Dash through West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee to Arkansas
I must admit I wasn’t looking forward to the trip from Gettysburg through Hagerstown and Cumberland to Morgantown in West Virginia. The road isn’t too steep but this was our first 5, 6 or 7% grade and some of them quite long. Uphill it’s just being patient while the transmissions drops down through 5th and 4th gear and keep an eye on the engine temperature. What goes up must come down, and that is a tad hairier, don’t overuse the brakes or they stop working, so choose 5th as the highest gear and take it easy. The runaway truck ramp signs are a little scary, well we’re still here to write about it so we must have done OK.
RV camp grounds in this area are few and far between, so we had planned to spend one night at the Flatwoods Kampground of America (KOA) and then three nights at the Cummins Ferry site on the banks of the Kentucky River. Unfortunately (or fortunately for us) we read some really bad reviews for Cummins Ferry from the last 3 weeks so changed our plans. We cancelled the Cummins Ferry and did a ‘dash’ through West Virginia into Kentucky with 2 overnight stops in Flatwoods and Ashland KOAs – arriving at Bowling Green KOA for a 3 night relaxing stay. While we were walking around the Lost River Cave area we saw a few white squirrels, not albinos – just white. A very nice Aerospace Heritage park with just 4 old planes led to some walks around the local lakes, Rusty seemed to love rolling in that grass.
The next stop was to be an overnight in Nashville but due to the route changes we decided skip that stop and go on to Memphis, actually West Memphis, Arkansas at the Tom Sawyer Mississippi River Park. This is a campground right on the banks of the river, unobstructed view of the river and all the traffic. This is one of the few parks that we will go back to and for an extended stay next time. It was so relaxing both the campground and the site rules. The laundry is free, so is the Wi-Fi – and you can walk your dog anywhere. BBQ was a must so we found a local haunt in Memphis, Central BBQ, really very good food enjoyed while sitting on the covered patio. The local area, Cooper-Young, is full of fun eating places and we also tried the patio and food at Celtic Crossing – real battered cod and real chips, mm-mm good.
We had already booked our next stop so somewhat reluctantly we left for Hot Springs, Catherine’s Landing – a site we visited in the fall of 2013, and the last stay of our journey before we head back to Texas.