The journey to Kentucky: Part I - Day 1134 (Year 4, Day 39)

Bardsville, KY

This post recounts our journey from Washington, NC to our present location (we will be moving one more time next week--more about that in Part II).  I do give my thanks to G-d for bringing us safely to our intermediate and final destinations without incident.  The route we took (mostly I-77 and I-65) had a few rest areas along the way so we were able to change drivers at the halfway points.

So, as you may recall, last Monday at 4:00 pm Mitch got a call from his nationwide supervisor saying there was an emergency in Louisville KY and since Mitch is one of the few folks with certification for this job, he was needed there ASAP.  We started the 700 mile journey on Tuesday afternoon at approximately 1:30 pm and decided to drive about 130 miles, which took us to Mebane, NC. The campground was a real gem and resort and I wish we could have stayed longer (as an aside, I look forward to the day when we can travel with serendipity - to come and go as we please rather than having to follow a strict schedule).  Unfortunately, I had a lot of client work to do (challenge of the week is trying to squeeze 8 hours of work into about 4), so I couldn't even venture out to explore the campground or partake of any of the activities.  Here are a few photos of the premises:

The office.  I love the bottle tree and the peacock!

 

Following are more photos of the campground, nice office and our spacious site:

   

We left the campground around 8:30 am on Wednesday morning, again planning to drive about 150 miles.  We landed about approx. 11:00 am.  That took us to Wytheville, VA (pronounced with-ville, not why-thville), where again we found another gem of a park and wish we could have stayed much longer.  In fact, this place even had a bowling alley and mini golf!  They had a pool with a water slide, and we did get to enjoy the pool in the afternoon.  As was the case yesterday, it would have been awesome to partake of some of the activities, but work precluded that from happening. (Note: I'm not complaining - I'm extremely grateful I have a livelihood.  Perhaps someday, if we're ever able to retire, we'll have the luxury to be serendipitous).  Although on Tuesday and Thursday we did not unhitch, we did unhitch here as we needed to fill up with gas and Mitch didn't want to go to the truck stop which cost 3x more; he found a place on Gas Buddy that sold diesel for 15c per gallon less but it couldn't have fit the rig.  There was a Denny's nearby, so we decided after a long day and hard drive, we would treat ourselves to a meal out and not have to bother with cooking and dishes (I had a nice piece of salmon and Mitch had an omelet).  We re-hitched the truck when we returned from dinner.

Below are some photos of the campground and Mitch on the water slide!

This is a photo of the mountains in the foreground, which we would be crossing the next day:



Some pics of the Wytheville campground:

Pool w/water slide

Here's a video of Mitch on the water slide:

From the pool - note the view of the mountains!

note the mini golf there too!

On Thursday morning, again we left at approx. 8:00 am and arrived at our next destination around noon.  Since we still had about 400 miles to go, we needed to drive at least 200 miles.  This took us to Argillite, KY (that's a hard "g") which is just over the border of West Virginia.  The drive through the WV mountains was really amazing, even though I hate driving on steep grades as we have to pull 20,000 lbs up and have 20,000 lbs pushing us down, but our engine and transmission towing system, thank God, did it's job and it was just fine, even though we can't get up to speed limit climbing and need to drive slowly with our flashers on).  It was a beautiful drive, except when we hit a torrential downpour.  For the most part, the roads were in good condition and there was very little traffic.
Here are some amazing views on the drive:

   

Once again, the campground we stayed at was another little gem that I would have loved to stay at longer.  The towns we passed through also seemed to be quaint with a lot of history, which I would have liked to explore further.

This brings us to Friday and our arrival in Louisville, 176 miles away.  We left the campground at 7:30 am and got there at 10:30.  As you may recall, there is the national hot rod association championship finals going on here this week (Aug. 1-6).  They expect over 12,000 cars and people from all over the world to attend so we weren't able to find a campground anywhere nearby.  The Exposition Center has a parking lot with a few full hookups around the perimeter.  It is also right behind Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom and shares the parking lot with them.  Here is a photo of the "great" view out my front door (this was when the parking lot was mostly empty):




But at least we had a place to park.  (Mitch wrote about the parking experience in the previous blog entry).  We were only allowed to stay there until Sunday, as they needed the entire lot for the rally.  They offered for us to park in a different parking lot which was being designated for RV and hot rod parking - no hookups.

Things did turn around a little, which I will write about in Part II.