We’re home — the vacation is over.
I enjoyed this trip, but it was a lot more stressful than I expected. I realize that I brought some of it on myself, but certainly not all. I’m just glad to be back.
Saturday was a very eventful day. We spent Friday night at The Old Schoolhouse Inn in Benham. It was exactly what its name implied.
Formerly the community school, the building now houses a fine hotel. Guests enter through the main entrance of the school and walk down the locker-lined hallway to their rooms, which are half a classroom each. Ours featured a pair of cherry sleigh beds with matching cherry furnishings. It was quite elegant.
Saturday’s continental breakfast left a little to be desired, namely, more food. Still, it was better than the non-existant contintental breakfast at the Sheraton Suites in Lexington.
After eating and checking out, we took in the Kentucky Coal Mining Museum across the street. We easily spent three hours there, taking in all four floors of information and displays. In the basement was a mock coal mine, complete with four-foot ceiling. A volunteer at the museum provides a guided tour of the mock mine, which was fascinating to the kids as well as Linda and I.
We departed the museum for Lynch, Kentucky, just up the road from Benham, where a retired mine exists. In the works is a project to open Portal 31 to tourism, using robotics to demonstrate and explain the process of coal mining.
Though the mine itself was not yet open to the public, much of the grounds outside the mine was and was included in a self-guided walking tour of the area. It was really impressive, seeing how mining was such a lifestyle for the people of that era.
Portal 31 was our final tourist destination of the trip, so we loaded up and headed up the highway, through Cumberland, Harlan and Pineville to some of our old stomping ground in Barbourville and Corbin. We spent last night at the Fairfield Inn in Corbin, with an indoor pool and hot tub and a fine continental breakfast this morning.
We departed Corbin without any sightseeing around 10:45 this morning and arrived home safely this evening.
Like I said, it was a fun trip, a nice trip, but an exhausting trip. We’ve discussed going back to that region near the end of May, but basing ourselved in Corbin and taking day-trips from there. We’ll see.