First day out....

First thing we did today was go to Hardees and get biscuits and gravy for breakfast. We then headed for Pine Mountain State Park in Pineville, KY. Once there we headed to the Chained Rock where the above pictures were taken. There was a little snow on the ground and steps on the trail so it was slippery in spots.



We then headed up SR-119 out of Pineville towards Harlan, KY. Our destination was Kingdom Come State Park near Cumberland, KY. The park was name in honor of John Fox, Jr. According to some literature we read the area of the park was the setting of some of his books. The park does not officially open until April 1st so all we could do was drive around.

We then headed across 160 to Big Stone Gap, Virginia. There is a lot of mining going on in this area so the mountains (see picture) are being torn apart. It's kind of sad in a way because mining is probably the only way a lot of these people can make a living. Once in Big Stone Gap we headed down US-58...our destination...Cubage, KY to see if we could find the road to the Hensley Settlement. Of course nothing is never easy. We turned on US-421 headed to KY 987 which would take us toward Cubage. Once we got there the road went across 987 so we couldn't turn. Luckily we had a GPS and it guided us to 987 in a round about way.
We drove through Cubage looking for the road and we think we MAY have found it. I've only been there once so I'm going from memory and, in my case, that is dangerous. By the time we got home it was around 5:00 PM and I'm pooped. :)