I haven’t written a blog since January 6. Shortly after writing the post, we began preparing for our return to Florida. We had planned to depart around January 10th, but life happened, bad weather was predicted and then our refrigerator died.
We emptied the refrigerator, moving what we could into an extra one in the garage. Thank goodness for it. We were finally able to leave on Saturday, January 14th. This was cutting it close as my husband had an important doctor appointment on the 16th that would require an out of town trip. He would need a rest day after our 11 hour drive to Florida.
The day after husband’s doctor appointment, I got a much needed hair cut and color. The day after that, I became ill. I decided I had flu. Four days later my husband became ill and since his body is compromised, he had a tough time. He did a home Covid test and it was negative. It has taken us what seems like forever to get our energy back, but we are getting there. It’s crazy that it is taking so long.
I am looking forward to the rest of our time in Florida. We have been making plans to drive out to the beach this week. The beach was closed for several months after last year’s hurricane and we want to see how or if it changed.We haven’t made it yet, but hopefully we will soon.
There hasn’t been much picture taking going on. I do have this one of our daughter’s dog, Ollie snoozing while she watches television. That’s about the sum of our excitement but better days are coming, and hopefully more blog posts.
After my retirement, I decided to re-learn the canning and preserving skills I learned from my mother but hadn’t practiced for twenty years. I titled the blog Old Things R New to chronicle my experience. Since then I have been blessed to have six other bloggers join me, DiVoran Lites, Bill Lites, Judy Wills, Louise Gibson, Janet Perez Eckles and Melody Hendrix
In addition to blogging, I work as the publicist/marketer/ amateur editor and general “mom Friday” for my author daughter, Rebekah Lyn. I also manage her website, Rebekah Lyn Books
My 2023 goal is continue to use my love of photographs and words to be an encourager on social media.
This morning after breakfast, I headed southwest out of Columbia 15 miles on US-1 to visit the Craft Axe Throwing Company located in Lexington, SC. I have heard about axe throwing, and I’ve read about it. My son tells me he has done it, but I have never been in one of these places to see what it’s all about. When I got there, this place didn’t open until later in the day, so I just continued another 60 miles southwest on I-20 to visit my first museum of the day.
Photo Credit: Bill Lites
This took me across the border, not to a museum, but to Broad Street in downtown Augusta, GA where I stopped to take a photo of the Confederate Monument. This impressive 76-foot-tall monument, also known as the Richmond County Confederate Monument, was erected in 1878, and is dedicated to all those Georgia Confederate soldiers who died in the Civil War.
Photo Credit: Bill Lites
Just a few blocks from the Confederate Monument, there in Augusta, I saw a mural on the side of a building that honors the musician, James Brown, and his contribution to the music world as the ‘Godfather of Soul’ music. It appears that the mural by artist, Cole Phail, was the winner of a Greater Augusta Arts Council contest in 2020, and named his mural ‘The Spirit of Funk.‘
Photo Credit: Bill Lites
Now I headed 35 southwest on US-1 looking for the ‘Old Quaker Road’ historical marker located in Wrens, GA. I couldn’t find the marker, but the internet tells me this marker designates where that important road ran thru this area in around 1769. As it turns out, this area is also where the ‘Famous Indian Trail’ connected Augusta with many of the Cherokee, Creeks, Choctaws, and Chickasaws Indian tribes in the mid to late 1700s.
It was another 30 miles southwest on SR-88 to where I visited the Old Jail Museum located in Sandersville, GA. This museum is housed in the old 1891 Victorian era sheriffs’ home and jail, and really doesn’t look like the ‘Old Jail’ I was expecting on the outside. I was sure it had been given a major facelift at some point, but no, that is the way it was built. Looks like the sheriff lived in style. The museum is filled with historic jail artifacts as well as historic local county, and state memorabilia dating from the mid-1800s. The old jail has a gallows yard at the back of the house. That’s not a pretty sight.
Photo Credit: Bill Lites
It was just a few blocks from the Old Jail where I planned to visit the Sandersville Railroad Museum. However, what I found was the privately owned Sandersville Railroad, which is a relatively short section of track used for freight between Deepstep and Tennile. The Sandersville Railroad was formed in 1893 with only 3-miles of track. The railroad continued to grow, over the years, until now it provides rail transport services to a variety of companies on its 37-mile rail system, which also has links with the Norfolk-Southern Railroad.
