Tag: Kentucky
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Green River Ferry
Mammoth Cave National Park, Kentucky (July 2013) While visiting Mammoth Cave National Park — and with an interest in ferries already — a slight detour to the Green River Ferry seemed in order. It was easy. The ferry can be found southwest of the Visitor Center. Drive out of the Visitor Center on the Mammoth…
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Dorena – Hickman Ferry
Between Dorena, Missouri and Hickman, Kentucky (April 2014) No direct roadway crosses the Mississippi River between the states of Kentucky and Missouri. In fact the river lacks a single bridge crossing for a distance of nearly 85 miles (140 kilometres) from Cairo, Illinois to the Interstate 155 bridge west of Dyersburg, Tennessee. The Dorena-Hickman Ferry…
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Lickety-Split
I’ve begun to plan a long-distance road trip for April that I’m not quite ready to reveal to the Twelve Mile Circle audience. However, offering just a hint, I noticed an oddly named town in Indiana called French Lick. It fell remarkably close to Santa Claus, the subject of one of the earliest articles on…
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Appalachian Loop, Part 5 (Bridges)
Several months ago I went on a fifty mile cycling adventure on a bright, late-summer morning in Maryland. Afterwards I made an effort to describe the Bridges of Frederick County that I’d encountered. The lack of reader response didn’t deter me from my emerging fascination, either. It seems I have a thing for bridges, covered…
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Appalachian Loop, Part 4 (Hatfield and McCoy)
I wondered what we might do during our brief Appalachian adventure beyond my stated purpose. Originally I simply wanted to collect Virginia’s final counties. I would have been happy to drive the full distance without stopping although that wouldn’t have been fair to my passengers. However, there didn’t seem to be much in the way…
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Appalachian Loop, Part 3 (Cultural Threads)
Appalachia described more than a physical geography. It described a proudly self-reliant people who’d lived within these hills and hollows on their own wits for more than two centuries. I mentioned some of my perceptions after I visited Kentucky in 2013. It would be all to easy to reduce Appalachia to unfair hillbilly stereotypes. Naturally…
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Appalachian Loop, Part 2 (Vistas)
Notions of endless horizons came to mind as I prepared for an Appalachian Loop. We would cross mountaintops, dip into hollows and follow valley flatlands along tumbling rivers amid early signs of spring. This journey promised stunning scenery in a little-visited and often under-appreciated rural preserve. People who ventured into Appalachia as tourists usually came…
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Appalachian Loop, Part 1 (The Quest)
It began with a simple premise. Finish Virginia. The Commonwealth of Virginia was a particularly difficult journey for County Counters due to its odd configuration of 95 counties and 38 independent cities. It also happened to be my home state. I’d long been irritated that I still hadn’t completed it. I’d chipped away at the…
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That Other Warsaw
In the recent Not the City article I focused on Richmond, not the city of course, but the county. There, the local government centered on a village called Warsaw (map). That seemed like an exceptionally odd choice. There wasn’t a large Polish diaspora on Virginia’s Northern Neck as best as I could tell. Why name…
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Me and What Army
The format today will be similar to the “Odds and Ends” series, a veritable pu pu platter of tasty tidbits. However, the primary difference will be that inspiration came almost entirely from the far corners of the 12MC army. I still have several other reader contributions waiting in the wings too. Please be patient if…