A successful trip to the Gorge (unlike the one when I was a kid)

Lots of people have visited Red River Gorge (RRG). 

My parents attempted to take me, my brother, my cousin, my grandma, and my aunt many years ago when my brother and I were kids. 

We never made it.

Well, I guess technically we did make it because we drove around in the rain and fog on winding roads in the area that is called the Red River Gorge Geological Area.  

But we never saw an arch, a trail, a cave, a waterfall, or a big giant hole in the ground because my brother puked in the car (from said winding roads), and we all practically sat on my grandma's lap to avoid the puddle of stomach bile on the floor. 

That trip sucked, but boy-howdy was it memorable. 

When I started planning for a summer trip this year, I knew I didn't have the mental bandwidth to plan an out-of-state trip. Our governor has been very cautious about COVID, and some other governors acted like there hasn't been a pandemic going on for over a year, so I just didn't feel comfortable heading into some of the more bat-shit states. Plus, with my dad's health issues over the last 10 months, I didn't know what would be going on with him. I didn't want to be 10 hours away from home. 

Plus, we had a good time last year checking out several places in Kentucky that had been on my to-be-visited list: Cumberland Falls and Land Between the Lakes. 

I tend to not like to revisit the same places repeatedly, and RRG was someplace the kids had never been. I think maybe D and I had gone there while dating but that is seriously ancient history. And my childhood trip was a non-event. 

So we rented a house and took my parents, my MIL, my niece, and our crew and drove down. 

I think every family has a story or tradition of something they do or something one member does that everyone pokes fun of.

In my family of origin, it is my dad's notorious frugality. Now, I'm all about frugality, but I learned from my dad that paying for a halfway decent hotel or rental home is a very good idea. I'm not at all a big spender, but when you pay cheap, you often get cheap. 

In 1998, when D and I went to Las Vegas with my parents after we married, we stayed at what looked like a bordello. We could see the Bellagio, which was brand new, out our window. We looked longingly at the bells and whistles and newness of that hotel. 

In 1999, my brother, future SIL, our parents, and D and I went to Virginia Beach. My parents got the hotel. The pool didn't work at all and the hotel rooms smelled like someone sat in them each day smoking 3 packs of cigarettes. My parents STILL have not lived that hotel down. 

After that, my SIL and I have never allowed my parents to select the hotel or rental. 

In the family D and I have created, their story about us is that we pick the most remote, out of the way places to stay. Nearly every human who visits the Rocky Mountains stays in Estes Park. This was enough reason for me to rent a home clear on the other side of the Rockies. That side was just perfect for people like us who hate crowds and traffic. 

When we arrived at our RRG cabin, N (who drove with my MIL) commented on how we had to turn around 3 times because the roads didn't have roads signs so we weren't sure where we were going. She said, "This is so typical of them, picking the most isolated spot in the world." 

The weather was rainy quite a bit while we were there, but we still managed to find some dry(ish) times for quick hikes. Our hiking motto with G (who hates to hike) is also a perfect hiking motto when a 78-year-old who has had 4 surgeries in the last year is going too: easy and not long. 

I knew my dad was a tough old bird before this trip. He's had his colon removed, open-heart surgery, and the many surgeries with his cancer diagnosis from the last year. But I guess this RRG trip really brought it home to me when he hiked up the original Natural Bridge trail. It took him awhile and he had to stop to rest many times, but he made it up and back. He is not invincible, but he is the epitome of "As long as I can try, that's what I'm going to do." 

Four days away is about all we can handle with the kids being eager to return to our house and their friends and their devices. And truly, four days is all I can handle of coercing and listening them ask when they can return home. 

But those four days were pretty darn good.

Sky lift going up to Natural Bridge

Getting ready to walk through Fat Man's Misery. 

             

Angel Windows at RRG

Natural Bridge in background

Big honking native umbrella magnolias

The whole gang at Miguel's Pizza

The kid line up

There are few things I'm traditional about. 

Mostly what I've watched my family do is modify traditions through time. Things simply change, and the harder a person fights to keep things exactly the same (tradition), the worse it is. 

I think I learned from my mom that it makes more sense to adapt than to fight and then be angry that things haven't stayed the same. She was an adapter; she watched too many people in her family be unhappy trying to keep things the way they had always been.

