After a few false starts at finding a place to stay, we drove out of West Virginia, barely, and spent the night at a Walmart just over the Kentucky state line. In the morning, we found a city park which had maintained enough green space that we took a windy four mile hike through the woods before heading west towards Frankfurt.
The route we took didn’t pass through any cities, so we enjoyed the rolling hills and magnificent horse farms which make up the northern part of the state. We took our time, and pulled into Frankfurt just after 5pm. We were able to park on the boulevard leading directly to the capitol, but were disappointed to find that the dome of the capitol is under construction.
We took a walk around the grounds, and enjoyed seeing the old houses in the neighborhood surrounding the capitol, as well as the beautiful gardens, which even include a garden clock. Unlike Charleston and Harrisburg, this capital doesn’t make use of the river, but it doesn’t really matter the gardens and surrounding area are so beautiful. It probably helped that we were there in May when spring is in full swing, but we were glad to see we weren’t the only ones enjoying the grounds on a pleasant spring evening.
Our next planned stop was Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park, which is a two-site park on the way to Mammoth Cave National Park. We set out on the road in that direction, planning on stopping at a Walmart. However, we stopped at three Walmarts and were told that none of them are allowing overnight camping. The last one was in Bardstown, KY, and the Walmart told us that the city police weren’t allowing overnight camping in any parking lot, which included the nearby Cracker Barrel, which had been our backup plan. After the first two refusals, I had started scoping out campground possibilities, and noticed that Bardstown had My Old Kentucky Home State Park right in the city. When we realized that we weren’t going to find a parking lot camp spot, I looked at availability at My Old Kentucky Home and saw that a number of sites were still available for that night. We were surprised when we realized the campground was about 5 minutes from the Walmart, but that made it very easy to pull in, find an open site, and get settled for the night. It was probably more crowded than a Walmart and it cost about $25, but it was well worth it to be safe and able to go to sleep without waiting for a knock. In the morning, we emptied our gray tank and filled with water, and headed south.
