Tempted to stray

August 9, 2016

Henderson Kentucky has a beautiful park along the Ohio River. Lots of people were out enjoying the river walk.

CSX train crossing the Ohio, seen from the Henderson river front.

We saw evidence of the fading role of coal in the local economy. Some mines have closed. Some union mines have closed and been reopened as nonunion mines.

Conveyor belt for moving coal from the mine to the river. It is no longer in use.

A mountain of coal. The scale of mining is staggering. Production is measured in millions of tons.

All of us are tempted to stray from time to time. Stray from our commitments, stray from our plans, stray from what we should be doing.

Jeanna spent countless hours coming up with the route for our trip. She considered every turn, every road condition, every service along the way. Faithfully following her plan we have had a spectacularly successful trip. But today team A was tempted to stray from the planned route to Sturgis.

What tempted us? The route passed within a dozen miles of Illinois and we could not resist the temptation to visit another state. Especially since that would enable us to visit all of the states in the Ohio River watershed: IL, IN, OH, PA, NY, WV, MD, VA, NC, KY, TN, AL, MS, and GA.

We went about 10 more feet into Illinois before we came to our senses and turned around.

As usual, the allure of forbidden fruit faded almost as soon as we had taken a bite. Did experiencing an Illinois road for 10 minutes give us any more insight into the history of the Ohio River? Did we experience anything unique? Meanwhile the temperature was climbing into the 90s and team S was already enjoying air conditioned comfort at our destination.

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