October 30, 2009 - New Adventure

Today I begin a new adventure. I'm planning to visit parts of the Midwest and South. I haven't been to the Midwest in over a year. The major highlights of the trip include the homes of Presidents Warren Harding (Marion, OH) and Abraham Lincoln (Springfield, IL), Branson, Missouri, to see some of their Christmas shows, and hopefully Texas. I have never been to Texas before.

This trip poses a new challenge from before. Rental car prices are higher than last year. So, time was limited. The challenge is: squeeze a lot of places into such limited time. This is more ambitious in terms of drive time than I have done before. But, I think I was definitely condition for it with last year's cross country trip.

The first stop on today's trip was the Basilica of Our Lady of Victory in Lackawanna, NY. This is a gorgeous church which has lifesize Stations of the Cross. There are numerous other carvings, small stained glass windows, statues, paintings, etc. The lighting is not the best and thus photos do not due it justice.

I last visited the Basilica in November, 2005, and have wanted to go back for years. At that point, I had an old digital camera which did poorly with indoor photos in a low light situation. My new camera did much better. I will have some photos posted soon.

After visiting the Basilica, I drove to Marion, OH. The total drive time (from home to Marion, OH) was about ten hours and approximately 600 miles.


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Why did I drive so far in one day? Warren Harding's home is in Marion, OH and had limited tours due to a Halloween party happening that day. This was the last day the house would have public tours this year. I didn't want to stop at a hotel two hours away and then encounter some sort of traffic delay that might cause me to miss the tour. The Harding home was about ten minutes from my hotel.

I have lots of free hotel points to use up. The Comfort Inn hotel in Marion took the bare minimum number of points (despite costing $80/night if I had to pay for it) and had excellent feedback on TripAdvisor.com. After seeing my room, I would say those ratings were correct. So, the long drive was definitely worth it.