Apr 12, 2013 - Knives, ribs, eagles and historic routes

Wednesday The girls headed out on a recon/shopping tour. Terry and I talked shop (RVs), went out to lunch, then checked out the Smoky Mountain Knifeworks. They have about every knife you can imagine there – 1.5 million of them. And there are a whole lot of other things you can spend your money on as well! The four of us had dinner at Tony Gore’s BBQ in Sevierville. Once again - very good. We returned to the campground, sat around the fire and later had some strawberry shortcake which we shared with our neighbors, Junior and Frances, and...

Oct 18, 2012 - The Cumberland Gap & Dan'l Boone

LOL. We are camping in the Cumberland Gap. The stomping grounds of Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett, and the way west thru the gap. Yesterday we traveled down I81 with gorgeous fall foliage all the way. Stayed at Fort Chiswell Rv Park overnight. Great spot 1/2 mile off the highway. Perfect for getting the laundry done and had easy in and out sites and cable TV. Today we traveled about 100 miles on the Daniel Boone Heritage Trail with some of the most colorful leaves we've ever seen. And it was about 70F and sunny. After getting the RV setup...

Oct 5, 2012 - End of Kentucky

From Lexington we headed southeast to Cumberland Gap National Historic Park. We planned to stop at the Churchill Weavers in Berea, but couldn’t find it at first and got caught on a one way street with a tough turn around. When we did find it (no sign, nothing) there was certainly no RV parking so we left – glad to get out of the little narrow streets. From there we went to Corbin to find the Colonel Sanders (of KFC fame) Café & Museum, had trouble finding it, and when we did found it was a typical KFC with a few artifacts from the area....

Oct 29, 2011 - Oh the Irony

Oh the irony. After spending the last month obsessively watching the road conditions of the pass (highway 90) through Montana to Washington - Imagine my surprise at the snow storm of my first morning 165.8 miles from home. I mean WTF? Today's adventures include the Cumberland Gap (used by the pioneers to cross Kentucky and settle the Ohio Valley), Barbourville (the first settlement in southwest Kentucky) and Corbin (home of KFC). I cleared my first challenge - how did the Kat cross the roads in West Virginia? She drove around, executing the...

Aug 1, 2011 - Summer RV Trip to New England - (Cumberland Gap National Historic Park)

Today was our day to explore as much as Cumberland Gap National Historic Park as possible. From maps and brochures available at the campground, we decided we needed to hike on Boones Trail and the Wilderness Road, see the Visitor Center, see the Daniel Visitor Information Center, perhaps visit the Iron Furnace, and perhaps visit historic town of Cumberland Gap, TN. In addition, Marty wanted to bike on the rails-to-trails bike path in the Wilderness Road State Park just six miles up the road. The bulletin boards said that both the Boone...

Jul 31, 2011 - Summer RV Trip to New England - (Cumberland Gap National Historic Park)

We now know our next destination – Cumberland Gap National Historic Park. Somewhere, Gary read about this park and we think we passed the entrance on one of our trips leaving the Smoky Mountains. The campground was interesting – plenty of sites, over half had electric service and no reservations were accepted. Again we were worried about not having reservations but decided that if reservations were really needed they would accept them. This traveling without reservations is new to us but it is working out to be just fine. When we arrived at...

May 8, 2009 - Cumberland Gap Nat'l Historic Park

The Appalachian Mountains are a series of parallel ridges between the eastern seaboard and the interior of the U.S. If you were heading west in the days of travel by horse or your own two feet, crossing the Appalachians was not easy ... there were very few places it could be done with relative ease. Cumberland Gap is one of those places. Bison trails and American Indian trails provided a way for mid-18th century explorers to head west beyond the eastern colonies. Between 1780 and 1810 nearly 300,000 people crossed the gap heading west on...

Oct 25, 2008 - Cumberland Gap

We reluctantly left Lexington this morning and headed toward Fort Boonsborough. Fort Boonsborough is where Daniel Boone set up his first settlement in Kentucky. It was a very interesting place as it had many different craftspeople/reinactors here. All were very knowledgeable about their trade and about the late 1700's when Daniel Boone and the settlers first settled this area. We all learned a lot and had a lot of fun, too. We then headed south toward the Cumberland Gap. We camped in the National Forest campground called Wilderness Road...

Aug 17, 2008 - Cumberland Gap

After saying goodbye to our family, we headed to the Cumberland Gap. It was so nice to be able to see where Daniel Boone explored and brought fellow pioneers to a new land to settle for this great country. We had already explored the Fort Boonesborough and did some hikes in the Daniel Boone Forest. We drove through the Cumberland Gap tunnel and also visited an Iron Furnace in Claiborne TN.