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Niagara Falls has always been on my list of places to visit, even as a young girl. Actually, as a kid I thought I would travel all 50 states by the age of 21. I never fully reached that goal, but by the age of 21 I traveled nearly every state in our great nation. I only have 4 states left to see. Maine, Florida, Hawaii, and Alaska. I plan on knocking out Maine before next weekend and Florida by end of the month. I had almost forgotten how wonderful Aidan and Oscar's friendship was. These two boys have played, laughed, and loved each other with open hearts. They are like two peas in a pod. They have told every stranger who has asked if they were twins their story of how they met at the age of 3 in preschool and how Oscar moved away. We bought friendship bracelets today so they could be reminded of their travels to Niagara Falls, and each other. It is these precious moments that makes me glad to be a part of Aidan's joys. Tonight we are staying to watch the fireworks at the falls, then we return Oscar to his parents and over on to Concord, VT where I will visit with my high school parents, the Fletchers... I lost contact with them for several years, and found them again a few months ago. First, I see Cathy, now I'm seeing her (my) parents. I'm blessed and so very excited/happy to be on this road trip, and able to reconnect with old friends as well as mark off some bucket list items from my childhood dreams.

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Race Tracks

OMG, the past couple of days have been filled with asphalt and racetracks.  It seems as though we’ve driven a million miles... but actually the odometer reads just over 2,400 miles on this trip... 75 hours of driving time.  My legs are completely swollen and I have no ankles... yikes !!  But for the most part we are having the time of our lives.  Aidan has  insisted we take slight detours to see racetracks and sports stadiums.  He’s delighted in seeing these “monuments” just like I’m delighted in seeing National Monuments.  I love seeing the world through Aidan’s eyes as well.  I would have passed these places by without him. I’m in just as much awe as he is seeing the famous racetracks.  AND Aidan seems to know everything there is to know about the tracks.  I never knew Bristol was only a half mile track with banks... or the Pocono track has a slight bank on the first turn, and shaped like a triangle and is very hard to race on.   So much to learn, so little time.

We’ve decided to stay two nights in Syracuse, NY as Aidan has anticipated seeing his best buddy, Oscar for so long.  Oscar is still in school, so we have little time to visit.  Tonight, Oscar is playing his final baseball game of the season, so we thought we would stay and cheer him on.  Weather here is a bit chilly.  Imagine that?  

I’ll have  to post more later, Oscar has just gotten out of school, and Aidan is about to burst.  

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Apparently I was driving all along THE most important route in America.   The Kentucky Bourbon Trail.  The trail consists of eight distilleries of which I passed by over the last two days without realizing what I was missing until it was too late: on a Sunday, on the way back to Susan’s house, after taking the boys to the water park, and gathering a few too many sun rays upon my face.  You know that saying:  “So many places, and so little time.”  Sundays around here have fewer hours to play in... nothing  opens until after Church (about 1 p.m.) and closes before supper (about 6 p.m.)  Honestly, I passed by everyone of them to and from my cousin Christina’s house near Elizabethtown.  

As we were passing through Versailles, Kentucky we came across this oddball castle sitting on this hill looking very abandoned and a bit rundown if you ask me.  I swear this place stands out like a sore thumb and compared to some of the estates we passed, the lawn was in terrible shape.  Susan thought it was once owned by Lee Majors the movie star, so you know me, that history researching fool that I am, I googled it.  Nothing about any movie star owning the place, but this is what I found out.   The Castle Post, also known as Martin Castle and Versailles Castle was built by Lexington, Kentucky home builder, Rex Martin. He and his new bride honeymooned in Europe, where she fell in love with castles. Upon their return to Lexington in 1969 he built her this replica of a castle, but they divorced before it's completion in 1975.  Martin Castle sat empty for more than 30 years.   Rex Martin never returned to the castle, and died in 2003. Miami lawyer and real estate investor Tom Post, who grew up in Lexington, purchased the property for $1.8 million from Martin’s heirs in 2003. He began renovations immediately, but an electrical fire in May 2004 destroyed much of the improvements and Post had to start over. He gave up his original plans to use the castle as a vacation home  and decided to make it a luxury bed and breakfast. By 2008, he had finished building a 50-room castle inside the walls.  It is currently up for sale for a mere $30 million.  (Choking right now.)

