You know what's funny? When the orthodontist or the lady at the grocery store or your friends ask your children what they're going to do over the summer break, and they enthusiastically respond, "We're going to Kentucky!" And then there's, like, a brief period of dead silence. Because you know exactly how to react if someone tells you they're going to Disney World. But Kentucky? So, yeah, it was a little hilarious at times. I even had someone tell me, "That doesn't interest me at all or sound like any fun."
Well. My kids have been begging to go to the mountains ever since Seth and I got back from our big Montana/Wyoming road trip. We've talked about going to the Smokies but just never went. And since you pass through Tennessee on the way to Kentucky, that sounded good to me. The whole thing that even started this idea was the construction of the life-sized Ark in Williamstown, KY. I really wanted to go, and I really thought it would be a neat experience for the kids. At that point, I really didn't know much about Kentucky. I mean, I could've told you bourbon, horse racing, bluegrass, hot browns and basketball. So I began researching to see what else I could find, and that was the beginning of a family road trip with the main purpose of visiting the Ark Encounter. I felt like the distance, though far, would be manageable with all three kids and would give us a good idea of how a more "intense" road trip might go (because there's lots of places I'd love to take them!). I also thought there would be something for everybody, from the twelve year old all the way to the five year old. And that was the beginning of a plan that took shape last fall.
In the meantime, I began researching (Pinterest) for some other Kentucky landmarks that we could visit. I didn't realize how much there is to do there! I basically narrowed it down to caves, a little hiking, waterfalls and Abraham Lincoln. I found a few other little surprises on the way. After I knew where and what I wanted to visit, I put everything into my Roadtrippers app. It then told me the best route to take and the distance in miles and time between each stop. Once I had that, I assigned dates to each place we wanted to visit. So we knew exactly where we were going and on what day. I built in enough time to also give us two extra days, just in case something happened or we got behind schedule.
I didn't immediately make hotel reservations, but I knew in which cities we were going to stay (with the exception of one stop). I would've preferred to have done that before we left, but I didn't. It worked out perfectly though and, in some ways, better. We did not have any trouble finding a hotel. I also had several people ask me what kind of room we get or if we get more than one room. Ummm, no. Yes, it's tricky with a family of five. And it can be crowded. But I'm not about to pay for two rooms yet because Ellie is still little enough that she can sleep on a couch bed or a roll away bed or even with us if need be. We also used Seth's hotel points for the majority of the nights, and there are sometimes restrictions with those regarding which rooms you can get.
We stayed in the same hotel only twice along the way. So, pretty much every morning we were packing our bags and checking out of a hotel. It really wasn't a big deal. If you care to know my organizational system, I used packing cubes. These things are AWESOME. Each person had a set of cubes. The boys had gray, and the girls had pink. Undies and socks were packed in the smallest ones. Ellie's little clothes were packed in the next size up. Mason's and Hannah Kate's were in the next size and separated by tops and bottoms. And then Seth and I used the largest cubes. These were a dream because they helped those who aren't as organizationally minded as myself (which is pretty much everybody else in my family!) still stay organized and neatly packed. So jumping up each morning and heading out with our suitcases was no big deal because they pretty much stayed packed and organized the whole time. We had only two suitcases with us so there also wasn't a lot to haul. And then I had another bag for shoes and a small tote for toiletries and such. That was it. I brought trash bags to put our dirty clothes in at the end of the day. I didn't plan to wash clothes while we were gone because I am not at all a fan of laundry facilities in hotels, and we weren't staying anywhere long enough to take advantage of laundry valet services, but I ended up washing a few things twice. Besides that, I brought home two large garbage bags full of dirty clothes that had to be washed when we got back. But I didn't even care!
There were a few nights that our hotel rooms were small. There wasn't even enough space for a roll-away bed, and there wasn't a sofa. So we had three people in one bed and two in the other. But it was fine. I wouldn't want to do that every time. There were some nights that we had two beds and a sofa bed. And then we lucked up on something we'd never seen before. For the same rate as a single room, we ended up with a suite of sorts that had a separate room with bunk beds in it! So Hannah Kate and Ellie slept on the bottom full-sized bunk, and Mason slept on the top twin bunk. Seth and I had a king sized bed in the other room. But that was only one night. Now we were gone nine nights. So I can honestly say we were all ready to sleep in our own beds after that, but the whole hotel situation was fine. We just slept there. We didn't have to spend any amount of time in a room because we were gone all day everyday of the trip.
