Eastward, Ho! Day 43 and 44: Overnight stay near Dawson, WV and visiting Martha's friend in Charlottesville, VA

 Sunday, July 18

A driving day, not much to report except some fairly nice scenery in terms of West Virginia's forest shrouded hills and mountains.  Apparently 78% of the state is covered in forest and its so hilly, I doubt a lot of the hills are used for habitation.

photo by Martha

photo by Martha

West Virginia State Capitol Building, Charleston

We stayed for one night at the Hampton Summer Overnight RV Park.  Though it has overnight in the name, we could see that some folks had been there longer than that.  Our assigned spot was taken by someone else, and after a quick text to the manager, Martha got us the spot next to the site-jumper.

The travel trailer to the VRRV's left is the site-jumper.  Apparently, its not unusual for swine to move from assigned spots, according to the text from the manager.  No onsite personnel to enforce anything of course.  Of course, the guy made himself scarce soon after we started setting up.

I was very annoyed at this but a few shots of Moonshine calmed me down.  It was after all, a first world problem and karma will hopefully turn out to be a bitch for the swine.

In front of us, was a small shelter with a couple of cushioned seats for enjoying the view:

This is the view from the shelter, not too bad.

Monday, July 19

We left the campsite a bit after 10AM and drove without incident on US64 East towards Charlottesville, VA.  We crossed into Virginia and traffic seemed to pick up, go figure.

photo by Martha

Lunch was McDonald's while I got gas for the VRRV.

We got to the next campsite, the Misty Mountain Camp Resort on the west side of Charlottesville, VA area.  Martha has a friend/former co-worker who now lives nearby and went and visited with her and her family for dinner.

Martha and Tracy

Eastward, Ho! Days 41-42: Lazy Day at the Twin Knobs Campground

 Friday, July 16

Drove to Cave Run Lake area in the Daniel Boone National Forest.  

Saturday, July 17

Pretty lazy day today, still tired from the driving yesterday even though it really wasn't a long distance, perhaps a little bit of road weariness?

We set up camp yesterday afternoon in the H Loop of the Twin Knobs Campground.

The site had power but no water or sewer, which was fine as I'd filled up the fresh water tank before departing the last campground.

It would rain, on and off, sometimes pretty hard, throughout most of today.  I did manage a quick ride on Yagi, my Yamaha TW200 Dual Sport to let her get some exercise.  I checked out the rest of the campground and came upon this view at the Tent Group Site which was empty.

The beach/swim area for the campground was closed due to flooding which was a bummer.  Although the mostly overcast skies would keep the sun's heat from beating down on us, the humidity level remained high.

Here's a pic of the camp site: (H10)

Early afternoon I believe, Martha and I took the Sammy over to the Tent Group spot to try sitting in camp chairs on the dock:

We didn't stay long due to the sauna-like conditions at that spot at that time of the day.

Back at camp, we relaxed and just took it easy as we've got a driving day ahead of us tomorrow.

I did spot what appeared to be a moth, slowly crawling along the side of the water can:

You can see the head of the "caterpillar" and what appears to be its cocoon?  I thought at first it had emerged from the body of a dead moth or something but decided it was a cocoon.  Weird.

The evening was spent tending a fire in a firepit that was so choked with previous ashes and dirt that it proved difficult to keep the fire going.  Still, it was something mindless to do, as we enjoyed our last evening in Kentucky.  We'll be in West Virginia tomorrow as we slowly make our way east to Williamsburg, VA.

Eastward, Ho! Day 40: The Oscar Getz Whiskey Museum, Old Talbott Tavern and a Basilica

Thursday, July 15

Some more touring of Bardstown sights today.

First up was the Rowan Mansion on what used to be called Federal Hill, and now known as My Old Kentucky Home.  The name also of the famous song by Stephen Foster who was a friend of the Rowan family.

Allegorical painting of Stephen Foster being touched

by Angel of Musical Genius.  More details below:

It's a very nicely restored and preserved mansion of that era but no pictures are allowed inside, so no pictures for you either.  It's worth the admission fee of $12 ($10 for Veterans) though.  It had a "Downton Abbey Tour" feel to it, Kentucky style.  More info here:  LINK

Next was lunch at the Old Talbott Tavern, again near the center of town.  A historic tavern with pretty good menu.  It would rain very hard while we ate, good timing eh?

Old Talbott Tavern, today and before:

Next up was the Oscar Getz Museum of Whiskey History.  LINK

Bardstown claims to be the Bourbon Capital of the World so I guess its fitting that Oscar Getz, a whiskey distributor back in the day and collector of Whiskey memorabilia and artifacts should place his museum there.

