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Travel

West Virginia and Kentucky Summer Travels – Part 2

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As you learned on Monday, Mom and I have been doing a lot of travel this summer.  Dad’s in the Army, so we have gone to visit him, stopping in West Virginia on the way there or the way back.  Mom’s done it even more.  Last time, we learned out the trip to Elizabethtown, so now we’ll talk about Louisville for a spell.

Wings

I didn’t know why this guy was wearing bright wings, but I was glad he was.  As it turns out, there was a Gay Pride festival this day.  I have lots of friends who are gay, so don’t take this the wrong way, but I was kind of cheesed off that the entrance to the festival was set up right at the entrance to the waterfront area.  So, you were expected to pay admission to the festival in order to just walk down to the waterfront for a minute.  That would irritate me no matter WHAT kind of festival it was.  I shouldn’t have to pay to see the stinky Ohio River.

Steamboat

I persevered, and we found a spot where we could walk down near the water for free.  Here is a boat.  We didn’t ride on it.

It it keep on raining...

These are tall things with rungs – I assume so you can rope onto harbor (or whatever you call it) no matter of the height of the river.

Al's close up

Meet Al.  He was hanging out near the boat.

Al

About Al.

Conversating

Al is a hard guy to figure out.

Col Saunders

They have famous people’s faces on the sides of buildings.  More specifically, famous Louisvillians.  Here is…well…you know who.

Diane Sawyer
Diane Sawyer is also from Louisville.  You probably knew that if you’ve seen Drop Dead Gorgeous.  I met Diane Sawyer one time at the Rite Aid on the corner of Belvedere and Broad in downtown Richmond. She was picking up a few things before going to the Library of Virginia for some shindig.  She was super nice.

Bowman Field
Bowman Field.  On this trip, Dad was scoping it out.  Now, on days off, he flies sometimes.

Balloon Aeronautics
I took lots of other cool pictures of the historic airport.  It’s beautifully built – very 1920’s and I really dug it.  If you want to see ’em, you can ask me.  I thought that instead of beautiful architecture I would show you this bizarre balloon sculpture found in the pilot office.  Enjoy.

Big Boy
We went to this cute little place called Cafe Lu Lu for dinner, and I couldn’t stop staring at this painting.  I didn’t think to ask who painted it, but I totally want it.

Happy Balls

Thank God for Aunt Happy.  Actually, I didn’t buy these, nor did I taste one, but that’s some genius branding, that is.

So, that’s it for now.  Stay tuned for reflections of West By God Virginia.

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Travel

Tilting at Windmills

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So I’m in Poplar Grove, Illinois, visiting my beloved cousin while she goes through her last “bad” round of chemo.  A “bad” round is when they give you more than one “flavor” of chemo at a time.  She’s been getting three.  I talked to this this other guy (since I can’t help but talk to everyone around me) and he was taking SEVEN “flavors” at the same time.  It’s a heck of thing to me that doctors still know so very little about cancer.  Fix this, dammit.

On the way here we drove through pretty  much the entire state of Indiana.  My heart was in my throat when I saw this entire field of windmills.  It wasn’t just a field.  It was acres and acres and acres of windmills.  Mom and I exclaimed.  We marveled.  We took pictures that do nothing to convey the sheer awesomeness of this sight.  But here they are.

windmills
They are huge and imposing and beautiful, and they represent an effort that is about saving the world, not destroying it.

windmills go on forever
Look closely.  They go on forever.

in a row
This is probably the best shot.  See how pretty they are?

some stay still
We were on route 70, I think, when we passed this way, so I’m thinking that this is Benton County Wind Farm.  Not sure.  But the wind farms all over Indiana sell power to Duke Power – the main power company in Indiana.  Beautiful.  A power company that will buy wind energy to distribute to its customers?  That’s great.  I wonder how they charge the end user.  We know it is super good for the environment.  Read about Indiana wind power here.

Stay tuned for a post about two of the sweetest cats ever – Andy and Candy.  They have cerebellar hypoplasia.  And the hilarity ensues.

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Travel

West Virginia and Kentucky Summer Travels – A Pictoral Pt 1

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Some of these photos also appear on Facebook, but I don’t care, and neither should you.  Mom and I went to Louisville to visit Dad at the Army, and to Culloden/Hurricane to visit aunts and uncles.  We took this trip two times – once in June and once in July, and then Mom did it again in August.  Twice.  We’ve put a lot of miles on her car.  We’re leaving Tuesday for Poplar Grove/Rockford IL to visit my cousin, who is undergoing heavy-duty medical treatment.  We plan to spoil her with gifts and good humor.  So, here are some highlights of Louisville and West Virginia, along with my sparkling commentary. Part I – Elizabethtown, Kentucky:

Welcome to Elizabethtown

Dad technically lives in Louisville, but we went to Elizabethtown, Kentucky for a while one day.  This photo was Dad’s idea.  He’s a clever dude.  This was right outside the airport in E Town where we saw this:

I want to do that!

I know the picture’s kinda fuzzy, but you get the idea.  I so want to do this.  Unfortunately, skydiving costs money and courage in the form of a total lack of fear of jumping out of a FREAKING AIRPLANE, so I imagine this will be a bucket list item only completed upon the news that I am terminally ill or independently wealthy.  Let’s hope for the latter, shall we?

The people who were jumping were part of this organizaton:

Skydiving Kentucky

If you’re ever in Elizabethtown and can manage to find the airport (it’s a challenge), these are the people to talk to if you want to skydive.

We ate at this place:

Back Home Restaurant

I didn’t have high expectations.  I don’t know why.  Maybe it’s because I’d eaten some crappy food from elsewhere, or something like that.  This was super-delicious.  The restaurant is also a crafts and home decoration shop.  It started out as the latter, but as women would come to shop men would be bored, so they started serving coffee and tea and cakes and stuff.  The men got hungrier, so they started selling pinto beans and other stick-t0-your-ribs kind of food.  Now it’s a full-fledged restaurant that serves Southern Soul Food (capitalization intentional) prepared using family recipes.

Secrets

This is a member of the family, sharing with me the recipe for their hashbrown casserole, which differs from The Cracker Barrel’s recipe.  I’m not sharing either, because I have grand plans to combine both recipes into the Most Delicious Hashbrown Casserole Ever.

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