Hi Y'All, sometimes the best plans,turn out not sooo great! That was the case today.We figured taking a slight detour(extra miles) would show us some beautiful vista's and also visit Loretta Lynn's homestead located in Butcha Hollah just off the Rte 23 ,called the Country Music Road,which were birth places of other country music stars including Ricky Skaggs. When we arrived at the turnoff the road wasn't fit for an RV,so we moved on. Wed. 3/27, we traveled across southeast KY and finally south on Rte 421 which took us to 3300' with many switch backs and hairpin turns, narrow road and meeting many 5 axle - tractor, trailer dumps, carrying coal. Finally made it to our campsite in Harlan - hour later than planned - Carl having forgot about leaving Central Time and going back to Eastern time . Thursday 3/28 , we drove Rte 119, that on the map looked like a straight line, but didn't show the ups and downs !!! Another hair raising ride to 2700 " , with hairpin turns that had to be taken at less than 15 mph or you would add more damage to the already torn & broken guard rails . Coming down the grades were 10 to 8 %, and we came down in 1st with the engine whining - Ursula did an excellent job pulling us up and bring us back down - you can see the expression on Rachel's face as we reached the top as she was eating the "ginger snaps ". Came across many coal mines, coal trains, coal trucks, and coal piles alongside the road. Some of the road cuts thru the mountains had many benches when originally blasted out - some good planning and many pounds of explosives ! There were lots of pictures we wanted to take but no places to stop-no shoulders.One
interesting observation is the cemeteries.Because of the steep hillsides the headstones are not vertical but look like there set back into the earth. How in the world do they carry the caskets up these hills? On route 23 we came across a neighborhood that had been recently wiped out by tornado,a lot of destruction.
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