Land Between the Lakes

We have this free stay at a Wyndham Resort that my brother purchased, so, we're taking advantage of it and are on a road trip with said brother who we really have never spent more then a few days together for oh, maybe 50 years (no really about 50).

Our first stay was at a friends of his "cabin" that used to be a forest rangers cabin . . . except this "cabin" has 4 large bedrooms on the first floor and up stairs 4 kings size and a half a dozen cots so . . . .it's rather a nice cabin in the woods . . if it does not blow over in the wind (long story, remember he's a historic restoration architect  and he was stumped at how it remains standing).

ANYWAY - the cabin is basically a 4 bedroom house with a 3000 foot loft.

SADLY it's in this amazing beautiful area that the locals refuse to like and take advantage of  . .and with good reason.

I really want to do more research on this when I get back (remind me).

The Land Between the Lakes National Park is hated.  It's like the Three Gorges Dam in China.  JFK

was so concerned with how poor this area was he decided to make this into an amazing beautiful National Park by flooding the Cumberland and Tennessee River with a dam and create two beautiful and huge lakes. The poor would have construction jobs with cement and tourism would run rampant.

The collateral damage was having to relocate 3 entire towns and thousands of farmers who's families had lived and farmed on their land since the early 1700s. The government did an emanate domain thing for 320 square miles.  As you might expect this was rather controversial and there are still bad feelings. People refused to move and many went to work one day and came home to see their house underwater.

WELL, the area is fantastic but no one goes here. Sort of like the Dells area without "The Dells".  On the 4th of July the place is dead.  Kentuckians refuse to go here.  Only tourists.  

Shot from the front porch

ANYWAY, our place was right next to a hotel that was built in the late 1700s and abandoned 100 years ago. The town of Canton was a huge destination for river boats. George Washington was here, Jesse James traveled here along with all sorts of high class, high profile people.  The most famouse was Jenny Lind who was the very biggest star in the world in the 1840s (furniture is named after her, everything she touched was GOLD, she was The Beatles of her time).  She dated Chopan and traveled the world singing in Operas and was on a tour in America. Seems she sang from the balcony.  There are zero recordings of her but she was is considered the number 1 vocalists in the 19th century.

Then trains were invented and BAM, the town died as the trains bypassed Canton. The town came back to life and BAM in the 1960s they flooded everything and it dies once again with only Boyds Hotel at Boyds Landing with Boyds Bar intack (which is a tiny cave like area in the basement).  A couple purchased it and is bringing it back to life. They understand they are just the latest owners in a hopefully long line caretakers to occupy the building.

BTW - all the way down here the highways are lined with flowering red buds. Amazing.

Last night we played a rousing (not arousing) game of Merchants of Europe, a variant of Settler of Catan.  No longer in a cabin but a resort.  There is a bath tub with mirrors on each side which reflect to infinity on both sides.  Disconcerting to say the least. 

Today we're going waterfall hunting - suppose to be 26 of those buggers around here.

Nuff said - carry on