We all awoke pretty early this morning. I tried to be very quiet, but while I was getting up I heard Riah turn the TV on. He does enjoy having cable in the hotels, because we don’t at home. Breakfast was almost hilarious. I could hardly believe how much my little boy ate!

It was raining when we pulled out of the hotel, but we noticed something we hadn’t the night before. Beside the hotel, was a Big Boy statue, and across the street was some strange little fiberglass boy thing. We had pulled in after dark, so we joked that we didn’t know we were surrounded all night by little fiberglass men. Riah giggled.

We headed south through Cincinnati. I have a mental block on the spelling of this town, so forgive me if I spell it wrong at some point! Our first stop was in Frankfort, Ky. We took the more rural route 127 south. We found a neat barn with license plates on it. They also had “Billy Goats For Sale,” if ya need one!

Frankfort was a smaller town than I pictured it would be. It had train tracks right down the center of town on one street, right off the main street area. We visited Rebecca Ruth Candies. In 1919, two ladies started a candy business. Women had not yet even won the right to vote, so the idea of two young substitute teachers opening a candy business was a little out of the ordinary. People liked what they made though, and they have been making chocolates at Rebecca Ruth even since. It’s still a small factory, if you can even call it that. It was located in the back annex of an old house. We could not take pictures past a certain point, but we could snap a few in other places. Oh, and by the way, these women were the creators of the very first bourbon balls. In 1936, a friend mentioned that the best tastes in the world were chocolate and bourbon. The rest is history, which is why it interests me. I enjoyed my sample of a true Kentucky original, a Rebecca Ruth Bourbon Ball. The guys had the non-alcohol version, which they loved. We bought a few more candies and headed down the road. Barbara, our tour guide graciously posed for a picture with Riah. That place smelled REALLY good inside folks. REALLY GOOD!

We decided to go back to a place Wayne and I had visited before, so Riah could see it. Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Site was very close, when the sky let loose again. All the sudden, the rain hit, so hard and loud, I actually yelled, “Wayne!” Of course, me exclaiming something scared him more than the rain. Amazingly, by the time we hit the park, it had stopped. We were able to get our National Park Passports stamped, and we walked all around outside and stayed dry. Riah needed to explore and run a bit. It was good for him to get out and run free.

As we left Hodgenville, all I could think about was how close we were to where my Grandma Engell was born. So, we drove up the road towards Sonora, even though I knew the home where she had been born in was no longer there. I just wanted a picture of the town sign if nothing else. So, we get to Sonora, and I started recalling a place we had gone a number of years back, when visiting my Copelin relatives near here. A distant cousin of mine, has a general store around this area . So, my thought went to action, and before I knew it, I was talking to a smoking, brown toothed guy asking where to find Cardin’s General Store. He told us exactly how to get there, although we concluded that country boys must drive faster than we do, ‘cause he said it would be five-seven minutes, and it took us more like fifteen to get there. It was out in the middle of no where, on a road not on my map. I was thankful we asked, we never would have found it if we hadn’t.

As soon as we pulled up, I recognized my cousin, even though we had only met once. Mind you, he is a very distant cousin! I walked up to him, he was standing on the porch of the store, and asked him if he was a “Cardin.” (His last name, my great great Grandma Tura Belle's maiden name) His reply, “Well, at least half of me is!” I explained who I was, and he smiled and said, “We’re kin, yep, we’re kin alright!” The place was buzzing, I mean really busy for as far out a back road as it was. He took time to talk to us, and after a little remembering back and forth, he said he did recall when we met before. Wesley Cardin and his wife Jo have a real neat place. The whole ceiling is covered with hornet and wasp nests he has collected over the years. It is as though the whole place just stood still in time, with the exception of the products on the shelves, which were modern. Riah got a soda out of an old cooler, and learned how to “pop” the top on the side of the cooler. He laughed when we showed him the lids on the underside of it, that fall when popped. Wes is the third generation to run the store. It was once used as a school house for the area. Wes said, “There’s a Walmart up the road in E-town [Elizabethtown], and I still do real good business here. There are days we can hardly keep up. All I can say, is the good Lord’s been good to me.” I loved talking to him. Maybe my talking gene comes from my Cardin side, because we could have chatted all day. Being a lover of old general stores, being in this one straight out of a history book, owned by my “kin,” I was in heaven! The store itself comes complete with old farmers taking a rest on a pew type bench. Light up a smoke? No problem, make yourselves at home folks, this is tobacco country. Riah was having fun until someone lit a cigarette, and he whispered, “Mom, my eyes, hurt.” So, we bid everyone goodbye, and headed down the road. We would have loved to have seen my Copelin relatives, but our schedule was already running late.

We are driving towards Paducah now. I have been typing for a bit, and Riah is asleep in the back seat. It’s not raining, and we hope it stays nice so we can visit the Superman Statue in Metropolis, Illinois after checking into our hotel in Paducah. If not today, we will cross the river tomorrow to see it. Riah loves super heroes right now. It’s a real sweet little boy phase he’s going through, and he found some old pictures of when Wayne and I visited Metropolis years ago, and asked to go there. It’s so funny, this concept of going back to places we have been, to show our boy. It’s fun, to see the world through his precious eyes!

I am in the hotel now, ready to shrink pictures. Let’s see, the rest of our day… When we got closer to Paducah, we decided that since Riah was sleeping, we would just cross the Ohio River into Illinois, and wake him once we arrived in Metropolis. As we approached the exit, we woke him, and he was so excited! I can only imagine how a six year old super hero fan would feel seeing a giant Superman statue. He was beaming from ear to ear as we pulled into downtown. We convinced him he didn’t need to buy a Superman shirt in his size, that he could just pose in the adult size one his Daddy has. So he put on his suit and had so much fun! We played around in Metropolis, and I got my picture by the Big John statue at the local grocery store. We are so weird about giant fiberglass. I know it’s a unique obsession, but it is silly and fun and the world needs more silly and fun!

We visited Fort Massac on the Ohio River, where costumed historical groups were camping. We got very muddy walking around, as we learned that four counties flags had flown over the fort. (Spain, France, Great Britain, USA) I wanted to walk down to the river, although Riah begged to, “Just get to the hotel now!” But, in the end, he enjoyed seeing the bridge we would go back over, and seeing the boats and barges.

Wayne left a bit ago to get Olive Garden take-out. We had snack like stuff for lunch, so we wanted a good salad for supper. And as always, Riah is watching his beloved hotel cable TV! I need to do the pictures now, so I better stop talking! See you all tomorrow… when we finally arrive in TEXAS!