Trip April 02

Hi Everybody,
Just a short narrative about our recent trip to see Tony (Mary’s Grandson) graduate from boot camp at Fort Benning GA. Of course we did not drive straight there and of course we took our bicycles. Starting on April 6th we went via New Mexico so that we could stay at a favorite camp ground, Aguirre Springs, then we headed way south to Big Bend National Park in Texas. There we hiked the Lost-Mines Trail in the inner basin. Near Del Rio at Seminol Canyon we took a tour of the Petroglyphs and worked in a bike ride. We headed east through San Antonio and checked out the Alamo, which I had never before gotten around to seeing. Into Louisiana we rode the Big Thicket National Park’s Big Sandy Horse/Bike Trail and stopped to feed Mary Crawdads [See photo aLA 1]. While in the neighborhood we headed for EPOT which Mary had never seen and managed to work in another bike ride on the Tallahassee-St. Mark Historic Rail Trail. [aFL 1, aFL 2, aFL 3] From there we went on to Cape Kennedy [aFL 4 & aFL 5] I was really impressed by the Saturn V moon rocket. They have an actual rocket that has been preserved for display. It has the moon lander and command orbiter modules. We headed back to Georgia in time to see Tony graduate and visited Fort Benning with his family and friends [aGA 1,aGA 2, aGA 3]. The Okefenokee Swamp is in Georgia and we took a boat tour and train ride through the swamp [aGA 4, aGA 5]. Also a bike and board walk at the Okefenokee National Wildlife Park. We did a walking tour of Savannah and rode the bike trail out to Tybee [aGA 6]. Found time to visit the old Jimmy Carter family farm in Plains and also the Carter Center at Atlanta. Heading toward North Carolina we were able to get to the start of the Appalachian hiking trail on Springer mountain after a couple miles of walking [aGA 7]. At Hendersonville I was able to meet Martin Gardiner[aNC 1]. He wrote the Mathematical Games section in the Scientific American magazine for years and I view him as a philosophical soul mate. I was really honored that he found time to meet with Mary and me for two whole hours. He is also one of the founders of the Wizard of Oz Club. The fact that Mary has been a member for more than forty years is probably why he agreed to see us. While passing through the Great Smoky mountains in Tennessee we got to hike on another part of the Appalachian trail out to Charlie’s Bunyon. [aTN 1] Starting to head back west we stopped at Mammoth Cave in Kentucky and took the grand tour which consists of a four mile hike underground with a stop for lunch deep in the cave [aKY 1]. From there we stopped at the Southern Poverty Law Center at Montgomery Alabama. On the long trip back through Texas we stopped at Fort Worth and discovered that my sister Alice’s phone number had changed but we were able to find the house and got the new number and visited with her husband David who I had not seen in many years. We rode the White Rock Bike Path near Dallas the next day. We wish to report to David and Alice that it is a very scenic ride but the toilets along it were not very good. [aTX 1]. We finished up with me biking on the road to Sandia Peak to get a little exercise before we arrived back in Phoenix May 5th.

That’s it for now,
Henry and Mary