Search results for 'kentucky'

For a brief and beautiful time, around the turn of the last century, utopian societies were in full swing. The shining jewel of these enterprises is Shaker Village in Pleasant Hill, Kentucky. 

One of my favorite road trips is to shadow Route 66 along its way west and back again.  Our road trip started in Louisville, Kentucky and picked up Route 66 in St. Louis and ended in southwest New Mexico. Originally, Route 66 ran from Chicago, Illinois through Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona before ending in Los Angeles, California. Route 66 served as a major path for those who migrated west specifically during the dustbowl in the 1930’s. They were looking for agriculture jobs in California.  Businesses along the route thrived until the interstate highways came along. Route 66 became the first highway to be completely paved in 1938. When the highway was decommissioned, sections of the road were deposed of in various ways. Route 66 in New Mexico has been made into the National Scenic Byway, being replaced by I-40.  

My wife and travel partner, Carolynn, saw The Beatles on September 3, 2023 at the Indianapolis State Fair. She was 13 years old. She sat on the 20^th row on the floor with her friends, Janice and Penny, and her sister, Sharon. “It sounded like being inside a jet engine. I knew then that something bigger than The Beatles was happening”, she told me recently. It changed her life. 

In the heart of Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville is one of the largest Gingko trees in the state of Kentucky. On a recent visit, we wandered into its presence. All the leaves were a bright yellow. It was 2:00 in the afternoon on November 8^th so the light was hitting the tree at a sharp angle. The reflections off the surface of these usual shaped leaves filtered throughout the giant tree. This tree is the volume of a two-story house with about 3000 square feet. I was told that all Gingko trees shed their leaves on the same day. The gingko is a living fossil dating back 270 million years. The word Gingko is derived from the Japanese word ginkyo meaning “silver apricot”. The realization that this tree was 150 years old reminds us to think about all the history it had witnessed and that we are standing in a sacred place. 

When we are way up in the mountains, in high altitude and thin air, our GPS decides to set itself on Sherpa Mode. It carefully maps a route that is Longest, Obscure, and Steep Terrain - L.O.S.T.

Such as the day we travelled from Asheville, NC to Renfro Valley, KY. When we left camp in NC, a simple turn to the right would have led to the highway in a couple of easy miles, but instead the GPS sent us to the left. So we traversed the Appalachian Mountains on the back roads for two hours: though hill and holler, over dale and dell, around switchbacks and hairpin turns. All in the motorhome.

“Kiawah should have been a poem,” someone wrote years ago, and how true those words are. Our first trip to Kiawah, May 1980, came about because of a friend’s recommendation. “What a funny name,” I said. He explained, “It’s named for the Indian tribe that lived there during the 1600s. In 1699, a so-called pirate named George Raynor was granted the land and after that, the island was handed down through two different families for the next 250 years. It was purchased again in 1951 then, sold to a real estate developer. You won’t believe how beautiful it is,” he promised.