Day 9 - Corvettes Are Everywhere, But It Always Ends With a Cave

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Today was a very short riding day as it is only about 35 miles from Cave City to Bowling Green. The first stop of the day was the National Corvette Museum which opens at 8:00. That gave us plenty of time to pack up, get a quick breakfast and be on the road by 7:30. It was a nice easy ride through country roads and corn fields. We also planned to visit the Corvette factory just up the road from the museum, but it looked like all the factory tours for the day were already booked up when I looked online. When I checked at the museum, they confirmed that since this was Corvette Homecoming Weekend 2017, all the tours were indeed booked. I should have looked a few days ago and I may have been able to get a tour ticket. In any case, GM plans on shutting down the tours in 2 weeks on June 18 for 18 months while they retool the factory. There are no cameras or even cell phones allowed on the tours, so while I would have enjoyed it, there would be no pictures to post.

So the National Corvette Museum was everything I had remembered from about 17 years ago. The major difference, other than some of the newer models, was the sink hole display. Back in 2012, and major sink hole opened up under the museum dome and swallowed 8 cars. Three of the cars were repairable, but the other five were totally destroyed. Two of the repaired cars are back on display, and the third is in the process of restoration. Even a few of the destroyed cars were on display as they were when recovered from the sink hole. There were also films of the sink hole swallowing the cans and films of the cars being rescued from the sink hole. The floor has obviously been repaired, but there is an outline in tape on the floor showing the edges of the opening. They also installed a sink hole simulator that you cab stand in while it simulates the sink hole from the perspective on being inside the hole and watching the floor above you open up.

Since this was also Corvette Homecoming weekend, there was an additional car show on the grounds at the same time. The indoor parts of the Corvette Homecoming was filled with all sorts of Corvettes and a few other Chevy's. The outdoor portion of the show was still filling up when we left. It was a good show, but as with all Corvette shows, there tend to be a lot of duplicate or very similar cars. But it was still nice to walk around and see all the cars.

Since we had anticipated being shut out of the Corvette Factory Tour, we were looking for other things to do in Bowling Green other than shopping. Jody found a railroad museum that she thought I might like, and also there was a cave tour right in the middle of town. Bowling Green isn't that big, so most of these things, including the hotel were within a few miles of each other. So we started with the Historic Railpark and Train Museum. I hadn't really considered this train museum on my original list of possibilities as it didn't have a running train line. But it turned out to be a good time after all. What they mostly had was a complete restored train on a track outside of the museum, It consisted of a diesel locomotive from the fifties, a mail car, a Pullman dining car, a Pullman sleeper coach, and an executive car. They were also in the process of restoring a hospital car and what they called a Jim Crow car where passengers were segregated by race, but they were not available for touring.

Our tour guide was an older guy named John - I say older, but in reality he's only 2 years older than me. The cars are all air conditioned and John walked us through each of the cars telling us about what it was like back when the cars were in operation and a little of what it took to restore them back. There were only Jody and I, and another couple with their son on the tour, and John was great in telling his stories. With his white hair and white beard, I didn't have any trouble imagining him at Christmas playing Santa Claus when the museum decorated the train and read the story of the Polar Express for the local boys and girls. When we finished the train tour, we checked out the museum proper which was actually the old train depot. It had a model train layout, and a bunch of train memorabilia that was used in the cars we toured. There was also an interesting film being shown in a loop about life as a porter working for George Pullman. I didn't realize that the rail line didn't actually own the Pullman cars. They were leased to the railroad by Pullman and include all the food and the staff of porters, all black, and all employees of Pullman and not the railroad.

When we finished with our railroad tour, the last stop was, of course, another cave. This one was a little different than the others as it is actually a boat ride through a cave. The Lost River Cave is actually close to downtown Bowling Green and is kind of an oasis of nature in the midst of suburbia. It's a small park run by a non-profit that has the cave along with some nature trails and a small butterfly pavilion. The cave itself has a platform at the entrance that was used since the late 19th century until the mid-50s as a night club and dance hall. With the constant 57 degree temperature it was a natural air conditioner in the summer. It is still used today occasionally for weddings and events. The boat ride was fun, and they used a small electric motor to power us through the cave. One guide drove the boat while the other explained the history of the cave. When we finished we hiked the nature walk and visited the butterfly pavilion before making our way to the hotel.

Across the parking lot from the hotel, the familiar sign of Chuy's Tex-Mex was visible. This is a favorite restaurant of ours in Orlando, so even though it was Mexican food for the third day in a row, it was Chuy's for dinner. After dinner, Jody went off to do laundry again while I worked on the blog, and wen she returned we made the trek outside the hotel to McDonald's to each have a hot caramel sundae before bed. We both had a sweet tooth, and the hotel was offering apples instead of cookies. Tomorrow we are off to Indianapolis with a brief stop along the way in Bedford, IN at our last cave for a while at the Blue Spring Caverns.

46.3 Miles Today

1255.3 Miles Total

0.0 Gallons Today

33.037 Gallons Total

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