Silver and Gold

 

Over the almost 35 years of living in our house, we have like most people accumulated a lot of “stuff”.  Over the past year, I’ve been going through it and either tossing it or selling it.  I’ve sold a surprising number of items on eBay (that’s a topic for another blog post). 

While listening to a financial podcast, I was reminded of the high price of silver right now. It’s the highest price it’s ever been.  I remembered my old coin collection that I had stashed in the closet.  I also had stored away the remains of my dad’s collection after he passed away in 2013.   I used to collect coins when I was a kid.  I remember eagerly going to Hoskins coin shop downtown and buying coins.  I lost interest when I got older (like happens with a lot of things). 

I pulled out the tote I had stored the collection in.  There were quite a few silver coins in it.  My dad had sold all his gold coins before he passed away.  There were some silver coins and some yearly proof sets.  There also were some collector books of pennies and nickels.  I messaged with the new Hoskins coin shop (now run by Mr. Hoskins son and grandson) and they told me to bring it in.  I took it in and they looked through it.  I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of money I got for it. 

If you have any loose silver or gold or an old coin collection, this is an excellent time to sell it.  I’ll throw out a few basic tips to check your items.  To see if your jewelry is gold, test it with a magnet.  If it attracts, it isn’t gold.  Gold also will sink rapidly in a glass of water.  The magnet trick also works on silver. If it sticks, it isn’t silver.  As far as coins, dimes, quarters and half dollars, those made in 1964 or before are 90% silver.  Half dollars from 1965 to 1970 are 40% silver.  Anything after these has little or no silver and doesn’t have any value above face value. 

I would highly recommend Hoskins.  They treated me well.  I’ve known Ronnie Hoskins since my USEC days.  The shop is in the Southside area of Paducah near Kroger and Wal-Mart.  They are in the shopping center with Penn Station Subs.  They will be busy.  Brent Hoskins told me with the current prices of gold and silver, they have a lot of people coming in.  You shouldn’t let that stop you though.  It could be worth the wait (it certainly was for me).

Retirement (Revisited)

 

So, I’m going to try this blogging thing again.  I’ve tried to decide what I should blog about first.  I
finally decided to talk about my tenth anniversary of being retired.

It seems almost impossible that it’s been ten years since I retired in September of 2015.  I read my blog post about it to remind myself of what I was thinking then.  I remember how stressful my work had become and that convincing me to leave earlier than I’d planned.  I was concerned about our finances.  We’ve done just fine since then.  We’ve done everything we wanted to do.

Not that my life hasn’t been without stress.  I had a bizarre health scare in 2016.  I served as an elder in our congregation at Central.  It was very stressful.  I had pretty much jumped from one stressful responsibility to another one.  I finally had to resign.  I admire the men who can handle the most important of roles so well.   We went through a huge family issue largely because of the reaction of some people to a bad situation.  Donna’s mom had health issues and passed away much sooner than we’d ever thought.   And that’s not even touching COVID.

I’d planned to travel and I’ve done that.  I got to see two of the places I’d mentioned in my original retirement blog post (Hershey Pennsylvania and the Grand Canyon).   I went to London to see the Cardinals play with a side trip to Paris.    I thought I’d be spending a lot of time at St Louis Cardinal and Kentucky Wildcat playoff games and that hasn’t happened.  I did make a trip to Toronto to see the Wildcats play and got to meet my favorite UK player – Jack Givens.  I did however get to see my Denver Nuggets win their first Western Conference Championship in Los Angeles and then win their first NBA Championship at Denver.   Josh and I made a trip to Abu Dhabi to see the Nuggets play.  Donna and I have made several trips to the Cardinal’s Spring Training in Jupiter Florida and to the Smoky Mountains. 

But the best part is the family things that have happened.  Lucy was born in November of 2016.  Being a grandparent is wonderful.  Since I’m retired, we can make just about any event she participates in.  If she needs anyone to watch her, we are always available.  She is the joy of my life.  Josh also married a wonderful young lady and she’s a great daughter-in-law.

So, I’m sometimes asked what I’ve learned about retirement to give advice to others.  The thing I worried about (money) went fine.  What I didn’t think about was what I’d retire to.  You can only watch so much TV and go to so many places.  At first, being an elder was what I thought I’d do.  That didn’t work out.  I then had a brother of mine at Central (where we go to church) convince me to participate in the McCracken County jail ministry.    I never dreamed I’d be able to teach other men the Gospel and give them hope.  It’s the first real evangelism I’ve ever done in my life.  I’ve been doing that for over seven years now and I really enjoy it.  With that and being the “doting Granddad”, I have purpose in my life.

Oh, and how did Donna handle it?  We’ve grown closer.  I’ve taken over some household responsibilities (shopping and running errands).  We’ll be married forty years in March, so we must be doing something right. 

In retrospect, I’m glad I went ahead and retired. 

House of Cards

 

I had three bizarre occurrences connected to my favorite baseball team occur over the past couple of days.  First, I got a call from a St Louis area code.  It was a Cardinal representative trying to sell me Cardinals tickets.  I have never had that happen to me ever.  Second, I saw a clip of the San Diego Padres TV announcing team before their opening game of a four game set in St Louis.    They were commenting on the fact of how odd it was that the stadium was so empty with the Cardinals at this time of year.   Finally, I saw a story that Cardinal tickets were going for incredibly low prices on StubHub.  I looked and this was indeed true.  You could get a bleacher seat for one dollar.  You can even get field boxes for less than ten dollars.  What in the name of Stan Musial is going on here?

