Davenport, IA: August 30-31, 2024 - The Midnight Flight

The grand finale of the Mom's 50 State Trilogy began, I'm sorry to say, very inauspiciously.

You know the deal by now.  My mom was trying to visit all 50 states, and two previous trips - The Dakotas and Wishigan - were attempting to complete that goal.  This was the final one - the last two states: Nebraska and Iowa.

To fit around my work schedule, we left out Friday evening over the Labor Day weekend and into the following Saturday.  Our flight out was at 8:30 or so, which meant a pretty comfortable margin to get to the airport, eat dinner, review the week's plan, then board our plane.  The first parts of this plan went completely smoothly.

Then the storm hit.

About an hour prior to departure, a black cloud descended upon the Charlotte Douglas airport and dumped rain and lightning on us in unrelenting and continuous fashion.  The flight time updated to 30 minutes later, then an hour, then an hour and a half...and so on.  And while I felt annoyed for me, I felt really bad for the people in the air who couldn't land through this omnipresent darkness.  And it was something of a consolation prize to know that literally every flight was now delayed:

Finally, well past 10:00pm, planes began to land and people depart, and one by one the various gates began to board new passengers for a severely delayed ride out.

This took some time, and at long last when our plane began the boarding process, it couldn't have been earlier than 11:30, which meant the flight was probably, officially, a midnight departure.

All of this would have been okay.  A delayed flight, a later arrival than anticipated, but it's not like we had anything on the docket for that night.  But here's the thing: airports, and their constituent services, are not 24/7 affairs.  They shut down, especially if they are a small, out-of-the-way place like the Quad Cities airport in Moline, IL, right across the river from Davenport, IA.

My dad had called Enterprise to let them know of the delay, and though they had assured us someone would wait at the desk until our flight got in...it was as predictable as anything that the desk would be completely empty when we finally ambled up to it at about 1:15am.  A small post-it had been left behind, reading "Mike's Taxi Service" and a phone number.  This, too, would have been no trouble...if the number we called had ever been answered.  Try and try again, we just couldn't seem to get the attention of Mike!

So while dad began to look up other cab companies, I pulled out Uber, which I rarely use but still had on my phone.  But sadly, it seems that the Quad Cities are not big on nightlife, even on a Friday - and no driver answered my repeated attempts to get a ride.

And this is when it sunk in.  We were stuck.  No rental, no taxi, not even an Uber, and the walking directions to our hotel in Davenport showed a 6 hour estimate - although I question the accuracy of that to this day.  So what were we to do?

There were two hotels in a much more reasonable walking distance from the airport - as in, we could literally see them from where we stood - so we tried our luck, first tramping over to the Holiday Inn Express and rousing the night manager, but he was of no help: he had no shuttle that could take us anywhere, and he had no vacancies.  There was some kind of softball nonsense in town and they were all booked up.

So over the the Hampton - which is the same brand we were staying in, just not that exact location! - to try our luck there.  This night manager did have a shuttle, but the driver did not get in until 5:00am.  And he, too, had no vacancies.  He was nice enough to try a few more taxi services, with no luck, and to offer us a place in the lobby - he even let us partake of the coffee and hot tea!

In desperation, I tried Uber one more time, and miracle of miracles: someone took the job.  He was about 25 minutes away, but he took the job!  So we announced the good news to the night manager and chatted a bit more as we watched the car glide slowly toward our location on the map.  Finally, at about 2:00am, Martin arrived.

"You're my last one of the night!" he announced.  He had no idea how grateful we were.  We tipped him well after the 15-ish minute ride to the hotel.

We checked in and convened briefly in one of the rooms to discuss the next morning's plan.  My idea was this: sleep about 4 hours, get up, do the day as we had planned, then cancel afternoon plans in Dubuque to nap and reset.  This was agreed upon, and we all, gloriously, went to sleep at long last.

The next morning, some good news: the enterprise at the airport was able to transfer our rental to the enterprise one block down the street from our hotel, easily within walking distance.  Would have been an awful headache to have to Uber back to the airport to pick up the car; as it stood, we picked it up after breakfast with leisurely ease!

Speaking of breakfast, mine that morning was a chocolate waffle with caramel sauce.  Indulgent!

Now with a car in our possession, the world was our oyster.  We journeyed to the river, where we were able to walk through the skybridge and see the view:

A little downtown Davenport action:

Then, we began to head north.  One stop we had picked out was Trinity Episcopal Cathedral - as I've mentioned before, the Episcopal Cathedrals are not a bucket list of mine, but nice landmarks to see when we can.  As we pulled up (on this, a Saturday morning), a lady was just getting in her car to leave, but then stopped for a moment to observe us.  As we got out of the car to take a picture, she walked over and introduced herself, and offered to give us a quick tour!

