On our way home

From Mike:

You can’t get there from here.

      Picture this. Waking up on Saturday in Kansas City, MO, we found out that our hotel was situated in the middle of a closed circuit marathon--thousands of people going five times around a five mile loop. When we tried to leave at 9:00 a.m. we had to stop and wait for hundreds of runners to cross in front of us. The trouble is…they kept coming! The traffic officer said he was letting no one out until 2:00 p.m, five hours later!!! There was a Jockey in front of us, dressed in his knee-highs and vest, who was out of his car telling him he had to get to his horse. The officer was not sympathetic. When I said we had to get to St. Louis, and asked if there was a tunnel, he laughed. “No one is getting through until 2:00”, he said. What did we do? I realized that if I could make it to the lead runner it might be still early enough to beat him before he made it around the circle once. I turned my car around and started down the side streets. I would think I was free when Karen would see runners in front, so I would take an immediate left. I would go further, see runners, and take another left. Finally, after several iterations reminiscent of Steve McQueen in the movie Bullitt, I saw only one runner crossing in front of me and hoped the officer would let me through after he passed. Luckily, he did. I have no idea what people arriving any later did. Waited until 2:00, I guess.

Some places didn't want us to leave!

St. Louis

     After all that, I was stopped for speeding for the first and only time on our trip on the way into St. Louis. The exit we wanted for downtown was closed and a sign recommended we take a parkway into the city. I hadn’t noticed the speed had changed to 40 as I was trying to follow lady Garmin through all the turns. After a bit of reflection, I felt a sense of gratitude to these officers who keep the roads safe for us. The $96.00 I gave to the city of Clayton I felt was a small price to pay for our 13,000 miles of safe driving. We have left a bit of ourselves in every place we have visited. In Clayton, I left a bit of my wallet!

Like Karen, I loved Union Station in St. Louis.

 

     
A Favorite Memory of our trip

          We have seen so many amazing sites on this trip, but I have to say that one of my fondest memories was walking into my son’s house in Indiana after our drive over from St. Louis to the sound of our grand daughter running in from the dining room, so excited and screaming “Grampa and Gramma!” as she jumped up into my arms. Every time I think life can’t get much better, it does.


Grandson Thomas--grown so much in a just few weeks!

Kentucky: Turkeys, Horses, and Elijah Craig

      We toured the Wild Turkey Distillery in Lawrenceburg on our way back through Kentucky and it made me again realize that the culture of a place is more than just the physical geography. Bourbon (and horses) have been such an important part of Kentucky’s heritage. The county where Wild Turkey had it’s distillery once boasted over 115 distilleries but is now down to two (Wild Turkey and Four Roses) primarily because the others couldn’t survive during Prohibition. I wondered how many people lost their jobs in Kentucky during Prohibition, although I was amazed to find out that only 71 people are employed at Wild Turkey. Oh…did you know Bourbon county in Kentucky is “dry”, while Christian county is “wet” and the inventor of Bourbon, Elijah Craig, was a Baptist minister (Elijah Craig bourbon is distilled at Heaven Hill Distillery in Bardstown).

In Maryland you gotta have crab!

      Visiting Karen’s brother and family in Maryland was a delight. We toured downtown Frederick and I had crab cakes! A trip to the Baltimore region of Maryland is not complete without having crab in some form. Many thanks to Ed & Julie and all the kids for a wonderful time.

Studying together

Weary travellers beginning their trip home

We left after too short a visit to make a quick stop to have lunch with our daughter at college before we started our final leg home. 
Miniature Village in Pennsylvania
     I can not count how many fifties style tourist attractions we have passed that I have wanted to stop at. These attractions bring me back to my childhood as many have not changed in over fifty years--the same signs out front, the same souvenirs: metal iron trivets with painted sayings (you know the ones,“Vee get too soon oldt and too late schmart”)… I am a total sucker for all that stuff. Well, we finally decided to stop at the Roadside America Miniature Village on Route 78, just west of Allentown. Let me say this, it was way more amazing than I expected. It was a huge room filled with electric trains and models of villages around the entire United States. We were looking down at places from our entire trip: New England villages, Prairie villages, Native American, Midwestern, Western. I was in awe. Every half hour they dimmed the overhead lights and turned on the lights in the village houses and played patriotic songs with a light show. I was moved. Coupled with all our memories, it made a very fitting closure to our travels.

On our way home
After a trip to Dingman Falls in the Poconos, and a visit to Livingston Manor, NY, we made our way back to Boston and then travelled again to the coast of Maine before we headed home, a full circle.



Dingman Falls, PA



Final thoughts

It seems like yesterday that we began this trip. It has been everything we imagined it would be, quite an excellent adventure, but more than that, it has been an awakening to people and places and historical understandings that we didn’t expect when we started. We were not able to see all we wanted, or stay as long as we would have liked, but then there is always next time.

Thanks to all for following with us. It has been a pleasure.

---Mike

From Karen:

Just a word about the Miniature Village:  It was really pretty amazing to look down upon miniature versions of all the different areas around the country that we had just seen in person!  The village takes you on a trip through time where you can watch how this country developed and grew.  The patriotic tribute brought tears to our eyes as it included those very same songs we would suddenly be inspired to sing as we rolled along.  Again, that feeling of coming full circle!

--Karen