There was something about crossing into Kentucky that felt like a big shift to me—leaving the east coast, with its familiar culture, into new territory. The last time I traveled across the country by car, I was 19. I spent a summer on an archaeological dig at the Salmon River Ruins, in the four corners region of New Mexico. A life altering experience, but I remember little about the trip out, other than that we did it in three days.

I decided to drive the same route that Russ was cycling, so I entered KY on the back roads, through towns named Wolf Pit, Marrowbone, and Greasy Creek. I’ve discovered, in these small towns, that “Baptist” isn’t just one kind of church: in one town, you’ll find Baptist, Old Regular Baptist, Freewill Baptist, and Old Fashion Freewill Baptist just blocks apart, along with a sprinkling of Pentecostal and Methodist churches, not to mention churches who don’t seem to be affiliated with any denomination known to me.

Somewhere west of London the mountains started to break apart, and there was rolling valley land again, instead of just narrow defiles between the peaks. Oddly, that was the moment my cell service disappeared, so I had to abandon the back roads and their uncertainties for I-75 north to Berea. Fortunately, there was a sign for my campground on the highway, and it was easily found. This is an RV park, not the sort of thing I prefer (I didn’t hit the road to be shoehorned in with dozens of 40 foot motorhomes), but there isn’t much camping near Berea, and I really wanted to visit the town and all of its arts and crafts offerings.

Which I plan to do starting tomorrow!

Found this on my car this morning. Then I discovered that my big cooler was missing (the one with a quart of orange juice in it).

Now, this is entirely my fault. There are plenty of bear warnings posted around this campground. I did not think that a bear would have any interest in orange juice, or be able to smell orange juice, in a an unopened plastic container, inside a hard plastic cooler. I did not think that a bear would pull that cooler out from underneath the camper, where I had wedged it. Or do all of that while we slept (Russ woke up, probably as the bear was already leaving. It scarcely registered with me.)

The most important words in the paragraph above are I DID NOT THINK.

I can replace my cooler, and the orange juice inside. That bear may now be in danger of losing his life, because of my ignorance.

Some lessons are harder learned than others.

Yesterday I commiserated with a cashier at the Velocity Market in Elkhorn City, Kentucky about the cold, rainy, miserable day we were having. ”Look on the bright side,” I said. ”At least you don’t have snow, like we still have in Massachusetts.”

7 am, I woke up to this:

Somewhere in Elkhorn City, there is one pissed-off cashier.

A cold, rainy day. I am suddenly the only guest in this campground. Drove into Kentucky to get food, past towering rock walls that loom menacingly over the road. At an overlook, I managed to get one picture of the Russell Fork River through the mist before my phone ran out of battery.

Back at the camper, the heat is on and the dogs are snuggled in together.

Russ tells me there is a chance of snow (!) tonight.

Driving from Stony Fork to Breaks, I was plunged from rolling, open farmland into deep, narrow mountain valleys, and I realized I wasn’t just crossing the Appalachians, I was driving through Appalachia—a very different thing entirely. As I passed grimy coal mining towns with their Dollar Generals, Pentecostal churches, and billboards for addiction services, I wondered what living in such a place, where the horizon was barely wider than your shoulders, would do to your view of the world.

Breaks Interstate Park was created the year I was born (1954), and is administered by both VA and KY jointly. It has LOTS of hiking trails, a small lake, and spectacular views of the surrounding area.

Trails can change in a blink from this:

To this:

And the Geological Trail takes you through some truly amazing rock formations:

It was great to be able to Zoom in to church this morning for Easter Sunday, and to see and hear my choir buddies. I miss the comfort of that sacred space, but am finding the sacred in many things out here.

Got adventurous and decided to try the 5-mile Seven Sisters Trail out of Stony Fork Campground. I packed a sandwich and an apple and water and hitched up the boys.

Once out on the trail, I unhitched Moe. He will dart ahead, returning regularly to check on me, while Scooby and I plod sedately along. The first mile or so climbs steeply, switchbacking up the mountain, but once on top it’s more a matter of skirting the shoulder. I’m on the alert for upland birds and spectacular vistas. I saw plenty of both.

At the two-mile point (also the highest point on the trail), we stopped to assess our progress. Ahead was a steep downhill, followed by an equally steep uphill to the next summit. I let discretion be the greater part of valor, and chose to turn around after stopping for lunch. The sun came out. We paused a while longer to enjoy the added warmth, and to watch a buzzard soaring below us.

Heading back, I slipped on the narrow trail, landing hard on my left hip. I had just dusted myself off, and was limping on, when I heard this strange noise: like a puppy whimpering. Moe was riveted to a spot below the trail, so I raised my binoculars, and then I saw them—two tiny black bear cubs, no bigger than my dogs, and a good 40 feet up a huge tree. Mom was nowhere in sight. I tried to get a picture of them, then it hit me: I COULD NOT SEE MOM. I decided to get the hell out of there.

Take my word for it: this was the best picture I could get with my iphone. How did they get up that tree? Did mom send them up for safety when she heard us coming? Could they get down on their own, or would mom come back for them? I’ll never know, but I hope they will be OK.

