This is one of the weekends we really look forward to each year where we travel to St. Augustine to tour the city and run the Bridge of Lions 5K. We decided to do a scaled down trip this year only staying one night. We made it into town Friday. After stopping off at the St. Augustine Register building for packet pickup, we checked into the Howard Johnson hotel and I headed out for my short night before race run. When I got back we had Jenny’s spaghetti for dinner. I prefer Jenny’s spaghetti over any restaurant. Instead of heading into town to walk around, we went to the movies and saw “Despicable Me” in 3D. Very funny movie, I recommend seeing. I am still unsure about the whole 3D thing. There aren’t many scenes in the movie made specifically for 3D, so I don’t really see the point as it adds nothing to the movie.

The best part about running a race in St. Augustine is staying downtown, waking up not so early, and walking to the race. The hotel is about a mile from the Castillo de San Marcos where the race started. So, we can just walk, pickup the timing chip, warmup and go. Don’t even have to worry about the porta potties!

Sailboat on the Matanzas.

Conditions for the race were hot and humid as usual. The real issue was the gnats that were all over the place st the start. Not easy swatting gnats and trying to put on the race shoes.

The first mile of this race course is awesome. The race starts at the fort, runs down the bayfront and across the Bridge of Lions. After that, you turn into the housing area on the other side for the rest of the race which can be a bit of a grind. It was a joy this year to run over the original bridge that was finished with renovations a couple months ago.

The race went really well. I finished in 18:48, 12th overall, and 2nd in my age group. I was trying to break my PR of 18:41, but didn’t quite get there. Still, my time was one minute faster than last year. I ran pretty comfortable most of the race. Outside of my first mile at 5:55, I ran even the rest of the way with a 6:04 and 6:05 with a fast finishing kick.

The shirts were great this year with a nice design showing the Bridge of Lions. The only thing they need to do to make this race better is provide better age group awards. It pays to be first overall as they get a cool $100. But for the age group awards, they used the same exact little medal that I won two years ago. They had over 500 finishers this year, if they would take just 50 cents more from each entry, they could provide some first class medals that people would really want to show off. You could tell people weren’t real happy with the medals.

Racing to the finish.

Almost there...faster, faster!!

Another good race finished!

After a two mile walk back to the hotel, we had breakfast, got cleaned up, relaxed for a bit, and checked out. We didn’t really want to go walking all over town at noon, so we went to Anastasia State Park and went to the beach.

We had lunch, drove back and parked downtown. We always enjoy going into the different art galleries and looking at what’s new. When everyone was getting pretty tired of walking, we went to Pizzalley’s to have our pizza. Pizzalley’s has the best pizza! We gorged ourselves full and ventured out for some more walking before we ended the night at Kilwin’s for ice cream.

We got a huge surprise as we were walking back to the parking garage. We saw a guy selling his paintings and it turned out to be Dean Quigley that we bought Jenny’s painting of the City Gates from four years ago. Guess he lives full time in St. Augustine now and is active in getting better laws enacted for artists to sell their work. Dean is an awesome guy and painter. Outside of painting, he is a history buff who can tell you all about just about anything. It was fun listening to the history behind the paintings he had on display. I was great seeing Dean again and we look forward to the next time we go back to St. Augustine!!

Today, I bring to you the final Jenny’s barn of the day. May it make you as happy looking at it as it made us when we drove by it!

Well, we made it home at 5AM this morning after a more than 800 mile drive from Elizabethtown, KY. After getting camp packed up and loaded, we headed down the road to Cave City to meet up with some of our Kentucky family to have lunch at Cracker Barrel. We left camp at 12PM. On the way there, we crossed into the Central Time Zone and both Jenny’s and my mouth dropped as we realized that we were meeting at 1PM cst which meant we would be waiting for an hour. Everyone showed up and we had a great lunch (thanks Howard and Teresa)!! Everything worked out perfectly as we got to Atlanta just after dark which is good because the drive through Georgia and Florida is kind of ugly. We also missed the nasty storms going through central Florida.

