Traveling the USA Part II

We pack up the 5ver at Charleston Lake State Park. Nice place to park for the night, but not a lot to do near the campground. Very few campers; lots of empty sites.

We start a long day of driving and pass Louisville, Kentucky

We continue past Lexington, KY (horse country) and on into West Virginia. After 339 miles we stop around dinnertime at a campground collocated with a motel . Lots of steep hills in this campground. The campground guests are allowed to use the motel's pool, so Jere and Joe head to the pool after dinner.

We hook up the 5ver and head down the road for a morning tour of the GM factory where Corvettes are made.

We see a video about Corvettes in a very crowded room and then our group is called for our tour. It is actually a very interesting tour and we have an excellent tour guide. We walk through the factory and see Corvettes being made. They have a special custom Corvette being made today which we're told cost several hundred thousand dollars. No pics allowed inside the factory :-(

We drive 145 miles north thru Kentucky, cross the Ohio River and stop at the Charlestown State Park in Indiana. After setting up the 5ver, we return back over the river to Louisville. Jere wants to see the Louisville Slugger factory and museum.

We have a brief tour through the factory and then check out the small museum. Nothing special, but Jere enjoys it. I like the gigantic bat at the entrance.

I do enjoy the historic buildings in the area of the Louisville Slugger factory:

Then we walk down to the waterfront to have dinner at Joe's Crabshack and then take a stroll along the waterfront. It's a nice evening.

We drive over to Mammoth Cave National Park. Lots of construction around the visitor center and lots of visitors.

We buy our tickets for our cave tour and then head over to grab some lunch: burgers and fries. Not very good, but they fill us up so that we're ready for our 90 minute cave walk.

We take a bus to the entrance of the cave and start our guided tour.

Interesting tour, but I'm a little tired of touring caves (remember I'm not crazy about closed in spaces).

We walk around the grounds around the visitor center, including the original entrance to the cave, and then head to the Corvette Museum in Bowling Green.

We look at the many Corvettes,

We play their racing game (not very good, but we can't pass up a racing game) and then we arrive at the "Corvette Nursery"

There are several brand new Corvettes waiting to be picked up by their owners. I ANXIOUSLY look to see if one of the Corvettes has my name on it -- My birthday is this week! Here's the one I like:

BUT the Corvette 'babies' are all for someone else :-(

We head back to the campground for an evening of swimming, relaxation and running a few errands.

Another long day of driving (300 miles); making our way home to Pennsylvania. We get an early start, leaving St Louis RV Park before 9 am. There is a lot to do in St Louis; we could have spent a few more days here, but we're all getting anxious to get home. Joe goes to church camp next weekend, so we need to be home by next Friday and we have a few more stops we want to make before we get home.

We take mainly interstates and parkways today, so not much interesting scenery. We get to the Bowling Green KOA by 4pm and set up the trailer before heading to the pool.

We hang out in the pool til the air-conditioning cools down the 5ver to a comfortable temperature. It's hot and humid again today.

We have a relaxing evening: reading and on the laptop; and we call it a day.

St Louis has lots of 'free' options and today we go to one of the best of the many free things in St Louis: the Budweiser Brewery Tour. The tour lasts about 90 minutes and is actually really interesting.

A lot of history incorporated in the tour and some interesting architecture in many of the buildings.

Budweiser has been sold to a European company, so not sure how long they'll keep this tour going.

We spend our morning there and then at the end of the tour Jere gets two free beers while Joe and I get free sodas (and pretzels -- can't drink beer on an empty tummy).

We leave the brewery and head to a local shopping mall so Jere and Joe can get measured for their tuxes (for Jen and Jason's wedding in September). Then we head back to the RV park for relaxation, dinner and swimming. There are fireworks at the festival several blocks from the RV park so we get to see some great fireworks from the swimming pool in the evening.