Then, as if that wasn’t enough excitement, I added two birds to my life list—a blue-headed vireo and a black-throated green warbler—on the hike back! Whew! Time for a shower. Russ will rejoin me tonight or tomorrow.

Russ was having technical difficulties on Sunday (he forgot to bring the map section that would take him all the way to my campground at Stony Fork), so, on discovering that I was actually on his route just west of Charlottesville, I called him and, after some struggles with Google maps, we eventually found each other. I handed over the necessary map and we were both (finally) on our way.

I think I have never been through such drop dead gorgeous country as the area around Charlottesville and the Shenandoah valley. I hope Russ has been taking pictures, because it’s awfully hard to do driving 45-55 mph with a camper, but neither words nor pictures could do justice to this verdant, rolling countryside, with its manicured farms and stately homes. I’m pretty sure we went right through the heart of Virginia’s hunt country (all the farms with names like Talley Ho and Fox Chase might have tipped me off). Even further west and south, where the land becomes more rumpled than rolling, it was still about as pretty as anyplace I’ve ever seen.

And Stony Fork Campground, in the Jefferson National Forest, is wooded, quiet and, best of all, 1/2 price with my national parks senior pass! Birds abound—I only need to sit quietly beside my camper to see many species.

Thank you, Starbucks of Wytheville, for letting me hang out and complete these overdue posts. Now to rescue the doggies, get some food, and head back to camp!

Campsites at Lake Anna are very nice, and multiple trails take you out onto the many peninsulas that jut into the lake. My section of the camp was quiet until Friday night, when it filled up rapidly, but it emptied out just as rapidly as people headed back to work.

Russ caught up with me Thursday, arriving in a pouring rain. The hot showers came in mighty handy! He stayed for a recuperation day on Friday, then headed to Palmyra and an overnight at a church.

Saturday I visited Spotsylvania Court House, on the mistaken assumption that that was where the surrender of the Confederacy was signed. (I was wrong: it was Appomattox.) Spotsylvania was, however, the site of one of the major battles of the Civil War, so I toured the extensive battlefields.

There are MILES of these old earthworks—there were 18 days of brutal trench warfare here. More than anything else, they gave me the sense of how massive this battle was. After a while, reading about and viewing the site of so much death and destruction started to get depressing, so to cheer myself up, I stopped in to the nearby Confederate Cemetery.

While most of the graves were simple stones, like the first picture, a few (mostly officers) had more elaborate markers like the second picture. Of course, there was a monument (third pic) to the gallant fallen, with wording that rang dischordantly to my northern ears:

“We have gathered the sacred dust, of warriors tried and true, who bore the flag of our nation’s trust, and fell in the cause ’tho lost, still just, and died for me and you.”

Note the nation referred to here is NOT the United States of America!

Saturday night I introduced a very nice family of three to the board game Bonanza, and we had so much fun that they took a photo of the game board and a copy of the rules. I guess I could have brought extra copies of the game with me, but I suspect I’d run out pretty quickly. Nothing like a great game to make new friends!

I’ll leave Sunday to (hopefully) get a camp at Stony Fork Campground, near the southern end of the Jefferson National Forest in southwestern VA.

Did I see Historic Williamsburg when I visited William and Mary College my junior year of high school? I can’t remember. We did visit as a family at some point. Either way, it’s been over 50 years since I last saw this:

I am a sucker for anything archaeological, so when I spotted an active dig, I made a beeline for it. They are excavating the site of the first Baptist church in Williamsburg. They have discovered part of the burial ground, and Historic Williamsburg is working with the College of William and Mary and the current members of the Baptist church, who all have a voice in the project. A great example of a culturally sensitive, collaborative effort.

And THEN I spent the better part of an hour at the feet of Gowan Pamphlet (well, the interpreter), learning all about the history of the early ”dissenting” churches—Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist: basically any denomination but Anglican—the role they played in the American Revolution, and Gowan’s life as an enslaved man and an ordained minister of that very Baptist church that was being unearthed across the street. The interpreter completely inhabited his role as Gowan, and was a master storyteller.

Side Note:
Did you know that Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, etc., pastors played a key role in raising troops for the Colonial armies? Ben Franklin printed over 100,000 copies of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense and distributed them to ministers of the dissenting churches. Remember, it was illegal to practice anything but Anglicanism in most colonies at that time, except for Pennsylvania (yay for my home state!) and Rhode Island (yay for Roger Williams!). So men of these congregations, fired up by Paine’s words and exhorted by their ministers, took up arms to fight for their religious freedom.

Every time I visit historic sites, I get so engrossed in things that I’m fascinated with that I don’t get around to much else. I hung out with the tailor and the weavers and asked a lot of questions. I did get to the art museum, with its wonderful Rockefeller Collection of Folk Art, but then it was time to head back and release the pups before they destroyed my camper! In my defense, it’s not possible to see all of Colonial Williamsburg in one day—the place has grown enormously in the last 50 years.

I stayed an extra day in Newport News in order to visit Williamsburg, so tomorrow it’s off to Lake Anna for four days.