Nearing the End of the Road

Boy, are we behind in the Blog.  Hope to catch you up today. 

We crossed the width of Missouri to arrive at West Plains, which is south of Springfield. There we spend three nights with our friend Jill and her husband Scott.  They have a farm waaaay out in the country and are active in the Missouri Fox Trotters business.  Here is their horse Arlie with his trainer, who they hope will take some honors in the big June show.  Scott showed off his new tractor and attachments, and then put it to good use dragging the van out of the mud as we were leaving – piece of cake!  We went to one of the local prairie preserves where Vera saw these beautiful grasses.

Our next stop was in Lexington, Ky, but to get there, we had to cross multiple flooded  rivers – the Mississippi, the Ohio, and the Missouri, which all sort of converge at Cairo Illinois, as you have read in the news.  Because many bridges were closed, we had to go north into Illinois, cut east and then south into Kentucky.  The extent of flooding was astounding.

Kentucky has some beautiful rolling hills and the parkways just flow along the countryside.  In one small town, we saw these great horse sculptures.

Lexington is a beautiful, prosperous looking town.  We visited Elizabeth's (Vera’s daughter) stepmother Kathy and half brother (Kathy's stepson) Chris.  Confusing isn’t it.  Glad they are family,  and we hope for a longer visit next time. Kathy gave us a private tour of the Univ. of Kentucky Art Museum (she is the Director there).

We headed east to West Virginia and were rewarded with more curvy mountain roads (the WV Turnpike is extreme), and will arrive at Carole’s home in Mount Jackson on Tuesday and survey the tornado damage at Carole's house.

We passed the 10,000 mile mark the other day, and our backends really feel it.  We’ll be glad to be home and out of the van, but it has served us well.