Tiptonville Tennessee and Kentucky

 

I recently had a very ambitious trip planned around the far western areas of Kentucky and Tennessee.  I am a little embarrassed about just how much I planned (because we had to change our plans) but we still had a nice trip. 

Our main goal of the trip was to make it up to the VERY south western point of Kentucky.

Look at any map of Kentucky.  Actually, look at a large map.  There is that little point, on the far left bottom side- there is just a spec there, separated from the rest of the state.  Its just above Tiptonville Tennessee.


I will write more about some of the sites of our trip later, but for now I wanted to talk about the Tiptonville area.

This is honestly a remote area with a small population.  The area is however packed with history.  We found several spots on this trip relating to the Civil War.  Behind the visitor center in Tiptonville is Carl Perkins boyhood home.  There is also a prison in the area!

After leaving the Union City area, we made our way to Tiptonville and explored a bit.  From there, we drove north, towards Kentucky.

To get to that little section of Kentucky, you must really want to get to that area.  It is a long and snaky drive getting there.  This took longer than I expected.

Still, we did finally get there.  There are cornfields and a couple of homes in the area.  That's about it though.

We were proud to get to the area, and to explore.  Kentucky is a big state, and this is a very difficult area to get to.  I am glad we took the time to do it.

We saw few people in the Tiptonville Tennessee area, and we saw no one at all in the Kentucky part. 

There is a "Welcome to Kentucky" sign that almost feels more like a joke sign than a real one.  Speaking of jokes....  I kind of want to make one about the visitor center there, but that would be too easy.  There is no reason for a visitor center.

As we stood in Kentucky, we checked our GPS.  New Madrid Missouri was about 6 miles away.  We hit the go button and saw that that journey would still take us about an hour and a half.  There are no bridges close by.

We started to try to get to New Madrid, but after realizing we would have to rely on a ferry for part of the trip, we decided that New Madrid would be an adventure for another day.  We could still explore some places along the Mississippi River before heading back to Owensboro.