Relaxing in Denver

I guess this is our first post-Florida blog entry. It was an emotionally draining week for Darcy and I during the last week of March with saying good-bye to friends and colleagues. We had established roots in South Florida after almost six years of living there. My friend Dante was a godsend with flying down from Toronto in part to help us clear out our apartment. During his week's stay the three of us spent almost every night relaxing in our apartment complex's hot tub.

We were forced to place many of our belongings by our apartment complex dumpster since we couldn't get Goodwill or the Salvation Army to pick up our unwanted items. But we were pleasantly surprised to observe that fellow tenants took almost all our former belongings! It took us longer than expected to clear out several small items in our kitchen and empty the refrigerator.

We filled Darcy's 1999 Nissan Sentra with valuables and fragile items that we didn't want packed on the moving truck. Darcy and I didn't leave Broward County until 3:30 pm on Friday March 31. Our destination of Edmonton, Alberta was over 3,400 miles away. But we had decided to break up the long trip by stopping in Denver and visiting my brother and sister-in-law.

We didn't have an itinerary for our trip despite getting a detailed travel planner from the AAA. Orlando ended up being our destination that first day of driving 224 miles (Darcy drove). We stayed at the Days Inn and our first restful night in about a month. On day two I drove and it was one of traffic congestion in Georgia. Despite being on the road for almost nine hours we only covered about 440 miles that day. We stayed overnight at the Quality Inn in Morrow, Georgia (just off I-75 in south Atlanta). If we had more time I would have liked to visit the Carter Center there. But it turned out that we were able to visit another Presidential Library later on our trip.

Darcy drove about 550 miles on day three and we travelled through Georgia and Tennessee. After analyzing the AAA planner we decided to visit the Chickamaugua/Chattanooga Civil War Battlefield. Being a history buff I had to stop since I had never seen a Civil War memorial before. I'd forgotten how mountainous the state was by having the Appalachian Mountains. That night we stayed at a motel called the Microtel in Clarksville, Tennessee. That night turned out to be rife with tornadoes and squawly weather hitting the area. A terrific windstorm blew in and brought a dazzling lightning storm. The temperature also dropped and we had to break out our northern climate clothing.

It was my turn to drive on day four and we covered about 500 miles. We drove through Kentucky, Illinois and Missouri. We stayed overnight at the Best Western Truman Inn in Indpendence, Missouri. The next day we spent about three and a half hours visiting the Truman House and Truman Library. The Miniature White House had amazing detail and was on loan. We could have easily spent the entire day there but we wanted to be in Denver that night. Sadly we didn't have time to visit the Eisenhower Library in neighboring Abilene, Kansas. The trek to Denver was about 600 miles straight west and it took nine hours. We arrived at my brother's condo at 11:00 pm on April 4 a bit tired and stiff but ready to relax in the cool, crisp mountain air for a few days!