Well, we broke camp at Wildcat this morning and loaded up our toys and headed over to "Mine-Made Adventure Park" in Knott County Kentucky.
We are camped on top of an old strip mine that has been reclaimed about 30 miles from Hazard, Ky. The trail system was developed by the County to promote tourism.
Looks like great weather again for this part of our Eastern Ky. tour.
Her and Annie are enjoying the peace and quiet. Not many people here this weekend but over 400 campers expected for Labor Day Weekend. That's why we are here this weekend.
Very friendly and rustic area. We weren't here 15 minutes and was invited to a Country Wedding on the premises.
A not so good picture of some of the trails up here on the mountain top.
The campground is far left in the photo. Should be an interesting venture.
We will head out tomorrow for a full day of exploring and charting the trails on our Ride Command GPS.
These trails are also used for horseback riding when the ATV's aren't here. They hold some huge events during the fall season.
Got an early start tis morning and what a morning it is. You can see for "Miles and Miles" as the song says.
We are on top of a knob looking over the Knott County Recreation Area. Free camping anywhere you choose but no facilities.
One lonely camper down there but they are waiting for the group to arrive. We met them later on the trail and there were about 10 vehicles.
Christine and Annie are getting that "Open Prairie" feeling high up here on top of what was once a mountain top, now just a reclaimed knob.
Heading down to the woods trails from here to see what today brings.
We noticed lots of flowers on the markers so we stopped. Most of the headstones were hand carved from sandstone rock from the area and the names were weather too bad to read.
However, the ones we could make out were from deaths around 1802 to 1910. The latter were on marble and easier to read. Seems most of the 1800 markers were children that only lived one or two years.
So sad to think how tough it must have been to live in these hills at that time. Evidently there must have been a community back here for many years before the coal companies bought them out. The cemetery is well preserved and taken care off as well as could be. Just think the parents of these children were born in the 1700"s.
We spent miles in and out of this beautiful creek so we stopped on a gravel bar and had lunch.
No one around for miles, quiet and very enjoyable.
Notice the clean wheels, lots of creek running.......
And about the time I said "no one around" we came across this group of 10 units on the same creek trail.
We had just went thru a "Very Deep" section of the creek and on the other side was a Honda Pioneer that didn't make it thru. It died in the creek and was towed to the other side with a locked up engine.
They had removed the spark plugs, the air filter, the starter, etc. but the engine would not turn over even using a screwdriver to turn the flywheel. It was toast.......
They didn't want to hear it when I told them they probably hydro-locked the engine and bent a rod. So we just quietly left. They had plenty of push power anyway.
Another site was this spring falls that looked like it might have been an old water stop.
It was right on the dirt road that the cemetery was on. People used these springs back in that era to fill their water cans from a horse and wagon.
The old piece of pipe stuck in the ground was the giveaway.
And another great sunset to end the day.
Gotta head home in the morning....so much to do, so little time.
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