Photo Credit: Bill Lites
Now I headed west 30 miles on SR-24 to visit the Museum on Main located in Scottsboro, GA but it was closed. So, I continued west another 35 miles on SR-57 to visit the Griswoldville Historic Battlefield located just outside Macon, GA. This historic site is dedicated to the memory of the northern and southern soldiers who fought at the Battle of Griswoldville, when General Sherman made his famous ‘March to the Sea’ from Atlanta to Savanah in November of 1864.
Photo Credit: Bill Lites
—–To Be Continued—–
Bill is a retired Mechanical engineer living with his wonderful artist/writer wife, DiVoran, of 65 years in Titusville, Florida. He was born and raised in the Southwest, did a tour of duty with the U.S. Navy, attended Northrop University in Southern California and ended up working on America’s Manned Space Program for 35 years. He currently is retired and spends most of his time building and flying R/C model airplanes, traveling, writing blogs about his travels for Word Press and supporting his wife’s hobbies with framing, editing and marketing. He also volunteers with a local church Car Care Ministry and as a tour guide at the Valiant Air Command Warbird Museum there in Titusville. Bill has two wonderful children, two outstanding grandchildren, and a loving sister and her husband, all of whom also live in Central Florida, so he and DiVoran are rewarded by having family close to spend lots of quality time with.
Better than candy or roses, inspiration for the heart can be sweeter.
Janet
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Some say she should be the last person to be dancing. Her life is summarized in this 3-minute video: http://bit.ly/1a8wGJR
Janet Perez Eckles’ story of triumph is marked by her work as an international speaker, #1 best-selling author, radio host, personal success coach and master interpreter. Although blind since 31, her passion is to help you see the best of life.
Eternal life means to know and experience you as the only true God and to know and experience Jesus Christ and the Son whom you have sent. I have glorified you on the earth by faithfully doing everything you’ve told me to do. So my Father, restore me to the glory we shared face-to-face before the universe was created.
Photo Credit:Pixabay
DiVoran has been writing for most of her life. Her first attempt at a story was when she was seven years old and her mother got a new typewriter. DiVoran got to use it and when her dad saw her writing he asked what she was writing about. DiVoran answered that she was writing the story of her life. Her dad’s only comment was, “Well, it’s going to be a very short story.” After most of a lifetime of writing and helping other writers, DiVoran finally launched her own dream which was to write a novel of her own. She now has her Florida Springs trilogy and her novel, a Christian Western Romance, Go West available on Amazon. When speaking about her road to publication, she gives thanks to the Lord for all the people who helped her grow and learn. She says, “I could never have done it by myself, but when I got going everything fell beautifully into place, and I was glad I had started on my dream.”
Here are more Christmas trees from Disney Springs Christmas Tree Trail:
Here’s Peter Pan’s tree
And one for the Jungle Book:
And…of course…Mary Poppins!
Couldn’t have a Christmas tree without Alice in Wonderland
There were other decorations along the Trail, not just the trees, such as:
That’s it – meet Santa.
And some cute “billboards” such as these:
Neither Fred nor I can remember 2021’s Christmas Tree Trail – whether or not it was up. However, this past year (2022) we noticed that the “Trail” was not in its usual place. But….the trees were scattered throughout Disney Springs, and had signposts with each one. Disney Springs called it “Christmas Tree Stroll 2022.”
They had produced a “brochure” or “map” to take you around the area to find the trees. Here’s the cover of the map:
Here’s the inside of the brochure – sorry it’s not a very good panoramic stitch, but gives you a general idea of what it looks like. Wherever there is a Christmas “tree,” there was a sticker available for that tree. As you can see, we didn’t finish the round, but it was fun doing what we did.
We also noticed that Disney had added some trees, as well. Such as this one:
Disney has launched a new ship – the Disney Wish. And so, they made a “tree” for it.
This concludes our recent Christmas Memories. It’s been a fun memory to walk through. I hope you have enjoyed it, as well.
Judy is living in Central Florida with her retired U.S. Air Force husband of 50+ years. Born in Dallas, Texas, she grew up in the Southwestern United States.She met her husband at their church, where he was attending the university in her town. After college and seminary, he entered the Air Force, and their adventures began.They lived in eight of our United States, and spent six years in Europe, where their oldest daughter was born. She was a stay-at-home mom for many years .
