Backtime Road Trip Day 4: Been Down This Road Before

Just played a 48-hour game of Running Bases on I-65.

I returned to Al Obama last night to pick up the kids for the journey north today. Stayed at my Father-In-Law's lake house, which is gorgeous and expansive, but has sketchy cell phone service and no internet (thus no road trip blog entry for yesterday).

Anyway we were off this morning, boomerang ready to launch. Two hours later, we were at the Nashville Zoo. One of the things that lured me there was the "Jungle Gym."

On the zoo's website, it describes the playground as 66,000 square feet with a 35-foot tall "Tree of Life." So we had barely waved to a couple of gibbons and squawked at a macaw, and my son was off to scour every inch of the structure.

Just over an hour later, in 96-degree heat, both kids were over-heated and under-nourished. The snack bar was the last stop in the zoo. The rest of the animals would have to wait until the next road trip.

So as I re-traced my steps back up to the greater-Louisville area, we passed the exact spot where I sat still on I-65 for over 3 hours Friday. I was listening to the Yankees-M's game on my never-leave-home-without-my XM radio. It was then I learned of the passing of legendary Yankees Public Address Announcer Bob Sheppard. Since I had been somewhat information-deprived, this was the first I heard of it - it was like the day the music died.

Sheppard was 99, and was the P.A. voice of the Yankees, Giants football, and St. John's basketball, where he taught speech for a quarter-century. Growing up in New Jersey literally minutes from The Stadium, everybody knew, and everybody mimicked Sheppard. Imitation is after all the greatest form of flattery.

My favorite Sheppard impersonation came from Sunday Night Baseball play-by-play man Jon Miller, who would have Sheppard ordering breakfast at Denny's.

"I'll have number one. Eggs...and toast. Number one."

We appropriately passed Shepherdsville, KY en route to Brooks, KY, where we crash for the night. And if the kids were dragging from the long trip (and there's plenty more of that to come), there was an outdoor pool and Papa John's on the menu. Hopefully things go swimmingly from here.