Sometimes in your life, fate puts someone into your path for a reason, and that is exactly how Polly Dyer of Maynardville became a member of the travel group The Miserettes.
Polly’s sister, Betty Brooks, worked at Bell South Telecommunications in Knoxville, and in 1996 she was asked to go to Atlanta to help get their equipment ready for the Olympics that summer. A chance meeting at this job between Betty and another employee, Janet Jernigan, who started The Miserettes, brought Betty and Polly into the fold. Miserettes is a loose organization with a goal of traveling on a dime budget.
The first trip that Polly took with the Miserettes was to France, where the group joined a commercially-led group that would tour all over France for close to two weeks. The trip started with an overnight stay in Paris.
The next day, we boarded buses and set out to the city of Lyon in central France. Along the way, we visited a part of the Roman aqueduct built some 2,000 years ago during Roman occupation. Then a few hours in Avignon where Van Gogh painted his famous garden scenes.
We drove along the French Rivera, viewed the mountains in the Provence area, to our destination of Monaco where we had time to visit Monte Carlo. We stayed one night in the luxurious Mediterranean city of Juan-Les-Pins and another night in the medieval-walled city Carcassonne.
Along the way, we visited the city of Lourdes, the home of St. Bernadette, chateaus in the Loire Valley region, and wine country. A great trip that took Polly to many parts of France.
On another trip, she joined the group for a trip to New York City and then later a weekend at the Hemlock Inn near Bryson City, North Carolina.
As is a custom of the Miserettes, when one of their members dies, they donate money to their home library to buy a travel book in their honor. In Polly’s case, she was an elementary school teacher for many years in Union County, so the group is donating funds to purchase books for Maynardville Elementary School in her honor.