mamagotcha (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mamagotcha) wrote2006-10-22 07:41 pm
mamagotcha) wrote2006-10-22 07:41 pm
Meet me in St. Louie, Cordell...
Let’s see now, where were we? Ah, yes, some motel not very far outside of the splayed reaches of Fort Collins’ demon spawn, Clarksville.
We joined the other motel guests at a pretty nice continental breakfast set-up, including make-it-yourself waffles (mine shredded upon release from the iron, but was still delish). Linc didn’t tip over the whole table today, but did manage to dump an entire bowl of cereal and milk everywhere. Cute’s only gonna carry you so far, kid...
Through more gorgeous hardwood forests that I cannot seem to photograph for love or money, we started listening to H2G2. Somewhere around the introduction of Zaphod, we came across Barkley Lake, and I decided on the spur of the moment to stop for a visit. We found a visitor’s center that directed us to a lovely little beach and forested area in Kuttawa, KY. We did the walk around the point that jutted into the lake, and met a very nice minister and her dog... she put up with all my questions about the area, and the dog put up with all the petting from the boys. Linc made me verrry nervous by insisting on leaning on the crumbling rock wall on the lookout spot.
I dragged the little daredevil away and we headed down to the little beach. It was sunny and warm, and even though I wanted to get back on the road, the boys begged to go wading, so I relented and we settled in for a splashing session. Linc loved it, and said, “Lincoln like a fish... like a turtle!” His language has just come leaps and bounds on this trip.
On the beach were these “life jugs”... ultimate recycling? Or really cheap parks department? You decide:
This stop served my ulterior motive of getting Linc tired out, and by the time we rolled into Paducah, he was snoozing blissfully. I bribed Clay with a Subway sandwich and dashed into the Museum of the American Quilters Society.
Sadly, they were pretty adamant about no photography in the galleries (although one fellow insisted it was because of “fiber deterioration,” which is total horseshit... without a flash, what on earth are you subjecting the fibers to when you take a picture? I’d be more worried about the sulfurous bad breath of people who breathe on the quilts).
The quilts were, without exception, completely spectacular. There was one area of miniature quilts that boggled the mind, two displays featuring two pairs of long-term collaborators, an exhibit of Lewis-and-Clark inspired pieces, and, the best part, a display of quilts from the museum’s permanent collection, including several that had been designated as one of the 100 best quilts in America today.
It was alternately incredibly inspiring, making me want to drop everything and start sketching ideas for a quilting project of my own, and simultaneously discouraging, a sense of despairing that I’d ever be able to come close to any of this incredibly beautiful work.
My wonderful mother-in-law, however, is definitely one of these people. I wish she’d been there with me, I know she would have had many insights into the quilts on display. Maybe on another trip, Lori?
Linc woke up after I’d been drinking in these works of art for about an hour, and Clay brought him in. I let him check out Air Show (the second quilt down on this page, and then we quickly perused the gift shop and nursed in their classroom. I snuck a few photos of the quilt-inspired stained glass windows... there weren’t any signs saying don’t photograph them:
On the way out of Paducah, we found a cute local frozen custard place, and in honor of the warm afternoon and how good the boys had been, plus in the spirit of trying to support local businesses, I treated them to some goodies. Here’s Clay enjoying his pumpkin pie shake:
We made it into Benton, IL’s KOA with about two minutes to spare before they closed their check-in office, whew! Really, they were mostly shut down for the season... the place was sort of neglected, messy and overgrown. Our site was full of beer-bottle caps and cigarette butts, bleah.
It was chilly and we needed diapers, so we headed back into town. One end had a Walmart, so we went the other direction on principle. We stumbled into a little farmers-market-looking event around a town square, and it turned out that the town was having their Halloween festival that evening! We got out and wandered around... it was getting dark and cold, and things were winding down, but we did catch this little flying monkey before he took off into the atmosphere:
The only food was funnel cakes, and no diapers to be found, so very reluctantly we wound our way back to the Walmart. We also got some canned soup and a packaged salad to share, plus a little can of beans for Linc who had been asking for them ever since he saw them at the first KOA of the trip.
