Sunday Funday

A plaque in Maysville, KY

As an adult, weekends are the best and also kind of the worst. You get off work on average at 5p on
Friday, generally get Saturday to do something fun, and Sunday is all about prolonging the inevitable of the impending work week. The occasional brunch can temper the feeling of dread as we count down the hours of freedom before we return to the shackles of the working world.

When I'm grocery shopping or thinking about adult things to get ready for the week, I like to remember some amazing times that I had even just a few years ago with my mom. We used to celebrate something that we called Sunday Funday.

It started when I was a kid. My mom and I loved to take drives on Sunday afternoons. I was obsessed with the Weather Channel (local on the 8's, baby) so I would pull it up and see what way the wind was blowing in my hometown and that's the way we'd go. We ended up at museums, parks, forgotten places, and new discoveries. We also ended up at cemeteries, which for the average person may seem pretty daggone morbid, but it was just par for course with us.

Kentucky/Virginia border at Breaks Interstate Park

We kept up the tradition pretty well when I was in high school, but other than the occasional time I was home from school, we fell off a bit when I was in college. However, by the time I had left school and had weekends free again, we tried to pick it back up. My hometown, Flatwoods, is about the same distance from Morehead, KY that Lexington is, so we often would meet up there on a Sunday afternoon about 5 for dinner one of our favorite Mexican restaurants. After dinner we'd sometimes drive to Cave Run Lake and just spend some time enjoying the beauty of nature.

These moments were part of my development as a person. We shared laughs, tears, were able to have pretty real conversations about life. I'm forever grateful for Sundays spent on random back roads with my mom.

While we spend so much time dreading the next day, Sundays are meant to be savored. I admit that I've been using them to binge-watch ER during the winter months, but when spring comes, I'll be out exploring the commonwealth and all that there is to offer. There is so much that I haven't seen and places that I'd love to revisit. Maybe I'll even pack a picnic lunch like my mom and I used to. I can't think of a better way to honor such special memories made with my mom while making new ones.

If you need something to do on a Sunday afternoon, I suggest you pull up your trusty weather app, find out which way the wind is blowing, and just drive. You never know what you may discover.