Yesterday we arrived in Atlanta and stopped at the Cyclorama in Grant Park. I am standing by a civil war cannon in front of the Museum. The Museum describes General Sherman's March to the Sea and the Atlanta campaign.
The second photo of me seated on the gun is really significant in my life. This is one of the the two 40MM twin gun mounts that were on the USS Polk County LST-1084 - the very ship I served on in Vietnam. Since there were two such gun mounts and we don't know if this was the forward gun or the after gun, there is  a 50% chance that this was the very gun and the very seat that was my General Quarters post on the ship. I was the trainer and it was my job to manually crank the gun mount in the horizontal plane. The guy on the other side controlled the vertical plane. A third guy called a Fire Control Technician controlled the twin 40MM that I sat on and two additional single 40MM guns. He was the guy with the trigger. When General Quarters was sounded -just like in the movies - we ran to our posts while tucking our pant legs into our socks, buttoning our shirts all the way and donning a life vest and steel helmet. Everyone had to be in place in about one minute. The one thing absent in our gear was hearing protection and you can see that my left ear was about 20" from the gun. It was very loud and fortunately we didn't fire the guns very often.
This is all that remains of our ship. It now resides at an American Legion memorial park in Alpharetta, GA so it was so cool to see it and feel it for the first time since 1966.

Today was very sobering. We visited the Andersonville National Monument and cemetery. This was a Civil War prison camp that housed 45,000 Union troops. Living conditions were dreadful and a health department's worst nightmare. Just outside the stockade area is the cemetery where 13,000 troops who died at the camp are buried. The whole experience was very emotional. In addition, the National Prisoner of War Memorial/Museum is co-located there. In the past, I have always looked for our last name on war memorials. But this time, I saw my first name several times and also the nickname "Red" that I also used in the past. It was most unsettling.
The second photo is of me walking the road from the train toward the prison camp. This is the same route those captured Union soldiers had to walk to a camp where they might find their end. Richard

From Savannah we headed to Eastman, GA to visit our son-in-law's mother, Georgia Calhoun. Our son-in-law Mau (KC), Robyn (our daughter) and their family live in Puyallup, WA.  So it was very exciting to be able to visit Georgia at her home.  In the picture are Georgia, Ann, Richard and Georgia's Mother Vernia.  Richard wanted to add that Vernia was quite surprised when Richard plopped down next to her after he set the timer on the camera.  As you can tell, she was not expecting that.  We had a wonderful visit with them, it was so good to see Georgia again.  Then we continued on to Hawkinsville, GA where we went through an industrial area and saw that peanuts and cotton were processed there.  So of course Richard had to go and find out if we could see any of the equipment and learn as much as possible.  We got a personal tour of the cotton gin and an explanation of the processes and here we are in front of the cotton gin.  It is one component of a whole building of equipment they use in the processing.  We are staying in Hawkinsville tonight.  There are some beautiful old homes and a historic downtown.  Very interesting. - Ann

Today we are in Savannah, Georgia.  We explored the Historic Downtown and Forsyth Park.  The top picture is at Forsyth Park at the beautiful fountain.  It's been a hot day, about 93 degrees.  I also enjoyed seeing the Riverboats on the river.  The second picture is a beautiful sunset that I saw from the window of where we stayed in Jacksonville, FL yesterday.  Then this morning I woke up just before the sun was rising and it was the most beautiful sunrise I have ever seen--the sun was bright red for several minutes.  It was wonderful. - Ann

It was pretty hard to leave Key West. It was such a fun place, and for me, it has such rich and significant military history dating back to the fight with pirates of the Caribbean following the war of 1812 to WWII and the Cuban Missile Crisis.
We attended the Homestead FL Ward which was a Spanish and English speaking Ward. They handed out headsets and radio receivers so that you could hear everything in the language you understood. One Sacrament prayer was in Spanish the other in English. Two talks were in English and one in Spanish. One funny thing was that the wife who spoke in English put on a headset to understand her husband's talk in Spanish. It looked like they might have been married for about 50 years.
We then stayed at Homestead AFB and caught this sunset out our front window.
The next photo is of some of the scenery we saw driving up the Florida coast. We had a blast and got out and into the water several times. We enjoyed Miama, stayed in Fort Lauderdale and had an incredible Philly Cheese there, stayed at Satellite Beach, got onto Cape Canaveral - albiet not very far since I don't have the special use badge and stayed at NAS Jacksonville, FL the birthplace of the Blue Angels in 1946. Richard
 

