Parting Ways

Today we parted ways.  We drove Abigail to the Louisville Airport, dropping her off at the departures door in the terminal and then driving west out of Louisville, hoping to leave some of the heat and busyness behind. I had a pang of misgiving, driving away from the terminal and leaving her there alone, but she is a big girl and has traveled on her own before.  I told her to keep us updated with her progress and she did so, her last text being pictures of an IRS letter we received in the mail a couple days ago.  I’m happy to say that she is now home safe, and the IRS letter was informing me that my tax form was adjusted and I was getting some money back.  That would explain the mysterious check we received from the IRS a couple weeks ago for two dollars and eleven cents.  No explanation, just a check.  Now I have the explanation.

Abigail arrived home to a severe thunderstorm warning.

The Cracker Barrel was quieter than most as it’s a little farther from the interstate, and we slept well last night despite the residual heat.  We pried Abigail out of bed and drove to Cherokee Park in Louisville to have some breakfast and have a place for Abigail to sort out her things.  When traveling in such a small space, things tend to get intermixed and she had to collect all her stuff before we dropped her off.  We also had to reset the space for two people instead of three.  That involved rolling up the backpacker’s mat that Abigail slept on and storing it in one of the kayaks.  The plywood base was disassembled (legs removed) and the plywood was tucked underneath our mattress.  Stuff that wouldn’t fit in Abigail’s luggage was stored away underneath bottom drawers and in outside storage bays.  We removed her chopsticks from the silverware tray.  Now we are back to just two people traveling.

We took a long walk in the park, kind of our parting hike, while the day was still somewhat cool.  We made lunch in the park before leaving.  Very pleasant park.  It was designed by Frederick Law Olmstead, considered the father of landscape architecture in the United States, whose work also includes Central Park in New York City, among many others.

As with many extended road trips, unexpected things happen.  Deb started getting sore feet after the last few hikes, which were an indication that her shoes were wearing out.  Only certain brands work for her so she managed to find a shoe store in the Louisville area that sold what she wanted.  So after lunch we made the trip to a very crowded section of town and I sat in the RV in a bank parking lot with the air conditioning blasting while she hoofed it a block and a half to the store to pick up some new shoes.

A couple days ago I noticed one bike on the back was leaning more than usual and discovered the arm that holds the bike up was getting loose and starting to flop around.  So I added a strap from that bike to the kayak tie-downs to stabilize it, which means I can’t put the rain cover on.  We’ll have to deal with wet bikes at times and a new bike rack is probably in our future.  One that is actually rated for the weight of electric bikes.

At least the IRS letter was good news.  We’ll put the $2.11 toward the new bike rack.

After picking up Deb’s shoes we dropped Abigail off at the airport, then headed west out of town.  About an hour and a half brought us through some narrow and wind-ey roads to this place, called Buzzard’s Roost, a campground in the Hoosier National Forest. Five sites, first come, first served, and there were two sites left.  This campground sits on a bluff overlooking the Ohio River.  Tomorrow if it is not raining, I’ll check it out a little more. We’ll probably stay here an additional night, allowing tomorrow to be an easy day to stream the church service and to catch up on some writing and Bible Study.

I realized I took only one picture today, of Abigail stepping across the creek in Cherokee Park, so here it is.

Following is a plot of our meanderings so far. In the next few days, we’ll wander over to Land Between the Lakes and explore that area.  We still have a week and a half to make it to our project in southern Missouri, so we don’t have to drive any long distances.