October 17, 2004

October 17, 2004

Georgetown to Hartford, Kentucky

DAY 122

 

We've had a very pleasant and interesting day in Kentucky.

This morning as I was preparing to leave the highway rest area, I said "good morning" to the man from the motorhome parked beside us. His response was "howdy". WOW ! They actually say that here. AND ... "y'all" ! I'm having a bit of trouble understanding what people are saying because of their Kentucky accents. Even the radio disc jockeys sound like Gomer Pyle ( for those of you who are old enough to know who that is ).

We had no problem staying over night in the highway rest area, although as the night wore on, more and more commercial trucks arrived to spend the night. Eventually, it became as noisy as spending a night at a Flying J.

We left the rest area and travelled about 20 miles south on I-75 to Lexington. Joanne ( the navigator ) wanted to go around, rather than through Lexington, so she turned us west on I-64 for about 25 miles to Frankfort. From the rest area to Lexington, and then all the way to Frankfort was race horse country. Farms / ranches on rolling hills with green pastures that look like golf courses, with white painted triple rail fences for miles and miles. Sleek looking horses. Very expensive, very fast cars !

At Frankfort we turned south on Hwy. 127 for about another 20 miles, to the Bluegrass Parkway, then southwest on the very scenic Bluegrass Parkway. It was a beautiful drive, on a sunny day, that got warmer as the day progressed. We passed Abraham Lincoln's homestead, Fort Knox, and Abraham Lincoln's birthplace. As we crossed the Kentucky River I pulled over to the side of the road to get out and take a picture of the scenic river valley. I parked beside a tall cliff. On the shoulder of the road, at the base of the cliff, were orange sized fruits that I had never seen before, which had fallen off trees at the top of the cliff. I took a picture of one, and maybe somebody reading my blog can identify it for me ? We continued southwest on the Bluegrass Parkway to Elizabethtown, where it ended. We travelled just a few miles south on I-65 to get to the Western Kentucky Parkway. Southwest on the Western Kentucky Parkway to Leitchfield, where we stopped to have lunch and fill up with diesel. We had started earlier than usual this morning, and covered a lot of ground by noon. Also, we had just passed from the Eastern Time Zone into the Central Time Zone, so we had "gained" an hour.

After lunch, I found a radio station playing nothing but Bluegrass music. I listened for an hour or so, until it faded. We continued southwest on the Western Kentucky Parkway to Hwy. 231. A short distance north on Hwy. 231 through Beaver Dam to Hartford, then just a few miles northeast on Hwy. 69 to the Ohio County Park, Fairgrounds, and Campground. Joanne found this place in one of our campground books, and wanted to stay here today.

We arrived mid-afternoon, and I had time to do some more work on my fibreglass repair. I finished sanding it, and began work on painting it. While I was getting it ready for painting, Joanne was yelling at me from down the campground road where she was returning from the laundry room. Seems while I was working on one side of the trailer, 3 deer were walking by the other side of the trailer. Finally I heard Joanne, as did the deer, and I came around the trailer just in time to see 3 white tails disappearing into the forest.

We set up the mesh bivouac / cat gazebo and put Toby and Teddy inside for a "test drive". They weren't quite sure what to make of it.

DSK