An Overview for ourselves to help us remember and the last few days of our "Retirement Tour"

So, the standout locations with great memories attached are:

• The hawk? vulture? wing-tip impressions in the snow at Port Tobacco
• The huge bonfire at the top of the sledding hill
• Shield's Tavern in 'olde' Williamsburg with our own minstrel
• Almost deserted Okracoke Island on the Outer Banks, NC in the rain huddled up watching DVD movies
• Charleston and Fort Sumter and some of the best food on the trip
• Exciting Savannah and visiting with my cousin Judy Compton and Fred Maher
• Okefenokee Swamp boat trip
• The infamous Confederate Andersonville Prison in GA where scores of Yankee soldiers died
• The Katrina devastation still evident in Pass Christian, MS and along the Gulf to New Orleans
• Staying in the French Quarter and being at a Mardi Gras parade in New Orleans, including the characters we met
• The bayou country small-town Mardi Gras parades
• The adamant declaration of a B&B owner that there was no segregation in LA but also admitting that there were a lot of private schools
• TABASCO's Avery Island
• Fast and furious at times airboat ride on Bayou LaFourche seeing baby alligators, beautiful birds, dark bayous overhung with Spanish moss and thousands of nutria skittering across the water..also understanding the saying: "Dumb as a coot" (they tried to outrun the airboat!)
• Visiting with Liz Grubaugh in Rowlett, TX
• Oak Alley Plantation B&B and seeing the tops of tugs across the levee
• Dealy Plaza in Dallas (and the ensuing debates)
• Big Bend as a destination, but marveling at the scenery in the entirety of the gargantuan vistas along deserted roads in West Texas
• Following the Rio Grande along the TexMex border
• El Paso and looking over to the enormous city of Juarez at night
• Carlsbad Caverns
• Fairyland feeling in White Sands, NM.  Pictures do not do it justice.
• Reliving the Manhattan Project and the history of flight at a museum in Alamagordo
• NOT being able to get to the Trinity Test Site...so it's still a bit hot, radioactively, that is
• Globe, AZ a very hard-bitten little town in the coal mining area of AZ...who knew?
• Losing/finding my computer on the casino floor at the Stratosphere in Las Vegas where the room was $29 and the tax was $28.85
• Brunch at the revolving Stratosphere restaurant
• Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon NP in Utah--pictures do them justice
• The Luxor in Vegas and a much better brunch (King Crab, etc. etc.) for a much lower price with my cousin Rachel and Frank Williams off the strip
• Seeing the half-constructed giant bridge across the gorge where the Hoover Dam between Nevada and Arizona
• The mad dash from Las Vegas to Albuquerque to visit cousin Norma Goodwin and her daughter Janie and Chris' Route 66 Mustang shop..a wonderful step back in time
• Visiting my college roomie whom I hadn't seen since her wedding 46 years ago
• Oak Ridge and a good visit with my brother Bob and Milinda Compton in Oak Ridge, TN

Our trip was essentially a route from DC through MD on 301 to Williamsburg; the swampy area south of Albemarle, NC; Ocrakoke Island; through NC to Charleston, SC and Savannah, GA; across the southern route to Andersonville, GA, the Gulf coast, New Orleans; all around the bayous of Louisiana; up to Dallas; across and down Texas to Big Bend; the Rio Grande; El Paso Carlsbad Caverns and White Sands, NM; diagonally across AZ and NM to Las Vegas across Hoover Dam;  Las Vegas where we picked Tim up who was taking a break before starting with a new Utah law firm; Zion and Bryce parks, Utah; Vegas/Hoover Dam again--this time during daylight; Albuquerque, Oklahoma City, Ozarks (the highlight of our trip), Oak Ridge and HOME!