Grayville, IL - Dry Ridge, KY

Today we traveled from Grayville, IL to Dry Ridge, KY. We are 498 miles from Centertown. 

We had a minor problem when ready to leave the campground and Grayville and needed a welder. Two phone calls and I found one 7 miles from us. We pulled into his place and he had a welder pulled out into his garage door waiting for us. 15 minutes later we were back on the road. God is good!

Saw lots of harvested corn and soybean fields today, not all of them, but a good percentage. Dry Ridge, KY is about 30 miles south of Cincinnati. Just before we arrived at the campground we saw a tobacco barn full of tobacco, haven’t seen one of those for some time.

High temperature today was 89. The humidity must have been low because it didn’t feel all that bad. But it was to hot to eat lunch in the trailer. We stopped at a Cracker Barrel for lunch. It was a good lunch, and reasonably priced. (Reasonably priced for old farts like us who drink water rather than paying the ridiculous amount of $2.69 for and ice tea or soft drink.)

Traffic was light again today, with one exception while in Louisville area. We made the change from I64 to I71 with no problem. After getting on I71 another interchange of Interstates required that we be in the left lane to stay on I71. We were in the middle lane. I put my left turn signal on and a guy beside us in a pickup sped up to open a slot behind him. As I started to move left the car behind him accelerated and closed the gap to the point where as I started to move left the front of his car was probably slightly in front of the back of our trailer. I stayed in the  middle lane and he pulled up to make sure we couldn’t get in the left lane. There was a long stream of cars behind him and we either had to get in the left lane or miss our turn. The guy in the pickup must have been watching because he slowed down, forcing the car that had just filled the gap to slow down, so that we could get in front of him. The speed limit in this area was 55 and I had been driving 55 in the middle lane. People going 65-70 were passing us on both sides. I sped up to 65 so as not to hold up the guy in the pickup. Then it happened, we put our guardian angels to the test. First, THANK YOU to those who have been praying for our safe travels! The ramp curved around and down under an underpass. It was as close to a blind corner as you  can get on an Interstate. As we were going around the corner, at 65 mph, traffic in front of us was stopped. I almost bent the truck brake pedal. I didn’t think we would hit the car in front of us hard, but did think we would hit it. We managed to stop with at least 4’ to spare. Guardian angles can really slow down a truck and trailer fast!

Fuel prices – I filled up at MFA in California before we left, $2.709/gal. Topped off at a Flying J in MO, $2.719 but that was with a 14 cent/gal discount with our Good Sam’s RV card. Filled up at a Road Ranger when we left Grayville, IL, $3.079. Filled up at a Pilot during our trip here, $2.989, I think we got a 7 cent/gal discount. We are averaging 10.4 mpg. The GMC is supposed to have a 25 or 26 gallon fuel tank but I’ve never put more than 20 gallons in it, even when it said empty. The maximum reasonable distance between fuel stops is only 200 miles, which is ridiculous. When I am back home I’m going to carry a 2 gallon can of fuel with me and run the truck out of fuel just to see if I still have five gallons left when the gauge reads empty.

At 10:30 it has cooled down to 68 degrees, but the humidity is 75%. The AC has been running. It probably won’t run much more, the temperature 52 by 8AM.

We arrived at Northern Kentucky RV Park about 6PM, because of our late start. It is an old park that is shutting down at the end of October for a $500,000 renovation during the fall, winter and early spring. The people running the place seem like nice folks. Richard, the guy who showed us our site, told me that the vast majority of people who stay here are here because they are going to the Ark or the Creation Museum, or both.

Spaces are not large but OK. Lots of shade. The front of our truck was in the road as I unhooked. There is lots of vehicle parking on the other side of the road. They knew we were staying 3 nights and that we would be unhooking so this site is fine. 

 As you can tell, it was almost dark when I took the photo below. It gives you a better idea the size of the sites.

Tomorrow we are going to the Ark Encounter. I talked to a guy parked behind us. They went to the Ark yesterday and he was glad to have seen it.

God is good, may He bless you and yours. He sure blessed up many times today.