Our Time in “the Red”

I can’t say if it was the excitement from seeing the Northern Lights the night before or looking forward to moving on our feet for the day, but we were up early and making breakfast in the trailhead parking lot that Saturday morning. It was our first time in the Red River Gorge and our plan for the day was to walk the 9.5-mile-long loop along Auxier Ridge that connects Courthouse Rock to Double Arch.

By 8:30 am we had finished our breakfast, cleaned up, packed up, and were walking. The first section of the trail is relatively flat as it follows the ridge. Large stands of Rhododendron and Mountain Laurel blooming with flowers flanked the trail as it winds through a mix of deciduous and evergreen trees, occasional breaks in the thick vegetation allowed for stunning views of the canyons and valleys below.

At the end of Auxier Ridge, we stopped at a viewpoint overlooking Courthouse Rock and followed steep stairs down to a low saddle. From there we walked a short way to the base of Courthouse Rock on a trail that wraps around the back side and has an option to scramble to the top of the large dome-like rock. We skipped that since scrambling with Greta isn’t the best option, so instead we continued down the trail that leads to Auxier Branch, encountering a small beautiful creek that drains out between the two ridges.

After crossing the creek, the trail slowly winds its way up the opposite ridge to a fork that led us out to Double Arch. We would later learn that within the Red River Gorge area, there are over 100 arches. Neither of us had any idea that there could be that many arches east of the Mississippi!

Nearing the completion of our loop was one final set of stairs that climbed between a beautiful gap in two sandstone rock faces. Stairs like this along a hike have become a unique thing for us. Generally speaking in the west there is an abundance of step-size rocks to reinforce the trail when needed. Without the abundance of large stones, it seems wooden steps are built in areas that would otherwise result in a steep muddy trail.

After our hike, we headed to a small restaurant I had seen on Google, the Red River Rockhouse. From the photos and reviews online it looked like a place we couldn’t pass up on. It was the perfect spot to stop and refill our bellies after a long day on our feet. If you’re in the area, we highly recommend checking it out!

The next day we wanted to wander around some more, but with sore feet, and tired legs we didn’t want to go too far. We spent most of the day doing several short hikes to various overlooks. The first stop was to an overlook of the Sky Bridge Arch.

An old riveted steel bridge crossing the Red River.

A few days earlier we crossed paths with another traveler who was in a van. We stopped to ask him if he had any information on car camping around the area. As we chatted he told us about a website called the Kentucky Hiker. We spent that evening looking over the site and learned of this pretty short but beautiful hike. We walked out and enjoyed the views from this small outcropping. An interesting thing of note here is how deceiving the edges can be. The tops of the trees below come up to the very edge of some of these spots making the cliff edge seem less high than it is and concealing the almost 100’ drop under the canopy of the trees.

After walking out to the viewpoint we made our way back to the truck to enjoy a small lunch on our tailgate before setting off for the next hike: the Rock Bridge Arch loop. This short hike was stunning and featured the only true natural bridge in the park, as it is the only one with water flowing under it.

Christina, absolutely marveled at the leaf sizes in the Kentucky woods. This one wasn’t the largest that we would see either.

Rock Bridge with Chestnut Log Branch flowing beneath

After finishing up our day of wandering we headed back to our trailhead camp spot to spend Sunday night. The crowds from the weekend had faded and we were the only residents for the evening.

The following morning we packed up pretty early and set off for Frankfort, Kentucky. We left the Red River Gorge Geological Area feeling completely awestruck! It was such an unexpected surprise for us, and definitely a destination that we will return to in the future.

In Frankfort, we planned to meet up with our friends Lisse and Julian, whom we met several years ago while traveling in Alaska. Since then we have met up and traveled together through parts of Baja, Utah, California, and now Kentucky, and we will travel with them throughout Newfoundland and Labrador this summer; a portion of this trip that we are very much looking forward to!

It was a short drive to the Elkhorn Campground just outside of Frankfort and we were able to get set up before starting our work day. Paid campgrounds aren’t normally our go-to, but good free options are few and far between out East, and we were also looking forward to a nice hot shower.

That night we caught up with Lisse and Julian over dinner in camp and chatted about our upcoming summer plans.

A real benefit of being on the East Coast and working for West Coast companies is the time offset in the mornings. A lot of that time is set aside for bonus productivity, but there’s also an opportunity there to do some touristy things as well. This particular morning we snuck in a tour of the Buffalo Trace distillery. It was both mine and Christina's first distillery tour, and it really gave us both a much deeper appreciation for bourbon, beyond enjoying its taste.

