Finally Made it Home to East Tennessee

To those who read and/or follow this blog, I’ll bet that you thought that our May/June trip to visit family and friends in Paducah Kentucky, St. Louis Missouri, Kansas City Missouri and Omaha Nebraska would never end!

Well good news!  This is the last posting that features that trip along the back roads and byways of the Midwest…

This is the former Pennsylvania Railroad passenger depot in Madison Indiana.  This beautiful as well and uniquely designed depot was built in 1894.  Now it serves as the Jefferson County Historical Society’s Museum.  To learn more about the Historical Society and this museum, you can go to http://jchshc.net/index.php. 

If you haven’t visited Madison Indiana down on the Ohio River, and you like historic old towns as well as dining and shopping, this is a town you should go out of your way to visit!  The town’s population is just over 12,000 and it’s the County Seat for Jefferson County.  Over 55,000 people live within 15 miles of Madison and it isn’t very far from Louisville Kentucky.  

Most of Madison's downtown area has been designated as the largest contiguous National Historic Landmark in the United States.  One hundred and thirty three (133) blocks of the downtown area is included in the Madison Historic Landmark District.

To view and learn about some of the historic buildings in the Historic Landmark District, go to http://www.oldmadison.com/homes/.

Factoids:

·       The Madison Hydroplane (powerboat) Regatta is held here on the Ohio River every July.  It draws up to 100,000 spectators.

·       A couple of movies have been filmed in Madison.  One was “Some Came Running” with Frank Sinatra, Shirley MacLaine and Dean Martin.  The second was “Madison” with Bruce Dern.  The latter film was about the hydroplane races. 

This is the former combination freight and passenger Louisville and Nashville Railroad depot in Eminence Kentucky.  It’s now being used as the town’s municipal building. 

Eminence was incorporated in 1851.  Eminence, which means “high place”, is the highest point along the railroad between Louisville and Lexington at 900 feet above the sea level.  The town is located in Henry County.  The county was once a focal point for several railroads and it boasted 7 depots.  This is the only one still standing… Today, there isn’t any rail traffic of any kind anywhere in the county.

Factoids:

·       Eminence was the first town in equine centric Kentucky that had an annual combination sale of saddle and harness horses.

·       Eminence is the only "wet" city in Henry County.  The rest of the county does not allow the sale of alcohol.

·       The town hosts The Highland Renaissance Festival, which runs from May through July.  In September it is also the site of an annual Celtic Fest.

This was our final stretch of 2-lane highway as we neared our home in East Tennessee.  It was a beautiful day and we could see the Smoky Mountains off in the distance…

We were welcomed home by some of the locals, a number of whom had missed us only because the bird feeder hadn’t been in place for their dining convenience!  The doe didn’t mind one way or the other because she just keeps on munching on whatever takes her fancy whether we’re home or not!

Our owner and master of the house, J.D., was very glad to see us as well!  He demanded to know where we'd been all this time and insisted on several of his favorite treats before he was mollified and his unhappiness was sidetracked...

In August, we witnessed the ‘blue moon’ phenomenon. Two full moons in the same month only happens “once in a blue moon”.  This phrase has nothing to do with the actual color of the moon although a literal "blue moon" (the moon appearing with a tinge of blue) may occur in certain atmospheric conditions such as when there are volcanic eruptions or when exceptionally large fires leave particles in the atmosphere.  To learn more about the ‘blue moon’ and the origin of this terminology, go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_moon.  Laurie captured this image after we drove around looking for a good vantage point away from the lights of civilization…

Just click on any of the photos if you’d like to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit…and for sticking with me as I recounted our early summer road trip!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave