Genealogy Road Trip
Over the next few blog posts, I will be chronicling my recent road trip across the mid west of the USA, talking about my successes as well as my failures. My goal is to make you laugh and cry, but to also help everyone who is planning a trip like this, so your trip is successful.
Day one: We, (my daughter Liz and I) left Charlotte on a Wednesday after I got off work. The car was packed, (over packed actually) and we were raring to go! Bellies were full and funny posts went on facebook, "Westbound and down, loaded up and trucking"... Our first stop, pre loaded into "Tommy" our GPS, was about 12 hours away in Mt Carmel Il.
But of course we had to get through North Carolina, Kentucy, and Indiana first. We had driven this first leg in NC many times, as it went to Asheville, and we used to go to the local Girl scout camp several times a year.
As we drove along, passing all the highway exits, random memories flashed in my head. My thoughts wandered; At this exit you can see the McAdenville Christmas lights, I took the girl scouts to the Gastonia Planitarium off this exit, I had a papered chef party at this exit, and so on. Once we got to Shelby, thoughts and prayers went out to families from the horrible SC murders, as we passed where the killer was caught.
It was dark when we hit Tennessee, but my goal was to get as close to Mt Carmel as I could, so we would have lots of daylight to "shoot" the cemetery, where my birth mother's family was buried when we got there.
Mountain driving is not fun, especially in the dark, but there wasn't much traffic or oncoming lights to blind me as I drove.
Kentucky was the next state we came to, and Liz had been asleep for hours, as I drive on, singing to the songs on the iPod, trying to stay awake.
I finally stopped in Lexington, to get a few hours of sleep, as it was after 2 am and I had been up for almost 20 hours.
Day one was a complete success! went through 3 states, and almost to our 1st genealogy stop on the adventure.
Stay tuned for the next installment!
Day one: We, (my daughter Liz and I) left Charlotte on a Wednesday after I got off work. The car was packed, (over packed actually) and we were raring to go! Bellies were full and funny posts went on facebook, "Westbound and down, loaded up and trucking"... Our first stop, pre loaded into "Tommy" our GPS, was about 12 hours away in Mt Carmel Il.
But of course we had to get through North Carolina, Kentucy, and Indiana first. We had driven this first leg in NC many times, as it went to Asheville, and we used to go to the local Girl scout camp several times a year.
As we drove along, passing all the highway exits, random memories flashed in my head. My thoughts wandered; At this exit you can see the McAdenville Christmas lights, I took the girl scouts to the Gastonia Planitarium off this exit, I had a papered chef party at this exit, and so on. Once we got to Shelby, thoughts and prayers went out to families from the horrible SC murders, as we passed where the killer was caught.
It was dark when we hit Tennessee, but my goal was to get as close to Mt Carmel as I could, so we would have lots of daylight to "shoot" the cemetery, where my birth mother's family was buried when we got there.
Mountain driving is not fun, especially in the dark, but there wasn't much traffic or oncoming lights to blind me as I drove.
Kentucky was the next state we came to, and Liz had been asleep for hours, as I drive on, singing to the songs on the iPod, trying to stay awake.
I finally stopped in Lexington, to get a few hours of sleep, as it was after 2 am and I had been up for almost 20 hours.
Day one was a complete success! went through 3 states, and almost to our 1st genealogy stop on the adventure.
Stay tuned for the next installment!
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