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April 5, 2006
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We left Atlanta early Wednesday morning and headed north to Kentucky. We traveled up Hwy. 75 through Chattanooga and Nashville , Tennessee before arriving in Bowling Green, Kentucky at around 10:45 am. It was a perfectly beautiful day! We forgot that we gained an hour by crossing into the central time zone, so we had time to grab a quick bite to eat before heading across the street to the Corvette plant. This plant is the only place in the world where the Corvette is manufactured. They also manufacture the Cadillac XLR in the plant. The hour long tour was extremely interesting. We walked about a mile lthrought the factory seeing each part being carefully assembled until finally ending with a finished product. I believe they told us that about 180 Corvettes are made per day and they are all special ordered by the customer or the dealership. The interesting thing about the Cadillac XLR is that there are only about 3,000 made per year and all are made right there in Bowling Green. Grayson was selected from the group to sit in one of the Cadillac XLR cars that was still on the line to demonstrate to the group how to push a button to make the top go up and down. He was loving that!
After the tour we headed to our hotel, The Hampton Inn, in Horse Cave, Kentucky. After a brief rest we decided we had enough time and plenty of good weather to visit the Abe Lincoln birthplace and we drove about 30 minutes northeast to get there. Unbeknownst to us, we crossed back into eastern time and by the time we arrived at the birthplace, we only had about 20 minutes to look around before the park closed. We resolved to stop back by on Friday on our way to Lousiville. We were able to go over from the Abe Lincoln Birthplace to Knob Creek which was Abe's boyhood home and see the tiny cabin and acerage on which our 16th presient lived. It is so beautiful in Kentucky.
We grabbed some dinner at a great little Mexican restaurant near our hotel and turned in early after a busy day. Tomorrow we are off to Mammoth Cave!
April 6, 2006
This morning we met up with friends, Missy and Jake and headed over to Mammoth Cave National Park. Mammoth Cave National Park was established to preserve the cave system, including Mammoth
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Cave, the scenic river valleys of the Green and Nolin rivers, and a section of south central Kentucky. This is the longest recorded cave system in the world with more than 360 miles explored and mapped. We had tickets for the Frozen Niagara tour. It was a really cool two hour tour through the cave. It is just an incrdeible experience to be in the cave. It was kind of rainy so we were glad to be in the cave for a couple of hours. When we came out the sun had decided to come out so we were able to hike around the park. The kids all worked on the Junior Ranger program there and received a Junior Ranger patch. Once the ranger checked their work, she announced over the loud speaker in the Visitors Center that there were some new Junior Rangers and she called out their names. Of course they loved that attention!
On the way back from the park we stopped at park that had go carts and an alpine slide and we played for a bit. The place was kind of old and worn out but the kids had a good time. When we got back to the hotel Missy and Jake had to head back and the kids and I cleaned up and headed out to grab a bite to eat at a local restuarant. It had been a busy but fun day!
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