Ed: if you have not already done this you should visit the Fredericksburg area. There are for 4,battlefields: Fredericksburg, Chancellorville, The Wilderness, and Spotsylvania Courthouse. The first two were prior to Gettysburg and The Wilderness was where Grant and Lee first engaged each other. Spotsylvania Courthouse may not be as celebrated but lasted the longest and was kind of a draw but the South was not able to replenish men and arms lost as was the North. I worked as a docent for the Park Service at these venues. Jackson was wounded by his own men at Chancellorsville and lost his are which is buried near there off Rt 3.
Thanks Ed - I will do as you suggest. Take care old friend. Ed Smock
Pat and I have this saying that we can show you the best restaurant in Barcelona, where the drive-in movie resides in a volcano in Italy and what the views looks like from atop the Swiss Alps but the geography of the Western half of the good old USA befuddles the both of us.
My old buddy Jim Lapp used to sit around the campfire at Cheatham Annex and talk about the sights and scenes of the Northwest. Because he and Shirley had spent considerable time touring out west, he could talk about the geography in graphic detail. Those stories lit a fire.
A few years ago, Pat and I took a trip though some of the Southwest. During one leg of the trip, we spent a day in Tombstone, AZ. That was the most fun and entertaining day of the entire trip.
So, next on our bucket list is a tour of the Badlands of S. Dakota and Wyoming.
J & P
John- when you and Pat make that trip, include the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, along Interstate 90 in eastern Montana. Peg and I stopped there a few years ago to get off the road for a few minutes. Many hours later we finished our visit. Walk along the hillside where Custer's men fell. A marker is in place where each body was recovered. Quietly look around and imagine the historic events that unfolded there. So peaceful now. The Memorial Park is very well done. Historians do not take sides in telling the story - they want visitors to know what happened there. As I said, our few minutes off the road turned into a many hour visit.
You have me on a favorite subject. On a vacation in the days leading up to the 9-11 tragedy, Peggy and I decided to find the headwaters of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. What a grand adventure. As Lake Itaska riffles out of its banks, a small stream begins to flow. With you on one side and Pat on the other, you could reach across and shake hands. Some few miles downstream you will find the town of Bimidji, Minnesota. While in the men's room of the Bimidji KOA on a beautiful September morning, I heard the radio announcement that a plane had just crashed into a NYC building.
That being said, this is a vast and beautiful country, filled with bucket list items. We are a lucky bunch!
Great info George!!! Thanks for the tips. You can bet we will do that.
J & P
Not sure this will happen but I want to take Linda for a {1} balloon ride on our 50th wedding anniversary. (2) Go on a Cruise to Alaska. (3) Thanks Jim I had to add a third Linda and I have been recently talking about and that is a trip to Havana Cuba.
That is all.
Ah, the Old Bucket List! Mine is extensive and I've been working on it ever since I retired from Navy in 2007 - maybe even before that.
Last August Kathy and I jumped out of an airplane at 15,000 feet (Tandem Jumps) in Suffolk, VA for our 28th wedding anniversary. Check! That was part of a Wounded Warrior effort where a portion of our price was used for wounded service members to jump at no cost.
Kathy has a Bucket List entry to run a race on the Great Wall of China. Hopefully we'll get to do that in the next 2-4 years.
My next big Bucket List item is to visit St Petersburg, Russia. We'll get to do that for 3 days in May of 2016 during a Viking Ocean cruise through the Baltic (Norway, Finland, Denmark, Russia, Germany, Sweden, Poland and Estonia). We're already planning to toast our Navy SOSUS friends with a good bottle of wine from the deck as we cruise into the Norwegian Sea.
As with all lists, I tend to keep adding things faster than I check others off. In fact, I just added Havana Cuba to my Bucket List. (<:
P.S. Between Chuck's and Jim's posts, I'm betting a bunch of folks are adding Cuba to their Bucket List. I know I am!!!
