You know you’re in Kentucky when you’re offered moonshine within 10 minutes of arriving at a campsite.
After a crazy day of torrential downpours eventually ending in a shady hotel room with a mud covered van we were ready for some outdoor play and camping. A reasonably short drive from Huntington to Lexington to meet some new friends was the order of the day. Playing in the park downtown rewarded us with some awesome time at the splash pad. It was so warm suits were not really necessary as we dried off almost immediately.
A short lunch of turkey wraps and fruit kept us going as we showed off the van to our new friends. We walked through the downtown, which although nice is not exactly well laid out for strolling with kids. Exhaustion and heat soon became too much for some and there was a significant amount of whining as we looked around. We addressed this situation by getting fantastic smoothies, naturally, and by taking a bunch of silly photos of painted horse sculptures. Horsing around for the win!
One of the highlights was the fantastic mural of Abraham Lincoln done by Eduardo Kobra. There’s a great video of the creation available here if you or your kids are interested in mural art. I, of course had to climb on the van to show how big the painting is. To be clear I’m not a small guy.
We headed out of Lexington toward Chimney Rock RV park down one of the coolest canyon drives on the East Coast. The park is near a large reservoir (connected to a hydroelectric power plant) which had a floating restaurant on it. After a good swim, and the obligatory offer of moonshine (which should have been a hint about what the level of rowdiness in the campground would be later on), we headed down to the lake for dinner. It was a beautiful view, slightly spoiled by the 2 hour wait for burgers and fries. Ok, more than slightly – the kids were hangry and we weren’t far behind.
The night at the campground was okay – and we had very nice neighbors with a dog the kids loved. This was our first experience on the trip of us being a great curiosity among the RV crowd. People wanted tours. Of our van. Tours. Amazing.
Unfortunately we were also located near the cornhole/horseshoe / drinking pit. Generally we’re very live and let live, but it is hard to sleep next to a frat party. The kids were fine, but we struggled a bit until things finally wrapped up somewhere after midnight. I’m sure we could have joined in – but it’s not really our thing, and after the hot day and late bedtime for the kiddos we were looking for a quiet night. I suppose that’s what you get if you’re going to hit rv parks. All in all, though, it was a great day and good to finally be sleeping in the van.