20 May 2016, Friday

I turned on my computer last evening to try to get some typing done on my blog
and discovered that we unexpectedly have free wi-fi from the park
service that reaches to our campsite. This is quite fortuitous as it turns out, because the lawyer working for the buyers of our house happens to be quite cautious. I found an email stating that settlement, scheduled for this morning cannot proceed unless we provide a notarized affidavit that the power of attorney we gave to our realtor last summer is still in effect. Also required is a copy of both of our driver licenses.

As we are wondering how to proceed, we prepare breakfast in the rain. We spy a red headed wood pecker perched on a tree trunk right near our tent as our meal cooks. My phone buzzes unexpectedly. It’s our realtor letting us know that we can docu-sign the affidavit and have it notarized after we return home. After breakfast we proceed to the visitor center to photograph our licenses, email the photo, and establish a wi-fi connection in a dry place. We are instructed to keep phones on until 11:30 EDT in case the lawyer needs to speak with us. To ensure we remain in phone and wi-fi range we remain at the visitor center and finish exploring the exhibits there. O strikes up another conversation with two rangers. They suggest we stop at Abe Lincoln’s childhood home on our way to the distillery tour since it is along the route.

We arrive at Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park in the
pouring rain. We are grateful again for gore tex. We watch a 15
minute film about Abe’s family and early boyhood. Abe’s grandfather,
also named Abraham, came through the Cumberland Gap about 7 years
after Daniel Boone blazed the trail. Lincoln’s grandfather was killed
in an Indian raid. Lincoln’s father, Thomas, had enough skill as a
carpenter to earn his way and eventually buy a farm called Sinking
Spring. The spring provided reliable water for the farm. The water was there
due to the same karst geologic formations that abound around Mammoth
Cave. Here, on this farm, the one room log cabin in which Abraham Lincoln was born was built. The land was dedicated as a park, and a memorial was built here in the early 1900’s. It became a National Park in 1916. The Lincoln’s eventually had to leave their farm due to a dispute over ownership of the land. They rented a farm nearby, but moved to Illinois when that land’s ownership was disputed as well.

Inside the elaborate granite memorial at the park is a log cabin, initially
believed to have been the original Lincoln cabin. Subsequent studies
have shown it was actually built about 40 years after Lincoln’s
birth. Nonetheless, it represents the kind of cabin commonly built in
the area. O asks the ranger many questions about the cabin’s
construction. (Perhaps he is making plans for our next house?) He
notes there appears to be a great deal of chinking between the logs,
much more than we saw in the cabin at Cades Cove, built in the same
era. The ranger admits he is correct. The architect of the memorial was
afraid the full sized cabin would not allow room for tourists to walk
around it within the memorial, so he had the cabin logs shortened, cutting
off the original notching used to stack and build the walls. The
replacement notches were poorly executed, varying from too shallow to nonexistent. Hence, the
logs do not nest properly with each other and the cabin walls are too
tall, requiring the excess chinking. In a well-built cabin, the logs
should touch, as with Lincoln Logs, O points out. The ranger agrees
and notes, as an aside, that Lincoln logs were invented by Frank Lloyd Wright’s
son, John Lloyd Wright. During a trip with his father to
Japan to help design and construct an important building, they came up
with the idea of notched beams to help hold buildings together in the
event of shaking from an earthquake. John thought this would make a
great building toy. The notched logs came to be marketed as Lincoln Logs.

After thoroughly enjoying our conversation with the ranger, we return to
the visitor center to write a comment in the guest log. Behind the
desk is a different volunteer who sports a white handlebar mustache
that, I must admit, outshines even O’s. I comment on the mustache and
O notes that, with his mop of curly white hair, the volunteer looks
just like Mark Twain. The man smiles, disappears into the back room
and returns with his business card. His name is Curtis O’Dell and he
is, indeed, a Mark Twain impersonator. We now have an autographed
photo of said impersonator. Photo is signed “Mark Twain.”

Now it is off to Maker’s Mark Distillery where we learn how bourbon is made,
get to taste the mash and sip four different stages of Maker’s Mark
bourbon in a tasting room after the tour. I note that my tasting glasses and
O’s are among the few that are not completely drained. My favorite
part of the tasting is the tray of bourbon chocolates provided as we
exit. O and I each grab two.

We have dinner at a golf course restaurant not far from the distillery and
make the 72 mile drive back to camp. At least the rain has stopped.
We receive a text during the afternoon that settlement was
successful!