Friday we drove to Deerfield Beach to have lunch with Mother. She made a delicious soup for us. Nothing like home cooking! After our visit, we continued to Hollywood and camped at a county park. Friday night we went to a comedy show in Ft. lauderdale featuring Kathleen Madigan, my favorite comic. Saturday we did … Continue reading
Well, we’re almost back home, but this is the part of our travels that is normally the least interesting. We’ve made the journey from Gainesville to South Florida (and vice versa) so many times that we now just endure it as a necessity to get out of Florida. So today we decided to do things … Continue reading
This evening, Kelly took us to the Rock Gym where she works part time. Trevor also works at a rock gym in Buffalo. Dale had gone rock climbing before with Trevor, but I had never tried it. It’s more fun than I had thought, and it’s also good exercise. I can see why the kids … Continue reading
This morning we had an early lunch with Kyle and Kelly. But, first, we stopped at Kelly’s house so she could show us her slack-lining skills. Trevor’s really good at this, too, and I’m guessing that Kyle enjoys this sport as well. Kelly tried to help me and Dale learn, but we didn’t get very … Continue reading
After caving, Kyle and Kelly and their gang drove to Atlanta and then home to Gainesville. We took our time and drove just past Atlanta, went to a movie, and then stopped for the night. The next morning we drove to Gainesville and then yesterday we drove a little further south to Micanopy where we … Continue reading
One carload of the college campers decided to call it quits and headed back to Gainesville, but Dale and I took their place in the second cave. The cave opening didn’t look that difficult, but it turned out to be a rock crawl for the first 50 feet. (That’s Dale in the blue shirt, white … Continue reading
Kyle and Kelly and their friends started a nice camp fire, which is a good thing because it dropped below freezing. Somebody brought sparklers! It was cold outside and they were all camping. We offered that if anybody got too cold, they were welcome to sleep in the RV. Kelly took us up on the … Continue reading
Next, we hiked up to the top of a giant sinkhole. Kyle and a couple friends had previously rappelled down into this and made a movie of that adventure. This is about where Kyle had rappelled down. Kelly went around to the other side with some of her friends. That’s about a 200 foot drop! … Continue reading
After caving, we all went for a drive to a giant sinkhole, but along the way we came upon a menagerie of animals made out of boulders. Kyle liked the giant chicken. I picked the rock turtle. Dale liked the calf. And Kelly went for the bucking bull! The real cows across the road thought … Continue reading
We got the RV set up by the cave and grabbed our flashlights to go see if we could find Kyle and Kelly and their friends in the cave. Dale was ready to go. We went into the cave about 100 feet and bumped into one of the cave caretakers coming out. He told us … Continue reading
We dropped off the RV in Scottsboro, Alabama, and drove the Jeep into the backcountry to find Kyle and Kelly and their caving friends. Kelly texted us GPS coordinates. On the way, most of the farm fields were picked cotton, but we found a couple that hadn’t yet been harvested. Further up the road we … Continue reading
We crossed the border from Tennessee into Alabama and the first thing we came to was “Big Daddy’s Hunting Supply Store.” it was a real culture shock! They had guns for everything: assault rifles, shotguns and even kid-sized rifles painted pink for little girls! Weird. They had stuffed trophies everywhere and I’m not lion.
As we were leaving The Hermitage, we saw what looked like a giant hamster run out of a hole in the ground. He got spooked when we walked towards him and ran back into his hole for safety. It was a Groundhog! After a couple seconds, he turned around and disappeared down his hole. Does … Continue reading
This afternoon, we went to The Hermitage, Andrew Jackson’s plantation, just outside of Nashville, Tennessee. Andrew Jackson was the 7th president of the United States, from 1828 to 1836, serving two terms. He was a frontiersman and a rugged individual, who became, in turn, a lawyer, a militia general and war hero, a congressman and … Continue reading
Yesterday afternoon and this morning, I did genealogy research at the archives in Robertson County, Tennessee, while Dale caught up on her reading. We’ll be leaving Tennessee in the morning to meet up with Kelly and her friends in Alabama where they are going caving and hiking. We’ll join them for the hiking, but not … Continue reading
We spent yesterday afternoon and this morning in the archives of Logan County, Kentucky, researching my Paisley and Driskill ancestors. The Archives are in the former County Jail. The people that work there are all volunteers and they were very helpful. You can see that they’re really serious about protecting the old records. The walls … Continue reading
Robert Paisley was a devout Presbyterian and, as I said, he was one of the founders of Red River Meeting House, one of the earliest congregations in Kentucky. Sadly, Robert’s first wife, the one buried next to him, died just a few years after they had come to Kentucky and Robert remarried in 1804. A … Continue reading
My posts for Tuesday will be a little out of order so that the flow of the story is a little better. After leaving Bowling Green, Kentucky, we drove to South Union, then Russellville where we left the RV, then Adairville in the Jeep,, then back to Russellville where we spent the night. Our mission … Continue reading
We had a pleasant night camping in the Mammoth Cave National Park campground, then got up for an excursion in the caves. Mammoth Cave National Park is the home of the longest known cave sysyem in the world, traversing 390 miles underground. We had made reservations the night before for the “Grand Avenue Tour.” The … Continue reading
Cincinnati sits on the north bank of the Ohio River. South of the river is Kentucky. After leaving Cincinnati this morning, we spent the day driving through Kentucky to Mammoth Cave. One of the great things about traveling without a firm plan is the ability to just go whichever way is of interest. So, when … Continue reading
We left Pennsylvania in the late morning and drove through Amish country, but didn’t see any Amish out, although we did see a number of horse-drawn carriages sitting in yards. Then it occurred to us that it was Sunday morning and they were probably all in church. Anyway, it was a nice drive through the … Continue reading
After doing our part to stimulate the economy at the outlet mall, we checked into a KOA campground and then drove around, looking for somewhere to eat dinner. We soon discovered that all those Canadian shopping tourists had to eat too and all the local restaurants had waits in excess of an hour. So, deeper … Continue reading
We left Buffalo after breakfast and started our journey south. We crossed into Pennsylvania, then went on a search for Amish country, but at the exit we were told to take there was a surprise for Dale: the world’s largest outlet mall! At least that’s how they advertise it. When we pulled in, there were … Continue reading
Last night in Buffalo, we took Trevor out for a pre-birthday dinner, then back to the RV to visit. Trevor has never had trouble making himself comfortable anywhere he goes. This morning, we took Trevor and the girl he’s dating, Sherrene, out for a birthday breakfast. Sherrene is from Malaysia and is in Buffalo on … Continue reading
Not much doin’ today. It was rainy in the Adirondacks, so we got a late start and drove back to Buffalo on I-90. The service plazas along the I-90 corridor have history kiosks telling the story of the building of the Erie Canal which I-90 parallels and occasionally crosses. The Erie Canal was a marvel … Continue reading
The Road Less Traveled 