In the top photo I'm at the zero mile marker of Highway 1 which goes from the south end of Florida in Key West and heads north through the Keys, marking the miles between Key West and the mainland of Florida.  Going toward Key West it tells you how far you have to go until the zero mile marker in Key West (126 miles to get to Key West from the mainland.)  Then Richard and Marilyn Monroe in the next picture, outside a movie theater in Key West.  The third picture is the sun setting in Key West, which hundreds of people gather in Mallory Square to watch.  It was so beautiful!  Next picture-we had a slice of Key Lime Pie in the Key Lime Pie Factory--very good.  In the bottom picture I'm wading in the Atlantic Ocean at Anne's Beach (really, that's the name of it).  We had lunch there in a picnic shelter and there was a small path right to the water, which was only about 10 feet away.  There aren't any waves in this part of the ocean.  People go to the beach to get wet because it's so hot. - Ann

In the first picture we are at the south end of Key West, the Atlantic Ocean side, facing the town.  In the second picture, after walking about 14 blocks on Duval Street we are on the north side of the island with the Gulf of Mexico behind us.  We went to the Key West Butterfly Conservatory and Nature Center.  It was wonderful to walk among the hundreds of butterflies flying around and the beautiful tropical flowers and plants.  Also there was very peaceful music in the background which added to the calm experience.  The bottom picture shows a butterfly on the back of my leg.  For the most part they don't usually land on people but sometimes they are attracted to scents such as sunscreen (we use plenty). We were about to leave the conservatory and a sign on the door said "Beware of hitchhiking butterflies" so we had to pause until the butterfly was ready to take flight again. - Ann

Yesterday we started out in Fort Myers and stopped on the way to Florida City in Naples.  This beach in the top photo is rated one of the best in the nation.  It was beautiful.  Then today we started out in Florida City and traveled through the Keys to Key West.  It is very hot and humid.  Key West is the 4th main island in the Keys, the farthest one to the west.  It was a beautiful drive along the 126 mile US Highway 1 which is linked by 42 bridges.  It's quite amazing.  The middle picture shows us at the Southernmost Point in the Continental United States.  Key West is a very relaxed, casual place.  The bottom photo is a US Post Office in the Florida Everglades (yesterday's travel.)  We couldn't believe how small it was, it seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. - Ann

Last night we stayed in Clear Water, FL. Wow what a cool city that is. And Tampa Bay was right next door. Very impressive area.
Part of the magic of our trip planning was to try to go only about 150 miles a day so that we could take advantage of unexpected opportunities that presented themselves. Well, today we were cruising down I-75 and I saw a billboard for Rick Treworgy's Muscle Car City in Punta Gorda, FL. We ate in the 50's theme diner and I introduced myself to Rick and had a nice conversation with him. His very first car was a '55 Chevrolet Bel Air convertible and he has been collecting for the forty years. The museum had his 220 car collection in an old Walmart store - big. As always, I gave each of us an imaginary bankroll and we pick at least one car each to take home - if we actually had the money to spend. Ann chose an exquisite 1959 Corvette in dark blue and silver. It was very hot. I chose the 2010 ZR-1 Corvette that cost $122K. It was REALLY hot! Tonight we are in Fort Myers, FL.

We had an incredible day today. We checked out downtown Pensacola, FL and discovered a Juried Art Show with booths set up in the town square. On the edge of the show we found a row of "art cars." The photo at the top is of Ann sitting in a 1959 Isetta. It is very rare car built around a BMW motorcycle engine. The owner, Dave Major, is a retired school teacher from Kansas who has a private pilot license - ergo, the airplane/helicopter theme. When they drive the car in parades, his wife, Irene, turns a crank to spin the rotor on the top.
The car on the bottom is owned by Rex Rosenburg also from Kansas. He is a retired clinical psychologist. The car is covered with dental impressions, dentures, partial plates, dental tools, toothbrushes and teeth. If you could drag the car away from Rex, you could use the car for a delivery car for the dental lab where, our daughter, Holly works.
The other photo is of the car (Corvette) Ann liked best at the car show two blocks away. The car I liked best was a 1972 Chevelle that was an incredible metallic maroon.

Today we went to the incredible National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, FL. Ann is seated in the cockpit of an A4 Skyhawk. I am seated in the pilot's seat of an A6 Intruder. I once got to fly a T2 Buckeye in formation with an A4.The museum had two other Navy planes that I have flown: T-34 Mentor and an SNJ Texan that I got to fly acrobatics in on the north shore of Hawai'i. We had a great time. R

We drove to Fort Gaines on Dauphin (dah-fin) island at the mouth of Mobile Bay. This scene is where US Navy Admiral David Farragut was quoted as saying "damn the torpedoes (mines), full speed ahead." He is one of our Navy heroes and I was honored to visit the place.