I did take some snacks and bottles of water. Other than that, we ate the hotel breakfast because that's free (most of the time). And we'd eat one big meal a day (we tried to find places with salads and veggies and such) and then a smaller meal or snack. We ate lots of ice cream. Lots and lots of ice cream!
So. Here we go. We left on a Sunday after church. I really wanted to make it to Nashville that first day, but we didn't. We stopped just north of Birmingham. We'd been driving for about six hours and decided we'd rather go to bed early. But I learned that we can easily get to Nashville in a day if we need to. If we would've left that morning instead of afternoon, we definitely would've stayed that first night in Nashville.
And, speaking of Nashville, we woke up early the next morning and headed out. The kids were so excited to drive into Tennessee because that's a state they'd never been in before.
Early in the afternoon we arrived at our first stop - Bowling Green! I'd heard of Bowling Green. But that's about it. It ended up being the most delightful town! Maybe it's a city. I don't know. It certainly didn't "feel" like a city. As a matter of fact, I think Bowling Green hasn't decided if it wants to be a city or if it wants to be a rural country-side! Because there's the city part, yes. But just about every corner you turn will then take you out into rolling green pastures, rambling farm houses and ranches, crops and long country roads. It really was beautiful here! And the town was so clean! I kept telling Seth how clean it was. There was no litter, no trash, no building blight. It was just a really nice place.
We purposefully stopped in Bowling Green because of this:
The National Corvette Museum! I had no idea there's a corvette manufacturing facility in Bowling Green and a museum. I could care less about cars, and I'm certainly not into fast cars. But I knew someone would really enjoy this.
Caves and cameras don't go together at all. I didn't even try. So this is all you're going to get of our cave tour (It's a constant 54 degrees - heavenly!!! - in the cave, hence the long pants because I didn't want to hear anybody complaining they were cold! Honestly, I could've done it in shorts, too, because it felt THAT GOOD!).
After the cave tour, we wanted to do a little hiking in the park. Since we weren't sure how the kids were going to do with this or how strenuous it was, we chose the shortest trail we could find. And it started out great! There were rocks to climb.
It was somewhere along that way that she was all red faced and teary eyed and really tired of walking, and her daddy told her, "Awe, Hannah Kate, it's okay. It feels good to hurt a little bit." Remember that . . .
On the way out, I made Seth stop at the sign so I could get a picture because we missed it on the way in. Maybe you can't tell, but they were so aggravated because they did not want to get out of the air-conditioned truck. And Hannah Kate is about to explode. But I got my picture!
So. Here's the deal. A couple of years ago, I read Bill O'Reilly's Killing Lincoln. It was absolutely fascinating. And during the past two years, the older kids and I have studied the life of Abe Lincoln during homeschooling. I never realized that he was born in Kentucky. I had always associated him with, of course, Illinois, and Indiana. But he was born in Kentucky, and his family moved to Indiana when he was eight years old or so. I was thrilled when I found this in my research of Kentucky! (I know. Homeschool mom.)
We toured this site with the help of a tour guide, and she was a good one. The property is gorgeous! I'm sure the family hated to leave after that title dispute. There is a very nice visitor's center on-site, too.
I thought I took a picture, but I didn't. Abraham Lincoln's family Bible was on display here. My favorite quote of his is this:
In regard to this Great Book, I have but to say, it is the best gift God has given to man. All the good the Savior gave to the world was communicated through this book. But for it we could not know right from wrong. All things most desirable for man’s welfare, here and hereafter, are to be found portrayed in it.
One of the things I've enjoyed the very most about studying history from a Christian, Biblical worldview is learning about the personal lives of these men and women who were so brave and sacrificed so much in the early days of our country. Many of them were godly men and women whose relationship with the Lord shaped their lives and influenced their decisions in a profound way. They weren't perfect. But no one is.
And then there's this. It's so amazing to me that Abraham Lincoln was, for the most part, self-taught. After his mother died, he didn't go to school anymore. He stayed on the farm (as most young teenage boys did) to help his dad. He had very little "formal" education. And, yet, he became a lawyer (without even going to law school, which largely didn't exist at the time) and eventually President. I told Mason just last night in the midst of a challenging assignment, "You can do this. You CAN do this!"
So that was the first three days of our road trip. We left Abe Lincoln and headed north to Louisville (such a fun city!) where we spent the rest of the day before moving on up towards Cincinnati.