Check out this video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7eU_CFgYDs

For the most part, today was about being with family.  Aidan and I enjoyed visiting with cousins and just hanging out at the water park.  Tomorrow we are on the road again, and will be stopping in to visit with Cathy Fletcher, whom I haven’t seen in 35 years.  She lives in Johnson City, TN which is approximately an hour drive from my Aunt’s house.  Can’t imagine what kind of trouble we will get into together, but I’m sure we will have some great laughs.  The first of many friends from high school that I plan on seeing for the first time since June 1981. TTFN

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While on the way to Louisville, the Smoky Mountains were full on breathtaking! To take this picture I stopped in an area where people were setting up for a roadside yard sale. I told one seller I had "never seen anything as as beautiful as that..." Dude looks around and said, "What, the truck?" Spent entire day walking the city streets of Louisville. Aidan was thrilled to tour the Louisville Slugger factory and museum. Of course I had to buy him an authentic baseball bat. The replica of Yankee Stadium was made with 250 thousand toothpicks. The bear was made entirely with pine needles. It's as big as a large dog just to give you an idea how large and how many pine needles it took to make it. Pretty cool! Of course, some of the greatest ball players such as Jackie Robinson and Babe Ruth made history with a Slugger in their hands. Aidan was allowed to swing a couple of bats held by modern day greats as well. Such a fun experience. We also went to a glass blowing presentation, a kid's Science museum and tried to visit Mohamed Ali Center but it had closed by the time we walked over there. I didn't know until today that he grew up in Louisville. How sad to learn of his death and childhood background on the same day.

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So, I’m embracing life without Wi-Fi for the most part, but friends and family are stressing out because all calls are going straight to voicemail and I’m not responding to IM’s or Texts in a timely manner.  That being said… I’ll be hard to find for the next few days, and just read my daily blog so you know I’m still alive and kicking.  I’m determined to post before I go to bed.

Tonight is full of technical difficulties.  I could not seem to upload my pictures from the camera onto my laptop.  (Yes I found a cord to charge the darn thing, finally.) So I opted to upload without editing… so images aren’t cropped or detailed for the blog, but I finally got a few uploaded for posting.

We spent the evening at the 30th annual Seedtime on the Cumberland festival.  Mostly it featured a couple of artisans and lots of bluegrass players.  Aidan found a couple of boys to run around with while Susan and I enjoyed the live music. Thank you, Jesus for small favors and other little boys who can’t sit still for even a moment.

We actually had a pretty full day.  We visited Grassy Branch (Hippie Holler as I like to call it.)  Met up with an old friend who knew me when I was 19 and pregnant with Christopher.  He’s still the same, just older and more radical than ever. He likes to scoff at me and my Cityfied Ways.   I love that old hippie.  Then we moved on to another holler and checked in at Daniella’s “farm”.  My gosh, this woman lived in paradise.  She lives in a log cabin that she built with her (now X) husband.  The porch across the front of the house faced out over a pond/stream.   I believe she had at least a dozen dogs, some that greeted us at the top of the driveway and some that couldn’t be bothered to move from the chair (as pictured). Horse, donkey, goat, couple of cats, dozens of chickens and a few roosters.  Actually as we pulled in, there were two roosters fighting over one of the hens.  She posed for me with the winner.  We sat on her porch for a couple of hours talking about “stuff” and I can honestly say, I would have stayed all night sitting on that porch just enjoying her family and animals.  What a great Kentucky home.  

Tomorrow we are off to Louisville to see the Louisville Slugger factory/museum, and then on to my cousin Christina’s house where I will meet my youngest cousin for the first time, Ryder.  He’s about 2 years old and the spitting image of a Hull boy.  

