After we left Prescott we went back to California for a brief visit with Andy. He wanted to see a new exhibit at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco featuring Japanese tattoo art, so we went there with Andy and his friend, Heather. Tattoos were very common in Japan in past centuries and the artwork depicting them was spectacular. We ended the day with dinner at one of our favorite Oakland restaurants, Chop Bar. A few days later we celebrated our 45th wedding anniversary with lunch at Brix, one of our favorite Napa Valley restaurants. Brix has a large garden outside their patio and they harvest it regularly to provide fresh produce for the restaurant. Click on the first photo in each block to view the slideshow.
We left California and began the drive across country, taking our time to see some sights and stop to visit friends. We drove across Nevada and headed to Moab, Utah. There we took a twilight boat cruise on the Colorado River to view some of the beautiful red rock scenery. The next day we explored Arches National Park, with its striking red rocks and plentiful arches.
We spent a day in Mesa Verde National Park in southwestern Colorado, one of the best preserved Native American ruins in the US. Many spectacular ruins are visible along the cliffs in the park. Mesa Verde was inhabited from about 600 to 1300, after which most of the residents migrated to form the present-day pueblo communities in New Mexico.
We spent another day exploring the mountains north of Durango, Colorado, including the old mining towns of Silverton and Ouray. This area was a thriving silver mining region around the turn of the last century. Towns that once had thousands of people now have only a few hundred, and cater mostly to tourists. The mountain scenery is stunning.
After a week and a half on the road we reached our first destination, Albuquerque, New Mexico. We were there to house sit and cat sit for our friends, Norm and Emilee, while they ventured off to Europe for a few weeks. We had been there before so we were looking forward to seeing Mai-Mai and Rocio again. We had a mostly quiet and leisurely stay, enjoying walks along the Rio Grande most mornings, while it was still cool. We made a few local day trips, as well, including a day in Santa Fe for Carrie’s birthday. We also enjoyed the New Mexico State Fair and the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center in Albuquerque.
After we left Albuquerque we drove to Nashville, Tennessee, to visit our friend, Kashena. We hadn’t seen her in over six years so it was a treat to have brunch with her and catch up on things. While in Nashville we visited the Hermitage, Andrew Jackson’s home and estate. We toured his home and spent time in the adjacent museum to learn about his life and his influence on a young United States. We also took a drive through downtown Nashville, “Music City.”
We continued east to visit our friends Chris and Reed and to attend the annual World of Bluegrass, a week-long festival of bluegrass music always held in Raleigh, North Carolina. On the weekend Raleigh’s main street is closed down for about 12 blocks and bands perform on multiple outdoor stages. We also had the opportunity to tour the Plant Delights Nursery, a beautiful garden that is being donated to NC State University to be part of their arboretum. Finally, we got to see the finished Navajo rug which Chris and Reed had purchased partially completed off the loom when they visited us in Prescott!
After Raleigh we made the short drive to Charlottesville, Virginia, to visit our old friends Betty, Susie, and Michael. While there we toured the beautiful campus of the University of Virginia, founded by Thomas Jefferson 200 years ago. We also spent most of a day touring Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s home and estate. We toured the home and gardens and learned a great deal about Jefferson’s years at Monticello and about the enslaved people who made the place run.
After Charlottesville we headed toward our next apartment in Maryland which would serve as our home base for exploring Washington, Baltimore, and Annapolis, the subject of a subsequent blog post. But first we made a stop at the Fredericksburg Battlefield in Virginia, the site of a major Civil War battle in December 1862. Lincoln was planning to emancipate the enslaved people on January 1 and he wanted a Union victory to pave the way. But the Confederate military strategy was superior and they drove back the Union forces. The Fredericksburg area was the site of several battles over the next two years, making it one of the most contested places in the Confederacy.
