Still in Texas.
We headed out I-35 but diverted on Old Bastrop Highway before San Marcos. A highway marker said we were on the El Camino Real de los Tejas. The old highway from Mexico City. We stopped in Lockhart, TX, the barbeque capital of Texas, and bought some brisket, turkey, and sausage for our dinner later. We found the red granite markers from the Texas Daughters of the American Revolution outside Nacogdoches. We had a roadside picnic and stopped before dark in Nacogdoches. My brother, an Aggie, said he and his friends used to call it Naca-nowhere, but I found Nacogdoches to be a lovely town. And we had some of the best coffee on our trip at a place called Java Jacks.
The next day, we drove through Carthage, Marshall, Texarkana, and at Hope, Arkansas, we took off on another historic byway. But first, we stopped at President Bill Clinton’s birthplace.
We drove through Camden, Fordyce, Pine Bluff, and Stuttgart along an old Civil War trail and read about the Camden expedition. We eventually rejoined Interstate 40 before West Memphis, crossing from Arkansas into Tennessee. It was raining when we drove by Beale Street, so we didn’t get out and walk. Instead, we headed north to Paducah, Kentucky.
I’ve read so much about Paducah, a UNESCO Creative City. The story of how a few artists transformed a dilapidated and dying city is inspiring. Read more about it here. Today, the city appears to be thriving and beautiful. From Paducah, my next dream destination was Keeneland in Lexington, KY. Horse racing is featured prominently in my novel. Horses are bought and sold at the Keeneland yearling sale, which began September 11 and ends September 23. It was blissful and, though a quick trip, important research for my writing.
I highly recommend the book Horse, by Geraldine Brooks. If you’ve read it you will recognize the horse in the top left gallery photo. It is Lexington.
We picked up a few snacks from Lexington at a grocery and headed out to West Virginia. We overnighted in Morgantown. Home of the West Virginia University Mountaineers. And yes, Morgantown is surrounded by Mountains. It is steep and lovely in the Appalachian region. From there, we drove into Maryland, stopping at the scenic overlook at the Youghiogheny River. From Maryland, we ended up back in West Virginia to visit Shepherdstown, the place from where my ancestors left to come to Colorado in 1860. We stopped at Antietam to visit the Civil War Battlefield.
The trip to Shepherdstown was emotional for me. My mom and I had talked about going to see the place where Father Kehler came from. She wanted to visit. We never did, not before her brain began to die, and now she doesn’t know Father Kehler or me.
Johann Heinrich Kehler was born in Frederick, MD, on January 14, 1797. He spent two decades as a Lutheran minister in Madison, VA, and Cumberland, MD. In 1819, he married Ann Talbott Towner at Shepherdstown’s Evangelical Church. In November 1840, John Kehler applied for holy orders with the Episcopal Church. Bishop William Whittingham sent Kehler as a missionary to various towns along the upper Potomac. He served that community for 20 years, founding St. George’s Episcopal Church in Mt. Savage, MD. His wife, Ann, died in late September 1859. John Brown’s raid at Harper’s Ferry happened two weeks after her death. On December 27, 1859, Father Kehler packed up his daughters and youngest son, and they set out for Colorado, arriving in January 1860 to much fanfare. His eldest son Talbot had gone to California to make his fortune, and his second oldest son, Jack, was very successful in Colorado, serving as a sheriff, owning a mine, a saloon, and a store in Mountain City. The story goes that Jack built his father and sisters the first brick house in Auraria (future Denver.)
We also visited Harper’s Ferry and had dinner in Frederick, MD ending our day in Gaithersburg, MD.
