Adventures in Bell County, KY! (PINEVILLE - MIDDLESBORO - CUMBERLAND GAP) Episode 2!

what's up guys welcome to episode two of explore appalachia we are in middlesboro belle county kentucky today we just left the coffee shop that is down this mountain right somewhere over here maybe i think it's that little white house right there we just got some breakfast and a coffee talked to some local people there this is a 1920 uh home the evans family built it it was a black family in criminal gap he was a carpenter miss evans footprint is on this place everywhere especially in the summer or in the spring when you see flowers popping up in the yard that aren't supposed to be where they are miss evans great nephew came back and visited the house in the past couple years and the only thing he recognized was the swing on the front porch he said the evans family always had that swing on the front porch so so we're lucky to have a coffee house in this building uh so we do everything from just what you all did this morning grab some coffee and some breakfast to cater mountain laurel breakfast for about 1200 guests so i'm an lmu grad i started teaching in middlesbrough city 25 years ago it's growing more and more to be eclectic you know millsboro little theater has been a theater company for decades the arts programs at lmu having knoxville symphony on campus definitely enjoy it they told some really cool stories and gave us some cool history of this area really good food awesome coffee really cool place there so then we hiked up the mountain and we are at the pinnacle here where we are sitting next to kentucky and then tennessee and virginia where we can literally see all three states in this one spot that's why they call it the pinnacle next we're gonna go to i think the iron furnace which is at the base this mountain we're gonna see some cool things down there after we do that we got a whole lot of other things today planned um it's early in the morning here and we're just kind of getting our day started we're going to get some awesome views this morning just kind of get our day started so stay tuned can't wait to can't wait to show off this this area of the of the region which is in bell county got lots of cool people lots of cool things to see and let's get going [Music] we've got our tour guides hey guys how are we doing right now we are going to where are we going this is the iron furnace down in cumberland gap iron first national park iron furnace in cumberland gap national park what's this thing it's where you smelt iron hey james what we got we're smelting iron look at this it's pretty cool get up like it doesn't get hot okay so i guess this is uh chase tell us what this is this is where they smelted iron back in the day smelted iron i'm not sure what smelted means but it's how they made iron or gotcha like molded it or whatever very cool and so it's just like this big tall tunnel thing it's very very cool so it's a little appalachian history for you hey natalie hey um but yeah and then obviously you got the beauty of the mountains and the fall leaves in this running creek beside us you could probably hear [Music] you could have been here like two days ago yeah i don't know if you've been here for the fall at all but it's been absolutely spectacular it's been the the best fall we've had and i won't keep you but it's really good talking to y'all and this is a comeback on a pretty day because it has been spectacular [Music] so this used to be a bowling alley yes in 1988 when the tornado came through it destroyed the bowling alley here in town right there on the corner of 15th street and so they allowed us to come in and to take the lanes we took six lanes and we made our wall out of it so it would be here forever well thank you for having us here you appreciate it [Music] what a time hi everyone welcome to the yoga nook i'm so excited that you're here um coming into our little town and seeing all the wonderful things that are happening here we are a yoga studio and boutique and we are a hot yoga studio so we offer vinyasa flow which is our strongest class that we offer at the nook we offer yin yoga our deep myofascial release class we offer meditation as well so we also have a boutique we are an exclusive lululemon partner we have manduka yoga onzi yoga we have all of our bolsters which are our big firm pillows that we use for our more deep poses and our more relaxing postures we buy them all from a woman-owned company called inner space from knoxville we also carry purely earth apothecary which is an essential oil blend and she also sells tea and she is in morristown so we love the middlesborough community i feel like it's a hidden gem in a sense that we have a lot of opportunity we've got these beautiful historic buildings downtown that are already starting to be filled we have the beautiful mountains everywhere you look we opened the yoga studio here in middlesboro kentucky because we saw a need for mental physical and energetic wellness and we wanted to be a studio that was