Grifford Pinchot State Park

 

Fort Whaley

 

Capital KOA

 It was just ok but easy and fast to get to.

Harrisonburg KOA

 We headed back to the Harrisonburg KOA this is another campground that we go to every year and this year we get to go twice. We arrived on Thursday on the way down we did MadLibs for most of the ride after the kids were done their virtual school, I can't believe they enjoyed it so much. Paul and I used to do Madlibs on the road when we tent camped. When we arrived at the campground the kids got out and played at the playground while we got the camper set up. Paul had a little trouble getting the trailer unhitched apparently something bent in the hitch area. 

Harrisonburg KOA

 We arrived Thursday

Harper Ferry Halloween

 

Yogi Bear Jellystone Park Mammoth Cave

 

We started out our trip with a 7 hour trip from our house in Maryland 2 patriot Ohio. During the 7 hour ride to Ohio we stopped twice for gas, drove by a nuclear power plant right on the road and saw some beautiful sites. The road to the vinard was a scary one however, there were the most redneck white trash RVs that people were living out of. There’s no way any of them had all their teeth. During the only night we stayed at the vineyard we made two friends 1's name was Harley the others was Sam, they were both Beagle hound mixes, and they stayed by our camper for hours just peering in our door. when we got there it was raining but by the next morning the rain had stopped me and mackenzie took a walk down the very long driveway and Harley was right by our side. sleeping overnight in the trailer wasn't as bad as I thought it was gonna be, we all slept in the backroom JP, Mckenzie, Paul, myself, the dog, and the Bunny. We only ran the generator overnight with the refrigerator plugged in and the back air conditioning unit on. Paul and I slept on the pullout sofa and around midnight we had to kick the Bunny out of the room because he was being so loud, I really don't understand how the kids sleep with him back there. There, we boondock in a vineyard over night. The man who owned it who's very nice it was a Sunday so technically we were unable to purchase any wine however he said that as long as we paid cash it shouldn't be a problem. so as soon as we got everything set up Paul and I had a private tasting and I bought 6 bottles of wine. We were back on the road again around 11:30 to make her way 2 cave city in Kentucky.

Twisted Vineyards Ohio

Yogi Bear Jellystone in Cave City was pretty big, it had just about everything you could think of including two pools, a small lake, a water slide, multiple playgrounds. they also had the usual bounce pillows, activities every day, recreation hall, camp store with snack bar, and something in the lake called a WIBIT, that was basically an obstacle course in the middle of the lake that you had to pay extra to use. the site that we had was very spacious and had a good view of the back part of the campground. The spot was very easy for Paul to back into it was on the side of a small hill-Cliff. Once we were all settled in we need hey dinner hung around at the camper for a little while the kids went exploring on their bikes and we all headed to bed.

The next morning we all woke up early had some cereal and got on the road. we drove about 1/2 an hour 2 Bowling Green Ky to go on a cave boat tour. it was amazing to me that this cave boat tour welcome center was right in the middle of like a town. with restaurants and banks and everything all around it, the welcome center was about a 5 minute walk from where the tour started. once we got to where the meeting point is for the tour guide took us down a hill to a hole in the ground that is filled with water that kind of feeds The Cave and the hole is fed by underground springs. they told us some interesting facts about it in the early 1800s somebody tried to measure the depth on the whole and they thought that it was like 15 feet deep but modern technology has shown that it's only really like 8 feet deep and they assumed that when the explorers in 1800s threw a rock in string it was actually measuring the length of the river and not the depth. after we got educated with some fun facts about the lake we walked probably another 50 feet down to The Cave opening where the actual boat tour would start. in order to get to the boat we had to go down a small flight of steps we were in a small group of 16 and we all boarded the electric boat with our guide Caleb. the very first thing when you start the tour his go under a very low hanging rock in which everybody on the boat has to duck down very low in order to not hit your head. once we got past that obstacle we went down a small river probably about the size of a football field to a dam in which we stopped turned around and went back. we did stop several times while we were on the boat going down this small river to look at different spots in The Cave learn different facts about The Cave we did see a big place where rocks fell. it was a pretty cool experience but I thought that it was going to be longer than that. Caleb also said that if it weren't for the dam The Cave would only be about ankle or calf deep and the reason they put the dam in was so that they could do the boat tours so that the water would be deep enough. All in all a good experience however probably would not do it again. when we exited the key we went back up the steps and visited the nightclub which was a concrete room with a very beautiful chandelier in the middle of the ceiling. the last river came also had a couple of trails that you could walk through before or after your tour we went and saw a butterfly room it was like a small green room with probably eight different species of butterflies that was really neat although it was very hot that day but it was well worth seeing all the butterflies. after that we went back to the lost river welcome center we all bought a couple of things from the gift shop and headed out in search of food. we stopped at a restaurant that was called cheddar's where they served free honey butter croissants the service was OK with the food was OK the croissants were absolutely delicious. After we were finished eating we drove back to the camper, Paul bought stuff to make orange crush is. He and I drank while the kids went to the lake and made friends at the lake. At one point we were trying to look for our children so we went for a walk with her beverages looking for them whilst we were out looking for the children it started to rain. I will tell you that Paul and I were unabbreviated with drinks in hand walking around looking for our children, and at one point it started to rain. we finally got ahold of them and they were at the trailer eating their leftover cheddar's. Needless to say we had the usual heart to heart with them about keeping in touch with us always having their watches on and answering the phone and checking in when they leave. lucky for us it did eventually stop raining and the kids went back out to play with their newfound friends they brought their new friend friends back to the camper, Gage and Jase, to show them out. when I asked where their parents trailer was they said it's right over there down the hill so Paul said that I should go down there and invite them up for a couple of drinks. Jase, the younger of the two, told me to follow him to his trailer, I was not aware that he was going to take me down the Cliff… in my slides (sandals with no backs). Leave us to say about halfway through I fell and busted my ass, Jase being the gentleman that he was all eight years of him looked back and said are you OK in which point I really couldn't feel anything anyway responded yes let's keep going. when I got to the bottom of the hill he introduced myself to his parents Eli and Amanda, and invited both of them up to have some drinks. that was all she wrote we stayed up till probably 12:30 in the morning talking, laughing, exchanging stories, and making a new friendship. When they all went home that night they also went down the Cliff they all made it just fine however once Amanda got to flat ground she too busted her ass, we all laughed way too hard.  Amanda and Eli are good people they live in Kentucky about 3 hours away from the campground we hung out at our camper for the next three nights just having good conversations. our kids and their kids got along great and played together whenever they had a chance.  