I have been a Cardinal Fan since 1974.  That’s fifty years since my Uncle Donnie took my cousin Tony and me to our first game.  I’ve been a big fan ever since.  The Cardinals didn’t make the playoffs until 1982 when they won the World Series.  They went to a couple more in 1985 and 1987 then didn’t get back until 1996 (when they hired Tony Larussa).  After a couple of more lean years, they made it back in 2000.  They then made the playoffs 11 of the next 15 years. They made the World Series four times winning two.  After that aside from beating the Braves in the NLDS in 2019, they’ve had little playoff success.  It appears fans have finally grown tired of coming to games.  What happened?

There are a couple of things in my mind.  One is that lack of success.  Cardinal fans feel that management isn’t working hard enough to put a winning product on the field.  The Cardinals made a couple of great trades bringing Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado to the team.   They’ve made many more bad moves.  One was trading two pitchers (Sandy Alcantra and Zach Gullen) for Marcel Ozuna.  Then they let him leave after two years and he promptly revitalized his career in Atlanta. They traded Randy Arozarena who became a very good player.  They let go a very good manager in Mike Shildt because of “differences with management”.  He’d done a good job with the San Diego Padres this year. The Cardinals don’t seem to do a very good job at developing players, especially pitchers.  Once they leave St Louis, they suddenly improve dramatically. 

The second is the atmosphere around the ballpark.  There used to be several good places we’d eat before the game.  They are closed now.  The parking around the ballpark is atrocious.  Many people don’t feel safe walking more than a block or so away from the ballpark after a night game.  There used to be a nice shuttle bus system from Bellville Illinois to the game called the Redbird Express.  It’s gone now.  You can take the Metro but it’s usually very packed after the game. 

What should be done?  The Cardinal ownership has to look at every facet of the team from the general managers to all coaches, players, scouts and minor league system.  It may very well require a complete overhaul and ultimately something Cardinal fans would wince at – a “rebuild”.    What will actually happen?  I don’t know.  I’ll be interested in what is said at the 2025 Cardinal Winter Warmup in response to fan questions.

Contour Airlines Again?

Josh suggested the idea of coming to see him and Shelby in Madison Wisconsin.  Then, we’d head down to Chicago to the Champions Classic to watch Kentucky play.  Donna had no desire to go to the ball game, so I tried to decide what options I had to get to Madison (besides a 7.5-hour drive).  So, I decided to give Contour Airlines another try.

It turns out that Contour flies to O’Hare from Marion Illinois which is about an hour drive from where I live.  I could then take a bus from O’Hare to Madison.  The cost was much less than a rental car plus I only had to drive an hour instead of over seven.  I felt adventurous so I decided to give it a try.

The Contour app is still terrible.  You cannot get your boarding pass from it; you must use the web version.  So, I ended up just getting my boarding pass printed at the Williamson County Veterans airport (it’s the actual airport name in Marion).   The airport is very nice.  I hadn’t flown out of there in years.  It reminded me very much of the design of the new Barkley Airport here.  I got my boarding pass with no problem and sat down in their very nice waiting area.  Security was easy and quick.  The waiting area to board is nice.  They do take your carry on unless it’s very small since compartment space is at a premium.  We boarded on time and headed out.

We were told that the fly time was fifty-seven minutes.  They were correct on that.  However, we didn’t get to the gate until over 30 minutes later.  Why do you ask?  You sit on the tarmac for a considerable amount of time.  Also, there is a BUS that takes you to the arrival gate.  You pick up your carry on they’ve stowed and restow it on the bus.  The bus takes you to the arrival gate.  You then take a train to the place where the rental cars are (called the MMF or multi-modal facility).   The buses leave at the hour during the day (check the schedule to be sure though).  I knew the next bus left at four, so I hustled to try and catch that one (as opposed to waiting till five).  Turned out I needn’t bothered.  The bus was almost 30 minutes late.  The driver stows your luggage underneath the bus and scans your ticket.  The buses are nice and I had a comfortable ride to Madison.  There are stops at Rockford Illinois, South Beloit Illinois and Janesville Wisconsin.  These stops are strictly to pick up passengers, you don’t have time to get off.  The bus took about 2.5 hours to get to Madison where Josh and Shelby picked me up.

So, a few days later, Shelby dropped me at the Park and Ride and I caught the bus to O’Hare.  On this route, they drop you at whatever terminal you are leaving from.  I took the Blue Line train from O’Hare (the station is at Terminal 2) to my hotel in downtown Chicago.  I then walked a few blocks to my hotel.    When I left Wednesday morning, I took the Blue Line to O’Hare.  I got my printed boarding pass from Contour again.  I headed for my gate.  Turns out that three different commuter airlines share the gate.  When we were going to board, they shouted out your flight.  You line up and then get on the shuttle bus out to your plane.  The flight back to Marion went fine.  I was even able to grab some Krispy Kreme donuts heading out of the Marion.

If you are thinking about trying this, consider the following.

• The Contour App is terrible.  Leave enough time to get your boarding pass at the airport.
• I would be very wary of a tight connection at O’Hare.  You think you have plenty of time when you touchdown, but with the shuttle and the immenseness of O’Hare, you very well may not.
• Buy your bus ticket online before you get there.  You don’t have to pick a specific time; your bus ticket is good for a year.    A roundtrip ticket is a better deal than two one-way tickets.  The website is www.coachusa.com There are several possible bus bays you can be picked up at.  Listen very carefully to the people with the bullhorn, they will tell you where to wait.
• If you are going downtown, use the train.  It’s a lot cheaper (2.50) than any other option.  Plus, you can often get there quicker if the traffic is bad.
• Be listening for your flight at the gate in O'Hare back to Marion.  It's easy to miss if you are not paying attention.

