Red River Gorge's Double Arch - where's the second arch?

After leaving Lexington, Kentucky, we headed southeast down the Mountain Parkway into the Daniel Boone National Forest. We are now on the eastern edge of the Appalachian Mountains. We have experienced some winding mountain roads when we visited some naturally beautiful parts of other states, so we were a little worried about the roads to get to our destination this day. But Kentucky provides a four-lane smooth highway that connects its cities to some of the best hiking trails in the country. After an easier-than-expected-62-mile-drive, we pulled into our camp site at Natural Bridge State Resort Park. We have some rain in our forecast, so we decided to take advantage of this blue-sky traveling day and get on the trails as soon as we got the motor home set up. 

We are hiking in the Red River Gorge this afternoon, a federal recreation area operated by the U.S. Forest Service. To get to the trail head it was an 11-mile drive (that took 25 minutes) from the state park where the motor home is parked. But this Double Arch Trail gets very good reviews.

Denisa is excited to see that some of the mountain laurel is still blooming on the trail. We've only seen this flowering bush in the eastern United States, and we haven't traveled in this part of the country since 2017. It's good to see this is old friend again.

Denisa also took pictures of this new friend that we don't remember seeing before.

This evening we started on the Auxier Ridge Trail. After hiking in the woods for a while, it's always fun to come out on a tall ridge to see the mountain tops around us.

Sometimes Denisa is on one of the mountain ridges, while Mark is taking pictures from another ridge. You can barely see her in the middle of the picture below.

We feel like we have wandered into more of God's wonders when we find big rock walls that are sculpted into wave-like patterns.

Today we also ran across this new-to-us lizard that blended into the color of the tree quite nicely with his ordinary bark-colored scales.

But when we saw him from the side, we realized his coloring was anything but ordinary. This male lizard was doing push-ups so he could show off his shiny blue belly.

The scales underneath were a shimmering iridescent blue to attract the ladies. We'll count that extraordinary coloring as another of God's wonders!

While we stood admiring that lizard, this doe walked into the sunlight and across the trail in front of us.

We finally got our first look of Courthouse Rock from one of our ridge-views. This is a loop hike, and that's one of the trail highlights we've been watching for.

We'll give this hike a good review in the All-Trails app because it has lots of diversity. It takes you high for ridge views, then down to the bottom of the valley to walk beside a bubbling stream.

The U.S. Forest Service needs to do a little trail maintenance, as we had to cross through fallen trees over the trail more than once.

But the trail finally led us to our destination--Double Arch.

The arch makes a great picture frame, with the blue sky and the green mountains as the background.

We started looking for the second arch, as we knew the name of this destination is "Double Arch." So there has to be another arch around here somewhere?!? Then Mark climbed up the side of the rock wall, and figured it out. All this time we had been standing underneath two arches. From his vantage point, Mark could see daylight between the two arches.

While he scrambled part-way up the wall to discover the double arch, Mark just kept going to the top. He's hard to see among the bushes on top of the arch, but Denisa took his picture from below.

After we left the arch, we headed in a new direction to complete this loop trail. From this viewpoint we could look across all those tree tops to see the ridge we had been on earlier. Everything is so green in Kentucky, and we're guessing that these trees are going to be lovely this fall.

Besides finding flowers and lizards, we also found that this trail will soon be delicious. Denisa spotted lots of blueberries . . .

and raspberries that will make yummy trail snacks in a few weeks when they ripen.

We were around two miles from the end of our hike, when we stopped to talk to a couple coming from the other direction. Mark had his downloaded version of All-trails running, so he knew exactly how far we had hiked and where the parking lot was. They did not. They were lost, and needed help finding their car. So they hiked the last couple miles with us. They kept calling us "trail angels" because we saved them from having to hike the entire loop backwards again to find their vehicle. We were glad to help, because after 6.9 miles with over 1,000 feet in elevation gain we were tired. With all their back-tracking, they had stretched this hike to over eleven miles so they were even more tired. It was fun finding Double Arch the first time, but we're guessing that it wouldn't have been as pretty hiking back by it a second time to find their car! 

Noah's Ark - We're glad they remembered the giraffes!

One of the main reasons that we scheduled a stop in Lexington, Kentucky, was to make a day trip to a small town that is 36 miles north. Williamstown, Kentucky, wasn't on the tourist map until 2016. That's when an ark of magnificent proportions was built.

We arrived before they opened at 9:00, and we were surprised at the long line at the entrance ahead of us. This is definitely a popular place to visit! From that ticket office, visitors are bussed through the woods, and then they walk through the arch of the rainbow.

It's quite a walk to the ark, and we were guided by green leafy animals that were also heading that way in groups of two.

It's hard to get the ark to fit into a single picture up close. But we tried, as we approached from the rear of the boat.

Arriving before the park opens at 9:00 helps to avoid some of the lines that might happen later in the day. We're not sure if this metal walkway (that can weave lines of guests back and forth) is ever full of people. But we were glad to walk right past it this morning.

Once inside the ark, it was a little confusing about how to proceed. We were in the bottom of the boat, filled with containers for food, and small cages for smaller animals in groups of two. Now what do we do? 

We'd never thought about all the types of animals brought on board, but the makers of the ark determined that many of them were dinosaur-like and didn't look familiar to us.

