Here's a video of the kids at a picnic at Sharon Woods. We decided to take our lunch into the woods for a change.

David recorded our outgoing greeting on our phone as a song set to the tune the Greatest American Hero song:
Believe it or not, oh the Hohls are not home,
So leave a message at the to-o-one.
When we get home, oh, we'll call you back.
Where could we be? Believe it or not, we're not home.

Now whenever anyone's phone rings (cell phone, etc.) Nora launches into the song. Here is her version, with a bit of prompting.

Technorati Profile

No more posts were added to this blog after we returned home.
To find Alice's contact information, resume and published work, please visit www.alicehohl.com

DAY 43 Lexington to home
David woke up when Jo was leaving to take the boys to school, and he talked to Jo out the window a minute. We planned to hang around until she got back, but we had breakfast, washed the dishes, packed up, unplugged, etc. and she still wasn’t back. We read stories to Nora and she still wasn’t back, so we left a note and took off. It feels weird to actually be heading home. I’m looking forward to it, though, mostly because we have gone through all the clean clothes, knowing we were going to be home soon, so we are all on our last pair of clean pants and I’m anxious to do some laundry.
Approaching Cincinnati, where I-75 and I-71 run together for awhile, the freeway is wide and busy with truck traffic. We always drive between 55 and 60 because our terrible gas mileage gets worse if we go any faster. But the speed limit most places is 65 or 70 (or higher, out west. It was 80 in Texas). So trucks on this stretch were passing us at a good clip, and, as usual, blowing us around like a kite. Then we were pulled over by a cop for “weaving in our lane” which is not illegal as far as I know. But David said it was reasonable cause to pull us over. Perhaps he thought we were smuggling drugs or Chinese immigrants in here or something. Once he figured out everything was fine, and David told him we were on our last day of a 6,000-mile trip, he went back to his car, then came back and gave David his license back and we were on our way.
--------------------------
Arrived home! It feels bigger than I remembered, and we didn’t live here long enough before we left on the trip … neither of us remembers where anything goes in the cabinets!

DAY 42 Lexington

We feel like we’re waking up pretty late these days, but we’re still on Central Time, and we’re thinking about staying that way until it’s time to set the clocks back this weekend. After breakfast, we set out in Jo’s minivan with Nora, Michael, Tom and the three of us for an Amish store. Unfortunately Jo hadn’t been there before and we had dubious direction, so we drove around the country for a couple hours before actually getting there. We subsisted on snacks I found in the diaper bag and crackers and fudge bought at the Amish store until we got back around 2 p.m. Tom had fallen asleep, and Jo moved him into our camper and said he’d stay asleep and she’d go get the other boys from school. Of course as soon as she left, he popped right up and wanted to play. We all had a late lunch and then tried to take naps, but Tom didn’t want one. David took Tom and the ingredients for tonight’s chili and went in the house. Nora and Michael slept while I did dishes and made chocolate chip cookies. Then Jo got home and enlisted the boys to babysit (listen to the baby monitor) while I got to ride again. After that I came up to the camper and nursed Michael and then David and I got to go for a ride by ourselves: me on Gypsy and David on Jack, the bigger horse. It was really cool. It was a great way to spend the last evening of the trip, riding horses on this beautiful farm as the sun went down. And it was something we never could have except that we were at the home of relatives who could watch the kids. It was great. The horses hardly listened to us at all, but the walked around and trotted up the hills, and that was mostly what we wanted to do anyway. Again, they started and stopped when we said to, so they weren’t really bad. I think they just had us pegged as amateurs and knew they didn’t have to listen to us. I helped unsaddle the beasts, and then we all had chili for dinner and cookies for dessert. We stayed up and talked a little after Nora and Michael went to bed, but we were all feeling pretty tired. I availed myself of the nice shower Jo and Herb offered me, and then we all went to bed.

