Run away!!! Run away!!!
So, today we leave Tennessee and head into Kentucky. One state full of endless yardsales down. Another night of camping before we hit the great rummage.
Or so we thought.
Start tuning your banjos, folks…
Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs – Dueling Banjos
At first, we thought the decline in the quality of the yardsales we were visiting was due to the lateness of the hour. Things were sort of shabby, and, well, *junkier*. Whereas the stuff for sale in Tennessee tended to be arranged by category at any given yardsale, things here in the next state were more jumbled…
Some stuff was actually dirty. Fairly nice antique carnival glass had dust and a free helping of dead bugs. We supposed that the dust and bugs were intended to add to the “fresh out of grandma’s attic” ambiance.
One place made the Salvation Army As-Is store (see previous blog entry) look like Bloomingdale’s. This not so fine purveyor of used goods had a heap of rocks on the ground next to an old tire, and each of them was priced at five dollars. Perhaps thinking that they might be some interesting geologic specimens that she could tote home to Mr. Pea, your intrepid yardsaler picked one up to examine it…
Was it a geode? some sort of local mineral?
One of the locals ventured over…she *wishes* she could imitate the hillbilly twang in text. Just imagine what the shallow end of the gene pool sounds like. Then imagine it shallower…
“yew innerested in that?”
“Well, I might be…what makes this rock worth five dollars?”
“its a perty white rock…”
Now imagine PeaPod gently placing the rock back in its pile and backing slowly to the car…
It got worse as the evening waxed…it was definitely time to call it a day and follow our trusty GPS to our campground and a nights rest.
But first, we did have to make a small side excursion and get some supper to nosh while in our tent. We didn’t feel up to cooking, and we wanted something that would still be tasty cold, since we had a distance to travel. We decided on KFC, because we were in Kentucky. 🙂
So, provisions secured, we headed off into the evening. Which changed into twilight. Which deepened to dusk. Which became nighttime.
Still no camp ground in sight.
Such niceties as lane markers vanished…the road grew narrower, then became a gravel track…The GPS told us we had arrived…but we weren’t sure where…
Allegedly there was a lake out there, but we couldn’t see it. Apparently streetlights hadn’t been invented in this part of the world…there were a few “houses” around that we could see only because there were lights on inside…but no campground in sight. No tents, no campfires, no RVs. No office, no showers, no loo…
Finally, we saw someone light a fire and we bravely went to investigate…the, ah, gentleman in question apparently hadn’t never seen no city fold before, but he did tell us that the camp ground was on the other side of the lake, so, back we trooped to the care and prepared to wend our way back up the scary track in the dark. Apparently the locals use the force when they drive these roads, because we were nearly killed by pickup trucks hurtling through the blackness at breakneck speed twice.
Long story short, we came to the other side of the lake and still didn’t see anything resembling a campground…
We found a pair of porta-potties, and a couple guys “fishing*… We called the reservation office again and got a message that the manager was mowing the lawn…
Apparently the small patch of grass in front of the lake was the “campground” and the porta-potties were the “facilities” for campers…
It was time for Plan B.
Plan B was to hie us to the nearest interstate and drive until we found a nice safe hotel.
Hampton Inn, we love you.
Not as much as we love the Krispy Kreme Man, but purty darn close.