🚗2017 July 11, Tuesday, Day Trip to Hopkinsville, Kentucky

Ate a waffle topped with cool whip, blackberries, and walnuts for breakfast. Hubby put syrup on his waffle.
We stopped in Loretta for lottery tickets before beginning our journey to Hopkinsville, KY.
We were traveling I-24 past the Nissan Stadium Home of the Tennessee Titans around a quarter till eleven.

Nissan Stadium Home of the Tennessee Titans 

We arrived at Rest Area in Oak Grove Kentucky around 11:30AM. We always have to stop and check out the rest area/Visitor Center in every state. Mississippi has some of the best rest areas that I have seen.
Kentucky is known for its thoroughbred racing tracks and Kentucky Bourbon Trails and we saw a little of both here.

Horse Racing and Kentucky Bourbon

We were seated at Logan's Roadhouse in Hopkinsville Ky at 11:57AM. Hubby ordered the Logan's Roadhouse hamburger and I ordered the Cod Fish with homemade chips.
The girl who waited on us was very busy and it seemed to take quite a while to get our food.

The fish I ordered was undercooked, and not very good and hubby said his hamburger had no taste.

Cod Fish with chips, coleslaw, and tater sauce
the fish was tuff and the breading was not done on the inside, but it did look good.
When cooked right it is delicious.

The real American Roadhouse Hopkinsville, Ky

Pennyroyal Area Museum on ninth street.

Former United States Post Office Building now PennyRoyal Museum 

We were greeted by the curator who was eating her lunch. We paid the small admission price and the curator gave us a short history of the PennyRoyal Museum.  
She said, the museum was a former Post Office and it still had windows where people would send packages and purchase stamps.
She also said that we could send a postcard to someone or to ourselves, put it in the mailbox on the table and they would stamp it. 

Don't forget to send a postcard and put it in the mailbox here.

Upstairs in the PennyRoyal Museum, we saw a display about the early life of a Pioneer in Hopkinsville. 

Pioneer Life in Hopkinsville

Behind the loom was a quilt telling the history of Hopkinsville
25th Annual Quilt Show
Hopkinsville Heritage Quilt
Quiltmakers
Designed by Dixie Thomas
pieced by Kathy Croft
Quilted by Edna Baker, Linnie Wallis, Kathy Croft, Nell Young & Betty Young 

Downstairs we saw a York Square Grand Piano 1870 made by Weaver Piano and Organ Company, and a Winton Upright Piano, 1920 made in Chicago, Il.
We saw local notables such as Billy Boley the Ventriloquist. 
We saw Robin Penn Warren the National Poet, and several displays about Ringling Bros Barnum & Bailey Combined Shows.
We saw The mechanical Wonder Horse, ridden by three generations of children from 1907-1994.
We saw a display of the Brook Memorial Hospital and Doctor Phillip C. Brooks.
We saw a hand-carved wooden display about the Trail of Tears by George Barrette Floyd.

 Wooden Carved replica of the Trail of Tears

Display about Edgar Cayce the Sleeping Prophet

http://www.beliefnet.com/faiths/the-life-and-times-of-edgar-cayce.aspx 

The Kelly Encounter (Little Green Men)
The Kelly–Hopkinsville encounter was a claimed close encounter with extraterrestrial beings in 1955 near Kelly and Hopkinsville in Christian County, Kentucky, United States. 
UFOlogists regard it as one of the most significant and well-documented cases in the history of UFO incidents, while skeptics say the reports were due to "the effects of excitement" and misidentification of natural phenomena such as meteors and owls. Psychologists have used the alleged incident as an academic example of pseudoscience to help students distinguish truth from fiction.

The Tobacco War 1904-1911
http://www.nkyviews.com/Other/text/text_night_rider_movement.html

There is a story behind each display that could be told. 
I bought three Post Cards and we paid $2 each to visit the Transportation Museum.

The Transportation Museum was located across the street from the Pennyroyal Museum. It was once a Fire Station. 

There was a crew of men working on the roof and they were repairing the Clocktower. (Many years ago the Captain's room caught fire and burned the first clock tower which was larger than the one now on top of the firehouse.)
The firehouse was built before automobiles and the first fire truck was pulled by horses.

The curator said
We have the first (Auto) fire truck ever used by the fire department
It was bought by a former firefighter, and he restored it to its glory days.
He gave the town the firetruck when he found out the town was opening a Transportation Museum inside the old firehouse.

We saw a couple of Dalmatian dogs, a couple of fire trucks, a carriage, Firemen's boots, caps, and the original fire pole the firemen used. We saw a couple of miniature train displays, benches from a train depot, a sleigh, and three different Gasoline tanks the Shell, Gulf, & DX.

First Gasoline-powered Fire Truck and Dalmatian 

Clock Tower being repaired

Firemen's hats

Miniature Train Display and another fire truck.

