Day Trip to Snyder, Oklahoma

It has been almost two weeks since Ms Vickey had been on the road. Since today was very pleasant and in the 70's, it seemed like a good idea to get out on the open road before winter really set in on us.  

But first things first.....off to the court house to pay the property taxes for the year.  Since we paid our Oklahoma home off last year, this would be the first time taxes were paid by me and not an escrow account.   Ouch!!  I looked at the itemization that was on the bill and all I could say was "why am I PAYING FOR THAT!?"  I thought the taxes were for "my" property; not everything one elses too.....:-(. 

The good thing is that Scootard was still able to transact business on his cell phone on the way out of the building.   I was still stinging from the large tax bill, but at least it was paid in full for the year........yikes!
 

We started down the highway and the further I went, the more aware I became that I was not feeling well at all.......my throat was hurting and my sinuses were itchy.....:-(.

First stop........

There wasn't one single soul at the park.  It was completely deserted with the exception of some water foul that I was too far away from to get a picture of. But it was beautiful and quiet... 

Now, whenever I go on rides like this, I always have to go to the bathroom.  And as bad as I had to go, how is it that I drove right past it!?  haha....oh no!  I didn't feel confident to turn the bike around where I was as there were slight drop off's on either side of the road.  So, I decided to take the long way back around.  Scootard met me when I got half way there and came to my rescue.  We met where the drop off's were "not".....ha
  

I was in desparate need of a rest since I was not feeling well at all.....

Finally!



Wow, that was too close for comfort!

I came out of the bathroom to discover that Scootard was practicing being the master of his universe.....hahaha. 
 

Next stop was to the Tom Sneed Dam.  I came here many years ago, but now it was different.  911 had taken place and the Dam was now gated off.  Scootard was taking pictures while I stood there in disbelief....

 

I decided to take other area pictures.

I don't know if these are prickly pear or not.  I didn't see the red flower that would normally be on top of that kind of cactus.  Perhaps the flower had faded already?  I'm not sure....

Scootard drove across some loose gravel to get pictures of the dam.  I was not going to do that, so I waited for him to come back.

He wanted to get a shot of me "in action" as he calls it.  Not sure it was a good one as I was moving pretty fast when he took the shot.  Oh well. ha

 On the way back to our own city, we saw this along the way........

I couldn't help but think that someone used to live here.  Or maybe it was just for the "help" who would come to work the fields many moons ago.  I was somewhat surprised that the county has not made the owners knock it down.  I mean, they would only have to do half the work now anyway!

The road was calling me. And I was feeling increasingly sick like I had the flu or something.....

When we got into the town of Snyder, we found it sleepy and pretty much deserted.  I did find this old pressing machine interesting, though......:-).



I mean, not a soul..ya'll.  zippo.....nada, nobody.  And this is the middle of the day on a week day.....wow.



I guess this is the name of their team?  I have no clue...

After what seemed like forever, we finally made it back to our city and were on the hunt for dinner.  I was starving and in need of medicine.

BINGO!  Dinner is served......:-)

Scootard was in great anticipation of what was beyond those doors......:-).

I was exhausted and starving.  I loaded up my plate which is my custom as I do not like going back for seconds.  Not because I wouldn't eat them, but because by the time I eat the first plate, I might be too full to get up for the second one..ha.  Notice the frog leg on top?  Kinda looks like a fish of some sort.

Scootard was ready to attack his food like he was mad at it!  hahaha



by the time we finished eating, the sun was setting.  I was still in need of some meds and we needed to gas up Ms Vicky.

For some reason, Ms Vickey burned a LOT of gas. We just changed her oil and checked the spark plug. So, I don't know why other than the fact that I had the throttle pinned; which is something I had never done before. But at least I had found out that she will in fact do 75mph, but not a mile more...ha. Bless her little heart....:-).

After we got gased up, Scootard decided to get the "bug matter" off of our windshields as well.





And now, off to more important things.

YES!  DRUGS!  We decided on the "night and day" variety since we have to make a trip out of town again tomorrow.

ok.....so I made it home and am ready to kick this cold/flu -allergy thing that is trying to get me.  You can't keep a good Scooterchick down for long!

See ya next time....:-).

Richmond, Virginia -Berkley Plantation- Day 7

We had to get up earlier than usual today since we had a refrigerator full of leftover that we needed to eat for breakfast.......It is soo bizzare that I won't even repeat it....haha.  The good thing is that it didn't take us long to get ready to go.  Our things were packed and waiting for our host to finish getting their things together. 

After we did a quick walk through of the vacation home, we (Chris) loaded everything into the car and we headed out for our last leg of adventure in Virginia.  We were headed about an hour away.....

TADA!

On the way, we spotted these  huge heads and had to find a way to get over to them and see what they were.....

