Kentucky - Days 9 through 11 - Bowling Green to Hartford, Owensboro

[I wrote the following on my computer's word processing program when I couldn't get a wifi signal, which accounts for the different font.]

Ohio County Park & Campground, Hartford

Wednesday - Friday, 9th - 11th October 2019

route on Wednesday the 9th to Hartford

route on Friday the 11th to Owensboro

The space heater made it through several nights without incident, I’m relieved to report.  And it’s true the temperature at the floor was near 50° as before.  But the temp at kitchen counter level and above was about 10 degrees higher, putting it back up into a comfort zone.  And since the outdoor temp was in the 30s last night, I think even the temp at floor level was likely higher than it would have been without the heater.  So overall, I’m satisfied with what I bought.

It’s lucky that tonight’s campground is not much more than an hour or two away from the Bowling Green campground, because we had really heavy fog here until about 9:30.  Visibility was near zero for those in commute-time traffic and I really didn’t want to get out in it until I could see better than that.

During the night I almost wished for the amusement park to be operating because those sounds would have helped drown out the noise I heard.  It was a loud humming sound, like you hear from florescent lights sometimes.  Only this humming sound was so loud, it penetrated my skull until my head felt like it was vibrating. I couldn’t turn on the fan, which is my go-to for white noise, because it’d freeze us out.  The little heater made a white noise of its own, but not nearly enough to drown out this humming.

It woke me up in the middle of the night and kept me from getting back to sleep for hours.  And when I woke up, I still had the headache it gave me during the night.  I heard it again when I was out walking the dogs, but I never could figure out where it was coming from.  Or how other people in the campground were able to tolerate it – and there were some who seemed to be camping there long-term.  Anyway, it kept me from wishing I could stay an extra night.

I passed a building labeled “Lifeguard Brands World Headquarters,” which I'd never heard of, let alone knew about the world HQ, but here's the link that popped up on the internet.   https://www.beachlifeguard.com

Bowling Green has a building called Nicely Conference Center.  I looked it up and learned it’s supposed to be spelled Knicely and is, in fact, named for Mr. Carroll Knicely.  But it sounds odd.

In the last few days, I’ve seen lots of things labeled SoKY – i.e. South Kentucky.  This morning on the radio I heard someone pronounce it as “soakee” - at least, I guess that meant SoKY.  It sounded funny.

I also heard a mention of “male supremacy” on NPR, which isn’t something I’ve heard of before.  I found an explanation by the Southern Poverty Law Center, and it’s appalling.  If you want a crash course about some of the undercurrents in today’s society, take a look.  https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/male-supremacy    

I passed a building labeled Kentucky Transportation Cabinet.  Apparently, the Commonwealth of Kentucky has cabinets instead of departments.

I was aiming for a little campground about a half hour south of Owensboro where they didn’t take reservations either (a lot of campgrounds in Kentucky don’t take reservations for some reason), but I was counting on being able to get in because it was a Wednesday.

And I did get in easily.  This is the place that had been bought out last weekend by the Good Sam RV Club, but they had plenty of room today.  They gave me a senior discount on my electric & water space and charged me a whopping $16/night.  Really hard to beat that.

I had decided to stay 2 nights, not knowing how much time it’d take the repair guy in Owensboro to figure out what’s wrong with my heater, and not having any other campgrounds closer to Owensboro.  Certainly nothing for the price.

Then Brady, the repair guy, called and asked if we could reschedule from tomorrow to Friday.  He said the client he was supposed to have gone to today hadn’t made it to the campground he wanted in time, and what Brady needed to do for him involved working on the roof, and heavy rain was predicted for Friday so Brady didn’t want to put him off until then.  My job being indoors, he could do it whether it rained or not.

Well of course I understood all that and was sympathetic, but I didn’t want to agree too easily because I was afraid Brady’d think it was no big deal to put me off.  So I told him that I was reluctant because it sounded like I was having to change my schedule because this other guy couldn’t get his act together.  And after all, it was my heater that wasn’t working and I didn’t want to delay fixing it, but I understood his situation and was willing to go along with it this once.  Brady promised he’d take care of me Friday no matter what happened with the other guy.

Made me feel better, even though it meant still not getting on my tour of Kentucky for yet another day.  And I stayed an extra night in this little campground.

On Thursday the 10th, I went to Rosine to the Bill Monroe Museum and will do a separate post about that.

Friday morning I went up to Owensboro to meet Brady and see what's wrong with my heater.  Nice guy, a little hyper, probably middle-aged but one of those hard-to-tell kinds of people.

His shop is in the garage he's added on to his mobile home, located in a mixed but quiet neighborhood a few miles north of town.  It seemed a little fly-by-night, but I think that's just because his business is just him, working out of his garage and his truck that he drives to meet clients.  He seemed to know what he was doing, though, which is what I cared about.

the non-working board in my heater

It took him a while, but after checking all the connections and parts to the heating system he told me everything seemed to be working but the board.  He was nice enough not to charge me for all the time he spent figuring this out.

He ordered me a new one that will be delivered to him next Monday, so we made an appointment for Tuesday.  That gives me the weekend to go see more of the state, if I can find a campground to take me.

I decided to see a little of Owensboro, since I was there, and went to the grocery store and paid my phone bill at a Verizon.  As far as I can tell, Owensboro's only real claim to fame is the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame.  I decided not to go there because I'd visited the Bill Monroe Museum yesterday, and because I don't know enough about the luminaries of Bluegrass music to be interested in a hall of fame for them.

But Ownesboro also calls itself the BBQ Capital of the World, so I figured I should check it out.

I found 2 BBQ places online that both claim to be most beloved of the local residents and I picked out one of them - Old Hickory BBQ.  When I asked at the counter what to order, a long-time waitress said she always got the pork steak, so that's what I got.  

The beans were like those in Rosine (see separate post) - probably homemade but much like smoky Campbell's Pork N Beans.  Still, the meat had good flavor and the sauce was really good - I almost bought a jar of it but decided I wouldn't use it often enough to justify giving it frig room.

Owensboro seems to be a comfortable town, not far from Evansville, IN, across the Ohio River.  I wasn't seeing it at its best because, as forecast, we had rain for much of the day.

Tomorrow I'll head west to a state campground I found by Land Between the Lakes, where I was surprised to find that they've got space for me for the weekend.