Our next stop was the Casey Jones Distillery.

The Casey Jones Distillery

 Grape, Peach, and Apple Casey's Cut
Casey's Moonshine, Barrel Cut, and Total Eclipse Moonshine.
Lights Out

At the distillery, we sampled the Casey's cut Eclipse-A-Rita, the Peach, and Apple.
We were shown how the Moonshine was made, and how it was bottled.
There was a wedding later that day at the distillery.

Many different events happen here including the upcoming Total Eclipse on August 21, 2017.
The weekend of August 18 in Hopkinsville is the place to be for the greatest view of the total eclipse.
There will be music, vendors, hot air balloon rides, and much more.

Our next stop was the Commemorative Trail of Tears Park.
Inside the small cabin, we meet a Cherokee Indian Woman.
She told us how this very spot was a chosen way to stop for the Indians on the Trail of Tears.

The nine flags representing the states of the Trail of Tears
Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Tennessee.
The removal of the Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole

https://www.britannica.com/event/Trail-of-Tears

Commemorative Trail of Tears Cabin

Statues at the Trail of Tears

We stopped at Chick-fil-A in Hopkinsville, where we ordered Lemonade, Peach Milkshake, and some chicken fingers.

Chick-fil-a Hopkinsville KY 

Peach Milkshake (my favorite), Chicken strips, and Lemonade

Our next stop was the Fort Campbell Memorial, Park 

As we traveled through Nashville we encountered work traffic.

The sunset on the clouds as we encountered our last mile home
around 8PM

The Stranger

Sally’s parents owned a chain of Macy’s Department Stores.

The one Sally worked at was in New York, where she had to deal with the hustle and bustle of everyday traffic and people.

Sally would take the Staten Island ferry and then the subway to Time Square where Macy’s Department was located. 

Sally loved her job and the people but deep inside she was filled with emptiness over the loss of her beloved Jim. 

Sally and Jim were college sweet hearts, they married right out of college and had planned to spend the rest of their lives together. 

After ten years of marriage they still did not have children but hoped someday day to fill that void. 

Jim was an engineer and he had designed many of the tall sky scrapers in New York. 

Sally remembers that tragic night like it was yesterday.

The knock on the door, the two policemen saying I am sorry to inform you but your husband lost control of his car and was buried in the snow.

Jim had stayed late at work and was trying to finish up one of his projects and by the time he finished it snowing up a storm. The wind was howling, it was very dark and the roads were blanketed in snow.

Both Jim and Sally loved the outdoors and they had build a beautiful home two hours away from the city.

They also kept a small apartment in downtown New York when they kept late hours at work. 

But tonight Jim wanted to be with Sally it was their tenth anniversary. 

It had been ten years since Sally was widowed, with no children to fill her days, Sally turned to books.

Bye the time Sally had the fire roaring in the fireplace she could smell the hot coffee perking in the kitchen.

Sally put on her pajamas, poured herself a cup of hot coffee, grabbed a warm blanket and went to her library of books and picked out the latest novel that she had purchased.

Sally had settled in for the night when the ground beneath her house shook. 

The sky lite up like a christmas tree, then total darkness. 

Lighting bolded one after another.

Sally put her book aside and she started to shake. When Jim was alive he would take her in his arms and make her feel safe but tonight she had no one to hold her.

One of the lightening bolts hit the house and it caught on fire. Oh my! What am I going to do? She called the fire department but she lived so far out of the city that by the time the fire trucks arrived the house would be burnt to the ground.

Sally was racing around inside the house, trying to save her library of books when she heard the sound of a car.

The car stopped and a stranger got out and raced inside to save Sally.

Sally did not want to leave the house because of her books but the stranger pulled her outside.

The firemen arrive just in time to see the sky opened up and pour buckets of rain onto the house putting the fire out. 

Sally looked at the stranger only to discovered the stranger was not a stranger.

Sally put the face of the stranger with the man she had been avoiding at the store.

Sally remembered the crazy day, that she had met the stranger.

One day at the store she was throwing a tantrum acting like a kid, she had made a horses ass of herself right in front of the stranger. 

So, every time he came into the store Sally would run and hide, she was too embarrassed to face him.

Tonight she had to face him, he had saved her life. 

The firemen made sure the fire was extinguished and it was safe for them to return inside. 

The stranger stayed the night to comfort Sally and to make sure the fire did not rekindle.

Sally went to check on her books they smelled like smoke and the pages curled a little but other wise the books were still readable.

The roof had to be patched, the walls painted but that would be another day.

The young man stayed to help with the clean up and Sally was not long ashamed to face the man.

Could this be the beginning of a new romance.

Like Humphrey Bogart said in Casablanca, “Here’s looking at you kid"