Would I do this again?  Yes, I would.  It’s certainly a viable option to get to Chicago from the Paducah area.

That's the Way the Cookie...

 

So, the hottest thing in the Paducah area seems to be Crumbl Cookies.  It’s been rumored to be opening for months.  It finally opened last Friday the 10^th and my understanding is that it’s been packed ever since.  I’ve been told there is always a line out the door into the sidewalk. 

I’ve never had a Crumbl cookie.  Our son brought some over last weekend, and they were really good.  He also took our granddaughter last Friday to get some.  They are very large cookies.  They are very dense, almost cake like.  They have different flavors each week. I had the chocolate chip (a young lady at church told me I was boring).  Donna had pumpkin chocolate chip. 

We looked at this week’s flavors and they looked really good.  I of course wanted the boring chocolate chip.  Donna really wanted a carrot cake cookie.  They also had a buttermilk pancake cookie and a honey bun cookie.  So, while I was out doing errands, I ordered these four on the Crumbl cookie app.  When I arrived, there was indeed a line out the door.    A young lady finally allowed those of us who used the app to come inside.  There is a digital board with names on it to tell you approximately what order in line you are.  After a bit of a wait, the young lady brought out my pink box.  She showed me what was in it for my approval.  I then headed out with my cookies.  We ate them when we got home.  Donna said they were all great.  I tried the buttermilk pancake and honey bun and they were really good. 

So, a couple of things you should note.   The cookies aren’t cheap.  Single ones are over 4.00 apiece.  If you order them in groups of four or six, they are a bit cheaper.   All they have are the six “cookies of the week” plus water or milk.  That’s it.   They also routinely run out of certain ones during the day.  They make them from scratch, so I would expect that.  I strongly recommend you get the Crumbl app.  It will tell you if a cookie is temporarily sold out.  I saw several people come in wanting the Strawberry Cheesecake cookie to find out they were sold out until they could make more.   

I am going to really watch out to not stop there every week.  It’s located close to the Wal-Mart/Kentucky Oaks Mall.  I could see me getting cookies each week.  That isn’t good for my waistline or my wallet.

Now as a bonus, I will give you a Stuart Yancy insider tip.  I am going to tell you where you can get a great chocolate chip cookie.  In fact, you can get a baker’s dozen of them for about what you pay for one Crumbl cookie.  Where might that be?  McDonalds!  In fact, when you order them through the McDonalds app, there is often a deal where you can get free fries with them since they cost more than two dollars.  What more could you ask for?   The cookies also meet with my granddaughter Lucy’s approval.  She loves going to McDonalds to get them.  Granddad makes us wait to order them until Lucy eats all her Happy Meal.  I order them on the app and Lucy loves going to the counter to get them when they call my name.

I need to stop now.  I have a strong desire for another cookie.

 

London Town

 

So, I ended up going to London a few weeks ago.  My son Josh and his wife Shelby went along.  Josh and I went to see the Cardinals play the Cubs but we did a lot more while there.  While we were at it, we headed over to Paris for a few days.  I figured instead of giving details here (I’ll be glad to personally discuss with anyone who wants), I’d just enumerate the differences I found in London and “the States”.

First, there is the obvious fact that Londoners drive on the other side of the road.   You might say (like I did) “Well, I’m not going to drive so I don’t care.  Think about it though when you cross the street.  You are supposed to look “left, then right, then left again”.  Not in England, you do the opposite.  Josh drove us once in a ZipCar.  I flinched every time he made a left-hand turn – which is akin to a right-hand turn in the US.  Also, their gas prices look great until you realize gas is sold by the liter in London.  It’s over six dollars a gallon!

Second, their mass transit system is the best I’ve ever used.  The red double-decker buses are wonderful and between those, the “Tube” (subway) and trains, getting around London was very easy (even for a mass transit neophyte like me).  You can get an Oyster Card or simply use any credit card with a chip.   You can use Apple Pay or Google Pay.

Third, most places don’t have air conditioning.  I was told that it rarely gets warm enough to need it.  Of course, the week we were there, it was in the 80s.  We had one fan in the Air B&B we stayed in.  We ended up getting another one at a place called Argos. It reminded me of a modern-day Service Merchandise where you requested what you wanted at a terminal and they bring it out to you.  We ended going to a couple of American restaurants (McDonalds and Slim Chickens) strictly because they had air conditioning. 

Fourth, there is no such thing as all you can drink soda.  Even at McDonalds they don’t have this.  The only place that did was Slim Chickens.  Interestingly, they only had diet soda.  Self checkout is even more prevalent than here.  If you want plastic bags (and didn’t bring your own), you pay for them.  There also seems to be a mini grocery store on every block that has more than our average convenience store (like produce and baked goods).  Tesco, Iceland and Sainsbury were the main brands we saw.

Fifth, the words used there for various things are different.  Lift is elevator, nick is steal (as in “they keep nicking the Abbey Road sign”) and biscuit is a cookie.  You’ll figure this out when you go to McDonalds looking for a sausage biscuit and they don’t exist there.    The ground floor on an elevator is zero not one.  And if you want to go to the basement, that’s -1.   They also use the pounds as opposed to euros like the rest of Europe.  We rarely used cash though, we used Google Pay.

