Nine Lives: Death and Life in New Orleans is the remarkable story of what happened to nine people between Hurricane Betsy and Hurricane Katrina. Their stories are true and bring to life both what it means to live in New Orleans as well as the effect of Hurricane Katrina.
I really enjoyed the book. Once I realized that I had not only met the first person introduced in the book, but that I had shook his hand and had lunch in his backyard, I was hooked! Ronald Lewis, a life long resident of the Lower Ninth Ward, is the founder of the House of Dance and Feathers. We toured the museum during our Lower Ninth Ward bike tour with Derrick.
But while we were there Ronald Lewis didn’t tell us that he rode out Hurricane Katrina in a hotel room – one missing a roof and a couple of walls! Or that after the hurricane he lobbied government officials, news reporters and the general public to come help rebuild the Lower Ninth Ward.
In addition to Ronald Lewis, Nine Lives tells the story of a New Orleans police officer, the wife of a Mardi Gras Indian, a band director, a woman from the Lower Ninth Ward who puts herself through college – twice, a transvestite, the city coroner, a wealthy uptown resident and a “black jailbird from the Goose”.
Dan Baum, the author, makes all of their stories come alive for the reader. His writing is full of empathy and compassion. I found myself telling everyone around me about the stories I was reading. For example, although you might think the police officer is a bit over zealous at first, when you follow him for days trying to find a place for Marie, a dead woman he finds right after the flood, you understand his desire to take care of his city and its citizens.
Everyone assumes that I get lots of airline and hotel points from traveling. I don’t get them from traveling. I get most of my points from credit cards.
There are two ways to get travel points from credit cards.
Sign up bonuses. Most cards offer a sign up bonus. Sometimes they offer an amazing sign up bonus. A couple of years ago British Airways offered 100,000 Avios points for signing up for their card and spending a few thousand dollars. I flew 3 of us to the British Virgin Islands on those points. Actually, I flew 3 of us down and 2 of us back. I debated just staying there but ended up buying a one way ticket back. Most offers aren’t that good but almost all travel cards offer some sort of initial bonus.
Earning points for spending money. All cards offer points for dollars spent, so you can earn points over time. I like earning Starwood points with my American Express Starwood card. We stayed at the W in the French Quarter every April for years on the points from that card. (We now use Airbnb’s.)
A couple of things to keep in mind:
One time deals. If you plan to travel within the United States in one year, you should know that Southwest will fly a companion for free on every flight you take if you earn 110,000 points in one year. So if you plan on traveling a lot next year with a partner, you should get the Southwest credit card (with 50,000 bonus points) and a Southwest business credit card (with 50,000 points) – start an LLC if you have to.
How to find deals. I don’t get any referral fees or points from recommending credit cards and I don’t follow all the deals. If you want to find out about the latest deals, I recommend following a blog like The Points Guy or One Mile at a Time.
Getting the deal again. Most credit cards will let you reapply for their initial sign up bonus every two years, so be sure to cancel any cards you aren’t using.
Have you found any good deals or ways to get points for travel?
It’s Thursday night and you realize you have some free time … how do you plan an impromptu vacation? That’s the situation Frank and I found ourselves in last weekend.
We decided to go do some Christmas shopping and then an evening out in Fort Collins, a city 20 miles away from us. We had an amazing weekend.
We booked a very cool bedroom in an art studio, did a brewery tour of one of the most successful, fun to work places in America, and hung out at a speakeasy inspired bar.
Our Airbnb room in the Fort Collins Artery, a hub for artists.
1. Pick a town or city close to you.
Pick a town or city big enough to have a few Airbnb’s with a good selection of restaurants and a few tourist attractions. A small city of 200,000 will do. A city is great. A college town has lots of potential.
2. Book an interesting Airbnb.
We stayed at the Downtown Artery. It’s a hub for artists in Northern Colorado. They have artist studios, a recording studio and an art gallery. Plus several bedrooms in the back for visiting musicians. The room was awesome – wood floors, interesting colors, remodeled bathroom – kind of what you’d expect from a group of artists – and the people were super friendly.
Our bathroom in our Airbnb room at the Downtown Avery in Fort Collins.
