The Ray Adventures: Nashville, Mammoth Caves, Louisville & Indianapolis

We're on our final leg en route to the lovely town of Decatur, In. (?) We've had some really great weather and then the lousy stuff creeps in just when you think winter is over. We leave tomorrow for the Fleetwood Factory, we hope to get there early enough to find out what we're going to need to do before the coach goes in for repairs Monday.

Thursday, Mar. 26th, It's grandson Tim's 23rd birthday today. Happy birthday Tim. We woke up to thunder, lightning and heavy rain about 3:00 am. Our last day in Nashville and it's windy and nasty. We braved the wind and cold to go to Centennial Park to see the Parthenon, built for the Tennessee Centennial in 1897, made out of wood and plaster it didn't weather well, in 1921 it was rebuilt as a permanent structure. It is a full scale copy of the Parthenon in Greece. We didn't realize there was a museum inside, (no dogs allowed)we had taken Luci with us so Gary went inside while Luci and I walked around the park. Inside the building is a statue of the Goddess Athena, 42 feet high all gilded in gold leaf. I did some geo cacheing while waiting for Gary, I tried to find a "micro" on a steam locomotive. Gary found us, we searched but didn't find it. We did manage to pick up a couple more before going to lunch at Blackstone Brewery and Restaurant to warm up. After lunch we went back to the coach and "hunkered" down for the rest of the day.

Friday, Mar. 27th, It's still cold and windy! We left the KOA about 9:45 heading toward the Mammoth Caves NP area. We stopped at the Kentucky Welcome Center to pick up maps and brochures. We picked up our first Kentucky geo cache in the rest area before heading to Bowling Green to visit the Corvette Museum.  We were talking to the man at the information center about the caves in Kentucky, he said caves were under most of the state. I don't know if he was exaggerating but he blamed the sinkhole last March at the Corvette Museum on caves. The sinkhole "ate" 8 irreplaceable Corvettes, 3 were in good enough condition to fix but the other 5 were in various stages of rubble. The cars ranged from the classic 50's to experimental cars. We had lunch in the coach, Gary took Luci out for a run in the Kentucky grass while I kept warm. He picked up 2 caches on the property. We arrived at Diamond Caverns RV Park about 1:30, the trip was only 75 miles. the park had nice roomy spots with lots of grass around for Luci to run off leash.

Saturday, Mar. 28th, It was 24 degrees when we got up, brrrrrr. I put my "big girl" panties on, today I was going into my first cave. I've tried several times to go, I either couldn't go in the door or walked out after a short distance. Mammoth Cave National Park was only about 10 miles down the road from the park. About 10 different tours are offered. We took about a 10 minute bus ride to the cave opening. We chose the domes and dripstones tour, you first take 280 step staircase down to large canyons and underground hill climbs, past the Frozen Niagara formation then the dripstone area. take Ranger Dave gave us the do's and don'ts. He said after 40 steps down if you don't think you can do it you can go back but after that you're stuck. I was doing okay, the walls were narrow and we were with 120 of our best friends. All of a sudden Gary says "I've got to get out of here!" The walls were closing in on him and it was getting stuffy. I put my big girl panties on for nothing. They called a bus for us to take us back to the visitor center, we were the only ones to bail from the tour. I'm glad we had the Golden Age Pass, we only wasted $15. We walked some of the trails, one of them led to the original entrance, we followed a tour to the opening but again just too close for Gary. At Diamond Caverns, a private business, Gary decided to check the passage way out to see how narrow they are. Well, off we went with only 6 other people. We both managed to get through it without difficulty. Gary asked me what I thought about the cave, to me it looked "fake", maybe Mammoth Caves has more colors. One good thing, we got warm in the cave, compared to the outside it felt good. We picked up a few more geo caches before heading back to the coach.

Sunday, Mar. 29th, We woke up to 22 degrees, our plan for the day was geo cacheing, it didn't seem like such a great idea due to the weather.  I made some calls, we left a day early to head to Louisville, we got reservations at a RV park in Clarksville, In., just across the Ohio River. We took the long way around, thanks to my fine navigation skills, our drive turned out to be over 200 miles. It was strange, we changed from Central time Zone to Eastern about half way to Louisville. Gary's favorite whiskey is Jim Beam, the distillery is only off the freeway about 10 miles. We weren't able to take a tour since it was so late but he did some tasting. When you enter the tasting room you're given a code card for 2 half ounce shots. I didn't partake, Gary used both. In the Still House (gift shop) he bought bottle of special label JB. The trip through Louisville was a bit hair raising due to road construction arrived at KOA Clarksville about 5:30. This RV park wasn't so roomy, with our slide open and the neighbors too, we had just a couple of feet to spare. No way we could open the awning if we'd wanted to. The picnic table was under both slides Friends jokingly told us if you want to find a RV park, just follow the RR tracks, more often than not it's true. The berm behind the park looked like just a hill, well on top of that were tracks. The good news was he didn't need to blow his whistle but the rumbling felt like a cement truck was going to hit the side of the coach. And to top it off, it was expensive! So if you ever need a RV park in Clarksville, In., don't go to KOA.