Finally, they are on the Metric system.  It’s kilometers, liters, Celsius and kilograms.  You’ll learn to do approximate conversions in your head.   I guess the US is going to stay independent and stay on the Imperial system forever.  The power plugs are even different (than both the US and the rest of Europe).  You’ll need a British adapter.

We saw Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park, the British Museum, the Tower of London, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, the Tower of London, Windsor Castle, Stonehenge and Bath.  And I had to take a Beatles Tour.  The history in London is so interesting (at least to me). 

If you get the chance, go.  The people there were very accommodating to us “Yanks” as they called us.  People said they loved my accent; I don’t know what they were talking about 😊.

Contour Airlines - The Sequel

 

So, I decided to take another try at flying out of Paducah on Contour Airlines.  The flight ended up being competitive with other airports, so I took a shot at it.  What I did this time was make my reservation via American Airlines.  I could check in for the American flight via their app and for Contour via theirs.

I arrived at the airport and the TSA gate agent said, “Your ID doesn’t match your identity”.  I was wearing my Green Lantern shirt and he said my ID should have said “Hal Jordan”.  We had a good laugh over that.  Little did I know that would be the highlight of my flight out of Paducah.

Everything went fine at the beginning.  We boarded the plane on time and started off.  Unfortunately, there was an announcement that there was an issue, and we were taken back to the terminal at Barkley and had to deplane.  We had to stay in the gate area since the TSA agents were no longer there (since the next flight wasn’t until that afternoon).  We sat there for several hours until someone arrived to pronounce the plane OK.  Most of us were going to miss our connecting flights.  I thought I would have time since my layover was over two and half hours.  I asked the person from Contour if I’d make that.  She shrugged and said “Probably”.    She did tell us all that even though the flight time was listed as two hours, we would get there in one hour and five minutes.

So, we took off finally over two hours late.  We did indeed get there in one hour and five minutes.  Unfortunately, it took almost twenty minutes to get to the gate and start deplaning.   My departing flight to New York was of course in a totally different terminal.  I still would have time to make it if I hurried.  Then, it hit me.  The plane from Paducah had limited overhead bin space.  So, our carryon bags had been tagged and stored on the plane.  It took over fifteen minutes to get those.  So, I missed my connecting flight.

Things did work out OK though.  Fortunately, American has a dedicated support desk in their terminal at Charlotte.  I was able to easily get on the next flight to LaGuardia which left within the hour.  I didn’t get my preferred seat in the aisle, but at least I wasn’t delayed too much.

So, my chance of flying out of Barkley again on Contour?  Pretty low unless it’s a great deal.  I feel the risk of missing my connection is too great unless I have a long layover time (which means sitting in Charlotte for hours potentially).  It is a shame though since when I flew back, I was one of the first to get to arrive at the new Barkley terminal (it had opened the day before).   It’s a very nice facility – you could still smell the “new”.  The old terminal had been there as long as I could remember – at least forty years.  This one is much better.  I don’t know how much I’ll be seeing of it though except possibly to rent a car from Enterprise.

Mr. Yancy's Wild Ride

 

Since Denver beat the Lakers when I was there to go the NBA Finals, I felt like I just had to go to Denver.  I got my hotel room with no problem.  The next step was to find a flight to Denver on short notice.  After quite a search, I found a reasonably priced non-stop flight from St Louis to Denver.  I got my ticket to game five in Denver so I was all set. 

My drive to St Louis went fine.  I got a notification that again (like my trip to Los Angeles) was going to be late by an hour.  I had debated parking in the economy lot or the cheapest lot I could get and walk to the terminal.  I went with the economy lot.   I had to wait a bit.  A shuttle bus came by.  There were so many of us waiting it couldn’t hold all of us.  The driver apologized profusely.  She told us they had trouble hiring drivers.  I still got to my gate in plenty of time.   The hotel I had a reservation at had free dinner.  Since I was late, I was going to miss that.  So, I got on chat with the airline (United) and asked for compensation to be able to eat at the airport.  They gave me two 20.00 vouchers they I got supper and some snacks with.

The flight to Denver started off well.   About thirty minutes in, an announcement came in that we had to make a landing in Kansas City.  It turned out that there was a smell of smoke on the plane.  So, we had to land to see what it was.    We were greeted was snacks and were eventually given a 20.00 meal voucher (my third of the day).  After over three hours waiting, the maintenance crew decided the issue was just an exhaust fan.  So, we got to leave.  I will say the Kansas City airport is a very nice new airport.  I’ll probably never be in it again though since I can drive there in six hours. 

We got to Denver about five hours after we were supposed to.  I walked to the hotel shuttle area to wait.  After about an hour, I called the hotel to see where the shuttle was.  It turns out, it only picks up at the west terminal and not the east.  Guess where I’d been waiting?  I finally found my way to there and got on the shuttle.  I made it to my hotel about midnight.

What an adventure!  Fortunately, the Nuggets won game five (and their first NBA Championship) which made the whole ordeal worth it.  Going back, we had to wait a while for economy shuttle.  It made me really consider parking in the more expensive walk up lot next time.  I’m flying out of St Louis in July.  Hopefully it goes better.

No Frills

So, I decided to make a last minute trip to Los Angeles.  My beloved Denver Nuggets were in the NBA Finals with the Lakers.  Why the Nuggets you ask?  Here’s why.   Plus, my son Josh and daughter in law Shelby are staying there for about a month.  So, that made the decision easy.  I wouldn’t need a hotel and I managed to get a ticket to the game.  However, the flight was another issue.  Given, that it was the last minute, flights were very high.  So, I might the decision to use one of the low-cost, no-frills airlines - Spirit.  I was able to get a reasonable price out of Louisville.  So, I booked my ticket.