3. Be a tourist at home.
If you are like most people, there are probably lots of tourist attractions close to home that you’ve never checked out because … well, because they are in your backyard. We have friends that decided to spend a week in Denver (their backyard) seeing the sights they’d never seen.
We decided to tour the New Belgium Brewery and it was a fascinating tour. The tour was 90 minutes long and the tour guide was not only the happiest guy around but he had lots of great stories. I bet half the tour looked up jobs on the New Belgium website when we were done.
Several New Belgium employees have held their wedding receptions here.We also got plenty of samples to go with the great stories.
4. Pick one spot you wouldn’t normally go.
Our favorite dinner spot, Fish, was completely booked, so I pulled out the phone and checked out Yelp. We ended up in Social, a bar styled after speakeasys. The place had lots of atmosphere, great innovative drinks and just a fun vibe. From the outside, the place was just a small sign over some concrete stairs descending into the sidewalk. Inside it was a crowded bar full of people from all walks of life enjoying drinks and appetizers. (All walks of life but all with some money – the drinks were not cheap.) The table behind us first had a couple dressed to go to the opera (or at least what I would think of as clothes for the opera) and when they left they were replaced with a couple dressed in tshirts and tank tops sporting lots of tattoos and piercings.
The Social, a speakeasy inspired bar underground.The charcuterie plate at The Social.
And most interestingly, the acoustics were awesome. The place was packed (there was a line outside) and yet we could hear each other across the table without shouting.
And we had breakfast at the Snooze, recommended by our Airbnb hosts. They had an awesome menu!
Where are you going next weekend? Go plan a trip near home and then let us know what you did!
On our way to a wedding in Texas, we decided to take a day vacation and see something along the way. We didn’t feel like we had a lot of choices when we settled on Oklahoma City but we were pleasantly surprised by our choice.
The highlights were:
The Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum honoring those lost in the Oklahoma City bombing. Absolutely worth a visit even if you don’t consider yourself a museum lover.
The river walk. Lots of restaurants, shops and life.
College baseball in the big stadium.
Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum
You’ve probably heard of the Oklahoma City bombing. There is now a memorial where the Alfred P. Murrah Federal building stood and the building next door has been converted into a museum. It is an absolutely fantastic museum focused on the experience of those that survived and responded to the bombing that first day as well as the detective work that went into finding the bombers.
It’s both tear jerking and extremely motivating and uplifting. A few stories stuck with me. Like the woman who climbed out a window and down a ladder, went to the airport and got on an airplane and was in the Atlanta airport before she realized that she had been in the bombing. I could see that happening to me. The debris from the daycare center on the first floor was especially heart breaking. The story of all the first responders was amazing. The detective work that went into figuring out what happened was inspirational. They actually reconstructed the vehicle that had the explosives from hundreds of parts spread out over city blocks.
Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum
Go see the memorial and visit the museum. It’s worth it.
Museum of Osteology
On TripAdvisor I discovered that the number two museum in Oklahoma City is the Museum of Osteology and I was hooked. (I don’t know how many museums there are in Oklahoma City so I don’t know what it means to be #2 but I love things like osteology and anatomy.) My family humored me and we drove out to see it. We were all a bit worried on the way there. It’s a ways out of town, down an unlikely looking road and it doesn’t look like much from the outside. On the inside it was full of fascinating skeletons and trivia with several hands on experiences. Definitely worth a visit, especially if you are there with kids.
Museum of Osteology
Oklahoma City River Walk
In the afternoon we went down to the river walk and had an appetizer and a drink right on the water. The waiter gave the kids some crackers to feed to the adorably cute ducklings. (Sorry, I took pictures of my adorably cute kids instead of the cute ducklings.)
Feeding ducklings on the river walk.
While we were there, my partner discovered the Big 12 Championship college baseball tournament was playing. Actually, he made us follow the crowd to the stadium to see what was going on. He and our oldest bought tickets for $17 to see two games. They got awesome seats.
Big 12 College Baseball. Great seats, no crowds!
Our youngest and I went on a boat tour of the river. Afterwards we went back to the hotel and ordered pizza. I carefully researched our pizza options and ordered from the place with best reviews. The reviews were obviously not done by a 6 year old. There were green things on his cheese pizza!
