October 14 - November 2, 2013

I know, I know, it’s been over two weeks since my last posting and I apologize to everyone who has been following our travels!! At this moment we are heading toward Columbia, SC from Charleston, SC with our destination being Atlanta, GA. Much has happened and these wheels have rolled over many miles since October 14^th; and so, the story continues.

We arrived in Fort Wayne, IN on October 14^th around 9:45 am at the Mizpah Shrine Center, which is located in the heart of the city. We were met by Queen Karen, her noble and a camera crew from the local TV station. To my knowledge the interview with Supreme Queen Margaret Ann, aired that evening on the 11 o’clock news.

From Fort Wayne we visited the following cities – Columbus, OH, Dayton, OH, Cincinnati, OH, Indianapolis, IN, Terra Haute, IN, Peoria, IL, Springfield, IL, Lexington, KY, Greenville, SC, Charlotte, NC, Columbia, SC, Charleston, SC, Atlanta, GA, Irondale, AL, Montgomery, AL, Gulfport, MS, New Orleans, LA and Jackson, MS which is our destination today, November 11, 2013, Veterans Day. Since I’m so far behind in my blog, I’ll keep the details of these last few visits to a minimum; not that these are any less significant than the other visits, so many wonderful things have happened, I’m just short on time. In Cincinnati we visited the Shrine Hospital which specializes in the treatment of burns. One of the things which I learned is that the number of severe burns has dropped significantly since fire safety education and regulations have been implemented. That’s not to say that this hospital is not busy because it is; however there are less severe cases being seen than in the beginning days of the hospital. Otho Daughters of the Nile Temple in Peoria had a tailgate party for us when we arrived with lots of really great tailgate food.

 

While visiting Lexington for four days, we toured the Shriner Hospital for Children and were there for the presentation of the second million dollar plaque from Daughters of the Nile, to that hospital. Hospital administrator Tony Lewgood was our tour

guide of the hospital and also assisted us with a special project which many of the Nile temples participated in. He allowed the use of the auditorium to set up a call center where we and some members of the Foundation, contacted the odd number temples by speaker phone to log their information and results regarding a 100 Year Project. The outcome was phenomenal and the participating temples all seemed to enjoy being part of this wonderful call-in! That day almost $50,000.00 was reported by the Temples!! Not only that, but the Daughters of the Nile Foundation voted to make a million dollar capital fund donation to the new hospital! We frequented a couple of nice local restaurants while in Lexington before moving on to Greenville, SC and the Shriner’s Hospital there. This is another amazing hospital in the Shrine Hospital network and whose main focus is orthopedics. The hospital was full of patients and activity that day….the theme of the hospital is jungle and jungle animals…really beautiful.

I have to talk about something that struck me so funny and in no way do I mean to insult anyone with this comment. After having spent the first 3+months of the tour in the north, and listening to the accents in the north and eating the food in the north, I had major culture shock when we hit South Carolina! After the banquet of Al Ansar Temple, and going back to the motor home, I said to Harold “I feel like I’m in a foreign country”. Don’t misunderstand me, I LOVE the south, their hospitality and their accents, however it was almost southern overload for the first couple of days!! The food…..well, I find it quite different from how I normally eat, but that’s okay, except that green beans seem to be the vegetable of choice every single night, and not only that but the beans are cooked and cooked and cooked and then cooked again until they hardly resemble what they looked like coming off the vine. Most of the foods are highly seasoned. In Charleston, SC, a truly southern city, the banquet food was interesting. Of course, we had green beans, southern style and the main entrée was something called low country boil? This consisted of sausage meat, potatoes, shrimp and small ears of corn all cooked together. Yes indeed, interesting. Maybe it was fashioned after our New England boiled dinner?! I truly DO love the South.