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1/13/09, Howell, KY - This was a nice travel day. The day started off a little slow as the horses were a little pokey, but picked up later in the day. Most of the morning was spent approaching and moving through the majority of the city of Hopkinsville. Traffic was pretty light and we moved along pretty good in town.
Lunch was in front of a supermarket and diner on the south side of Hopkinsville. The diner made some pretty good cheeseburgers, which was a welcome change from my normal lunch fare.
After lunch, I continued down route 107 to the junction of Interstate 24. A couple miles short of the interstate, we had a pretty challenging obstacle to overcome. A couple of farmers were attempting to move two combines with 8 row corn heads attached down the road toward us. The combines were about 17 foot wide and the entire road surface was only 16 foot wide. The combines were over the crest of a hill, so we didn’t see each other until we were only about 100 feet apart. With no shoulders and steep ditches on both sides of the road, we were in for a heck of time. With their corn heads raised to the maximum height, the combines managed to straddle their ditch, but a hill on their side prevented them from going farther off the road. This left me with just a little over 7 feet to pass the team. With the corn heads raised well over the heads of the horses, Doc and Dolly didn’t want to go by and they did a little hesitant dancing. For a minute, I thought we were going into the ditch, but I managed to calm them down with white knuckled hands on the lines and get them by the combines. A note to the farmers if they read this - corn heads are removable and can be trailered - a good idea with the large number of school buses that use this road at this time of day!
Tonight I’m camped about 4 or 5 miles north of Fort Campbell at Bob and Teresa’s place. With all the choppers overhead, it reminds of my old army days when I spent a little time flying around in Hueys.
Tomorrow, I’m off across Ft. Campbell and making for Dover, Tennessee. With any amount of luck, I won’t find myself and the team in the midst of a Battalion sized air assault.
On the “Where’s Bob” page, try the new feature “Dynamic Maps”. This provides a Google map of the trip with flags you can click on to see pictures all throughout the trip. Lots of thanks to my pal Cliff Berry for putting this together.
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