Blogs from Kentucky, United States, North America - page 28

Well, it has been a couple of days since I wrote anything in here! In that period of time we have managed to cross several states...Kansas, Illinois, Indiana, and are now in Louisville, Kentucky. On our way out of La Junta, we visited Bent's Fort just outside the town. Bent’s Old Fort National Historic Site features a reconstructed 1840’s adobe fur trading post on the mountain branch of the Santa Fe Trail where traders, trappers, travelers, and Plains Indian tribes came together in peaceful terms for trade. We stuck around and had an interesting two hour tour of the fort. The interesting part was that it was not a military fort but a private entrepreneur's place of business. At the time it was in its heyday (mid 1800s), it was 600 miles from the nearest town ... read more

Its late, I have been getting little sleep, working lousy shifts and by god I need a vacation... and its Angela's birthday, I have an excuse! Chicago here I come! Left Lexington at five-ish heading to Cincinnati in Angela's electric golf cart, I mean car... Had dinner at an excellent Chinese restaraunt, visited with her brother and sister, took a nap and then off to the bus stop. Megabus is our ride, $13 round trip for two, sure beats the heck out of driving or flying as least as far as the pocketbook goes. (If you have not heard of Mega-Bus it is a really cheap commuter bus with hubs in Chicago, LA, and some place out east...) So at 1:25 am on Sunday July 6th we are on board and squeezed into tight quarters praying ... read more

Bear with me this is the first log entry so I will take some time and write a little more than I might otherwise put in the first day's trip record. I am also learning to add photos so there are more than might be necessary for this first entry. I will work on using formatting later. Today was mostly about getting started and taking advantage of an opportuntiy to visit with family. BJ, our Miniature Schnauzer, was sure she was going to travel with us so she arranged herself in the front seat while I loaded everything. She will be staying at home this trip. We stopped for lunch in Chattanooga with Mom, Dad, Cathy and, Beth. The weather was great and traffic was easy except for a brief slurge of rush hour stuff in ... read more

Mammoth Cave Sun June 1 to Mon June 2 Mammoth Cave is deserving of its name. So far about 360 some miles of tunnels have been explored. We hiked along 4 miles of them for 4 hrs. There were many types of cave structure, from broad, smooth tunnels of dry cave, carved by slow-moving water, and now crusted with gypsum formations that look like blossoms, or snowballs, to deep sinuous canyons through which water once moved swiftly - underground versions of the slickrock canyons we will see out west. We also climbed steep mountains, & plunged into valleys on slick paths, holding onto handrails. We saw active, wet parts of the cave with spectacular flowstone formations. Animals we saw: blind cave crickets, little pippistrelle bats, and a cave spider. Very cool. This evening what impresses me ... read more

A beautiful southern style breakfast awaited us in the dinning room.....Yum ! It was a very warm morning, beautiful sunny day. We then went to the Shaker Museum, it is the living quarters and meeting room of the religious Shakers, built in the early 1800's. It is set up as it would of been when the Shakers were there. They left this settlement in the early 1900's. We spent a good morning there, and then wished Marilyn and Tom a safe trip home to Rockford. On our way to Lexington we had a couple of stops at Franklin (Amish area), Bowling Green and Hodgenville (Abraham Lincoln's birth place). By now the temperature had dropped and we had rain. Even in the rain the Kentucky countryside was beautiful.... read more