Our 24 Hour Vacation...

When your life revolves around timing to visit Papa each day, you learn to adapt. We did that the beginning of July. We will be married 50 years in 2020. We don't want one of those big parties at all, either of us. What we want is to get our kids and grandmonsters together for one weekend. We are visiting places we might do this to see where we want to hold this family weekend. We wanted to check out Great Wolf Lodge outside of Cincinnati. To that end, I spent Tuesday morning, July 2nd with Papa. I hurried home and we loaded the Jeep and were off on our 24 hours vacation. 

Our first stop was Great Wolf Lodge. 

We explained what we were looking to do and they showed us the kinds of rooms they have and what they offered at the counter. We pulled out our list of rooms we would need and tried to find the right combination for our family if everyone is able to come. We reserved these rooms just in case this is where we go. Then we were encouraged to walk around the facility and see what we thought. Here are pictures of some of the things to do on the inside of the facility.

We then drove to our hotel to see if we could check in. We could and we did. 

When in our room I began the search for a place for dinner that might be a little unique to the area. I found a place named Two Cities Pizza. It was obviously in an old building. Sounded like a plan. We climbed back in the Jeep and went to dinner.

Turns out the old building that houses Two Cities Pizza was the original City Hall for Mason, Ohio. Two young men who were friends from their childhood always wanted to have a business together. They each grew up and went to college to study different things. Then they decided to find the right place and start that business dream. Two Cities Pizza was born. It is called Two Cities Pizza because they serve Chicago style and New York style pizza. We each ordered well and the food was excellent. We did not have the pizza!! Our server was talking to us and we mentioned that we were from Sadieville, Kentucky and it was just north of Georgetown. Turns out she is a horse aficionado and comes to the Kentucky Horse Park regularly. When she does, she stays in Georgetown! It is a very tiny world folks. We were extremely pleased with our choice for dinner. If we have a family gathering at Great Wolf Lodge, we will plan a family dinner at Two Cities Pizza. 

We all know that calories and fat grams do not exist when you are on vacation. Even if that vacation is only 24 hours long. So an ice cream run was in order after dinner. Claude spotted a Dairy Queen near our hotel so we drove back to it. Imagine our delight when we found this wall of fun to enjoy as we ate our blizzards.

We found everything on the list in this hand painted mural about the area. Great Wolf Lodge and Kings Island are in the background. It was fun and Claude had a good eye for finding these things. Now time for some rest.

Wednesday morning we had breakfast in the hotel's breakfast buffet. Then we were off for Jungle Jim's. Andie, our daughter, suggested this stop. Turns out there are two of them in Cincinnati and one of them was at an exit off I-275 on our way home. 

Okay, this place is just fun. Again it has an interesting back story. There is a video of how it all came to be which you can watch when you go into the store. A guy started all this with a fresh vegetable stand. Now he has these two enormous stores with all kinds of treasures in them. It is like a grocery store on steroids. We roamed through the International market and found so many things. I checked the aisle that had things from South Africa as that will be our big trip this year. Very tiny section on a very tiny shelf. Makes me wonder what our dining will be like in Kruger National Park. Hmmmm.... We found an entire shelf display under a firetruck of bacon flavored things!! Claude spent a good deal of time roaming through a whole corner of the store filled with aisles of sauces and rubs for the king of BBQ and smoking. Then he came to me with a big grin and I got this fun picture of my guy. He found a sauce named Claude for smoking brisket. Yes, we purchased it!! The other thing we poured over was an entire wall of soda pop in very interesting flavors. You can get a cardboard carrier and make your own 6 or 8 pack of different kinds of soda. We did this and plan to share it with the Marx family while Bonnie is here. The other section that was of great interest of us was the cheese section. We came prepared with a cooler and put all the cheese we bought in it. Yes, we know how to do these things. 

After shopping at Jungle Jim's were found a Jimmy John's for lunch and purchased a large cup of ice to set in the cooler with our cheeses. 

We pointed the Jeep for Sadieville and got home in time for me to spend the afternoon visiting Papa.

And that, my friends, is how one has a 24 hour vacation!!

And We're Walking...Again...and Again...

We participated in two 5K Walks (we don't run) in the past month. The first was held at the Kentucky Horse Park on Saturday, June 29. It was to celebrate the life of Man O'War, a very famous race horse. We finished in about an hour which is what we wanted. This was a lovely walk all around the Horse Park and through the campground. 

The second was on July 4th at Buffalo Trace Distillery in Frankfort, Kentucky. This is my favorite distillery. First one I toured in Kentucky and totally enjoyed their tours. So for me, this was a walk I looked forward to a lot. The walk was called Buffalo Chase and would take us over the whole campus. Claude would finish in 57 minutes and I finished in 58 1/2 minutes. We both felt really good about that. We had to park a mile away from the registration and then walk another mile to the start line. That my be a slight exaggeration but we felt like that as we walked to the race, then registration and then back to the car after. Truly felt like we walked a 10K. I assured Claude I would never wear a tutu and wings. Not happening, ever. Can you tell which picture that comment came from? Claude cracked himself up at one point when he realized he was walking thru a stop sign (instead of driving thru at stop sign). Can you tell which picture that is? We are old and these things make us laugh. It was a good morning but we were really happy to make it back to the Jeep!!

I find it interesting that we are walking with hundreds of people but it still like it is just the two of us on a lark. 

The next walk we are registered for is the Alzheimer's Walk on September the 21st. Claude and I have agreed to walk the God and Country 5K to benefit veterans and God's Pantry in Lexington on November 9th. So we will have at least two more 5K's this year. 

