Our Adventure... and Home Again

We are home from our grand adventure and we had a super-duper time!

We visited:
1) Amazing Mammoth Cave! We especially enjoyed and recommend the Historic Tour. We also took the New Entrance Tour but enjoyed the Historic a bit more. Our visit was a neat experience. Even above ground, for those whose knees or aversion to close places won't allow a wander through the cave, is beautiful.
2) Ruby Falls (the highest cave waterfall open to the public in the world, they say), the Incline Railway (a majorly crazy incline... over 70 percent!), and Rock City, with beautiful gardens, a swing bridge over a gapping precipice, and a view of seven states (but also somewhat confusingly addled with kitschy gnomes and fairy tale characters).
3) We also enjoyed a stay with my best friend Barbara in Davenport (near Orlando, FL) for several days. It was wonderful to see where she lives and sips her tea when we chat on the phone. I had imagined, but now I know.
4) We also stayed one night at The Dolphin, a fancy Disney World hotel, with Roxanne my former sister-in-law. It was great to spend time with her amazing children.
5) After another night with Barb and family we headed east and the fastest stop at the ocean which was Cocoa Beach. I quickly determined it wasn't the place to stay but nonetheless we stopped at a public ocean-front beach and took pictures of David taking in the ocean for the first time.
6) We stopped at the Kennedy Space Center. Very cool.
7) After our fun at KSC, we ended up all the way up in St. Augustine. I loved St. Augustine-- its history, and the Atlantic Ocean! So wonderful!
8) We headed home, and on the way we visited the amazing Indianapolis Children's Museum! If you have kids, you MUST, must, must visit! It is the largest children's museum in the world!
Our vacation... our journey, our time together on the road... was a special and sweet time. My dear David was an absolutely wonderful, chatty, fun, sweet and interesting traveling companion. Never once did I hear, "Are we there yet?!" Isn't that dear?
And here we are-- home again, and thankfully so. Our journey was wonderful and our time together was sweet.

My gratitude for the opportunity is deep. Memories have been made.

Mammoth Cave

Mood: a wee bit upset. Okay, more than a wee bit.

Today, going to our second tour at Mammoth Cave I rounded a corner (lots of winding roads). The speed limit had been 40. (Yea, yea, some of you see where this is going...) Well, the speed limit dropped to 35, immediately followed (well, about 30 feet, I'd say. Really!) by a 25mph sign. Dang if a stinkin' copper wasn't driving... YES, driving! in the opposite direction. A short way later, or as they would say in these here parts, just a stone's throw down the road a piece, David said, Hey, Mom, that police is behind you. With his lights on. Dang (or words to that effect).

He said he had me on radar. Radar!? when he was driving in the opposite direction?

We only had five minutes to make our cave tour... but we made it, after I had the $175!!! ticket in hand.

For the rest of the trip, David and I will be eating pb&j a lot more often than planned.

OKAY... (sigh) I am trying to get out of my funk. David asked what a "funk" was. I told him it's how you feel when you've gotten a ticket and it bums you out and you're trying to move beyond it :-p

BUT, David is enjoying the fun of having the hotel pool to himself, I plan to close my laptop and join him, and I promise to have a happier report later.

Mood? Trying to lighten it.

Kentucky

*** Mood: Happy and exhilarated!***

We made it to Kentucky yesterday early evening, after a very fun drive, filled with games and songs and great conversation!

Once we arrived in Cave City and checked into our Comfort Inn we swam in the indoor pool, followed by dinner at the adjacent Cracker Barrel (I felt obligated to get fried chicken livers, greens, and green beans soaked in what can only be described as fat back! I shall not do that again.) After dinner, we went go cart riding. David noticed we were motioned by the old southern fellow running the place to not drive full-out in a zig zag. :-D After, we enjoyed more swimming before we fell asleep content with the first day of our adventure.

Today, Monday: spelunking at Mammoth Cave! We are taking the Historic Tour and the New Entrance Tour.