What’s a State Resort Park?

I left Raccoon Valley SKP park by 9:20 on Sunday morning, and headed out for Jenny Wiley State Resort Park in Prestonsburg, Kentucky.  It was about a190 mile drive on one of the hottest days of the year. 

So, what constitutes a state resort park anyway?  I was about to find out.  I figured it just meant that there were lodging accommodations besides a campground.  Well, at this park there’s more than that.  There is a lodge, a campground, a restaurant, and lots of picnic sites, but this park also has a summer theatre. 

There’s also a marina where you can park your houseboat.  There are some very nice houseboats parked here right now.  They all have access to Dewy Lake.  You have to drive around the lake about five miles to get to the campground.  Along that drive, you will also see campsites that are only accessible by boat across the lake from the road.

Oddly enough, both rigs arrived within five minutes of each other.  How crazy is that?  Pam and Stan were coming from west of Lexington, KY, and I was driving up from Knoxville, TN.  That’s the first time that’s happened when we’ve decided to meet somewhere.

With the temps in triple digits, I about passed out getting set up.  Stanley wasn’t fairing much better than I.  The inside of the rig upon arrival was 99*.  My first mission was to get the electric hooked up and start the AC.  The humidity was up as well, and it felt like you could cut the air with a knife.  All of the clothes I was wearing were soaked through by the time I could sit down for a few moments in front of a fan.  Uf-Dah!  I was hoping it was going to be cooler here.

I sure should have been running the generator and AC while I was driving here, but it didn’t start getting bad until the last 100 miles of the journey, and there weren’t really any places for me to pull off and get it started.  It sure would have been an advantage to have a second person traveling with me.  I can turn on the generator from the driver’s seat, but I just wasn’t sure if I put the rig in cruise control that I could get up to turn the AC on. 

That drive here yesterday wore all of us out, so we just relaxed around the rigs for most of the day today.  Thunder storms rolled through last night with rain for a good share of the night.  That, and the cloud cover today kept temps down into the eighties.  What a welcome relief!

We did spend a couple of hours today taking a drive around this big park and buying tickets for the musical on Wednesday. 

We also visited the Dewy Lake Dam which was, of course, built by the Army Corps of Engineers.  On the other side of the dam, we couldn’t believe the beautiful park with multiple playgrounds for children, tennis courts, basketball courts, and a couple of huge picnic pavilions.  There isn’t a campground at this Corps park, or you can bet I would have been there.

While we were wandering around the state park, we picked up a copy of this week’s recreational opportunities.  Can you believe it is seven printed pages long?  Holy Mackerel there are lots of things for families to do here with many child centered activities.  I guess that’s another thing that makes it a State Resort Park.  We signed up for two things ourselves.  One is a pontoon boat ride ($6) tomorrow evening on Dewy Lake with an interpreter.  The other is a morning interpretive van tour of the park with the park’s naturalist (free).  They are also opening up the pool to us trailer trash on Sunday for a two hour free swim. 

After putting up my trucker’s antenna and plugging in my Wilson amplifier, I do have internet.  Pretty slow, but better than nothing.  I’ll see if I can publish this or not.

Thanks for stopping by… talk to you later,  Judy