October 11, 2010

Our trip today with Curt and Judy Roper was to visit Opal’s Restaurant in downtown McKee, Kentucky. Curt had seen an article in the Blue Grass Energy’s Kentucky Living magazine about the restaurant’s pie master so we decided to check out the pie selection. We also wanted to see if the mountains are displaying their annual beautiful colors.

On the way we pulled to the side of the road to view “Tater Knob” located just outside of Berea in the Daniel Boone National Forest.

This is another look at Tater Knob.

At Opal's Restaurant the food was great and the service was excellent. As reported in the Kentucky Living magazine, Joyce Roberts has been the master pie maker since 1988. Her specialties are chocolate, coconut cream, butterscotch and lemon cream pies. She also makes fresh strawberry pie in season.

We had the opportunity to meet the owner, Kathy Carpenter. She bought the restaurant from her Mother, Opal in 1997. Opal opened the restaurant in 1984. Kathy’s daughter Megan was our server. We learned that Opal now has a restaurant in Richmond. We will have to try this one also.

Left to right: Kathy Carpenter, Megan Carpenter, Char and Ray.

On the way back to Berea, we stopped at Historic Indian Fort Theater located in the middle of the Berea College Forest. This is the location of the Annual Berea Craft Festival in July that this year showcased over 100 artisans from 20 States.

We enjoyed a peaceful walk down a paved path to the outdoor theater.

This is the Historic Indian Fort Theater.

As you can see, we did see some great fall leaf colors.

October 10, 2010 Correction

In the previous blog I mentioned my now favorite desert, Spoon Bread.  This is an error.  The desert at Michael's Restaurant is "Butter Roll".  My only excuse is that we are in Berea, Kentucky home of delicious spoon bread and I must have been thinking about this wonderful dish.  I will try to be a little more careful in the future when I proofread and edit our blog.

October 10, 2010

We’ve had beautiful temperatures for the last few days. It’s been in the eighties during the day and fifties at night. This is the perfect temperature to explore some of the great Kentucky State Parks. Today we went to Old Fort Harrod State Park at Harrodsburg.

The “living historians” described how the fort was reconstructed near the original site on a hill overlooking the surrounding area so the settlers could watch for Indians.

These great looking gourds are growing on the outside of the school house.

This is the corral and garden area.

The Lincoln Marriage Temple protects a log cabin built in 1782.

This is the original 1782 log cabin where the parents of Abraham Lincoln were married.

We enjoyed seeing this 88 foot tall Osage Orange Tree on the grounds. This wonderful tree has been here since the late 18th century.

In midafternoon, we left Harrodsburg and drove leisurely to Nicholasville and Richmond looking for the changing colors of fall foliage. After crossing the Kentucky River on the Valley View Ferry, we followed along Tates Creek.

The leaves are starting to turn. We are staying in the area for another week so perhaps we will see more color before we leave.

In the evening, we went to Michael’s Restaurant in Ravenna, Kentucky with Mutt and Betty. The buffet was outstanding as usual and they had my now favorite dessert, Spoon Bread. It was very good.

October 8, 2010

We went to Lexington with Curt and Judy Roper today. We stopped at the Galls store to look for my favorite flashlight. They had them, I bought some, I’m happy. Then we had a nice lunch at Cheddar’s Casual Cafe. On the way back to Berea, we stopped at Curt and Judy’s son, Brent’s home. We had not seen Brent for many years and this was a wonderful visit.

After returning home to Berea, Char and I drove to Richmond for an evening “Car Cruise” at the Dairy Queen. Mutt and Betty have a 1973 Buick Riviera they take to cars shows during the summer and early fall. They have lots of trophies from entering competitions.

This is Mutt and Betty’s Riviera.

I think this 1950 Ford was Char’s favorite.

I’m undecided whether this or the next car is my favorite.

This is similar to Mutt's favorite game, pitching horseshoes. Unfortunately, today was not his day to win.

Char and Betty had a good time relaxing and visiting.

Soon the sun went down, the cruise was over and we headed back to our motor home. We had another fun day with good friends.

October 4, 2010

Today we went to see Linc and Donna Fisch, our son-in-law Karl’s parents. We went out for a nice lunch and then Linc drove us around Lexington so we could see some of the painted horse statues. There are 82 at various locations throughout the downtown area. We used to live in Lexington but Char and I felt like we were in some other town. We had a difficult time recognizing where we were. This town has grown much larger and greatly changed since we lived here. And now with lots of people from around the world in town to see the World Equestrian Games, it is difficult to get around the area. But with Linc the master driver and Donna the expert navigator, we negotiated the many crowded streets and detours and saw most of the horse statues.

Here are a few pictures of the beautiful statues we saw today.

Here left to right: Linc, Donna, Char and I.  This stature is in front of the Tates Creek Library. It is “Pride of the Bluegrass” designed and painted by Tates Creek High School Students.

The next two pictures are statues of foals designed and painted by Elementary Students.

This one is “Life Cycles” by Tates Creek Elementary.

This one is “Holding Hands” by Southern Elementary.

The painted horses will be auctioned off at Keeneland Race Track in December to support local charities. Thank you, Linc and Donna for a terrific afternoon. We really appreciated the tour of Lexington and seeing the many horse statues.

September 30, 2010

The summer hay crop is in the barn. The silos are full of chopped corn. The morning temperatures are getting cooler. The trees are changing from green to various shades of brown, yellow, red and orange. The corn fields are ready to be harvested. It is fall. This is my favorite time of the year.

