Hotel manager and our waitress greeting us with a delicious entree. Definitely our favorite restaurant in Roanoke!!
AmericanPressTravelNews-June 5th,–Roanoke, VA. Virginia’s Blue Ridge at the Roanoke, Hotel-Bob and Barb “Stopping to Smell the Roses.” Barb and I made our way to the restaurant for dinner. We had been here several years back and remembered the excellent meal and time we had at the Hotel and its amenities, including their excellent restaurant. We followed the hill-top overlook star to one of our favorite cities; Roanoke in Virginia’s Blue Ridge. So many great things to see and do here, and the people are so obviously outgoing to locals and visitors alike-we like “friendly” as a genuine attitude, we find it here. VISITVBR.COM
Chesapeake sea food melange of shellfish! Beyond great! At the transportation museum. Headline: Amtrak will begin passenger traffic again through Roanoke after a hiatus of over 45-years…
Our stay at the Black Lantern Inn B&B (540-206-3441) allowed us to easily reach all venues we wished to visit during our stay in Roanoke. Downtown Roanoke was one of our biggest treats. At the market area we had lunch at Nawab enjoying a taste of Indian Cuisine (oh, so for real) and then headed for City Center. How about a pinball museum where you can play as much as you want on a hundred, vintage blasters and banger’s-we loved this and so will you with this “blast from the past.” (stay tuned, more articles and images from Roanoke to come) visitvbr.com
We were greeted warmly and presented with a chocolate slice of double, double chocolate torte!!!Pinball machines, you can still find them in out- of- the- way old time roadside restaurants and coffee shops, but they are now outdated by the new cell phone and Android gaming generation! Here at the Pinball Museum you can play these oldies but goodies to your hearts and finger flippers content!Holy Cow; look at what we found at the Science Museum! We found a politician that whined at us!
View of Norris Dam and Norris Lake impoundment. The lake holds all manner of fish including giant catfish and striped bass so popular with trailer boaters from around the state of TN. and beyond.
AmericanPressTravelNews,-Norris Dam and Lenoir Museum Complex-Bob & Barb “On the -the Road Again”-Dams, always impressive as they are massive and hold-back river torrents. Dam’s also create power for power. Dam’s by holding back constant flows also calm and deepen waters creating lakes. Norris Lake is today a drawer for thousands of boaters and anglers, swimmers and kayakers, and lakes create real estate values. Seems that a view of the woods, compared to a view and access to a body of clean, beautiful water has no comparison in the price of a building lot. Water views trump em all!
Standing at the overlook parking area, at Norris Dam State Park made us think how this dam as many others around America beside being very impressive had opened up beautiful recreational opportunities for so many as well as creating power for so many families as well. We thoroughly enjoyed and were impressed with our stopover here! Go: www.tnstateparks.com/parks/about/norris-dam
Housing all manner of early American artifacts, tools, and agricultural and ground working implements from an age before our Industrial age (hand forged and crafted woods and metals, not manufactured and stamped out in factories) the Lenoir Museum is a repository of these items from early families of the Appalachian region now long gone on to heaven.A mill house that was saved and is in the State Park system. Probably more photographed than any other stop-over with the exception of the Norris Dam.Mark Morgan State Park Ranger showed us around the Lenoir Museum and the incredible music piece with marching soldiers and figurines from the 1840’s. www.tnstateparks.com/parks/about/norris-dam Runoff from the stream that turned the mill at the mill house grain grinding site.
Japan suffered greatly for being the aggressor in a war they mightily regretted.And a cousin was in the middle of it all!
American Press Travel News-Bob and Barb “On The Road Again-this time in Oak Ridge, TN–Secret City No Longer a Secret
“Shhh, don’t ask and don’t tell was the official mantra of, and for anyone living and working in Oak Ridge, Tennessee over 7-decades ago.
Barb and I jumped at the opportunity to check out a terrific area that offers museums, fishing, great restaurants, and even bird watching, not necessarily in that order.”
