Banjos, Visit With Glen & Gayle

We left and did battle with the Nashville Freeways for awhile, and finally got on some nice two lane country roads up into Kentucky.  Today we are visiting a couple more banjo places here in Kentucky.  The first one was Hatfield banjos near Glasgow, KY, a guy that makes very good banjos at a good price compared to most, because he basically has very little overhead.  The place was hilarious.  He lives with his wife in an old trailer, and his shop is tiny and cramped.  But he turns out beautiful instruments.  He invited Doreen and me in to his trailer where I tried out some of his banjos with him and his wife.  Then we went on an hour or so west to Russell Springs to another banjo maker who was completely different.  This was a fellow named Frank Neat, with his son Ricky, and they lived in a beautiful place, and their shop was spacious and spotless - not a speck of sawdust on the floor.  Frank Neat is 70 years old and has been making and repairing banjos all his life.  He has made banjos and parts for a good many of the famous professional banjo players.  Well, he brought out a banjo right off that was not outrageously expensive and just sounded fantastic (even with my terrible playing in front of these banjo experts - but all these banjo people have been really nice).  Doreen thought it sounded great also.  ***so I bought it***.  Here's a picture of the Neats, with my neat banjo!

Well, by the time we got out of the banjo place, it was getting late, so we headed for a campsite.  When we got there --- it was closed!  By this time it was getting on towards dusk, so we headed for a Super Walmart (N37 04 01.7, W84 37 20.7) that we passed by on the road in a town called Sommerset.  There was no problem staying here for the night.

3 November, Thurs.

We were scheduled to visit with Glen and Gayle this morning, so we got up real early.  There is a time change to eastern time here, so we lost an hour.  Glen has an appointment in the afternoon, so we hurried to get there in plenty of time to have a good visit.  Of course this is just when our GPS pulled a trick on us - the first one this trip.  It headed us down a narrow (and I mean narrow!) road - if we met a car, someone would have to back up a long way; but we didn't meet anyone - and as we went around a corner, the road went right straight into a river!  We managed to stop in time, and back up to a place where we could get turned around, and finally made it back to the highway and to Glen and Gayle's place by another route.  We had a nice visit with them for an hour or two - they live on a very nice property large property/farm with their daughter and her family in another house on the same property, and they have a bunch of goats etc.

We headed on northeast through Kentucky after leaving Glen & Gayle's place and found a camping spot at the Carter Caves State Resort Park (N38 22 27.8, W83 07 41.0), which was fine, nothing spectacular.  This was our first rainy day!  (we had a bit of rain during the night, one night in Oklahoma)  It rained all afternoon while we drove, and into the evening.