Suddenly it Hit Me

Did Lisa finally slap the daylights out of me? Did you get rear ended by Bubba the hill-billy?

Nope, none of the above. Although I think Lisa would like to sometimes. What hit me is that driving around Kentucky, I realized that it is really a beautiful state. I know we were here last year but we just kind of stayed in the western part of the state.

Last Saturday we went to Abraham Lincoln's Birthplace in Hodgenville Ky. It was just a short drive away and I remember seeing the signs for it last year. But we never made the effort to check it out. I always find it amazing to be able to walk where giants have walked. To learn a little more history of our forefathers. To see the humble beginnings of one of our greatest presidents.

This is a small national historic park and it is also a no fee park. We drove in and went to the visitor center. Abraham Lincoln only lived her a couple of years and then his family moved a little farther north after being evicted over a land dispute. His log cabin that he was born in is here inside a beautiful shrine.

We then drove into Hodgenville because they had an Abraham Lincoln museum. It was privately owned and a little cheesy but the price of $3.00 each to get in was okay. They had lots of diorama's of Abe's life. Also a ton of oil paintings and a lot of those were just awful. 

Lisa listening to the Gettysburg address

All in all it was very interesting. So that was last Saturday. We then worked Sunday and Monday with Tues-Thur. off. 3 day weekends are nice. We picked out some sights that we want to see this time while we are here starting with the one that was going to be the farthest away. We figured that later on our energy levels would be less so we did this one first. The sight that we picked was the Cumberland Gap.

Cumberland Gap is on the eastern side of the state. It borders Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia. We drove the scenic route through the Daniel Boone National Forest. It was so wooded that I could just picture Daniel Boone or Davey Crockett walking through these woods. We stopped at the Cumberland Falls for some pictures.

Upstream

The Falls

Downstream

The river is very shallow and the bottom is all rock, not mud of even the kind of rocks you would find in mountain stream. It just flows over a rock layer that it can't get through.

The Cumberland Gap. I remember this from history classes in school a long time ago. I don't even know if it is taught anymore. The gap is exactly that. An area in the mountain range that was the easiest place to cross. They estimate that 200,000 to 300,000 pioneers crossed through there. Native Americans have been using the gap for centuries following animal herds.

The gap goes from where we are standing to the other mountain across the way

The pathway. It was a perfect day.

The gap from the Tennessee side

Of course during the Civil war this area was very important to both sides. So I got some good cannon photos. I love to look at cannon's.

It was a very good day. On a more personal note. One of my cousins passed away last week, which got me thinking about this lifestyle of ours. We feel very lucky to be able to do this and very fortunate. My cousin was 60. He was diagnosed with cancer a couple of weeks ago and it took him that quickly. He reminded me that we need to make that extra effort to see as much as we can because you never know. Lsep.