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.