June 27 Driving to Lexington, Virginia

We drove to Lexington to spend the night before proceeding on to
Norfolk. We crossed into Ohio and drove east along U.S. 52, which has
many Underground Railroad sites. We had seen a documentary about the
Underground Railroad narrated by Oprah Winfrey which mentioned Rev.
John Rankin, of Ripley, Ohip. Rankin and John Parker, a freedmen himself,
were important conductors on the Underground Railroad. Their houses are
still there to be seen, and Rankin’s houses a small museum display of tracts
and artifacts from the antebellum period. We continued toward West
Virginia, passing by Greenup, Kentucky on the Ohio River. Greenup is the
home of Kentucky poet laureate Jesse Stuart, and Bruce played him as the
lead character in a school play, “The Thread That Runs So True.” We ate
outside of Charleston, West Virginia, and the clientele was…well, amazing.
Coal mining certainly takes its toll on the people who live around it.

Parker's house was on the Ohio River bank, and below, Rankin's was on the bluff overlooking the river.