Day 11 – Flatwoods, West Virginia

This morning in our park in Louisville, everyone in our rig was up early and ready to get a good start on the day.  I did my paper retrieval very smartly, only having to be reminded twice what I was out there for.  Geri was up at the first smell of coffee, which Don is responsible for brewing, as he is usually first on deck.  It was a good thing we got an early start on the morning, as we had lots to do before we headed out.  First was my morning walk with Don, which led us down some railroad tracks before we were blocked by an overpass trestle.  I knew that I could walk over it on the ties, but Don didn’t want me to take the chance.  We walked back to the park area across the street from the RV Park, and I spied a bird on the ground down from the berm we were walking on.  On impulse, I charged down the berm and sent the bird flying for its life; in celebration of the chase, I did a wild crazy dog routine, with only Don for an audience.  I continued my walk down in the lowlands, while Don stayed up on the berm, keeping an eye on me.  Altogether, an exciting walk with some good exercise.

When we got back to the rig, Geri was ready to go over to the RV dealership next door to get some stuff for the rig, so we all trudged over there.  The girl at the reception desk was very partial to me, and gave me a very nice treat when I did pop-up dog.  They made their purchases and we headed back to the rig.  Don had to try one of his new gadgets, a window washer, on the windshield of the coach.  While he was engaged in this, he got into a conversation with the guy in the coach next door, who lived in Bangor, Maine, during the summer and in Florida in the winter.  They had a lot of stories to swap, and the windshield cleaning took a lot longer that usual, even with the new goodie.  Our final job was to refill the propane tank, which was down pretty low, and we finally got underway sometime after eleven.

As we drove over the bridge at the Ohio River, Don pointed out that it was still close to flood level, and looked to him to be as big as the Mississippi usually is.  He said that there is still lot of water on its way down river.  He has told me about his idea for constructing some nuclear power plants, a bunch of huge pumps, and some mammoth pipelines to take water from the Mississippi and pumping loads of water across the country to Lake Powell, where it could be used in California, Arizona and Nevada.  Makes sense to me!

I stayed awake to look at a lot of the Kentucky scenery, and it was all quite green and attractive.  We even saw some horses, even though they were in a retirement farm!  We crossed a bunch of big rivers, enjoyed the tree-studded hills, and found that Kentucky is a lovely state.  We made a fueling stop just before we crossed into West Virginia, executed with flawless precision.  Moving into West Virginia, the landscape became a bit more hilly, but just as green with trees and grass, very attractive.  Don was shocked that he didn’t see a single bridge, highway, or building with the name Robert C. Byrd on it.  Geri was shocked to see a lot of large, modern homes.  We think West Virginia has gotten some bad press.

We pulled into another KOA, (I think it’s our 47^th this trip), a very attractive hillside development, and made camp very happily.  Geri and I had a nice walk while Don did a fish dinner, we all chowed down, watched some TV, did the blog, and hit the hay.  Hope your day was as good!