Archive for the “2009 Mini Road Trip: DC-KY-OK-TX-MS-DC” Category

Hi everyone! Sorry for the delay in updating the blog. Hope none of you thought we were still stuck in Vicksburg! We’ve been home just over a week, and of course I have a backlog of photos to post from the journey.

First of all, we went through Louisiana, and I owe you this:

Also, remember how I mentioned that it was snowing in Vicksburg? Well, here you can see some snow falling on the Super 8 pool (which was open, of course, since the day before had been 80 degrees or something!):

We did eventually get to Jackson and had to continue recovering from being sick. I had a little relapse, etc. I won’t bore you (or gross you out) with the details… but it did, unfortunately, prevent us from attending most of the events we had come to Jackson to enjoy. Alas! We still had a really nice visit with my aunt and uncle, and they took us to a very cool art event hosted by the Mississippi Museum of Art’s New Collector’s Club. It was a talk and studio tour at NunoErin studio in Jackson. They make very cool swamp-inspired, interactive artwork with thermoactive materials — basically, furniture, pillows, and wall panels that change color when warmed by body heat. Here is one of the artists demonstrating how to use a hair dryer to get the color change effect on some wall panels:

It was fascinating and really fun. Thanks, NunoErin!

Eventually we got back on the road to DC… and I have a few more state signs for you, including the elusive Virginia sign!

(By the way, we went through a little corner of Georgia, but they don’t bother to put up a welcome sign there. What gives, Georgia??)

In Virginia, we stopped at the Natural Bridge Exxon and saw this tiger:

It’s a far cry from the Itasca Wampus Cat, eh?

This tiger was made by Mark Cline, a fiberglass artist whose work we always see everywhere. In fact, we have several stories about Professor Cline… but they’re stories for another time.

Anyway, we’re moving to Austin. Wait, what? No, seriously. We are. I got a job. We got an apartment. Movers are coming a week from Tuesday. Soooo things are pretty busy and crazy. But we’ll keep you all posted as much as we can. Keep checking back!!

Well! We’re going to have to tell you more about Austin later. We had a bit of a development. We were supposed to leave Austin on Friday morning and head to Jackson, Mississippi. Instead, on Thursday night, we were both up all night with a horrific stomach virus. I’ll spare you the details, but trust me, it was not pretty. We had to stay an extra night in Austin, and then we tried to make it to Jackson yesterday — and we almost made it, thanks in no small part to a refueling stop at my aunt Catherine’s in Shreveport, Louisiana. But when we got just outside Vicksburg, we became concerned that the place we were headed in Jackson might contain some new and terrifying strain of the virus we had just endured. Plus, IT WAS SNOWING (!!), so we decided to stay put. So, this morning I’m writing this from the Vicksburg Super 8… and we will be going to Jackson (for real this time) later this morning. We’re both feeling significantly better, but still far from fabulous. Being sick is as awful as littering!

We were pretty psyched to leave that gnarly Days Inn in Ohio from last night. We got on the road fairly early (for us) and within a couple of hours (and some weaving in and out of Indiana), we were in Kentucky!

Woo hoo! Six states to go…

Anyway, before we knew it, we had arrived at our first destination… the Creation Museum! I don’t think I can really articulate our experience there, so I’m just going to let the pictures speak for themselves (mostly) and you can draw your own conclusions. Okay?

First of all, there’s an outdoor garden/nature trail that leads to a petting zoo that includes a zebra-donkey hybrid. You can see here that he or she is obviously planning a grand (albeit very slow) escape…

We didn’t spend too much time outside since it was pretty cold and windy and cloudy and blah, and anyway, the main part of the museum is inside. There’s a large walk-through exhibit that depicts the early events in Genesis in 3D, often animatronic detail. Here’s our first protaganist, Adam:

Way to be strategically placed, sheep. Anyway, as with most situations, the Garden of Eden exhibit is all fun and innocent games until you add in a vegetarian raptor:

And then here are some dinosaurs boarding Noah’s Ark:

Unlike the Eden photos above, that particular ark photo is actually from a diorama-style smaller exhibit, and I reluctantly admit that those particular dinosaurs are not animatronic. In fact, I think they are action figures that are available for sale in the Creation Museum gift shop.

