Georgetown, KY – Sometimes a wrong turn can lead to unusual adventures. That about sums it up for today!
We had a short travel day, so we went in first to Corbin to visit the site of the original Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant, started by Colonel Harland Sanders. We timed it for lunch hour to fully appreciate the venue.
The Sanders Café has the large pressure cooker that the colonel used to reduce the cooking time of chicken from 30 minutes to nine – the first example of fast food. His astute business practices, including open kitchens, have been copied by many others. He also refrained from patenting his secret recipe of 11 herbs and spices, preferring to keep it a trade secret, because patents have an end date and secrets don’t. The security around his recipe, as described on Wikipedia, is impressive.
With our chicken lunches tucked under our belts, we aimed for Lexington and the RV park just north of town. The countryside was picturesque, with rolling hills, farms and rock cuts along the way. And, although it remained fairly overcast, there was no rain!
As we approached the turnoff for the RV park, our GPS was telling us to take exit 129, while the directions in our park directory said exit 136. As navigator, I figured the directory’s version would be the best way, so that’s what we decided to follow.
We took the turns indicated and found ourselves on a narrow, two-lane country road that meandered up, down, left and right past little farms, abandoned shacks, cow pastures and hills. Our confidence diminished by the minute, and then, with no warning, we spotted the next turn too late to slow down and make it. We had no choice but to carry on, going some distance before we could make a U-turn.
Once again on the right path, the winding road continued with no encouraging signs. Actually there was a rather nerve-wracking sign – indicating an underpass ahead, 10 feet, six inches high. Our height is 11 feet! At this point, Val pulled over in front of a house. Fortunately people were home and reassured us that there was a nice RV park along this way, and that lots of big trucks went through the underpass all the time. Val had rounded up our vehicle’s height, so we were probably OK. So on we went.
The underpass was a single lane tunnel under a railway with running water seeping across the roadbed. We inched through, nervously, and to our relief heard no scraping sounds! Whew!
After meandering a few more miles down the road, we saw, in a fenced field, three large hairy camels! I could hardly believe my eyes. We pulled on to the shoulder for a closer look, and met Jeff coming out of his property with his little girl. Jeff owns 14 camels and sells the babies for his daughters’ college fund. He used to keep zebras and wallabies, but now raises huge African porcupines along with the camels on his large property. He was very friendly, taking us up to see the porcupines in their pens, and telling us all about his menagerie!
He also reassured us we were on the right road for the RV park. When we finally got there and registered, our host told us the directions were going to be corrected in the next edition of the RV park catalogue. But think what we would have missed if we’d just followed the GPS!
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