Day 9 - Uniontown/Hopwood, PA to Cox's Creek, KY

Tim's old house in Cox's Creek


Franklin and Tim



Bardstown jail, now a bed & breakfast




Wildflowers along the interstate

Alice writes – what I forgot to mention yesterday was, that when staying at the Hopwood Motel, I thought it might be haunted because during the night I had the feeling that the edge of my bed went down, as if somebody were sitting on it. It was so creepy that I didn’t dare open my eyes and check it out. I sure should have!

We decided to take it easy today and enjoy the countryside a bit, then hit the interstate through West Virginia. We got stuck behind a coal truck for a little while, but that gave us time to rubberneck as we were creeping up the mountain.

In West Virginia there were a lot of pretty wildflowers along the road; that’s just about all the excitement for that part of the trip, well into Kentucky.
Once we arrived there I talked Tim into going through the middle of Bardstown, which used to be his stomping ground.
Kentucky is famous for its bourbon whiskey (there are plenty of distilleries around, that don’t only make Jim Beam, but much better stuff) and horses – since I couldn’t fit one of the latter into the trunk I got some whiskey instead. A nice little, expensive bottle of Maker’s Mark, something you can’t get in good ol’ Kansas.

Also got to see the jail in which Tim spent quite a few nights back when he was young and pretty (pretty as in pretty drunk); it’s a bed and breakfast now – an expensive one too. Maybe if enough fans request it, he’ll tell you how he got to be guest of the county.

After all the sight-seeing and shopping we drove to Cox’s Creek to see Tim’s friend, Franklin, and his wife Jean.
They had a big, very good dinner prepared for us and after stuffing ourselves Franklin took us on a tour in his pick-up truck.
I managed to pass up Jean’s earlier invitation to accompany her to bible school and it wasn’t easy to get out of that one either.
Instead I saw where Tim had thought up all sorts of mischief (of course, since he didn’t go to jail for helping old ladies cross the street J) and where he had lived. His parent’s old house is for sale and Carol, it’s only $399,000.
Tamara, I even saw your ex-husband sitting in front of his house; not that that was a real pretty sight J.

We also saw Indian Mound, which is a hill in a field where supposedly the Indians had buried their dead. The old man that owns it won’t let archaeologists dig there, but due to his age that problem will probably soon be solved.

Franklin then took us to the town graveyard where the gravestones told all kinds of interesting stories – 2 people, who have buried spouses there, are actually being investigated for murder (that’s according to Franklin, it wasn’t on the stones).
Seems like lately we’ve been visiting more dead people than living.

For the first time I got to see a Baptist church from the inside; nice little swimming pool they have inside there for baptisms. We were urged to fill out visitor’s cards so now I’m sure we’ll end up on their prayer list and we’ll never get to find out what hell looks like!

When we got back to the house we had a very gemuetlich remainder of the evening, sitting under a tree in the front yard, sipping bourbon whiskey and telling stories. I now know some things about Tim that I hadn’t known before – Pat and Janette, for a slight fee I am willing to pass on information!

That was it for today. Prost und gute Nacht!

p.s. we drove 414 miles today

Tim writes: ah ain’t talkin’!