This difference with these type of airlines is everything costs extra.  It costs for both checked and carryon luggage.  You can bring one personal item – a small bag of purse but they are very strict that the size is below their requirement.  If you want to choose your seat, that costs too.  You can see how if you are not careful, you can start to approach the cost of a  full fare airline.  I went ahead and paid for a carryon (I was glad I did later) and got an aisle seat (which I prefer).  The cost was still much less than full service flights.

I headed to Louisville.  About 45 minutes in, I get an alert from Spirit that my flight was going to leave a couple of hours late.  That meant I could take a more leisurely drive.  I stopped at Clarkson church of Christ to worship that morning.  I made a planned stop at the city park in Elizabethtown.  I ate the lunch I had brought.  As I prepared to leave, I get a new alert from Spirit.  The flight wouldn’t leave til after 10:30pm now!  I called their support.  The issue was the original crew had now exceeded the number of hours they could work.  So, they had to bring in another crew.  I wasn’t going to go sit at the airport for hours.  So, I hung out at the park reading.  Then, I went to a couple of stores.  I had dinner at the Culvers there and finally went to evening services at Elizabethtown church of Christ. 

I then headed for Louisville.  I arrived at Muhammed Ali airport.  I’d never flown out of there before.  An interesting thing is just about all its parking is within walking distance of the main terminals.  It’s also about half of what it costs to park at the Nashville Airport.  I have PreCheck, but there wasn’t much of a line so we were all herded into the same line.   I got to my gate and saw it was going to be almost ELEVEN before we were to leave (on what would be a four hour flight).  Spirit had sent me a voucher to buy food.  Unfortunately (with it being Sunday and later), nothing was open.  I did have the forethought to bring snacks.  There are several areas throughout the terminal where you can sit and plug in all your devices and set up a laptop or tablet.  I did that and watched some of the Heat/Celtics game.  The new crew finally arrived and I got on. 

The seats seemed a little smaller but it wasn’t awful.  I tried to sleep a bit and managed to.  There is no in-flight entertainment or chargers.  You even have to pay if you want a snack or soda or water.  Keep that in mind.  We arrived about 1 AM. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been out that late.  Since I just did carryon, I could head right out to the pickup area.  Even though it was that late, it was still bedlam.  Josh and Shelby pulled up and I threw my stuff in their car.  I got to their Air B&B and crashed out.

My return flight went much better.  One other thing you can do with Spirit is put in a bid for either what they call “The Big Front Seat” or an exit row seat.  I bid on the exit row seat and won!  The flight was on time and that exit row seat made all the difference in the world in a much more relaxing flight home.   I’m a tall guy and could easily stretch out.  I got to the airport and had an uneventful flight home.

What did I learn?  One, Louisville is another option to fly out of.  It was only about an hour further than the Nashville Airport.   Two, I might try Spirit again.  I’d sure bid on an exit row and I might not fly so late in the afternoon just in case of a delay.  It’d have to be a lot cheaper than the full fare airlines for me to do it again though.

Contour Airlines

I don’t fly a whole lot.  When I do, I’ve generally either driven to Nashville (most of the time) or St. Louis (occasionally) instead of using our local airport – Barkley Regional.  It’s usually much cheaper and much more flexible on times I can fly.  I fly Southwest mostly and there are a good amount of Southwest flights out of both of these airports.  I had planned a trip to Orlando in January.  I ran the costs and it wasn’t going to be quite as good of savings to fly out of Nashville as opposed to Paducah.  Plus, the regional carrier out of Barkley had recently changed.   It was now Contour Airlines. I decided to give it a try.  Keep in mind that my review is based on one trip and “your mileage may vary”.  However, it certainly influenced how I will fly in the future.

First, everyone I dealt with in person at Contour both in Paducah and Charlotte (the routing airport for Paducah now) couldn’t have been nicer.  They were very helpful both to me and with other passengers I saw them dealing with.  Also, each person gets one free checked bag even on the American legs of the trip (Contour has an agreement with American).  However, these were the only good things I can relate.

First, their app is not very good.   For example, it is very difficult to retrieve your boarding pass once you check in for a flight.  I talked to a young lady that was leaving from Paducah with me who had an mobile pass.  She said she was able to screen shot the pass once she checked in.  She couldn’t retrieve it the previous time she checked in so she remembered to screen shot it when she checked in for her return flight.  I could never get the mobile pass to display on my trip down.  I had to print out my boarding passes for each leg of the trip – something I have not done in YEARS!   I even saw some script errors display while trying to use the app. 

Second, Contour states that they have a partnership with American Airlines.  However, when I purchased my ticket via Contour, I could only choose my seats on the Contour legs of my flight. I confirmed with Contour support that I couldn’t choose my seats on the American legs of the trips. I ended up with a middle seat on both American flights. Speaking of which…  Their support leaves something to be desired.  They are hard to get ahold of.  They don’t even answer the phone 24 hours a day.   They are open from 5:30am to 10:30pm.  They have an email address that you can send support requests to.  My first request was answered.  I never heard back on any others. 

