A looong drive through not very exciting territory. 

Has anyone encountered a Starbucks that is pure-logo, no name? a store that uses the newish logo sans Starbucks name, no name on the building, on the glass, at top of the menu or other in-store signs, not even on the aprons of the staff.  There’s a smattering of “Starbucks” present in product names — “Starbucks Veranda Blend”, “Starbucks Refreshers™ Beverages” — but that’s it. We stopped at such a Starbucks in northern Texas. The woman behind the counter assured me it was a Starbucks, though had no explanation for the lack of label (“huh” was her insightful response).  A taste of the future? a corporate experiment in progress?

Unless you want to hear of the cold-brew iced coffees we enjoyed as the temperature climbed during the drive, there is nothing more until we arrived at the home of our friends Jeffrey and Jared in Albuquerque, here represented by their children Pepper and Sadie:

Their home was generally accessible with minor car placement strategies and minimal furniture movement, all but the small bathroom on the first floor (compact footprint, narrow doors). But we coped easily.

Day 1 of our 2 day stay was an outing to Santa Fe where we rendezvoused with Lynne Sinclair, who would be with us for the remainder of the trip. Since both days involved Lynne and me wandering about shops and galleries, Jeff generally sat in the shade with John, entertaining each other or absorbed in their iPhones. Alas, no new art procured this visit despite seeing a lot of great southwestern paintings. We particularly liked  the dramatic landscapes by contemporary artist Ed Mell — his best (and least affordable) works were already sold at an exhibition at the Owings Gallery, example

We ended that day trip with a visit to the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi Cathedral near the plaza, a lovely Romanesque structure from 1887.

Day 2 was in Albuquerque. At Jackalope we were fortunate to spot one of the rare creatures in the wild, one of their young from the looks of it.

and a few hours in Old Town were mostly spent on seeking out cold beverages and hanging out. Nearby we were treated to a local specialty, chocolate elixers — intense flavored chocolate drinks sipped like espresso.

Evenings John would  go to bed early while I stayed up to talk and watch science fiction movies with the boys (check out Snowpiercer, a rather strange post-apocalyptic ice age allegory where the survivors of humankind circle the globe endlessly in a train powered by a perpetual motion machine. Then it gets weird.)

Here’s a final group selfie as we departed for the last leg of our trip:

Our starting point was Bentonville and our destination Oklahoma City.  Why Bentonville? So we could visit the wonderful Crystal Bridges Art Museum. It houses a remarkable collection of American art amassed by Walmart founder Sam Walton and provided completely free to the public. It is a strikingly beautiful modern museum in a wonderful natural setting. First a shoutout for accessibility. There were wide doors and large elevators plus many wheelchairs for loan just sitting out by the entrance for the taking. Check out John in the main elevator! No doubt sized for the movement of large-scale art, but still.

But … and there’s always a big but … while their web site claims (in a whole page devoted to accessibility): “All interior spaces … are fully wheelchair accessible and ADA compliant”, it wasn’t so.  Two of the three main restroom signs lacked the wheelchair logo indicating ADA compliance, and when I asked about it, the guard said he believed it was because the entry through two doors did not have fully compliant clearance. Fortunately it was minor and the bathrooms themselves were fully accessible.

One other item, a large piece of art was installed on a landing between two floors, not visible from above or below.  I can see why the spot was ideal but even the guard agreed it was kinda dumb; again fortunately it was no big miss for John, just an op-art thing with strings stretched across the space.

As I mentioned, the site and building complex were beautiful.  Read more about it at http://crystalbridges.org/architecture/

I won’t go into an exhaustive list of all the many artists and works we enjoyed, but here is a handful of offbeat items that made us smile.

 James Henry Beard, “It is very Queer, Isn’t it?” 

(that’s a copy of Darwin in his hand)

 Jim Dine, “Walking to Boras”

One of the artists favorite subjects, Pinocchio (on the left).

 Benjamin Kopman, “Portrait – Bear”

 William Holbrook Beard, “School Rules”

It was then off to Oklahoma City!  First stop, the National Memorial and Museum to honor those lost in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. It was a beautiful quiet space, a reflecting pool, with an abstract chair sculpture on the adjacent lawn, one for each victim.

Then a swing by the State Capitol. The full sized oil rig  is directly across from the front of the capitol. It is no mere display; the capitol building complex is on top of an active oil field and that is supposedly an active rig (though it looked awfully clean).

You may remember this capitol as the one that had a Ten Commandments statue that had to be removed unless they allowed all religions equal access.  As a Satanic cult seemed ready to install a statue of the devil-goat Baphomet, the Oklahoma Supreme Court declared all religions displays unconstitutional. Whew!

