We drove up the Blue Ridge Parkway and are now in Kentucky in the Daniel Boone National Forrest. Finally found a train trip that worked for us. It was the Big South Fork Scenic Railway. The trip was into timber and coal country and along a beautiful river gorge.

The following are some interesting observations along the way:

1. It is surprising to us that we have not seen many black people in Tennessee and Kentucky.

2. There are a lot of "good old boys" and more Ford trucks than in Seattle.

3. A local high school mascot is the Redhounds.

4. People set up sort of "garage sales" out of their cars on the street corners complete with tables, etc.

5. Many stores set their merchandise outside by the road. There will be a gift/florist shop that has 20-30 arrangements (artificial) outside.

6. We continue to see "birthplace" signs. The latest was Lee Majors in Middleboro, Ky.

7. There are "Dollar stores" everywhere.

8. There are still so many Baptist Churches! We are starting to try to predict how many of them we will see between destinations.

On the way home today we drove through Corbin, Ky - home of the original Col Sanders KFC. There is a Sanders restaurant/museum there along with the current KFC fare.

We find that we generally like Tennessee and northern Mississippi. Have not seen much of Kentucky, yet.

We were tired of constantly searching for good radio stations and purchased XM Satellite Radio. Seems to be pretty good.