Picking Roses In Eastern Kentucky On Thanksgiving Day 2024!

 

Yesterday, Thanksgiving Day, November 28, 2024, my wife Candice and I chose to travel to Prestonsburg, Kentucky, for the Thanksgiving Day Buffet at Jenny Wiley State Park Lodge rather than cook a Thanksgiving dinner for the two of us.  When we are away from the house and have the time, I nearly always try to walk or hike somewhere while Candice waits for me in van at a safe parking area and reads.  Since it was fairly cool and damp, I chose to not hike in the woods near the lodge. There are several fairly good hiking trails in the park and I have used them quite a bit over the last few years. We have also attended other holiday dinners at the lodge with members of my extended family over the years. I went to Big Sandy Community and Technical College to walk on their paved walking path near the Big Sandy River instead.  I have walked there numerous times and actually enjoy that walking path since it is mostly paved with an unpaved gravel loop around a grassy area near old US 23 or North Lake Drive.  The paved area is a big loop with one fairly good uphill which overlooks the river.  Between the river and walking path, there is also a fairly large, relatively flat grassy area which can also be used for walking if it isn't too wet.  There is also a consistent population of black squirrels in the trees around the walking path and along the river bank.  I only saw two squirrels yesterday while I was there and never clearly established that either of them was black since both were on the ground near trees and probably at least a hundred yards away when I spotted them and they immediately ran up the back side of the trees.  

 

I only saw one other walker while I was there yesterday and he only made one loop before disappearing.  He was wearing shorts and the temperature was only 40 degrees or so.  I suspect that he might  have not been enjoying the shorts.  But, to my amazement, I spotted a few late fall roses blooming on some plants which are situated at a little memorial rock garden between the college parking lot and the hiking path.  The rock garden is dedicated to some former employee whose name I don't remember.  There were also some beautiful flowers on several small shrubs at both the rock garden and near a swing which is situated at the opposite end of the grassy area in the center of the walking path.  Since it was already only forty degrees with a subfreezing forecast, I chose to cut one of the roses and several of the other flowers for Candice who was waiting for me in the van.  It was a pleasant surprise for both of us to learn that all these flowers were actually still in bloom on Thanksgiving day.  It also amazes me  how many people choose to totally ignore signals such as these flowers about the fact that global warming is very real and very dangerous for the planet.  

After my walk, we drove up old US 23 from Prestonsburg to Allen where I showed Candice some of what is left of Allen.  Then we returned to the lodge for the buffet.  It was acceptable but a bit overpriced.  There was ham with pineapple served in thin slices, fried cat fish which the lodge serves at nearly all of their major events, turkey served sliced and/or shredded, some turkey dressing which I chose not to try, some fairly good shoe peg corn and carrots, and banana pudding, pecan pie, and pumpkin pie for desert.  The lodge was fairly crowded with what was almost universally an older crowd. It was an enjoyable day all things considered. 

Goose Creek Salt Works And Pioneer Village-Manchester, Kentucky

 

        

Jesse Cotton Cabin at Goose Creek, Photo by Kentucky Tourism

Today, July 6, 2023, my wife and I traveled to Manchester, Kentucky, primarily for two reasons: 1) to take a sizeable but short road trip and to buy Chow Chow from a Mennonite owned produce store in downtown Manchester.  I walk or do some other form of exercise every day of the year and when we are out of the house and the weather is decent I usually find a place to walk, a park, a sports venue, or some other setting.  Today, we wandered into the Goose Creek Salt Works and Pioneer Village just outside the heart of downtown Manchester.  We used to have a friend who lived in Burning Springs just north of Manchester but he has been dead for several years and we hadn't been back in Clay County for quite some time.  The site has a lot of historical value in the local area and in the history of the settlement of Kentucky.  There are about 4 log buildings on the site: two houses including the cabin in the photo above, another cabin, and two barns.  There is also a recently constructed stage with a couple of dressing or storage rooms which I assume is used for a variety of community events.  One of the cabins, the one above, can only be seen from the outside. The other cabin and the two barns are all accessible but have nothing in them.  One of the barns has a large livestock feed trough made from a hollow tree which is placed with the ends between the cracks in the logs.  But it is nearly six feet off the top of the ground and would have been inaccessible to any livestock except poultry or goats.  Perhaps it is placed that high to discourage possible thievery.  It is impossible to determine if it is of recent construction or authentic.  Sadly, a lot of cinder blocks have been used in setting the buildings up and they don't appear to be fully authentic for that reason.  There is a good two piece history of the salt works and setlement of the area with water proof text and photographic reproductions under a sheltering roof.  There are also two bronze plaques on the cabin above.  That is the entire Pioneer Village but it is worth seeing.

There is also a nice paved walking trail which runs along Goose Creek downstream beginning at the cabins with a sizeable grassy area which I assume is used for seating and perhaps picnicking during events.  The walking path becomes gravel a mile or more downstream from the cabins but it is nice and most of it can be accessed by a wheelchair.  But motorized vehicles are not allowed on the trail.  There is also a boat ramp and large picnic shelter downstream from the Pioneer Village which is accessible from the street.  But most of the trail is shaded by trees at least on the creek side and the lower portion is actually covered on both sides with birds and small game to be seen at times.  I encountered about a half dozen people while I was walking and my wife, who is in a wheelchair, stayed at the Pioneer Village reading while I walked and felt quite safe since the area is visible from nearby houses.  Happily, those houses don't literally adjoin the Pioneer Village.  If you are in Manchester and just want to eat lunch in a quiet spot or want to walk or see some history, it is worth the time.  You an also access Goose Creek in a couple of spots for fishing and I actually encountered one man who had ridden a bicycle to fish the creek.  I will probably walk there again if I am ever in Manchester which is as good a recommendation as I can give most places I visit for exercise. 

