Goin' Road Trippin'

10-29-2022 One of our main objectives when we planned this trip was to fulfill my dad’s final request. He wanted his ashes to be buried with his loving wife, my mom, in Oklahoma.

I found the perfect vessel for his ashes, something he always loved, a milk can. I remember as a child, us using them to hold water when we lived on the cut off.

Finding moms headstone wasn’t difficult, as she chose a rock as unique as she was.

With dads remaining ashes we sprinkled them all around moms grave site, just as he would’ve wanted.

We then drove a couple miles down the road to where my folks lived. To my surprise, the only remaining evidence that they used to live there was the concrete strips that once was the foundation for the house.

After my mom had passed the house got repossessed and dad converted the patio into his house. He had stacked rocks all the way to top creating a rock house. That too, was torn down. The only hard work that remained was the rock boarder dad had made, surrounding a portion of the property.

All the work one puts into creating something, another works to remove it. The land is now owned by my mom’s sister, whom I have tried to connect with over the years, but no response has been received. We walked down the road where I’d taken walks with my mom 19 years earlier, just soaking in one last stroll.

Letting go, once again, weighed on both of us but we were grateful to fulfill our last promise. We will be together again in the end.

9-27-2022-We woke to a sunshiny day and feel more rested than we have in a couple weeks.

We have our morning joe and get ready to go. On our drive out we are in awe of how beautiful Kentucky is.

I gotta say, of all the state parks we’ve stayed at, Kentucky wins the best amenities and customer service. The park actually has a golf course, a washer and dryer, electricity and water, heated bathrooms and warm showers that continue to run.

The park ranger came over after we arrived, asked if we had any questions and said to give him a call if we needed anything. Now that’s what I’m talking about!

As we drove south we passed a sign Mitch saw that said something about the Walking Dead. Had to turnaround and see what it was about.

After a quick stop into the town we thought maps would get us back on the freeway.. nope next thing ya know we’re on the back roads of Kentucky. Talk about big beautiful houses.

The roads are NARROW. Unfortunately a bucket truck got too close to the edge and turned over, so we rerouted. The funny part is that Mitch changed the voice on Siri because he was tired of her getting us on narrow roads (side note-Harvy’s mirror hit a previously busted mail truck mirror on a narrow DC street) so now he has this guys voice, which I swear is a fake English accent, and it’s still getting us on some questionable roads. My man, so cute, now he’s mad at the guy voice! He calls him Billy!Ha

Hello Tennessee! We mapped our way to see the grand ol’ Opry

We then decide to head over to the antique archeology store from American Pickers we used to watch on tv with pops. The store is located in a historic building called the Marathon Motor Works in Nashville Tennessee.

We did a lap, stopped into a whiskey store, olive oil store, a knife store and then finally found our destination.

The following photos are items in the store, all the treasures Mike Wolf has acquired.

When we checked out, the lady behind the register was so engaging and kind. Her name is Jen, and she makes that place extra special.

Stopped into a few thrift stores, did some treasure hunting. We made it to our campsite around 8 pm, plugged in Harvy and watched a couple King of Queens on DVD that we found at a thrift store near the beginning of our travels almost two months ago. Having an 8 hour drive tomorrow we didn’t even pull out our camping chairs for the night. Oklahoma here we come!

We decided to stop in to see Noah’s ark in Williamstown Kentucky. They built it to scale and it’s the largest wooden structure in the world.

Inside they have life size replicas of what the animals were, sounds they would’ve made and how things probably happened.

After the tour we headed towards our campsite, only to stop at a thrift store. At first, people didn’t seem overly friendly, and everyone was quite busy. As soon as Mitch asked what smelled so good and they said BACON it started up a conversation. He said he could smell it all the way from Arizona and it drew him here. The lady at the register says, hey mom, this guy loves bacon! This tiny little elderly gal came out and said “hi, would you like some?” There’s no way Mitch could pass that up, although he did decline… kind of, I asked if it was a family run business, and the register lady said, “no, we just all call her mom.” Not 5 minutes later she comes out with a thing of beauty!

We thanked her and everyone else for their kindness and generosity and headed towards the campground.

Tomorrow Tennessee, and then onto Oklahoma.

We are on our last week of traveling and we are spent. We have adventured for long enough. Tonight we are staying at Kincaid Lake State Park, thankfully they have showers.

For our 5 days in Maryland at Greenbelt state park, not only was there no electricity, but no showers. There’s nothing like day 4 of the same socks when they start to stand on their own.

The day we left, we stopped into DC one last time as I was able to get an appointment with the national archives to do some research on my great grandma who was listed on the Dawes Rolls, aka the final rolls of the Choctaw Tribe (I printed a copy but it is misplaced in Harvy at this time) but I did take some pictures I can share.

To my surprise I also saw a picture of both my great-great grandparents on my moms side as well. I’ve never seen pictures of them before, or knew their names.

I didn’t have a lot of time but the lady that was helping me said I was lucky to have found all that I did.

I met Mitch on the other side of the building at 10:30 am and we got to see the real Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and a lot of the things from when the United States became United. There was no photos allowed and honestly I can’t recall too much. But yeah, that kind of stuff.