River boat tour
Tornado Damage
It seems like Oklahoma City, a place I found to be very liveable and friendly, is best known for tragedies. We started our trip with an exploration of the Oklahoma City bombing site. We ended it with a drive through the tornado damaged area.
Tornado damage from the highway
Details
We went in May which turned out to be a perfect time to visit. We were able to enjoy outdoor activities like the river walk, the memorial and the baseball games.
We stayed at the Sheraton Oklahoma City on Starwood points and it was a terrific value. We ended up with two adjoining rooms that were very nicely appointed for less than one room usually costs us. The kids were absolutely thrilled to each have their own huge queen bed with huge headboards and over four pillows each.
Conclusion
If you are driving through the area, be sure to allocate some time to see Oklahoma City. It was worth a visit. If you could only do one thing, I’d recommend the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum that tells the story of the Oklahoma City bombing.
One of our favorite winter weekend trips is a train trip to Glenwood Springs!
The train conductors are always happy to pose with you. This one kept threatening to throw the kids off the train if they couldn’t produce a ticket!
The Denver train station has been recently remodeled and is gorgeous. We spent a while trying to figure out what the chandeliers must weigh but all we got was that there are 3 of them and they are 8 feet across.
Denver Train Station
Freight trains have priority so it is likely your train will be delayed at some point. Along the way you have a lot of time for playing games, drinking wine and watching the scenery. We saw big horn sheep, elk, deer and cattle. I never saw the mountain lions but the girl in front of me said she did.
Looking for mountain lions
You have a reserved seat and it’s much, much roomier than an airplane seat. It reclines and has tons of leg room. You can also get up and walk around any time, look for a seat in the observation car or grab a snack from the snack car. You can also have meals in the dining car. You need to make a reservation and it’s a bit pricey. The woman in front of us was a bit annoyed at her little kids for not eating their $45 macaroni and cheese meal. I assume the price was for all 3 of them!
Observation car – first come, first serve
On Saturday afternoon the observation car got a bit rowdy. Lots of drinking going on and lots of happy people saying lots of “bad words” as the kids pointed out.
The hot springs at Glenwood are gorgeous in the winter. We went at night with lots of steam and big snow flakes falling on our head. The big pool is 91 degrees and the smaller (but still huge) pool is 104 degrees.
Glenwood Hot Springs at night
There are lots of hotels in Glenwood Springs. Several very nice, historic hotels are right in town by the hot springs. We stayed at an Airbnb. It was nice (with a wild boar skin on the wall!) and would have been great for one family. A bit crowded with two families.
The kitchen in our Airbnb.
Last time we went up, we also took advantage of the snow to get in some sledding.
It was a long walk up but the ride down was worth it!Sometimes you couldn’t tell if it was laughter or tears …But everyone had a blast! A chilly blast.
If you go:
Book your tickets in advance at Amtrak.com. You want upper level tickets. The sooner you book, the better. Amtrak offers 100% refunds up until departure (so you can change your mind any time) and the tickets get more expensive as the train fills up. If you book enough in advance, tickets are $86 roundtrip. Kids are 50% off. The ride is about 6 hours each way, depends on the freight trains.
Book your housing.
The hotels nearby are the Glenwood Springs Lodge (which comes with free entry to the hot springs), Hotel Denver (right in town, great location) and Hotel Colorado.
I love Washington DC and I’ve been anxiously waiting for my kids to be old enough to enjoy it. There’s a lot of walking in DC – not only do you walk a lot between sights but you can spend hours walking around any of the dozens of awesome museums.
So when my youngest turned 7, we decided they were old enough and my dad and I took both kids to Washington DC for spring break. My dad also wanted to go to New York City – we’ll have to try that next. I thought at 7, Washington DC offered more exciting options.
Everyone’s favorite activity by far was the Spy Museum. I almost didn’t take the kids because it cost about $20/person but our oldest had heard that it was awesome from one of his buddies and really wanted to go. It was fabulous.
An exhibit in the spy museum.
In the Spy Museum, there were lots of hands on exhibits, spy equipment, rooms set up with real life scenarios and a lot of history in very digestible formats.I also learned a lot. Did you know that a bunch of school kids gave the President a picture that had a microphone in it? My favorite tidbit, because I can so see this happening in companies, was the fact that before Pearl Harbor, the Navy and the Army alternated who intercepted messages from Japan by even and odd days. That led to a lot of communication problems! We only left the Spy Museum after about 4 hours because we were all hungry. (Note that the line was really long to get in – I recommend going before they open to stand in line.)
