Tennessee and Kentucky

14 May – We left De Soto State Park in Alabama and drove to the De Sotto Falls which were beautiful, across the Tennessee River in to Tennessee and a shop at Kimball before going to the Foster Falls Camp ground to find it was closed. Looked at the falls and headed N/W towards Nashville and the Old Stone Fort State Park. We could not find anyone to pay so we chalked it up as a free night.

15 May – It was only a quick blast along the I-24 to our RV Park in Nashville at Two Rivers. At 5:00pm we caught the shuttle to downtown Nashville and Broadway where all the action is. The music in the bars was magic with many bands playing. Our first bar was the Second Fiddle followed by Legends Corner where a girl was playing amazing fiddle. After a hamburger we moved on to Tequila Cowboy, where JD 

Shelbourne’s band was playing country rock.
This is Val with the famous JD. Back to the Second Fiddle bar before catching our shuttle home. There were lots of groups of girls out for a hen’s night in short SHORT skirts and cowboy boots (sorry no photos, morals officer banned them). We rated the Nashville bar hopping experience as the best music and atmosphere so far. Back at “Ernie” we skyped Linley at Hamner Springs where she was celebrating her 70^th birthday with all our family.

16 May – Rain set in this morning and Val caught up with the laundry and met a nice lady from Golden, Colorado. At about 4:00pm we set off to walk to Music Valley and eventually the Grand Ole Opry. Our Head of Communications, Val, had spoken to the couple from next door, Harry and Carma who were also going to the Grand Ole Opry and bludged a lift home with them in their car. We walked thru the Gaylord Hotel, recommended by our shuttle driver yesterday. It was amazing. The hotel consists of 3 huge covered atriums with gardens, waterfalls, rivers, restaurants, bars and even boat rides. The posher rooms have balconies opening onto these gardens. Quite a sight! There were lots of young couples going to their prom in ‘over the top’ attire!  We picked up our tickets for the concert and had a quick burger before finding our seats in the amazing Grand Ole Opry.

What a place. It was built in 1974 so is not the original venue, that was the Ryman Theatre, but what an atmosphere. The show is televised but is very much a live radio show. If you can remember “Radio Times” it had that feel with hosts presenting each part and an announcer reading commercials between each act. The music was great - from the “Sky Riders”, 5 old guys doing beautiful cowboy songs to new artists singing country rock. Our favourite was Mandy Barnett singing in the style of Patsy Cline. What a show!! Fortunately our neighbours were seated close to us so we easily hooked up, and after a small drama finding their car we were back at “Ernie” where we hosted them for a drink. A lovely couple!

                                                                                                          

17 May – We meandered our way thru the suburbs of Nashville and east to a State Park at Standing Stone. On the way we experienced another torrential rain storm which quickly cleared. The road into the Park was restricted to 30ft vehicles and we learned why, when we had a very tight turn onto a narrow dam. After lunch we went on a pleasant stroll down to Kelly Lake and thru the picnic area where some families were having birthday parties. More rain after dinner.

 18 May – We drove 130 miles thru the east Tennessee countryside, passed nice towns and thru many miles of deciduous forests. The colours must be spectacular in the “fall” and we will hopefully experience this when we drive back down to Atlanta later this trip. We are at Cumberland Gap in a National Historic Park right on the borders of Tennessee, Kentucky and Virginia. We went to the visitors centre as we only had a vague idea as to this area’s significance. There was the usual video which explained that this was a gap in the mountains thru which Daniel Boone lead the first party of settlers from Virginia to Kentucky. We are now in the Eastern Time zone so lost an hour today. We plan to do a long hike tomorrow so will stay here for 2 nights. It rained heavily in the night which may change tomorrow’s plans. I gave Val her first haircut of the trip.

19 May – The day has dawned OK weather wise, so we packed our lunch and set off on what will be a 9 mile hike. The first mile was a climb of 1500ft up to a ridge which divides Virginia and Kentucky. It was a great track following the ridge to a view point at Pinnacle Overlook where we really could see the Cumberland Gap. The Appalachian Mountains run in a series of ridges east/west and the “gap” is a break where travelers can go north. We walked thru a couple of Civil War forts before descending to the actual “gap”. This had been the road but has now been restored to what it would have been like in 1769 when Daniel Boone took the first settlers from Virginia into Kentucky and Ohio. You could really feel the sense of history as we walked the same route. We diverted on to a short track up to Tri

State Peak where the three states borders meet. (Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee.) This was our lunch stop. Back on the Daniel Boone trail along a flat track back to our camp. What a great hike!!

20 May – We drove thru the tunnel which now bypasses the Cumberland Gap and into Kentucky. We are still in the west Appalachian Mountains and we followed a series of valleys between the mountains (really only hills) thru some great forests and small towns and into the coal mining area of Kentucky in the Cumberland valley. Our stop for the night was still in these hills in a very park like setting of an Engineers camp at Carr Lake. It was nice to relax in the shade after yesterdays hike. This is another alcohol free camp so we have to be slightly discreet (plastic mugs) with our drinking!!!

