Chafton's Journey: HATFIELD-MCCOY RIDE 2021 #Ridgieinvasion day 1 and day 2

Sunday, April 4, 2021

Arrived a day early...setting up camp before the group gets here.

Took a little tour of the area to get familiar with our location and to check our equipment. We are both using a new Lifetime Trail Maps GPS system. Both have Mobile Radios and I have a Garmin In-Reach Satellite SOS System to test.

First thing Christine notices is Cable lines run thru the valley and branching off to every house in the hollar. And we still don't have Cable at our house only 5 miles off I-65 Interstate in Bowling Green, Ky. Go figure.

Since it's Easter Sunday we wandered into Matewan just to see what was still there since my last visit here in 2012-13. Found the Mexican joint open so we stopped for lunch. Beautiful day for a casual ride.

Monday, April 5, 2021

The Ridgies showed up last night and are ready to Rock N Roll. These folks drove down from North Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin to ride the Hatfield-McCoy trails with us Hillbillies.

But hey, Jimmy and I drove to South Dakota to ride the Black Hills with them last year.

Great fun loving group of Yanks.

First stop on the list is Matewan. Everyone wants to check out the fine dining for the upcoming week. The Historic Railroad Station is in the background and now houses the Matewan Massacre History Museum. Google Matewan Massacre for details. It's not about the Hatfield McCoy fight.

Seems like the kids always find something interesting at every stop. Looks like Gracie found here a passenger. These Sandbeck girls are a hoot. In fact, the whole Sandbeck family is a hoot.

Next stop is this steep, rocky hill climb. The kids and some drivers walked up but everyone decided to wait until the end of the week to come back and give it a shot. Better to "Bust your Buggie" at the end of the week after you have rode the trails and seen the sights.

And then there is the mudhole.

A Great place to wash the mud off your buggie

with muddy water.

Oh, but it's so much fun.

I had videos but can't figure how to load them since Google made changes to the Blogger.

Grabbed this shot of an old abandoned mine shaft as we flew by on the buggies.

Can't stop for everything.

Well, I guess this one was just too interesting to pass up. These Yanks don't have this kind of scenery up yonder. They are in love with these hills. Most would come back next week if it wasn't so damn far to drive. Their comment.

We didn't have to teach our fearless leader how to READ a mudhole........he is now self taught. He said he "wondered why there was a high trail and a low trail"...Way to go Carl, makes for a great story.

But Carl is still a good leader, he works hard to find places like Castle Rock.,.naturally Jimmy just had to climb to the top. I made it half way but my freshly broken ankle would not cooperate.