When it comes to traveling, I love the experience of it. I HATE the planning of it. I always feel like the airlines are ripping me off, I don’t know when the best time to book a rental car is, and I don’t enjoy the logistics of planning what to do and where to stay. I suppose I’m spoiled because even through college my mom would plan trips for us as a family and I wouldn’t have to lift a finger. Actually, even now she plans our bi-annual family trips and I just have to book the flight; she takes care of everything else.
So when it came time to plan our trip back to Indiana this summer, I was stuck. We wanted to incorporate some time visiting our college campus of Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, Kentucky. We knew we would need to fly into Nashville or Louisville, but then out of Indianapolis to fly back to Texas. We were going to need a rental car, but for how many days? What should we do and see while we were in Bowling Green so we wouldn’t miss anything? After all, it had been four years since I had been back and a full EIGHT for Orlando, so we wanted to make sure we hit all the favorite eateries and showed the girls all our favorite spots.
Enter my sister, Hadley. If you know her, you know it’s literally difficult to know where on the planet she is at any given moment. One time we didn’t know her flight plans and thought she had been kidnapped in Australia. Turns out she was on a trans-continental flight back to LA and out of touch for an excruciating 12 hours. The point is, she loves to travel, but she doesn’t just love the experience. She loves the PLANNING. Well, except for filling her family in lol. But she lives for the minutiae, the research behind every attraction and photo-worthy stop. The cheapest flights and the most efficient hotel stays. She loves it all. So I called her up and asked her to just take this off my plate. And she did! And we had. an. awesome. time. See evidence below!
Papaw slowly talked the cows into trying an apple.
Checking on the cows with Papaw!
Ponies with Daddy!
Diddle Arena, the gym Orlando and I played in at WKU.
Everybody loves our mascot, Big Red!
Showing the girls the volleyball offices.
In front of our old college dorm.
So happy to celebrate my brother and sister-in-law’s baby shower with them! Can’t wait to meet you, Baby Orr!
We also went to the Red Barn Theatre’s production of Tarzan: The Musical. I hadn’t been back there in YEARS, it’s an old historic barn converted into a theatre that’s now been running every summer in my hometown for 50 years!
Country livin’ means no neighbors…which means FREEDOM! 😉
Caught a big one in my parents’ pond!
My niece Sloan and I!
The girls were allowed to pick one flower from Nana’s garden a day.
Lost River Cave was AWESOME.
This is the bridge where Orlando and I came right after we got engaged. To my surprise my parents were waiting there with a full dinner to celebrate!
We finally did Lost River Cave in Bowling Green, Kentucky, a main attraction that we NEVER did all four years of college!
Lots of animals on the farm for the girls to enjoy.
Riding horses with Papaw
Issa with Uncle Corbin visiting the horses
Cora’s big catch at Nana and Papaw’s farm!
I know that’s a massive iPhone photo dump, but I intentionally left my “nice” camera behind to try and focus on the present moment. We were able to do just that because my sister had taken all the worry of planning the trip away, and we simply had to enjoy! My parents are always amazing hosts and have lots for the girls to explore while we’re on the farm, and I love that it opens their eyes to how their mama grew up…kinda. I wasn’t much of a farm girl. 😉
WKU was fantastic as well, God worked it out perfectly so we saw everyone we wanted to see, and bumped into even more familiar faces we were thrilled to reconnect with. The community of Bowling Green opens their arms wide whenever you come back, and we loved introducing the girls to the city where we fell in love.
If YOU want to plan your next trip with Hadley, just shoot her an email at hadley.orr@gmail.com and let her know what you have in mind! Her rate are very reasonable and it really takes such a load off your shoulders!
XO,
A
