Home, sweet, home!

Yes, we are home. We stopped in Hot Springs, Arkansas at the National Park. The Park is in the city-we went to the museum which is housed in one of the bathhouses that was open from the last 1890's in to the 1950's. It was interesting to see the "spa" with some of the treatments people underwent looking more like torture chambers. We saw some of the physical therapy machines invented by a man named Zander which resemble many of the modern gym exercise machines you see in use today. Made our way through Arkansas and into Tennessee-stopping in Norris Tennessee which is the first planned town by the Tennessee Valley Authority. They built their first hydroelectric dam there and the town housed their workers. When we got into Virginia we started seeing names for several of the towns we rode through on the bike trip. Sort of nostalgic. We got off of 81 for awhile to get away from highway driving and entered the
Shenandoah National Park and drove the Skyline Highway for about 50 of its 105 miles. The leaves have just started to change and it was a pretty drive. Back on the highway and getting close to home. We were just amazed that if you take 81North you go from Va, into WVA, then MD, then PA in under an hour. 4 states in that short period of time-incredible! Got to NY in the morning and had breakfast with mom and Mike. Spent the day visiting and were back on the road Friday night. We hit the worst traffic (only traffic) of the trip when we got to the CT border and got onto 84-Welcome Home! There were 2 accidents on 84-about 15 miles apart-but once we got through those it was smooth sailing. Glad to be home and in our own bed-lots of work to get back into the swing of things-unpacking, filling the fridge etc. It was a great adventure and a wonderful trip-we had a fantastic time-we hope all of you enjoyed sharing it with us.