The trees and foliage in the woods are still lush and green, though we're beginning to see signs of the autumn colors to come. Red and gold leaves are scattered here and there, and - ick - a little striped snake blending in with the dirt of the trail was in our path as well.
It's been a weekend with 2 family birthtdays, a niece who's now 16 and a nephew who's 17. We headed out east to Blanchester yesterday afternoon to have some dinner with Margy, Phill and the gang, picking up Mom on the way. I love going to their house - they have several acres with no neighbors in sight and it's always very peaceful. We walked through the vegetable gardens and inspected the grapevines, finding nothing much but the left behind produce since it's the end of the season.
We wandered out to the pond which is full to the brim because of all the recent rain. Calypso the dog ambled along behind us, hoping to get a handful of the fish food that Phill throws into the pond - she thinks it's quite a tasty treat. Calypso (Phill calls her "Boo") is an old girl who's seen better days but she still loves to get into the water and fetch rocks. And does she ever look bad and smell bad after she's done that. There's nothing quite as awful as wet doggie odor, especially one with that much fur. When she shakes off the water, you don't want to be anywhere around! She can't understand why nobody want to be near her after she's gotten all wet - she just wants to be with her people and be loved!
The family cat is named Persephone (from Greek mythology?). She tiptoes quietly around the vegetable gardens, the barn and the field, keeping an eye on everybody and everything.
Then of course, there was food and cake and presents. Happy Birthday, Laura!
June marks the beginning of "festival season" in Cincinnati, with one Catholic church after another advertising their weekend-long events. I'm not sure if it's the same in every other big city across the country, but we have dozens we could attend in the course of the summer. And please note, any festival that takes place after August 31st is called "Oktoberfest" so now we're technically in "Oktoberfest" season.
I have found that a really good festival has four main ingredients: Food, beer, games and entertainment. Food choices are usually a combination of hamburgers/hot dogs/brats/metts; slices of LaRosa's pizza, funnel cakes, corn on the cob, nachos with cheese, soft pretzels. Mmmmm.
If you happen to be reading this, let me know if all this sounds familiar. Does your town or city have lots of church festivals all summer long? Or is it just a "Cincinnati" thing? We have a lot of German-Americans in our area so perhaps it's just our heritage.
Several weeks ago we decided to have a Sunday afternoon adventure so we drove down into Kentucky towards Lexington, to visit Shaker Village in Pleasant Hill. Well, we never quite made it to Pleasant Hill because we didn't have a map. Now stop laughing - you know we usually plan our trips really well, taking the NavMan, the big Atlas of the US, and individual state maps, not to mention MapQuest directions of all sorts. Well, we were in the new car which has no maps in the glove box yet and the brochure of Shaker Hill had NO specific directions on it. We realized that we were doomed to drive around the rolling hills of the Bluegrass State for hours when the locals at a gas station couldn't even agree on directions. So we made the best of it and came across all sorts of interesting little spots. We grabbed some sandwiches in Paint Lick, Ky. which was barely a town at all. Sweet Pea's Diner was actually an old general store / eatery with a number of customers who all seemed to know one another. We were obviously the out-siders, especially me with my camera. An odd feeling.
We drove across a bridge that spanned a rain-swollen muddy creek - this, I guess, is the redneck version of a dam? We couldn't quite figure out why anyone thought this would be effective. At first we thought it was a foot bridge that had collapsed, but no, it really was meant to stop debris in the creek. Time to call in the Army Corps of Engineers for Dam Building 101. Seriously.
Now one thing they seem to build really well in that part of Kentucky is stone walls. Miles and miles of stone walls, everywhere we turned. Quite old, I guess, but they're holding up much better than that dam. I was quite impressed with the workmanship - no cement holding the stone together, just all fit together like a puzzle. It must have taken stone masons a looooong time to build all those miles of stone walls. Awesome. Where do you suppose all those rocks came from, anyway?
Next we came upon a town where there was an old building facade that was being held up by support beams lest it come crashing down into the main street. What you can't really see is that the entire backside of the building has been demolished - you can see straight through the windows of the building into ... nothing! OK, dare I say it ... redneck architecture? Only in Kentucky. Evidently someone had the crazy idea to save the facade and build a new structure in behind it. Must be some cost-savings in the equation somewhere!
Somewhere along the way we came across this abandoned tunnel. The road used to go through it, but the pavement is almost overgrown now, and the interior is cool, creepy and dank. The newer portion of the road goes alongside it so it would be easy to miss as you fly by on the crazy curved road. When Chris put on the brakes to turn around and go back, I had no idea what I had missed.
Eventually we found our way back to I-75, and on the way we passed ... the entrance to Shaker Village. One of these days we'll go back, if I can convince Chris that we can really find it again.
