After exploring east Tennesse and it’s waterfalls, Kentucky is surprisingly flat -not completely, but nothing like east TN. The trees are turning brilliant shades of red and orange, no two alike so that as we speed by it looks like a forest fire punctuated by fields of dry corn stalks and yellowish-green tobacco plants. We passed a little white church nestled between the fields like a painting, so peaceful and American.
We pulled into the parking lot and the outer walls of the fort greeting our eyes in drab and unimpressive colors against a muted sky. A Washington Memorial type monument sits in the center of a small flower garden bearing the names of those who lived at this fort.
The gates yawned wide as we stepped into the past, our families past. You see our family lived at this fort, they walked this ground (well not this exact spot this is the working fort, the original site isn’t too far from here. We will be visiting there next), their blood sweat, tears, and dreams went into this place. We’ve wanted to come here for a very long time especially after Mr. Cottage got to explore his families roots in Germany, but it just never worked out until now.
The fort is deceptively large, cabins line the outer walls, the group that set this up have made each in a different stage of life at the fort to give you an idea of what it might have been like, along with several “workshops” like soap making, weaving etc.
We only had 30 minutes to look around before they closed because the drive took much longer than we expected. We got to speak with a very sweet lady who made soap there, she gave mom a book about the women at the fort and told us about some of the events they host.
All too soon it was time to leave, Mr. Cottage took a bit longer than us to finish looking around and the ranger locking up joked that he was going to lock him in. Now we are off to the original site before it gets dark and we have to head home.
