Kentucky & West Virginia.

This was our second visit to Kentucky, the country side was very similar to England, rolling hills, fields, rivers, forests and the traffic jam seemed very familiar as well. This time we were heading for Lexington where we hopped our replacement parts were waiting for us at the service dealership. We found them and the parts were there, they also directed us to a camp site just out of town.

The Kentucky Horse Park is an educational theme park and competition facility dedicated to man’s relationship with the horse. A working horse farm of 1,200 acres in the heart of the Bluegrass Region, its campsite was huge and we chose a site next to the swimming pool where we spent the late afternoon sunbathing and swimming. If you are into horses there was a lot to see, museums, horse drawn trolley bus tours of the stables, parade of breeds, mare & foals show and a polo match every Sunday afternoon. The next day we took the RV back to the service dealership and spent the day in their waiting room while they fitted a new canopy to the bedroom slide out, a new union on a front jack and a new light in the wardrobe. We went back to the Horse Park for the night, a few hours by the pool and then we watched the fire flies buzzing around while we sat out under the stars.

The next day we crossed the state line into West Virginia just west of Huntington, we had passed through the NE corner of the state in the hire car at the beginning of our adventure so it did not add to our state tally. The further east we travelled the thicker the forest got, the rolling hills and fields had disappeared and even the rivers were completely engulfed by the tree covered banks.

The one exception was Charleston, the state capital which doesn’t even warrant a mention in the guide books. The Monongahela National Forest a part of the Allegheny Mountains is what earned West Virginia the nickname ‘Colorado of the East’. We didn’t agree, Colorado was much prettier and there was somewhere to camp, we drove on for miles looking for somewhere to stop. There were no visitor’s centres or information leaflets to be had so we just drove on hopping the forest would eventually give way to civilization. At last there was a camping sign so we pulled off the highway and followed the signs to Midway Motel, midway between where and where? The motel was also the petrol station, grocery store, post office and coffee shop.

Like everything else it was also surrounded by the forest, but we had water, electric and a flat site so it could have been a lot worse. Later we discovered the motel was also the local bar.

Danny, Pete alias ‘Piehead’, Dave and Gary had a great time, as you can see, in the Town and Country Lounge. The walls were covered with pictures of local people who had served in the armed forces from the early 20^th century to the present time. The bar’s owner had served in Germany at the same time as Elvis so there were a number of photos of them together as well.