Judy has always been involved with music, both playing the piano and singing. Always interested in exercise, she was an aerobic dancing instructor, as well as a piano teacher for many years, and continues to faithfully exercise at home.
After moving to Central Florida, she served as a church secretary for nearly nine years.Her main hobby at this point in time is scanning pictures and 35mm slides into the computer. She also enjoys scrapbooking.She and her husband have two married daughters and four grandchildren, including grandtwins as well as a great-grandson and a great-granddaughter. She and her husband enjoy the Disney parks as often as possible.
After another trip down memory lane at the Morrison Motor Car Museum (I especially liked the DeLorean display), I headed southwest 25 miles on I-85 to check out the Charlotte Motor Speedway. There were no races going on today (looks like I missed the Coca Cola 600 race there at the Charlotte Motor Speedway by just one day), but I got this cool photo of the track entrance. I love watching NASCAR racing and just get a thrill seeing one of these famous racetracks.
Photo Credit: Bill Lites
It was only a couple of miles from the Charlotte Motor Speedway to the Hendrick Motorsports Complex there in Charlotte, where I wanted to visit the Hendrick Motorsports Museum, Performance Shop, 40/5 Race Shop, 9/24 Race Shop, and Engine shop but they were all closed for the after-race holiday. I was disappointed as Jeff Gordon (No.24) was one of my favorite NASCAR drivers.
Photo Credit: Bill Lites
Now I drove into downtown Charlette to visit the NASCAR Hall of Fame located in their new ‘Uptown’ facility. This Hall of Fame (Shrine) is dedicated to the memory of NASCAR racing history and the drivers and race teams that made the sport possible. The NASCAR Hall of Fame offers 50 interactive experiences including an ‘iRacing Simulator’ that tests your racing skills on your favorite NASCAR racetrack, NASCAR Cup winning race cars, and much more.
Before leaving Charlotte, I headed over to the Jackson Homes area to visit the Carolina’s Aviation Museum located adjacent to the Charlotte-Douglas International Airport but they were closed. I was surprised to find a museum of this size, situated right next to an international airport closed, but that’s what the guard at the entrance gate to the North Carolina Air National Guard Base told me. So, I took a photo of their ‘Gate Guard’ and headed for my next museum.
Photo Credit: Bill Lites
Now I headed south 30 miles on I-77, across the border, to visit the Comporium Telephone Museum located in Rock Hill, SC. This small museum displays artifacts and memorabilia that records the history of the telephone and other technologies for communications in the Rock Hill area dating from 1894.
Photo Credit: Bill Lites
Leaving Rock Hill, I headed south 45 miles on I-77 to visit the South Carolina Railroad Museum located in Winnsboro, SC. This museum has several pieces of restored antique rolling stock and other railroad related artifacts. However, the museum is best known for its weekend hour-long train rides pulled by their restored 1927 Baldwin 4-6-0 steam locomotive #44 on a section of the Rockton, Rion & Western Railway.
Next, I continued south another 30 miles on US-321 to visit the South Carolina Military Museum located in Columbia, SC. This turned out to be another museum located on a military base that is closed to the public except by special pass. It was after 5:00, and I couldn’t get a pass today anyway, so I headed downtown to the Elmwood Park area to check out the world’s largest ‘Fire Hydrant’ located in the ‘Busted Plug Plaza.’ Standing 40 feet tall, this piece of ‘Art’ weighs 675,000 pounds and may be the reason it is leaning (not sufficient foundation).
Photo Credit: Bill Lites
Just a few blocks from the Busted Plug Plaza, I stopped on Hampton Street to take a photo of the ‘Never Bust Chain’ that appears to link two large office buildings together across an alley. Built in 2000 by artist Blue Sky (Warren E. Johnson), who is also the designer of the aforementioned World’s Largest Fire Hydrant. The ‘Never Bust Chain’ is said to be intended to ‘Bring Together Industry & Art Culture’ while others in the city describe it as a whimsical artistic prank. However, it should be noted that the ‘City Fathers’ must have had to approve its installation.
Photo Credit: Bill Lites
I was getting hungry by now and had looked up places to eat there in Columbia. The one I selected was the “Lizard Thicket” restaurant located in the Elmwood Park district on Elmwood Avenue (US-21). This restaurant specializes in regional Southern home-style cuisine (Soul Food) and I ordered their fried pork chops with collard greens, black eyed-peas, and creamed corn. It was served with freshly baked cornbread muffins and strawberry jam. What a delicious taste treat!
