Day 11
Sunday
22 August 99
Lexington, Kentucky - (Lancaster, Ohio -) Columbus, Ohio

The rooms are designed bathroom to bedroom (as opposed to bathroom to bathroom) so the sound of our neighbor's jucuzzi jets woke me up this morning.   It was a thunderous noise which I incorporated into my dream for a while, and then which finally got me out of bed.   Our toilet broke last night, and I opened it up to try to fit it (and to flush it manually), but the chain broke in half, so there was nothing I could do.   A man named Willie came to fix it; he said he had been right out the door.   We considered the timing of it all to be impeccable.

Of course, having been in the bathroom changed my mind about the whole bedroom to bedroom arrangement.   the vent above the toilet gave one free access to listening to their neighbors' conversations.   It was pretty hard to ignore all that racket.

Kentucky was lovely, just as I had imagined.   Even the trees lining the streets seemed like exactly the species of tree I would expect to find in Kentucky.   Driving through the center of Lexington reminded me of so many old paintings of riders on their steeds travelling through the forest.   It was such a pleasure to be amongst fellow horse lovers.

We elected to take the scenic byway out of Kentucky, rather than the interstate, and wound up on the Appalacian Highway.   Worst street names seen:

• Burnt Cabin Road
• Steam Engine Road
• Gender Road

The first was mine and the latter two were my mom's.   All of those were in Southern Ohio.   When we were coming upon one of the myriad little towns in Ohio, someone flashed their lights at me.   I told my mom, and asked her what could be wrong.   We were trying to figure out why, and my mom said sometimes people do that to warn you that there is a cop ahead, which I knew.   Immediately after she said that, she said, "Is that a cop?"   And sure enough, there one was.   Thank you to whomever warned me.   I was ten mph below the speed limit when we rolled by the officer of the law.

I had been expecting to see confederate flags, and they finally showed up in Ohio.   There were several yard and barn sales that we visited, only to be disappointed by the junk you couldn't even give away that littered them all.   I refered to every small town as Booneyville and ever store brimming over with useless items as Junkerville.   The expression "Junkerville" got a lot of usage today.

We passed by the "Pee Pee Gas" station, and I knew I had to take a picture or no one would believe that we had seen it.   My mother was appropriately offended by it, and we added it to our long list of nonsense that we had seen on the trip.

Ohio was alright, and we took little dinky roads all the way into Lancaster, home of Anchor-Hocking Jadetite.   We met the other of my mom's Jadeite friends slated for the trip: Jane.   Jane is a very well-known dealer, and had an exquisite collection.   Her hubbie Jerry was also nice, and I chatted with him and one of Jane's friends while my mom scoured the selection.   Jerry gave me a lovely antique purse -- very small and metal -- which will make a great going out purse once I polish it up.   They were very sweet to us and I am so glad we went.

But getting there was interesting.   My mom didn't have directions, and her cell phone wouldn't find service in the area.   We stopped at a fast food joint where my mother spent 15 minutes trying to get through to Jane.   Back in the car I made her double check the number, and indeed, the area code was wrong.   Then we stopped at the Astro Mart (from around the world) and my mother called again, this time leaving a message.   The Astro Mart sign amused me greatly.   Then we drove into the town I was navigatress) and we stopped yet again (at the 22 Dive Thru), where my mom asked for directions.   We assumed they would know where the street was, but my mother reported that one of the women had given her rather convoluted directions while the other had said she had lived in Lancaster her whole life and had never heard of Old Logan Road.   Once we were on the road again we spotted it right away (on the opposite side of the highway from where the directions had said it would be) and we easily made our way to Jane's door.

We went to northern Columbus to spend the evening, and both decided we didn't care for the town.   My mom says she has to love Ohio, because it gave her Howard, but she doesn't like it.   Our room was unmemorable and our view was of another building.   We hope to get an early start tomorrow.

 
Day 10 | Day 12
return to US trip '99
return to Rachel's Daily Diary