We have been asked many times recently “Why are you travelling across country on a southerly route during the dog days of summer?” The reasons are many but the first is that Son Chris and family moved from California to Nashville last month and this seemed like a nice time to pop in and say hi. Other reasons include a desire to see the four states we have yet to travel through (Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Iowa) and the location of the national park Mesa Verde is on the same latitude as Nashville.
Cincinnati was our first stop for 4 days. We found quite a few things to keep ourselves occupied inside in the AC and outdoors in the morning and later afternoon when the heat was not as oppressive. We found a really cool indoor/outdoor market called the Findlay Market. The type of market where locals stop on their way home from work to pick up everything needed to cook a nice meal. We found a nice butcher there for assorted sausages and hamburger for the upcoming pan of lasagna. The cheeses in the cheese shop were fabulous too. Lots of good produce made for a nice salad. A Mediterranean food store sold the fixings to make our favorite pasta salad.
On one of our “floats” in the lake that is the namesake of the state park we witnessed an eagle attacking a heron. We have seen many heron on our river floats but have never heard their distress noises. Very strange indeed. As far as we could tell, the heron escaped unscathed.
The pics above are of a “slave pen” where slaves awaiting sale to new owners were kept. This particular one was built almost 200 years ago and happened to be located in a tobacco barn. This kept it from deteriorating over the years. When the museum acquired it they had to dismantle it and rebuild it on site in the museum. It was a huge undertaking as the size of the building was great. Check out the people for relative sizes.
As we headed to the Nashville area we opted to stay at a resort type RV park just 4 miles from the new home of Chris and family. Figuring that the grandkids would like to spend time at “our place” if we had a nice setup for kayaking and swimming. There was good swimming in the reservoir right by our site. The highlights of our visit included a few nights of catchup conversation around home cooked meals. We rented a jetski to explore the lake and give the kids some speed to go along with their patience exhibited while slowly kayaking the day before.
As we left Chris and family in their new house in Nashville we had a good feeling they found a nice place to be and that we will be back to visit again.