Let’s Get This (2022) Party Started - ROAD TRIP!!!

In which we collect YET MORE cousins/random family members!

Time to head to NY-back to the boat.  But we are not fans of driving longer then 6 hours/day so we have to break this up, and eat the elephant one small bite at a time. 

We started by driving Atlanta to Nashville, and having lunch with my sister - who we haven’t seen for five years.  It was the Evelyn Wood speed visit, but we did get somewhat caught up ...

Sister Cam, and her husband Jim Ray.

After that we drove on to Louisville, KY.  We are trying to ‘bag’ the remaining few US states we haven’t seen…and KY is one of those.  It’s always a fraught debate about what ‘counts’. We have settled on: we have to do a thing (walk, bike, other) and spend the night in a state in order to count it.  So I had planned to tour the Kentucky Derby museum and race tracks-all of which were closed. And I had us spending the night-but I had accidentally picked a hotel on the other side of the OH River….  Which is …. wait for it …. Indiana.  Shit. No KY this time.  My US geography sucks.  To be fair I was living in Australia at the time they taught that unit in school - I can tell you a LOT about the Blue Mtns and NSW, tho.

We did go for a LONG walk, which included this view of the type of barges we will be up against in 2023 (yes, it looks like the 1-year boat trip will take 5), when we come down the Mississippi River.  It may not look too impressive to you in this pic - but consider that it is FIVE rows of three barges across.  That's, count em, 15...  And they are not going to yield (in fact they can't even really see well), you have to stay out of their way, and hope there is some space to go by on whatever side they tell you to pass.

The Big Four Bridge crossing from Indiana into KY.

Day #2 we make it to Chicago, to visit daughter Claire.  On the way into town we have to stop to look at the Museum of Science and Industry.  I've been obsessed with the 'White City' (the World's Fair: Colombian Exhibition, held in Chicago in 1893) and this is one of only two remaining buildings from that event.  It's pretty far south of the city, so I've never had the chance to see it. Much of the original Olmsted landscaping is also intact around the building in Jackson Park - we will have to walk that another time. I recommend the book 'Devil in the White City by Larson, but skip the serial killer parts and focus on the amazing details about the White City...  The first Ferris Wheel!  The first zipper!! Olmsted still trying to get the landscaping done days after the official opening!!!

This building survived in part because it was the only fire-proof one constructed.  It was the Art Pavilion, and other countries refused to send their art to Chicago unless the building was fire proof.  Due to the, er, somewhat deserved reputation Chicago had for *cough, Ms. O'Leary* fires.

We got a brief Claire sighting the first day, but later in the week got to enjoy an architectural cruise and  dinner out with her.  And one day we were even honored by getting to take ALL her roomies out for bagels.

Dinner courtesy of Rick's Mom!  Good thing, since the drinks were, like, $10/each!

After 3 brief but great days in Chicago, we set out for Cleveland, where we spent the night with my cousin Ben and wife Jill (their son Mark taking the pic).  These are Babcock Farm Relatives, from my mom's side.  The farm where my mom grew up is a very important connecting element for us all.  The farm is the longest family-run farm in Ohio, and we have been involved in the years-long process to cede the development rights to the Land Conservancy so that it will only ever be farm land and never condos.

On the way out of Cleveland we stopped to get some OH sand, along the Erie.  And we found some truly excellent skipping rocks.  Rick puts his all into his skipping.  As you can see from the photo, he about broke a rib. Rock skipping was a part of my childhood because 1) rocks (geologist father) and 2) it was one of the things, along with ping-pong and mini golf, that my father (stricken with polio) could do well with a cane.  Let me tell you - he could KILL it in all of those things.

A little while later we stopped to get PA sand, when it suddenly turned out that PA touches Lake Erie!  Not only did we not know that, we didn't realize that this northern part of PA is HUGE grape vine country.  Vines as far as the eye can see...

Many, MANY hours later we arrive in Brewerton NY, where Blue Horizon spent the winter.  We were tired so decided to go directly to the hotel and visit our beautiful boat tomorrow.  Details on our visit in our next post.