Tag: Kentucky

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Mammoth Cave National Park

On By Mike and Kellye HefnerIn Uncategorized54 Comments

Where is it?

Mammoth Cave National Park is located at 1 Visitor Center Parkway, Mammoth Cave, Kentucky.

Highlights of the park include:

  • Visitor center, museum, and gift shops
  • Cave tours – most require advance reservations and fees
  • Hiking, biking, and horseback riding trails
  • Paddling and fishing
  • Ranger-led programs, including night sky programs
  • Picnic areas
  • Three campgrounds for tents and RVs in addition to backcountry campsites
  • Mammoth Cave Lodge which includes dining options
  • Lodging options also include historic cottages and woodland cottages
  • Grab and go food options near the visitor center
  • Day boarding kennels for dogs and cats

Mammoth Cave is a on the National Register of Historic Places, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, an International Biosphere Reserve, and an International Dark Sky Park. Here is the park’s website link: Mammoth Cave

We fell in love with this backroad barn we found just outside the park.

Wi-fi and cell service can be hit and miss at Mammoth Cave, though we had some luck at the visitor center. We also do not recommend using Google Maps for directions to this park. Google took us on a much longer route than necessary. Though the best thing about the Google route is that we got to take the Green River Ferry across the river. That was definitely a first for us!

Mammoth Cave’s Green River Ferry

“Within National Parks is room — glorious room — room in which to find ourselves, in which to think and hope, to dream and plan, to rest and resolve.”  — Enos Mills

Historic facts about Mammoth Cave

  • The cave has been known since prehistoric times. Artifacts such as bowls and woven sandals have been found inside.
  • An ancient burial site containing the preserved remains of a Native American woman was found in the early 1800s. At one time, the remains were on display for visitors to the cave but are now in the possession of the Smithsonian Institute.
  • In 1935 the remains of another ancient Native American, a man who had been crushed by a large rock, were found by Civilian Conservation Corps workers in the cave. His remains were also displayed until public distaste for viewing them caused the park to remove them from view. The man was then buried in a secret location inside the cave.
Beautiful drive through the park.
  • During the War of 1812, saltpeter, an ingredient used in making gun powder, was mined by enslaved African American workers at Mammoth Cave. Remains of the mine can still be seen today at the Historic Entrance.
  • Tourists began arriving at Mammoth Cave as early as 1816, and the former miners who were familiar with the cave served as tour guides.
  • In 1842, Dr. John Croghan established an experimental tuberculosis treatment facility inside Mammoth Cave which he had previously purchased for $10,000.00. After several patients died, Croghan ended his experiment. Dr. Croghan died of tuberculosis in 1849. Two of the huts he built for his patients to live in can still be seen today.
  • Mammoth Cave is the longest known cave system in the world. About 400 miles of the cave have been explored, with 600 additional miles left unexplored!
  • After years of work went into acquiring the land and creating the park’s infrastructure, Mammoth Cave National Park was dedicated on July 1, 1941.
The Green River really is green.

Green River Bluffs Trail

Our visit to the park started with a hike on the Green River Bluffs Trail, which came recommended by a ranger in the visitor center. We had only a couple of hours to spare before our Frozen Niagara cave tour began, so this turned out to be the perfect hike for us. We were even back at the visitor center in time to enjoy a parking lot picnic lunch.

Although the park was crowded, we only saw one group of three people and a dog on the trail.
On the bluffs overlooking the Green River
Another view of the trail

We found this trail to be easy with only a few steep inclines. After the Green River overlook, we took the Dixon Cave Trail as part of the loop back to the visitor center.

Dixon Cave

According to park information, Dixon Cave was part of Mammoth Cave about a million years ago. The collapse of a sinkhole caused Dixon to be cut off from Mammoth, however, the event created Mammoth’s Historic Entrance. This cave is not accessible to humans due to the endangered Indiana bats that hibernate there in the winter months. Interestingly, Dixon Cave maintains a steady temperature of 44 degrees F (7 degrees C), which makes conditions perfect for the bats to hibernate.