Photo Credit: Bill Lites
With a full tummy (I had enough left over for dinner tomorrow) I took my brown bag and headed for the motel there in Columbia. Greta (My Garmin) found the motel with no problem, and I got checked in. I got my things moved into my room, recorded my activities for the day, and went to bed. No need for TV tonight. I was too tired.
—–To Be Continued—–
Bill is a retired Mechanical engineer living with his wonderful artist/writer wife, DiVoran, of 65 years in Titusville, Florida. He was born and raised in the Southwest, did a tour of duty with the U.S. Navy, attended Northrop University in Southern California and ended up working on America’s Manned Space Program for 35 years. He currently is retired and spends most of his time building and flying R/C model airplanes, traveling, writing blogs about his travels for Word Press and supporting his wife’s hobbies with framing, editing and marketing. He also volunteers with a local church Car Care Ministry and as a tour guide at the Valiant Air Command Warbird Museum there in Titusville. Bill has two wonderful children, two outstanding grandchildren, and a loving sister and her husband, all of whom also live in Central Florida, so he and DiVoran are rewarded by having family close to spend lots of quality time with.
This morning after breakfast, I headed south out of Winston Salem 25 miles on I-285 to visit the Richard Childress Racing (RCR) Museum located in Lexington, NC. This museum has a great collection of NASCAR race cars and memorabilia about the lives, times, and drivers of the RCR team from its inception to the present day. Visitors can walk down thru the years of NASCAR racing with each RCR race car they pass.
At some point after leaving the RCR Museum, I heard a clicking noise coming from the front of my van. It turned out to be a screw in my left front tire. I looked up ‘Tire Repair’ on the internet, but they were all closed for the holiday. I drove slowly, trying not to dislodge the screw until I could find someone to repair it. Luckily the screw stayed intact, so the tire didn’t go flat. I finally found a WalMart Auto shop there in Lexington that was open, and got the tire repaired. Whew! I was afraid I would never find anyone open today. Thank you Lord.
After being saved by the WalMart Auto Repair people from a major desaster, I headed southeast out of Lexington 30 miles on US-64 to visit American Classic Motorcycles Museum located in Asheboro, NC. This museum has one of the country’s largest private collections of antique Harley-Davidson motorcycles dating from 1936 to 1978. The collection is displayed in a two-story building along with a gift shop, a motorcycle repair shop, and the Heritage Diner. Located at the intersection of I-75 & US-64, on the outskirts of Asheboro, this museum is a real All-in-One stop.
Photo Credit: Bill Lites
While I was in Asheboro, I headed over to visit North Carolina Aviation Museum located adjacent to the Asheboro Regional Airport. This museum has two large 20,000 sq. ft. hangers filled with around 15 restored civilian aircraft dating from the 1930s to the 1950s. There are lots of other aviation related artifacts and memorabilia, along with lots of model airplanes, in the Aviation Hall of Fame and the Piedmont Airlines display areas.
Photo Credit: Bill Lites
Now I headed downtown to visit the Carolina Classic Cars Museum there in Asheboro. This museum is a huge showroom filled with sports cars, exotic, and classic cars, as well as late model muscle cars and trucks that are on display by sellers for buyers to inspect. It is truly an auto buff’s eye candy store.
Photo Credit: Bill Lites
I headed southwest out of Asheboro 55 miles on SR-49 to visit the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame located in Kannapolis, NC. As it turns out, the Music Hall of Fame shares the same building with the CURB Music & Motorsports Museum. The N.C. Music Hall of Fame honors 75+ local North Carolina inductees and groups, from all music genres, over the years. The CURB Music & Motorsports Museum is the private motorsports collection of racecar enthusiast, Mike Curb, who is also the founder of Curb Records. The CURB collection includes NASCAR race cars, Indy cars and modified race cars dating from the 1940s and includes some 700+ wall displays and photos.
Photo Credit: Bill Lites
As I was on my way to visit the Stewart-Hass Racing, there in Kannapolis, I passed the Research Campus of the University of North Carolina and stopped to take a photo of that impressive building. I’m always surprised at the accommodations of some universities, compared with the old WWII wood-framed structures the university I attended used for some of their classrooms and workshops.
