And Their Off!

Our Memphis trip is behind us now and what a trip it was!  We camped, visited with family, swam, spelunked (kind of), swam, drove, had an ER visit (every good trip needs one) and discovered all sorts of cool things about the world!

I am a firm believer in planning to not plan when it comes to vacations.  Confusing yes but it works for me.  I plan all kinds of things that may or may not ever happen and this adds a type of spontaneity to any trip.  Too much or too little planning can lead to frustration as you are inevitably shot off course by life.  Not to worry if you have planned to not plan!  Everything is expendable.

We did the unthinkable and drove south in July.  What the heck were we thinking?  I don't know many people who would say "Hey, Memphis is lovely in July, what with the 90 degree temperatures and Oh how I love that humidity!"  We had a purpose though, too see family that I haven't seen in decades in some cases and they were all going to Memphis.  I planned a few stops along the way; Indianapolis, Louisville, Mammoth Cave.  With a smattering of cool places to visit.
We stayed with my aunt and uncle in Greenwood, Indiana and had a good time with them and my cousin and her daughter Natalie (Max's age).  Then we were off to Louisville to hook up with friends from Lexington.  As is with the best laid plans, we all ran into traffic and were slowed down by that life thing but we made it to the Falls of the Ohio on the Clarksville, Indiana side of the Ohio river.
There is an interesting phenomenon with the Falls of the Ohio park, I have been 2 times now and there are always a good number of people there, though I have never met anyone who has been.  Think about it.
If you are ever in that area you should go because it is really cool!  It is a prehistoric sea bed and there are fossils everywhere!!  Fan coral and mussels and all kinds of detritus that landed on the sea floor millions of years ago.  It is just there!  You go down and walk ON history and it is easy to find the fossil remains.
Isn't that wild!?  "Look, here's one!"  They were all over and then there are the pools of water that Max got to run around in and the Ohio river and the dam and the big sticks to jam into the big holes and..... A definite must visit as far as I am concerned.









I want to thank Kaye for snapping one of very few photos of me on the entire trip.  I am always behind the camera and it nice to have proof that I was actually there.








Kaye was kind enough to accommodate Max's request for a photo of his butt.  Good job!

That is a photo of Kaye and Russ with Louisville in the background.  Thank you both for driving from Lexington to meet us.  It was a short but very very sweet visit.  Next time we will make it for longer.

Time to move on and we were off to Mammoth Cave, Kentucky to camp and rough it. We were gonna have so much fun it would make you want to smack your mama!  Oh yes!  We had our GPS as the handy navigator and occasionally, just for fun, I would ask it to detour our route.  We saw some pretty interesting things on those crazy back road detours.  Places like Big Bubba Bucks Belly Bustin' BBQ Bliss.  If you don't believe me check it out and notice the line at the bottom of the sign.  That is some good BBQ! Bubba did it down home style, with the converted propane tank that looked like a pig and smoked like a Rastafarian.















At one point we were so far off the beaten path that we were on a one lane, you're screwed if another car is coming, look at all that kudzu, backwoods heaven.  We only saw one other car and found a couple of really old abandon log cabins. We were quite the adventurers, and checked them out, watching our back the whole time just in case.  I have never been a big fan of buck shot in the booty!









We finally made it to the National Park and got to our campsite.  We put up our tent and got ourselves situated.  Whew!  We were all crazy tired and the night ended with a cozy campfire and a rambunctious 5 yr old.  Perfect!  Please comeback and find out what happens as our Memphis trip continues......

Cheeky Monkey