22.3.09

My Car Takes Me to the Sleepy River Town of Maysville





Finally I make it to Maysville for a two day exploration of this extremely interesting little town. First an explanation of the "sleepy" thing in the title. It's Sunday and the downtown was completely closed up so that was just my first impression.
I took a very back roads way here but it didn't take any longer than what Google Directions predicts for a more conventional route. It took 3 times singing along through a James Taylor CD and two times with Crosby Stills and Nash and I was over the river and into Kentucky! Pulled in and parked right there by two beautiful churches and decided to walk with the dog. Somehow, being a flatlander for way too many years, the hills here in town were too intimidating to attempt in a car, much more comfortable on foot. Sidewalks on some of the really steep streets are actually stairsteps. We headed straight up and within just a few steps realized this was sooooo different from central Ohio, incredibly different. Old, old brick houses all kind of crammed together, porches and stairs up and down everywhere, front doors right on the sidewalk. I'd only walked two blocks when a little dog barked frantically at the front door and a woman came out to ask if I was looking for something. I told her I was considering moving here and she just talked and talked and told me all kinds of insider information about the town, both good and bad. While we were chatting a car pulled up to ask about the old abandoned haunted hospital, which was looming right down the street. Do a Youtube search for that and you'll find weird videos of the inside at night with ghosts. Nothing like this would be left standing in central Ohio shopping land, it would be down and a mall put there.
So, I thanked her for all the great information and told her I would most likely be seeing her again and on we walked. We headed down to the main old downtown street and to the river wall to look at the paintings and fountains. There was a black haired teenage girl sitting writing in a notebook and silly me at first thought she must be doing homework, I later decided she was journaling or writing poems. I guess because I was a teacher all those years and truly liked the kids I had no problem going up to her and asking her if she lives here and how does she like it. Nice, nice girl! She said she'd show us around town and spent a good 2 hours walking for miles with us telling us about absolutely everything. She's a skateboarder, rare for a girl, and had a couple of lip piercings and loves the old atmosphere of the town. She pointed down to the Old cracked stone sidewalk and said, "like this, I just love this". Me too! That's the whole reason I am looking at moving to a town like this. Unlike the older lady, she hadn't heard of all the break-ins recently and some other troubles the town is experiencing and just enjoys being here. She said that, as you would expect, sometimes you get tired of the same thing but she really seemed to enjoy being here and had a vast knowledge of every place we walked by and we did walk for miles. Poor dog was about as tired as she has ever been, we bought bottled water along the way to keep her hydrated and sat by the river for a while to let her rest. Thank you profusely, young lady for a fantastic walking tour of all parts of the town!!!!!!!!!
I only took four pictures today, oddly enough for me I spent almost every minute I was in town talking to people and not taking pictures.
Now, doggy and I are relaxing in our hotel room, I'm a bit tired too. I'm going to map out what we will be doing tomorrow. Probably more walking! Maybe some exploring beyond town and some more time by the river.

1 Comments:

Blogger Matthew Crouch said...

Wow I had no idea places like this still existed!

10:54 PM  

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