Friday, July 28, 2017
We have broken our trip from Oswego to Fort Knox into 3 approximately 4 hour drives which is just about perfect for us. We left the Ozark Mountain Springs CG at 9am and headed east toward Paducah.
Again, we had a nice drive, very uneventful and few pictures along the way. I could not resist the one below though. You know I love seeing our nation's flag and the wind was blowing it just right. You will notice their is a second one on the left. It was a slightly different angle and did not billow out as much but still impressive.
One of the best things about traveling this part of the country is getting to pass over the Mississippi River. Dean is fascinated with it and would love to take a cruise on this river someday. In the past we have taken different routes than we did today. This is the bridge over the Mississippi River. Notice the width of it as compared to the next bridge when we pass over the Ohio RIver.
As you can see we are approaching the Ohio River here.
Notice it is a little wider than the Mississippi Bridge. He wasn't looking forward to taking this route because of the back to back narrow bridges, but he did great - I knew he would! Of course there isn't any room for gawking around especially with lots of oncoming traffic so he did miss out on the view.
We arrived at the campground - Duck Creek RV Park at 1:17 p.m. We have a nice pull-through site near the office area. It was pretty warm when we arrived, so once we had everything set up and the air conditioners turned on, we headed out for some sightseeing.
One of the things I've wanted to know more about is the Land Between the Lakes which is about 20 miles east of Paducah. I've inserted a map of the area below.
On the west side is Lake Kentucky and on the east side is Lake Barkley. The land in between the two is known as Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area. We drove about 1/3 of the distance south and then turned back north. It wasn't quite what we were expecting but it was a nice drive and we made a couple of stops. First at the tourist information center located at the north end (closest to us) where we obtained information on what there was to do not only here at LBTL but also on Paducah and Kentucky. We drove a scenic route that took us along Lake Kentucky.
We also drove into one of the campgrounds.
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| Really beautiful picnic areas. |
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| This was just a young raccoon wandering along the roadside. |
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| Veteran's Avenue of Flags. Each flag had a plaque beneath it with the name and service branch of a Veteran. |
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| A log cabin - it was for sale! |
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| A lock on the Kentucky River. |
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| Noticed this old Texaco station and memorabilia along the road as we headed back to Paducah.
We had some dinner back at Bentley, watched a little TV and then hit the sack for the night. Travel days make us tired! 😊
Saturday, July 29, 2017
One of the reasons we looked forward to staying over in Paducah was to revisit a restaurant we ate lunch at a few years ago when passing through here with our son and his family on a return trip from Williamsburg, VA. We found the Gold Rush Cafe on Trip Advisor and after reading the great reviews and variety of foods served we tried it out. Everyone loved their meals and we have reminisced about it many times. So after checking Trip Advisor again recently to see the ratings were not only still high but breakfast sounded really amazing - one of our favorite meals to try new restaurants.
We wanted to get to the Gold Rush fairly early and arrived sometime around 8:00 a.m. It was busy but not packed so we were seated right away. I was there for the amazing bread pudding waffle I had read about on Trip Advisor. It is served with maple syrup butter. My mouth was watering just thinking about it. Dean had a meat omelet that was served with a nice helping of sausage gravy on top. They were both delicious! If you pass through Paducah give the Gold Rush a try!
The Gold Rush is located in the original downtown area of Paducah and is located near the banks of the Ohio River. The area has a number of storefronts and revitalization to the buildings, including high rise apartments. It is just a few blocks to the riverfront so we decided to stroll that way. We noticed there seemed to be several folks in Super Hero costumes and wondered if we had entered another dimension. As we walked on down the street we also noticed food and vendor booths being set up as if some type of community event may be happening.
 Storefront window painted in an art theme. Notice the quilt block patterns - more on that later.
Interesting way to hide an abandoned storefront!
  
Beautiful buildings in the original downtown area.
Decent price to pay for the area wouldn't you say?
There have been a number of floods along the Ohio River which is immediately adjacent to the downtown area. In a later picture you can see the height water has reached during flooding over the years. The city has built walls at the edge of the downtown area with moving walls to close openings when the water rises to protect the downtown area. The walls have beautiful murals showing the history of Paducah. There are informational signs in front of the murals placed along a nice sidewalk so you can easily read about each of them. JUST A REMINDER, YOU MAY CLICK ON ANY PICTURE TO ENLARGE IT.   I wanted to eliminate the two pictures above but for some reason when I do, a huge part of this entire post disappears - so these are shots of parking along the muraled walls surrounding the Ohio River area, that provide parking for many events held in the downtown area. 
Nice welcome sign.
  From the roads in the downtown area, you can turn and drive down toward the river, the road then turns to the right and you can drive along the road below for a block, then turn back up to the main road outside of the river area. There is seating here for people to set and watch boats travel along the river and there are boat ramps, along with places to park your truck and boat trailers while fishing.   
If you enlarge the two pictures above you can see where there was brick type materials laid along the water's edge. It is wearing but still looks pretty good as many times as the river has flooded over the years.
Speaking of flooding - see the picture below to see how high the water has been during floods over the years.
  Saturday morning Paducash has a downtown farmer's market. We visited and ending up purchasing two canteloupes, a watermelon and several tomatoes. They were all delicious. Notice this neat truck that was owned by Kirchoff's Bakery. We did not buy anything but it all looked delicious.  I managed to get a picture of "The Hulk" one of the super hero characters roaming the streets of Paducah.  The Gold Rush Cafe! - it is worth visiting if you are in the area!   Lewis and Clark statue. See the two plaques providing details about the statue.   We visited "The National Quilt Museum". Amazing place, but unfortunately we could not take any pictures inside. I am so disappointed I cannot share any of the amazing talent we witnessed in this building. Again, if you are in Paducah it is worth the visit to see these amazing masterpieces. These are modern quilts - no antiques.  This building was "Strickland's Event Center & Catering". Couldn't help but include it ---- any possibility it could be any relation to our Oswego Strickland's?  Townhomes in the downtown area - very beautiful.  Wonder Woman - she was a busy woman signing autographs for many children!  The Paducah Police Department was setting this up before the events of the day get started. I think it will be a great hit! 
I couldn't resist taking this picture as it made me think of our granddaughter Emerson - she loves Princesses!
 You can see the number of people who have showed up for the super hero event in the picture above. We stopped at one of the downtown buildings and when I asked Dean if it was open yet - a voice said, No it doesn't open until 10:00. A man stepped out from behind a pedestal near us. He was a local businessman who was conducting surveys of those attending. I commented on how much we were enjoying their downtown and it was exciting to see all of the activity. He told us they try to have events occurring on a regular basis to bring people to the downtown area. Between the Farmers Market, the large attendance at the National Quilt Museum and the Super Hero activity, things were really hopping this Saturday morning! We went back to Bentley for awhile after making a stop at Wal-mart for a few things. We are going back to Land Between the Lakes later today to try out Patti's 1880's Homestead.  We saw this beautiful home on our way to Grand Rivers where Patti's 1880 Settlement is located. Loved the double fireplace and the copper touches.  Dam for the Kentucky River.  You can see the boat waiting to enter the lock located on the Kentucky River. For some reason I am having problems with Blogger - maybe it's the very slow internet service we are using here in the park. Verizon has no signal here so I cannot use my hot spot - so I am going to save and publish this much of our trip and hope my attempt to finish it turns out better than this |
