Duke Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina

Many of you know that my niece, Cece, has cystic fibrosis and recently underwent lung transplant surgery at Duke Medical Center. At 23 years of age she has endured more than most of us will in a lifetime. We were fortunate to be able to spend three days with her and my brother Dirk in Durham, and I'm pleased to report she is doing remarkably well, especially given what she has been through. It is fantastic to see her without an oxygen bottle or gasping for breath! Unfortunately she had to go back into the hospital for three days to treat an issue with lung rejection (apparently a common issue with transplants). She is obviously discouraged as this will likely push back their return trip to Helena, although in the grand scheme of things, appears to be a minor bump on her road to recovery.

We enjoyed playing multiple rousing games of “Catch Phrase”. I think the boys won more often than the girls, but somehow managed to lose the last battle for championship of the known universe. Oh well, there is still the unknown universe to play for. We also had a lengthy game of trivial pursuit. The questions were from the 1980s and 1990s, which apparently we all must have slept through! Finally the boys put an end to the agony.

We enjoyed eating out several times with Dirk (and once with Cece). The last evening we ate at Maggiano’s, an excellent Italian restaurant in the big Southpoint mall in Durham. By chance we met the manager of the restaurant, an Irish immigrant who has been in the US for 20 years. When he found out Dirk was from Montana we were immediately his new best friends! It turns out he spent a Saint Patrick’s Day in Butte a few years back, and thinks all Montanans are friendly folks. It was a great dinner and a great visit. We are really hoping that Dirk and Cece make it home to Montana to spend Christmas with the rest of their family (they have been in an apartment in Durham for six months).

Outer Banks, North Carolina

This morning we were up and on the road again by 9:30. Our first stop was the Bodie Island light house. The kids secured stamps in their National Park passport books before continuing on towards Fort Raleigh. While I quit running several years ago because of bad knees, we soon found ourselves in the middle of the Nags Head marathon! The course was laid out perfectly, so our delay was minimal. We took the back road into Fort Raleigh to explore the Lost Colony. In the late 1500s Sir Walter Raleigh sponsored a trip to send a group of English Settlers to Roanoke Island to help colonize the new world. Their leader came back to England a couple of years later to secure more supplies, but when he returned to Roanoke several years later, the settlers had all disappeared. The fate of the Lost Colony remains one of the great mysteries of our history.

The drive from the Outer Banks into Durham was uneventful except for the 40 minutes we spent on the bridge crossing the sound. Apparently the rotating draw bridge broke while letting several ships through, so we ate lunch in the trailer on the bridge in a line of cars that stretched for several miles. We arrived at the Birchwood campground by Duke with just enough time to park and get set up before it go dark

Kitty Hawk, North Carolina

From Yorktown we headed southeast in Virginia towards the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Our first stop was the Wright Brothers National Memorial at Kitty Hawk. While everyone learns in grade school that Orville and Wilbur Wright were the first to achieve self-powered sustained flight, the park service has done an excellent job preserving the exact location of that historic event. A 40 foot granite pylon sits atop Kill Devil Hill, the large sand dune where the flight originated, as a memorial to the ingenuity and determination of the two aviation pioneers. From the top of the hill you can see the entire path of the flight and get a sense for what it must have been like that day. The museum shows a documentary on early flight that helps put their accomplishments into the context of the time. There was a great race around the world to see who would be the first to achieve sustained flight. What struck me was just how far and fast we have come – less than 70 years after the Wright Brothers successfully piloted their wood and cloth plane for just over 850 feet, Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon. In a special tribute to the contributions of the Wright Brothers, Armstrong carried a piece of their original glider in his pocket when he stepped onto the lunar surface!

Leaving Kitty Hawk we continued along the Outer Banks to the Cape Hatteras National Seashore and our campground near Rodanthe. Straddling the Atlantic and the Pamlico Sound, Camp Hatteras is a large modern campground with paved sites and full hookups. Even though it was a Saturday night, the campground was less than a quarter full this November evening. The rain had stopped mid afternoon, and since it was getting dark as we approached the campground, we parked quickly and walked to the Atlantic beachfront. We had the 1000 foot campground beach to ourselves, which allowed Rocky to partake in his favorite pastime – running un-tethered in the sand. As he dashed back and forth along the edge of the pounding waves, we soaked our feet in the cool Atlantic waters.

