Day 30 - Charleston WV

Miles today: 401

Miles total: 10,433

First stop today was the Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville KY, to visit The Colonel.

When I pulled in I was stopped and told that motorcycles aren’t allowed in the cemetery.  But the security folks were super nice and proceeded to give me a personal tour in their car.  My “tour guide” Chris pointed out that Colonel Sanders’ grave was just two doors down from members of the Beam family (as in Jim Beam).  Seems to me there’s some sort of cosmic symmetry in that fact.  

He also drove me to the other side of the enormous cemetery to visit Muhammad Ali.

Next stop was the state capitol in Frankfort.

The unusual fact I learned about this capitol is that the four murals surrounding the rotunda were part of the original design of the 1910 building but not actually installed until 2010.  The reason? The original artist died on the Titanic. 

I also determined that, until recently, this one building simultaneously housed statues/busts of 1) Abraham Lincoln, 2) Jefferson Davis, and 3) Colonel Sanders (Jefferson Davis moved out about a year ago).

Next stop was Pikeville KY, the heart of Hatfield-McCoy country.  The Big Sandy Museum was closed but, after quite a bit of riding around, I eventually found the grave of Randolph McCoy.

 

I like how the monument has “Famed Leader Hatfield - McCoy Feud” etched into it. Presumably if you went through the trouble to find the grave you’d know who Randolph McCoy is.

Last stop was the capitol building in Charleston WV.

I give it bonus points for the nice gilding on the dome.