Greenburg Indiana Tree

Today was highway from Hell day.The initial plan was to take US27 to US127 to US 421 And cross the Ohio River at Madison. However, after closely examining the Kentucky Map, I noticed
a rather large number of closely spaced squiggles on the map just North of Frankfort KY on US421. Being the Astute RV traveler that I am, I broke out the ole laptop, cranked up Delorme and routed a new course around the squiggles. Good ole Delorme routed us down Kentucky State Highway 395, and since it was a state highway and the map didn't have all of those little squiggles, I thought we were in tall cotton. Well folks Kentucky State Highway 395 and all of it's permutations was about 20 feet wide the entire distance traveled and the nice straight looking road had more curves than I could count. Passing a car on that road was shear doughnut in the skivvy time and then came the school bus. S_______ ________ T!!!!! I think everyone gets the idea, but in case you don't picture both the bus and the Bounder with right front tires and one rear dually dropped off the 6 inch tall pavement at 15 mph.

With ecstasy my trusty navigator announced we were at the end of the road and would be turning onto 421. I think that the boys were even smiling at this pronouncement. The road forked and I (like a dummy) headed down the right fork which intercepted 421 at an extreme angle in such a manner to prevent a left turn. Of course, I needed to turn left. Snap decision time. I went ahead and made a right turn thinking that a place to turn around couldn't be far. WRONG. Remember all of the squiggly lines I wanted to elude? We traveled over, around, up and down them for about twenty miles before we found a place where I could turn around. Yep! We got to travel the squiggly lines and 8 - 9% grades twice.

Just to make the days driving a marvelous occasion There was a multi-vehicle wreck just before the Ohio River so we were able to sit in a very long line of traffic for a very long time. Patty fixed a snack. I went to the bathroom. We ate the snack and listened to a lot of NPR. Thank god for motorhomes and Satellite radio.

Not long after crossing the Ohio River we came to the town of Greenburg and looking out you could see a spectacular looking courthouse building. As we got closer, we noticed something sticking out of the clock tower and at first we thought it was a left over Christmas decoration. Upon closer examination, we discovered that it was a tree of some sort. At first I thought it was a joke probably from a building climbing nut. This thing was obviously growing out of the roof and had been doing so for some time.

Here's a closer look so you can verify that we aren't completely nuts.

After the roads, curves, hills and near misses of the day, a little levity was welcome

So after avoiding interstate highways for two days, we are in a Passport America campground within hearing distance of interstate 70.

Trial Put Dayton on the Map

We left this morning headed for Decatur Indiana for a visit with Patty's (my adopted) Aunt Jean and then to we will go to Elkhart Indiana to join Terry and Dale for the RV Capital Rally. From there we will head to Dayton Ohio to have fun with the grandkids while daughter inlaw Sara recovers from surgery. We started this trip with the idea that we wouldn't drive an inch on an interstate so we are following US and state highways all the way.
Since Patty had her run in with creationists over the teaching of evolution, we have had a keen interest in any legal matters between creationists and science so it was sort of dejavu when we discovered that we would be going through Dayton Tennessee. Dayton was the location of the famous Scopes monkey trial in July 1925. Two famous politicians William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow had at it during those hot, muggy and tense days of summer. Both of these guys had oratory styles that is lacking in modern politics and style. William Jennings Bryan wore a pith helmet during those hot days of summer and the wrinkles in his suit were testimony to the humidity.

Rhea County Courthouse Dayton Tennessee

The exterior of the Rhea County Courthouse is still impressive after all of these years, and it is easy to visualize the effect of such a large trial on a small Southern town in the heat of summer. The summer heat, hot blooded creationists, evidence spouting scientists and of course the world media turned little Dayton into the hot box of debate for eleven days. To this day the debate continues between those supporting the mythology of creationism and those supporting the scientific method of accepting reproducible truths.

Climbing the stairs, it is easy to imagine yourself walking in the footsteps of Scopes, Darrow and Bryan all those years ago. What is difficult is, on this cool spring day, is imagining the heat of July so many years ago prior to the air conditioning of this building. The stairs are well preserved and still possess the effect that you are climbing above the ordinary and into the face of destiny. I couldn't help but think that the architects of this building had such theatrics in mind as they designed this courthouse. At the top of the stairs you can see the entrance to the courtroom where Darrow for science and Bryan for the theists did battle.

The judges bench is still being used today but has more modern seating.

The jury box does not look like a place that I would like to sit for eleven days in the eat of July in Southern Tennessee.

Scopes Trial Diorama

Notice the fan in Bryan's hand and the actual
fan below the photo. That thing would have
moved some air.

Bryan wore a pithe helmet and Darrow wore a straw bowler.

Clarence Darrow in his courtroom finery.

Doing the slow burn

The strip of plastic running along the bottom of the big living room slide was coming off and making a mess on the carpet. Patty, like most women, doesn't like ungodly black marks on her carpet so we took the coach to Camping World RV in Oakwood, Georgia for repairs. They ordered the part, it came in and then the first bomb bursts, "The tech worked on it for two hours and couldn't get the part on". The interesting question at this point is whether the part was wrong or is the tech incompetent? The part was reordered to ship FEDEX. I called today and the service manager said that his parts guy left early and he (service manager) couldn't find the part. Boys and girls you need to give me some credit here because I didn't crawl through the phone and grab him from the inside and turn him inside out. Without finding the part, he promises me that my coach will be finished tomorrow. Anyone want to place a small wager on the obvious?

Patty is gearing up to get out of here and we are both anxious to get to Terry's rally in Elkhart Indiana. We spent a couple hours figuring out what we would take to the potluck Saturday night and came up with a traditional Southern theme. I'm going to make a shrimp and sausage jambalaya and Patty is going to make a banana pudding from scratch. I think Terry will be suitably impressed. So, hopefully we load the motorhome tomorrow night and head out Wednesday morning.

We will be taking US27 through Tennessee and much of Kentucky then jumping on US 421 to Indiana 3 and back to US27 into Decatur Indiana. This will turn a one day trip into a two or three day one because there are a number of stops we want to make along the way. One biggee is the Dayton Tennessee courthouse where the Scopes trial was held in the 30s.

Hopefully we will have some good photos to post so that everyone can keep up to date.