Saturday morning we decided to drive into Huntington for a coffee and wander around the historic downtown area. Driving into the city we passed by Marshall University (remember the movie We Are Marshall about the football team that was decimated in a plane crash). We were told later that if this university was to close, the entire city would likely do so as well. Arriving downtown we discovered we had walked into the 8th annual Hot Dog Festival which features, yes you guessed it, Weiner Dog Races. We weren't able to get close enough to see the races but we sat at a corner window of a Starbucks and watched many little weiner dogs go by...
After coffee we wandered around the festival area for a bit then into a local restaurant where we had what is undoubtably the worst lunch of our trip.
Later we drove back out towards Milton and went to the Blenko Glass Factory. The factory was not open for tours but we had a good look around their gift store and museum while the skies opened up and it started to rain heavily outside. Lots of beautiful pieces but none that made our hearts sing loudly so we left empty handed. Interesting though and they had a really neat fence incorporating a variety of glass pieces...
Saturday night was, well, in a word, fabulous. Aside from James and Melissa's wedding this could be the top highlight for this trip.
We took in the 40th Anniversary show of the Mountaineer Opry House. We hoped it would be worth the drive across Kentucky and it definitely did not disappoint! We arrived early to make sure we got tickets and had lots of time to chat with various folks including the organizers, the Gabeharts who were part emcee, part headline band and some other long time fans of the opry house. One older woman Brian chatted with was really cute...
She said she has seen every saturday night show for more years than she can remember but she does remember that she attended the very first show 40 years ago. "I live just 5 miles up the road you know" she told me. I said she must be a super fan because she was sitting in the front row! She laughed at that and said "I guess so"...I asked her if she had an absolute favorite Bluegrass band and she said "... goodness, they are all so good I couldn't possibly choose, but I always come out on Saturday night. They have really good hot dogs here you know!"... what a hoot!
Anyway, this old hall (one might even say fire trap) probably holds upwards of 600-700 people and on this night was only about half full if that. The guy who organizes it told me that the whole area is suffering from the ongoing recession so some nights the crowds aren't so good but "... we get by". He said that they have top notch players scheduled a few times a year and the place is packed with folks standing along the side walls and across the back. We got the feeling that most, if not all of the players this night were playing for free... "...just happened to be around; sometimes we never know who will pop in and be ready to play...". Pretty cool old guy. There is some concern who might pick up the reins when he and his wife (she apparently does all the bookings) get too old (they are in their late 70's now) to carry the torch. We sure hope someone does.
The shows normally run from about 7:30 until 9:30 with a 15 minute intermission. This show started at 7:30 and finished after 11:00. They had so many performers and most of them are from right around the area; well maybe a county or two over. There were several past state champion pickers for banjo, mandolin, fiddle and guitar and they were all absolutely fabulous. At the end of the show they had everyone on stage to do the "will the circle be unbroken" song and at one point 5 champion banjo pickers were up front. One of the former state champion banjo players played a couple of songs with this grandson who is a very fine young (12ish or there abouts) fiddle player.
All in all a great night.
Sunday we decided to do the first leg of a loop through the backwoods of West Virginia, South east Ohio and northern Kentucky to just south of Cincinnati where we hope to see the Reds take on the Padres Thursday afternoon. Sunday's drive was pretty much due north along the Ohio river. Very winding and sometimes narrow roads through the valleys up towards the Hocking Hills where we stayed at the KOA in what might be the prettiest setting we have stayed in this trip. Near the office building there is a tree with several hummingbird feeders. We stood and watched as perhaps as many as a dozen hummingbirds flitted about and landed on the feeders....
... and nearby another tree which was obviously very attractive to hundreds of beautiful butterflies...
Monday we completed the backwoods loop from Ohio south into Kentucky and west across the northern part of the state towards Vevay, just south of Cincinnati. Again very narrow winding country roads. At one point the road got so narrow we thought we might have taken a wrong turn; stopped and asked a woman driving behind us if we were on the right track. She assured us we were and that a mere few miles down the road we would come to a much more significant cross road which is the one we were headed for. Along the way we stopped in Falmouth KY for a lunch in a little corner cafe. We chatted with the waitress and went out and showed her the wee trailer at which point she gasped... "... goodness, you've travelled 4 months in that thing... my marriage wouldn't have lasted 4 months if we had to stay in that... wait... my marriage didn't last 4 months anyway!" she laughed. Many of the small towns along the way have obviously been hard hit and many of the homes we passed by were small single and double wide trailers, most not looking all that appealing.