Our overnight was at the Best Western Saddleback Inn and Conference Center.  I’ve complained about what seemed to be a Best Western corporate decision to put only a few handicapped spots in the front of the building, but it’s a different story in a facility where the rooms all face outward. There was dedicated handicapped parking outside each accessible room! We have not seem this since the Red Roof Inn in Kalamazoo (part 8).

Combine that with a nicely appointed roomy room, finally a bathroom with real counter space, a roll-in shower, and I think we have a new winner for best bathroom.

This was just a travel day, to get use from Louisville to Bentonville Arkansas, so we had flexibility on how and where we’d add some interest to the long drive.  Here’s what we did not do:

• We drove on by the Lynnville exit,
• did not seek out the Creationist Museum (“Prepare to believe”, Petersburg, Kentucky),
• merely giggled in passing like 12-year olds at the Uranus Fudge Factory (Uranus, MO),
• will have to come back to probe the mystery of the Schwarz Family Amish-style restaurant.

What we did do … we stopped at another cavern so I could have another cave adventure. This was Marengo Caverns in Indiana. Many beautiful rooms and great formations, but what was distinctive was the several large shallow pools, perfectly still reflecting surfaces creating illusions of deep holes.

Next was a side trip to Santa Claus Indiana, home of the Holiday World theme park and a giant Santa Claus Christmas store where I scored a few additions to our holiday decorations.  Come to the holiday party to find out what they are!

Our last diversion was into St. Louis proper to get a closer look at the Gateway Arch. Apparently we missed quite the lightning show above the arch by just a few hours, though we caught the edge of a severe storm warning with hail the size of golf balls as we headed south.  Fortunately for us it meant mostly wind and a couple of surprising blasts of intense rain.

So we arrived at the Best Western Castlerock Inn and Suites. Best Western loses big again on handicapped parking.  Only 2-3 spaces by the lobby seems to be their thing, but what is that extra space where another handicapped spot could be?

Of course, it’s

I like the exclamation point. What I found particularly, umm, vexing is that it had to be the spot right next to the lobby!

Parking aside, a good room. Two beds instead of one takes away some maneuvering room so I opt for a single bed when I can, but here the suite-sized room helped a lot.  The bathroom was one of the best — excellent shower/sink/toilet — and Best Western does provide quality amenities and plush towels.

So far behind in the postings! It is part a measure of long days and late arrivals, but also of late nights with friends — more time on the trip than writing about it!

This day, Saturday August 8, we traveled from Charlottesville to Louisville. We had only one planned rendezvous with a friend, so nothing was going to slow us down … until one sign lured us off the road:

mmmmm a big flaky ham biscuit for lunch.

Our scheduled stop was in Lexington to reconnect with Becky Ryder and husband Gordon Hogg.

Becky was a dear friend from my undergraduate days at Virginia. Becky and her three apartment mates were our (me and my apartment denizens) best friends, sharing many meals and adventures. She was also active in the Music Library and a flutist; she was part of a memorable performance of Charles Ive’s “He is There”, a delightful musical pastiche of patriotic tunes for baritone (Johnny Jones) with piano accompaniment by yours truly (back when I could really play the piano) and flute. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qq5c2VCIZkE

One odd yet pleasing aspect of the catching up, apart from the many memories reclaimed, was that Becky is now the librarian for the Keeneland Library (https://www.keeneland.com/discover/about-library) and is involved in many digitization and preservation issues. We had an instant professional connection that helped fuel one of those long stays and late nights mentioned above!

Now for the Best Western Plus West I-64, technically in New Albany rather than Louisville. Another in what appears to be Best Western’s decision to put only a few handicapped spaces up by the lobby and none elsewhere, but our room was near the front, so no harm there in this case. Overall fine accommodations with a worthy shower. Thumbs down on the sad little sink coming loose and pitched forward so anything you set on the rim slid into the bowl.  The small table would had made a nice addition to help me organize things, but was not a good substitute for an actual counter. And now that I’ve noted this elsewhere, check out the towels above the toilet hanging over one of the grab bars. 

Today we traveled from Newport News to Charlottesville,  a relatively short hop to give us time for a nostalgia tour of the University of Virginia campus. Mr. Jefferson’s historic Rotunda was stripped to the brick for its first major restoration in 40 years:

But our focus was on Old Cabell Hall at the other end of the Lawn (the center of the original campus). It was and is the home of the Music Department and Library. Other than some colorful new murals gracing the front lobby (http://www.virginia.edu/mural/),

… the building seemed not to have aged a bit — same heavy wooden doors, same creaky wooden floors or lumpy linoleum, same classrooms and practice room and band/orchestra room, even sporting the same signs:

We introduced ourselves at the front office. They were underwhelmed but very nice, and let us into the concert hall that was so important to us back when.  It’s a really nice intimate hall, a half circle, with a copy of Raphael’s monumental School of Athens on the back wall (4 inches smaller than the original in the Vatican because exact copies were forbidden in 1900) and a fabulous original Skinner organ — in need of repair in our day but since restored (photo from the web).