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Meet the Yoders... or the Mennonites who work at Yoder’s.  One of my favorite trips into town is going to the Yoder’s market.  This place has the most amazing spices and homemade breads and cookies.  Not badly priced either, I might say.  Although !!!  My Aunt Susan can be an difficult cuss when it comes to the Mennonites. She thinks they (Mennonites) are hypocrites, mostly because they are nothing like the Amish and that they embrace technology, wear expensive sneakers and eat KFC in the park.  (Ok?) So we are shopping at the market, and they have some tomato and herb plants for sale.  Susan picks up an herb plant that looks a bit tired and puts it in the cart.  When we go to check out, she asks the nice lady in the bonnet if she could have a discount because she’s not sure the plant will survive.  After a bit of polite hesitation, the lady calls over the manager who is a younger woman, and that woman looks bewildered and has to call her manager on the phone.  This plant was only $1.25 to begin with, but my Aunt insisted the plant was not watered properly and suggests that these people water their plants more often.  The manager woman on the phone states that they water the plants twice a day and seems to be a little testy with my Aunt but she shakes her head and walks away with the phone to her ear.  I was starting to roll my eyes and I was about to say I would pay the $1.25 for this weak little plant just to move the line.  (Yes there were people behind us in line rolling their eyes.)   Gosh, $1.25, how expensive is that? The same plant in Denver would cost approximately $3.50, and would not look half as good!  Anyway, the manager hangs up the phone, walks over to her little calculator and says she will sell the plant for 95 cents.  With a sigh, my Aunt says she will take it and dutifully counts out the change.  When I got in the car, I was like, WTH?    Susan explains that she loves to aggravate the Mennonites (a gleam in her blue eyes and a giggle) because they seem to look down their noses at everyone.  “They make me mad because they are stingy about saving a dime, and that they are supposed to be such great gardeners yet their plants for sale are never watered.”  She points out that she liked (very much) disrupting the entire staff “You see, the cashier had to stop what she was doing and call over the manager, who had to stop what she was doing.  All the while these two ladies were taking their sweet time thinking I would give in and pay full price.”  I laughed and said, well you got them to give you three dimes off that stupid plant. Then she complained that plant should have been marked off by 50%.  Now you have to know, I’m in awe of Susan’s attitude and laughing my ass off at the same time.  I told Susan I would have to blog this story, and she was like, “why would you do that?”  I told her that this was the funniest thing I’d witnessed and that even though I knew her as the kindest soul around, she was a complete bitch at the same time.  She giggled her little giggle and made me smile all the more.  

I bought a couple of Woopie pies.  Aidan was more interested in the fresh salad he could make at Yoder’s and Three Musketeer’s bar.  He doesn’t know what “yummy” is until he bites into a Woopie pie.  Mom’s vacation gift to Christopher won’t be a stupid t-shirt, but rather $40 worth of spices and homemade noodles from Yoder’s.  

BTW, Susan’s blue eyes are exactly like her brother’s were.  I see my Dad’s mischievous twinkle in her eyes and face whenever she giggles that evil little giggle I love so much about her.  

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Well, we started out the day DRIVING (as if I haven’t driven enough for  the past three days) to Cumberland Falls.  Susan said it was only an hour away...more like 2 and a half hours.  We finally got there, the weather was warm and pleasant.  We walked down to the lower part of the falls, but they had closed off walking under the falls.  I remember visiting this place as a kid and walking under the falls back then.  The boys, Aidan and Parker, loved annoying each other in the car but climbed rocks, trees and stairs like little energized bunnies. Parker is just barely 5 years old, and we had to get him back in time for a t-ball game.  That was fun.  I cheered for all the kids on either team.  Most  of the parents sat quietly around me.... I think it was my pink hair that scared these hillbillys.  Oh well, I do stand out in a crowd.  On the way back, the clouds let loose and we drove in a huge down pouring of rain.  Susan and I talked about the old house that had the sleeping porch where we liked to sleep during a thunderstorm.  We miss that old house.  The mist or “smoke” rising up from the trees was a sight to behold.  I love the smoky mountains, and driving through the smoke was so cool.  It looked as though we were passing through ghostly images.  

I’m not  one to notice unique things, (yah right!!!) but I’ve been seeing these barns along my route that have huge quilted pattern images on the side of the barns.  I saw one on the way home today, and said I thought they were “unique”. My Aunt told me that there is a “movement” of barn quilts in Kentucky.  I wasn’t  able to take a picture of the barn I saw on the way because of the rain, but I plan on going back to take a picture of that barn and the many barns along the way.  Now that I know what I’m  looking  at and why it is important.   “The Quilt Trail project began in Adams County, Ohio, when Donna Sue Groves, a field representative for the Ohio Arts Council, decided that she wanted a quilt square painted on her barn to honor her mother, a lifelong quilter. Donna Sue shared her idea with friends in the community, who offered their help. They decided that if they were going to paint one quilt square on a barn, they might as well paint twenty and create a driving tour to attract tourists to their rural community. The project was such a success that word of it traveled quickly, and soon other communities were contacting Donna Sue asking if they could join in the project. Donna Sue offered her enthusiastic support.”  I guess the “movement” started in Ohio and has moved all along the nation.  I think I’ll get one for my barn (my dad called the garage  “the barn”).  I have to find a pattern I like... I’m leaning towards the Red White and Blue themes.  Maybe not, I have a genuine American Flag that hangs on my house always.  Might be a bit much(???) Or NOT!  