Here's some of the items that caught my eye.  It's a free admission tour and worth the hour or so you'll spend exploring it.

Hatfield and McCoy whiskey set

I'd not known that Thomas Jefferson had a distillery

An unfortunate branding choice for this distillery

I'm thinking this was "fake news"/propaganda put out by 

the anti-prohibition people

A few of the many "novelty" whiskey containers used by distilleries to market their product:

And another President whom I'd not known to run a distillery:

Apparently, running a distillery was a

common option back then....

Old print showing Spalding Hall on the right and

the St Joseph Basilica on the left.

Spalding Hall Today, it appears to be 

missing a floor doesn't it but no

it's just lower below the ground level I shot from.

Spalding Hall is also where the Whiskey Museum is located.

Note: The lady greeting us in the whiskey museum mentioned to LTG Hal Moore graduated high school, then known as the St Joseph Prep School back in 1940.

We'd heard that the St. Joseph Basilica and Proto-Cathedral had a Renoir painting within, and while we couldn't find it, we did take a look inside:

Oh, two more pics from the whiskey museum.

Wonder why the Heavenly Hill Distillery built their barrel

warehouses so far apart from each other?

oh yeah....

The Heavenly Hill Distillery is located quite close to our campground.  The campground host claimed that when the fire occurred, bourbon that flowed into the nearby creek set it on fire!  Must have been quite the sight....I'm sure grown men stood and wept at the sight of all the Bourbon lost.  :)

Eastward, Ho! Day 39: Bardstown Museums and a VRRV part swap

 Wednesday, July 14

Martha and I went with Jane and Larry H. to check out three museums in nearby Bardstown, KY.  

The first one was the Civil War of the Western Theater museum.  As the name states, it concentrated on historical artifacts/documentation from the Civil War battles in the western half of the states established back then.

The museum had several great displays of artifacts, weapons, photographs and militaria, this is but one of many:

Battlefield medicine back then involved a lot of amputation.....

Union Artillery Officer's Hat

The CSA's Merrimac rampaging against Union Navy Ships

which were blockading the CSA

Jane, Martha and Larry by the Hunley replica

Hunley replica, I shudder to think about going to war inside

something like this....I wonder if they actually thought they'd survive.

The second museum was the Lieutenant General Hal Moore Museum.  Honoring the famous officer who led his troops in a famous battle during the Vietnam War.  Author of the book: "We were Soldiers once...and young".  The book was the inspiration for the movie with Mel Gibson.  LTG Moore authored other books on military leadership as well.

Hal Moore and his Command Sergeant Major

The rest of the museum shows militaria from all the wars that the USA has been involved in.  It's a small museum and the concentration is on the contribution made by Kentucky natives with an emphasis on Bardstown natives such as Hal Moore.

I found this picture of a Chinese-descent Marine Officer interesting:

The third museum, Womens Museum of the Civil War, as the title states, showed artifacts, photos and examples of Women who did their duty as they saw it during the war.  Besides the big name women such as Clara Barton, there were others as well who are mentioned.  

Of particular interest to me, were the women who disguised themselves as men, in order to join their husbands at war in some cases; or women who just wanted to fight for their country.  This during a time period when women were not permitted in the armies on both sides.

The rest of the women's museum showed domestic scenes, dresses of the time and such.

Nice trio of museums to be sure and worth your time if ever in the area.  The Hal Moore exhibits were very nicely done and the Civil War displays are worth careful reading and examination.

After lunch back at the campsite, Martha, Jane and Larry departed for one more Distillery tour at the Limestone Branch Distillery.  I stayed behind to swap out the Fuel Rail Pressure Sensor which had failed in Uma's engine compartment.

I got the part through Amazon and USPS general delivery.  Took me longer to figure out how to easily remove the engine cover inside the driver compartment of the VRRV than to do the actual fix!

Red arrow in the picture below indicates the location of the sensor to be replaced.  Fortunately it was in an easy to access area!

The green arrow indicates this big nest of shredded paper and some kind of vegetation collected on top of the engine by rodents!  Yep, a rats nest complete with little rodent turds....I cleaned it out as best I could before replacing the engine cover.

The fuel pressure sensor

Took me some time to google and figure out how to "clear" the Check Engine Light afterwards.  Finally got it to go out after not only disconnecting the negative terminal for the chassis battery but also removing both PCM fuses.  Or perhaps, it was because it was the third time I turned on the ignition after disconnecting things that the computer cleared the Check Engine light, not sure now.

The trio came back ready for some relaxation and dinner.  The rest of the evening was pleasant conversation around a campfire, a bit of bourbon was had and we all retired to our respective RVs around 10PM.  Another good day in the books!