Kentucky; Birthplace of Lincoln – April19-20, 2013

When we got back to the RV Thursday night, it was 69 degrees and windy.  After hearing frightening wind and rain most of the night, we awoke to 46 degree temperatures and rain puddles everywhere.  It was a very dreary day made more dreary by a long drive to Taylorsville State Park in Kentucky; a trip of over 400 miles.

When we arrived, we were shocked to see the number of campers already at the park since we had been receiving frost alerts all the way up.   Remember, we are Rving; these people were camping!  I mean tents and small travel trailers and pop-up trailers.  But there they were sitting around their burning fire pits trying to stay warm.  The temperature outside never got higher than 48 the entire way up to Kentucky and it was still only 48 when we arrived.Great campsite at State Park.

This morning, it was 36 degrees but the sun was going to shine so we decided to do some exploring.  I was glad we did because we had a great day finding out-of-the-way sights and places.  First we headed south to the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park at Hodgenville.   The ride there was really nice because this area seems to grow wild red bud and dogwood trees abundantly.  There were quite a few pink dogwood trees growing in the yards as well.

Once we got there, we learned some things, that we either didn’t know or forgot.  We had both thought that Abraham Lincoln grew up in a very poor family.  You know the small log cabin reading at night by fire light.  It seems that his father was actually considered upper middle class. Thomas Lincoln, Abraham’s father, was actually a cabinet-maker by trade but always wanted to be a farmer.  He made a good enough living to be able to afford to purchase a 300-acre farm called Sinking Spring for $200 just before his second child (Abraham Lincoln) was to be born.

Sinking Spring farm (named after an underground spring on it) is on what used to be the Cumberland Trail and was actually a slave route to the South.  What young Abe saw on that road during his early years shaped his strong beliefs and opinions against slavery later in his life.  He was quoted as saying, “If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.”  Actually a major reason the Lincolns moved to Indiana was Kentucky was pro-slavery and they were very against it.

The log cabin in which Abraham Lincoln was supposed to have been born is today enclosed a marble and granite memorial with 56 steps leading to the entrance to represent the 56 years of his life.  It sits on the original Sinking Spring farm and was dedicated in 1911 as a national park to be preserved indefinitely.  After carbon dating the logs, it was discovered the cabin could not have been the actual structure, but it is symbolic of what it would have looked like.

From there, we went to the My Old Kentucky Home State Park that I thought was all about Stephen Foster who wrote the state song along with Oh Susanna, Suwanee River, and 200 others you would readily recognize.  I was surprised to see that although it was a beautiful example of a Kentucky mansion of that era, Foster was a distant cousin and had only visited there once.  In this house, however, I found out how the day bed got its name.  Here’s your Trivia for the day:  because the beds were feather and it took so long to fluff them up when you made them, you could not take a nap during the day without creating a great deal of extra work.  So you had a smaller bed somewhere in the room that you could use during (wait for it) the day!  Aren’t you glad we took this trip?

We stopped in Bardstown recently designated the “Most Beautiful Small town in America” by USA Today and Rand McNally.  What do you think?

By the way, for those of you who like my food explorations, I have not found anything interesting enough to write about.  I hope you are not too disappointed.  I’m disappointed enough for all of us!