Taking a Sunday Drive #1

Taking a Sunday afternoon drive was a favorite pastime when I was young. There was no particular destination in mind. It was just a leisurely auto trip to enjoy the sights.

This photo of me at Pammel State Park in Madison County was taken on one such Sunday drive fifty-five years ago, Fall of 1960. I was a senior in high school.

Last month Bud and I completed visiting all lower forty-eight states, Mexico and Canada in the thirty years we have been married. We've been to many of those states several times. I plan to blog about a state each week and label them 'Taking a Sunday Drive'.

Beginning with the state we toured on our first BIG vacation - Kentucky, 1990. This is the map I still have from that trip.
Bud had traded my little yellow Plymouth Duster for a 1988 Honda Accord so we finally had a car reliable enough to make such a trip.
I remember crossing the Ohio River into Kentucky on a ferry from Elizabethtown, Illinois. To this day I swear the ferry was little more than a raft that was poled and pulled across the river. Bud says it was more substantial than that. Wish I had taken a picture of our car on the ferry!
Our destination was The Land Between the Lakes a U.S. National Recreation Area covering 170,000 acres between Kentucky Lake on the west and Lake Barkley on the east.

There are many areas to camp in LBL and I wish I could say I remember which campground we chose, but I don't. I know we tent camped and that we had showers/bathrooms nearby. I also remember not having anything to heat water in and going somewhere a few miles away looking for a coffee pot to buy and settling for a bread pan. We had to use a pair of pliers to hold the pan and pour the hot water into our cups. In those days I still considered instant coffee as drinkable.
We visited the "The Homeplace" a recreated 1850-style farmstead and a nearby buffalo range. On the way back to "The Trace" (main highway through the area) from our campsite we passed the most fragrant tree with pretty pink blossoms.

I had no idea what kind of tree it was but the word that came to my mind was Mimosa. After we got home and looked it up, sure enough, it was a Mimosa Tree. I am certain I had never seen one before, but somewhere in my memory bank was a clue to its identity.

When Bud was inducted into the service he took a train to Clarksville, TN and then bused to Fort Campbell across the line in Kentucky for basic training. The Monkees' Last Train to Clarksville may not have been written with this Clarksville in mind, but it fits.

On another trip to Kentucky we camped at Cumberland Falls State Resort Park, said to be the only place in the Western Hemisphere where, when the moon is full, you can see a moonbow. 

No moonbow, but I did get a photo of a rainbow in the mist near the falls.

And then it was on to Cumberland Gap National Historical Park where Bud was photographed with one foot in Kentucky and the other in Virginia. Just up that path a short distance I stood in both those states plus Tennessee. Or at least on the line that marked all three states.

On the way home we also visited Fort Boonesborough State Park north of Richmond which includes the reconstructed Fort Boonesborough looking as it did when Daniel Boone lived there.



More recently, on the way home from our big trip East in 2008....

....we toured Natural Bridge State Park near Stanton, KY. We climbed to the top and stood on the 'natural bridge' for this photo.

This park is full of natural wonders with much to see and do as is all of Kentucky. It is one of our favorite states to visit and I would go back again anytime.