Durham NC to Bloomington IN
Day 1 Stats: 4 states, 2.25 tanks of gas, 628 miles, 12 hours
The day started early with the last rush of packing, loading up the car, and making final rounds arounds the house. All four of us where in the car and on the road by 7am, ready to cover some miles and start our adventure.
But first, let me introduce you to our road trip crew:
For the humans there is my husband, Daniel, and I.
For the canines there's Earl, our 5 year old Treeing Walker Coonhound (or at least that's what the rescue organization said he is). We adopted him in May 2020 - like so many others we thought the pandemic at least gave us the opportunity to adopt a dog. He was highly anxious when we first brought him home and he's not the smartest dog at the dog park, but he's a joy to love.
Gomez is a 1 year old coonhound mutt. He is a total delight, sweet and playful and loveable. If Earl is the serious, more reserved older brother then Gomez is the rowdy little brother.
Now that the introductions are done, let's get to some of the sights of the day.
The drive out of Durham was familiar as we headed west towards the North Carolina mountains and Tennessee. A happy surprise as we crossed into Kentucky was "The Bourbon Barn". After counting 15 flavor varieties of Jim Beam (and thanks to my very knowledgable friend from Kentucky, Heather) I picked out 2 bottles of hard-to-find bourbon. As my neighbor Kristen would say - road bourbon!
A missed turn on the highway led us across the Clark Memorial Bridge, named after George Rogers Clark (older brother of William Clark of Lewis and Clark notoriety).
Built in 1929 the bridge commemorates Clark who, during the American Revolutionary War, was the highest ranking mimlitary officer. At the time Kentucky was part of the Virginia territory, becoming the 15th state in the Union on June 1, 1792.
Nearby is the Falls of the Ohio, where Merriweather Lewis met up with William Clark to set out on their adventure to discover a route to the west.
Leaving Kentucky we crossed into Indiana, known as the Hoosier State. As science fiction writer Kurt Vonnegut stated, "I don't know what it is about Hoosiers but wherever you go there is always a Hoosier doing something very important". Curious what a Hoosier actually is? Me too. A quick Google search shows that there is no simple answer. But what I do know about Indiana is that 1) it's our first stop on our great 2021 road trip and 2) it's the home state of Kurt Vonnegut! More on that in Day 2...
What I did note about Indiana was that it was surprisingly pretty, with green fields of knee high corn and rolling hills. Several of the homes we passed had large copper stars tacked to the front of their houses, and one, inexplicably, had a coffin on the front porch.
We arrived at our campsite for the night with just enough time to set up camp, walk the dogs, and eat dinner before a thunderstorm rolled in. A wet dash into the tent brought us to the close of our fist day. Tomorrow we head to Iowa!
