A very nice day today, nothing all that exciting about any of it, but still pleasant for all of that. Didn't actually make it all that far in my travels, only about 300 miles over all, just seemed to be things that would come up that had to be explored. Stopped at a park, stopped at a grocery store, took a nap at a rest stop. As I said, nothing of great importance, just pleasant little side jaunts that filled up a lot of the 'corners' in a day. Still managed to do more than 300 miles today but the end result is that I'm not quite down to Lexington yet, still another 100+ miles to go. With any luck I should be able to do that in a couple of hours at the most once I'm on the road in the morning.

    Tucked into yet another rest area in the north-central part of Kentucky, just below Cincinnati, OH. Went through there around 7:00 this evening so there wasn't all that much traffic. Thats a good thing because their highway through town is crazy to drive even when there is very little traffic. Can still remember going through there last October on the trip out, I thought it was an interesting city then and still do. Will really have to plan to settle in for a week on one of my trips and really see what there is to see in that area. I'll have to contact a few people I know there and see what they think is worth investigating.

   In the mean time there is a semi parked on either side of me with their engine still running. What is it with these guys anyway. I can maybe see that when it's cold outside, or if they have a refrigerator truck, but come on.... don't they know that fuel is expensive.

    Which reminds me; actually paid less than $3.50/gal this afternoon. Still not cheap, but when it's been closer to $4.00/gal for the last two months every little bit helps. Found it interesting this evening to hear that there are a couple refineries in Texas that are having big expansions done to them. Sounded like a great idea to me... you know, cheaper gas and all. Turns out that the U.S. already "exports" more oil products than we import, and that the expansion is so they can refine and sell more products to the highest bidder, ie China. Kinda makes me wonder why there is such a big push out there to drill for more U.S. oil if it isn't going to help us out a whole lot. Also wonder why no one in the news is asking about this?

   But enough with the ranting.... here's another set of photo's from Fort Klock. This part dealing with the one room school house that they built.

Built around 1825 by the Klock Family, this one room school house served as the local school for all the children in the local area. Later given to the county, it remained a school house up until 1936.

Most of the information about the school is in a document at the end of these pictures so I won't repeat all of it here. Instead let me point out the water bucket over under the window for the children's and the teachers use. I presume there was an outhouse somewhere close, but it is no longer standing. The flooring, plaster, wainscoting are all original.

Not sure if the dunce cap was actually used here, but many of the books, maps and ink wells have all been donated and are all from the right period. During the period when the house and barn were being renovated someone set to clearing the brush from around the school house. When they had a big enough pile of stuff they set it on fire and proceded to burn down the wall on the right all the way up to the ceiling. Oops! As you can see, they got it nailed back together and if no one told you, you probably wouldn't be able to tell.

Two different styles of desks for two different periods. The one's on the right being from the early 1800's the one's on the left from a later date.

A shelf for the kids lunch pails or buckets, and pegs for coats and hats. The red rectangular lunch box is made out of an old cigar/tobacco box that already had the handles and a neat little hinged lid. It also had all the old tobacco advertisement still on it. You can't tell me that they didn't try to hook them early.

A short missive talking about the history of the school.