I have to admit it, we bought gas at Buc-ee’s more than once on our trip to Florida. Turns out that the chain’s gas prices are comparable with Costco. That is, 20 to 30 cents cheaper per gallon than most standard gas stations. Costco tends to be on main thoroughfares in densely populated places, which is sometimes convenient, sometimes not. Buc-ee’s is the flip of that, tending to be on major highways at some distance from densely populated places. Sometimes convenient, sometimes not.

We gassed up at the Smiths Grove, Kentucky Buc-ee’s just off I-65 on December 5, early in our trip. We had to make a decision on how to proceed from there. One choice: continue on I-65 to Nashville, take I-40 east from there roughly to Cookeville, Tennessee, and take smaller roads into Jackson County, to reach our friends’ home in the holler. Or: take smaller roads across southern Kentucky and into Tennessee, bypassing metro Nashville and going through towns and hamlets and farmland and woods we’d never seen before, ultimately connecting to the appropriate small roads in Jackson County. It isn’t too hard to guess what we did.

Kentucky 101

It so happened that exiting from Buc-ee’s in Smiths Grove takes you to Kentucky 101, a two-lane highway that can either take you back to I-65 or south through Warren and Allen counties. Coming from the crowds of Buc-ee’s, people and cars, the contrast of heading south on Kentucky 101 is clear.

As of now, at least, Bro. Tim Meador is the Allen County Jailer, so I assume he won the most recent election.

I know that’s a county job that probably involves a fair amount of paperwork. Still, I picture the Jailer as an official who, like in a movie, puts offenders in the jug himself, turning a skeleton key (one of a few jangling on a big ring) to lock the cell.

Scottsville, Kentucky

The main traffic hub of Scottsville (pop. 4,300), the seat of Allen County, is the junction of Kentucky 101 and 98, known as Main and Court streets locally. Instead of a county courthouse, the hub is in the form of a square with businesses around it and a lot of traffic passing through. More than I would have guessed.

It was lunchtime. I can report that Thai Orchid is as good as you might find in a larger town. In our time, Thai has pretty much joined the tapestry of American cuisine as thoroughly as Chinese or Mexican food did in previous generations.

The main public library is near the square, sporting a local Wall of Fame.

The names include Lattie Moore, who sang, “I’m Not Broke but I’m Badly Bent,” a song with pretty much the same theme as Al Dexter’s “Wine, Women and Song.”

I won’t look all the names up, but the Scottsville Wall of Fame also includes Johnny Green, pioneer aviator, who did the first commercial flights between Florida and Cuba, apparently.

Red Boiling Springs, Tennessee

We drove on Kentucky 98 east to the near-border town of Gamaliel, pop. 391, still on the Kentucky side of the line. A lesser-known Biblical name, but I also can’t help thinking of the G. in Warren G. Harding.

South from there, Kentucky 63 turns into Tennessee 56 after a few miles. There’s no sign marking the border, just one announcing the Tennessee highway number. Pretty casual for a line that might have been an international border, had the secessionists had their way (unless, of course, Kentucky left the old US).

Besides a cool name, Red Boiling Springs (pop. 1,205), Tennessee, has a history. As the name suggests, people took the waters there.

“As recently as 1920, Red Boiling Springs had about a dozen places in which visitors could stay,” The Tennessee Magazine reported a few years ago. “The largest was the Palace Hotel, which had 180 rooms. Over the next several generations, business declined… and… a 1969 flood destroyed large parts of the town. However, three of the Red Boiling Springs resort hotels are still open. They were in (nearly) continuous operation throughout the 20th century and still reflect more of the lifestyle of the late 19th century than they do the 21st.”

Make that two hotels. One of those mentioned in the article, the Donoho, burned down in November.

The gray, chilly day somehow fit the scene of a wrecked historic hotel.

Damned shame. I can’t leave it at that. Soon after passing through Red Boiling Springs, we arrived at our destination in eastern Middle Tennessee. The next day, we enjoyed a Tennessee hootenanny.

Our hosts, Dave and Margaret, on guitar and drums.