Road Trip: Day Two

Cleveland OH to Cave City, KY

10.34am
We survived the night at Delaware Lake state park, despite Courtney’s fears. While checking in, a slow-talking local sparked up a conversation with us. Pat had scraggly long hair, a paunch, manbreasts and a pitted yet slightly effeminate face. Courtney was eager to get away from his unwarranted attention.

As we were setting up camp in the empty campground, Pat drove his enormous truck and caravan past and parked up a couple of sites away. Courtney looked worried, but we carried on as if nothing was up. A couple of minutes later she said, “Don’t stare, but he’s coming over.”

Pat ambled up to us, smoking a cigarette and carrying photos. “D’ya wanna see ma office?” He enquired, offering me the photos. “That’s ma office,” He said, pointing to the top photo, which as far as I could tell was a snap of two portable toilets in a forest. “See, ma office is portapotties!” he snorted.

As he chatted incomprehensibly to us I shuffled through the rest of the photos. There were poorly framed shots of empty woodland, bags of trash and toilets, lots of toilets; the exteriors of restrooms, the interior of cubicles, and in a couple of cases the interiors of toilet bowls. After some rambling discussion about the merits of the electric power points in the camp sites he said “A worda advice, when ya flush them toilets, make sure ya stand back, hehe!” and walked back to his trailer.

By now Courtney was visibly agitated. She went to the camp shop to get some ice and find out if anyone knew anything about our latrine-obsessed stalker. She returned with two bags of ice and some valuable information. Pat was a regular at the camp ground. He’d never harmed anyone, but women sometimes complained that he’d use the ladies’ toilets and washrooms. The camp staff couldn’t stop him doing this because on his driving licence it showed quite clearly that Pat was Patricia.

Figuring that Pat was simply sad, lonely, misunderstood and harmless we slept soundly and uneventfully. When we woke this morning she had gone.

The toilets flushed fine.

11.05am

Filling the tank in Cleveland, I get a snap of seven guys and their Harleys. We follow them for a couple of miles as they ride in convoy.

11.30am
A friendly woman in the car park of a supermarket recommends that we take a helicopter ride when we get to the Grand Canyon.

13.11pm
Today’s journey has already taken us from Delaware to Columbus. In about an hour we’ll hit Cincinatti, which lies just north of Ohio’s border with Kentucky, where Courtney says we’ll see lots of people with no teeth. We’ll head southwest through Kentucky to Louisville, and then south into the middle of nowhere to Cave City and the Mammoth Cave National Park, where we’ll camp tonight, twitching at the sound of every banjo.

Laughable lyrics of the day come from a song that appears to be called Red Dirt Road:

It’s where I drank my first beer
It’s where I found Jesus.
It’s where I wrecked my first car
and tore it all to pieces

13.36pm
Just before Cincinatti we stopped for lunch at Fort Ancient Historic Monument. The guy at the canoe rental place where we bought drinks asked Courtney “What can I getcha, little lady?” That’s when we knew we were down South.

And then…

15.54pm
We’re tempted to get off the Interstate to get a photo of me standing beneath the sign announcing the town limits of English, Kentucky, but we don’t.

16.52pm
Comedy businesses of the day, both in Salt River, Kentucky: Grandma’s RV Park and the mysterious Ditch Witch.

17.02pm

This is our undoing today. Spotting a brown sign denoting “Maker’s Mark Distillery National Historic Site” I take us off I-65 and into the Kentucky countryside. We chase the brown signs along winding country roads for just under an hour through Bardstown, Springfield, Lebanon and Loretto until we hit the distillery, which by the time we get there is shut. We’re free to wander around the grounds, which are utterly gorgeous, but having come all this way, we want some whiskey, dammit!

The original distillery was built in 1806 by a local farmer, and distilling on the site was halted only for the prohibition. The Samuels family, who own the distillery now, started making whisky 1780 on a different site. They acquired the Burks mill distillery (which is what we visited) in the late 19th century. It is one of the most authentic American landmarks I’ve seen. It hasn’t been obsessively restored, there’s no brand spanking new visitor centre and it’s still an everyday place of work.

The windows of the old warehouses are barred, but open to the air and if you get close you can stick your nose in and sniff. The smell is gentle, heady, fruity and woody all at once, and if you take a deep enough breath you get lightheaded for a brief, brief moment. Even though it cost us a two hour detour and we arrived too late to take a proper tour, I’m still glad I got to see and smell it. One day I’d like to go back and get the full experience.

Even if we haven’t got a taste of the bourbon, we’ve certainly had a taste of the charming Kentucky countryside: rolling hills, grazing horses, big red tractors displayed on prominent hillocks.

It takes us the best part of an hour to get back to I-65.

19.02pm
Re-join I-65, about fifty miles south of where we left it. It’ll be dusk by the time we get to our camp site tonight.

19.42pm
We arrive at Mammoth Cave state park, our camp site for the night. More tomorrow.

Today’s mileage: 390m