Day 21--We are.....MARSHALL!!

We made it to Huntington, West Virginia by lunchtime. I am a huge fan of the movie "We Are Marshall" and wasn't driving thru West Virginia without seeing Marshall University. For those of you who haven't seen the movie...on November 14, 1970 the plane that was carrying the football team, coaches, supporters home from a game in North Carolina crashed about a mile from the airport in Huntington, killing everyone on board. In spite of great controversy and heartache, they assembled a team and played the next season. Huntington is a small college town, but really nice, quaint....and full of school spirit!! I didn't realize that the university was named after Chief Justice John Marshall...We had lunch downtown at the Marshall Hall of Fame Cafe. It was great, murals of the university covering the walls and lots of Thundering Herd memorabilia. The floor tiles had players names from all different years on them...

They also had a case with memorabilia from the 1970's team. They had the team photo, the November 15, 1970 newspaper, the funeral program from the quarterback's funeral...

Thomas and Grace have seen the movie also and really liked it, so they were very interested in the University. After lunch we went on campus to see the memorial fountain. The fountain is shown at the beginning and end of the movie. Every year on Nov. 14 the school has a memorial service at the fountain and the water is turned off until spring.

After we left Huntington we drove straight through to Lexington, Kentucky. Everyone was great in the car...with the exception of Mandy. She was fragile today. Things as small as a turn in the road that caused her Cinderella magnets she was playing with to slide off her lap caused enormous stress. Everything has to be just so. I took this picture after the magnet incident because she said, "Daddy! Turn around and look at me! I'm making my mad face!"

I think she's ready to be home. She's always been partial to staying home, and I think these long trips seem like forever to her.

We got to our hotel about 6:00 and Scott and the kids headed to the pool. They swam for a couple of hours and fell out early! Tomorrow we are going to the horse park and then to Mammoth Cave. We were going to try and drive all the way home tomorrow, and skip Mammoth Cave. But, we just decided we'd try and squeeze it in and then stop in Nashville for the night. That means we'll make it home late Saturday evening. Whew!!

Blessings,
Leslie