I was never big on dressing my kids up cute for holidays. They mostly didn't cooperate, and I'm not a dresser-upper for holidays so eventually I moved on. I guess my tradition when it comes to dressing my family for holidays is seeing how much like hobos everyone looks. 

But there is a tradition that my side of the family has done since our kids and my brother/SIL's kids were young:

THE LINE-UP

At first, it was easier to lie them all down than to try to stand them up and keep them in order. 

It got a little easier, but the two youngest didn't get it, and the middle boys were (and still are) complete doofuses.

N took a lot of pride for being the tallest....

but her one year-younger cousin eventually took the title of tallest grandkid (which he currently still holds)

And then the next cousin took her spot in the height of grandkids line-up.

AND, unfortunately, now her younger brother has taken her spot:

To make her feel better, we did a LINE-UP by age, and she was queen again:

A delight (#9)

I'm not a "stuff" person, but I'm definitely a "spend money on travel" person. 

That travel has been far (Greece, Italy, Iceland) and close (Cumberland Falls and Land Between the Lakes). 

I keep several large scrapbooks of the places we have traveled since becoming a family of more than 2, and they bring me incomparable delight. 

Last night, I spent time scrapbooking our within-state trips in 2020. 

I didn't feel comfortable last year traveling outside the state, nor do I feel comfortable doing that now. Our small trip scheduled for this coming summer is to a spot two hours away from home. We have invited my parents, my MIL, and my niece (which, if all are able to come, will be the same makeup as our trip in June 2020). 

Looking back on these trips brings me the delight of seeing my loved ones spending time together without masks and concerns for our safety. 

(Empire Bluffs Trail, Sleeping Bear Dunes, Michigan)

We have been supremely lucky to have traveled several times with my brother's family and our parents--to Michigan, to Colorado, to the Smokey Mountains. 

Upper Peninsula, Michigan

We have photos of the kids doing very simple things, including playing cards with their Nana. 

Hilton Head, SC

It is a joy to see the kids when they were little; when their hair was in different styles; when N still wore glassless glasses. 

 Grand Lake, Colorado 

These photos remind me of aggravation because G has never gone on a trip that he didn't do something that drove us freaking crazy. In the moment, it was supremely aggravating. In retrospect, funny and delightful. 

Forest Park, St Louis MO

These photos remind me of the locations we have taken our children to educate them both historically and empathetically. 

Martin Luther King National Site, Atlanta, GA

These photos remind me that even when we were within our house on our devices completely neglectful of each other we also had times when we are completely in the moment with each other. 

Cape San Blas, FL

Ear twiddler

I woke up at 5:30 this morning and began a hunt through our thousands of pictures for snaps of M twiddling someone's ears.

This began on accident the other day when I found a picture of him twiddling Nana's ears at her and Pa's surprise 40th wedding anniversary party.

Down the rabbit hole I went.

M always tries to determine which ear is the coldest. 

You can see him in action here with his dad. 

Family remembering time

We have a vacation scheduled for June, but who knows whether we'll actually be able to go.

The pandemic makes me more glad than ever that last year we went three places--Atlanta on spring break, Florida in the summer, and Michigan City, IN/Chicago on fall break.

Last night, I decided that I would take the time to actually scrapbook our 2019 fall break trip, which led me to suggest that for family time after supper, we would look through our family travels scrapbooks.

(Ok, all the time is, technically, family time right now.)

The first trip in the albums dates back to 2009 when we went on our first trip as a family of 5 (although one of us was still in utero on that particular trip to Gulf Shores, AL).
We had gone on another trip to Gulf Shores in 2005, but those photos went into the N IS THE ONLY CHILD album.

The travels in these books are both near and far.
There are half-day trips to Salato Wildlife Center, 2-day trips to Santa Claus, IN, and longer across the country trips to Colorado.

For most of the travels, I have included memorable stories in the scrapbook such as when we went to Edisto Island, SC, and G got his hand stuck in a crab statue. I was convinced we'd have to call the fire department and have them destroy the statue to get his hand out.
(Lotion for the lubricating win on that one.)