Each kid got to pick one souvenir during the trip …
We also went to the Smithsonian National Museum of American Indians. It had a lot of hands on exhibits for younger children. I really enjoyed the exhibit of Inuit Indians as it resonated with the 3 years we lived north of the Arctic Circle as a kid.
Building an igloo model at the American Indian Museum.
We also really enjoyed the Natural History Museum where our youngest got tiger slippers which are still enjoyed today. The dinosaur exhibit is by far the best I’ve seen and the mammals are also impressive.
I took the kids into the American History museum just long enough to see the exhibit of the first American flag which I find emotionally impactful. Not sure they did!
Checking out an exhibit in the Air & Space Museum.
By the way, all of the Smithsonian museums are free.
When we went, you couldn’t tour the White House but we did tour Congress with Colorado Senator Bennett. While we were on the tour we realized that the other family on the tour knew my partner – they had gone to high school together. That’s what happens when the kids wear their Berthoud jackets every where.
Touring Congress
We stayed at the Four Points by Sheraton on a combination of points and dollars. It was really convenient to most of the sights, but if I did it again, I’d look for a place right next to a metro stop even if it was further out. I also debated between a hotel (with a swimming pool) and an Airbnb (with more space and a kitchen). The indoor pool was really nice for an afternoon break and one evening we ordered pizza and sat by the pool but if I did it again, I’d try an apartment. I’m not the only one to think of staying near a Metro stop – I found a website dedicated to hotels near metro stops in Washington DC.
One morning we ate at New Course a restaurant that hires and trains chronically unemployed and homeless people.
New Course, a catering business that hires and trains the chronically employed and homeless.
You walk a lot in Washington DC. One of the things that helped on our trip was that I had just gotten a Jawbone UP. My kids loved asking how far we walked. Most days we walked 5-7 miles. They saw it as a challenge.
We also visited a Tesla store where we all fell in love with Tesla.
Check out a Tesla, the all electric car with awesome performance.
On the last day, we had a food truck lunch. There were food trucks in several convenient locations that I’d recommend for easy, economical lunches.
During a recent trip to New Orleans, Frank and I decided to go see the famous Lower 9th Ward – the neighborhood devastated by Hurricane Katrina. We signed up for a bike tour with Confederacy of Cruises and had a very interesting, educational and fun day.
Many houses like this one can not be torn down as no one knows who the owner is. Ownership is not centrally recorded in New Orleans.
Our tour guide Derek is a native New Orleanian. When he was growing up, the Lower 9th Ward was one of those places you didn’t stop at, not even for gas. (Not that there were many gas stations nor grocery stores to mention.)
We got our bikes, got the very short safety spiel, decided to leave our helmets behind – it was hot – and set off. After a nice stroll through Marigny and Bywater, we crossed a bridge – probably the only “scary” part as far as biking went and entered the Lower 9th Ward.
Along the way we learned things like how emergency workers performed search and rescue after the flood and what the X meant on houses. They show that the house was searched, the date and what was found, including the number of alive and dead victims. Many home owners have preserved the mark.
An example of an X-Code on a house in New Orleans
After a stop for some awesome po’boys at Arabi’s, we headed to the river.. While we were there this man walking on top of the levee wall with a weight, stopped to talk to us. In a very musical voice, he started talking about crazy things like spy boys and Indians. I was wondering what was going on when I saw Derek discreetly motion to us that he would explain later.
My horrible picture of the Spy Boy. I didn’t know what was going on and if it would be polite to take a picture or not. (In retrospect, I think he would have been delighted to have his picture taken.)
Derek had a conversation with him and once he left he explained that the man was part of the local Mardi Gras Indian krewe.
A Mardi Gras costume. (Note that typically Mardi Gras Indians are from the African American neighborhoods.)