Photo Credit: Bill Lites
It was only a few miles to where I visited Stewart-Hass Racing, where I discovered NASCAR Cup Series champion, Tony Stewart, and Gene Hass, founder of Hass Automation created this facility to design and manufacture unique parts and assemblies for their winning NASCAR Cup Series racing team cars. The amazing capabilities of this facility blew my mind!
Photo Credit: Bill Lites
The next 10 miles south on US-29 went fast and before I knew it Greta (My Garmin) notified me that I had arrived at the Mustang Owner’s Museum located in the Carpenter Industrial Park in Concord, NC. This museum has on display some 25+ Ford Mustangs dating from the 1964 World’s Fair introduction model to the present. The museum also has a Mustang Hall of Fame for annual inductees and hosts local Mustang events throughout the year.
Photo Credit: Bill Lites
It was just a few miles to where I visited the Morrison Motor Car Museum also located there in Concord. Jimmy Morrison and his brother created this museum, which displays over 50 beautifully restored antique cars, classic cars, street cars, muscle cars, and modified race cars and motorcycles, some dating from the 1920s to the present day.
Photo Credit: Bill Lites
—–To Be Continued—–
Bill is a retired Mechanical engineer living with his wonderful artist/writer wife, DiVoran, of 65 years in Titusville, Florida. He was born and raised in the Southwest, did a tour of duty with the U.S. Navy, attended Northrop University in Southern California and ended up working on America’s Manned Space Program for 35 years. He currently is retired and spends most of his time building and flying R/C model airplanes, traveling, writing blogs about his travels for Word Press and supporting his wife’s hobbies with framing, editing and marketing. He also volunteers with a local church Car Care Ministry and as a tour guide at the Valiant Air Command Warbird Museum there in Titusville. Bill has two wonderful children, two outstanding grandchildren, and a loving sister and her husband, all of whom also live in Central Florida, so he and DiVoran are rewarded by having family close to spend lots of quality time with.
is far better than an opulent lifestyle with nothing but quarrels and strife at home.
A wise, intelligent servant
will be honored above a shameful son. He’ll have a portion left to him in his master’s will. In the same way that gold and silver are refined by fire, the Lord purifies your heart through the tests and trials of life.
Photo Credit:Pixabay
DiVoran has been writing for most of her life. Her first attempt at a story was when she was seven years old and her mother got a new typewriter. DiVoran got to use it and when her dad saw her writing he asked what she was writing about. DiVoran answered that she was writing the story of her life. Her dad’s only comment was, “Well, it’s going to be a very short story.” After most of a lifetime of writing and helping other writers, DiVoran finally launched her own dream which was to write a novel of her own. She now has her Florida Springs trilogy and her novel, a Christian Western Romance, Go West available on Amazon. When speaking about her road to publication, she gives thanks to the Lord for all the people who helped her grow and learn. She says, “I could never have done it by myself, but when I got going everything fell beautifully into place, and I was glad I had started on my dream.”
Here are more Christmas trees from Disney Springs Christmas Tree Trail:
101 Dalmatians tree (how appropriate for dogs!):
The Little Mermaid’s tree:
Sleeping Beauty’s tree
The tree for The Princess and the Frog:
The tree for Frozen:
Snow White’s tree
These are just a few of the trees. I will post more next time. We had such fun walking through Disney’s Christmas Tree Trail. The detail on each tree was truly amazing!
Judy is living in Central Florida with her retired U.S. Air Force husband of 50+ years. Born in Dallas, Texas, she grew up in the Southwestern United States.She met her husband at their church, where he was attending the university in her town. After college and seminary, he entered the Air Force, and their adventures began.They lived in eight of our United States, and spent six years in Europe, where their oldest daughter was born. She was a stay-at-home mom for many years .
Judy has always been involved with music, both playing the piano and singing. Always interested in exercise, she was an aerobic dancing instructor, as well as a piano teacher for many years, and continues to faithfully exercise at home.
After moving to Central Florida, she served as a church secretary for nearly nine years.Her main hobby at this point in time is scanning pictures and 35mm slides into the computer. She also enjoys scrapbooking.She and her husband have two married daughters and four grandchildren, including grandtwins as well as a great-grandson and a great-granddaughter. She and her husband enjoy the Disney parks as often as possible.
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Old Things R New 