Monday, Mar. 30th, Hooray! It's a nice day! Neither Gary nor I are horse people but when in Louisville you must go to Churchill Downs. It is the longest running sports event in America. William Clarks' grandson went to England, saw a horse race there, in 1875 he started horse racing in Kentucky. Race Day brings in about 190 million dollars to the track, wagers must pay only with cash. No debit cards, checks or credit cards are accepted. Our guide told us about a lady, she made a million dollar wager on a horse to win, it came in 13th. She got some bad advice from someone. For $60 you will get general admission into the infield, she told us to look on line to see what it costs to sit in the grandstand. In the infield, besides not being able to see the race you have to stand with 80,000 others. The good (?) part is, a major party out there, so much so they have 4 jail cells for those who party too much. More good news, you can still make a wager from you cell. We grabbed a quick bite before heading back to the RV park. As we were crossing the Ohio River we spotted a riverfront park in the small town of New Albany, parts of it were still under construction. We walked along the river, picking up a few more caches. On our way out of town we noticed we were on Mansion Row, the historic homes were beautiful. When we got back to the park we had happy hour in a vacant spot across from us, enjoying the sun. Before dinner in the coach we managed to pick up a couple of caches in the neighborhood.

Tuesday, Mar. 31st We left the wonderful KOA behind to head to Indianapolis, our last stop before our trek into Decatur. We stopped at the Indiana Welcome Center for information and a much needed map, arriving at Lake Haven RV resort a little after 1:00, just a short drive of 112. miles. Lake Haven, compared to the KOA was first class, we had a little breathing room. I did laundry and some cleaning preparing for our week or so out of the coach.

Wednesday, Apr. 1st, Happy April Fools Day! Another beautiful day,we got ourselves out the door early for our only day in Indy, for a city with a population of almost 2 million it still felt like a small town. We dropped Luci off at day care, our first stop was Lucas Oil Stadium, home of the Colts and this week-end the Final Four. No tours this week, they had to put the floor down and arrange it for basketball. We visited the pro shop where we bought our sticker for the coach slide. We now have seven, our goal is to visit all the NFL stadiums. In the downtown area we walked through War Memorial Mall, which honored Indiana's lost soldiers in WWI, WWII, Korea, Viet Nam and Desert Storm. At the end of the Mall is the Indiana War Memorial Museum. The building is huge and beautiful, the shrine room contains 24 stained-glass windows. After feeding the parking meter we walked up to Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument Circle, unfortunately it was under refurbishing, it was encased in scaffoldings. Located in the center of downtown, the 284 foot tall Monument was completed in 1902, ordinarily visitors can go in the lower level museum or climb 333 stairs to the observation point at the top of the statue. We walked from there down to the state capitol building, not as many steps up to the building as Tennessee's, thank goodness. It was built in 1878 taking 10 years to be completed at a cost of a little under 2 million dollars. It has to be one of the most beautiful capitols in the country. As we took the elevator to the fourth floor with three other people I just has to ask "What is a Hoosier", one of those things I wondered about. The lady chuckled, said we'd get three different answers from the three of them. essentially it's like the term Oregonian, locals are called Hoosier's. Now you know. I'm sure you heard on the national news about Indiana's controversial new law, we stepped out of the elevator to a sea of TV cameras and reporters. We got to look into the Senate and House of Representatives before racing back to the car before we got a ticket. Indy has a lovely canal similar to, but on a smaller scale than San Antonio, we had to skip visiting it though, we couldn't find a parking spot. Finally, about 2 we had lunch at Tavern on South.  Delish! No visit to a city is complete without a visit to a historic cemetery. Crown Hill Cemetery, established in 1863 with 555 acres it's the third largest cemetery in the US. And of course we did a little geo cacheing while we looked at the old gravestones and tombs. Some of the notables buried there are President Benjamin Harrison, John Dillinger and Dr. Richard Gatling the inventor of the Gatling gun. It was time to pick up Luci at day care and head home.

Thursday, April 2nd, We wanted to get an early start for the drive to Decatur, about 130 miles to the Northeast, only 6 miles from the Ohio border. Thunderstorms, high wind and heavy rain was forecast to come from the south, it was a pretty nice drive, a little windy but not bad. We got to the Fleetwood Factory about 11:30, checked in, then parked in the large gravel lot, we discovered the only utility was power, no water. Hmmm we had a problem, the receptionist told us where to go to fill up. Just as we were driving to get water, we got another kind. The skies opened up and dumped on us, thunder and lightning and high winds. Poor Gary got soaked to the skin. When we got settled I had to throw his clothes in the dryer. His shoes and hat are still dripping.

I don't know when I'll publish the next blog. Saturday we are going up to Michigan to stay with Gary's sister Suzanne. It will be lovely to spend Easter with her and her family. We find out tomorrow how much stuff we'll have to empty out, but the good news is they have big bins and boxes here we can use. Enjoy the pictures, it's hard to choose from 100's Gary takes.

TTFN,

Gary and Pam