A quick trip to Kentucky and Indiana

Warm weather means baseball, and Bragg Family South went to its first minor league baseball game of the year a couple weekends ago in Little Rock. This last weekend, we made a quick trip to meet up with Hope's parents in Kentucky. Below is a picture of the cabin we stayed at in a state resort park in north-central Kentucky:

Here's Hope and her dad enjoying the evening on the back deck:

Hope's parents were in Kentucky to pick up some bees for their hives--they raise bees, and harvest the honey (many of you have enjoyed the work of their labor--and that of the bees, of course). Since this pick-up site was about halfway between their home in Michigan and Arkansas, we decided to take the kids out of school a day and meet them there. We had a good visit, even though the state park we stayed in was suffering from the high rainfall that this part of the midwest has been experiencing:

Note that the small buildings on the left are part of a campground area below the earthen dam. The water gushing out of the spillway opposite the buildings is just one of many signs of too much water we saw on this trip. After an evening and the following morning with the Prudens, they had to take their bees to their new home, and we had to do some shopping. We were actually looking to find a Menards to look for some playground accessories and a wood chipper, and the closest one happened to be in Evansville, Indiana, just across the Ohio River from where we were. On the way there, we stopped at a national memorial in southern Indiana showcasing the place where Abraham Lincoln live from about age 7 until his early twenties. Below is a picture of the visitor center and main memorial:

Below, Hope and the kids meet Mr. Lincoln "in person":

I included the following picture for the women in my life who are into quilting--the following was hanging on the wall in a section of this visitor center dedicated to Nancy Hanks Lincoln, Abe's biological mother:

Nancy Lincoln died just a couple years after they moved to Indiana of what was called "milk sickness". Milk sickness was a poisoning of people who consumed milk from cows that ate a particular herbaceous plant (snakeroot, I believe) that grew wild in this area. Below is her marker, erected years later on the site of her grave:

At this time period, no one knew how the illness was passed from cows (which also got sick) to people. It was not unusual for many people to get ill, and some to die--Nancy Lincoln was helping some ailing neighbors when she consumed their tainted milk, fell ill, and then died. A tragic story all too common on the frontier, unfortunately. Below, Hope and the kids walk a trail to the living history recreated Lincoln family farmstead:

Here is an approximation of the Lincoln cabin, based on the few written descriptions available (and conventional building practices of the time):

This tiny little cabin slept quite a few people, although probably not too comfortably. Below, a bed for adults, with a small trundle bed slid underneath it:

Here is one of the living history reenactors, talking about household life while using the basic utensils of the time:

Here, the kids use a crude ladder made of sturdy little logs wedged in between the logs in this cabin to scale up to the attic area, where the older children would sleep:

Beth also learned about furs and the tools the menfolk used:

This stop was one of many "happy accidents" we have come across in our years of traveling with the kids. We had no intention of stopping at any of these sites while trying to get to the home improvement store in Evansville, but since we were so close, on a lark we decided to stop. What a neat place:

It is because of these unique educational opportunities that we have a fairly easy time taking the kids out of their schooling--I think that they learn at least as much in some of these sites! After our Indiana visit, we once again crossed the rain-swollen Ohio River and returned to Kentucky, and then drove to Union City, Tennessee, where we stayed at a hotel that night. The next morning, we drove a couple hours south to a site called "Pinson Mounds" south of the city of Jackson, Tennessee. Pinson Mounds is a major Indian mound site:

The tallest of the mounds, pictured above, is over 70 feet tall, and is still remarkably steep--my legs are still sore from the climb up all these stairs:

Unfortunately, a fair amount of this site was still flooded by a local river, so we didn't spend much time here--we'll come back later, for sure! We then continued southward to Corinth, Mississippi, which has a large Civil War museum run by the National Park Service. Below, the kids learn how to march:

There were a number of major battles in this general area, including nearby Shiloh in Tennessee. One of the neater parts of this museum was the water sculpture on the war:

The pink granite blocks in the water feature above have the names of major battles from the Civil War engraved on them, including "Pea Ridge", which was fought in northwestern Arkansas:

Below, Stephen posed with a Civil War cannon:

Since we were headed to Greenville, Mississippi, to cross the Mississippi River (our usual route in eastern Arkansas was flooded out), we decided to enjoy a leisurely drive along the beautifully wooded Natchez Trace National Parkway, which would take us much of the way there. Most of the drive was as tranquil as we remembered it, with a couple notable exceptions:

This storm damage is the larger of two tornado paths we encountered--it ran at least 10 miles along the Trace, with most of the mature timber absolutely flattened:

These were some of the tornadoes that struck the South that deadly day in late April, and we were saddened by the disruption to such a beautiful route:

Though the Trace is National Park, in most places it is very narrow and there are homes, businesses, churches, and schools in the immediate proximately. Below is a small rural school that was basically wiped out by the tornado:

A small sign by the road boldly proclaimed that they would rebuild and return, but I actually wonder if this storm wasn't the demise of this rural school, many of which facing declining enrollments and test scores. As we crossed the swollen Mississippi into Arkansas, we reflected upon our trip, and then upon the challenges that the residents of the low-lying Mississippi River Delta may have to face if the river levees fail...