Doll-a-Day 2019 #271: What I Did on My Vacation Part 1 and The Queen of Hearts

  Ok. I am home from vacation. We actually got home on Wednesday morning. I'm still catching up on my rest. I am still exhausted! I also feel really crappy. I'm not sure if it's the exhaustion and dehydration, or if I have caught something. Aaaaaanyway,here's the story of our trip.
  We were supposed to take off about 6 AM on the 14th. But because we're us, we didn't get started on the road until after 9. That's how it works with us. We could have been quicker if Ken didn't have to take everything we own on a trip. He literally took an entire laundry basket of things we never used,including a little grill, and a tiny oven that plugs into your cigarette lighter and can cook a frozen dinner while you drive in only about 10 hours. I had most of the things packed in the car before Ken got home from work the night before. But, when we got up he still spent ages packing things into the car.
  So once we were on the road we planned to drive all the way to Pigeon Forge Tennessee before we stopped.

"Are we there yet?" Tammy! Disney is later in the week.

  In researching where I might want to go on the trip I found that there is what is supposed to be the world's biggest Titanic museum in Pigeon Forge. I have always been obsessed with the Titanic, (The actual sinking,not the movie.),so that was the destination. We planned to tour the Titanic museum and then go on to the Nantahala National Forest to stop for the night. I had no intention of going to Dollywood. I don't even know what kind of things are supposed to be there. We were going to Disney, so how many theme parks does a person need anyway?
  That was the intention. I was truly starting to believe Pigeon Forge didn't exist. We tried following the GPS, (Mind you,, Ken has the worst GPS in the world.), the map, directions given us by passers by we stopped. Nothing worked. We could not find Pigeon Forge to save our lives. People kept telling us that once we got to such and such a spot in the directions they were giving us, we'd start seeing signs for Pigeon Forge. Don't you believe it. We never saw a sign for Pigeon Forge. Ken decided Pigeon Forge was like Brigadoon, the town in the movie of the same name, that appeared for only one day, only once every 200 years.
  So although we were supposed to get to Pigeon Forge about 3PM,in time to tour the Titanic museum before it closed for the day,we finally found Pigeon Forge about 9 or 10 PM. Obviously the museum was closed by then. When we got there it was dark and all the neon signs were lit. There was also some kind of car show going on...or maybe had just gone on. In any case there were people in folding chairs all up and down the street,and lots of obnoxious big trucks full of obnoxious guys driving around. The town was so...touristy and tacky. I was thinking that Dolly Parton is probably sorry for what her theme park has done to her home town.  Admittedly, it wasn't as bad in the daylight,but it was still wall to wall tourist spots.  Actually, there were several places that could have been interesting to visit,if we had had more time and money. There was the Alcatraz East Crime Museum.

This upside down building,Wonder Works.

 

The Hollywood Wax Museum.  (I love wax museums.)

And this place that, I'm still not sure exactly what it is. But it looks interesting.

  But we were worn out and still hadn't found the actual museum. So we decided to stop for the night and wait for daylight. So we parked in a Kroger parking lot and conked out for the night.
 

"In our new car!" Cue 'Price is Right' music. Actually it's a used car, but it's new to us.

  In the morning,after cleaning up in the Kroger bathroom and changing clothes crouched down in the car while it was still dark,so no one would see me,we asked directions to Shoney's, (Hey, even Titanic obsessors have to eat.), and the Titanic Museum. As it turned out,we were just down the street from both! (One in either direction.)
  We tracked down the Titanic first,just to make sure we knew where it was. We had almost been past it the night before,but had given up and turned around just before it! When it loomed into view it seemed stupid that we hadn't seen it before we did. What's there is built half scale,and is only about half the actual ship. It's still HUGE.
 

I think they overdid the iceberg though.

We turned around and went back to eat.
 

"Are we there yet?" Not yet! "But I'm wearing my Pooh shirt!" Too bad. We're not doing Disney today! Let's go in and eat!

After a Shoney's breakfast we headed  back to the Titanic.

"Ok. This is interesting."

Tammy appears to be waving at strangers. I see that my white hairs are showing. I have quite a nest of them at my temples.

   I've had an interest in the Titanic about as long as I can remember. It's such a tragedy,even more so because it could have been prevented. It's one of those stories that,even though you know the outcome, every time I see or read about it, there's the hope in the back of my mind that 'maybe they will make it this time'. Of course, the ending is never going to change. The fact that the ship was missing for so many years also added to the mystique. And add to that the fact that I like old things. All the things retrieved from the sinking, that survived intact after so many years under the ocean,also fascinate me. I have been to two Titanic exhibits, but this museum is supposed to be the largest Titanic exhibit, with more artifacts than anywhere else. We'll see about that.
  When we first went in there was a cutaway model of part of the ship. It was smaller than dollhouse scale,but still big enough to contain lots of detail. It showed various areas of the ship, including state rooms, a dining room, the deck, complete with tiny deck chairs. There were tiny people in period clothes wandering the tiny decks. I wish I could have photographed it,but there was no photography allowed. The picture below is from the official site for the museum.
 