accessible for all we have the college that brings in a very diverse crowd from not only just this area but from all over the country and honestly all over the world we have a lot of sports players that come who play at lmu and then to mix that with the local community has been just a beautiful experience they're learning from each other people now hang out after yoga class they go on runs they go on hikes so i think it offers a lot of opportunity to stay healthy in your day-to-day life you don't have to take a vacation to get that little bit of joy that you seek you can get it all here so that's why we like middlesborough my name is james and i run shades cafe and steakhouse here in middlesbrough kentucky we started off in 2007 as just a place for the local lmu students to come and have a place to study and have a coffee at the time there's no coffee shops in town and we would love coffee and knew we could do it right then we just started doing food gradually and have gradually become probably the most successful restaurant in town i would like to thank we tell everybody that we're the best within 50 miles and want to say that we're the best within 100 soon so we're just really looking forward to the progression of where we're going a lot of things have come into middlesboro and then the fact that there you there's everything just about that you could possibly want to do right here in town and if not it's the next town over [Music] there can you blur that out all [Music] you missed it [Music] so middlesborough and pine will have a couple of the most beautiful golf courses around one of which the oldest running golf course in the united states it actually is in the middle of a crater from the europe so that's pretty cool beautiful golf courses great people and great weather on it what is up everybody okay so we are out here at pine mountain paintball so right now we're playing a really fun version of capture the flag um as you can see right here this is the orange team's grounds so and here comes jay what's going on we'll ask him for a little quick um interview update in just a second chase give us an update how's the game going so far yeah it's real far away james shot katelyn i shot kevin wow and i was running for the flag and fort dropped me several times once near the crotch no mercy it wasn't fun now i'm here my 60 seconds is half up awesome i'm about to take off proud of you stay after it [Music] [Applause] we've got amanda it's like i was just trying to blossom 15 minutes [Music] just ran to chain rock we're worried we're gonna miss the sunset we're chasing this bad boy get a load of that what how would you rate the region that we've been in today the area um the area is absolutely beautiful there's a lot more to do than i thought there was and um definitely check it out i don't know out of 10 10 being like the best thing i've ever been to in my life i mean i think it'd be like a seven or eight like it's pretty far up there um did not expect it to be that high today we had a really good mix of high energy stuff and great sightseeing we went roller skating and then we had some great food we played paintball and then we saw one of the best sites in appalachia so one of the coolest things about kentucky and appalachia as a whole is that you can do all of that all in one day so today we explored middlesboro bell county pineville thank you for tuning in thank you to middlesboro thank you to john and emily at the tourism office we had an incredible time i think ford said it best when we were sitting here talking we had a good mixture of adventure some storytelling to learn a little bit history here in the mountains and then also just getting to sit back and and see some awesome views like we're looking at right now we're sitting on chain rock sitting together as a team just kind of reminiscing on today and we're just grateful that you tuned in um please subscribe to our youtube channel that's going to be the best way for you to get notified when things come out we're going to be we're going to be putting out tons more content so please tune in and be ready for some awesome stuff go to our website exploringapp.com so thank you again for watching we are exploring appalachia thank you to l.a soar and kentucky wildlands and all of our partnerships that we're working on thank you guys we appreciate it cheers you

Channel: Explore Appalachia

Views: 4,248

Rating: 4.8811879 out of 5

Keywords: exploreappalachia, Explore Appalachia, Exploreky, gapcreekcoffeehouse, pinevilleky, bell county, pinemountainpaintball, Gap creek coffee, theironfurnace, appalachianwildlands, cumberlandgap, pinnacle, rollerskating, hiking, skateworld, bestfoodinkentucky, wasiotowinds, pinevillegolf, middlesborogolf, oldestgolfcourse, Tennessee, Ale-8-One, Explore, Appalachia, Ale8, appalachian trail, trail, South eastern kentucky, explore with us, hiking the appalachian trail, hiking gear, Coffee, Road trip

Id: Xh1TvYlI878

Length: 12min 27sec (747 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 30 2020