Northern Kentucky

So here we are in Singing Hills RV park set to explore the area.

Singing Hills is in Cave City KY. The whole area is riddled with caves, the largest of which is Mammoth Caves in Mammoth Caves NP. This one cave has over 400 miles of known passages. It’s the largest in the world. They are currently working on the pathways in the historic cave entrance so the tours are abbreviated and it’s busy even in the “off” season. We had to make reservations for the following day and even then we couldn’t get the tour we wanted at the time we wanted it.

"Frozen Niagara" in Mammoth Caves

Having visited several other caves such as Carlsbad Caverns, Grand Canyon Caverns and Luray Caverns we were a little disappointed with the “Frozen Niagara” tour we took. The other walking tour was longer but involved 500 steps. Barbara doesn’t do too well with steps so we took the shorter Frozen Niagara tour. We talked with some people at the campground who did the longer tour and they really enjoyed it. Maybe when the historic entrance opens again in 2017 thing will be better.

Fairly close is Bowling Green KY home of the GM Corvette car plant and the National Corvette Museum. Not being car fans the only reason we went to the museum was for lunch. The have a traditional American Diner there, we didn’t think the food lived up to the hype and glitz.

We did visit the railroad museum however and thoroughly enjoyed it. Their Hospital Car set me thinking about a painting and I started sketching some ideas back at the rig.

Pullman Dining Car

Hospital Train

Always wanted to ride out on the little platform at the back

There is a scenic route going north from here that goes thru Hodgenville, Bardstown and Elizabethtown. We planned on continuing to Louisville too but we had so much fun visiting Lincoln’s Birthplace, his boyhood home and the four museums in Bardstown that we missed Louisville entirely and went home for a rest. This is all beautiful country, we could spend months exploring just this one area, but we have to move on as we have plans!!

Didn't you always want to try this?

This fancy monument contains?

The log cabin Abraham Lincoln spent a few years in as a child

This log cabin without a fancy monument was where he was born?

Old village museum in Bardstown KY

There are 4 museums in Bardstown

This one is dedicated to General Hal Moore

The Movie "We were Soldiers once and young" 

starring Mel Gibson was based on his true story.

Elizabethtown was home to Carl Brashear

The movie "Men of Honor" was based on his true story

One of the T-AKE navy ships we built in San Diego was named after him. 

I briefly met his Grand Daughters during the shakedown cruise.

A lovely well preserved city center.

If you have your own plans to visit this area we’d recommend Singing Hills RV Park. It’s nothing fancy but it’s so peaceful. The park is so green, with large well-kept grassy areas, its own lake with license free catch and release fishing, warm welcoming owners. For GS members there’s a 10% discount but for Escapees members it’s 50% off the first 2 nights and 25% every night after that. Our 6 nights came to $136 with full hookups. It’s also only 7 miles from Mammoth Caves.

As we left we had an episode with our GPS. We call her “Nagging Maggie” a term we learned from the Dolinger Family in Maryland.

We wanted back-roads and I programmed Via Points joining the little towns along the route we wanted to take. I have to say that we have a very laid back method of route planning in that we only loosely sketch out the next day’s proposed route just before we go to bed the night before we leave.

This one got even more laid back when we forgot to do even that and I was loading town names into the GPS as I was eating breakfast an hour before we left!!

Anyhow Maggie got us about 2 miles from the campground and to a fork in the road with no highway signs. I went left when she wanted us to go right and in revenge she sent us down 20 plus miles of roads that were about 3 feet wider than the rig! I was expecting some huge farm tractor to come hurtling down the road the other way on one of the many blind curves. Luckily none did.

To get revenge on her we went our own way just to make her have to keep recalculating!

So what has this got to do with anything?

Only that this part of Kentucky is so beautiful. The back roads between Cave City and Maysville on the Ohio River are breathtaking. We definitely need to come back and spend a couple of months exploring this state. We aren’t even in the mountains which everyone says are the best bit.

Unfortunately I didn’t get any pictures!