Are We There Yet???

Ever tried to take teenagers on a car ride? Then you know the meaning of the title of this Blog entry.

Tuesday and Wednesday were planned as a 'road trip' with Aubrey and Paul. We picked places they might enjoy and that younger grandmonsters are not quite ready to enjoy.

Tuesday was Bowling Green, Kentucky. Every Corvette made comes out of the Corvette plant in Bowling Green, KY. They have a tour of the plant. Then across the highway is the Corvette Museum. Bowling Green is about three hours from our home.

Bowling Green is in the Central Time Zone. We live in the Eastern Time Zone. It would have been worth the price of admission to watch Claude and me try to be sure we had the right time for our departure. Our Corvette Factory tour was scheduled for 12:45pm. We didn't want to be late or miss our opportunity. It seems like that would be an easy time to figure out but we worked with it a bit before we were sure we were right.

We departed Sadieville Tuesday morning at 9:30am. We made it to Bowling Green in time to relax and have a nice lunch at Wendy's before our tour. After lunch we headed to the plant, put on sneakers and emptied our pockets and left cameras and purses in the car. I did get one picture of Paul and Aubrey outside the plant before we walked to the entry for the tour.

The tour lasts a little over an hour. You watch a video first. Then your tour guide walks you through the plant. Claude and I have done this tour before and I had forgotten how I felt the first time I went through. I felt just like a ball in the pinball machines. So many lights, objects moving, and noise that you just feel like that ball in the pinball machine.

The kids were fascinated with the process and seemed to enjoy themselves.

Then we headed to the car. I was grateful to get my sandals back on. My feet do NOT like sneakers. Ever since I bruised my big toes so bad walking around Massachusetts, they just don't do long walks in sneakers very well.

Claude drove us across the street for a tour of the Corvette Museum.

Paul was very impressed with the 'Corvette Only' parking everywhere from the fast food places to the museum. We were able to secure kids price tickets for the kids and senior citizen priced tickets for Claude and me. Amazing!!

The first thing was a waiting area for the next movie. They had computers with trivia games about Corvettes.

We watched the movie and then began walking through the museum. I'll share just a few pictures of Corvettes.

The highlight for Paul and Aubrey was the Corvette simulator. They each took a turn and thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

We had reservations at a Sleep Inn in Bowling Green. We checked in at our hotel. Then made our way to Toots for dinner. This is a fun place to eat in Bowling Green and not the normal chain restaurant. After dinner we went back to the hotel for the kids to swim for the rest of the evening. Lots of dunking and splashing. The hot tub did not have hot water at first but the guy came and fixed that and the kids even enjoyed the hot tub a bit. I read in my novel.

We would enjoy a good nights rest.

Breakfast was at the hotel buffet. Then we hit the road for the 30 minute drive to Mammoth Caves, our Wednesday destination.

We picked the 'Historic Tour'. Claude and I did this our only other visit to Mammoth Cave. It lasts about 2 hours and is considered a Mild-Moderate tour. We had a little wait until time for our tour, about 15 minutes.

Then our tour guide walked us down the hill to the entrance. This entrance is the only 'natural' entrance to the cave for any of their tours. It is the original entrance. All other entrances to cave tours at Mammoth are from man-made entrances.

Aubrey and Paul stayed close to the front at all times with the tour guide. Claude was pretty close to them all the time. I lagged behind to take a few pictures.

Mammoth Cave has almost 400 miles of cave. This particular tour is where they first did public tours in the late 1700's and early 1800's.  There are no stalagmites or stalactites.  There are tiny little furry bats about the size of a mans thumb. Our tour took us 300 feet below the surface. There is a very low section called 'Tall Man's Misery' and a very tight section called 'Fat Man's Misery'. Another rock formation I liked was the 'Giant's Coffin'. The steps to get out of your 300 foot deep journey is amazing. It resembles the stairs in the old fire towers you used to see in forests. They did mine for the things you make gun powder out of many years ago and they also mined for gypsum.

I'll include just a few pictures from inside the cave even though they don't have any family members in them.

We made our way back up the stairs pictured above and out into the National Park where we entered.

Aubrey and Paul totally enjoyed the caves. They had never done that kind of thing before and found it a total delight.

We found a Subway for a nice lunch. We all earned it with our hiking and were quite ready to sit and feast on our sandwiches together.

Then Claude pointed the Buick toward Sadieville and away we went. We only stopped once in Lawrenceburg for some of that $3.32 gasoline. Good thing we did. Gas was $3.69 at our Pilot station near our home.

A movie with Pa tonight while I downloaded pictures from my camera and the kids camera, edited my pictures and did this Blog entry. Whew. Are we there yet???  Yep, folks, we're there!!!