Home Again

We made it home. At least three of us have. The Boy won't be home until Saturday morning. The trip back from Dayton was the longest, most frustrating ride that we've been on in a long, long time. The world was throwing everything it could in our way to keep us from reaching home: Traffic, traffic, traffic, accidents, traffic, construction, traffic, every red light and then a frelling train! It took forever!



Mammoth Cave is...mammoth...and cavey. Combined the Man and I must have said WOW! probably close to a thousand times. It is an amazing place. Be warned that the area around the National Park is completely littered with the most cheesy, old school tourist traps that can be imagined. They make you start to doubt whether you've made a correct choice in vacation destination. But in the end the cave is almost too much for words. You've just got to go and see it for yourself.



I found lots of pressed penny machines on our trip and came home with nine new pennies: Two from King's Island, two from the museum in Cincinnati, one from the Mammoth Cave hotel lobby, one from a scary roadside gift shop, another from an even scarier gift shop and two from the Air Force Museum in Dayton. We went to that museum just to kill time while we waited to pick up the girls from Wright State University. It was in the area, had free admission and a penny machine. We only had an hour but you could spend all day in there. It was much more interesting than I thought it would be.



Marco was very happy to come home as well. He's a crazy car rider anyway, but when we pulled up the driveway he started flipping out because he recognized home. The cats seem to have missed us as well, especially Meg who is constantly at my heels or staring at Marco while he sleeps.

Today was all about laundry, getting groceries and laying around watching the Project Runway marathon. The new season starts Wednesday and The Girl has laid down serious threats if we don't tape it for her.

From the road

The Man: "Do you want to come down to the [loud, crowded, smoky, room full of games you don't like to play] casino with me or do you want to stay here in the [amazing, beautiful, spacious, quiet, quite possibly the best] hotel room?

Me: I'll stay here.

Hello from the road! Sunday we delivered the girls to Dayton with no trouble at all. Their dorm rooms were so nice that it made The Man extremely jealous since the dorms in Vermont were old and creepy. After we left them, we headed down to Cincy, just to look around. There is a lovely park and walkway down by the river that we strolled along for awhile. There were tons of ski-dos and boats in the river as well as this giant barge.

Yesterday we spent the whole day at King's Island. I always wanted to go as a kid so this was a childhood dream come true! They have got some excellent roller coasters there, a few lousy ones and one that is so bad it should just be torn down now. We rode The Beast and then got right back in line and did it again. The first time we rode it, as we were leaving the station another train went over us. A little girl from somewhere in that train yelled "It's a jerky ride!" as a warning to our car. Since nowhere on the ride were we insulted about what we were wearing or had smoke blown in our face, she must have meant all the bumps and knock about that the ride gave out. At one point The Man yelled "I got jacked in the ribs!" I couldn't stop laughing about that.

This shot was taken by a Cedar Fair executive who was happening by. That makes it official!

The Man is back and he's up $15. Time to blow out of here. Cincinnati museums today because it's supposed to be sticky and hot. Tomorrow it's Mammoth Cave!

And we're off!

The lists are made and are being gradually checked off. Marco is already at boarding and probably having a wonderful time if I know him. I'm trying to let the kids pack themselves without breathing down their necks. It's not going well. Whenever they pass through a room I start peppering them with "Did you remember...". Luckily, no one seems too annoyed with this so far. I haven't even started packing the Man and myself at all yet. At least all the laundry is done.

There may be pictures from the road. Or maybe not. At any rate, I'll catch you up on all our adventures next week.