Day 44

I remember just talking about how well I was sleeping in the tent just a few days ago. I don't know if it's being in a bed for 6 days or our new sleeping partner, but I was up for most of the night.  I will say it was neat to watch all the stars out the windows of the tent. We were far enough away from any city here that the sky was pitch black with what look like thousands of pin holes of stars.

I'd made a mistake reserving our site at this campground.  In a hasty or tired effort to have a site with power, I'd reserved us a spot surrounded by giant rvs with only 20V power available.  While generators weren't allowed at night, I could still hear all the air conditioner units turn on and off all night long.  The kids usually slept pretty still all night but there was this new guy next to me flipping around too. Time to get used to sleeping in a tent again I guess!

It was chilly when we woke up so I grabbed a jacket and sat down to write. Once Ryan woke up Dave grabbed her to read since she'd missed out the night before.  The other two slept and slept the morning away.

After a delicious southern breakfast of cheese grits and toast, we headed to the visitors center to schedule our cave tour.  Unfortunately we had missed the kid's caving program so we ended up deciding on the Cascades Cave Tour.  I guess we'll be heading back to Mammoth Cave again this next year for the TROG kids experience!














We had about an hour until our tour so we set out to show Dave a natural bridge.  This was actually the longest bridge we had ever experienced around a long corner.  It was quite spectacular!










Laney spotted this intricate spider web as we hiked back to the visitor's center.  I wanted to tell her it looked like a record album but I knew she would just stare at me with a blank look on her face.  We settled on it looking like a cd instead.

We had just enough time to watch some sticks float down the river before our tour started.





















We drove to the cave trail and met our tour guide for the morning.  I will admit I do have a hard time judging age, but this guy looked like he was 16!  I wasn't sure just how much we'd be learning today!
It turns out I was very premature in my judgement as he spouted off facts the entire tour that were fascinating to me.  And he'd only been doing this tour for 3 weeks.  Color me impressed!

 We saw some amazing formations, an underground lake, bats (finally!), beautiful scenery, and a teeny tiny waterfall.  There were many features that were man-made or changed as originally these caves belonged to a couple families.  The hike was easy and it was very fun for the kids to finally experience a cave with Dave.

With my expert planning I had scheduled us to be a this state park during a popular pioneer week with activities scheduled all day.  Actually, we were just really lucky to be there and it was a pure accident.  Finally we weren't missing something by one day!

We took a walk around the pioneer village where people were milling about cooking, sewing, making tools, tending chickens.  The kids really enjoyed touching all the animal hides - a first for all of them today with a buffalo hide!  We stopped by a tree where one of the reenactors was skinning a deer hide.  As he scraped and explained the process to the kids it was all I could do to keep the snack I'd just eaten where it should be.  Deep breaths.  Once he mentioned something about using the brains I was out of there.

Next up was the much anticipated tomahawk throwing activity.  Dave and I sat by with the camera and video camera as the ranger taught the kids the steps to throw the tomahawk.  Not only did they need to worry about aim, but they also needed to think about the rotation and the power behind their throw - very complicated!

All the kids caught on pretty quickly and were hitting the target within a few tries just with the wrong end or side of the tomahawk.  I'll give you one guess who sunk it in the target first!

Yep, it's quite disgusting how easily she can pick up just about anything athletic!  She had the biggest grin for about 15 minutes!  We stopped back by the store one reenactor had set up to buy the coveted rubber band guns two of the kids wanted then headed to car, narrowly avoiding the deer skin guy.

This hike was one I was pretty excited about as it would show us some other beautiful features of the park.  It was only about a mile and although hot, the weather was beautiful.  The feature we first came upon was the wind tunnel.  There was a point I thought perhaps Laney had misread the trail markers as it was a pretty narrow passage.  

This is the kids' favorite kind of hiking!  They love scaling the rocks and squeezing around corners.  If only monkey bars and see saws were natural features, they would never leave!

Next we hit the box canyon with a beautiful wall almost all around us.  There were massive boulders everywhere and you could see the spot up above where they'd snapped off the wall.

We noticed how the canyon walls were painted much like Pictured Rocks in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  I do believe the kids taught some 60ish year old men a little something about why they looked the way they did.  

Once we make it back to the campsite we had a little time to relax.  The kids scootered down to the playground and Dave and I shared a beer.  Fortunately for our location, an rv parked at the spot next to ours today adding quite a bit of shade lowering the temperature to what felt about 85. This heat is taking a bit to get used to!

Once the kids were all back we decided to head to the pool in the park.  It was quite chilly compared to our Florida pools but a welcome chill from the heat!  Our fingers were wrinkly after about 2 hours so we headed back to our site to cook dinner. 

The program tonight was a campfire story session by one of the reenactors.  The fire was nice as it was cooling down pretty quick.  We were mostly surrounded by woods and fireflies as he spun some tales to a captive audience.

We were all pretty tired after the long day so as the kids fell asleep Dave and I planned our route the next morning to make sure we got to our next site with plenty of time to enjoy the area as well as stock up on some much needed supplies and food.

