258. Here and There - or rather, Plans for Here and There

A few entries back I said it was going to be a long Winter. So far this year, it has been mostly Spring, today being no exception. The temperature has been slowly dropping from the two record-high days a few days back when the thermometer reached into numbers starting with a 7, something rather unusual for the first ten days of January. Today's weather has been mostly rain and lots of it. Tornadoes have been breaking out across the South and Midwest and Kentucky experienced if not a tornado, at least the "conditions present for the possibility of a tornado," words used by that automated voice the National Weather Service at Louisville , pronounced loo-eee-ville in three distinct syllables, uses when issuing a Tornado Warning, as they did earlier this afternoon for portions of Nelson, LaRue, and Green counties, which are to the southeast of Loo-eee-ville. As I was listening to the areas affected, I recongnised it as that which I visited a few months back, along US31E near White City in LaRue County, and back KY84 across the Rolling Fork of Salt River to Howardstown over in deep southern Nelson County. While the Tornado Warning has expired, a Flood Warning remains for this area.




I haven't been out on the backroads for any extended trips so far in 2008. I did start a new map, and have colored in the counties already visited in the new year, Jefferson, Oldham, Henry, and Shelby. Last year I made it to 62 counties, which is the highest number over the past several years. I've kept these maps since 1979 and over time average in the 50s the number of Kentucky's counties visited in a given year. By outlining on the map - in bright red marker - I can readily see where I've been and where I haven't. The areas of the Commonwealth least visited are the corridor along the Tennessee border east of Bowling Green, the A-A Highway area from Alexandria southeast to Ashland, and to a lesser extent the Ohio River counties beyond Meade southwestwardly downstream to Livingston. I have made it to the mountain areas of the east as well as the Jackson Purchase area of the west with regularity.

So, among the places I hope to get back to this year are the Ferry across the Cumberland River in Monroe County along KY214 (there is a campsite just across the river on the eastern side), as well as maybe Blue Licks State Park along the Licking River in the southernmost part of Robertson County (Kentucky's smallest county), and finally the cities of Owensboro, Henderson, and Morganfield, the latter of which I haven't been through since 1999 when, on a trip back from Fancy Farm along the "old road," me and a friend encountered a old car show in the southern Union County city of Sturgis. While in Union County, I might encounter an old UK roommate, Chris Greenwell, who is a resident of Waverly, just east of Morganfield where KY141 intersects with Kentucky's Main Street, US60. Outside of Kentucky, my plans this year include camping in northeastern Tennessee, and road trips to Washington, DC to the east and New Orleans to the south. At least that's the plan.

But since I don't really like to drive in the rain, none of that will start tonight.