anniversary excursion....finally...part two

just to reassure you, my hubby actually had a good time on this trip. he doesnt always look like he is having fun, but as he says "how can you tell if i'm smiling or not? the 'stache covers it up." so i tell him of course you can tell the difference, now smile for this one! this is what i get:

i mean really! in what language or culture does smile=raise your eyebrows and open your eyes wide so you look like a deer caught in the head lights?! couldnt resist making fun of hubby. now on with the show!

after the lost river cave tour and nature walk that we took, we decided to go try and find this historical italianate house. after much driving around we finally found it ( i didnt think hubby would really be interested in seeing this house so i didnt bring directions to it). unfortunately, we got there right at 4pm and that was closing time, but it was a beautiful house and i hope to go back and see inside of it someday. here is a plaque describing the house and a picture of the front of the house:

since we had driven all around the old part of town, we (meaning me, hubby drives i navigate), decided to try to find our way back to the motel a different route. we probably couldnt come back the way we came if we tried anyways. we had found the house by following those handy little brown signs directing you to state parks or historical points of interest. well, i think they sucked forgot a couple of signs, so we actually passed it and then wandered around until we happened upon it. SO back to our trip thru the older downtown area... it wasnt very interesting. (our downtown is way more attractive now that they have "restored" it. actually McMinnville, TN is one of google's 3D towns.) we came to an intersection and i looked down the end of a road and saw this:

so of course i directed hubby to turn down this road so we could see what this huge building was. well it turns out to be Western Kentucky University's building (i have no clue what its called. some kind of SomebodyImportantLastName Hall) it was a cool building with a statue out front and a copper dome on top:

well when we reached this building we turned to the right and followed the road down the hill. all of a sudden hubby and i looked at each other.

me: um, i think we are actually ON the campus now, somehow

hubby: how did that happen?

me: i dont know. you would think they would warn you somehow. we need to get out of here.

hubby: how? where?

me: look! over there they are lining up floats for some kind of election parade. uh, oh. i think we are heading that way. (me scanning around, there has a to be a way out of here!) look, over there! i see the stadium. we went past that on the way in, but on the other side. the main hwy has to be that way. turn here.

hubby: i hope you can get us back to the hotel. i'm hungry.

me: (full of false bravado) of course i can.

and i actually did! now most of you are probably thinking, what's the big deal? so you went on campus? for some reason me & hubby don't have much luck when we get inside of a park, campus, anything like that. poor hubby had to drive around ft. benning with his ex for HOURS trying to find their way back out. hehe it was pretty funny too. stuck with "the b" for all that time, with nobody else to ease the tension. lol and i was back at the hotel waiting in comfort.

we made it back to the hotel just in time for me to snap this great sunset shot:

the tree in front is a little cherry tree that actually had fruit on it. i spent a lot of time by it on my smoke breaks. we both smoke, but not inside so we get non-smoking rooms and suffer the weather.

next morning is monday, my birthday! :) and also checkout day :( but we are heading up to mammoth cave to go on a short little tour before heading back home so i dont get too bummed about checking out. hubby wanted to be back home before it was dark. he really isnt much of a traveler and would rather be @ home playing in his shop than exploring, but he loves me so he lets me drag him around every now and then.

we got to the cave a little early so i hit the souvenir store and bought a bunch of little things for mementos. then we were off on a short little trip to the frozen niagra formation. as we were listening to the tour guide before we left, i realized we i had picked the wrong tour. hubby wanted short so we wouldnt be here too late, but i had forgotten that i noticed that some tours had age limits, which meant no little rug rats running around. sorry moms, i'm a grandma myself, but i'm not too fond of unruly brats on tours w/us. raise them w/some manners and i wont try to avoid the little heathens :) this tour was not one of those child free tours. so now we had to use some strategy. we got on the bus right behind the driver cuz we heard one of the demons bleacher creatures hollering about riding in the back. then when we got ready to go thru the cave we positioned ourselves right behind the tour guide. (lost river tour we never got to hear the guide due to poor positioning strategy and jabbering little monsters rug rats) we learn fast. we had a much better tour experience this time. we saw the frozen niagra formation:

and many more formations. this one i really liked and named myself because the guide never mentioned it. i call it the hand formation (woohoo how original and witty...NOT):

sadly, that marks the end of this novel saga. we went home by the interstate and shortest route, instead of finding back roads. hubby was in shop withdrawal by this time, so i didnt push my luck :) i wont bore yall any more with all of the pics that i took, but you might see random vacation shots in my future posts. we had a great time on our little weekend adventure. hopefully, i didnt torture yall too bad with my home movies posts.

