

The house is known as the Van Dyke House and it's on the National Register of Historic Places. It's also For Sale - marked down to $850,000. This site has some pictures of the interior.

Vacation - Virginia Beach

It was all pretty crowded on the day we got there - Sunday of Labor Day Weekend. The next day - not so much. Great people watching! Beach, boardwalk, road for bikes and carts, and then the hotel property. We were close to it all from our second story oceanfront balcony. On Monday morning we did see a some runners from the Navy base just down the road. There are usually lots of fighter aircraft over the beach but none on the holiday. Always a few ships at sea. When we went to see the light houses at Old Fort Henry we found ourselves subject to the scrutiny of people entering a military base because that's what we were doing - but didn't know it as we started in.

Vacation - Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel

I first learned about this structure several years ago and when I noticed that our vacation plans were taking us very near it, decided that we should go across it! The Chesapeake Bay Bridge is almost eighteen miles long. In two places it goes underground for about a mile to provide open waterway overhead for ships to sail into the bay. We crossed the bridge in the very early morning going from Virginia Beach to Longwood Gardens and the sun came up over the horizon as we were driving! The second picture is on one of the islands where a tunnel starts. (I borrowed a picture from the internet so you could see what it looks like from above.)

Vacation - Deanna & Cody and Wilkes-Barre

This is one of the signs on the Market Street Bridge. Pretty funny. I wonder if the sign was made in Japan. (The link also refers to the Frick Collection on 71st St. and 5th Ave. in New York City. Our guide pointed this out to us as we went by and said that it was the most prestigious piece of property in the city.)

This is from the bridge. Deanna and Cody live just a block or so from the church with the green roof in the center of the picture.

The day after staying at the B&B in Wilkes-Barre, we continued our rest day by putting in a load of laundry at Deanna and Cody's and then exploring the town. We'd had a continental breakfast that morning and decided to have a real breakfast for lunch. We started to look for a place but pulled in a parking lot to mail some letters first and saw this old gentleman with a white cane moving very slowly along the sidewalk across the street. I decided to see if I could help him and he grabbed my arm as soon as I made the offer. It took 20-25 minutes to help him to where he was going (Tony's Deli) and I knew a lot about him by the time we got there - and by then, he was expecting us to have lunch with him (Tony makes breakfast all day), which we did. His name is Robert Stein, he's 83, lives alone in a high-rise nearby, and walks to Tony's everyday for lunch where he eats Belgian waffle with gravy. He lost his eyesight in 1968 in an automobile accident. Wilkes-Barre is an interesting place. As with most cities this age, it has an "old town" and that's where Deanna and Cody live - for now, but not much longer. They're being transferred to the southern part of the state. Thanks again to them for the accomodations - we stayed at "Swopes Suites" two nights and it was good visiting with them (and Beverly) and good to be able to pet the dogs.

NYC - Greenwich Village - Washington Square Park and Cafe Reggio

I'm a child of the 60's and back then all of the musicians came through Greenwich Village. Peter, Paul, and Mary started here at the Bitter End, Bob Dylan first played at Cafe Wa. The Gaslight Cafe (I went there back then) was a stop on the way for many of the folk musicians. Washington Square Park was the sight for a lot of folk music gatherings. Most things then happened on Bleeker Street or MacDougal Street. Caffe Reggio has been there since 1927 and was the place I wanted to visit this trip. Although it was a Saturday morning, it had the ambiance I expected and Glynda bought me a T-Shirt there! Glynda and I had two tiny espressos, Beverly tried a Sanbitter, and we shared an eclair. Lots of interesting shops! Bet it's really nice when they're all open! This was an enjoyable couple hours!

Longwood Gardens in Kennet Square, PA (but less than 10 miles from Delaware)

I posted a bunch of pictures from Longwood Gardens on Facebook. This is a huge and incredibly beautiful place. We spent 6-7 hours there and couldn't begin to see it all. By taking our time seeing what we did see we missed a lot. But I'm glad we did it that way!

One of the Central Park walks:

We all really enjoyed Central Park and made it into the park three times. On the first day we walked along 59th Street and stepped into the park from there just to get our first look at it. The next evening we went there because it worked out to do so. It was on the itinerary for Sunday morning and we walked across it then to get to the MET. These pictures are from the Saturday evening walk. I'll do another post later on the people in Central Park!





Bethesda Fountain is on the 72nd Street transverse and it's one of the sights I really wanted to see. There's a picture here of the whole area, a close-up of the fountain, and one of a guy making huge bubbles!


Walking along the mall from 72nd St. towards 59th. All sorts of things happening here.



It was getting dark and we grabbed a snack from a vendor and then followed the music to the tango lessons in the park.

Then we found a carriage and took a long ride - but that's another post. Bev REALLY wanted to do this!