Kentucky: Land Between The Lakes National Recreation Area

Day 96
No Boat Travel

We kept the rental car for an additional day and decided that we take advantage and visit the Land Between the Lakes national recreation area.  Grand Rivers, Kentucky is at the entrance to this prairie preserve, so we did not have far to go to reach the park.  The park itself, however, is quite large occupying 170,000 acres of forests and wetland.

We brought our bikes in case we found trails of interest.  We stopped at the North Welcome Center and picked up some brochures on the park.  One bike trail was recommended to us down by the visitor center 20 miles away.  We headed there next.

The scenery driving through Land Between the Lakes

We decided to stop at the visitor's center because we could not tell from the map where we needed to park for the bike trail.  Surprisingly we were told to take the highway to get there.  As we drove the highway we could see the bike trail paralleling the highway.  Yes, it was a bike trail.  Was it worth the effort to actually get the bikes out of the car, definitely not.

We ended up ditching the biking plan and instead decided to drive through the elk and bison park to see the herds of animals.  We saw the $5 entry fee to drive through with high expectations of seeing the animals.  Well, we saw plenty of  "scat", i.e. evidence of bison, but we saw not one elk or bison or even a squirrel in the whole area.  We kissed that $5 goodbye and decided to go for a hike to Honker Dam.

Of all the materials we picked up from the welcome center, the attraction that caught my eye was the show at the planetarium entitled "The Night Sky" where they said they would explain the constellations in the sky in the local area.  That particular show played at 2:00 so we had a hard deadline on our hike to the dam.

We knew the length of the trail to Honker Dam to be 4.6 miles but could not tell how far around we had to go to get to the dam.  We decided to take the trail and try to get to the dam in the time allowed. If we made it fine, if not okay.  To cover as much ground as possible, we set out at a very brisk pace. The trail was clear and the ground relatively flat to begin with, but pretty soon we got tree roots, rocks, and inclines to slow us down.

Trail through the woods to Honker Dam

As we walked along I pointed out to Clark that it was almost 1:00.  We had been hiking for about 20 minutes, and we still had to get back to the car and drive 15 miles to the planetarium.  He acknowledged the time and said we would continue for a bit more and then turn around.  We kept going and going, passed some lake areas, and crossed a bridge, but he showed no signs of turning back.

View from the hiking trail

We made our destination, the dam, at 1:15 or so and looked at the map trying to decide if we should keep going to complete the circle or turn around and go back the way we came.  We had covered just over  2 miles of the 5 mile trail, so we knew going back was about 2 miles or so but contained hills to climb.  The other direction contained 3 miles of flatter terrain.  In the end we opted to retrace our steps and try to move as quickly as possible to get back to the car by 1:45.

Honker Dam

I am wearing a Fitbit now thanks to the very-early-Christmas present from my daughter-in-law in Idaho.  As I covered the terrain as fast as I could manage I occasionally looked at my heart rate. Going up one hill, it registered 165.  Later, on a steeper hill, it refused to show any reading whatsoever, so I figured I must be dead.  I certainly felt close to it as I huffed and puffed my way up the steep hill.

As I clawed my way up the last bit of trail at 1:50,  I kept telling myself I could sit down in the air-conditioned planetarium once I got there.  I just had to get there.  Clark had the car running with the air conditioning full blast by the time I got up the last hill.  As soon as I got in the car, we took off from the parking lot with hopes of covering 12 miles in 5 minutes.  Not bloody likely but there you have it.

The road to the nature trails was clearly marked.  The road back out to the main drag - not so much.  Clark made a wrong turn somewhere, and eventually we figured out we were traveling on a twisty-turny road that paralleled the one we wanted.  When I saw on the map where we were, I told Clark to keep going as it was longer to go back than to go forward.

The planetarium brochure stated quite clearly that once the doors closed, no one is admitted to the show.  As we drove down the lane, 2:00 came and went.  I resigned myself to missing the show.  I looked at the program to see what show was scheduled for 3:00, and it was an episode on travel to the moon.  Pooh!  Not what I wanted at all.

We pulled into the parking lot at 2:05 - not bad considering the distance we traveled and the wrong turn.  We decided to go into the building and see if we could still get into the show.  As it turned out, we were the only customers for the 2:00 show, so we got our tickets and had the pick of any seats in the house as no other patrons appeared.  I enjoyed my tour of the night sky constellations and Milky Way very much.  It was worth the effort to get there.

With the time being 3:00 by the time we exited the planetarium, we had to decide on our next plan of action.  Did we still want to go for a bike ride?  Was there any other part of the park we should visit?  Should we call it a day and go back to the boat?  After studying Google and the brochures regarding bike trails, we decided to call it a day, which turned out to be a great decision when it started to spit bits of rain on us as we drove out of the park.  As we exited the park, we took a slight detour to go visit Sugar Bay.  It gave us a small taste of what we can expect as we boat on Kentucky Lake in the near future.

Yesterday when Clark was off talking to friends on other boats, I saw an interesting and rather large bird sitting at the end of the dock at the marina.  Tonight when we got back from our outing, he was back again.  A little girl told me he is part of the mocking bird family.  I have not verified that yet.

Bird fishing from our dock at the marina

After stashing our junk back on the boat, I went to take the garbage to the dumpster.  On my travels I found Linda and Jess from Bamma Dreamin.   We talked for a while and then headed back towards the boats.  They followed me to Pier 6 where our boat is docked because they planned to stop in to say hello to Angie and Dan on Sea Horse.

I walked there with them and ended up visiting with both Linda and Angie for quite a while.  Eventually Clark came over as well and chatted with Jess and Dan.  After our visit with the neighbors on Sea Horse, Clark and I went back to our boat and cooked dinner.