Which was mighty nice, as the church was quite lovely:

Next on our list was Vander Veer Botanical Park, a small, nice park tucked away at the town's northern end:

The tides were turning now.  In the midst of this gorgeous day with lovely little things to see, it was hard to believe just hours earlier, we were stranded past midnight in this town.

But now it was time to drive north to new destinations, and begin the final 50-State Trip in earnest.

Alexandria, VA, and Washington, D.C.: August 16-18, 2024 - In Which I Something Something Whatever My Dear Friend Clayford

This was just a random jaunt.  Every now and again I'll get a text from Clayford on a Wednesday or something saying "hey!  Flights are cheap!  You could come up here for the weekend!"  And my response is frequently, "...can we please plan it just a bit farther in advance?"

So this time, we did.

Took a PTO day to fly up Friday morning and get taken over to Clay & Valerie's townhome in Alexandria.  There I got to see my buddy, my sunshine, my raisin d'tetris: Chip!

Actually, all the bubs were in rare form this weekend:

...but anyway.  We soon, the three humans, set out to see Old Town Alexandria and have a spot of lunch:

We made our way to this place called the Torpedo Factory, which is an art collective these days, but back in the 40s was.........a torpedo factory:

Went to what Valerie claimed was the skinniest house in America:

And just generally hung out the rest of the day.

Next morning, Clay and I ventured into D.C., first to the Jefferson Memorial, which Clay claimed was the most deserted he'd ever seen it - I think we may have seen just one other person there:

Next, the FDR monument, which I don't think I'd ever seen.  It was this neat little series of waterfalls and statues outlining the full four terms of his presidency:

We finished our circuit of the tidal basin, then went back to the house.  The three of us then ventured out to a brunch spot at the Wafle Shop.  And no, that's not a typo:

Clay's idea for the afternoon was to pick one D.C. thing, Uber into town to do it, and then leave - after a couple years up there, he's had his fill of spending entire days in the city seeing the sights.  His recommendation, in part because I'd never been before, was the Holocaust Museum:

Heavy subject matter of course, but an excellent museum nonetheless.  Well designed, like as an experience.  Has the impact you'd hope it would.

Clay & I hung out in Old Town again that night, then hit the hay.  The next morning's itinerary was actually my idea: go to church!

But not just any church - the National Cathedral, a structure that rivals the most magnificent of European churches, and I dare you to challenge me on that!!!!!

A fine service, and included one of the most exquisite performances of Byrd's Ave Verum Corpus I've ever heard, but I gotta say: the attempt to incorporate newer, non-traditional "praise band" music is a failed experiment.  The drumset and electric guitar turn into a mishmash of sound in that echoey acoustic.  Just doesn't quite work.

Another lunch, and then it was time to jet me back over to the airport and out of town.  Soon after, my choirs would all be restarting, and the extensive free times of summer would come to a close.

Chimney Rock and Asheville, NC: August 8-10, 2024 - The Mountains

A million years ago, when I first started this blog, I did an entry on the Biltmore House, just a week or so before I was to head off to Louisville for the next nine years.  My family has a timeshare (that we haven't been able to get rid of yet) up in the mountains of Lake Lure, and that was the "home base" for both the Biltmore trip of 11 years ago, and this one, in Current Year!

I was only able to join the Mountains fun for part of the week, and there was a hurricane a-blowin' in the day I arrived!  So, blocked from the outdoor fun of the lake, we spent the 8th in the town of Chimney Rock, although we did not ascend the actual Chimney Rock itself (see above: hurricane)

We got some lunch at an excellent barbecue place:

Before a wine tasting at Burntshirt winery next door:

A quick coffee, then we headed back.  The rain pretty much abated toward the end of the day, and the following day was picture perfect, so we did lake, pool, and mini golf type activities.  Saturday, we got up and vacated the timeshare early to make the drive over to Asheville for Biltmore!

We were meeting the Beth clan there, not only to see the House itself, but because of a special event taking place at that time: a Dale Chihuly exhibit on the Biltmore grounds!

Now, I had pictured like, Chihuly sculptures all throughout the house, but it was really just an exhibit at the museum on the property.  Still, we did the regular house tour:

Plus the outside balcony:

Then back in:

And out to the gardens:

We then went over to the little village for lunch, and following that: at last, the Chihuly exhibit:

And then finally, before heading out - another wine tasting!