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machines, you can still find them in out- of- the- way old time roadside restaurants and coffee shops, but they are now outdated by the new cell phone and Android gaming generation!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!
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–June 6th, Crossville, TN.-Bees; Oh How Sweet It Is! When a wall in my “Man Cave”, writers cabin at the farm began vibrating and humming, I knew something strange and major was up. I felt that it wasn’t a paranormal happening, so I stepped out back behind the cabin. I stood and watched (from a distance) honey bees flying to and from a small crack in my wood wall. I looked up a professional Apiarist, and found Jeff Dayton from Rainbow Gold Apiary who promised to visit, assess exactly where he needed to open our interior wall to vacuum up the bees along with his 22-year old son, Tyler, after first finding the Queen. They live-caught more than 50,000 bees with a painless vacuum (five pounds) and later transferred the Queen to a new hive box on his property to happily reunite the little fantastic critters with their leader. When the wall was opened, there was no honey left in the wax combs, as it was all eaten by the bees over the winter. They were getting ready to swarm again so in the coolness of early April, and without anyone getting stung, he successfully captured and relocated them to his bee field. My cabin was also not dripping with natures golden delight, and all I had to do was lots of cleaning, and redo the wall-case closed after closing up that outside crack.
Jeff has been at his bee business for the past 25-years, and now has 60-managed hives. He relocated about 10-outside hive colonies this year alone. Jeff said about 80-percent of hundreds of colonies this past winter were lost in Tennessee. Parasites like Varroa mites, tracheal mites, poor bee nutrition , pesticides, and colony collapse disorder were all known causes of bee losses. Dayton remarked that: “we all got to eat and everyone needs bee-power. Bees create our foods.”
Bees are fiercely protective of their Queen and their hive. Each of the hundreds of hexagonal wax pupae cells in the honey comb is constantly being attended to by worker bees.
In a way, Bees can be compared to the Trojan warriors of history. They take no prisoners and are inherently endowed against all odds, to fight till their death to protect their home and family. To me thinking about what Jeff Dayton told me about the number of bees it takes to make up 5-pounds, that takes 50,000 individuals was incredible. These bees alone (amongst other myriads of insects, and birds too, not to mention the other bee-billions around the world) assist in propagating thousands of fruit trees, vegetables, flowers, bushes and sundry field crops, fruits such as strawberries, blueberries, orchard cherry trees, peach, pear, apple, etc. The world would be a dead place if not for bees.
Jeff said that when he was a youngster he and his dad would raid old bee trees. They would “course” the bees flying to and fro, and follow their angles of flight. “We would triangulate where the hives were. I sure miss my dad, he got me into the Apiary profession, and I am what I am today due to his nurturing and teaching.” Jeff has passed his passion for the little liquid gold -makers in several ways. Besides teaching his son Tyler, he is a fixture at most outdoor special events. This “sweet” guy teaches all who have interest, about the life of the bees and special nature they possess. He sets up a window case where people can watch the bees going about their daily lives supplying honey for their hives. Rainbow Gold Apiaries can be reached at (931) 484-9430. He can offer all hive products, offer his bees for pollination and does bee removal from anyone who needs this service at no charge!
American Press Travel News-News Release