We gathered up our chairs and sewer hoses and water hoses and electrical cords and trailer stabilizers, dumped our trash and departed Diamond Caverns, KY, and took off for North Vernon, Indiana’s Muscatatuck Park. It was drizzling as we left and got right down to business raining by the time we drove into Louisville, KY. We drove I-65 most of the way and there is quite a bit of construction in the section that extends from Diamond Caverns to Louisville. The construction program has left large, wheel-gobbling holes at most of the bridge approaches, particularly where the freeway has been narrowed down to two full lanes from the usual four lanes. There has not been any form of traffic reduction so, until we crossed the Ohio into Indiana, the going was a bit sluggish. Coupled with the downpours occurring as we passed over the river, the driving was challenging for us interlopers from elsewhere. Once we crossed into Indiana, traffic sped right up but the quality of the road surface went right down. Highway construction and maintenance in Indiana is not approached with the same reckless verve encountered in Kentucky.
Other than today’s drive up I-65, however, I must say the roads in Kentucky were otherwise quite good and very scenic. Kentucky, or at least the section we saw, is quite beautiful. The people were very friendly and hospitable. The stores were everything we needed and the Ford service in Bowling Green left me with the impression that I did not get screwed – a rare occurrence when dealing with Ford service facilities. I-65 was the only part of Kentucky we did not like.
Once we crossed into Indiana, the heavy rain and the roads being engineered such that they do not drain made for some interesting driving. Semis would zip past us leaving us in vast clouds of spray that seconds before had been big ponds of water on the road surface. Visibility was limited to the distance from my head to the inside of the windshield every time one of these leviathans of commerce passed.
After about 500 trucks passed us, all going quite a bit faster than the posted 55 miles per hour, we got off the interstate and headed east on IN Hwy 50 toward North Vernon. IN Hwy 50 makes an abrupt right somewhere along the route but seems to not be important for the local drivers although we missed the not clearly posted right and continued along the straight road we were on until we noted the Garmin trying to figure a new course for us to follow to our destination. The Garmin spent some time re-calculating before giving up because it was flummoxed. Our Virgin phone, a device I have come to hate, did find a route that only meant driving another 10 miles or so before finding out if we were screwed.
We finally rolled down the main street of North Vernon and considerable lane-narrowing detours and pulled into Muscatatuck Park. Muscatatuck Park is shown on a nearby historical plaque as Indiana’s fourth state park although it is now a county park. It surprised us because we were expecting something mundane but we instead found an exquisite entry road that runs about 1/3 of a mile through a ravine with an 1840s quarry site now overgrown with a hardwood forest, a beautiful little stream and nifty little waterfalls emptying into it. The camping is on the opposite side of the ravine from the highway and has spacious RV sites in an enormous grass field surrounded by deciduous trees on all sides.
The campground host, Kevin, came by to check us out and we had a few beers with him. He grew up in this area, is very nice and offered us about any kind of help we might need. After we got the Invader set up in our spot, the skies really opened up for business and dropped an inch of rain in just a few hours. We had enough thrills for today so we turned on some Top Gear on the tube, ate a great Caesar salad Peggy whipped up and snuggled down for the night.