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Day 37: Wed Aug 27, 1997

 We left South Fulton, Kentucky at 11:00 CDT and caught Purchase Parkway east. Got gas and good peaches at Benton, Ky, but part of Main Street there is annoyingly one way. Shortly beyond Benton we crossed the Tennessee River and could see a large dam a short distance away on the upstream side of the road. That was of interest because that dam, Kentucky Dam, and one on the Cumberland River just to the east form two long, thin lakes, connected by a narrow stretch of water near the dams. This forms a prominent and familiar landmark on maps and satellite images of the region and the area between the lakes is called creatively "Land between the Lakes".

It was too sunny to use the laptop, it's a rainy day device, at least in the car (too dark to see the keyboard at night) so I was reading a book on FBI crime profiling while Sharleen drove. The next event of minor note (besides crossing into a new time zone (CDT to EDT)) was when we reached Elizabethtown, Ky. A quick glance at the road atlas showed that the parkway appeared to cross I-65 and turn into the Blue Grass Parkway. The map was a bit ambiguous and it doesn't actually do that, so we found ourselves on Rt 61 south accidentally heading for Lincoln's boyhood home (according to the map). We avoided that by quickly doing a U-turn in a spot clearly labeled No U-turn and got ourselves on the Blue Grass Parkway. Sharleen hadn't noticed any signs for the parkway, but I guess that falls under navigation, my job.

Passing Lexington was a minor nuisance since the interstate fizzles out for awhile. Both west and east of Lexington roadside cuts showed interesting rocks. The land was quite hilly, but the rock layers were horizontal or nearly so. The layers were at times so regular that at one point I wasn't sure if we were seeing a masonry wall (probably not).

In the evening we drove through some fairly intense rainstorms, and had some good lightning. One flash was very bright with quick thunder. At one point we pulled in a rest area to let the intense rain pass a bit. We got a Red Roof Inn in Hurricane, West Virginia, near Charlston.

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