That's the cutaway model in the middle.

I was hoping they might be selling the furniture in the gift shop,but no such luck. 
  There was only one area where we were allowed to take photos inside the exhibit. Ken somehow snuck this one. He caught me blowing my nose.
 

Hey, we had just encountered the Strauss's,and that always brings me to tears. Isadore and Ira Strauss were the owners of Macy's Department store. They were married for 41 years when they sailed on the Titanic. Ida was offered a seat on a lifeboat,but she turned it down,choosing to die with Isadore. It seems a lot less tragic and more idiotic when you know the full story though. When Ida refused to board the life boat without Isadore, Isadore was actually offered the opportunity to board with Ida. He refused, saying he would not take a seat on a life boat until all the women and children had boarded, and would not take a seat before any of the other men,essentially dooming his wife. If he had given in,he could have saved his wife's life.
  There were some interesting things. They had an actual deck chair from the ship,half of the existing life jackets from the Titanic,plus the walking stick with the electric light,carried onto one of the life boats by Ella White. White was on the second life boat to be lowered from the Titanic. She survived, and claimed the lights on the life boats had been practically useless. She used her walking stick light to signal the Carpathia, on the horizon,and to help the lifeboat to rescue passengers from the icy waters. There was a sign on the walking stick,on loan from White's great nephew,(who inherited it from his mother), that said it will be going up for auction in October. Researching when we got home,I found that it had only just been auctioned in July. So why is it being auctioned again so soon? I may have found the answer to that. Apparently two other great nephews of White's claimed that the walking stick had been left to their father,not his sister, and had disappeared from the family umbrella stand in the 1970's. Kind of horrible to be fighting over such a thing. There is a lot of money involved though, so I guess that's inevitable.
  There were recreations of a 3rd class stateroom,a 1st class stateroom,a hallway, which is where I was blowing my nose,and the bridge. There was also a full scale recreation of the grand staircase. It was smaller than I expected.

Although there were no photos allowed in the area of the Grand Staircase,I was allowed to take pictures in the area just off the upstairs landing. I cheated the rules by standing in there and taking this picture of the staircase.

  They had a similar wall of ice to the traveling exhibits I saw,that visitor's could touch,to experience how cold the night was. The recreation of the dark deck area had an area below that was supposed to look like water reflecting the stars from the night sky. There was a small trough of water the temperature of the water that night,which visitor's could put their hands in. Ken tried to see how long he could keep his hand in it, because he's like that. I finally had to make him stop because the idea of how much the cold water would hurt was freaking me out. Afterward he smelled like chlorine.
  So was this the biggest exhibit of Titanic artifacts? I was disappointed. There weren't nearly as many things rescued from the actual ship site as there were at the exhibits I've been to before. Most of the things were things carried off the ship by survivors, things that were never on the ship but had to do with it or it's sister ships, or recreations of actual things from the ship. Still, I did find it interesting.
  After touring the museum we visited the gift shop. They had some of the things the other exhibits had,which were in very poor taste. Specifically, I remember the same ball point pen, with a hollow shaft that held a  miniature Titanic and a tiny iceberg, floating in liquid and whacking into each other as the pen was moved. I thought that was disgusting. People died. Don't make joke pens out of it.
  Tammy World had a hard time deciding on a souvenir.

"How about this?" It's a little big.

"I'm thinking about this."

"Or better yet, this!" Definitely not. Beautiful, but I saw the price.

"Ummm..." No!

She finally found something though. Luckily something affordable.

Tell the readers what you have there Tammy. "It's a White Star Line china tea set by Wisteria. The White Star Line was the shipping line that owned the Titanic."

Nice.

Aren't these the ones that were on that shelf Ken leaned on and broke? "Yeah. I thought I should make it up to them.

  There's a billionaire who is building a replica of the Titanic called Titanic II. It's supposed to set off on it's first voyage in 2022. I wouldn't set foot on it. In case any of you are wondering whatever happened to The White Star Line,it eventually merged with it's rival, Cunard. Later Cunard was sold to Carnival. All those Carnival Cruises? They're the same company that launched the Titanic. No wonder I've always balked at going on a cruise! For the record, I have always been attracted to the water, but I am scared to death of it.
  Ken took this 'behind the scenes' shot of Tammy's earlier photo.

  From the Titanic we headed to Georgia,where Ken had booked us an Air B&B just outside Savannah, for our anniversary. On the way we drove through the Great Smokey Mountains. That was one of my favourite parts of our trip.  It was so beautiful. I was driving,so I wasn't able to take any photos,and Ken refused to take many while the car was moving during the whole trip. They couldn't be perfect enough. I found that really frustrating, since I was seeing so many gorgeous potential photographs I couldn't take when I was driving!
  It was late when we got there because we kept getting lost again. That was a theme on this trip. But we finally arrived. Our hosts were really nice,as was their cute little dog, Pistol.

  Once at our destination I took the opportunity to touch up Lori's gift. Remember I said I was working on a special gift for her? Well, it was a sign for her farm. She's always wanted one. She named it years ago,way back two houses ago. But she never had a sign. So I had the stupid idea to make her one.