On our fall break trip a couple years back to St. Louis, G and I recreated one from when he was a wee boy. The original photo was at our local zoo when he was terrified of animatronic dinosaurs even though he LOVED dinosaurs and begged me to take him to the exhibit.

The recreation was at the St Louis Science Center.

Oh, here is another photo of me packing around G. He wanted to go to Dinosaur World because he loved dinosaurs. He then refused to walk through it, so guess who carried him the entire time?

We have determined that G is a complete sh*t, but if it wasn't for him, our travels would be SO BORING.
We'd have zero memorable events.

There was our trip to Mason, OH to visit Great Wolf Lodge. We still ask M to do his imitation of Wiley the Wolf, which he perfected while there:
"Stomp, stomp. Clap, clap. Ya got that? Let's do it one more time."
(Must be said in a very twangy way.)

And then there were the photos from Battery Park, Charleston, SC. N was sitting on her gigantic pile of turds.

We had a lot of fun spending time reminiscing, and it made me immensely happy if only for a little while. 

Deets on the Quebec trip

I could take a zillion pictures on the trips we take, and I would regret not taking more.

I think it is that I want the photos to capture the essence of the place we visit, and they simply cannot. Nothing can replace being there.

Still, I tried on our trip to Quebec to take photos of the little things I noticed. Sure, we took plenty of pictures of the big things---the basilicas, the huge statues and the big hotels--but sometimes what makes a place unique are those small things that you notice.

When we arrived in Montreal, it was around 7 pm so all we had time for was to grab a bite to eat and wander around briefly. The city is celebrating its 375th anniversary this year. 

There were images flashed onto the sides of buildings that told a story about the history. 

This was the view of the street from our hotel the first night in Montreal. 

Definitely old word feel (except for the car).

We grabbed some dinner at the bar at this restaurant.

The VIA Rail station in Montreal had these on the walls. It was a rather large station or large in comparison to the one in QC. 

Our hotel in Quebec City. 

Loved the unique window-boxes, not just here but at other places as well.

La Grande Dame aux bleuets by Rose-Aimee Belanger in Chateau Frontenac. 

A stop sign in QC.

An actual phone booth. 

What can I say? I thought the mailboxes were cool.

This winter, QC got 12 feet of snow. 

Signs abound about the danger of falling snow/ice. 

There are guard rails at the tops of many buildings to keep people from having snow dumped on them.

When we left via the back door of our auberge, we walked past this. 

It was weird.

I liked it.

 Our auberge in QC connected to Hotel 71. 

At the entrance were two sculptures. 

This is one.

 The license plates in Quebec read "Je me souviens," which means "I remember." 

I can't help but like this.

During our walking tour in QC, the guide pointed out a church that has been

converted to a library. As a book lover, I can't help but

adore a place called "House of the books."

When D and I wandered through QC on our way through the nouveau section (with breweries and more modern stuff), I saw this.

This is a small fountain outside Auberge Sainte-Antoine, 

right now the block from where we stayed.

There are three passable gates surrounding QC--Kent, Louis, and Jean. 

Architecturally beautiful, in my opinion.

A water sculpture in a small park right outside the VIA Rail station in QC.

The FAO (Food & Agriculture Organization of the UN) sculpture which is right now the block from our hotel. I artistically loved and vestibularly disliked the wavy pattern on the sidewalk and road.

Taking Flight sculpture in the City Hall gardens.

A smooth whiskey/maple syrup concoction that D and I tried 

while cruising on the St. Lawrence.

Back in Montreal, the place we ate lunch. Just lovely.

So lovely that we bought a photo of the outside 

of the cafe from a local artist to commemorate our Montreal visit.

At a corner near Rue Saint Paul in Montreal, another

Rose-Aimee Belanger sculpture.

Macarons at Marche de la Vieux Port in QC.

Back in Montreal, D noticed that John the Baptist looks like he's taking a selfie.

A small chocolate shop right around the way from our hotel in Montreal.

We laughed every time we walked by this place because in our heads we pronounced it, "Couch-tard," a derogatory statement for couch potatoes.

In French, it is pronounced "kush-tar" and means "night owl."

It is a convenience store for those late night needs.

A piece of the Berlin Wall on the site where Montreal's boundary wall once stood. 

Now in the World Trade Centre of Montreal.