On the Road.... Day 6

Kentucky is a beautiful state.  It has some oddities...  the major highways are not interstates, but rather "parkways" named after prominent Kentuckians.  They are slowly changing that though, and renaming some of them.  Yes, there are interstates around Louisvlle and Lexington, as well as some north/south roads, but it will be better when they are more uniform with the other states... especially using the mile-marker system.

Along the highways, the scenery is gorgeous.  The rocks are really old and their composition is more shale or sandstone than granite.  The hardwood trees are starting to turn their fall colors.  I saw hickories, oaks, maples and many other species today.

Some views out the car window as we drove along.

It's been a long time since I've seen an Osage Orange tree...

Kind of a blurry picture, but the fruit (or seeds) of the osage orange are green, about the size of a grapefruit and look like those photos you see of a brain.  We saw lots of them along the roads today.

Of course Kentucky is known for its distilleries....

In the past we've taken tours of Maker's Mark and a few others, so today we didn't stop for any sightseeing.  Bill's paternal ancestors came to Kentucky around 1800, and his grandparents lived in Kentucky until 1915, so he's done a lot of genealogy research in various counties.  We've spent a lot of time in Kentucky in the past.

There was a fair amount of road construction...

Look at the upper right photo...  I think that woman wearing the pink hardhat is either making a fashion statement or letting everyone know she's female.  Kinda cute, huh?

When's the last time you saw a Drive-In-Theater?

Somewhere along the way we got off 4 lane roads onto 2 lane roads...  We came across this outdoor theater... still in operation.  How many kids did you hide in the trunk of your car back in the day?

Driving 2 lane roads took us through some small towns...

And city streets...

Doesn't this just look like Hometown USA?  American flag and all!  I love it!

Finally, at Maysville, Kentucky, we came to the Ohio River

The bridge across looks kind of narrow.  The Ohio River doesn't belong to Ohio at all... in fact, Ohio doesn't "officially" start until land on the other side.  I got a photo of the bridge...  and of the river (upper right)... but just then the camera battery died, so I didn't get a photo of the official "Welcome to Ohio" banner across the end of the bridge.  I did the next-best thing... got a picture of the first State Route sign I saw.

We drove 291 miles today.  Home is not quite 100 miles away.  We stopped here in West Union, Ohio to visit a friend that we knew over 30 years ago.  Rich was going to OU back then and he and Bill were friends.  Eventually Rich moved to Missoula, Montana...  we visited him twice there.  A couple years ago he moved back to his hometown.  Today, we had the pleasure of seeing him again and having dinner together.

Tomorrow morning we'll head out...  Day 7 will be the final day of this road trip.  We changed to the Eastern Time Zone today, so who knows what time we'll hit the road in the morning.  I love traveling, but will be happy to see my family again and stay in one place for a couple of weeks.  

That's all for Today!