Tuesday and Wednesday were shopping, car service (oil change) and general sightseeing in and around Cincinnati. We stayed just outside of Vevay, Indian which is about an hours south west of Cincinnati on I-71. The drive into Cincinnati is not as bad as the drive into Atlanta but the traffic does move at a pretty quick pace and there are hundreds and hundreds of large transport trucks and it seems that none of them are shy about tailgating at fairly high (70-80mph) speeds...I.E maybe one small car length space to the vehicle in front of the truck.
Monday night we stopped in at the nearby Belterra Casino, left behind a small amount in the casino and had a couple of glasses of wine at the main bar while we watched a bit of the ball game. This place, sort of out in the middle of nowhere appears to have quite a lot of room for conventions and entertainment. In the lobby of the convention area they have a fabulous collection of guitars, all autographed by the performers. Some names we saw were B.B. King, Willie Nelson, Chubby Checker, Trisha Yearwood to name a few...
Wednesday, after getting the car serviced we drove up to the Over the Rhine neighbourhood of Cincinnati where we stopped in at the Rookwood Restaurant housed in the old Rookwood Pottery Studios. Pretty neat place with lots of fabulous old pottery on display. They have also fashioned the huge kilns into individual little rooms...
We had a very nice lunch followed by the best ice cream we have had since Grom in Italy. We tried a sampler plate of the different flavors but liked the "goat cheese with cherries" the best...
After lunch we drove over to the Cincinnati Art Museum and wandered around there a bit before calling it a day. A cool thing there is no entrance fees. Apparently some wealthy benefactor put up the money to support free entrance.
Thursday it was back into Cincinnati for the early afternoon ball game between the Reds and the visiting San Diego Padres. Outside the main gate they have a neat sculpture consisting of a pitcher, batter and catcher all three of whom are Reds greats...
We often like to sit in the Club Level at ball parks as it normally has great seats, better than average food and if it gets too hot out you can go inside and watch the game on tv in air conditioned splendor. In Cincinnati, they sell the Club Level seats as a full package including food and non-alcoholic drinks but the price is exhorbitant. Normally we have paid between $40 and $60 for those seats but here they are $85 to $100. Well there is no way we are going to eat $80 to $100 worth of food between us so we opted for nosebleed seats ($17 each) way up on the first base side (looking right down the first to second base line) where we knew we would have shade... and we did... and it was a darn good thing. The temperature hit over 40C and most of the rest of the stadium was in the full sun all afternoon. Being way up in the cheap seats means great views not only of the field but over the city beyond...
... but also means you are sitting where they seat the very large groups of young school/groups on a special outing.
Anyway, Great American Ballpark is a nice park in a nice location and as usual our home team mojo worked it's magic as the Reds popped a quick 6 runs in the bottom of the second then cruised to a 9-4 win.
Our record on this trip is now: Home team 5 wins; Visiting team 2 wins.
The game ended right about the beginning of the Cincinnati rush hour. We had thought we might wander around the riverfront and downtown area after the game but once again we hit a "too darn hot" afternoon for much wandering. It appears Cincinnati, being down in a bit of a bowl by the river is much hotter than up the hill south on the Kentucky side. We waited for the parking lot to clear before heading out. Our car thermometer, measuring outside temperature, hit 46C while in the traffic getting out of downtown but a number of miles south and at slightly higher altitudes it was down to 35C and was still at 35C when we arrived back at the campground where we immediately hit the pool. A bit later, for the first time since we have been here, another couple hit the pool as well. They are from a place near Lexington and the guy told us that if we were heading towards Lexington to stay off of highway 127 as it is known as the worlds longest yard sale. He said Friday morning might not be too bad but Saturday and Sunday, well, "plan to add a couple of hours to your trip"!
Friday we headed south towards Harrodsburg, just south east of Lexington. Sticking with our desire to stay off of the interstate, we did head south on highway 127 and buddy was right. We passed yard sale after yard sale while on 127, some of them with cars parked along the highway for hundreds of yards on either side and people walking all over the highway. Definitely slowed us down a bit so we could only imagine what it would do on Saturday.
North east of Lexington, at Frankfort, we left 127 to continue south on highway 60 in order to pass through Versailles (here it is pronounced ver-sails not like that other place ver-sigh). This is the home town of the fellow who taught us drawing lessons while in Rome with Marian a couple of years ago. If we ever run into him again we can say... "we've been to Versailles Kentucky!". It is actually a beautiful looking small city. Driving through this part of Kentucky it is really pretty. There are some 5,000 horse farms around Lexington and we must have passed a healthy number of them.
A little after noon we stopped at the Shaker Village at Pleasant Hill, a restored Shaker village with working craftsmen etc. We had a terrific lunch in their dining hall then toured the village for about 3 to 4 hours chatting with the various crafts people and watching them at work...
Later in the afternoon we headed off west towards Elizabethtown our planned stop for the night and the end of this week.
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