The Red River Gorge area (in the Danial Boone National Forest) was maybe my personal favorite of all our stops. It's hard to say if that's because it was so beautiful there, or if it was because the weather finally turned for us when we got to Red River Gorge and we were finally past the rain! It's hard to argue that sunny, blue skies and warm days don't sway your opinion of a place. Either way, RRG was beautiful and it's a place I think we'll return some day for sure.
This area is known for it's natural bridges. It's has that largest concentration of them in the US (and maybe even the world?) and it's also a huge rock climbing destination. We stayed at Natural Bridge State Resort Park and while the name turned me off initially - I rarely go for campgrounds that have the word "resort" in them....they are usually a little too "Jellystoney" for our liking - we were actually really really happy with the campground and our sites. Our campground was located right along a tiny off shoot of the Red River and our sites backed right up to a shallow creek that the kids had HOURS of fun playing in.
In fact, after talking with a few other campers it sounded like our three sites were the most sought after sites in the whole park. Families that had stumbled on this campground had returned year after year because the kids always had so much fun in the creek. Some of the older kids were even jumping off a huge rock right behind our camper. The river was about 6 feet deep there, just deep enough to jump in feet first cannon ball style.
Located right within the campground park was one of the largest Natural Bridges just a short half mile hike from the lodge. What they didn't tell you, was that that short hike was .5 miles uphill! Friday morning (our first full day) at RRG, we took the kids to paint snakes at the nature center...they decided to love snakes on this trip...! After our snake painting adventure wee decided to hike up and see what that Natural Bridge was all about. It was honestly so cool!! The three pictures above give you a sense of what it looked like. A huge stone bridge that was strong enough (and wide enough) for you to walk on top! Getting up and around the back side wasn't easy though! You had to squeeze yourself through (aptly named) Fat Man's Misery a natural crack in the rock. It wasn't even wide enough for me to fit my shoulders in straight...you sort of had to shuffle along sideways to get through and it wasn't a short spot either! I bet the tunnel it created was maybe 150-200 feet long. The kids loved it!
RRG was where Hazel nicknamed herself Hiker Hazel....a name she genuinely deserves! She hiked straight up with us and straight back down covering probably about 2 miles that first day there and she didn't whine a bit! It wasn't until we'd reached the last 5 minutes or so of the hike that she finally looked up at Ryan and said "Daddy, can you carry me, I'm tried". Man did she sleep great that night though!!
It was honestly so pretty in this area of the world! On Saturday we loaded up into two cars (Liz and Bobby joined us again on Friday evening) and drove the scenic byway through the Red River Gorge. It was so cool! There are tons of back country backpacking opportunities in the area and more hikes that you could do in a summer to be sure! The roads getting around were a bit treacherous (to say the least). Barely large enough to fit two cars, with no shoulder on either side and winding switch-backing turns I was glad that Ryan was driving and I was glad when we finally arrived at our lunch destination! The roads made me so sick! I'm going to have to start packing nausea meds for any trips I think! It's getting worse the older I get...blah! Guess Ryan will be the fun Dad that gets to take the kids to the water parks and amusement parks from now on...I'm just a hot mess in those places these days!
After exploring by car we grabbed lunch and well deserved beers at a local restaurant and went back to the campground to rest and regroup. Since it was our very last day of vacation, we ditched the kids with my parents for a few hours and did a second round of hiking with Liz and Bobby. We basically hiked the same hike we'd done the previous day with the kids and my parents but we extended the hike and saw some new areas we hadn't seen yet.
Honestly, the hiking in this area was amazing! I think we've all agreed that this is a spot we'd come again. Between the beautiful scenery, the lack of bugs, the great weather and the hikes we had a great time in the RRG and in Kentucky in general. I feel like I've asked lots of people if they'd ever vacationed in Kentucky before and it seems like it might be a bit of a hidden gem (at least from people in the Chicago area). Most people look at me like "what is there to do in Kentucky" when I told them that's where we were going. So, if you haven't considered it before, I'd highly recommend it. At around an 8 hour drive it's totally doable for a long one day of driving (even with little kids) and we found that there was SO much to do and see there.
So, on that note I'll leave you with a few more pictures from our trip! The views were amazing, but the people we were with made the trip! Enjoy!
No comments:
Post a Comment