Following the tour, we went into town to find a spot to work for the day, before heading to camp for the evening. This is a part of slow-paced, long-term travel that is easy to overlook and doesn’t often get talked about. It’s not always camping or hanging out in stunning locations. For us, there is definitely a significant portion of time that is spent hanging out in town parking lots, most of the time to work, sometimes to wait for laundry or other chores that we have to do. It’s all part of the travel experience for us.

Once we all wrapped up work for the day we grabbed a quick bite to eat and a drink at Sig Luscher Brewery before following Lisse and Julian to an absolutely beautiful Hipcamp just outside of town. This was our first time staying at a Hipcamp, and I can’t believe it took us this long to try it out! If you’re not familiar with Hipcamp, think of it like Airbnb for camping. Landowners can rent portions of their property for folks to book to camp on. Different landowners offer different accommodations for various styles of rigs and setups between campers, vans, tents, and so on. This particular night, we spent the evening enjoying the warmth of a fire and watching lightning bugs light up in the field in front of our camp spot.

The next morning we parted ways with Lisse and Julian with the plan to reconvene again in Maine in a few weeks. We needed to cover some ground eastward again and chose another morning of driving a bit before work and found ourselves in a Cracker Barrel parking lot for the work day. Cracker Barrel offers travelers a unique right of passage for travelers, with many of their locations allowing campers overnight in their parking lot. We skipped the opportunity to camp here, and after working for the day pressed on to find camp a little further to the east near the Kentucky/West Virginia border.

Greta took in all the sniffs at Jenny Wiley State Resort Park where we spent the night.

Some neighboring Whitetail checking us out.

While returning to our truck after using the bathroom I noticed something fluttering around in the bushes. I searched around with my flashlight and found this large female Luna Moth clinging to some leaves. This was a moth I would occasionally see clinging to the siding of my mother’s house during my childhood in Virginia and something that I often told Christina about. I immediately called her and asked her to come over. I warned her that she was going to have to be brave (she’s not a fan of moths) and that this was something that she really needed to see! She rallied, came over, and was able to snap this picture of its size compared to my hand. Seeing these is still unique to me, and entirely new for her. I started to pick it up so she and I could get a closer look at the beautiful markings on its wings, but Christina was having none of it.

The next morning we were up before the sun to put in another travel morning before work. We logged a lot of uneventful miles through the rolling mountains of West Virginia and into Virginia before stopping at a beautiful overlook on the Blue Ridge Parkway to work from for the day.

We settled into our ‘office’ for the day and set up our tent to dry out in the sun. We had seen a fair amount of rain over the last few nights, and we really needed the opportunity to dry out our tent material.

After work that day we spent a little bit of time looking for a secluded spot to camp for the night. As we moved around on the Parkway we stopped at a few overlooks to take in the beautiful evening light. We didn’t find anything that seemed better than where we had been, so we decided to return to the overlook where we had worked. While we waited for darkness we parked at the edge to make dinner and soak in a stunning sunset.

Earlier that day a maintenance person had come by and we started a conversation about campers, and what he would like to build eventually. While leaving, he told me that he wasn’t going to say it was okay to stay where we were. He went on to tell me that the park only had one cop and it was unlikely that he was going to be patrolling tonight. It seemed like we would have a good chance of sleeping unbothered. With that little bit of information, we decided to tuck the truck into the most secluded part of the parking lot and climb in for the night. We had a wonderful night of sleep free of any interruptions!

The next morning we packed up the truck and moved back to the edge of the overlook again hoping that no one would notice that we had been in the same overlook for nearly 24 hours by this point. As we sipped our coffee from the tailgate we enjoyed views over the edge of the wall into the Shenandoah Valley. We watched and listened to many different birds that morning and managed to identify several new ones for us thanks to the Merlin Bird ID App. There will likely be more bird/animal photos this trip than our previous ones now that we finally have a lens that is capable of getting close enough to capture good images. Fingers crossed that we really get our money’s worth out of it this summer!

Before leaving we picked up another patch to add to our collection.

We finally settled down for the day and spent the rest of it on the computers getting our work done. Once evening came, we closed our laptops and made a short drive to my mom’s house, stopping to grab her some flowers along the way. We will be spending some time with her and the family, before setting off on our next big leg of this trip.

We both have really enjoyed our trip east so far even amid some challenges. After our first week of running from storms in the Midwest, it has been nice slowing down again and it has been great to get to show Christina around so many of the areas in Virginia that are tied to my childhood memories.

We are very much looking forward to being stationary for a bit while we are in Virginia before we start to head north towards Maine and Northeastern Canada.

Catching up with family

Eastbound & running from storms!