Montgomery, IN; Hendricks, IN; Pendleton, KY; Bracken, KY; Mason, KY; Lewis, KY; Greenup, KY; Monroe, WV; Bath, VA
After a year hiatus from Xmas traveling, Brandy and I headed to WI for the holidays. Unlike what would have happened last year, the weather held beautifully for us the entire trip. Although we were treated to flawless travels, our Xmas was not so white. We spent a night out in Jersey City with our friend Sreekar so as to be closer to catch our 6 AM flight from Newark to Milwaukee on the 24th. Due to a dearth of rideshares and poor timing of the one daily bus, my mother was forced to bring us to Sheboygan. We spent a lovely couple of days there getting acquainted with her sassy new kitty after which she took us on to Wausau.
We spent another couple of days in Wausau relaxing with the family and friends and eating way too much cheese, meat, sugar and alcohol, pretty much the limit of our diet for the duration of our trip. We were able to score an additional day it Wausau by renting a car to get to our train in Chicago on the 29th instead of busing to Madison the night before. We took advantage by drinking more beer, eating more cheese and playing more Settlers of Catan. The drive down gave us just enough time to have lunch in Madison with my ex-girlfriend Jennifer and also have a quick drink with my buddy Liz in Chicago before hopping on the train.
Now for the counties... The Cardinal is a 27 hour jaunt from Chicago to New York City via Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia, DC, etc. It is a few hours longer than the Lake Shore Limited, but passes through some wonderful scenery, including the New River Gorge, famous for bungee jumping and other outdoor exploits. The mountainous portions through WV were quite lovely, although I found the valleys and meadows of VA more appealing. If Brandy hears me complimenting her state like so, she'll never let me hear the end of it, so hopefully she won't catch this post.
Most of my new counties were hit at night, so were rather uneventful. The first two were in Indiana. In my road trips back to WI I had gotten many IN counties and figured the tracks more or less followed the interstates I had already traveled. Imagine my delight then when I discovered a southward jaunt on the itinerary to stop in Crawfordsville in Montgomery County. This diversion also sent us through Hendricks County, just west of Indy.
After stopping in Cincinnati around three AM, we crossed the Ohio River into KY and followed the southern bank through five new counties (I had already been to Kenton and Campbell during a trip to FL in college where we had stopped in Covington for a wedding) before entering WV.
The WV portion of the route covered no new county territory, although passing through some great new vistas, as it never strayed far enough from I-64 until the very end when it stopped in Alderson, WV. Alderson is mostly on the north side of the Greenbriar River in Greenbriar County, through which I have traveled at least a couple times, including spending the night in my car behind a gas station. However, the train stops in the historic center on the south side of the river, in Monroe County. In VA we made a stop in Clifton Forge, which gave up its independent city status in 2001. We followed the interstate for a few miles east of Clifton Forge and then cut through some fairly uninhabited hills in the SE corner of Bath County before crossing into old territory again.
After that, the route offered no new counties, but did pass through some very nice country as I mentioned before.
