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Past Houses Farms & Fields

Pahrump was fun! Julie & I had a blast hanging with Pam & Billy, enjoying the company of their family and each other. Can’t say we really did a helluva lot but they were good times! A few days were stupidly hot but the week ended in beautiful weather. All-in-all, we had a great time!

Julie and I headed out from Lakeside Casino RV Park Monday late morning and an hourish later I dropped her off at McCarran airport to catch her flight back to DFW. I kept rolling, planning to spend the night in Flagstaff. Anxious Arizona changed that plan, as they had enacted a statewide nighttime curfew. With no place to hang for a brew or dinner I just kept heading east until I reached curfew time near Petrified Forest National Park.

The Great State of New Mexico’s Roads
The Great State of New Mexico’s Roads

That couple-hour mileage gain put me ahead of schedule for the next day and my original plan to reach Las Vegas, NM was completed by about 1pm so I just kept going eastbound and down, bouncing across northeast New Mexico, a corner of Oklahoma and into Kansas.

 

The unremarkable stretch of southwest Kansas into Dodge City rolled slowly by. I noticed all the grain silos were on the west side of the highway. When I mentioned this Shelley suggested it was because railway tracks were on the west side; finally made more sense than mere coincidence. After a long drive of 12.5 hours I backed into a mediocre site at the Dodge City KOA. It was good enuf for a quick overnight.

Wednesday was truly a day spent “rolling past houses, farms and fields” as I crossed Kansas on US400. Good road overall and got pretty nice winding through a few hills as I neared Missouri. With rain clouds in my mirror I pulled into the heavily wooded Springfield KOA and let them deliver a pretty decent pizza to my site. Early morning storms threatened to throw tree branches onto my rig but the ones that did fall thankfully missed me.

My eastward trek contributed through the Ozarks into western Kentucky and the pretty Kentucky and Bartley Lakes region. I overnighted at at campground I had stayed at before on the east shore of Lake Bartley. Synko got a bath but my clothes did not, as Kentucky apparently is one of the states that overreacted to corona; the campground laundry facility was closed. In the end that gained me about $25 as I griped that they had not informed me of the loss of that amenity. (I also griped about the narrow site they gave me and the flaky power that they had to fix. Management was good to honor my request and I’ll return to that nice campground,)

After a short 90 minute drive Saturday into Nashville I settled into the KOA resort near Opryland where Shelley & Brett joined me in the site next to mine. And that’s where the trip currently finds me this beautiful Sunday morning. Church online is on in 30 so I’ll sign off here and pick up in a week or so after we’ve searched out a distillery or two! Cheers!

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Kentucky

The Genesis Museums

For some time now I’ve been intrigued by the Creation Museum and Ark Encounter, both projects of reputable Answers in Genesis. So since I was within relative spitting distance I decided to pay them a visit. The Creation Museum is just southwest of Cincinnati and the Ark Encounter is 45 minutes south of there.

Ark Encounter
Ark Encounter

Ark Encounter
Ark Encounter

Ark Encounter
Ark Encounter

Gotta say, I was a little disappointed in both. I’d visited the Museum of the Bible, in Washington DC last year and found it absolutely amazing. Information there was professionally presented in an intellectually challenging way. I think my takeaway on these two attractions is they are also well-done but seem to target a different audience: kids. Must be lots of kids in home schooling because the Creation Museum had lots of ’em, along with many seniors riding many scooters. The pervasiveness of strollers and scooters at both exhibits was unreal.

Anyway, both exhibits do a good (if somewhat elementary) job of explaining and promoting the Biblical view of the creation and destruction/re-creation story. I might not recommend traveling here just for the two museums but if you’re in or passing through the area, they are certainly worth seeing—especially if you’ve got kids or someone along who doesn’t buy the Biblical accounts. The museums present compelling information for the Creation by God worldview.

In the afternoon I backed into a really nice site at Elkhorn Campground where Elkhorn Creek flowed gently past me. I initially thought about cutting my stay here short but given the peaceful site along the creek and a couple breweries in Lexington and the Buffalo Trace distillery right next door, I’ll hang here until Friday morning when I make my next lap toward home.

Thursday was a kick-around Lexington kinda day. Read: I visited a few of their breweries. I started with  Country Boy Brewing where friendly & cute beertender Kelley and I chatted. Country Boy has 24 of their own beers on tap—every one of them quite solid especially 2nd Crop Wet Hop IPA and Little Black Train, a stout. West Sixth Brewing had an unique Oktoberfest with Dry Hopped Cascade that worked. The Heller Heaven Double IPA was also pretty tasty. Finally dinner at Mirror Twin Brewing—a superb BBQ chicken pizza topped off with a spritz of Kentucky bourbon—paired with the decent Citranomical IPA, but my favorite brew here was, interestingly, their Not Your Moms Pumpkin Pie.

I visited no distilleries while in Kentucky; just wasn’t feeling it. Will catch them next time since Kentucky is pretty centrally located.

Land Between the Lakes

Campsite - Prizer Point KOA
Campsite – Prizer Point KOA

An easy four-hour drive on the Bluegrass Parkway and then the Western Kentucky Parkway, both of which slice through the middle of the state, took me to Prizer Point on the east shore of Lake Barkley. Really a nice location where I backed the trailer onto a site literally hanging over the lake. This would make a nice week-long stay in the summer, as the KOA here includes paddle-boards, kayaks and other water sports in the site fee. As it was, I just stayed tethered to the truck, wanting an early start in the morning for the 7-hour drive to Hot Springs. I’ll spend two nights there, hopefully with TV signal to enjoy the Saturday evening and Sunday games from the comfort of my recliner since it’s supposed to rain all weekend. Weather-permitting I’ll be home Monday and will recap this incredible trip then.