More Gap, More Damp

My plan for today was less driving, more sightseeing. If I'd ever been to Cumberland Gap, I was too young to remember it, so I figured I'd go check it out.

The weather was more of the same from yesterday afternoon-- overcast, off and on showers, and generally soggy. But it's still nice countryside to explore.

I learned some interesting history about the gap. It turns out the guy who discovered the gap (or, well, the first European to find it...) was an Englishman who had been given a grant of land on the other side. When he finally found a way to get to it, he determined that living in Kentucky wasn't worth 800,000 acres of free land from the Crown so he returned home. 

Things really hadn't improved much in the 250 intervening years until the Civil War-- while both North and South believed holding the Gap was key to that area, and compared it to Gibraltar, not only did neither side hold it for long, there were no battles fought in the area, either. They found the same thing that our friend the Englishman did: the middle of freakin' nowhere is tough to supply. Each time a new army moved in and hauled their cannon to the earthworks on the hillsides, they found the previous residents had just up and moved out.

Nowadays with highways, it's easy enough to get to, and with the Mexican restaurant in the town next to it, I had no problems with provisions. Kentucky has been redeemed.

Cars, but no white BMW. The heck?! Which blog is this?

One fun thing I saw were a group of three Model A Fords-- all three with Texas tags. The Sport Coupe I recognized (even if it wasn't painted Old Gold with white trim), the other two I knew were Model As but don't know them well enough to identify-- one was a Victoria, I found out from the owner, but the third remains a mystery to me. They were in town to drive the Blue Ridge Parkway. I'm all for it. Cars were meant to be driven, even 80+ year old ones. I find myself ashamed that I've let the Coronet get to where I can't currently drive it. But I digress.

My next stop was back through the Gap to Harrogate, Tennessee, where I visited the Abraham Lincoln museum on the campus of Lincoln Memorial University. Since it was graduation day, they were waiving the fee to get in. This didn't seem to help: I was still the only one there. One of their displays was on Civil War era medicine, and they noted that modern medicine has gotten to where it could have possibly saved Lincoln-- he probably wouldn't have been able to speak, but they think the bullet didn't strike anything you can't live without. Me, I figure modern medicine probably comes with modern gunpowder and hollowpoints, and Lincoln probably still dies.

I then headed toward the hotel, and as I drove, the weather cleared. Beautiful blue sky, decent road through the valley, great stuff. It was nice enough that I decided I was in no hurry to get to the next hotel, so when I saw a brown DOT sign pointing the way to Natural Tunnel State Park, I figured that sounded plenty interesting enough.

I knew I was in for a hike when I saw that they had installed a chair lift to get down to the thing from the Visitor Center. Except the chair lift was out of order. So I started my way down, and after zigging and zagging thorough enough switchbacks that I thought I might have been transported to the world's least level amusement park line, I got down to the tunnel.

Karst geology is just weird.

The tunnel itself is long enough that you can't see the other side, and since it's got both the stream that carved it and a still-active railroad track in it, there's no room left for visitors to actually go in and explore, which was a bit of a disappointment. Worse, since it was now a beautiful day, I, for the first time all day, left my raincoat in the car.

You can tell where this is headed.

I considered just waiting out the rain in the small 18th century cabin they had down there, but then, thunder echoed in the canyon. The small rain showers hadn't previously been accompanied by thunder. This wasn't going to be a short sprinkle.

When I got to the car, I wasn't soaked by the rain, I had (barely) beaten the first wave of heavy stuff to the car. I was soaked by sweat from charging up a hill steep enough they'd put in a chair lift...

The last time I drove to a hotel reservation in Kingsport, TN, I ran into a snow storm and wound up sinking Scottie into a roadside snow bank. The rain got bad enough this time that I did occasionally wonder if I was going to wind up in another ditch. Fortunately, this time the weather was nothing that reduced speed and good tires couldn't handle.

Tomorrow I drive the rest of the way home. Usually toward the end of a vacation, I'm ready to go home, but so far, this trip's been too short. I miss my wife and my dog, but I'm not ready to go home. Fortunately, I only have to hold out a few more weeks before I blow town again...