Tuesday, December 18th, was a beautiful day in December. The sky had a few clouds and the air was a little cold but it was a beautiful day. I hurried to the nursing home in the morning and found Papa asleep in his bed. Doing anything tires him out and he had been down to breakfast and that only means time for a nap after. I had told him for the previous two days that I would come and get him for a car ride if the weather report held true and we had a good day. Really, he is pretty much oblivious to what the weather really is and he just doesn't remember anything for more than a few minutes at best.
I gently moved his arm and woke him up. He assured me he wasn't asleep. He does this every time, bless his heart. As he struggled into reality after 'not being asleep', I asked him if he still wanted to go for a car ride. His eyes perked up and he assured me he really did. Our next process is for him to go to the bathroom while I go to the nurses station and sign him out for a few hours. Then we were off.
Our route took us in a southerly direction. Down through the horse farms in Woodford County and then further south across the Kentucky River on Hwy 33 which runs with Hwy 68 at that point. This is a really nice ride through rural Kentucky.
After crossing the Kentucky River, it flows down below steep tree covered hills to the left side of the road. The limestone rock faces give you a huge hint of Kentucky soil! It is a beautiful ride any time of year along this bit of highway. But this time of year the trees have lost their leaves and you can see the cliffs on either side of the river much better. What surprised us was these tall trees were full of turkey buzzards. I mean there were hundreds of them. I have watched 15-20 of these big birds soar over the creek in our back yard looking for something on which to dine. But this time there were hundreds just roosting in these tall leaf-barren trees. Not only where they all roosting but most of them had their wings spread open and were perfectly still. It really was amazing and just a little bit on the eerie side. There was no where I could pull over to take a picture. Hwy 68 is a federal highway but no shoulders there and no pull off spots. We just drove slowly as I watched for cars and took in this very unusual scene. Wow!!
We drove past Shaker Village and turned further south staying with Hwy 33 to Danville where we found Hwy 52 and followed it over to Harrodsburg and got on Hwy 68 again. Then we drove back past Shaker Village and over the Kentucky River and back up 33. I had a few more back roads I wanted to drive Papa over but the time was getting too close to lunch and I needed to get him back to the nursing home. So I pointed the car toward Versailles and then to Midway and finally back to Georgetown and the nursing home.
We found Hwy 1965 followed it past Irish Acres in Nonesuch, Kentucky. Not too far past here we past a house that was the most decorated for Christmas I ever saw. They had big candy canes lining their yard along the highway. Behind those candy canes were 50,000,000 Santa's and various other Christmasy decorations all over their front yard. There was no where one could put a foot in that yard that there wasn't one of those hard plastic, waist to shoulder high Santa's or some other Christmasy thing. Again, I had no where to pull off quickly to take a picture. Papa and I just marveled at the amount of things on that lawn. I can't for the life of me figure out where you would store all that stuff. It would take another entire house to put it away after Christmas. I hope these people were feeling the Christmas spirit because their lawn decorations were sure doing their best to provide it for every passerby.
It was a fun drive and Papa really enjoyed being out and I was grateful to see these two amazing scenes. Just think, if I didn't take Papa on drives, I would never have had that experience. Grateful on many levels.
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