As previously stated, we were ready to have our leave of Kentucky. After breakfast, we headed out toward Lexington. We took a brief detour to the Four Roses Distillery, where once again our timing for a tour was not great. We looked around, then continued on our way.
Through the outskirts of Lexington, we saw the huge horse farms and rolling hills of the Bluegrass region. While we saw lots of horses, Laura and I both agreed that it would be unlikely that a Kentucky Derby contender would be visible from the Interstate.
We continued on the Lexington bypass without stopping, and kept driving until we got to the Red River Gorge. A quick lunch, and we were on our way to Natural Bridge. Upon arrival, we decided to take the chair lift up the mountain to view the bridge. It was quite pleasant – smooth, quiet, and a comfortable way to view the surrounding area.
At the top we first took the trail to the Lover’s Leap Overlook for a better view of the bridge. We then hiked back and I crossed the bridge, while Laura preferred to stay back. I also hiked to the bottom of the bridge for a view.
We took the lift back down, and caught our breath from the hike.
From Natural Bridge we drove on up into the Gorge. Our route took us through a very narrow tunnel that went deep through a mountain and came out into a valley lined with rocks. The loop route took us past many such formations. We stopped briefly to view Skybridge, another natural bridge formation, but not as spectacular as the previous one.
Once off of the Gorge loop road, we took highway 15 through the Kentucky mountains, passing through many little towns. There was Vortex, Typo, Quicksand, and Hazard, to name a few.
Highway 15 took us to Highway 23, which took us into Virginia. When we got to the town of Norton, we found a great place to stay, and crashed after our long journey. Tomorrow we head home.