Back at the camp, we broke out the campstove and heated up the soup. It was dark and a little spooky, and I nixed Clayton’s request to wiki the Texas Chainsaw Massacre (most of these KOAs have wifi these days, w00t!). Poor Clay had the trots, but nothing too serious. Another Snicket chapter, and we settled for the night. Just before bed, I managed to get a good shot of this curl that’s been bouncing in Linc’s face all day:
We woke up and found the morning greeting us bright and very cold. We made hot oatmeal and cocoa for breakfast. Here’s what most of our “kabins” look like (and what we look like having breakfast):
and here’s some of the color greeting us in the morning:
We were on the road by 10am, heading to St. Louis. We debated driving through to home, having had enough of various travelers’ complaints. We’d been trying to get Cordell to join us in St. Louis for those last few days, and he’d been waffling, so we gave him one more chance to decide. To my utter and complete amazement, he agreed!
So Clay and I conferred, and decided to visit The Magic House, the local children’s museum today. This was an old historic home that had been completely renovated into a kids’ paradise. A few pics of the boys playing:
There were the usual waterplay and soft climbing areas, but this place went up and over the typical kids museum exhibits. The only other place that could even compare was the fabulous children’s museum in Seattle. Nothing broken, everything well-engineered, clean and cared-for, lots of helpers available to answer questions, many cool new ideas. One thing Linc really loved, but I didn't get any good pictures of, was a magnetic fishing pond... you "catch" a fish, then walk to another room and drop it into another "pond," then follow its progress through a see-through "river" under the floor back to the fishing pond.
We headed off to the KOA outside of St. Louis, which fortunately isn’t terribly far from the Amtrak station. It’s also pretty quiet, but very well cared for and clean. It’s supposed to freeze tonight, and instead of cooking I decided to type this in, so we’re headed out for some pizza or something soon. We’re right outside the Six Flags park here, but fortunately that won’t be a temptation... they’re only open Fri-Sun for the Halloween crowd.
We’ll wait for Cord to show up tonight around 10pm, then in the next few days: the St. Louis Zoo, the Holocaust Museum, the Science Museum, and the Arch.
We joined the other motel guests at a pretty nice continental breakfast set-up, including make-it-yourself waffles (mine shredded upon release from the iron, but was still delish). Linc didn’t tip over the whole table today, but did manage to dump an entire bowl of cereal and milk everywhere. Cute’s only gonna carry you so far, kid...
Through more gorgeous hardwood forests that I cannot seem to photograph for love or money, we started listening to H2G2. Somewhere around the introduction of Zaphod, we came across Barkley Lake, and I decided on the spur of the moment to stop for a visit. We found a visitor’s center that directed us to a lovely little beach and forested area in Kuttawa, KY. We did the walk around the point that jutted into the lake, and met a very nice minister and her dog... she put up with all my questions about the area, and the dog put up with all the petting from the boys. Linc made me verrry nervous by insisting on leaning on the crumbling rock wall on the lookout spot.
I dragged the little daredevil away and we headed down to the little beach. It was sunny and warm, and even though I wanted to get back on the road, the boys begged to go wading, so I relented and we settled in for a splashing session. Linc loved it, and said, “Lincoln like a fish... like a turtle!” His language has just come leaps and bounds on this trip.
On the beach were these “life jugs”... ultimate recycling? Or really cheap parks department? You decide:
This stop served my ulterior motive of getting Linc tired out, and by the time we rolled into Paducah, he was snoozing blissfully. I bribed Clay with a Subway sandwich and dashed into the Museum of the American Quilters Society.
Sadly, they were pretty adamant about no photography in the galleries (although one fellow insisted it was because of “fiber deterioration,” which is total horseshit... without a flash, what on earth are you subjecting the fibers to when you take a picture? I’d be more worried about the sulfurous bad breath of people who breathe on the quilts).
