Back home, at last

I'm finally back home. The past few days have been difficult - traveling, shopping, dining out and being a tourist, when I've spent the last couple of years being a shut-in.

There were still times I stayed behind in the hotel when the family went out, but I really did try to take part.  I don't want to be tired all the time. 

One of the places I went:

And further down:

I've rafted the river below the falls twice. Back, before, you know...

I hardly recognized myself when I got home and looked in the mirror.  I actually got some sun the past few days and am not my usual shade of pale white that comes from being in my room 24-7.

I'll try to keep it up. I really did push myself. For every moment I sat waiting alone in the car or the lobby or the hotel room, there was also a moment I uncomfortably endured the crowded restaurant and park and shop.  It can only get easier.

But for now at least, I'm home with my kitty:

Ties, baby

We go to Cumberland Falls every year.  My daughter feels the pull as much as I do, and insists on it.  She'll be 21 in July. !!!.  She was 2 or 3 in this picture, and my grandma had talked us to the edge to get a great shot.

We're Kentuckians, through and through.  Even though I was an Army brat and lived in a lot of different places, it was a relief to come back home.  I'll never want to live anywhere else.  Why would I?  This is the best place in the world.

I blame my grandmother.  She raised all of us to be like this.  I'm not kidding when I say that when I was little, she'd sing me to sleep with a lullaby that began, "Kentucky, you are the dearest land outside of heaven to me...".

I'm a city girl, but I can trace my dirt poor tobacco-farming eastern Kentucky ancestors back to the 1700's.  That's because they're all buried in our family cemetery in Blackwater, KY, where we go every year on Decoration Day.  My grandmother is buried there, and my great-great-great-great-grandmother is buried there. There's still room left for me, too.

We were taught how to handicap the Kentucky Derby by the time we were 5, the basics of country music at 6, and had field tripped the state's major landmarks before age 10.  The UK Wildcats basketball worship training began in the womb.

It's a good thing the brainwashing began early and intense, because it might not have otherwise survived the big 3-year move to Germany.  We didn't get basketball over there, I had to rely on country music cassette mix tapes sent to me via APO mail, the only mountains were the Alps, and the only landmarks were various castles and the Schwarzwald.

I got shipped back home right before I turned 13.  A little culture shock.  But my family!  My trees, my basketball, my Derby, my bluegrass, my mountains, my falls, my Kentucky...

Edit: My mom reminded me exactly how the song goes:

Kentucky, you are the dearest land outside of heaven to me,
Kentucky, I miss your laurel and your redbud trees…
When I die, I want to rest upon your graceful mountains so high..
For that is where God will look for me.

Midnight...rambling...

I finally hooked up my new scanner/printer/copier...
The first thing I wanted to do was find something to scan in, because it's been such a long time since I've been able to do that...and then I got caught up looking at pictures for an hour!
Here's the picture that I finally decided would get the honors and be the first one in:

This is my daughter and me at Cumberland Falls, Kentucky, about eight or nine years ago.  Do you see how close we are to the falls!!!  I can't believe I did that...there is a viewing area much further back, but my grandmother had talked me into going under the ropes and hurrying out there on the limestone shelf so she could get a picture of us before one of the park rangers saw us.
Obviously, I can't ever let my daughter see this picture, I don't want her to get any ideas.  I also obviously can't let her hang out with my grandmother too much...LOL!
I go to Cumberland Falls at least once every year...because:
1) It's one of the only few places in the world where you can see a moonbow...it's quite something to go to the park during the full moon, and stand with a crowd of people in the middle of the night, waiting for the moon to rise above the trees so that you can see colors arise out of the mist at the base of the falls...

2) It's a great place to go whitewater rafting...you start your trip at the base of the falls and travel down the Cumberland River...and it's family-friendly (meaning NOT HARD)...
and
3) Because I love it!  The falls and the hiking trails and the river, it's one of my favorite places in the world.
(This is me talking...my daughter also loves it...D, on the other hand, is a person of this variety..."WHY do we have to go there again? What else is there to see that you haven't seen a hundred times before?"...But he loves me, so he always goes along and doesn't complain TOO much! LOL)