The Cumberland Gap

I beheld the Gap and the surrounding land and it was good, very good; until I talked to an inhabitant and learned the Gap used to be US-25.  I guess that’s not so strange considering it  started out as a game and then Indian trail.  Indians sold it to a man who hired Daniel Boone to blaze a trail through the Gap into the area that is now Kentucky.  Foot traffic became so heavy some businessmen built a toll road wide enough for two wagons to pass.  The slope from toll-road to US-road is small.

Looking into Kentucky from the Gap on the Wilderness Road

Looking into Tennessee at Tri-State Peak

The Gap is .3 miles from remains of an iron furnace.  How could anyone pass up the chance to stand at the very Gap that led to, ultimately, my state becoming settled?  I made it to the Gap. A half-mile total isn’t much even if it’s the first real walking I’ve done in a couple of months.  

Unfortunately the Tri-State Peak Trail starts at the Gap.  Heck, I’d been to Four-Corners so this is seems like a should-see location.  Peak is a key word here, along with no idea how far; this is a  bad combination.  And the steeper parts of the trail just happened to be covered with a thin layer of snow that had become soft and greasy as the day warmed.  Way too many steps later I arrived at a nice litter gazebo, sheltering the joining of Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee.  In spite of aching muscles I am glad I made the trip.  

A snack and a couple of stops later I returned to Scout thinking about my afternoon.  I sleep in Virginia at the Cumberland Gap Campground, I bought my beer in the town of Cumberland Gap, Tennessee.  Since there are no groceries in that town, I drove into Middlesboro, Kentucky to buy food.  No wonder I’ve been confused over which state I’ve been in.

If state confusion wasn’t enough, the people I’ve talked to are lots like the folks I talked to in New Mexico; nearly all the ones I’ve met have started out someplace else.  The Cumberland Gap shopkeeper did grow up in Kentucky so she may not count even though she lived in Florida for a dozen years. She and her family returned to the area so their kids could get a better education than they could in Florida where most of the other kids don’t even know English.  Education can be obtuse; the mother works in a half-full store called a market that only sells beer, pop and candy.