Rollin' Through These Hills

I finally got a chance to visit the town where my mamaw used to live when I was little. I haven't been there since she died in 1998. (This is my mamaw in her 20's.) (This is my mamaw and us up at her house about a year before she died.) As I traveled north into Kentucky, my heart feared what it might find when it came to the place of magic that I had known in my early days. What if it wasn't at all like I remembered? What if experiencing it through eyes that were 13 years older killed the memories of wild splendor with reality? I resolved, at any rate, to find out.




I took this video while in the car (probably not safe, oh well).

When I got into Campton, I started to remember everything.


(Dixie Freeze-the only place to get ice cream)


("the bridge" Our whole family had a joke about sitting on this bridge, and finding prime specimens of husband material there . . . as you can see, eligible bachelors still hang out there)


(Ale 8! You can only get it in KY)

I went up to the family graveyard and stopped to pet this little guy along the way:



(My mamaw's grave)


(My great-grandparents' grave)

I went on towards her house, passing these familiar places:





I was getting close to the house. I couldn't wait to see it and the tree in the front yard that we used to climb. Here's the house, as I remember it, and Kenny and I in the tree:




And then I saw it:


(I thought that was a ghost in the window. The curtain blowing in the wind scared me. I would never look up there when I was little because I was afraid.)


(They have cut down the trees, and let the house ruin.)

It made me so sad to see the house like that, but I'm glad I knew it in it's glory. I wasn't sad long, because I saw this old mailbox with the names of the current owners on it. They have amazing names:



I went on to see where my other set of maternal great-grandparents are buried.


(Trying to rush along before it gets dark; the moon was already chasing me)


(The little church, now abandoned, next to the graveyard;'cradle to the grave')

Traveled on down State Road 15 to Stanton, where my mom lived for a while as a child:


(An operating Drive-In theater)


(The house my mom lived in)

I went on to Winchester, and then Lexington, and then home. This is the last picture I took because it had gotten dark outside:


(The Winchester Court House, just in front of the building where my parents first met)