anniversary excursion....finally...part one

the long awaited, much anticipated (yeah right) anniversary excursion to Bowling Green, KY and Mammoth Cave....


with the whole plurisy thing happening we didnt actually get to start out until saturday morning. we had to make a detour before we started on the "official" trip. our friend and fellow cruiser had passed away a couple of months ago, and his wife was having a yard sale of all of his shop tools, car parts, and asst. junk that men like to collect in their shops. well ole jim had 3 shops. needless to say by the time we stopped buying we had spent 300 bucks and the back of the mini van was packed full of clangy, rattling, metal parts.

(pretend i was smart enough to take a pic of the loaded van and imagine it right here)

so we looked at each other and said, well should we just go on with all of this stuff in the van or go back home, unload, and then start our trip over. i looked at rickEy to see what he was wanting to do, then i thought an hour back home, unload, an hour to get back here....forget that lets go! so our adventure began. (map of route) we enjoy taking back roads more than the interstate so you can see the cool farms, houses, trees, and fields instead of boring billboards and other cars and of course the hubby has to look for old trucks in barns or the woods. so we had a gorgeous drive to bowling green. kentucky got more rain than we did in TN so the trees were much more colorful there.

we checked in sat. afternoon and just kindof chilled and went to eat dinner. sunday we headed out for our first adventure to The Lost River Cave & Valley. It's about a 15 min. walk thru the woods and by some gorgeous blue holes:


















the blue color comes from limestone particles in the water reflecting from the sunlight. after a short walk we come to the entrance of the cave. There are signs posted telling that jesse james hid out in the cave in 1868 and also both sides of the civil war used the area as encampments. In the 1930's there was an "underground nite club" and they held balls and weddings in the wide covered entrance area.


so now we actually get to get into a flat bottom boat that has seats down each side. there is a metal railing down the middle of the boat that we all have to lean down and duck our heads to avoid a concussion (woohoo potential danger...gotta get a pic of this!)

that was a pretty cool little trip. we got to see some cave crickets, well barely. it was a very short little boat trip and very dim around the few lights they had placed. this river is still undergoing major efforts to clean and repair damage from ignorant ppl who thought "hey, here is a sink hole. lets dump all our trash in it, and it will magically disappear!" morons. all that garbage eventually ends up in the underground streams and rivers that we drink from because of the karst topography.



now we are back out of the boat and i want to walk the trails that they have around there. it really is a gorgeous little bit of woods in the middle of a city. we walk by old powder houses and head for the butterfly habitat.


hubby: it's fall, i think it's too cold for butterflies..

me: what? oh, i know it's fall but maybe they have a nice little heated home for the butterflies


hubby: (looks at me to see if i look like i am gonna give up on this little side trip) ok, lets go


me: reading the signs about double checking yourself in the mirror to see if you have any hitchhiker butterflies on you, invisioning walking thru a garden with hundreds of butterflies, typical daydreaming thoughts as i am waiting to enter the habitat.
this is what i find:

the only butterfly in the place...








...notice the determined photographer (me) goes so far as to stage the DEAD butterfly by one of the only blooms left in the habitat.

me: i wanted pics of butterflies! i dont care if it's dead. you wont be able to tell in the pic unless you look real close. now, go look for more dead ones. maybe we can get a whole flock herd bunch of 'em.



that's all for now, folks. i will continue our adventure in the next installment unless there are too many pleas for mercy : ) hey i just realized something. this is like home movies for the masses. hahaha. now i dont have to clean the house and lure you to the living room where the projector is all set up. of course i wont know if you decide to leave during the middle of the show this way either...hmmm...nope still better this way. anything that means i dont have to clean 4 company wins in my book.