Take The Long Way Home.

We drove east and actually a little south from Gary and Ann's place in mid-Tennessee until we got past Knoxville an hour or two and then we set up Jill, American English on the GPS again and headed north through some of the most rugged and picturesque stretches of two-lane highway we have ever been on. We left Tennessee and even passed through the western tip of Virginia before arriving in Kentucky on our set destination of Hazard. In one place Jill actually got us on to a mountain gravel road for a mile or two. 

As we swerved and slithered along the mountain roads there was occasionally a place to pull off and enjoy the vistas but with a 50 mph speed limit on most of the roads and no shoulder to pull off onto, there is no safe way to stop and take pictures. The pictures I did snap were only possible when I had a quarter mile or so visibility to the rear. Those mountain folk in pickups and dump trucks press all the limits to the max.

Some buildings need repair and many are ready to collapse but they certainly make nice pictures. I have been working on a few in Photoshop and will post the results in a later post.

This car repair business has sort of oozed out on to the highway but no one seems to care. I slowed for the curve and snapped a pic but Wendy barked "Don't take pictures of them, they all have guns!"

This curve had guard rails but most didn't. The GPS predicts the curvy road ahead but can't show the big trucks coming around that next switchback.

Lots of funky scenery off the beaten path.

We stayed overnight in Hazard KY, one of the top ten poorest communities in USA. The old TV series, "The Dukes of Hazzard" took its inspiration from here. The producers added another "Z" and changed the state to Georgia, presumably so they wouldn't be sued. You can read about Hazard KY here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hazard,_KY

With the radio blaring bluegrass music from WSGS, (Click to hear) we hit the road early and had another full day of excitement. Wendy says its the music that makes them drive faster on these narrow roads. Hazard is in coal mining country, "black gold" as they call  it.

Now that we are northeast of Lexington KY again, the terrain smothes out and rich horse farms start to appear. Again we see miles of wood and rock fences. What a contrast from an hour or two ago.

We took a VERY long way home, going way east past Knoxville on the GPS before swinging north through western Virginia and in to the poorest part of KY to Hazard KY overnight. (8 hours) Then continued north to Cincinatti, still on the back roads. Then on to I-75 to arrive at the condo around 7:30 pm Sat. (10 hours). It was well worth the extra time and gas.


If you are heading to Florida or just looking for a few days of adventure driving roads of spectacular beauty, get off the freeway and explore. Kentucky is only four hours driving from Detroit and is a world of difference from Southern Ontario, Michigan and most of Ohio.

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Gary and Ann's Place In Tennessee

We arrived as I mentioned in my last post at around 2 pm Tuesday. It was raining so, even though, as you know, we are all a shy and reserved lot, we spent the rest of the day talking and relaxing inside. Today the weather has cleared so we can better see the property. Their beautiful house is set way back in a very private setting. Good thing there is no snow to plow down here because the lane way is very long. In this shot we are already well over half way from the entrance gate. The fall colors have been beautiful all the way here from Canada, over six hundred and eighty five miles.

The house is already quite big but you can enlarge it more by clicking on it.

To the rear of the house there is a terraced deck facing the creek. A rarity in this area is a full basement, Gary plans a "man cave" with a walk out. You can barely see it, but there is also another garage door into the basement beside the deck structure. Lots of storage for man-toys.

The two "girls" Stormy and Taffy are always glad to see visitors.

A creek meanders through the back property line only a hundred feet or so from the deck.

A separate detached garage could hold 8 more cars and Gary is planning to  finish the upper level as a guest house. There is already a bathroom with a shower on the main level in the huge garage.

Behind the detached garage there is yet another building, the paddock which the previous owners added for their horses.

A large pond beyond the paddock on the 10 acre property helps isolate them from the neighbors who are past the trees on the other side of the pond.

It sure was nice to visit with them.  They are the perfect hosts and we instantly felt at home here. Who wouldn't?

The next day (Wednesday) Gary gave us a full tour of the area and showed us his other properties here in Tennessee.  He and Ann are quite the collectors and there was lots to see.
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All About Going Down and Big Bone Lick.

