Great site at Koomer Ridge Campground

We got packed up and left our friends' house in Lexington at about 10:00am. We decided to backtrack a little bit because we wanted to see some more of Kentucky, and the Red River Gorge area in Daniel Boone National Forest was only an hour or so away.

I had read about a good National Forest campground called Koomer Ridge... so that's where we headed. And we wanted to get there fairly early in order to hopefully get a good site.

Gluten free lunch, and Southern Lights

Spent some time yesterday cleaning up Sherman. We had gone on some wet dirty roads before arriving here and he needed a sponge bath before we could carry on!

Plus, I've got a few motorhome improvement jobs lined up for when we're parked up for any length of time, so I got one of them done yesterday as well.

Finally, a visit to downtown Lexington, Kentucky

Lexington is all about the horses. But the famous and popular Kentucky Horse Park is located a fair bit outside the north end of the city, and often many travelers and tourists don't spend much time in the city itself.

And we were exactly the same. We have been through, to, or around Lexington a couple of times before. But we had never made it downtown!

Lexington, Kentucky is having some great weather!

Finally seems like we've traveled far enough south, and that cold band we were in seems to have lifted. Nice bright sunny day yesterday and the sunshine is forecast for the next few days with highs around 15C (60F). Beautiful.

Staying with our friends here in Lexington and it was a perfect day to go to the park and feed the ducks...

In to Kentucky, and some cheap gas!!

It's funny, but we've been to Lexington, Kentucky several times... yet we've never been to downtown Lexington. We're staying on the southern outskirts of the city this time so maybe we'll take a day and head into the central area to see what there is to see.

We woke up yesterday morning by the river in St. Albans, West Virginia. I peaked my head out the window to see if the sun was coming up yet...

The Wonderbag!

When we were in Europe, we learned about a simple method of slow cooking that uses very little energy. The Wonderbag.

Being frugal RV'ers who like to conserve energy while boondocking, Ruth thought this might work really well. She often makes a stew, or curry, or other crockpot style dish. Our Wonderbag was delivered when we were at Connie and Barry's house last Monday, and so we tried it out on Tuesday!

Great views, and another free overnight spot!

We got up yesterday morning, and drove the short distance to the New River Gorge visitors center. We knew that it didn't open until 9:00am, so we sat in Sherman and had some breakfast. When we were ready, we went up to the entrance.

"Closed due to Thanksgiving. Will re-open Friday at 9:00am".

Hmph.

There are no straight roads in West Virginia!

Which is fine.... Sherman likes driving on curvy mountain roads.

We've never spent any time in West Virginia. In fact, our only recorded travel here was through a tiny corner of the state back in 2010. And we don't think we stopped. So really, this is our first time here.

Abandoned Pennsylvania Turnpike Tunnel

Woke up at 6:30am yesterday morning, put the heat on and went back to bed for another 20 minutes. It was a bit chilly on top of the mountain! But the skies were clear and it wasn't long before the sun was shining in Sherman's windows.

It was close to 10:00am when we headed down the mountain to try and find the abandoned highway tunnel.

A great travel day, and a good boondocking spot

Yesterday was the first day that we truly felt we were back to our style of RV travel. A short travel day on back country roads, followed by a hike and boondocking on top of a mountain.

In a word, fantastic!