One of the things I brought home from Paducah was an idea for a cowgirl collage. That seems like a small detail to lead with, considering this part of our trip also involved pouring rain, a flooded RV park, and a roof leak. But the quilts are still part of what I remember, and I’d like to give them their place before the weather takes over.
If you’ve read about our Alabama leg and the Chick-fil-A detour, this is a step back to our stop in Kentucky before continuing the story into Florida. We’d planned two days in Paducah, including a visit to the National Quilt Museum. I sew, and there was plenty there to hold my attention.
There was a portrait of a man that had the feel of street art. An American flag quilt. The piece identified as quilt of the year. And there was collage work that set me thinking about what I could make myself. The cowgirl idea came out of that visit. I love that a place can give you something to keep working on after you’ve left it.
The road gave us other things to work on as well. Hurricane-related changes sent us rerouting south, onto small roads in pouring rain. We were using RV Life GPS, trying to get where we needed to go while the conditions changed what was possible.
The RV park we’d planned to use was flooded. We found somewhere else. A sentence can make that sound very tidy. It leaves out the fact that the place you expected to stop is no longer an option and you have to make another plan while you’re already in the middle of the trip.
Branches on the way into Paducah had also caused damage that left us with a roof leak. By the time we reached Florida, finding a mobile RV repair service was part of the itinerary. There are things you hope to see at a destination, and then there are things you need to get taken care of once you arrive.
Florida had another reminder waiting for me: the humidity. After roughly five years away, I felt it strongly, and my MS made it something I had to account for. Remembering a place and being back in it are different experiences. I could be glad to arrive and still need to pay attention to what being there asked of my body.
Looking back, I could tell this whole stretch as a series of problems. There’s enough material. The rain, the campground, the leak, the adjustments once we reached Florida. All of that belongs in the story.
But when I think about Paducah, I also remember looking at what someone had made from fabric and wanting to make something of my own. I’m glad that memory survived alongside the repairs. The trip gave us plenty to deal with. It also gave me something I wanted to bring home.