Aaaaaanyway, after we left the museum, we thought another Great Flood was coming because there was crazy heavy rain combined with some serious wind gusts. We made it through though and continued on our way through Louisville, Kentucky! We made a random (and very brief) stop to see this:

It’s the world’s oldest ornamental water tower; it hasn’t pumped any water in a century, but it’s now an art museum! We actually didn’t plan that stop — we just stumbled upon it, which is of course the most rewarding way to enjoy the road! But we didn’t just stumble upon this:

Yep. That’s exactly what you think it is. And if you ever visit the Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville, Kentucky, and wish to pay your respects to Colonel Sanders, enter the cemetery on the Grinstead side and simply follow the yellow line.

But… if this all seems morbid to you, don’t worry. Much like Elvis, the Colonel lives on:

We spied the Colonel alive and well, waiting for the bus in downtown Louisville. No, we did not accost him and demand the secret recipe for fried chicken eternal life.

We made it to our Super 8 in Okawville, Illinois, just barely in time to catch LOST. Tomorrow the plan involves conquering Oklahoma!

Hey guys. Guess what? We’re taking another trip! And I tell you what, I may not be all that diligent about blogging about day-to-day life, but I can flat blog on a road trip, so here we go. Brian and I are headed to Austin, Texas, via Kentucky and Oklahoma, two of the mere seven states we have yet to visit (the others are Alaska, Hawaii, Iowa, Nebraska, and North Dakota). So, let’s do this!

Now, this may come as a surprise to you (as it did to me), but Kentucky is actually kind of hard to reach from Washington, D.C. There just aren’t enough roads in the right places. We had to head north and west for a bit, and now we’re near Columbus, Ohio. The cool part about this, though, is that we got to visit FIVE states today! We headed NW from DC (1) into Maryland (2), then up slightly to Pennsylvania (3), then west through that tiny part of West Virginia (4), then continued into Ohio (5). That’s a pretty good total, even for us.

Our route through Maryland took us right through Sideling Hill. We actually passed through there before, but we didn’t have the time or inclination at that point to stop… but today was a whole different story. The visitor’s center was still open, so we decided to check it out. And guess what? IT WAS AWESOME!!!

In case you forgot:

The Sideling Hill road cut is a 340-foot deep road cut where Interstate 68 cuts through Sideling Hill, about 6 miles west of Hancock in Washington County, Maryland. It is notable as an impressive man-made mountain pass, visible from miles away and is considered one of the best rock exposures in Maryland and the entire northeastern United States. Almost 810 feet of strata in a tightly folded syncline are exposed in this road cut. Although other exposures may surpass Sideling Hill in either thickness of exposed strata or in quality of geologic structure, few can equal its combination of both.

Thanks again, Wikipedia!

If you go into the visitor’s center, you can walk across this little pedestrian bridge over the highway to look at Sideling Hill. The bridge has a tall chain link fence around it (I guess to prevent people from jumping off and landing on the highway below), but the fence has “camera ports” in it so you and your camera can both get a nice view of the mountain pass:

Then there’s a little walkway on the side so you can get a closer look:

You can see some white stripes running down the sides of the cut. We thought they were just part of the rocks at first, but they turned out to be ice! Today was one of those weird temperature days that’s very chilly in the shade but quite warm in the sun, so the shaded sides of Sideling Hill had frozen “seep.” Want a closer look? So did we!

Thanks, Sideling Hill!

We also saw some interesting/weird little rainbow patches in an otherwise very clear sky in Pennsylvania this afternoon:

So, that’s it for today. We’re tucked in for the night at the Days Inn in Grove City, Ohio (which is clean but, I have to admit, pretty busted. The last person who stayed here apparently had a fight with the bathroom wall!). Check back tomorrow for another update!