Day 43

We started packing up pretty early and I headed down to the cooler to check out what we had for breakfast.  Our potatoes from the farmers market were ready to be eaten so we ended up with a big breakfast of cheesy potatoes, eggs, and fruit.  While Dave cooked (so nice!) I jenga-packed the car and we all ate breakfast. We said goodbye to Patricia and got on the road for a few stops before getting to our next park.  Dave and I were both looking forward to some downtime with just us and the kids for a few days.

Way back around day 3 or 4 the kids and I had enjoyed an evening program about the history of the caves.  At one point in the talk, the speaker mentioned some serpent mounds in Ohio. I put it on our list of possible things to do once we were back with Dave if it was not too far out of the way on our travels. After a little research, Dave found it was just a few minutes off our route so we stopped there first.

We stopped into the museum first and the kids loved learning how the people living there used spears and arrows before they created bows.  We even got a chance to throw spears with the atlatls!  Of course Ryan was the natural that beat us all, but it was neat to try for sure.

After watching the movie in the museum, we headed up the tower to view the mound.  We were impressed thinking about how these people designed and constructed this huge serpent. We'd learned archaeologists still didn't know the real reason why the mounds were built as they weren't for burial. They had a bunch of theories though, the most popular being a ceremonial mound.

See just how big they are next to the family?

We walked around the whole serpent taking a breaks to check out the head and the tail before walking back up to check out the store and the burial mounds. We'd learned inside how they had designed the burial mounds as well careful to respect and preserve the people buried.

Our next stop was nearby in Portsmouth at a brewery.  The building was old and beautiful with a huge working brewery inside. We decided on some snacks while Dave and I sampled a few of their beers.  On our way to the mounds, Patricia called us telling us to be sure to check out the murals on the flood walls in Portsmouth so as we were leaving we drove along the river to check them out.  The kids were amazed at the size and detail of each of the paintings!

There was a car behind us so Dave had to drive a little too fast for me to read them all, but we all really enjoyed the murals of the different important events and people of the area. The one of the area churches was really nice with a painting of each one set in what looked like stained glass ending up looking like a 20ft wall of stained glass.  Next we got to drive over a beautiful bridge!

Earlier this winter when talking about this trip, Uncle Terry had suggested we stop by Carter Caves State Park in Kentucky.  We were enjoying caves so much this trip!  We headed that way and were set up in no time.  We were lucky enough to be there during Pioneer Week with tons of schedule activities throughout the days we would be there.  The difficult part would be choosing between all of them and a tour of the caves!

Once we were set up, the kids hopped on their scooters and sped off to the playground nearby. Dave and I settled in at our site to have a beer and talk about the next day.  Unfortunately during our stay the kids caving tour wouldn't be offered so we would have to settle for a regular cave tour for all of us.







When the kids came back we cooked a quick dinner and opened a much anticipated surprise from one of the kids' friends Kyndall.  She had expertly wrapped a package to be opened on the road as a surprise for the kids and today was the day!   We love sushi, but candy sushi is a definite hit with this family!

 After everyone was sugared up we drove to the lodge for the night program.

It all our travels we'd learned a lot of history of each of the areas and this one was no different.  This program was about George Rogers Clark, a man responsible for some very strategic wins in the Revolutionary War. He was also the much older brother of the much more famous explorer William Clark. The benches were exceptionally uncomfortable, but the program was interesting and the kids seemed to enjoy the story. It was obvious the history of this man and time were a study this man was passionate about. After the program he answered some questions and delved into even more of the history.

We made it back to our site just in time for a little reading but were foiled by Brayden who'd lost his mouthpiece.  We spent our time looking for it but to no avail. The kids went to sleep and Dave and I laid thinking about all the possible places it could be.

Quote of the Day: Dave to the gift store lady, "What's with the quilt squares on the barns in Kentucky?"  Turns out there can be a reason other than decoration which was my answer! Many people add them to their barns in remembrance of someone.  Neat!

Day 4

I was up with the birds this morning to write about the past 2 days as well as get things ready for a quick morning.  I'd already made us a reservation for a 9am tour of the cave so we'd need to get going relatively early.  It always takes me longer to write than I'd anticipated as my brain always remembered things I'd wanted to include well after I was finished with that day's notes.  Then there is also pictures to edit!

After a quick breakfast of yogurt with fresh blackberries and peaches with a very imaginative game of Story Cubes, we were off.  The kids knew they were to receive their first installment of spending money from Dave so they were itching to spend it at the Visitor's Center.  The majority of the time that money is spent on furry things and today was no different.  After stocking up on postcards, we also walked away with two new pet foxes.

We grabbed junior rangers books and headed out to wait for our tour.  I'd booked the first tour of the day and it seemed like that was everyone else's thinking too as there were at least 75 people on our tour.  We were reminded about 18 times that flash photography was not allowed so I set the camera to "no flash" and frowned as I knew I probably wouldn't get much.  Maybe I could take a picture of one of our postcards!