Most of us think of Mardi Gras parades as floats and beads and masks. But in the New Orleans neighborhoods, especially among black communities, Mardi Gras is about Mardi Gras Indians. They form krewes, led by a Big Chief, who decide the parade route on the day of Mardi Gras. The costumes and dancing are amazing. Later on the tour we stopped at Ronald Lewis’ house and museum the House of Dance and Feathers to learn a lot more.
After our our chat with the spy boy, Derek looked over and said, that’s a new brewery that’s opening, let’s go check it out! Turns out they had not even opened yet, but in between loading the truck for their opening party, they did give us a private tasting …
40 Arpent Brewery
After that we went to visit the area most devastated by the floods. The flood waters rose so quickly – something like 20 feet in 20 minutes – that many people ended up trapped in their attic as they climbed for safety and then couldn’t get high enough nor could they get out. It’s now recommended to keep an ax in your attic.
The roads in the Lower 9th Road were even worse than New Orleans’ roads in general. Something that I did not think was possible.
The neighborhood had a lot of empty lots and a lot of decrepit buildings. If you lived in the neighborhood before the flood, there is a program where you can buy a very cheap lot to build on.
Brad Pitt’s Make It Right Foundation has also built a number of homes in the area to promote growth. They are supposed to be environmentally friendly and more flood proof. There was a lot of mixed feelings about them. But they did all seem to be occupied and that part of the neighborhood seemed to be prospering more than the rest.
Home designed by Brad Pitt’s Make It Right Foundation
After that we started our ride home. At this point we started losing one guy a lot, supposedly to take pictures. Frank had heard that couple arguing earlier about whose great idea it was to take such a long bike ride.
We thought the ride was a good mix of biking and breaks. We don’t bike much but we didn’t have much trouble with it, although Frank did say his butt was sore!
On a trip to New Orleans, Frank and I got there a couple of days earlier than our friends. Wandering around, we saw a new bar on Frenchmen Street, Dat Dog. Or rather another location for an existing bar. It didn’t seem like it fit on Frenchmen Street to me. It’s got a lot of plastic and it serves hot dogs but Frank wanted to check it out, so we went in. The place did serve hot dogs and did look much more modern than your typical Frenchmen jazz bar. But the wait staff was awesome.
I had a Canebrake at Dat Dog’s. Good thing I took a picture because I was saying it all wrong and nobody understood what I wanted at the next bar.
Our waiter was named Dan and upon hearing that we were looking for something to do for the day, he went over the register and pulled off a sheet of paper and proceeded to make a list. His own personal list of favorite bars in the Marigny and Bywater neighborhoods.
Dan from Dat Dog’s list of bars
So we went to Marie’s. As Coloradoans used to non-smoking restaurants, we found Marie’s to be a bit smokey but the bartender was super friendly. Dan had told us who was working at Marie’s but it was someone else. She was quite interested in our list. She picked up a pen and added a few more bars that she said were missing. We ended up talking to her about smoking and Airbnb. She had a place that she owned in Marigny that she rented out through Airbnb or VRBO. One of the things that I like about New Orleans is that everyone seems pretty scrappy and self employed. Many of the tours we have taken were put together by the person giving the tour.
The taps at Markey’s
From there we went to Mimi’s and then Markey’s Bar. At Mimi’s the bartender added a few more bars to the list. Don’t worry, we didn’t end up visiting them all in one day! This bar crawl ended up being an entire week’s affair and we still didn’t make it to all of them.
We liked both Mimi’s and Markey’s. (We visited them both twice. Turns out they are good stopping points when you are walking from the French Quarter to Bywater.) Mimi’s is a corner bar with lots of windows and old wood. And dogs. Every time we’ve been in there there have been a lot of dogs in there – like the barking, pet dog type of dogs, not the hot dogs at Dat Dog. We were told they serve pretty good food but even though we went there twice over the weekend, we didn’t seem to ever hit it when we were hungry.
This is a typical Bloody Mary to go in New Orleans. I believe this one is from Marigny Brasserie.
Markey’s is a long wooden bar that is always full of people with a huge amount of beers on tap and a large group of locals that hung out there. I over heard some entertaining – or maybe just interesting? – conversations there. One between two women who looked to be about 30 years different in age were discussing a guy that I think they were both dating. There were lots of tears and hugs involved.
3 legged dog in a bar. This bar was very nice and let us bring our bikes inside when they saw we were having trouble.
