Kentucky Amish Country and Illinois Hiking and some bad timing at the ferry

Instead of continuing down the road after visiting Paducah, Kentucky, the ladies at the travel center gave us some great reasons to stick around longer. So we found a Passport America half-price campground just a few miles down the highway in Grand Rivers, Kentucky, and decided to stay a couple more days. Today's relocation took us over the Tennessee River. After all the narrow bridges we have crossed lately, we were pleasantly surprised to see a four-lane bridge with wide shoulders today.

We got the motor home set up at 'Tween the Lakes Campground, and then took off on a road trip in the pickup. Our first stop was Marion, Kentucky, where we got maps and advice from the welcome center.

Across the parking lot we could see that another form of transportation had brought this gentleman to town. Marion is the gateway to Amish country, and that's the reason for our visit today.

North of town the roads got narrower, and we found ourselves on some tree-lined dirt roads to get to our next destination.

Our priority was finding an Amish bakery, and we found it at Yoder's. We were glad we came today, because the sign out front said they would be closed tomorrow for Ascension Day. It's sad to say, but we're not used to businesses closing for religious holidays. The windows are open to catch a breeze and some sunlight, as they don't have electricity in their businesses.

The woman at the Marion Welcome Center had told us to watch for signs on the road that would lead us to homes that were open to selling their wares. For example, we could have bought rugs, onions, apple butter, or syrup today at this farm. We noted that all of them were closed on Sundays.

A sign like that took us to our next stop, as we were also looking for fresh produce. So we pulled up into the yard and parked.

Soon a middle-aged woman in a dark dress and bare feet came out of the house to sell us a quart of the strawberries she picked this morning from the garden beside the barn. We know the etiquette of not taking pictures of the Amish people, but we enjoy taking pictures of their beautifully simple and neat homes and farmland.

Those strawberries were delicious, and we noted a big difference between them and the ones we buy at the grocery store. These are red all the way through the fruit--not white on the inside like the ones that must be harvested early and sold in a store. These will have to be eaten quickly, so we started right away.

We chuckled when we saw the sign for Hidden Valley Kitchen. We turned into the dirt road for the baked goods, but we were excited to see the bunnies for sale too.

It was a drive down a narrow muddy lane to get to Hidden Valley, and it got muddier because it rained while we were shopping. 

But we are glad to report that we did get to see the bunnies.

We bought more baked goods, including hot-out-of-the-oven pepperoni bread for lunch, and fruit pies that didn't get pictured. Our day has already been a success!

We also stopped in at the Amish Variety Store, where they sell everything that the Amish community might need. We especially loved the hand-made wooden furniture. The workmanship was first-rate on some very inventive pieces. We especially liked this high chair, that doubled as a rocking horse when it was laid on its side.

We always enjoy visiting the Amish discounted grocery stores. They sell baking supplies in bulk here. This is also where dented cans, smashed boxes, and sometimes out-of-date foods are sent to be sold at a discount. We found this gallon-sized bag with an assortment of granola bars, and couldn't pass up this bargain because this is one of our preferred snacks for hiking. There were 33 different bars inside for $2!

Another favorite part of visiting Amish country is seeing the work horses. They use them to pull buggies and plows, and they are beautiful! We saw a whole herd in this meadow, included three new colts.

We had to laugh at the contrast among the farmers in this area. While the Amish use horses to pull a very small plow, this neighboring farmer has a big tractor pulling six rows of different implements.

We are stopped and examined that tractor because we were waiting in line to ride the ferry across the Ohio River. There is no bridge for miles, so the department of transportation runs this free ferry to get vehicles to the other side. We had terrible timing, as the ferry pulled away from our Kentucky side just as we approached the crossing. That would cost us twenty minutes, as they had to go all the way to Illinois to unload those vehicles and reload before they came back for us.

It took a while, but we finally got our cruise on the Ohio River, even though our view was blocked by the orange life ring. This is called the Cave-in-Rock ferry. That's a curious name, isn't it?

We would soon find out where that name came from. Once we crossed the river, we unloaded on the Illinois side and made an immediate right turn to continue driving beside the river. We parked the pickup in the Cave-in-Rock state park, and started a hike that took us on a trail right beside the Ohio River.

After we climbed down a set of stairs and did a little walking, we found the cave in the rocks.

It was so big that Mark had to backup so that his feet were almost in the Ohio River to get the entire hole in his picture.

Denisa moved to the outside ledge and we took more pictures.

The motion of the Ohio River against the soft limestone has formed this cave with its strange entry shape. Mark is walking up to check out the inside of the cave, and Denisa captured him standing right in the keyhole of the cave.

The cave was quite deep, and quite dark inside.

What a neat cave, and we had the whole thing to ourselves this afternoon!

Today we have wandered into another of God's wonders!

After we finished playing in the Cave-in-Rock, we hiked along the river cliffs in this nice Illinois state park. Mark likes standing on the edge of tall overhangs high above the Ohio River.

He also likes to take pictures of Denisa on the cliff edge across from him. Denisa is just an innocent bystander to this.

Some times it is interesting how we stumble onto beautiful places to visit. We saw the ferry on the map, and wondered where it got its name and found that cave. When reading reviews of Cave-in-Rock state park, one reviewer mentioned that they visited that park on their way to hikes in the Shawnee National Forest. When we googled it, we found that just twenty miles away from us was a lovely forest just waiting for us to go for another hike. We made the drive, and stopped in for the one-mile Rim Rock loop hike. The entire mile was on flagstones that were laid by the YCC (Youth Conservation Corp) in the 1980s.

But our real destination in this national forest is a trail called "Garden of the Gods." The review that we had read mentioned that it was one of their favorite places. So we had to see it for ourselves.

If you look carefully in the middle of the picture below, you will see Denisa in her bright pink blouse among the rocky scenery of Garden of the Gods.

One of the biggest rock formations is "the camel." Can you see the camel head and neck, and Mark standing up on the camel's hump?

The loop hike at this stop is only a mile long, but we hiked two miles going back and forth to see it all and to get the best camera views.

We have wandered into another of God's wonders this afternoon!

Mark loves rock scrambling, so he loved this Garden of the Gods trail.

Finding this stop made our drive today quite a bit further than we had planned. But we're glad that we found these hidden gems in southern Illinois. Now we have the long drive back to our campground.

That drive includes the Cave-in-Rock ferry ride, and we remembered that our bad timing cost us twenty minutes this afternoon. Well, our timing was even worse this evening. We saw it pulling away from the dock as we topped the hill. We just missed it by one minute!

It had started to rain as we watched the ferry cross the rough waters of the Ohio River. It got to the other side and didn't return as usual. Then we saw the reason--it was waiting on a slow barge to make its way up the river. Then we waited as a second slow barge appeared on the horizon. It would cost us thirty minutes and a lot of daylight by the time we made our second ferry ride across the river today.

We hadn't planned on this ferry ride being a sunset cruise, but that's what we got.

It was a beautiful sunset as we drove the winding roads of the farmland of northern Kentucky on our way home.

We have to say that the drive wasn't very much fun in the dark on these unfamiliar winding roads. Even though we are enjoying the longest days of the year, it was completely dark by the time we got home from this longer-than-expected day of exploring Kentucky Amish country and Illinois hiking--and some very bad timing at the ferry.