Spring Comes Early to Kentucky - OR, My Mental Health Day with Rachel and the Kids

As most of you know, as I'm writing this on Wednesday evening, March 14, 2012, my stepfather, Raymond Carl, is in the last stages of his fight with lung cancer.  Family, friends, and hospice have all been here at the house yesterday and today.  Terminal illness has just visited its evil self on our family way too many times, all the way back to some of my earliest memories when my Mom's father Cecil was battling lung cancer when I was a small child.  I guess everyone deals with things differently, but I HAD to get away from the whole situation for awhile today.  It was a beautiful and unseasonably summer like day.  I drove the backroads through Lincoln County, and took pictures of an old antebellum home which someone restored after its roof was blown off in a storm last year.  I also got a few good shots of Cedar Creek Lake.  I then went to Berea and met my longtime friend from back in high school, Rachel Brooks, and her two adorable daughters and we hiked up to West Pinnacle at Indian Fort Theatre just east of Berea.  Took several pictures of the gorgeous view from up there.  I really needed to get away from the situation at home, and it helped.  I think at least some of you will understand where I'm coming from.  Thank you to Rachel and the girls for a nice afternoon away from the harsh realities of life.