The Benefits Of Regular Exercise

Today marks two consecutive months in which I have not missed a single day of getting at least 30 minutes of fairly strenuous exercise with an hour on most of those days.  On several of those days I have done both an hour of walking at some site or other within driving distance of my home and at least 30 minutes of time on my stationary bike at home.  During the two previous months, October and November 2018, I had missed several days and become rather inconsistent despite having known for years that even two or three days of non-exercise results in a loss of previous progress in physical conditioning.  But for two complete months, I have now gotten up every day and made certain that I got exercise.  I have exercised somewhat regularly for nearly a year but this is my most consistent period. 

Today, I received what I consider to have been a reward for that consistency.  As I was walking in Old Mill Park in my hometown of West Liberty, KY, I suddenly heard another man who was walking near me yell "there is a bald eagle".  Sure enough circling about 200 to 300 feet over our heads and directly over the park which sits near the Licking River was a bald eagle with its white head and tail both clearly visible.  It circled above us for a couple of loops and flew away to the northeast in the general direction of Cave Run Lake where I have had one other sighting of an eagle several years ago.  This eagle was also only about ten miles from my home and about 8 or 9 miles from a site where I had seen another eagle eating  a road killed opossum just over two years ago.  The man who first saw this eagle today and I shared our stories of eagle sightings in the past and moved on just as the eagle had.  But, if there is such a thing as Karma, I thought that my sighting of an eagle on this two month anniversary of daily exercise was my reward for putting in that time.  If I had been sitting at home avoiding exercise, I would have had no chance to see an eagle in the city limits of West Liberty. It is also another verification that bald eagles are reproducing successfully in Eastern Kentucky and their numbers are growing and their territory is expanding.  I have now had three total eagle sightings within 30 miles of my home, 2 of them in my home county and 1 in my own neighborhood.  That is exciting. 

A Damp Walk In The Woods--March 30, 2018

Yesterday, March 30, 2018, I took another walk in the woods near my house in the same area I walked in on March 24, & 25.  This time the snow was all gone, the morning rain had stopped and the area was just somewhere between damp and wet.  I got a little farther out this time since the going was a little easier.  This walk was both a part of my ongoing plan for exercise and time to meditate about the visitation last night for my friend and part-time auction employee, Tim Evans.  Tim who was only 49 died suddenly on Wednesday, March 28, 2018, from a pulmonary embolism. Tim will be buried on Easter Sunday, April 1, 2018, and his first child, daughter Clarissa Christine Evans will be born on Monday, April 2, 2018.  Although we were not bosom buddies, we were genuinely friends and my wife Candice & I could always count on Tim and Kim Evans when the chips were down. We had known each other since Candice & I started our auction house in Banner, KY, in August 2012.  They began working with us shortly after we began that auction house and we had worked sales together all the way from Letcher County Kentucky to Kenton County Kentucky.  We could trust them absolutely, respected them tremendously, and knew we could always count on them.  Just about a month and a half ago we had been with them in Paintsville, KY, at a baby shower to celebrate the upcoming birth of their first daughter and they had been absolutely happy.  Now, that little girl will never know her father.  Kim will have to raise her alone and is facing burying her husband of nearly twenty years one day and becoming a mother the next.   

Tim Evans & His Cat In A Dump Truck, Photo by Kim Evans

I walked and thought, looked at the buds popping out on the early trees, the spring flowers starting to bloom after a strange winter.  I have always known that life is not fair.  After working twenty years in the human services professions in the fields of substance abuse, homelessness, general mental health therapy, and juvenile delinquency, I already knew that life is not fair.  But something like the death of a man five days before his first biological child is born will definitely remind you of that.   I had also told a local friend of mine the story of Tim's death yesterday and watched as her face took on that shocked appearance that stories like this cause.  But, at the same time, you realize that no matter what happens in life if you are still alive and able bodied you pick yourself up and go on.  My wife Candice, who has been in a wheelchair nearly twenty years of the twenty-five we have been married also had her worst fears triggered by Tim's death.  She is worried that something similar could happen to me and leave her unable to live alone.  That kind of fear is impossible to directly deal with and the possibility that it could be realized is impossible to prevent.  So I am in the middle of a serious work out routine, exercise daily, eat correctly, and always take my medications.  What else can you do?

Tim & Kim Evans, Photo By Keelie Short

Therefore, yesterday was a great day to walk in the woods, hope unsuccessfully that I could find a few morels, and watch the spring come to the mountains near my home.  I never saw any wildlife to speak of and I might have been too noisy for that.  But the walk gave me time to think and that is what I needed before I went to the funeral home to attend the visitation of a friend who had the ultrasound of his unborn daughter in the lid of his casket.  That is how life works and sometimes it just isn't fair.  

Tim & Kim Evans, Photo By Keelie Short