Our Old Stomping Grounds

It was time to head north and see some of our other kids and grand kids.  So the trailer got stored and we took off in sunshine that then turned to rain.

We traveled through Charleston, West Virginia and had the opportunity to go by the first house that we lived in after we were married.  It took us awhile to locate it as the road system has changed with the interstate now going through there.  It had been located on the main highway out of Charleston to Ohio.  First we had to find the right "haller" to go up.  There have been a few changes to the front yard and there are now wood posts on the front porch where there had been metal.  Other than that, it doesn't look like many changes have been made.  Of course, it is a brick house so that stayed the same.  I wanted to take a picture of it, but my camera decided to go on the fritz.  So you will just have to imagine how it looked. 


From there we traveled east on a different road than what we have used before.  We got to do lots of up and downing.  Some were ten per cent grades.  We were glad that we weren't towing.  The trees are just starting to give a hint of showing their true colors.

While traveling through West Virginia, I made the realization that it really is the largest state.  It just needs to be ironed flat.  Look out Texas.

When In Rome

The saying goes that when in Rome, do as the Romans do. Since we are in Kentucky, we thought we had best do as the Kentuckians do, or at least some of them. So we went to the State Fair.


This is one of the first things that we saw, made completely of balloons. To bad some of my grand kids weren't along; they would have loved it. Zoom in to see the animals.


This is a very large fair with exhibits going and coming. We took in the 4-H and FHA displays. B thought their old restored tractors were great.

In the barns we saw pigs and sheep. The sheep were being closely sheared, different from when I was in 4-H. Beef cattle were just being brought in.

In other buildings we saw lots of quilts, and I mean lots. We looked at photos, paintings, antiques, flowers, bees and their production, tobacco, hay, lots of vegetables and only apples and pears for fruit. The largest watermelon was over two hundred pounds.

While we were looking at the vegetables we saw, in the bean category, some foot and a half long deep purple beans. I asked what kind they were and was told that they are a type of Asian bean. I thought, how many people are you serving, that's how many beans you need to cook. They must be a pole bean.

We saw lots of corn, mostly dried, along with many other seeds. We found out that the plants that we had seen driving here that looked like shorter corn with a bushy top, instead of a corn top, is sorghum. The seed is quite small. We also learned that you judge soy beans by the size and thickness of the plant, but mostly by the number of bean pods on each branch of the plant.

During the fair, for three days, is also the National Championship of American Saddlebred Horses. It was fun to watch. Some of their tails are dragging on the ground by a foot or more. As soon as they are leaving the ring, someone is gathering and knotting them up. They are beautiful horses. We also watched the double and four team mule teams be judged. It was also interesting.

There were lots of other performances going on in the buildings and on the grounds. Did I mention that most everything is indoors. With the heat and humidity in this part of the country it is understandable. The grounds are next to Churchill Downs. We listened to music groups and saw performances, such as these motorcycle riders. There was a tight rope walker before them.

Of course, a fair would not be a fair if it didn't have food. So we had some of it too. You can see who was doing the eating.


Okay, I did have some too.

There was free grandstand entertainment in the evening, some of which were well known groups. However, after nine hours there we were ready to call it quits. THANKS Louisville for a great day!

Fossils and History

Today we did a little exploring. Of course, we did I little research first. We stayed on the Indiana side of the river.

We started the day by going to a Farmers Market. We picked up some veggies and a cantaloupe that smells delicious. We will cut into it tomorrow.

Later, we went to check out the Falls of the Ohio. This is in Clarksville. There is now a dam above the falls. There is also a lot of the area exposed. This exposed area is a fossil bed. It was something to walk and see so many fossils.

This is taken from up by the interpreter center. Would you believe that the flood of 1993 came almost up to our feet?


Here are some of the fossils that we saw.


This one looks like it was a fish or it's tail.


How many can you see here?


I think that this is call Lacy Bryozoan.


Honey comb coral.


These were in an area just covered with more of these, pipe organ coral.


I think that this is a Knee Cap Coral.


Branching coral.





I think that this may have originally been wood .


This is Tusk Coral.


Tabulophyllum.



How many can you find?


Our third adventure of the day was to walk down stream on top of the levee for a little over a mile until we came to a park. This was at the park.


George is a brother to William Clark of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. It was here that those going on the trip gathered and then started out from this point, up the Ohio. To me this was special as I have had the opportunity to go many of the places that they explored.

This is a reconstruction of the home on the original grounds. It has a nice view of the river.


These were growing in the front of the house. They are some kind of lily. We saw some more walking back to the truck.


And last but not least, a view of down town Louisville behind the train and the Ohio River.

Kaycee, WY Part 2

We have all seen Westerns, at one time or another in our lives, where the town looks the other way and doesn't get involved in other people's pasts. Kaycee was once such a town. Of course, it does depend a little on who was writing about the history of the area.

An example of this is the Johnson County Cattle War. After reading information on it, it looks like both sides may have been right in some things and both wrong in other parts. Some of the small ranchers in the area may have obtained some of their herd from Texas and not paying for them. However, it is a known fact that the big ranchers wanted to get rid of the smaller ones.

North of Kaycee, in the town of Buffalo, there appeared on an early register at the hotel the names of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Butch was in the town of Kaycee and even had his picture taken with the other Hole In The Wall Gang.

This is why we stopped in the area. So on Thursday we took off to find it. About a quarter of a mile after we left the interstate, we were on gravel road. This went on until the last nine miles, which was a sort of dirt road out across pasture and plains. We drove around forty miles to get in.

Then we walked four or five more miles before getting there.

I apologize for how long this is and for the spots in some of the pictures. I am having some trouble with my camera.

This is how it looked as we started in.


When we came to this, it reminded me of the layers in the Badlands. I think it is all part of the same layer.


Then we started getting to the red layer.


This was our first view to where we were going. Note the prominent area on the left. That was a guide as the hole is to the right in the shadow area.

Current and past dirt road.



We saw this about half a mile before we started hiking. It gives some of the information on the area.

This was after we started hiking.



There was another couple who started out just ahead of us. We lost sight of them, then we got off the trail, cut across and picked it up again. We never did see them after that. They were gone when we got back to the parking area.



This is looking back at the truck. Can you find it? It is in the Lt. upper part of the picture.


We finally got to where there was a sign that actually told us just where the Hole was. We had thought that this was probably it. It is the center where the 'two wall' come together.



Use your imagination a little. I thought that this looked like the back of a very large Indian wrestling a buffalo down. The head of the buffalo is to the right.

This is B close to the wall and about half a mile form the hole.



At the time that the gang was hanging out here, others couldn't find where the hole was that they used to go up on top. You can pick out the trail. It goes to the left of the white triangle shaped rock and then across to the right and on up the rock layers to the top.

This is from the top.

It is fairly flat on top with steep drop offs.

I didn't make it to the top as I was overheating, so I waited at the bottom for B. It was over ninety but did cloud up by the time we started back.

B made up for my not making it to the top as he went twice. The second time was to try and find his glasses which he lost out of his pocket. He didn't find them, but still thought that it was worth the trip.