We were arriving near the end of Part 1 of our Great Adventure, our Crawl Across America Trek. There were very few horse motels between Pontoon Beach, Ill., and Union County, Tenn.
And it was way too much of a drive to try to make it in just one day. We did need to try to break it down into two days on the road.
We chose a horse farm in Lexington for our final night on the road, based on the fact that it wasn’t as far off our route as all the others seemed to be.
Traffic again varied from not too bad to absolutely horrendous. We had seen hundreds of huge windmills as we drove through Iowa and Illinois, but none were visible along the stretch of interstate we traveled through in Indiana or Kentucky.
All states appear to be working diligently on their interstate infrastructure, which did slow down all forward progress and increased driving time.
I was aware that Kentucky is famous for it’s bourbon distilleries, but I was totally clueless as to how many! Angel’s Envy, Bardstown Bourbon, Bulleit Bourbon, Evan Williams, Four Roses, Green River, Heaven Hill, Jim Beam, Lux Row, Maker’s Mark, Michter’s, Old Forrester, Rabbit Hole, Stitzler-Weller, Town Branch, Wilderness Trail, Wild Turkey, Woodford Reserve. I had never heard of most of those. Many had tours and tasting rooms. A person could easily get blitzed. But we stoically drove on and passed them all up.
Horse Lodge is a slightly upscale horse farm, and we did not feel entirely welcome with our goats and Leo. The owner/host was not particularly friendly or helpful—unlike all the other owner/hosts we encountered. She may have just had a bad day. There was a small dirt ring where the goats were allowed to walk around and a box stall in the barn that was open on one end to the outside. We were not comfortable there. It was a place to rest and sleep.
But the next day … Union County and our new-to-us-and-bigger-than-we-had-now-RV to spend the winter in!
We would need to come up with some sort of temporary digs for the goats. (By then, they would not let us out of their sight, so we weren’t too worried about them wandering off). And that would be Part 2 of the continuing Great Adventure of the Return to Union County. We left Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, on October 5, 2021, saying goodbye to my son and his amazing family and all the wonderful friends we had made while there. We stayed in Ramsey, Montana, Rapid City and Mitchell, South Dakota, Des Moines, Iowa, Pontoon Beach, Illinois, Lexington, Kentucky, and arrived at our temporary final destination of Luttrell, Tennessee on October 13.
All animals and humans (traveling during Covid) arrived in Luttrell hale, hearty, healthy and (relatively) sane.