Today we stopped at Sonny and Freda’s to say our goodbyes before leaving Indiana tomorrow. Sonny and two of his boys were picking corn and filling a crib. It was exciting to watch as the men brought the wagons full of corn in from the field. This is Amish Country and these Amish men are using horses to pull the picker and wagons. It was great to hear Sonny talk to the horses as he lined up the wagon dump chute with the elevator. He was standing near the rear of the wagon and not using the driving lines as he gave the team instructions. Step, back, whoa and the horse’s names were the only words he used. After the wagon was in the perfect position, he smiled as he turned to me and asked “Do you think they can do that with a tractor?” I was fortunate to see Sonny exhibit his skill and proficiency with a pair of horses. It was a delight to watch the coordination, cooperation and teamwork of the horses and Sonny.

 

Here you can see one son, Larry, waiting to exchange an empty for a full wagon while the other son, John, operates the corn picker.

Here a full wagon is coming in and an empty is waiting to go back to the field.

This crib holds 1200 bushels of corn and is almost full.

September 28, 2010

Yesterday we picked up Sonny and Freda in our motor home and drove to my Brother Bob’s house. It had been more than forty years since Sonny had been in the Westville area. In the mid-60s, Sonny worked at the Dr. Norman Beatty Memorial Mental Hospital in lieu of military service. He worked there for two years and met many people from the surrounding area farms. Some of these farms he often worked at milking cows, baling hay and performing other farm duties.

Last evening, Bob invited an old friend over so Sonny and Freda could reminisce about things that happened in the past. We had a good time listening and learning from everyone.

Today, we drove around the old hospital area. When the hospital was built in 1945 it consisted of 50 main buildings that housed 1750 patients in the civil section and around 500 in the maximum security area. In 1979 the hospital was converted into the Indiana State Correctional Facility with an average daily population of around 2700 prisoners. Of course we couldn’t get very close but Sonny still was able to recognize some of the buildings that he worked in. He also enlightened us with stories of some of the patients that once lived there.

After seeing the prison, we drove to various farms where Bob and Jan had made arrangements to visit with some of the people Sonny and Freda wanted to see.

We had a great two days and I know that Sonny and Freda had a wonderful time also.

September 25, 2010

We are back in Shipshewana, Indiana for a few days. When we were here earlier, we heard about a Mexican Restaurant in the area called BJ’s. Friends described a menu item called a “Chicken Haystack” for us that sounded very good. The restaurant is only open on Friday and Saturday nights from 4:00 p.m. until 8:00 p.m. We went to BJ’s for dinner tonight with our friends. Everyone ordered the “Chicken Haystack”. Like most Mexican Restaurants the meal starts with chips, salsa and drink of your choice. The haystack is layers of the following: a base of tortilla chips, then lettuce, rice, beans, tomatoes, green peppers, onions, shredded chicken and topped with nacho cheese, sour cream and jalapeño peppers. Char and I didn’t eat the jalapeño peppers. A haystack can be best described as a wonderful Mexican Salad. It can be ordered with chicken or beef and it comes in two sizes, medium or large. We had the medium size and it was more than we wanted to eat. After dinner we can now say the “Chicken Haystack” is terrific.

Thank you Sonny and Freda for taking us to BJ's.  We had a great evening.

September 23, 2010

Today we did lots of things with Ron and Anna. We started at Young’s Jersey Dairy Farm for lunch that included a terrific milkshake made with their own farm produced ice cream and then a trip through the petting area. This was fun but the goats sure make your hands messy. The owners understand and provide lots of hand sanitizer after the feeding area.

For some reason the theme song from “Green Acres” was going through my head.

After seeing some fighter jets flying overhead, Ron took us to the Air Force Base to see them up close.

It was great watching them take off and land. I love that wonderful sound of power.

After the Air Base we went to the River Walk in downtown Dayton.

They have a spectacular water show every hour.

While we were walking along the river, Ron pointed out the Mendelson’s Liquidation Outlet. Of course we had to go and see if they had any treasures for us. We didn’t find anything but Ron and Anna did. Ron found some small magnets, a magnifying glass and some tote bags. Anna found a great deal on an exercise bike.

This is a very large five story building. Only the 1st and 3rd floors are open to the public. I can’t believe all the things they have. Tools, clothing, kitchen items, storage cabinets, exercise equipment, computer parts of all kinds, Christmas decorations and much more. We looked around for about an hour and I saw lots of things; most of which I didn’t have the slightest idea what it was. It would take days to see everything in this place.

We had another great day. Thanks Ron and Anna for a fantastic two days.

September 22, 2010

We are in the Dayton, Ohio area to visit our friends Ron and Anna Hall. This afternoon they took us to Carillon Historical Park in downtown Dayton. What a wonderful place. We spent a couple of hours and disappointedly had to leave at closing. There is so much to see we needed at least a half day more and then I’m not sure we would have seen it all.

This is the Carillon Tower.

This is the Newcom Tavern originally built in 1796. It is the oldest building in Dayton.

Char and I are entirely too happy in this picture.

As you can see, Ron and Anna are serious shooters.

This is an original bicycle built by the Wright Brothers.

This is the camera that took the photograph of Orville’s first flight.

This is the original 1905 Wright Flyer III. It has a wingspan of 40 feet 6 inches. It was made from two types of wood; spruce (ribs, spars and propellers), ash (various minor parts) and the wing fabrics are cotton muslin. The engine was also built in the Wright Brothers Bicycle Shop and developed around 21 horsepower. The total weight for this airplane was 710 pounds.

One of the buildings in the Park had a display of vintage bicycles. There were many to see. Next are pictures of our two favorites.

This is a Dayton Triplet built by the Davis Sewing Machine Company in 1896.

This is called the “Cygnet” because of its unusual swanlike frame. Notice the netting guard on the rear wheel to prevent ladies long skirts from getting entangled in the spokes and chain.

This is absolutely a place that you must see. I would recommend traveling from anywhere in Ohio or nearby States to visit the Carillon Historical Park. Arrive early so you have enough time to see and enjoy everything.