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September 17, 2009

Tri-County road trip

Carl Keith Greene

How far is it from London to Corbin? Well, on Tuesday it was quite a haul.

On an errand for an upcoming set of stories, I headed down KY 229 to Barbourville.

I hadn’t been on 229 for quite a while, actually more than a year, I guess.

Things have certainly changed. Just south of the Levi Jackson Wilderness Road State Park at the intersection with KY 1189, there’s a Dollar Store and the old “country store,” that had been on the left is gone.

Just beyond that, several new small subdivisions have been developed.

It was a good trip and I made Barbourville in about 40 minutes. I took care of things there and punched up my next stop on my global positioning system receiver in the car.

It was an address in Williamsburg.

I had a choice of heading back toward Corbin and taking the bypass below town to U.S. 25 and taking either it or I-75 to Williamsburg.

But I didn’t. The GPS told me to turn south on KY 11.

So, I did, passing through the flood wall and crossing the Cumberland River bridge.

Soon I drove through Swan Pond and Swan Lake, but it wasn’t long until the lady’s voice on the GPS warned me that a right turn was coming up.

The turn took me westward on KY 1530.

It was a nice trip through a valley that was fairly flat to my right, and hills rising to my left. Not a bad trip, until, it turned to the left and began heading over those hills.

A right turn onto KY 779 took me along Maple Creek Road, again through a winding valley bottom that headed in all four directions as it wound around.

Finally, I spotted a familiar highway sign. KY 26 was up ahead. I wondered just where I would enter the road, thinking it might be somewhere near Woodbine.

Luckily I was less than a mile from what I think is called Three Point. And the trusty GPS put me through downtown Williamsburg and to the site for which I was headed.

There were times when I’d spend Saturdays or Sundays exploring side roads throughout southeast Kentucky, but without the GPS.

In those days I’d find myself lost, but eventually would run across a road that had a familiar number or name and find my way home.

The GPS is now my helpful friend.

I depend on it now mostly for keeping track of how far it is to wherever I’m heading.

But when it comes to a destination with an unfamiliar location, or when following written directions, the GPS is a real lifesaver.

And, just to make Tuesday’s trip a bit more interesting, I took U.S. 25 W on the way to Corbin.

It was a good trip, in fact the first real road trip I’ve taken in a long time. Maybe I’ll do it again this weekend.

Carl Keith Greene is a writer for the Times-Tribune. He can be reached at cgreene@thetimestribune.com

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