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The final day of going Walkabout was yet another beautiful day in a string of them. Honestly, the only day the weather was lousy was the trip to Chattanooga and even then the worst of it was one downpour that happened to catch me handing over some tax papers to my client! All in all, no complaints at all! The final visit was the one I don't think anyone had any doubt would happen when…

On the way to Metro Center station, I spied some lovely carving tucked into the wall of the National Press Building that I just had to capture. Once at the station, the Smartrip card on the phone where the three-day pass was clearly visible still stubbornly refused to open the turnstile gates after being tapped. Yet another station manager (at least much nicer this time) spent a couple of minutes trying to diagnose the problem…

After a gourmet lunch of a polish sausage and some pop in front of the Federal Reserve building, I continued on my somewhat diagonal journey that would lead me eventually to the Metro Center station. The Ellipse is directly south of the White House and stands between it and the Washington Monument. A fair heap of it has been turned into an overflow car park for workers at the White House and Executive Office Building…

Not too far east of the Lincoln Memorial is a monument that I have never visited in all of the times I've gone wandering round the District. It wasn't so much lack of desire to do so but rather a feeling that whilst it was certainly an exceptionally important one and worthy of spending some time to visit, there seemed to be a crucial element missing for me. This is of course the Vietnam Veterans…

The last time I was in DC, I didn't have enough time to spend some quality time at arguably one of my favourite memorials in the city...the Lincoln Memorial at the Potomac side of the National Mall. Getting to the memorial proved to be one hell of an adventure, though...and it had nothing to do with making several laps around it which is what I did a couple of times when Alex was in hospital…

After a lovely visit atop Mt Washington, it was time to head out for the next leg of the journey to Springfield VA just outside of Washington DC. When staying in the DC area, Springfield tends to be my favourite thanks to the Franconia-Springfield Metro station that is close by. I hadn't been on the Pennsylvania Turnpike in ages but it's nice to see they've embraced the all-electronic toll collection revolution which is why I…

This hotel had introduced the third different variation on breakfast...grab and go bags full of nothing of interest and I was still rather full from the Cracker Barrel the night before so it didn't take long to get the cargo loaded and be off on my way. Thanks to a wonderful idea from Suzette to check out one of the most scenic locations in her hometown, I found myself making my way from the airport…

After lunch, it was time to head out again on the journey but the first stop was to visit a camera store in the western end of downtown Columbus. He had a lovely Nikon F4 available but sadly would not budge on the price which was a bit more than I wished to spend and so that was pretty much that for shooting film on this trip which was one of the things I was…

Having blown off the breakfast bingo worksheet at the hotel, I was more than ready to enjoy some fine Polish fare at Pierogi Mountain in downtown Columbus with the entire crew from Galena. Of course, I had to get a few dash cam shots of the downtown area where the skyline is dominated by one of the area's biggest employers who not so coincidentally sponsored the name of the nearby hockey arena that is home…

After finishing up a couple of hours having fun with Miss Mairin and my camera, it was time to head round the corner to a local camera store to see if I could replace the buggered F5. As I'm getting ready to leave, a Lamborghini Aventador turns up and parks right behind me. Well, of course we need a few shots of this rather rare beast. What I didn't plan on was getting a few…

Today's adventure starts at a beautiful park literally just down the street from the hotel...Highbanks Metro Park in north Columbus to meet up with Patrick and Suzette and the girls. A couple of weeks prior, I was watching the live stream of Mairin and Keelia's dance competition whilst working on five sets of tax returns in tax preparation hell. As I'm texting back and forth with Suzette, she says at one point that she wished…

As it was getting to be early evening, it was time to make a speed run along I-70 to the next waypoint north of Columbus OH. Along the way was a quick trip through downtown Indianapolis and then a conversation with Mom and Meghann about Hutsonville that allowed the Ohio state line to sneak up on me! After checking into the hotel, I was greeted with a completely different way of handling the breakfast. This…

Terre Haute IN gained a bit of notoriety in the news toward the end of Mr Trump's term when there was a rush on executing Federal prisoners on the only death row in the system who are housed in the US Penitentiary on highway 63 just before you get to the I-70 motorway. As you can imagine, it's not a particularly inviting place and the signs and vehicles surrounding it don't exactly suggest you ought…

I'm always joking with my Illinois cousins that I'm probably the most hopeless member of my father's side of the family when it comes to Illinois cred. After all, I wasn't born here and truth be told...I think I've maybe spent a month of my life in total in this Land of Lincoln. Apparently my Illinois credit ranking did go up a bit last year when I was forced to pay Illinois income tax on…

Owing to the late check-in, I wasn't particularly interested in the breakfast buffet at the hotel. So as I'm loading the Traverse at 1000 to start heading east, I noticed that breakfast wasn't going to be a problem. Across the car park was a place called "Lion's Choice". I remember Hannah mentioning on Facebook things she missed about St Louis whilst she was at Emerson College in Boston and this one ranked pretty high on…

Heading a bit more west and dipping quickly into Georgia and back into Tennessee which also was the crossing-point into the Central Time Zone, the mileage sign showed I was far closer to Nashville than I had imagined. That could mean only one thing...let's see if we can do the tour of the cousins and visit Grandma and Grandpa in southern Illinois and possibly make it all the way to St Louis where more cousins…

There are several attractions on Lookout Mountain which straddles the Tennessee and Georgia border but the one I was aiming for was Point Park at the summit which would offer the grandest view of downtown and the river from about 2000 feet MSL. The ascent is a twisty and occasionally harrowing journey up the mountain, often on very narrow surface streets. When you arrive at Point Park, you really can't miss the building with the…

After an early breakfast and loading of the cargo, it was time to head southwest toward Chattanooga proper with the idea of ascending to the summit of Lookout Mountain to visit Point Park. Chattanooga is at the heart of the Tennessee Valley Authority which is a New Deal-era agency that was responsible for revitalising the economy that was devastated by the Great Depression along the Tennessee River by building hydro-electric dams and generators (and later…

After a very satisfying lunch at Lexington BBQ, it was time to continue west into the mountains with a couple of stops along the way to Asheville to get royally reamed at the pump. Darn it...I knew I should have stopped at that one station in Mocksville! But no matter...it worked out well to do another splash and go at Black Mountain and give the Traverse a proper tank of the high-octane petrol before really…

It's well past time to take advantage of a rare window of opportunity to go walkabout for the next few days! The beauty of it is whilst I know the initial direction will be to the west to drop off some paperwork with a client and the aiming point will be staying overnight near Chattanooga TN...what happens afterward is a complete mystery to me. I'll go where the winds tell me to go! But first…