Lexington, KY . . . and HOME

After leaving Ohiopyle, we headed for Lexington, Kentucky.  We drove the Robert Byrd Memorial Highway, a four lane freeway with very little traffic.  I wonder why it was a four lane?  Nevertheless, a very good highway through the Allegheny Mountains.  After taking our time, we spent the night in Frankfort, the state capital, just west of Lexington.

We drove into Lexington to see the Mary Todd Lincoln house on West Main Street.  We arrived early so we took a walk down to the Rupp Center, where UK plays their basketball games.  This is the back of the Rupp Arena complex, as the front is not much to look at (and the photo would have been directly into the sun at this time in the morning).

At 10:00 we began our guided tour of the home.  There were a total of four of us on the tour so we could get in a lot of questions if needed.  The home, constructed in 1808,  was originally used as an inn.  Robert Todd purchased the building in 1832 and moved his large family in.  Mary Todd lived here until she moved to Illinois in 1839 and met . . well, you know the story.  The Lincolns visited here for several weeks in 1847.  The Todds moved after Robert died in the cholera epidemic of 1849.  The home then became a brothel, then a factory then fell into disrepair, and finally was saved from destruction and renovated to original condition by the Kentucky Historical Society.

This is the street view and the garden at the back of the home.

Inside, the building was completely restored with period pieces, including Lincoln administration items, both personal and from the White House.

These candlesticks were used in the White House during President Lincoln’s administration.

In addition, the china and glassware is original, along with furniture including children’s toys, the beds and the buffet, designed by Thomas Jefferson, directly behind this table.

In the sitting room, there was a nice round layered bookshelf unit, also designed by Jefferson but my battery died on the camera so the photos came to an abrupt end.

The tour was well worth the money spent if you are interested at all in Mary Todd and the tour guide was very knowledgable.  We picked up a biography of Mary Todd Lincoln by Jean Baker.  This was highly recommended by the docent as the most thorough, fair and balanced book yet on her life.

Back on the road by 1:00, we took the scenic route via Corbon (where, in 1932 Colonel Harland Sanders bought a small restaurant and hotel). Here he combined good cooking, hard work, and showmanship to build regional fame for his fine food. . .  sorry . . .got that from the historical marker!  Continuing on through Barbourville, Pineville, Middlesboro we crossed into Tennessee at the Cumberland Gap.  It had been a long day so we pulled over at Bean Station Overlook and spent the night enjoying the sunset and sunrise.

This is sunset at the site of Bean Station, one of Tennessee’s earliest settlements.  The valley below, a warpath for the Cherokees, led Daniel Boone to the Cumberland Gap and was traveled by Davy Crockett.  Bean Fort was built by Tennessee’s first white settler, William Bean and the Tavern in front of this fort was the largest between Washington DC and New Orleans.  Presidents Polk, Johnson and Jackson all spent time at this tavern. The Civil War Battle of Bean Station was fought around the tavern.   At this time, I probably could have used a glass or two!

Sunrise from Bean Station over Norris Lake:

Feeling a little frisky, we continued on via the Cherohala Skyway and the first part of the Tale of the Dragon.  Our GPS started flashing red as we entered the skyway, warning us the road was not suitable for vehicles over 30 feet in length.  I drove this years ago in my Marauder and forgot just how narrow and windy it was!  (We are a little over 65 feet in length with the truck in tow).  For the next several hours we did not see any vehicle larger than a pickup truck on the road, but being a weekend, there were hundreds of motorcycles.  We arrived into Robbinsville and proceeded forward into a bridge repair zone.  I tried to make the very sharp turn between a concrete barrier and a guard rail but got stuck,  I was about an inch from both.  We completely blocked the state highway. I tried to get out to disconnect the truck but the door would not open, it was hitting the barrier.  I had to back up the motor home and truck about 50 feet, to allow the door to open.  It was tight, very tight, at times my rear wheel was rubbing the concrete barrier. The whole event was being filmed by a woman and I thought she was filming a “crazy driver” episode.  After about half an hour of backing (carefully) she told us her new motor home was parked across the street, where they suffered damages in the thousands of dollars from the same narrowed bridge.  She had the entire rear of her rig destroyed. She was in a 35 foot unit, not 65 feet! There was no signage warning or alerting us to the construction or the truck detour as we did not come in on the regular highway, but on the Dragon, which the planners had not expected.  Bottom line, we did not have any contact whatsoever with any of the stationary object and drove away without a scratch. We did manage to follow the woman’s instructions and found a way out and around the construction.

Next we drove through the Nantahala Gorge into Murphy, North Carolina (where they found the 1998 Olympic unabomber) then finally down into Georgia via Neels Gap/Blood Mountain.  We began to see some serious tree damage in the Georgia mountains, with many trees down, power lines down, poles snapped etc.  In one area we counted more than 15 utility company bucket trucks working on restoring the electricity.  When we arrived in Braselton, we were relieved to see that we did not have a tree on our house, but in surveying the backyard later, we discovered seven trees down on or in our property, with tons of broken limbs and debris everywhere.  It is going to take some time to clean up.  One of our trees is snapped, about fifty feet up and the top portion is still hanging there, caught in a nearby tree.  I probably am going to have to hire someone to at least get that portion down.  Oh well, it will give me something to do,  it is good to be back for a while.

 

Misc. Stats:

• Trip length (days)         76
• Truck miles:              5,440
• Motorhome miles:   6,160
• Ttl miles driven:     11,600
• States visited:                 22
• Provinces visited:           5
• Books read                     16
• Books acquired:            34
• Animals spotted:
  • Moose  (Nova Scotia)
  • Caribou  (Quebec)
  • Deer (almost everywhere)
  • Black bear (New Brunswick)
  • River otter  (Pennsylvania)
  • Bald Eagle  (PEI, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Maine)
  • Seals  (PEI)
  • Lobsters and Crabs (Nova Scotia)
  • Red fox (PEI, Nova Scotia)
  • Black fox  (PEI)
  • Marmot (almost everywhere)
  • Black marmot (Quebec)

Next trips:   Spring:      Arizona and the Death Valley Half Marathon

                       Summer:   Colorado and the Pacific Northwest with maybe a Oregon                                                     run and climbing some 14,000+ ft mountains in Colorado?