J
Ed, John, Chuck, George, Capt. Jim...... and others on the "BUCKET LIST" saga:
First, I would like to give Smoky a "thumbs up" on starting this post.
Right off the bat, Linda and I have already been as close to Cuba as we will ever get (twice) - and that is Key West, FL.
As for the good ol' USA Bucket List: Linda and I have pretty much (not completely) "filled up the bucket" with many exciting and rewarding excursions across the states.
More specifically: we have been in all 50 (many more than once) and have lived in more than a dozen of them.
Our longest trip (1999) we were on the road 88 days, travelled nearly 16K miles, and covered 33 states. We visited some 25 national parks/historic sites (Truman Home, Oregon Trail, Chimney Rock, Mt. Rushmore and Crazy Horse, Black Hills, Devil's Tower, Scotts Bluff, Little Big Horn, Yellowstone, Jackson Hole, Mt. St. Helen's, Crater Lake, Yosemite, Zion, Bryce, Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam, Sunset Crater Volcano, Montezuma Castle, Casa Grande Ruins, The Alamo, Carlsbad Caverns, Cape Kennedy, Biltmore House, and the list goes on). Druring that trip we (coincidentally) spent 44 nights in motels, and........the best part of the whole trip, 44 days/nights with family and friends, many of them from our SOSUS family.
Other places included: Branson, San Franscisco, Las Vegas, Hollywood, L.A., New Orleans, Portland Rose & Japanese Gardens, NavFac Pac Beach, NavFac Coos Head, El Paso, Riverwalk, Orlando, St. Augustine, Ashville, Disney & MGM, etc.
Also, a few things I would like to point out:
(1) I will be the first to agree that the western part of our great country holds some extremely majestic, facinating and interesting sights......but, the eastern half is no slouch. It is the very cradle of this nation's beginnings, with historical sights and places to boggle the mind. And, while our mountains (the Appalachian Chain (the Smokies, Blue Ridge, Adirondacks, White Mountains, Green Mountains, etc.) may not be as high and rugged as the Rockies, Sierra Nevadas and others, they are just as challenging in many ways to climb and camp in (especially during black fly season).
(2) I would be remiss if I did not mention that these states offer thousands of pristine lakes and rivers intertwined with mountains and valleys with fishing, canoeing, kayaking, swimming and sailboating opportunities to match the best.
(3)Did I happen to mention that the five of the largest, best known national parks (Yellowstone, Yosemite, Bryce, Zion, Grand Canyon) will ALL fit inside New York's Adirondack State Park ??
All of that being said (yes, it was a lot), the MOST IMPORTANT thing on our bucket list, by far, has already been accomplished: we have given our lives to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
All the best to our brothers and sisters of the SOSUS/IUSS family
Irv (Dee) and Linda
To ALL:
Dee & Linda have collected ALL the Buckets out there! If you need a bucket see Linda and Dee!! And they still had time to serve in the Navy and have tours overseas!! WOW
I am impresed.
Chuck -
A long-overdue visit from you and Linda would be a HUGE drop in our bucket, maybe to overflowing !! Thanks for your comments..........we have, indeed, been blessed over our 53 years of marriage.
Dee and Linda
I guess I'm a bit tardy posting on this thread but better late than never. Chris and I have been fortunate to have made some great trips but we have only one big trip left on our bucket list, and that's Northern Ireland. This goes back to my Scot/Irish ancestry and, although I've tracked my ancestors back here to Virginia in the early 1700's, I've not been able to find the 7th generation back. It is they who very likely came from the Ulster area of Ireland, around 1720. My bucket list is topped by the desire to sit in a pub in Ireland, ideally with distant relatives. In the meantime I'm still researching and we are doing the camping thing in various state and national parks. Bucket list items outside of travel are about the same as the last time this topic came up....learning to play the mandolin better and making progress on my book. Add to it I want to learn to speak Irish Gaelic. I gotta get my **** in gear!