The Bluegrass State

Our first stop in this beautiful state is Canal Corp of Engineer park which is located on Lake Berkley in Kentucky. This is known as Land Between the Lakes, a recreational area in Kentucky and Tennessee between Lake Barkley and Kentucky Lake. Our site (#62) is beautiful, but it was tricky getting the rigged backed in. There was a drop off between the drive and the road on one side and there was a big tree where you needed to navigate. But Ron, as always, got it in. 

Yes I had to play this!

Very pretty old home

View from our campsite. You could see fish in the water.

The fun thing about the drive was when we left Missouri, we crossed the Mississippi River and entered Illinois, where we then crossed the Ohio River and entered into Kentucky. Took less than 2 minutes! So yes, we saw where the Ohio meets up with the Mississippi River.

Our next destination is Nolin Lake State Park, which is located about 30 minutes from Mammoth Cave National Park. Kentucky’s road system, which is generally referred to as Parkways, is super good. But when you turn off onto a 2 lane road to get to your destination it gets interesting winding through the “hollows”. We’re so impressed with the clean homes and towns here, and all the blooming orange day lilies in the ditches and sides of the road. I wish all folks in all states had the pride that these folks seem to take in their yards and homes. 

Nolin Lake

While here we went to Mammoth Cave National Park, located in south central Kentucky. It’s a labyrinth of more than 400 explored and mapped trails and is also the longest recorded cave system. We opted to take the historic cave tour as no reservations were required. It was a cool place! 

Historic Trail was really pretty.

Cave opening

You would think you could just easily remove this lol!

Our next stop was Cummins Ferry RV Park, outside of Lexington. We’ve been camping so much in state parks and COE parks, we forgot what it was like with lots of neighbors and kids lol. Our site overlooked the Kentucky River. We also entered into Eastern Time Zone. 

Kentucky River, as seen from our campsite.

Pretty little waterfall

Check out all of the campfire smoke.  Yep, it was a cool evening.

The perfect campfire. Propane!

In Lexington, we went to the Kentucky Horse Park. It’s better known as the Horse Capital of the World. The scenery is gorgeous here, and there are plenty of horses! Everything you ever wanted to know about a horse, this is where you come. 

He is 6'5" and weighs 2,300 pounds!

He works for 30 minutes a day pulling the trolly.

Ron's new friend.

Mounted police

Mr. Muscleman had a fan blowing on him. He was hilarious!

Walking through the cemetery of famous horses.

Jumping contest

We just had to do a few things on the nearby section of the Bourbon Trail. Our first stop was at the Woodford Reserve Distillery. Here’s my one main observation. Now it is Saturday. I don’t think I have ever seen tour buses of men. I guess men are okay to have a “boy’s weekend” doing distilleries like us girls do in Fredericksburg, TX where you see tour buses of women doing all of the wineries. 

Such a pretty place!

We also stopped by Wild Turkey Distillery, but I was disappointed. It’s a temporary visitor center because they have a new one under construction. So it was small, and not much to see there. 

The sign driving into Wild Turkey.

The evening (Saturday) at the camp ground, they had a Food Truck and live entertainment!  The entertainment was a jazz band and we had yummy bbq nachos from the food truck.

Food truck!  Called The Combination

Jazz Band wasn't too bad.

BBQ Nachos

Sunday we left for Kincaid Lake State Park. Another difficult site at this park, mostly due to soggy ground. And lucky us! The heat wave is here! We came here so we could take in the Ark Encounter. I planned out trip around this place. I might be just a little disappointed and the reason is there were thousands of others visiting, and many, many strollers, wheelchairs, scooters. Well, you get it. Coupled with the heat and you have sweat rolling down your back. But, when we were able to read the signs, we did learn a few things about Noah and how the ark was constructed. And finally I saw how they fed the animals and how they kept the place clean. No wonder it took Noah a hundered years to build this thing. It’s massive! 

Beautiful moon!

There it is!  It's huge!  Can you imagine what Noah's neighbors thought when he was building this thing?

All of the planning that had to take place for this event. Makes you think!

Reminds me of modern day feeders in a way.

Never crossed my mind there could be animals that looked like this!

The hull was pretty interesting.

Looking from the bottom to the top

They make it very well known that we are ALL descended from Noah's family.

A glimpse of the living quarters.

Check out how they gardened.

Lots of people

Representation with hanging baskets.

Reminder of the Rainbow Covenant

That does it for Kentucky! Really like this great state.  No we’re headed to Ohio, Pennsylvania and then New York.