Eastern Kentucky
I spent the night and all of the next day in Tompkinsville, KY. I mostly lounged in and around the Old Mulkey Meeting House, an old log church that’s stood since the early 19th century. The cemetery on the land next to the meeting house is the final resting place of Daniel Boone’s sister, Hannah. There was also a tombstone marking the grave of one of Stonewall Jackson’s cousins. Not quite famous people, but interesting nonetheless. The meeting house itself is impressive in that it’s incredibly old and still maintains a certain folkloric history inside its walls.
I left Tompkinsville at night, opting to drive in the cool, dark air with no traffic. I made it into Williamsburg and slept in the Walmart parking lot there. Williamsburg is beautiful. In fact, most cities in this part of Kentucky are beautiful. They’re all situated in the center of several rolling Appalachian hills each replete with vegetation. The buildings are dark, mostly brick, with streams of mold deliquescing down the sides. Most of the older downtown buildings are musty, drenched in coal ash, and laden with ivy. And even though most of the towns are actually quite small, there’s this weird urban feel to them. Downtown Williamsburg and Downtown Middlesboro (the town I traveled to next) seem altogether too tall and too busy to be home to only 5,000 and 10,000 residents respectively.
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