Traveling

We decided to take a wandering vacation two weeks ago. It was fun and a little unnerving to not have a specific destination. We don't usually plan too far ahead when we travel unless we know there will be a shortage of hotel rooms like for a college football weekend. This can be frustrating sometimes when we hit a snag, but usually leads to some interesting twists and turns.

We started by visiting our son in Illinois and then off to Indiana to my hometown for a birthday party. Friends there suggested Gulf Shores, AL so we headed off that direction. We spent the night in Birmingham, AL at a beautiful B&B. Here are some photos of all the lovely antiques. The husband and wife who own it have been in business for 7 years. She is a full time architect and selected all the decorations and spent hours and hours at auctions and flea markets buying all the antiques. Wow! Wouldn't that be fun? He is an artist and does beautiful bronze statues and busts on commission and holds a school to teach carving of wooden carousel animals.

Our room had an attached sitting room.

This is the living room complete with a stuffed peacock in front of the fireplace. Everybody needs one of those, I think!

We spent two days in Gulf Shores which was quiet and just warm enough to be enjoyable. We walked the beach and visited the air museum on the Pensacola Naval Air Base. We visited a Civil War fort on Mobile Bay and took a ferry across the bay where we could see some natural gas platforms up close.

We came back thru Tuscaloosa and saw the Crimson Tide stadium and campus plus all the tornado damage there. How sad.

In Tennessee we visited a couple of wineries and the gravesite of Meriwether Lewis of Lewis & Clark fame. What a sad story that was!

On our way back thru Illinois, we stopped at a small graveyard to visit the graves of my great, my great-great, and my great great great grandparents. I always wish those gravestones could come to life and tell me about the people.

Then we wandered back home. Hope you have some warm weather in the days ahead.