13-15 June: On the Road Again

Dad and I hit the road late Monday morning bound for Kentucky and ultimately his sister's house in Chicago.  I somehow managed to convince him that it would be a good idea to detour through Kentucky so that I could see the Red River Gorge.

The mountain parkway in KY was slow going as it was windy and, well, mountainous.  We pulled into Natural Bridge State Park late in the day and decided that a leg stretcher was in order.  We decided to do the Natural Bridge trail which was about 2 miles RT, but then noticed a greater network of trails and continued on to a viewpoint along Laurel Ridge and looped back around Battleship Rock, thereby hitting the highlights of the park.

Although busy by Alaskan standards, we did find quieter trails as we wound our way up and down through thick forests with big patches of rhododendron on the verge of blooming and lots of fascinating rock formations.

Dad crossing on a suspension bridge

Natural Bridge

We stayed in the only hotel around 11 miles east in Campton and ate diner food for dinner rather than the steak we were hoping for.  The next day we drove the Red River Gorge scenic loop.  We could not find touristic info anywhere, so we finally pulled into a trailhead parking lot and interviewed some hikers.  We settled on the Hidden Arch and Grey Arch area for a morning leg stretcher before climbing back into the car.  The hike was largely uninteresting, but we did cross paths with a 5-foot rat snake.  I noticed him stretched out across the trail like a branch.  The snake didn't move despite our prodding, but rather froze up with his body kinked yet still across the entire trail.  It made no sense to me from an ecological perspective of why a snake would prefer to freeze in place rather than flee.  Unless, its natural predators have poor vision; the snake did have a degree of camouflage and indeed,  dad actually thought it was a branch.

Rat Snake

Dad needed to deposit a check at Smith Barney, so we used it as an excuse to check out downtown Lexington.  Lexington was a lot cuter than I expected.  While dad was in the office, I "Yelped" and located a nice Lebanese buffet with good reviews.  Afterwards, we drove past Cincinnati and Indianapolis before stopping for the night in Lafayette.  We planned on taking a walk on the Purdue campus, but that never materialized.  Instead, we engorged ourselves on steaks, veggies, calamari, and salads.

The next day dawned with torrential rains.  We tried to sleep in, but ultimately ended up vegging out in the room.  Our goal was to arrive in Chicago at noon when Debra would be back from her PT appointment.  This plan backfired because we forgot about the time change; we arrived as the appt was starting.  We ate a yummy & healthy lunch at the cafe on the corner and spent a lazy afternoon surfing the web and reading.  We had take out Indian for dinner and friends came over to partake in the feast.