Imagine visiting a city that wasn’t even on the map until the late 40’s. People who lived in that city had no address and phone available to the outside world. Their street addresses were in coded names. It was as if they lived on an island, did everything together on a social basis with what turned out to be an extended family of some 75,000 people. These were specialists, and their families in unique scientific fields in physics, chemistry electrical and chemical engineering, boiler making, construction specialists, metallurgists, and heavy construction development where K-25, a mile long was the largest building under cover of roof, at 44-acres was constructed at that time.
In1941, just after Pearl Harbor was bombed, most all of these folks were brought to a place that they couldn’t write home about, or have their friends and family visit.
They were on a mission, an incredible mission to assist in ending the war in the Pacific and what they wrought, the Atom Bomb did just that, after this hellish bomb was unleashed on Japan, it helped save hundreds of thousands of our service men and women, who would have had to storm the beaches of Japan, and those people that would assist them.
Oak Ridge is the city that allowed teams of physicists and brain stormer’s like Einstein and Teller to name just a very few, to help make this deed a reality. Today, about 8-decades later, there is still tight security for much of the business end of the city that is devoted to developing modern technological advances in nuclear medicine, nuclear power and various other technologies, with some of them absolutely top secret even today.
Some facts about early Oak Ridge are in order here: The Oak Ridge Reservation encompassed 59,000 acres in 1940s, Oak Ridge used one-seventh of the electricity produced in the U.S. during full production, the average age in Oak Ridge at the time was 27, Oak Ridge didn’t appear on a map until 1949, it was not incorporated as a city until 1959. Because of the secrecy demands of the Manhattan project, the Oak Ridge High School football team was only allowed to play away games, and the opposing team was not given the team roster of the players, they were only known by numbers. Every person over the age of 12 had to wear an identification badge at all times during the 40’s.
Visiting the American Museum of Science & Energy we passed by a large image of Einstein who had penned a letter to President Roosevelt that helped convince him to initiate the development of the “bomb” before Nazi Germany could do it. This letter helped kick off the Manhattan Project in Oak Ridge. The entire story is now in plain sight for visitors to this museum and it’s a terrific place to bring the family. Any age range can learn much from the hands-on displays and mind games that challenge with their simple and complex games designed to broaden the mind and enlighten the curious. Oak Ridge continues to earn the U.S. the title of “Super Power.” Live demonstrations, audiovisuals, machines, and devices will definitely keep you and the children entertained and delighted. We also visited John Rice Erwin’s open-air museum called “the most authentic and complete replica of pioneer Appalachian life in the world.” The museum contains over 250,000 pioneer relics including 30 log structures from pioneer times, a chapel, a schoolhouse, cabins and barns replete with actual relics of those times. Outstanding!
. We went fly-fishing with guide Clayton Gist (865) 806-7803 and yes, got braggin’ rights! Gist explained that the Clinch River is probably the premier trout river in Tennessee. We headed for Big Ed’s Pizza at Broadway in Oak Ridge, terrific on our way home.
American Press Travel News–August 10th, 2018–Update April 11th, 2019–Bob and Barb on the Road Again, this time in Morristown, TN.–Interesting time in an interesting part of TN. Barb and I love historical museums and places that exude memorable places. There is so much known, but far more unknown about the Civil War period in America. Seems many eople just cannot get enough of it! Here we were in Morristown, TN. great places to dine, neat antique shops, original homes of famous folk such as Davy Crockett and Civil War Generals to name a few. Bet you didn’t know that people before the 1900’s were smaller than folks of today. To get on a horse they needed help, voila, step-ups of stone for mounting a horse, uniforms any uniforms were hand stitched and provided by special tailors and seamstresses. Hat makers too were in demand. Machines were few hands were many. Weapons of the past were also hand crafted, heavy and slow to reload, but today they are magnificent works of mostly handcrafted works of highly sought after art. Of course, you gotta eat when on assignment, and Morristown has great “eats.” Crabcakes and Pineapple Steaks, huh?