Bacchanal’s is a great place to end up. It’s a wine shop with a huge outdoor seating area with live music and great food. You buy your bottle of wine, go outside with it, order you food at the counter and then find a good place to sit back and listen to music and enjoy a glass of wine.
The complete list of bar tended recommended bars ended up being:
Dat Dog
Marie’s
Mimi’s
B.J.’s
Vaughns
Bacchanal’s
Faubourg Wines
Delachaise
Lost Love
Rusty Nail
Markey’s Bar
Our favorites were Mimi’s, Markey’s and Bacchanal’s.
Taking a break from the pub crawl in the Bywater
I wish I could show you the final list of bars, but I can’t. I shoved it in my pocket with all my receipts and ripped it up at the end of the night like I do all my receipts.
My first vacation by myself was a pub crawl on horse back in Australia.
It turned out to be quite the adventure. Here are my letters to Mom and Dad …
***
Hi Mom and Dad,
Wouldn’t you know. I show up in Glen Innes and it starts to pour.
Hopefully it’ll be over by tomorrow at noon. The horse back riding trip is a “pub crawl”. You ride all day and you stay in rooms above pubs in small towns. (That’s what my room is now – just a bedroom above a pub. It’s called a “hotel”. Motels have complete rooms – TVs, bathrooms, etc, but no pub, i.e. no restaurant.) Since it’s raining, I opted for a hotel tonight so I wouldn’t have to leave for dinner, but then I left to find a computer anyway. The restaurant also looked very comfortable with easy chairs, so I might end up reading a book there tonight. (Everytime it thunders the light in my room dims.)
Outside the pub, a.k.a. bar, hotel and gathering place
You’ll never guess where I found this computer. (The library closed at noon and this was the only place in town with a computer and since it’s raining I didn’t have anything else to do.) Anyway, I’m sitting in the corner of a pub at the bar – on a barstool – typing away on this old computer! There’s a bunch of old guys drinking at the bar. (I asked for a beer and got a “new” – I’m not sure if that refers to the size (small) or the type of beer.) Quite a unique experience. At least nobody’s smoking.
Everyone here continues to be very friendly … I met a guy in his late 70s on the bus. (He was 22 when World War II was over.) He reminded me of Uncle Ted and he told me all about the towns we went through. He’s English but he’s been here since 1962. He has to go to Brisbane regularly for cancer treatment. He and his wife gave me a ride to the hotel. The guy in front of me was definitely a cowboy – he was going to stay with his “oldies”. How would you like to be called oldies? He said Glen Innes (pop. 9000) was too big for him. The lady in the front seat just wanted to talk to everybody that came through the bus door. They were all very happy that I was going to see the country, not just the beach like the rest of the tourists.
Dirt roads the first day. Countryside after that.
I am definitely in sheep country. Lots of sheep, sheep and more sheep. Lots of hills, a few cattle, lots of homes in the country and small towns.
Love,
Stormy
***
Hi Dad,
I’ll tell you all about my horse. I get to meet him/her after lunch tomorrow. We go for a short ride (2 hours or so) to make sure we all have the right horses. Then we stay at the ranch (or farm as they call it here) and we leave on Monday. Our bags go in a car.
The guy on the bus with me said I’ll probably be going to small mining towns. He said this area was/is known for sapphires.
If you have a fast connection, and want lots of detail, try this map: (I’m in the north part of New South Wales right now. The islands were off the Quensland coast.) http://www.auslig.gov.au/facts/map.htm
Love,
Stormy
***
Hi Mom and Dad,
I’m sending this from the Brisbane State Library. It is HOT here and I was looking for an air conditioned place …
I didn’t find any computers along the way. A couple of the publicans (pub owners) sounded like they had computers in their rooms but I didn’t want to ask if I could use them. (I’m sure they would have let me – everybody was so nice.)
I had a terrific time riding! Our start was delayed by a day because it rained so much the rivers got so high that first they couldn’t get the horses to us and then we couldn’t get out! (The “Homestead” – Bullock Mountain Homestead – is surrounded on all sides by rivers.)
