We visited the back roads of Kentucky today and went to Paducah.

The back roads were very pretty, hilly pasture land with mostly cattle and horse farms. Where there was good floodplain bottom land, they were harvesting soybeans today. I gathered from the farmers at a restaurant in Paducah that the beans came in good here this year, but the corn came in very poorly. The fall colors were excellent, but it was cloudy all day so the effect was rather muted, but the scenery was very much Kentucky.

We stopped at a virtually unknown natural “attraction", marked only by a small historical marker signpost for Mantle Rock along the side of a 2-lane highway. It is owned by the Nature Conservancy, of which Kathy is a member, and is open to the public if you see the sign and know to go up the one lane dirt road, park before the road gets too muddy and walk half of a mile or so to the entrance gate, which has just enough open space to walk in. Then walk another quarter mile through heavily wooded trails down to a stream and a HUGE natural arch formed by limestone and water and weather actions on the stone. It’s very impressive to come upon it walking through the woods. That's Kathy's winter coat she's wearing today. It was down in the 30's last night and barely broke 50 degrees today. We're heading going farther south on Saturday.

We went to Paducah to get a new battery for Kathy’s cell phone and a wireless card for my laptop, plus we ate dinner at a local (local to the point that I don’t know if it was a bar or a greasy spoon restaurant) Barbeque called “The Backwoods”. Mostly farmers and locals. You know you’ve crossed over from Southern Illinois by the decidedly southern drawl that is the norm here. The BBQ sauce was the very liquid southern kind with vinegar and hot spices that seeps into the meat…..I liked it. Kathy’s pulled pork plate had enough meat to feed three hungry lumberjacks. Daisy will get some of that.