Month: July 2017

Today’s drive to Indianapolis, Indiana for the next stop was not too bad. 135 miles/ 216 km was a rather easy drive. We stopped twice as we had to leave Charlestown State Park by 11:00h and could not check into the KOA until 14:00h, so had time to spare.

We looked for an Indiana Welcome Center to pick up literature on the sites and interesting places in Indiana but could not find one just north of the border to Kentucky.

To our surprise the Indiana State Sign was at the first rest stop 65 miles inland. So everything south of here does not count as Indiana?

Stopped at the Pilot just north of the KOA, filled up on diesel and got to the KOA around 15:00h and set up by 15:30h

Due to the holidays, work came back with a vengeance. Unfortunately this did not leave us much time to do anything else. Today was our last full day, so we made sure that we had lunch at Charlestown Pizza Company again. We initially went there on our day of arrival and the pizza was so delicious we had 1 at the pizza shop and 1 to go for the trip tomorrow.

The watertower and train station restaurant need to wait until our next visit.

During last nights walk, we took notes on what sites were preferable at Charlestown Campground, as we will definitely be back.

Long 4 day weekend with Monday and Tuesday (July 4th) off from work.

Took it easy for a few days even with the trip on Sunday, but needed some exercise today.

Decided to walk Trail number 5 which is a loop from/to the campground for 1.8 miles/2.3 km.

Saw the neighbor pack up his toy (Harley trike) in a so called toy hauler.

And off we went for the hike. Nice up and down the hills on a well prepped path. Easy to moderate at the most.

As already mentioned in our July24th entry, the area we are in used to be the Indiana Army Ammunition Plant.

Per Wikipedia, due to the closeness to the Ohio River and the cheapness of the land as it was unsuitable for farming and therefore few people lived on it, the government decided to build 3 plants for smokeless powder production, double base rocket propellant and loaded propellant charge bags. The plants were built between 1941 and 1944.

All 3 plants employed a total of 27,520 people in May 1941. The last plant was shut down in 1960 and the clean up process started.

All areas were turned over to either the State of Indiana or Clark County. The State of Indiana portion is now Charlestown State Park and the county is using its portion to build River Ridge Commerce Center.

If you look close, you can see that the warehouses are build around an old cemetery.

Located across from Louisville, Kentucky on the banks of the Ohio River in Clarksville, Indiana is the Falls of the Ohio State Park.

This is also the site where Lewis and Clark met for their Lewis & Clark Expedition which took place from May 1804 to September 1806.

We did not really have any plans to see anything specific in Louisville, Kentucky and just took a quick tour of the downtown area.

We were surprised by the beautiful and well preserved downtown buildings, sites and bustling pedestrian areas and decided to pay the city a closer visit next time.

After a busy work week we went to the Big Four Bridge. Named after the now defunct Big Four Railroad and originally built between 1888 and 1895 it served the rail traffic into the city of Louisville, Kentucky until 1968.

In disuse for several decades, the 2,525 feet (770 m) long bridge was opened in 2014 to pedestrian and bicycle traffic only.

It crosses the Ohio River and connects Louisville, Kentucky and Jeffersonville, Indiana.