A rainy Sunday drive

I'm quite new to this whole blogging thing, having just started last year after I purchased my 'train wreck' travel trailer. I started following several full time RVer's blogs at that time and have added to the list over time to include tiny houses, vintage travel trailers, photography, van dwellers etc. A couple of the first blogs I started following were Gypsy's On The Road Again and Travels With Emma. It was fun to read earlier this summer when these two gals met up in Minnesota where Judy was working at the wildlife refuge and Gypsy was on a California to New York trip. After my trip to North Carolina to loan my travel trailer to my almost-son-in-law I read that Gypsy was only a day or so behind me and was heading for Paducah KY. I emailed her and mentioned I'd love to meet up since we were in the same neck of the woods, and a date was set.

Sunday morning I got on the road heading north. It was a beautiful sunny day when I left the house in middle Tennessee, but by the time I got to Nashville the sky was solid gray and getting darker by the mile. Just past the Kentucky border welcome center the first rain drops hit the windshield and the rain came down in buckets off and on the entire rest of the drive to Paducah. It's a good thing I had allowed extra time because traffic slowed to 50 mph at times in the heavy rain.

We had arranged to meet at the Caribbean themed Flamingo Row restaurant, and it turned out to be a good choice. The food was good, the decor was super bright and colorful, and the resident iguana was a hoot, nodding her head whenever a staff member walked past and wiggled their fingers at her. Here's a shot of the interior.

I had the server snap a pic of the two of us, but I'm not going to post it since we both have our eyes closed!  lol You'll have to check out her blog for a photo of us and also a shot of the iguana.
The rain let up sometime during the almost 3 hours we sat and chatted, and only dripped on me intermittently for most of the trip home. However there was a huge traffic jam that started just north of  the TN border and it took over and hour and a half to travel about 6 miles, all due to road construction that has one lane shut down.
 There is a fairly large population of Amish in Kentucky and while parked in the traffic I did get to see several buggies going across an overpass.

 

I also got a shot of this poor old barn which somehow remains standing despite missing most of one wall and portions of the roof. Barns up north with structural integrity issues almost never get to this point and still remain upright, they collapse due to the weight of the winter snow load.

I was also 'passed' - at a creeping pace - by a stock trailer with a couple longhorn cattle inside. It's really hard to see them, but the horns were nearly as wide as the trailer, so from tip to tip they must span six feet or more.

All in all it was a great day, and I hope Gypsy's path and mine cross again one day.