Along the Way to Kentucky

Here we are driving from Cincinnati, Ohio to Campbellsville, Kentucky on the way to the Heartland RV Park. This is right across the street from Amazon.Com whre Judy will be working from October 17th to December 23.

Here we are driving through Lexington, Kentucky almost across the street fromt he airpoirt which is on Highway 55. All of a sudden you make a turn and there is a great big castle. It sits out in the middle of a big field. We had no idea there was a castle there.

After searching the web I found it under www.thecastlepost.com . It is a hotel andits not cheap either. Rooms are from $400.00 to $1250.00.

If you can't drive by it you should check it out on the web.

Cumberland Falls

We wanted to go to Walmart and get big items that where too big and heavy to carry back. Walmart is 2 miles from the campground. Most times we carry things in backpacks and have a couple of cloth grocery bags to carry it back. But this time we needed a car. We asked the owner of Heartland RV Park, Jeff if we could borrow his truck to go to Walmart. This time he said he would borrow us a car. We should go and see the Daniel Boone National Forest. It was a nice sunny day in the sixties, so we put Rocky in the car and went for a nice ride.

He gave us a Hyundai Sonata to drive. It was a 2008 and a pretty nice car. We drove about 70 miles and got into the Daniel Boone National Forest. This is a giant forest that runs along the east side of Kentucky from the North to the South of the state. While driving through the forest we saw a sign for Cumberland Falls State Park. The sign said it was 12 miles, so we decided to drive there. It was a beautiful drive through the forest. The road was winding, and the colors were still pretty bright. Last week the wind had blew down a lot of the leaves, but it was still pretty.

Cumberland Falls was a nice surprise. It was very pretty. It was the first time that I was by a waterfall and saw a rainbow right there. But I couldn't find the pot of gold. It is really an interesting place. It is the only place int he western hemisphere where they get a moonbow. A moonbow only happens when there is a full moon on a clear night and it creates a beautiful rainbow after dark.

They do have a lot of hiking trails there. There is a lodge, restuarant, swimming pool, campground with sites and cabins. You could spend a few days there . We were there for about an hour. Then we had to head back. We still had to get the shopping done, and return the car. All and all it was a good day.

First Times Still Amaze Me

Here we are driving down the road to get to Kentucky, not knowing where we are , Judy pulls out the cell phone with the GPS on it. We get all excited about using it for the first time. Then she mentioned the excitement we got out of it and that our kids think nothing of it because they think of it as part of the norm.

This and a conversation with Sara recently about all the history our generation has gone through. When we were in high school it was to late for us to learn new math, how to use calculators and the metric system. Which is why we have a hard time helping with homework. When we were in school there wasn't such a thing as home computers now there aren't many homes without one.

We did have vinyl record albums then came 8 track tapes followed by cassette tapes, and now there are CD's and MP3 players. What is next? Telephones went from dial to push button, from corded to cordless, and now we have cell phones with so many features who knows how to use them all. We went from analog black and white TV, to color, TV to High Definition, from a big wooden box TV, to skinny LCD flat screens which are now being expanded to 3D TV.

There are advances in science such as the space program. We were around for the first space rockets to the last flight of the space shuttles. We can remember the first walk on the moon. We saw it on TV as it happened. Anyone that was around could probably tell you where they were when this happened. We saw a lot of first. We saw the first women to run for vice president, then the first women to run for president, and the first black man be elected president.

We also lived through many disasters such as the Vietnam War, Desert Storm and the War on Terrorism. We lived through the bombing of the Twin Towers which completely changed every ones life. We lived through the assassination of President Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy. We lived through an attempted assassination of President Reagan and the murder of John Lennon.

We have seen burning of flags, draft cards, and bras, LSD and marijuana, Woodstock and protests. Now there is pollution and global warming. There have been space shuttle explosions, mass murders, racial riots and many new diseases (cancer, aides, diabetes).

I can just imagine what our parents saw and what they thought of it all. We are all just starting to take everything for granted. We all have to stop and start to smell the roses,. By the way that GPS really worked. We found where we wanted to be. Heartland Campground in Campbellsville, Kentucky.

