A Good Day…and Tourist Practice!

Jill's Journal: It was a good day. Rob is benefitting from me keeping the girls out of his hair and is making huge progress on his long list of projects. I’m thinking our “launch day” will be soon! Well, maybe – the circuit board for the washing machine finally arrived, two days behind schedule, and it has a whole different set of problems than the first. Perhaps if we married the two circuit boards, we might have one good washing machine? I’ve told Rob he’s been too nice in his calls to this maker-of-washing-machines-for-RVs-and-yachts…I’m ready to pounce of them. I’m a mother with three young children (translation: LOTS of laundry) who bought a way-too-expensive, especially-for-an-RV washing machine because no matter how hard I could try, I’m just not a Laundromat kind of gal. And I’m taking the inconvenience they’re causing very, very personally. Rob thinks it’s better he deal with them because one can catch more bees with honey than anger. I know he’s right, but here's my confession of the day: I am having a hard time restraining myself!

(As my dear Dad pointed out today on the phone, this delay in our plans is minor in the scheme of things. Better to have everything fixed and all the kinks worked out here rather than in some crazy little town where we can’t find a hardware store. I know, I know...)

So, while we’re still in Lexington, I decided to practice being a tourist right here at home today. I’ve always heard about a little side-of-the-road diner in Midway, Kentucky, called Wallace Station, but had never eaten there. Unsuspectingly, the girls and I headed there for lunch. Holy crap. Un-be-live-able. I had some chipotle/avacado/turkey/pepper jack creation and no other sandwich will ever measure up. Why have I never eaten there before? It’s so good that apparently Wallace Station will be featured on Guy Fieri’s “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” on the Food Network next Monday, the 28th. We have a t.v. but no television service, so I’m hoping to re-live the sandwich by catching the episode somewhere online. And I just may have to drag Rob to Wallace Station on our way out of town. Yum.

While still in a delicious food-induced euphoria, the girls and I then headed to Frankfort to take in some of the sights of the capitol. We went first to the quaint historic district and enjoyed the grounds of the Old Capitol building, in use since 1830 and now a museum. We happened to walk across the spot where Governor-elect William Goebel was shot on the way to his inauguration in 1900. Erika was fascinated because it happened on her birthday (albeit a little more than a century earlier) and I was fascinated because one of the first books I ever helped edit was strangely not about horses, but about Goebel’s assassination.

We then took a short jaunt over to the current Capitol with the intent of taking a tour, but either the heat or Father’s Day got the best of them and they had closed early. Beautiful grounds, however, and the girls especially enjoyed a giant floral clock with a surrounding fountain (shown in the top picture).

They were eager to get home and spend what was left of Father's Day with their Daddy, so we did just that. The happy little girl squeals from an impromptu running-thru-sprinklers session capped a super day. I think we're cut out for this tourist thing!

I did learn something very, very valuable today: when it’s 94 degrees Fahrenheit and so humid you can cut it with a knife, you can never have too much water along. The jug of water I brought wasn’t nearly enough and we stopped on the way back to Lexington to buy a couple more litters, which were quickly inhaled. These little girls play hard and one in particular definitely subscribes to the theory of “Why walk when you can run?”, so overheating could easily be an issue. I’ll be more careful to have a plentiful water supply in the future.