The quilts were, without exception, completely spectacular. There was one area of miniature quilts that boggled the mind, two displays featuring two pairs of long-term collaborators, an exhibit of Lewis-and-Clark inspired pieces, and, the best part, a display of quilts from the museum’s permanent collection, including several that had been designated as one of the 100 best quilts in America today.
It was alternately incredibly inspiring, making me want to drop everything and start sketching ideas for a quilting project of my own, and simultaneously discouraging, a sense of despairing that I’d ever be able to come close to any of this incredibly beautiful work.
My wonderful mother-in-law, however, is definitely one of these people. I wish she’d been there with me, I know she would have had many insights into the quilts on display. Maybe on another trip, Lori?
Linc woke up after I’d been drinking in these works of art for about an hour, and Clay brought him in. I let him check out Air Show (the second quilt down on this page, and then we quickly perused the gift shop and nursed in their classroom. I snuck a few photos of the quilt-inspired stained glass windows... there weren’t any signs saying don’t photograph them:
On the way out of Paducah, we found a cute local frozen custard place, and in honor of the warm afternoon and how good the boys had been, plus in the spirit of trying to support local businesses, I treated them to some goodies. Here’s Clay enjoying his pumpkin pie shake:
We made it into Benton, IL’s KOA with about two minutes to spare before they closed their check-in office, whew! Really, they were mostly shut down for the season... the place was sort of neglected, messy and overgrown. Our site was full of beer-bottle caps and cigarette butts, bleah.
It was chilly and we needed diapers, so we headed back into town. One end had a Walmart, so we went the other direction on principle. We stumbled into a little farmers-market-looking event around a town square, and it turned out that the town was having their Halloween festival that evening! We got out and wandered around... it was getting dark and cold, and things were winding down, but we did catch this little flying monkey before he took off into the atmosphere:
The only food was funnel cakes, and no diapers to be found, so very reluctantly we wound our way back to the Walmart. We also got some canned soup and a packaged salad to share, plus a little can of beans for Linc who had been asking for them ever since he saw them at the first KOA of the trip.
Back at the camp, we broke out the campstove and heated up the soup. It was dark and a little spooky, and I nixed Clayton’s request to wiki the Texas Chainsaw Massacre (most of these KOAs have wifi these days, w00t!). Poor Clay had the trots, but nothing too serious. Another Snicket chapter, and we settled for the night. Just before bed, I managed to get a good shot of this curl that’s been bouncing in Linc’s face all day:
We woke up and found the morning greeting us bright and very cold. We made hot oatmeal and cocoa for breakfast. Here’s what most of our “kabins” look like (and what we look like having breakfast):
and here’s some of the color greeting us in the morning:
We were on the road by 10am, heading to St. Louis. We debated driving through to home, having had enough of various travelers’ complaints. We’d been trying to get Cordell to join us in St. Louis for those last few days, and he’d been waffling, so we gave him one more chance to decide. To my utter and complete amazement, he agreed!
So Clay and I conferred, and decided to visit The Magic House, the local children’s museum today. This was an old historic home that had been completely renovated into a kids’ paradise. A few pics of the boys playing:
There were the usual waterplay and soft climbing areas, but this place went up and over the typical kids museum exhibits. The only other place that could even compare was the fabulous children’s museum in Seattle. Nothing broken, everything well-engineered, clean and cared-for, lots of helpers available to answer questions, many cool new ideas. One thing Linc really loved, but I didn't get any good pictures of, was a magnetic fishing pond... you "catch" a fish, then walk to another room and drop it into another "pond," then follow its progress through a see-through "river" under the floor back to the fishing pond.
We headed off to the KOA outside of St. Louis, which fortunately isn’t terribly far from the Amtrak station. It’s also pretty quiet, but very well cared for and clean. It’s supposed to freeze tonight, and instead of cooking I decided to type this in, so we’re headed out for some pizza or something soon. We’re right outside the Six Flags park here, but fortunately that won’t be a temptation... they’re only open Fri-Sun for the Halloween crowd.
We’ll wait for Cord to show up tonight around 10pm, then in the next few days: the St. Louis Zoo, the Holocaust Museum, the Science Museum, and the Arch.