We met for breakfast before we hit the road back to South Carolina yesterday morning.  I think this may have been the best picture I took the entire trip – just hate Dennis wasn’t there, too.

We got up early yesterday morning and finally got to walk the Big Four Bridge across the Ohio River.  This was what used to be the railroad bridge from Louisville into Indiana.  It was a perfect morning to be out walking.  Kind of overcast, but no sign of rain. Here is Jeff as we are getting started. 

One of the signs about the history of the bridge. You know I loved that.</a

Jeff’s mom had a dr’s appointment that day, so we came back & lazed for a couple of hours at the motel before heading over to spend the afternoon with them. After we ran and grabbed some lunch, we spent some time in their gorgeous back yard. It is always a showplace, and always one of my favorite things is this giant planter they made out of one of the washbasins they got when they closed down the Indiana Army Ammunition Plant.

Yesterday we took a day off from being tourists.  Actually we got up and headed to the Big Four Bridge, to walk over the Ohio River, but it started pouring down rain just as we got there.  So we came back to the motel & just spent a lazy morning napping, reading, watching TV, etc.  Headed out to Mark’s early afternoon, and spent the day visiting, & then ended up eating supper with him – pork chops, baked potatoes, & corn on the cob, all cooked on the grill.  Yum.  It was great just having a lazy day.  I didn’t get any pictures, though, except for this one of a new flower bed he’s put in.  Obviously he’s inherited his green thumb from his mom and dad.

Last night we headed to Charlestown for a 60th birthday party for a guy Jeff had grown up with.  It really was mostly a family affair, but a few friends were there, too.  We got this friend picture just as we were starting to head out: Jim Cox’s wife Lori, Jim (they were in from California, and it was his brother who was turning 60), Kathy, Jeff, Debbie (Kathy’s sister), and me. 

Yesterday we = Jeff, his brother Mark, his mom & dad, & I – went to Charlesown State Park to go on a tour of Rose Island.  Rose Island was an amusement park until it was destroyed by the Ohio River Flood of 1937.  It was abandoned after that, and was virtually inaccessible until the park started excavating it maybe ten years ago.  Normally it’s a pretty straight downhill hike to even get to the bridge to get to the island – meaning it’s almost straight uphill to get back to your car – but on the weekends they have a shuttle to take you to the entrance.  Jeff’s folks had been wanting to go, so it worked out great that we were able to take them Sunday.  The stories they told about the amusement park were so interesting.  There were just a few structures that they found intact when the state park people started exploring it, and this was one of them.  They had all kinds of theories about what it might have been, and then just two months ago a man whose father had been a manager of the amusement park, and who had lived there as a child, had come to the park and told them a lot about the details of what things were and where different things had been located.  As it turns out, this was a cooler where people could get a drink of water as soon as they got to Rose Island.  It’s about six feet deep, and it was filled with ice and water, and there were spigots coming out the sides.  The owner of the island told them – this was well before truth in advertising laws 🙂 – it was fresh cold spring water.  There was a lid on it, so they had no idea there wasn’t a pump down in there.  Sort of an early Yeti 🙂

One of the original roadbeds, leading down from the Devil’s Backbone Outcropping. Another interesting thing the tour guide told us was the story of the Welsh Prince Madoc, who according to legend arrived in this country in the 900’s. Some people believe he ended up in this area of the country, and was absorbed along with his men into the Native American tribes who lived there. When Lewis & Clark made their expedition, they found Indians whose language was very close to Welsh, as well as tribes of what they called White Indians. Very interesting.

Sunday morning before we left Corbin we went downtown to check out Sanders Park, because that was just sort of a theme for our stay there.  I loved the benches!

Actually it’s a Tennessee/Kentucky vacation today.  We decided to stop and be a little touristy on our way to spend the next few days in Indiana.  Our first stop was at the Harley-Davidson near Morristown, TN.  We’d stopped there in years gone by, and Jeff wanted to get a new hat.  I got this picture of him after he made his purchase with the Harley Davidson bushes outside.

We spent the night in Corbin, Kentucky, which is the home of the first ever Kentucky Fried Chicken. The original building has been restored into sort of a museum, although it’s also still a KFC, and we ate supper before we checked out the exhibits. Here is the sign that was outside.

I was hoping the sign that was with this would show up in the picture :-(. It’s a copy of a bust Colonel Sanders’ daughter, who apparently was an artist, made of him. There is also one in the KFC Museum in Louisville, and on his grave. It really was a fun place to visit.