Saturday, May 16

RV life is weird & wonderful, isn’t it? This morning, we woke up in the lumberyard / parking lot of a distillery. You truly never know where traveling may take you! We spent the night in a map-dot of a town called Pennington Gap located in the very southwest corner of Virginia. We’ve now visited 26th states since we began RVing in 2018. It made me happy to add another tally to our list of states. (For the record, I don’t officially count a state unless we camp overnight there.) Andi thinks it’s funny I get so excited about these small achievements.

Around 8:30am, I pushed play on my workout outside our RV amongst big logs of timber. The outside temperature was already warm and humid. Then, Andi and I each took a quick shower and got the RV ready to roll out. Today, we are driving through Kentucky and planning to go Jeeping at an off-road adventure park along the way.

Tory is always the last one awake, and popped her head out of her “bedroom” curtains around 9:00am. Andi got the kids some breakfast while I did a quick clean around the RV. One perk to living in a small space is that it doesn’t take long to a quick clean of the floors, countertops and bathroom. The downside, however, is that it doesn’t take long for everything to get dirty due to four people using the space. If I don’t wipe down the bathroom and sweep the floor at least once a day, things get gross quickly.

We’re all packed up and ready to hit the road by 9:30am. Driving in this area of the country isn’t for the faint of heart. The two-lane roads are very narrow and more hilly than we would have expected. That said, we are in Appalachia country so it’s not surprising! Thankfully, Andi is very skilled at driving our RV and is able to handle the twists and turns in the road without issue. Pulling a Jeep behind adds another level of complexity to our driving — the RV gets grumpy about pulling an extra 4,000 pounds behind it.

We drove for about 30 minutes to Baxter, KY where the off-road adventure park is located. Since we didn’t have much for groceries, Andi found a nearby Wal-Mart and we ran in quickly to get enough food for a picnic lunch today. It might’ve been the smallest Wal-Mart we’ve never been to — it had a very small food selection. After walking the aisles over and over trying to find the best option amongst terrible choices, Andi and I decided it might be easier to pick up Subway sandwiches for lunch on the trial. We paid for our groceries, hopped back in the RV, and made our way to the Subway across the street.

As Andi exited the vehicle, he noticed a big problem! The back wheel on the driver’s side of the Jeep was blown to pieces. Hardly any parts of the tire were left on the rim. Yikes! Change of plans — I guess we wouldn’t be Jeeping at the off-road trail park after all (it wouldn’t be a good idea to ride trails without a spare tire). Andi and I worked to change the Jeep’s tire and form a new game plan for the afternoon.

Rightfully so, Andi was upset about popping a tire. I was just thankful that no one was hurt and there didn’t seem to be any major damage to the tire rim or the RV. There was some damage to the plastic inside the Jeep wheel well where the tire must’ve beating against it. What’s scary is that we had no idea the tire popped and couldn’t feel any pull or change while driving down the highway. It must’ve happened while we were driving down those big hills in Virginia, but we have no idea when.

After the tire was fixed, the four of us sat inside the RV and ate Subway sandwiches while I text my brother Adam. We had been planning to spend the day Jeeping in Kentucky today and then visit my brother in Cincinnati tomorrow, but now Andi and I wanted to push toward home. I checked with Adam to see if he and his wife, Carley, could meet up with us tonight vs. tomorrow, and they said that worked fine for them.

So, off to Cincinnati we went!

Tory did her make-up at the kitchenette table while we drove there.

We drove north for the next 3 1/2 hours through the state of Kentucky. Along the way, we saw a sign for Buc-ee’s Travel Center south of Lexington on I-75. We didn’t know there were Buc-ee’s locations outside Texas! That was our one big regret when visiting Texas last winter is that we didn’t get the chance to visit a Bucee’s location. Anyway who’s been to one knows, they are a sight to be seen. We’ve heard so many things about this mega convenience store from other travelers that Andi and I wanted to stop & check it out for ourselves.

Buc-ee’s is famous for having clean restrooms and lots & lots of fueling pumps. Honestly, I bet there were 50 pumps all in a line and Andi was particularly glad that each one offered diesel.

The inside of the store was an experience! It was truly the Disneyland of convenience stores. There were people everywhere, samples being shared of the famous Buc-ee’s Beaver Nuggets, and employees singing a tune about brisket sandwiches. In fact, Buc-ee’s had a center counter where they were producing hundreds of hot brisket sandwiches & homemade potato chips. Andi bought himself a brisket sandwich and said it was really good. Andi also bought a gigantic Gatorade from the fountain machine for only $1.29. That’s a great price!

The four of us walked around Buc-ee’s for at least 30 minutes admiring all the product offerings. There was a clothing section, a beef jerky counter, a bakery counter, homemade fudge, and regular convenience store candies and chips, of course. I let the kids each pick out a treat — Aden chose a square of M&M fudge and Tory picked a key lime pie pudding in a cup.

Impromptu stops like this are really what make RVing across the USA fun. You never know what type of experiences you’ll come across along the way.

We finally pulled into our campsite at A.J. Jolly Park in Alexandria, Kentucky around 6:30pm. It felt like we’d been driving all day. Quickly, we got ready to meet my brother and his wife at their house near downtown Cinncinati. The campground was located about 30 minutes away from where they live.

Once we arrived, Adam & Carley’s gave us a tour of their house and then we all went to dinner at a restaurant called The Gruff in Covington, KY. It was a great spot for the six of us to grab a bite to eat and catch up. It’s been almost a year since we saw them last.

After dinner, we walked over the Roebling Suspension Bridge that connects Covington, KY to Cinncinati. Adam wanted to show us the Cinncinati Reds stadium and all of the city lights. It was beautiful! Chilly and windy on the bridge, but a pretty sight to see. The six of us walked about half-way across and admired the view before making our way back to our cars parked on the Covington, KY side.

We said good-bye to Adam and Carley and made our way back to our campground in Alexandria. We just made it back before the park closed the gate for the evening.

Tomorrow, we plan to see a few sights around this area and then continue our way home toward Wisconsin. More to come.