October 2006 .............

Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area:   Another day trip from Corbin took us to the Big South Fork. The area has 125,000 acres and over 300 trails. We stopped in Stearns, Kentucky, home of the Big South Fork Scenic Railway and the park headquarters. Didn't take the train ride, but did drive to the historic coal mining town of Blue Heron. Glad we didn't take the train, because it stops for an hour or so in Blue Heron and we didn't think we would really enjoy a long stop over. We did stop at two overlooks and the view was again spectacular.
As we drove along the roads we kept noticing vegetation that was growing over everything, it covered fences, trees, barns, it seemed like anything that got in the way. We asked son Doug (who has lived in Florida for years and is now moving to Tennessee) what it was. The answer - Kudzo - so we looked it up on the internet. It was introduced into FLorida as a forage corp and is sometimes referred to as "the plant that ate the south". It takes over all horizontal and vertical surfaces, grows up to a foot a day and is very difficulty to kill because of the long tap root (One place said the root could grow to over 6 ft. long). During the depression the soil conservation service promoted it for erosion control. It is a climbing, woody perennial vine in the pea family. One place described it this way - "it will grow over any fixed object in its path, including trees, power lines and the entire state of Georgia".      Photo of Kudzo is lower left       

October 2006 .............

Frankfort: Lies along the Kentucky river, and is the State Capitol. Settlement began here in the 1780's. There are several historic buildings that are worth visiting. The reason we visited was to see Daniel Boone's grave. Doing some research turned up an interesting fact about the grave. Daniel Boone died in 1820 near Defiance, Mo. He was buried next to the grave of his wife Rebecca. Franklin Ky. exhumed Rebecca and Daniel 25 years later to return them to Kentucky. Now the plot thickens!  Defiance maintains they dug up the wrong body, they say the grave next to Rebecca's was already occupied when Daniel died and so he was buried at her feet. Daniel's relatives were angry at Frankfort and didn't tell them about the true burial plot, so they let them cart away the body next to Rebecca's. A forensic Anthropologist studied a plaster cast of the skull in Frankfort's "Daniel Boone" grave in 1983 and said it belonged to a large black man. Frankfort, of course, doesn't agree.

We were in Kentucky for 17 days, based close to I-75 all the way through the state, and feel we saw some very interesting parts of American History. As is always the case, we missed some things, so will stop another time.

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