Jean and I figured it would be a real stretch (for the Jeep and ourselves) to reach our intended temporary base camp in Blowing Rock, NC from Highland, OH. So, we selected the Cumberland Gap area connecting Virginia and Kentucky as a stop for the evening of June 6th.

June 6, 2017: Cruising the southwestern Ohio countryside

It was fortunate that we had left ourselves a good margin of time to reach Middlesboro, KY, the city adjacent to the Gap. We had elected to take some back roads through southern Ohio on our path to cross the Ohio River at Aberdeen, OH. In contrast to the flat, straight-line roads to the north, the roads became particularly curvy (vertically and horizontally) as we approach the river basin; becoming progressively challenging after we were forced to detour from the “blue line” road we had been wrestling with (thank goodness for a large steering wheel) to a “grey line” road that took us back 10 miles (and 20 minutes) in the wrong direction. After popping out into “civilization” about 10 miles northwest of the bridge crossing the Ohio River at Aberdeen, we proceed south toward the Cumberland Gap relatively unscathed. We had our traditional picnic lunch of peanut butter and honey sandwiches in a small town park somewhere along the way – finishing up the last of the loaf of multi-grain that we had brought along on the trek for this purpose.

We have a particular attraction the Cumberland Gap location, as it is easy to visualize settlers of the late 1700’s using this depression in the Appalachian Mountains to make their way westward. On a previous trek through the Gap, we made the 900 foot steep and windy assent in the Jeep to Pinnacle Overlook to view the Gap from above. Later, we found a location where we could actually “walk in the footsteps” of those settlers on a grassy path through the Gap. Pretty neat. Jean had a conference call to attend the evening of June 6th, so I gallantly risked my life crossing US 25E in Middlesboro, KY to retrieve Chinese take-out for our evening meal while she conversed back in the motel. What a guy!