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.