Yorktown Battlefield, Virginia

We left the campground in Williamsburg at 9 this morning, just at the rain started to fall. By the time we reached the Yorktown Battlefield just south of Williamsburg, it was coming down pretty hard. Dashing into the visitor center in an attempt to stay dry, we watched the park service movie on the Yorktown battle that helped turn the tide and secure our country’s independence. With the help of the French navy and army commanded by Comte de Rochambeau, General Washington successfully secured the surrender of General Cornwallis and the British Army during the siege of Yorktown. The museum has several interesting artifacts from Yorktown, including the Lafayette cannon and Washington’s original wall tents. It was interesting to note that the Americans were the minority at Yorktown – both the French and the English had larger forces. I guess I’m going to have to stop bad mouthing the French! ;-)

Jamestown and Williamsburg, VI

Friday we went in search of the first permanent settlement in the US – Jamestown, Virginia. We have all heard the stories of John Smith and Pocahontas from grade school, but it was a whole different experience being on-site. When we left the campground at 10 after the kids had finished their studies, we thought we would briefly visit the National Park site at Jamestown and then spend the majority of the day at the Jamestown Settlement, a commercial facility that was rumored to have excellent movies, ships and artifacts. As it turns out, we spent almost the entire day at the NPS site.

When we arrived at the visitor center they indicated a park ranger was starting a tour in five minutes. We bolted out the back door, through a herd of grade school kids, and across the bridge to the oblique that marks the 300th anniversary of Jamestown (now over 100 years old). As typical for the park service, the ranger did a wonderful job of making the history of the site come alive. She described how three ships of 144 men and boys from England arrived on Jamestown Island in 1607, after brief nasty engagements with the local Powhatan Indians at other points along the James River. They should have guessed that something wasn’t right with the location when there were no signs of other inhabitants. It turned out to be a great location for docking ships, but the brackish water and disease infested swamps were not the best place to build a fort. Most of the early inhabitants perished in the first few years due to malnutrition and disease. Eventually with the help of Pocahontas (who married John Rolfe, not John Smith) and a new crop called tobacco, they persevered. When a boat load of 90 “maids” arrived in 1619, the rest was history.

Over the years the town gradually moved off the river towards present day Williamsburg. The only original structure that remains is the church tower that was built in the 1630s. The church has been reconstructed, and most experts believed that the original fort was under water, claimed by the James River through erosion over the years. But a local professor who had studied early documents of Jamestown began an excavation in 1994 and uncovered the original site of the fort right next to the church. To date, they have recovered all kinds of artifacts and several skeletons of the early pioneers, which are nicely displayed in a museum right next door (yes, even the skeletons).

It was a magnificent fall day, so we took the loop drive around the park when leaving the visitor center. As it turned out, we never made it to the Jamestown Settlement, which saved us significant greenbacks but left us wondering what wonders we had missed. We stopped on the way home briefly at Colonial Williamsburg. Sitting next to William and Mary college, the town is a replica of what the area looked like back in Revolutionary War times. We only had time to visit a few shops before coming to the realization that one could spend an entire week in this area and not see everything. This seems to be a common thread wherever we stop!

Upon returning to the KOA campground the kids and I headed for the jumping pillow, a giant trampoline structure we have come to love. It has provided the best aerobic exercise on the trip so far, which is sorely needed with the generous meals Teressa has been cooking up lately!