The photo in the middle is of our new home in Mobile, AL. Pretty cool looking place huh? -R

In the bottom photo I'm standing next to a 100 year old peanut roaster at the A&M Peanut Shop in Mobile. They still roast peanuts in it and we bought some warm peanuts, in the shell, fresh out of the roaster (the best we've tasted) -A

First let me tell you that we were very fortunate to have missed the flooding in Memphis. We visited Mud Island and now it is mostly underwater.
Today, we visited Cullman, AL and saw an entire block of the downtown destroyed by tornado (top photo). This one block area is only half a mile from where our son, Ryan, lived while serving as a Missionary. The middle photo is of a church about 3/4 of a mile away from where he lived in that town. It was really sad to see this devastation. We also visited the area where he served in Gardendale, AL and found similar destruction 2.5 miles from where he lived.
The bottom photo is of me standing on the steps of the State Capitol in Montgomery, AL. We retraced the last segment of the Civil Rights March that originated in Selma and ended here on the steps of the Capitol in 1965. If something like that were to happen today, I might like to be part of it. Richard

In Huntsville we spent some time with my sister, Lagene Anderson, her husband Art and their family.  The top picture is the two of us a few years ago.  We had such a good visit and one of my favorite parts was to sit by Lagene in church and sing with her.  She still has a wonderful alto voice.  We had a nice dinner on Mother's Day at their home with some of their kids-Debbie, Tommy, Marie, Analee and Marie's friend Christy.  We also were able to see Tim, Chris, John and Daniel. --Ann

We toured downtown Nashville today on a walking tour (about 2 miles).  We saw some great historic buildings as well as the newer ones.  We ate dinner at Rippy's (top photo) on Broadway.  There was live music and we thoroughly enjoyed it (middle photo).  Everyplace we walked past there was live music and it was so fun to hear it.  Then we went to the Ryman Auditorium (bottom picture) where the Grand Ole Opry was from 1943-74.  Then it was renovated and reopened in 1994. -Ann

We've spent the past 2 days in Memphis, Tennessee.  Ann toured Graceland (Elvis Presley's mansion) and thoroughly enjoyed it.  Today we went to Mud Island River Park and walked in a very high walkway above the Mississippi River.  In the park there is a concrete sculpture depicting the river 1/2" to 5', (middle photo) it's 1/2 mile long, winding as the river goes, through different states until it empties into the Gulf of Mexico.  There's a ramp that we walked down right to the river where you can dip your foot into the river, if you like.  Richard did.  Right now the river is at flooding level and on TV there's a call for volunteers to fill sandbags tomorrow.  We are quite a bit higher than where the river is but we have seen evidence of the high levels--we've seen trees and a road covered with water.  The bottom photo is at B.B. King's Blues Club where we had dinner and enjoyed some live music. -Ann
All of the fun of Beale Street, Sun Studios, STAX records, Graceland etc. was very cool. What was most impressive to me was to stand in front of the Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King was gunned down in 1968. He was one in a series of larger than life people who helped bring more of the vision of Lincoln to fruition. We had just visited Vicksburg and seen where 20,000 Americans died in the struggle to make that vision a reality or to keep slavery alive. There was a reverence at both Vicksburg and the Lorraine Motel. Richard

Sunday we attended the Westbank 1st Branch in Harvey, near New Orleans (yes our 3rd branch--who would have guessed?). Relief Society had about 15 present and priesthood about 20.
We went on a wonderful hike in the Jean Lafitte National Historic Park & Preserve through a swamp.  It had some walkways and bridges built over the swamp.  It was fun.
Today we went to visit the Vicksburg National Battlefield Military Monument. It was a stunning experience. We drove through the 16 mile drive pretty much in silence contemplating the awful events that took place on that landscape. 20,000 Americans lost their lives there and there were monuments everywhere to depict the locations of the forces and battles.
There was also the remains of the USS Cairo - an Ironclad that was sunk by a mine and recovered a few decades ago. The whole experience was incredible.

We had a shrimp & catfish Po-Boy (a great sandwich) and went to a concert in the park in Baton Rouge (red stick). What fun. The next day we had an incredible sandwich called a muffuletta (muff-a-lotta), a dessert called beignet (ben-yea) at Cafe Beignet and seafood gumbo at another restaurant called the World Famous Gumbo Pot in the French District of New Orleans (N'awlins). We have now been gone on vacation two months.