Aug 3: Camp, Cars and Caves

Here is our camp picture. The back of the camper is to the west. We only today attracted one hummingbird and Larry's bird feeder hasn't been touched since he put it out. You can see Larry put his sail boat in the water. He used me as a mark to sail around. Again, not a lot of wind to play with. This is the first time the boat has been off of the fishing line. Note the jet ski for retrieval.

Thursday, after an all night rain shower, we went to the Corvette assembly plant in Bowling Green. They make approx. 150 Corvettes a day - 18 an hour. Their goal the day we were there was 128. Almost 90% are already sold to customers and the other 10% are sold to dealerships. Black is the number one color with red coming in second. We saw lots of red and yellow but only a couple of black cars. No cameras were allowed; however, we were presented with a lovely parting gift of this post card so I uploaded it for your enjoyment.

We also learned that you can tell the difference in Corvettes by the color of the brake calipers. Black is the regular Corvette ($40,000 and up) and red ones indicate the Z06 Corvette ($71,000 and up) the really fast one with lots of horse power. Blue calipers will show the newest addition to the Corvette family - the 2009 ZR1. It has a 620 hp engine, 0 to 60 in 3.6 seconds and starts in around $100,000. The first one has already rolled off the assembly line and was sold for a million dollars - the profits going to the local United Way.

Then we drove over to the museum. This is the largest non-profit museum in the world devoted to a single car. It was an amazing display of artifacts and Corvettes. On display was the very first 1953 white with red interior Corvette. Many of the cars were on loan from their owners. Several brand new ones are on display waiting for their owners to show up for a special VIP treatment (more money).


Yesterday, we drove up to Mammoth Cave. This cave was established in 1941 as part of the National Park system. In 1981, it became a World Heritage Site. That being said, Native Americans used this cave 4000 years ago. In the 1800's it was rediscovered by a hunter chasing a wounded bear. Tours were conducted in 1816 too. For $4 you could take the extended tour of 18 hours with a whale oil lantern shown in the picture with the ranger. She's holding one up. On this extended tour, you were given fried chicken lunches to pack in with you. That's why the whale oil lamps became fried oil lamps - the ranger said whales were hard to come by in Kentucky.

In the 1930's, during the depression, the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) helped pave roads into the cave area and paths thru the cave. These men, ranging from 17 to 25, were paid $1 a day. Hence came the expression "another day, another dollar". They were only allowed to keep $5 total for the month and the rest was sent home to family to help keep their homes and feed the remaining kids in the family. These were also some of the first men called up to serve in World War II.


Graffiti is always a problem anywhere. Graffiti before 1941 is considered "historial graffiti". Any scratchings or markings after that are called "federal offense". As you can see I have a picture of both. The 1839 marking is OK; Mr. Bob Eickholt was in trouble.



Going down 310 feet meant that at some point we had to come up. There was a total of 457 stairs - about 90% of them were right here at the end. I was sweating like a plow horse (pigs don't sweat) by the time I got out of that cave and the temperature down there was about 54 deg. Felt good going down - in fact I was hoping for a hot flash. But not for long. After bending down under what I called the "Tall man's misery" and squeezing thru the "Fat man's misery", I had worked up some warmth. And walking up those steps into the Kentucky 90+ degrees and 60%+ humidity, I was really rung out.

But the end was in site - with more steps. By the time we got back to the Visitor's Center, our clothes were wringing wet.

Mammoth Cave is a "dry" cave with very few stalactites and no stalagmites that I saw. And it was mammoth. It is the longest known cave in the world. There are 14 different tours - some several times a day - some only once a day. The Grand Avenue Tour was 4 1/2 hours and 4 miles with 670 steps. We took the Historical Tour. which was 2 hours and 2 miles.