For months we have been planning our summer vacation that centered around a stained glass class that my husband registered to take in Lansing, Michigan. We planned to leave Monday. Reservations were made to spend five nights at a campground there and then head north to the UP, the Upper Peninsula, where we had spent quite a bit of time several years ago and dearly love…even though summer doesn’t truly arrive until mid-July or so. Both of us were really looking forward to this vacation; that is, until late Monday morning when my husband received word that the class was cancelled due to not enough sign-ups. It was as though the wind was taken out of our sails.

I was at school tying up loose ends when I got my husband’s phone call and, other than feeling disappointed and utterly deflated, didn’t have time to give it a second thought until I got home. By the time I did, he had come up with a few possibilities using the directory of an RV club we belong to, but one was too far (Colorado), one would be too crowded (Florida), and one sounded unlikely (Ohio.) Whoever heard of going to Ohio on vacation?

Actually, that was a perfect place for vacation! I’ve got four magazine articles in various stages of completion that are due in a week, so I need to buckle down! The resort we decided to go to is located in Kimbolten, which must be really obscure since it’s not even listed in the index of our road atlas, but at least I found it on the map. Since we’ve got so much time and Kimbolten is only five hours away, we decided to take the time to smell the roses and visit some place else along the way. I suggested Renfro Valley in eastern Kentucky for no other reason that I think the rolling hills are peaceful and simply beautiful.

As it turns out, this place is a mini-mecca for country music. In a “Field of Dreams” sort of way, a man by the name of John Lair had the idea that city folks might want to get away and head to the country for the weekend and hear some good music. So, a huge barn was constructed and the first show was in 1937.

Fast forward…A new 1,500 seat barn was built in 1990, and there’s a concert nearly every weekend featuring the likes of Ricky Skaggs, Merle Haggard, Montgomery Gentry and Travis Tritt. The Oak Ridge Boys will be here this weekend, and the RV park is completely booked. I had no idea that Kentucky Country Music Hall of Fame even existed, and yet it’s located here, amidst a lodge, cabins, and shops.

So, this is home for the next couple of nights. I’m glad that, despite a major hiccup in our plans, vacation is here nonetheless. They say that ‘everything happens for a reason,’ and going up north this summer just wasn’t in the cards. Getting upset or flustered wouldn’t have helped; it’s just another opportunity for us to make lemonade out of lemons. We seem to do that rather well.