Trip West - Ohio to Bardstown, KY

 We leave Geneva State Park and head towards Bardstown, our next stop.  Too far for one day so we stop at a Boondocker's Welcome in Hillsboro, OH, between Columbus and Cincinnati.

After a long drive through the countryside and another up the driveway we park outside the work barn across from their house, also a B&B

It's a large working farm, Tucson and I take a golf cart ride to check out the other way back to a main road as Gary isn't too keen on backing up and going back across the bridge we crossed coming in.

Their daughter is here for the weekend.  She holds a high ranking job for the Governer's Office but comes here on weekends to farm Banatka - a Heritage grain.

Of course Gary get's all involved in helping to fine tune the seed cleaning machine. which is tossing out too much grain

Here is the grain harvested from the field

It passes through the machine, separating out chaffe (left) and grass seed (right).  I made an observation and suggested a change - and it worked!

the finished product

It was an interesting stay.  The next morning we head to Bardstown, KY where Bernheim Forest is located.  My friends Kathy and John had suggested we listen to 60's on 6 on Sirius Radio, as the morning DJ was always talking about interesting places he has visited.  The first one we listened to he talked about Bernheim Forest and the Giant Forest creatures - so I added it to our trip.

Kentucky is full of farmland

We passed miles and miles of rock walls. Central Kentucky has more rock fences than anywhere else in the US.  These rock fences were built by Irish Immigrant stonemasons in the 19th Century.  Only 5-10% still stand. The stonemasons passed their craft on to black slaves who became masters of building rock walls.  Most are built with local limestone cleared and for farming, the stone was used as border walls to pastures.  All the stones are laid free-handed with no mortar. 

Much of the walls have been destroyed or damaged, an effort has been made to replace those with replicas of the wall

It is horse country and fencing is everywhere.  

This is a white one but the majority are dark brown.

We finally arrive in Bardstown

and our campground.  I had looked into staying at the State Park, but the reviews mentioned tight hard spots to get into and utilities located far from the sites.  One review said to stay here - only 5-10 minutes away, so here we are.

Can't wait to start exploring!