Pigeon Forge to Huntington, WV

407 miles, 9 hours hard driving

Leaving Tennessee, and all those trees, we drove through the Cumberland Gap via a long tunnel and into Kentucky. The road-builders here seemed to see hills as no problem, the road was straight and level, all hills having been blasted out of the way where necessary. In fact we had to wait for 15 minutes for new blasting to take place for a road widening scheme.

Wherever we visit we like to sample the local dishes – She-Crab soup in South Carolina, Po-Boys in New Orleans, so we decided that we should try Kentucky fried chicken in Kentucky, for market research purposes of course, to see if it was any better than in the rest of the fast-food world. It was too early when we passed the first KFC, we missed the next one as we took a wrong turn and then we were on the Wilderness Road Heritage Byway, so no fast food on this stretch! It was 81 F as we drove through the pretty green, hilly fields and passed modern houses, all with white rocking chairs on their front porches.

We neatly detoured west passed some magnificent houses and equally splendid barns and joined the Kentucky Heartland Drive towards Lexington. This was Shaker and Amish country, with much lower hills, farmland pastures and dry brown fields. The historic Shaker village at Pleasant hill had typically plain, unadorned houses but the nearby Paddle Steamer was a colorful sight as it sailed under the massive iron bridge spanning the Kentucky River gorge with its 300 foot high cliffs carved by the wide river. Here we saw the trees starting to turn brown, but I think it was from the drought rather than the Fall season. As we enjoyed the scenic horse country, we saw beautiful horses grazing in fields fenced with black or white plank fences. The houses and matching barns were cream with green and burgundy trim and we could see how Ocala had modeled itself on these historic horse farms. There were also a scattering of old black barns, some still with tobacco leaves hanging in them to dry.

As we drew closer to Lexington, we had high hopes of getting a KFC at last, but then the heavens opened and we headed into a huge rainstorm complete with vivid lightning. Regrettably we decided to give Lexington a miss, along with the Red River Gorge with its natural stone arches, and headed along the 64 to Huntington, West Virginia. Of course it was now too wet to stop for the promised Kentucky Fried Chicken, so we passed a couple more before the rain eased. Finally we saw an exit with the promised chain, and pulled off. Seeing the sign, we pulled into the car park, only to see “Closed for renovation”. Well, we had just about run out of Kentucky as well as luck, so had to admit defeat on this scientific challenge!