In a life that spanned nearly a century and witnessed some of the momentous events in American history, Elizabeth Keckley was born a slave. A gifted seamstress, she earned her freedom by the skill of her needle.

Keckley first met Mary Todd Lincoln on March 4, 1861, the day of Abraham Lincoln’s first inauguration as President. As she was preparing for the day’s events, the First Lady asked Keckley to return the next day for an interview. When she arrived, Keckley found other women there to be interviewed, but Mrs. Lincoln chose her as her personal dressmaker.

In addition to dressmaking, Keckley assisted Mrs. Lincoln each day as her personal dresser and helped Mrs. Lincoln prepare for official receptions and other social events. For the next six years, Keckley became an intimate witness to the private life of the First Family. Known for her love of fashion, the First Lady kept Keckley busy maintaining and creating new pieces for her extensive wardrobe.

In 1868, Keckley published a book “Behind the Scenes” in which she described her own rise from slavery to a life as a middle-class businesswoman. While acknowledging the brutalities under slavery and the sexual abuse that led to the birth of her son George, she spent little time on those events.

The book created a tremendous backlash in Washington D.C. as Keckley had unveiled what went on behind the public scenes of the First Family and revealed private and domestic information involving, primarily, a white family, at time when it was deemed inappropriate behavior to do so.

In 1892 Keckley was offered a faculty position at Ohio’s Wilberforce University as head of the Department of Sewing and Domestic Science Arts. Within a year, she organized a dress exhibit at the Chicago World’s Fair. She died in May 1907.

We are in Springfield, Illinois having traveled some 360+ miles from Arkansas.

Abraham Lincoln, was born in Kentucky in 1809 into a poor family. He lost his mother when he was nine years old and moved to Springfield, Illinois where he remained for most of his adult life.

Lincoln taught himself to read, became a lawyer and in 1860 was elected as the 16^th President of the United States.

His presidency was a firestorm from the word go. Lincoln’s election victory prompted seven southern slave states to form the Confederate States of America and before he had moved into the White House, the first shots were fired starting the Civil War on April 12, 1861.

Driven to maintain “The Union,” Lincoln confronted Radical Republicans, who demanded harsher treatment of the South, War Democrats, who called for more compromise, anti-war Democrats, who despised him, and irreconcilable secessionists, who plotted his assassination.

As the war progressed, his complex moves towards ending slavery included the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. Lincoln used the U.S. Army to protect escaped slaves, encouraged the border states border to outlaw slavery, and pushed through Congress the 13^th Amendment to the US Constitution which permanently outlawed slavery.

Lincoln was an exceptionally astute politician and managed his own re-election campaign in the 1864 presidential election. On April 14, 1865, five days after the end of the Civil War, Lincoln was assassinated by a Confederate sympathizer and died the next day.

Abraham Lincoln’s final resting place in the Oak Ridge Cemetery, Springfield, Illinois.

Mike rubbing Lincoln’s nose which is said to bring good luck!

Living where we do in Texas, it takes a couple of days to get out of the state and start for real on our road trip.

We spent the first night in Antlers, Oklahoma, en route to the Ozarks RV Resort in Oak Grove, Arkansas from where we will really begin our journey.

Oh my, what beautiful countryside we travel through: Talihina, Poteau and Fort Smith in Oklahoma, Bentonville and Bella Vista in Arkansas, before heading through Blue Eye in Missouri, a town which proudly boasts that it has a population of 36, and into Oak Grove, Arkansas which sits on the Missouri/Arkansas border.

We arrive very late at night as we have been on a winding road up and down the Ozark mountains for hours. As the passenger, is was quite concerning at times looking down over the mountain’s edge, with hair-pin bends at every turn which Mike navigated with great care and ease.

And, after setting up camp and enjoying a night’s rest, this is the view that we awoke too and couldn’t stop enjoying… Table Rock Lake. Wow wee, it’s beautiful! The temperature is to die for, there are no bugs, there is very little humidity and the peace and quiet is exactly what we enjoy! Oh boy, I could look at this view all day long!

A view of our RV Resort in Oak Grove, Arkansas overlooking Table Rock Lake. Located in the Ozark Mountains, the lake was created in 1958 following the damming of the White River by the US Army Corps of Engineers.

Today happens to be Global Tiger Day and purely by accident we are taking a tour of the National Tiger Sanctuary in Saddlebrook, Missouri, about an hour from where we are staying.

The sanctuary began in 2000, when Keith Kindade and Judy McGee founded a non-profit organization to keep the animals’ needs at the forefront of every decision no matter the cost. They recognized education as a vital tool for improving conditions for animals both in the wild and in captivity. Beyond education, they also wanted to teach about environmental conditions affecting the earth’s ecosystems and solutions that benefit all species of life.

Our tour was wonderful and other than a personal wish to replace the wire fencing with something more photographically acceptable to get a better close-up shot of these wonderful cats, which, of course, I know is financially impossible, I could happily visit every day for ever more!

Meet Merlin.  Merlin was rescued from a magic show in 2011 where he lived indoors in a small, concrete cage. He is 11 years old and weighs in at around 400 pounds. When Merlin is not sleeping in the sun, he enjoys playing hide and seek and tag with the keepers.