There were going to be five Americans, 2 Australians (one originally New Zealander), and one German who has lived here for 30 years plus the owner, Steve a.k.a Woodsy, and Jo, his helper. However, the Americans bailed because they didn’t want to ride in the rain. They missed out – we had gorgeous weather! So there were six of us – four guests and two owners/employees.
New friends from New Zealand
Everybody except Jo had kids my age (actually, except for Renarda, they all had 25 year old daughters – and that’s saying there’s a lot of daughters because all of the Americans were in 2nd marriages). The group (of six of us) that ended up going was a lot of fun. We joked the whole way. Peter is a marketing manager for a large Australian food company. We nicknamed him “Buttercup” because he kept asking what brand the bread was. Renarda was German – she was quite a character. Very impatient and always at the front, but a good sense of humor. Robin was the New Zealander who is now Australian. She works in nursing homes – “aged hostels”.
My horse was an Australian stock horse named “Tia Maria”. Stock horses were bred for ranch work and also used as cavalry horses – they are endurance horses. She was 23 years old and about to be retired to 2 hour rides instead of five day rides, but she wanted to GO! She wanted to be first (she used to be the lead horse) and anytime I let her she’d take off. I spent most of the five days holding her back! That was fun. She was light brown with a dark mane and tale, and her back was about even with my nose, and she wasn’t fat, as the matter of fact, she was kind of bony.
My saddle gave me four bruises the first day (where the stirrups went into the saddle) but after the first day I was fine. Not sore at all!
The horses were tired after a long day too
We went from Bullock Mountain near Glen Innes to Deepwater to Torrington to Emmaville back to Bullock Mountain. The first day we went on dirt roads because the rivers were too high and the ground was all boggy, but after that we went completely back country. Across fields, through trees, over hills, through three rivers, … you wouldn’t believe some of the rocky, steep, steep, hills we went up and down. And I got my feet wet in a few of the rivers. Beautiful country. We went over rolling hills with lots of sheep. Lots of cute two-week old lambs! Through forests and past old mines. Scared lots of kangaroos. Saw some deer and some cows too. Went down a gorge. We also got to do a lot of trotting and cantering and we didn’t have to walk in a line.
Approaching a river crossing
We carried our lunches in saddlebags with a water bottle and just picked a good shady spot to eat every day. Then at night we stayed at a pub and had nice candle lit dinners. The first night at Deepwater we had a beer in the afternoon, then played a couple of games of pool, ate dinner and went to bed.
A night in Deepwater
The second night at Torrington we had a great time. When we got there, some women were playing scrabble, kids were coloring and guys were playing pool. The group I was with kept talking about the “locals” and how they wanted the pool table to themselves. I finally got sick of it, went and found Woodsy and asked him if he’d be my partner if I put my name on the board. (The night before I’d noticed he’d played a game or two of pool before.) Wouldn’t you know it – for some reason I played terrifically – and Woodsy and I actually held the table for a while. (I got a lot of grief because I’d turned down a game before with one of them saying I couldn’t play pool!) Then at Emmaville my pool luck deserted me so we sat outside talking to some of the people that lived around there. We met sheep shearers, bee keepers, horse breakers, ranchers, …
Got to run – thought I had this for an hour.
Love,
Stormy
***
That was back in 2001. It looks like you can still book a pub crawl through Hidden Trails and it looks like it’s still run out of Bullock Mountain Farm by Steve and Allison but it’s only a 3 day trip instead of a week long trip.
Have you ever forgotten what hotel room you were staying in? I have. Actually, I never know what number my room is, I just remember where it is – which hall and approximately where in the hall. And if I stay at the same hotel multiple times in a row, I have no idea which one is mine. (If my key card doesn’t work, I immediately quit trying, move away from the door, pretend I’m walking down the hall and try to remember which room I’m in.)
The now antiquated tech way to remember which room you are in is to take a picture.
Helpful cell phone picture of tonight’s hotel room number
The new way is to check in with the hotel app. You never even have to stop at the front desk. You check in to your hotel room like you check into your flight. On your phone. The app lets you check in, gives you a room and can always remind you which room you are in. And you don’t even need a key – your phone unlocks the door. Starwood Hotels are the first ones to let you check in with your phone and open your door with your phone using Bluetooth.
I wonder if you’ll be able to walk down the hall until you hear one of the doors click open?
by 
