At Louisville, we stayed in a KOA
that was across the Ohio River in Clarksville, Indiana. On Monday morning (3/19) we went
into downtown Louisville to do a volkswalk. We weren’t real
eager to do the walk because the weather had been terrible all night and threatened some
more. Nearly all night it rained hard.
That makes the many trips to the restroom
uncomfortable at best. In the morning, it was still drizzling, but this was going to be our
only chance to do a volkswalk in Kentucky, so we figured that we would just dress to get wet
and do it. It turned out to be a delightful walk, from the downtown area out to University
of Louisville and back through ”old Louisville”. Most
of the streets along the way are lined with old (they looked like late 19th century to my
untrained eye) town houses.
The least of them appeared to have been very comfortable
homes, and the best of them were simply grand. The walk also included a quick tour of the
University. It almost always seems like we get a lot more out of each of these walks than
we ever expect.
After completing the walk, we intended to drive out to Pikeville to see Linda’s pen pal,
Wayne. First however, we needed to stop at a AAA store to get the tour books for the
next few states that we were going to enter. That proved serendipitous since, on the way
to the store, we drove past
By the time we finished touring Locust Grove, it was on to about 3:00. So far the weather had been OK – the rain held off, but it had been a mostly overcast day. Not knowing how far it was to Pikeville, we started off. As we drove east, we discovered that it was just over 200 miles, and that the weather was turning bad. I had really hoped to get all the way in daylight, partly to be able to enjoy the scenery, and partly because it is easier to drive in unfamiliar areas in the daylight than in the dark. In addition, about halfway there, we got another punctured tire, and I had to change that. I haven’t had a flat tire in 20 years, and now I have had two in the last month. Fortunately, when I had the last flat fixed, I had the shop rotate the tires with the goal of setting the lug nuts such that I could actually get them off. In any event, we got to Pikeville at about 7:00 PM, about 15 minutes after it became fully dark. At that time, it was also raining as hard as it has for this whole trip. The gray, dismal rainy weather is what we are trying to get away from.
As pretty as it was, we could see
that on a sunny day it would be incredible. From Breaks Park, we took some back roads
through Appalachia. The one really depressing event was that we stopped to do some
grocery shopping at a Kroger’s store in Virginia. The shelves were about half bare, and when
we asked, we found out that they were closing the store on Saturday. It would be very
difficult convince some of these people that the economy is booming. What we can see in
Appalachia is that the collapse of the coal industry is still causing great hardship. The
towns are very pretty, but there is insufficient economy there to support them.
On Tuesday evening (3/20), we stayed at a KOA camp near the
Blue Ridge Parkway.
Wednesday morning started out cloudy, but soon became a nice, clear day, and we spent
virtually all day driving the approximately 200 miles from southwest Virginia to Asheville,
North Carolina. What a beautiful drive that is. Linda suggested that it is probably the
most spectacular drive in the US.
Closer to the road was the most concentrated
collection of rhododendrons that we have ever seen. In areas, the floor of the forest was
completely obscured by them.
This is a road that seems like it should be traveled many times. Right now, the leaves are off the trees, and it is easy to see what is behind them. In a few weeks, the view will be entirely different with the leaves on the trees. I understand that late May through June shows of the magnificence of the rhodies. Then in the fall, the leaves will be changing color. At one point today, while we were still in Virginia, we even saw some snow (remnants of a plowed snowbank) along the road.
