We took a trip to Lake Cumberland State Resort Park over the weekend. I didn’t take the camera, so no pictures, but anyone in the area (Jamestown, Russell County, KY, about 30 miles north of the Tennessee border) should definitely visit. For someone who lived in Virginia for several years, the concept of the State Resort Park is a relatively new one. Ohio and Kentucky both have a number of parks that feature a hotel-like lodge with maid service, a restaurant, pool and so forth. Rates are relatively good, with easy access to park amenities. Lake Cumberland has a 120 mile long, 60,000 acre lake with marina, golf course, outdoor and indoor pools, hiking trails, etc. We rented a pontoon boat for a 3-hour trip around the lake, which the sometimes aquaphobic kids really loved, even though each took a headlong dunk in the lake when exporing the shoreline. We saw a lot of wildlife, including a couple of water snakes in the lake itself, which was exciting for the kids, if not always for the parents. We’ve already started planning a return visit, if not to Lake Cumberland, then to one of the many other KY resort parks that have a marina. My only complaint about the amenities (and I had the same problem with Salt Fork in Ohio) is that the dining option tends to be a buffet-style meal with questionable choices. Saturday’s dinner selections included Fried Catfish, Chicken and Dumplings, Seafood Pasta and Pork Spareribs. None of these seemed particularly appetizing for the entire clan, so we ended up at a Pizza Hut in Russell Springs.
Dining options in the surrounding area were also limited, and we finally figured out why - Russell County is a dry county, and the Pizza Hut waitress informed us that the nearest “wet” town was an hour and a half away (she did indicate that moonshine was available). Recent efforts to bring liquor by the drink to Louisville-area Oldham County were sold as a way to bring more restaurants to Oldham. Clearly, margins on alcohol are far higher than on food - the Courier-Journal recently has had several articles on efforts to ban liquor sales on Baxter Avenue, and featured quotes from the owner of Lynn’s Paradise Cafe stating that if such a restriction passed, Lynn’s would have to close, even though it primarily features breakfast (margins on Bloody Marys dwarf margins on eggs, and liquor sales are what keep food prices reasonable). Being in dry Russell County reminded me that there is a whole lot more to Kentucky than Louisville and Lexington. An upcoming trip to the Kentucky Railway Museum in New Haven, Kentucky for the Day Out with Thomas should reinforce that fact. Somewhat ironic, of course, that the return trip from Jamestown took us near both the Jim Beam’s American Outpost in Clermont, KY and the Makers Mark distillery in Loretto, Kentucky.