Finally, I need to relate how the return flight to Paducah went.  I checked in on the app and saved my boarding pass.  However, I only got a boarding pass for the Contour leg of the trip.  I didn’t get one for the Orlando to Charlotte leg that was on American. I called at 8pm that night and asked for a return call.  I never got it.  I was concerned about it and when I woke up at 2am, I was able to directly chat with American.  While the Contour trip ID didn’t work on their site, I was able to get the American trip ID and call up the boarding pass for the American leg. There was another issue.  It had MR appended to the end of my last name.  I know there are sometimes issues if your name on the boarding pass doesn’t exactly match your ID.  American could not fix the issue since they didn’t originate the ticket.  I called Contour when their support line was supposed to open.  For the next couple of hours, all I got was voice mail.  I got on their Facebook page and mentioned the issue.  They said they were not aware of any such issue.  Mysteriously enough though, I was then able to actually request a callback from Contour support now.  After several hours, they called back.  I explained the issue and asked if there would be issues with this? Their answer? “I hope not”.  That was not reassuring.  I held my breath as I got to the airport and checked my baggage and went through security.  Fortunately, I had no issues.  I got to Barkley to be greeted there by my two favorite girls 😊.

I have decided that unless flights end up being significantly cheaper out of Paducah than Nashville or St Louis, I probably won’t be flying out of there again.  It’s a shame really.  It appears a beautiful new terminal will be opening later this year.  I just don’t want the hassle and lack of support.  I’d be interesting to hear anyone’s experience in flying out of Paducah to see it went for them.

Coach Joe B. Hall

Just after I woke up Saturday, I got the news that former Kentucky Coach Joe B Hall had passed away at the age of 93.  That was a big deal to me.  Why do you ask?  Coach Hall was the UK coach when I first started rooting for the Wildcats in 1974.  He had a great team that year with guys like Keven Grevey, Jimmy Dan Conner, Rick Robey and Jack Givens.  A couple of games that year I remember particularly well were two with Indiana.  Early in the year, Indiana was totally blowing out Kentucky at Assembly Hall.  The Indiana Coach Bobby Knight began complaining about a call.  Coach Hall make a joking comment to Knight.  Next thing you knew, Knight slapped Hall across the back of the head.  Cooler heads prevailed and nothing else happened.  But, you knew Kentucky wouldn’t forget that.  Indiana ended up facing Kentucky again in the Mideast Regional Finals.  Kentucky played a lot better and beat Indiana.  That would be only game Indiana lost over a two year period.  Kentucky got to the finals but lost to UCLA.  I won’t even go into how John Wooden was allowed to run on the court to complain about a call and not get Teed up.  😊

 Coach Hall was the coach when I was at UK from 1981-1983.  My dad and I went to the SEC tournament at Rupp in 1982.  Kentucky beat an Auburn team led by some guy named Charles Barkley and lost in the finals by two points to Alabama.   One of the worst losses of his career was in the first round of that year’s NCAA Tournament to Middle Tennessee.   I remember catching all sorts of grief from my friends at Murray State since they were in the OVC together and Murray had beaten them that year.  The next year, Kentucky lost in the NCAA tournament to Louisville in their first meeting in over 20 years.   Coach Hall took Kentucky to the Final Four the next year losing to Patrick Ewing’s Georgetown team.  He coached one more year at UK.  In one of his finest coaching jobs, his 12^th seeded Wildcats beat 5^th seeded Washington and 4^th seeded UNLV before losing to the Region’s top seed – St John’s. 

 I remember Coach Hall took a lot of grief in his career.  First, he had to follow the legendary Adolph Rupp as coach.  Secondly, he was always accused of not being that good of a coach.  I don’t understand that one.  He made it to three Final Fours and won the National Championship in 1978.  He always carried a rolled up program in his hand when he coached.  He often ran a defense you rarely see today – the 1-3-1 zone.  I remember when we played pick up basketball games, we’d try to run that defense. 

He didn’t just fade away after he retired.  He was a wonderful ambassador for the University of Kentucky.  He would go to practices.  He was seen all over Lexington and always had time for an autograph and to talk with fans.  John Calipari speaks fondly of how Coach Hall was encouraging when he first arrived at UK as coach in 2009.  He considered Coach Hall his mentor.  By the way, never leave out his middle initial (which stands for Beasman).  He was born in Kentucky in the little town of Cynthiana.  He played for Adolph Rupp in 1949 and was his assistant.  He’s the only player to play for a National Champion and coach a National Champion. 

As I’ve said before when people that were a big part of my youth die, it makes you feel your mortality.  I certainly have fond memories of him.  The first time I ever saw UK play was in Starkville in 1975 with my mom and dad and brother and sister.  My final memory I’ll share is when my brother Kevin and my cousins Tony and Neal Snelling would go to UK games with our dads to either Oxford or Starkville Mississippi.  We’d meet up with my Uncle Reggie in Jackson Tennessee and go to a game every year.  Those were certainly good times.  Coach Hall was the coach then too and the fans there would always yell at him to “Sit down!” as he paced the sideline.   Thanks for the memories Coach.

 

Jury Duty (And A Bizarre Occurrence)

 

In November, I got a letter from the Ballard Circuit Court Clerk.  I had been selected for jury duty.  I’ve lived in the county for almost thirty years and this is my first summons.  I’ve know people selected multiple times in that timeframe.  I had done jury duty one time when we lived in McCracken County.  You serve for one month there.  In Ballard County, you serve for TWELVE months.  You don’t necessarily serve all of those months at least.  I got my letter a few days later telling me to report on December 8^th for juror orientation. 

