We passed the cities of Glencoe and Long Ridge before taking a right turn in Owenton, stopping at various sales that were set up along the route. The one in Owenton had quite a few sellers, including a saddle that Jen looked at, but we passed on it and kept looking. She ended up buying a pair of $60.00 saddle pads for $8.00. Then back on the road through Monterey, Swallowfield, then the capital city of Frankfort where the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet seams to have more square footage than the Governmental offices (but I'm sure that's not the case). Further South through Alton, Lawernceburg, Bondville, Salvisa, McAfee and into Harrodsburg before hitting the very pretty college town of Danville. Still moving South through Junction City and the apply named Moreland, Hurstonville, Liberty, Phil, Dunnville, Webbs Cross Roads, Russell Springs, Jamestown, Sewellton, Freedom, Rowena, along the banks of Lake Cumberland and across the dam on our way to Aaron and Snow before turning Right to Albany. By then it was 6:00 PM and we needed to find a place to stay.
Lodging... We'll, we didn't know how far we would make each day, but our goal was to do a state a day. We didn't quite make it, and after calling 5 or 6 lodging locations, we had to backtrack to Somerset. To get there, we had to pass through Monticello which is in Wayne County Kentucky - known as the house boat capital of the world, and for good reason. Many of the most well known houseboat manufacturers have manufacturing plants there, and some of the units they had outside ready for shipment were bigger than our HOUSE...
Funny story #1 - we stopped at a Sonny's Bar-B-Q for takeout. When I placed our order of a "Super Combo", the order taker asked me if I wanted Corn Bread or Garlic Bread. I asked for both (as the wife and I were going to share it). She said "you have to choose." I said, "Can't I get one of each - I understand there would be a charge." She said, "No hon..." Really? I can't order a piece of garlic bread??? Whatever...
Saturday morning, off we went back down SR 90 back to 127. We went back through Albany and through Static, crossing over the border into Tennessee, then down to Chanute and around to Forbus and to a place called Pall Mall where we found a VERY cool signed black and white picture of Nicklas Lidstrom (defenseman and current captain of the Detroit Redwings).
Back on the road South to Grimsley and into Jamestown (the reported home base of the SR127 sale, but all we saw was a speed trap and an unlucky tourist getting pulled over), then through Clarkrange, over I-40 to Crossville, Big Lick, Melvine, Cold Spring, and Pikeville, Lees Station, Lusk, Pailo, Mount Airy, Dunlap, Loan Oak, Fairmount, Walden and Signal Mountain, then down the hill to Chattanooga. That was were we lost SR-127 (sign actually said "END 127", but this garage sale is supposed to go all the way down to Gadston, Alabama - I'll have to investigate the rest of the route for next year...). We picked up I-24 over to I-75, found a Cracker Barrel for dinner, and picked Athens Tennessee for a place to stay.
On Sunday the plan was to drive back, but shortly after we crossed over into Kentucky Jen got tired of interstate driving. We stopped for a quick bite at the Renfro Valley exit, picked up SR-150 North West back to Danville and SR-127 north. At a place just north of Salvisa, Jen said, "hey look - a piano." "Digital piano?" I queried? "I think so," came the reply. I turned around and stopped on the street to see a light colored wood grain digital piano. I turned in and got an up close inspection. It's a Yamaha Clavinova CLP-220 Digital Piano. 88 real feel weighted keys, 64 note polyphony, and was the first Clavinova to have a re-sampled grand piano. It has NEVER been played - it still had the plastic coverings over the three foot peddles. They plugged it in and I played about 30 seconds of arpeggio's to make sure it could handle a real performance and I was sold. Price tag - $300.00! A STEEL!!!
We ended up getting home around 5:00 PM, exhausted but very satisfied with our travels. We saw some really cool things, and while I couldn't take a picture of everything, I did take a pic or two of some items of note:
You can never have too many amo boxes...
If you have amo, you might need a bigger gun...
There were vehicles for sale - some for little kids...
or not so little kids...
All in all - it was a great time, and we zeroed in on some great values. I'm learning how to play a piano for the first time since I attended the University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music back when I was 8 years old, and I hope to give lessons very soon. Most of all, it was three wonderful days with my beautiful wife, away from home, kids, and the general trappings of life - all great things. :)
