Traveling the USA Part II

We drive 199 miles & arrive home. I'm glad to be home. I love to see new places, but I love coming home even more.

Joe leaves for church camp in two days and then we're off again -- this time traveling to Vermont to visit our daughter and son-in-law. I love Vermont.

Our United States map on the side of our 5ver is all filled in except for Michigan and Wisconsin -- how did we manage to miss those two states? A year is simply not enough time to visit all 49 states (Hawaii doesn't count since we can't drive there). We'll actually be visiting Wisconsin in several weeks for our daughter's wedding in Milwaukee, but we're not camping so we still won't be able to stick on our Wisconsin state sticker. We're not sure when we'll get to camp in Wisconsin and Michigan, but we'll get there sometime...

We have beautiful weather for our visit to Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater. I've always wanted to visit Fallingwater. The tour guide is wonderful and we have a great tour. I absolutely love this house!

After Fallingwater we drive to Ohiopyle and go for a short hike. We had hoped to go body-sliding on the natural waterslides, but the water is much too high to safely slide.

That doesn't stop two young men from trying -- the one gets pretty banged up during his slide.

We decide to simply walk along the creek and enjoy the scenery.

We explore the rest of Ohiopyle, including a short hike to a waterfall:

We end our day by walking along the river and waterfall in the town of Ohiopyle.

Beautiful weather today, but sure wish the natural waterslides wouldn't have been flooded.

We start out the day by packing up and driving our 5ver down a very steep, long hill to leave the campground.

Then drive 148 miles to Ohiopyle. We don't have a lot of options of where to stay and end up at Jellystone RV Resort. They try to charge us $5/night for our cat, but after some unpleasant haggling and explaining that we have never paid extra for our indoor cat they relent and do not charge us extra for our cat. He never comes out of the 5ver -- how can they justify charging extra for cats???

It's my birthday and we were hoping to go out to eat for my birthday, but we didn't pass any restaurants where we could park our large rig and then we can't find any restaurants close to the campground and we're starving, so we eat leftovers in the trailer.

We head into town to find a birthday cake, but it's a small town and we can't find a bakery or store that sells bday cakes, so we go to the Ohiopyle House Cafe and order a piece of cake. An incredibly large piece of cake:

When we finish eating our incredibly huge pieces of cake, we walk around the town of Ohiopyle. It's a cute small town and not too crowded in the evening. Their old train station is now a visitor's center.

Definitely not the birthday I was hoping for, but I guess I should be thankful that at least I had a birthday. Hopefully next year will be better.

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 to the geographic center of West Virginia. After 339 miles we stop around dinnertime at the Flatwoods KOA which is collocated with a Days Inn. 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.