I have to agree with this headline ...
The Wackiest Trip Ever
by Deanna Klingel
I’ve been
traveling with my books nearly every week for five years. But this is the
wackiest trip I’ve taken yet.
I leave home
with my Rand McNally Atlas, print out of my destination’s website, MapQuest
directions and my GPS all in agreement. I’m going to Fairview, in Northern
Kentucky, an hour north of Lexington on U.S. 68, to the Jefferson Davis
Monument State Historic Site where I’ll sign books beside the 350 foot obelisk
monument.
Have you
heard of the annual 500 mile long yard sale? It’s on U.S. 68, and it’s today. Every
home, business, church and farm has set up a sale along the road. U.S. 68, a
two-lane highway with a double yellow line, has berms as wide as driving lanes lined
with parked cars. Shoppers dash across the highway carrying lamps and ladders.
Chairs are lashed to the roofs of cars; family pets wander back and forth.
After
several miles I suddenly see Welcome to
Fairview. I’m in an Amish farm community. Ladies in bonnets sort through
the dishes, boys in blue ironed shirts, black pants with suspenders, peddle
their bikes in the highway. Teenage girls load their buggies. In the fields men
and their horses work the dirt. There are no brown and white state park signs.
There is no 350 foot obelisk. Thank you
for visiting Fairview.
A mile further
up the road I see a state park sign, but not the one I’m hoping for. Surely a
ranger there can tell me where to find a 350 foot monument in their
neighborhood?
“No ma’am.
We got nothing like that around here.”
“Is it
possible there are two Fairviews?” I ask.
“Oh no. Not
possible. It’s ag’in the law. Can’t have two with the same name in the same
state. Uh uh. Nope.” It’s true, I remember, Rand McNally only lists one
Fairview, Kentucky.
“Is this
your zipcode?” I point to MapQuest.
“No. It
isn’t.”
“I guess I need
to call this other park ranger and see where he’s hanging out today.” The guy
looks like I just woke him up. Oh! Park Ranger! “I can help!” His park
brochures are not in a rack or alphabetized. They are all in a wash tub.
Together. He sifts through them and eventually finds one that says Jefferson
Davis. “Looks promising,” I say. We turn it over where the locator map indicates
it’s in the far southwest corner of Kentucky. Another Fairview. Five hours
away.
Gladys, my
GPS navigator, is not leaving. She insists we have reached our destination. I
trick her by keying in a town close to the second Fairview. Okay, she says, get
back on U. S. 68, and the fun continues. After many miles of roadside sales we
leave U. S. 68 to travel the Bluegrass Parkway and later the Western Kentucky
Parkway. Now, we’re back on U. S. 68 again. I’m blinking, taking it all in: ladies
in bonnets, boys in blue shirts on bikes, girls in buggies, farmers plowing
with horses. I have a sinking feeling. There’s that little sign…again…Welcome to Fairview. I dare to think how
this could happen. Was it the Parkways in the wrong direction? Did I really
drive in a circle? But no, my dashboard reveals I’m still traveling SW. Suddenly,
rising out of a wheat field in front of me, a 350 foot obelisk. This really is the other Fairview.
But not the
one where I have a hotel reservation.
Both
Fairview, Kentuckys are on U.S. 68, both are State Park sites, five hours apart,
the rangers aren’t aware of each other. Both are rural Amish farm communities
that look just alike, (except for a 350 foot obelisk) including their identical
welcome signs. Both are exactly six hours from my home in different directions.
I don’t think there’s an obelisk in the
Twilight Zone. But, maybe.
****
Deanna and her husband Dave have seven grown children raising their children across the Southeast. Deanna and Dave make their home in North Carolina.
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