A Short and Troubled Road Trip

                                 Beauty of Kentucky while rain was stopped!

The Ruby Slipper has not been much of a recreational vehicle the last seven months. Instead she has been a real work horse and with more loads to come. Soon we will move my sister and help her start a new life.

What should have been a pleasure trip last week to see our kids turned into a real trial. Sickness, heavy rain, wrong turns, wrecks on the interstate slowing traffic to a standstill in the wet, lost clear down into a corn field when a bridge was out, no phone service, and a lot of other bits and pieces turned the trip into a challenge. But there were at least three small areas out of the five days that will be worth keeping in the memory bag.

      

           1. We saw the Ernie Pyle home and museum in Dana, Indiana. We had spotted it last fall when we went to Kentucky, but then it was closed. So this trip we went that way again and made sure it was a Friday when we got there. Great stuff to be shared at a later date.

2                                                   Ernie Pyle home in Dana, Indiana

      

            2.  We saw our grandbabies who are now 3 and 5, who have grown a bunch since last October! On Saturday we went to a petting zoo and on a picnic. PawPa built with Legos; Grammie taught about eggs and cheese!

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      3.  On the way home, we pulled off the interstate and drove right up to The Hill in St. Louis. Here sits a lovely old Italian community. GPS helped us find a favorite Italian grocery store. We limited ourselves to one stop as we needed to move on another four hours to home. But I loaded up on frozen handmade raviolis of various kinds and some spinach cannoli too. Our whole backend of the Ruby Slipper was Italian. 

      Although it was early, we drove by Rigazzi’s, an Italian eatery we had never been to before and saw it was already open for lunch. What luck and we stopped. We learned Al Capone was arrested while eating here in the wooly days of gangsters. 

      Wonderful food here!!!  We had toasted raviolis and then manicotti and chicken with risotto, along with powerhouse garlic bread.