


I FINALLY got a chance to photograph the lovely landscape I’ve been seeing, even though I nearly got smushed by a tractor trailer doing it! I recommend you enlarge the pictures, to get a better sense of how pretty this area is. Out of the Appalachians, the land returned to rolling valley, with extensive cattle farms. I drove through Lancaster and Danville, both picturesque towns (Danville is the site of Centre College). Sorry for the car window in the pictures; sometimes I just can’t stop for a photo.



And then to Axtel Campground, on Rough River Lake, near McDaniels, KY. This is MUCH more to my liking than the Oh! Kentucky RV Park (mind you, Oh! KY is a perfectly nice RV park: I just don’t like RV parks. I don’t understand why anyone would buy a camper just to stay inside and watch TV all day). I arrived just as a light rain was beginning to fall.
Rough River Lake was created in 1961 by damming the Rough River, and the lake and its campgrounds are managed by the Army Corps of Engineers (which means it is 1/2 price under my national parks senior pass, yay!). Since the lake was created for flood control, rather than recreation, the lake level varies quite a lot. Right now, about 30 of the campsites are under water (not mine, thank goodness). I asked the ranger if this was unusual, and he shrugged and told me this was about normal for springtime. Come summer, it would drop back down as they released water downstream.


There are tons of birds here, which is good, since there isn’t much hiking in the area. The campgrounds are plenty extensive enough for a good walkabout with the dogs, though, and the sun is now shining, so that’s what I’ll do.