Hi! Elysha and I have been at my mother's house in Louisville for the last week. Kept up with e-mail via her [Expletives deleted ] iMac on dial-up. Couldn't do a lot more than that. It kept crashing. So much for Firefox and Apple being a perfect combination... We drove down on the 14th and left on the 21st. We drove straight through on the 14th and I got a speeding ticket in Ohio for going 78 in a 65 mph zone. We had to call on Monday to see how much the fine was - $95 BTW - and send the ticket, the confirmation of guilt, and a certified check or money order to the town that the ticket was issued in. It was Washington Court House, OH, IIRC...
The cicadas in Ohio and Kentucky were in the midst of their 16 year emergence orgy, as shown here. I reported our "sighting". They were exceptionally loud around Mom's house and dropped their big old bodies all over the place, making it kind of creepy to take a walk. Kara and I were kind of grossed out by the carpet of cicada corpses (and Kara liked the sound of that - cicada corpses was a favorite new phrase). Elysha tried to go running, but was pretty creeped out by the enormous bunch of bodies she saw. She called it the dead zone.
We went over to my brother's house for a cookout on Sunday for Father's Day. There we found out that my eldest niece is pregnant. She'll be due in February of next year.
On Monday, we kind of just chilled out and heard from Steven that his niece had given birth to a 8 1/2 pound boy on Monday. They named him Haiden.
We went to Jenni's house on Tuesday, went swimming and met "Pretty Boy," aka Jake, Kara's boyfriend. That was interesting. 
After swimming, we went to Uncle Bob's Tattoo Parlor. My experience was documented by Kara, after getting permission from my "artist" for the photos.
This one is Elysha's.
There's Kara with her "temp"
This one is my "artist" - Christopher Weddie.
This is his card.
Then we went back to Jenni's, got dressed up (except for Jenni) and went to Louisville to the Hard Rock Cafe™ for supper.
The first few pictures are of what became of the downtown "mall" - the Galleria and a few shots of Fourth Street Live. The revolving doors are on the building where I had my first full time job - Stewart's Dry Goods at 501 Fourth Street. It's now a combination office/retail building. The picture of me by a fountain are in the parking garage. the last two are just a couple of pictures of older buildings downtown.
The next day was my mother's birthday (Hi,Mom!). I gave her breakfast in bed, a origami shirt with U.S. Grant (not Roberts - U.S. Grant Roberts was my mother's grandfather), and a pair of microfoam slippers from Avon. Jenni went to Krogers and got a birthday cake. It was good.
Thursday I caught a cold and was coughing and hacking a lot. Elysha and Kara went to see KUNG FU PANDA. Kara wore a KUNG FU PANDA cap that she had gotten. Elysha got me some cough drops when they went out to get something for dinner. Not much done that I can remember. It rained hard and those cicada corpses washed away and things cooled down a bit more.
Friday we took Jenni and Kara back to Clarksville, watched the kids play outside for awhile, and laughed hysterically as Kara brought back her "one-month anniversary gift " from Jake - a Ty Beanie Babies Anteater. Never mind all the discussion before its arrival, but it just added to the funniness of the, I'm sure, heart-felt gift. We stopped at Walgreen's and I got cough syrup and other "essentials". The girl at the counter had on sunglasses and said that her headache and bright lights didn't go too well together. I relied that coughing and incontinence didn't go too well together either... And it was going to be a long trip home....
We packed up and left on Saturday morning and stopped in 
Wild , Wonderful West Virginia's welcoming center. They gave out coffee and cookies - on a Saturday! I took a lot of pictures of mountains - I thought most of them were in West Virginia, but some may have been Pennsylvania.
We stopped in Waynesburg, Pennsylvania at a Super 8 Motel for the night. Small mistake. We had tried a Mariott- with a gym (which Elysha wanted) and a pool (which I wanted) - they were booked solid. So we go for one that will be inexpensive, no "accommodations" other than a bed. The Super 8 was run by an Indian "hospitality group" - can't recall the name of it. It was not as cheap as the one we stopped at in Kent, Ohio, a couple years ago, which had been around $50 or $60 a night for the two of us- this one was around $75 for a double for the night. We got to the room and there was a beer can behind the nightstand and no wireless, as advertised on the outdoor sign. The curtains blew way out when the air conditioning was turned on - I weighted it down with the pants hangers- clipped them on the bottom of the curtains. It helped cool the room down- otherwise the air would've been in the curtains all night.... The toilet also was a little wonky, but flushed. The shower worked well, though, thank goodness! They did have a "breakfast bar". I got two bagels and cream cheese for the road, but no coffee. The redeeming factor for this motel was that there was a Dairy Queen next door that we just walked to for dinner. :-)
We got to Tannersville, PA and stopped at The Crossings Premium Outlets Center. I got a short sleeved sweater and a tee-top with a cut neckline at Alfred Dunner for around $35. I loved the sweater, but Elysha said I should get something lighter for summer... But I had to have the sweater (which had been $50 to begin with!) and, as it turned out, they were cheaper than I thought! Elysha bought a pair of shoes and some athletic stuff at Ecko. She was disappointed that there was no Coach outlet.
We got home around 7pm and Woodgie was very excited to see us back. She was also very fuzzy- I forgot to remind Steven to try and brush her a little bit every day. Anyway, we're back. Work went okay Monday and Tuesday - I'm not coughing too bad anymore - at least not to the point that I become incontinent. Thank goodness for that!
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