The next morning was Wednesday July 14^th we had plans to go to the national Corvette museum. Needless to say Paul and I both had a little trouble getting out of bed the next morning me more so than him. he cooked a nice breakfast and we headed back to Bowling Green to go to the national Corvette museum. the museum was actually pretty big when you first walked in there were probably eight corvettes for on either side ribbon around them. these corvettes were custom corvettes that people had ordered and they were sitting on the showroom floor waiting for them to pick them up. while we were standing there looking around there was a couple who was getting a tutorial of one of these corvettes. they also had a racetrack where you could purchase a ticket to drive a new Corvette around a track four times for about $360, not worth it to me. second I could afford however the full sized Corvette driving simulator. it was basically a Corvette in the room and it had these three giant screens in front of it and you could drive it virtually like a giant video game that was only $10, we didn't do that either though. the museum itself was very interesting a lot of old cars a lot of prototype cars and even newer cars. a couple of years ago in one of the show rooms they had a giant sinkhole and they lost 8 corvettes, two of which were on loan from GM motors. they have a big exhibit with pictures of the accident videos of the actual sinkhole happening. The sinkhole was 30 feet deep and it opened up to a very large cave they have the actual cars that fell into the sinkhole on display now. They also have a very long giant pipe that goes from the showroom all the way down into The Cave that is clear so you can look down into it.  When the museum tour was over we came out in the gift shop, well played national Corvette museum, Paul and JP both bought shirts.  The rest of the day we kind of just hung out happy campground and Eli and Amanda both came over again that night.

The morning was our last day in Kentucky. We already had a cave tour schedules for 10am. The Mammoth caves is the number one reason I picked the trip to Kentucky. We met a family last year and I saw the pictures on his Facebook page. It looked really cool, so I figured Paul is always asking me for ideas where to came so here we go. I absolutely love a cave tour, as a matter of fact my next house will be a cave. It is always so cool in a cave, constantly in the 50 degree mark. Walking through the cave is nice because you don’t really get hot, as a matter of fact t had a light sweatshirt on and I was comfortable pretty much the entire time. The drive only took us like 10 minutes we walked down a paved path for about 100 yards. As soon as you turned the corner to go down the steps into the cave you could feel a very cool breeze. The ranger whom did the tour said the entire tour would be about a 2 mile walk. We would be going through very spacious and very narrow passages. Along the tour we would have to duck and go single file in some placed. She told us we would be going down a lot of steps, and of course what goes down must go back up. The steps in total would be about 500 up and down. The last of the steps were 125 up a tower to get out of the cave. She told everyone that once they got to those steps they must go up and there was no going back the other way. We walked down the cave entrance past a waterfall and moss cover rock formations. In the cave was a massive room dimly lit with orangish lights. We have done a lot of cave tours but I haven’t seen anything as grand as this. Ceilings were about 175 feet tall and I knew right away why this cave was called mammoth. We were in a group of about 25 or 30 people, every so often we would stop and get a history lesson. At one point in the tour they turned the lights off in the cave and Pitch black is a pretty good description. To think that the first persons to discover this cave system would be walking around just using a torch or a candle was amazing. We walked and walked, over a bridge 130 feet above a whole, through caverns and fat mans agony and tall mans misery, where even I had to duck in placed. Down, down, down into the cave until we reached the very bottom about 200 feet underground. Once we got there she pointed to an opening that led to a river and told us how this particular part of the cave has a tendency to flood, water marks in the wall showed that it would have been well over all of our heads. That was the point in the tour where what goes down must go back up. She pointed and said that is the last step down, and that over there is the first step up. At he end of the cave tour we were in a huge dome shaped room and looking up at those 125 steps seemed like a daunting task but there was no going back soo… we started our climb. There were many people who had to stop and take breaks, but not the Perry family we trucked right through and made it no problem, not going to lie my legs were pure jelly by the time I was at the top. But not the less I made it. I was not looking forward to leaving the cave though, it was such a cool temperature and I knew it was not only hot as hell outside, but I was going to have to take my fat ass back up the 65 steps out of the cave and up hill 100 yards. That’s the worst part about cave tours the back up part. But all in all it was a very good experience and a sight to see for sure. By the time we got all the way back up to the truck we were all starving, so we introduced the kids to Wendys and had frostys and french-fries. I’m very aware that we have Wendys in White Marsh but oddly enough my kids have never been to one. The loved dipping their French fries into the frosty, even though they were very skeptical at first. The rest of the day was spent chilling in the pool and hanging out with our new friends. We cleaned everything up that night woke up the next morning, said our last farewells and got on the road at 10:30 am a half hour before check out time.