I’ve made a few quilts in my day.  Not very good ones really, but none the less I made a couple.  The first quilt  I built was a log cabin quilt, I was sawing it together for  myself when my Dad commented that it looked beautiful.  I ended up giving the quilt to him for his birthday that year.  I made another quilt called the flying geese.  Just as I finished it, my Aunt Susan announced that she had eloped... total surprise to the entire family.  I actually asked her if it was a shotgun wedding.  It wasn’t, and I shipped her that quilt as a wedding gift.  I made a few more quilts, but I never made one for myself.  I always ended up giving them away after they were made.  After Dad died, I brought the quilt upstairs, but I could never bring myself to put it on my bed.  AND to my delight, the flying geese quilt adorns the guest bed at my Aunt’s house.  I guess my cousin Christina has laid claim to that quilt whenever my Aunt decides to give it up.  (Until death do they part.)  I’m on my way to Amish country... I’ve got a quilt in mind that I’d like to buy, but not sure I can afford one bigger than a doll size.  LOL.  

Tomorrow, we are off to the Yoder’s store.  I’m looking forward to treating Aidan to a Woopie Pie.  Melinda (Parker’s mom) requested the brown butter cookies.  Christina (Melinda’s sister - both my cousins) is getting a surprise loaf of bread.  Susan, well, she’s happy to be driving tomorrow.  I’m sleeping on the way.  LOL

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Yet another day of travel. We have arrived safely in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Tomorrow we plan on touring the Corvette factory and museum. But first, I want to share the beautiful landscape of Illinois. The farmland is so majestic, the rich earth tones dotted by little white farm houses are indeed breathtaking. I cannot help but reflect on the concentration of trees as we travel East. I remember when I was a little kid in 4th grade flying out to Denver for the first time. Looking out the window of the plane I asked my mother where all the trees were the further West we traveled. Ah childhood memories. The trees travel along the riverbeds in Colorado and Kansas, which are few and far between. The Mississippi river is a definite game changer, we are in tree country once again.

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Please open the two Check It Out posts. Somehow I blogged on the Ireland blog and tried to move it over to the Roadtrip blog. I'm a nerd and not liking this tablet thing.

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Upon closer inspection, Aidan is buried in the bed, upside down.

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Download the app>payments>Add Lyft Credit Code

Type in 123GoFree >apply

Take your first ride for free (up to $20).

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Here’s what I’ve got for reservations on the road trip.  This will give some of you who want to hook up an idea of when I will be in your area…May 30th… St. LouisMay 31st… Corvette Factory & Museum in Bowling Green, KYJune 1st - 5th - Visiting my Aunt Susan in Hazard, KYmJune 6th - Visiting Cathy Fletcher in Tennessee (if she’ll have me.)June 7th - 17th Nothing “PLANNED” but driving from Tennessee to Philly, Niagara Falls, Vermont, Maine, Boston, have to take Aidan to Old Sturbridge Village for sure. June 18th - 21st Brookfield at last… Party at Billie’s…  LOL June 22nd - Ellis Island - NYC - maybe a Broadway show.June 23rd - Visit the Farm in Pawcatuck 24th - 29th… no specific PLANS - would like to visit  D.C. and the Mall area on my way to Florida June 29, meet up with my son in Orlando… visit my sister. June 30th, celebrate my birthday poolside. July 1st - Universal Studios? July 2nd…. NASCAR COCA COLA 400 Daytona Speedway Racing. July 3rd… Chris flies home. July  ???  Home again. Any suggestions for places to see and visit from my FB friends would be appreciated.  There’s a few National Parks we want to visit along the way as well.  Mammoth Cave may happen on the 31st along with the Corvette tours.

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Leaving on a Six Week Road Trip

Two days before take off.