Indian Mountain State Park

When we set off on this cross country trip, I never really thought about it as one long camping excursion. It’s definitely not tent camping. We have furniture, a refrigerator and freezer, plumbing, and our own bathroom and shower, and we even have air conditioning. It’s posh camping, essentially… until we arrived at the campsite and they informed us the power was out, and it was 86 degrees and Tennessee humid.

As we drove up to the entrance of the state park, we were greeted by a woman with sun kissed skin, long black hair, and a distinct Tennessee accent. She informed us that there was a major storm that knocked over a tree, which took out the power for the whole town. She explained it might be coming back on within 4-5 hours. Somehow, I didn’t mind the news. Quite frankly, she could have told me the sky was falling and I wouldn’t have cared. Everything she said sounded so loving and sweet.

So, we parked, unhitched the trailer, and left to find food, because there was no way we were cooking in an already 90 degree kitchen. The next closest city was back ten miles in Southern Kentucky. It was a very small town, but it happened to have some amazing coffee from Louisville. A large cold brew was only $1.90! We sat around the coffee shop just to cool down a little and then we wandered around town a bit. We ended up going to dinner at a neat little restaurant called Copper Top Tap. Their entire bar top was covered in shiny copper pennies, their ceiling was copper, the silverware was copper… you get the idea.

By the time we went to the grocery store (we have to go every other day) and arrived back at the site, it was 6:30 and still really hot. It was 11:30 when the power finally came back on, and that was about the time everyone went to sleep. We all came to appreciate how great air conditioning feels that day.

The following day was filled with a lot more fun. The kids are attracted to the water wherever we go, and this place had paddle boats and canoes!