PS – A couple of things I forgot to mention yesterday – 1) when we were at Monticello the tour guide indicated that the average size of a home around 1800 was roughly the size of Jefferson’s sitting room, or ~350 square feet, and 2) when we were discussing the election results Laura indicated that I should run for some significant office. “Right now I have to tell my friends that my dad is unemployed and we live in a trailer”, she said with a grin! I prefer to think of us as explorers of history, traveling the land in our Colonial-sized cabin on wheels! ;-)

Monticello, Charlottesville, VA

On Thursday we awoke to warm temperatures and sunny skies at the KOA campground in Charlottesville. Located approximately ten miles south of town, the KOA is nestled in thick woods which were exhibiting bright fall colors. The kids worked on homework for an hour while I hooked up the trailer and dumped the tanks. At 10 AM we drove the 8 miles to Jefferson’s Monticello estate. Parking was a little bit of a challenge, but we were able to nestle in between a couple of school busses packed with local elementary students.

Monticello is just days from opening a new visitor center in the lower parking lot, and the grounds crew was busy making last minute landscape additions. We picked up our tickets and boarded the bus for the short trip up the mountain. Our tour of the house wasn’t until 11 AM, so we relaxed on the wooden benches and enjoyed the warm morning sun.

The more we study Jefferson, the more in awe we become. He loved books and had a passion for lifetime education. It helped that he taught himself to read in 8 different languages, and could speak both English and French fluently. Monticello was his design, which necessitated a crash course in Italian architecture. The home sits on top of a hill overlooking the town of Charlottesville in the valley below. It is designed with a large main house and two “L” shaped wings connected on both sides with walkways. The walkways extend the living space for the home, and provide stables, storage cellars, cooking space, and housing for the staff.

The main home has three floors, although it is designed so that the eye only views one. Jefferson designed all kinds of interesting gadgets for his home, including a weather vane, a clock that also tells the day of the week, shutters on the inside of the windows for privacy and heating efficiency, and a beautiful parquet floor. I’m enamored with most things Jeffersonian, but was really impressed with his library and collection of books. He even designed the book cases so they could be easily taken apart and accompany him on his travels. In addition, he has a set of elk antlers from 1806, sent back to him by Lewis and Clark (from Montana, I’m sure!). Brian was intrigued by the polygraph Jefferson used to write letters, allowing him to write with two pens at once, always making a permanent backup copy. The alcove bed in the Madison room was Laura’s favorite, and she already has ideas for her own bedroom. Teressa liked the cozy oval table in the breakfast nook, which apparently was Jefferson’s favorite place to write.

We walked away humbled by a man with so many diverse interests and passions. His literary skills are legendary, but there is a great deal more to the man. As we passed his grave site on our walk down the mountain, it was interesting to note that he left specific instructions to use his own words and nothing more on his epitaph:

Here was buried

Thomas Jefferson

Author of the Declaration of American Independence

of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom

& Father of the University of Virginia

Born April 2, 1741 O.S.

Died July 4, 1826

No mention of the Louisiana Purchase, Lewis and Clark expedition, or President of the United States – an interesting man!

Shenandoah Valley, VA

Greetings from Charlottesville, Virginia. We arrived at the KOA here ten miles south of town around 4:00 today find that two of the pins securing the 5th wheel hitch to the truck bed had come undone. I didn’t think this was possible, but upon examining the connectors, there is nothing to prevent them from twisting 90 degrees and popping out. The saving grace is that all four would have to be in perfect alignment for the whole thing to come off, but that’s not something I’m interested in seeing! Brian and I were able to use pieces of firewood as levers to move the hitch back into position and reset the pins. From here on out we’ll check them every time we stop to make sure they are set properly. I have never liked the way the hitch attaches, as it has approximately half an inch of play between the truck bed, which causes lots of the shaking we experience going over bumps. Live and learn!

We left Harpers Ferry at 10 this morning headed towards Front Royal and Shenandoah National Park. While the forecasted rain never made an appearance, Skyline Drive, the road that follows the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains through the park for 100 miles, was completely fogged in. We drove as far as the visitors center, watched the movie about the park, had lunch in the trailer, and then drove back down to Front Royal and around the east side of the Blue Ridge mountains to Charlottesville. The leaves are a little past peak, but were pretty none the less in the fall sunshine at lower elevations. Tomorrow we will tour Jefferson’s Monticello home before driving to Williamsburg.