I went to the courthouse in Wickliffe when my appointed day arrived.  I go to Wickliffe even less now than I used to.  I now pay my property taxes via mail.  I renew my car registrations online.  It’s no longer the place I go to renew my driver’s licenses – that’s now in Paducah.    After going through the courthouse metal detector, I went up the stairs to the Circuit Courtroom.  It was bigger than I expected.  Now, here is the bizarre part.  We were told to not bring anything like phones or purses in.  It was strange to be in a room with over a hundred people and not a one of them was bent over looking at something in their hands.  I tried to remember how long it’d been since I experienced this.  It has to be over ten years.  People actually had to TALK to each other.

Judge Langford came in and started giving us information as to how jury duty would work.  He is the Circuit Judge for the four Mississippi river counties (Ballard, Carlisle, Hickman, and Fulton).  That of course limits the number of cases he can do at each location during each month.  We’ll be notified if we are part of jury pool by mail prior to each month we are drawn to serve.  If we have date conflicts, we can contact the Circuit Clerk to be excused.    We were there about forty minutes so it wasn’t bad at all.  I found it interesting. 

So, I am waiting for my first letter to see when I’ll serve.  I imagine it will be interesting to observe how things work in court in Ballard County.

Don't Pay The Ferryman

 

If you live in this area, you’ll hear the Dorena Hickman Ferry mentioned.   As a bit of trivia, Kentucky and Missouri are the only two border states in the United States that are not directly connected by a road.  Someone might say “Aha, but what about at Wickliffe?”.  You can easily get to Missouri from Wickliffe, but you have to cross a bridge from there to Illinois and then to Missouri.  I’d read about the ferry online so I thought to myself – “Why don’t I just take a ride and see for myself?”.  So, I mapped a path for the Dorena Missouri landing and headed out.  The trip takes a little over an hour from where I live.  I crossed over the previously mentioned bridges.  I did note there is now a gas station when you get to the Missouri side.  You should especially note this if you are going to Dorena.  Why?  There is pretty much nothing else for the rest of your approximately 30 minute drive. 

I reached the Dorena landing with no problem.  I had read that you must press a button to summon the ferry.   However when I got there, it was already there.  The end gate was open and I could pull my car right on.  The ferry was much bigger than I imagined. It could easily hold several semis.  When I pulled on, a gentlemen came up to talk to me.   He asked if I would turn my car around so it would be easier for me to get off.  I had plenty of room and he helped me as well.  Once I got turned around, we talked a bit.  He said I could stay in my car with the air on, or I could just walk around or go to the railing.  It cost 14.00 to cross.  He gave me a receipt that he said I could use whenever I wanted to for a 7.00 return trip.  He told me it was about 1.25 miles to the opposite shore where Hickman KY is.  I had the run the ferryboat.  The part I (and my car was on) was concrete.  It was no problem walking back and forth.  I even caught a little breeze as I watched the river and shores.  I would say this was as close as I’d ever get to doing what Huck Finn did. It took a little over fifteen minutes to reach the other side.  He unlatched the gate once we got to the other side.  I drove right off and was in Hickman KY.

I’ve always found it interesting that not only is Hickman not in Hickman County (it’s in Fulton County) but it’s the county seat.  The city of Fulton in Fulton County is not even though it’s quite a bit bigger.  The county seat of Hickman County which borders Fulton County to the north is Clinton by the way.  I hope that wasn’t too confusing.  Anyway, I (being me of course) had scouted out a couple of options for lunch.  I headed for the first one called Broadway Pizza.   It looked like an old building with a faded Pepsi sign in front.  So, I tried to find the South 7^th Grill.   My GPS took me to an empty lot.  So, I headed back to Broadway Pizza.  It was a small building with just a counter to order and no seating.  I did see the lady at the counter cutting up a chocolate pie.  She told me when I walked in that the daily special was hamburger steak.  I asked if that came with grilled onions and she said “Yes and gravy”.  So, I was hooked and ordered that.  I also asked for a slice of the chocolate pie.  I sat on a bench to wait.  It didn’t take too long.  She also told me a canned drink came with it.  I got the hamburger steak, mashed potatoes and green beans plus a roll (and my drink and pie) for 8.00.  I didn’t think that was too bad.  The thing was I needed to find a place to sit and eat. 

The last time I’d been to that area was when the boys were in high school  They used to regularly run in cross country events at Fulton County High School.  So, I went to that parking lot.  I sat there and ate my lunch.  I took the pie home and ate it later (it was pretty good).  On the way home, I went through Cayce (the home of Cayce (Casey) Jones – the famed railroad engineer.  I noticed there was even a Cayce Café (Cayce would make Hickman look like a bustling metropolis).  I may have to try that at some point.  I made it home with no issue.    So, if you are looking for a neat trip across the Mississippi and a good meal afterwards, I’d recommend it.

By the way, if you don’t understand the title reference, you’re not a real fan of 1980s music 😊.

 

 

Iron Banks Lodge

 

I really enjoy history. I had a goal of visiting Civil War sites in our area after my retirement.  Unfortunately, COVID put a crimp in that.  Now that things are finally opening up, I had decided to start visiting these sites.  The first one on my list is one that is well known to many in our area.  I decided to visit Columbus Belmont State Park.  This park is well known for the “big anchor” (which I’ll talk about in a minute).  It is located in Columbus Kentucky.  This is a very small town.  It makes our local town of Kevil look like a bustling metropolis.  Don’t take that the wrong way.  I love small towns and the neat places you’ll often find there.  I certainly found a few in Columbus.