File:Mammoth Cave Historic Entrance NPS.jpg
Historic Entrance – photo courtesy of the National Park Service and Wikimedia Commons

Trivia: There are 14 species of cave dwelling animals in Mammoth Cave that are found nowhere else in the world.

Frozen Niagara Tour

Advance reservations for cave tours are highly recommended and can made through Recreation.gov. Click here to see detailed tour listings as well as pricing for each of the tours. We made our cave tour reservations about a month before our trip and got the last two places in our preferred time slot. To begin many of the cave tours, ticketed visitors meet in a pavilion near the visitor center. Park buses then carry the groups to the cave entrance to begin their tour.

Our ranger-guides told us on the bus ride that we were going to see the most beautiful cave entrance in all of Mammoth Cave National Park. While we envisioned something similar to the Historic Entrance, that is not what it was at all!

Here it is. It sure doesn’t look like a cave entrance, does it? While there are other accesses to Mammoth Cave, the two main entrances are this one, which is manmade and the Historic Entrance, which is natural.

The photos above and below are views from the Frozen Niagara tour. Flash photography is not permitted in the cave, and the guides keep the tour groups moving which makes it difficult to get good shots. Our photos do not do justice to the way it really looks; the cave is much more beautiful and interesting in person.

Unfortunately, our shots of the Frozen Niagara formation did not turn out, so we have borrowed one from the National Park Service and Deb Spillman. Her shot shows the beauty of the incredible formation.

Frozen Niagara flowstone formation.

Thank you so much for joining us on our visit to Mammoth Cave National Park! We hope you will join us again for another great national park or road trip destination.

If you would like to visit more national parks, click on these:
Carlsbad Caverns National Park
Devils Tower Road Trip: Things to Do
Death Valley National Park

Travel safe, and we will see you on the road.

Mike and Kellye

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As always, we strive to be as accurate with our information as possible. If we made a mistake, it was unintentional. (Hey, we’re only human!) We aren’t paid for our recommendations, and we only recommend our own tried and true vendors and venues. Our suggestions are for places that we’ve heard good things about but haven’t visited personally, and our opinions are our own.

©2022

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Featured

National Corvette Museum

On By Mike and Kellye HefnerIn American Road Trips, Museums, Uncategorized55 Comments

Where is it?

The National Corvette Museum is in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Bowling Green has been home to the Corvette assembly plant since it was relocated from St. Louis, Missouri in 1981. The National Corvette Museum opened in its current location in 1994. Click here for the museum’s website.

National Corvette Museum – photo by Rich Howard

Trivia: Corvette sports cars were named for a fast type of naval warship also called Corvette.

History of the American sports car

This beauty is not an American sports car. It is a 1947, British built MG TC Roadster.

The MG (Morris Garage) Midget was the car that most people believe started the American sports car craze. Many of these cars were imported from Europe by returning American G.I.s after World War II. MG Roadsters then began turning up in races around the U.S., and it was this model, along with the sleek Jaguar XK120, that inspired the first ideas for the Corvette.

The 1951 Crosley Super Sport

After World War II, Crosley Motors, Inc. began producing the Hotshot and Super Sport. Crosley’s Super Sport, an updated version of the Hotshot, was introduced in 1951 and included doors which the Hotshot didn’t have. These models were considered the first American sports cars to be built in the post war era. Unfortunately, Crosley Motors closed in 1952 after only eleven model years of automobile production; however, their closing opened a door for General Motors and a design genius named Harley Earl.

A brilliant concept!

The father of America’s sports car

The son of a carriage and wagon builder, Harley Earl grew up in Hollywood, California. In 1906, after watching automobiles become extremely popular, Harley’s father changed his business from Earl Carriage Works to Earl Automotive Works. Harley would go on to Stamford University to study art and engineering because his dream was to build cars his own way. By 1916, his father’s business was building custom automobiles and accessories in the largest manufacturing plant on the west coast. Harley made a name for himself as an artist and designer and became highly popular after designing custom automobiles for several Hollywood actors. Fast forward to 1926 when he was hired by General Motors. Harley Earl was the first designated head of design at General Motors. His secretive “Project Opel” resulted in the Chevrolet Corvette. America’s sports car was first produced in 1953, and the rest is automotive history.