I say stupid idea because I had plans that didn't work out, and I ruined it. It was supposed to have fancy curly metal work  on the top and spindles at the sides. We tried to put it together at Lori's later in the week,and when we were trying to screw the metal part to the sign part, the screw came out the side of the sign and eventually I moved the metal and the wood split. Then we tried just nailing the spindles to the sides and the nail kept bending before it even went all the way through the spindle. It never even made it to the sign. I wasn't even going to give it to Lori. Then I decided maybe she could leave off all the other stuff, (which is what made it nice!), and just nail it above the doorway of her barn. (It was supposed to be a hanging sign. So the whole thing stunk.)  I originally envisioned it as looking like this:
 

Only with different wording, of course.

Yeah. Not so much. I couldn't find the pieces I wanted,and then messed up the pretty good compromise I had. Plus of course my lettering looks like crap.
  Anyway,we got ourselves to bed so we could actually be awake the next day, which was our 30th anniversary. The next morning we had breakfast, part of which we ate down by the water, sitting on a swing. This was our view.

  Unfortunately for Ken,this was his view.
 

Here's the back of the house where we stayed. I think our room was the little bit at the right.
 

After breakfast we took off to explore Savannah a bit. It was SO hot!
 

This is the driveway. It was so hot that just being outside long enough to get something from the car was murder!

Ken's goal,as usual,was to find a place to eat. Not right away, since we had just eaten breakfast, but for our nice anniversary dinner. We drove around the beautiful historic district of Savannah.  They have some gorgeous parks all around there.

"Are we there yet?" For heaven's sake! Just enjoy the day! Look at the beautiful place we are now.

"Yeah, that's nice..."

"...but when are we getting to Disney?"

We checked out The Old Pirates House,the oldest building in Savannah.

 

 We got a look at the original part of the house,built in 1754. 

I was getting into the pirate spirit, but it wasn't Ken's idea of a formal dining spot for an anniversary.

We still hadn't decided on anything to eat, but when we were looking around town it was so hot we gave in and had ice cream at historic Leopold's Ice Cream. We had two flavours,including the lemon custard,whose recipe has been unchanged since 1919.

We shared it.

See? Ken's eating part of it too.

The night before we had bought a bunch of things for a nice picnic,which we were supposed to eat on the way to Savannah. Somehow we hadn't ended up eating any of it. So I suggested to Ken that since we had planned to eat our picnic while we watched the sunset from the dock where we were staying, and it was getting close to sunset, that we had better go ahead and eat something, since otherwise I wouldn't be hungry again by then. (I know that was a run on sentence,but I had a lot to fit in that point!) So he was a little disappointed that we didn't go somewhere fancy, but he was appeased by the fact that we had Indian food.

  I'm not supposed to eat anything spicy now,because of my LPR. (Or much of anything else either. No spicy stuff, no citrus,no caffeine,no carbonation,no chocolate,no pineapple,no onion, no garlic,no FOOD. Add to that the fact that I already didn't eat meat, and there's not a lot left.) But hey, I was on vacation! So stick it LPR! Of course, I am paying the price now. There's been a lot of throat clearing, and a little coughing, and my voice got weird for a few days. I've been pretty good since getting home,so I'm getting back on track.
  Somewhere after we ate, when we were driving around looking at old Savannah again, the auto focus on my camera died. I haven't had to focus for years! My eyesight isn't what it used to be either, so there followed a lot of out of focus shots the rest of the trip!
  So later we went back to our AirB&B and watched the sunset.
 

While we were watching the sun setting on the water something weird started happening. It started with a helicopter flying past. Then soon after it came back the other way. Ok. Maybe we're near a hospital. Then a boat started across in front of us. The weird part was, the helicopter was following it,very slowly and low. Was it chasing the boat?
 

Were we about to see some big bust go down, (to use the TV vernacular of the 1970's)? Well we watched for ages, thinking we were seeing something confusing, but interesting. Confusing because the helicopter followed the boat all the way across the...bay?, but never really tried to catch it. As it turns out,the coast guard trains there a couple of times a year,and we were sooo lucky we caught one of them.  
  And I still wasn't hungry, so we ended up eating our picnic later in our room.
  So what is today's doll? It's one I found while we were out, at a resale/thrift store. She's The Queen of Hearts.

I had never heard of this doll before. But, as you know, I collect Alice things, including dolls, so I had to get her.

She was made in 2007.

She's part of the Barbie Silver Label line.

Which means there are no more than 50,000 of her.

The box is made to resemble a book, A see-through book, but a book nonetheless.
 

She comes with the hedge hog croquet ball.

And of course, she has to have something to hit that ball with, so she has her flamingo croquet mallet.

 

Her dress, which, according to her box, is not removable, has a playing card theme.

 

She also has a necklace with a red stone.

 

That hair is something of a bee hive.

Which held sculpt is this? I think it's the same one used for the Barbie Basics Little Black Dress doll.

It's not the Lea head sculpt, is it?

  So that's the doll for today,and the beginning of my vacation. Don't worry. There are more dolls to come during the rest of my vacation.