Unfortunately, my Powerball tickets did nothing for me, so we grudgingly left Cave City at 4PM. We entertained ourselves looking out for barns for Jenny to take pictures of and looking at the pretty scenery. Kentucky moves up to the top of my list as one of my favorite places to drive. I love North Carolina, but the mountain roads do get a little tiring after a while. I told Jenny that I would have no problem living up there.

I got some Mega Millions tickets, so maybe we will win and be forced to go back.

What a mob! Our herd posing with Howard and Teresa and their herd outside Cracker Barrel. - Teresa, email me and I will send you the photo.

We saw this one off the exit to Cave City. I drove Jenny up the people's driveway to get this one.

This is the only actual building we saw that had the "See Rock City" on the roof. Jenny was stressing she wouldn't see one.

This is at the back of a rest area just before Mount Eagle in Tennessee. Nicest rest area I have ever been to.

Didn’t do much today except for way more driving than I had planned. We ended up going to Louisville again so that I could drive the way Jenny needs to go to get from the starting line at Iroqouis Park to the finish in downtown. This is the first time I have done a point to point course. On the way to Louisville, we stopped of at the entrance to the Waverly Hills Sanitorium. If you watch “Ghost Hunters”, then you know all about this place. Unfortunately, the gate was closed and the only way to go in is with a scheduled tour. We could barely see the building at the gate, so we drove into a sub-division at the base of the hill and got a little better look. The place is huge. Maybe next time we come up, we will take a tour. We stopped off at the race expo to pick up short sleeve shirt that I can actually wear in Florida and found Jenny a Univ. of Kentucky shirt. We then headed to Fort Know on a wild goose chase to find a Tim Horton’s that should be there. I am guessing that it must be inside the army base.

Finally sitting down to have a big spaghetti dinner and get ready for the race in the morning. The weather is still looking nasty, but the rain may get through by race time. With the temperatures going to be in the 60’s, I would just about rather it rain to keep cool.

Imagine having Waverly Hills Sanitorium as your backyard view!

Entrance to the Fort Knox army base.

Jenny's barn of the day. Wasn't too many that we drove by today.

We drove up to Louisville to pickup my race packet. On the way, we stopped off at Churchill Downs. We also drove a little in Iroqouis Park so I could preview a little of the course. Those hills aren’t so small. I was told that the hills in Cherokee Park are bigger. So, between the rain, wind and hills, guess we will see how the marathon goes.

The highlight of the day was spending part of the afternoon in Jenny’s hometown of Charlestown. The kids got to see the Methodist Church Jenny’s Grandfather preached in and the parsonage she lived in for a while. We walked down to the cemetery where Indiana’s first Governor is buried. We also saw the house he lived in. We then headed over to the city park to let the kids on the playground.

Tomorrow, we are planning on heading down to Edmonton to see some of Jenny’s family. And hopefully, I will get some rest and be ready to go Saturday.

Barbaro statue in front of the entrance to Churchill Downs.

Charlestown United Methodist Church.

The church parsonage.

See that bent rung? Imagine Jenny's five year old head stuck in there!!

Jenny's barn of the day. This one was taken speeding along I-65 at 75 MPH. Jenny is getting good at taking these!

Today, we drove down I-65 to Mammoth Cave National Park. The cave is awesome! Before we took a cave tour, we hiked a couple trails. On a trail just a couple hundred feet from the main cave opening, Chris spotted four deer grazing down below us on the hill. The deer really didn’t care we were there, so we got a great view of them for a few minutes. We then took in the “New Entrance” tour which was cool and included a lot of stairs. This being National Parks week, we were able to do the Mammoth Passage tour free which takes you in through the Historic Entrance down into the “Rotunda Room”. Of course, Jenny got some barn photos for your viewing pleasure. Speaking of Jenny, we learned that a juvenile female turkey is called a Jenny.

Tomorrow, we will be heading to Louisville to pick up my race packet and preview come of the marathon course. We will also be crossing the Ohio River into Indiana to tour Jenny’s hometown of Charlestown.