The partner story with these walks are my poor feet. In 2002 we did a driving tour of New England. It was an absolutely amazing adventure. It was in October and the leaves we all changing. Super trip. However...isn't there always a 'however'...we opted to wear matching black sneakers. We purchased these when we were in the Gold Wing Road Riders Association (GWRRA) and Claude was a director so we worked a lot of rally's. We got really good sneakers to help with all that walking you did to keep the rally going. Well, when we were on Cape Cod we walked out to a lighthouse on a sandy trail. When we got back to our car, I told Claude my toes really, really hurt. Took of those wonderful sneakers to find my toes were very bruised. I have long second toes and they particularly were bad. Fortunately, I had sandals so I wore those with my socks the rest of the trip. However,..there it goes again...when I wear close toed shoes for long periods of time my toes get really sore again. When we did that first 5K this summer, they really hurt. When we did the second 5K I had bruises under my toenails on those long second toes. I told Claude I loved the walk but really needed to find an answer for my feet. I started a search online for good walking shoes that were open-toed. I ordered some Teva sandals. They didn't come in for the Kentucky Horse Park walk so I wore my Clark sandals. They have good cushioning and I did better with the toe situation. Then my Teva's came in and I wore them for the Buffalo Chase walk. These will be great. They are definitely made for that kind of exercise. I did wear a blister on my big toe but I can put a bandaid on before the next walk and I will be fine. 

And we walked and we walked and we walked...

Addendum: One of the bad things not Blogging more often is that I forget some of the things I wanted to put in the Blog when the event happened. Did that with this Blog and so I come back with another paragraph. We are each getting a t-shirt for each walk we do if we register early enough. Now, neither of us really needs another t-shirt. So I suggested to Claude that I could make a quilt out of them at some point. Then I had one of my 'flashes of intellect' and I told Claude I should make two twin size quilts so we could each have one when we are in the nursing home. We both laughed at that idea!!

Fillin' Time...

We have had a LOT of rain this year...again. Last year was the rainiest year on record. This year the numbers are matching up about the same. Some people are talking about the Ark Encounter needing to be prepared to help us all float away. Another friend share that this might be Seattle, Kentucky or Georgetown, Washington, it really didn't matter anymore based on the weather. This comment was made on a particularly gray day. This was posted on Facebook and I found it hilarious. A farmer in rural Kentucky has a great sense of humor about it all. The poor farmers are suffering. This is just too much water and, where some should have had one bailing of hay to be ready for feeding in the fall, they have not been able to do that yet. With that in mind, one really appreciates this farmer's good sense of humor about all the rain.

Yesterday was a beautiful day. I told Papa on Monday that I would bring him out to my house for a visit if the weather held. I picked him up at 10:30am after doing a grocery run. I drove him on back roads to get to our home. We took Hwy 460 east and found 922 north. We followed that till it ends at 620 and took 620 west to Hwy 25 and then on to our home. Papa enjoyed the ride.

When we got to our home, I had him take his place on the sofa and then I brought him a Dr. McGillicuddy root beer. I retrieved the Opry DVD's set and asked him to pick which on he wanted to watch first. This is where you have to understand that Papa has lost a lot of his reasoning ability. He wanted to be in the car riding. He started to explain that he really didn't care because he doesn't like to watch television. I then again showed him what I was asking him to pick and explained it was his DVD's of old country music. These are the same DVD's he started to show at the nursing home when he could no longer play his guitar. I begrudgingly picked one and I put it in the DVD player and cranked up the sound to a volume he could hear. It didn't take long for him to realize he was listening to music he loved and watching the actual stars perform these numbers. From that point forward he grinned and often said, "I really love this. This is real country music. I used to sing this." Etc., etc., etc. He really enjoyed the afternoon. I brought him a banana to eat and he scarfed that down even though he assured me he didn't want anything to eat, he just wanted to listen to the music. Later I took him some ice cream and a chocolate cookie. Definitely not the balanced meal he would have had at the nursing home but missing one of those will definitely not do him in. I took this picture of Papa having a nice afternoon of old country music.

We finished the fourth DVD at 3:30pm and I packed Papa up and took him back to the nursing home. I assured him we would finish the other DVD's some other day. He had a good day. 

A friend from my Louisiana days posted this map. I had never seen it before and really thought it was cute. 

After depositing Papa, I drove on to meet Claude in Lexington for dinner at Outback Steakhouse. We had a meeting with the stake presidency to review all the changes to the Self-Reliance program and how we would make it work in the Lexington North Stake. It was a good meeting and lasted about an hour and a half.

On the way home we stopped at the Love's Travel Plaza in Sadieville to top off our gas tanks. Gas prices were jumping about 30 cents per gallon again. Sadieville had not done that yet. A man got out of his truck with a bird in his hand. Okay, I have seen lots of animals at gas stations as people travel. They take them out to run and do their thing. But, I honestly don't ever remembering a bird at a gas station before. This was a beautiful pink cockatoo. When the man came out of the store, I just had to tell him how well trained the bird was. It never even tried to fly away. He encouraged me to hold out my arm and this beautiful bird hopped right over to my arm and looked right up into my face. I talked to it and stroked its feathers and you would have thought we were old friends. So cool.

Then he told me he had other birds in his truck. He also had two dogs and his wife! Goodness. He took out a beautiful parrot. Then he said he had a bird that would do tricks. He took out a ladder and a white cockatoo and that bird did some tricks for us. The bird would spread it's wings to be an eagle. It was absolutely delightful and such a fun way to end a long day.

These birds were all rescue birds. They were all headed to Chicago. It was a unique and fun encounter. Clearly this gentleman loves these animals and they love him.