You Can't Go Home Again ...

... Which I know and even planned for. Cumberland Gap National Park is our first visit of the trip but even before arriving there we were going through what, for me, was familiar country. From 1979 to 1994 when I moved to Cleveland, I lived in Harlan County, Kentucky. Until just after the Civil War, the area around the gap was Harlan County. In 1867, the western part of Harlan and eastern part of Knox County were taken to from Josh Bell County which soon shortened its name to Bell County. Harlan is about as far southeast as you can get in Kentucky and until Bell was formed shared borders with not only Virginia but also Tennessee.

I loved these mountains and spent longer living there then I had any where prior to that. To this day I hold a special place in my heart for the place and the people but left because as much as I loved it, I was slowly starving not just my body but my mind as well. Anyway, I wanted to see how the area was doing but really did NOT want to see the changes that I was sure had happened to Harlan in the years since I left. Besides, Geoff would have had kittens driving on some of the roads that would have required!

So, driving up through Claiborne County, Tennessee, and visiting the Gap, and then heading on through Middlesboro, Pineville, and other places near but not in Harlan itself sufficed and came close enough to "going home again" without actually doing so and ruining my memories. The kudzu covered hillsides were certainly close enough.

In many ways the roads through Tennessee showed little change from years ago except the lakes are looking so much better. Back then drought had shrunk them badly, now they are full and healthy looking, bringing back memories of night-fishing in the fog at Norris Lake. The tunnel at the Gap was being built when I left but did not open until a couple of years after I left but it is sure much easier than the old road through the Gap! We passed through the tunnel and then discovered at the park center that the camping area was back on the southern side of the tunnel where we had to pass back into Tennessee and Virginia to get to the camping area where we stayed for only ten dollars with our senior park pass.

The only drawback to the space at the park was Geoff had to back in to it but it was nice and wide and turned out not to be much of a problem. It was peaceful and quiet and the spaces are set up for privacy and enjoyment of the surrounding woods. Definitely a bargain!

In the morning we went back through the tunnel and headed back to the Cumberland Gap National Park visitor center. We headed up for the loop that goes up to the view area but part way up it gets restricted to under 20 feet in length and we figured we better not test how literally they meant that as our 27 feet plus was not likely to fit. The visitor center is some what informative but I found it a little too focused on Daniel Boone and the early settlers coming through and not enough about the Civil War which was equally fascinating in the gap although I believe some of that is up at the Pinnacle Overlook that we could not get to.

From the Gap, we headed north on US25E back towards I-75, passing through Middlesboro, Pineville with its flood wall, and Corbin, the home of KFC. Once we got to I-75 we continued north through the Renfro Valley until we neared Lexington where we swung eastwards on to I-64 towards West Virginia and Pennsylvania, stopping for an overnight at the Foxfire KOA in Milton, West Virginia. A nice campground but if you are heading into the eastern part of the country be prepared for sticker shock as the price of campgrounds gets higher!

At Charleston, West Virginia, we had changed over from I-64 to I-79, eventually ending up on I-76 eastbound through Pennsylvania after leaving Milton. The countryside is nice throughout West Virginia but there's not a lot to say about it. Same with most of this part of Pennsylvania, a pleasant drive eastwards until we reached our next destination, Elizabethtown's KOA which is actually called the Hershey KOA. We stayed there two nights, taking a rest day as we have found that if you don't schedule a rest day here and there on a trip you end up taking one anyway!