Finally to our hotel, the Excel Inn and Suites, a grand name for a small place. It had but one handicapped parking but it was ours for the stay. The first bump, literally, was a tiny, seemingly negligible step up to the door.

But it turned out the distance between the step and the door sill was the perfect amount to catch the front wheels of the wheelchair while you were still lifting the back, providing no forward leveraging.  You were stuck where neither a lift or a push was effective — both required at the same time. But the hotel redeemed themselves when I spotted a small ramplet under the stair across from the door … tada!

The room was large and spare, and wins so far for the straightest, widest, unencumbered path to the bathroom. But as we’ve seen before, the space was at the cost of furniture, specifically a desk and any chair.

No complaint about the bathroom — plenty of space around the toilet, decent counter. The roll-in shower was small which can limit John’s entry and exit strategy (as do the location of the grab bars), but we did fine. We did have to ask for a shower bench, but one was immediately provided.

All in all a satisfying day and stay.

After a reluctant departure from Vienna we headed south to the McRae side of the family, my brother Norman and his wife Pat. We avoided the freeways for much of the trip, driving instead along the Rappahannock River to enjoy the lush rural backroads of Virginia. It also took us by the Whitley Peanut Factory, our source for the best plump crunchy delicious Virginia peanuts.

Representing Norman and Pat today are Tabby and Gracie:

They were all in their lovely new house in Newport News. The accessibility challenges were the sorts of things you might expect from a 50 year old house, most notably a long narrow main bathroom with the toilet way at the far end (I forgot to measure, but I would guess a 22-24 inch door) and all ways into the house were up 4-6 brick steps.

Our portable ramp has been quite useful on several high or double steps. As you see here, it is still useful at reducing more steps to a manageable few that I can negotiate with some lifting assistance from above.

None of this got in the way of our visit, which included delicious meals, family gossip, and the highs (Jon Stewart’s last show) and lows (Republican debates) of TV.

We had a chance to experiment with John sleeping in a Lazy Boy recliner as we’ve wondered if that kind of support might be good for his generally motionless nights, perhaps even ameliorate his headaches.  While John did seem to sleep well, the net results were not really different from bed sleep — though I think it might still bear more experimentation.

Next we turn west to start our journey back home!

Dennis joined us for the Amherst to Vienna VA leg of the trip, a most welcome second driver. We had one stop — lunch with Stanford ex-pats Becky and Bob, now in Berlin CT. Here is Becky sporting the traditional bandeja de cesta en cabeza for the occasion.

On the way south, we started to notice a number of places by the road — rest stops, that grassy areas by exit/entrance ramps — where folks, families with children, had set out lawn chairs and were all facing east, seeming to be waiting for something. This was across many miles of highway, so we were looking for regional or perhaps celestial events to explain what the sightseers might be doing. Please pause here to form your own theory.

Turns out they weren’t facing east but simply facing the road. Dennis asked a woman at a rest stop what was going on and … “the NASCAR trucks drive by today!”.  Seems that NASCAR Hauler Spotting is a fun family fan activity in some parts of the USA.

We arrived at the Feeney residence (John’s sister Ellen’s house), which had one contribution to the theme of this blog … this gauntlet we needed to squeeze through to get John from the garage (down a step through the door at the right) to the room we were sleeping in, still one step down from the living/dining/kitchen room area.

John climbed it once, but after experimenting, it turns out that tilting him back enough means you can pivot him on the big wheels despite the rather constrained turning spaces, and just do a series of single steps.

The next day we drove into the city to see the Roosevelt and MLK Monuments next to the Tidal Basin, with the Jefferson Memorial across the water. We finished the day’s outing at the National Building Museum, housed in the historic Pension Bureau building built after the Civil War. It has a magnificent interior courtyard the full height of the building, with giant columns topped by ornate Corinthian capitals (among the largest in the world) and has been the site of several inauguration balls. It was very innovative for the time — the interior courtyard meant every office had an exterior window and opened up to the interior space for ventilation.

A big family dinner the first night ended with a bear hug from John’s younger brother Jerry:

A good portion of our second day was spent at the Steven Udvar-Hazy Center near Dulles airport — a major expansion site for the National Air and Space museum.  Photographs do not do justice to the scale of the place, but to give you an idea, that’s an enormous stealth fight in the foreground, and the Space Shuttle Discovery back in the distance. I have also included  my artsy shot of the tail of the shuttle:

Dinner was with our friend Scott and Marian — Scott and I were in the same suite our freshmen year at UVa.  A few steps up to the house posed no problem with a little teamwork, and I promised to mention the corn that was lovingly removed from the cob by the chef so John had an alternative to holding the cob.

Tomorrow our time in Vienna/Washington area comes to an end.  One friend will be sorry to see John go.