Today I'm heading South! The day in Lexington, Kentucky, USA, started out with a temperature of 14 degrees, COLD and WINDY! (My apologies to you sturdy Yankees who don't mind the freeze. Last week when I was moaning about the weather, I talked with someone in Minnesota who said the temperature there was minus 25 degrees!) By the time I was almost to the Kentucky-Tennessee border on I-75 south, it had reached 37 degrees! When I made a quick stop at the Tennessee Welcome Center, it was positively like Spring - 39 degrees! It doesn't take much to make me happy!
Frankly, I'm sorely tired of winter! The dead trees are so drab and boring. Snow was nice the first time but now it is patchy, old snow, backed up against every curb, nook and outdoor cranny as grey ice. I keep my house cold (68 degrees) but sometimes it seems impossible to pull on enough blankets to get warm. Good old gas logs in the fireplace!: I've been running it much too much just to thaw out!
As I was prepared to tolerate but not enjoy the trip through the Blue Ridge Mountains, I am very pleasantly surprised. There's quite a lot to like, even if there's no flower show or leaf show. How I love my rolling hills in Kentucky! The more South you progress on I-75, the hills rise and turn into mountains. It was exciting to see, once more, the mountain peaks emerging behind mountain peaks. All of these mountains are tree-covered, except for a few bare cuts made for power and telephone lines. That makes a hill look like a poodle on which someone made a random mistake with clippers!
Since most of our Kentucky interstate highways are relatively new, big cuts into the rocks had to be made. And the water streaming from those rocks is now frozen white waterfalls. The more I saw of these tall and long ice sculptures, the more I thought they resembled the big organ pipes at church! I drove along and tried to think of a proper song for the outdoor organ pipes. "Faith of Our Fathers" popped into my thoughts.
The roads are chalky white with the tons of ice the highway departments have had to apply to keep away the snow and ice. The roads look like they've been all white-washed. There are always plenty of new signs and buildings even though I've passed this way many, many times over the years. Shortly after the Tennessee border on I-75 is the big Titan rocket at the fireworks store on the right side of the road. A few miles further, on the left, is the giant green dragon. It's fun to see some of the landmarks I've seen for years.
The first time my family went south to visit my Daddy's family, I must have been about ten years old. We traveled along a long, two-lane road. There were many country shops with hanging quilts hanging on clotheslines. And they all had signs, "Antiques." I asked my mom, "Mommy, what are anti-quays? She laughed and told me how to pronounce the word and what they were, "just old junk."
In Kentucky, the lakes I passed had ice around the shore and a few patches of ice but I passed over a very large lake in Tennessee today that was iced over. Ice, ice! Give it to the Yankees - they love it!
Driving through these mountains brings back a lot more memories. Before my daughter #8, Jeannie's last Spring Break at the University of Kentucky, she mentioned, "Mom, you know this will be the last time we get to take a vacation together. Why don't we go somewhere during Spring Break?" I asked where would be a good place for us to go. Jeannie had a ready answer, "Why don't we go to Charleston, South Carolina?" And we did! What a lovely time we had! Spring in South Carolina was in full swing. We enjoyed every warm minute! A week later in Kentucky, we had our second spring as the trees were just starting to bloom. (Then a week after that I went to Boston, Massachusetts, and actually had my third Spring that year - but that's a story to be told at a later date!)
Another year, we were driving through the Carolinas again, in July. The highway had hundreds of wild mimosa trees blooming with their pink puffs. One fall, as I was driving north into Kentucky on I-75, the sun was low in the sky and made the red and gold fall leaves look like pools of velvet. It was enchanting.
Right now I'm in a motel room near Asheville, North Carolina. It is perfectly quiet. All I hear is the soft hum from the heating unit. I'm tired enough to have a really great night's sleep - after reading for a while. Tomorrow I'm heading for the BEACH!! I suffer from "Periodic Beach Withdrawal," you know. The only treatment is a few days on the beach of a genuine ocean. I can almost hear the pounding surf! I'll let you know tomorrow where this beach will be!
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