Niara arrived at the sanctuary in 2013, with four other African lions. She is the largest, and likely the oldest, female in the pride. Niara is a social butterfly of the group and gets along well with everyone (lions and human!). She loves to rub against the fence and get attention from the staff.

Princess and her sister Precious found their home at the sanctuary in 2014. Born in 2005, Princess weighs-in at around 250 pounds. Her stripes are brown and go darker in colour without sunshine. Princess was simply incredible to watch and thank heavens she and her sister are now safe and can live-out their lives in peace.

We are on the road heading to Antlers, Oklahoma, a distance of some 300 miles, on day one of our latest adventure.

I am not sure who gets to name towns and cities in the US, but whomever oversaw naming places in Texas, certainly had their fun.

We swing by Athens, circumvent Palestine, and on to Paris and yes, we’re still in Texas!

Texans have a good sense of humour and in the early nineties, the folks of Paris, Texas build a 65-foot replica of the Eiffel Tower that they market as the “second largest Eiffel Tower in the second largest Paris.”

Unfortunately, or coincidentally, in the same year, the folks in Paris, Tennessee also construct a replica of the famous French landmark which just happens to be five feet taller than the tower in Texas!

Now, rivalry in Texas is not taken lightly, and wishing to reclaim their number-one title, they add a huge, red-metal cowboy hat on top of the structure to make their Eiffel Tower taller than the one in Tennessee! Cute!

Ultimately the friendly competition falls by the wayside when the Paris Las Vegas Hotel and Casino completes construction of its own Eiffel Tower which stands at over 500 feet tall!

The Eiffel Tower in Paris, Texas.

We are off on our latest road trip and we have some new characters on board!

The usual suspects head the cast for this first part of our journey:

The Husband! Also referred to as “My Darling Mike” or sometimes “He who must be obeyed” (HA! HA! HA!) pictured here with his beloved Poppy-dog enjoying a craft beer at the Big Boss brewing company in Raleigh, North Carolina back in May. Poppy is rather partial to a craft beer!

Kitty Abigail, also known as Princess!

Kitty Archer, also known as “Bad boy” for bullying kitty Artie who is at home, and “Mr. Annonying” for his habit of jumping onto our bed every morning around 5 a.m. with the sole intent of biting noses and fingers!  

And, me, the blogger, pictured here with Mum at Beachy Head in East Sussex, England a couple of weeks ago.

I am back from Blightey and have 10 days to get organized for our next road trip!

We leave on July 27 and will stopping in Oklahoma, Missouri, Illinois & Wisconsin, ending up in Paducah, Kentucky for the solar eclipse on August 21.

I look forward to having you onboard! See you on the 27th!

Throw-back: me in 2005, in Beijing, visiting the Great Wall of China, in a bar, wearing a Russian deputy-dog hat! Go figure!

Over is a pretty village in Cambridgeshire with a population of some 3,000 inhabitants, and once a year they all turn out to support the carnival.

As high noon arrives, a motley mob of smiling, black-leathered Harley-Davidson riders head a procession of uniquely decorated floats through the village, cheered-on by locals who willingly dip into their pockets to feed a never-ending stream of collection buckets.

Once the floats have completed their tour, we head to the village green to enjoy the remainder of the day’s activities. There are carnival rides for the kids, stalls selling plants, home-grown and made produce, beautifully covered notepads and custom T-shirts, to name a few.

The organizers have worked really hard to arrange events for every age group; a kid’s disco, fire-stick twirling, live bands and, of course, a beer tent!

Thank you to the Jackson family who were wonderful hosts to my brother and I and to sisters Christine and Charlotte who did a fantastic job as part of the Over Carnival organizing team!

Nephew Tom Hagerty, left, with his Dad. Tom’s girlfriend, Christine, was on the carnival organizing committee.

The Seven Sisters is a series of chalk cliffs by the English Channel with a break in the cliffs created by erosion known as the Birling Gap.

The chalk cliffs form part of the South Downs in East Sussex, between the towns of Seaford and Eastbourne in southern England. They are situated within the Seven Sisters Country Park which is bounded by the coast, the river Cuckmere and the A259 road.

Occasionally, the Seven Sisters are used in films and television programmes such as Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and Atonement. They are a stand-in for the more famous White Cliffs of Dover because they are relatively free of modern development and are allowed to erode naturally keeping them their very bright white colour. The White Cliffs of Dover on the other hand are protected due to the important port they surround and are increasingly covered in vegetation and are greening as a result.

Birling Gap and the Seven Sisters chalk cliffs.

Mum & Dad enjoying the sunshine at the Birling Gap.

Eastbourne Pier, first completed in 1872, has been through several iterations in its interesting lifetime. The 1,000 feet-long structure is built on stilts that rest in cups on the sea-bed allowing it to move during rough weather.

During World War II part of the decking was removed and machine guns were installed in the theatre providing a useful point to repel any attempted enemy landings. In December 1942, an exploding mine caused considerable damage to the pier and nearby hotels; it had been tied to the stanchions by the local police, who were under the mistaken impression that it was fitted with a safety device!

Fire swept through the theatre in 1970 and a nightclub was built in its place. The nightclub remains today alongside a fish and chip kiosk, shops, an ice-cream parlour and typical English seaside amusements.

Eastbourne Pier, now privately owned by a Sheikh.

Victorian architecture dominates the style of hotels overlooking the sea.