We flew into Greater Cincinnati Airport located in….Kentucky. Don’t know. Can’t tell you what the deal is with that. Walked what seemed like 20 miles to baggage claim and then headed to the car rental place. They gave us a Toyota Highlander which was nice and roomy. Funny little note about the car….Greg could not get the hatch back door up to put the luggage in. I was standing there and got to thinking back to the camping trip Laura and I took. She has a 4-Runner and there is this deal with the key you have to do to get the hatch up. So I asked to have a look and…..voila!....hatch open. Hehehe. For once I knew something about a car that he didn’t.
We got to the hotel and Greg’s Mom had called just 10 minutes earlier to see if we had checked in yet….I guess she thought maybe we had slipped in and not bothered to call them….this alone should tell you something about how things went.
Unpacked and met them at Skyline Chili. Greg had to have his Skyline Chili while he was there. It’s not chili the way I think of chili and does not even taste like traditional chili to me….but I’m from California, so what do I know.
I’m going to digress for a minute. Have any of you ever seen that VISA commercial where the guy tries to write a check in some small Podunk town and the old guy with a Midwestern accent looks all funny at him and says “We don’t take no checks from California…”. It just kills me. Anyway, just thought of that.
Next day, Monday, we met at their house and were introduced to Trixie and Vada ….their big ole black labs. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful.
Tuesday was the 4th of July. We were supposed to go to Greg’s brothers house, but we got the word that his kids were sick with the flu, so we skipped that. They insisted we come over….but Greg and I got sick last time we were there and didn’t want to get sick this time. This event would prove to be one of the “snags” in our trip, but I’ll get to that in a bit. We didn’t actually see any fireworks….it turned out to be a pretty dull day. However, they did take us to the “neat” (fancy to them) Wal-Mart….which looked like any other Wal-Mart to us.
Wednesday we headed out to a town called Little Nashville. It was a 2-hour drive from Lawrenceburg where they live. Kind of a long drive, but it was either that or a trip to the “neat Home Depot”. They have dozens and dozens of specialty shops there. I got a gift for my Mom since she was watching our cats while we were gone, but that was it. I got a few pictures of the countryside. There is no question it is picturesque there. Just as green and lush as can be with pretty brick homes. The people there really take pride in their yards and keep them well manicured.
Thursday we drove into Cincinnati so Greg could go to the stadium where the Reds play and get one of the new style ball caps they wear. We trucked around downtown for a while and I got a few pictures down there, too. Not a heck of a lot going on that day.
Friday we drove up to see a restored covered bridge and then to a lake. It was nice to see, but the driving around every day was now starting to get old. You can see only so many farms and barns before you have no desire to see anymore.
Friday night was the big dinner. Greg had told his Mom that we didn’t want to spend our days driving around from relative to relative saying hello. We planned a dinner and invited everyone to come see us that night if they wanted to. The turn out was pretty good….I think there were about 20 people there. We got to see his Grandma McDonough, which was special. She’s a sharp little thing and embodies the definition of “grandma”. Everyone noticed the absence of Greg’s brother and his family. Remember I said not going to their house would prove to be a snag later? Well, if we didn’t come to them, they were not coming to us. What? Are we in high school?! It’s stuff like this that makes it hard for me to be polite. I realllllly wanted to say something about it to his Mom & Dad, but I didn’t. What good would it do? So we had a nice time seeing most of his family.
Saturday. Greg was feeling the pressure to see his brother from his Mom & Dad and this would be the last day to do it since we were leaving early the next morning. Actually, the pressure was from his brother, it was just came vicariously thru his parents. And when I say his brother, I really mean his brothers wife. So Greg called his brother and lunch was arranged. Oh joy. They were half hour late to the restaurant. We saw their two kids for the first time….cute kids. Jeff, his brother, is pretty much the same and has not changed much….kind of laid back with a mild attitude. His wife, Leah….well, Leah has not changed much either. It became clear to me that she was the driving force behind not showing up to the dinner the night before. I’d say “poor Jeff”, but he picked her. I’ll leave it at that. We had not planned on doing more than lunch, but somehow we were maneuvered into going to see a lake….which just happened to be where they parked their pontoon, and also just happened to be just a mile and a half from their house. We listened to them talk about their work, their lives….the whole 9 yards. Never stopped and asked us anything about ours. I waited to see if either of them would ask me about my job or what I was up to….never did. It was all about them and showing us all their stuff. Folks, this is called bragging. It’s not cute. We left and went back to our hotel room….needed a break after all that. Then we met his Mom & Dad for dinner and said our goodbyes.
Sunday. Thank goodness for Sunday. We headed out early and got back to San Diego at 11:30am. Home Sweet Home. We were both happy to be back in the city where gas is over $3 a gallon and where there are several bad parts of town rather than just one.
Do any of you remember the end of Back To The Future when Marty is returns from 1955 to 1985 and the movie theater changes from some respectable movie title to being an x-rated theater and the nice clean park bench turns into a sleeping place for a bum? This is what it was like coming home….only it wasn’t 1985. Thank goodness.
Photo Gallery
Seagrams plant where his parents live
Greg with Vada and Trixie
from left to right: Leah, baby Avery on her lap, Logan, Greg, Jeff
3 comments:
I'm only basing this on a few shots of yours, but there seems to be a TON of stuff painted a "rich red" in that part of the country...
or perhaps it's the person behind the lens. Nothing wrong with it certainly...it looks...I guess "country" or "rural" (you don't say Mike?!?!). Very nice really.
You're right about red being a rural country thing....I think most of the barns are red. The Seagrams plant is made out of brick....like a lot of buildings back there. It holds up better in the winter so it you see a lot of that, too.
I had seen a photo of a barn in the middle of nowhere about a week before we left. Nice photo. So I told my husband that I wanted to try for a cool barn picture. This would prove to be harder than I'd imagined. There were tons of barns....but for one reason or another the really nice ones, which happened not to be red, were hard to shoot because of location or timing. Had I been alone and able to just pull over at any moment, I would have got much better pictures and less red. But we were with Greg's parents 99% of the time and pulling over for all the brans I liked would have made his Dad cranky...well more cranky actually. He's generally a pretty cranky person. But that's another story. Plus, they didn't understand why I wanted a picture of a barn to start with. I got a lot of confused looks about wanting a "cool" barn picture. They just didn't get it.
Thanks for all your kind comments, Mike :)
I certainly understand the need to "take your time", explore and shoot. My folks have a place in the Texas "hill country" near Austin. It's beautiful, but in a very "rustic" type of way. For so many years I've wanted to getaway, spend time...PLENTY of time there, documenting the granite, the wildlife, the trees, all of it. Reality though...I think it will have to wait unitl I retire. Chuckle at "retire"...back to the grind now. Take care
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