Turns out that it was a presidential memorial of some sort that had evidently closed down.  The grass was overgrown, but you could see that the place was beautiful at one time.....:-(

Our next stop was Berkley Plantation and Berkley and Harrison Landing......This is the entrance to the plantation.  Now, I have to tell ya that being an African American woman, I'm sure I was seeing things from a completely different perspective than the others with me.....if you know what I mean...ha.  I was glad I am FREE! 

The further inside the gates we got, the weirder it felt to me.......

holy moly.......I was riding on an original carriage road that was constructed all those years ago....wow.  And I thought going around downtown Oklahoma City in a horse drawn carriage for my birthday was a big deal........gee wiz.  THIS took it to a whole new level and I was in a car!

I wasn't really impressed with with the pond thingee that looked like it would have misquitos carrying tennis rackets in the summer time! ha

We're getting clooooooserrrrr..............

and there it stood......The main house.....Not nearly has large as I thought it would be.  But there were several other houses on the property as well....

Once we got up to the door, there was a sign telling us that we had to register for a tour.  So, we followed the arrows around to the back of the house where the registration office was. We joined up with our tour guide only to be told that were not allowed to take ANY PICTURES, had to turn off our cells (which I totally understood), and were only allowed to see the lower level of the main house and the basement.  .......:-(.  We don't know why. 

But we were told that the main house's foundation was 6 feet deep, the outside walls of teh house were 3 feet thick and the inner walls were 18 inches thick.  There was a cook house on the right; which you can see and a bachelor's house on the left not visible in this picture.  There was also a tunnel that stretched between the cook house and the main house called the "Whistling passage"  as the cooks were instructed to whistle when passing through.  It was believe that they could not eat and whistle at the same time.  It was an American type of "loss prevention".....haha.  Wow....

We saw this building as well on our way to the back and learned that it contained a bathroom.......yeah!  And once I got into the building there was the sound of the military "Taps" playing in the background.  We were to learn later that that very song was written on that property by Gen. Mc Lelland; a General in the Union Army.  It was kinda eerie since I had just attended a military funeral the week before where this very song was played......  

this is looking at the James River.

It was a bit chilly, but very sunny......

And of course....Chris's head was taking it all in filling every corner of his brain....haha.

I found this tree to be quite strange.  I have no idea why it grew this way, but I felt it was picture worthy.....:-)

This turned out to be a short tour in regard to the house since much of it was off limits to the public.  Chris has an execllent memory and grasp on history and has given a very informative write up on this property and it's history.  You can read all about it here:

http://ddo2jl.blogspot.ca/

We decided to start making our way to the airport in Richmond and make a quick tour of the city before catching our flight.

and of course we knew we had to grab lunch somewhere before getting on the plane as they would not be serving us anything except drinks.  Our flight was scheduled to leave at 6:10.  We found a Starbucks which was inside a local grocery store and decided to stop there and get some coffee, and a few other things to go with our "left overs" from the vacation home kitchen.  But first....COVER THIS NASTY TABLE!  Yuck....:-(.  We had to go upstairs to find seating and it was not pleasant.  We decided to make it work rather than try to find somewhere else to go and deal with parking...

Once we got it covered, we were able to spread out our food and rest a bit.  Uh......no.  That is NOT toilet paper! hahaha.  Geeze....it wasn't quite THAT bad! haha

Our bannas got a little beat up along the way, but they were ok.  By the way, we didn't eat Halls cough drops for lunch either! haha.  They just happen to be in the picture....  

after we left Starbucks, we drove around and took pics of the beauty that was so obvious to us.

The colors were all ablaze with Autumn.......:-).  Just lovely.......

see........:-).

Chris was marveling at the design of the historical "row homes" in the area.  I grew up in a row house in the later years of my youth.  So, I was familiar with how they are made.

I really like this picture because the city scape peeks out between the trees.....:-)

I wanted to walk along this pathway, but the airport was waiting for us as were our host who we left in the car when we jumped out to get some pictures......

But I mean, really.......don't you just love it?......Very beautiful....

Virginia is for lovers.......:-).  this is our last picture in Virginia.....:-(.  This was taken at the airport on our way to our gate.

Our flight was just over 2 hours and was uneventful.  I felt really tired once we landed in Dallas......

I was so tired that I was running out of words and my light lunch was wearing off.  So, we were glad when our ride showed up outside the airport.....:-)

We went right to bed once we got back to the home of our host and got up this morning taking our time and lounging around the house until close to lunch time.

After a very nice Chinese lunch and some more quality time  with our host, we started our 3 hour drive back to Oklahoma......

The sunset was spectacular!  Never the same on any given day.....:-)

And we finally made it back to our own home after making a quick stop at the store.  We are so grateful for the opportunity to see so much history over the past 7 days with some fantastic people.....:-). 

Thanks for traveling through some of our nations's history over the past few days....:-)

Good bye for now!