Louisana Turtles

We're staying at Eastfork Campground in Ohio while waiting to go to Kentucky. The job at Amazon got postponed from September 27th to October 17th. This just meant we could spend more time with Sara and Kaitlyn. This helped out Sara to have a babysitter longer that would come to her house, so it meant she did not have to pack up the baby.



We will be leaving wither October 2 or 3 for Kentucky since Amazon will begin paying for our side then;even though Judy won't begin working until the 17th of October. We had to leave Ohio October 2nd to take advantage of the free sight.



So for our last weekend in Ohio we decided to invite my buddy Mike over to visit. We made Louisiana Turtles for dinner. They were pretty good and filling. In case you don't know what they are, they're hamburgers with hot dogs used for the head and legs of the turtle. The dogs are pushed into the middle of the beef patties which is topped with cheddar cheese and bacon the is woven and wrapped around the body. Then they are covered loosely with foil and baked at 400 degrees F, for 20-30 minutes or until bacon is crisp but not overly crisp.



We sat outside enjoying good company, good drinks, good times and a decent on match campfire. We drank so much that Mike had to spend the night. That was okay, be have plenty of room.

This is Really an Art

This happened a while ago maybe a year to two ago but it is still great. Judy and I were out grocery shopping at one of the Walmart she worked at. We actually got in a line with a cashier she was friends with.

I started to "feel a rectal transmission" (fart) coming so I got out of line and walked a couple of aisles away and let it go. I thought I was pretty lucky because no one was in the aisle and it was a silent one. So there was no reason to feel any embarrassment. So I thought.

I got back into line by Judy and whispered what happened. By this time the smell followed me. It was really bad (and this is not the great part yet). We're standing there talking and all of a sudden the woman checking out ahead of us asked the cashier what the terrible smell was. She didn't know so they thought it might be some bad food so they started smelling everything. In the meantime I am standing back there laughing so hare I was crying. They never did figure out where the smell came from.

Strange But True

When we left Wisconsin Dells, we knew we would have to come back to Milwaukee to bring Joe and Melissa their things that were still in Ohio. Joe had a lot of his gaming stuff there, Melissa her childhood memories. There was also some furniture that the needed. We knew we would have to rent a trailer to get this done. First we had to get the van fixed. Little did we know, after spending all summer without our car, that it would only cost $140.00 to fix. It needed a new distributor cap and spark plug. But at least it got fixed. After getting it back, we also had to buy it a new tire. We hoped this would not become a habit.

I decided to call U-Haul to see if we could get a trailer to take the stuff to Milwaukee. We knew we could not take a truck, it would be too expensive. A trailer would be $29.00 per day. The man I talked to got really excited when he saw our number on caller id. He knew it was a Milwaukee number by the area code. I explained I was in Milford, the family plan our phone is on was from Milwaukee. He thought if we were coming down from Milwaukee, we could bring his bed. He had moved to Ohio about a month ago, and was sleeping on an air mattress and wanted his bed. He said he would work out a deal on the trailer if we were interested. We went to set up the trailer, and got a great deal. We took our stuff up to Milwaukee, stopped at his parents business in Hales Corners and get his bed, and got the trailer for free. How sweeter of a deal can you get.

The day we went to pick up the trailer was weird. We got to U-haul about 8am. figuring we could get on the road by 9am. But this did not happen. The wiring on the van was messed up. We could not get the blinkers to work. The manager at U-haul ended up working on the van for 2 hours to get the lights to work. He had to cross wire it and when we turned on the left blinker, all the lights on the back blinked, but at least the brakes worked properly. I could deal with the blinkers.

We got to Sara's house just after 10am. We loaded up the trailer. This took about an hours. It was totally full, and we did not bring the Christmas stuff Melissa wanted. But we got all of Joe's and Melissa's stuff in the trailer. We did get on the road around 11:30 after getting gas. We knew this trip could be very bad. Chicago during rush hour. But it was not as bad as it could be. We never got stopped in Chicago, moved very slow, but got through. Got to Joe and Melissa's around 7pm. Got the trailer unloaded and got to set down by 8pm. We ordered pizza for dinner, and crashed their for the night. We stole Joe's bed.