We drove down to Tennessee at the kind invitation of our summer condo neighbors Gary and Ann. The weather was warm and sunny and was perfect for traveling as we started out Monday Oct. 10 from the condo around 8:30 am. The drive down and back would normally be fairly quick and easy, to the point of being boring, if we had stayed the whole way on the freeways. Since Michigan and Ohio are mostly pretty flat, we did stick to I-75 until we got past Cincinnati and into Kentucky. Fortunately my Garmin Nuvi GPS (as I assume most other makes do too) allows a setting which allows me to avoid highways. Once the terrain started to look interesting, we exited the freeway and reset the GPS. Then the fun began.

The amazing little machine immediately asked me to "drive to highlighted route". We traveled on a smaller, two lane highway until we saw a sign indicating Big Bone Lick State Park. I haven't been there for 40 years, having at that time made the same diversion while driving to Florida with my good old friend David all those years ago. I think it was only the name that caught our eye then and after a brief drive around the park this time, it was clear that at least the part of the park we saw was fairly mundane, the main attraction being the sign at the entrance bearing the funny name of the park.

We all think of wood fences but many farms had these same stone walls. Miles of them.

After we turned at each diversion, or if I failed to follow the instructions perfectly the GPS voice (Jill, American) would exclaim in a somewhat exasperated tone, "Re-calculating!" and often would be followed by "In point two miles Make A U-turn". If we were generally heading in a southern direction I would often ignore Jill's insistence on making a U-turn until she reluctantly gave in to "Recalculating". In spite of the apparent test of Jill's patience, she always eventually came up with a new route and we arrived in Lexington KY at around 5 pm. Which was a couple hours later than we would have had we stayed on the main highway but we certainly saw a whole lot more which made the trip much more interesting.

I had checked the internet before we left and discovered there was a Longhorn Steakhouse in Lexington so we found it and had a nice meal before finding a Red Roof Inn and a clean, affordable room for the night. The inn was on the south side of town, right on Hwy 27 so we could get an early start on our continuing, and meandering route to Crossville TN. We were never disappointed by the ever changing scenery along the way. Yesterday, north of Lexington, the scene out our window was mostly the rolling hills and the rich horse farms that Kentucky is famous for.  

 We started out from Lexington early.

Today, the terrain becomes more rugged as we enter the foothills of the Blue Ridge mountains that are to the east of us past Knoxville TN.

We told Gary and Ann to expect us around 2 pm and we were right on schedule. Unfortunately in the last mile of our trip, Jill and the GPS incorrectly misled us down a road that led near but not exactly to our destination. As I back-tracked onto the main highway, and just as I was about to call on my cell phone, we couldn't believe our eyes. We were saw a rare Mustang Shelby pass as we U-turned back on to the main road against Jill's advice.  I remembered Gary had told me he owned one and the Shelby slowed down in front of us. Sure enough it was Gary.

Stay tuned, I'll add more  about the TN trip soon.
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A Trip to Tennessee

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We are planning a drive to Tennessee to visit our summertime condo neighbors Gary and Ann. The visit is in response to their gracious invitation and since we haven't driven far in the last couple years, we decided a meandering drive (600 or so miles each way) on the back roads would be a nice part of the visit. 
 

The property is a few miles from Crossville and is about 10 acres in size. Lots of lawn for Ann to cut.

Since Gary's motto is: "Never stay anyplace where you have to wear socks!"  they will be there only for a month or so before moving on to their place in Florida where socks are definitely optional all year round. I'll post some pictures of our trip as we go along.
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A Bumper Crop Of Walnuts

In all the twenty five or so years we have lived here I don't remember ever seeing this many nuts on our Black Walnut trees. The squirrels are having a field day with the tennis ball size fruits. Does this mean a harsh winter? 

They must be mad at Tim for stealing THEIR nuts.

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Some Random Summer Pics

Our good condo neighbours Ken and Fern asked me to send some pictures I took in the summer so these are really not chronicling any particular event but they do all feature Ken.

Click on any one to enlarge.

Wendy, Patty, George and Ken

Ken, Harold, Bill and Pauline

Jack, Harold, Chris and Ken

I can tell Ken and I are best in Supervisory jobs

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