Time for a Quick Road Trip in Kentucky...Day 2...

 Our game plan was to do what Claude felt up to doing and capable of doing. If that meant a day in the hotel resting, that is what it would be. Fortunately, Claude was game for a bit of touring. Tuesday, August 1st, we skipped breakfast and drove straight to The Middle Creek National Battlefield. This is a Civil War Battlefield. They have done a great job of preserving this bit of history. The plans are to eventually have a visitor's center and museum. This battlefield boasts the second largest statue of Abraham Lincoln. It is made like the one in the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. All white, it truly stands out as you drive down the highway. We enjoyed this little stop and learning a bit of history. 

In my Internet research for this trip, I found the Jenny Wiley Historic Trail. Jenny Wiley is a lady who came from Pennsylvania and settled in this area. She was taken by Native American's and kept captive by them for 11 months before she escaped. The State Resort Park is named in her honor. I had a map of the Jenny Wiley Historic Trail on my phone but the highway numbers were fuzzy. We drove to the Jenny Wiley Resort Park office to see if they might have a clearer map. Claude was taken with this moose in bushes at the entry. Turns out, only one of the three employees I spoke with ever heard of this trail. He suggested I go back to the Mountain Arts Center where the visitor's center was located and check there. Wouldn't you know it, our hotel was right by the Mountain Arts Center. 

We drove through Prestonsburg, stopping at Wendy's for a quick salad for lunch, before going to the Mountain Art Center. They were able to print me a map like the one on my phone and to try to label the roads we should travel. I compared their notes to Google Map and realized a lot of them would be Route 23 which we planned to take home on Thursday. In an effort to not duplicate our travels any more than necessary, we opted to go to Plan B for the remainder of our day.

Plan B would be to drive to Pikeville (about 30 minutes from Prestonsburg) and find their visitors center. There we would procure a map of the Hatfield/McCoy Feud sites and do a self-guided tour of them. We watched the History Channel 3-episode documentary done with Kevin Costner a few years back. We decided it might be nice to see the actual sights in Kentucky and West Virginia as that program was filmed in Romania. Off we drove to Pikeville, Kentucky. 

The man at the visitors center in downtown Pikeville, was very friendly. He gave us the map. We purchased the DVD of the History Channel program (which we were informed was only 75% factual) and a Hatfield/McCoy Christmas ornament for my Christmas tree. I shall place it by my Minnie Pearl ornament from Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee. 

And we were off like a herd of turtles to view the sites that are in the city of Pikeville. The map gave good directions and was fairly clear. These sites mostly happened at the end of this 25 year feud. 

Our first stop was the cemetery where Randolph McCoy and some of his family are buried. After Randolph's home in the mountains was burned down by the Hatfield's, Randolph and his family moved to Pikeville where they would be safer. 

We only drove by the Courthouse where the Hatfield's were on trial. The actual courtroom is on the second floor. 

Next we drove by the Chirico Restaurant. This is the actual home Randolph McCoy bought in Pikeville. 

We then drove to Perry Cline's gravesite. Perry Cline was a lawyer for the McCoy family. He figures big time in the story. To get to his gravesite, you must drive up a steep and very winding one lane road. All the time we were praying no one else would use this road while we were there. People live at the bottom and the top of the road, so the possibility of someone else using it is very real. 

Perry Cline's grave is down this bit of hill on the one flat spot.

Then we drove back down that narrow winding one-lane road to get back into Pikeville. Ugh. 

We tried to visit the spot where Cotton Top Hatfield was hanged. It is on Kentucky Avenue and that was closed for construction. We could not get to the actual spot. 

Once we finished the tour of the Hatfield/McCoy sites in Pikeville, we decided to save the sites in the countryside of eastern Kentucky and into West Virginia for Wednesday's adventure. We headed the Buick back to Prestonsburg. We saw a nice Chinese restaurant and thought that would make a fine place for dinner. Alas, when we got there, the restaurant was not open. Another Plan B. We headed to The Brickhouse restaurant. Turned out to be an excellent choice. Great menu. Claude enjoyed a half a chicken and I tried their crab cakes. Yum. 

We had filled another day quite nicely. Time to let our bodies rest to take on our Wednesday adventures.