Other replica animals looked vaguely familiar, and a lot furrier than those scaly dinosaurs.

Denisa was just glad to see that the giraffes made it onto the ark, as that is her favorite animal.

The bible specifically lists the instructions for the size of the ark that Moses should build. It is supposed to be 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide, and 30 cubits tall. From reading the signage, we know that there are different definitions for cubit, but they used the "fingertips to elbow" measurement that averages to 20.4 inches. In more understandable measurements, the Kentucky ark is 510 feet long, 85 feet wide, and 51 feet tall.

The inside area of the Kentucky ark had to make room for walkways for thousands of people, as well as plumbing for bathrooms, food options for those that must eat in the ark, and souvenir shops. It obviously does not look like the real ark on the inside. A model shows a possible scaled version of the real ark, that housed only long lines of animal enclosures--no bathrooms, and no souvenirs.

Visitors are allowed to see the construction of the Kentucky ark, and Mark is deep into the bowels of the boat. It looks nice and clean because these builders didn't have to worry about it being water tight. The real ark would have been spread with pitch and tar to keep the water out.

While the real ark was made of gopher wood, the Kentucky builders used local wood. It's always fun to find Engelmann spruce along a hiking trail. We saw it again today in the lodge poles on the Kentucky ark.

It's a slow walk through the ark, with things to see and so many displays to read. We got a bit of a break from all the reading to listen to Noah answer questions. A very well done animatronic, Noah would answer the questions that visitors could choose from a list on a computer screen, 

The third floor included displays of the living quarters of the four couples on the ark. It makes sense that they would bring some of their best furnishings to save from the flood. But with all the animals to feed and take care of, it's hard to imagine that they had much time to lounge around their quarters, painting and playing music.

The ark even includes a giant door for loading and unloading the cargo. While it rained for forty days and nights, they were probably on board for closer to a year waiting for things to dry outside. Mark is standing by the door, ready to open it when the time is right.

Meanwhile, Denisa was watching as Noah and his wife are sending out the birds to check to see if the water has receded.

We were surprised to see that we had been walking through the three layers of the ark for two and a half hours! There are many displays to read and things to see. Our legs were tired from standing so long, and our minds went into museum-overload after two hours. We moved much faster on the third level. Then we took the ramps down to exit out the front of the ark for the obligatory ark encounter picture with Noah and the boys.

When the park first opened in 2016, the visit would be over, because that was all that was here. Now the complex includes several buildings and eateries. Just like everywhere else, they are having trouble hiring enough people willing to work, so some of the lunch options were closed. We were glad to see that they were able to find people willing to sing, and we enjoyed a thirty minute concert at the outdoor stage. Then we went to the 2500-seat auditorium to watch another program. We thought they did a poor job of scheduling things, because the film we wanted to see about building the ark was only shown very early or very late.

On the other side of the ark is the Ararat Ridge Zoo, so we wandered through to see all the animals.

They have a kangaroo encounter, where visitors are allowed to stroll along a sidewalk with the animals. But all of the kangaroos preferred to rest in the shade under a tree in the far corner away from the visitors.

Some of the kangaroos looked very relaxed even though people were inside their enclosure.

Denisa likes the animal shows, but they were scheduled at the same time as the music possibilities. We supposed they assume that visitors will like one or the other--not both. So we missed the lemur encounter.

But we did make it a priority to see the "keeper chat" about the sloths. Actually, we still had to stay behind the wire fence, but at least these animals (that sleep over 20 hours each day) were awake during the show.

It's hard to take a good picture when separated by a chain link fence, but we tried anyway.

The "show" consisted of a trainer telling us about the usual habits of the sloths, which includes a weekly trip down the tree to go to the bathroom. These guys get fed well, so they don't have the worries of finding a new tree with new leaves to eat. They are trained to touch a target stick with their nose so they are rewarded with one of their favorite foods--a green grape.

The zoo also included a zebra, as well as two other animals that have been crossed with a zebra. This is a picture of a Zonkey, and they also had a Zorse.

Our last show of the day was the "Animals have talent" at the pavilion by the zoo. In front of a packed crowd, they brought out animals from all over the world--like the African porcupine,

and the Asian armadillo.

One of the favorite animals was this guy, who was wide-eyed for his ride around the crowd in a tiny pouch.

All the animals did tricks, including jumping long distances to return to the security of that pouch.

We also saw that this African pig can play ball.

If visitors are interested in spending more money, there are plenty of opportunities to do that. There is a virtual reality experience, zip-lining, and camel rides also available for an additional fee. After six and a half hours at the Ark Encounter, our legs were tired and we were ready to head home. We were blessed with a beautiful blue sky day, and temperatures in the 70s that felt very comfortable.

By our normal standards, this was a very expensive day. Our reduced-price senior tickets were still $45 each plus tax plus a reservation fee. We were also surprised to see that they had raised their parking fee to $15 for visitors. The good news is that children are admitted free during 2022, so this is a very popular family park. After we rode the bus back to the parking lot, we stopped to take a final picture. This area was too crowded for this photo this morning, and Denisa wanted one because these are her favorite animals. We're a little confused about why there are four giraffes here at the ark, but we're glad they remembered the giraffes!