Note: Since I don’t have anything new to tell you about today, here is a blog post from 2018 about a small town with a lot to see and do. If you enjoy exploring small-town museums as much as we do, make it a point to visit the friendly little town of Wytheville, located in […]
He was considered to be one of the greatest heroes of the Confederacy, and when he was killed in 1863, it was a huge loss to the rebel cause. Even today, the story of Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson is revered by history fans across the globe, and has been studied by students of military and Civil […]
?Note: I spent most of yesterday making corrections to what I have already written in my new Big Lake book. Just as I was finishing with that, I did something wrong and scrambled about half of the document. Sentences and even blocks of paragraphs seemed to jump around, sometimes even showing up in different chapters. […]
The Civil War had dragged on for four long, bloody years, laying the countryside to waste and taking a terrible toll on both soldiers and civilians. By the early days of 1865, it was apparent to Confederate General Robert E. Lee that the end was near. On February 8, 1865 he sent a message to […]
Note: I have already shared some of our activities while we were in Ohio and the trip there from Florida in previous blog posts. Now I will do several posts telling you a bit about our trip home. We were glad we got out of the Midwest when we did because winter arrived about the […]
Mobile, Alabama has a long and colorful history. The first Europeans to visit the area were Spanish explorers who came to Mobile Bay as early as 1500. Hernando de Soto clashed with the local Indians in 1540, burning their town of Maubila, from which we get the name Mobile. For the next century the Spaniards […]
If you enjoy exploring small-town museums as much as we do, make it a point to visit the friendly little town of Wytheville, located in western Virginia at the junctions of Interstates 77 and 81. Here you will find not just one or two interesting little museums that are well worth a visit, but five, […]
On a winding back road in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, we discovered the tranquil remains of Laurel Hill, once a thriving plantation and the birthplace of one of the greatest heroes of the Confederacy, J.E.B. Stuart. William and Elizabeth Letcher, the great-grandparents of J.E.B. Stuart, settled here in 1778, during […]
A couple of miles north of the friendly small town of Franklin, Kentucky, we came across a unique looking home with a fascinating history. Octagon Hall, which is listed on the Register of Historic Places, was built by a gentleman by the name of Andrew Jackson Caldwell, following the style of octagon shaped houses that […]
After our very long day driving through West Virginia that I wrote about in yesterday’s blog, we were both exhausted and slept very well at the Hampton Inn in Wytheville, Virginia. One thing Terry and I discovered on the trip is that king size beds seem to be the norm in hotel rooms these days. […]
You can step back into the past and experience the South’s rural heritage at Horne Creek Living Historical Farm in North Carolina. Once the Hauser family farm, Horne Creek Farm is now a North Carolina State Historic Site, providing visitors a look at farm life in North Carolina’s northwestern Piedmont region in the early 1900s, […]
Note: This story is from the March-April, 2017 issue of the Gypsy Journal. In the friendly college town of Athens, Georgia we came across an unusual historical artifact with an interesting history that is a classic example of engineering gone wrong, even though it seemed like a good idea at the time Home to the […]
In yesterday’s blog we did some time traveling as I told you about some of the things we did while we were in Alabama visiting my son Travis and his wife Geli as we were waiting out Hurricane Irma. Today I’ll catch you up on the rest of it, and on our trip home. Anybody […]