The next morning got up to go the DMV office down town Milwaukee to renew my drivers license. We took the bus down town. We got a transfer when we got on the bus. We got to the office, got his license, got back on the bus and back to Melissa's on one transfer. When we got back we called the U-haul manager's parents business to let them know we were coming down. Said good-bye to Joe and Melissa and left.

We got to Hales Corners and got his stuff. They had the bed ready, but when his mom and sister saw how much room we had, they sent all of the stuff. We got it all packed, and got on our way. We left Milwaukee around 3:30pm. This meant Chicago during rush hour again. We could not win. We just kept driving.

We got to Shelbyville Indiana around 10 pm and was just too tired to go any farther. We asked if we could stay, and they said we could, but the police might give us a ticket for loitering. We decided not to stay and just keep driving. At the next exit, there was a Love's truck stop. We stayed there. We did not want to leave the trailer without anyone watching it. So we had to make sure we got to Milford after 7am. Then the manager would be at U-haul.

We left the truck stop around 6am. We got to Milford at 7:30 am. He was happy to get all of his stuff. Just like he said. We brought his stuff, so the trailer was free.

It was kinda of strange. We did not know this guy. He trusted us with all the things he had in the world. He did not know us before we called for the trailer. But this is the kind of thing Judy and I do. Some one needed help, and we did it. We do it for our family all the time, now we are doing it for strangers. But now we have a new friend, Steve at U-haul.

Our visit to Cincinnati

Here we are in Cincinnati visiting. By the time we decide to find a camp for the night all the offices at the campgrounds in the area I called were closed. So we had to stay at Milford's Walmart. This time the manager wasn't cordial. She sad we could stay, but had to be gone by 7:00am. This was okay because we had to be back by Sara's to babysit for Kaitlyn by 7:20am.

While we were by Sara's I found a state park named East Fork Lake State Park. This park was about 20 miles away. It was affordable. It accepted Passport America for Sunday-Wednesday for a 50% savings. It was $12.50 per night for a sight with electric. Thursday - Saturday the cost was $25.00 a night. We decided to give it a chance.

We map quested the route from Sara's house to East Fort State Park. Even though we should have followed the map in the book for Passport of America. We actually had the wrong address, but did not know this at the time. We started to follow the route of map quest. We were on a very busy highway, but the lanes were narrow. We started to get into an area that was becoming rural. This did not look right, so we called our friend Mike.

He told us we were going the wrong way. He told us a way to get back to the right road, but this was a narrow country road. Then we turned on another wrong road. We finally asked someone on the side of the road and told us how to get there. This was the worst one of all. This road actually said in part it was a single lane road. This road was so narrow that it would have been hard for two motorcycles to pass. This road was so bad I was white knuckling the steering wheel. I was glad I was in the motor home. If needed I could have sent Judy back to get me clean underwear. This road was all hills and curves. The scenery was pretty, but who could enjoy it. There were no shoulders on the road, and in some parts the side just went down a very steep hill with no guard rail. I am glad I did not meet a school bus on this road. It was about a five miles trip that took about 30 minutes to drive. I was never so happy to reach a destination.

After arriving at the park the ranger gave us a map and told us to go find a site and come back. After that drive we took the first open sight we found. We just wanted to stop driving the motor home this day. We went back to the camp office, paid for site, and went back to set up camp. We needed a rest after this trip.

This was a cool park. You actually could camp there with your horse if you had one. There was a section of the campground that was especially for horse camping. We were in the pet section. There were over 400 campsites in this camp. There were many trees. It was about a 2 mile walk to the lake. We did that walk once. It was hard for Rocky to make a 4 mile walk in the heat. A lot of people brought boats when they camped. It was a peaceful campground. I knew we would like it here.