Leaving Natural Tunnel State Park, we back-tracked to photograph a railroad trestle we had passed yesterday. The Copper Creek Trestle is one of two here. The visible trestle is 167 feet tall. A lower trestle, built in 1890, is hidden by the trees. Constructed in 1908, the high trestle still services 18 coal trains per day. This route shaved one-hundred miles off the route to Kentucky and Virginia coal mines.

We next stopped to stretch at Cumberland Gap where we purchased a new National Park pass.

One hundred-sixty miles further along the way we pulled into Berea Kentucky, a town we had visited twenty years ago and remembered for a charming downtown filled with craft galleries.

Centered around Berea College, the town continues to have a thriving arts and crafts community.

The 1909 Boone Tavern Hotel, pictured here, is run by the college and offers fine dining and beautiful rooms.

Local artisans and students display unique wares in the school craft shop attached to the hotel. This knitted dragon caught my eye.

Beth explored craft shops with bad puns for slogans.

As the thermometer passed 90, I retreated to the air conditioned Berea Visitor’s Center in this lovely restored train station. Passenger service no longer stops in this part of Kentucky, but the community saved the building as part gallery, part community center, and part visitor’s center.

Beads don’t take up much room, but Beth didn’t find any she needed. We actually showed some restraint and left Berea with only one purchase; a set of toaster tongs carved from a single piece of maple to replace a set that broke after twenty-five years.

The Ohio river passes near our next stop in Charlestown, Indiana.

Our campsite for tonight is Indiana’s Charlestown State Park on the Ohio River. Uncrowded, quiet, and clean, the park was a bargain at $25.