I spy a family of deer on the hill.

Cascade formation on the "New Entrance" tour.

A Pack Rat nest. Amazing what all this little critter has collected for her nest. Unfortunately, she wasn't home.

The "Historic Entrance" to Mammoth Cave.

The Rotunda Room is huge!

Jenny's barn of the day.

Bonus barn of the day!

We had a nice easy day today. Drove more than I would have liked, but it was worth it. We started out at the visitor center in Elizabethtown then drove to Hodgenville to visit Abraham Lincoln’s birthplace and his boyhood home. Lincoln lived at his birth home his first two years at Sinking Spring Farm until a land dispute forced the family to move to Knob Creek Farm where the family moved due to another land dispute to Indiana.

The Elizabethtown area is awesome. The area is beautiful with fantastic scenery and nice towns. Driving is fun on the hilly, curvy and fast. Everyone drives these roads going at least 60-65 MPH!

After we got back to camp and had dinner, I actually got out for a 30 minute run around the surrounding neighborhoods. The people here are very friendly and I didn’t hear a single “Run Forrest, Run” the whole time!

Tomorrow, we will be off to Mammoth Cave to take in a cave tour.

Unfortunately, the Lincoln Memorial was closed for renovation and had that nasty looking orange fence and an A/C unit at the front.

Lincoln stated that his first memories were here at Knob Creek Farm. This is the field the Knob Creek Farm families worked.

Replica of Lincoln's boyhood home at Knob Creek. The wood for this house actually came from his best friends house on the same farm.

Jenny's barn of the day. We worked for this one. We were driving by this barn which was on my side of the car. Jenny couldn't get it, so I turned around so she could take a picture.

Finally settled in Elizabethtown. We will be here for six nights. Last night was cold. Felt colder than the night before. But, slept OK. After breaking down camp, we made it out of Franklin just before noon to start out 320 mile journey to KY. All-in-all, it was a pretty drive through the Great Smoky Mountain National Park and through most all of KY. The only bad part of the drive was through Pigeon Forge and Sevierville. No offense to anyone in that area or from there, but driving there really stinks. Their roads are not made for the amount of traffic. I put this area high on my list of places I hate to drive.

Planning a bit of a low-key day tomorrow. No idea what we are going to do.

The view from the back of our tent in Franklin this morning.

The frozen bodies are under there somewhere!

Update to a photo of us we took on our honeymoon at Newfound Gap.

Newfound Gap in the Smokys Park.

Jenny had this obsession with taking pictures of barns as we were driving.

Wow, amazing what a good night’s sleep will do for a person! Slept like a rock for almost 12 hours. Got a little cold a couple times as the temperature was in the low 30’s, but warmed up quickly as the sun came up. Today was a gorgeous day!

Here’s some photos of what we saw today. Tomorrow, we pack up and head to Elizabethtown, KY.

First, I thought I would pop up a photo of what I won at the race yesterday. Cool that I actually got a nice certificate that says I won. The cup was hand-made by the autistic adults at Full Spectrum Farms.

Overlooking un-named falls from the Iron Bridge just south of Highlands.

Whitewater Falls. 400 plus feet of awesome!

Finally found out the name of these falls. This is the Silver Run Falls located on NC107.

Family photo at the top of Whiteside Mountain.

This is what you see when you get to the city limits of Highlands.

Bridal Veil Falls. You can pull off the road and drive under the falling water.

Dry Falls. Located just past Bridal Veil on Hwy 64. You can walk behind the gushing water and stay mostly dry.

Lucky you, I found a cool feature that lets me schedule when to publish my posts. So, you get a photo today even though I am away from the computer! Today is another tease of where we will be this weekend. We are not sure of the name of this waterfall as we found it while looking for another. These falls are on SC 107 on the way to Whitewater Falls (which is awesome at over 400 feet). To get to the falls, there is a small parking area on the side of the road and you hike a half mile or so back to the falls. You can actually swim there in the summer as the pool is not deep.