Today we hitched up and drove. In the rain. We started with another Drivers Meeting. No pictures of the drivers, but these geese swam by during the meeting and they were way more interesting…
We drove for about 2 1/2 hours through the rain, through more gorgeous green Kentucky countryside…
We went about 100 miles on Highway 23. All along there were signs denoting birthplaces of “famous” country music singers…
We arrived at Levi Jackson State Park in London, KY. We set up easily – the rain had mostly stopped…
We had a relaxing afternoon; tonight was the real treat!
We drove a few miles to Corbin, KY, the home of Harland Sanders; this is where he ran a motel, a gas station, and a cafe.
Colonel Harland Sanders (September 9, 1890 – December 16, 1980) was an American businessman, best known for founding fast food chicken restaurant chain Kentucky Fried Chicken (now known as KFC, with the corporate name of Yum! brands…). In his later years he spent his time acting as the company’s brand ambassador and symbol. His name and image are still symbols of the company. The title ‘colonel’ was honorary – a Kentucky Colonel – not the military rank.
The Colonel began selling fried chicken from his roadside restaurant in Corbin, KY, during the Great Depression of the 1930s. During that time Sanders developed his “secret recipe” and his patented method of cooking chicken in a pressure fryer. Sanders recognized the potential of the restaurant franchising concept, and the first KFC franchise opened in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1952. In the late 1950s Interstate 75 was planned; Sanders saw that his roadside business would suffer when the traffic moved to the Interstate, so he sold the property. He then devoted himself full-time to franchising his fried chicken throughout the country. And the rest is history…
While the motel, gas station and the original cafe are long gone, the Sanders Cafe is a recreation of the original building. In it you can not only buy all the chicken you could ever want, but there are several historic rooms that you can visit to get a sense of what Sanders was doing 65 years ago…
With 50 caravanners showing up the place was soon packed…
We had arrived early, so we didn’t wait much. We viewed the various museum rooms…
The kitchen:
The cafe furniture…
There was also a “model” motel room set up adjacent to the women’s restroom in the original cafe. The room would demonstrate for the women how nice the rooms were…
It was a fun piece of nostalgia…
And then it started to rain. The skies opened up; some of the Airstreamers were wondering why we were not visiting the Ark (www.arkencounter.com) instead…
But we returned to the Villa without incident… And an enjoyable time was had by all…
Adventures in the Villa 