Heading Across Kentucky (Sat.)

We are leaving the Louisville area today but we had a couple errands first.  We had planned to stop at Walmart last night but after all that shopping for cell phones (I forgot to mention that our sales guy at Best Buy, Felice, was from Arizona), we were too tired to make that stop, and we needed new windshield wiper blades for the Explorer since the one on the driver's side started pulling loose yesterday when we were driving in the rain.  Walmart didn't have the right size of wiper blades, so we had to make a second stop.  When we started our "pre-flight" routine, I had trouble getting one of the drawers to close  in the bedroom.  About the same time, Joe yelled for me to come up front.  The half of my passenger side window that I can open was completely shattered.  I had just opened the front curtains and didn't notice it but I can't believe it happened in the few minutes since I had done that, so we assume it happened sometime while we were sitting here with the front curtains pulled.  We saw no evidence of what might have hit it, so that it still a mystery.  It was still intact, but just shattered, so we finished getting ready for the road and decided to head to Lexington and see about getting it fixed.  However, once we got on the road, some of the glass started falling out, so when we stopped for lunch Joe got out the aluminum duct tape and we decided to live with it until we get to John's if it doesn't start leaking.  He assumes it will take a few days to get it fixed, by the time we get someone out to measure, then they get it ordered, then they come back out to install, so it would work better if we were sitting near John's when we have it done.  Of course, that's really going to hamper my picture-taking, so we'll see if we can live with the decision.

Driving across Kentucky is all about horses.  We passed some beautiful horse properties, with miles and miles of fencing.  Joe said the horse pastures look like golf courses.

For a long time, all the fences and old barns were painted either black or dark brown.  But some of the horse properties had beautiful homes way back off the road, and the huge horse barns looked like mansions.

We stopped in Frankfurt and had White Castles again, then fueled ($3.339 here), and took Hwy 60 to Lexington.  We took the 4 bypass around Lexington, then we took scenic Hwy 27 the rest of the way through KY and into Tennessee before finally cutting over to I-75 to get to Cove Lake State Park at Caryville, TN.  Outside of Lexington, we passed this eye-catching castle right off the highway.  I looked it up on the internet and this is what I found out.

"Nearly 18 months after opening, the castle has become a money-making venture and a source of pride for its owner, Post said. Business increased as room rates were cut from $1,000 a night to between $375 and $600. The turret suites that once cost $3,000 a night are now $1,250. The castle has 50 rooms including a library, sitting room, game room and a dining room for 40 guests. Outdoors is a 20-by-50 foot pool, tennis courts, formal garden and a large Chinese dragon fountain spouting water."

It was started in 1969 but never finished and sat empty for 30 years.  Post bought it for $1.8 million in 2003.

 We passed the turnoff for the airport in Lexington, which is named Man O' War, and has statutes of horses alongside the highway.

We finally got out of the black-fence horse properties (must have had a paint sale) and saw some white fencing.  Still passing huge horse properties, but we are also seeing some cattle ranches here.

As we get to the southern part of Kentucky, we cross the Kentucky and Cumberland Rivers, and enter the Daniel Boone National Forest, which takes us to the Tennessee State Line.  I only got a picture of the Cumberland River.  When we lived in Terre Haute, we made several trips to Cumberland Lake here, and rented cabins or houseboats.  It's a beautiful area.

As we drove through the National Forest, it began getting more hilly, and I assume we can see mountains ahead, I assume the Cumberland Mountain Range.  We drove through Cumberland Gap just before we got to the campground.

We drove in and out of rain all day but stayed ahead of the storms.  Even when we got to the campground, it was sprinkling.  This is a nice state park, right on the lake.  Lots of people camping and fishing here. There were very few open sites available, but we picked out a great one, with a view of the lake.  There are some sites right on the water, but those were all taken.  There's lots of open play areas here as well as a couple playgrounds and a volleyball pit.  I would say this state park gets heavily used, which is wonderful.  (And thank you, Mazie, for the State Park Campground Directory, we've used it a lot already).

 It rained off and on all night and all morning on Sunday.  We are taking the day off today (Sunday), catching up on our reading and watching the NASCAR race (except we keep losing the satellite signal).  Messing some with our new phones.  It looks like our patched up window has survived the rain so far.

 Unless something exciting happens (which we hope NOT), I probably won't do another blog until Monday night/Tuesday morning.  Might as well take the day off from blogging too.