1955 model Corvette. While the 6-cylinder engine was available, 693 out of the 700 Corvettes produced in 1955 had the all-new small-block 265 V-8 engine. This cool car had a top speed of 120 miles per hour.
This interesting car is a 1946 Stout Y46 Concept Car and was the first fully fiberglass automobile in history. Having cost over $100,000 dollars to build, this car is the only one of its kind. That was a lot of money in 1946 and in today’s dollars would cost about $1.4 million.

Nostalgia Gallery

Our favorite exhibit in the museum’s nostalgia gallery: A vintage Mobil gas station servicing nothing but vintage Corvettes!
1960s Chevrolet dealer’s showroom. Check out the cool cars, then check out the cool candy machine!
St. Louis assembly plant exhibit

Trivia: Approximately 225 of the of the first 300 Corvettes that were built still exist today.

Corvettes on the racetrack

We didn’t spend a lot of time reading about Corvette’s racing history because it was so hard to keep our eyes off of the cars! Here are a few that really grabbed our attention.

2002 Corvette C5R GTI race car
This 1962 Corvette was once part of Grady Davis’s Gulf Oil Racing Team and was reportedly sold at auction in 2015 for $1.65 million.
They are all so cool!

Trivia: In 1954, the Chevrolet Corvette became the first production automobile with a molded fiberglass reinforced plastic body. The 1963 Corvette is the only model with a split rear window.

The Skydome

The best-known landmark in Bowling Green is the Skydome, which is the round yellow section of the museum featuring a tall red spire. (See it in the photo at the top of the post.) Inside the museum the Skydome showcases a selection of privately owned and one-of-a-kind Corvettes from their beginning in 1953 to the present day. In 2014 a portion of the floor of the Skydome collapsed into a sinkhole and sent eight Corvettes crashing into a cave.

Exhibit describing where the sinkhole opened up and swallowed eight cars.

A small plexiglass covered manhole in the floor enables visitors to look down into the cave. The museum also features a great exhibit that explains the cave and why the floor caved in.

Entering this exhibit may bring tears to the eyes of the manliest motorheads!

Click here for a short YouTube video of the initial part of the cave in from the museum’s security camera. There are videos of the cave in on the National Corvette Museum’s website as well. The fortunate thing about the collapse is that it happened around 5:30 in the morning, so no visitors or employees were in the building at the time. 

All eight of the sinkhole Corvettes have now been restored, and while all of them are beautiful, this black with red interior 1962 model was our favorite. The photographs on the Skydome’s wall are of Corvette Hall of Fame inductees.

Trivia: All of the first year (1953) Corvettes were painted Polo White with black convertible tops and Sportsman Red interiors.

Museum Delivery

New Corvette purchasers have the option to take delivery of their car at the National Corvette Museum and actually drive it off of the floor. Two lucky people were picking up their shiny new Corvettes while we were there. Several other new Corvettes were lined up and waiting for their new owners to arrive later in the week. Getting to watch all the fanfare (and hear them rev their engines) was exciting for us too – even if afterward we had to get in our 11-year-old SUV and head on down the road.

Pretty new cars waiting for their new owners to drive them off of the museum floor.
We’ll take two please; one for him and one for her! Who doesn’t love that stingray emblem?

Thanks so much for joining us on our tour of the National Corvette Museum. We hope that you will add it to your itinerary if you’re ever near Bowling Green, Kentucky. It is definitely worth the stop.

Need a little more road trip inspiration? Check out these amazing destinations!

Things to Do in San Antonio: River Walk

National Route 66 Museum

Strawbery Banke Museum and Portsmouth, New Hampshire

 

Travel safely, and we will see you on the road!

Mike and Kellye

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As always, we strive to be as accurate with our information as possible. If we made a mistake, it was unintentional. (Hey, we’re only human!) We aren’t paid for our recommendations, and we only recommend our own tried and true vendors and venues. Our suggestions are for places that we’ve heard good things about but haven’t visited personally, and our opinions are our own.

©2022