We turned our trailers back west and started the trek back to our respective homes. We were going to travel together for a while and then take separate paths and timelines after that. We were still going strong to our first stop for the night in Greenwood, VA at Misty Mountain Camp Resort. It was very adequate for a single night stop, no disconnecting needed!
We drove along some beautiful back roads with great colors to our next stop.
We drove avoiding (or trying to) the plethora of toll roads in the east and moved into West Virginia and it sure looked like what I pictured the mining areas to look like! Actually, our stop for the night was in Beckley and we stayed in a campground at the Beckley Exhibition Coal Mine.
This campground was very rustic and had the steepest approach I have ever seen anywhere. It was a steep left-hand turn up a hill with wet leaves all over the drive. I knew it was coming, due to looking at it on Google Maps, so I made sure I had enough speed and we only slipped a little bit. We then had to back into the spot, which was terraced along the hillside with the others, downhill to the right side. It had been raining so the sides were muddy. We made it in and were anticipating the exit the next day. That night we went to a Texas Roadhouse in town (Beckley is pretty big).
The next morning we did the mine tour before we left, we actually camped right above the mine. We had been on other mine tours, like Bisbee AZ, but this was the first coal mine tour we had ever been on. Even sitting in the mine car and being driven, I had to watch my head.
I really liked that area and would like to come back sometime and spend some more time, especially since there is so much to go see and do. But we had another destination on our minds, we were on our way to Kentucky. We headed a bit more north out of Beckley and then turned west again. I remember in Charleston WV, we were on the interstate (64) and we crossed the Kanawha River 4 times! Interesting what the geography makes you do in those hills.
We ended up at Carter Caves State Resort Park in Olive Hills, KY. This is a beautiful park with caves, trails, camping, lodging, whatever you want. We took a few hikes there (George and Marcia more that we did) the night we arrived. We took a few more the next day before we left. We saw a large cave the river carved out and a small animal that we saw at least a couple of times that day.
We left Carter Caves, remembering to stop again sometime. We took non-interstate highways today since it was only 150 miles to our next stop, the last one with George and Marcia. We drove through the local town, Olive Hill, and I saw the city sign that says it was the home of Tom T Hall. No one else saw it.
We skirted north of Lexington, KY, looking at all the HUGE horse farms all along the road. Went through Georgetown, KY, where Toyota has a manufacturing plant. I didn’t know this until we were past and may have stopped as we were looking for a RAV4 to purchase. We ended up at Still Waters campground, north of the capitol, Frankfort. That evening we took a jaunt into the Capitol to investigate. We saw the capitol area and a famous burial site.
The next day we visited our primary destination here.
This is the Ark Encounter. A full-sized replica of what Noah’s Ark could have looked like. It is huge. It is interesting and it was pretty busy. Roxie and I have wanted to come here for a long time and we drug George and Marcia along since we were ‘nearby’.
I am glad that we went as it is very impressive. It took about 10 months to build the actual ark with modern techniques. I could not fathom doing it with only hand tools and humans. We don’t have to worry about this on our list now.
Another thing I learned from the pictures above, I should start wearing sunglasses outside.
The next day was the time to part ways. We traveled with them starting on 9/22 and now, a month later, we were continuing on a southern track and they were going to do some more visiting with friends and relatives to the north (actually just north in Ohio).
We took off west into Indiana and had lunch at a great burger place in the old Greyhound Bus depot in downtown Evansville. Our stop for the night was pretty close, on the Illinois border.
We left Indiana, crossed the river into Illinois for a while, ate lunch at a great steakhouse (Colton’s) in SE Missouri, and ended up staying the night in Arkansas. It was pouring rain for the time we were here so we didn’t have many extra-vehicular excursions.
Oddly, we were just north of Wynne, AR. This is where Roxie’s mom was born and where we visited, with George and Marcia, just 2 years before.
We headed on to Conway, AR, and Toad Suck SP! We like Toad Suck, it’s right on the Arkansas River and a very nice Corp of Engineers campground.
We were staying there for 2 nights because we had to do laundry on one of the days. So the night we got there we went to Petit Jean SP. The main reason to go there is we had some friends/relatives to visit there. We knew that Jamie and Brian worked there, Jamie is our granddaughters’ aunt and they got out of California less than a year ago (good for them!). The State Park has a restaurant at their lodge so we decided to eat there and visit with them.
We said goodbye to Arkansas but not before having lunch in Fort Smith. We found a great little pizza place (Larry’s Pizza). This was a pizza buffet (hard to find anymore) and it was in a huge old dance hall. They had at least 20 different pizzas to choose from, some very odd combinations. The twist was someone would walk through the seating, calling out what pizza they were carrying and you could get a piece or two from them directly. It was very nice and refreshing to see. Our night was spent camping by Eufala Lake in Oklahoma.
Oklahoma City was due west of us but I sure didn’t want to go through there and there was an ulterior motive for staying in southern Oklahoma. We drove a bit north of Blake Shelton’s area, Tishomingo, and ended up at The Point campground near Sulphur OK. This picture is from the next day as it was raining really hard the night before.
Since we were in Oklahoma heading westbound, we were going the long way and were still in Oklahoma for the next night. We drove through Lawton, again. The last time was 2019 on our way to Alaska but we were heading north/south that time. We stopped for the night near Altus, OK, and stayed at the Mountain Shade campground overlooking Tom Steed Lake. Altus had a Toyota dealer that I had contacted about a RAV4. We went by and looked at them and test-drove a used one. We ended up putting down a deposit to hold one if it came in and was what we wanted. Also, they could register it in our home state of Texas! Here is the campsite:
The next stop and next day was Amarillo. We weren’t house hunting this time, we were here to do laundry, get a truck and trailer inspection, and see a movie. A bit of downtime. We stayed at a newish RV park south of town that is just starting out. It was adequate but just like most northern Texas parks. We did our chores and continued west.
Back on I40W, not much choice around here now. We stopped at Santa Rosa Lake SP, as we have before. I started noticing a water leak under the trailer and the water pump cycling a lot. Oh good, another project! We did see another Airstream at Santa Rosa but never saw the owners.
We were starting to hit some cold, stormy weather and it was evident when we stopped at one of our normal spots, the Casino at Sky City. The next morning, the leak was very evident.
I40 had some severe snow that night and we were concerned about passage through but the next morning all was OK for us. We did see numerous semis on the side of the road, some actually on their side. We were planning on stopping for a couple of nights in Holbrook to go to the Petrified Forest but the cold weather had us stop for a night at another old standby, Homolovi State Park. The next day was home, almost 2 months later. We were able to knock a few more states off our map after this trip. Remember I only count a state if we spend the night there.
Our next adventure is projected to start in June 2023.