While doing research for a drive down there (it’s only about 45 minutes from where we live), I discovered there was a place to stay close to the park called the Iron Banks Lodge.  I talked with Donna and she said she’d enjoy an overnight stay there.  I contacted the person responsible for the Lodge and reserved us a room.  She told us that we would have the whole place to ourselves so we could come in the morning and stay til 11 the next day.  That sounded great so on the morning we were to check in, we headed out and got there a little after ten.

We got there with no trouble.  When we pulled up, we were greeted with a wonderful view of the Mississippi River.  The lodge was absolutely beautiful.  There was a kitchen stocked with snacks, coffee and soft drinks.  There was a dining area and big living room area.  We went to our bedroom upstairs and it was really nice.  There was a balcony on the 2^nd floor with beautiful views of the Mississippi River.  There was also a TV room with reclining seats.  We’d never stayed in a nicer place. 

It got to be lunchtime.  Even with me snacking already, I got hungry.  I had found two restaurants in the area that were also about ¼ of a mile from the Lodge.  One of them was closed for vacation.  We went to the other one which was “Beards and Roses General Store”.  It was a small general store but they also cooked food.  I got a honey bun hamburger (a hamburger between two honey buns).  Donna got a BLT.  They also make their own ice cream.  I got chocolate fudge and Donna got espresso.  We took it back to the lodge to eat and it was all excellent.  We then went to the Columbus Belmont Park (less than a mile away).  We saw the “big anchor” and part the of the chain originally attached to it.  The original plan of the Confederacy was to stretch the chain and anchor across the Mississippi River to block the approach of Union forces via the river.  They ended up abandoning that plan.  The battle of Belmont (across the river in Missouri) was one of the first of Ulysses Grant’s Civil War career.  The park has beautiful views of the river.  There are several hiking trails as well as a playground and picnic shelters.  The museum (along with snack bar and miniature golf) were closed however.  It turned out that were only open Wednesday through Sunday.  We still enjoyed our visit there.  We went back to the lodge and relaxed in the TV room.

Later we decided to walk down the street in front of the lodge.  It was a long downhill slope.  At the bottom was the Ingram Barge company as well as a boat landing.  We got to walk right up the edge of the river.  The trip back up the hill was quite the walk, but we made it OK.  We got dinner from the General Store again.  We ate and just rested for the remainder of the evening.  We got up the next morning and walked back to the park.  It was cooler and we had a very enjoyable time just walking around.  The park was not crowded at all. 

There were breakfast items in the refrigerator to eat.  There were also packaged honey buns (which I ate too many of).  Later that morning, we packed up our stuff and left.  We left with some regret because we really enjoyed our stay.  We will definitely come back so we can have another relaxing time.  I’d also like to come when the Park museum is open to check that out.  If you want a relaxing day or two or you are interested in visiting the Columbus Belmont State Park, I’d recommend you visit.  Their web site is here and you can use the contact information there to make a reservation. 

Crown Candy Kitchen

If you know anything about me, you know I am a big St. Louis Cardinals fan.  I was looking forward to being able to attend games again this year.  Fans were not able to go to games in 2020 because of the Covid pandemic.  I had eyed a couple of games against the Marlins for the week of June 14^th.  As those dates got closer, the Cardinals began losing games in groups.  I waffled back and forth about whether to go or not.  Finally, a couple of days before the games were to occur, I pulled the trigger on tickets.

Donna and I got club seats to the first game.  This allowed us to go up to the club area to cool off during the game (the temperatures were in the 90s).  The game was close.  I got to see my favorite player (Adam Wainwright) pitch.  The game was close throughout.  However, the Cardinals ultimately won 4-2.  The second night, I went by myself.  This time, I got tickets in the Champions Club.  It also has an air conditioned club area.  The difference was that it had a full buffet before the game that was excellent.  Also, someone brought iced tea to my seat during the entire game.  This game was close as well.  The Cardinals won in the bottom of the ninth on a walk-off home run by Paul Goldscmidt.  So, I got to see two Cardinal wins.   However, I went to another place (one I’d never been to before) that I enjoyed just as much.

 I’d read of Crown Candy Kitchen before.  When we visited the Collinsville church of Christ a few years ago, someone told me about the BLT they had.  It had 14 strips of bacon on it.  That sounds wonderful to me.  I promised myself we’d go there.  We finally did on this trip to St Louis.  It’s a couple of miles north of Busch Stadium.  The neighbor was slightly sketchy, but I had been assured in reviews that there were no issues.  We parked on the street in an spot with a number posted on a pole next to it.  You go to a parking machine (as I call it) and enter the number of your spot and then money to cover the time you expect to be there.  I paid 1.35 to be there for 1.5 hours.  There was a sign in front of the restaurant indicating where we should stand outside to wait to be seated.  Almost immediately, a young lady came out and took us to a table. 

The restaurant has an old time feel to it.  There are many old signs hung up in it.  We got menus but I knew what I wanted.  I ordered the BLT.  Donna got a chicken salad sandwich.  Very soon, my sandwich came out and I was not disappointed.  It was huge and delicious.

 

I ended up with a dilemma.  I wanted to get a milkshake.  I knew if I ate the whole sandwich, I could never hold a milkshake.  So, I ate half of it and got a box for the other half (to eat for breakfast the next day).  I then ordered a chocolate milkshake.  Donna ordered coffee ice cream on a cone.  They brought me out a metal cannister with the milkshake in it and real glass to pour it in. 

I filled the glass up three times with milkshake and it was great.  Donna was equally pleased with her ice cream cone.  I was thoroughly stuffed.  They had a glass case with all sorts of homemade candy.  I was much too full to seriously look at it.  If you are in St. Louis, I’d certainly recommend a visit there.