21 May – We woke to a much cooler day with drizzle. Our drive was thru the foothills and valleys of the Appalachian Mountains. Real ‘hillbilly’ country - thoughts of “Deliverance”.  Our overnight stop was in the Red River Gorge and Valley at Natural Bridge State Park.

The maximum temperature today was 59F (15C) We got out our jackets for a walk up to the Natural Bridge which is a huge rock arch. At the top it started to rain giving this natural phenomenon a rather eerie appearance.We descended down a very steep track thru a crack in the rocks called Devil’s Gulch. A great short walk and back to “Ernie” with the heater on.

22 May – This is the start of Memorial Weekend so we have a booking in a State Park at Carter Caves. The weather has greatly improved but the first part of our drive was stymied by a low tunnel. We had to abandon our plan to drive thru the Red River Gorge and take the more major road to our camp. The camp filled up and we spent the afternoon sitting in the sun watching large family groups filling every camp site. It is really nice here and it will not be hard to enjoy the weekend. We walked down the hill to the Welcome Centre (really just a shop) to work out what we will do here. The camp has many activities for the holiday. In the evening we walked to the “Shelter” where there was dancing but it turned out it was mostly for children. (Birdie Dance etc)

23 May – A cool start to the day but it soon warmed up. I spent the morning fitting new trim to the back of the kitchen bench. This had frustrated us for 2 ½ years! It now looks much better. After lunch we biked one of the multi use trails. Unfortunately the other users are horses and they cut up the track, so we spent some time walking and pushing our bikes thru huge muddy hoof prints. Very frustrating! We did however discover a natural tunnel under the road into the camping area. It is very mild and we have brought firewood for a camp fire tonight. Unfortunately we would have been better burning the $5 note we paid for the bundle with, as the wood was very wet and we struggled to get any sort of fire going. Eventually the camp host felt sorry for us and gave Val a few dry pieces which allowed us to grill our ‘badders’ (frankfurters) and s’mores (marshmallows).

24 May – A lazy morning. We packed our lunch and set off for a 3 ½ mile hike passed 3 natural bridges. 

The Smoky Bridge is the biggest in the park and we walked under its huge span. We then got slightly lost due to a poor map. (That’s our excuse!) We ended up at the Smoky Lake shore and had to retrace our way back to the bridge and eventually on past two other natural bridges. All quite unusual. A man told us of a spectacular “Serpent Mound” not far north in Ohio which we may look at.

Another lovely evening back at camp without the frustration of a camp fire however. We have not seen the Carter Caves but we are off to Mammoth Caves next week so decided to give them a miss.

25 May – Memorial Day. We left Carter Caves State Park. It has been a great place to spent Memorial Weekend. On the road north and across the Ohio River and into Ohio. We had intended to follow a road along the river but headed further north to see the “Serpent Mound.”  It is the largest surviving example of an ancient animal effigy mound and was built around 1000AD. It is ¼ mile long and is best viewed from a tower built around 1900. It was quite windy and I did not like the feel of the effect on the tower.

(No-one has heard of Cave Creek here!) The mound is in the shape of a snake with the head pointing towards the summer solstice sun at midday. It was very interesting but debatable whether it was worth the extra miles. On the way to our overnight stop at Rocky Fort State Park, up a very small country road, the sight of an Amish man driving a farm cart made up for any disappointment we may have felt over the Serpent Mound. There seem to be a few Amish communities in this part of Ohio.

26 May – On our way back to the main road south we passed an Amish lady in a long black dress and bonnet, driving a great horse drawn carriage. Unfortunately we could not get a photo.

We crossed the Ohio River out of Ohio and back into Kentucky. We are camped for the night at Blue Licks State Park where there was a decisive battle during the war of independence in 1782. We went for a short walk to the museum but it was closed. It started to rain so we headed back to “Ernie”.

27 May – We followed the bourbon trail where most of the good stuff is distilled, to the state capital, the sleepy little city of Frankfort. Why the capital is not Louisville or Lexington, much bigger cities is a mystery. We passed many horse stables and breeders as this is known as race horse country. After a walk thru Frankfort with its impressive state buildings we went to the Buffalo Trace Distillery for a tour. This is the oldest continuously producing bourbon distillery in the US, mainly because it was able to still distill during the prohibition (for medical reasons!) The

tour was great with a short film about the history of bourbon and then an interesting guide took us to the barrel storage areas where the bourbon is aged and into the hand bottling area where the best bourbon is bottled. They go thru 90,000 – 50 gallon barrels a year. They are only used once. If the plant stopped distilling now they could bottle bourbon at the present rate for 18 years. The tour ended with a generous tasting session, including some of their best, and a bourbon cream. We had lunch in the car park (thought  we had better eat something!) before driving 50 miles on to a camp where hopefully we can publish this long blog.