As we got to the cave entrance you could feel the rush of 50 degree air leaving the cave so my Florida kids immediately grabbed their jackets and bundled up.  Our tour guide was funny and so very knowledgeable - we all learned so much!  The pictures are terrible, but take my word this is an incredible place to visit.  The history here is awesome and the cave is simply breathtaking around each and every turn.  The kids especially loved "Fat Man's Misery" that snaked around skinny turns for about 50 feet.  They also loved reading the old markings from people in the 1800s and early 1900s before the cave became a national park.

After the tour, the kids busily began working on their junior ranger books while I used the quiet to connect to the center's wifi. I hadn't posted anything of our trip yet, so I'm sure there were people considering texting Dave to make sure we were alright. We all took a few minutes to talk to Dave and Laney was able to check her email before we headed outside for a snack and to wait for the afternoon kids program. Lucky for us it was partly a scavenger hunt that was in their books to complete!  So many times we are hiking and talking that we forget to really pay attention to the tiny and camouflaged things around us.  Ryan even found a squirrel digging around deep in the woods that the park ranger couldn't even see until he popped out.

They learned about mama bats and how they care for their young.  They played a fun game showing how the moms find their babies when they are nestled in the cave with hundreds of other bats.  My kids had no clue what film canisters are or film for that matter!

We were all wearing down so we headed back to the campsite for some relaxation and a late lunch.  It showered off and on but we happened to have a beautiful tree on our site that provided the perfect shelter for us.

It didn't look like it would get any better so I took the opportunity to go hit the laundry room. We weren't out of clothes yet, but like showers if laundry facilities are available I try to take advantage of them as I never know what the next campground facilities will be like.


We took a bunch of games and watched out the door as it poured for the next 2 hours.  Chalk one up for mom for a good decision!  The washer and dryers were cheap compared to other places we'd been, but it ended up taking 2 dryer cycles to dry the clothes, so there was a lot of chess and cards played as we waited.

The amphitheater was just a short walk away and the kids were excited about the campfire program as they have always been very entertaining in the past.  Tonight's program about caving definitely did not disappoint!  The ranger doing the program was cracking the kids up while teaching them all about the history, dangers, and necessary equipment required for caving.  The other kids were pretty jealous when Laney was picked as a volunteer!

The ranger told us directly after the program there would be a flag retirement ceremony and the girls' eyes lit up.  I'm not sure what they thought it would be but I guess anything to stay up later?  I think Brayden may have been to one with scouts but he couldn't really remember.  Right before the ceremony about 15 Harleys roared up carrying a bunch of VFW men who joined us to perform the ceremony.

The man included a brief history lesson about Francis Scott Key and the girls learned about the meaning of all the parts of the flag.  I love that we are just about to learn all about this next year for history!  The ceremony was wonderful and the kids seemed to appreciate the words they heard and their country, freedom, and symbols a little bit more.  They were especially impressed that the man leading the ceremony was going to stand at attention by the fire until it burned out.  Even if he had to pee.

Quote of the Day: Ryan - "Bob came with us!" upon being reunited with the roly poly that had taken up camp in her chair for the ride to Kentucky.

Day 31

Today was a day of goodbyes to all our Ohio friends.  It had been so much fun seeing everyone I already knew and meeting so many new friends of Dave's past.  Our host Jennifer cooked up a bunch of pancakes which we gobbled up and got on the road to make our rounds. As we said goodbye to Pat & Mel, Dan & Rita, and Terry & Judy I became sad to leave but ready to make our big turn south toward home.  And into Kentucky!

There was a pretty long stretch of driving ahead of us but at least now I'd have Dave with me to share that or help entertain and pay some attention to the kids.  We stopped several times for a short break to release the wiggles and eat.  Brayden enjoyed driving right by the Reds and Bengals stadiums in Cincinatti. We might should start a list of all the professional areas we've driven by on this trip!  Once we left the interstate, Dave drove through the rolling hills to the campground. And of course 15 minutes from our stop Ryan fell asleep.

Set up of the campsite was exceptionally quick with Dave and the kids helping - even with bursts of play at the playground.  When checking out the campground postings I noticed there was going to be a program in about 30 minutes nearby about the Civil War.  We got the kids out of their Ohio University gear they had been wearing for two days and after a quick stop at the pond next to our site, headed down.  At the beginning of the program the ranger cautioned us about hanging out around the pond as there were rattlesnakes and copperheads.  Guess we won't be heading back there ever.

The program turned out to be a sing-a-long of songs that were popular in the 1860s, especially among the soldiers.  Most of the tunes were somewhat familiar and the kids enjoyed all the funny sounding, archaic words.  Dave even knew a song - Goober Peas.

The extra special part about having Dave with us is I have a wonderful chef to cook for us!  He grilled up some fish when we returned from the program and we had a very nice family meal.  By the time we cleaned up and packed everything away (we're in bear country again), it was time for brushing teeth and bed.  The kids are definitely enjoying the later bedtime but moreso the later wake up time.  They are going to be shocked in a few days!!