As you read through the posts over the past five weeks you can see that the trip had it's ups and downs. We left with a little extra time under our belt with the hope that we can try Kansas City BBQ and compare it to St Louis BBQ. That "extra" time was used up with the bent axle on the trailer (thank you California roadways). The blessing of that incident lead to us accidentally meeting a man who would let us store the broken trailer at his home. We went back to our home (3 hours away) and picked up our bigger trailer and went back to Reno to transfer the load and move on. It was catch up from there. Still we made our first gig, Laurel County Fair in London, KY.
Though the fair had a couple of days of heavy thunderstorms (not through0out the day) we didn't miss a show. We discovered the people of rural Kentucky to be some of the nicest in the country. We also discovered some of the hillbilly jokes out there are true. Still sincere to the core and courteous beyond belief were the people of London. The selection of butterflies out there was tremendous. As were the the selection of weird bugs. London will always be one of our favorite towns in America. We hope to perform there again someday. While in London I was given real Moonshine from a gent who (since London is a "dry" town (moist really---you can have booze in restaurants) I won't mention his name. I was also given an 1844 Kentucky Bourbon bottle (drat no booze...no I am not a big drinker...not even a social drinker...nor an anti-social drinker...I will sip an drink with a meal from rare time to time...I have a pallet for wine...and whine). I bought a little brown jug at a trading post on the day we left town.
We drove the 2 or so hours to Bowling Green from London crossing over a beautiful mountain pass along the way. It is amazing the difference of the two towns. Bowling Green is like a small Big town. The general population was kind but different from London. The folks we meet at Beech Bend Park were all extremely nice. The owners were locals but most the workers were from all over the country and the world in some cases. At Beech Bend we would experience the hottest and humidest day of our trip. It was miserable. Still by evening it settled down. While there Princess Olivia would suffer a high fever for about 48 hours as she held back in her potty training and gave herself self-induced constipation. The worry subsided as nature won out. The little ones I think rate this as their favorite place because they got to ride and ride and ride. Like London we had packed crowds at every show. Also like London we all made good friends. The little ones made closer friends here as the owner's grand kids worked at the park. They also bonded with the dancers from the magic music show at the park. Beech Bend is fabulous family adventure. I didn't realize before coming that the friendly family amusement park existed anymore.
When I was a kid there were several small family fun parks like this in the Bay Area but as California grew, greedy developers, crazy lawmakers, evil lawyers, and Jimmy Carter's America killed that industry.
Beech Bend had the most rigorous schedule for us but it was worth every minute in every way.
We even got to be one of the first to ride their new carousel.
When I set up the tour I really didn't stare at the map very closely. (Even though I really think God had a lot to do with the way things came together....we started off booked at one big fair in TN that fell through after I booked the follow-up fair in MN. Shortly the London Fair fell into place but not before Beech Bend called and things were set up there. That filled the hole left by the TN fair. All of this got kicked off with an East coast amusement park first contacted us with a possible 6 week run that fell through...but the idea of an east coast tour was set in my head. Finally the New York Fair contacted us and the timing was perfect. We almost ended up with a one day gig for Ohio on our return trip but that fell apart at the last minute.)
We took two days to get to MN. We were planning on stopping in IL along the way to sleep and refresh but the lousy roads and rude toll gate guys made me want to shake the dust of IL off my feet as soon as I could. I wish I had had more interaction with the people of IL but the bitter drive (the roads are so bad my gas mileage dropped over 1 mile per gallon for the 5 or 600 miles we drove there....On a side note I am not for ether candidate for President. But if Mr Obama was a state legislator for so many years followed by a Senator for that state and he was unable to do a thing about the lousy roads then I doubt his ability as president...maybe we should look at each Senator's state and see how the state is fairing...remember these two clowns are both from the lowest rated congress in history!)
(((((Next time I will pick it up from here...pix are coming...essays from each of the kids are coming too.)))
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