DAY 41 Nashville to Lexington, KY
Last night was our last night in a campground for this trip.
This morning we headed for David’s aunt and uncle’s house, just south of Lexington. It was an uneventful drive, and probably one of the best and most peaceful 200-mile-plus hauls we have had on this trip. We pulled in their driveway in the afternoon, and because it’s a farmhouse with some land, there was plenty of space (level space!) in the driveway for us. Jo gave us a tour of their neat old farmhouse where they just moved recently. It had a lot of character and charm. Each of their three boys has his own room. It’s a nice place. Then she went to pick up the two older boys from school while David played with Tom, their youngest. When the boys got home, they took David and Nora on a go-kart ride around their property. They came back up to the house where I was talking to Tom and nursing Michael. Nora would stay up at the house while David went down with Herb and Jo to ride the horses. Nora and Tom (and Michael) and I were having a fine time, but they were all supposed to be back in 30 minutes or so, and I knew it had been more than an hour. Turns out the horse David was on, Gypsy, didn’t have her saddle on quite tight, and it slipped and David fell off the side of the horse, but luckily while they were still standing still. So things took a little longer than planned. But he wasn’t seriously hurt and got back up and went for a ride. Then it was my turn. I was starving by then for the lasagna that was already done and sitting on the stove, but I really wanted to ride. I went down and rode Gypsy. I felt OK getting on her, because I had ridden horses probably once a year during my teen years (or more) and then once every 3 to 5 years as an adult. But once I got on I realized that I had only ridden at a riding stable, where all the horses have been ridden their whole lives and just go out on the bridle path and go the same way and come back the same way. This was a whole different thing. Gypsy was new to being ridden, and we could go any way we wanted. And there was no long line of riders to follow behind, keeping us at a walk. It was really exciting and fun. Herb was riding the other horse, and Gypsy was pretty much following, but not always. Nor did she always listen to me. She did start and stop when I said to, though, so that was comforting. I had to stop riding because I was too hungry and it was getting dark. David went for one last go-round and helped unsaddle them. The rest of us had dinner. (Jo had already fed Nora and Tom while I was gone.) After dinner we got the camper plugged into their garage (after some technical difficulties) and fired up the furnace. We put Nora to bed and brought the bassinet in for Michael to sleep in while we talked and David and I showed our photos.

DAY 40 NASHVILLE
(photos: inside the Opryland Hotel; Nora's first carousel ride.)
It was a gloomy day this morning. I went up to the office to get David some of the free morning coffee they offer here. It was a bit weak for his taste. I also found out that the shuttle to Opryland advertised in the book was more like a $50/person Gray Line tour that happens to pick people up from here. So that was out. We were going to be driving. I didn’t really know what was at Opryland, just that it was something people always go to see. We drove to the area and parked in the bus parking, which was free. (Car parking, though closer, was $10.) I knew there was a boat tour of the gardens inside the Opryland Hotel courtyard, so I figured it must be pretty big. We walked up to a hotel employee we saw outside and said we were just sightseeing and asked where we should go. She directed us inside, where we passed through the hotel lobby into a stunning indoor garden with waterfalls and fountains and suspended walkways. It was beautiful. Also Nora gets REALLY excited about fountains, so she was happy. And that wasn’t even the room with the boat tours. We kept walking and went into another fountain/garden room. All the hotel rooms seemed to face onto these beautiful domed courtyards. At the end of this second room, we were looking down into what looked like a fantastic buffet. There was fresh-baked bread, shrimp cocktail, a waffle bar, roast beef -- and all of it looked really gourmet and great. We forgot it was Sunday, though. It turned out the buffet was nearly $30/person, so we passed. We moved onto the Delta courtyard, where there was a river with boats that ran along a track. There were also some fantastic fountains that moved and leapt and gushed. We bought some overpriced Pizza Hut and sat in front of one of the fountains on some chairs. Nora was actually giggling with excitement watching the fountain. She was still talking about it over dinner back at the camper tonight. Then we walked on an outdoor path to the Grand Ole Opry, home of the longest running country music radio show. You couldn’t really see the auditorium without getting show tickets, and there weren’t any shows on Sunday. We walked across the parking lot to the Opry Mills shopping mall, which was enormous. We didn’t buy much, but Nora took her first carousel ride with David. “I rode the HORSIE!” she told me when she got off.
Back at the campground, we pulled in and were met with a questioning look from the campground owner. I guess we were supposed to check in this morning, even though I thought I had paid for two nights over the phone. They had already given our site to someone else, but luckily had another one available. They had thoughtfully collected our doormat and dog tie-outs from our old site. After we moved and had a snack, we went to the camp office to ask a question. We ended up in the back room behind the office, where they have computers you can rent and free board games. David and I played a couple games of checkers. Then Nora and I went to the playground while David and Michael talked to the owner. Nora really liked this playground, even though it was mostly really old, metal playground pieces badly in need of a coat of paint. She hardly played with rocks at all, moving from one play car to another and asking to go down the slide “again” and again. After a while I was freezing and insisted we go back. After we warmed up, and while David was making pork stir-fry, Nora and I went to the book exchange and turned in three of our old paperbacks for some new (used) ones.
After dinner, David asked Nora if we should have dessert. Her eyes lit up and she said, “Cookies,” and pointed to the snack cabinet. David tried to get her off the subject, but she kept pointing. David said, “Nora, do you have a one-track mind?” She said, “Cookies. COOKIES!”
Nora went to bed in her sweatshirt and no pants because she wouldn’t cooperate with David in getting her pajamas on. But other than those battles, she really has been very good. She rides happily in the stroller or the backpack and usually goes along with whatever we’re doing.